would seem as if the training and experience of all our public men, during forty piping years of peace, had narrowed their ideas of the policy and means of government, to a scheme of party tricks and combinations, and caused them to forget that the reality of national danger has power to evoke influences before which faction must wither. The great majority of the people, in ordinary times, look with indifference, or with the placid interest of the beholder of a dramatic spectacle, upon the intrigues and even upon the honest struggles of profession. al politicians. Roman Catholic Emancipation, Parliamentary Reform, the Abolition of Slavery, the Repeal of Restrictive Customs' Duties, were all carried by the exertions of individual leaders, and by a skilled employment of the machinery of associations and leagues. But for such agencies, not one of those changes would have been effected at this day. While peace seemed durable, and a millennium of industrial exhibitions veritable towers of Babel was in course of initiation, the requirements of faction establish ed a Peace Congress; but where is the machinery by which the country has been roused to a determination to resist Russian aggression, and to fight to the last in defence of national independence? There is no war congress, no anti-Russian league, no constitution-preservation society, with staffs of hired chairmen, clerks, and lecturers, labouring day and night to stir society to its depths of cupidity, passion, and vanity. The trading patriots and professional politicians are all of counsel for the other side; but the natural instinct of freemen, conscious of danger to their hearths and forums, has banded the whole nation together as one man, and set at nought the craftiest devices of faction. The same overruling force of public opinion that has brigaded together in the field the English Protestant, the French Roman Catholic, the excommunicated Sardinian, and the faithful follower of the Prophet, has obliterated from the popular mind of England all respect for the old distinctions of party The ancient rallying-cries of faction are no longer intelligible to the masses. Consistency is now taken to mean fidelity to the national cause in combination with any faithful associates : inconsistency, the offence committed by Lord John Russell at Vienna, is vacillation, feebleness, or treachery in dealing with the enemy, under whatevery party-flag the operation may be conducted. If Lord Palmerston has strength of vision to enable him to penetrate the mists that surround London clubs, and cliques, and offices, and to perceive the signs of public opinion, he will know his course; he will require resolution and a strong will to enable him to shape it safely. The obvious difficulties with which he will have to contend will be, the Parliamen tary opposition of the avowed peaceparty directly, and the indirect, but much more dangerous, hostility of rival factionaries, some of them fully pledged to the Russianism of Messrs. Bright and Cobden; others riding at single anchor, and ready, at a moment's notice, to slip and hoist the flag either of Russia or England. That this category may include a large number of members of the House of Commons, will be admitted by the candid reader, who recollects the narrow escape of the country from utter disgrace, last session, by a majority of but three carrying the resolution guaranteeing the Turk, ish loan. In the anti-national minority upon that occasion, Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Walpole voted, and thereby laid the foundation of those rumours of the coalition of the first-named gentleman with Messrs. Bright and Gladstone, to which some degree of corroboration has been lent by the tone of a journal supposed to be influenced by his inspiration. Whether or not the articles of alliance have been signed between those high contracting parties will probably not be certainly known until the meeting of Parliament, and the occurrence of the first opportunity to strike a blow at the minister. It is, however, undeniable that the leader of the House of Commons, under Lord Derby's administration, did, as one of his latest acts last session, lead the opposition to the guarantee of the Turkish loan, to which the honour of the nation was pledged; and the fact demands the gravest consideration of those members of the Conservative party, who may still remain so imperfectly acquainted with the state of public opinion as to imagine that party juggling in the House of Commons will be permitted to make or unmake a ministry. The time requires-among honest men the time always requires― plain speaking, and we feel that we should imperfectly discharge the duty we have undertaken, if we did not warn all whom it may concern of the extremely dangerous character of any such delusion. Again, we repeat, the nation requires that there shall be a Government strong enough to prosecute the war to its proper termination -a peace secured by weakening the aggressive power of Russia and pushing back her frontier to a defensible barrier line. A few election agents and local place-hunters may desire to carry Lord John Russell, or Lord Derby, into office; but the intention of the people is what we have stated, and no other. It is plain then to our mind, that the lines of duty and of self-interest coincide, as well in the case of independent members of Parliament, as in that of Lord Palmerston. Patriotism requires, and regard for their personal position ought to suggest to respectable men Conservatives, Whigs, or Radicals that, at least so long as the nation considers the object of the war not to be attained, they should own no allegiance to any party but that of the country, and that they should prove their fidelity to that flag, by the most scrupulous abstinence from every act of factious op position, by the most explicit and candid statements of their views upon all proper occasions, and by a straightforward and ready support of all measures of the Government calculated to advance the great work in hand, or which they cannot show to be likely to retard it. Such a course would, we hope, often bring our most respected Conservative friends into the same lobby with Lord Palmerston; they may be assured that it would never lower them in the estimation of any respect able portion of their constituents. Nor should Lord Palmerston's tactics be in any respect different. He will soon learn, if he will be but true to himself and go straightforward, whether faction or patriotism prevails in the House of Commons. If it shall turn out that he cannot, by the loyal aid of the present representatives of the nation, administer public affairs in accordance with the national wish, it only remains for him to give the constituencies an opportunity of selecting wiser and honester men-he must DISSOLVE Parliament. INDEX TO VOL. XLVI. Ainsworth, W. Harrison, Ballads, reviewed, 227. Alberico Porro, a Tale of the Milanese Re- Alison, Sir Archibald, History of Europe Allingham, William, The Music-master, and Antique Glimpses, Stanzas, 372. Austrians, the Postscript of a Letter to the Ballads from the German: The Oak Har- Barrow, the, Part I.-Irish Rivers, No. XII., Beasts, Mystery of the, 281. Bennett, W. C., War-Songs, reviewed, 233. Bunsen, C. C. J., Egypt's Place in Universal Canada, the Rail in, 127. Collins, Mortimer, The Amateur Haymakers, Collins, Mortimer, Idyls and Rhymes, re- Curran, W. H., Sketches of the Irish Bar, Darkbrothers, the Old House of— Part J., Dramatic Writers of Ireland, Notices of ;- Boyd, Rev. Henry, 147. Oulton, Walley Chamberlaine, 145. Educational Reform, 499. Fall, the, of Day, Stanzas, 297. Geological Surveys; their Objects and Utility, Germany, the Universities of, 82. Government, the, The Departments, and the Grey, Sir George-Polynesian Mythology, Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 463. Helps, Arthur-The Spanish Conquest in Hughes, Edward, Reading Lessons, First Hunt, Leigh, Stories in Verse, reviewed, Irish History, a Missing Chapter of, 719. Italian Literature during the Tercento, 288. Leatham, W. Henry, a Selection from the M'Carthy, Denis Florence, The Bath of the Mac Donald, George, Within or Without, a Mid-day with the Muses, by Anthony Pop- Monck, Mary C. F., Lady Clare, 460. Napoleon III., Les Oeuvres de, reviewed, 56. North-About; or, Notes of a Yacht-Cruise Old House, the, of Darkbrothers, Part I., Orton, James, The Enthusiast, or the Stray- Papers relating to the Re-organisation of the 239; Sebastopol, from the German, 241; Political Horizon, a Sweep of the, 741. Railroads in Canada, 127. Reviews. History of Europe, from the Fall |