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they will have plenty of victuals and not so much to do; nor yet with the Economists, to hold out to them the prospect of making their fortune;- but to show them that what they are now doing is good and useful service to the community; to call upon them to do it well and thoroughly; and to teach them how they may; - and all this quite irrespectively of any prospects, either of making a fortune or living on into a good time.

We are not sure that our author would quite coincide with us in a comparative disregard of physical discomfort, privation, and suffering. Yet we think he would join us in the belief that the real want of the present time is, above all things, the distinct recognition and steady observance of a few plain, and not wholly modern, rules of morality.

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It is very fine, perhaps not very difficult, to do every now and then some noble or generous act. But what is wanted of us is to do no wrong ones. It may be, for instance, in many eyes, a laudable thing to amass a colossal fortune by acts not in all cases of quite unimpeachable integrity, and then to expend it in magnificent benevolence. But the really good thing was not to make the fortune. Thorough honesty, and plain undeviating integrity - these are our real needs; — on these substructions only can the fabric of individual or national well-being safely be reared. "Other foundation can no man lay." Common men, who, in their petty daily acts, maintain these ordinary unostentatious truths, are the real benefactors of mankind, the real pillars of the state, are the apostles and champions of something not to be named within a few pages of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, the Solidarity of the Peoples, and the Universal Republic.

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We will take leave of our author by a quotation from his last chapter, called "the Future." It follows after some considerations on the prospects of the various nations of Europe.

"The prospect before our own country, bright as it is on many sides, opening before the view the noblest field of progress, is yet darkened by some threatening clouds. The prosperity that we have enjoyed may continue, and may extend with every year. But the rapid gains in material wealth which have been made during late years; the new

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fields of adventure, enterprise, and speculation, which have been opened, have given to the period a character of haste and excitement which leads to inconsiderateness and irreflection. It is time to pause, to draw breath at least, and look around to see whither we are hurrying. It is for us to remember that national prosperity depends on national character, and that long-continued prosperity may have the effect of weakening and of finally depraving that character. The popular declamation of the present day—the talk about 'manifest destiny,' ‘natural boundaries,' geographical extension,' and such other topics-is one sign that this effect has already been in part produced. There is no such thing as destiny in the affairs of a nation. The fate of every nation depends, under God, upon its own acts; and if its acts partake of that wild, reckless, and unprincipled spirit which such language indicates, its fate is no longer uncertain. Strength may be diminished, and prosperity decreased, by unwieldy stretch of territory. The natural boundaries of a country are those, wider or narrower, within which the people may be best governed; and if to increase in territorial size is to diminish the chance of good government, then that nation is suicidal which chooses to add land to land, and state to state. The principle of self-government will not allow this to be done with safety, for the power of self-government is not to be intrusted to the whole human race. The half-savage descendants of the Spanish conquerors and the conquered natives of America are no fit depositaries of this power; the semi-civilized people of the Sandwich Islands are little worthy to be trusted with it.

"But within our existing borders there are questions whose solution is pressing upon us. The great difficulties are those of so dealing with slavery as to bring good out of evil; and of so providing education for the poorer classes, that the destruction of the experiment of republicanism, which is here being tried on a scale commensurate with its importance, shall not be brought about by the ignorance of a portion of our own citizens.

"These questions are too complex to be entered upon here." pp. 130-132.

ART VI.-1. The Political and Historical Works of Louis NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, President of the French Republic. London: 1852.

2. History of Europe from the Fall of Napoleon in 1815, to the Accession of Louis Napoleon in 1852. By SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON, Bart. Part I. New Series. Edinburgh New

York: 1853.

3. Inaugural Address of FRANKLIN PIERCE, as President of the United States, delivered at Washington, March 4, 1853.

THE subject evidently suggested by these three publications, is the relations existing between the present governments of France, England, and America. We purpose, therefore, to inquire into the policies which these important powers have lately pursued, or are likely to pursue, toward each other, rather than to enlarge upon the intrinsic merits of the works themselves. If any exception is made, it will be in favor of our old friend, Sir Archibald Alison, whom we are not sorry to see, at last, a titled member of that aristocracy whose praises it has so long been his privilege to sing. The present time is a fitting one for such considerations, as the vapid but bellicose harangues of declamatory partisans during the last two or three years appear not unlikely to be superseded by decisive action.

Till quite recently, the true mission of the American Republic, involved as it is in the great ideas and facts of its history, has been regarded as a simple, but a sufficiently glorious one. A stern, perhaps an ascetic, people had come to a new world and founded their rude homes in a wilderness. Unfettered by feudal traditions, preserving as much loyalty as they had ever held toward a dishonored race of kings, persecuted and ridiculed in the country of their fathers, they still looked back affectionately to their friends and kinsmen in the land they had left, and, for their sake, rendered allegiance to its crown and its laws; they paid it tribute and fought its battles. After a time, driven to rebellion by injustice and contumely, they passed through all the stages and the trials of revolution, till a stable and independent government was established, a government which, from the very nature of the case, could not

have been other than republican. Imparting dignity and securing freedom to its own citizens, it has been ever ready to adopt the destitute and the adventurous of other countries, and to afford an asylum for the persecuted. Having increased, beyond all precedent, in wealth and strength, it has patiently awaited the time when, by its invincibility on the American continent, and by the example of its own prosperity, an influence might be peaceably exerted by it, in behalf of humanity and freedom elsewhere, more effectual than any that the bayonet has ever acquired.

The recent European revolutions have undoubtedly altered, to some extent, the aspect of our foreign relations. The demands of the people of Prussia for the constitutional privileges that had been promised them for their share in the War of Liberation in 1814, the partial fulfilment of these demands, the overturning of the French monarchy in 1848, the insurrections in all the capitals of the anomalous empire of Austria, the all but successful rebellion of the largest of her provinces, and the very act of interposition of the most formidable member of the Holy Alliance,—were events that excited strong interest and sympathy on this side of the Atlantic. It was then that the idea of active intervention in the affairs of nations upon the continent of Europe was first promulgated, a doctrine as short-lived as was the influence of its most distinguished advocate. Reaction was almost immediate. The Prussian monarchy was strengthened by the outbreak; France has exchanged the vagaries of the revolution for the iron rule of the empire; the vast possessions of the House of Hapsburgh are bound together by the strong arm of military despotism; and even the most sanguine of the believers in the might of American influence have become convinced, that popular enthusiasm is not always a safe guide.

But while no rural candidate for small municipal honors now thinks his claims to office are improved by the "fearless" advocacy of a hostile expedition to the Adriatic, allusions have been made, in much higher quarters, to a more practical alliance, which shall be offensive and defensive, and bound together by the same common bond of liberty, a suggestion not emanating from, or exclusively confined to the impulsive

natures and restless dispositions of "Young America," but mainly urged and demanded, almost as a matter of course, by the only country to be benefited by it. The English press, and English orators and legislators, not universally, but in respectable numbers, have decided to regard the close union of the United States with England, in the event of an European war, as a thing definitively settled; and the pseudo-complimentary "extracts" from English newspapers, referring to this subject, have been greedily copied into our journals, without any comment to indicate the tone of popular opinion, but merely to show, we suppose, our growing importance and the altered tone of Englishmen towards a people whom, till recently, they have affected to overlook or despise.

With a few exceptions, however, this proposal, notwithstanding its flattering character, has found no very strong friends in this country; and it does not require great shrewdness to perceive, that it is intended not merely to conciliate America, but to serve as a kind of menace towards some of the European powers whom the English press and ministry have been in the habit of wantonly insulting with gratuitous advice, and the abuse with which English advice is generally accompanied. The consequences of this officiousness within a few years have been quite marked. Leaving, for the present the manner in which England has conducted herself towards France, and also towards Spain, whom she befriended so equivocally in the campaigns of the latter years of the war against Napoleon, even her old faithful ally Austria, whose good opinion the Tories have always assiduously cultivated, and in whose armies many of her officers learned the art of war, regards her now with a degree of rancor bordering upon the ridiculous. It is not long since a drunken Englishman, of the name of Matthews, we believe, insulted an Austrian officer in the street, and was promptly cut down for it. The "opposition," of course, was in a ferment. The Emperor Francis Joseph was applied to; he justified his officer, but offered to pay the surgeon's and nurse's bill, amounting to about £200. Lord Malmsbury, the valiant English minister of foreign affairs, pocketed the pounds sterling and the insult. We have lately seen it stated, in an

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