wholly careless to veil their duplicity, or as if wishing to warn the Russians that we did not mean to fight after all. Whatever Mr. Kinglake or others may say, it was not the Emperor Napoleon who entangled us by his craft; he was far more open than we. He had not read the Secret Correspondence, yet he discerned the designs of Russia without it, and frankly sent his fleet to the Sultan's aid. If we had, in that stage, done the same, Russia would have been warned in time, and never would have undertaken the war; but when our Ministers, knowing she had 'ulterior designs,' protested to France that it was merely an ecclesiastical quarrel, we made Russia suppose that she had our secret support, though we thought it decorous to affect to side with our ancient ally. The French Minister also was less eager against Turkey in the affair of the Vienna note; nor is it likely that, but for us, Napoleon would have cared so sensitively for Austria, at the expense of Hungary and the Sultan.

In the Emperor Napoleon's autograph letter to the Czar, which was the last attempt to avert war, the battle of Sinope was put forward as the unendurable disgrace of the Western Powers, in whose hearing, almost, the cannon had sounded against the ally for whose defence they had come. The Czar was implored to recede from his position before it was too late to avoid mutual calamities; but the arms of his Russians had met with nothing but disaster on the Danube, and until he should re-establish his military credit he did not dare to make peace, for fear of his own subjects. Our Ministers, we must suppose, understood the case, and hence came the celebrated request for money to carry the troops to Malta and back: hence also it was, that Lord Raglan was said, by private and public report, to reite

rate 'You need not be afraid, for we shall not fire a shot in the East.' The first aim of the allies was to draw Austria into the war on our side; although we knew that she had previously been pledged to do whatever Russia wished. Austria took advantage of this to stipulate that she should be allowed to occupy' something-Servia if possible; if not, then Wallachia. The natural and rightful mode of proceeding for the allies of Turkey was to aid in driving out the Russians from the Principalities, to recall the Wallachian exiles, and stimulate the provincials to exertion by promising them the political reforms of which Russia had so unjustly deprived them. But this would have been intensely disagreeable to Austria, who feared the proximity of freedom to Transylvania. Therefore she desired to occupy.' In fact, the lukewarm allies of Turkey would not allow Omar Pasha to succour Silistria until the Sultan consented to the Austrian occupation of Wallachia. He had to eject a Grand Vizier to bring it about! The English Ministry clearly desired Russia to re-establish her military credit. They were disappointed that she could not take Silistria, and remained wholly inactive in hope that Russia would make peace. By duplicity they entangled themselves in the war, and by duplicity they risked its utter failure. Russia did make peace after obtaining one piece of success at Kars.

The English people felt all along that it was necessary to our political safety to repress Russian encroachment, and those who knew how disgracefully we were sacrificing the interests of Turkey which we affected to defend, felt that the war had become necessary to our honour. Nor did the zeal and endurance of the nation ever relax, deep as was the trial from the wonderful and wholly unexpected incapacity of our officers. When Lord John Russell

was dismayed at the discovery that Austria could not be won into the foul disgrace of changing sides, and that we could get nothing out of her but neutrality, the English public was not dismayed, simply be cause they had never conceived the bright thought that Austria would dare to get into war with Russia while hated and despised by Hungary. In our worst distresses, when the heart of the Ministry fainted, the people remained firm, and their firmness at length triumphed. No word of murmuring was heard against the necessary war-taxes, though grief for precious lives was made deeper by a sense of the terrible mismanagement. But when our victory seemed to be won, there was great disappointment that so little was exacted of Russia. The nation wanted, while its hand was in, to take securities that it should be the last war with Russia, exactly as Germany now feels towards France.

To an after-war we had, and we have, an insuperable aversion. To enforce upon Russia the restoration of Poland seemed the only thing that could really bind her over to keep the peace: that our Government did nothing in this direction caused much dissatisfaction. It is more than possible that Prussia was here the great impediment. Old Lord Lyndhurst was not in the Ministry, and therefore he could more freely utter invective. His bitter assaults on Prussia (utterly useless and unwise as they were) perhaps denoted his knowledge that Prussia would have joined her arms to Russia if the Polish question had been touched. Without sure knowledge of secret facts, it would be rash to blame Lord Palmerston's Government for flatly refusing to introduce the question of Poland into the war when Napoleon proposed it; but when, as a consequence, Napoleon insisted on making peace at once, it caused much discontent

in the English nation. It was universally felt that a promise from Russia was of no avail.

What could have been a milder imposition upon a beaten enemy? He had built a fleet and fortified a pirates' nest, for no other purpose than to terrify Constantinople. He had unjustly invaded the Turkish dominions; and he was punished by being required to keep no war fleet in the Black Sea, and to give up a strip of territory and the great fortress of Ismail, by aid of which he had infested the mouth of the Danube. He was

not even required to pay to Turkey the expenses of her war, much less the expenses of the other allies. To the English people, for a little time, it seemed that we had fought a war with vast sacrifices, and been defrauded of its fruits by the incapacity or connivance of the Government.

Yet, after all, a great work was done, and the very work for which the war had been undertaken. Russia has been repressed: for full twelve years she had no practical voice in the councils of Europe; and in three years the consequences of this began to appear. First came the Franco-Italian War, which crippled Austria, made Italian freedom possible, liberated Milan, Parma, Placentia, Modena, and Tuscany, and sent Austria to meditate what a thing it was to have Hungarians and Croats disaffected. Next year came the actual union of the remainder of Italy and Sicily under the Sardinian Crown, except Rome and Venice. The example was kindling to Germany, and Prussia felt able to act without thought of Russia. The Prusso-Austrian war made German unity possible, restored Venice to Italy, and forced Austria to reconcile herself to Hungary. Now therefore the whole aspect of Eastern affairs to us is changed. In 1853 we saw a weak Germany, a disunited Italy, a crippled Austria, a down-trodden Hun

gary, and the Danubian Principalities in a sort of anarchy. Now we have a powerful Germany, a Hungary loyal to Austria, and the Principalities united under a Prussian Prince. Even if Russia become mistress of Constantinople, her position there will not enable her to give law to Europe, which undoubtedly was to be feared twenty years ago. One advantage of her recent scandalous and pernicious renunciation of a treaty signed to get rid of the intolerable oppression of war, is, that it will assuredly reconcile Hungary to the German nation, and compress the whole Danubian power into close political sympathy with the Teutonic race; probably into an alliance, offensive and defensive. If this be the result, Europe will have nothing to fear from Russia. On the other hand, Russia herself has made European war against her utterly absurd, if victory in the war is to stop short of dismembering her. For suppose that after vast sacrifices we lay her prostrate: what are

we then to do? To take a promise from her again? But that would be mere infatuation. Nothing is to the purpose but to take away from her permanently the coast of the Black Sea; which, if we were ever so victorious, would be to England physically impossible. If we could re-establish a great Poland, and restore the Crimea to Turkey, our immediate problem might be solved; but only the joint force of Austria and Germany, with Turkey and perhaps other allies, could possibly succeed in schemes. SO vastschemes which would in any case be lavish of blood and treasure beyond all wars yet known, and would, after all, be of very uncertain benefit, if successful. Those Powers which are nearest to the Russian frontier must now take the initiative against Russian lawlessness. If the rulers of England try to play any but an avowedly secondary part, it is certain that the nation will refuse to make sacrifices where success itself would be barren.

IN

1900 A.D. the English nation was surprised by the arrival of certain Lunars in flying machines of inconceivable complexity. These Lunars were of heroic stature and strength, and possessed of arts and secrets of nature beyond the comprehension of the Mundanes. At first these Lunars applied themselves to trade, and were received with open arms by the Mundanes, for they brought machines and manufactures far superior to all that had ever been seen on the earth. Soon, however, they began to exhibit an arrogant and aggrandising temper: they employed great violence on occasions considered by the Mundanes trivial; they constructed strongholds in the country planned with a cunning and defended by such an artillery that no Mundane engineer could hope ever to reduce them, and the poor English began to view their semi-divine visitors with great distrust.

Having established themselves in these strongholds, the Lunars next commenced to develop in their trading notions of political economy entirely opposed to all Mundane ideas; and when these views were not succumbed to at once, they betook themselves without delay to violence. This state of things soon produced local wars round the Lunar strongholds. At first, owing to their very small numbers, the English people nourished hopes of getting rid of them altogether. But in addition to their superior personal strength, ferocious courage, and skill in arts of war, the Lunars possessed the power of drawing on their Lunar reserves, which soon proved to be far larger than had been imagined. These local wars did little more than awaken the Lunars to a full consciousness of their own invincible strength. They could take what

they liked; but at first they only took the political administration of provinces adjoining their several strongholds. These disastrous wars destroyed the integrity of the British nation, which split up into fragments; the Viceroy of Ireland making himself permanent in Ireland, and many great earls holding their counties and successfully preventing any nominal chancellor of the exchequer levying any taxes within their earldoms. National feeling and patriotism became finally dead, and the Lunars were able to hire mercenary English troops who could be trusted to fight against their own countrymen for those that paid them, officered them, and superbly equipped them.

But there was no pause in the march of events when matters had reached this pass. The Lunars had always displayed an intense love of gain, and now found that the political administration of the country was a profitable speculation. One war followed another, one great noble after another, was crushed: it became apparent to the English people that all contention against the new comers was hopeless, and the whole nation and country lay absolutely at the feet of the Lunars.

Then, however, the Lunars began to display an irresolution quite inexplicable: they coyly refused to enter upon possession of all they had won; they took up various nobles whom they had defeated, and placed them in possession of districts. No single principle could be traced in these Lunar proceedings: they appeared to act by a proud caprice; they professed great respect for abstract justice and generosity towards their enemies, but the English people now understood the Lunars better, and they felt assured that a secret cowardice was the main spring of this exhibition of

Lunar imbecility, though they could not for the life of them imagine what the Lunars were afraid of.

Many of the Lunar arrangements were indeed beyond the fathoming of any earthly intellect. The Lunars held theoretically that revenue from land constituted the State property, and that revenue from excise and customs must necessarily be private property. The poor English had now no way of approaching their Lunar masters but by entreaty and explanation. So entirely persuaded, however, were the Lunars that everything Lunar was right, and that every social arrangement that was established in the Moon must exist also in all other planets, that no amount of explanation would persuade them that the excise and customs had been really public property. On the contrary, the Lunars now paid great court to the nobles and others who during the troubles of the country had resisted the national Chancellor of the Exchequer, and believed readily their tale that the excise and customs were their own private property.

The Lunars now carried this view out to the entire uprooting of society. They gave the Viceroy of Ireland the two provinces of Leinster and Ulster as his private property, together with all excise and custom duties that could be levied therein, subject to a fixed charge only, to maintain an auxiliary English army officered by Lunars and stationed in Dublin. In the same way several counties of England were handed over to earls who produced feofs granted to their ancestors by Norman kings. The whole Church property was given to the Church tax-free on the strength of some documents of the date of Henry II. Not only the British Queen, but numbers of Ministers and nobles, were given State pensions, also chargeable on excise and customs. The Lunars now entered on the administration of the whole country with

little more than half the public revenue arising from the whole country. In order to make both ends meet they at once, according to their Lunar principles, laid a scourging tax on all lands in the area of their own direct administration, and they also introduced a great variety of other taxes which they said were approved in the Moon. The people groaned under the enormous variety of taxation, the novelty of which increased its oppressiveness; but many of the great nobles and the Viceroy of Ireland were able to indulge in the most lavish expenditure. In the hopelessness of despair they lost all patriotism, and vied with each other in entertaining and fawning on the Lunars, who on their side appeared peculiarly gratified by these demonstrations, and were never tired of boasting of their liberal treatment of the fine country that had fallen into their hands, and of their generosity to their vassals. Indeed the Lunars exhibited an extraordinary vanity and pleasure in seeing their vassals ape independence, and allowed them to maintain armies at their discretion. Many of these vassals were glad to avail themselves of this privilege, for they could not except by force levy their revenues in many cases.

Thus the Viceroy of North Ireland kept a private Saxon army of 30,000 strong, with which he repressed Fenianism; in Dublin was also the subsidiary army of 8,000, officered by Lunars; and as there might be a doubt whether on an emergency this subsidiary army could be depended upon, a strong Lunar brigade was also stationed at Dublin. Still the Lunar generals were not satisfied, and they pressed on the Lunar governorgeneral that such a mass of inflammable material in North Ireland was a source of danger, and that it was advisable always to maintain a Lunar force in South Ireland of such strength that at any time it could

C