and not in Stamboul. There was a day of rejoicing when the voracious guests crossed the Pruth, and the peasant seemed likely to eat the fruit of his labor. Patriots were not wanting to foster the national spirit, and to create a party against the Cossacks. The theatre became a school of revolution, and the children of the nobility declaimed on the stage, in their native tongue, those works of French and German dramatists which taught hatred to tyrants, and the love of liberty. The slaves in the employment of the state were set free. For a while the liberal party seemed to be prosperous, and in the national assemblies some valiant reforms were attempted. But the party of the despots was stronger. The discussions of the deputies were silenced, and the theatre, after the performance of the Saul of Alfieri, was closed by authority.

Plots and counterplots followed. The patriot leaders were arrested and confined in dungeons, where they could not be won by flattery and bribes. Moldavia suffered less than Wallachia; yet here the rapacity of the prince more than balanced his enlightened policy. In the year 1839, the nobles barely escaped a general massacre. Year by year, French ideas gained ground in the provinces, while the anti-Russian feeling grew bolder. The fable of "The Gardener and the Bramble," circulated with incredible speed, helped to bring on the outbreak; and the French Revolution of 1848 was followed in Moldo-Wallachia by an insurrection which had the rare fortune to be wholly bloodless. A provisional government made large promises, and announced great designs. But reaction was too strong for patriotism. The history of the Roumains in that year of change is the history of the greater nations;-one by one all the reforms were crushed, and political exiles were summarily sent across the Danube. Order was restored by the treaty of Balta Liman, which took away from the Roumains every guaranty of freedom, suspended their assemblies, and gave them only the privilege of executing the joint orders of the Sultan and the Czar. To the patriot leaders was left naught but the mean amusement of mutual crimination. Their rancorous disputes revealed their unfitness to guide a great movement, and deprived them

of the fame of martyrdom. There were among them many enthusiasts, but no great man.

We need not dwell upon the recent events in the Principalities, with which the journals have made us familiar. One new element of trouble has been added by the war, in the Austrian occupation. Hostile as are the Roumains to their Slavonic protectors, they must be more hostile to a nation whose Church is the enemy of theirs. There is no point in common between them and the loyal tribes of the Hapsburg "paternal" rule. Any pretence of a Any pretence of a protectorate at Vienna will be more sternly resisted than the most presumptuous claim of the heir of Nicholas. Roumania has suffered too much from vassalage in the past, to try another master.

The political question now most agitated in the Principalities is, like the Italian question, one of union. The real patriots see that there is no hope for the future, unless they can bind in one state brethren whose language, whose lineage, whose customs, and whose interests are nearly identical. They have suffered by their internal strifes, and been weakened by their jealousies. It is now time to become a united nation. The Russian government dreads this proposal, and seeks in every way to foment the old antipathies. A cunning device has been, in the various conferences, to join Servia to Moldavia and Wallachia. Now Servia, though adjacent and in its history not unlike the other provinces, is wholly Slavonic, and as alien to Roumania as Poland or Circassia. There can never be political union between races so unlike. And it is a misfortune of the position of Roumania, that it is so sandwiched between the two branches of the Slavonic

race.

The recent treaty of peace has nominally secured to Moldo-Wallachia the strip of land on the Danube lying between Galatz and the Black Sea, with the fortress of Ismail. Russia has now no frontier on the Danube. The possession, however, is of small value, except as it gives to the commercial nations who dictate to Turkey freer control of the navigation of that important highway of trade. The best result of the war to the provinces will be the increased influence of England. This nation alone is likely by its

intercourse to benefit without burdening the people, to develop their resources without exhausting their energies. What the future of the Principalities may be, if the new state of things should continue, it is not easy to foretell. The work of regeneration, industrial not less than moral, will be slow for a people so long degraded. The helps to reform are few, and the hinderances are many and powerful. The country has no great men, and there are but scanty means of educating even a respectable aristocracy. The Church is a stumbling-block in the way of progress. All that sagacious observers have affirmed in regard to the hopelessness of improvement in Poland and Hungary may be affirmed far more strongly of Roumania, where the same obstacles exist in tenfold greater degree. The way of securing to free civilization this land so blessed by Nature, has not yet been revealed. We may dream of a union of all the tribes of the Roumain race, as men speculate now concerning a Panslavic empire. But together they are a handful against the masses of other races. Too numerous obstacles hinder the accomplishment of this dream. That many visitations of war and woe are yet in store for the land, is much more probable. Its people seems destined to dwindle, and some other race to take the task of opening its mines, building its cities, and realizing its legendary prophecies. It waits for the death of "the sick man,” and the downfall of the Ottoman empire, which no propping of diplomacy can long postpone. No intelligent traveller can believe that the Turkish power will endure much longer. The descendants of the Asiatic conquerors must soon disappear from the continent of Europe, and then a chance may be given to the people whom they have held so long tributaries. The future of Roumania, however, is not more uncertain than the future of Greece and Italy, concerning which every review is expected to have an opinion. Our opinion is, that the ardent wish of M. Ubicini for the Pan-Roumanism of ancient Dacia is likely to be realized when the unity of Italy is restored, or when the Jews return in a body to Palestine; then, perhaps, but not sooner.

ART. V.-1. Arctic Explorations: The Second Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin, during the Years 1853, '54, 55. By ELISHA KENT KANE, M. D., U. S. N. Philadelphia: Childs and Peterson. 1856. 2 vols. 8vo. 2. The Last of the Arctic Voyages; being a Narrative of the Expedition in H. M. S. Assistance, under the Command of Captain Sir Edward Belcher, C. B., in Search of Sir John Franklin, during the Years 1852, '53, '54. London : Lovell Reeve. 1855. 2 vols. Royal 8vo.

FOR years the attention of the civilized world has been directed to the subject of Arctic discovery. Of late, the interest has been heightened by the cordial sympathy which the fate of Sir John Franklin and his brave companions in misfortune has excited among all classes of men. The subject itself has exhibited many phases in the course of its development. The search for a passage to the East Indies by way of the sea to the north of North America, begun by English ships in the first place, for the sake of finding a channel of communication with the East free from the interruption and encroachments of the Spaniards, and continued with divers objects in view, now fantastic and fanciful, now useful and beneficial, has at length been ended. Not without great expenditure of treasure and sacrifice of human life has it been carried on. From Cabot and Frobisher to Franklin, McClure, and Kane, it has enlisted a noble array of heroic seamen, whose labors, privations, and hardships will not soon be lost to the remembrance of mankind.

In a former number of this Review, we presented a sketch of the different expeditions which had penetrated the waters of the Arctic Ocean, in the attempt to find a Northwest Passage. It is the design of the present paper to ascertain, if possible, the actual results accomplished through so many years of struggle with the fiercest forces of Nature, and to inquire whether these results have been such as to compensate for what they have cost.

* April, 1855.

Were we to calculate the results of these expeditions according to commercial rules, we should be constrained to acknowledge an almost entire failure. Commerce will never seek the American Polar Ocean and its islands, expecting to carry on on a profitable traffic with the scattered and impoverished inhabitants of those inhospitable and unproductive regions. Never will the Northwest Passage be used by American or English ships on the way to Japan, China, and the islands of the Indian and Pacific oceans. No rich argosy,

"From Tripolis, from Mexico, and England,
From Lisbon, Barbary, and India,"

will ever sail along those ice-bound coasts, to gather in the gains of trade. So far as these matters are concerned, the expeditions have been fruitless. The Arctic Sea is impassable to commerce. It is no better for military and naval purposes. In case of a future war between Russia and England, neither would have much cause to fear attack from this quarter. Siberia would not be threatened by the descent of a fleet through Behring's Straits, nor would Canada have cause to provide against invasion by way of the Mackenzie's and the Copper-mine.

Nor can it be said that this region of the earth presents a very promising field for Christian enterprise to work out its beneficial results. True, the self-denial and self-devotion of the Moravian and Danish missionaries are above all praise, and they have accomplished much for the material and spiritual welfare of the Esquimaux tribes, with whom they have had intercourse. Yet it can hardly be expected that, beyond the isolated Danish settlements on the western coast of Greenland, much improvement will take place. It does not seem probable that Akkolee, Igloolik, Boothia, Baring Island, Victoria and Wollaston Lands, will ever become prominent missionary stations. Christian civilization will never boast of great conquests among the sparse and migratory population of the shores and islands of the Polar Sea. Yet one thing, at least, the Esquimaux are spared. If they are deprived of the benefits, they are exempt from many of the vices, which ordinarily belong to civilized life. It is not thus that