and the unhesitating resolution with which it is put in motion when the time for action has arrived. If therefore the spirit of the revolution once again awake all Germany, and her people put not their faith in princes but seize the moment of success to consolidate their power in the shape of formal governments, taking the sword from hands interested to abuse it and placing it in hands honest and able, Germany would be mistress of her own fate. If Russia offer to interfere, the free governments of the world should draw the sword in her defence, and proclaim at the head of their armies the restoration of Poland among the nations of the world.

We condescend to debate no question of international law with Russia on this point. She has long since made her sword the measure of her rights, and we are content to accept the rule.

If she may intervene at the call of despots in the cause of the existing social order, we may do so at the cry of suffering liberty in the cause of human rights.

We rely on the "modern instances" of the Russian chancery for our right to rebuild what she has destroyed.

If Russian impudence plead the right of nations freely and unmolested to dispose of their internal affairs we concur in the assertion of the principle— and seeking her interpretation of it on the plains of Poland and Hungary, in the divan of the Turk, and among the principalities of the Danube, we turn to the shattered walls of the Polish fortress and to the broken columns of the Hungarian temple, and claim

with restoring zeal to raise in renewed glory those ancient structures.

To the murmurs of Russian diplomacy we deign no other reply than the scornful interrogatory, "Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes?"

But watchman-what of the night? What of hope is there that light shall break from the darkness of Europe, that the murky calm of triumphant despotism is the harbinger of the bursting storm of revolution? Shall the waters stagnate into green and loathsome corruption, fertile in slimy reptiles which the sunshine of despotism breeds; or will the breath of the tempest waking them into life, restore them to sparkling purity and freedom?

The extremity of the despair of Europe is the surest trust that the day of her redemption draws nigh. Assuredly her condition has never been worse; her people are in that lowest deep below which there is no lower: and that is the best assurance that they will venture a contest which can change their fate only for the better. Flight is now no refuge for the persecuted children of liberty in Europe. All the despots unite in menacing their last retreats. Switzerland and England alone remain above the flood whereon their feet can rest: and even there the long arm of despotism is stretched out after them. Russia has remonstrated with England on her hospitality-Austria has grumbled at the reception of Kossuth. France has united with her in threatening Switzerland with the consequences of indiscreet hospitality: and both would delight in an opportunity of dividing her mountain barriers as an

indemnity and security against the emigrant machinations which disturb their repose-like the whispers of an evil conscience. The miserable find no refuge in Europe; their sole safety is beneath the ægis of this Republic. Already the Austrian minister has. muttered his master's anathemas at the free spirit of our people who rose up as one man before the persecuted exile whom the nation delighted to honor: and no man can say how long it will be ere imperial blood hounds will hunt the fugitives to our shores. Since the empire of Nero and Caligula sunk before the northern barbarians Europe has felt no such night as that which now wraps her. No incubus in her darkest night has pressed so heavily on her breast. Her Kings are the jailors or the madhouse keepers-her people are convicts or maniacs, chained to the oar, or cramped in the straight jacket, watched with the jealous eye of suspicious tyranny, and chastised by the lash of inexorable power. Genius, virtue, patriotism, are crimes: the only virtues are obsequious submission, or active and zealous oppression. Gladstone has removed the rags from the running and loathsome sores that afflict Italian justice-and Europe has groaned aloud at the horrible recital. The days of Robespierre grow mild in comparison. Seem justified as a passing phrenzy in the presence of these coldblooded, refined, and endless persecutions of the virtuous and the patriotic. The sharp madness of the revolutionary tribunal is virtue beside the cunning, cool, and deliberate villainy of the Neapolitan judges. The guillotine is mercy compared to the rotting

away of life and limb piecemeal in the damp and filthy dungeons of Naples. Incivism is more a crime and more a pretext for judicial murder than honest devotion to liberty and the confessed constitution of the land. The twenty thousand prisoners for political offences in the small Kingdom of Naples throw into the shade the blackest excesses of the iniquitous leaders of the revolution. The murderous revenge of Austria on prostrate Hungary has filled the world with execration: and the very draymen of London constituted themselves the avengers of innocence on the vile Haynau. Martial law has superceded the criminal tribunals of Germany; and political sins are judged before courts constituted for the extermination of liberty in the persons of its friends. The voice of public discussion is hushed in her legislative bodies and the public press is silent in its great appeal. Sharp scrutiny scans the traveller for traces of his country: and the American or the Briton gets scanty courtesy and grudging leave to cross the prison bars of the Austrian frontier-lest his national costume and tongue might awaken the memory of a happier land. Light hearted France sighs beneath a despotism such as she has never known. Her protector has sharpened his sword against her, annihilated her constitution, scattered or imprisoned her legislative assembly, exiled her most illustrious citizens, banished to deadly climes her honorable men-marching them in long lines of thousands like felons to the gallows. He has placed vile creatures tools of his perfidious ambition in the dignities of the government, and murdered by the

hundred, in open day, in the streets of Paris, by French soldiers, their fellow-citizens who dared prefer to him the constitution he had sworn to protect yet ventured to destroy. He has seized the press and stifled the voice of public complaint. By a mock election he has added fraud to his violence-and caused the tongue-tied press to speak lies for his justification. The heart of France will burst-or she will fling off the perjured usurper who apes Napoleon's tyranny and suppresses his greatest crimes without his immortal services which indemnified France for her sufferings: and then, as her legions arm for the rescue of the liberty she loved, her voice will be-as the shout of Achilles from the rampart.

The simultaneous agitations of 1848 were the breath of the angel troubling the waters: but the people had none to carry them to their healing touch.-If God shall once more send his angel to trouble those waters now so stagnant: if he shall inspire the people of Europe to rise in this great cause: if he shall endue them with wisdom, moderation, and union: if he shall raise up to lead them men who will fling to the winds all hopes of favor, all fear of death, all thoughts of compromise, strong to wrest the sword from their rulers and powerful to smite with it in the cause of liberty, who quail on no path however bloody, and once seated at the summit of power look undazzled from their height to the still higher cause-honest in their triumph as in their obscurity, and adjourning till the common foes of mankind are humbled the question how they will