The Express.
London, England, 1861-11-18 00:00:00

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

A !ate edition of the Express is published every
evening during the racing season, containing the
results of the day's races.

Sovr ten years sines, when the revolutionary
tide of '4B had fallen to its lowest ebb, it was the
fashion to believe that constitutional government
and Parliamentary institutions had been tried and
found wanting, and that Great Britain was des-
tined to be the sole exception to the European
system of administrative and military monarchies.
There remained, it is true, two or three small
neutral states on the Continent, where legislative
Chambers, responsible ministers, and a free press
tempered and restrained the authority of the
Crown, without disturbing the loyalty of the
people ; but those were States preserved
from all the winds of change, and from
the mounting deluge of deinocrecy, by
their happy insignificance, as much as
by their domestic virtues, political sobriety, and
love of order. Such was the case of Holland,
Belgium, and Portugal. In the first of these
countries the native good setae and the solidity of
the national character were sufficient guarantees
against undue excitement, and the comfortable re-
lations between Krro and people were always
proof against the infection of unsound theorise.
Under shelter of his dykes the stout Dutchmen
pursued his business, and prospered, like a good
citizen who neither gives nor takes offence. The
neighbouring kingdom, just French enough to feel
the advantage of not being part of France, and
quite near enough to a KAraur.os to rejoice in being
far enough off, clung to its constitution as to the
charter of its independence, and made a
point of honour of its attachment to an
honest and faithful KING. To Portugal
the example of her nearest neighbour was not
lost, nor the example of England. Of the Scandi-
navian peoples, it need only be said that their
life was easy and uneventful. Greece kept open
a petulant little school of public life. Ou
the other hand, in Spain the creatures of the court
fell sick even of the forms and grimaces of con-
stitutional government ; while in Prussia the poor
KIN,; was half ashamed and half afraid of the
shadows he had himself evoked. The rest of the
continent was a huge dead wall of despotism ; a
cloud of soldiery, gaolcre, and spies, a world of
barracks, prisons, and bureaux.
Times have changed ; and the tide of freedom
has sot in once more. What was reaction at
Vienna is now desperation ; what was obstinacy at
St. Petersburg is now confusion ; what was resistance
at Berlin is now acquiescence ; what was prostration
at Paris is now a stirring discontent, and a nervous
abdication of omnipotence. But at what a cost
has this change in the destinies of Europe been
wrought ! At what a cost, we say, to the countries
which have patiently endured so long the confisca-
tion of their rights. At the cost of wars and rumours
of wars, of panics, of collapses of credit, of squandered
millions, of moral de;radation, of financial cata-
strophes confessed nither than averted. And, after
all, it is to the example of a little state like Belgium
that those vain military monarchies which were fain
to dispense with paper constitutions and talking par-
liaments, must need conform at last.

Nor I. it to be forgotten that it is, more than
aQ to the national life of free, constitutional, par-
liamentary Piedmont, that oppressed, debilitated,
and languishing Europe is indebted for her present
eyinptoins of convalescence. Suppose Count C AVOW{
had consented to work out the regeneration of Italy
by the sole aid of foreign bayonets, instead of
by all the living forces of a free Parliament and
press at home; suppose Italy had been the battle-
field of one military despotism against another ;
where weal Italian liberty be now ? And who
can doubt that it is free Italy that has given bock
freedom to Europe ? Libe.-ty, then, is not a vain
word ; it is light, and air, and life. Do
arbitrary rulers pause to reflect upon the speeches
of their constitutional brethren ? Does FRANCIS
J. ongl•H , for instance, care to penise and
consider the speech of his intimate family
connexion, the pattern constitutional King of the
I Does the young tiovinutium who
halts for ever between perjury and violence, mark
the tone and temper of this royal speech ; the con-
fiding and even grateful affection, the generous spirit
of cooperation, the honest and hearty appeal to the
active and kindly support of the Legislature
for the advancement of the common cause—the
national welfare and the public good t One mar-
vels at the infatuation of any man condemned
from his birth to the trade of monarchy, who
does not perceive the advantage of taking his
people into partnership. As a matter of mere
personal comfort, who would not rather be the
constitutional King of the Btulia...es than the
Emperor of Avarua?
The domestic, peaceable, and unambitious lan-
guage of tho King of the Betels:4e may be curi-
ously contrasted with the high Castilian quality
of her CATHOLIC MAJESTY'S harangue at the open-
ing of the Cortes. Queen Ins BELLA, it is well
known, is a constitutional sovereign ; nay, the
chief of a revolutionary dynasty ; and her present
Prime Minister is the successful leader of a midi.
Lary revolt. Perhaps, these fact. may account for
the eminently conservative temper of the words
that fall from the Spanish throne.
The tenderand profound veneration for the HOLT
Faritea old h Her Ids.imiry, with unquestionable
sincerity, professes in the second paragraph of her
Speech, is a respectable tradition, and, all ap-