From The Spectator, 11 Oct.

from whom the reigning sovereign is directly has, however, been formally acknowledged descended. Hers is not, it is true, the most a hundred times by an Irish Protestant Pardirect branch of the Stuarts, for, on the fail- liament, and once by a free native Parliaure of the Pretender's line-which expired ment filled only with Catholic Celts, called in the Cardinal of York-the "legitimate" together in obedience to the summons of claim reverted to the children of Henrietta, James the Second. The Channel Islands daughter of Charles the First, and ancestress are the last relic of the old Norman Dukeof the "legitimate" Bourbons, and of the dom, and belong, therefore, rather to the reigning house of Savoy, the latter being the dynasty than the kingdom; the Orkneys nearer to the succession. Nevertheless, came from Norway through Margaret, wife though not heiress, the queen is the direct of James the Third, the King of Norway, descendant of the Stuarts, and it is a mis- unable to pay her portion, having offered the take in this sense to call the royal house a islands in pawn for the amount; and the purely German one. No English house in sovereignty over the Isle of Man was bought existence is nearer the ancient stock. The during our own days from the representagreat points in the pedigree, the junctions, tives of the house of Stanley. as it were, which alone it is necessary to remember, are Henry the Second, who inherited from his mother the representation of both Norman and Saxon lines; Margaret of Lancaster-cum-York, who united all the fibres of title derivable from the Plantagenets, and, therefore, from Henry the Second; James the First, who inherited her rights and those of the Scotch throne; and George the First, great-grandson of James the First, through his daughter Elizabeth. The queen is, therefore, by a curious series of circumstances, the only Protestant with a claim to be heir to every family which has occupied the British throne since the Seven Kingdoms were united, and though there are descendants nearer to Charles the First, they, like her, claim through the female line, and her ancestress is the one furthest back on the tree. The inquiry may seem, to modern ideas, to involve some waste of time, but England owes much of her special character, her fixed dislike to break with the past, to the fact, that she has never been forced either to import a new dynasty, as the French have done, or to give up the hereditary principle altogether.

The royal title to Ireland, and some other portions of the Isles, rests on a different foundation. Ireland, unluckily for us all, had no regal house to bring to its rulers the advantage of a title by admitted descent. The right to that country rests primarily upon conquest, and secondly upon a grant made by the reigning Pope to Henry the Second-a document not of much validity in our eyes, but which ought completely to shut the mouths of the Ultramontanes against Henry the Second's heirs. The validity of this title

THE INFLUENCE OF FRANCE IN
EUROPE.

If there be any truth in the details which have been given ere this in the pages of the Spectator as to the condition of Imperialist France, of her army, her people, her administration, the last feeling with which such a picture should inspire an Englishman should be that of a Pharisaic self-righteousness. For in truth many traits of that picture must remind him of what he sees around him in his own country. It may not quite be de te fabula, but proximus urit falls even short of the mark.

For indeed the influence of France over the world, over Europe, over England, is a fact of which few Englishmen have wit enough to acknowledge to themselves the greatness. Partly, no doubt, because Frenchmen are so loud-spoken in asserting it, so blind to the existence of any other influence, that many Englishmen feel it a sort of point of patriotism to underrate, pooh-pooh, deny what is so boastingly and unfairly put forward. But to an impartial observer it must be matter of extreme doubt which of the two influences, the French or the English, is really the most extensive. The French (including in this term that of the whole of the French-speaking races) may be said to manifest itself more directly and suddenly; the English more slowly, and to a great extent indirectly through the French. It is really through Voltaire and Montesquieu, through Benja

min Constant and Madame de Stael, that the | of the English reading public with AlexanEnglish principles of constitutional govern-dre Dumas's romances, and with many other ment and of civil and religious liberty have forms of French light literature? Day by found their way round the world. Voltaire day, as the knowledge of French spreads discovered Shakspeare and Newton, Milton through our middle to our working classes, and Locke; Tocqueville the United States, not only do translations of French works not for France alone, but for the whole Latin multiply, but the original works themselves race at least. Without J. B. Say, political are read. What facilities now exist for obeconomy (as we now understand the term) taining French books to read in London, might have remained wellnigh unknown out compared with the days in which but little of the British Isles; without Dumont, the in the shape of French was taken in by any powerful impulse given by Bentham to law- circulating library, beyond the last Paul de reform might equally have stopped on the Kock, for the behoof of a certain number of hither shore of the Channel. But it is as epicures in the nasty! difficult for an Englishman to admit that the influence of his own country remains insular until accepted by France, as for a Frenchman to admit how much of apparently French influence is really English in its origin.

England, on the other hand, is far slower in receiving influence from France than the Continental nations; nay, her first impulse is, perhaps, to draw herself up and resist it. Still, from the days of Edward the Confessor, there have been epochs in her history in which that influence has been unmistakable; those of the Plantagenets, for instance; of Charles II., and, so far as literature is concerned, of nearly the whole period which extends from Milton to Burke. Within our own generation, the passing of the Reform Bill is to be looked upon as in great measure the sequel to the French Revolution of 1830; whilst the influence of France over the literature and manners of our own day is still enormous. France, be it remembered, is the great caterer for the theatre throughout the world; England, almost the only country which takes the trouble so much as to recast a French piece; elsewhere, from Naples to Lima, it would be merely translated. The range of the French novel is scarcely less extensive. Any one who has read Miss Bremer's works, for instance, will be struck with the evidence which they afford of the familiarity of the far North with contemporary French novelists. The same witness is afforded by Countess Hahn-Hahn for Germany, by Fernan Caballero for Spain. The influence of these made itself felt in the literature of the United States even before it was traceable in that of England; but who by this time can doubt the widespread familiarity of the very lowest grades

We must, therefore, accept this influence of France at the present day as a fact, not only for all the world besides, but for ourselves. And it does, therefore, very seriously concern us if the sources of that influence be healthy or diseased, quickening or stagnant, ennobling or corrupting. But who can say that the moral influence of the Second Empire has worked for good on any single nation in the world, except through the resistance which has been offered to it, the repulsion which it has inspired? What has most braced up Italian nationality, the conquest of Lombardy by the aid of Napoleon III., or the sturdy and successful resistance to the peace of Villafranca which he had dictated, the persistent protest against his occupation of Rome? Whose example has done most to keep the traditional Italian poinard in its sheath, that of Ricasoli refusing to bend before the modern Nebuchadnezzar, and Garibaldi flinging defiance in his face, or that of the cringing Rattazzi? For England, too, the Second Empire has done two great things; it has called forth our volunteer movement; it has driven us to renew our navy. Whatever effects have been produced upon England, so to speak, in the grain of that influence, have been purely evil; from the prating of our Positivists about the blessings of Imperialism, in the teeth of every memory worth preserving in the history of England or of mankind, down to that invention of a French Empress ashamed of motherhood, which, besides offending every sense of classic artistic beauty, has certainly been the cause of more deaths, and those more dreadful ones, than all other articles of human dress put together throughout the world during the same period of time. From the "demi-monde" of the Second Em

inality of their own,

pire have come to us,-though with an orig- | lous as to means, firm alliance with every the "pretty horse- available cant, persistent compression of breakers" and other Hetæræ who for the every quickening faith. Whilst it is there, first time in our history have begun to form it is as a stone in the very heart of the Eupublicly a distinct class in English society; ropean Continent, chilling all around, and nor is it possible to estimate how overwhelm- even ourselves across the waters. Let us be ing would have been the tide of public immor- frank; in what country are men not conality from the shores of Imperial France, had scious that the Second French Empire is the it not been for the checks which have been standing nuisance of the world? Sharp as opposed to it by the sovereignty of a virtuous has been and still is the crisis of American queen and the example of her court. But disruption, the permanent uncertainty as to apart even from these coarser and more glar- the motions of that mighty and inscrutable ing forms of evil influence, who among us is self-will at the Tuileries has done far more not conscious, around him on all sides, with- during the last ten years to paralyze and in his own self, of feelings and tendencies, disorganize trade and the familiar relations often, indeed, antagonistic among them- of nation with nation, man with man. The selves, yet closely akin to those which are fear of that it is which has made all counlowering France of that moral lassitude, tries arm to the teeth. Why is Italy rushthat despair of good from above or from being headlong into an enormous debt, strainlow in the social cosmos, that worship of ing every nerve to increase her armies? Is brute strength, that sympathy with clever it only to be able to cope with Austria? success often amounting to a tacit accom- Would she toss, as she does now, in such an pliceship in its rascalities, that lazy acqui- ecstacy of anguish upon the live coals of her escence in evil realities, that tolerance of hopes, instead of letting them blaze forth as cant for want of faith, or intolerance of faith beacon-fires upon her onward path, had she because we dare not acknowledge the exist- only a generous France behind her, and not ence of aught but cant, that practical god- an Imperial bird of prey? Would England lessness, in a word, assuming as it does the be expending sums on her iron-clad navy most various forms, compatible at once with which would give food and labor to tens of the most feverish physical and intellectual thousands of her suffering ones, but for a activity, and with absolute torpor of the well-grounded distrust of her "august whole man-which alone could have stilled ally"? demands for Reform, maintained Mr. Disraeli in the leadership of the Conservative party, enabled the Record or the Saturday Review to live and decent folk to read them, allowed the Times to dictate to public opinion, made Mr. Carlyle a prophet for a large portion of our youth, and created a sympathy between free England and the great slave power of Northern America ? All these, be it observed, are points on which there is fellow-feeling between us and the French Imperial system. That stands out before the world as the great exemplar of triumphant brute force, clever self-will utterly unscrupu

No, there is no real peace for Englandfor the world-so long as the Imperial despotism weighs upon France, galling and corrupting at once the great people which is subject to it. So long as this lasts, all European progress, if not suspended, must creep on at a snail's pace; only so far secure, as it manages to keep clear of entanglement with the Napoleonic policy. In short, the old Cromwellian saying must, while Napoleon III. holds the crown, be the motto for all the world besides: "Put your trust in God, and keep your powder dry,"