The Sun.
London, England, 1855-06-12 00:00:00

COLONIAL.

SUCI A.B.—Full rates have been offered, but there have
been very few sales. There are buyers of floating car-
goes of foreign on home and continental account, and at
firm prices. There is a fair demand. for duty paid at
former quotations. The lower kinds of colonial are wanted,
and the rates are fully as high as previously. For refined
the home trade has not improved. Still sales are not
pressed. Brown lumps are not to be obtained under 475.
For crushed the market is firm. There wore landed last
week at the East and West India Docks 2,204 hhds, 130
trs. 510 bris ; there were taken for home use 1,400 hhds,
139 trs, 179 brls ; and the stocks are 10,671 hhds, , 1,057 trs
and 2,219 brls.
COFFEE.—Colonry Plantation has been supported at
fell rates with several buyers, but the market generally is
Natiie
inactive, and sellers
is
dull,
SALTPETREI.—: This article is steady, but quiet.
COTTON.—There is some improvement at a shade advance
in prices. . .
n not lower.
williesw r.
to accept former terms.

TEA.LThe market is quiet at Sid. to 9,1. for Congou.
RUM.—Thorn were landed last week at the above-named
docks 864 puns, 29 beds; there were taken for home con-
sumption 219 puns, 17 hlida ; and there were exported
339 puns, 532 hhds. The stock is 2,435 puns, 378 hhas.*T"

THE CASE OF MR. W. H. BARBER.— kt the cicirse.or
the arguments in support of the rule in this case, w4iich
occupied the greater part of yesterday, Lord Caropl ell.
said that the case 1110 been argued with gt:eat
and propriety ; and as the ease was of great importance
to Mr. Barber the Court would take time to consider
.heir judgment.

SUMMER CIRCUITS OF THE JUDG
1855.

Yesterday being the last day but one of the present
term, the judges finally appointed the days for opening
the Commission, and holding the ensuing General Assize
and Ga )1 Delivery in and for the several counties
throughout England and Wales, and the following is au
accurate and official statement of the days so appointed :
HOME CIRCUIT.
Judges—The Hon. Mr. Justine Wightman and the Hon.
Mr. 'Justice Cresswell.
Hertfordshire— Tuesday, July 10, at Hertford.
Essex—Friday, July 13, at Chelmsford.
Sussex—Wednesday, July 18, at Lewes.
Kent—Monday, July 23, at Maidstone.
Surrey —Saturday, July 28, at Croydoa.
NORTHERN CIRCUIT.
Judges—The Hon. Mr. Baron Platt, and the Hon, Mr.
Justice Crowder.
Yorkshire—Tuesday, July 10, at the Castle of the
City of York.
City of York—The same day, at Guildhall of the city.
Durham—Tuesday, July 24, at Durham.
Northumberland—Monday, July 30, at Newcastle-
on-Tyne.
Town of Newcastle—The same day, at the same place.
Cumberland—Thursday, August 2, at Carlisle.
We4moreland—Monday, Aug. 6, at Appleby.
North Division of Lancashire—Wednesday, Aug. 8,
at Lancaster Castle,
South Division of Lancashire—Saturday, Aug. 11, at
Liverpool.

NORFOLK CIRCUIT.
Judges—The Right Hon. Mr. Baron Parke and the

Hon. Mr. Baron Alderson.
Buckinghamshire—Wednesday, July 11, at Ayles-
bury.__

Bedfordshire—Friday, July 13, at Bedford.
Huntingdonshire—Woduesday, July 18, at Hunting-
don.

Cambridgeshire—Friday, July 20, at the County Court
of Cambridge.
Norfolk—Tuesday, July 24, at the Castle at Norwich.
City of Norwich—The same day, at the Guildhall of
the City.
Suffolk—Saturday, July 28, at Ipswich.
MIDLAND CIRCUIT.
Judges—the Hon. Mr. J3stice Coleridge and the Hon.
Mr. Justice Maule.
Northamptonshire.—Tuesday, July 10, at North-
ampton.
Leicestershire.—Friday, July 13, at Leicester.
Borough of Leicester.—The same day.
Rutlandshire. —Tuesday, July 17, at Oakham.
Lincolnshire.—Wednesday, July 18, at the Castle of
Lincoln.
City of Lincoln.—The same day, at the Guildhall.
Nottinghamshire.—Saturday, July 21, at Nottingham.
Town of Nottingham.—The same day.
Derbyshire.—Wednesday, July 25, at Derby.
Warwickshire.—Saturday, July 28, at the Castle of
Warwick.
The Coventry Assize has been abolished.

OXFORD CIRCUIT.
Judges—The Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Sir
Fredk. Pollock, and the Hon. Mi. Justice Erle.
Berkshire.—Tuesday, July 10, at Abingdon.
Oxfordshire.—Thursday, July 12, at Oxford.
Worcestershire.—Monday, July 16, at Worcester.
City of Worcester.--The same day, at the Guildhall
of the city.

Staffordshire.—Thursday, July 19, at the Castle of
Stafford.
Shropshire.—Thursday, July 26, at Shrewsbury.
Herelordshire.—Saturday, July 28, at Hereford.
Monmouthshire.—Wednesday, Aug.l, at Monmouth.
Gloucestershire.—Saturday, August 4, at Gloucester.
City of Gloucester.—The same day.
WESTERN CIRCUIT.
Judges—The Hon. Mr. Justice Williams and the Hon.
Mr. Justice Crompton.
County of Southampton (Hauts)—Tuesday, July 10,
at Winchester.
Dorsetshire—Monday, July 16, at Dorchester.
Devonshire—Thursday, July 19, at the Castle of Exeter.
City of Exeter—The same day, at the Guildhall.
Cornwall—Wednesday, July 25, at Bodmin.
somersetshire—Monday, July 30, at Wells.
Wiltshire—Saturday, Aug. 4, at Devizes.
City of Bristol—Wednesday, Aug. 8, at Bristol.
NORTH WALES AND CHESTER CIRCUIT.
Judge—The Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas

Sir Jno..Je;vis. --
IVlontgomeryshire—Tuesday, July 17, at Newtown.
Merionethshire- -Friday, July 20, at Dolgelly.
Carnarvonshire—Monday, July 23, at Carnarvon.
Ang lesey—Tii ur,d ay, July 20, at Beaurnaris.
Denbigh,hire—Saturday, July 23, at Denbigh.
Flintshire—Wednesday, Aug. 1, at Mold.
Chester and City-Saturday, Aug. 4, at Chester.
SOUTH WALES AND CHESTER CIRCUIT.
Judge—The Right PlonouraWe Lord Campbell, Lor I
Chief Justice of the Qacen's Bench, who, after pro-
ceeding through the Circuit, will join the Lord Chiel
Justice of the Commo❑ Pleas at Chester, and the as:-
sizes for that city and county. The following are his
lot dship's arrangements :
CardiganShire—Thursday, July 12, at Cardigan.
Pembrokeshire—Saturday, July 14, at liaverfordwekt.
Town of Haverford west—The sane day.
Carm trtheushire—Wednesday, July 18, at Carmar-
then.
Glamorganshire—Monday, July 23, at Cardiff'.
BrecknuCkshire—Saturday, July 28, at Brecon.
Radnorshire—Thursday, August 2, at Pre.iteign.
. Cheshire—Saturday, August 4, at the Castle of
Chester.
City of Chester—The same day, at the Guildhall.
VACATION JUDGE.

Mr. Baron Martin will remain in town as Vacation
Judge, and preside daily at Chambers,dnriog the ab-
sence of the judges in Ciictut.

SIR JOSEPH PA XTOIV'S SCHEME FOR THE
rarpßovi,=:\ TOP THE HET RO I' OLIN; I ......._.,
.
I The lifartins of Oro' Martin. No. VII. .By
The plan of Sir Joseph, as explained by him before Et, ;
committee of the House of Commons, is as follows : 1 , Charles Lever.
He proposed to enclose. London in a monster arcade 180 feet in helght, with a roadway 72 feet wide, such arcade I
(the present
are no more than a couple of chapters in
to befitted up on each side with shops, the upper part present number of "The Martins of Cro' Mar-
aud rear to be appropriated to drawing-rooms, eleeping_ tin ' --and yet the story is, in these two chapters,
rooms, and other domestic apartments. Parallel with I carried well onward in the earlier stages of its de-
this arcade, at a considerable elevation frcin the ground, velo
a railway would be formed, on one side of the arcs' pment. The one introduces us into " A
being used for the up line, ando -
Studio,"the atelier of Simmy Crowe. The other
the other for the down,
while the carriage-way in the centre would beuse acquaints•us with the method of preparing "An
merely for carriages going to the shops. He proposed Election Adclress"—thatprojected against the con-
that this arcade, commencing near the Royal 'Exchange, stituency of Oughterard, by our old young friend
should proceed thence across Cheapilde, and over a Jack Massingbred. In
bridge to be constructed between Southweek and Black-
'Henderson appears before the readers of Mr. Lever's
all kinds of situations Kate
friars bridges, thence to High-street, Bore ugh, where a junction would be forined with the railweys at London- new work as a veritable phenomenon—as Mr. Pea-
cock's intimate The Swan of Avon. bath it—a
bridge. From the Borough it would return by a circuit-
ous course to the Thames, forming a junction with the
South-Western Railway, crossin the river by another "paragon of animals." Already we had been in-
bridge to the Strand, A. branch would cross the river by formed by the previous numbers that Kate could
e third bridge from near Lambeth Palace to the new extract melody from the piano almost with the
Homes of Parliament-street. By the wa of Victoria-
skill of a Listz or a Thalberg—and that she could
street it would then proceed to Bromptony, across Ken-
sington-gardens to the Great Western Railway station ;so converse in the sweet and voluble language
thence to the London and North-Western and Great the south as to impart, , sic by her tones fresh uagmu of
Northern stations ; thence to Istlngton, and back to to the dulcet verses of Tasso and Petrarch. We
the Royal Exchange. He also proposed a branch to
Piccadilly, &e. The length, of the arcade would be had yet to learn, however, that she could paint with
ton miles two furlongs, and the branch two furlongs, the dash of an academician, and fool the rabble to
He entered into a variety of details to show that the the top of its bent by means of rhetorical casuis_
work would be highly remunerative, as well as to form tries and political balderdash with all the precision
a means of speedy transit and improved communication. and promptitude of the, most practised demagogn.e.
First, from the Mansion-house down to Victoria-street, Harry Lorriquer has evidently selected the
and the Regent-circus to the Mansion-house. In getting governess of Cro' Martin as a sort of ideal
up these estimates he had gone to the expense of employ - counterpart, in the softer sex, of ,the Admirable
ing an efficient surveyor, and also a person who is known
in London as a valuer of property connected with the Crichton. Poor Mary Martin is quite forgotten
o
whole of the districts. There were three bridges over h Mary at the out-
for the new favourite. Although
heroine
the rivei-1. Queenli,the, 406,5001. ; 2. The Strand set threatened to be the ne plus ' ultra of a
bridge, which is much longer, 754,800/. ; and be bad an outheroined. Eclipse sped far beyond the rest of
estimate from a 'firstrate contractor to complete it f' r the field, but Kate has distanced Eclipse. We
000,0001. (the size is like Waterloo-bridge,' but, with all meet her at every turn, and find her successful and
the houses, &c, upon it, it will not be so heavy as Lot- supreme in everything. She astonishes Simmy
don-bridge) ;3. The bridge at Westminster, 638,7001. Crowe by the genius with which she handles his
The Arcade, 5,453 yards lineal, at .1,000/. a yard ; the brush and pallette. She satisfies even the fastidious
roof 541. a yard ; and foundations for the same distance, and ever-captious Lady Dorothea by her apti-
-400,000/. ; land, conveyance, &c., 3,403,400. Total cost, tude as an amanuensis. he charms Mary Mar-
including three bridges, 11,307,941/. The whole arcade tin more and more by her wonderful gifts as a
is 11 miles long, and will cost about 34,000,0001.; that
includes everything complete. He had not gone into the cantatrice. She dissipates for a time the mingled
question of any amount for the resale of surplus land, ennui and insouciance of Martin himself, by amusing
With regard to the receipts to be expected from the let-
them with the very cream of the morning's newspa-
ting of the property, he bad not gone into it for the Per. She contents the heart of old Counsellor
whole length, but only for that part of it from the Man-
Repton by becoming the most patient of listeners
sion-house to Westminster, and from the Mansion- to the garrulity of what Rogers once delightfully
house to Regent.circus. The bridges would cost to branded with the soubriquet of—anecdotage ! In
build 1,800,0001., and the rental, exclusive of the rail- fine, she extricates from all manner of difficulties
way, would be 124,0001. He bad valued the houses on the newly-announced candidate for the suffrages
these bridges, taking 30 feet frontage by 48 feet deep, of the electors of Oughterard. The number closes
at 6001., and to arrive at that he had desired his sine with rare promise of excitement by means of an
veyor to make inquiries in different parts of London, hnd Irish election, which bids fair to be pretty sharply
he found for an equal frontage on Ludgate-bill the rent contested. The rival candidates threatening to
would be exactly 6001.; in Cbeapside, 750/. and 7201.; in
Lothbury, 'OO/., 660/., and 6501.; in King William_
take the borough by storm being the son-and heir
street, 5601., 7201., and 5701.; ie Moorgate-s-treet, 670/. of Martin, and the quondam friend and nominee of
" '
and 6201.; in Oxford-street, 8001.; and in St. Paul's-
that same lord of the soil, the spiteful exquisite,
world, Jack e
churchyard, 840/. He thought, therefore, his estimate and premature man of th
Massing-
for the bridges at 6001.. would not be too high. In the bred.
same district in the street arcade he had taken it at 6001.
also, because, as he said before, one part of this commu-
nication, from Waterloo-bridge station to the Mansion-
house,-would be the largest thoroughfares in the world.
In the other district—that is, from Belgravia to Victoria-
street—be took it at 4001., and through the Strand to
about Waterloo-station to about 5001. He got from the
bridges 124,0001,, and from the street arcade 510,000/,
Then he came to the passengers, and taking two-thirds
of the traffic as ascertained at different places, that would
give 506,6201. per annum, and, allowing 40 per cent, for
the working expenses, would leave a profit of 303,9721.,
m9.king a total receipt of 937,9721. Believing, as he did,
that it would be difficult to get any ordinary company to
do this work in a proper manner, and the amount being
so large, he (Sir J. Paxton) should propose to do it by a
Government guarantee at four per cent. He proposed
that i per cent. should be applied as a sinking fund,
which would in 60 years reduce the whole amount, and
it would then become national property. By the next
plan, of getting the undertaking carried out by dif-
ferent localities in London, when they came to junc-
tions
,he apprehended there would be great diffi-
culty both in raising money and determining what
to do. In case, however, the world would not take it
up, people knew what four per cent, Government Stocks
meant, but would want something more in the case
mentioned. The third plan would be to carry it out
entirely by private enterprise, although, from the num-
ber of persons who would hold shares, &e., it would be
a most difficult matter to carry out as one of share pro-
perty. The first plan he considered for all reasons the
best.

LITERAT ÜBE.

Clytemnestra : The Earl's Return : And other
Poems. By Owen Meredith. Chapman and
Hall.
Mt. Meredith's volume of poetry was not opened
by us without rather large expectation. As in so
many other instances of late, we had heard it said
of him also--this is the man at last in earnest—not
the Coming Man, but the Man actually Arrived—
the true poet, the bard of the age, the " bright
particular star," the new-born planet " swimming
into its ken "—not, however, this time before the
eyes of some lone traveller " upon a peak in Da-
rien," but within the comprehensive gaze of an
entire generation. We were told by some of our
contemporaries to console ourselves at length under
the pressure of repeated disappointment, for that
here,• at length, was the successful compeer of the
Laureate, one whose hand would win new laurels
now that the bay wreath was crisping into the
" sear and yellow leaf' upon the broad forehead
of Alfred Tennyson. It was not, however, any'
vague predictions such as these which awakened
our curiosity in regard to the writer of The Earl's
Return, and of the c?assic tragedy of Clytemnestra.
Assurances such as these we had overheard already
too often (only to find them ludicrously falsified
upon an examination of the vaunted masterpieces)
to place any solid credence in the mere al+ocr £I.7rEV
of such exceedingly fallible vaticinators of metri-
cal excellence. It was something beyond the cus-
tomary panegyrics poured out upon the young-
ling poet, which, in the instance here referred
to, encouraged us for the moment to believe that
now in reality, we might rejoice with reason over
the apparition of a genuine phenomenon in poetic
literature. It was seriously avowed by a respect-
able weekly newspaper that in his Clytemnestra)
Mr. Meredith had equalled Milton, and surpassed
.schylus. Certainly, we must confess it to have
been altogether beyond our power to swallow any
declaration so very tough and stupendous as this
—but we were compelled perforce to believe that
the book, so spoken of, must of necessity, comprise
merits of some sort, more than usually remarkable.
Well—we have read Clytemnestra, and have care-
fully turned over the subsequent pages of the
volume : those dedicated to the " Earl's Return,"
and the "Artist," and the " Wife's Tragedy," and
other poems—and the result is nothing less, of
course, than the old story all over again—complete
and painful disappointment. Yet the production
is altogether meritorious. The verses are, for the
most part, scanned throughout judiciously. The
melodious rhyt'im rises even, here and there, above
the level of mediocrity. But to talk of the mighty
masters of the human mind, to whisper the awful
names of Milton and tEschylus ! Monstrous puffing
like this is assuredly a cruelty no less to the reading
public than to the unfortunate literary adventurer.
Never can any one have more cause to exclaim in
anguish, "save me from my friends," than writers
treated on their first coming forth as Mr. Owen
Meredith has been treated ! They float for a
season on the surface of the current of oblivion,
sustained in their perilous position by inflated
puffs like those we have particularised, puffs inge-
niously tagged on to their names and those of their
works through advertisement. But, as with
Shakspere's "little wanton boys," that swim on
bladders—

" blowen up with wind,
Which, being prickt, do vanish into noughts,"
they yield their bubbles to the wind before very
long, and flounder by a practical bathos to the
inevitable bottom of Lethe. Unannounced by any
extravagant encomiums, a volume such as the one
here submitted to our examination, might pass
muster well enough among the crowd of kindred
tomes put forth by congenial competitors. But fancy
a work proffered with such a particularly resonant
flourish of trumpets, heralded by so sonorous and
reverberant a fanfaronade, upon opening which,
haphazard, cue's eye lights upon a passage like
the following:—
" The clouds were troubled, and the wind from his
prison

Behind them leapt down with a light laugh of scorn ;
When the last thieg she saw was that bare black thorn;
For the forked tree as the bleak blast took it,
Howl'd thro' it, and beat it, and bit it, and shook it,
Seeui'd to visibly waste, and wither, and wizen !"
A passage occuring at page 148, in " The Earl's
Return," which resembles somewhat in quaintness
of tone and oddity of idea that previously given at
page 132, in a little poem—the best in the volume
—" Good Night in the Porch," where it is strangely
written :
" From little things--a star, a flower— that touched us
with the self-same thought,
My passion deepen'd hour by hour, until to that
fierce heat 'twas wrought,
Which, shrivelling over every nerve, crumbled the
outworks of reserve."
An electric action of the animal fibres, tending,
we should have thought, rather to produce palsy
or paralysis, than affection or mutual confidence.
Mr. Meredith had evidently, though, may be, un-
consciously, in his mind the opening of "Mariana
in the Moated Grange
" With blackest moss the flower pots
Were thickly crusted one and all,
The rusty nails fell from the knots
That held the peach to the garden wall."
To say nothing of the spot hardby where the "clus-
tering marish mosses crept," when he penned the
introductory verses of that same " Good night in
the Porch :"

"The stagnant levels, one and all, are burning in the
distant marsh," &c.
It is in this same poem, however, that we find the
only really noble passag►e we have been able to dis-
cover in the whole volume—a passage worthy,
howbeit, we cannot but think, of particular men-
tion and especial remembrance. It is where the
sorrow-stricken thus reverently apostrophises the
Divine Redeemer—

e7t 2e
t Thouwert
God.
" Thou snffereclst here, and didst not fail,: Thy bleeding
feet
t
But-ho tith
wort
pathssiro nhla,vaend
trod :ara
frail
and / am man,
: or lay my soul
Be naesalreempein:
light."
in Thy
sight
As for Clytemnestra we pass that by in silence,
p y of
as
we would pass by a clever stone-mason's co
some old blurred frieze of the Parthenon—bossed
with dim figures carved in bas-relief, shadowing out
in stiff and somewhat monotonous procession as
they troop by, one after another, Agamemnon and
,zEgisthus, Orestes and Phocian, Electra,
dra, the Herald, the Chorus Cassan-
and i
murderess-queen herse , with these the,
lf, that horrible old. night-
mare of Argos, the " ghastly grim and an-
cient" Clytemnestra. It jars strangely upon
our senses, by the way, to hear thO wife of
Agamemnon embalming the most arrant colloqui-

"A reed may show which way the tempest blows."
It is somewhat more in accordance, with our notions
of what might have been the style of loiguage em-
ployed by Clytemuestra„ When we hear --her mut-
tering moodily about the misery it is
"To wake, and hear-all night the wandering gnat
_Sing thro' the silent chambers, white Alarm,
In place of Sine-her, by the haunted couch
Stand's sentinel."
Nevertheless, even this palls. up6n the .appetite for
a reclutuffje df-tlie elas§lc- tragic, go,rhished with all
the unities. in spite of the sagacious hints
vonchSafed by • friendlV CriticsL -about our`Milton,
and another we are driven, in spite -of
all considerations of gallantry, -to give ie go-by at
once not only tattle adulterous lover of lEgisthus,
but to the daughters also of Priam and Agamem-
non-hurling tha book, as we do so, in sheer despair
and exhaustion into the limbo of the wastepaper
basket.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURA'ALS.

(From the Daily News of this day.)

treachery which rendered it infamous during the wars
Austriathat shifting
must be'
tinonon closely
contemplates another
To
of atlhloaspe
eparntsocfe
• of the French Revolution. According to the most re-
liable accounts of the Circular addressed by the Cabinet
at Vienna, to its diplomatic agents, on the, 25th of
May, Austria affects to believe herself relieved from the
obligations she to the Western Powers by
the treaty of the 2d of December. The Vienna Cabinet
does not dispute the right of the Belligerent Powers to
lay down condititaii-iti their own interest going beyond
the original base ; but it maintains that the protocol
of the 2d of December, will thereby be departed from,
and that tine Imperial Government is only bound by
the engagements entered into anterior to this departure.
On this plea the Vienna Cabinet holds itself entitled to
repudiate its pledges to take active part in the war
against Russia, although Russia has refused to conclude
oe tn
ihna su, notord spc;aorittihfioonfeEdhnli
siptetsrreool fro
a peace on the basis of the four points. If the latest
gun,
icpvcoionnu,gn
tt ftshhefrom
v.vi
Vienna
ohwneso Aen
xuepsarterbsois-n
Rugssaiagnrferaotntier may be relied
to
understood to be withdeawies is
from the Polish frontier—twelve cavalry and three in-
fantry regiments are said already to have quitted Gal-
licia. The pretext under which Austria eeeks to ex-
tenuate her desertion of the Westera Powers will
not bear examination. When the Allies consented to
negotiate with Russia on the basis of the four points
they expressly reserved their right to modify the terms
if the progress of the war should throw more power into
their hands. Austria was cognisant of this reservation
and acquiesced in it. Austria has declared that the
Russian interpretation of the four points was inadmis-
sible, and has concurred in the close of the Conferences
on the ground that the belligerent Powers could not
come to an understanding as to the terms. -Accding to every principle of law and equity Austria is or
still
bound by the treaty of the 23 of December. Yet Aus-
tria, by withdrawing her troops from the Polish fron-
tier—in contravention of that treaty—actually assists
Russia, in the struggle in which that Power is now en-
gaged. The consequence of Russian reliance on the
friendship of the Court of Prussia is that the line of
frontier from Thorn to Posen has been denuded of troops
to an unprecedented extent. In times of the profoundest
peace that part of the frontier was never knosvri to be
left so entirely unguarded. The soldiers usually sta-
tioned there have been marched to oppose the Allies in
the Crimea. • The withdrawal of the Austrian troops
from Gallicia will, in like manner, liberate a number of
the Russian regiments hitherto employed in guarding
the southern frontier of Poland ; they will immediately
receive the route for the Crimea. In utter contempt of
her solemn promises to the Allies, Austria is acting in a
manner that enables the Czar to bring a stronger force
into the field against them.
Even Ministers must now see the unutterable folly of
the weak concession by which Austria was allowed to
occupy the Danubian Principalities with her. troops.
Against that occupation we protested from the first as
unnecessary. The Russians having been compelled to
evacuate the Principalities, the native authorities would
have naturally resumed their functions ; the Turkish
army of the Danube was able to prevent the return of
the Russians, even though it might not have been found
strong enough to pursue them into Bessarabia ; the in-
terference of the Austrians was utterly uncalled for in
that quarter. Even before the soldiers of Austria
reached Bucharest it became apparent that their occupa-
tion of the Principalities would be worse than useless.
By underhand intrigues and by open proclamations the
Austrian commanders sought to supersede the native
authorities. The subsequent conduct of the army of
occupation has been one tissue of usurpations upon the
local Government, and brutal maltreatment of the un-
offending natives. The Austrian occupation of Walla-
chia and Moldavia has been infinitely more oppressive
and irritating than that of Russia. And now Austria,
in whose hands has been deposited this first stake in the
war between Russia and the Porte, unequivocally betrays
her intention to desert from the Allies to Russia. Wal-
lachia and Moldavia can no longer be safely entrusted to
the custody of Austria, which is ceasing to be a friendly
power. How does our Government propose to get the
Austrian army out of the Principalities, where it would
now be the height of folly to allow it to remain?
The conduct of Austria is not the result of mere inde-
cision or infirmity of purpose. Throughout the whole of
her trimming and tortuous proceedings Austria has
been consistent—bas kept her object steadily in view,
and pursued it without faltering. In the first place,
she contemplated, with jealousy and alarm the
prospect of Russia's obtaining possession of the
Principalities. Austria repeatedly sought to annex
them before Russia had grown powerful enough to make
the attempt ; and saw with irritation her competitor for
the coveted prize about to snatch it. Austria too had
uneasy misgivings that her mighty neighbour had an
eye upon some of her own frontier provinces. Austria,
therefore, coquetted with the Western Powers until she
persuaded them to place within her grasp those pro-
vinces which had been rescued from Russia. But all
this time Austria had never for a moment lost sight of
the fact that Russia is her natural ally against Western
Liberalism. Austria sought to secure herself against
the arrogance and rapacity of Russia, not to break en-
tirely with Ruisia ; and now that the Czar appears to be on the eve of being effectually humbled by France
and England, and that Austria has got possession of the
provinces the acquisition of which she grudged to Rus-
sia, Austria turns round and extends the shield of her
protection over a power whose aid she feels will soon be
required to enable her to keep her ground against the
public opinion of civilised Europe. Austria has been
playing ripen all parties, with a view to promote her own
selaeh and sinister ends, and for the moment it would
almost appear that she has done so successfully. But
the end is net yet. Paltry cunning and tortuous in-
trigue may secure partial and temporary advantages, but
never a complete and enduring triumph. The final'and
avowed desertion-of the Allies by Austria will consti-
tute a turning point in the events which are now deve-
loping themselves before the eyes of all Europe. New
and bolder plans of action are about to be forced on the
statesmen of the West ; new political elements are about
to be called into active existence.