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The Life of Richard Porson.
M.R.S.L. Longmans.

[Reviewed in Article V.]

By the Rev. John Watson, M.A.,

Memoirs of Edward Forbes, F.R.S.

By George Wilson, M.D.,

F.R.S.E, and Archibald Geikie, F.R.S.E. Macmillan.

[An interesting subject somewhat clumsily treated.]

Autobiography of Miss Cornelia Knight, Lady Companion to the Princess Charlotte of Wales, with Extracts from her Journals and Anecdote-books.

2 vols.

Allen.

[A book full of amusing historical and biographical anecdotes of the time.]

Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character. By E. B. Ramsay, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.E., Dean of Edinburgh. Second Series. Edmonton and Douglas.

Considerations on Representative Government. By John Stuart Mill. Parker, Son, and Bourn.

[A book which, if not quite up to the mark of Mr. Mill's best works, is yet full of thoughtful and able reasoning, and admirably fitted to expose the weakness of democratic theory.]

Lectures on Colonisation and Colonies, delivered before the University of Oxford in 1839, 1840, and 1841. By Herman Merivale, A.M., Professor of Political Economy. Longmans.

The Doctrine of the Atonement of the Son of God. By Henry Solly. Whitfield.

[A thoughtful and earnest book.]

Miscellaneous Lectures and Reviews. By Richard Whately, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin. Parker, Son, and Bourn.

[Containing some of Dr. Whately's best essays, but some also very poor Review articles.]

The History and Heroes of the Art of Medicine. By J. Rutherfurd Russell, M.D. With Portraits. Murray.

[A good and amusing book, pervaded by the writer's homeopathic creed, but scrupulously just to the great men of all schools.]

Essays from the "Quarterly Review." By James Hannay. Hurst and Blackett.

The Province of Jurisprudence determined; being the first part of a Series of Lectures on Jurisprudence, or the Philosophy of Positive Law. By the late John Austin, Esq. Murray.

Java; or, How to Manage a Colony. By J. W. B. Money, Barristerat-Law. 2 vols. Hurst and Blackett.

[An able book, intended to give us hints on Indian government, but not at all adapted for that purpose.]

Books of the Quarter suitable for Reading-Societies. 239

The English Cathedrals of the Nineteenth Century. By A. J. Beresford Hope, M.A., D.C.L. With Illustrations. Murray. The Englishwoman in Italy. Impressions of Life in the Roman States and Sardinia during a Ten Years' Residence. By Mrs. G. Gretton. Hurst and Blackett. Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa; with Accounts of the Manners and Customs of the People, and of the Chase of the Gorilla, Crocodile, Leopard, Elephant, Hippopotamus, and other Animals. By Paul B. Du Chaillu. With Maps and Illustrations. Murray.

[Amusing enough, if trustworthy.]

History of the Siege of Delhi. By an Officer who served there. With a Sketch of the leading Events in the Punjaub connected with the Great Rebellion of 1857.

Black.

The Punjaub and Delhi in 1857. A Narrative of the Measures by which the Punjaub was saved and Delhi recovered during the Indian Mutiny. By the Rev. J. Cave Brown, Chaplain of the Punjaub Movable Column in 1857. 2 vols. Blackwood and Sons. Ten Weeks in Japan. By George Smith, D.D., Bishop of Victoria and Hong-Kong. Longmans.

Ten Years' Wanderings amongst the Ethiopians, with Sketches of Manners and Customs of the Civilized and Uncivilized Tribes from Senegal to Gaboon. By Thomas J. Hutchinson, F.R.G.S. Hurst and Blackett.

By-Roads and Battle-Fields in Picardy, with Incidents and Gatherings by the Way, between Ambleteuse and Ham, including Agincourt and Crecy. By G. M. Musgrave, M.A. Illustrated. Bell and Daldy.

Sketching Rambles; or, Nature in the Alps and Apennines. By
Agnes and Maria E. Catlow. Illustrated. 2 vols. Hogg.
Wild Life on the Fields of Norway. By Francis M. Wyndham.
Longmans.

The English at Home. By Alphonse Esquiros. Translated and edited by Lascelles Wraxall. 2 vols. Chapman and Hall.

Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe. By George Eliot, Author of "Adam Bede." Blackwood and Co.

[As finely conceived and as perfect as "Adam Bede," though not admitting of the same display of various power.]

Homeless; or, a Poet's Inner Life. By M. Goldschmidt. Hurst and Blackett.

[A novel of real genius, rather ill-proportioned, and occasionally dragging in interest; tinged, too, with the not very moral idealism of Goethe's school.]

No Church. By the Author of "High Church." 3 vols. Hurst and Blackett.

Framley Parsonage. By Anthony Trollope. 3 vols. Smith, Elder, and Co.

[Nearly if not quite equal to " The Warden" and "Barchester Towers."] Who Breaks Pays. By the Author of "Cousin Stella." 2 vols. Smith and Elder.

[Clever.]

Under the Spell. By the Author of " Grandmother's Money." 3 vols. Hurst and Blackett.

La Beata. By T. Adolphus Trollope. 2 vols. Chapman and Hall. [A pleasant and clever tale.]

All for the Best. A Story of Quiet Life. 3 vols. Hurst and

Blackett.

The Broken Troth; a Tale of Village Life in Tuscany. From the Italian. By Philip Ireton. 2 vols. Macmillan.

The Poems of Catullus, translated into English Verse, with an Introduction and Notes. By Theodore Martin. Parker and Bourn. [A fine translation, if not quite up to the mark of Mr. Martin's Horace.]

THE NATIONAL REVIEW.

OCTOBER 1861.

ART. I.-PRINCIPLE AND NO-PRINCIPLE IN FOREIGN

POLICY.

England and Europe: a Discussion of National Policy. By Alfred H. Louis. London: Bentley, 1861.

A few Words on Non-Intervention. "Fraser's Magazine," December 1859. By J. S. Mill. Parker and Bourne. The Principle of Non-Intervention: a Lecture.

By Montague Bernard, M.A., Professor of International Law, &c., Oxford. 1861. THERE are few more incongruous or disappointing spectacles on earth than a great nation without a great policy. It is a power without a purpose; a gigantic body without a guiding intellect or an inspiring soul; a drifting, not a steering, ship. Now, the policy of a nation may lack grandeur in two ways, it may be either unworthy or unfixed; it may have no definite and steady aims at all, or those aims may be low and selfish; its goal may be indistinct, or its desires may be mean, or its volition may be feeble. In each and all of these cases, it is beneath its destiny, and a recreant from its duty. A nation that is purely egotistical in its foreign relations can neither be loved nor respected, for it has no social virtues; and, however boundless its resources, it must be weak in the day of trial, for it will have no friends. nation that is fluctuating and capricious in its action, from the want of settled principles or clear objects, may have great power, but can have neither dignity nor influence; it cannot sway others, for it does not know itself; its efforts are thrown away from the lack of persistency and convergence; it can exercise no leadership, for it can inspire no confidence; its friends can never securely count upon its aid; its enemies can always calculate upon its caprices, and play upon its irresolution; unstable as water, it must be content to see far weaker states, if endowed No. XXVI. OCTOBER 1861.

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with clearer vision and a stronger will, overbear it in council, and dictate the terms of treaties and the division of the spoil.

The comfort of statesmen, too, as well as the worth and dignity of states, would seem to dictate the establishment of distinct and settled principles of foreign policy. When these have once become so decided and notorious as to be entitled to the name of "national," the work of statesmanship is comparatively easy: it is reduced to the condition of a science to be studied, and an art to be acquired; all then needed in the rulers of the nation are, thorough mastery of facts and circumstances, fertility of resources, readiness of wit, timely firmness, and timely flexibility. The aim is uniform; the pole-star is always the same, and always visible; the maxims of action are laid down, and the only task is to apply them,-to determine how the national purpose can be best attained; to pronounce what our principles say ought to be done, and how prudence and means say it is to be done.

Has our country this dignified position? Have our statesmen this supreme comfort, this unspeakable relief? Surely not. We need not waste much time in proving that England does not possess any clear, intelligible, unswerving principles of foreign policy, nor in tracing this want to its cause. The fact, unhappily, is as indisputable as the explanation is obvious and simple.

In the last century-in most, indeed, of our recent history, down to the last generation and the last war-we had what might almost be called a steady national policy. Our course, indeed, was not always consistent; our proceedings were not always defensible; our means were not always either wise or righteous; but at least we had certain tolerably well-defined and persistent purposes in view. We had to make head against our only two real rivals and competitors, France and Spain; we had to thwart, to circumvent, to fight, sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both united; we had to watch and defeat their intrigues, and to prevent or to counterbalance any increase of territory or of power they might obtain. They were really our only enemies almost our only external anxieties; for Russia was not yet, Holland had nearly ceased to be, America was still our dependency, and Austria was habitually our ally, and never our competitor. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, France was our rival in European influence, and the disturber of our peace at home; Spain was our enemy in distant quarters, and our rival as a great naval and colonising power. In the early portion of the nineteenth century, new elements of international discord came into play, and new states rose into eminence and influence; but it so happened that France became the centre and embodiment of all the hostile forces, so that our old traditional policy of humbling and antagonising France remained as

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