19 JUNE 1841, Page 1

In the absence of novelty at home,—for the buzz of

the coming election still goes on without much change, and there is a compa- rative lull in the Anti-Corn-law agitation this week,—we glance abroad to see what is stirring. The review is not altogether satis- factory. There is movement in most places ; a restless uneasiness, without progress. The warlike ferment, scarcely subsided, has been succeeded by some sort of political agitation ; aimless, hesitating, yet beyond the control of rulers, and puzzling the most sagacious. A "crisis," not altogether unlike our own muddling affair, seems to en- gage half the civilized world. France, for example, has just escaped a regular Ministerial crisis, brought about by the pride of the old Peers, who, like Mr. Fainwould in the farce, " want to be treated, with a little more respect" : the Democratic Deputies make light of the Upper Chamber ; pass bills themselves; send them up to the Peers, and then go out of town and leave them to he passed by the antiquated nobles as a matter of course, with as little ceremony as a son sends his bills to " the old gentleman," making sure of his acceptance. The Peers are offended, and they vindicate their injured authority by rejecting one bill, that for establishing a new law of recruiting the army. Marshal Souvr's famous plan of re- serves was involved in the measure : the Marshal turned sick and sulky, and so, they say, resigned. However, the matter was hushed up, and nothing comes of it—for the present.

Passing on to Madrid, we find a sick young Queen, and a feeble and poor Government, suspected of arbitrary intentiens, but without the power to fulfil the ordinary functions of a government with credit, and unable to keep the provinces in order. In the other Peninsular kingdom, Portugal, there is a chronic Ministerial crisis, constitutional debility of the exchequer, and disturbed provinces again. The Levant shows us the Pasha of Egypt still discontented ; while in the capital of the empire, the formal and final settlement of the question, which but now threatened to split up the domains of the Grand Seignior, is delayed by some unaccountable intrigues. At the head of that empire, shaken in its distant provinces by revolt—in some of those recovered from the still armed penitent of Egypt—is a sick boy, whose feebleness is a premium to disorder.

Passing Austria, reserved and cautious in its policy, and threatened without rather than within from its own thoughtless citizens, we find a growing political agitation in Prussia, not very intelligible to the politician at a distance : it puzzles an English- man to know how a people who can ask so well as the Breslau citizens, who are just now urging their right to a representative constitution, can do so little. But there is the agitation—poli- tical agitation—in Germany, hitherto affecting to demand almost exclusively mere intellectual liberty.

Russia keeps to herself her triumphs in the Caucasus.

Crossing the Atlantic, the United States is seen in the most dubious of all positions, just awaiting the assembling of a new Par- liament, in which is to be developed the policy of its new Govern- ment. The dispute with England—that is, the one of many dis- putes which is most prominent just now, the M`Lson affair—is as far, apparently, as ever it was from a settlement. At last Lord PALMERSTON has told Mr. Fox, the British Minister, formally to demand the release of the prisoner ; and Mr. Fox has done this ; but there seems no disposition to pay any attention to the demand. Governor SEWARD, of New York, renews the claim of that State to deal with the prisoner in its own fashion ; and President TYLER

does not appear at all inclined to question the fiviserted by the State Governor. Meanwhile, the Can tihotvkir.

M,LE0D has been tried have deferred j meet till next )beam. The question, perhaps of peace or war, is a owned Oil the $l

To finish our review within British dominions, Canada is much in the same doubtful state with the Union, awaiting a new Parlia- ment in which a new policy is to be developed,—with this differ- ence, that the Parliament is to meet under an entirely new constitu- tion; and that its meeting is now fixed for the third time, after two delays, which provoke, perhaps needlessly, conjecture and mistrust.