NEWS OF THE WEEK.
Tan visit paid this week by the King of Sardinia to Queen Vic- toria is an historical event of which the full import can be but vaguely estimated at the moment ; yet the tendency of the alliance thus cemented, the character of the man and of the state which he represents, are fully felt by the English people ; and there is not All.3.1loy in the satisfaction with which he is received. Since William the Conqueror came on his speculative visits to the last of thireaton Kings, and founded the monarchy of England, we have had Pew royal Visitors. Our insular position, out of the European highway-,–onr independence, which left so little to be gained by royal. intrigues—have hitherto shut us out from such invasions; and when- the Continental monarchs have come it has been for sinister purposes, or to seek the asylum which they could not find in other lands. Never, perhaps, has a king come whose pur- poses, conduct, and character, more completely identified him with the feelings of our public. King Victor Emmanuel not only aided in founding a constitutional kingdom, in rendering a small state independent among great and dangerous neighbours, and in showing that the civil power could emancipate itself from slavery to Rome without offence or schism; he has persevered with a consistency and straightforwardness seldom paralleled. Inherit- ing from his father great sensitiveness of conscience, his times have been happier. He has been assisted by able statesmen; and he has trusted to the principle of constitutional government, in leav- ing the solution of political difficulties, whatever his own doubts of conscience might be, to his Ministers. This consistency, this straightforwardness, this capacity for trusting others, have carried him through, and bring him here, after a few years of sharp vicis- situde, the valued ally of the most powerful monarchies. The Inglieh people are always ready to worship success; but here they may worship a success which is perfectly consistent with our own great principles of political conduct.
