Ittrrarq fltautugs.
WHO WAS &WEIL ?—The character of Sidonia has puzzled many people ; but the fact really is, there never was such a man. Power of all kinds, but especially worldly power, has ever been this author's adoration. It was na- tural that he should look with some degree of pride on the great Hebrew financiers of the age. The secret power of such a man as Rothschild, who could control cabinets, and influence all the political transactions of the earth, by pulling the wires which move the puppets who move the world, and yet remain entirely behind the scenes, calm, serene, and confident, the Hebrew merchant in his counting-house, had something in it exquisitely captivating. The author of "Coningeby" imagined how he would act, and what he would be in the same position ; and thus gradually created a Dis- raeli Rothschild, and depicted him in Sidonia.—Benjamin Disraeli, a Poli- tical Biography.
Pimo-Rnsawrisst riv 1836.—Can any one doubt that if the Governmen of St. Petersburg were transferred to the shores of the Bosphorus, a splendid and substantial European city would in less than twenty years spring up in the place of those huts which now constitute the capital of Turkey ? What noble public buildings would arise, learned societies flourish, and the arts prosper ? • • • • Can any rational mind doubt that these changes would follow from the occupation of Constantinople by Russia ? every one of which, so far as the difference in the case admitted, have been realized more than a century in St. Petersburg ? * • • • We shall find it is by the love of im- provement, the security given by laws to life and property, but above all, owing to the encouragement given to commerce, that this empire (Russia) has, more than by conquest, been brought forth from her frozen regions to hold a first rank among the nations of Europe.—Cobden's Pamphlet on Russia.
Tan CZAR AND HIS PRIME MINISTER.—Nicholas--" I am not the man to eat my words ; and my threats are the least digestible of any." Nessel- rode—" We may so masticate our words, and remove so much by a dexterous use of the fingers, of what is gristle or husk, that the operation is far from difficult or unpleasant." Nicholas—" France and England can never act to- gether." Nesselrode—" They did at Navarino." Nicholas—" It was but for the day. You are grown over-cautious and somewhat timid ; I would not willingly say conscientious; I would not hint at incapacity in a minister who has served me so long and so faithfully. You seem almost to apprehend a coalition against me." Nesselrode—" God forbid ! Luckily for us there is only one vigorous mind among the arbiters of human affairs." Nicholas- " Nesselrode ! Nesselrode ! no flattery ! What makes you start ?" Neseel- rode—" Sire, my incomplete meaning was, that at present there is only one vigorous mind among all the Powers of Europe which could inspire the fear of our humiliation. Certainly, too certainly, the time is advancing when the chief Continental Powers will unite in that confederacy. Already there is not a single one of them which does not see distinctly that Russia ia too formidable for Europe."—Landoes Last.1'ruit. Tun Hosierrai. FOR Slew Curtnitsar.—In every principal city in Europe, from Paris to Constantinople, from Hamburg to Moscow, as well as in the United States of America, such institutions are no novelty. In England alone, the sick children of the poor have been left uncared for and untended; jumbled up in large public wards with rough men and peevish old women, or allowed to perish, without a hope of rescue, in their miserable dwellings-- at once the cause and the fomenter of disease. Was such a hospital re- quired in London ? Does sickness prevail to any extent among you people? Are there diseases almost peculiar to them ? Listen to the answer of the Registrar-General. In the year 1846, (and this was no exceptional year,) out of about 60,000 persons who died in the Metropolis, upwards of 15,000 were less than two, . and more than 21,000 under ten years of age. To illustrate the same fact in a different manner, out of every 100 persons born in London, 35 die before they reach the age of ten. Is such a mortality natural? Is it a fatal necessity, a normal condition of human existence ? We cannot say so when we find there exists in London only one dis- pensary for the special treatment of the diseases of children ' • when we learn that the number of children received into the general hospitals is so small, that, on a calculation made in 1843, they were found to contain only 136 children under ten years of age.—Fraser's Magazine for January.
A GENERAL OvEnruart iw 1842.—So sure were some of the Yorkshire Chartists of a successful revolution in 1842, that under O'Connor's guidance at Leeds, they had allotted the principal mansions, demesnes, and estates of the kingdom, in their wills, made preparatory to the revolution. Mr. Feargus O'Connor, for his services, modestly took to himself, by anticipation, the estates of Earl Fitzwillism and the Duke of Devonshire; but of course he was only to hold them as trustee for the woolcombers and Yorkshire weavers. Having coursed the country from town to town to see that all were ready, and to inspire the flagging or the doubtful by his presence, he returned to Leeds, and intimated to Mr. Hobson and others that he was urgently re- quired for a day, only for a day, on his Irish estates (in reality he never possessed an acre of Irish land in his life, though much of his successful imposture in England was sustained by the pretence of being an Irish land- owner). He went, not to Ireland, but to a retreat in the Isle of Man ; and there stood by to await the firing of the plots he had concocted in England, ready to reappear and share the success, or be out of harm's way, as the result might suggest.—Cobrienie Policy the internal Enemy of England.
MORTAL FATE OP ONE-IDRA'D NATIONS.—If there is something anima- ting beyond all comparison in seeing a united people achieving its purposes, spreading* civilization by arms in one age, giving the law of religion in another, and in a third inoculating the earth with industrial arts and bene- fits, there is something intolerably painful in witnessing the life depart, those glorious movements become paralyzed, the very frame falling to pieces, and the helpless mass lying in the world's way, to be trodden under foot by all who have a mind to pass over it. Such is the fate, sooner or later, of every nation which has parted with its vital idea—that idea, whatever it might be, which directed its special aim. There is nothing in any existing vigour which can exempt any people from this fate unless the conditions of vitality are preserved. When the Romans were here (as everywhere else) laying the foundations of our cities, building a wall from sea to sea, and paving roads along our mountain ridges, while the trembling natives in the forests below watched the gleaming of their arms and listened to the clang of their implements, nothing could be less like death than their aspect as a people : yet were they even then drawing near the end of their national task, and the exhaustion of their national idea ; and now, who does not point to that swarming sepulchre, stretching out fair to the eye into the blue Mediterranean, as the most striking instance in human history of how the glory of the world passes away. striking instance The most solemn part of the lesson is, that the same fate is abso- lutely unavoidable for every nation which, like the Roman, can have but one idea, and is compelled to exhaust that one. It is of the last importance to ascertain whether, under the law of human progress, nations must ever be as they have hitherto been, actuated each by one conception and pur- pose, temporary and isolated ; or whether, as the ages pass and human pro- gression becomes more equable, a filiation of conceptions for each people, and a sympathy in them among all, may not become possible, eo that nations may individually renew their youth, and, by mutual relations, secure an im- perishable existence for all which are worthy of it. The Roman aim of con- quest was one which could not become general, or even be participated in at all. The aim of spreading a new faith was one which might be shared by any number of nations; but it was exhaustible : either success or fail- ure must bring on the end. If Catholicism had been immortally established in all men's minds, the bringing the last mind into the fold of the Church would have ended the work, and left the missionaries at liberty for some other task. As it happened, before this could be achieved, Protestantism arose,—to be itself for a time a great national object and moving power. For nearly three centuries it was the life, and manifestation of life, of many na- tions; but it is, as its name imports, an essentially negative idea, barren in its function, and temporary in its duration. A protest can last no longer than the thing protested against. If Protestantism is corrective of Catholic- ism, it can last only till it has achieved its corrective task. Unless the na- tion for which it has for a time sufficed, should have obtained some more positive principle in the working out of its Protestantism, it must die, like the Greek and the Roman, and its abode become a mere monument for the instruction of a future age. This is our own case.— Westminster Review for January.
THE Warrens role THE Tares.—Went with Barnes to his own room and drew up my paragraph while he wrote part of an article for next day. Says that he writes himself as little as possible ; finding that he is much more use- ful as a superintendent of the writings of others. The great deficiency he finds among his people is not a want of cleverness, but of common sense. There is not one of them (and he included himself in the number) that can be trusted with writing often or long on the same subject ; they are sure to get bewildered on it.—Moores Diary.
Lord Sidmouth used to say, that the great art of a Speaker of the House of Commons was " to know what to overlook " : applied by Murray (of Edin- burgh) to a manager of a theatre.—Idem.
Lord A. mentioned some French remarks upon Pope, in which, on the line " He opened his snuffbox first, and then the case,' the commentator says, " Comment pout-on ouvrir une tabatiere sans ouvrir l'itui qui is contient ? " —Idens.
A fellow once acting with Kemble in Coriolanus, when he came to the speech in which he accuses Coriolanus-
For that he has (As much as in him lies) from time to time Envied against the people, seeking means
To pluck away their power," &c. forgot his part, looked fiercely at Kemble, and added, "And that he is al- ways seen going about the streets, making every one uncomfortable." At the end of the play, the unfortunate actor went to apologize for his awkward- ness but Kemble merely looked bitterly at him, and said " Beast ! " — Ides-.
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