AET. I. ANGLO-FRENCH ALLIANCE AND ORSINI. BY E. L. GODKIN, II. THE MESSENGER AT NIGHT. BY R. H. STODDARD, III. GIPSYING OVER THE WORLD. BY DR. J. O. NOYES, 1 VI. SONG OF THE ARCH-ANGELS,. VIL. LES BOHEMIENS. BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, VIII. A BONKEYGRAPH: AN HISTORICO-POETICAL SKETCH, IX. YE TAILYOR-MAN: A CONTEMPLATIVE BALLAD. BY JOHN G. SAXE, XL STANZAS: THE LILAC-TREE,' XII. THE LOST ARTS OF THE HOUSEHOLD: ILLUSTRATED. BY A. WILDER, XIIL XIV. THE PORTRAIT. BY GEORGE H. CLARK, LITERARY NOTICES: 1. THE NEW AMERICAN CYCLOPÆDIA, 2. OLD NEW-YORK. BY DR. JOHN W. FRANCIS, 8. MITCHELL'S ORATION BEFORE THE ALPHA DELTA PHI SOCIETY, EDITOR'S TABLE: 1. INTERESTING CORRESPONDENCE OF TWO DEAF AND DUMB GIRLS, 1. CONVERSATIONS ON VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY, BY J. WHARTON GRIFFITH, ESQ.: 5. RECORD OF NEW PUBLICATIONS, 1. TWELFTH-NIGHT AT THE CENTURY CLUB. 2. THE DUTCH BATTLE OF THE 3. PECK'S HISTORY OF WY OMING. 4. PEARLS OF THOUGHT :' BY F. SAUNDERS, Esq. 5. TO CORRE SPONDENTS: RETURNING COMMUNICATIONS. 9 10 23 24 85 86 88 45 .46 59 . 60 69 70 71 74 76 77 78 81 84 86 109 ENTERED, ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS, IN THE YEAR 1858, BY JOHN A. GRAY, IN THE OLERK'S OFFICE OF THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE JOHN A. GRAY, Printer and Stereotyper, 16 and 18 Jacob Street, New-York. THE KNICKERBOCKER. VOL. LII. JULY, 1858. No. 1. ANGLO-FRENCH ALLIANCE AND ORSINI. WE doubt if any event of the last forty years, excited so much surprise on the European continent, as the Anglo-French alliance during the Russian war, and not surprise only, but chagrin and indignation. All the traditions of European diplomacy had declared such a union impossible; and it was probably the very last contingency to enter into the calculations either of the reactionnaires or the radicals. The former had always looked upon England as their firmest barrier against the onslaughts of French democracy, not because the political tendencies of the two countries were widely different, but because the two nations hated each other with that intense hatred which nothing but an ancient grudge' can inspire. France had, they calculated, suffered too much ever to forget, and England had inflicted too much injury ever to hope to be forgiven. Their wars had not, like those of the continent, been wars of diplomatists and generals, in which the people looked on in fear or curiosity, while the legions of the Emperor or the Grand Monarch defiled past their doors, to suffer defeats which inspired the peasant with no regret, or win victories which brought him neither relief nor rejoicing. Anglo-French wars were often, it is true, undertaken for the attainment of objects not visible to the eye of the masses; but the people of the two countries entered upon them with a hearty personal animosity which never sought to disguise itself. Each was to the other what the Turks were to the Hungarians, the Tartars to the Russians, the Moors to the Spaniards, and we were going to say, the British to the Americans—that article of prime necessity without which national life seems to move sluggishly, and in hatred of which so much fervid and turbulent patriotism finds vent'a natural enemy. From the birth of the two nations down to 1850, they had never united for a common object, or in obedience to a fellowfeeling, except in the Crusades, and no allusion to this famous religious experience was very likely in the middle of the nineteenth 6 century to cause Jacques Bonhomme to inclose the portly person of John Bull in a fraternal accolade. In the long interval which has since elapsed, how many wars of giants' have they waged, on how many bloody fields have they met, and how many hundreds of millions of treasure has each expended from his hard earnings, in the fell desire to harass, cripple, and destroy his rival? There was nothing in short, which, when Louis Napoleon ascended the throne, history did not make it seem safer to predict, than a union in arms, in a common cause, of the foes of Agincourt, and Fontenoy, and Waterloo. The liberals of every shade, from the moderate conservatives of Berlin to the most sanguinary reds of Leicester Square, felt themselves equally justified in scouting the idea as an impossibility. England had for thirty years been known as the fast friend of parliamentary government, not only at home, but all over the world. She had conferred it on her colonies, exacted it from her protegés, and done all that bullying, and wheedling, and intriguing, and arguing could do, to persuade mankind that it was the one great political elixir, before whose potent influence all sores and ulcers disappeared from the body politic in the twinkling of an eye. She had never even been willing to admit that exceptions might exist to the propriety of its application, or that it did not retain its virtues in any climate. The language of the English press and of the English legislature, had led every body on the continent to believe that it was an axiom in English politics, that the monarch who refused to bestow it on his people, was a knave or a fool, and the people who did not demand it, and if need be, fight for it, were asses or slaves. From 1820 to 1848, there was hardly a speech delivered on questions of foreign politics in either House of Parliament, hardly a line written in the London editorial bureaux, in which this lesson was not inculcated. Was it from this quarter that a frank and friendly recognition was to be looked for of the most unscrupulous, most determined, and most faithless enemy which parliamentary government has ever encountered? And was Lord Palmerston, who was cradled in parliamentary traditions, who has grown gray in parliamentary strife, whose laurels have been won in its conflicts, and whose strongest claim to the admiration of his countrymen is his English readiness in debate, his English respect for majorities, his hearty English appreciation of the tonic efficacy of election tumult and uproar not the last man whom the world would have expected to sacrifice his place in the cabinet to a desire to congratulate the conspirator of the Second of December upon having kicked parliament out of doors? Moreover, there was nothing for which England took more credit to herself, than the respect of her people for the law, and nothing she professed to honor more in others. The duty of obeying it, till changed, was one of the earliest lessons in her political catechism. She had, in all periods of her history, been more than usually vehement in her denunciations of military violations of it above all. She had never lost an opportunity of placing on armed interference with the ordinary course of justice, the stamp of public execration. Precautions against it have always been the first fruits of her revolutions, and all her great acta publica bristle with declarations of its enormity, and penalties on its perpetrators. And yet Louis Napoleon had been guilty of worse crimes against law, than those for which Charles lost his life, and James his crown. They suffered for violating liberties which had never been defined, and a constitution which they had never recognized. He abrogated a constitution he had sworn to maintain, and turned a court of justice into the street, which, in legal form and for proved guilt, had solemnly convicted him of treason. An alliance between France and England seemed under any circumstances improbable; but between England and the France of Napoleon the Third it seemed a monstrosity. It was brought about by the operation of two influences: one was Louis Napoleon's exceeding suavity and deference, and the other the brilliant openings for English capital which his regime seemed to offer. He had resided long in England, had studied the country closely, and thoroughly appreciated both her strong and weak points. He recognized in her the only antagonist in Europe whom France, in the zenith of her military splendor, could neither intimidate nor subdue, and was fully aware that the man must have more than his uncle's genius and twice his uncle's resources, who should desire her enmity or despise her friendship. The Queen of England was the only member of the European family of monarchs who would heartily acknowledge that popular choice was as good a title to legitimacy as hereditary descent; and there was no monarch in the world whose recognition would do so much to supply the place of heraldry and history. To be sure it would have been greater and grander to have relied solely on his seven millions of votes, and claimed for his royalty a loftier and nobler confirmation than lapse of ages or sacramental chrysm; but no one is always great any more than always wise. Every man has his weakness, and a desire to be admitted to the royal family on equal footing, and for this purpose 'to be well introduced,' seems to have been Louis Napoleon's. However it be, he never ceased, from the moment of his accession to the throne, to give the frankest and most unmistakable proofs of his desire to be on terms of cordial intimacy with his neighbor. The English government had the intrigues, the falsehood, the chicanery, and deceit of the Orleans dynasty still fresh in their memories; and the dangerous uncertainty and vacillation of the republic, was of still more recent date. To have to deal with a power which was not only all smiles, but whose smiles were real-which promised readily, and yet could keep its promises, was a bait too novel and too tempting to be rejected. Enormous investments of English capital were made in French securities during the reign of Louis Philippe. There was hardly a public work of importance in the whole country which did not owe its existence in great part to those bugbears of all honest French |