of the British Empire. If this is so, the duty of Parliament is plain and obvious. The Convention ought to be rejected, though the fact of its rejection must involve the downfall of the Ministry. To those who, in common with myself, would deprecate such a conclusion on any other ground than that the fortunes of England are at stake, I would offer one consideration which, perhaps, may relieve their apprehensions of the future. When the news of Sadowa and of the collapse of Austria astonished the world, there was still living at the Hvradschin Palace at Prague the old halfwitted Emperor of Austria, who had been virtually deposed, a score of years before, as incompetent to govern the Hapsburg monarchy. With difficulty his attendants explained to the old man what had happened in his sometime kingdom, and why it was that Prussian troops were pouring into Prague. He listened in silence to the narrative, and made no comment save the solitary remark, 'Well, after all, if I had been left upon the throne I do not see that I could possibly have made a greater mess of it.' In a somewhat similar fashion, when I am told of the misfortunes that may occur if the conduct of foreign affairs is intrusted to less able hands than those which now direct our policy, I console myself with the reflection that, whoever may be the ministers who may succeed to the inheritance of the present Government, it is utterly impossible they can make a greater mess of the whole Egyptian business than Mr. Gladstone has made already. EDWARD DICEY. MR. CHARLES MILNES GASKELL desires to withdraw an erroneous statement made by him in his article on The Yorkshire Association' in the June Number of this Review, to the effect that the 'Rev. Christopher Wyvill was illegitimately descended from the old family of that name.' Mr. Gaskell writes: I greatly regret that the wholly unintentional error in your Review affecting Mr. Christopher Wyvill's descent should have been made by me, and I need scarcely say how much I regret having been the cause of any pain to present members of the Wyvill family.' Mr. Wyvill writes on the same subject, that his father only failed to establish his claim to the old Wyvill baronetcy, as he could not prove that the Wyvill family (a senior branch) in America was extinct.'-EDITOR Nineteenth Century. |