All this is, of course, written pretendedly eagerness for it, which makes the head of from an English point of view, and advocates ambitious ability swim. It is far easier for British intervention on the score that it would be beneficial to England to help in the destruction of the American Union.

eign, and her permanent minister." This the Memoir calls the "beauty of usefulness." could not be to an ambitious man a list of There exists, indeed, a striking similarity duties which would compare in brilliancy between the tone of the prince's speeches, with the post he declined; but the prince felt the subjects he evidently chooses by preferthat they were his first duties, and that to ence, the mode in which he treats them, perform them well "he should aim at no the favorite schemes of the great Weimar power by himself or for himself, should shun Geheimrath. For instance, the prince eviall ostentation, and assume no separate re- dently entered deeply by choice into the best sponsibility before the country," and he did mode of alleviating the wretchedness of the not hesitate in his decision. Still that deci- poor man's home, the improvement of the sion-right as it unquestionably was in mere methods of agriculture, the best economy of prudence, for what might not have resulted social life. These are subjects which natuif the excitement of the public mind conse- rally attract a calm, benignant mind, bent on quent on the disasters of the Crimean war, introducing a finer harmony into the tangle had taken place under the nominal responsi- of the life around it. His was a humane inbility of the Prince Consort ?-involved a stinct overruled by a positive pleasure in the very high degree of the rarest of all states- delicate adaptation of means to ends. Just so, man-like qualities, a considerate humility, one of Goethe's first efforts as a minister was disturbed by no mist of vanity, and absolute to introduce a more orderly principle of admaster of its own range of duty. It is im- ministration into the little Weimar army, and possible to pass by so remarkable'an instance to organize a Fire-brigade for the town. The of simple and yet, in some sense, command- poet-minister had a strong individual taste ing self-denial-for there is a clear command for disciplining the confused energies of a of himself and of the situation in every line helpless crowd, and had directed the volunof the correspondence and memorandum-teers in extinguishing three serious fires at without recurring with profound gratitude to the memory of the statesman who has taught us this highest and rarest of all the qualities of true statesmanship, or without tendering our heartiest thanks to the queen for permitting this noblest of political lessons to be incorporated in the valuable memorial we have just received of the prince.

much risk to himself, before he dealt with the matter as a minister. The late Prince Consort displays exactly the same kind of administrative taste in these speeches, and displayed it also in his life. He goes, for instance, into the subject of the "Servants' Provident and Benevolent Society," with just the same kind of artistic providence with Indeed, without this unique passage in the which Goethe entered into the organization prince's life, we should scarcely be able to of the Fire Brigade. English philanthropists construct any complete picture of the char-attack such subjects with a certain exclusiveacter of his statesmanship. We can see from ness of practical interest, which is widely other sources that he was what we may call distinguishable intellectually from the attia statesman of the calm artistic type, a type little if at all known in England, and certainly not a natural product of our Constitution. The speeches as well as the tastes described in the introductory Memoir, remind one strongly of the type of statesmanship which the poet Goethe devoted to the service of the Grand Duke of Weimar,-though, of course, formed on much wider and weightier experience. There is the same distinct orderly mind, the same horror of maladministration, the same sense of art in practical life, the same value for what the editor of

tude of mind of which we are speaking. It was not merely the good done, but the unarchy reduced, the harmonizing principle engrafted on chaos,-which gratified the fine æsthetic instinct of the Prince Consort in such works as these; and in this it is that he reminds us of the delicate administrative taste of the shrewd poet of Weimar.

But the Prince Consort, though a statesman of the calm artistic type, evinced in the negotiation to which we have before referred, a gift as rare in that school as it is in the less deliberate school of English statesmanship. Whatever the peculiar gifts of the The Principal Speeches and Addresses of His artistic type of statesmanship may be, huRoyal Highness the Prince Consort: with an Introduction giving some Outline of his Character. Mur-mility is quite as rarely one of them as of the hotter English type. There is a peculiar

ray.

vein of aristocratic temperament in every the ends of despotism as that kind of low true artistic constitution, even when not be- literature which is the prostitution of intellonging to a man of high rank-a vein which lect, and can have no other effect than that shows itself again and again, not only in the of undermining all manly feeling. It was a speeches of the late Prince Consort, but in maxim much in vogue among French men the fine lines of that fastidious face. Now, and women of fashion in the last century, this aristocratic sense is apt to smother the that "love is more relishable than marriage germs of humility, and certainly smothered for about the same reason which renders rothem in Goethe. That the Prince Consort, mances more relishable than history." But retained so true and simple a humility of why are romances of the lowest description judgment in spite of this temperament and more relished than history, by so many peoin spite of the blinding lights to which his ple in France at present, if not because vice station in life exposed him, is a lesson in is by them more relished than virtue? Whotrue nobility to Englishmen of all stations ever is acquainted with that class of French which the nation ought never to forget. novels of which "Fanny" may be said to be the type, knows well enough to what extent their sentimentality is sensual and their refinement coarse. Yet these are not the productions I mean to allude to. Books have flooded France far worse than those of MM. Feydean and Flaubert, however emasculating the latter; and the Imperial Government seems to have witnessed with unconcern the growing success of a prurient literature quite worthy of the period.

From The Spectator. MORALS UNDER THE EMPIRE. [FROM OUR SPEcial correspoNDENT.] NEED I call to mind in what way the Imperial Government has, from the beginning, dealt with history, science, general literature; and how the study of philosophy was Not that the Imperial Government convirtually prohibited at the Ecole Normale,- siders it its duty not to interfere with the that nursery for teachers; and how the very book-trade. Just the reverse. At no period name of philosophy became hateful to the were the book-firms made to depend so enreigning power as connected with revolu- tirely on the pleasure of those in power. tionary propensities; and how the instruc- Not only is every dealer manacled by the obtion given to any such as study for the bach-ligation of obtaining from Government a elorship of letters was curtailed; and what patent, which-mark it well-is revocable at implacable war was waged, not only against will; but the hawkers (colporteurs), through the " College de France," but against the whose medium the book-trade is chiefly car"Institut," more especially distasteful to ried out, are directly and strictly kept under Cæsarism, because intended to foster the control, so much so, that they are not allowed worship of intellectual merit? It is but to sell one single copy of any book, without natural that the gross material enjoyments having had that copy duly stamped at the which civilization can procure should be ex- Ministry of the Interior, and enriched with clusively sought after, where no enjoyments the following inscription: "Sureté Générof a higher class are in favor with those in ale." It is, in fact, the system of passports whose hands lies the moving force. Love applied to the peregrinations of the human of riches, love of pleasures, luxury, gambling, mind. The favor conferred by the Governextravagant passion for dress, these are the ment on a certain class of most objectionable springs which the empire, on the very day publications cannot, therefore, be mistaken of its establishment, made it a point to set for impotence. The rule is that whatever a-going-better to avert men's minds from comes to light in France has been permitted politics, and so to lower the level of the na- to come to light, and, consequently, involves tion as to make a tame, degrading submis- the moral responsibility of Government. sion to despotism more acceptable. God forbid I should complain that the Second Empire does not make a still more extensive use of the formidable weapons that are at its disposal; but is it not very remarkable that such books as M. Michelet's Sor

No wonder that a Government, thus bent on mischief, should have winked systematically at the licentiousness of novel-writers, for nothing is so well calculated to further

time, at any rate, corruption did not become fashionable. The regent made it so, because his good-natured immorality led him, not only to tolerate, but to humor in others the excesses in which he himself took delight. Surely, I do not mean to hint that this is the case with the present ruler of France. But it is a matter of public notoriety that the

ceress should be stopped, whilst such books privilege of his rank to trample upon morals. as La Vie de Rigolboche have triumphantly The consequence was, that during his lifegone through an almost indefinite number of editions? The reason is that the depravity of manners is one of the props of despotism. Nothing can be more congenial to its nature than a state of things the effect of which is to fritter away all sober inclination of the heart, to nurse a debasing love of unworthy objects, and to substitute a variety of mock obligations and abject enjoyments" court life," under the Second Empire, is for those manly duties and subdued home pleasures which, while asserting the dignity of human nature, are the real foundations of human happiness.

far from being what it was in France under Louis Philippe, and what it is in England now.

Besides, the Tuileries and Compiègne are not the only places in view; and among so many princely residences there is one, at least, which might perhaps bring to one's recollection the celebrated palace where the regent and his friends kept revelling every night, under the convivial dictatorship of Canilhac.

That, in this respect, the Second Empire has been fully equal to its task, is shown by the mode of social life now prevalent in the world of the Satisfaits, a world composed of high functionaries generously paid out of the public purse-of time-serving courtiers enabled to live in clover-of idiots proud to be something where men of talent are nothing I will not dwell on the importance of the -of court butterflies grown out of grubs- facts above stated. Such a state of things of women making it the business of their is, no doubt, worth chronicling. The manlives to dress more expensively than is al- ner in which the better inclinations of the lowed by the income of their husbands-of heart are cherished or vitiated, supplies one would-be men of fashion greedy of pleasure of the surest bases for the philosophical apand sick of pleasure-of favored stock-job-preciation of a given period. Whenever they bers dealing in State secrets, and squander- are changed by a gradual perversion of soing on orgies the money unfairly won at the Bourse of hired journalists and suddenly enriched gamblers. By all those people, of course, the Second Empire is proclaimed "le meilleur des mondes possibles," and care is taken that every one should know that it is not safe to gainsay this sweeping

assertion.

Moreover, there is a great deal of corruption flowing from above. It is one of the saddest features of despotism that it implies both the temptation and the power of giving loose to one's caprices. It is true that this may be done so as not to offend too openly against decorum. In former times, when Tiberius resolved on spending the last years of his life in reprovable pleasures, he betook himself to a lonely place, where he could gratify his tastes unseen as well as unchecked. But all despots are not like Tiberius. Neither are all of them like Louis XIV., who, while scandalizing the nation by the spectacle of his private life, would not have the rules of propriety violated by anybody but himself, thus intimating that it was a special

cial habits into spurious raving sentimentality, or into sensual, insincere, and refined gallantry, there symptoms appear of a mortal disease. For no edifice is of a lasting nature which rests on rotten foundations.

A FREEMAN.

From The Spectator.

THE AFGHANISTAN OF TO-DAY.* THERE are only two ways that we know of of writing travels acceptably. One, and perhaps the better, is to traverse a country with a definite object, observe everything minutely which bears upon that object, describe everything which unconsciously tends to elucidate or dispel the preconceived theory, and so produce at once a most accurate narrative and a complete artistic work. Mr. Senior, granting that his object is political truth, and not this or that form of truth, does this constantly in a very thorough and painstaking way. Mr. Laing did it even more perfectly, and his book on Norway is, perhaps, the very

*Journal of a Mission to Afghanistan in 1857. By H. W. Bellew. Smith, Elder, and Co.

spect. We occupied Afghanistan, were massacred in Afghanistan, utterly subjugated Afghanistan, and quitted Afghanistan; these are all the external facts, and the average Englishman, habituated to see his flag remain wherever it has once been planted, gives the Afghan credit for latent qualities before which that flag was compelled or induced to retreat. One of the very worst and most disorganized races in Asia is therefore invested with attributes, which relieve them altogether of the contempt so commonly and so senselessly felt for all other Asiatics.

best book of travels of this kind ever com- | the Afghans beat us; and an Asiatic who can posed. Mr. Mackay's "Western World" defeat an Englishman is entitled to his rehas nearly the same merit, and so have one or two recent works on Australia and New Zealand. The other and more difficult plan is to record all the traveller sees, without object save to record faithfully, and consequently without either consciousness or bias. Most of the earlier travellers wrote in this style, and the result is an accuracy of description which has kept their accounts alive for generations. Their fidelity is often marvellous, their observation so minute, that, to the man who is really studying, their descriptions are often better guides than the sketchy and self-conscious accounts of much more recent tourists. There are, for instance, hundreds of travels in Russia, but there is no account of the Russian people to compare in accuracy with that of Mandelslo, vhose book was published some two hundred years ago. Mr. Bellew belongs to the latter class, and is entitled to no mean place among them. His journal reads like a reprint from Hakluyt. He accompanied the embassy sent from Calcutta to Afghanistan in 1857 as medical officer; and kept, it would seem, a very full diary. This he has given us almost in extenso, and unlike most diaries it is charming reading. Gifted, to judge from internal evidence, with keen eyes, good spirits, imperturbable temper, and that faculty of comprehending Asiatics which is incommunicable, and which in the East stands in the place of all other mental powers, he has drawn a picture of Afghan life, society, and politics such as the most accomplished literary artist can only admire at a distance. Nobody save a faithful observer, utterly careless of the effect he was producing, could have drawn such a picture of the Afghan heir apparent, without once descending abuse, or indeed expressing any peremptory opinion at all. We do not know that it is very important to understand Afghans-all Eastern knowledge is habitually overrated—but those who care for such information may acquire it in full completeness, without exertion and without weariness, from Mr. Bellew's old-fashioned, but most instructive journal.

There is a quaint and wholly unreasonable prejudice in England in favor of the Afghans. The public mind, always ill-informed on Asiatic affairs, and always prone to worship success, is impressed with the notion that

There seems to be little doubt that the dominant and most numerous tribe of Afghans, about three millions in number, and ruling two millions of other tribes, are degenerate Jews, not, as they claim to be, detine who, after the great depopulation by scendants of Saul, but refugees from PalesNebuchadnezzar, fled eastward, settled in these mountains, and intermarried with the native women. No man who ever saw an Afghan doubts his affinity to the Jews; their traditions and books universally point to this origin-which is one no Oriental would invent-and though their creed is now Mussulman, their superstitions, laws of inheritance, and punishments are all based on the ancient Hebrew code. Left to their own devices, with none of the restraining influences of their own creed, and with a tendency to idol worship even Mahommedanism cannot eradicate, they have become just what their forefathers became in Israel during their backslidings-an utterly evil race, proud and poverty-stricken; full of arrogance and greed and lust, and scrupling at no act which seems to promise immediate advantage. Like the continental aristocracy, they are above trade, and can only fight, cultivate and goats, with which some tribes wander the soil, and breed enormous herds of sheep from valley to valley like Calmuks, or other nomad hordes. Excessively jealous of their women, they are themselves steeped to the lips in the worst crimes, and though they talk of Nang-i-Pukhtun, or Afghan honor, their word is utterly unreliable. Brave, but indocile, habituated to despotism but not to struct a State, and are only restrained from obedience, they have totally failed to condisintegration into minute tribes by the hope of external conquest, the excessive pressure to which they are subjected from without, or the ascendency occasionally acquired by some unscrupulous man of genius. Dost Mahommed holds them now, and will till he dies; but he is in extreme old age, and his eldest son inherits few of his greater qualities.