At home we labour under an almost total destitution of
political Hews; although we know well enough that the most powerful elements of political vitality are in large and active operation. The Cabinet Councils meeting weekly—the constant passing and repassing of official messengers—the public business that has in- truded upon the privacy of the Court at Balmoral—are sufficient evidence, even if we were to turn our eyes from the immense mili- tary preparations which still go on, or from the actual movements of our armies and fleets in many quarters of the world, directed by Downing Street. For want of news proper, the daily papers are flooded with correspondence, with special papers on the state of Russia as described in lectures to a Quebec society, on 'West Indian fibres, on new projects, and reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science—voluminous, ramified, and really interesting. For the Association has this year, at least if we may judge from the published reports, turned its attention especially to practical subjects, rather giving high science a rest, and constituting itself an auxiliary committee on useful inventions, practicable and profitable. But although this is the only articulate reporting of the passing hour, the news of the day reallv consists in something else, and we look to signs for want of tangible reports. The Duke and Duchess of Montpensier came over to this country about a fort- night back, somewhat unexpectedly, at least without much public notice, and were received by Queen Victoria at Court ; an attention to the Orleans branch of the Bourbon family which some regard as incompatible with the proclaimed friendship for the Emperor Na- poleon. We have no doubt that the Emperor Napoleon perfectly understands what the British Court is doing. It is to be observed that the Duchess de Mon tpensier will probably be Queen of Spain; that the reigning Queen is rendering her position almost untena- ble, almost inoompatible with the Government which Espartero was invited to form and importuned to continue ; that Espartero and his colleagues are favourable to the Western Alliance, while the existing Court of Madrid still hankers after Carlist alliances and Absolutist sympathise Denhiless, Napoleon the Third has a clue to read these riddles, which are not very obscure even to the common newspaper reader.
A still more important visitor at Balmoral has been the Prince Frederick William of Prussia, eldest nephew of the reigning King, probable heir of the Prussian throne, and, it is said, a suitor for the hand of our Princess Royal. What with Spanish marriages in the past, a Prussian marriage in prospect, the war, and the in- numerable diplomatic complications, now redoubled by the boule- versement into which the fall of Sebastopol has thrown all Con- tinental relations, Queen Victoria certainly has enough to occupy her Highland leisure.
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