ance of that timid, safe, in point of fact ruinous policy, which has been in fashion of late years,-the selection of none but quiet, moderate men for high office in the Church. It is stirring men that are wanted in these stirring times; men like the Bishops of St. David's and Oxford, the Archdeacons of Chichester, and the East Riding of York, or the excellent and public-spirited Vicar of Leeds. Bold men, active men, men of large and liberal minds, these are the sort of men the Church now needs; no more timorous, vacillating, temporizing rulers. Above all, ministers must be careful to identify themselves with no particular party in the Church-their patronage must be irrespective of party appellations-they must presume all against whom no public protest has been made by the Church or the Universities to be orthodox-among such persons they must choose indifferently, making the possession of zeal, judgment, and learning the sole measure of their choice. If this course be pursued, the Church will, we have no doubt, right itself; party heats and controversial animosities will pass away; men will learn to understand one another better, and will judge one another more charitably; the extremes on both sides will grow more moderate, and gradually an approximation will be made to unanimity. Then it will be time for Convocation to be recalled to life-to summon it now would probably be to split the Church in two. Then we trust that there will preside over the councils of the State, a minister of unflinching boldness, and uncompromising resolution, -a minister of real Christian feeling, and sound Church principle,-a minister who shall possess the sentiments and disposition, even if he does not bear the name of Lord John Russell. Then there will devolve upon government fresh duties with respect to the Church, duties upon which we need not now enlarge. Enough for the present the enumeration which we have already made. Uno excepto, non deficit alter.' Were we to attempt to pursue the subject of Church reform and Church improvement to its limits, time and space would fail us. The points which we have mentioned are those of most immediate importance; let the Whig ministry set them in order, and they will have deserved to be ever remembered by the Anglican Church as among the chiefest of her benefactors.

L'ENTENTE CORDIALE.

'Et la paix, croyez vous qu'elle consiste simplement à n'être pas en guerre croyez vous qu'il suffira à ne pas tirer des coups de canon, pour être en paix, non certes si au milieu du silence le plus complet du canon, il y a une lutte sourde continuelle, une intervention incessante; si les gouvernemens, si les cabinets que se disent en paix sont perpetuellement occupés à se nuire l'un et l'autre dans telle et telle partie du monde, sur telle et telle question,―croyez vous que ce soit là de la paix !—non, Messieurs, c'est une fausse paix, une paix pleine des perils, et qui tot ou tard amène une explosion.'

Eh bien! ce que nous avons voulu c'est une paix réelle et sincère, une paix qui fût au fond des cœurs comme au fond des canons endormis dans les arseneaux.'

These sentiments were worthy of the great statesman by whom they were uttered; the miseries and evils consequent upon war do not greatly exceed those which result from its constant apprehension. A state of uncertainty, of incessant excitement, is frequently more injurious than the realization of the dreaded evil. The violent storms of popular passion can be better borne than the fretful but perpetual cavils of faction. M. Guizot, in his nervous and eloquent language, has told us, that the peace which he desires, is the peace of the heart; a union not only of hands but of affections.

The acclamations with which M. Guizot was greeted on this occasion were loud, and we would feign believe were sincere, the extreme gauche and the extreme droite vainly attempted to drown the cheers in the midst of which he descended the tribune. No question but that the great majority of the Chamber were for peace, in its fullest acceptation of the word. But, alas! as the minister left the house, we heard the cry, A bas les Anglais,' raised among the crowd: the glance, the gesture, the excitement, could not be mistaken; whatever might be the opinion of the rulers, it by no means appeared to represent that of the mass. It was evident that the peace between the two nations was not rooted in the hearts of this people; that M. Guizot might vainly exclaim peace, peace, when there was no peace.

Unhappily all succeeding events have only served to prove how fallacious were the hopes expressed by M. Guizot, and so warmly accepted by his supporters. Every trimestre has originated some fresh topic calculated to disturb the confidence which some few placed in the assertions and promises of the French government, and notwithstanding that the sentiments so expressed were warmly responded to by the English Houses; for during the whole duration of the present Parliament, we cannot recall a single violent expression hostile to the government of

Louis Philippe, or if any soft impeachment has ever accidentally dropped from some one of the small, and, we regret to say, rapidly diminishing body of Legitimists, a chorus of voices was immediately raised in praise of the Great Napoleon of Peace. Yet, even in this country, there was a different feeling out of doors; these mutual compliments, and protestations aroused but little sympathy; and in spite of royal visits paid and returned, of loving cups, and ministerial embraces, every reflecting person felt that, however luxuriant and pleasant the crop of friendship, there was a mine of jealousy and bitterness beneath which might at any moment be exploded.

It is very rarely that the prejudices of a nation can be cheated; not thirty years, but thrice thirty years might elapse, and in the ungracious language of politics we still should not regard ourselves as the natural allies of France. Neither would the French view us in any other light than as their natural enemies. We can scarcely picture a political millennium in which an Eton boy would admit that the epithet belle should be applied to France, or a student of the Polytechnic would consider England worthy any more flattering denomination than perfide Albion. Lord Nelson's maxim will never be forgotten by our youth—“ Hate a Frenchman as you do the devil.”

Right or wrong, amiable or unamiable, such is the case, stat pro ratione voluntas, we must take poor human nature as she is, for better or worse; prime ministers, secretaries, and their echoes, may preach the blessings of peace and good will towards men, the masses remain unchanged and undeceived, retaining their own opinion, that we are able to drub the French, and that the sooner we set about it the better.

We use the term undeceived, but at the same time not presuming to insinuate that either Lord Aberdeen or Lord Palmerston would intentionally delude the nation into a false security; but we think that the wish for constant peace is father to the belief, and that all men, high in office, are too ready to deceive themselves. It frequently happens that the distant observer can obtain a truer notion of the bearings and general character of a scene, than he who stands nearer to it, and is better acquainted with its details. Lord Palmerston is fêted at Paris, the king delights to honour him, entertains him with a ride round the fortifications, while la Jeune France, represented through the Jockey Club, provides the horses: by-the-bye, it is a trick so old a statesman as Lord Palmerston should have been up to, has he never heard of an envoy being conducted with much honour through the enemy's lines, so drawn up as to give him the greater idea of the force of the army. Well, Lord Palmerston makes one step from the Tuileries to Downing-street, and accepts immediately the legacy of the Entente cordiale, bequeathed to him by Lord Aberdeen, for in

these days it is a part of the creed of all foreign secretaries to abjure and abhor all foreign enmities, casting aside all national prejudices and partial affections, and thus Lord Palmerston, for a few short weeks, lulls himself in this happy sense of security; he reposes on French courtesies, and subdues his own sound reason at the music of diplomatic compliment.

Now comes the awakening, the real pantomime commences; hitherto characters, however false, have been at least sustained, but the masque is thrown aside, the tricks, tumblings, jostlings, and petty larcenies, will be enacted in good earnest: Spain the theatre, Europe the audience.

The position of the performers on this stage is greatly simplified within the last century: we have no longer Austria, the United Provinces, Sardinia, Savoy, Naples, demanding to play some part in these great public theatricals; the plot of the play is simply whether, in the words of Louis XIV.-those words which betrayed the whole secret of a life-there is, indeed to be an end of the Pyrenees. Not in the wild and extravagant language of some ultra-enthusiasts, whether Spain is to become a province of France-for while such a phrase as the balance of power exists we imagine such a denouement to the drama would never be tolerated-but more soberly, how far French influence is to extend itself, and an excuse for her constant and direct interference in Spanish affairs is to be conceded to her.

It is undeniable that hitherto the policy of England, from the reign of Henry VIII. to the present day, has been directed to prevent a union between these two nations; the War of Succession had this object principally in view, in the language of the Queen's speech :

The apprehension that Spain might be united to France was the chief inducement to commence this war, and the effectual preventing of such a union was the principle I laid down as the commencement of this treaty.'

On this principle the treaty of Utrecht was based, it recites,

Whereas the war which is so happily ended by this peace, was at the beginning undertaken, and was carried on for so many years with the utmost force, at immense charge, and with almost infinite slaughter, because of the great danger which threatened the liberty and safety of all Europe, from the too close connection of the kingdoms of Spain and France; and whereas, to take away all uneasiness and suspicion concerning such conjunction, out of the minds of people, and to settle and establish the peace and tranquillity of Christendom, by an equal balance of power, (which is the best and most solid foundation of a mutual friendship, and of a concord which will be lasting on all sides,) as well the Catholic king, as the most Christian king, have consented that care should be take by sufficient precautions, that the kingdoms of France and Spain should never come and be united under the same dominion,

and that one and the same person should never become king of both kingdoms,'

The language employed by Philip V., in his renunciation for himself, and his descendants of his rights as a French prince, is still more strong as to the casus federis, the purpose and meaning of the treaty

'I do make known and declare to kings, princes, potentates, commenwealths, communities, and particular persons, which now are, and shall be in future ages, that it being one of the principal portions of the treaties of peace, depending between the crowns of Spain and France with that of England, for the rendering it firm and lasting, and proceeding to a general one, on the maxim of securing for ever the universal good and quiet of Europe, by an equal weight of power, so that many being united in one, the balance of the equality desired, should not turn to the advantage of one, and the danger and hazard of the rest, it was proposed and insisted on by England, and it was agreed to on my part, and on that of the king my grandfather, that for avoiding, at any time whatever, the union of this monarchy with that of France, and the possibility that it might happen in any case, reciprocal renunciations should be made by me, and for all my descendants, to the possibility of succeeding to the monarchy of France, and on the part of these princes and of all their race, present and to come, to that of succeeding to this monarchy, by forming a project of abdication of all rights which might be claimed by the two royal houses of this and of that monarchy as to their succeeding mutually to each other.'

We are not prepared, after giving the fullest consideration to the terms of this treaty, to accuse the French government of its violation through the marriage of the Duke de Montpensier with the sister of the Queen of Spain; the treaty does not preclude an alliance even between the elder branches of France with the elder branches of Spain. All that it insists upon is that the two monarchies shall never be held by the same sovereign. It will be remembered that in the reign of Louis XV., a double alliance was proposed, that Don Carlos was betrothed to Mademoiselle Beaujolais, the fourth daughter of the Duke of Orleans, and the Infanta Maria Theresa, Philip's daughter, to the King of France; thus a very positive succession to the crown of France was then opened; for if the king lived to fulfil the engagement the infanta would become Queen of France, and their descendants would have sat on the throne. These arrangements were concluded without any protest from the British Cabinet, although we do not doubt that if the Duke de Bourbon had not arrested their fulfilment a new renunciation would have been required. In 1789, the Infant Don Philip, Duke of Parma, another son of Philip the Fifth, married Louise Elizabeth, of France, one of the daughters of Louis XV.; and in 1745, the Dauphin, son of Louis, XV., married a daughter of Philip the Fifth. Now it cannot be