him what others he should have-what he

past delinquencies might be forgiven him. | elected for himself in the person of his friend, It is an interesting period of the new pro- a man totally unknown to the world: and, fessor's history: Wilson seems to have taken entering into all his plans and thoughts in the tempest with manful composure and detail, craves advice, guidance, instruction, steadiness, standing to his arms with an with utter simplicity and confidence. It is amount of calm amid all the stinging shower thus that Mrs. Gordon describes one of the of projectiles that flew around him, which letters of this remarkable correspondence:could scarcely have been expected of his "Of all the friends to whom he applied fiery nature. And when the smoke of the for counsel in this time of anxiety, there was conflict clears off, the many-sided man gleams none on whom he so implicitly relied, or who upon us in a new aspect, shutting himself was so able to assist him, as Alexander Blair. up, apart from all the recreations and de- To him he unbosomed himself in all the conlights in which his life had hitherto abounded, and elaborate letters-too long to be given fidence of friendship, and in several long in a room" literally filled" with books, de- entire-entered minutely into his plans for voting himself, with a closeness of applica- the course, asking for advice and suggestion of which up to this time he had shown tions with the eagerness and humility of a few symptoms, to the new work on which he pupil to his master. He gives a list of the had entered. The dreaming poet has had books he has got, and asks his friend to tell his day, and may have it again; so has the thinks of this and that theory-how many open-air Dalesman, with all his mighty lectures there should be on this topic and on muscles still in their grandest development; that. He sketches his own plan-how he is and so even has the critic, absolute and to commence with some attractive and elodauntless, without a scruple or compunction; quent introductory lectures, of a popular but here, in the mean time, is a philosopher though philosophical kind,' so as to make a grave, conscientious, anxious-taking good impression at first on his students, and also on the public. Then he proposes to counsel with books and friends, without ap-give eight or ten lectures on the moral sysparently a thought in his mind but how to fulfil this new duty, and hold his post with honesty and honor. To turn away from all those vulgar contentions, the slanders of enemies and formal testimonials of friends, the vexations and vicissitudes of the contest, and the agitated and unreasonable crowd which has fought over this question without any knowledge worth mentioning of the real point at issue and, subsiding into the quiet little house in Anne Street, among the early summer trees, to look over his great shoulder and find the new professor pouring forth his anxious soul to his dearest old friend, Dr. Blair, and recommending to the consideration of the helper upon whose judgment he has so much reliance, the plan he has formed for his untried work, and the system which suggests itself to his own intent and concentrated thoughts-is a contrast as remarkable and interesting as can be imagined. Of all the letters printed in these volumes, there are perhaps none which reveal the writer in an aspect so noble as those letters to Dr. Blair. Here it is a man, already known to fame, the victor of a hard contest, the winner of many laurels, who comes, with an earnestness much too real to admit of any attitudinizing, to the oracle which he has

THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. 969.

tems of ancient Greece, which Sir Walter Scott approves, and which he hopes Blair will also approve of. Then will commence his own course in right earnest: six or more lectures on the physical nature of manthen twelve more, though for no cause known,' on the intellectual powers. On this he wishes to have Blair's opinion, for at present he sees nothing for it but to tread in the steps of Reid and Stewart-which to avoid would be of great importance.' . . Then might come some lectures on taste and genius before coming to the moral being. Let Blair consider the subject. That brings us up to forty lectures. Then comes the moral nature-the affections and conscience, or whatever name that faculty may be called.' Here seems fine ground for descriptions of the operations of the passions and affections, and all concerned with them.

But

Then comes the will and all its problems, requiring at least six lectures. here I am also in the dark.' The rest of the course will embrace fifty lectures respecting the duties of the human being. I would fain hope that something very different from the common metaphysical lectures will produce itself out of this plan.' He will read on and attend most religiously to the suggestions' of his friend. Let his friend meanhow short the time is. time consider everything, and remember The letter ends that day with a 'God bless you!'"

It is this variety of character, always un- day be more identified with Edinburgh than folding new aspects and opening up un- his own grand person and familiar fame. It thought-of powers, which is the great charm is the beginning of his public life, and he of Wilson's mind. Whatever he may happen stands on the eve of all his triumphs. Beto be for the moment, he is so entirely, that, hind him lies as happy, yet as hard, a proa superficial observer is tempted to believe bation as often falls to the lot of man ; years that only must be his chief inspiration. of sunshine dazzling and effulgent, barred But in the twinkling of an eye the scene with sudden breaks of shadow. Already, in changes, and the same picturesque and no- the early play of his powers, reputation and ble figure gleams round, like a many- influence have come to him, more in sport and lighted lantern, in a new colour and altered by chance than from purpose or toil. Now radiance. So quick is the transition that he stands on the height of the arch of his life, the spectator is puzzled, and hesitates what and, breathing hard after the stings of that to make of the brilliant improvisatore who last sharp stretch of ascent, surveys the extemporizes not only a new language but a campaign before him, most likely as little new being at every turn. From poetry to aware of what was in it as any other mortal. prose, from sentiment to satire, from the He is not thinking of literature, he is thinkmost joyous of all idle lives to sudden ing of his lectures. The young professor, Hercules-efforts of toil, he flashes upon us in in whom only half of his encircling world revolving circles, ever brighter and more believes, has that burden on his mind, in the vivid than before, as though under his own first place to make sure provision for the belt he carried a hundred men. A greater wants of his post; and, thereafter, what difference could scarcely be conceived than pleases Providence. For Christopher North between that jovial wanderer, ever ready for has not been revealed yet out of the mirthsport or frolic, who comes into the little ful skies; summer days only, and gay hours Highland inn all laden with silvery spoils of the youthful twilight, but as yet no Noctes from loch and river, and this serious scholar have educed their bright impressions out of among his books, working out with brilliant that glowing, impetuous, and sunshiny soul. and rapid genius, but with steady labour as His fame and his work lie still before him, well, his first course of lectures. Instead of casting uncertain shadows upon the sanguine finding comparisons for him among the men firmament. Space and time forbid us here of his time, it is only with himself that we to enter into the brilliant perspective. Let can compare and contrast this manifold and us leave him for the moment at this natural multifarious soul. The life and force, the period. For the first time, and with a novel endless tide of vital energy and superb hu- sound, his name has become dignified into man strength which courses through his that of Professor Wilson. And there he sits, great veins, flow over upon everything he with his piled-up books, noting down the touches. All Edinburgh gleams alight with rapid suggestions of his genius for calm him as he goes about the streets; and where examination and arrangement, and inviting he stands, in the Chair of the Professor, in his friend to enter into those open and canthe Sanctum of Princes Street, and, still did chambers of his thoughts to supervize more, in the Ambrosian parlor, is about to and regulate the process. We could not become a luminous spot over half the world. pause upon a picture more full of truth and The light is but at the dawning when he sits meaning. When we open the record again thus in his suburban retirement, making it will be upon a fuller light and a more anout his lectures, anxious yet for the position imated foreground. Let us leave our hero which he has won after so hard a fight. His in the mean time in his study, consulting whole career lies unrevealed before him in that with anxious simplicity, and trusting with green seclusion of Anne Street, where he the confidence of a child in the final judgworks among his books, unaware as yet that ment of his early companion. It was thus not the noble firth, gleaming almost before that the new professor began the serious his eyes, nor the lion-hill behind, will one business of his life.

the throne, he, understanding alike his epoch and his people, pledged himself to save society, i.e., bourgeois prosperity, and sweep away the treaties of 1815. Hitherto he has kept his word. Amid much oppression and an almost total extinction of the freedom of speech and debate, the French have been enriched with the wealth which springs of order, and gratified with the prestige which follows successful power. The treaties of 1815 have been torn up at the point of the sword. The Frenchmen who mourned over the torpor of the press and the catalepsey of the tribune still found consolation in the idea that France was, abroad, the accepted leader of Europe. She had humbled Russia; she had enfranchised Italy; she had avenged Europe in China; she had gone forth to revive the dying civilization of Mexico. Everywhere she appeared as the armed champion of progress and nationality, without whose initiative the world held back in fear, and without whose consent no first-class experiment could be tried. Whatever the squalor at home the role before the footlights was grand, and France, essentially theatrical, forgave the unwashed chemise to which she was condemned indoors, for the sake of the queenly robe in which out of them all her parts were played.

From The Spectator, 6 Dec. THE FAILURES OF FRENCH DIPLOMACY. THE Ides of March have passed, and the Cæsar is still alive. It is said that the Emperor of the French, moved by one of those currents of superstition which affect men who have gone through strange careers, regarded this 2d of December, the tenth anniversary of the coup d'état, with a peculiar dread. The thought was a somewhat strange one, for the 2d of December has hitherto brought him fortune; and even he, with al his superb self-confidence, can scarcely believe that the day of his death will be one of his lucky days! Still it was entertained, and was, in part, perhaps, justified by the new activity perceptible in all ranks of the opposition, and the rapid increase of the always numerous conspiracies with which, to employ a bold figure, his throne is honeycombed. Patient observers, as indifferent as Arthur Young when he predicted the fall of the Bourbons, do not doubt that the discontent of France has, within the last few months, spread wider and deeper, and extended to classes usually as careless of politics as they are hostile to Red opinions. There is dissatisfaction among the bourgeoisie, hitherto willing to pardon all things to the "saviour of society," and low murmurs among the army which serves as the real, though well-concealed basis of the imperial power. Neither of these probably ever heard of the Ides of March, or have the faintest belief in anything save money and steel; yet the fear of an approaching catastrophe, of some tremendous event which should shake society, was so widely diffused as to extort from the Times a strange article, announcing, with a plainness surely unneces-ingly rude rebuffs. There is Italy, for whose sary, that England would greatly disapprove the emperor's assassination!

There are reasons for this agitation other than the predictions of Mr. Home. French society is disturbed because the reward to secure which it endures a despotic régime seems to be eluding its grasp. For the last hundred years the people of France, amidst never-ending mutations of opinion, have demanded of their rulers one of two things, progress at home, or a grand prestige abroad. Louis the Sixteenth fell because he was unable to secure either. Napoleon gave his people the second without measure or stint, and till his eagles faltered was absolute master of France, and, defeated, left behind him a memory which again raised his dynasty to the throne; Charles the Tenth refused both, and fell; Louis Philippe stole away liberty, restricted progress, allowed external influence to slip completely out of his grasp, and slunk away out of France. The republic promised no glory, and gave no assurance of progress, and when Louis Napoleon seized

A cold fear chills, for the moment, the pleasant warmth of habitual vanity. What if the part played by France were not really so great as she had been led to suppose-if her detested rival, though stripped of all spangles and forbidden a train, were acting the character on which genius had expended its strength? The empire is as strong as ever, but it has met, of late, some exceed

sake the emperor has expended so many lives not his own, and so much treasure of which he was only the elected custodian-is France all-powerful there? Italy, say French politicians, almost sullenly, it would seem reverences England more than France; consults Sir James Hudson when M. Benedetti is civilly put aside, upholds English ideas of parliamentary government and order, thanks Earl Russell with statuary for his cordial support, and finally overthrows the special French nominee. French opinion, always somewhat diseased upon that point, regards the struggle at Turin-a struggle which is entirely one between the people and the king's favorite-as mainly a contest between the friends of England and France. The helpless fall of Rattazzi, known to be devoted to France, strikes Frenchmen as a proof that Napoleonic diplomacy, with all its material power, still weakens French hold over nations. If Italy, in her wise national selfishness,should deem the unbought friendship of England as valuable as the purchased

Lastly, throughout these events, running alongside them all, is the history of the Mexican expedition. Frenchmen never approved that dreamy project, for the conquest of vast deserts ravaged by the vomito never seemed to them worth the risk of a conflict with North America. Still the expedition sailed, and in a few weeks broke down. The deserts were worse than expected, the Mexicans more hostile than was anticipated. Nobody but an intrigant and a bandit joined France, and a French army was reduced to fortify itself on a plain in order to avoid a surrender. Defeat is impossible to Napoleon, and the army, at huge expense, was increased tenfold; and after a delay very fatal to the French notion of glory,-which, like an Englishman's passion for wealth, includes speedy possession-the new host arrived, only to march on the capital at the rate of a league a day. Nobody except the emperor knows precisely what has gone wrong in Mexico, but the fact is sufficiently patent that after eight months of effort an Indian, backed by a half-disciplined army of halfcastes, succeeds in setting a general of France and a French corps d'armée at open defiance. The hearts of Frenchmen grow sore as they reflect on these things, and like Italians when it refuses to rain, they are ready to turn on the idol who has received so many offerings and yet refuses the price.

"ideas" of France, then must the Italian | strives for peace, yet is ready for war, which policy of three years be pronounced a patent above all upholds unflinchingly the true pop and costly failure. Then there is the frontier ular creed, the right of every people to govof the Rhine. Napoleon has helped, no ern itself-this is the country which Greece, doubt, to place the Prussian king in antag- as well as Italy, thinks it worth while to imionism with his people; but the new premier, tate and to secure. The reflection is galling though absolutist, is still intensely German; to men who feel that, but for Napoleon, and as for the monarch, he wanted part of France might again take her natural post as the refused budget to expend on a complete the leader of continental ideas; and who, to repair of the fortifications of Magdeburg. do them justice, believe that distinction one Again, the greatest event of the last ten of the few which are nobler than the lead in years is the civil war, which for eighteen diplomacy or victory on the field. France, months has threatened the dismemberment it would seem, in Greece also, is not the of the United States. France in that, as in first power in the world. every other quarrel, must assume the leading position, and the emperor consequently recommended England and Russia to join him in a project of menacing mediation. English statesmen, well aware that mediation means intervention, that intervention is costly, and that the English working-class, enlightened by emigrants' letters, is very strongly Northern in sympathy, declined the specious proposal. The French Government therefore remains, in American politics, alone, with no alliance to offer to the South, except at the cost of a war, and with their old and natural alliance with the North embarrassed or broken up. France seems in America also not to be the first power in the world. Scarcely has this negotiation been commenced, when a revolution breaks out in Greece. The Greek throne becomes vacant, and once more French diplomacy has a magnificent field. The French people is really interested in the so-called Eastern question, for that question involves the possession of Syria, and the sentiment which evolved the Crusades-dead everywhere else -exists in France as a living power. The people care about Jerusalem more than they do about Rome. To seat a French nominee on the throne of Greece would almost secure Syria, and by rare good fortune the chosen French nominee was also the favorite at St. Petersburg. The Greeks could never resist at once both Russia and France, and the election of the Duc de Leuchtenberg was regarded as almost certain, when again French diplomacy failed. The whole Greek nation, unmoved by English intrigues, unsolicited by English ministers, has pronounced emphatically that the next King of the Greeks shall be an English prince. The failure is the more humiliating, because, in spite of angry remarks, its causes are thoroughly understood. The French, more than any other people on earth, appreciate the power of ideas, know how powerless intrigues become when addressed to men governed by a great thought; and they feel that it is English ideas, not English bayonets, which have secured their defeat. The country which reverences order but maintains liberty,

Do we, therefore, consider the empire in serious danger? Not so. It might be with an inferior man on the throne, or the same man grown old; but Napoleon the Third, indolent, self-confident, and wearied as he may be, is still the most astute and energetic of living rulers. He will detect, if he has not already detected, the cause of the dissatisfaction of France, and the brain which has never failed him yet will aid him once again. It is not an émeute we fear for France, but the proved necessity for achieving some new and striking success. The emperor must do something, and the something must impose on the world. He cannot well undo Italy, for Orsini is not forgotten; and, unless hopelessly embarrassed, he will scarcely select the one power which can

face him on equal terms. Events are not always better education, higher social posiripe for a German campaign, lesser expedi- tion, more first-hand conversancy with pubtions promise no glory, and the dream of re- lic affairs. The latter especially it has alorganizing Spanish America does not attract ways. A Legislative Chamber close to the his people. He must discover an object scene of action is necessarily more conscious great enough to flatter France, yet in which of the exact nature of public business, is England has no interest to interfere, and in which the absence of his army in Mexico will not be an embarrassment, and the only quarter in which such an object is visible is the American Civil War. An armed mediation would enable him to release the cotton his people need and the tobacco necessary to his revenue, would afford him the pretext required for retreating from Mexico, perhaps over a golden bridge constructed both by Juarez and the South, and enable him once more to stand forward before the French nation in the only position which makes him safe-the arbiter of a continent.

From The Economist, 6 Dec.
THE DEFECT OF AMERICA.

PRESIDENTIAL AND MINISTERIAL GOVERN

MENTS COMPARED.

more alive to the evident issue of proximate national decisions than the country at large can be. A Parliament, when it selects its ruler, does so with a full cognizance of the real importance of what it is doing. A nation rarely can do so. When very great principles are at stake,-when the best national mind is thoroughly roused, the selection may be good. The Americans chose General Washington in preference to George the Third, and they chose well. But when the public mind is unexcited,-when there is no great event to stimulate it,—when political transactions are not so large as to awaken diffused feeling and diffused imagination, the nation en masse is indifferent. It is not so much a bad judge as no judge. It has simply no opinion on the matter in hand. In consequence it judges at random or rather, like a large constituency in parlia THE American Revolution has been con-mentary counties, like the borough of Finssidered excessively in various aspects, but bury or Lambeth, it is apt to fall into the there is one aspect in which it has not been hands of electioneering associations. It is sufficiently considered. The South have too large to be canvassed, or managed, or peradopted from the North the vital principle of sonally solicited by the candidate. And as the constitution of what was the Union, and it some elective apparatus, some choosing mais not too much to say that this principle con- chinery, some mode of saying who shall vote tains an essential defect which has much con- for whom is necessarily requisite, a perpetual tributed to the successful rupture of the Union. one is created, which chooses, not for patriotic Free Governments are of necessity divided reasons, but for corrupt reasons. The popuinto two classes, which may be called the lar mind is at sea; it cannot elect for itself; Ministerial and the Presidential. Minor and it falls into the guidance of professional differences may be for this purpose disre- electors (President-makers is the American garded, since minute ramifications will of word), who choose, not for the best reasons, necessity arise in the various circumstances but for the worst,-not for what the elected of different countries, but the essential con- man will do, but for what they themselves trast remains. In Ministerial Governments will get. The vast unorganized popular conthe supreme Executive is appointed by the stituency follows these licensed managers Legislative Assembly; in Presidential Gov-like sheep, as on a much smaller and more ernments the Executive claims directly under the people, as it alleges and boasts, and is specially elected by the nation at large. The type of Ministerial Government is the English: the type of Presidential Government is the American. With the aid of recent events, a little consideration will show that the latter method is radically inferior to the former, although, being, in appearance at least, free to choose, the Southern Confederacy have selected it in preference to the former. There are three most effective causes of inferiority.

First. The choosers under a Ministerial system are much better than in the Presidential. A Legislative Chamber is always a select body, even under the worst system of election, far excelling the electing body from which it emanated. On the average it has

manageable scale one of the best of our metropolitan constituencies obeyed the fiat of its managers in the choice of Mr. Roupell.

And, secondly, even if the electors under the two forms of Government were equally competent, even if a skilled assembly at the centre of politics were on a level in inherent capabilities with a scattered unskilful people, it would not be less true that in accidental opportunities the assembly is far superior to the people. The House of Commons sees Lord Palmerston every day; the American people never saw Mr. Lincoln at all. The choice of a Parliament is made necessarily and naturally from its marked leaders, its authoritative heads of parties, its most prominent and business-like members. The prime minister under a Parliamentary Government must, it has been said, have these qualities.