true that the French army enjoyed those advantages afterwards. The account of the battle of the Alma is too long. It has been said that if a French veteran in 1814 had been as profusely decorated as the English soldiers in the Crimean war, he must have had a man and a wheelbarrow to carry his orders and medals. And we may say justly that if every action in which as many men were engaged, killed, or wounded, were described at as great length as the battle of the Alma by Kinglake, a library would scarcely hold the account of Napoleon's wars.

The diplomatic knowledge displayed by Mr. Kinglake is partial and incomplete. He has drawn much from the published French and English documents, and from his own experience of men and things in the East; but his Austrian intelligence is compiled from private and confidential sources. Hence his views of Europe generally are as thoroughly Austrian as they are antigallican. He evinces his gratitude to the Austrian Government in the following fashion in a note, in which we find: The truth is that, like our own countrymen, the public men of Austria are much accustomed to subordinate their zeal for the public service to their self-respect. To undertake to disbelieve a statesman of the court of Vienna is the same thing as to disbelieve an English gentleman.'

Before this work was published, the world in England had made up its mind both on the events which led to the war and on Lord Raglan's character. The events and incidents now before us do not alter our opinion. It is now generally agreed that the war might have been avoided if the English Government had spoken more plainly, and acted more decisively from the first. Mr. Kinglake, in sketching Lord Aberdeen's character and Mr. Bright's influence in the House of Commons, or the effect of M. Brunnow's correspondence on the Emperor, admits as much himself. And yet throughout the whole first volume he blames the French Emperor for doing the very thing which everybody thinks the English Government ought to have done more readily than they

did. He can see that their not doing it misled the Emperor Nicholas, but he depicts the Emperor Napoleon as doing it merely from a desire to entrap the English Government into

war.

There is an instance of this in the very beginning of the matchless description of Prince Menchikoff's mission. The moment that officer betrayed the object of his arrival, namely, to demand that the whole Greek Church should be placed under the exclusive protection of Russia, a panic took place at Constantinople which was only appeased by Colonel Rose - then chargé d'affaires consenting to call the English fleet up to Vourla. Mr. Kinglake thus describes the effect of the refusal of our Government to consent to this measure :

'Long before the disavowal reached the Bosphorus, the Turkish statesmen had recovered their usual calm. On the other hand, the Russian Government was much soothed by the intelligence that the English Cabinet had declined to approve Colonel Rose's request to the admiral; and it might be said with truth, that both the act of the Queen's representative and the disavowal of it by his government at home were of advantage to the public service.'

Vourla was outside the Dardanelles. It is often visited by the French and English fleets. To go there was no threat; it was merely a move-and a move as necessary and natural as a move of a pawn at the beginning of a game of chess. But if Mr. Kinglake had approved it, he would have been forced to forego the complete picture of Lord Stratford's success in the next three chapters, and the contrast between the English Government of gentlemen and that of middle-aged men at Paris, in the following page :

Thus, at a moment when the panic of the Divan had entirely ceased, and when the Court of St. Petersburg, already inclining towards moderation, was about to be further pacified by the welcome tidings which informed it of the disavowal of Colonel Rose by the home Government, the Emperor of the French suddenly determined to send

a naval force into the Levant, and notwithstanding the opposition of our goverment, the French fleet was ordered to Salamis.'

Mr. Kinglake describes how pleased the Emperor Nicholas was with our moderation, and how the French advance gave umbrage to him. But notwithstanding his pleasure he made immediate preparation for the advance of 120,000 men through Bessarabia.

We could not find a better example of Mr. Kinglake's mode of reasoning on the conduct of the French Emperor throughout the work. He is far too honest to omit evidence which destroys the conclusions at which he arrives. But he steadily perseveres in his own perverse decisions.

Lord Stratford arrives at Constantinople in the middle of the Menchikoff mission, and his diplo⚫matic character is thus described:

'How to negotiate with a perfected skill, never degenerating into craft; how to form such a scheme of policy that his country might be brought to adopt it without swerving, and how to pursue this always, promoting it steadily abroad, and gradually forcing the home government to go all lengths in its support-this he knew; and he was, moreover, so gifted by nature, that whether men studied his despatches or whether they listened to his spoken words, or whether they were only bystanders caught and fascinated by the grace of his presence, they could scarcely help thinking that if the English nation was to be maintained in peace or drawn into war by the will of a single mortal, there was no man who looked so worthy to fix its destiny as Sir Stratford Canning. He had faults which made him an imperfect Christian, for his temper was fierce and his assertion of self was so closely involved in his conflicts that he followed up his opinions with his feelings, and with the whole strength of his imperious nature. But his fierce temper, being always under control when purposes of state so required, was far from being an infirmity, and was rather a weapon of exceeding sharpness, for it was so wielded by him as to have more

tendency to cause dread and surrender than to generate resistance. Then, too, every judgment which he pronounced was enfolded in words so complete as to exclude the idea that it could ever be varied, and to convey, therefore, the idea of duration. As though yielding to fate itself, the Turkish mind used to bend and fall down before him.'

The negotiations go on, and the absurd question of the holy places being carefully separated by Lord Stratford from that of the protection of the Greek Church, is settled, once for all, to the satisfaction of all parties. In the meanwhile angry despatches arrive from St. Petersburgh in consequence of the advance of the French fleet to Salamis. pages 141, 142 it is said that without reason, and without communication with the English ministers, this advance took place, though at page IOI, as we have seen, we find that our Government opposed the mea

sure.

At

We should be sorry to injure the pleasure of any future reader in perusing the whole chapter on the Menchikoff mission by making partial extracts. It is on the whole the most perfect of the many sparkling pictures with which the work is filled. And the victory of the Great Eltchi is depicted as the most complete. At the departure of Prince Menchikoff from Constantinople, we are told that the Emperor Nicholas had 'destroyed the whole repute which he had earned by wielding the power of Russia for more than a quarter of a century with justice and moderation towards foreign States; that Lord Stratford was left with the approval of Europe, intrusted with the prerogative of kings; and that, living all the time at Therapia close over the gates of the Bosphorus, he seemed to stand guard against the North, and to answer for the safety of his charge.'

At Lord Stratford's success the Czar is furious, and firmly trusting to Lord Aberdeen and the peace party to shield him from the effects of his fury, passes the Pruth, notwithstanding the perfect understanding of all the powers of Europe. This understanding he always hoped to disturb. The non-advance

of the English fleet was a symptom of division. Mr. Kinglake approves of it. While showing the effects of the want of firmness in England, he eagerly embraces the opportunity, which no doubt he had long been looking for, to retrace his steps, and glance at the operations of a small host of middle-aged men who were pushing their fortunes at Paris.' The Russians did not pass the Pruth till the 2nd of July, 1853; but the 2nd of December, 1851, has to be described, and forms the second sensation story of the book.

The chapter taken by itself, written by the Duc d'Aumale or Victor Hugo, would have astonished no one by its extravagance, and interested most people by its power. But in a history of the Crimean war, and defence of Lord Raglan, who was not a statesman, written by an English gentleman not an exile, it is totally deficient in all that we should expect from a Christian, a philosopher, or a man of earnest and truthful research. It is, moreover, wholly impertinent to the story. It occupies III pages, and goes into all those details which malice, rage, or disappointment, male or female, political, military, or financial, could invent. We cannot help thinking that a ruined speculator, a literary Orleanist, a broken soldier in Brussels, and a faded beauty, must have sat in committee to accumulate facts for this wonderful chapter. The excuse for the performance is, that the moment after the coup d'état the policy of the French Government changed, in consequence of that necessity under which an usurper lies to do something before the world; and that, in order to show who and what that usurper was, it behoved our author to write upon the coup d'état. We deny that there was any necessity to do this; but if we are wrong, we think that Mr. Kinglake should have begun from 1848, which really was the source from which all these revolutions sprung. Again, was Louis Napoleon the only man who had made a coup d'état, or crushed constitutional government? or was it the fact that in 1851 every monarch in Europe, either by himself or by the aid of his neighbours, had trodden out the hopes, the follies,

and the crimes of 1848? Were Mr. Kinglake's friends in Austria guilty of no crimes in Hungary and Italy which should call for a sensation chapter? And were panic and alarm, prompting to cruelty, experienced in Paris alone?

We should like to have these questions answered, admitting, for the sake of argument, that the narrative of the coup d'état is substantially true.

We are forced, however, to test the truth, by examining the story as we find it.

Mr. Kinglake tells us that the state of affairs in the Chambers at Paris previous to the coup d'état was this: The struggles which went on in the chamber, though they were unsightly in the eyes of military men, and of those who love the decisiveness and consistency of despotism, were rather signs of healthy political action than of danger to the state. It is not true, as was afterwards pretended, that the executive was wickedly or perversely thwarted either by the votes of the assembly or by the speeches of its members; still less is it true that the representative body were engaged in hatching plots against the president; and although the army, remembering the humiliations of 1848, was in ill humour with the people, and was willing upon a fit occasion to act against them, there was no general officer of any repute who would consent to fire a shot without what French commanders deemed to be the one lawful warrant for action, an order from the minister of war.'

Let us examine this assertion.

The Emperor, then President, had been elected by a vast majority of the French people, including all the supporters of the two branches of the house of Bourbon. The election which made him chief of the state had been conducted with perfect fairness.' In 1850 the adherents of the two rival branches had made marked progresses to their respective sovereigns, whose claims to the throne had been openly canvassed. The Chambers were governed by these men, and the general in command at Paris, Changarnier, was notoriously only waiting for an agree

ment on their parts to play the part of Monk. The President, acting legally, dismissed this general. Thus the parliamentary leaders lost the instrument with which they had intended to make their coup d'état; and, in the debate on the power of the government to make this dismissal, M. Thiers said, 'If the Assembly yields, that which you say you do not wish for you have obtained to-day. It matters little when the name comes. The Empire is made.' The Republican party, knowing that General Changarnier was the instrument of the parliamentary leaders, and not a defender of the constitution, refused to vote for an expression of regret at his dismissal, and this motion ended in a mere vote of non-confidence in the ministry.

The next debate was on the increase of the President's allowance, in which the constitutional leaders lost the support of M. de Montalembert, who made use of the remarkable expression, that he only recognized that power as legitimate which was possible.

The election of a President was drawing nearer and nearer. Louis Napoleon was too strong to give hopes to either of the dynastic parties to carry a President.

All owners of property were against a Republican candidate. The only possible candidate except a Republican was Louis Napoleon.

The constitution forbade his reelection.

The constitution could only be changed by a majority of threefourths of the Chamber.

One million five hundred thousand persons had petitioned for the change in the constitution necessary for his re-election.

In the impossibility of starting their own candidate, or of otherwise defeating the Republicans, it was clearly the duty of the Conservative leaders to consent to the change in the constitution, and to take such securities in exchange for that concession as their power might enable them to obtain.

The central committee of resistance, believing that the revision of the constitution might be voted, determined to go into the street on

the day of the revision, and published the following manifesto:- We had foreseen that our enemies would not wait for 1852. Tearing aside the hypocritical veil with which they were still covered, they have thrown down the gauntlet to the Republic. Very well! we will accept the challenge. Some threaten us with the execrable white flag, others with the retention of a power which the law denies them, and which they have stained with crimes and baseness; all of them together assault the constitution, the last rampart of the rights of the people, and the last obstacle to their ambitious projects. They appeal to patricians, capitalists-the leeches of the countryand gather them under the standard of fear and egotism. The world is our witness that we are not the aggressors. We have done everything to avoid agitation and civil war. A handful of wretches, from mere light-headedness, provoke the shedding of blood; this time it must be on their own heads. We announce then to members of the majority, that those among them who by voting give the signal of carnage, will have pronounced their own death-warrant. The mention of their names in the Moniteur will be sufficient.' And this is what Mr. Kinglake calls signs of healthy political action, rather than of danger to the state.' The Assembly rejected the proposition to the joy of the Republican party.

The next healthy discussion in the Chambers was on the right of the President of the Chambers to call upon the army to defend it.

The Questors of the Chambers made a proposition to the effect that a direct requisition for defence could be made to the troops. This proposition was defeated by the combined forces of the government and the ultra Republicans.

We may thus sum up these events: The Legitimists and Örleanists had each shown dynastic intentions, and exposed their divisions by their respective pilgrimages in 1850.

By their conduct in the affair of Changarnier's dismissal they had shown themselves powerless, and had indicated the weak point of their defensive position.