On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (4)
-
>^y*l !Lu£rHulX£» '*¦ '
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
≫^Y*L !Lu£Rhulx£» '*¦ '
XftttBtm .
Untitled Article
The January number of the Westminster Review ought to make the parliamentary recess less tedious to all who , being interested in . the " great questions of the clay , " miss the excitement of the debates—for we do not recollect ever having seen a number of a Review so full of information and discussion bearing on current topics . Of the seven set articles , which , together with the usual classified survey of Contemporary Literature at the end , compose the entire number , five at least are articles directly bearing on questions of the day ; and of these , no fewer than four are devoted to subjects of foreign politics . Here , then , is ample matter for those wliom the lighter and less profound discussions in the newspapers do not satisfy—ample matter , too , to be worked up into newspaper articles for a good while to come . The information supplied by the Review will bear this , for it is fresh , substantial , and closely-packed ; -while the views put forward by the writers , along with the information , are put forward decisively , and in . a manner to command attention even where they provoke controversy .
The opening article is one on " -The Anglo-French Alliance , " written in a light , vivid style , but with much strength and sense . The author sketches the history of the mutual feelings and relations of France and England from the tune of . Jtoxius Cesar onwards to our present alliance , which he then considers more particularly in various lights . There is nothing of the usual sycophancy to J-oots-Napoleon ; on the contrary , some sharp words are said to him and of him : at the same time full justice is done to his conduct ¦ during the present European crisis , and there ia nothing of mere tirade against him . The writer concludes by pointing out increased commercial intercourse—and , as a means to this , the abolition of the duties on French Tvines , &c ., on our part , and of the passport system on the part of the French—as the true way of cementing the alliance , and making it permanent . The following is an important passage :
The two peoples are tending together towards a grand future , on wMch the rising national hope is shining gloriously ; but between the travelling hosts there is a gulfof which some people now think " the less said the better . " In us , however , surveying and exhibiting the conditions and tendencies of the age , it would be an act of unfaithfulness to ignore that chasm , and to pretend that it is just the same thing whether the two parties pay mutual courtesies across it or travel side by side . The gulf of the salt deep has teen conquered . Our electric wires run under it , and our navies ride above it . But the gulf which separates the sympathies and action of & free and enslaved nation has neither bottom nor surface , and is absolutely impassable . If the French people were to be regarded as really and hopelessly subjected to the despotism of an absolute ruler , there would be no possibility of an alliance with us like that of which we have been , treating . But they and we know ' that they are not permanently subjected to a despotism . The great and fearful question is whether
their emperor knows this too , and frames his intentions accordingly . If he believes that he is doing well to subject the French nation to an iron control for a time , on account of former political failures , and ( aware how skilful and noble those people are in defying and punishing tyranny ) purposes to convert their bondage into freedom by gradual emancipation , we can only say that the presumption that he is able to achieve this mighty yet delicate transformation implies a consciousness of possessing an amount of wisdom , as well as of power , which no precedent justifies us in ascribing to him , ami that until the dangerous experiment shall have been actually conducted to a successful issue , the Anglo-French alliance has after all but a precarious tenure . "We will do all in our power to preserve it , in hope of fcetter days for our neighbours ; but it would be rank unfaithfulness to them , and treason to the great cause which unites us , to pretend that any alliance between a free and a fettered nation can be secure . Certain as Englishmen feel that a contest cannot be far off between the views
of the ruler of Franco and the will of its peeople—they ask , " With which party is our alliance when it ccasea to be practicable with both ? " There is no doubt about the answer . Our alliance is with the people : —with their emperor as long as he and the people are of one accord—after that , with the people . The second article , which is the only strictly literary article in the number , is a pleasant one on a capital subject— " Ballads of the People "with numerous specimens interspersed . This is followed by an extremely valuable paper on " Prussia and the Prussian Policy , " the information in which , relative to the social and political state of Prussia , is of a kind not to be procured in ordinary compilations , and worthy of being well weighed . Here is an interesting passage : —
Owing to a different application of the same term , English readers are easily misled by the newspaper reports from Berlin . With us , " cabinet" means the ministry ; in Prussia , it means the private secretaries of the king and their staff . Those gentlemen , the most notorious of them General von Gerlach ( brother to the judge Gorluch ) , and Mr , Niebuhr , son—wo arc sorry to record it- —of the historian , are entirely in tho Eiissian interest , and in constant communication with Baron Budber # , tho RusHinn ambassador . They constitute a second government . Tho whole of tho royal household and tho visitors usually received at court , except Alexander von Hum ' boldt , who keeps aloof from politics , are of the same deposition . Tho most prominent partisan of Russia , by his social position , ia a man who betrayed last your tho HOorot plan for tho mobilisation of tine Prussian nrrny to tho Czar , and would have been hanged , but that ho happened to be tho brother of the king—viz ., Prince Charles . Tho writer thus appreciates the Kinq of Prussia ' s position with rcferoncc to tho treaty of tho two Western Powers with Austria , agreed to on tho 2 nd of December : —
Being ignorant of tho text of that treaty , to which , moreover , fiecrot articleo aro eaid to bo annexed , -we can dofiuo the position of PruHam only liypotliotically . At all events , &he haa lout tho position and proatige of a groat Power , and ia allowed only to give in Uor adhoronco to dooiaivo nota like Bavaria and LichtonHtoin . If » ho joint ) , hor action -will entirely depend upon tho will of Auatriu—juwt the thing tho king dreado moat , next to revolution—and hor voice will bo excluded from a future nottloment . If sho refuses , uhq will before long , by tho forco of events , bo thrown into the « rms o
Russia . Well may Frederic William hesitate to take his choice . If he sends his armv against the Czar , the officers will court defeat , precisely as the Piedmonteaian officers did at Novara . If he attacks the French , one single proclamation of the Western Powers , backed by actual proofs of good faith—better faith than the strutrcline nationalities have experienced from the hands of England and France—would blow the thirty tyrants of Germany to the winds . The next article forms in itself a feature of interest in the present Westmitister , inasmuch as it is a contribution from the pen of Mr . Cahxtle from
whom the public has had so little since he embarked on that " Life of Frederick the Great , " for which we are all longing . The present article , entitled " The Prinzenraub ; a Glimpse of Saxon History , " is evidently a little bit of the material collected for " Frederick" thrown off in an independent form , as possessing episodic interest , and not available , except by way of mere allusion , in the great work . It is , in fact , a kind of genealogy of the Saxon line of princes , beginning with the Elector Frederick der Streitbare ( that is , the Prompt to Fight" ) , in 1423 , and ending with our Queen ' s Consort , Prince Axbbrt . The incident from wliich the article derives it name is the
stealing or kidnapping of the two young princes , Ernst and Albert—the sons of the Saxon Elector Frederick the Pacific , who was the son of der Streitbare—by a certain lawless Kcnz von Katjfungen , in the year 1455 . This incident is most graphically related ; after which Mr . Cabi / kxe traces the lines of German princes that have sprung from' the two princes so kidnapped , touching here and there a fact or a name of special historic interest , and making it start out most vividly to the fancy . At last , pursuing one of the ramifications , he reaches the Saxe-Coburg line , and Prince Albert . The whole article will , of course , be eagerly read ; but , till it is in our readers * hands , they may be glad to have the following as a foretaste—the more so , as it shows with what kind of eye Mr . Cablyle regards the highest personages in the realm :
Another individual of the Ernestine Line , surely notable to Englishmen , and much to be distinguished amid that imbroglio of little Dukes , is the " Prim Albuecht Franz August Karl Emanu-el von Sachsen-Cohurg-Gotlui" whom we call , in briefer English , Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg , actual Prince Consort of these happy realms . He also is a late , very late , grandson of that little stolen Ernst , concerning whom , both English history and English prophecy might say something—but not conveniently in this place . By the generality of thinking Englishmen he is regarded as a man of solid sense and worth , seemingly of superior talent , placed in circumstances beyond measure singular— very complicated circumstances—and which do not promise to grow less so , but the contrary ; for the horologe of Time goes inexorably on , and the Sick Ages ripen ( with terrible rapidity at present ) towards— ¦ —who . will tell us what ? The human wisdom of this Prince , whatever share of it he has , may one day be unspeakably important to mankind ' . —But enough , enough . We will here subjoin his pedigree at least , which is a very innocent document , riddled from the big historical cinderheaps , and may be comfortable to some persons .
Here follows a short genealogical table ,: connecting Prince Albert with personages named in the earlier part of the article . So that the young gentleman who will one day ( it is hoped , but not till after many years ) be King of England , is visibly , as we count , thirteenth in direct descent from that little boy Ernst , whom Kunz von ICaufungcn stole . Ernst ' s generation and twelve others have blossomed out and grown big , and have faded and been blown away ; and in these 400 years , since Kunz did his feat , we have arrived so far . And that is the last " pearl , or odd button , " we will string on that transaction . The article entitled " Poland : her History and Prospects , " is in part a summary of Polish history , with disquisitions on points connected therewith ,
and , m part , a discussion of the question of the Restoration of Poland , now , as the writer says , " in the foreground of " European politics . ' * It is followed by an article on "Cambridge University Reform 5 " and it again by an A rticle on " Austria in the Principalities , " in which the policy which would permit Austria , for . mere strategic considerations , to hold these important provinces , is strenuously ai'gued against . The remainder of the number , as we have said , consists of notices of recent books , classified , according to tho admirable plan adopted by the Editor , under the distinct heads of Theology and Philosophy , Politics and Education , Science , Classics and Philology , History , Biography and Travels , Belles Letlrcs- and Art .
For some weeks there has been going about a story of tho discovery ia Paris of an inodited manuscript novel , by Sir Waltku Scott , which the fortunate proprietor was busy translating into French for immediate publication . The stpry comes to us in a complete shape in an article by M . Pnii .. vni : rK . Chasles— the chief Parisian authority on subjects of English literaturepublished in tho Journal . Ues Debate of Wednesday last . It seems that in a previous article in tho same paper , on the 1 / Jth of this month , M . PiniunrcrEChiAST . Eis commented on . the alleged discovery , and called on M . i > rc
Saint-Maurice Caban y , tho proprietor of the manuscript , to publish the exact text of a letter purporting to bo written by Sir Wai . tkr Scott , and constituting the solo external proof of the authenticity of tho manuscript . M . Ca » a ny had at that time published only a translation of tho letter , wliich M . Chaslus had not found satisfactory . Tho I'osult has been that M . Cauany has addressed a long letter to M . Cuasmcs , containing a copy of tho original letter , and detailing other circumsluncea relating to the manuscript . From this letter , and tho remarks upon it niado by M . Chasm-is , wo arc ablo to piece tlio story together as follows : —
In the year 182 ( i Sir WAi / nan Scott was in Paris , collecting materials for his History of Napolaon . Ho wus then in tho midst of tho pecuniary omborriissincnla resulting from tho sudden crash of his fortunes . His uaughtor ^ Anne Scott , wus with him . To hor thoro viuuo one day u certain fviond ol tho family , mimed Mr . Wiuiam Si'knohh , apparently a Scotchman , with ft most harassing atory of a monomaniac , or , in Scottish phriise , " dail man , whom ho had fullon in with in Parit ) , whose orazo consisted in a passion tor
Untitled Article
Cxi . ti . C 3 are not the legislators , "but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—th . ey interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .
Untitled Article
1238 THE LEADER , [ Satdbdat ,
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 30, 1854, page 1238, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2071/page/14/
-