The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-20 00:00:00

minate, are questions not to be solved by conjec-
ture. Will it even be that the present Parlia-
ment will become a federal one, and a second
Parliament for purely British business be also
elected, the colonies choosing their own Governors,
and the Crown of Britain remaining hereditary ?
Or will.the colonies prefer independence, Canada
and Australia each becoming new Empires ? The
Judge himself prefers that Canada should become
part and parcel of England. He acknowledges
difficulties, but regards them as not insurmount-
able ; and he boldly claims that, with this
thorough union, the full share of the honours and
emoluments of place, and even of the Peerage,
should be freely open to colonial men. We think
that so entirely conciliatory, we may say, maternal,
is the spirit of the old country, that as we trust
nothing will alter this, all must end happily,
both for England and her colonies.

France, or rather the Emperor of the FRENCH, •
has spoken, and Prussia is emboldened. Switzer-
land, it is new seen, has nothing to hope from
Imperial gratitude, and apparently everything
to dread the Prussian arms can accomplish.
" Fire and sword " is now the watchword in
military circles at Berlin. The invasion of
Switzerland is there spoken of as a settled affair.
Two or m•re corps d'armee, it is said, are to be
employed instructions for the commanding
officers are lying at the War-office--the Com-
mander-in-Chief of the expedition is already de-
signated. We are in no hurry to believe all this ;
it being quite possible, indeed probable, the wish
is father to the assertion. One thing, however,
is tolerably certain—the independence of Switzer-
land is seriously menaced. If the Confederation
can be coerced by threats, coerced it will be ; if
threats fail, the probability' is recourse will be had
to arms, provided no intervention sufficiently
formidable be found in the way, or the Prussian
King is really as mad as he appears to be at pre-
sent. Fortunately, we trust, for all parties, cer-
tain preliminary forms are to be gone through
before an invasion can be attempted. The King
of PRUSSIA is pledged to bring his case before the
Congress at Paris, and has yet to obtain the sanc-
tion of the German States through whose territories
his troops must march to get at Switzerland.
In either case the result will be a work
of time, and should. the Diet at Frankfort
approve of his request, it is not impossible the
Congress at Paris may bring him to reason. The
worst feature in the case is the attitude assumed
by the Emperor NAPOLEON. Anything more
unwise or reprehensible than this it would be dif-
ficult to conceive. It is both a blunder and a
crime, and not unlikely carries its own punishment
with it. Whether he meditates treachery to
Prussia, or, what is more likely, is swayed by a
miserable dynastic ambition, either way, if perse-
vered in, it involves hazard to his throne. The
result may be a European war ! What prophet
is there to assure him of the result, so far as his
dynasty is concerned ? Bad, however, as this
l'eature of the affair is, there is another more pain-

ful still to Englishmen. Concurrently with, or
rather preceding, the assumption of this menacing
attitude—practically it is so—towards the free
Swiss States, we have the young Prince of PRUSSIA
(in the wake of the Prussian KING'S present of
horses to the Empress EUGENIE) at Paris. What
are Englishmen to think of such a concatenation of
circumstances as this ? The most satisfactory expla-
nations will be required to dissipate the suspicions
to which it has given rise ; more than this, deeds
must be forthcoming as well as words. In the
interests of her MAJESTY and her Royal Consort,
as well as of Europe, the English Government
must do its utmost to avert the peril with which
Switzerland is threatened. The right is on the
side of the Swiss, and it will never do to have it
supposed, with any show of reason, that England
was at all a party to the outrageous wrong con-
templated by absolutism against so gallant and
orderly a confederation of free men. Switzer.
land must be supported, German, instincts to the
contrary, notwithstanding.

WiLD'S GREAT GLOBE.
RUSSIA-ITS PEOPLE AND ITS PALACES.

A magnificent Diorama has recently been added
herby the
Majesty'sgenius
that world's wonder, " The Great Globe," erected
in Leicester-square
and Geographer.
enterprise
A
of
MrD.rjamamiesview
Russia l I
WeY,ildilustrt isative ofe utphpalemtotehhetrarwy,
world's
wonderio o
nof
course,
at to
hthatremoregehe—he oneeneratlonep
previously on
view conducting
the visitor by " easy stages," inh aisb
att
oany spectaclerl
ea ef -
ah loi
nuogrf ot
aor
so, through the
asTiraoahuotrepor.fieEArauneireoar Here, however,
grand
very natural sequence, a
imt
eetrhesepdefinite
Rr
,euhisn
series of pictures—pictures strung together, if we
may so phrase it, upon the Thread of the Lecturer's
Discourse—showing one by one, in amazing succes-
sion, the marvels of the Russian Empire, both Asiatic
and European. The lecturer waves his wandof magic
and hey ! presto--we are in the Baltic—we are at
Riga—we go on from port to port : until, carried
onwards by a daring greater than that of our grand
Sea Fire-Eater, we glide boldly into the harbour
-winter
picturesque a
of Cronstadt, and under The frowning tier upon
tier of its vast 'and formidable fortifications !
Further still we proceed gliding past the
gates of the imperial City of St. Peters-
burgnationinal
its
eas way des
the famous one familiar to opera-goers in the
! Beholding upon the frozen surface of
h isucha nirmidi
pt
aa Neva
t :e
uers
as
Prophete of Meyerbeer. There—in the moonlight
—among the snow, and gliding swiftly over
the ice, are the inhabitants of the great Rus-
sian capital, skating and sledging to their
heart's content, muffled up in furs that
would smother a tropical savage merely to
look upon ! Yonder, again, are the motley and
splendid sights of St. Petersburg—the Public
Places ; the Winter Palace of the Czar ; the Statue
of Peter (called) the Great in front of the Admi-
ralty. Onwards still we are driven pertinaciously
by that very voluble and agreeable " Peeler," the
Lecturer—" moving on ' at his ever-welcome
bidding until we reach another very notable goal—in
Moscow, the Mecca of the Muscovites ! Moscow—
risen anew, Phoenix-like, from its ashes, forty-four
years ago, since the date of its capture by the (till
then !) all-conquering Napoleon ! Moscow—with
its countless gilded domes and cupolas. Moscow—
where every newly-acceding Czar solemnly becomes
the Lord's Anointed, assuming the purple, grasping
the sceptre, placing upon his own head the
diadem which crowns him for life the irre-
sponsible despot of 60,000,000 of the hu-
man race ! And here, of course, in this
Dioramic View of Moscow, is a superb incidental
illustration of the recent enthronement of Alexan-
der 11.,—a vivid and resplendent picture of his
Majesty's gorgeous and memorable coronation. A
portion of the new Diorama, which is greeted (and
no wonder) with the loudest acclamations not for
its political sigaificanee, of course, we may presume,
but simply by reason of its remarkable and arresting
magnificence. The Kremlin visited—we next pro-
ceed to Nishni Novgorod, emerging afterwards
upon Anapa, and traversing in due course the vast
and barren steppes down to the Danube, to Girtr-
gevo, to Kalafat, and to Silistria—names of fame
and glory alike to Osmanli and English-
men ! A glimpse (across the Euxine) into the har-
bour of Sinop°, shows to us—there, calmly moored
and at anchor, the ill-fated Turkish fleet, the
victim of a dastardly and ever-exe-
crable massacre. Trcbizonde is not over-
looked—neither, for that matter, is Varna,
nor yet Odessa, nor yet Constantinople. The
whole gorgeous survey closing with a heart-
stirring delineation of the renowned Battle of
the Alma, one of those heroic struggles over which
our young poet Gerald Massey, in a truly Tyrtfean
outburst, has chaunted that noble refrain

" 0 Victory, joyful Victory,
Like love thou bringest sorrow,
But 0 ! for such an hour with thee,
Who would not die to-morrow?"
And so with this grand rush up " red Alma's hill
to glory" the new Diorama at the Great Globe is
brought (twice a day) to a brilliant termination. It
is a work of art which cannot fail to command for
itself an ample and protracted share of popularity.