that considerable advantage may be derived from it. It will, such is our opinion, throw great light on the history of those times; give us a clearer insight into the customs of the Arabs and their social life, a matter still of great doubt and uncertainty ; enable us better to understand their legal system, which although based on the Korán, received in Spain, as in every other part of the Mussulman dominions, important modifications; and finally suggest many philological remarks respecting the formation and structure of the Spanish language, which, by its genius and grammatical construction, is perhaps more adequate than any in Europe to receive the multifarious and beautiful images of one, not unjustly, compared to the “fathomless ocean.' ARTICLE IV. Austria and the Austrians. Two vols. London: Colburn, 1837. It is generally understood that this book emanates from the pen of a gentleman whose travels in the countries which he describes were undertaken with a more serious and practical design than that of picturesque composition or sprightly tourwriting. These volumes, indeed, do not pretend to any higher merit than that of an accurate and lively picture of some parts of the Austrian dominions; but we have selected them on the present occasion, because we are anxious to put upon record our sense of the important services which we believe their author to have rendered to the governments of England and Austria by his extensive investigation of their mutual commercial interests, which have unquestionably contributed to the conclusion of the recent commercial treaty between the two states. “The position which the several nations under “ the government of Austria occupy on the face of Europe, “ their abundant natural resources, and the good disposition “ of the people generally towards England, are such consi" derations as would render a mutual and far more extended “ bond of political and social union between the British and “ Austrian empires of the most important advantage to both.” Such, in the words of his own preface, was the view with which this journey was undertaken by the author; and we heartily congratulate all the parties to the recent negotiations between Austria and England on the results to which those negotiations have led—results more speedy, and, we hope to show, as satisfactory as the warmest friends of this political and social bond of union could hope for. It is impossible not to have remarked the strong interest which has been excited in England within the last two years by everything relating to the present condition of the Austrian empire. The opening of steam-navigation on the Danube; the growing interest of English travellers with the rude but energetic inhabitants of Hungary; the symptoms of a more generous policy in the affairs of the empire and especially of Italy,—faintly shown at the commencement of the present reign, but which have already led to more solid results than were commonly anticipated; above all, the instinctive feeling of the British public that we are approaching a contest with Russia by steps as measured and certain as befits the coming trial of so great a cause, and that the interests of Austria are identified with those principles which England must at all hazards defend: these have been the immediate causes of the favour with which the recent publications relating to Austria have been received. Incomplete and absurd as most of these productions have been, they have served to indicate the existence of a very important, but very much neglected, field of inquiry. The navigation of the Danube and the character of Prince Metternich have continued to interest us, although the former had the misfortune to be described by Mr. Quin, and the latter to be panegyrized by Mrs. Trollope. The work before us is another contribution of the lighter sort, to satisfy this craving for information from Austria; and we see the title of a work of higher pretensions in the lists of books on the eve of publication, which we hope will in due time increase our store of knowledge; for the present aspect of affairs warrants us in the confident expectation, that no slackness or ignorance on our part, no needless mistrust on the part of Austria, will check the growth of the bond which unites the interests, and connects the policy, of these two great empires. We trust we may be pardoned, if at this time, when those political questions of the highest moment, which have been as yet only brooding on the horizon of Europe, appear to be stirred by the precursor of a tempest,—we trust we may be pardoned for looking back on the course which this journal has held from its commencement with honest satisfaction. The object which we have held in view has been to convince our countrymen, that whilst no scheme was too vast for Russia to plan, and none too wicked for her to execute, there was a moral strength in the policy and name of England sufficient to repress these perilous encroachments, sufficient to protect-probably at no cost of blood—the security and peace of the world. We proceeded to argue, that a power possessing such moral might was bound to use it for moral ends. At times, indeed, such lias been the vacillating attitude of our rulers, that we have doubted whether the strength of the nation was not impaired by the supineness of those to whom the use of that strength was entrusted. But whether the intelligence of the day brought us fresh topics of alarm or of indignation-fresh combinations of Russian influence over European states to be exposed-or fresh evidence of her actual aggressions on our Eastern bulwarks—we have continued earnestly and confidently to point out the alliance of England and Austria as the true solution of the difficult position in which both empires have been placed by the open breach or by the underhand evasion of all the guarantees established, but not maintained, by the Treaty of Vienna. It is to be hoped that something has been done by the English press to wipe away old prejudices, and to open new sources of information respecting the condition of Austria; but it becomes us to acknowledge that Austria herself has encouraged, by her demeanour to us and by her recent policy, a closer union than mere interest could effect. The English public applauds with no common sympathy the act which has reopened the gates of Italy to men whose exile, if we were selfish, we could hardly deplore, since it brought to our shores a band of high-hearted patriots whose merits and talents have shone with no secondary light in English society, and VOL. VIII.--No XV. н who will return to Italy schooled, indeed, by the lessons of privation, but educated by their residence in a country of free men. We are ready to acknowledge as a fortunate omen the circumstance that the Italian amnesty and the English treaty were both ratified during the sojourn of the imperial court at Milan. We are sensible that there is nothing in the articles of this commercial treaty to warrant enthusiasm at the magnitude of its consequences, or complete confidence in its success. It is no offensive or even defensive alliance; it is, with some exceptions, a renewal of the treaty signed at London on the 21st of December, 1829; and we are not prepared to insinuate that secret additional articles have been agreed upon, which Europe will only learn by their effect. But if we recollect the circumstances under which that treaty of 1829 was negotiated and signed, we shall be struck with their analogy to the present position of the Austrian government. The Russian campaign against Turkey in 1828 had excited the utmost attention of Prince Metternich; an Austrian army took up a position of observation on the eastern frontier of the empire; it appeared that nothing but the firm protest of England, France, and Austria, and perhaps their armed intervention, could stop the march of the victorious Czar to Constantinople. The policy of Austria was supported by Lord Aberdeen ; though, as it has since proved, not with sufficient vigour, or sufficient control over the stipulations of the subsequent peace of Adrianople. From her own exhaustion, more than from any other cause, Russia retired; and in the same year, although it was almost forgotten amidst the stirring events of that period—the impending doom of the French dynasty, and the settlement of the affairs of Greece-the first commercial treaty between England and Austria was signed. The bonds which had grown between the countries at a moment of political danger, were cemented by a commercial alliance. At that period, indeed, Russia had not extended her influence over the Slavonian tribes of the Austrian frontier professing the faith of the Greek, say rather, the Russian church; at that time no treaty of Unkiar Skelessi had been concluded, to close the Bosphorus at the pleasure of the Czar; at that time the arsenals of Sevastopol and the a navies of the Black Sea were in their infancy; then Circassia was not blockaded, and no British or Austrian vessels had been captured or insulted, either at the mouths of the Danube or on the Asiatic coast; then the kingdom of Poland still spread a seeming barrier between the hordes of the North and the marches of Moravia ;-but a Russian army had crossed the Balkan, and that event had sufficed to awaken the apprehensions of Austria, and to bring her into closer connexion with the rulers of Great Britain. We need not dwell on the events springing out of the great commotion of 1830, nor analyse the differences which necessarily arose between that government which was the first to ally itself to Louis Philippe, and that which steadfastly resisted all change and, almost beyond the hopes of its old pilots, weathered the storm. The revolutions which Austria could not resist were those external changes by which the great pledges of her security and Europe's peace were destroyed. Had she preserved these, her policy would have been conservative indeed ; allowing them to perish, she became the dupe of the most destructive of all conspiracies. The mistrust of Austria was directed against the western powers—the allies of a new dynasty in France, the supporters of the constitutional queen in Spain, and the victims (as she believed) of that popular movement which was shaking the world. Those years of hesitation and difficulty which diverted Austria from her former course were gained and used to forward, with marvellous address and celerity, the objects of Nicholas. Warning after warning came from the east, but the apprehensions of Austria were too strong and her resolves too weak for her to listen to their boding. Her statesmen retreated in alarm from the gloomy portents of a cloud in the west, until they found themselves on the brink of a yawning abyss in the east. She had neither hand nor heart to stay the fall of Poland, to tear the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi which inclosed the mouth of her greatest river in a Russian dock-yard, to maintain the liberties of the Danube, to attach her Slavonian subjects to the imperial government by judicious national concessions ; depressed and silent, Austria seemed shut up within her arch-duchy like a valetudinarian at the approach of some contagious disorder. In the meantime, all the events to which we just now alluded a |