leaving, as he truly boasted, a name which will ever be held in honour by the industrious producer,-the class from which his own father rose,-though exposed to the charge of vacillation and inconsistency.

Like sir Robert Walpole, whom he resembled in many points, he was a peace minister; but he was more than once in danger of war. A long-standing dispute with the United States about their boundaries on the north-east and north-west was settled by the mission of lord Ashburton (Alexander Baring) on terms by which our strict rights were sacrificed to the desire for peace. The " entente cordiale" with France was endangered in 1843 by her seizure of Tahiti and imprisonment of our consul, Mr. Pritchard, and still more in 1846 by the affair of the Spanish marriages, which needs a brief explanation. In 1833 Ferdinand VII. died, having made a will in favour of his daughter, who succeeded him as Isabella II., and revived the constitution; but don Carlos, the late king's brother, claimed the crown as the male heir. As in Portugal, the queen's cause was espoused by England and France, and a "British legion" of volunteers went to Spain under a Peninsular veteran, sir DE LACY EVANS. After a long Carlist war and many internal revolutions, queen Isabella was established on her throne. Louis Philippe now revived the old Bourbon policy of the " family compact;" and, in spite of the successive opposition of lords Aberdeen and Palmerston, the king of the French arranged the marriage of the queen of Spain with her cousin, don Francisco of Assisi, while her sister, the infanta Louisa, was united to Louis Philippe's youngest son, the duke of Montpensier (Oct. 10, 1846). The result was a coolness between France and England till the revolution of 1848; and at one time there was even an alarm of a French invasion.

Meanwhile the government of lord John Russell pursued sir Robert Peel's commercial policy in their settlement of the sugar duties (1847) and of the navigation laws (1849); but the course of prosperity soon received a severe check. In 1847 a bad season and a failure of the potato-crop produced a famine in Ireland and great distress in England. A loan of 10,000,000l. was voted for the relief of the Irish; but they found a more effectual refuge in emigration; and, while they began to prosper in America and the colonies, their removal, together with the sale of encumbered estates by a court established by parliament, opened the way for a new race of owners and cultivators and for the influx of capital. A new era of prosperity began with the famine of 1847; but it is already overclouded by the renewal of those agrarian murders which have been a greater curse to Ireland than Celtic indolence, Saxon tyranny, priestly domination or even professional agitators (1862).

The year 1848 was a great epoch in European politics. Ever since 1816 the restoration of despotism had created profound discontent. The French revolution of 1830 vibrated through the continent. We have seen its effect in Belgium. The Poles struck another blow for independence, but it failed after a fierce conflict, and the kingdom of Poland was absorbed in Russia. The Prussians and Hanoverians asked in vain for their long-promised constitutions, and Germans of every state dreamed of a united Fatherland. But the deepest source of discontent arose from the rule of Austria over Lombardy and Veretia, and virtually, through family alliances and treaties, over the whole of Italy. All resistance was kept down by martial law, and Italian patriots were immured in dungeons such as those described by Silvio Pellico. Tyranny begat conspiracy, and conspiracy was made the pretext for fresh tyranny. At length, in 1846, a new pontiff was elected, pope Pius IX., who was believed to be a friend of Italian liberty; and he introduced some reforms in the Papal States. About the same time the Italians found another leader in CHARLES ALBERT king of Sardinia, who granted a constitution to his own states. At this crisis the question of parliamentary reform was agitated in France. The new dynasty had been greatly weakened by the sudden death of the duke of Orleans, the heir to the throne, a popular and liberal prince (July 13, 1842), and the government had been conducted too much by corruption and intrigue. The prohibition by Guizot of a reform banquet (Feb. 22, 1848) led to an insurrection in Paris, which ended in a revolution and the proclamation of a republic (Feb. 24, 1848). The flame spread over Europe; but this is not the place to write the history of the rising of 1848 and the collapse of 1849. The English Chartists attempted a display of force, which was put down by the mere attitude of precaution (April 10, 1848); and a more serious insurrection of "Young Ireland" had a grotesque end in the capture of Mr. SMITH O'BRIEN in a cabbage-garden. He and several other leaders were found guilty of treason, but their lives were spared, and after some years' transportation they were pardoned.

The half-century ended amidst a profound peace, which suggested to prince Albert and other philanthropists an exhibition of the industry of all nations in Hyde Park. The genius of sir JOSEPH PAXTON provided a fit edifice of iron and glass, and sir Robert Peel was labouring for its success when he was killed by a fall from his horse (May, 1850). The Exhibition was opened by the queen on May 1, 1851; and its brilliant success, besides being imitated in other cities and countries, led to the plan of decennial Exhibition and the second was opened on May 1, 1862. Owing to a

* with lord Palmerston, the ministry of lord John Russell fell in 1852; and the earl of DERBY (formerly lord Stanley, b. 1799), on acceding to power, with Mr. Disraeli, renounced the policy of protection. In the autumn of this year the duke of Wellington died (Sept.), and was laid by the side of Nelson in St. Paul's (Nov. 18, 1852). By a strange coincidence the dynasty of Napoleon was restored in France just after his conqueror's death. CHARLES LOUIS Bonaparte, son of Louis Bonaparte king of Holland, and Hortense Beauharnais, having been elected president of the French republic in 1849, overthrew the constitution by a coup d'état (Dec. 2, 1851), was elected emperor of the French by the modern invention of universal suffrage, and proclaimed by the title of NAPOLEON III. (Dec. 2, 1852). Before Christmas the government of lord Derby were defeated on Mr. Disraeli's budget, and a coalition ministry was formed from the friends of sir Robert Peel, the Whigs, and the Radicals, with the earl of ABERDEEN as premier. Mr. WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE (b. 1809), as chancellor of the exchequer, produced his memorable budget of 1853, on the principles of sir Robert Peel; but some of his calculations were deranged by the war with Russia in defence of Turkey, which broke out early in 1854. The events of that war, and of the INDIAN MUTINY of 1857, which led to the transference of India from the Company to the imperial government, are too recent to need relation here; nor have we thought it necessary to give the details of the Indian wars since 1840 or of those by which CHINA has been brought into commercial intercourse with Europe. The year 1859 witnessed the conquest of Lombardy from Austria by the united arms of France and Sardinia, followed by the wonderful enterprise of Garibaldi in Naples, which made Victor Emmanuel king of all Italy, except Rome and the Venetian territory (1860).

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During the period thus glanced at, the country has been governed by viscount PALMERSTON, who was called to power on the fall of lord Aberdeen (1855), and has since remained premier, with the short interruption of lord Derby's second government (1858-1859). On the verge of fourscore, he is still, in cheerful vigour, our youthful premier." Lord John Russell, called to the House of Peers as EARL RUSSELL, is foreign secretary. The last achievement of this ministry has been the completion, by Mr. Gladstone, of sir Robert Peel's great scheme of free trade, by means of the budgets of 1860 and 1861, and the commercial treaty with France negociated by Mr. Cobden. Nor must we omit from this brief review of the last decade, the revival of a military spirit, "not for defiance, but defence," which has called 150,000 citizens to arms as volunteers, while the resources of science are taxed to the utmost in the competition between guns such as Milton's angels fought with, and

ships which may almost be described in his words as clad with triple folds of "adamantine steel, impregnable." That the time is not yet come to dispense with such engines is proved by the frightful civil war now raging in America, between the northern and southern divisions of the United States, and which for a moment threatened to involve England at the close of 1861.

Twenty-five years are now completed of a reign which more than rivals that of Elizabeth in prosperity and glory. Though by no means a period of unbroken quiet, all its troubles have thus far ended well. The rebellions of Canada, Ireland, and India have led in each case to better relations with the imperial government. Our wars have closed in honourable peace, after their disasters had been retrieved. Our liberties have been extended, our laws, improved, our penal code mitigated, and imprisonment for debt virtually abolished. Commerce has been set free, and practical force has been given to the new doctrine, that the interests of nations are mutual and not opposite. Our colonial empire has been secured and vastly extended, and the gold of Australia and Columbia has given a new impulse to industry. The spirit of enterprise and discovery has unlocked the secrets of the Arctic Seas and of the continent of Africa. Science has made rapid strides; and the discoveries of the power-loom and the steam-engine in the last generation have been crowned by the general use of the railway and the electric telegraph. Famine, pestilence, and other visitations of Providence, have called forth abundant springs of private charity, and forced upon us the study of the laws on which life, health, and welfare depend, under the new names of Sanitary and Social Science. Among the foremost in this movement was the foremost subject of the queen, her royal consort, prince ALBERT; and the last great event that we have to record is his untimely death on Saturday, Dec. 14, 1861. He had long been steadily growing in the respect and love of the British people, earned entirely by his merit. When he came to England, the popular prejudice against the German connexions of our royal family had not died out; and there were some in high places who looked with jealousy upon a prince whose youth had been spent in the cultivation of sound and elegant learning. An extreme party raised the cry of undue influence, when it was found that the prince had, with the consent of successive ministers, taken his natural position as the queen's helper in state affairs. But he lived down all these prejudices by abstaining as well from party politics as from the meaner temptations of his lofty place, and devoting himself to the sacred duty of helping the queen and training their children for their exalted station in the fear of God. To have done this and given no offence would have been much but it is his

peculiar praise that, shut out from political activity, he found a new scope for his energy and wisdom in a work which no one else could have done as well, and in which he will long be missed. He was ready to aid every well-planned scheme of social improvement; and his speeches on these occasions are as much marked by freshness of thought and purity of language as by the earnest desire to do good But his great achievement was the Exhibition of 1851-an untried experiment, which his perseverance carried through popular coolness and powerful opposition to triumphant success. When the new Exhibition was opened on May 1, 1862, the most striking feature of the ceremony was the absence of him who had planned the scheme. Meanwhile her Majesty's profound grief has been shared by a dutiful and affectionate people, and consoled by her children, of whom none have been lost and none have proved unworthy. They are :—(1.) Victoria Adelaide Maria Louisa, princess royal, born Nov. 21, 1840; (2.) ALBERT EDWARD, prince of Wales, born Nov. 9, 1841; (3.) Alice Maud Mary, born April 25, 1843; (4.) Alfred Ernest Albert, born Aug. 6, 1844; (5.) Helena Augusta Victoria, born May 25, 1846; (6.) Louisa Caroline Alberta, born March 18, 1848; (7.) Arthur William Patrick Albert, born May 1, 1850; (8.) Leopold George Duncan Albert, born April 7, 1853; and (9.) Beatrice Mary Victoria Feodore, born April 14, 1857. The princess royal was married, Jan. 25, 1858, to prince Frederick William, now crown prince of Prussia. The prince of Wales, by his father's care, has resided for a time at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh, and travelled through Canada and the United States, where he obtained much popularity; he has visited Rome, Egypt, and Palestine, where he was the first European, since the Crusades, who has been permitted to see the tomb of the patriarchs at Hebron. Prince ALFRED has entered the navy; and on July 1, 1862, the queen, without laying aside her mourning, celebrated at Osborne the marriage of the princess ALICE, who has been her chief earthly comfort in her deep affliction, to his royal highness prince Louis of Hesse Darmstadt. The Prince of Wales attained his majority on Nov. 9, 1862, and the year closed with the announcement of his betrothal to the Princess Alexandra of Denmark.

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!