The

eat and gave unto her husband, and he did | the representative of England at Paris eat." It is an old and a miserable tale the thought it his duty not to interfere, for tale of human weakness and selfishness. which England never blamed him. Humanity shudders at the death, in a for- Neapolitan Bourbons whom by troops and eign land, of a Prince in the prime of life, armies we twice put back upon their forfeit who, had his lot fallen in pleasant places, throne, tried by Court-martial and shot would have lived amiably, and been spoken their rival Murat, who had governed the of in epitaphs and chronicles as a benefac- country prosperously and in peace, and tor of his kind: but who, having succumb- with genuine popular approval, during seved to the temptings of lawless ambition, eral years, and whose sole offence consisted climbed for a moment high, propped by in his trying to oust them, and take his treacherous aid, and when bereft of it, fell place again. The great Napoleon's memoprecipitately down into darkness. A tragi- ry is laden with the reproach of seizing the cal ending this of a three-years' sham heir of Condé, dragging him across the Borsovereignty! A chorus of execration sounds der, and having him shot in the ditch of and resounds against those by whose hands Vincennes for plotting the overthrow of his Maximilian has been put to death; and we dynasty. Finally, the King of Hungary, who, in every exigency and under all cir- now forgiven by a weary people, can never cumstances, have consistently lifted up our dissociate from his name that of Count voice against political executions, lament Batthyany and those of too many of his his death, while we are glad of his fall. countrymen, whose sole pretended fault was From first to last, we denounced the buc- treason against the Imperial crown and caneering plot against Mexico: we hon- dignity. We would that we could stop ored the courage of our Minister there, Sir here; but it were mere hypocrisy to blink Charles Wyke, who broke the alliance into the fact, which will outweigh in history's which we had unfortunately entered, at judgment all parallels and analogies, the the first opportunity afforded him by the terrible fact, that just a year and a half French, and who refused to be sent back as ago, in October, 1865, Maximilian issued a England's representative, to the Court of decree, whereby he declared that from and the invader. We deplored the mistake of after date he would execute as a crimsending Mr. Scarlett in his stead, and re-inal any man who was found in arms against ceiving here the Minister of the usurper. him. Under that decree, five gallant genUndeviatingly we stuck to our text, that tlemen, Generals Arteaga and Salazar, the show and semblance of success in vio- with three of their staff holding the rank lence and fraud could not and would not of Colonel in the Republican Army, were come to good; and we say now that we taken prisoners and put to death by order think it would have been a great calamity of the alien Emperor. Is it not written, to the world, if Napoleon III. had succeed-" they that take the sword shall perish by ed in founding by such means an alien em- the sword"? A fearful thing is this poetic pire in Mexico. All this does not blind us, retribution; but a thing which it can serve however, to the folly and cruelty of the no honest or pious purpose to deny or to political Judæism of taking an "eye for an ignore. eye and a tooth for a tooth." We hate revenge as impolitic and anti-Christian, and we condemn the rulers of Mexico, who, in the hour of their country's deliverance from invaders, have sullied their triumph by a prisoner's blood.

We can quite believe that Juarez, had he found himself strong enough to resist the pressure from without, and to still the cry for vengeance from the many whom his Imperial prisoner had made orphans and childless, would have spared his life. He is But let us be just. Which is the Euro- described by those who know him as a man pean State that can dare to sit in judgment specially given to the forms and ceremonies or cast a stone? The Pretender was not of legality. A self-made man, who late in executed on Tower Hill, for he was not life took to the study of law and policaught but the English and Scotch noble- tics, and who, above all his countrymen, men who were convicted of complicity in has shown a freedom from impulsive and his cause suffered the death of traitors. sordid qualities; who in a land and a time The Bourbons did not shoot Napoleon when of violence has been reproached with fewer he broke into France in 1815, because he acts of severity than any other, whether of contrived to find refuge on board the native or foreign birth, and who has maniBellerophon; but they shot Ney, "the fested a marvellous tenacity of national bravest of the brave," like any dog, despite purpose and national policy, can have had of cries and groans of shame; and no motive of pique or passion instigating

--

him to take Maximilian's life. But let us put this case to ourselves. What would be our feelings, what our words, - may we not add, what our acts and deeds, if a French or German adventurer, of high descent, were to land in Munster, with a foreign army, and, fortifying himself in a few southern towns near the coast, were recognized there as King by half the Governments of Europe, and, after months or years of bloodshed and exaction, were he to fall into our hands?

From the Saturday Review, 6th July.
THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN.

for himself stung him to desperation. And during the whole siege of Queretaro, protracted for sixty-five days, with treason round him on every side, with no better prospect before him at the best than that of making his way to the hills, and leading the life of a hunted and wounded animal until he might by chance get to the coast, he was the soul of the defence, the one man whose resolution never wavered and whose courage never gave way. Perfectly indifferent to danger, sharing to the utmost the privations of his soldiers, unflagging in his care for the wounded, he went on day after day hoping against hope, until the basest treachery delivered him into the hands of a set of the most merciless ruffians that disgrace the earth.

THE sad fate of the Emperor MAXIMIL- As if in irony of human grandeur, the IAN has fallen on Europe with the stroke news of this most shocking and mournful of an unexpected calamity. It did not event came to the Emperor NAPOLEON just seem possible that this extreme measure of as he was hastening to preside over the cruelty should be dealt out to one whose most splendid of the ceremonies that have sincere desire to serve his adopted country given glory to the year of triumph at Paris. at any cost not even his enemies doubted, All the world was to be judged by France, that so profitless a crime should be commit- and to receive from France the rewards ted after full time for reflection had elapsed, due to labour, to taste, and ingenuity. The and that the remonstrances of the United unwonted spectacle of the chief of the MaStates, by whose breath the triumphant homedan world in a Christian capital had party in Mexico has been made, and could aroused even the sated spirits of Parisians be in a moment unmade, should be entirely to enthusiasm. On a sudden it became disregarded. The fury of a savage parti- known that the Prince whom France had sanship has, however, prevailed, and the sent out to establish her influence in AmeriEmperor MAXIMILIAN has been shot. It ca, to uphold the fortunes of the Latin race, is hard to believe that this is really the end and to do a great work for humanity, had of the high hopes, the brilliant augu- been shot in cold blood for doing that ries, and the noble endeavours with which which France had invited him to do. three years ago the ARCHDUKE began his The EMPEROR has acknowledged the greatill-starred reign. He was a man of the true ness of the calamity and the severity of the heroic mould, yet not very wise; by no blow that has fallen on France. For this means a good judge of men or events, but mournful end of the unfortunate MAXIMILessentially heroic. To live to do good, to IAN neither France nor the Emperor NAbe worthy of his race, to trust even when POLEON can, under the circumstances, be those to be trusted were Mexicans, to do justly accountable. The French knew, and something before he died that should be MAXIMILIAN himself knew perfectly well, useful, great, and striking, was literally the the risk he ran. They warned him against passion of his soul. He went to Mexico it, and offered him a secure retreat, but he exactly as Dr. LIVINGSTONE went to Afri- chose from regard to his own honour to run ca, and the common sense that points out it. Nevertheless, the tragedy with which how foolish it is to go to be murdered by negroes may also point out triumphantly how foolish it was to go to be murdered by Mexicans. It is by men who do things at once foolish and noble that the salt of the earth is preserved. The resolution of the EMPEROR to stay in Mexico after the French left was Quixotic and ill-advised, but it was conceived in the lofty vein of a man who prefers death to dishonour. The thought that there should be others who would fight for him when he would not fight

the Mexican expedition has closed must throw its gloom over the whole enterprise, and make it seem a more lamentable failure than it did before. But our thoughts are drawn even more to the United States than to France. What will the Americans feel when they know that their formal entreaty for the life of MAXIMILIAN has been set at nought? That the life of the Emperor of MEXICO was technically forfeited may be true; and if all the difference of circumstances is ignored, it may be said that

est; arrogantiam pertulit; difficultatem exsorbuit; vixit ad aliorum arbitrium, non ad suum." The fruits of a temper and a patience like this were just what they might have been expected to be. On the minds of all Americans except those who were determined to be displeased and disgusted at every thing English - who were equally soured by the demands of England in the affair of the Trent, and by her studied neutrality afterwards- - on the minds of American statesmen whose whole energies were concentrated on the gigantic conflict which they were conducting, Lord Lyons left an impression which has become more and more favourable as the clouds and mists of that tempestuous epoch are clearing away. It is perhaps not too much to say that few other men beside Lord Lyons could, in such an æstus of national passion, have kept the leading statesmen of the North on equally good terms with himself, and have preserved relations as friendly as those which now exist between the two Governments. A man who has done what he has done has done his work, and earned his honours as a diplomatist.

From The Spectator.

into two hostile camps, and to secure for herself in all future time the alternative of one staunch ally on the Continent of the Western World. To those who judged the conduct of States by the ordinary conduct of individuals, it seemed possible that England might exact a tremendous indemnity for the frauds of the two Boundary disputes, and for the aggression on San Juan. At such a crisis the difficulties of an English Minister were necessarily complicated and increased. His every action was watched with vigilance; his every appeal on behalf of his countrymen was regarded with suspicion; his explanations were received with incredulity, and his whole position made as disagreeable as possible. It would be an exaggerated, and therefore an unflattering, compliment to Lord Lyons to say that in his person no slights were endured by the English Government, and that under his protection the rights of every English subject were uniformly respected. If we are to judge by the past and the present, it will be long before respect and courtesy so general will be shown by the Government of the United States to the Government and people of England. This, however, is true, and it is a truth which redounds to the permanent honour of Lord Lyons. No man ever more honestly, more faithfully, or more laboriously discharged the difficult duties of COPSLEY ANNALS, PRESERVED IN PROVa singularly difficult position than he did. Working harder than any clerk, he left nothing of even secondary importance to be transacted by subordinates. He gave up days and nights to long and complicated correspondence, which often related to the private concerns of very humble English subjects. Charged, by a Government cautious beyond precedent, to maintain in every act and attitude the most unqualified neutrality, he never penned a document or uttered a word which could justly wound the susceptibilities of the most sensitive nation by the faintest inuendo of partisanship. Received sometimes coldly, sometimes angrily and almost rudely, he never allowed affronts or ill-breeding to betray him into ill-humour. When he was conveying the ultimatum of his Government on the Trent affair, he exhibited as little heat and passion as when he forwarded the petition of a British subject who had been irregularly pressed into the Northern army. The words of Cicero are literally applicable to his labours: "Hanc urbanam militiam respondendi, scribendi, cavendi, plenam sollicitulinis ac stomachi, secutus est; jus civile edidicit; multum vigilavit; laboravit; præs-Author of Village Missionaries, &c. London: See*Copsley Annals, Preserved in Proverbs. By the to multis fuit; multorum stultitiam perpessus | ley, Jackson, and Co.

ERBS.*

IF we are often tired of books, tired of the subjects which seem to us treated in a dead, unpractical manner; if, looking around us, we think we see barrenness and dryness pervading even our most respectable fictions, we are yet sometimes startled by the freshness of an unexpected, unheardof volume, pitched into our own dull room, to be, through its means lighted up and made to assume a most refreshing aspect. For this happy purpose commend us to the writers of really good children's stories. These Copsley Annals have come upon us without any previous idea about them. We opened them drearily; to close them soon was impossible. They seemed to make us children again. There we were playing together, boys and girls, little distinguished one from another, for the strength of sympathy in the circumstances of a quiet country life has a great tendency to level distinctions. We were once more looking up in memory to the noble old elms under which we, like the Copsley children, played.

if he was sent for to a sick person seven miles off on a winter's night, especially if it was in a storm, and his landlady - poor Mrs. Swan that was told me in confidence, that one time, having sent up a jelly without leave, and thinking it might tempt him, as a change, he rang the bell, and spoke to her that seriously about indulgence of the appetite, and life being for conflict and enduring hardness, that she was constrained to promise humbly that she'd never more testify respect in the form of jelly, or even of a custard, if he'd pass it over.'

We heard the various language of the rooks | long in the oven and comes out mostly at an almost unimaginable height above us; crust. "He seemed to take it as a favour we thought of the days when our small world seemed to us far too large, too awe-striking, and when every new acquaintance, coming at long intervals among us, was, for ages after, our domestic oracle. We were brought, too, in sight of the village church and churchyard, and the men and women who were always ready at the stile to greet us as we went by. There was the clerk (but his name was not Clarke, like the Copsley official), who read better than any clerk I have ever heard since, being tutored by a very competent master. But the vision, though not hastily dismissed, departed of itself, and the pleasant book which called it up alone remains, to be soberly recurred to, and, oh! dry work, discussed in a literary

paper.

We know nothing about the author, nor about former publications announced as by the same haud, but on the whole we have seldom opened a pleasanter volume. The stories, six in number, are given by different members of the Copsley group, in illustration of certain well-known family or village proverbs, such as not unnaturally grow into use when the occasions which gave rise to them are of a nature to take strong hold on the minds of families and neigh bours, and yet in process of time will be used without much meaning or apprehension of their origin. These sort of proverbs are now scarce. In our own childhood we remember one or two springing up amongst us, to be a source of some irritation to the young people, whose folly or childishness had given rise to them. They were a little too obvious and too personal. The first of the Copsley proverbs is one explained by the young lady whose adventure it commemorates. Alice Beverley tells the origin of a common query in her time," Have you heard the proud lady's distaff?" And Harry, her brother, gives his version of another saying, "I can't' lies down at the bottom of the tree; I wil' climbs it." On the whole, we rather prefer Harry's but both are very good, and in the last, and, again, in Mrs Blackett's story, there is au extremely well depicted character of a mistaken, but worthy, clergyman of the selfdenying school, who "never seems to be at rest unless he made himself uncomfortable," so that, as Mrs. Blackett says, sunshine must feel it was taking a liberty if it came into his house any way but by the back door." He was a good man; but a stern one, that never smiled; like bread that is good and wholesome, but left too

The very

This uncomfortable man, Mr. Adamson, is on the whole, we believe, a rarity; but we have certainly met in our day with persons making so near an approach to him as to convey a perpetual reproof to the sound and healthy members of their congregations, seeming to lay themselves out in readiness for a dire misfortune and, till that came to pass, ignoring almost the common human nature of their neighbours.

Then Mrs. Blackett - a housekeer and confidential caretaker at Copsley Hall — in a long interregnum between the death of one mistress and the advent of another, is a capital person-telling her own story well on the whole though we have our doubts as to the education she received having any marked tendency to produce such a charac

ter.

Such a person would, we can conceive, rigorously keep the path of duty, but we cannot believe in either her humility or her spontaneous feeling. The "bread has been too long in the oven," we suspect, and therefore the best and brightest traits in her character, though somewhat accounted for by her strong attachment to children, do seem to us, on the whole, incongruous. Perhaps the most natural and beautiful part is the struggle in her mind on receiving a new mistress and new mother to these children, and yet more beautifully is it supplemented by the short portion given to our Lady of Copsley," who, after years of waiting, has at last a 66 wee Janie" of her own, a darling child, who gives rise to the proverb illustrated, "Flowers from wee Janie's garden," and is herself the sovereign queen of her realm of Copsley, and the pride of Mrs. Blackett's heart.

66

The picture of a busy little woman is perfectly exquisite. We never remember falling in love so desperately with a child. All imaginable little bits of mischief are perpetrated by her without the possibility of disgrace ensuing. She is the most inde