moment must arrive when, having more easy communication with Europe by means of new discoveries, she will wish to say her word in our affairs, and have a hand in them. Political prudence, therefore, imposes on the governments of the old continent the care of scrupulously watching that no pretext shall be offered for such an intervention. From the day when America shall plant her foot in Europe peace and security will be banished for a long time."

For the last twenty years, and long after the wily statesman was in his grave, his prediction has been verifying itself; and more especially since the close of the Civil War,, the United States-not, we must say, by sanction of their government, but by the printed and spoken sympathies of the people, and by some, though possibly a minority, of their statesmen-have been endeavouring to "plant a foot in Europe," and to rest that foot upon Irish soil by means of Fenianism, and the establishment, quixotical as it may appear to us, of an Irish Republic, affiliated to and partly maintained by the United States. In view of these circumstances, and of others that preceded and followed them, and notably of the recent legislative sanction given to President Grant to recognise the independence of Cuba, even though such recognition should produce a rupture with Spain, the words of Prince Talleyrand become, as we said, prophetic, and may possibly find echoes in more European countries than one. But Will, fortunately, is not the same as Power; and it is likely that if Spain were in a position to make the recognition of the independence of Cuba a casus belli, the Government of President Grant might consider the particular game to be not worth the candle, and would hold forth the resolutions of the Senate or the House of Representatives to recognise the Cuban insurgents as the "buncombe " of individual mem

VOL. OV.-NO. DCXLIV.

bers of the Legislature, and never intended for the adoption of the Executive.

Though it may seen like child'splay or a useless waste of words to answer all Mr. Sumner's absurdities, indorsed or unindorsed by the American people, or attempt to prove a set-off against his little bill, it is possible to amuse ourselves with a calculation of the set-off which Great Britain might plead against the United States as represented by Mr. Sumner. Item, cost of the war for the maintenance of the integrity of the British Empire, imperilled by George Washington, a rebel ;-two hundred millions sterling; item, cost to Canada of the volunteer force to repel the continually-threatened inroads of the Americans;-fifty millions sterling; item, cost to the Imperial treasury for the defence of Ireland against Fenian movements organised in America;-fifty millions sterling; item, to the prolongation of the rebellious feeling in Ireland occasioned by American sympathy, three hundred millions sterling, et cætera, et cætera. This, of course, is all bosh, but no more bosh than Senator Sumner's claims against Great Britain. There is no other specific against Sumnerism and Chandlerism than contempt, and no one need be surprised if, in the long-run, as much of that wholesome medicine shall come from America as from England.

To conclude. Is it not time that all the heats and animosities engendered by the great Civil War should cool down? The North has. won its cuse, and ought to be reasonable. If it fancies it has a complaint to make against Great Britain for want of written and spoken sympathy during the struggle, it ought to reflect upon the fact, that the most powerful of European monarchs was ready to acknowledge the independence of the South, and that the Government of Great Britain, with unexampled forbearance, refused to join him in the

3 E

enterprise. The Americans, who feel "bitter," as they call it, against England, for want of sympathya sympathy, by the way, which the people and Government of the United States never felt or expressed for England when she was engaged in quelling the Indian Mutiny, or fighting against Russia at Sebastopol for the maintenance of the Turkish empire, or on any occasion whatever, either foreign or domestic-would do well to remember what would have happened had England agreed to the suggestions of the French Emperor. We were strongly of opinion then, we are still more strongly of opinion now, that France was right and England wrong on that occasion. Had it not been for the fear entertained in Lord Palmerston's Cabinet that the anti-slavery pro-American and Exeter Hall influence would have placed it in a Parliamentary minority on the question, it is highly probable that so sagacious a statesman and thorough a man of the world as Lord Palmerston would have seen the obvious advantage of uniting with the French Emperor in the recognition of the Contederate States-a recognition that would have saved the unfortunate Emperor Maximilian, made a firm friend of the Southern nation, and rendered it impossible for the dismembered frag. ments of the once United States to play the part of Dictator in the affairs of the world, stir up. Fenianism in Ireland, threaten the annexation of Canada, and present insulting and unconscionable claims against this country on any future occasion. Are these things which the triumphant North should either ignore or depreciate? We think

not. We think, moreover, that the North owes its triumph as much to this very generous, but, as the result shows, somewhat foolish neutrality on the part of Great Britain, as to its own prowess, aided as the latter was by the adventurous rowdyism of Irishmen and Germans, who fought less for the sake of the North than for the sake of the previously unheard-of amounts of bounty-money offered to the volunteers. We do not accuse the American people; we only accuse the dominant faction that has got the upper hand, and hopes to retain it by the strong arm of military despotisin in the South, and by hostility towards England-hostility which is cheap as long as it is confined to words and to speeches from its Sumners and Chandlers, but which might happen to become very dear if it passed from their mouths to the hands of responsible statesman.

And after all, great and powerful as the United States undoubtedly are, they are not so great and powerful as to afford to be laughed at. Mr. Motley is supposed to come to London fully charged with the ideas and the demands of Mr. Sumnerto hold a moral pistol at the head of poor John Bull, and demand not only his money, but his honour and self-respect. We believe nothing of the kind, however, and shall not do an eminent historian, philosopher, jurist, and statesman, or the President who nominated and the Senate which confirmed him, the injustice of supposing that he is authorised to present to Great Britain, as bases of diplomatic action, the rant of Mr. Sumner or the drivel of Mr. Chandler.

sum

the

SCARCELY a week passes that some indignant writer in the 'Times does not publish the circular of a money-lender, setting forth. facility with which any of from five to fifty thousand pounds may be obtained without intervention of agency, and on the most reasonable terms-"bills renewable at any dates, at the discretion of the drawer." The outraged receiver of this proposal rushes at once into print to denounce the system of these infamous corrupters of our youth, and to expose by name and address the Satanic tempters who are leading our young men to ruin. Now the disclosures which from time to time occur as to these gentlemen's practices, the simple narratives how a loan of one hundred pounds can readily grow to five or even ten times the original amount, and then the clever calculation of what young men will pay to meet some sudden exigency, and what they will submit to for sake of secresy, show that this has become one of the exact sciences, and that usury is now a great art compounded of arithmetic and physiology. These men, in fact, have set themselves to study the Rake's Progress with an intensity of appreciation that is quite peculiar to them. They see how inevitably-now from distinct disposition, now from example, now from easiness of temper-young men are led into habits of extravagance, and induced to launch out into expenses for which they have no adequate means. By patience, investigation, and minute inquiry, the usurer learns to distinguish between him who represents capital and him who represents nothing, and he separates the wheat from the chaff with an amount of skill that all the science of the miller cannot rival. Lazarus Levi is, in fact, a man who has investigated closely the habits of the

time he lives in, but he is also a wellread student in the family history of Great Britain, and you could far more easily impose on Doctors' Commons itself with a dubious title or a suspected legitimacy than on this obsequious little man with the guttural utterance and the diamond studs.

But

The doctors might envy the diagnostic skill of one who only asks three minutes' interview to know the whole " case before him. The swaggering self-assurance of the man upon town-the rakish carelessness of the habitual spend hrift-the bashful awkwardness of the young sub. who has only "matriculated in debt, and the cautious reserve of the man who, intending to pay at last, is careful to examine the terms on which the "accommodation" is offered him, are symptoms that pass under his eyes daily, and dismissed as easily as the physician prescribes for a catarrh or a sore throat. there occur subtle cases. These are the men who, themselves gamblers, are occasionally driven to a day or an hour, and whose solvency depends on the success of this or that speculation. If gold falls-if "the five-twentys" go up if Regulus wins the handicap-if — heaven knows which of the accidents of life incline to this side or that, then they pay or they break. It is here that Lazarus shows the extent of his resources, for he knows the effect of the rains in Bengal as well as he does how the deep ground will affect the Liverpool, and can estimate the damage to the Indigo crop as easily as the strain on a mare's back tendons.

What a knowledge of art and vertu does the man possess! Valuables of all kinds come before him, and he is as much at home with a Majolica cup as with a Sèvres jar, and knows pictures as well as he knows a good investment.

In a word, there is nothing on earth or air or water he cannot make marketable, and such is the range of his knowledge that he can appraise and estimate every material guarantee that comes before him. The cob you ride in the park, your wife's trinkets, your grandfather's reversion, your aunt's lappets of Brussels lace, your cousin's dockwarrants for tea, your book on the Riddlesworth, your troop in the Hussars, your presentation to a vicarage, seem each of them to have been a special study with him. He will advance you on anything except an Irish estate or a share in a theatre.

And now for the application. Are all these great acquirements, the result of years of patient labour and study-are they to go unrequited? Is this man simply to be regarded as an unlettered ignorant dealer-a mere human money-safe, instead of being, as he is, at the very top of the most learned profession? These men, whose knowledge of morals exceeds that of a whole bench of Bishops - who understand parchments like an equity lawyer, and have more skill in the science of temperament than the College of Physicians are they not to be requited for their high cultivation? Is it nothing that they know, as no one else knows, all ranks and gradations of men; to what influences they yield, to what temptations they are submissive? If, as we are told, "the proper study of mankind is man," who has made it his study like one of these? Does he not know the very moment when the heart first yields to temptation, and the last when it closes against repentance? Does he not comprehend to a nicety how far a youth will go in wickedness at a certain cost, and when the price of vice will, for the first time, arrest him in iniquity, and make him reflective? The abusive tone assumed to wards usury itself, is one of the most consummate humbugs of an age of humbug. When the innkeeper provides you with a breakfast

whose intrinsic value is sixpence, and charges you half-a-crown for it, is not this usury? and yet you never think of exclaiming against his four hundred per cent., but simply admit that the accommodation, the prompt service, the ready attention, and the goodness of the fare, were ample requital for your money. Now, it is perfectly true that a penny roll and a cup of coffee at a street stall would be an immense economy on all this; but I never heard that a venerable parent had advised his son to this expedient, or thought of publishing the hotel reckoning as a public warning.

Nobody ever pretended that a doctor's five minutes were really worth a guinea, but nobody denies that the knowledge by which he is enabled to make that five minutes serviceable, the long task of years, the days and nights of intense application which have fitted him to employ those five minutes for your benefit-these, condensed as they are, are cheaply bought at the guinea, and are you going to deny the other great practitioner the reward of all his skill? Has he too not studied disease? disease the most fatal and destructive-does he not mix with all the contagion of vice till his constitution, by repeated attacks of wickedness, has become actually steeled against infection? Is there a moral plague-spot this man has not surveyed? Is there a shortcoming of youth or an iniquity of age he does not know?

Usury as if everything about and around us were not usury. When the farmer sows his wheat, does he not look that every grain return him full five-hundredfold? Does your grocer sell you his coffee at cost price? Does your livery stable-man furnish your carriage at the current rate of forage, and no more? Does the bookseller give you your volume at the price of production, or are you not, for everything of your daily use, paying for what of all things is best worth paying for the prompti

tude and accommodation with which you are served? The great fict being that, to wish and to have are combined in the same link; and when this is the case, when the object sought is the source of all strength, the motive power everywhere-money-you are ready to cry out Usury! as though you who go in search of his corruption were the faultless one, and that he who served you was the fiend incarnate.

What stupid hue and cry is all this? It takes two to make a compact, says the Italian adage, and what arrant humbug it is to assert that in an iniquitous transaction, where consent and accord are asserted, there can be but one culpable! Áh, but the tempter!

Well, let us see what about this tempter. Now, be it borne in mind that it is after running the gauntlet of temptation that our young friend comes to the usurer. He has graduated at the Haymarket, and the coulisses of the opera; he has passed his little go at Newmarket, and taken honours at the Raleigh or the Badminton. The ingenuus puer by this time is, all things considered, not a bad match for the practised performer who dispenses the cash and calculates the renewals. Hear Lazarus himself on this head, and let him tell you what his experiences are of these unfledged birds who flutter up to him to mortgage the feathers that they promise themselves to possess some day.

I protest there is very little of temptation in the matter, or, if there be any, I know on which side stands the tempter.

I am full sure of one thing. In this raid against the usurer we are very indifferently serving the cause of him for whom we are interested. So long as we turn all our indignation against Mephistopheles, we are bestowing too much sympathy on Faust. Now, as it is Faust we are really interested for, as it is Faust we want to save, and Faust we are caring to rescue from evil, let us see if we are going the best way to the object.

Be firmly assured of one point, that of these innocent youths whose fathers rush so intrepidly into the Times,' there is not one in fiftyI might go farther and say one in five hundred-who has not gone the round of as many temptations as Faust himself. The ingenuus puer of the moralist would be as great a curiosity now as any of his chroniclers. I am not exactly sure where one should go to look for him; certainly not at our Universities, and I doubt much if at our public schools. Is he at the 'Rag?' I suspect not. Is he in the civil service-at F. O., for instance? I have my suspicions to the contrary.

Our ingenuus puer, so far as my observation goes, is far too much of a match for his own father! So far from being a freshhearted simple youth-new to life, and facile to all its seductions--he is a very artful young gentleman, deep in all the mysteries of play and the betting-ring, on excellent terms with stable keepers, jockeys, and grooms, and whose intimacies with the fast and loose of the other sex I will not speak of. Now, of all the craft he has cultivated there is none to which he has devoted more skill or intelligence than money-raising, whether it be from the over-indulgence of his aunt or his grandfather, his cousin or his guardian: to screw a fiver out of them" is an achievement of which he feels as proud as he is delighted with the fact.

This is the great game that engages all the youth and intelligence of our public schools and college life, and follows our young men into the army and navy, and even tracks divinity lecturers and loiters amongst ordinations and inductions to vicarages.

Raising the wind is a pastime we cultivate from the perambulator to the Bath chair. In fact, money

with us enters far more into all the relations of life than with any other people of Europe. The most sacred of all callings, the most chivalrous of all careers, we make