beings generally, may note with pleasure the ejection of Mr. Roebuck, rendered more piquant by the supplications to which that paragon of political insolence and outrage descended, when he found himself in serious peril. Whether the majority will long hold together, when the resolution for disestablishing the Irish Church has been reaffirmed, is a more doubtful question. It includes a number of aristocratic Whigs, Liberal on certain questions, such as public education, the opening of the Universities, and free trade, and generally disposed to go as far as they can rather than give up their hold upon the movement party, but separated by a great gulf of sentiment from the Democratic wing. The question of primogeniture and entail especially would put a terrible strain on the alliance, and we have expressed our conviction that this question must soon arise. Personal feelings will probably for the present keep the Whigs to their colors. Lord Derby, who in the autumn of political life throws stones with the vernal levity of a schoolboy, took pains both in public and in private to make it known that his great object in carrying his Reform Bill was to "dish the Whigs," and that the discomfiture of those grandees, whom he hates with the bitterness of a former friend and associate, more than made up to him for any peril in which his policy might involve the country. As to Mr. Disraeli, the same reasons which led the more independent members of the Tory cabinet to separate from him would prevent the Whigs from joining him. But if Lord Salisbury, a man whose character, as well as whose ability, is universally respected, were to become the leader of the Tory party, it is probable that he would attract Whig support. The great deterrent would be the fear of the Whig nobles, lest, if all the aristocracy were on one side, all the people might be on the other. For the English aristocracy has hitherto been led by its instincts, or, as Darwinians would say, trained by the struggle for political existence, to follow the policy of the Scotch lairds, who in times of civil war, to avoid the forfeiture of their property, took care to have the father out upon one side and the son upon the other.

Whether Mr. Gladstone will be a successful prime minister of England is a question on which the uninspired must sus

pend their judgment. He was brought up in an unfortunate school, political and ecclesiastical, the trammels of which have hitherto hung about him; and we shall now see whether he has force enough finally to cast them off, and to fulfil the expectations of the people. When we are told that he is not a good tactician, we feel rather like King George II., who, on being told by an enemy of General Wolfe that the General was mad, answered, "Then I wish he would bite every officer in my army." A politician who is not a good tactician is the very man for whom society has long been looking out with its lantern in its hand. But to say that a party leader is wanting in generalship, when he has just forced his opponents to accept decisive battle on a field of his own choosing, and there given them a disastrous overthrow, is surely to divest the phrase of any practical meaning. The criticisms on General Grant's generalship were numerous and acute; but the less discerning public was satisfied when he marched into Richmond. Thus much, at all events, the recent elections have made clear beyond the possibility of doubt, — that to be governed by Mr. Gladstone is the object, not only of desire, but of fervent and almost passionate desire, among the great mass of the English people. This is a fact compared with which the supercilious sneers of paper strategists and cynical Epicureans appear to us, we confess, of exceedingly little importance. It is also a fact highly creditable to the English people, and especially to the artisans, whose loyalty to Mr. Gladstone has been most ardent and conspicuous. For, whatever Mr. Gladstone may prove to be, it is certain that what the artisans take him to be is not a demagogue of the type which their friends feared and their enemies hoped they might prefer, but a really high-minded and patriotic statesman, uniting singular cultivation to warm popular sympathies, and bent on governing for the good of the whole nation. Whether they are right or wrong in their belief, their choice of such a leader is a happy opening of their political existence, and a good omen for their future use of power. They have laid a very serious responsibility on the object of their choice; for, if he disappoints them, their bitterness of heart will be proportioned to the warmth of their present affection and the strength of their present hopes.

Another gratifying feature of the elections was the total failure of the No-Popery cry raised by the Tory government to excite in its own favor the religious passions of the people. A certain number of the clergy were perhaps stimulated to more apocalyptic violence of language; to make them stronger Tories than they were would have been impossible. A fanatic or impostor named Murphy, who went about in the interest of the government, delivering slanderous lectures against the Roman Catholic religion in towns where there was a mixed English and Irish population, succeeded in producing several riots, and possibly one or two seats may have been carried by the antiCatholic and anti-Irish rancor which he excited; but on the whole, this attempt to raise the evil spirits of the religious past proved an anachronism, as well as an offence against morality doubly grave when committed by a government. Scarcely a bosom fluttered at the premier's awful pictures of the approaching absorption of the whole religious universe by the power which at that very moment was losing the kingdom of Philip II., and which was held on its own throne at Rome only by the bayonets of free-thinkers. The declaration that the Protestant religion could not subsist for an hour without the support of the royal supremacy was received by the English with the disgust of men who, having, for practical reasons, long held and wishing still to hold a questionable doctrine in solution, see it suddenly precipitated in the form of a repulsive absurdity; by the Scotch, who were left out of sight in these manifestoes, it was received as rank blasphemy. In the three generations which have passed since the Lord George Gordon riots reason and charity have made some progress.

That they have progress still to make is shown, on the other hand, by the rejection of Mr. Mill at Westminster, mainly in consequence of a religious prejudice which had been raised against him, and to which he lent some color at a critical moment by his uncalculating act of moral chivalry in subscribing to the election expenses of the iconoclast, Bradlaugh. In the heart of no living man is the religious sentiment, whether in its element of reverence or of duty, stronger than in the heart of Mr. Mill; but there is reason to suspect that his intellect is the inflexible and incorruptible servant of the truth. The

requisition to an obscure and commonplace, but orthodox millionnaire, to come forward and oust with his long purse the "atheist" who refused to prostitute religious professions to the purchase of political support, was headed by Mr. Disraeli, who is now the Defender of the Faith, and was signed by a long train of minor defenders, as to many of whom it might pretty confidently be said that nothing deserving the name of a religious thought or emotion had ever entered into their minds or hearts, and that it was a mere accident of birthplace that they were bawling, slandering, and persecuting in the name of Jesus, and not in that of Mahomet, Buddha, or the Hindoo Pantheon.

The resolute initiation by the British nation and Parliament of a policy which promises to remove the reasonable grievances of Ireland, and to stanch the sources of Irish misery and barbarism, is a matter of interest to Americans as well as to Englishmen. The disestablishment of the Irish Church will not of itself restore peace and contentment in Ireland; the land question, in some form, must come; and perhaps behind both may lie the question of Irish nationality. But the principle of perfect equity has been affirmed as the ruling principle of Irish policy for the future; and no one but a disunionist (which it is of course childish to expect British citizens to be) can reasonably object to the language held or the ground taken up by Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Bright, and the other leaders of the Liberal party. It seems that in the late struggle the Liberals of Ireland have acted cordially with those of England. Had they been able to bring their minds to do this long ago, instead of sacrificing the interests of their own country to those of the Neapolitan Bourbons and the ecclesiastical rulers of Rome, their national grievances would not have waited for redress till now. The dawn, however, has come at last upon that long night of injustice and calamity; and no one, in whose heart hatred of England does not prevail over the love of humanity, will wish that it should be overcast again.

GOLDWIN SMITH.

ART. IX. A LOOK BEFORE AND AFTER.

EVEN during our civil war, there were those who, while they had no doubt of the final triumph of the nation in its physical struggle, looked forward with well-founded foreboding to the more serious conflict of opinion and prejudice, of exultations and resentments, that was sure to follow. If the victories of peace are not less renowned than those of war, it is because they are more difficult, because they are decided by forces less palpable and harder to combine or to control. Physical force may be bought in the market; a certain average of courage may be reckoned on; good generalship is not rarer than effective, faculty in the higher kinds of other business; and even the winning of a decisive battle may be due in great part to other things than the personal qualities of the commander. But to gather the fruits of successful war demands powers of greater range and more various training. During a conflict like ours, the moral instincts of the people are kindled to a fervor which adds immensely to their fighting weight, but which cannot be kept at that white heat, and would be dangerous, if it could. Enthusiasm is the most radiant of human qualities; there are moments when it is the highest wisdom; but the very source of its strength - that it can see but one thing, and is ready to sacrifice all for it-unfits it for the slower processes and the necessary compromises of successful statesmanship. Its motto is, "All or nothing"; that of the statesman, "The best that can be got under the circumstances." An artificial enthusiasm, kept alive by the artifices of party, has nothing in common with the real virtue, except its contempt of experience, and its leaving consequences to take care of themselves, things sometimes of incalculable value in great crises, but dangerous, if reduced to a principle of conduct and a method of action in ordinary affairs. For the efficient and economical housekeeping of a nation, prudence and moderation will be found safest in the long run.

A great victory, unless it lead to something greater beyond, unless it definitely settle something which could not otherwise be solved, is the most futile and costly of human achievements.