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ing with tools the most ordinary and commonplace. If the conjuror only ask for a piece of packthread and a morsel of beeswax, the diplomatist, still more simple, needs but an inkbottle and a Queen's messenger. Secrecy has the same value for each secrecy and mystification. Each must distract his public; and, by arts wonderfully alike, each has the same necessity to employ powers that engage attention elsewhere than to the matter in hand; and each knows what benefit to derive from a sudden explosion, and all the advantage that can be taken of a little smoke. Again, each well knows that though he is bewildering his public, the veriest tyro in that public does not believe him to be supernatural. He may be as nimble-fingered, as subtle, and as skilful as he may-he may do scores of things that you and I cannot do -but we leave him with the full conviction that it's only conjuring after all, and that there was not a particle of reality in the whole of it. Finally-and here perhaps is the closest resemblance of alleach, having played out his trick, has not the slightest repugnance to coming forward to show how it was done-with what very poor appliances, what humble aids-and, let us add in all humility, what an easily bamboozled audience he had to look on and applaud him.

It is to this last feature of the resemblance between them I wish now to direct my reader's attention.

We are all aware that since the Italian nation has taken her place in the great European family, there have been very varied evidences displayed to her by her neighbours of the feelings, friendly or the reverse, with which they have regarded her presence amongst them. Some have been hearty and cordial; some have limited themselves to a polite courtesy; some have been cold; and some positively inimical. In the latter category was Spain. Spain was Bourbon, and could not

forget the fate of the King of Naples. Spain was Catholic, and could not forgive the spoliation of the Holy See. From the Court of Madrid, therefore, came no sign of recognition of the new Italian kingdom, nor was any intercourse maintained between the two Cabinets. It is not exactly easy to see how it was brought about; the likelihood is, however, that it was by French intervention the Spanish Government was moved to make advances, which they did by sending a minister to the King of Italy, complimenting him on the success that had attended the formation of the new kingdom, and expressing a hopeful desire to draw closer the ties of amity and friendship between the two peoples. Nothing could be more complimentary than the language of the new envoy-nothing more cordial than the Italian King's reception of him. They had a number of pleasant things to say to each other, and they said them. The occasion, besides, was deemed worthy of a little boastfulness, and La Marmora took an opportunity to remind the Chamber that it was under his administration, and under a Cabinet of his forming, this happy conciliation was effected, and that if Italy was not exactly going to Rome, she at least had opened a correspondence with a friend at Madrid.

So far all went well. Spain and Italy were friends; and though

some

newspaper correspondents affirmed that Antonelli was outraged and the Holy Father indig nant at this piece of Spanish perfidy, to all ordinary appreciation the Court of Rome bore up wonderfully well under the calamity, and showed no outward sign of displeasure. The fact is-to come back to the prestidigitator-the Pope felt like the gentleman in the audience who has kindly lent the performer his new hat to make pancakes in ; and though he has witnessed the process of smashing the eggs in it, and seen the batter as it was beaten up, so implicit is his confidence in

the operator's skill, that he never so much as gives a thought to the possibility of damage, nor even deigns to examine the lining as it is given back to him.

"No, no," said the Holy Father, "that gentleman knows perfectly well what he is doing; my hat-my tiara I mean-will be nothing the worse for it all."

I will not say that it would occur to every one to reason in this wise. Who knows if infallibility may not have lent its aid to this prescient sense of contentment? At all events, Pius IX. gave himself little trouble on the score of this new move in politics, and offered the pontifical pinch of snuff to the Spanish envoy with an air of as bland benevolence as ever.

If Italy was vainglorious, Rome was not depressed, and time alone could tell which had most reason for their faith. Now time, that venerable old gentleman, of whose pregnancy we are always talking, brings forth amongst other good things the wonderful productions called Blue Books. They are Livres Jaunes in France, green books in Italy, red books in Spain. Nor was red an inappropriate tint on this occasion, if blushing could be any atonement for their contents.

The Spanish 'Blue Book'—I call it by the name familiar to English ears, as best indicating its purportreveals to us the astounding tidings that the recognition of Italy was never intended as an act of friendship, but was simply a measure adopted in the interest and for the benefit of the Court of Rome; in fact that, seeing how by the retirement of the French army the Pope would be left to that precarious comfort, the love and affection of his own people, the Court of Madrid desired to enter into concert with the French Government, how the Holy Father might be most safely cared for, and the interests of the Papacy secured against the attacks of revolution.

The recognition of Italy, there

VOL. XCIX.-NO. DCVI.

fore, by Spain, was a mere preliminary step to enable the Cabinet of Madrid to treat of the question between the Pope and Victor Emanuel, and all the friendly greetings of her most Catholic Majesty had no other aim nor object than the right to discuss that which, so long as estrangement subsisted between the two Courts, was a forbidden theme!

This is all shown by the correspondence of the Spanish Blue Book

shown, too, with circumstances of date and time that give it a most important significance; for we see that at the very moment when the Spanish Envoy at Florence is accepting the cordial greetings of Victor Emanuel, the Minister of Spain, at the Tuileries, is cross-questioning M. Drouyn de Lhuys as to what precautionary measures are to be adopted at Rome for the safety of the Papacy when the French troops shall have marched out.

M. Drouyn de Lhuys is certainly guarded enough in his explanations, and had mere polite disinclination to express an opinion been sufficient, he would doubtless have escaped from his insistant questioner; but the Spaniard was not to be put off in this wise, and since the French Minister could not look into time and tell him what would happen, he put to him a variety of hypotheses, and said, What if so and so should occur? how will you act if such an eventuality arise ?

Never was a greater demand made upon the imaginative faculty of statesmanship, and M. Drouyn de Lhuys, it must be owned, seemed equal to the occasion; for in one of his flights he went so high as to fancy that the Pope might address himself to the task of reforming his Government, and endeavour to redress some of the wrongs of what Lord Palmerston called "the worst administration in Europe!" But what will you do if he shouldn't do this? asks the Spaniard, who is no more to be denied than an Old Bailey lawyer, and poor M. Drouyn

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de Lhuys has nothing for it but to fall back on the well-known maxim that concludes all French diplomatic correspondence, “And in that case we shall act with our usual wisdom." The upshot of all this candour is that no one is pleased. Italy is not pleased, for she has been most treacherously dealt with, and, under the semblance of a friendly greeting, met only deceit and falsehood. France is not over satisfied, for she has been pushed to put a construction upon the September Treaty which she would fain have avoided declaring. Spain is not pleased, for she expected that by recognising Italy she was to have obtained guarantees against Italy. And if the Pope be pleased, he must be the best-natured prince in Europe.

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It is not often that Blue Books point a moral; we are lucky, however, in that respect in the case before us, and the lesson we are taught is, that wherever the events discussed in a correspondence are of that sort which slang people call shady," the sooner the letters are burnt the better. We are none of us in our private lives made much happier by knowing how our friends talk and write about us. I have grave doubts if we be led to reform a single abuse of our lives by such well-intentioned criticism, and so with nations. It can tend to no good object that they should know what is privately circulated as to their wants and ways, still less that they should learn the reasons for which their alliance is sought for and their friendship requested. These are, after all, like the conventional civilities which in private life lubricate the surface of society, but never penetrate into the core of the metal.

If Spain and Italy had exchanged cards without explaining the why to their "mutual friend," it would have been all the better for both of them. If Spain, seeing the new kingdom of Italy to be a fact, had limited herself to admitting

the fact, and not gone on to ask a third party what is to come of this fact, who is to be the better and who the worse for it, the intercourse between the two nations might have been amicable enough; but, to open relations as a means of exploring the resources of a State-sending an envoy as a police magistrate might send a detective in plain clothes - this is something new, even in the annals of diplomatic fraud; and as Spain has had the honour of the invention, let us hope she will preserve the patent. Many people, some of them very acute people, think that the Pope's tenure of power is as pure a question of time as the number of minutes or seconds a man can remain under water and come up again alive. They say that, left to himself and unsustained by foreign bayonets, his power must collapse and his Government fall. The French Emperor, however, either is not of this opinion, or, if he be, he will not own to it. At all events, like a hopeful physician, he prescribes as if his patient had years to live, and he gives him a regimen that indicates what a length of time he may have to follow it. With all this he will not bear being questioned as to what is to be done if the sick man should have a fit, and this is exactly what that Spanish practitioner keeps boring at. How if there be a crisis? how if debility supervene ? It was perfectly open to Spain to have made these inquiries and pushed them to the farthest while she held herself aloof, and in estrangement from Italy. There was nothing to prevent her expressing her heartfelt distrust of Victor Emanuel and all his advisers. The perfidy lay in instituting them exactly as she had opened relations of friendship with Italy. This was a degree of dishonesty that seems much more in harmony with the practice of the pettifogger than with the precepts of diplomacy.

There, however, it is all written

and published in a blue book. There are all the conversations recorded, all the notes reported. If Spain was but a sorry conjuror, we at least know the trick she wanted to do, and we see the means by which she hoped to do it.

There are people in this world whose friendship and intimacy would be a far heavier infliction than their dislike and estrangement. May it not be the same with nations? If so, is it not possible that, after reading these late passages of Span'ish diplomacy, one would rise from the perusal with the conviction that this is a country which inspires no large measure of confidence, and that if the choice should be made, one would infinitely rather, as regards Spanish friendship, be Peru than Italy; far rather see her block

ading squadron on the coast than one of her envoys and ministers extraordinary in the Court.

La Marmora has replied to the Spanish Minister's insinuations; his note is not deficient in spirit. But what can Italy do? what tone can she take what language can she hold in the vassalage she lives under? The spendthrift thinks his tradesman a hard-hearted creditor, and longs for the day when he will not dread his knock; but he never knew the thorough misery of his insolvency till he fell into the hands of the money-lender, and raised loans at ruinous interest. Such is the case now with Italy. That grim usurer of the Tuileries has got her acceptances, and no man knows the day or the hour when he may protest the bill.

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THE seaman stands, nor feels the least emotion,
With just one plank between him and the ocean;
And so stands Gladstone (if there's no hypocrisy),
With just one pound between him and democracy:
Regardless each of what may come some day,
When plank or pound shall happen to give way.
But the poor seaman needs must outward roam;
His trade is danger, and the sea his home:
While Gladstone might a stouter craft have found,
Or lived in ease and safety on dry ground.
We ask the man thus foolishly afloat,

"What earthly business had he in that boat?"

DEMONOLOGY AT HOME AND ABROAD.

THERE are few amongst us who do not find attraction, especially in these days, in the study of the habits and customs of a remote people; and the farther removed from us that people may be, whether by distance or by race, the greater is the interest with which we regard them. But the great charm of such a study consists in the comparison of the customs of one country with those of another, particularly if they be Eastern and Western nations with respect to which we institute the comparison. The interest increases, and "still the wonder grows, as we trace out points of resemblance between people who, at first sight, appear to have nothing in common-as we stumble on a link here and a link there of what almost seems to have been one great chain, an unsuspected bond of union, connecting together nations far from each other in geographical position, farther still in habits of thought, in religion, colour, race— apparently unlike in every particular. We are attracted onward and onward, till suddenly we are positively startled by some unlookedfor instance of identity, and pause to wonder how such things can be.

Of course ethnologists and anthropologists have stronger nerves, and are not so easily startled by such discoveries as ordinary and unscientific mortals are. Yet facts are often brought to light by such unscientific studies, which, though they may be of little or no ethnological value, and may be, in the nature of things, properly found exactly where we find them, are yet very curious, and worth recording. Perhaps the most fertile field for such curiosities is the wide one of superstition. We have no right to be surprised if we find in the East superstitions nearly akin to those of the West-for more things may be traced as having travelled west

ward than many of us imagine; yet unscientific people at least may be excused if they are surprised at finding practices and ceremonies which are historically familiar to them as having been prevalent all over the West many centuries ago, not only in use in remote parts of the East, but, in all their elaborate detail, identical with those old and bygone superstitions. It is a curious illustration of the progress of the West and the stagnation of the East. Centuries have passed--they have rolled over one part of the globe, and in their course have swept away many, perhaps too many, superstitions which were once matters of faith. They have glided gently over another part of the same globe without disturbing or scattering one single grain of credulity. We have at this moment, in many parts of our Eastern dominions, scenes enacted precisely as they were enacted centuries ago in Europe.

It is astonishing how much may be written of a country, and how little may yet be made known of the superstitions of its people. A man may live all his life in it, learn its history, descant upon its laws, paint its scenery, describe its fauna, study its flora, but yet he may have a very superficial knowledge of the folk-lore of its people-of those little things of which their whole life is made up. The men who in Eastern countries have the best means of studying these last are the missionaries and the public servants. In their endeavours to extend Christianity, the former must master the minutest details of the superstitions which they desire to subvert. The latter, if they look upon their duties in the true light, must endeavour to enter, to some extent, into the feelings and the prejudices of those among whom they work; and in no way can this be better done than by

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