fabled to have created a desert amid fertility. It is the Industrial plant of England and he is about to manure it with the sweat of British labour and water it with the tears of starvation. We intended to devote a column to the fears of our very constitutional journals, lest England should be defended by a few of our own soldiers, and to picture to our readers some of the effects of a general free admission under the Forcing-Frame. We may, however, recur to this promising subject.

THE "TIMES'" KALEIDOSCOPE.

ITS OPINION THAT ENGLAND IS ALWAYS ON THE EVE OF WAR.

THE following dictum we extract from a "leader" in the Times of Monday, which would be a curious instance of inconsistency were it derived from any other source:

"War, we know, in these days to be a very laughable topic; but a nation of our pride and pretensions we maintain to be always on the eve of a war; because it may any day meet with a nation as proud as itself."

Now, if this be the case, and we are the last to deny that which we implicitly believe, what wicked, useless, twaddle the Times has been indulging in lately! It absolutely goes on to speak of the "good understanding between Russia and Austria, and Austria and France!" Why, the Times is absolutely following in the wake of the MIRROR OF THE TIME: the great Thunderer has made a tack in pursuit of the little clipper yacht! The Times begins to fancy "that we are backing our destiny against the course of PROVIDENCE, and even the course of history." So we

are. What, then, does the Times mean by its abuse of Sir F. Head of war, soldiers, sailors, and Protection in every shape? What has it meant by pompously advocating the cause of our foes-by not having spoken out with regard to our more valuable colonies, which it begins to consider we may lose? What has it meant by crying up the coalition of Russia and Austria, which it admits to be so threatening to England? What has been its motive in advocating those philanthropical principles, which recommend England to retire from the van of nations, and yield to fresh hands the game of the world for the "indescribable" benefit of humanity? Why has not the Times exercised its vast powers patriotically to warn and advise, and not truckled to the trading influence of the moment, regardless of the broad interests of the nation?

However, let us be thankful for such little passing gleam of honesty, and wear this rare pearl of accidental truth in the breast-pin of congratulation, devoutly hoping that the Times may some day favour us with another fact or two, which bear upon the real glories and welfare of our country. JANUARY, 1851.

THE LECTURES OF FATHER GAVAZZI.

Ir appears to us that the eloquence of Father Gavazzi is without parallel in the present age. But for priestly domination, what a country might Italy yet be! Not to her degradation would then be devoted the sonnets of a Filicaja; but to the cheering record of her triumphs in art and eloquence, of her moral and intellectual as well as

physical beauties, her patriotism, her enthusiasm, and her independence. For in Italy there slumbers yet, with an occasional awakening, a genius which approaches inspiration. Such awakening moments tell too truly what is thus lost to ages of humanity. This the depraved despotism of priestcraft has alone numbed and tortured into silence and obscurity. Quousque tandem? How long shall it be? Alas at this moment the nightmare rides upon the hapless country with still fiercer compression and more hideous sway. But, at this moment, brilliant emanations here and there give promise for the future. The lustful minions of the carnal tyranny, which deals in the crucifix and with awful blasphemy belies Christ with its hateful existence, tremble on the verge of an eruption. Flashes and coruscations of light illumine at intervals that present midnight of noisome exhalations and stench in which a people kneel, trusting to the world's future to redeem them from the foul and galling chains which imprison them amid the vermin of the Inquisition preying upon the human mind. The louring ecclesiastic, as he walks in procession to the bloodstained idol which he, blaspheming, calls God, treads over flames scarcely hidden beneath

Whilst Father Gavazzi is pouring forth floods of impassioned eloquence in London, dismay and terror walk abroad at Rome and jostle the tyrants. The priests are terrified with their own work. They know that it is too unholy to last. Whispers of assassination follow proclamations of arrest. The very names of Mazzini and Garibaldi startle them. A phantom liberty haunts their impure couches to

upbraid and scare them. The French gaolers and policemen of Italian liberty are sick of their hateful duty. The changes apprehended in France terrify the disgusting clique of St. Peter's in the midst of their mummeries—in the very re-inauguration of their Bona Dea, and the celebration of their Isis and Osiris. But in the desperation with which great crimes, both national and domestic are ever enacted, they continue to persecute and arrest, and to execute deeds of atrocious injustice, rivalling the darkest days of horror, when no man lay safe in the bosom of his family in Spain; when the accusations of enemies dragged people over the Bridge of Sighs to the roof-dungeons of Venice; when the secret tribunals of the Vehmgericht held the cord round the neck and the dagger to the heart of Germany; when bloody Mary reigned in England; when St. Bartholomew dyed the midnight couch with blood in France-in short, when a frightful perversion of Christ's mission, fraught with love and peace to man, out-heroded the worship of Moloch and the religion of the Phallus, and made Polytheism, or even Atheism, more acceptable than itself in the eyes of a forgotten or unknown, but not a betrayed, insulted, or misrepresented God.

At this moment, proscription is the only license and banishment the only boon in Italy. France shuts her frontiers against the fugitives. General Gemeau executes the jealous resolves of the vindictive bigot Antonelli. Ye Gods! a French republican General flunkey to the behindscene advisers of an Italian despot! Men are quietly supping at an obscure eating-house (the Falcone) and a razzia is made by this hero of martial France! Why does he not throw sawdust also under the Papal guillotine, or superintend the sale of the victim's revolutionary socks and breeches?

Up the greasy stairs of the steaming Falcone (well do we remember the place in our student days) does the French General hurry with his guard of infantry and inspect the searching of thirty men, women, and children, of whom eight were carried off to dungeons! Is it possible? Frenchmen, in this small epoch of his nephew, can you only with such Papal filth busy yourselves in tarnishing the glories of the great Napoleon?

But retribution awaits them all. The trodden plant of Liberty shall yet revive, and the mission of Gavazzi be accomplished.

We regret that we have not space for a quotation which would do him justice. We should like to give the whole lecture. We trust that a short-hand writer takes down these speeches, so that not a word be lost, and that some spirited publisher will give them to us in a consecutive form when they are finished. This condemnation of Papacy from a Roman Catholic Priest, grand, and sweeping, and sublime as it is, contrasted with the simplicity of his advent amongst us, would form the most interesting work of the age on the Papal struggle of the nineteenth century.*

PAPAL AGGRESSION IN AMERICA.

AN Irish Roman Catholic Priest, named Roddan, has published a very violent book at Boston against Protestantism, which he calls "Atheism dressed up in a few Christian Garments." With an impudence which the French

• The Lectures of Gavazzi have since been published.