T HE Session was opened on Tuesday with a Queen's Speech, or rather message, of unusual length, and evidently drawn with unusual care. The Ministry promise, as was expected,...

Siamese agreement by stating that it had been "concluded in entire accordance with the recommendations and wishes of the Government of India." In regard to Venezuela, he...

Lord Stanmore, and seconded by Lord Rosalyn. Lord Rosebery, who followed them, was exceedingly amusing; but his speech conveyed the impression of waspishness. After calling the...

and seconding the Address, from Mr. G. J. Goscben, the eldest son of the First Lord of the Admiralty, M.P. for the East Grinstead Division of Sussex, and Sir John...

ease.

question,—the position of the Outlanders. He did not intend to force his advice as to the municipal autonomy of the Rand upon the Boer Government; but he hoped President Kruger...

Harcourt professed his belief in the principle of Home-rule for Ireland, but did not contrive, perhaps did not intend, to convey that he felt any great amount of active zeal for...

that no investigation in regard to recent events in South Africa would be complete unless it extended to the financial and political action of the Company since the grant of the...

despatch of February 4th—fully described elsewhere—but it contained important statements, and produced a profound impression. The Colonial Secretary denied absolutely that he...

Sir William Harcourt's speech towards the Government of the United States, guarded himself against approving of any general policy of accepting arbitration in all cases of...

selves, Mr. Dillon opening the debate with an amendment intended to represent to the Queen that the present Govern- ment, by refusing to propose any scheme of self-government...

did intend to send German troops to Pretoria, not indeed to defend the Transvaal against the English—for he had not sufficient force in the neighbourhood—but to pro- claim to...

has placed himself entirely in the hands of the Russian Government. On the 6th inst. his Highness received a tele- gram from the Czar congratulating him upon his "patriotic...

in the Transvaal. It has a commercial treaty with that State and commercial interests to defend. Therefore, said Baron von Marschall, on behalf of the Imperial Government, in a...

to Mr. Chamberlain's great despatch; and in a very stiff reply dated February 12th, declares that the position has been rendered "very difficult," and that his Government will...

good speech at the Drapers' Hall on Wednesday, after dis- tributing the prizes to the boys and girls in the manual. training classes, in which he said that Governments never...

It was understood, after his interview with Mr. Chamberlain and with his fellow-directors of the Chartered Company of South Africa, he would speedily return to the Cape; but on...

view of the Venezuelan boundary. He is so great an authority that we have no doubt he is right, and beg our readers therefore to believe nothing but his own statement, which...

New Consols (21) were on Friday, 104 s

THE TONE OF THE OPPOSITION. O N the whole, and with a certain exception, which is not in any sense due to the system of party Govern- ment, we have much reason to be satisfied...

outsiders to be for the moment in something of a fog. Dr. Jameson and his immediate followers have been placed under arrest, but no one quite knows with what they will be...

PTO one who carefully watches public opinion can lr doubt, we think, that in foreign affairs it is taking a new trend. Up to the end of the autumn, though there was much private...

T HE Anti-Parnellites have offered the leadership to Mr. Sexton, and Mr. Sexton has declined that barren honour. He is perfectly well aware that be has not the kind of...

T HE idea now prevailing on the Continent is that there is serious danger of war this spring, or during the early summer, for the following reason. The Russian Government has...

T HE Archbishop of Canterbury had a right in his speech at the opening of the Church House to take credit to himself and its council for their persistence in the scheme under...

eye and arrests the attention of the Egyptian tourist as he approaches the town of Luxor, is not a ruin or an obelisk, but the house of the local moneylender. This highly...

T HE present condition of international affairs brings forcibly to the mind one of the most curious of all psychological puzzles. Wby do nations suddenly feel, as they...

M ODERN science assures us that there is no essential difference in wonder between the most ordinary and the moat unusual phenomena of Nature. The keenest-eyed astronomer of...

a quarter ago, we gave some account of Nansen's views as to the mode in which he might be able t> reach the earth's North Pole, and the ardent con- viction with which he held...

S PRING-LIKE weather, with snowdrops, aconites, and crocuses blossoming, is unsettling the normal February torpor of urban life, by all kinds of subtle suggestions and...

DANCING. ['o THE EDITOR OF TIM " SPECTATOR.-] SIR,—Will you grant me space in your paper to reply to the reviewer who criticised my book on Dancing in the Spectator of January...

[To THE EDITOR OF TEE "SPROTATOR."] SIR, — Are the following worthy of your space ?—(1) An Irish- man thus moralised on the uncertainty of life. " When one counts the accidents,...

[To THE EDITOR OF TEE "SPECTATOR...1 Sla t — As I had the privilege a. short time ago of listening to some remarkable rooks' language, which could be understood without the...

MORE HAWARDEN HORACE. AD JOHANNENI ARDENTEM —(0d. IIL 1.) ODI profanum vulgus et arceo ; Favete linguis : carmine non prius Audits Musarum sacerdos Virginibus pueriaque canto....

[To TEE EDITOR OF TEE " SPRCTATOR:] Sin.—Your " Literary Supplement" of January 25th speaks of Nelson's exclamation at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent. Surly those famous words...

A COUNTRY JOURNAL.* A LONDON barrister, briefless it may be presumed, is writing a law-book, and seeks for country lodgings, in order that he may pursue his work...

Talbot's sermons better than when they deal with the spiritual side of moral subjects. There is then a strength and simplicity and manliness about them which turn character...

A NUMBER of articles of varying degrees of literary merit, but almost all charged with much human interest, which have appeared in recent years in Scribner's Magazine on " The...

IT must be owned that the history of the Nonjurors as a whole, associated as it is with one of those lost causes which possess now little interest beyond that of a historical...

Miss MARY ANGELA DICKENS conceives and tells her stories with very considerable imaginative and literary power, bat the stories of her choice are, for the most part, as uncom-...

AFTER the successful imposition practised by the author of With Essex in Ireland, which took in no less a judge of litera- ture and style than Mr. Gladstone, and the equally...

The new year shows no signs of falling off in Good Words, though one misses distinguished fiction, or at all events fiction by writers who are recognised as being distinguished....

Plato' tells his own story, and begins by informing us, on the authority of his mistress, that " he is remarkably clever, thoroughly gentle, and perfectly obedient ; " further,...

This is a story of Paul Jones, the privateer, in which especial stress is laid on a supposed right which he had to a Scotch peer- age, and on the fraudulent dealings by which he...

is Castle Sonsbras, with its brave heroine Thyrza, and its villain Sir John Sombras. The blindfold duel is a terrible tour de force, and the excitement and the weird horror of...

(Hazell, Watson, and Viney.)—Dr. Horne has nothing particularly new to say, but he puts together in a clear and agreeable narrative the facts that we have about the destruction...

Chambers.) —News is brought one evening to Lady Melville and Hugh that the head of the family has been killed in fighting with the Spaniards, and the eldest son captured and put...

Henry Hill. (Elliot Stock.)—We do not think that the reader of the Bible will be much helped by this consecutive arrangement of the Old Testament narratives. These narratives...

is a jealous," cantankerous" little girl, who makes herself, and, as far as maybe, every one about her, unhappy. There is a secret about her parentage—it is not made clear at...