The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-23 00:00:00

MAXIMILIAN' OF MEXICO.

The Archduke Maximilian accepts the burden of the
Crown of Mexico with a noble courage. The resolution is
a grand one, but not nnlooked for by thon who observed
him in Italy. He is sensible that 1,
more than once the words of a
..tmer Emperor of Mexico,
4i that he is not on a be:: of roses." will have to repeat
Everything seems to
indicate that the 7,...eicans are going to welccme and treat
him, not as en ambitious individual, lcd away by an immo-
derate passion for sitting on a thron-, but as a high-souled
inan,who devotes himself to their cause, and has under-
taken the lofty task of saving a nation subject of old to the
authority of his family.
The Archduke will arrive in Mexico, not with a staff of
Germans, military and administrative, but (as the author
anticipated) alone, with his portfolio under his arm. He
will have two armies to guard his throne—one composed of
Mexican troops, the other formed and disciplined by France,
and commanded by French officers, with a large number of
French soldiery in its ranks. It cannot be denied that the
latter will at first be the chief protection of the new throne;
but why should not the Mexican army, whenbetter directed,
return to those traditions of fidelity to the Sovereign for
which Mexico was formerly conspicuous among all the
other Spanish colonies? The rivalry of the gen crals was
what led the Mexican army astray. It will come back to
sentiments of duty when it secs authority permanently c)n-
centrated in the hands of a firm and enlightened prince,
around whom has rallied every individual of importance.
After this very interesting political introduction,
M. Chevalier enters upon the history of Mexico,
beginning with the first arrival of Cortez on Holy
Thursday of the year 1519. The whole account of '
that romantic and adventurous enterprise, stained
as it is with acts of cruelty and injustice, by which
the valiant Spaniard, with 650 men, made himself
master of a mighty and well organised empire, is
here related in full, and although a twice told tale,
will be perused with vivid interest, and enthral
many a reader already familiar with the incidents
which it narrates. The second volume refres to the
war of iudependence in Mexico, and all the mo-
mentous events of recent times. Ia many of his
prognostications M. Chevalier, as we have a:ready
intimated, has been justified by the event. It may
bo inferred, perhaps that being "behind the scenes,"
he had good reasons for some of his surmises.
Be that as it may his history of Mexico
in its entirety from the days of Mon-
tezuma to those of Maximilian is full of in-
terest, although all the opinions of its writer are I
not deserving of general approbation.

In Spain. By Hans Christian Andersen, author
of " The Itnprovisatore," &a. Translated by Mrs
Bushby. One vol,, pp. 306. Richard Bentley.
Another charming " picture-book without pic-
tures," from the graphic pen or pencil of Hans
Christian Andersen—a Painter without brush or
easel, a Poet without rhyme or metre. What
Picturez, glowing with the hues of nature—what
Por,ms, full of tenderness and pathos—have we not
many a time rejoiced in from the hands of the
genial, gentle Danish Improvisatore. In his new
book, in which he recounts to us his ad-
ventures "In Spain," he has given us a
most delightful and vivid glimpse of what he saw
during his travels in the Spanish peninsula. The
descriptions, occasionally humorous and fantastic,
occasionally pathetic and tender, are unlike all
other travellers records; they are essentially origi-
nal, and bear about them the stamp of their author's
well-known and intense individuality. On a
seventh of September, some few years back, Chris-
tian Andersen first arrived in Spain. A curious
coincidence marked this day. It was on a seventh
of September," he says, " that, as a child, I
first entered Copenhagen; it was on the seventh of
September, many years afterwards, I first set foot
in Italy ; and now, on the same dad any month,
Spain opened upon me. It was strange, but chance,
as it is called, so willed it, I had been detained a
day at Myons, waiting for my luggage, which had
gone astray on the railroad ; at Perpignan I had
to wait two days, in order to obtain a
place in the coupe of the'delligence, and so my
seventh of September still held good. I was in a
foreign land," he adds,
"yet I felt myself at home :
it wasthe sea which caused that home feeling—th©
glorious sea I It rolled up from the coast of Africa
with its swelling waves, like the German Ocean on
the coast of Jutland, its bluieh-graen waves re-
minding me of a summer evening under the rocks
of Moen," As a specimen of Andersen's power of
picture-painting, let us take, almost at hazard, a
glimpse of