26 OCTOBER 1889, Page 2

Greece is a little State, but it may have a

future, and its present King, being the brother of the Princess of Wales and of the Empress of Russia, has very grand connections. His heir, -therefore, has been allowed to marry into the Hohen- zollerns—Princess Sophie, daughter of the late Emperor Frederick, and therefore Princess of England also, is the lady selected—and the wedding will be celebrated next week, in presence of a gathering of European grandees. The Emperor of Germany will be present, the Cesarevitch, the Prince of Wales, the King of Denmark, and special repre- sentatives of Austria, Italy, and Turkey, besides two of the three German Empresses, and a crowd of lesser Princes and Princesses, The bridegroom, though weighted in life with the preposterous name of Duke of Sparta—let us hope Leonidas is looking on—is popular in his own country, and the marriage is highly approved in Greece, which is anxious to get out of the groove of Romanofi alliances. It is a current theory that Royal marriages never affect political events ; but that is not so certain. The Duke of Sparta, once allied with the German and English houses, will not be kidnapped as Prince Alexander was—how that colossal outrage has been forgotten !—and the marriage helps on one of the great works of to-day, which is to recover for Europe and civilisation the dominion reft away from them by the Arab and the Turk. We have got back Algeria, Tunis, Egypt, and Greece, and most of the Balkan Peninsula, and shall in due time rescue Morocco and Asia Minor. Even then Europe will be too small for its growing energies,