there was not an individual among them who had not dark hair. The Chevalier Bunsen has assured me that he has often looked in vain for the auburn or golden locks and the light cerulean eyes of the old Germans, and never verified the picture given by the ancients of his countrymen till he visited Scandinavia,there he found himself surrounded by the Germans of Tacitus." In the towns of Germany, especially, the people are far from being a red-haired, or even a xanthous race; and, from the fact that this change has been developed chiefly in towns, we may infer that it depends in part on habits, and the way of living, and on food. Towns are much warmer and drier than the country; but even the open country is much warmer and drier than the forests and morasses with which Germany was formerly covered. The climate of Germany has, in fact, changed since the country was cleared of its vast forests; and we must attribute the altered physical character of the Germans to the altered condition under which the present inhabitants live. It was the conquests of Rome that first scattered the seeds of civilisation in Western Europe. There it has grown up into a stately and nearly perfect fabric on the shores of the Atlantic, gradually losing its perfection as it proceeds eastwards, until it reaches the semi-barbarism of Russia, and the still deeper barbarism of Upper Asia. Our limits hardly allow of our inquiring what influence this civilisation is calculated to exert in future upon the ethnological condition of the Continent—although this is a question of great importance, as foreshadowing the chief changes which may be expected to result from the state of chronic strife upon which Europe has now entered. We can only remark that the grand action of progress and civilisation is to develop the mind, and so convert the units of society from a mass of automatons into thinking and self-directing agents,conscious of, and able to attain, alike their own rights and those of their nation. Hence follows the growth of liberty within; and, without, the gradual establishment of union between scattered sections of the same race. Supposing, then, that the progress of civilisation in Europe be unobstructed, we may calculate that wherever we now see internal despotism, there will be liberty, wherever we see foreign domination, there will be national freedom; and that, after a little more training in the stern school of suffering, the Continental nations, grown wiser, will make an end of the present arbitrary and unnatural territorial system of Europe, and arrange themselves in the more natural, grander, and permanent communities of race. It was doubtless a perception of this truth that caused the French Emperor recently to declare that "the age of conquests is past." We regret to think, however, that the statement is somewhat premature,-for Europe is still far from that happy climax of civilisation which in the preceding sentences we have indicated. Moreover, there are two very opposite periods in the life of nations when the race-principle reigns supreme, their first and their last just as, in the case of individuals, men often adopt in old age, from the dictates of experience, principles which in youth they had acted upon from instinct. Now, Europe at this day presents both of these phases of national life existing simultaneously, at its eastern and western extremities; and it is not improbable that the development of the race-principle in its early form among the Slavonians, will take precedence of its development in maturity among the civilised races of the Continent. The Panslavism of Russia may precede the coalescing of the Teutonic tribes into a united Germanyor of the Romano-Gallic races of France, Spain, and Italy, into a trinity of confederate states. In such an event, would not this Panslavism of Russia, by a short-lived political domination, prove the very means of exciting the ethnological affinities of the rest of Europe, and of thereby raising up an insuperable barrier to its own progress, as well as involuntarily launching the other nations on their true line of progress? The fag-end of an article is little suitable for the discussion of such really momentous topics, and we especially regret that we cannot proceed to consider the effects which the progress of civilisation is likely to exert upon Russia itself. Any one, however, who is disposed to supply for himself the deductions from the above principles, will feel that his labour in so doing is not without its recompense, by establishing the consolatory truth that, so far as human eye can discern, "a good time coming" is yet in store for Europe,-though, alas, what turmoil must there be between this and then! AUGUST 1854. UTOPIAS "Before you, had you morning's speed, LIKE Sir Guy the Seeker wandering round the enchanted castle of his ladye-love, and even when his locks had grown grey, and his knightly arm had lost its vigour, still ardently hoping and longing for one more glimpse of the fair vision that had once long ago for a moment blessed his sight: even such is the belief in Utopias-a belief more of the heart than of the brain, and against which all the weapons of logic often fall broken and ineffectual. Every one has a utopia in his heart, though it may not have “a local habitation and a name." Every one pictures to himself scenes of ideal happiness, various as the spirits of their framers, but all lovely,-day-dreams which the heart delights to contemplate, but which Youth alone is ardent enough to hope to realise. This tendency has existed in every age; and hence the belief or superstition which is the subject of our remarks. But before proceeding further, our title may require an explanatory word. In giving to an imaginary spot, in one of his Scottish novels, the title of Kennaquhair, Sir Walter Scott has very happily translated into Scotch the originally Greek term "Utopia." It is a place which has no latitude or longitude in physical geography; and which, accordingly, is a most suitable region wherein to place all that is too wonderful or too beautiful for ordinary earth. The term, therefore, has been applied to those representations of a so-called perfect state of human society which Plato and many after him have delighted to draw. But it is not with such limbos of vanity that we have now to do. All the utopias of philosophers are "stale, flat, and unprofitable" when placed by the side of the living and lovely ideal worlds which have arisen like emanations from the heart of nations, and have become engrafted on their popular creeds. A sketch of these is what we now furnish. And when thousands are rushing to a new Eldorado on the banks of the Rio Sacramento, it may not prove uninteresting to review, among kindred subjects, the struggles of our forefathers after an equally alluring, though imaginary, land of promise. The Greeks, who had all sorts of marvels, had a utopia also, in which the fancy of their poets could luxuriate untrammelled by the ordinary laws of nature; and this ideal realm they called the Garden of the Hesperides, and placed far away, nigh to the setting sun. As to its exact geographical position considerable diversity of opinion prevailed; and Hercules, their great hero for accomplishing impossibilities, had to inquire first of the nymphs of the Po, and subsequently of the all-knowing sea-god Nereus, as to its whereabouts, ere he started on his search. One old writer placed it "beyond the ocean;" but if plurality of votes is to decide the question, its site was near the foot of Mount Atlas. Here, in the country where, says Diodorus, all the gods of antiquity received their birth, sheltered by lofty mountains from the scorching blasts of the south wind, and with streamlets from the heights meandering through it, and flowing on all sides round it in a serpentine course, bloomed a fair garden, where grew all manner of delicious fruits; and Ovid, pleasing the eye and the fancy more than the palate, makes trees, foliage, fruit, all of gold. The beings who presided over this fair scene were the Hesperides, sister nymphs, varying in number, according to dif ferent authors, from three to seven; while a dreadful dragon, |