Amid all the marchings and countermarchings of royal and official
people on the Continent, it is impossible not to perceive, that no class, royal, diplomatic, military, or revolutionary, can control the course of events, or determine oven the disposition of its own influence. "The Powers" themselves are impotent to say what they shall do next. The one characteristic of the greatest countries perhaps is, that the people are for the moment dormant ; and that the parties in possession of power and adminis- tration, intent chiefly on getting through the business of the day, leave the morrow to shift for itself, anxious only to avoid being committed too far either to Absolutist or Democratic incitements. The last do not appear to be successful. The triumvirate, Le- dru-Rollin, Mazzini, and Kossuth, have issued from London an edict calling upon the peoples "to rise." But the peoples do not rise.
Yet the anxious movements and proceedings of all Governments show that the popular quietness does not give positive security. Three incidents will show the uneasy working under the appear- ance of slumber. The last Wurtemberg Chamber of Deputies was dissolved by the King, for discussing resolutions recommending a popular representation of the German States at Frankfort : -there
is a new election ; the Chamber reassembles, and presents to the King an address embodying exactly the same. idea. The Catholic party in Bavaria has. a vezmilar pnvositioni. The.ais. tho]ic party ilk Boheiiiiat has mffe a diffemat move,, quite an ominous for tranquillity. Austria.reeently arranged: a aoncordit with the Pope, and, aa if in consequenc*,, the Rtimaniste rile in their pretensions : the Bishop of Prague and the Bishops of Bohemia have presented a protest to the Minister of Publics Wor- ship at Vienna, complaining that the civil power encroaches on their privileges by according certain immunities to non-Catholic inhabitants. Count Leo Thun, who thought that he was so well serving the true church, is evidently dismayed at a protest char- ging him with lukewarm:Less-if not. hostility; and he finds that- he cannot satisfy the party without entering into impracticable rigours that would rouse even the discreet Constitutionalists of Bohemia. This happens at the very time when the Pope is said to contemplate a "reformation" tending to train the Roman Ca- tholic clergy of Ireland se that they shall not for the futtre com- mit. the Church by mingling with political agitations
