to the titular sovereignty of a Mikado or Grand Lama. If the good fortune of the house of Othman should produce a Sovereign who can comprehend the real necessities of his position only as well as any person of ordinary capacity who has resided for a few years in his capital, the difficulties of the task may be infinitely lessened, even if the Sultan should lack the intelligence of Selim or the energy and firmness of Mahmud II. Otherwise it may require all the pressure which a union of the European Powers can put upon him to effect the necessary reforms without the prelude of a general European war.

It is this difficulty of uniting the European Powers for the persistent pursuit of any common object which is the real problem of the Eastern question-not the mere coercion of Turkey; and it will task all the firmness and temper of English statesmen to direct effectually the influence of the only Power which can approach the subject free from any direct interest in the ruin or dismemberment of the Turkish Empire.

If we have succeeded in conveying to our readers our own impressions regarding the present state of affairs in the East, we need scarcely repeat our conviction that the present crisis is one of the most momentous to the whole civilised world which has occurred since the French Revolution; and that it may in its ultimate results produce an upheaving of social forces, and a recasting of dynasties and nations, even exceeding in extent that which we and our fathers have witnessed since the revolutionary outburst of eighty years ago. We believe that England is destined to take a very prominent part in directing, as far as human agency can direct, the course of events arising from the decay of the Turkish Empire. We hold that her position is one of commanding influence, not so much from her great national strength and resources as from her interest in the peace and welfare of the countries concerned, and in the absence of any sordid motives of territorial aggrandisement. We are convinced that the due discharge of England's great national duties requires not abstention from the strife, or political selfeffacement, but a wise husbanding of her strength and influence, to be used only in the cause of justice and of right. We are assured that it is above all things necessary that at such a time the statesmen who grasp the helm of public affairs should feel they have with them, apart from party allies, the cordial support of the British people, and that they should keep their judgment calm and their purpose clear, as they are hurried along amid the whirlpools and breakers of an intricate and perilous navigation.

ART.

ART. VIII.—Life of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort. By Theodore Martin, C.B. Vol. II. London, 1876.

TH

HE Second Portion of the Narrative of the Life of the Prince Consort' fulfils the rich promise of the first, and confirms the singular felicity which secured the choice of a biographer so well qualified to do justice to a theme, of all others, the most difficult to treat with equal freedom and discretion.

Rare, indeed, are the qualifications indispensable to the writer of such a Life as this; of a Prince who but yesterday was a living presence in our midst; whose words and actions were a part of contemporary English and European history; who was the beloved Consort, the intimate confidential counsellor of a reigning Queen. Not only should the biographer bring to his work a wide and various culture, a trained comprehension of public affairs, a keen historic sense, a constant tact, discrimination, and discernment, a perfectly disinterested and dispassionate habit of mind; he should know how to arrange and set in order his narrative with a due regard to proportion, and, above all, he should abound in sincerity and simplicity, and let the Life he is portraying tell as much as possible its own tale without superfluous comment.

These conditions of success in a most arduous and anxious task are, it seems to us, fully satisfied by Mr. Theodore Martin, who, in this second volume, combines, to a larger extent than in the preceding chapters, the historian with the biographer, equally unobtrusive and unembarrassed in either capacity; whether in recounting the events of a year of Continental revolutions and reactions, or in the exposition of questions and measures of domestic policy, always perspicuous, accurate, and succinct. In the occasional glimpses which the Life affords of the home and family life of the Prince, it would not have been difficult for a biographer less sure of his own good taste and feeling to have marred the charm of such passages by misplaced emphasis. Mr. Martin's discretion is never at fault, and he has used the materials unreservedly confided to him by the Queen in a manner that leaves nothing to be desired by the most curious reader or regretted by the most fastidious.

In the concluding pages of the first volume the Revolution of February, with the sudden overthrow of the dynasty and government of Louis Philippe, and the crowd of hurrying consequences of that catastrophe, found the Prince Consort less astonished perhaps than the victims or even the victors of those disastrous days. All these movements were watched by him

2 M 2

with

with the closest and most vigilant attention, and, more especially as regarded Germany, with the most anxious interest. In the first volume of the 'Life' we have seen by his Memorandum on German affairs how clearly he had calculated the means and methods by which alone violent changes might be prevented, the national institutions re-invigorated and reformed, and the common cause of liberty and unity be advanced, without spoliation or disturbance, if the King of Prussia had courage and constancy enough to lead the way. Unhappily, that element in the calculation was wanting; the King was a fervid and irresolute sentimentalist, alternately caressing a maddened populace, and repudiating the aspirations of an enthusiastic people. Prince Albert and his excellent old friend and teacher, Baron Stockmar, both desired to see the Fatherland in the enjoyment of a substantial national unity, and of public liberties; but the veteran statesman twitted his pupil with having too much faith in the dynastic evolution of constitutional reform, and with looking at German affairs from a British point of view. Both, however, discerned in Austrian jealousy the most dangerous enemy to German aspirations, and in Prussia the natural and rightful champion of the German cause.

With regard to Italy, we have seen by the Prince's Memorandum on Lord Minto's strange and questionable mission in 1847, how firm a friend he was to the cause of Italian independence, how clearly he discerned the dangers and difficulties besetting it, and how decidedly he urged that England should insist upon the right of every State to manage its own affairs, without the interference of any foreign Power. In all the Prince's counsels we discover the constant principles of justice and moderation, the conviction that national liberties must be organically developed, not artificially imported or imposed; the abhorrence of all despotisms, whether of monarchs or of mobs. Such, indeed, were the principles he had been taught by Baron Stockmar, whose somewhat grim humour and doctorial stiffness of style are the only characteristics of an almost instinctive aptitude for statesmanship, which remind us that he was not an Englishman born. In his political ideas and sympathies the Baron was, in all but a certain superiority of culture, and a tendency to clothe his principles in abstractions, as thoroughly English as the most loyal and devoted subject of the British Crown.

There were not wanting in those days in the metropolis and in the great provincial centres needy and unscrupulous agitators, harebrained enthusiasts, miserable plagiarists of the Parisian revolutionary heroes, who did their little worst to provoke dis

turbance

turbance and disorder in the streets. But this contemptible rabble was speedily put down by the police, and the noxious demagogues, who called themselves The People,' were rendered innocuous by ridicule :—

'Our little riots here,' writes the Queen to King Leopold, are mere nothings, and the feeling here is good.' The same letter wishes the King joy of the continued satisfactory behaviour of my friends the good Belgians; but,' adds Her Majesty, what an extraordinary state of things everywhere! Je ne sais plus où je suis, and I could almost fancy we have gone back into the last century. But I also feel that one must not be nervous or alarmed at these moments, but be of good cheer, and muster up courage to meet all the difficulties.'

The easy suppression of riots in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Manchester, and other places, gave the Government strength and confidence in dealing with the memorable Chartist insurrection of the 10th of April. That day of dupes has never been better described than by Mr. Martin. While revolutionary sympathisers over the water were convinced that before night Great Britain would be a Republic, poor Feargus O'Connor's processionists, reduced from half a million to eight thousand, were finding their way back to their homes' (from Kennington Common), in broken order, as best they might,' and their monster Petition, reduced from 5,700,000 to 1,975,496 signatures, of which a large portion were fictitious, was being conveyed to the House of Commons by back streets in three common cabs.' Some 170,000 special constables had been put to inconvenience by the loss of a day's business or pleasure, but the British Constitution was saved without firing a shot, and not a soldier or a piece of artillery was visible in the streets. Nevertheless, the danger was a real one; and though, as Mr. Martin acutely remarks, when the day had passed, people were half disposed to smile at their own fears, the relief with which the tidings were received throughout the kingdom showed how great was the alarm which had been generally felt:'

The Queen, yielding to the representations of Her Ministers that it was better the Court should be out of London on the 10th, had retired with Prince Albert to Osborne two days before, and just three weeks after the birth of the Princess Louise. On the 11th she was able to write to King Leopold:

"Thank God! The Chartist meeting and procession have turned out a complete failure. The loyalty of the people at large has been very striking, and their indignation at their peace being interfered with by such wanton and worthless men, immense."

The same day a letter from the Prince bore the welcome news to Baron Stockmar. 66 "We," he writes, "had our revolution yesterday,

and

and it ended in smoke. London turned out some hundreds of special constables; the troops were kept out of sight, to prevent the possibility of a collision, and the law has remained triumphant. I hope this will read with advantage on the Continent. Ireland still looks dangerous."

"What a glorious day was yesterday for England!" were the Prince's words, in a letter of the same date to his Secretary, Colonel (afterwards Sir Charles) Phipps. "How mightily will this tell all over the world!"'

The state of Ireland was far less reassuring. Crime and sedition were stimulated by misery and famine, of which ecclesiastical and democratic incendiaries did not fail to take advantage. But here the firmness of the authorities was sufficient, with the aid of the exceptional powers granted by an Act of Parliament, and the usual discords of Irish factions, to silence and disperse the leading fomenters of disaffection, and to terminate Mr. Smith O'Brien's brilliant attempt at a rebellion in the celebrated cabbage-garden. In both countries the triumph of law and order was complete, but at the cost of not a little suffering and distress among those classes of the population whose precarious fortunes are the first to feel the bad effects of public uneasiness and turbulence. The Prince's letters to his old friend at Coburg are full of grave reflections on the anarchy abroad and the depression of commerce and industry at home; but his faith in the security of English institutions was never for an instant shaken. At Osborne he finds relief from public cares in his favourite occupations of farming and gardening; and, in Mr. Martin's words, grave and earnest as the general current of the Prince's thoughts at this time was, the admirable gift of humour which never failed him, no less than the wise cheerfulness (to use Wordsworth's happy phrase) of a mind that had disciplined itself to take a broad and patient view of the vicissitudes of life, stood him in excellent stead, and helped him to sustain the spirits of Her Majesty, and of others about him, upon whom they acted as a salutary tonic.' We hear of him in the leisure moments snatched from incessant and multifarious occupations of a sterner sort, adapting the music of a chorale of his own composition to the words of the hymn now well known as the Gotha tune, for the christening of the Princess Louise. But in the hearts of royal personages public anxieties and private sorrows are often intermingled, and amidst the Court ceremonies and gaieties of an unusually brilliant London season, the pressure of saddening thoughts was often painful.

6

The Prince's sympathy with the labouring classes, and his

solicitude