this proposal the objections are, first, that the expenses of the war. The only real the population thus transferred would not wish to be transferred, and it would be a most high-handed proceeding for the neutral Powers to make Swiss or Dutchmen of Alastians and Lorrainers, and, secondly, that the nations to which the transfer was made would be equally disinclined to accept it. Switzerland would be forsaking all the traditions of her prudent policy if she ran the enormous risk of engaging to defend her new territory against a great Power until her distant guarantors could come to her assistance. These objections are so obvious and so fatal that a third proposal has been made this week, which is that England, Austria, and Russia should engage to go to war against that one of the two present combatants who should originate a new war against the other. It showed great courage to make a proposal so utterly chimerical. England would indeed be mad if she were a party to any such arrangement. Our fortunes and our honour would be perpetually endangered by the intrigues and schemes of foreign diplomatists. Incessant efforts would be made to break up this new and most unstable alliance between England and two distant Powers. It would be culous to ask the inventor of this plan what he conceives the value of the arrangement would be to Germany, supposing England and Russia were engaged in a great Oriental war. It would come to this, that Austria would have undertaken to help Germany; and she would certainly fulfil this engagement or not, exactly as she thought best for her own interests. Austria and Russia, again, may any day come into conflict for the possession of the Danube, and then all that the Germans would have got as the price of their victories would be that England would be more or less bound to side with Germany; and as on many recent occasions English statesmen of both parties have explained what they consider to be the real force of guarantees, it would be most rash if the Germans expected England to take an active part with them when the emergency

arose.

Germany must have something much more solid. It has got a great opportunity now, and it cannot be expected to throw away its chance. It wants French soil and it wants French money. It wants to hold a stronger position for the future, and to hold this position in its own hands, and not to trust to any of the devices or assurances of neutrals or of the French themselves. It also wants to be paid for

practical point to discuss is, how much territory is to be ceded and how much money is to be paid. We may set out with saying that the Germans cannot be expected to give up Strasburg. It is close to Germany- so close that it has laid a German town in ruins. It offers a bulwark for the protection of South Germany, and the German leaders have publicly announced that their honour is pledged to South Germany that her hearty co-operation in the war shall at least be so far rewarded that she shall for the future have Strasburg German. Strasburg and the expenses of the war, up at least to a limit which France can reasonably hope to pay by an addition to her public debt, are the very least the Germans can at the outset of the negotiations be invited to accept. What more will they ask? Metz will be in their hands, we must suppose, when the terms of peace are being discussed, and they will inquire why they should give it up. The only two arguments that will have, we should suppose, any weight with them are, that they run the risk of losing in money what they gain in territory, and that if the cession of Strasburg and of Metz is to carry with it the cession of Alsace and German Lorraine, they will run the further risk of having to rule a population permanently disaffected to them. If they ask for so much territory that France is driven to despair, they will obviously lose in their pockets. They will enormously increase their own expenditure, while they will deprive France of the power of ultimately recouping them. probably be able to raise a very large sum as she stands now in order to pay Germany; but if the war lingered on till provincial France was ruined, till society was broken up, till the resources of the country were really dried up, she would not be able to get the money, or to bear the increased taxation required to defray the interest of the sum borrowed to pay the Germans. It would have been impossible for the Northern States at the close of the American civil war to ask for a money payment from the Southern States, for the Southern States were utterly ruined. If the Germans please, they may, after taking Paris and Metz, retire to the line of the Moselle, hold Metz and Strasburg, demolish the other forts of Lorraine and Alsace, and only vary a defensive war by occasionally dealing a crushing blow to the rising military force of France. If they did this they would in all probability hold

France might

Alsace and Lorraine in spite of every- would feel a permanent hostility to France. thing the French could do to prevent Well as Strasburg was defended, the most them. But they would lose all hope of getting their war expenses repaid, while the sum of these expenses would be greatly increased. To ask for too much territory, therefore, means for Germany to incur an avoidable outlay of so many millions of money that we have no means of estimating their amount. There is, too, a political danger in annexing to Germany a population that is hostile to it. But it is very difficult to say how far the population of Lorraine and Alsace is hostile to Germany now, and still more is it difficult to say whether this hostility would last. Of course there can be no doubt that French Lorraine would be permanently hostile, but it would be difficult to prove to a German that this would be the case with German Lorraine and Alsace. All the parallels of Ireland, Poland, and Venetia appear irrelevant. It is more to the purpose to ask whether, if France were strong enough to take and keep, and shield from the dangers of future wars, our Channel Islands whether we believe that, loyal as they now are to the Crown, they

trustworthy reports show that every day it becomes more and more contented with being reunited to Germany. Strasburg is for many reasons an instance exceptionally favourable to Germany, but the argument from the presumed hostility of the population seems really an argument as to the quantity of territory to be ceded. With Strasburg, and a small portion of territory along the border, given to Germany, there might be no hostility at all. With too much exacted there might be a population incorporated in Germany which would be permanently French. Metz, again, is not necessary to protect Germany so much as to weaken France; and although Count Bismark may begin by asking for Metz, it by no means follows that he could not be induced to recognize the distinction. The key to peace is for France to become aware that Strasburg and some further indefinite quantity of territory must be given up, and then, with the assistance of friendly Powers like England, to get Germany to discuss fairly how much that further quantity is to be.

uncorked with the bottom towards a source of
light; the flies will crowd to the lightward end
and never attempt to escape by the open neck.
Turn the glass prison neck to light, and the
flies will escape directly. Glass is a substance

and animals dash stunningly against windows,
because they know not of the invisible barrier.
Lighthouse-keepers see birds maimed and killed
by the force with which they come against the
lanthorns. In all such cases the behaviour of
the animal shows that it mistakes the light for
a hole. And we can easily conceive a night
bird rising after rest upon a ship and directing
its flight in the direction of a star.
We com-
mend this subject to the study of naturalists; if
examination should confirm the old light-ship
keeper's notion that sea birds are guided by the
stars, all the more interesting will the study be-
come.
Gentleman's Magazine.

A STORY comes across the sea, from one of | the numerous light-ships that define our coast, which is highly curious if the inference from the facts be correctly drawn. A light-keeper relating his experience of the common tendency of sea birds to dash towards the lanthorns and set-out of a low creature's cognizance. Flies, birds, tle upon the rigging of light-vessels, adds that he has noticed the birds remain on the ship if the night has been cloudy, but take their departure as soon as the stars have become visible. Hence he infers that the birds are enabled to shape their course for land by the stars, thus proving themselves astronomers by instinct. Strange if true: and it may be true, for animals have powers of observation of which we have small conception. But we rather suspect that the bird eyeing a star, flies towards it as towards a terrestrial light, ignorant of its distance. They who have studied the seemingly mad flight of winged things against lamps and bright windows, are pretty confident that the light is rushed at as an aperture of escape from darkness. The tendency of animate things is to seek light spaces; and when we see a bird or a moth dash at a flame, we may be sure from the very force and rapidity of its motion, that it regards the bright spot as a hole or window, through which it can dart into some space more brilliantly illuminated than that in which it is flying. Put a few flies into a bottle, and lay it

SINCE Mr. Howlett wrote his paper lately read before the British Association, another synodal revolution of the sun has again manifested a marvellous display of spots in the same regions of the northern hemisphere.

Athenæum.

From The Examiner.
RUSSIA'S OPPORTUNITY.

Catherine's dream. The power of veto is gone. Europe has stood by and seen France ridden down; Europe still stands looking on, watching the work of decimation and destruction as it is daily rendered more complete. Europe must, therefore, take the consequences-not the aggrandizement of Prussia alone, but the reversal of the sentence of Sebastopol, and the reestablishment of Muscovite dominion on the Lower Danube and the Dardanelles.

Power, with whom alone till now she condescended to be matched or measured, WE shall not have long to wait for the has for the time being ceased to exist. European consequences of the ruin and Another, possibly a greater, has suddenly partition of France. The power of the started into colossal development; but the West to hold in check the ambitious instincts and the interests of Prussia can schemes of the two great military States never be antagonistic in the same sense or of Central and Eastern Europe has been to the same extent as the instincts or insuddenly paralyzed, and the minor States terests of France; and a thousand conof the Continent, both North and South, siderations of neighbourship, trade, and lie at their mercy. While the issue of the dynasty make Russia and Prussia naturally campaign on the Moselle was doubtful, sincere allies. Each, if it cannot give, can Russia pretended to be asleep. Her Gov- guarantee the other all it wants; and there ernment would do, and her journalists is comparatively little either covets which would say, nothing. For family reasons, the other would quarrel about. Give and her diplomacy was actively and success- take is the obvious policy of St. Petersfully exerted to prevent the Danes from burg and Berlin. Russia will readily ascommitting themselves to open sympathy sent, therefore, to France being despoiled with France. But not even for form's of Alsace and Lorraine, Prussia not objectsake could the Czar be persuaded to articu- ing to the realization of the Empress late audibly a word on behalf of Belgium. If Uncle William found it necessary to infringe the neutrality of Luxembourg or Brabant, Alexander II., like a good nephew, would not interfere to prevent him. The turn of subsequent events took Russia doubtless by surprise, and found her unprepared. Her war department, long the paradise of jobbing and malversation of all kinds, had not even made up its mind about the pattern of the improved musket to be supplied to the army; her commissariat was on a peace footing, and her military chest was well nigh empty. The first impulses of jealousy at German success were appeased by exultation at the humiliation of the victor of Malakoff; and second thoughts inspired the policy of going in with the winner, exulting with the fortunate, and conferring decorations on the princely leaders of the conquering host. Still, it is certain that Prince Gortschakoff no more anticipated the collapse of the French Empire, and the capture of the French army and its chief, than certain diplomatists and Ministers nearer home; and until within the last few weeks there was consequently no need to note particularly the speech or writing of the classes who, for the most part, have lain politically dormant in the dominions of the Czar during the last ten years. But the catastrophe of Sedan has waked up Russia as by the stroke of a talisman. The change wrought in her position is palpable, tangible, incontrovertible. The great military

It may not come to-morrow, or the day after, but it will assuredly come; and then, what shall we have to show for the forty millions of money borrowed for the Crimean expedition, and for which we levy taxes to pay an interest of three per cent.? It was voted a glorious expenditure at the time; and what Lord Palmerston would say or do were he here to be consulted on the matter, we do not undertake to tell. But he and Napoleon III. are equally silent now; and we, who paid the money and shed the blood, ask, but ask in vain, what will it avail a twelvemonth hence? Russia's opportunity is come at last. Baron Brunnow and Count Ignatieff may deny it, feign not to see it; like admirable actors, may mildly laugh at it. They are very wise to do so, for the opportunity has come unawares, and time must be gained to make ready. But the opportunity is here, such as there has not been for more than half a century- we should rather say such as there has never been before.

THE POETS AND POETRY OF EUROPE. WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. By Henry W. Longfellow. This is a new edition of Mr. Longfellow's summary of European Poetic Literature, with an addition of over 150 pages of new matter. The translations include many of Mr. Longfellow's own. Philadelphia: Porter & Coates.

PROSE WRITERS OF GERMANY. By Frederic H. Hedge. Illustrated with Portraits. New edition, revised and enlarged. Philadelphia: Porter & Coates.

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