The

dred times in war when a mountain chain | the penalty of death for evasion - until was in question, and the sea has no espe- they are in presence of some imminent cial sacredness. Our single defence in danger; and until they have a conscrip such a case would be the power of blow- tion, they must rely for their main defence ing up the tunnel suddenly and unexpect upon the Channel, for no other can give edly, and what would that power be them time. With time, if it is only six worth? A chance, merely. The premier weeks, they could bring together a very might think himself justified in destroying powerful army of drilled men of all kinds, twenty millions of property, and impairing who could render the position of any twenty-two millions more- for the whole force that could be conveyed suddenly by capital of the South-Eastern Railway sea speedily untenable; but with the would be paralyzed and stopping enor Channel crossed by a causeway not in mous trades, all on the strength of evi- their hands at the other end, they could dence which he probably could not pro- never be secure. There would always duce that happened in the Copenhagen remain the chance of an occupation of case 1 - which his rivals would pronounce London, which, if it only lasted twelve imaginary, and which the people would hours, would destroy all credit, make all only half believe; but also, he might not. firms bankrupt, and leave traces of its He might be an undecided man, or a man pauperizing effects for half a century, expecting defeat by the opposition, or a besides compelling us to devote one-tenth man paralyzed by the knowledge that the of all the strength of each successive tunnel was full of innocent people whom generation to military purposes. his order would condemn to instant death, English people, without reasoning, feels in a form which is at once most painful the magnitude of that danger, and is, and most appalling to the imagination. consequently, of all peoples the one most They would all be drowned in darkness. liable to panic. It would never be sinThe responsibility would be overwhelm cerely at peace with France, never cease ing for an individual, and a Cabinet, if to suspect her, never tolerate her active dispersed, takes hours to bring together. movements; and every ten years the illNo system of shutting up the tunnel; be feeling would rise to fever-heat, and we it remembered, would do, if the English should either have war, or a panic about end were in danger of a coup de main. war nearly as disastrous. A panic of The French engineers, once in posses- that kind arrests trade for years. Every sion, would soon remove all artificial ob premier who rose in Paris would be an stacles, even if they could be made suffi- object of incessant attention, and if he cient for the time. The tunnel must be displayed the smallest tendency to Chaublown up, and the people in it. Consider, vinism, would be regarded as a potential too, the danger of treachery, of the rush foe, and hated as Napoleon was. We see on the tunnel being made by Irish re- how it is when the stake is only Cairo, publicans in league with the French, and may judge what it would be when the while the wires of the telegraph were cut, stake was national existence or the safety and all swift communication between Do- of London. So serious do we believe ver and London suddenly suspended. this danger to be, that we expect the more We believe firmly in English bravery far-sighted among French statesmen ere when fairly called upon, but we do not long to perceive that from the day the believe in British information, or in Brit- tunnel is opened, the interest and the deish promptitude to destroy property, or sire of England will be to see France sweep away what will be described as reduced to a third-rate power, existing one of the wonders of the world. No- mainly as a barrier between England and body would be to blame, but we should be Germany, and as not less unable to proall unready when the pass was seized. ject a conquest of Great Britain than Grant, however, that our fears are ex- Holland or Sweden is. France, in sancaggerated, though they are shared by tioning such a project, raises up for herself competent naval and military authorities, a permanent and a very dangerous enand then we are in presence of the sec-emy; while England risks either invasion ond, and perhaps even greater danger, or an immediate and pressing necessity recurrent panic. The English people will for a conscription on the Continental plan. not adopt the conscription, even for de- And all these risks are to be incurred in fence against invasion - we mean, of order that a few persons shall avoid a few course, a real conscription, with its ac- minutes' sea-sickness two or three times. companiments of sufficient officers, suffi- in their lives, that Sir Edward Watkin cient carriage, efficient commissariat, and | shall have a grand reputation, and that a

few capitalists shall have another mass of stock to manipulate at discretion. We do not believe that even in this age, with its mania for rapid and comfortable locomotion, such a project will be tolerated, either by Parliament or the Assembly, for

an hour.

From Belgravia.

SOME OLD COMEDIES.

too well," and the lowly but proud and rigidly virtuous father, who seemed to pretty equally divide his time between praying, cursing, and apostrophizing his white hairs, were also popularized by the same pen. While "The School for Scandal" and "The Rivals " still delight us by their pictures of men and manners of a past age, and their delightful wit and brilliant repartee, "The Heir-at-Law, "The Poor Gentleman," and "John Bull," when resuscitated by some favorite actor, produce only weariness and disappointment. IN 1797 Colman produced at the Hay- The most original character in "The market the first of that series of sterling Heir-at-Law," Doctor Pangloss, which comedies by which his name is now chiefly Mr. J. S. Clarke has rendered so familiar remembered, "The Heir-at-Law." "The to playgoers of the present day, was Poor Gentleman" followed in 1800, and named after Voltaire's famous optimist, "John Bull," at Covent Garden, in 1803. and is said to have been taken bodily It is upon these three works that Col- from "Fortune in her Wits," a translation man's claim to be ranked among the great of Cowley's Latin comedy, "Naufragium English dramatic writers entirely rests. Foculare," but the character and its wit Comedies they are not, but rather plays in are obsolete, and exclusively the creation which the humorous and serious elements of a state of society that has long since are about equally mingled. They have passed away. There is some fun in the much in common with the sentimental retired tallow-chandler and his wife who comedy of Holcroft and Cumberland, but have been raised by mistake to aristocratic they yet more closely resemble the domes- dignity, but it is so old fashioned, so tic drama of low life so popular upon the threadbare, and the jokes are so stale, stage until within these last ten or twenty that it bores rather than amuses; while years, and still performed at East End the rustics, Zekiel and Cicely Homeand suburban theatres. Holcroft, Cum-spun, the sentimental Caroline and her berland, and Mrs. Inchbald loved to de- lover, and the terribly didactic Steadfast pict troubles and struggles and virtuous poverty, but it was always genteel poverty, chiefly that of earls' daughters discarded by stony-hearted parents for marrying poor officers of superhuman virtue. Colman was one of the first who drew our sympathies to the woes of the lowly born; he may be said to have created the virtuous peasant, who was always lugging out his small stock of money to give his last shilling to any one who told a pitiful tale, who spouted sentiment and morality by the yard, was as ready with his fists as with his tongue, and who invariably expressed joy by stamping his hobnailed boots and singing, "Ri ti tol de iddity, tol de iddity, tol de iddity," etc. This noble creature, after being the idol of pit and gallery for some sixty years, was barbarously murdered in the burlesques of one H. J. Byron, some fifteen to twenty years ago. The simple rustic maiden whose wardrobe was contained within a cotton pocket-handkerchief, who trusted and believed in everybody, and wept with everybody, and was as innocent of London ways as one of her own lambs; the forlorn damsel who had loved "not wisely, but

and Kenrick, are altogether of that arti ficial and superhuman race of theatrical beings, waxwork figures whose outward semblances are shifted to please the taste of each new generation. Much of the dialogue is humorous if it be not brilliant, the incidents are lively, and were amusing a couple of generations ago, and the whole is arranged by a master of stage-craft, and that is all the praise that can be honestly accorded to a work which was regarded by our grandfathers as a masterpiece. But at the same time we must remember that this play was interpreted by a company of comedians that could scarcely be parallelled in any other dramatic era. Suett was Daniel Dowlas, Munden was Zekiel Homespun, Fawcett, Doctor Pangloss; Irish Johnstone, Kenrick; and these men were as exactly fitted to these parts as were the Prince of Wales's company to Robertson's characters; while future generations will as much fail to discover the charm that drew audiences hundreds of nights to witness "Caste " or " School," as we do to appreciate the encomiums of our grandfathers upon "The Heir-at-Law."

VI. THE AUTHORESS OF "Auld Robin GrAY," Temple Bar,
VII. MARIE, THE FRENCHE QUENE,
VIII. A BEAR FESTIVAL among the AINOS,

Temple Bar,
Nature,

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From The Edinburgh Review.
THE LIFE OF MR. COBDEN.*

HISTORY, as it is related by the best modern historians, concerns itself with facts rather than with men; and busies itself in tracing the causes of events, instead of analyzing the characters of the actors. Yet, in modern as in ancient history, attention will always be arrested by the simultaneous appearance of two great men on the political stage, whose lives are passed in constant rivalry. Such instances are familiar enough in the history of republics. In the present century, and in our own country, they have been furnished on three separate occasions. The rivalry of Fox and Pitt was succeeded by the rivalry of Canning and Castlereagh; after a long interval the rivalry of Canning and Castlereagh was succeeded by the rivalry of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Beaconsfield.

standing and with counsel bow all might be for the best." He might have added that the friendship of Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden was more enduring than that of the Homeric heroes. When Troy fell, Nestor parted from Ulysses. No such result ensued when the citadel of protection was taken. Only on two occasions of minor importance were the leaders of the Anti-Corn-Law League found in opposite lobbies; and, though they occasion. ally differed on the means by which their political views could be best enforced, they continued to live, in Mr. Cobden's language, "in the most transparent intimacy of mind that two human beings. ever enjoyed together."

It

may be thought that there is something peculiarly appropriate in the simultaneous appearance of the lives of two men who enjoyed so close a friendship. But there is a broad distinction between A lifelong struggle between rival states- the circumstances under which the two men is thus a common circumstance. A books before us have been written. More lifelong friendship among statesmen is than sixteen years have passed since Mr. a much rarer spectacle. With the soli- Cobden died. Mr. Bright, we may hope, tary exception of Lord Russell, every has still years of useful work before him. minister who has filled the first place in It is doubtful whether the life of a man the Cabinet for the last forty-seven years, who is still alive can be either fairly or on one occasion or another, broke from fully written. The most conscientious his old friends, and was forced into fresh | biographer must be hampered by the realliances. An uninterrupted friendship flection that his pages will be read by his among statesmen seems, therefore, almost hero. Praise under such circumstances as rare as an unbroken alliance among degenerates into flattery, and censure is nations; and the rarest spectacle which too often degraded into abuse. Mr. Morparliamentary government affords is that ley, even, writing of a period which has of two prominent politicians in constant become historical, finds it frequently necharmony. essary to suppress a name. His conduct in doing so ought to warn less accomplished authors of the difficulties of dealing with recent history.

Such spectacle was afforded twenty years ago by the two men whose biographies are now before us. Mr. Morley tells us that, "as Homer says of Nestor and Ulysses, so of these two it may be said that they never spoke diversely either in the assembly or in the council, but were always of one mind, and together advised the English with under-alogue may show how great is the demand

In making these observations, however, we are not ignorant that recent practice is opposed to us. In literature, as in every other article, the supply is created by the demand; and any bookseller's cat

which writers like Mr. Barnett Smith are anxious to satisfy. Historians of our own times bring down their narratives to the day before yesterday. Prominent personages have their biographies told at unprecedented length, while the statesmen with whom they were in communication