as THE PROSPECTS OF WAR. strength of the opposing Powers is not so 635 leon that she shall not be conquered. It From The Economist, 5th May. THE PROSPECTS OF WAR. AFTER many and rapid oscillations in the political aspect of affairs on the Continent, after passing, often in the same week, from a confident hope of peace to a grave phal. And, hitherto, at least, while all the fear that it is scarcely reasonable to count assurances which would have seemed likely upon it and back again, we fear it must to tranquillise the hostile German Powers now be admitted that the best informed have been exchanged without bringing the politicians are beginning to think the hope least appearance of tranquillity, there has of averting a European collision exceeding- been no sign of any new opening for comly small. Mr. Gladstone, indeed, was still promise and conciliation. hopeful in his tone in the few words he On the contrary, the most immediate, allowed to drop last night, but statesmen though not the greatest or most permanent in his position know that almost the only danger which now threatens Europe, is not chance of peace would be thrown away if the quarrel between Prussia and Austria, Ministers of great States allowed them- but the quarrel between Austria and Italy, selves to speak as if it no longer existed. -a secondary symptom no doubt of the What we have to consider is that two great primary cause of conflict, but not the less States, both professing the strongest desire threatening for that. It is scarcely credible to avoid war and the utmost readiness to that Italy should assume the attitude she is disarm if the disarmament could be simul- now assuming, even granting that Austria taneous, have been either trying or seeming took the initiative in menace, if there were to try to give effect to their wishes now for not a very good understanding with the Emmany weeks, and have either so little wished peror of the French on the subject. We what they said, or if they wished it, have do not say that there is any signed treaty or had so little power to do as they wished, in even express verbal agreement. It is quite the face either of the public opinion or the possible that Louis Napoleon has been too engagements by which they were tram-secret, and too anxious to keep himself unmelled, that now at the end of at least compromised, for that. But we know very a month's fruitless negotiation all that we well that there are informal as well as see is much more imminent peril of war and formal ways of encouraging a movement, much more active preparation for it than and we have reason to believe that not even there was at the beginning. Now, to which- the rashest of the Italian Left would be in ever cause we ascribe this singular fruitless- favour of war, if it were known that the ness of professed pacific intentions, wheth- Emperor of the French frowned upon it, or er to insincerity in one or other or both of the rather if it were not known that he had sedprofessors, or to incapability (from whatever ulously refrained from forbidding it either cause) to give effect to their wishes, we by word or sign. That there is some tolefear the inference must be the same. The rably distinct understanding between Pruspacific wishes, if pacific wishes they be, sia and Italy is likely enough: they have which have not been able to stop the prepara- just now a common and strong interest in tions for war at an early stage, will scarce- defeating Austria; and we all know that ly be able to check them at the last moment. where there is a strong common interest It is comparatively a very easy thing to there is likely enough to be a clear common hold back while public opinion and the understanding. opinion of the army, the instrument by But Italy would not, in all probability, rely which war is to be carried on, is still un-on Prussia alone. Prussia is not sufficiently decided and hesitating; but it is a most dif- tried, and scarcely sufficiently strong and ficult thing to arrest either a strong national near, to be relied upon absolutely in so moimpulse or the great fighting organization mentous a crisis, -a crisis in which the which is penetrated with that national im- future of Italy will be made or marred. pulse, in the last stage just before the spring We feel a strong conviction that, without is to be made. Clearly the same power which the tacit sanction of France, Italy would is inadequate to keep the peace while there is not be yielding to the delirium of this war no hot blood urging on to war, will not be fever as she is now doing. And it is in this more able to keep it when there is. If the presumption that the French interest is enoutbreak is to be checked at the last and gaged in the impending conflict no less most critical moment, it must be by some deeply than the Prussian, Austrian, and stronger force than any which was brought Italian, that the great gravity of the crisis to bear upon it before. Now, in the present seems to us to consist. We know that the case there is, we fear, no reason to hope that Italian Parliament has voted the war power any such force is likely to appear on the to the Government, and that the Governscene. The threat which Russia is said to ment has already borrowed 10,000,000/ have used to Prussia in favor of the petty sterling in a great hurry from the National German princes sounds exceedingly apochry- Bank, and has empowered the National Bank to suspend cash payments for its notes. which are legal tender, a step which could hardly be taken except on the very eve of war. We see, moreover, that Austria is hurrying on military preparations in Venetia, which are in the highest degree exciting and irritating to the Italian National feeling. The conscription in Venetia, which has called out the reserve for service in Hungary, practically sweeping numbers of old men as well as young from their country to serve among the Croats and Czechs and Tyrolese in a distant land, is a step which is not only calculated to inflame to the last degree the feeling of Italian patriotism and rage against Austria, but must have been adopted with the full knowledge that it would upset almost the last hope of peace. When to this we add that the language of Prussia towards the minor States, especially towards Saxony, which is the first stage in her line of march, becomes more and more cavalier every day, and that Count Bismark is scarcely the man to lose so great an opportunity for his ambitious plans as a struggle in Venetia must give, even though his were not the hand that is secretly moving the pieces on the Italian end of the chess-board, we must see how poor a hope of peace remains. We should be loth to say even now that there is absolutely none. So long as the plans of the Emperor of the French are a mystery to us, it may well be that his ends may require him rather to let Austria feel what she has to fear than actually experience a defeat, and in that case his powerful interference might put a stop to the threatened collision at the ast moment. Still, count it as we will, that is but a bare chance. No one knows better than the French Emperor the difficulty of keeping two high-spirited armies face to face with each other well in leash, and he would probably interfere peremptorily at once if he intends to part the combatants at all. Of one thing we may be sure, that eloquent representations from strict neutrals like ourselves, who neither have nor are likely to have any interest whatever of our own in the fate of the war, will have no effect whatever; and the fewer of them our Ministers make, and our Ambassadors are instructed to deliver copies of, the better. Russia or France, either of whom might, and one of whom almost certainly will, mingle in the strife at an earlier or later stage, would be listened to with respect, and perhaps with deference. But we should receive neither, for we have given good advice somewhat too often already, and there is no Continental Power that believes it even possible for us to offer more than good advice on the present occasion. On the whole, we are disposed to think that all the indications are at present indications of war-that France holds the key to the situation, and that she would have used it already to prevent war if she had wished so to do, and that we, at least, possess no key to the situation at all, and had far better content ourselves with studying the symptoms than in vainly attempting to control, as Lord Malmesbury did so foolishly and so vainly in 1859, the motives of a strife in which we have, and are anxious to have, no concern. From Blackwood's Magazine. Where we cut what we like, and can come back for more! BURIDAN'S ASS; OR, LIBERTY AND NECES- Such a plentiful treat is our friend Stuart SITY.* A NEW SONG. AIR-"Dear Tom, this brown jug." How pleasant to find we have subjects in store, * Buridan was a French Schoolman of the four Mill: And begin with the story of Buridan's Ass. Many readers are new to that quadruped's fame, Or at least may have never yet heard of the teenth century, who debated strenuously the ques tion of Free-will, and who used, or had used against him, the illustration referred to in the text. The expression of "Buridan's Ass" became proverbial; and though Buridan is now forgotten, the Ass between two bundles of hay is still remembered. See But the question's well known To two bunBayle and Chambers, vo. Buridan. name: dles of hay, We don't mould our own minds, -as some make their own gas; All effects come from causes or what we so But the motive and mind make the villain or call, For Mill don't believe in Causation at all: ass. From The London Review, the If we try to analyze the pleasure which a Latin-grammar quotation produces upon the multitude the result seems to be this, auditors are tickled by the gentle flattery of the speaker, who seems to imply that they are scholars to whom he may well address a classical allusion, and the fact of the quotation appearing familiar to them confirms them in this pleasing belief. Yet, no doubt, it is preferable, even when we confine ourselves to this narrow sphere of quotations, to give them correctly or not at all. We remember Clive Newcome's distress when the dear old Colonel, in the innocence of his heart, insisted on reminding his friends, in spite of every rule of accidence and concord, "Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes emollunt mores," &c. Yet, if we were disposed to be critical, we might pick holes in cleverer men than Colonel Newcome ever pretended to be, and might express our wonder at the frequent inaccuracy of classical quotations in the more pretentious daily and weekly journals. Even that pure and perfect chrysolite of classicality, the Saturday Review, quoting, we suppose, by memory, from Ovid, writes the following: and merely the four principal tenses of a 'Tis sweet to roam when morning's light When the crystal song of the woodbine bright And the wolf rings out his glittering shout, When the pearly wing of the wintry trees When the laughing lights of the moss-grown cliffs. Haunt the ethereal fen; When at burning noon the blood-shot moon Is bathed in crumbling dew, And the wolf rings out his glittering shout, “Tu whit — Tu whit - Tu whoo!" "How pret Not a few persons will cry, "Facies non omnibus una, Nec diversa tamen, qualis decet esse sororum." The use of qualis for qualem after decet would have sent a fifth-form boy down one place at least. Again, the refined Pall Mall Gazette exhibits a deeper ignorance by making scandala magnata the plural of scandalum magnatum, as if "magnatum " was not itself a genitive plural of "magnates." And only last week another paper speaks of spreta injuria, which is simply nonsense, although, of course everybody can see it is a loose recollection of the Virgilian spreta injuria forma. These are the dangers to which would-be scholars expose themselves when once they leave the flowery paths of the Latin Grammar. But we are not discouraging quotatations from foreign languages. Far from it. Once be sure of your audience, and you may win golden reputation. There is not There is a large class of the community the slightest doubt that if you were to conju- who often wish to make quotations, but are gate an irregular Greek verb in the pulpit shy of doing so because they cannot rememat the right time, it would produce an im- ber where the phrase comes from. To them mense effect, as a quotation from some ortho- we offer a suggestion to facilitate the introdox father of the Church. For instance, what duction of any quotation, whether of their could sound nobler than this?" The sin- own composition or of any other distinguishgle-hearted saint could not entertain such a ed author. Even if the author's name be proposition for an instant. No,' he cried, wholly forgotten, what prevents the quotawith a gentle but decisive wave of his hand tion being made with such an easy introkatesthio, katedomai,' adding, with a sad duction as that with which Mr. Kingsley in smile, his favourite expression, katededoka," Glaucus" gives his own verse-simply katephagon."" That this is simple nonsense, prefacing them with words, "Whereof one |