The Express.
London, England, 1849-08-29 00:00:00

than either England or Ireland with this essential
ttr-
quisite of modern civilisation, having teside the col-
lections at her four universities, the valuable one well
known as the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh. Ire-
land's deficiency of literary resources kr but too much
its keeping with all the other maidens cf her long
misrule. The library of Trinity College has bees I
accumulated since the last wave of confisanks
and destruction swept over her devoted Odor'
and to the privileged acquaintance of tho hest et
that exclusive body, as well as to such as have ob-
tained tho degree of M. A., it affords ample meccal
el historic, scientific, and theological research. But
I the other libraries in the Irish metropolis are wholly
unworthy of the epithet of national ; and beyond its
precincts intellectual famine reigns so fax as public
granaries for its mitigation are concerned.
In all England there are absolutely but
three libraries whose names one can recall
es national institutions without a blush or
a bitter laugh. They are the British Museum,
the Bodleian at Oxford, and that of the University of
Cambridge. The northern half of the kingdom can
188IY show one venerable pile of circumscribed dimen-
sions, which wes stocked by the private munificence
of Humpartze Crtirmss at Manchester two hundred
years ago. Analogous gifts to the public were made
indeed by Dr. Wirtre, rector of Sr. Dunstan's, in
1836, and by Dr. WILLIAMS, also an inhabitant of the
etty, in 1716. The former is preserved for the benefit
let the select few at Sion College, London-wall ; and
the latter is somewhat less reservedly maintained
in Red Cross-street. In some half-dozen of oar
Icathedral cities, there are moreover to be found the
diminishing remains of the typographic wisdom of
oar ancestors. But all these consist in chief part of
divinity or scholastic works, good and useful as ele•
ments of a whole, but no more 'applying the wants
of the day and generation than the Norman armoury
in the Tower is fitted to supply weapons or accoutre-
ments to a regiment of guards.
In a word, it must be freely owned that our utter
neglect of all public provision for the great purpose in
I question, has hitherto been unparalleled among
civilised communities. While parliament has been
session after session squandering the taxes paid by
the people on powder and pensions, ball cartridge
and colonial bribes, one of the most sacred duties
of a representative legislature has been, if not
totally forgotten, uniformly slurred over as a dull
matter of routine, or treated with a hnxter's hand. It
is stated in the report before us that France contains
107 open libraries; Austria, 48 ; Prussia, 44; Ba-
varia, 17 ; Belgium, 14 ; Tuscany, 9; Saxony, 6 ;
Denmark, 6. As for us, we know not where to turn
for class-fellows in want of public spirit unless it be
to Russia, for Spain retains the splendid monuments
of her ancient learning, and the Turks are learning
to read.

Tax military executions, of which at Rastadt,
wo read daily, are very diegusting and dirgraceful.
After the first Emerges of the Prussian troops com-
mitted in some towns, there was a cessation of such
brutality, and we were glad to see that in the cam-
paign, conducted by the Prince of Prussia, such
scenes were not repeated. But if the outrages of a
rabid soldiery are horrors to be denounced and pre-
vented, the cold-blooded sacrifice of noble lives re-
flects even more dishonour upon the government of a

civilise] country.
We have shown no sympathy for the insurgents of
Baden or of the Palatinate. The folly of their attempt,
the appeal to arms after the middle classes had been
disgusted by the use which the mob of Berlin made
of their arms and their momentary success, could be
only looked on as madness. But still these insurgents
were not without claims both to pity a- d to respect
What did they rise for? They rose for German
unity, and for the constitution of Germany, voted by
a legally summoned and recognised repr.esentative
assembly. The reigning powers of Prussia and of
Austria acknowledged this assembly ; the former nego-
tiated with it, feasted with it, and the King of
PRUSSIA himself (lid, perhaps, more than any other
man, or brdy of men, to induce Germans to look to
the Frankfort parliament as that bcdy from which 1
the constitution of Germany was rightly and duly to
proceed. This parliament does vote a constitu-
tion. It is accepted by a large number of German
states, when the King of PRUSSIA thinks fit to
demur to it, and to issue another constitution.
Now, although we think that the King would have
acted more honourably and wisely in accepting the
Frankfort constitution with all its defees, and trust-
ing to time and the good sense of the Assembly to
mcke the necessary alterations, instead of undertaking
to do these himself, nevertheless we sincerely desire
that the Germans should accept the imperial consti-
tution of the three kings, as it is called. But although
we entertain this opinion, we must admit that every
German had a right to entertain a contrary opinion,
and to prefer the Frankfort constitution to the Berlin
one. And having this opinion, to take arms in its
favour may have been a fcolish proceeding, but not a
criminal one. M. Von VINCKE is precisely of the
same opinion as the insurgents of Baden and the
Palatinate, except that he rejects physical force.
If ever, therefore, there was a case in which the
suppression of rebellion ought to have been followed by
indulgence, it was this one of the Baden insurrection.
And yet we find a court-martial of cfficers, in the
midst of peace and conquest, sitting and sending day
after day to execution the most honourable and con-
scientious men. A strong feeling may have existed
of the necessity of making an example of any Prussian
officer who had led this revolt against the arms of his
country. But the victims of Rastadt comprise men
of all classes. Tnrevzscitsza, for example, was a
man of great wealth and intelligence, and upright-
reels, and a civilian too. TIEDEMAN, the son of
the celebrated Heidelberg professor, bas been
another victim. Professor KINKEL would have been
sacrificed but for the great interest made for him.
Although the majority of the Germans saw at once
the folly of the insurrection,neverthelees there is great
and general sympathy felt for those who were carried
away by it. It was no deep laid conspiracy, but a
kind of sudden and spontaneous movement, which
seemed so natural and legitimate a consequence of
the opinions previously expressed by all, that simple
men,like Kismet, thought they were but doing their
duty ; and high placed men, such as Seamen, the
Court architect of Dresden, deemed it disgraceful
not to act up to their opinions, even whilst contemp-
lating their hopeleasnees.
These are not victims whose slaughter will
strengthen a cause, or whose blocd will cement a
throne. On the contrary, their fates bare excited
strong aversion against government in the breasts of
many not inclined to take part in politics. When
we consider the attempt of a few foolish Irish to get
up a rebellion, the lenient way in which they were
treated, admitting of a royal visit and a popular re-
ception the enthusiasm of which was unparalleled
and unexpected, we have a strong example of the
wise policy of avoiding to shed blood, or of making a
rigid and ruthless use of conquest. The King and
the Prince of PRUSSIA ought to have left such bar-
barity as this to the HAYNALS and the WINDISCII-
Gunn, nor sought to rival the Austrian murder of
Bum by the Prussian sacrifice of TRUETZSCIILEV
And had the victims of Rastsdt been confined to one
or two outrageous cases, and mercy been shown pro-
portioned to the facility and certainty of conquest,
more would have been done to conciliate disloyalty
and prevent disaffection than by the wholesale deci-
mation of a gallant body of men, provoked or betrayed
into insurrection by the bad faith, and false promises,
and criminal vacillation of their prince'.
The news of the execution of Temerzscrmsre, with
the affecting circumstance of his wife's attendance
upon him, reached Leipzig at the same time that the
King of SAXONY went thither to review the regi-
ments jest returned from Schleswig. Solemn and
ominous was the silence, and universal the expression
of contempt and aversion with which his Majesty was
received. His vacillation indeed it was which pro-
voked the rising, and then caused the slaughter and
execution of his subjects.
The King of PRUSSIA himself, though girt round
with legions, is not the less amenable to the terrible
tribunal of public opinion, exasperated as it is against
German princes; and we cannot but warn him, that
- I even his imperial constitution, were it steeped in
Pali"

• The only son of a rich old aristocratic family in Gotha
he studied law at Jena and Heidelberg, entered afterward.
into the service of the Kin? of Saxony. and became asses-
sor of the court ofjusticc at Dresden. He married a young
lady of a noble family. Elected as deputy to Frankfort, he
sate as member of the extreme left, and went afterwards to
Baden as commissary of the revolutionary government. His
wife after his arrest paid out of her own fortune whatever
money he had levied as comminaey. In their last inter-
view he made her promise that she would emigrate with
their two children to America. Hie old and very respectable
parade are still living at Gotha.