ment and armament. Wherever, too, amongst the young officers, he discovered any animated with unusual zeal for the service, or distinguished by superior ability or knowledge, he at once marked him out for especial notice, and honoured him by signs of intimacy and favour.

Of those who speedily acquired princely notice and recognition was a young lieutenant, a man of quiet reserved manner, singularly unobtrusive and modest, and yet known amongst his comrades as one of a most resolute will and unflinching determination. With Lieutenant Tegetthoff the Archduke had frequent discussions on naval matters; and as each held firmly to his own opinions, it was said that occasionally the controversies assumed a degree of warmth which threatened at least a discontinuance of the intimacy, for Tegetthoff held rigidly to his opinions, and would concede nothing in consideration of the rank and station of his opponent.

The story goes, that in a cruise, I believe, on the coast of South America, as the Prince lay one day in his hammock, slung between two trees, young Tegetthoff, unaware of his vicinity, suffered himself to speak somewhat strongly on his Highness's projects for the service, not hesitating to describe them as ill-judged and unwise, and such as, if carried out, would greatly impair the character of the Austrian navy.

The Prince took an early opportunity to let him know that he had been an unwilling listener to his censures, and was little pleased with the tone and spirit in which they were couched. Tegetthoff declared that his convictions admitted of no qualification or abatement; that he maintained what he had said, and begged to offer his resignation. His retirement was accepted, and they parted.

Some years elapsed, and the unfortunate rupture with Denmark occurred. It became necessary to send an Austrian squadron to the

Baltic, and looking to what the Danes were as sailors, the choice of an able and daring man to lead the expedition became a matter of great moment. It was in this emergency that Tegetthoff received a letter from the Archduke Maximilian appointing him to take the command a letter so full of generous recognition, and so marked by confidence, that Tegetthoff was said to be completely overcome by it, and hastened to express his gratitude in terms not less imbued with warmth of heart than by a deep sorrow for the even passing misunderstanding that had separated them. How nobly Tegetthoff vindicated the Archduke's choice, and how splendidly he bore his flag in the north, the one great success in that brief naval struggle can testify. The Schwartzenberg was on fire in three places when she was towed under the cliffs of Heligoland.

It is not necessary to say how, since that time, a greater and more glorious achievement has shown how thoroughly the Archduke had appreciated the man whom he selected for honour. It was not alone a fleet numerically inferior. that Tegetthoff led into action at Lissa; they were ships of deficient power in artillery and in speed, and behind all was a nation panic-stricken by defeat, and almost accepting disaster as the inevitable decree of fortune.

Tegetthoff knew this-he knew that nothing short of a transcendent victory could rally the heart of the nation. A merely drawn battle with the Italian fleet implied defeat, since no resources would remain to Austria to renew the struggle. She had no "reserves," nor could she even refit; all, therefore, hung on one throw of the dice. They who are in his confidence assert that he never looked for such a success as he achieved at Lissa; that his whole computation was the amount of injury he could inflict on the Italian fleet at the cost of losing his

own; that he never speculated on bringing a single ship out of action, and, naturally enough, regarded the Affondatore as fully a match for his whole squadron. The news of this glorious action was the last gleam of sunshine on the sinking fortunes of Maximilian. He read the bulletin of the battle in a perfect transport of delight, and burst out again and again into expressions of that splendid fellow Tegetthoff-that noble Tegetthoff!

It was no part of my intention, in these few words on the fate and fortunes of the Archduke, to follow him to that illstarred expedition for which he gave his life. Its history-and it will be a dark page of treachery from the very outset-is yet to be written. Of the arguments employed to sway his mind-of the persuasions that were used to influence him-of the way in which his noblest as well as his weakest traits were worked upon-now to stimulate ambition, now to silence

scruple, there are written records in existence-records which Imperial wealth would willingly pay heavily to acquire, and which may yet see the light.

I take my last farewell of this poor Prince as I stand in the garden of Miramar. A small inlet of the sea has been introduced through a channel of rock into a little flowergarden at the back of the castle. The cactus and the oleander bend over the blue water, and through their leafy shade a small flight of marble steps leads down to the sea. Here it was, by these same steps, he descended as he went to the boat which bore him away from home and fatherland, to tempt the fortunes of the greatest, boldest, rashest enterprise of our age.

The record of his last moments bears testimony to the noble calm of that courage which never deserted him. His last words were for her who had shared all his perils, and his dying accents murmured "poor Carlotta!"

Sitting here, at a little vinecurtained window, and looking out through the leaves at the blue Adriatic, that is pretending to have a tide, and surging softly amongst the rocks below me, my view of the world is of necessity a very narrow one, and I must take not only my "facts" from my newspapers, but accept their comments on them as the veritable sentiments not alone of those who write, but of those who read.

Sick of the great Bazaar at Paris and all its Barnum puffery-tired of the Imperial courtesy and the Prince Imperial's knickerbockersI turn to England with all the zest that a man whose stomach has been ruined by entrées and hors d'œuvres might be supposed to feel at the promise of a fried sole and a sirloin. Not that I want to follow the debates. The Reform

Bill has long since soared into a region far and away beyond me, and I know no more now what they are disputing about than I do of the geography of Central Africa. As little curiosity have I to follow that question which somebody puts every day about the Luxemburg guarantee, and always receives the same reply that the guarantee is like Mr Walpole's denial of right of Hyde Park to the Reformers, to be valid only so long as it should not be contested. As little do I care to read of Mr Whalley and his intolerances. Popery has been so much abused of late years, the bigotry of Romanism so cruelly belaboured and badgered, that I really begin to apprehend a reaction in its favour, simply out of that English spirit which always inclines to take part with what seems the weaker side and the

worse. Fenianism is a thing of the past; so that the only topic that remains is that of "our hospitalities," if that be the name for the attentions we have been lately extending to some distinguished guests. When I first read the newspaper comments on the mode in which it was intended the nation should receive the Pasha of Egypt-a prince whose splendid hospitalities had won a world-wide fame-I own to have gone with all the severities of the press. I concurred in every word that was said about the especial indecency of accommodating an Oriental at an inn, and repaying the courteous reception accorded to our Princes by what, to a man of his rank and race, must have appeared little else than intentional insult. Equally, too, did I feel the justice of those strictures on the indelicacy-to give it a mild name of those urgent appeals for money to entertain the Belgians, who must have read every morning at their breakfast tables of the superhuman efforts that a few generous and patriotic gentlemen were making to move John Bull's heart to make a decent return for one of the most splendid and cordial exhibitions of hospitality the world has ever witnessed. I do not know, nor do I desire to ask, in what spirit Belgians must read these things. I can simply figure to myself how little it would contribute to the pleasure of accepting an invitation, if one were to be present while the host bargained with the butcher, or witnessed the distress of mind in which he went over the list of the guests, and discovered that he had twice as many "friends as he knew of.

We are not permitted to know what the Pasha thinks of us, or what Belgians feel about us, and I declare I believe it is all the better that we should not. Our public moralists have told us a few wholesome truths on the subject, and they ought perhaps to be

enough for us. The Press has spoken out with great manliness and great candour. The nation has been told not only that it was very shabby and very paltry, but very short-sighted and impolitic. "That gentleman," said they, "whom you are treating so scurvily, and sending to be lodged in an ale-house, actually gave you right of way. through his own grounds, when to take the ordinary highroad might have cost you irreparable loss and injury. It was something more than politeness he accorded you. It was a bona fide material benefit -a thing to be valued at millions." Not dwelling on the magnificent manner in which our Princes were lodged by the Pasha, the fêtes prepared for their reception, and the incessant details of attentions, by which their every thought or wish seemed anticipated, the writers cleverly appealed to what was the tender spot of the national temperament, and directly spoke of commercial advantages, and asked where would be the men of Manchester and Liverpool if the Pasha had closed the Overland? Now, to read of all this depressed me much, and has so far weighed upon my spirits that I have actually been forced to the excess of taking two additional glasses daily of the small Hungarian wine by which I homoeopathically essay to correct a habitual acidity-a measure to which it would be difficult to apply the term of "an indulgence." I say I was sorrowful and low of heart. I felt shy of such foreigners as knew English and read the

Times,' and dreaded the possibility of these themes turning up in conversation. For years back I have painfully experienced the changed position of the Englishman abroad. The old Rule Britannia days have long passed awayso have the Peninsular and Waterloo traditions; and though Lord Palmerston's civis Romanus had a sort of success, it only "ran" for a few nights, and to very empty benches

at the end of them. The truth is, that when we propounded the theory that we owned more than we were able to keep, and that we relinquished possessions because we knew we could not defend them, from that hour the world changed its opinion of us, and instead of regarding our withdrawal from Corfu as something very fine and magnanimous, treated the act as a very paltry admission of weakness and insufficiency. People continually kept telling us that we only held a high tone and brave words with small Powers, but "caved in" most ignominiously to great States; that while we bullied Greece and threatened Spain, we were meek enough with Prussia, and never presumed even to differ with France. That unlucky admission of ours, that we wanted only to be rich and didn't mean to fight any one, was about one of the most impolitic avowals a people ever made. Still, I do not believe we should have suffered to the same extent in foreign estimation if with a change of policy we had adopted a change of manner. When we had decided on becoming the nation of shopkeepers the first Napoleon called us, we ought in common fairness to have surrendered the pretensions of being the "grands seigneurs" which the world was once gracious enough to believe us; we should frankly have declared the new code by which we had determined to be guided in future, and the new rules of action to which we had resolved to conform. Had we made such a pronunciamento, there would have been no mistake as to our intentions. Who could, for instance, have misunderstood us had we said, We will keep no colonies which entail any cost; we will fight nobody-we will feast nobody; we will do nothing that shall add a penny to the incometax, and no rivalry with any foreign power shall ever tempt us into any expenditure which shall not promise at least to be remunerative ?

When the celebrated Lord Castlereagh was stopping once to change horses at some very poverty-stricken post-station in Ireland, his carriage was surrounded by beggars, who implored him in all the eager accents of native entreaty for charity. Taking no notice of their appeals, he sat cold and unmoved till the horses were ready to start, when a very miserable-looking fellow approached the carriage and said, in a voice of persuasive entreaty, "One sixpence, my lord-only one little sixpence, and it will treat all your friends in Ireland!" Now, are we really coming to something like this has our economy been crowned with such a triumphant success that we have actually no friends left to be treated, while our neighbour over the way has his house full of company, and is straining invention how best to entertain and amuse them? Is it to be our boast that nobody comes here, or if they do, we straightway contract with an innkeeper to keep them, and thus make their visit as little costly as may be? What a triumph to our system will it be then, when, hav-ing reduced our army and our fleet, and surrendered all our possessions beyond the seas, we shall be able to announce, perhaps in an opening speech to Parliament, that "sixpence will treat all our friends in Europe!"

These gregarious hospitalities are, besides, a great mistake. When a gentleman in an excess of postprandial liberality invites the whole present company to come and dine with him on the following Wednesday, we can all guess how he feels about the matter when he has to break it to his wife the next morning. First of all he has not. the most remote idea whom he has invited, nor how many-he only remembers how "jolly" it was, and how agreeable. The terrible thought of how to receive his guests, how to feed, entertain, and amuse them,. is an after consideration, and a very crushing sort of one in its way..

It is by no means certain that the people he liked best will be amongst those who will accept the invitation; it is almost positively sure that he will have every man that he didn't care for. Last of all, these wholesale receptions are totally wanting in what constitutes the most flattering element of all intercourse-there is no selection; and what each is free to accept or decline can never confer the feeling of a personal courtesy.

I hope we have seen the last

of these international politenesses, which, even when most successfully conducted, are little else than vulgar rivalries. The boisterous joviality of such meetings leads to more headaches than friendships, and the reciprocal pledges of affection are not worth the frothy beer they are drunk in. The fact is, there is a strong taint of hypocrisy through all noisy manifestations; and the gentleman who is loudest in singing "We won't go home till morning," is usually at the moment on his way to his lodgings.

THE deed is done-the fiat has gone forth; and even while these pages are passing through the press, the people of England have begun to live under the dawn of a new order of things. The question which had so long impeded public business, and made shipwreck of successive Administrations, is settled at last; and after the present Parliament dies, as it soon will, a natural death, we shall see of Houses of Commons elected mainly by tenpound householders in boroughs no more for ever. What we are to get in lieu of such Houses time can alone determine. Whether or no the change was desirable for its own sake, it would be useless now to inquire. But of two facts there can be no doubt on the mind of any impartial observer: First, that the change had become inevitable, and that we, the Tory party, are but very partially answerable for bringing it about. No doubt it has fallen to our lot to carry a Reform Bill. We have done what the Liberals, with all their professions of zeal for the rights of the people, either never could or never intended to do. Yet so far are we from claiming credit to ourselves, as if the idea of trying to reform a Reformed Parliament had originated with us, that we honestly

confess to having entered into the project, and gone through with it, much against our own inclination.

Not we, therefore, but they who twit us with adopting a policy which they allege not to be our own, must bear by far the larger weight of responsibility for the consequences, be those what they may. They, not we, brought the country into such a state that one of two alternatives was all that we could decide between; and we selected that which appeared to us to be the lesser evil of the two. We chose rather to be ourselves the agents in a work which, however difficult, however dangerous, could no longer be deferred, than to give it over to other hands, which might not do it either so well or so effectively.

It appears to us that, under such circumstances, the time for arguing about the wisdom or the folly of passing a Reform Bill has gone by. Indeed we may go further. It had become almost too late to stand absolutely upon the ground of established usage twenty years ago. For, the moment a great political party, headed by the Queen's Ministers, had pronounced the Constitution of 1832 to be inadequate to the wants of the nation,-from that hour a change, more or less