The Express.
London, England, 1856-03-21 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, MARCH Si, 11166.

ell what it west ham Will b Al**.
lining from Damsel= at the heed of•lds mighty
hosts, to see the mysterious Seel'ollpa• the over AO
ridge of Antinomies, and ggdo below the Whom
of sand. Did Amiss take it for & item of eacounigh:
moot. Cr warning P And what thought the Saracens
as they swept likes whirlwind through Mauritania,
terrifying the Roman colonies es they west, and
were stopped only by the Atlantio—the pest ma
which they reviled as opposing their missionary pro-
pees P Did the menet hug shove the sea inviting,
or deterring P Asd did any spectator discern in it s
warning of the destruction of the second Osethoge
which wee so soon to follow! And how did the
=asp star look from northers seas and wilder-
nesses P—from the wild forests in Ireland whore the

mixtona►y preached to wild hearing the Wait fors

of Chriedendoetrlso me it was saaounsed fuss the
Beat ?—or frost the tudag esee of Scotland, when
the dearest lamp of leas served u a beam to
pricks messing from their adideas afar P—or to
the plus hiders of abbeys and ehurelne is Eng-
land, whoa they gathered up their tools at sondem
sad probably interpreted the sight as a gigs that
their work wu seeepted luny, no doubt,
believed in a connexion between the comet and the

consolidation of the Hoptarchy thou going on. Ms
seven states ;had bosoms threw and the times wen
converging to an anion. EalllD at Northumbria

was introoble with the Picts, and within two years
of his slaughter by theta. It is probable that the
King and his daosadants looked on the strange star
as a prophet—he with fear, and they es en a cue of
proved fasetion.
The next appearasee, in 995, was airrevaded with

even deeper awe. What disclosures had time made,
ITTOD in our own island! ALPS= the GAZA! had
lived and died, and human history was enriched for
ever,—its emends' illuminated by se bright a star
as any of the hest. DUNSTAN had lived and died;
and his reeewmor seemed his place in the veryyear of
the comet. The effigy of the proud priest of the
middle ages was stamped on every Englishman's
heart, and the uprising of religious establishasenba
on :every band, till ose•third of the kingdom
was in the hands of the Church, prevented
their forgetting the aims and efforts of the holy
man who had, so evibentreated Baton himself.
Yet the ignorance of the people was fast
deepening, after some revival of light ; and mason
the gems at the comet were men and women who
had stolen away into the forest or among the hills,
to teach their children to worship tree or fountain, or
idol of stone.lProbably they worshipped the emu
itself ; for Lena, moos, and lire were moo, the
objects that the clergy were desired to keep them
from adoring. Bat ander the panic and misery of
Danish iIICONSCOS, the smarm preyed to everything
suggested to them, in hope of mese free NOM guar.
ter ; and even now the Danish raven was an the
wing to their shores. The comet which stood above
the woods to the British peasantry aimed over the
waters in the path of the sea-rovers. Between in-
vasion and piracy from abroad, the loss of cattle from
the murrain at home, and the deaths of great men,
the comet might well appear a sign of wrath and a
messenger of disaster.

The ant Mewl wee shorter; bat it seams to us.
I • lessiint of the ?alum of the rands. that greater
and mem various evens had occurred than darn'
the former. When the some; announced itself in
1284, the world was still ringing with the fame of
&note Ewan, who had died seven years before. The
East was thrown open to men's imaginations, and in
a measure to their exploration. The Pews probably
peed oa the comet from the steppes of Central Asia.
and it was in the very year of this spreads that
China became known to Europe as a substantial
reality. The world wee in commotion. China,
Ern, and Poland were at once invaded by Maple
OM Tartan, and the momest wee drawing mar for
Goths of the Ottoman Empire. Ia Europe the life
411 lie Church was the life ef sosiety at that time ;
#the Mardi was very actin. Missionaries in
iiseerts or remote cities of our hemisphere, when
delving to make Christian of men wavering between
idolatry and Islamism, might be tempted to do as the
Greek priests is amnia did two yean sines—point
out the comet as the star of Bethlehem, mat as a sign
of their mimics. In the schools of Europe the autho-
rity of AZISTOTLI was tottering. It was the
II period of his partial Wipes, to be fol.
lowed by a renewal of the term of his glory.
In England. Oxford wee still rising; and in this very
iyear Bailie' College was building. Bat than were
monkish retreats where seisms was prosecuted in •
quiet way while Madam were wrangling about
words. The want shine on the audio of Doss
Samos (bora deeper before); bat there were grown
men then talking as vainly as Dues kenos was
about to do. There was another Beotchatan, however,
at work on physical science, in pursuit of which the
comet would be a welcome object. The Wizard,
MICHAILL BOOTC—more mathematician and scholar
than sorcerer—was one of the star-gazers of that
day; and another wee Ram BACON. Ono wooden
whether be inquired of the beams head whence the
comet came. As far the rest of the English world,
it bad learned and gained much daring the interval.
There bad been so great a fair ordered by Lag
BENAT (for the sake of the tolls he took there) that
people's minds began to search though blindly, abm
the principles of ONENIATIO. There wee an attempt
at present to stop the strife between Log Old
IBerene and at the beginning of this year
Lome the NINTH of France, as arbitrator,
bed pronounced for the Charter being nab-
illbed, though his sympathies were with the Lag.
Bat, is spite of all mediation, the battle of Lewes
wined, sad the meet glared above the battle-Gehl
where 6,000 Beglialtreen lay slaughtered. Above
all other changes mast be noted that whisk has
connected that century with every salisequest
of our political life. There had been • real parlia-
ment held is England. In the next year to that of
the comet, and as a direct onseptense of the battle
of Lewes, writs were seat oat santrooaing two
knights from sash county and two burgesses from
etch city er town.

There has beim owe name of the speeded, mimes
then. It woe marked by the throwing open of the
West, as the former apparition was by the disclaim,
of the East. Tradition reports that it was the emit
of 16103 which warned CacaLu V. to abdicate.
There had been changes enough Mote he last appear-
ance to admonish Mop et the search of human
affairs. Another hemisphere was &mimed, and
the Itdians, probably taking the Beaming
star for a sign that the white mew were
gods, bent the knee to their conesercee ma the
earth, mad bowed their heads bateau the token la the
sky. At the ends of the earth, explorers were seek-
lag for PIMITCII JOHN, and the misamercial world
were making gentians shoat far Cathay—in a spirit
aot wholly aelike oars of Ude day. Bet the greet
religions sheep which was the °peeing of our day
of liberty wee wrought. &asked had been pretest-
ant, and was &boat to be sore truly protestant them
before, and for ever : and the Low Conataies were
eaterieg ea their straggle. Pamir IL had Just bm
come Liag ; and the striae with the Ottoman power
in the Mediterranean was beginniag. Presently
after this, a British traveller preseated the world with
the first map of Russia ever made ; ands, great was
the expansion of commerce that the way was pre-