thus to identify the conquered with its own people.

ure of Savoy, which we should hesitate to set down as distinctly unjust. And even the incorporation of fiefs within the kingdom, as It is plain, at the first glance, that no inNormandy, Languedoc, and the Duchy of corporation of this kind has taken place with Burgundy, has constantly been the result of the conquests of the Ottomans, or with the practices hardly easier to defend than the ex-various countries which Austria has annexed, ternal aggressions of the Parisian kings upon more commonly by marriage or treaty than the princes and cities of the empire. And by actual conquest. It is equally plain that French annexations have at all times been among the conquests of Russia examples may made more odious by the systematic hypoc- be found of both classes. The Ottomans still risy by which they have been accompanied remain an army of occupation among conthe boasts, the fallacies, the sophisms, the quered nations. They have failed to amalgarubbish about "ideas " and such like, which mate any one of the European nations whom make the brute force of Russia, Austria, or they have subdued. Even the Albanians, even Turkey, seem comparatively respectable. who have so largely embraced the religion of Yet the annexations of France are just the the conquerors, have still preserved their own last which any prudent politician would pro- nationality. And this is the more to be nopose to meddle with. The seizure of Savoy ticed because, though the Ottomans have not and Nice is so recent that that wrong might amalgamated a single nation as a nation, they possibly, under some strangely favorable cir- have amalgamated countless individuals of all cumstance, be undone; but the state of the the conquered nations. During the great world must alter wonderfully indeed before days of the Ottoman Empire, the choicest there is any chance of the recovery of Mar- troops of the Sultan were the tribute children, seilles, Besançon, Nancy, or Valenciennes. and renegade Christians enjoyed a decided Mankind may rather think themselves lucky preference for all the highest posts of the if they can still save Genoa and Bern and State. This or that Turk is as likely as not Aachem and Mechlin, alike from the occupa- to be by descent a Greek, a Slave, or even a tion of Parisian garrisons and from the per-Western European. But this sort of incorversions of Parisian tongues. To undo some poration, though it has taken place on an of the wrongs done by Russia or Austria does not seem wholly hopeless; but to undo any of the evil deeds of France, from Philip the Fair to Louis Napoleon Buonaparte, seems beyond all human power. Nor is this merely because France is a great power with which it might be dangerous to meddle. France would be able to bring forward a sort of right on her side if any one were to propose the separation of French Flanders or of Franche Comté. She would have something to say which Russia and Austria have not to say on behalf of their possession of Poland or of Venetia. Unjust and violent as was the original acquisition, France has never kept her conquests in the position of dependent or subject provinces. They have been fairly incorporated with the kingdom, and have fared well or ill as the rest of France have fared well or ill. The conquests of France have not, like the conquests of some other powers, proved sources of weakness, but sources of strength. So much the worse for the rest of the world when the strength of the aggressor is thus increased; but still some praise is due to a conquering power which contrives

enormous scale, has still been only an incorporation of individuals. Not one province has been really incorporated in the way that the conquests of France have been incorporated. So with Austria, where there has been no such difference of religion and manners as has separated the Ottomans from their Christian subjects. Hungary is not a conquered country, unless we date its conquest from 1849; and we may say the same of Venetia. But Venetia will have nothing willingly to say to an Austrian sovereign in any shape. Hungary may perhaps receive Francis Joseph as King of Hungary, but it will have nothing to say to an " Austrian Empire" and its "Reichsrath." As for the conquests of Russia, the condition of Poland speaks for itself, but we hear of no disaffection in the German provinces on the Baltic. It is said that an anti-Russian feeling has lately shown itself in Finland; if this be the case, it would be worth finding out how far the native Fins and the Swedish population think alike. Here, then, are some rather puzzling questions. Why can France really incorporate her acquisitions, while Austria

can only hold hers as subject dependencies? | to do so, he found that it did not answer. Why does Russia sometimes succeed and France has indeed swallowed up nearly all sometimes fail in incorporating hers? We the people of the old Provençal speech, but may perhaps, by going through all the particular cases, find something like a general principle; but it must be laid down with great caution, and we must be prepared to meet with many paradoxes and exceptions.

happily she has not swallowed up quite all of them, and the people of the Provençal speech never formed a distinct nation as the Hungarians did. They were cut up into countless small states-some of them fiefs of France, some of the empire. These France has swallowed up one by one, except those which still retain their freedom as members of the Swiss Confederation. But it is one by one that they have been swallowed up-now a county, now a city, but never anything to be called a nation. So with her acquisitions from Germany and the Netherlands; they have been conquests of provinces, not conquests of nations. A province like Languedoc or Elsass, a city like Lyons or Strasburg, may be seized against its own will, but it is not likely to retain its unwillingness so long as a really independent nation. The Duchies, Bishoprics, and Free Cities were, in one sense, sovereign states; but they were not nations. They were, even formally, parts of a greater whole, vassals either of the Empire or of the Crown of France itself. But the Kingdom of Hungary recognized no earthly superior; it was in every way as distinct a nation as France was. Thus the conquests of France, placed from the first on an equality with the elder provinces, and having perhaps, in some cases, practically little to lose by their conquest, gradually acquiesced in their position, and are now probably as truly French as Paris or Orleans.

In attempting to lay down any rule of the kind we must, in each case, examine and make allowance for the peculiar circumstances of each annexation, and the religious, geographical, and political position of the different powers concerned. The Turks incorporate individuals, but do not incorporate whole provinces, for the simple reason of the utter difference of their religious, moral, and political system. Whoever among the conquered will embrace Islam becomes the equal of the conquerors; whoever refuses to embrace Islam remains their subject. Now, though countless individuals of all nations have been guilty of apostasy, no one nation, as a nation, has apostatized. Therefore the nations remain distinct and subject, while particular men among them enter the ranks of the ruling people. We need not look any further for the inability of the Ottomans to incorporate. But the different fate of French, Russian, and Austrian annexations calls for a little more thought. The idea which they suggest is this, that it is easy to annex a province, but very difficult to annex a nation. When a people has acquired the full position of a nation, with a distinct language, an independent government, a place of its own in the history and politics of Europe, it would seem that nothing but brute force can hold it down in subjection to another nation. Hungary, for instance, is a distinct nation-an ancient kingdom, once free and powerful, with its own language, its own history, its own sub-course, casier still. By comparing these two ject dependencies.

When the annexation is made by a State of the same race and speech, as when a small German principality is added to Prussia or Bavaria, the power of amalgamation is, of

classes, we may perhaps find the key to the disaffection of Poland, and to what, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we may assume to be the loyalty of Livonia. Livonia lost nothing by being conquered by Russia. It was no nation, but a province, and a very unlucky province. A Finnish people, with a German ruling class, had been tossed backwards and forwards between the knights sword bearers, the local bishops, and the kings of Denmark, Sweden, and Poland. For such a province it was really a gain to sit down quietly under the dominion of Russia,

with the vast Russian Empire open to them, not the same manifest absurdity as the naand, as its most civilized portion, with great tional independence of Wales. Its size, its practical advantages over its other inhabi- insular position, the local independence which tants. But Poland suffered all the wrongs of it still partially possesses, the real wrongs of Hungary, and many more wrongs. Hungary the past and the imaginary wrongs of the was not conquered as Poland was; it has present, all combine to make the incorporabeen rather cheated than beaten out of its tion of Ireland far less perfect than the incorindependence., And, at any rate, it was not poration of Wales. Scotland, which really cut up alive-not partitioned, but annexed had become an independent nation, still rewhole. It would be open to Francis Joseph, mains such. The Union is practically not an if he pleased, to reign as King of Hungary, incorporation, but a very close alliance, from over what is really the greatest portion of his which the smaller party reaps quite as much dominions, and to make Austria the depen- advantage as the larger. The connection of dency instead of Hungary. Alexander could Sweden and Norway, which has turned out not thus make himself King of Poland. The so eminently prosperous, is not a case of anreally Russian part of his dominions could nexation, but rather of Federal union. not be made subordinate to the Polish, and there would still be the Prussian and Austrian stealings to get back again. So with Venetia; if there were no free Italy adjoining it, good government might make it acquiesce as readily as Wales acquiesces in incorporation with England, or Britanny in incorporation out well. We may doubt whether Vaud with France. The case is different even from the German acquisitions of France. Their neighbors were not a single free kingdom, but other provinces like themselves. The most liberal offers will be wasted on Venetia just as much as upon Hungary; it will not will-native despot was probably not more oppresingly send members to a "Reichsrath" at Vienna, when an Italian Parliament sits at Turin, or even at Naples.

Even within our own country we may see something like the operation of the same law. The national independence of Wales, at any time for the last thousand years, has been a mere chimera; and for three hundred years past Wales has enjoyed complete equality with the rest of the kingdom. The retention of a distinct language has, therefore, not been enough to hinder a practical incorporation. But though, in the present state of Europe, Ireland could not exist as a separate power, yet the national independence of Ireland is

We have said that we must not judge of what is right or expedient in one age by its causes or its effects in another. The Union just spoken of was the result of a wicked conspiracy against Norwegian independence; but fortunate circumstances have made it turn

gained much by being transferred from the dominion of the Dukes of Savoy to that of the Patricians of Bern. We may doubt whether Chablais lost much when it was handed back again from Bern to Savoy. The rule of a

sive than that of a foreign oligarchy, and it was far less degrading to national feeling. But mark the final results. The conquests which Bern retained now form one of the freest and happiest regions in the world; the conquests which Bern lost have sunk into the common bondage of their neighbors. Had the Bear kept as firm a grasp on the Southern as on the Northern side of the Lake, Europe would not have had to look on in vain indignation at the latest-in Europe at leastof Parisian annexations, nor should we have to tremble lest Geneva should one day share the fate of Lyons and Arles and Besançon and Chambery.

SINCE 1848.

From The Reader.

when Louis Philippe was flung forth from France, and, going down the Strand, one PERHAPS it is because so few among us are read in large letters on placards outside the old enough to have any recollections of that newspaper-shops the thrilling words, "Abstormy period of the world's history which dication of Louis Philippe," one has been elapsed between 1789 and 1815, and most of thrilled and thrilled by bits of sudden sensaus are only old enough to have gathered our tion intelligence from all parts of the world first notions of the rate of human affairs from till one has ceased to be capable of astonishthe somewhat quiet and jog-trot period be- ment. There came first a sputter of revolutween 1815 and 1848, called by Miss Marti- tions all over the Continent; then there came neau"The Thirty Years' Peace," that so what was called the Reaction, with the Hunmany of us have formed the opinion that this garian and Italian wars, in the latter of which last year, 1848, was the beginning of an era the Papacy was unfixed from its Roman roots; of unusually disturbed equilibrium, in the then there came the new Napoleonian empire, tumult of which we still find ourselves. A with its new impulses and developments, inBrougham or a Palmerston might laugh at cluding the Crimean war, the French war the fancy, and, remembering the days of their against Austria, and the resuscitation of youth, when all the earth reeled, and it Northern Italy. Up springs a Garibaldi; seemed as if the Titans and the gods were and there is an end to the Kingdom of Naples, again at war, might pity the greenness of a and the Italian peninsula becomes one Euroyounger generation for seeing anything so pean power, with an impeding ligament in particular in the year '48, or in all the hurly- the middle, and an unreclaimed bit of itself burly that has followed. "Call this a storm?" on the north-east, still possessed by Austria. a very ancient mariner might say to a young Meanwhile, in other parts of the earth-in one expressing his feelings on his first expe- China, in India, and everywhere else—there rience of some tolerable rage of the elements have been vehement outbreaks of the same round his ship. "Bless your heart, you irritability. A restlessness has seized the nashould have been with me in my voyage round tions. Hardly a region in which there has Cape Horn in the year, !" But we not been some insurrection, some vast disturbcan't all be Broughams or Palmerstons;ance of the equilibrium, some heaving towards and, without prejudice to the claims of any previous period of the history of the world to a character for superior storminess, we take the liberty of thinking that the last fifteen years have been, on any reckoning, a time of more than average human commotion. We think that 1848 was a rather particular year, and that it will have to be marked as such, if history is minutely conscientious, in the records of humanity. If there are such things as belts of space charged with some element or ether having a stimulating or irritating property upon the collective human nerve, then we conceive that, about the year 1848, the earth, and perhaps the system to which it belongs, plunged into such a belt, and that we are still, after fifteen years, voyaging through it. Things have been more out of equilibrium since '48, things have gone on at a faster rate, than in most previous periods to which written narrative can carry us back. In the first place, the fifteen years since 1848 have been a period of unusual political irritability all the world over. There has been a ferment among the nations. Since the day

a new order, some war of nationalities or races. If there has been a lull, it has been but for a brief time, and we have listened, as it were, all round,-to the north, to the south, to the east and to the west,-uncertain where the irritability might next break out. Lo! ere we are aware of it, the irritability breaks out in America. The great Republic, which was supposed to be independent of the rest of the earth, and to hold all the Old World influences in quarantine, shows that it has caught the general terrestrial contagion, falls asunder in a manner of its own, and exhibits battles and carnages on a scale to match its rivers and its notions of territory. Hardly is Europe appalled by this phenomenon when, again, in her own body, there is a central convulsion radiating strife. Poland is up in arms against Russia; the agitation extends to all the fragments of the Slavonic race, so that Prussia, Austria, and Turkey feel themselves concerned; and, over the body of a divided Germany, dubious what to do, France is gazing eagerly at the turmoil, passionate for a war for Poland, if Britain would but go

along with her. A new European war seems | progress of mechanical and engineering ina very close possibility; and perhaps the last vention, to which we have sung hosannahs and most pregnant rumor is that, in that case. so long that all of us, except omnibus-drivers it may come to be a war of cross-purposes in- and International Exhibitionists, nauseate volving both hemispheres-Federal America the very theme-this, indeed, is not to be making common cause with Russia against credited to the last fifteen years, but, so far allied European powers of the West. The as any period may have the special credit of rumor may be but a rumor; but it is a preg-it, to the entire past century. But even of nant one, and points to an historical possibil- this progress some of the most startling deity. Anyhow, we are moving on into a period velopments have been quite recent. One of so charged, on every hand, with the elements the most singular and significant phenomena of change and disturbance, that even Britain of our time is that which you cannot but see begins to foresee that it may be difficult for every day as you pass along any of the great her to preserve her peaceful isolation, and thoroughfares in any of our great cities, if begins even to wonder whether, after all, her you chance to look aloft-the lines and gangVolunteer movement may not have been a lia of telegraphic wires crossing and recrossprovidential presentiment, and a time may ing the streets from chimney-top to chimneynot be coming when the puffs of white smoke top in all directions. Over Regent Circus, along her coast-line shall have a real and ter- in Oxford Street, they are beginning to have rible meaning. In the view of what is pass- the appearance of a cobweb. And what are ing and of what is approaching, all the ideas these lines and wires thus traversing the of our former political philosophy seem inad- earth, with cities for their centres of converequate and powerless. A while ago it was gence and divergence, but new nerves for huperhaps the most advanced theory that the manity-filaments of sensation and intelliworld had outlived the agency of war, and gence-added to the structure of the collecwas to get on with less and less of it; and, tive social organism within the very period in lo! now the agency of war is more terrifically which we now live? Passing Regent Circus, in favor than ever, and, in America, the very and looking at the cobweb overhead, we find prophets of peace are zealots of the rifle. ourselves instinctively thinking of the year But it is not only in the political order of '48. But from that year, at all events, may things that the world since 1848 seems to be dated a suddenly-increased publicity of have passed into an era of quickened pulsa- certain trains of ideas more purely speculation. It is perhaps the case that times of tive, and a wondrously accelerated rate of extraordinary political movement, of events speculative research and discovery. Who, which are called momentous, are also always save perhaps a student, ever heard of Socialtimes of increased mental energy, and that, ism or Socialistic Philosophy before '48, unindeed, rapid vicissitudes in the material or less it were as of some monstrous thing der of the world, and correspondingly rapid hatched in the Seven Dials? And yet the variations in the world's ideas and modes of immediate effect of the Parisian Revolution thought, go necessarily together. Certain it of 1848 was to let loose a deluge of socialis that the last fifteen years have been a istic phrases and notions into the popular period of extraordinary intellectual, no less mind of Europe; and, though, after a little, than extraordinary political, activity. It is the propagandism died out, yet it has left a not implied, of course, that the year 1848 deposit or sediment of ideas still active everyitself originated or gave birth to much or where, and forming the real strength of that aught of what we now conveniently trace resistance which the now dominant political back to it. There is no such break in the philosophy meets with when it proclaims incontinuity of history; whatever comes to dividual liberty as the first principle of sopass has been brewing long before. But a ciety, and all functions of government, save great deal that is extraordinary in matters for the protection of such liberty, vicious of invention and intellectual speculation and invalid. But pass into other, and more does seem, with some due allowance, to date abstract or more scientific regions of specufrom that year of the sudden sputter of lation. What of Darwin's theory of natural European revolutions and the total disturb- selection-a theory which, "when fully ance of the equilibrium of 1815. That vast enunciated," to use the words of Sir Wil