Above all, argues M. Krasinski by way of tunity is considerable. She is doubtless now covert threat, this conduct is most imprudent, as fomenting the dissatisfaction of the Sclavonic Hunhaving a tendency to throw the Poles and the other Sclavonic peoples into the arms of Russia. Let the Poles once despair of establishing their nationality—which many now do-and be oppressed and insulted by Germany, and it depends upon Russia whether the Poles will not, upon proper terms, amalgamate with their brother Sclavonians, the Russians. As for the other peoples, they are (except the Bohemians) so mentally backward that they care little for the principles of political or even civil liberty; with them the exciting stimulus is nationality. garians; but such a change in her policy as shall induce Poland cordially to amalgamate with her is not likely. We cannot therefore see any urgent danger from the formation of what the author calls Panslavism or its empire; but he has no doubt pointed out a sore in central Europe, which, if not treated tenderly and skilfully, may become a sort of Irish question for Germany. There is also some remote possibility of a future amalgamation of the whole Sclavonic peoples situated east of the Carpathian mountains and the Vistula. There is, however, an equal possibility of their eventually splitting up; nothing but despotism and slavish ignorance keeps them as they are. The plan of M. Krasinski to ward off the evils which he anticipates to Germany and Western Europe from the establishment of a Sclavonian The literary character of the book partakes of empire of Panslavism instead of Russianism, and the nature of its views. It is able, clear, and at the same time to restore the Poles to an inde- fluent, but with a foreign kind of state paper air pendent position, is to construct a sort of federal about it-larger and more deeply founded on Sclavonic empire, with Austria at the head. If principles than our English protocols, but less we understand our author rightly, Austria would specific and practical. The feature of the book retain all her present provinces (or kingdoms) consists in calling attention to an important elewhere the Sclavonic element prevails-as Hun- ment of disturbance in Germany and its eastern gary, Bohemia, Croatia; she would add thereto confines, and in a manner which, if somewhat her own Polish provinces, as well as those of Rus-overstrained, results from a vivid impression that sia and Prussia. The constitution should be that no foreigner, or at least no Englishman, could of Austria, "proclaimed on the 25th April this attain; and in this point of view it is worthy of year." attention from the politician who would wish to know the bearings of the author's Panslavism. The Austrian empire would thus form a confed From the Spectator, 19th August. GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND. INSURRECTION being over in Ireland for the season, it seems probable that it will be followed up by a famine; for as the Irish, very generally, have relied upon the treacherous root, and have spent such trifling sums as they had upon arms and ammunition, a second visitation of the potato disease finds them just as ill prepared to meet it as if they had not had the terrible experiences of erated state not unlike that of the United States of America, except that the executive authority must be here, as we decidedly think, vested, not in an elective president, but in an hereditary sovereign. It is almost superfluous to dwell upon the advantages which the latter arrangement presents in this case over the former. No one acquainted with the state of eastern Europe, can admit for a moment that its inhabitants are now fit for receiving a republican form of government, the establishment of which meets, even in France, with great difficulties, and which has been wisely discarded by the Italians who are now struggling to free their country from a foreign dominion. It is moreover well known 1846. The rebel, therefore, who has consumed that the bulk of the population of the different the spring and summer in defying the Saxon, will Austrian provinces have a strong attachment to the pass the autumn and winter in begging of the imperial house; and therefore it will have no diffi-Saxon: arms and alms alternate; the shout and culty in rallying them all round its throne, and screams of rebellion are succeeded by the howl and become their common centre by representing the whine of mendicancy; and the people whose interests of them all. Whatever may be thought of this proposal in an ethnographical point of view, too many difficulties lie in the way for it to be reduced to practice. Prussia would not, either by herself or as part of Germany, give up her Polish provinces; Russia is still less likely; and who is to force them? Austria has enough on her hands; France gives no appearance of indulging in such crusades, even if she could finally prevail against Germany and Russia united; and our author admits that the policy of England is peaceful. favored orators and writers boast their singularly exalted virtues, will not scruple to eat the bread of charity, extorted by force of abject and obsecrating helplessness. Relief will again be given; |John Bull, though rough, is soft-hearted; and although anger, contempt, disgust, exasperation— the mingled feelings provoked by the brutality, the senselessness, helplessness, boastfulness, and meanness of the petitioners-will turn his stomach and prompt an abrupt refusal, he will gulp down his nausea, and will once more put his hand in his pocket. But it is hardly to be believed that even The other parts of the book are distinguished easy John Bull will so soon repeat his concession by something of the theorizing character which to demands on the resources of his energy and distinguishes the plan. The probability of Rus- thrift, so odiously and unwarrantably repeated, sia's annexing the Turkish Sclavonic provinces to without asking how it is that Ireland continues to her own empire in the case of a favorable oppor-be this rebel-beggar-how it is that the responsible persons in office have not contrived some general that low class peculiar to Ireland. Forcible abplan for the proper treatment of that mendicant duction, murder, perjury, and treason, are not and lawless nation? The one paramount reason is, that the government of Ireland, ever since it has professed to be "constitutional" or 66 equal," has been one, from first to last, of pretences. The excuse of the Irish is that they are a people in a state of civilization inferior to that of the English; but we have been treating them as if they were equal. We need go into no question of race-we rest on no supercilious assumption that the Celt cannot equal the Saxon. We need not stop to examine the causes of the inferiority; Lord Shrewsbury ascribes it to the past oppression of the Irishman, who has learned to distrust the English law, and makes himself a nullity before it, by defying or defeating it even when he is charged with aiding its administration. It is true that in other countries, especially in Germany and England, the oppressed bondmen of the soil contrived to elevate themselves by a persevering and steadfast use of "the law," even when its intent seemed to be adverse to them; that it was open to the Celt to do the like, but that he has neglected the opportunity. It is true that Irish historians boast of some kind of civilization before the rest of the world was awake-some dream of golden greatness, fitter to adorn lyric poems than historical works; and so provoke the retort, that never within the range of history has Ireland been anything but a scene of idleness, improvidence, faction-fighting, and anarchy. But, for the moment setting aside questions of history, of remote causes, and of ethnology, let us once for all admit the fact that the Irish are, socially and politically, in an inferior condition, and therefore ought to be treated in accordance with that fact, and not in accordance with a figment of equality. We need not go far for proofs of the inequality. They crowd upon the view, to whatever relation in life it is turned. Industry is a quality unknown to the pure Irish; neither can profit induce nor want compel it. In place of a farmer, Ireland produces a middleman-a trader in other men's industry and wants. They have no reverence for the established law, which the Teutonic race have made the shield of the humble against the great; and they are not intelligent in its administration. Whether as jurors or witnesses, "the public" conspire with the criminal to evade the law, by verdicts against the notorious facts. A great trial at law becomes in Ireland a lottery and a farce. The intelligence of the people in the conduct of political institutions is no less crude and defective. They act as if they did not know the use of such institutions. They do not follow the example set by the most oppressed classes of the Teutonic races, in using the franchise, conferred for the benefit of others, to obtain a gradual increase of power for themselves-using servitude itself to gain mastery. Public discussion, public agitation to elicit the suffrages of the people, degenerates into aimless sanguinary brawling, and reverts to the old faction-fights or to the secret societies of popularly accounted crimes-and never were. Even the boasted piety is barbarous; to keep it up, the clergy themselves are obliged to desecrate their functions by dabbling in treason, conspiracy, and assassination. At this moment, no sooner is the indecent and abortive rebellion over, than we see the Romish clerical order trooping to petition for "pardon" and "amnesty," with an alacrity in unseemly contrast to the backwardness of the same body when their influence might have been used to prevent the crime for which they now ask pardon. The Irishman obeys the instinct of revenge individually, but he deprecates the retributive discipline of the state; because he sympathizes in the indulgence of passion, but has small respect for law or social order. Among other traits of incompetency, the unfortunate race, although disaffected and tumultuous, cannot even get up a respectable rebellion. The attempt ends in farce; the work of suppression is done by the constabulary; the rebellion has been taken up by the police. An Irish Catiline cannot rise above the level of the police jurisdiction. All these facts-and we do but recite such as are notorious to all-signify a people very low in the scale of civilization, and therefore very inferior to England. It is time to recognize that truth. No sound result can be attained by any process of falsehood; we never shall make the Irish rebels loyal by pretending to believe them loyal-never make them independent, intelligent, or virtuous, by similar presumptions. Real benefits can only be attained by real processes; and whether we coerce or cherish the Irish, we shall not make much way unless, with whatever kindliness and charity, we distinctly recognize that inferiority which they betray in all their conduct, instinctively feel, and confess in their eager demands for repeal of the union. That preliminary fact being settled, the proper treatment of the inferior people will become clearer. We reject at once the idea of casting off the country which is so close to us; it cannot be done. We reject the idea, not as impolitic but as belonging to an obsolete policy, of arming every Irishman in the country, withdrawing all our troops to the north, and leaving Celtic Ireland to itself for a year. We dismiss the notion that any sort of government can be established by following up the whig régime as it has been, with its compromises between officials and traitors, its patronage of repeal associations and other forms of inchoate rebellion, its complicity in Irish blarney, Irish perjury, and Irish treachery. Apart from courses so wild, two offer themselves, which are not incompatible, but might be taken in succession. The first is, to place the country, at once, as a dependent, inferior, and reconquered province, under military forms of control. A feeling gains ground in Ireland itself, among those who desire order, and, being loyal, need defence, that the attempt to keep up a farcical pretence of governing by free institutions, when Ireland is rebellious, and is governed by a bungling and disguised form of I trial by jury, that they have destroyed its virtue despotic administration, only defeats government, and compelled its suspension by the government. and hinders the day when better modes of admin- The unceasing endeavor of the Roman Catholic istration may become possible. The Irish have a part of the people is to convert the juror, by intimdespotism, and the friends of order only desire that|idation, into a mere instrument for the acquittal of it should be more complete and powerful in its ap- criminals. Trial by jury is not valued as a guarplication-more truly enlightened. For such pur-antee for the due observance of the law, but for its poses, a military form of authority is the best, evasion. On such ground is it that to this day the because it is the most prompt, intelligible to rude names of the jury in Mitchel's case are held up to minds through its simplicity, and effective; and public odium. also because it is, by its organization and discipline, the best adapted for self-control. Under such a régime, the whole classes of laws which, within the shadow of some 66 constitutional" pretence, permit the existence of "repeal associations" and other embryo conspiracies against the state, would be suspended; and we should no longer see the wretched spectacle of authority paralyzed by technicalities and chicanery from grappling with equivocating and impudent rebellion. Under such a régime the beneficial action of government, in the shape of "remedial measures," would become possible at the earliest moment; their effects aiding and not awaiting other and slower social changes. The second course, which might well succeed to the military pacification of Ireland, would be to complete the union—really to amalgamate Ireland with England; so that the law should make no discrimination between Trojan or Tyrian-English or Irish. Such a course would need a thorough revision of the criminal codes applicable to the two kingdoms, especially to England; since it would introduce to the empire state, thus for the first time "united" with its dependent, a new class of social and political crimes. The want should be supplied, not by the enactment or continuance of laws directed against the Irish, either in race or locality, but against the crimes and offences so common with that race, in Great Britain as well as in their native island. But the complete union would deprive the Irishman of any grievance that he can now allege in special laws, while it would place at his command, equally with the Englishman, all that there is of an enabling character in English laws. The pressure upwards, from crime and supine indolence to industry and order, acting impartially, steadily, and gently, would probably be obeyed by the inferior race in a gradual rise above the level of the sterner laws; which they would be enabled to effect without political changes, by their own conduct. Either of these courses would imply the abolition of the viceroyalty, and the political government of Ireland, like any other province, from the metropolis of the United Kingdom. From the Spectator. TRIAL BY JURY IN IRELAND. The authorized administrators of the law derive a taint from the popular vice. The study of the bar is to devise evasions of the law. Such is too much the tendency even in England, where the very framing of laws—as in the absurd endeavor to attain an impossible infallibility of expression, or in the enactment of particular powers by antagonist negatives-invites evasion; but in Ireland, the whole force of the legal mind appears to be turned upon the lowest part of practice. That the bench can tolerate the frivolous and vexatious disputes about quibbles, shows how far even the highest authority is influenced by the low morale of the courts; and it is difficult to account for strange tenets recognized on the bench, except from supposing that some kind of intimidation reaches even to that exalted station. In O'Doherty's case the new doctrine of "primâ facie evidence”—that it is evidence which the jury are not bound to accept at its value, but which may or may not be altogether rejected-looks too much like flinching. For enough was said to attest the judge's own comprehension of sound doctrine, but not, we think, enough to fix it upon the mind of the jury. Had the judge insisted that the jurors must entertain "primâ facie" evidence unrebutted, and distinctly made them draw their verdict from the entire body of the evidence, instead of supplying materials for a verbal quibble, the jury would have been without pretext. But what are we to say to the practice of the Irish courts, in discharging contumacious juries-releasing them, on the slightest pretext, from the inconvenient consequences of their own dishonest impracticability? The case of O'Doherty suggests the further question, whether the unanimity required in petty juries is suitable to any part of the United Kingdom. If not, there can be no objection to a change; for prescription does not forbid it, and precedent would justify the particular change contemplated. The institution of trial by jury has undergone alterations too signal and practical for it to be regarded as an absolute fixity. In its remote original, as the compurgation of an accused man by finding twelve men to swear to his innocence, it was a rude safeguard against oppression, suited to the dark ages. The English theory of petty juries, that the evidence should be such as would convince any twelve men, was also a coarse test of truth No doubt, Ireland and trial by jury, as they both suited to a time when evidence was imperfectly are at present, are mutually unsuited. collected and sifted. At present, the arts of exWhether mistaught by oppression, or incapaci- amination are so far cultivated, that the truth is to tated by nature, the Irish are so far from perceiving be sought with far less probability in the gross the advantage which the people might gain from drift of ex-parte evidence than in the balance; and that is best tested by a corresponding balance of | From the branch of a noble beech hung a huge opinion in other words, by the opinion of the pair of scales, on which venison was weighed. majority in a jury. Practically, such a rule pre- An advertisement posted on the front door particvails in the conduct of grand juries. It is also ularized the very moderate prices at which a buck, seen at times in the conduct of coroners' juries, to a half, or a quarter, might be obtained. In the which more than twelve persons may be summoned, distance were fallen trees, timber wagons, and exwhile the coroner may take the verdict in which tempore sawpits. The enormous edifice was a any twelve concur. And in Scotland, the practice human hive. Every window showed the crowd of taking the verdict of the majority works well. within passing to and fro. But once admittedAt all events, it prevents a single dunderhead, or once standing under the Pantheon-like vault of the a single contumacious sectarian, from defeating the central saloon, and glancing right and left at the ends of justice. endless vistas of gorgeous apartments, then one indeed realized the sacrilege that was going on. Every scholar must have thought of the scene related by Æneas, when the Greeks had burst open the gates of Priam's palace, and when the splendid interior, the spacious halls, and the sacred haunts of an ancient dynasty were presented to the eyes of the furious assailants. From the Times. RUIN OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. DURING the past week the British public has been admitted to a spectacle of a painfully interesting and gravely historical import. One of the most splendid abodes of our almost regal aristocracy has thrown open its portals to an endless succession of visitors, who from morning till night have flowed in an uninterrupted stream from room to room, and floor to floor-not to enjoy the hospitality of the lord, or to congratulate him on his countless treasures of art, but to see an ancient family ruined, their palace marked for destruction, and its contents scattered to the four winds of heaven. We are only saying what is notorious, and what, therefore, it is neither a novelty nor a cruelty to repeat, that the most noble and puissant prince, his grace the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, is at this moment an absolutely ruined and destitute man. Our advertising columns have introduced to the public the long list of estates, properties, and interests, which are no longer his, and will not revert to his heirs. The last crash of this mighty ruin is that which now sounds. Stowe is no more. This morning the tumultuous invasion of sight-seers will once again be endured, and to-morrow the auctioneer will begin his work. As every thoughtful spectator has spoken to the peculiar and most lamentable character of the scene, one may be permitted to dwell for a while upon circumstances of such rare occurrence and indelible recollection. Under the lofty arch which crowns the long avenue from Buckingham, and opens the first view of the magnificent Palladian façade, has lately passed a daily cavalcade, which, except in its utter absence of style, might remind one of the road to Epsom on a Derby day. Barouches, flys, stage-coaches, "busses" pressed from the metropolitan service, and every gradation of "trap" down to the carrier's cart hastily emptied of groceries, dragged to Wolverton, and filled with the unfortunate holders of return tickets to town, constituted a dreary antithesis to the cortege which so lately brought royalty to Stowe. An elaborately circuitous road conducted the impatient visitors to the park front, before which, in the vast amphitheatre formed by its side colonnades, so often the scene of rural festivities, the enemy encamped. One might imagine a great county picnic had suddenly gathered at Stowe. Even stalls were there. gravel, ets from -room plate; weight, for The house was well set out for the distinguished visitors. Neither Louis XVIII., nor the Duke of Orleans, nor Queen Victoria, nor any of the great ones of the earth, whose visits are recorded with pillars and, with trees planted by their own hands, saw Stowe so nobly arrayed as the British public have seen it this week. The bride was dressed for the altar, the victim for the sacrifice. No thrifty coverings, no ghostly brown holland, no neat patterned chintzes were there. King Mob had it all of the best-the richest damask furniture and the newest state hangings; only, as that personage rode literally roughshod through the palace, and brought with him ca there was just an attempt to sa excessive trituration. In the were set out 60,000 oz. of gold one was involuntarily reminded of the scales were at work there also, and men were weighing and noting down lot after lot. On a table twenty yards long, and on a dozen sideboards stood forests of vases, candelabra, epergnes, groups, goblets, tankards, and every form and variety of plate, from the elaborate designs of Italian artists to the simple elegance of the old English school, and the pretentious richness of the last generation. Among fifty other pieces of historic value, the gifts of royal personages and distinguished men, stood a vase, formed from snuff-boxes presented by the cities and corporations in Ireland in 1779, the mace of the old corporation of Buckingham, purchased by the Buckingham conservatives, and presented to the duke as an everlasting possession; and the Chandos testimonial, for which the gentry and yeomanry of the county lately subscribed, we believe, £1500. During the whole week this testimonial has been surrounded by a crowd of agriculturists, the very originals of the figures thereon represented, telling of the guineas they had contributed to the ill-fated fabric, but avowing with unwearied gratitude worthy of a safer, if not a better cause, that they would gladly give the money over again. "Put thy In all the rooms it was the same. house in order, for thou shalt surely die." Cæsar died with grace. house," he said, in answer to the prophet's inquiry, "have they seen. There is nothing among my treasures which I have not showed them." The reply was equally emphatic-" Behold! the day is come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be carried into Babylon. Nothing shall The obsequies of Stowe have they are all to be sold. We repeat that everything been marshalled with befitting pomp. On what goes. In two months' time there will not remain treasures of art will the sun set this day, never to in that vast house one pewter spoon, one cracked rise again on a similar array within those walls! cup, or spoutless teapot, to give á last vestige of The quantity is beyond conception, and if the hospitality to the last vestige of the ducal interest taste is not always the most refined, it is because in Buckinghamshire. The subject of one of the the vastness of the accumulation and the accidents pictures now on the walls is too near akin to the of its history forbade a more fastidious rule. | reality which surrounds it not to force itself on the The Duke of Buckingham is the representative, memory. Hezekiah's vain glory prompted him to not of one, but of many families. It is a mighty show his treasures to an insidious embassy from wreck of ages that has been accumulated in this | Babylon. "All the things that are in mine place, swollen indeed, and somewhat overwhelmed, by recent additions, but still full of historical, national, and poetical associations. The galleries of family portraits and collections of family memorials, seem to connect all the great men and all the great achievements of modern Europe with the names of Chandos, Temple, Cobham, Nugent, and Grenville. But, beyond the somewhat ex-be left." tensive circle of family affection, the original portraits of famous men and women here assembled, are of the greatest interest and value. Here, too, is the victor's portion in the spoil of celebrated sieges, the memento of historical friendships, and the favorite gem of royalty or beauty. In the manuscript room is the most extensive and valuable collection of Irish documents anywhere to be found. For the pictures, marbles, bronzes, antiques, articles of vertu, curiosities, china, glass, and wines, we leave them to the auctioneer, and his catalogue of 5000 items. It is not our purpose to speak of that which money has collected, and may colle Such things are only scattered elsewhere under new and more But the heirlooms of many records of many great events, and the memorials of many great persons, all spontaneously collected into one great whole, constitute a singular and most significant fact, the obliteration of which we can only compare to the overthrow of a nation or a throne. for a fre favorab great fa It is a most deplorable, and we must now add a most disgraceful event. On this point the truth shall be spoken. These columns have spared neither people nor prince. We have recently had to pronounce the judgment of public opinion, and to call for the vengeance of the laws upon the rash men who have perverted the first gushes of youthful genius and the rude instincts of popular freedom to an impious rebellion. We have been forced to do so, and we have done so without a pang. Should we deal fairly if we spared the destroyer of his house, the man whose reckless course has thrown to the ground a pillar of the state, and struck a heavy blow at the whole order to which he unfortunately belongs? The public opinion of this country respects the House of Lords, but not a degenerate aristocracy. It is apt to canvass and to censure noble names, because it measures their ill deeds with their great responsibility. The Duke of Buckingham has filled all minds with a painful presage of a wider ruin. Such events speak in these days. When dynasAnd everything is to be sold. The fatal ticket ties are falling around, and aristocracies have is everywhere seen. The portrait of Charles crumbled into dust, disgrace acquires the force of Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the first founder of the injury, and personal ruin is a public treason. For family, by Holbein, is now lot 51, in the 21st an event of peace we have known nothing more day's sale. That every other ancestor should go serious and lamentable. This has not been in war to the hammer, whether by Vandyke, or Lely, or or revolution. It is not a pillage by force of arms Kneller, or Gainsborough, or Reynolds, follows of or revolutionary dogmas. In the midst of fertile But there is one item of which no prep- lands and an industrious people, in the heart of a aration can remove the shock. The Chandos country where it is thought virtuous to work, to family is descended from Frances Brandon, eldest save, and to thrive, a man of the highest rank, daughter of the above Charles Brandon, by Mary, and of a property not unequal to his title, has daughter of Henry VII. and Queen Dowager of flung all away by extravagance and folly, and reFrance. Some time since certain savages or dilet-duced his honors to the tinsel of a pauper and the tanti at Bury, exhumed that Mary Brandon from baubles of a fool. her grave, and took from her head a lock of silken hair, which thus constitutes a visible link between the present Duke of Buckingham and the throne of these realms, to which he has a reversionary claim. That lock of silken hair, in its glass case, is now to be sold to the highest bidder. What can we say more to show the extent of the devastation? After this it is idle to mention that the temple of friendship is rifled of its illustrious tenants, and course. Were it only weakness, that might ask our contempt. But there is more than weakness here. It is notorious that the duke, by the use of a passionate and overpowering persuasion, has induced his amiable son, now in his twenty-fifth year, to cut off the entail of all the property in which his grace was interested. If the ruinous compliance was yielded to representations which subsequently proved to be incorrect-if the duke urged the |