the whole thing is so palpable and transparent, that we feel pity both for the journalist who writes and the public that believes such shallow one-sided artifices and pretences. Whilst acknowledging the power of Russia in the facts which it details of Austria's violent desire for peace, the Times would conquer Prussia in anticipation by abusing her resources. "For Heaven's sake, do not; but, if you do, it is no use!" is the argument which Austria breathes through her English mouthpiece.

Let us lay the following to our hearts, nor rise without benefit from the lesson. If Prussia preserve peace, it is because she is ready for war; because she has shown her teeth, and called out her armed defenders: it is because she is powerful and confident. Thus the very measures which the Times at once sneers at and deprecates are those which secure her from disgrace, slavery, and annexation, such as was the fate of the patriotic but unfortunate Poland.

Let England take the hint, if she wish to be able to maintain in her bosom the germs of a practical as well as a sentimental universal Peace Congress.

CATHOLIC HOPES,

HAD an act been at once framed to banish Pudentiana from our shores, the country would have been spared much internal disorder. As it is, the vain hopes of the Catholics will lead to bitter strife; whilst external danger will grow out of this half-promise of a prey, whose show of resistance is but a mean recalcitration and a paltry negative. The noble proclamation of Mazzini and his brethren must warm every liberal heart. Genius and Truth have dictated the

words, which repose and thought have purified and weeded. It brands the traitor and the despot with infamy, and proclaims that the Freedom of Italy will arise from her grave in words so bold and auspicious in their sound, that we regard them as foretold events, and lean upon the speech of the Patriot as if it were the sword of a host. The present Ministry is now forced back upon a sharp-pointed crisis. They must either act or be dissolved. We trust that the words alleged to have been spoken by VICTORIA, which the “ Times" deprecates as those of a tragedy Queen, did in good truth fall from her lips.

A SIGNIFICANT SOUND FROM THE PROGRAMME OF JULLIEN.

WE cannot help noticing, in the programme of M. Jullien, who has lately signalized himself (can he admit of further renown?) by an importation of French drummers with a real Tambour-Major, the following most significant descriptive morceau-“No. V. March of all Nations to London. The morning of the inauguration of the Grand Exhibition is supposed to have arrived," &c., &c. Why a march, on so peaceful an occasion-could it not have been a pacific jig or a fraternal polka?

The great patchwork musician and "Mosaic master" of sound, immediately turns the "Great Exhibition" to account. As the railway mania brought into play all the patent and lurking pretenders of the moment, and like a great false money speculation, as it was, drew forth all the non-capitalists, gamblers, sharpers, and superficial plausible scamps that could be imagined, besides making many more—

M

so, in a moral sense, does this Great Exhibition quackery put in motion all the shallow puppets of the hour. Every advertiser-every pill-and-potion-vending mountebank in the great fair of the world-sees opportunity and material to be gathered under this great forcing-frame of humanity. The inventions of rogues, as well as the needy patents of the industrious and the gorgeous displays of the wealthy manufacturer, will spring up like bulbs in a night. There will be a fifty-mushroom-power spread abroad, and not a few fungi amongst the mushrooms.

But the difference will be this. As the progress of humanity, including the arts and inventions which refine and dignify our existence, must be gradual, any sudden production of good will not take root under an unnatural heat and pressure. On the other hand, evil, which, like a weed, grows best in the rank soil created alike by wild luxuriance or over-tillage, will become permanent in its ereation. We are aware that many persons apprehend a physical pestilence on the approaching occasion. It is certainly far from improbable; although it is a subject upon which we can offer no direct prophecy. But a moral plague will burst out and become chronic in England. However, we should not be surprised if both America and the Continent be in such a state, in the course of about six months, as to make the show abortive, as far as many of our anticipated foreign visitors are concerned. The Slave Question in the United States, and the struggle between Liberty and Tyranny, Protestantism and the Pope, in Europe, will convulse the world, even if England succeed in holding herself still longer aloof. We do not consider the state of America so momentous, it is true. It is with her a mere convulsion of infancy. With us a paralytic stroke approaches, foretold for many a year. To use another medical

figure, since quackery is the order of the day, the gout of England is rising to its stomach; and, like the greedy mistress of a dying nobleman, the free-trader feeds the country with bread and milk, and scatters straw in the street to deaden external sound, as if parturition and not dissolution wére the result anticipated. However, to recur to M. Jullien, with whom we started, we fear his programme may be, in some degree, prophetical, when it speaks of the "March of all Nations upon London." Di avertite omen!

THE BIRMINGHAM PEACE-MEETING.

A MOST pernicious farce took place, rather more than a week ago, at Birmingham, under the auspices of Messrs. Cobden and Bright, and one WORMS, a German Professor, from Hamburg. This last celebrity has come mooning over here with his philanthropical caput muddled with beer, Schwärmerei, tobacco, and Kant, "to plant," as he said, "the white banner of peace, wherever man had planted the foot of civilization." That is to say-this broad-brimmed individual leaves his own distracted neighbourhood, where men are arming to fight, if not fighting, all around him, to preach peace in a country which is at this moment in a state of physical peace, although the seeds of convulsion be indeed rife within it.

With regard to Messrs. Cobden and Bright, these shallow mountebanks must, we suppose, parade themselves in a crusade against common sense in the ears of applauding ignorance, until the cup of the nation be full. Like Clown and Pantaloon, in the great political Pantomine of the world, they are busy, with consummate assurance

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matchless impudence, and perfect jollity and ease, in putting everything wrong. We laugh and applaud. We do not follow behind the scenes and see the painted mask laid aside, the jaded hack performer assume his real characteristics. But it would be too harsh, too severe on humanity, to assume that these individuals are not, to a certain extent, deceived by the twaddle of their own cotton doctrines. The pillvending quack may read his own advertisements until he believe the wooden leg has sprouted. Alas! a selfish ignorance, so active, is equal in its effects to the most sordid betrayal; to the act of a Görgey; to that of him who, in ancient times, mistook infamy for fame, and whose name was decreed never to be pronounced again; to that of all traitors since the world began-traitors of cunning, of greed, and of cowardice-for whom there is reserved but one act of reparation, one deed of grace; to whom the only virtue left is suicide, the only hope annihilation.

It will be said we think and express ourselves strongly upon this point. We do for it is no personal wrong, no partial evil or infliction upon society, no common act of Niddering, no mere outrage upon freedom, honour, virtue, and decorum: it is the ruin of a mighty nation which is concerned.

On the day of wrath-Dies ira, dies illa—when England shall be caught unprepared, and dismay, horror, and anxiety be depicted in the faces of all; when the cry shall be πot̃ pεvyouμev;—whither shall we fly?-where will these men be? Gone! forgotten, save in curses-translated, like Bottom the weaver.

It is melancholy to behold the aspect of things around us. A poetical correspondent does not, in our opinion, exaggerate in the slightest degree the urgency of our case,