has risen to a man to repel the spirit of insurrection that has so suddenly animated the not very warlike Italians. The Sclavonian States, Hungary, Bohemia, and the other Austrian provinces will send in their countless numbers to the struggle, and even Russia, if not Great Britain, will side with the imperial rights, guaranteed by innumerable treaties, and ages of possession many times insured by the spilling of the best blood of Austria, on the plains of the Po, the Adda, the Oglio, and the Adige.

Supposing success to the Italian arms (and for the time being Marshal Radestki's position is a very critical one) the peace or regeneration of Italy will be as far from being settled as at the commencement of the struggle. The policy of the more ardent followers of the new order of politics in Italy, and they are seconded by the French Republicans, is decidedly opposed to a return to a division of states as they have existed from the middle ages. France especially desires to see Italy form an undivided state-in other words, a republic in abeyance to that of France. What in such a case is to become of King Charles Albert and his chivalrous defence of Italian liberty? What of the now double King-Ferdinand IV. of Sicily and Ferdinand V. of Naples-of all the smaller Italian States, and of the head and front of the liberal movement, Pope Pius IX. himself? The new order of politics which does not condescend to consider such trifling matters, cannot at present afford to take such a question into consideration. Yet is the position of the Italian sovereigns most pregnant with danger, and a great example is shown in the progress of such events as have already taken place, how dangerous it is for kings and rulers to tamper with an insurrectionary spirit and to enter upon wars even for a liberal purpose, without knowing what will be the results gained by success in those wars. Possibly as far as the Italian monarchies are concerned, momentary failure and defeat may be ultimate advantage.

III.-THE NEW ORDER OF POLITICS IN GERMANY.

THE positive progress of disquietude in Germany may be said to have manifested itself, co-evally with the insurrectionary events that took place last year in Switzerland. Most of the minor principalities certified upon that occasion to the Germanic Diet the refusal of their governments to have recourse to coercive measures against the Republic. The various States had, however, it is to be observed, been long engaged in reforms of a strictly constitutional character. In Prussia a new law regulating the press and an amnesty to the Poles had been received with the greatest enthusiasm. Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Baden, had given in their adhesion to the Zollverein, and the states of this great German Union were to discuss the differential duties at the first meeting of the Congress at Cassel. The German Post Congress, assembled at the same time at Dresden, had proposed the total abolition of postage upon papers. This was at the very moment when in another portion of the same country, the Archduke Maximilian was preparing fifty chambers in his castle of Buscheim for the reception of the Jesuits expelled from Switzerland! Disturbances had occurred in Bavaria, promoted by a party students called Allemanen, which ultimately assumed a far more serious character than could have been originally anticipated, and in which the affections were destined to play a more imperious part than politics.

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The influence of the French Revolution was first felt at Baden, where, ever since Ludwig dissolved the Chambers, on the 28th of July, 1819, misunderstandings between the states and the government have never ceased to manifest themselves. The grand-duke had now no alternative left to him, but that of conceding at once the long-expected constitution. The Duke of Hessen-Cassel, although he had granted a new administration, was expelled for a time from his dominions; and the Duke of Nassau, although his predecessor gave a new constitution to the country, in 1814, was so terrified with the insurrectionary aspect of the times, as to have taken spontaneous flight. A lively spirit of Gallicism manifested itself all along both banks of the Rhine, and stirred up the malcontents in all the provinces of the Rhenish Confederation. Even Mayence, with its Austrian and Prussian garrisons, did not form an exception. Amidst these difficulties, the German Diet wisely decided upon leaving each separate state to regulate the question of the liberty of the press as it best thought fit. At Leipzig, an immediate convocation of the Chambers were called for; liberty of the press and trial by jury were also points unanimously insisted upon by the Saxons. A meeting assembled in Hamburg to frame a petition for liberty of the press, soon adopted another for representative government, nor was the assembly dispersed without a collision with the military and the Burgher Guard.

In Darmstadt, where a constitution had been granted in 1820, and two Chambers established, the hereditary grand-duke hastened to grant projects of law for liberty of the press, for the organisation of civil guards in the towns, for publicity of debates on judicial matters, and for trial by jury; while the minister of Nassau, aided by the mother and brother of the runaway grand-duke, having got the people to accept a project of a law of reform, the prince returned to his patrimony, amidst the cheers of his easily pacified subjects. At Frankfort, the cry raised was for a republic, but the people were glad to content themselves with promises of reforms similar to what had been vouched for to their neighbours. The epidemic had, in fact, spread with fearful rapidity from the Rhine to the Isar, and from the Danube to the Great Belt, and the hand of royalty was soon busy everywhere ministering to the wants of their subjects a task in which, for the most part, they engaged with most praiseworthy zeal and activity. Neufchatel alone threw off monarchical allegiance altogether, and disclaiming the sovereignty of the King of Prussia, constituted itself into an independent republic in confederation with the other Swiss cantons.

The kingdom of Wurtemberg, although its government has, since September, 1819, been a constitutional monarchy, suffered severely from anarchical excesses. The character which these assumed, the violence of the mob being mainly directed against the nobility, many of whose castles suffered severely at the hands of the mob, shows that the boors still laboured under that intolerable feudal serfdom against which Frederick II. and Wilhelm I. had struggled in vain; and which, no doubt, contributed to that spirit of emigration which has so often excited the wonder of those who only know Wurtemberg as one of the most enlightened countries in Germany. At Weimar, also, tumults ensued, although the liberty of the press had already been granted. On the 8th of March, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha published a proclamation, in which he abolished the censorship and promised a constitution.

Undoubtedly, however, the most important of all the movements that have as yet occurred east of the Rhine, were those which affected the governments of Vienna and Berlin, and which both took place in the eventful second and third weeks of March. The abolition of the censorship, the formation of a national guard, the convocation of the states, for the express amelioration of the representative and other institutions, which followed upon the fall of a ministry of nearly forty years' standing, was an event, in a country so politically exclusive as Austria has ever been, that was no less astounding than it is full of promise to the future. The Austrians, so resigned under an absolute monarch, deserved as much as any nation the benefits of constitutional liberty, and are likely to enjoy such without the excesses of democratic excitement.

The want of decision manifested by the sovereign of Prussia, unfortunately led to a great and unnecessary effusion of blood in the streets of Berlin. For two days, the 18th and 19th of March, the people and the military sustained a fierce conflict. The struggle was ended by the formation of a new ministry, the establishment of a Burgher guard, full amnesty for political offences, liberty of the press, and the convocation of the united diet for the 2nd of April. Frederick William became desirous, when his own troubles were over, to take a lead in the regeneration of Germany, by placing himself at the head of an united German empire; and the great imperial standard was, with the sanction of the archbishop, hoisted on the top of Cologne Cathedral. But this proclamation was but feebly responded to by other portions of the empire. The old imperial standard was hoisted at the same time on the spire of St. Stephens, and the house of Hapsburgh is by no means extinct yet, nor is its political strength gone by, but rather likely to be awakened to new life by the liberty given to its intelligent and loyal populations.

Hanover and Saxony, the last of the German states, to give way before the spirit of innovation that was abroad throughout the fatherland, were obliged to yield after Vienna and Berlin; and freedom of the press, amnesty for political offences, and the convention and public deliberation of the states, were at length conceded. In Dresden serious riots had taken place on the 15th of March, which had hastened the granting of concessions which were not made in Hanover till the 18th of the same month.

There were certain states in Germany, the political position of which was of a far more delicate character than those above-mentioned, and whose conduct, under existing circumstances, excited just apprehensions. On the 17th of March, the inhabitants of Cracow demanded, in decided language, the abolition of the guard of the line of customs, the armament of the inhabitants, the institution of the ancient free states' militia, and the liberation of persons imprisoned for political offences. It being impossible to grant these demands under the existing institutions, the citizens rose up in insurrection on the 18th. At Posen, in a similar manner, on the 23rd, the troops were obliged to evacuate the town, while a provisional committee took possession of the Hotel de Ville, and organised a national guard. Upon the committee petitioning the King of Prussia to that effect, his majesty acceded to the formation of the committee, to be composed of members of both nations, Polish and German, and to act with the high president, in preparing the way for a national

re-organisation of the grand-duchy. It is doubtful how far these concessions will effect the desired purpose at a time that Prince Czartoryski and a host of banished Poles are on their way to their fatherland to fight for independence. But such of the Polish peasantry as have, since the extinction of their nationality, been incorporated with Prussia, have found their condition so much improved to what it had been under their own feudal tyrants, that with a general amnesty, a restoration of confiscated property, and other reforms, there would be nothing to fear for the allegiance of Prussian Poland.

In Russian Poland matters wear a far more threatening aspect. Warsaw was for a time in open revolution. The inhabitants rose en masse, and commenced an indiscriminate slaughter of their Russian masters. The troops fled to the fort and bombarded the town. That which most complicates matters is, that the King of Prussia, the most uncertain and the least prudent in his policy of all the monarchs in Europe, is, as he has acted towards the Danes, in supporting by armed interference the revolt of Schleswig and Holstein, also prepared to act towards Russian Poland, and to support the Poles in their rebellion against the czar. It would indeed require, what with his democrats at home who demand a reduction of the army, diminution of expenditure, and electoral franchise, and with war threatening on three sides, that Frederick William should be already at the head of united Germany, to extricate himself from all the dilemmas which he has been drawn into by his love of power and popularity, combined with an overweening vanity. There are, however, hopes, notwithstanding the actual appeal to arms that has taken place, that the Schleswig Holstein question may yet be pacifically settled. The rights of the King of Denmark, as Duke of Schleswig Holstein, are not questioned; and the claims of the German provinces to be incorporated with the nation with which they are already electively confederated, is a matter better decided by diplomatic conferences than by an appeal to arms. At all events, it is to be sincerely hoped, that however much Great Britain mediates, which it is certainly not only entitled, but is bound by treaty to do, in preventing the interference of Germany to crush or diminish the power, or the territory of Denmark, that it will not resort to arms to arrange a complicated family and political question, nor set itself in such a cause in hostile array and enmity with the ambition of the embryo Germanic nation. The consequence of Germany's treating Denmark as a national enemy, must be to turn the Scandinavian race against her, and to force, not only Denmark, but Sweden, to fling themselves into the arms of Russia, and thus establish in the Baltic a dictatorship hostile to German development and European trade.

The czar is only awaiting for those divisions and misunderstandings, which inevitably spring up from political changes hastily accomplished, to act against the movement wherever he can to the greatest advantage, and Germany would have been engaged in a far nobler task in aiding the Scandinavians to establish themselves in strength at the mouth of the Baltic, than in so petty and unloyal an act as wresting provinces from their just allegiance.

Among other symptoms of reaction may also be noticed, that the Federal Directory, assembled at Berne on the 1st of April, refused to permit the German legion, formed in France, to pass through SwitzerMay.-VOL. LXXXIII. NO. CCCXXIX.

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land. The first collision of the Danes with the Holstein rebels and their German confederates took place at Flensburg on the 9th of April, and terminated, after a sharp contest, in a sanguinary overthrow of the insurrectionists. So, also, the Austrians, although driven back at the outpost of the bridge of Goito, on the Mincio, on the 8th of April, had yet been enabled to re-take the fort of Legnano, an important station in the Adige below Verona. At the same time, the advance of the FrancoGerman republicans on the frontier, has ended in an act of cowardly assassination on their part, and resolute reprisals from those attached to order, which will, no doubt, be followed by total discomfiture and disgrace to the would-be disturbers of peace throughout the fatherland.

IV. NEW Order of POLITICS IN FRANCE.

THE first manifestation of want of confidence in the new order of politics in France, was, as is now too well known almost to deserve repetition, a run upon the banks, the hoarding and secreting of property, and the evasion of almost all who could afford, or whose circumstances were in such a position as to admit of that alternative. The forcible discharge of English workmen, both from manufactories and railways, with a glorious disregard of arrears due, or of moneys deposited in the savings' banks, was a next step that disgraced republicanism. The French workmen struck unanimously at the same time for less work, higher wages, and fraternisation with masters. The communistes demanded share of profits. The shopkeepers insisted upon landlords receiving half-rents, until the National Assembly could place the relation of landlord and tenant on a more equitable footing. Those who had bills to meet insisted upon delay being granted. The omnibus drivers and conductors struck for an increase of wages. The river-porters followed their patriotic example. Trade was at the same time at a stand-still, and consequently the manufacturers had soon nothing to do. In fact, at the very onset trade was paralysed, manufactures at a stop, and credit gone. It is not surprising that under such circumstances, although a hundred schemes, each more visionary than the other, were propounded to uphold public credit, that M. Goudchaux, the Provisional Minister of Finance, was glad to retreat from the responsibility of keeping the national finances and the national humour for non-payments and large profits in an harmonious state of equilibrium. For a long time the men who held the Tuileries would not give up possession, unless an annuity of 800 francs was insured to them.

The new Minister of Finance, M. Garnier Pages, restored confidence for a moment by the institution of national discount banks in Paris, and in all industrial and commercial cities. The paviours of Paris having struck for wages, journeymen masons were employed to restore to the capital its wonted aspect. Men and women servants could not strike for wages: they were without employment. But notwithstanding great endeavours on the part of the Provisional Government, the price of shares in the bank kept on falling, and failures of private banks followed one another with an alarming rapidity; to the house of Gouin and Co., successors of Lafitte, succeeded those of Messrs. Ganneron and Co., Messrs. Bechet, Del Thomar and Co., and Messrs. Chedeaux and Co.; all bankers of reputation. The financial crisis, and the embarrassments of the government contributed to add to the already gloomy prospects of the Republic. The run upon the National Bank continued to such an extent that the Provisional Government released it from the obligation of paying its

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