LETTERS TO TIIE EDITOR.
PRE-CRIMEAN ANTICIPATIONS.
[To raz EDITOR Or TRIG "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Yon would have vividly illustrated your pregnant assertion that hope does not deceive men more fre- quently or ruinously than fear," in your article on " The Great Terror" in the Spectator of July 17th, if you could have quoted some of the newspaper warnings, at once wise and fallacious, which preceded the Crimean War. I, then first awakening to that exciting experience which Thackeray somewhere describes as "living for the first time in the history of England," vividly recall such warnings, given in the columns of the Times and elsewhere, but most strikingly in the great newspaper which was soon to be one of the most ardent supporters of the struggle it at first earnestly deprecated. Even after the agitations of fmty-four years I venture to quote confidently one sentence, though I have no guarantee but the sharp impression on a youthful memory. After urging that a war such as we were entering on opened issues contemplated and desired by neither party—that "the first cannon shot on the banks of the Danube" would dispel the aims and schemes on which its advocates built their arguments—the writer concluded :— " Amid all the unforeseen changes which such a war would
bring about, one may be singled out as incontrovertible. Whatever is doubtful as to the result of a European war, one thing is certain, at its conclusion there would be no Turkey in Europe." Alas that the fallacious prophet was not the zaccessful counsellor !—I am, Sir, &c., JULIA WEDGWOOD.
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