cavalry mustered strong-they consisted of forty-eight squadrons in two divisions. One division was commanded by General Koste, with Brigadiers Waldener and Grouchy. General Prevost, with Brigadiers Reibell and Julien, superintended the movements of the second. Three batteries of artillery, and nine battalions of infantry, were under the orders of General Neumayer, who was assisted by Brigadiers Cornemuse and Cavaignac. The drums beat to arms, and in a few moments Louis Napoleon, followed by his staff, whose varied uniforms added interest to the scene, appeared on the ground and rode along the lines. After this operation, which lasted more than an hour, was over, the cavalry, which had formed into two lines, broke up into columns and executed the most intricate manoeuvres with admirable precision. But the charge executed by the heavy cavalry was something magnificent. The regiments formed into one line, nearly a mile in length, and at the word of command charged sword in hand, and rushed thundering along, while at that instant the sun shone forth, and sword-blades, cuirasses, and helmets flashed beneath its beams. In that tremendous charge the ground actually trembled beneath the horses' hoofs; its force seemed irresistible; the imagination refused to believe that that resistless host was not in all the dread magnificence of real battle; the heart throbbed with a delight impossible to describe; a thrill as of an electric shock shot throughout the vast assemblage, who gave vent to the feelings in one tremendous shout of enthusiasm that died away in the distance, and again and again rose in the air as the living mass advanced in all the 'pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war.'"

Such scenes as the above are common in France. Do they speak nothing to our sense of alarm? Now let us turn to the navy. In the Port of Cherbourg-an artificial harbour, such as the world cannot match, and impregnable, as far as we can calculate, even to British daring, when decently defended-was gathered, the other day, a fleet such as in peace-time has seldom been congregated together. Ships of enormous size, guns of superior metal, with such facilities of manoeuvring as have not yet been introduced into the British navy; sailors got up in the style which we are losing -and let us observe, there is a great deal even in the prestige of smartness-full sea-going complements, steamers of enormous power; all these were mustered almost within sight

of our own coast, for the grand purposes of review by the Presidential butler. On our side of the Channel is a port without gunpowder, a guard-ship sleeping like her own shadow, crazy and rotten, with a dozen saluting carronades, and a few hundred boys on board, some of whom now and then venture on an experimental trip in the " Nautilus ;" together with some fourscore dismantled hulks, looking like a multiplication of Noah's arks, stretching up Hamoaze, with an eccentric lieutenant living on board of the most distant seventy-four, growing cucumbers in a quarter-deck garden. There is a worm-eaten brig, from Africa, just paid off, and a coast-guard cutter, with a brass-swivel fourpounder. The fleet is bullying in the Mediterranean, and Lord Dundonald cruizing off Jamaica.

But the electric telegraph might communicate our unreciprocated sympathies from Dover to Calais, if it were not broken; and Cobden might stretch the ægis of protectionwe beg pardon, of a free-trade Medusa-from the roof of Exeter Hall over his English brethren, should he not decide upon transferring himself and capital to the United States, or place himself under the protection of Russia. Let us cease jesting. Such may be the state of things on the morning that war is abruptly declared from the Elysée. A French fleet of observation has already appeared at Torquay. We do not believe it was accidental. The Frenchmen wanted to see how they would feel in such a position-just to try the ground over. In the meantime, Sir Charles Napier has done his duty. On the summit of the tomb of his country's greatness he has spoken like the warning shade of Darius to the Persians. He endeavoured to rouse both Peel and Russell. He has cried "Wolf" in vain, and shown facts rather than probabilities. The fine old veteran, sole

surviving heir of Blake and Nelson, only elicits a sneer from the effeminate Quakers who would offer the cheek of Britannia to the tender mercy of her enemies. He is assailed with abuse and ridicule. It is so old-fashioned to talk of ships! Let us man a Lord Mayor's barge from Greenwich Hospital, and send to beg everybody's pardon in the peace-parliament of nations!

When we read the admirable letter of Sir Charles Napier in the Times, we thought that the nation must have been awakened. Things, however, go on in the same prosy manner. There has been no trumpet-clang to arms. The pear, to borrow the Admiral's figure, gets riper and riper every day, until it will fall rotten to the ground. Our Minister of Marine knows no more about practical navy matters than a bishop. The public is too busy in its handto-hand mercantile struggle and moral cannibalism, to mind much what is going on around it. We have scarcely a ship manned or ready. There will not be a fortnight for preparation, or a week, or twenty-four hours. We shall be caught perfectly helpless-vain then the curse on imbecility or blindness! The time is fast approaching, the glove is thrown down; though the challenge has not yet found words. It only remains to be spoken. The following will be the question and answer. "Do you mean it?" "Yes, I do!” and the act is accomplished. Such a letter as that of Sir Charles Napier, so significant, so true, and so suggestive, has not been lost upon the ears of France or any other European power, though it has availed nothing to arouse the besotted energies of peace-struck England! The threatened attack upon the liberties of the Germans and the absolutist dictation of three great European powers will leave England no exit but acquiescence, or a protracted

shuffle. We ought never to have suffered the French to occupy Rome and to uphold Papal domination, while we squabbled over Greece until we found ourselves driven up into a corner, and left to the forbearance of our foes. That forbearance has been exercised once and again. Sir Charles Napier most ably describes our position during the time of Louis Philippe. He shows that we were at the mercy of the French. He gives one plan or another by which they might have crushed us, and then remarks with the naïve abruptness of his style and character, "Why this was not done, I do not know." Nor we either; but Louis Philippe was the Monarch of Peace. With that great title has he descended to the grave, discrowned, and left no acknowledged successor. In the meantime, we are in the helpless and defenceless condition described by Sir Charles Napier, throughout the Syrian, the Tahiti, and the Greek affairs. Sir Charles merely suggests simple and patriotic schemes, without the enormous outlay which would offend a Cobden or a Hume-plans literally less expensive in the end than our present inefficient proceedings; and only subversive of the old slip-shod routine of our dismantled but most expensive dockyards; and, if nothing be done, the veteran will at least have discharged a mournful duty to his betrayed countrymen. For sloth, ignorance, and supineness, with the blind hobby of besotted philanthropy, amount to a betrayal as great as that which should send a crowded vessel to sea in the face of a lowering tempest, without anchor or cable, boats, sails, rudder, food, or compass, to drift on an enemy's lee-shore, with nothing but the blessing of a Quaker to follow in her wake for present safety, or the aspiration of a fool for her ultimate salvation. NOVEMBER 9TH, 1850.

IRELAND.

THE MODERN GOLGOTHA.

"WHAT can be done for Ireland?"

Alas! the question comes, indeed, too late. The country may be saved-its people cannot. A fresh birth may ensue, and a Phoenix rise out of its ashes; but destruction must be consummated. The work is already three parts done. What must regenerate Ireland? The answer is, Emigration and Death?

There is a process in surgery called Transfusion. It is attempted to inject new blood into the veins of the sinking country. But before this could take place, such a prostration was necessary as is now beheld. Ireland has been bled to death, and her rulers seek to transfuse new blood into her veins to animate the ghastly triumph of the art of Frankenstein.

Slow, sure, and terrible has been the working out of the nation's decay. Betrayal has followed oppression, and starvation accompanied disunion, until resistance was too late. Moral force has long ceased to exist in Ireland. Physical force has now died away in her. The first pangs of a nation's starvation are terrible. Woe to her rulers and her aristocracy-woe to those who have, in that hour! Just or unjust, the wealthy must succumb. The first great revolution is that of the belly. But the case of Ireland is an anomaly. She has been starved so gradually that resistance is at an end. Famine has not come in a day, a season, or a twelvemonth. It has been the hideous growth of a century.

There has come forward an apostle of starvation. From his skeleton rounds appears the benevolent shape of the