He wins campaigns. He is the greatest in the field which the King best knows. The precise place which General von Moltke will hold in military history is still perhaps uncertain. He has never yet, either in 1861, or in 1866, or in 1870, been opposed to a reasonably good tactician, an equal army, or a formidable strategist. Beating the Danes, when they had only muskets, was poor work; and Benedek, perhaps hampered by secret instructions, proved but a feeble opponent; while in France he has never met a strategist of any sort, and only once a General. We rather think, writing only as observant civilians, that on that occasion he was defeated, and that August 16 should be credited to Marshal Bazaine, who, had he had but powder, would have retained the honours of the day. But generalship must be judged by its results, and judging by results, no Sovereign ever had such a servant as General von Moltke, who, having first reorganized an Army in which no soldier had ever seen a shot fired, having formed a school of generals and remade the scientific services, so guided that army as in a campaign of seven weeks to strike down the Austrian | Empire, and then in a campaign of three months to subjugate the greatest of military monarchies. So far as close and scientific observers can detect, General von Moltke has been in this tremendous campaign the Providence of the German Army, has planned everything, foreseen everything, has never thrown away a life, and never missed a spring. His single brain has been worth a hundred thousand men, worth all Napoleon was to the French Army, and on his seventieth birthday the King of Prussia makes his mighty General a Count, promotes him one step in the social hierarchy, as it were in recognition en passant of sound advice lent to him the King-in his management of the war. A few days afterwards he makes two Princes of his own blood who, doubtless have fought well and succeeded, but who are nevertheless only efficient instruments in von Moltke's hands Field-Marshals, the superiors in the military hierarchy of the genius who has thus led them to victory and empire. In that realm of thought which of all others he understands, in the very moment of supreme triumph, with his whole soul subjected to the advice which yet he will not reward, the greatest Prince in the world coldly and deliberately prefers to the claim of genius that of blood, and signifies to mankind that if his Generals master earth, they remain his family servants still. There is something galling to men who believe that the tools should go to the workmen in such a distribution of honour, but while we protest, we are not blind to the strength manifest in such acts. They show that the terrible weakness of all new Governments, the necessity of buying support, is absent from the Prussian Monarchy. The State, and the King as its representative, have no need to conciliate any individual, not even the man who seems to work out victory as if it were a problem in the Calculus. He is bidden to work it out, and what higher inducement could there be? Had a Republic employed Von Moltke, it must have dreaded his ambition. Had he served Napoleon, Napoleon must have loaded him down with honours, and wealth, and territories, have filled him fat with spoil to bind him to his side, and even then must have dreaded in him a rival, a foe, or a successor. The King quietly admires and trusts. He has no need to bribe. He can be endangered by no rival, threatened by no enmity, undermined by no individual opponent. He is there, master by right of birth, in victory as in defeat too strong for even the semblance of hostility, as far beyond assault as if his power were self-derived, able to acknowledge aid, or to reward high service, or to abstain from rewarding them, and sure, whichever he does, to be held to have acted as became a King. If he hangs up his worn-out sword in the place of honour, lo! what a gracious King; if he flings it away, lo! what a master of the severest statecraft. Von Moltke has done his duty, and what can King say more? It is difficult to read of this Countship without a slight feeling of contempt for such niggardliness in the bestowal even of honours, or without a deep respect for the organization which is so strong that it need scarce be just to a soldier at whose name the fighting world grows pale. SIGNOR CARLO NAVONE, the engineer, pub- drawings, &c., for the purpose of uniting the lishes at Turin a" Plan for a Submarine Pas-Sicllian railway system with the main lines of sage across the Straits of Messina," with maps, the Italian Peninsula. Athenæum. From The Pall Mall Gazette. RUSSIA, PRUSSIA, AND THE POLES. time it is stated that the Count declared the Baltic provinces "would be of no use THE newspapers of Russia and Prussia, to Germany, and only bring on her the which up to the beginning of the present eternal hostility of Russia," adding, with a war were never tired of repeating that the characteristic touch of sarcasm, that "the Polish nationality is a political nuisance the Baltic barons would probably not like the extirpation of which would be a benefit to Prussian Constitution with Lettish and the world, seem now to think that the Esthonian electors." As to Poland, the Poles may be of some use after all. A Gazette reports Count Bismarck to have short time ago we published an analysis observed that Germany would go hand in of a remarkable article in the Moscow Ga- hand with Russia. These reassuring statezette which recommended Russia to seek ments do not, however, seem to meet with the assistance of the Poles for its protec- much credit in the Russian press, which is tion against Prussia; and since then sev- pretty unanimous in demanding more maeral Berlin papers have seriously main- terial guarantees for the protection of tained that the only real friend of the Russia from German aggression. Sudebni Poles in Europe is Germany, and that it is Wiestnik, a paper the general tone of which to her alone that they must look for the is very friendly to Germany, proposes that recovery of their independence. If we are Russia should be compensated for Prussia's to believe the Berlin correspondent of the acquisitions by the cession to her of Memel Kray, a Polish paper published at Cracow, and the right bank of the Niemen -a sugCount Bismarck wishes to persuade the gestion which has raised a storm of indigPoles that he holds the same view. This nation in the German press. A Hamburg correspondent quotes a conversation be- journal, the Borsenhalle, expresses itself tween the Count and a Pole of Galicia, in very strongly on this proposal, declaring which the former is represented as having that it would be impossible for Germany stated that a war between Russia and to cede an inch of German soil to any forPrussia is only a question of time; that eign Power. To this the Moscow Gazette "after securing her position on the Rhine, retorts that the only reason why Russia Prussia must take up the cause of the Bal- refrains from asking for any such acquisitic provinces;" and that, "in order to be tions is that she does not wish to give an free to labour at her internal development, example of a policy of conquest, which Prussia must re-establish Poland as a sepa- should now be given up by all civilized rate State between herself and Russia." nations., This is certainly quite a new According to a letter in the St. Petersburg sentiment for a Russian paper, and is the Gazette, however, Count Bismarck tells the more creditable to the Moscow Gazette, as Russians a very different story. The Ga it is only a few months ago that it pubzette of the 8th inst. publishes, from a lished the famous articles of General Fasource whose trustworthiness it guaran- dieyeff, openly urging Russia to make war tees, a report of a conversation between on Austria as a preliminary to the acquisithe Count and "a Russian citizen." This tion of Constantinople. EFFECTS OF THE POISON OF HEMP.-PROFES- | seconds. These periods became longer and SOR H. C. WOOD describes in the Proceedings more frequent, accompanied by an oppressive of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, and intense feeling of impending death. Even vol. xi., No. 82, the effects of extract of hemp on the system. The dose taken was an ounce and a half of the powdered leaves, heated with hot alcohol, and evaporated, making from 20 to 30 grains of the poison. No effect was felt for about two hours and a half, when the mind was suddenly thrown into a trance-like state, which was followed by great hilarity, and the appearance of alcoholic intoxication. The pulse then reached 120, and afterwards increased to 136, and spells of partial oblivion and unconsciousness succeeded, apparently of enormous duration, but in reality lasting at first not many the next day, after a night's sleep, these paroxysms returned, and were attended with partial anaesthesia. The plants from which the extract was made were grown in Kentucky, and were of the same kind as that so largely used in India for producing a sort of intoxication. This Indian hemp has been thought to differ from the plant grown in Europe for the sake of its fibre, but Prof. Wood believes them to be of the same species; but the summers in England are not sufficiently warm to produce any quantity of the peculiar resinous body in which resides the narcotic and intoxicating property. NUMBERS OF THE LIVING AGE WANTED. The publishers are in want of Nos. 1179 and 1180 (dated respectively Jan. 5th and Jan. 12th, 1867) of THE LIVING AGE. To subscribers, or others, who will do us the favor to send us either or both of those numbers, we will return an equivalent, either in our publications or in cash, until our wants are supplied. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. PREMIUMS FOR CLUBS. For 5 new subscribers ($40.), a sixth copy; or a set of HORNE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BIBLE, unabridged, in 4 large volumes, cloth, price $10; or any 5 of the back volumes of the LIVING AGE, in numbers, price $10. LIFE'S PHILOSOPHY. A LITTLE maiden, frank and fair, I bade the bairn come one day, I bade her tell the reason why, O ye who court the thinker's mood. More of Life's "quiddit"? THE lenger lyfe, the more offence : The shorter lyfe, lesse count I fynde : Come gentle death, the ebbe of care, The ebbe of care, the flood of lyfe, The flood of lyfe, the ioyfull fare, The ioyfull fare, the end of strife. The end of strife, that thing wishe I: Wherefore come death, and let me dye. Tottel's Miscellany, 1557. From the Contemporary Review. PAST SIEGES OF PARIS. France the prowess displayed by Eudes in defending Paris against the fierce on"PARIS," says Montaigne, "a mon cœur slaughts of the Normans for four succesdèz mon enfance, et m'en est advenu sive years prepared the way for the estabcomme des choses excellentes. Plus j'ay lishment of the dynasty, which was desvu depuis d'autres belles villes, plus la tined to give to France such kings as beauté de celle cy peult et gaigne sur mon Louis le Gros, Philippe Auguste, Saint affection. Je l'ayme tendrement jusques à Louis, Philippe le Bel, Louis XI., and ses verrues et à ses tâches. Je ne suis Henry IV., the real founders of French François que par cette grande cité, grande unity. The unification of France and its en peuples, grande en félicité de son formation into a separate nationality comassiette, mais surtout grande et incom- menced at the siege of Paris by the Northparable en variété et diversité de commo- men. The nation then first clearly bedités, la gloire de la France, et l'un des plus nobles ornements du monde. Dieu en chasse loing nos divisions." One would have hardly expected the sober Montaigne to have felt the witchery of Paris to this affectionate extent more than three centuries ago. Yet the city has ever possessed a strange fascination for its guests and indwellers, and that since the days of the Emperor Julian. This is no moment, however, for discussing from an æsthetic point of view the attractions and beauties of the capital, which are indisputable — she is now en toilette de guerre, ready to launch and to receive the thunderbolt of war, and subject to perils and privations which come but rarely in their lives on any cities, and which some, like our own capital, have never known, and perhaps will never know. It seems more suitable to the crisis to endeavour to see what figure she makes in history at the different periods at which a calamity like that she has now to endure has fallen upon her. A review of the past sieges of Paris will moreover place us in contact with some of the most salient points of the history of France, at moments when her fortunes were being cast anew into the crucible of destiny. Leaving aside the attack on the Celtic island Lutetia by Labienus, the lieutenant of Cæsar, and the assaults of Frankish, Burgundian, and other Teutonic invaders, the first siege of Paris which we have to notice was as historically significant as any; since it was owing to the energy and valour displayed therein by Eudes Capet, Comte de Paris and Duke of France, that the Capetian race became distinguished above all the other noble families of came conscious of its call to a separate national existence. The unwieldy empire of the Carlovingian dynasty, of which France was a mere dependent member, was already in decay and going to pieces. The last Carlovingian Emperor, Charles le Gros, was engaged too much in Italian politics, and his attention too much distracted by the demands upon it of the other constituent parts of his empire, to take sufficient care for this portion of his dominions which were year by year overrun and ravaged by the Northmen, and the necessity of a national and local dynasty for the protection of its interests became daily more evident. Years had passed by since Charlemagne, with prophetic misgiving, beheld the first Danish fleet, and had a strange suspicion that the sons and grandsons of these sea-pirates would take terrible revenge on the nations of the West and South for the interminable warfare which he had carried on against the worshippers of Odin. Since then the fearless and ferocious Danish Jarls had carried terror with their dragon prows and their black sails into every part of the Carlovingian empire where the rivers were navigable to their keels. They had mounted the Rhine and the Moselle up to Cologne and Trèves. They had devastated Nantes and ascended the Loire, and the districts of the Garonne also knew them too well. The Seine had for years before their last great siege been a common highway for the Danish rovers. The monks of the great abbey Jamieges had habitually been in the habit of hoarding up a store of treasure from their revenues to buy off the merciless ravages with Danegelt, as they passed under their |