that England has any duties in Europe. It is presumed that she cares not at all for principles, and for customers a great deal. It is impossible to believe that this is more than a temporary state of national feeling. By the time the new Foreign Offices are completed, perhaps we shall have found some nobler purpose for them than being a colossal shrine for the god of gray shirtings. From the Saturday Review, 29 Sept. ITALY AND ROME. As the time draws near for the promised evacuation of Rome by the French troops, it is natural that all eyes should be attracted towards the principal actors in the Roman question. The POPE, as yet, has scarcely made a sign. A handful of foreign mercenaries have certainly arrived to do duty when the French are gone, but their presence in the Papal territory seems more likely to hasten than to prevent civic tumult and commotion. Unless the Italian troops replace the French as self-constituted protectors of the Papal State, a small contingent of 1,200 mongrel volunteers will be no safeguard against the impetus which brigandage will receive by the withdrawal of the French flag, and visitors this winter at Rome will find their excursions into the Campagna restricted within intolerably narrow limits. If things were left to themselves, the Roman question would solve itself in the Christmas holidays. Every effort will assuredly be made by the Roman Liberals to keep order till the last French vessel has weighed anchor too long to permit of a speedy return, and a few months of suppressed disaffection may succeed to nearly twenty years of compulsory loyalty. But, even if the Roman citizens and the citizens of the outlying towns are quiet, the brigands of the overhanging mountains will not allow any preposterous notions about the comfort and convenience of the Vatican to interfere with their natural occupations. The task of restoring and preserving order ought naturally to pass into the hands of the Italian army; and if the POPE would only die, a new occupant of the Chair might acquiesce in the unsolicited protection secured to Rome by the Italian Kingdom. The only difficulty is about the POPE. Nobody knows what he will do. Perhaps he is at this very moment preparing another Encyclical' which will ring out over Europe at the execution of the Convention of September, just as the last Encyclical was an answer to the conclusion of the Convention two years ago. And what the POPE may say in Latin, when he once gets loose on the subject of modern infidelity and modern Liberalism, nobody can predict. If he is as vigorous as usual, the French and the Italians, and this time possibly the Prussians too, will bear a few home truths about themselves. The French are accustomed to such explosions, and nobody in France will much mind another Encyclical, except the Bishop of ORLEANS, and perhaps the MINISTER of the INTERIOR. One or two illegal sermons will be preached, there will be the usual flutter of ephemeral pamphlets, and possibly at most an episcopal appel comme d'abus. French statesmen are familiar with all the punctilios observed in the polite professional warfare between Bishops and lawyers which is generally the result of a fiery Pontifical missive; but the French do not trouble themselves about the POPE any more than country gentlefolk and country villagers in England mind their parson. But in Italy it is different. The Italians are engaged heart and soul in the task of reforming their ecclesiastical establishment, and settling on a firm and liberal basis the future relations of Church and State. An Encyclical which should be a repetition in any considerable degree of the last would be in reality a declaration of war against the Italian Parliament, and the situation of affairs in Florence has been so altered by recent events that it is not certain what the effect of such a Pontifical thunderbolt might be. The final discomfiture of Austria could not but be, for many obvious reasons which it is unnecessary here to examine in detail, a heavy blow and discouragement to the Papacy. It must be remembered that the recent Prussian aliance, and the common action of the two Kingdoms in the late campaigns, have teaded to render Italy still more inclined and able to be independent of the French Empire. Hitherto the French EMPEROR has had a hoid upon the Italians about Rome, because he was their natural protector against the armies of Austria, who, so long as she held Venetia and the Quadrilateral, and refused in any way to recog nise the new Italian monarchy, threatened the very existence of Italy upon the Northern frontier. The Cabinet of Florence could not afford to sacrifice the patronage of the Cabinet of the Tuileries, and, dislike such patronage as they might, the Italians Italy, then, is far nearer obtaining Rome than she ever was. The battle of Sadowa has lightened the burden of French influence under which her various Governments have been staggering ever since the campaign of 1859, and has made it possible for the Legislature of Florence to breathe freely. One of the immediate consequences will perhaps be a change in the situation of parties in the national Chambers. Office has of late years been in the hands of a Ministerial clique, on account, it may be, of the evident importance of maintaining a Ministry in power whose opinions would dovetail into the opinions of the Emperor of the French. NAPOLEON III. has always been afraid that the Italian coach would be run away with, and a species of friendly and not always unwholesome terrorism has accordingly been often exercised upon the home and foreign policy of successive Italian Ministries. This the Italians will now endure no longer, nor is there any longer any reason why they should put up with it. The time is come when the leading strings, which have always seemed to them intolerable, are plainly unnecessary too, and the work of internal legislation will fearlessly proceed without risk of interruption or dictation from the Tuileries. French vanity will be partially, though not entirely, appeased by the reflection that Italian legislation is likely to be built on a French foundation. The principles, as they are called, or the theories of 1789 have been tacitly adopted in the main by Italian political parties of most shades of opinion, and the Italian Church, before many years, will probably be an institution similar to the Gallican. The national rights for which the French State, and some of the most enlightened of the French prelates, have always contended against Ultramontanism, are not likely to be abandoned by Italians; and, as the final emancipation of the Italian Church will not have been the result of a violent social and moral convulsion, there will be all the less danger hereafter of an Ultramontane reaction. were bound to submit to it as a lesser evil, | eral constitutional principles, but of the at any rate, than national annihilation. All temporal power and supremacy of the POPE. this Italian dependence upon France is now swept away. The danger of Austrian invasion has for the present vanished into air. Venice has not proved such a rich blessing to the family of HAPSBURG that they can be solicitous to recapture the bird which has been let go; and one merit, at all events, of the fiction of a voluntary transfer is that a province ceded for valuable consideration is less likely to be coveted by the grantor than territory of which he has been forcibly deprived by war. It is still true that France, in virtue of her superior military strength, can, if she chooses, overshadow Italy, just as France by brute force could, if she chose, overpower Switzerland and Belgium. And there is no doubt that pressure will be freely put upon the French EMPEROR to induce him to vindicate his diplomatic position in the eyes of Europe by insisting, at all haz ards, on the temporal authority of the Holy See. The POPE's temporal power is part of the French Imperial programme, and so many portions of that programme have had by turns to be abandoned, that there is some danger of Frenchmen holding that it is necessary, for the sake of their prestige, to take their stand firmly on the remnant that is left. But though the Italians are no military match for the French, there are many questions, of which the Roman question is perhaps one, which do not depend purely on military considerations. Italy can certainly afford to be firmer now about the liberation of Rome than ever, and to maintain a bolder and more unflinching attitude, in spite of all that the EMPEROR may say and do. NAPOLEON III. must rely, after all, on the moral support of the French nation; and every step which Italy can dare to take in advance, NAPOLEON III., if he is as wise about Rome as about other things, will certainly recede. The aggrandizement of Prussia renders an Italian alliance an especial political advantage to France. It cannot be for the EMPEROR'S interest to fling Italy straightway into Prussia's arms, or perhaps to give Count BisMARK the power of presiding over the The troubles in Sicily have been a prosolution of the Italian question, as NAPOLE- voking sequel to the Italian history of the ON III. meant at the beginning of the year present year, but Sicily has from time imto preside over the solution of the German memorial been a focus of agitation and inquestion. A reconciliation between the trigue. Nobody, not even Lord MINTO, has King of ITALY and the Papacy is the card ever been able to do anything with the on which the EMPEROR should, and prob- Sicilians; and it was evident, from the time ably means to, declare to win; and if Italians when the suppression of the religious corpoare true to themselves, this reconciliation rations was mooted in the Italian Parliawill be effected at the expense, not of Lib-ment, that disturbances in the island might not improbably be expected. The casual The meteors should be especially looked alliance between the momentary interests for between midnight and sunrise, and may of democracy and Catholicism in Sicily be expected in greatest abundance between has given rise to some comments, and, in three and four A.M. "They proceed, with religious circles on the Continent, to some few exceptions, from a common centre in ludicrous and extravagant hopes. It is not some part of the Constellation Leo." Mr. easy to say whether the cause of convents or Herschel observes that "between the 13th of republics suffers most discredit by the of October and the 12th of November, durconjunction. The insurrectionary hordes ing the years from A.D. [903 to 1833, not less that have descended on Palermo represent than thirteen great star showers have been that portion of the great unwashed of Sicily recorded. They are separated from each which might, by the force of circumstances, other by the third part of a century, or by any day become either bandits, or patriots, some multiple of this period, and are perior monks. The last of the three honourable odical reappearances of one grand meteoric professions has the advantage of being better shower, viz., that seen by Humboldt in fed and paid in the south of Italy, and Sicil- 1799, and by Olmsted in 1833, the star ian patriots are naturally anxious lest, if shower expected to return in the present religious houses are abolished, and begging year, and known by the name of the "great as well as robbing becomes unlawful, they November shower." Its contact with the may in the long run be compelled unfortu- earth takes place one day in the year at nately to subsist by the labour of their hands. each of its principal returns. According to A foolish movement of the kind would be the exact calculations of Professor Newton, insignificant if Italy internally were in a "the next passage of the earth through the more composed and settled condition. Now centre of the meteoric group will take place that the astringent force of external aggres- two hours after sunrise at Greenwich on the sion is removed, the bundle of sticks is more morning of the 14th of November, 1866." in danger of falling to pieces, and symptoms A watch on the morning of the 13th is recof disunion may perhaps be looked for (as ommended, "as the moment of greatest in America and Germany) as soon as na- brightness may fall one day before the pretional unity is permanently assured. Part dicted time." On the 13th of November, of the dark days of Italy are over, but her 1865, first-class meteors were seen at Greentroubles as a self-governing nation have only wich at the rate of 250 per hour, and the just begun. "maximum display of the November mete ors expected in 1866 is several hundred times greater than that observed at Greenwich on the 13th of November, 1865. Two hnndred and forty thousand meteors are computed by Arago to have been visible above the horizon of Boston on the morning of the 13th of November, 1833." THE COMING METEOR SHOWER. MR. ALEXANDER HERSCHEL recently gave a lecture at the Royal Institution, "On the Shooting Stars of the year 1865-66, and on the Probability of the Cosmical Theory of their Origin." He commenced by adverting to the probability established by Professor Newton, of Yale College, U.S., "that in the current year, 1866, a prodigious flight of meteors, the most imposing of its kind, and visible over a large area of the earth's surface, will make its appearance – perhaps for the last time in the present century—either on the morning of the 13th, or on the 14th November." The average height of shooting stars at the middle of their apparent paths is not quite sixty miles above the earth. Mr. Herschel points out a singular difference in the behaviour of shooting stars and ærolites, or meteoric stones. The meteoric stones most frequently fall after mid-day, between noon and nine P.M., while the shooting stars are most abundant after midnight; and only one stone has been known to fall on the 10th of August or the 13th of November, when shooting stars are most numerous. · Intellectual Observer. CHAPTER XXV. THE STRANGER PREACHES A SERMON. was astonishing how very vague and incomplete, after all, was the impression left on the hearer's mind. Beyond the fact that his name was James Frere, his family belonging to Shropshire, and his strongest desire on earth to become a missionary preacher, and do good in his generation yea, even by the extremest sacrifice," Lady Clochnaben could not say she had learnt anything which had not been told, without questioning, when he was recovering from his fainting fit in the glen that morning. By the wide hearth in the reception-room of Clochnaben Castle - where a fire of pinewood and coal had been kindled to baffle the chill summer evening, and where heavy woollen curtains of tartan were drawn across the deep narrow embrasures of the old-fashioned windows sunk in the stone walls - sat, greatly comforted and much at his ease, in spite of the stiffness of shape of his high-backed chair, the hero of that ad- After a while she inquired whether he venture in the glen. Opposite to him, in was a rapid accountant. Yes; he believed two similarly high-backed chairs, sat Alice he was very quick at figures. Could he Ross and Lady Clochnaben. The words draw? Yes, he could draw in a poor way: lounge" and "recline" were not in her he had not studied: he had amused himself lady ship's vocabulary and if, in the pri- with pen-and-ink etching now and then, vacy of her lone turret-chamber at Glen- and architectural sketches. Willing to utilrossie, Alice relapsed into cushions and soft-ize these gifts, the gaunt old lady informed ness, at all events in the Dowager's presence she preserved that attitude which alone was considered decent or fit for a well-bred female. 66 : She sat, then, bolt-upright, her little pale hands folded in her lap, looking furtively at the stranger: furtively and askance. And Lady Clochnaben also looked at him not at all furtively, but, on the contrary, with a scrutinizing and contemplative stare; as if, having warmed and fed him, she was now merely exercising a natural right of inspection of the stray creature found on her lands. If the young man was conscious of the double inspection, he did not show it. His great luminous eyes were fixed abstractedly on the fire, wide and unwinking, as if they drank in the light. A somewhat hectic colour had succeeded his paleness and exhaustion, making his eyes seem still brighter, and the cheek-bones more prominent. The mouth of that strange meagre face was its only defective feature. It was at once hard and sensual - hard, in spite of the full contour of the lips, and the submissive smile with which he answered all the questions his grim hostess was pleased to put to him. A Portuguese sort of mouth: something apish in the form and expression of the jaw. With respect to her questionings, Lady Clochnaben "ne se géna pas." She asked whatever it came into her head to ask his age, his parentage, his name, his tastes and occupations, his means of living, his chances of aid from relations or friends, his hopes for the future, his adventures in the past. And, though all these questions were answered with the smoothest readiness, it him she desired to build an addition to the castle towards the brow of the precipitous rock on which it was erected, and "would be glad of any suggestion on paper," he could give as to the building, and any approximate calculation of expense: at the same time opening a blotting-book, and putting that, and pens and ink, ready for him. Mr. James Frere did not refuse; he rose from his high-backed chair, and courteously advanced to the table. Alice had taken her work. As he passed her he slightly paused. "What curious work," he said: "what is it? What a beautiful glossy material!" "I am making nets of chenille - it is very soft," said pussy-cat Alice; and she held one of the hanks up for examination. For an instant he touched it with his long attenuated fingers; and her eyes followed them. She drew Lady Clochnaben's attention, in a low under-tone, to a remarkable scar on the back of his hand, as he sat down to his architectural task. "You have been badly hurt some time," said the grim hostess, pointing to the scar with little ceremony. Mr. James Frere paused for a moment in his etching, glanced at his hand, and said quietly, Yes, it was a knife." But he volunteered no further information. It was a knife. Was it a penance, or an attack, or what? Alice felt curious. She mused as she twisted the soft chenille; and, so musing, and seeing from under the narrowed lids of her eyes that Lady Clochnaben was also considering, and not looking her way, but sternly contemplating her own OLD SIR DOUGLAS. foot as it rested on the edge of the fender, But, just as her cautious glance had The young stranger smiled also; and whereas, a very few minutes before, Alice had been reflecting that he would make a good study for a picture of John the Baptist in the wilderness, it suddenly seemed to her that it was rather an insolent smile, from a countenance anything but religious or ascetic, but, to her taste, extremely handsome. And, as both smiles died away, Alice resumed her cautious demureness in the highbacked chair; and the hard-set lines round Mr. Frere's mouth seemed to deepen in intensity, as he once more bent over the writing-table. The silence which followed was broken by Lady Clocknaben. "Mr. Frere," she said, "did you ever preach ? " This time the readiness of answer seemed in abeyance for a few seconds. Then, in a low steady voice, he replied, "Never; I never ventured." 99 "Could you preach? "Of course, I suppose that I could; the grace of God assisting.' เ "As to the grace of God, it's help yourself, and heaven will help you,' dictum. Some can preach, and some can't, - that's my who may be very good men for all that. But I want a man who can preach. I have been thinking "-and here the dowager frowned yet more sternly at the foot planted on the fender, "I have, I say, been thinking that you might be of great use in this distracted place; and, if you've any spirit, you might just drive out those that never should have been here at all. And I'll tell you what it is, young sir: if I thought that you'd undertake it, you're welcome to stay here, up at the castle, as long as ever it suits ye to remain, until that desirable consummation should come about." reasoning being further explained by the This somewhat discursive and involved her attentive guest that what was expect ed of him was, so to bewitch the small Dowager Clochnaben, it became clear to world to which she would introduce him, that he should oust Mr. Saville Heaton from the hearts and ears of his already dwindling congregation, and "put him to silence" by the very simple process of leaving him without listeners in the parish. persecuted hero of the glen was to live at the castle "as long as it suited him;" unreAnd, in the meanwhile, the meagre and claimed by his Shropshire friends. on it, idly clasped and unclasped the paper The hand that had that conspicuous scar while the stranger listened to these proknife on the table, and balanced it lightly, posals. next Sabbath, if your ladyship pleases. In "I will exert what poor gifts I may have, no church, but on the brow of this rocky hill, where I have met with such signal deliverance; and at no set time of other's preaching, ably unsuccessful, rivalry. - for that would be an unseeminterval, when a discourse might be lisly, and, as I am at present situated, a probtened to without offence, if your ladyship could give such notice as seems good to you, But just in the and likely to serve the end you have in my Heavenly Master, and leave the result to view, I would do my best for the glory of His mercy." So it was settled that Mr. Frere should heightened with every detail of romance preach; and the notice the grim woman gave respecting the religious persecution to which he had been subjected by " Satan and his priests," and favoured by the ever-ready curio' the doctrine" from new lips-brought osity of the congregations to hear "a skreed neighbourhoods of Glenrossie, Torrieburn, together as large a crowd as the three and Clochnaben could furnish. doubtful. A voice more powerful and yet |