NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE bolt out of the blue has struck. The European War, which we predicted so confidently, and as many of our readers thought so rashly, last week, has arrived even more quickly than we ex- pected. A condensed history of the events of the week, —events which in their melodramatic suddenness are almost without parallel or precedent in the annals of Europe, resemble rather the events which occur in dreams or the incidents of Asiatic•history than steps in a modern struggle for power,—will be found below, and in a paper in which we have endeavoured to give an explana- tion of the causes which have led to this catastrophe. Here it is only necessary to say that war was formally proclaimed by the French Government at 2 p.m. on Friday, in a manifesto to the Chambers, which, according to Reuter, makes the pretext for war a circular from the King of Prussia justifying the affront to M. Benedetti, and releasing Prince Leopold from all obligation to decline the Throne of Spain. The real cause 9f war, the vote of fifty thousand soldiers against the Empire, is of course not mentioned ; but Paris has gone mad with patriotic pride, the French army is moving on the Rhine, and Europe must pass through a year, per- haps years, of misery, in order that one single man may secure the career and the position of one single child. This war has no cause, no motive, no justification, save the fear of Napoleon Bona- parte that without it his boy's succession would not be clear.
