adopted. So far as the question concerns our interest, the quota which this country would furnish for capitalizing the Sound Dues would not defray the charges of the smallest squadron which we should send to the Baltic as convoy, leaving out of view the possibility of a long naval contest. As to the point of honor, - the only other motive which can have influenced our course, it is generally found that no individual is eager to distinguish himself above his fellows in the defence of his personal reputation, unless he is conscious that it requires more than ordinary support, and is peculiarly liable to be called in question. A settlement of this disputed claim which should be satisfactory to the European powers, whose pecuniary share in it is tenfold greater than our own,- powers as jealous in defence of their rights and as watchful over their interests as ourselves, whose naval force could by a single blow strike Denmark from her place among the independent nations of the Continent,—would not be unworthy of our acceptance. And it is also to be considered whether our national reputation would be most advanced by an over-scrupulous attention to our own rights, or by a generous deference to the situation and feelings of others. The claim preferred by Denmark is one which she has been encouraged to make by the world and by ourselves, and the position of this country, its wealth and its power, place it so far above all suspicion of timidity or constraint, that we can well afford to judge that claim with a liberal spirit of equity, rather than by a rigid and exacting estimate of our legal obligations. Without admitting any necessity which compels such a course, we can honorably concede something to the demands of a weaker nation, demands not recent or of any ordinary nature. Without denying the justice of our own views, we can gracefully yield to the opinions of others, so far as to accept a middle ground of conciliation and harmony.

Notwithstanding the refusal of the United States, a congress assembled at Copenhagen, during the last winter, in which England, France, Russia, Sweden, Prussia, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, and Denmark were represented, and after consultation the Danish delegates made the following proposition. Setting the annual income of the Sound

Dues at 1,750,000 rix-dollars, -a considerable sacrifice, since, as we have seen, the average product of the tolls is over 2,000,000, — twenty years' purchase would give a capital of 35,000,000. This amount, which was to include all dues on ships as well as cargoes, was to be apportioned according to the merchandise imported and exported, Denmark paying her share with the others, and the arrangement was to be agreed to by all the powers represented, before it should become obligatory. Upon this basis the proportion to be paid by England would be more than 10,000,000 rix-dollars, nearly one third of the whole, that of Russia nearly as much, while the United States would be called upon for 2,100,000 or $1,050,000. While these negotiations were pending, the year's notice prescribed by the convention of 1826 came to an end, but our government agreed with the Danish to continue the operation of the treaty for two months longer. We believe that no official announcement has been made of the course finally adopted at the expiration of the treaty in June last, but it is understood that the question has been bequeathed to the next administration.

Sweden and Russia immediately gave in their adherence to the Danish proposition, and other powers are understood to be ready to take a similar step, if there should be a prospect of its general adoption. But the disposition of the British government to oppose the scheme of capitalization, for a time destroyed the hope of a speedy adjustment. Lord Palmerston's cabinet, contrary to the opinions of the press, and, it is believed, of the country, is said to have objected to the plan for entirely extinguishing the Sound Dues, and is understood to have submitted a proposition, intended to perpetuate the exactions, by simply providing that they shall be collected at the ports of entry and of departure in the Baltic, instead of Elsinore. But more recent advices give us reason to hope that this objection has been withdrawn, and that England has been induced to accede to the scheme of capitalization, while at the same time it is said that France, also following the lead of her great ally, is about to signify her compliance with the proposed arrangements. Certain it is, that, — leaving out of view all desire to check the commerce of Russia by imposing

indirectly import and export duties, and passing by all fears of diminishing the British exports to the Baltic by opening the trade fairly to the producers of raw material as well as to manufacturers, no British statesman should be unmindful of the necessity of a speedy settlement of this question, not only to the true commercial interests of his own country, but to the peace of Europe, to which the continuance of the Sound Dues now offers a perpetual menace.

The United States are, then, the only important power whose consent to the Danish scheme has not been given; and taking into consideration therefore our independent position, - free as we are from all the complicities of European politics, — our unquestioned ability to enforce our will in a contest with Denmark alone, our ample means to pay the small sum required to free our commerce from these restrictions, without its being felt in the slightest degree by our national finances, the great importance of this concession to Denmark, and the fact that it can never by any possibility be distorted into a precedent, because no similar case can ever arise, we believe that the honor, dignity, and interest of this country will be far better sustained by yielding with an easy grace to this demand, than by the most successful war which might grow out of a determined adherence to an abstract principle.

And finally, it must be borne in mind that all our efforts to sustain our rights by assuming a belligerent attitude may easily be rendered nugatory by those Northern powers who have acceded to the Danish proposals, and whose interest impels them to seek the accession of all the nations concerned. We have already referred to the refusal of Russia to open her ports to vessels which have not paid the Dues at Elsinore. In the event of our refusal to unite in the compromise, that nation has only to extend this policy to vessels not released from payment by treaty, and our Baltic trade is cut off, without hope of redress or opportunity for complaint. The Northern powers may well refuse to receive into their ports vessels which have evaded or refused the payment of duties to which they willingly subject their own navigation; nor can we expect them, by giving a preference to our ships over theirs, voluntarily to place in our hands the carrying trade to and from their own ports.

From all these considerations, then, we believe that it is clearly the most certain, the most manly, and the simplest way of closing the affair on our part, to join with other nations in the amicable settlement of this question, and, by an inconsiderable sacrifice, to free our commerce for ever from this imposition, and from all danger of interference by the great Northern powers.

ART. IV. - Provinces d'Origine Roumaine. Valachie, Moldavie, Bukovine, Transylvanie, Bessarabie. Par M. A. UBICINI. Paris: Firmin Didot Frères. 1856. 8vo. pp. 226.

IN that dullest quarter of Modern Rome which lies in the hollow between the Capitol and the Quirinal hills, where the stately gloom of the Torlonia and Valentini palaces throws a superfluous quiet upon chapels from which the beauty has faded and shops from which the trade has departed, stands a monument of ancient Rome which keeps a fresher and more youthful grace than shop or chapel or palace. Of all the remains of the Pagan Empire, none binds so well the Present with the Past, none restores so fully the customs and the glories of the realm of the Cæsars. The loungers of the citynot a small class-love to come after their morning "collazione" of crust and coffee, and decipher by the eastern sunlight the stirring narrative wreathed in marble around that slender shaft, how Trajan bridged the great Northern river, and received the barbarian ambassadors, and vanquished with his steady legions their ferocious bands, and added that vast wild region to the Roman dominion. The greatest of modern conquerors, seeking to perpetuate a memorial of his victories, could find no better model than this Roman pillar. The column of the Place Vendome, the ornament of Paris, is only an imitation of the column which has remained almost unmutilated for seventeen centuries in the Forum of Trajan.

It is rumored that the present French Emperor intends to commemorate by another similar monument the victories of the late war in the East;-victories, some of them, gained in

the very region which was the theatre of Trajan's triumphs. Whether that monument be built or not, one of the incidental results of the war has been to bring into notice a region which more than any other in Europe has been neglected by travellers, of which the geography was but little known, and the historical interest almost lost. Few still are aware that these Danubian Principalities, the insignificant cause of so serious a conflict, are part of that Dacia which Trajan thought worth subduing at such a fearful cost of life and treasure. Until recently, this fertile and populous country, in the very heart of Europe, was almost as much separated from general interest as the steppes of Siberia or the islands of Japan. It has been taken for granted that there was nothing to see in its dirty towns and nothing to learn from its stupid peasantry. Having no remarkable ruins, it could of course have no history. And many an inquisitive voyager, who would not miss a fragment of Italian antiquity, has steamed comfortably down the Danube, quite unconscious that he was passing the greatest battle-field of races and religions in Europe, a field on which for a score of ages civilization has fought with barbarism, the rough North with the polished South, the Scythian and the Hun with the Celt and the Teuton, the armies of Islam with the armies of the Cross.

If the late war has not improved the condition of these Danubian provinces, it has at least partially raised the veil which hid them. Tourists of a week or two have got near enough to see Bucharest and Galatz, and to write some generalities about the people. The exact works of some foreign writers, De Gérando, Anagnosti, Soutzo, and Lavallée, have been brought into notice, and the English public have been invited to judge concerning the territory which ought not to belong to Turkey, yet must not belong to Russia. The latest valuable publication on the subject of these provinces is the work of Ubicini. In a clear and spirited French style, he gives a thorough account of the provinces of Roumania, topography, statistics, history, and biography, all that one wants to know. His classification of topics is as admirable as his treatment of them. Chronological tables and accurate maps assist his description, and abundant references verify his