home subjects might be, to consider Russia as the great northern Mammoth, ready to swallow continental Europe at a gulp, and to pick its teeth with the bones of England. Nine out of ten of the political chatterers that make up the falsely so-called Liberal party, and not a few Conservatives, have brought themselves to that pitch of political strabism, that they consider the Autocrat of all the Russias" as the actual incarnation of the mythological giant, whose defeat and slaughter by our old friend Jack amused the days of our infancy; and even in the Legislature, there are few of our gravest senators who can bring themselves to discuss Russian policy with any thing like fairness; while declamations against Russian tyranny, Russian ambition, and Polish misery, form a ready clap-trap topic whenever politi cal humbug is scanty at home, and agitation finds itself at a discount. been entirely on the side of France; English capital, English improve. ments, and English manners, have flowed into the country, and the civilization of the French has thereby received no small impulse; while, on the other hand, little French capital has found its way into Great Britain; few improvements, except in the arts, have been derived from thence; and even within the last few months the French Government has opposed the granting of such fair concessions as might lead to the conclusion of an honourable commercial treaty: add to which, that the contagion of French political dogmas has not spared the British public, and a portion of our lower and manufacturing population have thence derived some of the wild and mischievous notions that cannot but end, if unchecked, in their own ruin. The intercourse of England with the German and Scandinavian nations and it is a providential cir- In the persuasion that the consideracumstance that it should have been so- tion of the present positions in which has kept on undiminished, perhaps has France, Germany, and Russia stand been slowly augmenting, and has ever towards England, and the pointing out found appreciators and admirers among of the good and evil that may be exthe nobler and more intellectual ranks pected from our alliance with any of of Englishmen. The sober, good these nations, will tend to remove presense of our Teutonic brethren, their judice, and favour the progress of practical progress in all the arts and truth, we proceed briefly to examine sciences, in national prosperity, and the actual influence that they are calin well-founded national happiness-culated to exercise on our own counall this has been esteemed as it de- try. We begin with France. served by the better portion of our fellow-countrymen, and has served as a counterpoise to what might other wise have been the disastrous influence of France. During this period, however that is to say, since 1815-the interests of England, falsely so called, and her oriental policy, much misunderstood, added to the efforts of the friends of France in the Legislature, have led part of the British nation to entertain the most childish and exaggerated apprehensions of the aggressions of a great nation far removed from our own shores, and the junior in standing of the leading European powers. The most strenuous efforts have been made to originate and maintain national jealousies and bad feelings between the English and the Russians; the most extravagant misrepresentations have been circulated of the acts and political intentions of that power; and the unthinking portion of British politicians, (by far the majority, that is to say,) have been taught, whatever their opinions on It should never be forgotten, though it is too much lost sight of, that France is a country still suffering from the moral and political evils of her great revolution, the severe judgment which centuries of mismanagement on the part of government, and misconduct on the part of the aristocracy and the clergy, brought on that unhappy country. That dreadful moral disease has left behind it the germs of future mischief seated in the heart's core of the nation, to bring forth their pestilential fruit from time to time. The symptons of the ancient malady are renewed at various epochs, and a healthy condition of the nation is probably still far removed. The forms of a republic exist no longer, but institutions based on republican ideas subsist in unmitigated tyranny; the social and moral degradation entailed by the overthrow of all religion still goes on, though a feeble church is nominally established, inadequate to the people's wants: the absence of an improving spirit, and the want of habits of strenuous industry, brought on by that state of political affairs, which made the mob lords of misrule, still hang as dead-weights upon the commercial and manufacturing efforts of the provincial population: while the centralizing system, joined to that of pecuniary equalization, exposed the whole country to the electrical excitation of whatever political party happens to have succeeded in the last scramble for place and power. The old aristocracy having passed a suicidal sentence on themselves since 1830, by tacitly withdrawing from the political scene, and the new self-created aristoracy being in the full swing of political intrigue; the people suffering under the accumulated evils of harsh republican laws, fiscal rapacity, legislative extravagance, and the unchecked action of executive power; the depositories of power holding their authority on the doubtful title of a successful usurpation, and maintaining their slippery footing only by juggling the multitude out of that share of the regal spoils which they greedily promised; all this keeps the French nation in such a state of feverish excitement, that for the last ten years it has had the responsible advisers of the crown changed every seven months, has had the head of the state shot at five times, has had its annual ex penditure increased every session, and at length when, by the bad faith of a profligate minister, it has incurred the responsibility of attempting to set the whole world at war, it has found in the accounts of the treasury a deficit of thirty-two millions sterling! The example of such a nation cannot be honourable for England; its friendship cannot be desirable. The republican notions of France have worked quite enough misery in that country; they have caused far too much legal oppres sion to its people, for us to make any importation of them into our own island, to add to the profligacy and the folly of our Radicals or our Chartists. We want to borrow nothing from the centralizing system of France, to encourage propensities and experiments of the same kind, which many of our Whig statesmen are known to entertain-misery enough, and more than enough of political degradation and debility, is produced by the equalization system in France, to give us any desire for superadding it to the openly avowed intention of the Radicals, and no-property boys on our own side of the water:-our own aristocracy have been too much attacked by the illiberal portions of the press and the legislature, that we should wish to see their mischievous efforts at disorder encouraged by the example or the communications of the French popular party:-we see nothing in the political system of France, nothing in her political ideas, that we should be inclined to adopt at home: we know of nothing in matters of government in which we have not an immeasurable superiority. The extreme jealousy of France in commercial matters and international trade, is not a good subject of contemplation or imitation: it is true that French manufacturers are forced to take English goods and English materials to a considerable extent; but it is with extreme unwillingness, and only amid the loudest protestations from the press against the encroaching and monopolizing (!) spirit of Great Britain: our own merchants and manufacturers, are far too fond of imposing duties and premiums to their own advantage, and of crying out against any similar favour being granted to the agriculturists, that we should try to give them any lift in their onesided policy, by cutting a leaf out of the French commercial code; and our own experimenters are quite numerous enough, without our trying to increase them by any additions borrowed from French speculators. In moral and social matters, the state of political affairs in England for the last ten years has not so much added to national morality, to the good feeling, the habits of order and contentedness of our middling and lower classes, that we should be justified in recommending an infusion of French deism or French probity: -we have Socialists and Owenites enough, without inviting any French Fourrierist, or Babeufite, or St Simonian to come and initiate us in their amiable mysteries:-we have not too many respecters of property among our working classes, to render any increase of their folly at all to be wished for: our criminal law will not be mended by any precedent from the barbarous and atrocious condemnation of Madame Lafarge: in all these points we have nothing, absolutely nothing, to wish to imitate from the French. In our relation with other countries, we conceive that the conduct of England can never be benefited by any turning aside to walk in the paths of France: that country, smarting under the recollection of recent quailing before the other powers of Europe, and anxious to acquire, by no matter what means of violence, the might in Europe which its change of system in 1830 has justly deprived it of, is tormented by an itching for war, from which Great Britain is fortunately exempt. From the narrow views, too, which it takes of continental policy, and from its absolute want of consideration for the quiet and comfort of other nations, it is always ready for public mischief; and with the false notion, that it cannot lose but must gain in a general struggle, there is nothing that the mass of the idle portion of the nation-the idle, talking, and though idle yet the actuating portion-desires so much as a time of general trouble. In all this, we have nothing to respect, nothing to imitate. We have far too long experienced the excellent effects of our old institutions of all kinds, and our modern attempts at legislative improvement have been too little satisfactory, that we should go to look for examples of good in a nation that has so completely broken down in her political experiments as France. Hints to avoid evil, and notices of sunken rocks to be steered clear of by our political bark, we may indeed find in plenty among our Gallic neighbours ;-they who have worked out the problem of a republic built on the ruins of a monarchy to its ultimate consequences of military tyranny and political abasement-they who are now engaged in driving "the monarchy of the middle classes" into the ditch from which it will never again rise. Would we see what is to be expected from the overthrow of an ancient landed aristocracy, a project much recommended in England three or four years ago, we should enquire whether the French people have become more free in reality by having done so, than they were before they began? and whether all the feudal usages to which they were subjected in former days, were heavier drawbacks on their exertions, than the innumerable exactions of the fiscal and legal authorities now are? We should ascertain whether the people were not more protected against the tyranny of supreme authority by their natural lords, than they now are against the unshielded action of the law? Whether modern municipal councils, mayors, and prefects, are less subservient to the crown or the minister, than the bailies and councillors of former days? What is the difference between a lettre de cachet, and a writ of preventive imprisonment, with trial before a packed jury?—And which is the best, voluntary enrolment, a moderate army, and the respect of foreign nations, or military conscription, an immense permanent force, and the distrust and dislike of all neighbouring people? Our Radical legislators, if they considered or cared for the results of their theories and their actions, could not do better than look at the ills under which France groans; and test their principles by practical examples ready made to their hands. What is really good in France, should be admired and imitated by us as carefully as what is bad should be shunned. Thus, the spirit of public forbearance in matters of social opinion and conduct-a spirit that has survived from before the great Revolution, and prevents much of that malicious uncharitableness which sectarian differences and fanatical enthusiasm have brought to such a fearful pitch of intensity in England-a spirit of scientific and literary industry, which would do honour to the learned classes in any people, and a generally diffused love and respect for the fine arts;-these are points in which we need not fear to imitate the French; but from any thing that originates in their democratic or irreligious opinions, we should hold ourselves widely aloof. To advert briefly to the Germans: we know of so few bad points in their national character-taking all the Germanic tribes as members of one vast family that there is no small difficulty in singling them out. The nations that occupy the centre of Europe, have not been subjected to such a tremendous social disorganization as the French ;-they have not been revolutionized; and they have not had the bad effects of such politi cal maladies developed among them. As for faults arising from a democratic tendency, they have none. There are a few wild-headed men among them, no doubt, but much fewer than among ourselves. It is not for us to apprehend political contamination from Germany; on the contrary, it is for the Germans to be afraid of it from us-and they are so. The German legislators, who are sincerely anxious for the welfare of their fel. low-citizens, look with suspicion on the political quacks and agitators that obstruct our public assemblies; they are afraid of the influence of their opinions; and they regard us as dangerous only in an inferior degree to the French. We are bound to admit, on the other hand, that some of our best and wisest statesmen blame the Germans for carrying out their monarchical and aristocratical ideas rather too far; but it cannot be denied, that from the good feeling prevalent through out the German states, and from the reciprocal kindness of manner that subsists between the governors and the governed, there are no people practically more happy, or more mildly ruled. Whether we look at the dignified but paternal sway of Austria, at least on the northern side of the Alps, or at the highly enlightened and fraternal dominion of the Prus sian monarchs, as well as at the goodnatured simplicity of most of the smaller governments, it is impossible not to feel respect and good-will for German politicians. In their social relations we have nothing to lose by close contact with them. The inhabitants of Vienna, it is true, are not to be imitated in some of their practices, especially in the higher walks of life; nor is the prevalent love of gambling to be apologized for any more in the Germans than it is in the French;-still they are a sober steady set of people, with as little harm in them as most others; and they will stand a very fair comparison with their Anglo-Saxon brethren. The heads of the Germans are apt to run a wool-gathering both in religious and philosophical matters; but these are subjects rather above the plain comprehensions of us unsophisticated islanders; and by the time our German friends come to understand each other, or themselves, we shall probably be able to pick out the good part of their systems for our own benefit. We should certainly avoid the wild dreaminess of their mystical systems; but their patient and laborious spirit of research, their thorough going determination of diving to the bottom of all matters scientific, literary, or political, and their faculty of linking together their results in lucid systems and practical plans-all this calls for an Englishman's unqualified admiration. The warmth of their religious feelings, whatever their denominations may be, and the tolerance universally practised by all sects towards each other, constitute two of the most amiable and the most valuable features of the German character. It will be long in England before we have either so much true piety among us, or so much real charity. The Russians, a hundred years ago, were only assuming their station among the civilized nations of Europe; but, though their empire has been gradually on the increase, till in its unwieldy extent it occupies no small portion of the globe, apprehensions of their influence in Western Europe, and of their possible aggrandizement, were not generally entertained till after the late war. Russia was certainly a first-rate power at the end of the last century, and had her due weight in Europe;-but the public press respected her; and it has only been within the last five-and-twenty years that she has been pointed out as the bugbear of England, the colossus of the north, and the incubus of the world. Russia has done very little to justify the extraordinary virulence of prejudice that exists against her; and if the circumstances under which she has been and is at present placed be fairly considered, most of the accusations brought against her will fall to the ground. When, by the defeats of the Tartars, and the first conquests over the Ottomans, Russia found herself assuming the stability and consistency of an European rather than an Asiatic power; and when, after the defeat of the Swedish madman, and the efforts of the great Peter, she had definitively assumed a befitting station among the Christian and civilized nations of the world, the immense extent of her territory, however rude and scanty its inhabitants, and however loosely some parts might cohere, forced her to adopt an almost exclu-, sively military policy, and to be ready to wield her arms for defence not less than for aggression. That she should have obtained the Finnish provinces of her northern territory, the Lithuanian and Polish districts of her middle frontier, and the countries conquered from Turkey on her southern, is not to be construed into the working of a more restless ambition than has possessed other nations, when the peculiar circumstances of the populations, both conquering and conquered, are taken into account: smarting under the recollection of recent quailing before the other powers of Europe, and anxious to acquire, by no matter what means of violence, the might in Europe which its change of system in 1830 has justly deprived it of, is tormented by an itching for war, from which Great Britain is fortunately exempt. From the narrow views, too, which it takes of continental policy, and from its absolute want of consideration for the quiet and comfort of other nations, it is always ready for public mischief; and with the false notion, that it cannot lose but must gain in a general struggle, there is nothing that the mass of the idle portion of the nation-the idle, talking, and though idle yet the actuating portion-desires so much as a time of general trouble. In all this, we have nothing to respect, nothing to imitate. We have far too long experienced the excellent effects of our old institutions of all kinds, and our modern attempts at legislative improvement have been too little satisfactory, that we should go to look for examples of good in a nation that has so completely broken down in her political experiments as France. Hints to avoid evil, and notices of sunken rocks to be steered clear of by our political bark, we may indeed find in plenty among our Gallic neighbours;-they who have worked out the problem of a republic built on the ruins of a monarchy to its ultimate consequences of military tyranny and political abasement-they who are now engaged in driving "the monarchy of the middle classes" into the ditch from which it will never again rise. Would we see what is to be expected from the overthrow of an ancient landed aristocracy, a project much recommended in Eng. land three or four years ago, we should enquire whether the French people have become more free in reality by having done so, than they were before they began? and whether all the feudal usages to which they were subjected in former days, were heavier drawbacks on their exertions, than the innumerable exactions of the fiscal and legal authorities now are?-We should ascertain whether the people were not more protected against the tyranny of supreme authority by their natural lords, than they now are against the unshielded action of the law? Whether modern municipal councils, mayors, and prefects, are less subservient to the crown or the minister, than the bailies and councillors of former days? What is the difference between a lettre de cachet, and a writ of preventive imprisonment, with trial before a packed jury?—And which is the best, voluntary enrolment, a moderate army, and the respect of foreign nations, or military conscription, an immense permanent force, and the distrust and dislike of all neighbouring people? Our Radical legislators, if they considered or cared for the results of their theories and their actions, could not do better than look at the ills under which France groans; and test their principles by practical examples ready made to their hands. What is really good in France, should be admired and imitated by us as carefully as what is bad should be shunned. Thus, the spirit of public forbearance in matters of social opinion and conduct a spirit that has survived from before the great Revolution, and prevents much of that malicious uncharitableness which sectarian differences and fanatical enthusiasm have brought to such a fearful pitch of intensity in England—a spirit of scientific and literary industry, which would do honour to the learned classes in any pcople, and a generally diffused love and respect for the fine arts;-these are points in which we need not fear to imitate the French; but from any thing that originates in their democratic or irreligious opinions, we should hold our selves widely aloof. To advert briefly to the Germans: we know of so few bad points in their national character-taking all the Germanic tribes as members of one vast family-that there is no small difficulty in singling them out. The nations that occupy the centre of Europe, have not been subjected to such a tremendous social disorganization as the French ;-they have not been revolutionized; and they have not had the bad effects of such political maladies developed among them. As for faults arising from a democratic tendency, they have none. There are a few wild-headed men among them, no doubt, but much fewer than among ourselves. It is not for us to apprehend political contamination from Germany; on the contrary, it is for the Germans to be afraid of it from us-and they are So. The German legislators, who are sincerely anxious for the welfare of their fel |