The Press.
London, England, 1854-03-25 00:00:00

'OO

guaranteed individual property, further added
exercised by the refuge, by giving
tse development of English menu-
. navigation.
tufactures with which the refugees en-
one acquired a more magnificent
silks. First, in the quarter of
skilful workmen from Tours
themselves. In 1694 their numbers
that they possessed 1,000 looms,
persons ; but the majority finally
- district of Spitalfields. Thence
inufacture to Dublin, where it •
mortance. England and Ireland
iorable sight of a manufacture
ter, consuming foreign materials,
succeeded in equalling, and even
of those countries where it had
chapter the author raises
question
which he does not discuss, but
ch involves some curious considerations.
e refer to the last portion of the following
emigration from France, there now
4 churches, scattered far and
language of their founders.
is have long since disap-
sist will end by blending, in
foreign races that surround them,
insensibly alters their national
their names, as if to efface
indication of their origin.
the century, they will no
.section of the native land
ted. When we contemplate
their scattered communities,
as not found, in the first in-
family sufficiently illustrious,
great, to rally all the exiles
g Coligny's idea, he might
and there have founded a vast
colony. He would have found to his hand all the ele-
ments of a numerous society, full of energy, and giving
great hopes for the future : generals, soldiers, sailors,
preachers, men of learning, manufacturers, artisans, traders,
labourers, and even capital to facilitate their first esti&
liohment. What more was needed to make a Protestant
France flourish in the New World, and to lay, perhaps, the
foundations of a powerful empire ?
It has long been held that the French do
not make good colonists ; and the condition
of the habitans in Canada goes far to support
the opinion, though it is possible there may
be an erroneous exaggeration of the fact.
Their temperament is not so well suited as'
more phlegmatic races for the pursuit of com-
merce, on which so much of our modern
civilisation depends. But the extraordinary
prosperity of the Huguenots, in spite of per-
secutions and in presence of an overpowering
majority, would seem to point to the conclusion
that, with the superior influence of a rational
religion, and with the absence of prier4t.craft
and superstition, the French people might
succeed still further in industrial pursuits.
We may doubt whether a French Protestant
empire in North America would have success-
fully competed with the Anglo-Saxon race ;
but are we precipitate in thinking that, if there
had been a French State founded in South
America, whether Protestant or Catholic, it
would have risen far above the degenerate
and decrepid Spanish-American natives?
At the conclusion of his work the author
records :
The gates of France have now for sixty years been
thrown open to the posterity of the Protestant exiles.
Several have returned to the country of their ancestors,
attracted thither by &secret and irresistible feeling, painfully
repressed in their hearts during the long duration of the
persecution. The Odiers, the La Doecheres, the Pradiers,
the Constants, the Delprats, the Bitaubes, the Pourtales,
have restored to France distinguished members of their
families. The greater number of the descendants of the
fugitives still dwell in strange lands, but they remember,
with
theirsegitimate pride, the act of reparation which recognises
imperishable right to the title of French citizens.
Our readers will perceive that we are of
opinion that the history of the Huguenots is
still a subject open to the pen of a brilliant
and aspiring author capable of imparting the
charms of a vivid style to a subject with
stirring associations. We shall have to return
before long to the story of the French refugees,
as we have just received a copy of the English
translation of M. Bougener's fiction of " The
Priest and the Huguenot."
Day and Night Songs. By William Allingham.
London : Routledge and Co.
MR. ALLINGRA)T published a volume of poems
in 1850, which many of our readers must have
seen, or, at all events, heard of; and which
received no slight approbation from the ac-

peose, and guaranteed indi
to the happy influence exer
the signal for an immense
factures, commerce, and nel
Of all the manufactureE
dowed this kingdom, not or
development than that of s
Blackfriars, at Canterbury,
and Lyons established them
had so greatly increased tha
giving work to 2,700 per
settled in London, in the
they propagated their msi
assumed an unexpected
itn
then presented the memc
borrowed from the foreigner
lind which ne
v
e
r
helesa sl
in surpassing, the products
long been cultivated.
In the concluding

VT U
passage:—
Of the great religious emigratit
remain but a small number of ch
wide, and still speaking the lax
Most of the exiled families
poured. Those that still subsist
their turn, with the foreign ra
and whose incessant action inseu
language, and transforms even
tl
their last regrets with this last it
Doubtless, before the end of i
longer retain the slightest recoib
their ancestors so long mourned
this inevitable dissolution of the
we may regret that there was
stance, some one chief, of a fam
and of authority sufficiently gre
under one banner. Realising
have led them to America, and
found