selves but little with the immediate agent-the ambition of the Russian Cabinet-but they discern the primary cause in the revolving course of human affairs. They anticipate something like the better days of the Roman empire. Not despotism in its brutal form, arrayed in its native horrors; but despotism in its fictitious attributes, displaying the perfidious lures of peace and prosperity; despotism prepared and distilled with preternatural subtleness of purpose. They say that we have witnessed the last efforts of national valour, the expiring struggle of national independence; and that the world is ripe for that general calm which despotism may bestow; the calm and repose which, in Schiller's phrase, Philip II. promised to give to the Netherlands-die Ruhe eines Kirchhofs. * Further, to prove the similarity of the present state of things to that period of the Roman world, they appeal to the fact that the golden age of literature has gone by; that the age of Sophists and Rhetoricians, of Grammarians and Scholiasts, of Encyclopedias and Manuals of Science, has succeeded, a species of literature not so much in itself contemptible, as brought into undue relief by the absence of original efforts; they speak of the depravation of the national taste, of utility, without any generous aspiration, and luxury without elegance, as the presiding deities of social life. Others again, more resolute or more sanguine than the rest, would continue the historic parallel, and lead us on from despair to some faint and distant hope, that, when all shall have been swept away, they of the Don and the Ural may be destined to obey the instinct of civilization; and that, after ages of barbaric darkness and anarchy, through the self-taught efforts of a healthier race, Europe may in the end recover that beacon of light and liberty, from which her depraved sons had once been led astray.

The repose of a Churchyard.

VOL. III.-NO. XXV.

HH

These are dreams; why should I dwell upon them? Because, in the disposition of those dreamers, I discern the elements of a latent opposition, which may yet be roused from passive speculation; a sense of danger, which needs only to be pointed by the mention of a definite object, instead of being weakened by vague apprehensions; a sympathy contracted by long habit, and a consciousness of what we are on the point of losing, and what their waking, welldirected exertion may still preserve.

So much for our alleged Russian predilections. Let us proceed to the impression which the domestic policy of England has produced on the more active and sober portion of the German Constitutionalists. It is a fact that by a popular speaker in the Chambers of Baden the failure of the first Reform Bill has been identified with the fall of Warsaw, and described as a matter of triumph for the aristocrats of all Europe. I believe that such was, upon the whole, the popular feeling in the Constitutional States. There may be prejudice in this view, or want of tact, or both; but I think, even to a Conservative eye, it cannot be displeasing to perceive that the German Constitutionalists would look to reforming England rather than to revolutionary France. And such, in spite of the jealousy occasioned by the restrictive systems of commerce adopted on both sides, I may affirm to be the case. When it is asserted that we made up our minds to the belief that the representative system is but a delusion, I think I may, in some future letter, follow this notion to its source. For the present, I shall content myself with extracting the opinions of some popular writers belonging to the moderate party on the merits of the Reform Question. In a work, which is understood to be from the pen of Professor Hegewisch of Kiel, (Politische Freiheit, von F. Baltisch, Leipzig, 1832,)

the writer, in a very characteristic manner, expresses his admiration of the Constitution of England. He almost triumphantly appeals to the fact that not even such a signal amelioration as he considers the first Reform Bill to have. been could have been carried against the constitutional opposition of the Lords. Rather die in the sella curulis, than approve of that which, if carried by the mere desire of the multitude, would be the signal of anarchy and violence. "The whole nation, the whole of the enlightened part of the nation, desire reform; there are but some fifty votes against it, and the Bill does not pass into law. What spell, then, is it that imparts to these few opponents the power of opposing millions? It is their right, it is the indubitable right of the Lords, and the innate reverence of constitutional right, which, with a few exceptions, imposes silence upon the ardent desire and the passions of the multitude.” I think this trait highly illustrative of the temper in which those affairs were discussed in Germany. Again, it was the settled opinion of the German Constitutionalists that the passing of the Reform Bill alone could have preserved the country from a violent revulsion. One of our esteemed veterans, Rehberg of Göttingen, concludes his notes to Lord Porchester's observations on Spain with the following sentence: "How great is the obligation, not of England alone, to King William IV., and to his Ministry, must be clear to any one who will take the trouble of reflecting what consequences a violent revolution in Great Britain must have produced on the continent of Europe. This danger has been happily averted by Parliamentary Reform; and thus no one may, in fact, have more occasion to be thankful to Lords Grey, Althorp, and Brougham, than those very Cabinets which have been suspected of secret intrigues for the expulsion of those Ministers."

GERMANICUS VINDEX.

THE CROSS AND THE CRESCENT.

OUR attention has been attracted to a very able article in the January number of Blackwood's Magazine, in which the writer, after sketching the progress and designs, and describing the preponderating power of Russia, in terms which we are inclined to think somewhat exaggerated, arrives at the startling conclusion that the extension of that power is desirable, as it would promote the views of the Divinity in the extension of the Christian faith.

Such views are common to a great portion of England and of Europe.

We

It is strange to see, first, differences of political opinion, then matters of religious dogma, contributing to the furtherance of the ambitious schemes of that power whose strength is really in our own weakness of mind, and who succeeds in all her projects merely by the support she derives from the prejudices and ignorance of those most interested in opposing her. It is singular that, notwithstanding the complete exposure that has taken place with respect to her designs, she has, up to this moment, scarcely lost one of the means by which she has acted on the minds of men. still imagine, in this country, that interference in foreign policy is intervention between discordant domestic principles. We still believe that we can oppose the projects of Russia only by going to war. We are still convinced that her supremacy is actually established in Eastern countries, and there are millions of the devout and pious of Europe, who imagine that the progress of Moscovite hordes is the advancement of civilization and the triumph of Christianity. To this last fallacy we will, for the present, more par

ticularly address ourselves, and we commence by quoting the passage to which we refer, which has called forth these observations.

While the naval strength and colonial dominions of England have steadily and unceasingly advanced in Western Europe, and its influence is in consequence spread over all the maritime regions of the globe, another, and an equally irresistible power has risen up in the Eastern hemisphere. If all the contests of centuries have turned to the advantage of the English navy, all the continental strifes have as unceasingly augmented the strength of Russia. From the time of the Czar Peter, when it first emerged from obscurity to take a leading part in continental affairs, to the present moment, its progress has been unbroken. Alone, of all other states, during that long period, it has experienced no reverses, but constantly advanced in power, territory, and resources; for even the peace of Tilsit, which followed the disasters of Austerlitz and Friedland, was attended with an accession of territory. During that period it has successively swallowed up Courland and Livonia, Poland, Finland, the Crimea, the Ukraine, Wallachia, and Moldavia. Its southern frontier is now washed by the Danube; its eastern is within fifty leagues of Berlin and Vienna; its advanced posts in the Baltic are within sight of Stockholm; its south-eastern boundary, stretching far over the Caucasus, sweeps down to Erivan and the foot of Mount Ararat-Persia and Turkey are irrevocably subjected to its influence: a solemn treaty has given it the command of the Dardanelles; a subsidiary Moscovite force has visited Scutari, and rescued the Osmanlis from destruction, and the Sultan Mahmoud retains Constantinople only as the Viceroy of the Northern Autocrat.

Now it is false to assert that this is the state of Turkey. There is apparent submission, but that submission ceases the moment England chooses to assert that it has ceased. The fact is not so, and therefore the consequences have not yet followed. No doubt the time will arrive when submission will take place, but that will come as the result of the artifices which appear to have been so often successful, and of