there can be no security for the permanence and stability of whatever government may be devised. What we desire, then, is to see serfdom abolished; the power of the nobles thus deprived of its immoderate attributes; and the peasantry, as well the legal and other educated classes, endowed with some constitutional authority.

The Principalities possess all the claim to such a government that historic freedom can deduce. To suppose them provinces, now rising into independence through the declension of the Turkish power is a signal and a common error. Their first incorporation into the Ottoman empire was not characterised by any integration of their government with that of Constantinople. If the Turks were more powerful then than they are nowand were powerful even to subjugation-they were, at least, equally wise; and no race of victors ever more truly knew the virtue of political moderation. They were contented, and they have been uniformly contented during the three or four hundred years that have intervened, to assert just such a territorial superiority as should leave Moldavia and Wallachia virtually free.

Our policy, therefore, is here twofold: To maintain this freedom, not only against foreign power,

but

against the internal tyranny of dominant classes; and to maintain these populations, thus free in their government, as the outworks of the Turkish power. On this problem the whole scheme of Eastern renovation rests.

The Principalities have many intrinsic elements of wide prosperity. Their low-lands are as fertile as ever. They are as capable now as in the age of the Romans of supplying Europe with corn. It seems, in truth, as though the work of two thousand years were coming round; and that the East might supply the West again with its former profuseness. What Moldo-Wallachia wants, in this respect, is COLONIZATION. It wants the colonization at once of the intelligent who will take the lead in agricultural reform, and of the labourers who will do the work that the provinces themselves have not hands enough by half to accomplish. With more than the average fertility of Western Europe,

it is calculated that the population is barely one-third of that which France and Germany diffuse over a corresponding area.

But if this field of colonization is luxuriant by nature, it is barren in industry and art. What a marvellous monument of the civilising prowess of Rome do these plains maintain, intersected as they are by no other roads than those which she carved through them some twenty centuries ago! All other roads are mere tracks, which a shower of rain dissolves into a canal of liquified mud. And when we turn from the roads which the people themselves have made to the dwellings they have constructed, we find them often in the same barbarism as in ancient days. Many of the peasantry live in huts underground, as they lived in the first centuries to avoid the persecuting hand of the Goth and of the Hun.

When we see all this, and many other such indications of social barbarism, it becomes impossible to think that extensive improvement can be attained without western coIonization. In addition to the advantages held out to such a policy by population, extent, fertility, and rivers, the cheapness of the land is to be held prominently in view. Surely our Irish emigrants would do well to try the Principalities instead of Australia, if intelligent capitalists would only lead the way. The favourable results of such a policy would be not commercial only but political. By these means we should gain a vast moral hold over the people. We should hold the mouths of the Danube in the general interest of commerce and of freedom, much as Russia has held them hitherto in the interest of indigence and repression.

It will take a good deal, we fear, as well of British honesty as of British energy to retrieve the bad influence of Russian rule. We refer here to its demoralising character. As Russia has done everything to impoverish Moldo-Wallachia, so she has done everything morally to vitiate the population. Under the former rule of her Hospodars, Moldavia and Wallachia were really ruled from the Russian consulate. She virtually set up the judicial and executive officers, whom, as they could not exist on their pay, she suffered to exist by bribery

and every kind of corruption. This dishonesty, thus openly manifested in public officers, crept easily into the character of an ignorant and peculiarly simple population. As though purposely to extend the operation of official corruption, Russia instituted a vast number of courts of appeal, founding bribery at every stage of the legal process, and giving originally the widest possible scope to litigation. These facts seem also to show that even the work of political reconstruction will be far more arduous than the Porte can have contemplated in its recent firman. Our hope, then, for Moldavia and Wallachia must be a hope for steady but not for rapid progress. We must first abolish all oppressive influences in government ; we must then sap the foundations of dishonesty and misrule; and we must afterwards raise our social and commercial superstructure.

Since the foregoing was put into type, the circular addressed by the Russian government to the principal courts of Europe at the beginning of November has been put into our hands. This document is the first of an official character that has traced the course of international negotiation since the signature of the Treaty of Paris. Its only value to the public of this country consists in the history which it contains of the question here at issue. Without claiming access for ourselves to any private sources of official information, and assuming the accuracy of a narrative which the Russians do not appear to have had any interest in distorting we have, we believe, correctly stated the different phases which the dispute has assumed. It will be found also that the points which are still left open have been here anticipated by arguments and discussion.

The Second European Congress of Paris is now about to determine in earnest on the three points reserved for its consideration. These are, first, the question between the two rivers Yalpuck; secondly, that between the two towns named Bolgrad; and, thirdly, the question of the right to Serpents' Island. The Russian circular has, in two points of view, reduced the question within very narrow compass. It has, on the one hand, officially committed itself to an agreement with Turkey and the other powers on every other

part of the new frontier. It has, on the other, acknowledged the definitive character of a decision given by a majority of the members of Congress. The ambassadors constituting this body are, as we all know, those of Russia, Prussia, Austria, France, Great Britain, Sardinia, and Turkey. It is not easy to believe that the Court of St. Petersburg will succeed in obtaining any other suffrage than that of Prussia. Great Britain under Lord Palmerston, Austria under Count Buol, and Turkey under Redschid Pasha, are indissolubly bound together in opposition to that government. Allowing that the Berlin cabinet will concur with that of St. Petersburg, there remain only France and Sardinia who can be deemed in any sense to be doubtful in their votes. Can we believe that Sardinia will be so impolitic as to adopt a course that would forfeit her alliance with Great Britain, and intensify the hatred borne her by the Austrian court in a degree liable to produce an open rupture, and thus to render her continued political existence a problem, in order to gain the temporary alliance of a government whose hostility to Italian liberty would in a few years inevitably render it her worst enemy? Can we suppose that the astute ruler of France would so far stultify the policy in support of which he has rendered his exchequer nearly bankrupt, as to surrender one at least of those commercial securities for which he squandered his treasure and sacrificed his troops? Can we imagine that either of these powers would be so blind to their own trading interests in the East?

The suffrage of one alone of these two governments will suffice to defeat the Russian intrigues. There is, moreover, good reason to believe that Sardinia has already bound herself by a secret understanding to our own court; and that France has resolved to accept no other terms than those consistently demanded by this country. Thus armed, Great Britain goes to meet the Congress with little ground for apprehension that the peace of Europe will be again disturbed. But whatever be the result, we know that we have a minister at the head of affairs who will never sacrifice either the honour of this country, or the interests of freedom in the East.

WE were staying during the Christmas week at the Bishop's Palace at X; a small party-chiefly young people, with a sprinkling of the cleric order. It had snowed most pertinaciously for three days, thus precluding all out of doors amusement, so we were thrown upon our own resources to create enjoyment at home, and kindle artificial sunshine around the yule log, and beneath the mistletoe. And so it came to pass that on the last evening of the old year, after supper, and when our dear and venerable prelate had retired to his rest; one of his grandsons, a fine bright lad just fresh from Harrow, made a lively proposition that we should all sit up till twelve o'clock, and keep vigil, to see the death and the birth, the exit and the entrance of the old

and the new year; to say "farewell" to the former, and cry "all hail" to the latter; and to behold these two great shadows meet and mingle for a second on the vast dial-plate of time, and then pass, and part for ever more. This motion of our young friend's was carried, no man dissenting; and furthermore, we agreed to beguile the "cripple tardy-gaited night" in telling stories each in his turn, thus establishing a sort of abridged Decameron, but neither so witty or so wicked as the Florentine's; or an "English Night's Entertainment" on an epitomized scale to that of Sultan Schariar, but wanting the cutting off of the heads, and the muliericide of that sanguineous potentate. The young people commenced-the Harrow man leading the van; their narratives were not over wise, but then they were not over long, and if they were wanting in learning and wit, they produced laughter and kept up good humour, which was all we required. Then followed a sentimentally intoned, and somewhat lugubrious recital from the pale young curate of Hazlewhittle-cum-Shiveringham, which had this remarkable feature, that the most melancholy parts of the narrative were sure to produce most concealed mirth among

VOL. XLIX.NO. CCLXXXIX.

the younger auditory; and what the pensive narrator put forth as pathos, seemed ever to be considered by his hearers as purest bathos. Doctor Broadhurst next took up his parable, and narrated his adventures in the great snow of 18- -, during a ride from Oxford to C when his "black mare balled in her hoofsslipped-slided-sliddered,and eventually stumbled and fell prone; prostrating the learned Doctor on the surface of the snowy element, who lost on the occasion his equilibrium, and his blue spectacles. And this fall had nothing of miracle in it, seeing the Doctor was purblind quoad his vision, and plethoric quoad his person, and thereby unfitted to perform the functions of the equestrian order, &c." "Procumbit humi bos" whispered the Harrovian. It was now eleven o'clock, and none remained but myself, and our honoured guest the Dean of Pimlico, who looked so intelligent and had such a sparkle in his pure grey English eye, and such a meeting of the waters of benevolence and sarcasm around his well cut mouth, that calling to mind what the great Ussher once said of Bishop Bedell, "broach him, and you will find good liquor in him," I felt certain that the Dean of Pimlico-"clarum et venerabile nomen"--would not belie either his face or his fame by the quality of his narrative. So I briefly and simply told what had befallen me by night at an old Inn in the City of Gloucester where George Whitefield was born, and the comfort I had received, in an hour of depression, from the chimes of an ancient clock, most sweet and clear, ringing out, over the still midnight air, a Gregorian tone. My tale was short, and my audience applauded me—an unexpected compliment, paid, I suspect, more to the brevity of my story than produced by its weight. And now all eyes were turned upon the Dean of Pimlico, who, crossing his strong but well shaped limbs on the hearthrug, with a white handkerchief in his hand, and a clear and ringing voice,

B

and a preliminary smile, and a little hem, as if he were about to deliver a charge to his chapter, proceeded as follows:

It was about this night seven years that I was standing on my own drawing-room hearth-rug, thinking of nothing, and listlessly watching the footman who was extinguishing the waxlights in the lustre; for I had had a bachelors' dinner-party, and my guests were just departed-when suddenly there came a tremendous double knock at the hall door, disturbing the silence of the night, and expressive of haste and much mental agitation in him who knocked. On the door being opened, some one bounded up the stairs with such a wonderful velocity and eagerness, that I immediately concluded it must be either a highwayman, or else my nephew Harry, a young divinity student; but who, having Irish blood in his veins, occasionally exhibited more vivacity than just suited the sober standard of my staid domicile. True enough it was he, and his first appearance rather alarmed me, for I love the lad in my soul, and he is to be my heir. On the present occasion his face was flushed, his hair in disorder, and his eye and aspect troubled and excited.

"Well, Harry, what is the matter? What has brought you up like a ghost in a tragedy, at this witching hour of night, to murder sleep, and disturb me and my decorous household? Speak now, or else for ever hereafter hold thy peace."

arm

"Oh uncle," exclaimed the young fellow, seating himself in an chair, "I have done a deed half an hour ago, which must affect my whole future life, and at which I am sure you will be displeased; and so I came here, late though it be, to tell you my distress, and ask for counsel."

"Why, what in the name of wonder have you been doing?" I exclaimed. "Say, Stagyrite, have you been libelling Sam of Oxford; or publishing a pasquinade on Dr. Pusey; or administering strychnine to Cardinal Wiseman?"

"No, I assure you, uncle," answered the simple hearted, matter-of-fact young fellow, "I have never written any libel on the Lord Bishop; and as for Dr. Pusey, I have only seen him once, when I could not believe it was

"And so, uncle, after having been acquainted with them for the last six weeks; led on by the irresistible ardour of an attachment founded on rational esteem," [here I smiled] "cemented by long intercourse," ["six weeks to wit," thought I,] and developing a golden future of domestic happiness," ["More gold, I fear, in the brain than in the bank," I mentally ejaculated,] "I proposed, and was accepted to night by Mary O'Brien; and we have agreed to be married immediately after my ordination. Now, uncle, are you angry with your poor nephew, your sister's son, for taking this step without your express knowledge and sanction?"

"Well, I confess I have a right to be angry. You know I am your guardian, and stand to you in loco parentis, and you ought to have consulted me before you took the plunge, and not to have come to me now all dripping and drowned, and in this thorough Irish fashion, after the deed was done, under the pretence of asking advice, but in reality seeking for approbation. I am, however, less angry than I ought to be, for two reasons; first, because from the Hibernian impetuosity of your temperament I always felt that you would achieve an exploit of this kind sooner or later; and, secondly, I do think most highly of your choice, if she had a few more years notched in her life's young calendar, and a little of added experience to suit her for a clergyman's wife."

"Oh! dear uncle, Mary is full eighteen years of age, and I assure you is as wise"

"As Minerva, no doubt," I said, "and as experienced in menage matters as Hecuba. Well, we will grant all this for argument's sake; but how

are you to live, Harry? Whence are you to have the supplies?' Love is poor to a proverb; Love is a pauper, and makes more paupers than he has pence to fill their pockets with. Love cannot furnish your house; or feed your children, for I presume you intend having children. Love cannot buy you a loin of veal, or gammon of bacon, nor worsted hose, or Welsh flannel, in case you or Mary should become rheumatick, which you probably will be when you come to my years."

"Oh, uncle, uncle, how can you conjure up such ideas?" said Harry, half laughing. "The truth is that we have quite enough to marry on; for there is a hundred pounds a year which Mary's aunt and godmother, Lady L. settled on her; and then my curacy will bring in a hundred pounds more, annually; then something will come to us at the General's death; but this Mary will not suffer me to speak of. And then--and then-"

Proceed," said I, well knowing what the young fellow was going to say.

"Why, uncle," said he, taking my hand, and looking so wonderfully like my dear sister, with his fair complexion, and wistful, earnest eyes— "we thought and reckoned on your goodness; that as you have been ever like a father to your orphan nephew, and as you seemed to admire Mary most of all the General's other eight daughters, and as you are always as generous as a prince," [I assure you, gentlemen, the young fellow was quite wrong here, and knew nothing about me]" so we were sanguine on having a little settlement from you also, until such time as I have obtained a living, and done my duties in such a manner as to deserve it."

"Well, Harry," said I, "I am sure you will be an active and earnest minister. You cannot help it, Harry; you have it from nature; you are physically and constitutionally fidgetty and mercurial, as is your country's fashion; you have a kindly nature too, my boy, and no doubt will make an exemplary married man, your domestic organs having a most amiable development. And so, as for the settlement you speak of, it shall be forthcoming in due time, I promise you; but now that the shock of your sudden appearance has sub

sided, I confess I feel rather sleepy; and you will forgive me if I say, inclined to yawn. I am not in love, and must therefore go to bed, and I advise you by all means to go home quietly and do the same. So, good night, my dear lad; we will meet at ten o'clock breakfast."

I offered him my hand, but he clasped his arms round me like a child, and though I felt ashamed at the action, I could not but return the pressure; and so we parted, just as the clock on the mantle piece struck the hour of twelve.

Henry Font was my sister's only child. His father was an Irishman, and a captain of dragoons, and was shot in the saddle during a cavalry charge in India. They called it a "brilliant affair," but it killed my poor sister, and made Harry an orphan before he was six years old. Old Mr. Font, his grandfather, now took him up, and had him at his castle in the wilds of Connaught, schooling him in Galway town, and afterwards entering him into the College of Dublin, where he had not been many months when the old gentleman died, and I took immediate possession of Harry, and had him to Cambridge -to old Trinity--my own college; where he gained many honours, for the lad inherited diligence and a taste for learning from my side of the house, and was naturally smart enough, besides possessing a wonderful talent for making friends, from his enthusiasm, his simplicity, and the purity of his life. I certainly was charmed at having rescued the poor fellow from the University of Dublin; for though I acknowledge that the courses of the sciences are well looked after there, I must ever denounce their imperfect manner of composition, and making Latin verses, [here the Dean's manner became slightly acidulated, yet piquant as a lemon lozenge] "they may compose clumsy hexameters, or stiff mechanical pentameters. Sapphics too they might achieve; but I do avow, gentlemen; nay, insist on it, that the Choriambicthe Choriambic laughs them to scorn."

He paused here a little excited, and then went calmly on.

"Well, gentlemen, that I be not further tedious to you, my nephew was ordained in March, and married in April; the ceremony took place in