that we run the risk of forgetting the danger arising from the loss of the French alliance, in our satisfaction at escaping from all participation in her disgraceful policy. But the tempter is at hand; and all our vigilance will hardly keep France from falling into the hands of Russia. The left bank of the Rhine is the object of her incessant craving-it will be offered her on the same conditions on which it was offered in 1828: the independence of Egypt, in relation with her own African possessions, is in her secret views-nothing could contribute so much to weaken the Porte, to forward the objects of Russia, and to baffle those of England. In one word, as England, Austria and Turkey are three powers essentially defensive, Russia, France and Egypt are three powers essentially offensive; yet even in their purposes of aggression they do not clash; and it is exceedingly probable that, each for his own purpose, they will combine.

To baffle this combination, which would undoubtedly be fraught with terrible injury to the great interests of Europe, is now the task of English and Austrian diplomatists. They may succeed in inducing France to accede to the new commercial arrangements, but the commerce of France will never dictate her serious alliances. For this purpose we confess that we look upon the strong national feeling of the French for the Polish cause, and the reiterated pledges of the Government and the Chambers to Polish nationality, as the principal point on which France and Russia are divided: and if the restoration of Poland be ever seriously contemplated by England and Austria, we do not believe that any French government could join a combination to defeat that purpose. The French people would abjure all participation in so unwise and detestable a line of policy. They would aspire to share the honour and the advantage which all Europe would derive from that signal act of justice. The Polish question would thus be destined not only to furnish a high and wise object to the alliance of England and Austria, by enabling them to set real bounds to Russian ambition, but would also supply them with the aptest weapon for the defeat of Russian intrigue with France.

None, certainly, can foretell what events, what success, what distresses this coming year may bring. May it not be un

worthy of the times we live in, and the hopes we entertain! But, above all, whilst the orators of the day are screaming to attract the crowd, and masking their hideous egotism in the tawdry colours of faction, may it not be forgotten that interests common to all parties, and infinitely higher than the interests of any party, are at stake-the interests of England herself, which demand the vigilance, the vigour, and the union of all her sons!

ARTICLE V.

Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada. By MRS. JAMESON. 3 vols. London: Saunders and Otley. 1838. If there be not many journeys more tedious and profitless than those which the guardians of popular taste are bound from time to time to make through the domain of light literature, there are, also, not many choicer pleasures than such as arise from their encounter with the few books where something of individuality manifests itself,-where, instead of common-place dogmatizing, the philosophical critic discerns traces of original speculation,-instead of mechanical and colourless scene-copying, the student of the picturesque recognises the graphic touch of a genuine artist-instead of feelings and emotions described by rote and at second-hand, the anatomist of the human heart is presented with some new secrets of that mysterious inner world, or the analyst of society with some new breathings of the outer and ever-changing airs of opinion.

Not one, but all of these pleasures have been afforded to the critic by former writings of Mrs. Jameson, and reveal themselves on his examination of this her last work. She has always stood alone among the parti-coloured crowd of authoresses, but her fate is, in one respect, singular. Unlike the generality of those enjoying a solitary and select reputation, she has hitherto passed along her literary career unscathed by contemporary petulance or ill-will. For the credit of human and literary nature, let it be hoped that one cause of an ex

emption so rare in these days of slander and acrimonious personality, lies in the sincerity of mind and purpose everywhere visible throughout her works. Though sometimes a passing affectation of style be permitted to creep in-though sometimes an ecstasy or a lamentation, artificially exaggerated, cannot but draw the reader down from the high-toned contemplations of the enthusiast to the trivial, unimportant personalities of the woman; none of Mrs. Jameson's writings display the task-work of the manufacturess. In none are we repelled by a worldly thought admitted ad captandum—in none by any shrinking from the consequences of uttering truth as it is conceived by her to exist-in none by the most trifling accommodation of conscience to the mode of the hour. There is an instinctive power by which a sincere tongue impresses all sincere hearts with affection, and overawes falsehood into silence and harmlessness;-and thus, whether we judge from our own convictions or from popular report, we can fully believe Mrs. Jameson, when, in her prelude to her "Characteristics of Women,' she tells us that "out of the "fullness of her own heart and soul has she written"; and, again, when, in introducing her 'Visits and Sketches,' she says, "There is in the kindly feeling, the spontaneous sym"pathy of the public towards me, something which fills me "with gratitude and respect, and tells me to respect myself, "which I would not exchange for the greater éclat which "hangs round greater names; which I will not forfeit by "writing one line from an unworthy motive; nor flatter, nor "invite, by withholding one thought, opinion, or sentiment "which I believe to be true, and to which I can put the seal "of my heart's conviction."

Besides so sterling an attraction as this earnestness of purpose, Mrs. Jameson possesses a large measure of elegance of taste and fineness of perception. To the plain speaker's convincing utterance, she adds the poet's genial imagination. In the choice of all her subjects, whether her heroines be Beatrices and Lauras and Eloisas, embalmed in the poet's exquisite fancies and passionate aspirations breathed in smoothest verse, or whether she marshal in graceful or terrible array Shakspeare's "beings of the mind," his Desdemona and Juliet and Imogen, or his Constance and Lady Macbeth,-or

whether she discourse in a reverential and fervent spirit concerning the triumphs of ancient and the hopes of modern Art, -there is evidenced the same recognition of all that is beautiful and lofty, the same avoidance of all that is mean and prosaic and mercenary, the same constant deprecation of satire for satire's sake, the same constant recurrence to the persuasive, in place of the offensive mode of discussion. In this -in every point save one-Mrs. Jameson's writings are womanly in the wholesome sense of the word; and even when she loses herself in speculations which appear to us false and visionary, involving fatal consequences to society, whereof she little dreams-even where she would most uncompromisingly overthrow, and revolutionize and destroy, she is never violent. There are always "some lively touches" of her favourite Viola and Rosalind in her pleadings and denunciations sufficient to assure us, that, were "the purpose never lost sight of," the misnomered emancipation of her own sex, to which she unceasingly adverts, indeed achieved,-none of her sex, puzzled and bewildered by the conditions of the unseemly garb they had assumed, would cry, like the counterfeit Ganymed of the forest of Ardennes, "Alas-a-day! what shall I do with my doublet and hose!" with a more genuine helplessness and confusion than herself.

And here, seeing that a misjudging purpose to disturb the mutual existing relations between man and womankind runs, in a steady and palpable under-current, throughout all Mrs. Jameson's works, we should be thoroughly justified were we to turn away from the allurements they hold out to consider Art and Nature, once again to engage in the sterner controversy between the false and true principle. But as our judgement in the plain cause of " Woman versus Her Master," has been recently recorded at full length, it would serve no good purpose were we merely to confine ourselves to the weaker portions of works which have yielded us so much salutary enjoyment. And we are confirmed in our resolution to abstain from a revival of the argument on the present occasion, because it would inevitably lead us into personal and individual inquiries, alike profitless and painful. No one reading these Winter Studies and Summer Rambles' can possibly disentangle the outbreakings of the journalist's disappointed

hopes and wounded feelings, yet more precisely and poignantly stated than the interpolated and assumed heart-sorrows of the Ennuyée,-from the enthusiast's constant resolution to represent any arrangement of the position and duties of her sex whatsoever,-even that where the Squaw is the Red Man's drudge in field and wigwam (vide vol. iii. of the present work, pp. 241-300),-as more equitable and to be desired than that existing according to the present system of European civilization. Mrs. Jameson has thus rendered it impossible for any one answering her in her capacity of advocate, to refrain from also inquiring into her personal stake in the cause she pleads so warmly. Courtesy forbid that we should do this!—though justice to ourselves and the public render it impossible for us to pass over so salient a feature in her writings-above all, in this present book-without a general protest of grave and entire disapproval.

This protest being made, and the obnoxious passages disposed of, we may express our enjoyment in the utter and natural discursiveness of these journals-for such these Winter Studies and Summer Rambles' profess to be. Nothing, it is true, can be more complete than the contrast between the real position of the authoress,—a lonely and dispirited prisoner at Toronto, seeing nothing "but snow heaped up against my "windows, not only without but within, and hearing no sound "but the tinkling of sleigh-bells and the occasional lowing of "a poor half-starved cow, that standing up to her knees in "a snow drift, presents herself at the door of a little shanty "opposite, and supplicates for a small modicum of hay"and her ideal journeys to those cities of art and pleasure, Vienna and Munich. In fact, the first volume of this new book, with the exception of a few local pictures, might be accepted as a supplementary volume to the Visits and Sketches,' so largely are its pages devoted to the dramas of Oehlenschläeger and Müllner, the actresses of Vienna, the sayings and intimacies of Goethe, and piano-forte playing of Thalberg and Mendelssohn. Not the least engaging of Mrs. Jameson's Winter Studies' are the personal and biographical sketches they contain. For instance, the arrangement of her German dramas upon her book-shelves recalls to her the story of a far-away friend,-in life and endowments