PORTUGUESE POLITICS.

"This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing,To waft me from distraction."

Or take one of the noblest objects in nature—the mountain. There is no object except the sea and the sky that reflects to the sight colours so beautiful, and in such masses. But colour, and form, and magnitude, constitute but a part of the beauty or the sublimity of the mountain. Not only do the clouds encircle or rest upon it, but men have laid on it their grandest thoughts: we have associated with it our moral fortitude, and all we understand of greatness or elevation of mind; our phraseology seems half reflected from the mountain. Still more, we have made it holy ground. Has not God himself descended on the mountain? Are not the hills, once and for ever, "the unwalled temples of our earth?" And still there is another circumstance attendant upon mountain scenery, which adds a solemnity of its own, and is a condition of the enjoyment of other sources of the sublime—solitude. It seems to us that the feeling of solitude almost always associates itself with mountain scenery. Mrs Somerville,in the description which she gives or quotes, in herPhysical Geography, of the Himalayas, says—

"The loftiest peaks being bare of snow gives great variety of colour and beauty to the scenery, which in these passes is at all times magnificent. During the day, the stupendous size of the mountains, their interminable extent, the variety and the sharpness of their forms, and, above all, the tender clearness of their distant outline melting into the pale blue sky, contrasted with the deep azure above, is described as a scene of wild and wonderful beauty. At midnight, when myriads of stars sparkle in the black sky, and the pure blue of the mountains looks deeper still below the pale white gleam of the earth and snow-light, the effect is of unparalleled sublimity, and no language can describe the splendour of the sunbeams at daybreak, streaming between the high peaks, and throwing their gigantic shadows on the mountains below. There, far above the habitation of man, no living thing exists, no sound is heard; the very echo of the traveller's footsteps startles him in the awfulsolitude and silencethat reigns in those august dwellings of everlasting snow."

No one can fail to recognise the effect of the last circumstance mentioned. Let those mountains be the scene of a gathering of any human multitude, and they would be more desecrated than if their peaks had been levelled to the ground. We have also quoted this description to show how large a sharecolourtakes in beautifying such a scene. Colour, either in large fields of it, or in sharp contrasts, or in gradual shading—the play of light, in short, upon this world—is the first element of beauty.

Here would be the place, were we writing a formal treatise upon this subject, after showing that there is in the sense of sight itself a sufficient elementary beauty, whereto other pleasurable reminiscences may attach themselves, to point out some of these tributaries. Each sense—the touch, the ear, the smell, the taste—blend their several remembered pleasures with the object of vision. Even taste, we say, although Mr Ruskin will scorn the gross alliance. And we would allude to the fact to show the extreme subtilty of these mental processes. The fruit which you think of eating has lost its beauty from that moment—it assumes to you a quite different relation; but the reminiscence that there is sweetness in the peach or the grape, whilst it remains quite subordinate to the pleasure derived from the sense of sight, mingles with and increases that pleasure. Whilst the cluster of ripe grapes is looked at only for its beauty, the idea that they are pleasant to the taste as well steals in unobserved, and adds to the complex sentiment. If this idea grow distinct and prominent, the beauty of the grape is gone—you eat it. Here, too, would be the place to take notice of such sources of pleasure as are derived from adaptation of parts, or the adaptation of the whole to ulterior purposes; but here especially should we insist on human affections, human loves, human sympathies. Here, in the heart of man, his hopes, his regrets, his affections, do we find the great source of the beautiful—tributaries which take their name from the stream they join, but which often form the main current. On that sympathy with which nature has so wonderfully endowed us, which makes the pain and pleasure of all other living things our own pain and pleasure, which binds us not only to our fellow-men, but to every moving creature on the face of the earth, we should have much to say. How much, for instance, does itslifeadd to the beauty of the swan!—how much more its calm and placid life! Here, and on what would follow on the still more exalted mood of pious contemplation—when all nature seems as a hymn or song of praise to the Creator—we should be happy to borrow aid from Mr Ruskin; his essay supplying admirable materials for certainchaptersin a treatise on the beautiful which should embrace the whole subject.

No such treatise, however, is it our object to compose. We have said enough to show the true nature of that theory of association, as a branch of which alone is it possible to take any intelligible view of Mr Ruskin'sTheoria, or "Theoretic Faculty." His flagrant error is, that he will represent a part for the whole, and will distort and confuse everything for the sake of this representation. Viewed in their proper limitation, his remarksare often such as every wise and good man will approve of. Here and there too, there are shrewd intimations which the psychological student may profit by. He has pointed out several instances where the associations insisted upon by writers of the school of Alison have nothing whatever to do with the sentiment of beauty; and neither harmonise with, nor exalt it. Not all that may, in any way,interestus in an object, adds to its beauty. "Thus," as Mr Ruskin we think very justly says, "where we are told that the leaves of a plant are occupied in decomposing carbonic acid, and preparing oxygen for us, we begin to look upon it with some such indifference as upon a gasometer. It has become a machine; some of our sense of its happiness is gone; its emanation of inherent life is no longer pure." The knowledge of the anatomical structure of the limb is very interesting, but it adds nothing to the beauty of its outline. Scientific associations, however, of this kind, will have a different æsthetic effect, according to the degree or the enthusiasm with which the science has been studied.

It is not our business to advocate this theory of association of ideas, but briefly to expound it. But we may remark that those who adopt (as Mr Ruskin has done in one branch of his subject—hisÆsthesis) the rival theory of an intuitive perception of the beautiful, must find a difficulty where toinsertthis intuitive perception. The beauty of any one object is generally composed of several qualities and accessories—to which of these are we to connect this intuition? And if to the whole assemblage of them, then, as each of these qualities has been shown by its own virtue to administer to the general effect, we shall be explaining again by this new perception what has been already explained. Select any notorious instance of the beautiful—say the swan. How many qualities and accessories immediately occur to us as intimately blended in our minds with the form and white plumage of the bird! What were its arched neck and mantling wings if it were notliving? And how the calm and inoffensive, and somewhat majestic life it leads, carries away our sympathies! Added to which, the snow-white form of the swan is imaged in clear waters, and is relieved by green foliage; and if the bird makes the river more beautiful, the river, in return, reflects its serenity and peacefulness upon the bird. Now all this we seem to see as we look upon the swan. To which of these facts separately will you attach this new intuition? And if you wait till all are assembled, the bird is already beautiful.

We are all in the habit ofreasoningon the beautiful, of defending our own tastes, and this just in proportion as the beauty in question is of a high order. And why do we do this? Because, just in proportion as the beauty is of an elevated character, does it depend on some moral association. Every argument of this kind will be found to consist of an analysis of the sentiment. Nor is there anything derogatory, as some have supposed, in this analysis of the sentiment; for we learn from it, at every step, that in the same degree as men become more refined, more humane, more kind, equitable, and pious, will the visible world become more richly clad with beauty. We see here an admirable arrangement, whereby the external world grows in beauty, as men grow in goodness.

We must now follow Mr Ruskin a step farther into the development of hisTheoria. All beauty, he tell us,is such, in its high and only true character, because it is a type of one or more of God's attributes. This, as we have shown, is to represent one class of associated thought as absorbing and displacing all the rest. We protest against this egregious exaggeration of a great and sacred source of our emotions. With Mr Ruskin's own piety we can have no quarrel; but we enter a firm and calm protest against a falsification of our human nature, in obedience to one sentiment, however sublime. No good can come of it—no good, we mean, to religion itself. It is substantially the same error, though assuming a very different garb, which the Puritans committed. They disgusted men with religion, by introducing it into every law and custom, and detail of human life. Mr Ruskin would commit thesame error in the department of taste, over which he would rule so despotically: he is not content that the highest beauty shall be religious; he will permit nothing to be beautiful, except as it partakes of a religious character. But there is a vast region lying between the "animal pleasantness" of his Æsthesis and the pious contemplation of his Theoria. There is much between the human animal and the saint; there are the domestic affections and the love they spring from, and hopes, and regrets, and aspirations, and the hour of peace and the hour of repose—in short, there is human life. From all human life, as we have seen, come contributions to the sentiment of the beautiful, quite as distinctly traced as the peculiar class on which Mr Ruskin insists.

If any one descanting upon music should affirm, that, in the first place, there was a certain animal pleasantness in harmony or melody, or both, but that the real essence of music, that by which it truly becomes music, was the perception in harmony or melody of types of the Divine attributes, he would reason exactly in the same manner on music as Mr Ruskin does on beauty. Nevertheless, although sacred music is the highest, it is very plain that there is other music than the sacred, and that all songs are not hymns.

Chapter v. of the present volume bears this title—Of Typical Beauty. First, of Infinity, or the type of the Divine Incomprehensibility.—A boundless space will occur directly to the reader as a type of the infinite; perhaps it should be rather described as itself the infinite under one form. But Mr Ruskin finds the infinite in everything. That idea which he justly describes as the incomprehensible, and which is so profound and baffling a mystery to the finite being, is supposed to be thrust upon the mind on every occasion. Every instance of variety is made the type of the infinite, as well as every indication of space. We remember that, in the first volume of theModern Painters, we were not a little startled at being told that the distinguishing character of every good artist was, that "he painted the infinite." Good or bad, we now see that he could scarcely fail to paint the infinite: it must be by some curious chance that the feat is not accomplished.

"Now, not only," writes Mr Ruskin, "is this expression of infinity in distance most precious wherever we find it, however solitary it may be, and however unassisted by other forms and kinds of beauty; but it is of such value that no such other forms will altogether recompense us for its loss; and much as I dread the enunciation of anything that may seem like a conventional rule, I have no hesitation in asserting that no work of any art, in which this expression of infinity is possible, can be perfect or supremely elevated without it; and that, in proportion to its presence,it will exalt and render impressive even the most tame and trivial themes. And I think if there be any one grand division, by which it is at all possible to set the productions of painting, so far as their mere plan or system is concerned, on our right and left hands, it is this of light and dark background, of heaven-light and of object-light.... There is a spectral etching of Rembrandt, a presentation of Christ in the Temple, where the figure of a robed priest stands glaring by its gems out of the gloom, holding a crosier. Behind it there is a subdued window-light seen in the opening, between two columns, without which the impressiveness of the whole subject would, I think, be incalculably diminished. I cannot tell whether I am at present allowing too much weight to my own fancies and predilections; but, without so much escape into the outer air and open heaven as this, I can take permanent pleasure in no picture."And I think I am supported in this feeling by the unanimous practice, if not the confessed opinion, of all artists. The painter of portraitis unhappy without his conventional white stroke under the sleeve, or beside the arm-chair; the painter of interiors feels like a caged bird unless he can throw a window open, or set the door ajar; the landscapist dares not lose himself in forest without a gleam of light under its farthest branches, nor ventures out in rain unless he may somewhere pierce to a better promise in the distance, or cling to some closing gap of variable blue above."—(P. 39.)

"And I think I am supported in this feeling by the unanimous practice, if not the confessed opinion, of all artists. The painter of portraitis unhappy without his conventional white stroke under the sleeve, or beside the arm-chair; the painter of interiors feels like a caged bird unless he can throw a window open, or set the door ajar; the landscapist dares not lose himself in forest without a gleam of light under its farthest branches, nor ventures out in rain unless he may somewhere pierce to a better promise in the distance, or cling to some closing gap of variable blue above."—(P. 39.)

But if an open window, or "that conventional white stroke under the sleeve," is sufficient to indicate the Infinite, how few pictures there must be in which it is not indicated! and how many "a tame and trivial theme" must have been, by this indication,exalted and rendered impressive! And yet it seems that some very celebrated paintings want this open-window or conventional white stroke. The Madonna della Sediola of Raphael is known over all Europe; some print of it may be seen in every village; that virgin-mother, in her antique chair, embracing her child with so sweet and maternal an embrace, has found its way to the heart of every woman, Catholic or Protestant. But unfortunately it has a dark background, and there is no open window—nothing to typify infinity. To us it seemed that there was "heaven's light" over the whole picture. Though there is the chamber wall seen behind the chair, there is nothing to intimate that the door or the window is closed. One might in charity have imagined that the light came directly through an open door or window. However, Mr Ruskin is inexorable. "Raphael," he says, "in his full, betrayed the faith he had received from his father and his master, and substituted for the radiant sky of the Madonna del Cardellino the chamber wall of the Madonna della Sediola, and the brown wainscot of the Baldacchino."

Of other modes in which the Infinite is represented, we have an instance in "The Beauty of Curvature."

"The first of these is the curvature of lines and surfaces, wherein it at first appears futile to insist upon any resemblance or suggestion of infinity, since there is certainly, in our ordinary contemplation of it, no sensation of the kind. But I have repeated again and again that the ideas of beauty are instinctive, and that it is only upon consideration, and even then in doubtful and disputable way, that they appear in their typical character; neither do I intend at all to insist upon the particular meaning which they appear to myself to bear, but merely on their actual and demonstrable agreeableness; so that in the present case, which I assert positively, and have no fear of being able to prove—that a curve of any kind is more beautiful than a right line—I leave it to the reader to accept or not, as he pleases,that reason of its agreeableness which is the only one that I can at all trace: namely, that every curve divides itself infinitely by its changes of direction."—(P. 63.)

Our old friend Jacob Boehmen would have been delighted with this Theoria. But we must pass on to other types. Chapter vi. treatsof Unity, or the Type of the Divine Comprehensiveness.

"Of the appearances of Unity, or of Unity itself, there are several kinds, which it will be found hereafter convenient to consider separately. Thus there is the unity of different and separate things, subjected to one and the same influence, which may be called Subjectional Unity; and this is the unity of the clouds, as they are driven by the parallel winds, or as they are ordered by the electric currents; this is the unity of the sea waves; this, of the bending and undulation of the forest masses; and in creatures capable of Will it is the Unity of Will, or of Impulse. And there is Unity of Origin, which we may call Original Unity, which is of things arising from one spring or source, and speaking always of this their brotherhood; and this in matter is the unity of the branches of the trees, and of the petals and starry rays of flowers, and of the beams of light; and in spiritual creatures it is their filial relation to Him from whom they have their being. And there is Unity of Sequence," &c.—

down another half page. Very little to be got here, we think. Let us advance to the next chapter. This is entitled,Of Repose, or the Type of Divine Permanence.

It will be admitted on all hands that nothing adds more frequently to the charms of the visible object than the associated feeling of repose. The hour of sunset is the hour of repose. Most beautiful things are enhanced by some reflected feeling of this kind. But surely one need not go farther than to human labour, and human restlessness, anxiety, and passion, to understand the charm of repose. Mr Ruskin carries us at once into the third heaven:—

"As opposed to passion, changefulness, or laborious exertion, Repose is the especial and separating characteristic of the eternal mind and power; it is the 'I am' of the Creator, opposed to the 'I become' of all creatures; it is the sign alike of the supreme knowledge which is incapable of surprise, the supreme power which is incapable of labour, the supreme volition which is incapable of change; it is the stillness of the beams of the eternal chambers laid upon the variable waters of ministering creatures."

We must proceed. Chapter viii. treatsOf Symmetry, or the Type of Divine Justice. Perhaps the nature of this chapter will be sufficiently indicated to the reader, now somewhat informed of Mr Ruskin's mode of thinking, by the title itself. At all events, we shall pass on to the next chapter, ix.—Of Purity, or the Type of Divine Energy. Here, the reader will perhaps expect to find himself somewhat more at home. One type, at all events, of Divine Purity has often been presented to his mind. Light has generally been considered as the fittest emblem or manifestation of the Divine Presence,

"That never but in unapproachëd lightDwelt from eternity."

But if the reader has formed any such agreeable expectation he will be disappointed. Mr Ruskin travels on no beaten track. He finds some reasons, partly theological, partly gathered from his own theory of the Beautiful, for discarding this ancient association of Light with Purity. As theDivineattributes are those which the visible object typifies, and by no means thehuman, and as Purity, which is "sinlessness," cannot, he thinks, be predicted of the Divine nature, it follows that he cannot admit Light to be a type of Purity. We quote the passage, as it will display the working of his theory:—

"It may seem strange to many readers that I have not spoken of purity in that sense in which it is most frequently used, as a type of sinlessness. I do not deny that the frequent metaphorical use of it in Scripture may have, and ought to have, much influence on the sympathies with which we regard it; and that probably the immediate agreeableness of it to most minds arises far more from this source than from that to which I have chosen to attribute it. But, in the first place,if it be indeed in the signs of Divine and not of human attributes that beauty consists, I see not how the idea of sin can be formed with respect to the Deity; for it is the idea of a relation borne by us to Him, and not in any way to be attached to His abstract nature; while the Love, Mercifulness, and Justice of God I have supposed to be symbolised by other qualities of beauty: and I cannot trace any rational connection between them and the idea of Spotlessness in matter, nor between this idea nor any of the virtues which make up the righteousness of man, except perhaps those of truth and openness, which have been above spoken of as more expressed by the transparency than the mere purity of matter. So that I conceive the use of the terms purity, spotlessness, &c., on moral subjects, to be merely metaphorical; and that it is rather that we illustrate these virtues by the desirableness of material purity, than that we desire material purity because it is illustrative of those virtues. I repeat, then, that the only idea which I think can be legitimately connected with purity of matter is this of vital and energetic connection among its particles."

We have been compelled to quote some strange passages, of most difficult and laborious perusal; but our task is drawing to an end. The last of these types we have to mention is thatOf Moderation, or the Type of Government by Law. We suspect there are many persons who have rapidly perused Mr Ruskin's works (probablyskippingwhere the obscurity grew very thick) who would be very much surprised, if they gave a closer attention to them, at the strange conceits and absurdities which they had passed over without examination. Indeed, his very loose and declamatory style, and the habit of saying extravagant things, set all examination at defiance. But let any one pause a moment on the last title we have quoted from Mr Ruskin—let him read the chapter itself—let him reflect that he has been told in it that "what we express by the terms chasteness, refinement, and elegance," in any work of art, and more particularly "that finish" so dear to the intelligent critic, owe their attractiveness to being types of God's government by law!—we think he will confess that never in any book, ancient or modern, did he meet with an absurdity to outrival it.

We have seen why the curve in general is beautiful; we have here the reason given us why one curve is more beautiful than another:—

"And herein we at last find the reason of that which has been so often noted respecting the subtilty and almost invisibility of natural curves and colours, and why it is that we look on those lines as least beautiful which fall into wide and far license of curvature, and as most beautiful which approach nearest (so that the curvilinear character be distinctlyasserted) to the government of the right line, as in the pure and severe curves of the draperies of the religious painters."

There is still the subject of "vital beauty" before us, but we shall probably be excused from entering further into the development of "Theoria." It must be quite clear by this time to our readers, that, whatever there is in it really wise and intelligible, resolves itself into one branch of that general theory of association of ideas, of which Alison and others have treated. But we are now in a condition to understand more clearly that peculiar style of language which startled us so much in the first volume of theModern Painters. There we frequently heard of the Divine mission of the artist, of the religious office of the painter, and how Mr Turner was delivering God's message to man. What seemed an oratorical climax, much too frequently repeated, proves to be a logical sequence of his theoretical principles. All true beauty is religious; therefore all true art, which is the reproduction of the beautiful, must be religious also. Every picture gallery is a sort of temple, every great painter a sort of prophet. If Mr Ruskin is conscious that he never admires anything beautiful in nature or art, without a reference to some attribute of God, or some sentiment of piety, he may be a very exalted person, but he is no type of humanity. If he asserts this, we must be sufficiently courteous to believe him; we must not suspect that he is hardly candid with us, or with himself; but we shall certainly not accept him as a representative of thegenus homo. He finds "sermons in stones," and sermons always; "books in the running brooks," and always books of divinity. Other men not deficient in reflection or piety do not find it thus. Let us hear the poet who, more than any other, has made a religion of the beauty of nature. Wordsworth, in a passage familiar to every one of his readers, runs his hand, as it were, over all the chords of the lyre. He finds other sources of the beautiful not unworthy his song, besides that high contemplative piety which he introduces as a noble and fit climax. He recalls the first ardours of his youth, when the beautiful object itself of nature seemed to him all, in all:—

"I cannot paintWhat then I was. The sounding cataractHaunted me like a passion; the tall rock,The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood.Their colours and their forms were thus to meAn appetite; a feeling and a loveThat had no need of a remoter charmBy thought supplied, nor any interestUnborrowed from the eye. That time is past,And all its aching joys are now no more,And all its dizzy raptures. Not for thisFaint I, nor mourn, nor murmur; other giftsHave followed. I have learnedTo look on nature not as in the hourOf thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimesThe still sad music of humanity,Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample powerTo chasten and subdue.And I have feltA presence that disturbs me with the joyOf elevated thoughts; a sense sublimeOf something far more deeply interfused,Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,And the round ocean and the living air,And the blue sky, and in the mind of man."

Our poet sounds all the chords. He does not muffle any; he honours Nature in her own simple loveliness, and in the beauty she wins from the human heart, as well as when she is informed with that sublime spirit

"that impelsAll thinking things, all objects of all thought,And rolls through all things."

Sit down, by all means, amongst the fern and the wild-flowers, and look out upon the blue hills, or near you at the flowing brook, and thank God, the giver of all this beauty. But what manner of good will you do by endeavouring to persuade yourself that these objectsareonly beautiful because you give thanks for them?—for to this strange logical inversion will you find yourself reduced. And surely you learned to esteem and love this benevolence itself, first as a human attribute, before you became cognisant of it as a Divine attribute. What other course can the mind take but to travel through humanity up to God?

There is much more of metaphysics in the volume before us; there is, in particular, an elaborate investigationof the faculty of imagination; but we have no inducement to proceed further with Mr Ruskin in these psychological inquiries. We have given some attention to his theory of the Beautiful, because it lay at the basis of a series of critical works which, partly from their boldness, and partly from the talent of a certain kind which is manifestly displayed in them, have attained to considerable popularity. But we have not the same object for prolonging our examination into his theory of the Imaginative Faculty. "We say it advisedly," (as Mr Ruskin always adds when he is asserting anything particularly rash,) we say it advisedly, and with no rashness whatever, that though our author is a man of great natural ability, and enunciates boldly many an independent isolated truth, yet of the spirit of philosophy he is utterly destitute. The calm, patient, prolonged thinking, which Dugald Stewart somewhere describes as the one essential characteristic of the successful student of philosophy, he knows nothing of. He wastes his ingenuity in making knots where others had long since untied them. He rushes at a definition, makes a parade of classification; but for any great and wide generalisation he has no appreciation whatever. He appears to have no taste, but rather an antipathy for it; when it lies in his way he avoids it. On this subject of the Imaginative Faculty he writes and he raves, defines and poetises by turns; makes laborious distinctions where there is no essential difference; has his "Imagination Associative," and his "Imagination Penetrative;" and will not, or cannot, see those broad general principles which with most educated men have become familiar truths, or truisms. But what clear thinking can we expect of a writer who thus describes his "Imagination Penetrative?"—

"It may seem to the reader that I am incorrect in calling this penetrating possession-taking faculty Imagination. Be it so: the name is of little consequence; the Faculty itself, called by what name it will, I insist upon as the highest intellectual power of man.There is no reasoning in it; it works not by algebra, nor by integral calculus; it is a piercing Pholas-like mind's tongue, that works and tastes into the very rock-heart. No matter what be the subject submitted to it, substance or spirit—all is alike divided asunder, joint and marrow, whatever utmost truth, life, principle, it has laid bare; and that which has no truth, life, nor principle, dissipated into its original smoke at a touch. The whispers at men's ears it lifts into visible angels. Vials that have lain sealed in the deep sea a thousand years it unseals, and brings out of them Genii."—(P. 156.)

With such a wonder-working faculty man ought to do much. Indeed, unless it has been asleep all this time, it is difficult to understand why there should remain anything for him to do.

Surveying Mr Ruskin's works on art, with the knowledge we have here acquired of his intellectual character and philosophical theory, we are at no loss to comprehend that mixture of shrewd and penetrating remark, of bold and well-placed censure, and of utter nonsense in the shape of general principles, with which they abound. In hisSeven Lamps of Architecture, which is a very entertaining book, and in hisStones of Venice, the reader will find many single observations which will delight him, as well by their justice, as by the zeal and vigour with which they are expressed. But from neither work will he derive any satisfaction if he wishes to carry away with him broad general views on architecture.

There is no subject Mr Ruskin has treated more largely than that of architectural ornament; there is none on which he has said more good things, or delivered juster criticisms; and there is none on which he has uttered more indisputable nonsense. Every reader of taste will be grateful to Mr Ruskin if he can pull down from St Paul's Cathedral, or wherever else they are to be found, those wreaths or festoons of carved flowers—"that mass of all manner of fruit and flowers tied heavily into a long bunch, thickest in the middle, and pinned up by both ends against a dead wall." Urns with pocket-handkerchiefs upon them, or a sturdy thick flame for ever issuing from the top, he will receive our thanks for utterly demolishing. But when Mr Ruskin expounds his principles—and he alwayshas principles to expound—when he lays down rules for the government of our taste in this matter, he soon involves us in hopeless bewilderment. Our ornaments, he tells us, are to be taken from the works of nature, not of man; and, from some passages of his writings, we should infer that Mr Ruskin would cover the walls of our public buildings with representations botanical and geological. But in this we must be mistaken. At all events, nothing is to be admitted that is taken from the works of man.

"I conclude, then, with the reader's leave, that all ornament is base which takes for its subject human work; that it is utterly base—painful to every rightly toned mind, without, perhaps, immediate sense of the reason, but for a reason palpable enough when we do think of it. For to carve our own work, and set it up for admiration, is a miserable self-complacency, a contentment in our wretched doings, when we might have been looking at God's doings."

After this, can we venture to admire the building itself, which is, of necessity, man's own "wretched doing?"

Perplexed by his own rules, he will sometimes break loose from the entanglement in some such strange manner as this:—"I believe the right question to ask, with respect to all ornament, is simply this: Was it done with enjoyment—was the carver happy while he was about it?" Happy art! where the workman is sure to give happiness if he is but happy at his work. Would that the same could be said of literature!

How farcolourshould be introduced into architecture is a question with men of taste, and a question which of late has been more than usually discussed. Mr Ruskin leans to the introduction of colour. His taste may be correct; but the fanciful reasoning which he brings to bear upon the subject will assist no one else in forming his own taste. Because there is no connection "between the spots of an animal's skin and its anatomical system," he lays it down as the first great principle which is to guide us in the use of colour in architecture—

"That it bevisibly independent of form. Never paint a column with vertical lines, but always cross it. Never give separate mouldings separate colours," &c. "In certain places," he continues, "you may run your two systems closer, and here and there let them be parallel for a note or two, but see that the colours and the forms coincide only as two orders of mouldings do; the same for an instant, but each holding its own course. So single members may sometimes have single colours;as a bird's head is sometimes of one colour, and its shoulders another, you may make your capital one colour, and your shaft another; but, in general, the best place for colour is on broad surfaces, not on the points of interest in form.An animal is mottled on its breast and back, and rarely on its paws and about its eyes; so put your variegation boldly on the flat wall and broad shaft, but be shy of it on the capital and moulding."—(Lamps of Architecture, p. 127.)

We do not quite see what we have to do at all with the "anatomical system" of the animal, which is kept out of sight; but, in general, we apprehend there is, both in the animal and vegetable kingdom, considerable harmony betwixt colour and external form. Such fantastic reasoning as this, it is evident, will do little towards establishing that one standard of taste, or that "one school of architecture," which Mr Ruskin so strenuously insists upon. All architects are to resign their individual tastes and predilections, and enrol themselves in one school, which shall adopt one style. We need not say that the very first question—what that style should be, Greek or Gothic—would never be decided. Mr Ruskin decides it in favour of the "earliest English decorated Gothic;" but seems, in this case, to suspect that his decision will not carry us far towards unanimity. The scheme is utterly impossible; but he does his duty, he tells us, by proposing the impossibility.

As a climax to his inconsistency and his abnormal ways of thinking, he concludes hisSeven Lamps of Architecturewith a most ominous paragraph, implying that the time is at hand when no architecture of any kind will be wanted: man and his works will be both swept away from the face of the earth. How, with this impression on his mind, could he have the heart to tell us to build for posterity? Will it be a commentary on the Apocalypse that we shall next receive from the pen of Mr Ruskin?

The dramatic and singular revolution of which Portugal has recently been the theatre, the strange fluctuations and ultimate success of Marshal Saldanha's insurrection, the narrow escape of Donna Maria from at least a temporary expulsion from her dominions, have attracted in this country more attention than is usually bestowed upon the oft-recurring convulsions of the Peninsula. Busy as the present year has been, and abounding in events of exciting interest nearer home, the English public has yet found time to deplore the anarchy to which Portugal is a prey, and to marvel once more, as it many times before has marvelled, at the tardy realisation of those brilliant promises of order, prosperity, and good government, so long held out to the two Peninsular nations by the promoters of the Quadruple Alliance. The statesmen who, for nearly a score of years, have assiduously guided Portugal and Spain in the seductive paths of modern Liberalism, can hardly feel much gratification at the results of their well-intended but most unprosperous endeavours. It is difficult to imagine them contemplating with pride and exultation, or even without a certain degree of self-reproach, the fruits of their officious exertions. Repudiating partisan views of Peninsular politics, putting persons entirely out of the question, declaring our absolute indifference as to who occupies the thrones of Spain and Portugal, so long as those countries are well-governed, casting no imputations upon the motives of those foreign governments and statesmen who were chiefly instrumental in bringing about the present state of things south of the Pyrenees, we would look only to facts, and crave an honest answer to a plain question. The question is this: After the lapse of seventeen years, what is the condition of the two nations upon which have been conferred, at grievous expense of blood and treasure, the much vaunted blessings of rulers nominally Liberal, and professedly patriotic? For the present we will confine this inquiry to Portugal, for the reason that the War of Succession terminated in that country when it was but beginning in the neighbouring kingdom, since which time the vanquished party, unlike the Carlists in Spain, have uniformly abstained—with the single exception of the rising in 1846-7—from armed aggression, and have observed a patient and peaceful policy. So that the Portuguese Liberals have had seventeen years' fair trial of their governing capacity, and cannot allege that their efforts for their country's welfare have been impeded or retarded by the acts of that party whom they denounced as incapable of achieving it,—however they may have been neutralised by dissensions and anarchy in their own ranks.

At this particular juncture of Portuguese affairs, and as no inappropriate preface to the only reply that can veraciously be given to the question we have proposed, it will not be amiss to take a brief retrospective glance at some of the events that preceded and led to the reign of Donna Maria. It will be remembered that from the year 1828 to 1834, the Liberals in both houses of the British Parliament, supported by an overwhelming majority of the British press, fiercely and pertinaciously assailed the government and person of Don Miguel, thende factoKing of Portugal, kingde jurein the eyes of the Portuguese Legitimists and by the vote of the Legitimate Cortes of 1828, and recognised (in 1829) by Spain, by the United States, and by various inferior powers. Twenty years ago political passions ran high in this country: public men were, perhaps, less guarded in their language; newspapers were certainly far more intemperate in theirs; and we may safely say, that upon no foreign prince, potentate, or politician, has virulent abuse—proceeding from such respectable sources—ever since been showered in England, in one half the quantity in which it then descended upon the head of the unlucky Miguel. Unquestionably Don Miguel had acted, in many respects, neither well nor wisely: his earlyeducation had been ill-adapted to the high position he was one day to fill—at a later period of his life he was destined to take lessons of wisdom and moderation in the stern but wholesome school of adversity. But it is also beyond a doubt, now that time has cleared up much which then was purposely garbled and distorted, that the object of all this invective was by no means so black as he was painted, and that his character suffered in England from the malicious calumnies of Pedroite refugees, and from the exaggerated and easily-accepted statements of the Portuguese correspondents of English newspapers. The Portuguese nation, removed from such influence, formed its own opinions from what it saw and observed; and the respect and affection testified, even at the present day, to their dethroned sovereign, by a large number of its most distinguished and respectable members, are the best refutation of the more odious of the charges so abundantly brought against him, and so lightly credited in those days of rampant revolution. It is unnecessary, therefore, to argue that point, even were personal vindication or attack the objects of this article, instead of being entirely without its scope. Against the insupportable oppression exercised by the monster in human form, as which Don Miguel was then commonly depicted in England and France, innumerable engines were directed by the governments and press of those two countries. Insurrections were stirred up in Portugal, volunteers were recruited abroad, irregular military expeditions were encouraged, loans were fomented; money-lenders and stock-jobbers were all agog for Pedro, patriotism, and profit. Orators and newspapers foretold, in glowing speeches and enthusiastic paragraphs, unbounded prosperity to Portugal as the sure consequence of the triumph of the revolutionary party. Rapid progress of civilisation, impartial and economical administration, increase of commerce, development of the country's resources, a perfect avalanche of social and political blessings, were to descend, like manna from heaven, upon the fortunate nation, so soon as the Liberals obtained the sway of its destinies. It were beside our purpose here to investigate how it was that, with such alluring prospects held out to them, the people of Portugal were so blind to their interests as to supply Don Miguel with men and money, wherewith to defend himself for five years against the assaults and intrigues of foreign and domestic enemies. Deprived of support and encouragement from without, he still held his ground; and the formation of a quadruple alliance, including the two most powerful countries in Europe, the enlistment of foreign mercenaries of a dozen different nations, the entrance of a numerous Spanish army, were requisite finally to dispossess him of his crown. The anomaly of the abhorred persecutor and tyrant receiving so much support from his ill-used subjects, even then struck certain men in this country whose names stand pretty high upon the list of clear-headed and experienced politicians, and the Duke of Wellington, Lord Aberdeen, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Lyndhurst, and others, defended Miguel; but their arguments, however cogent, were of little avail against the fierce tide of popular prejudice, unremittingly stimulated by the declamations of the press. To be brief, in 1834 Don Miguel was driven from Portugal; and his enemies, put in possession of the kingdom and all its resources, were at full liberty to realise the salutary reforms they had announced and promised, and for which they had professed to fight. On taking the reins of government, they had everything in their favour; their position was advantageous and brilliant in the highest degree. They enjoyed the prestige of a triumph, undisputed authority, powerful foreign protection and influence. At their disposal was an immense mass of property taken from the church, as well as the produce of large foreign loans. Their credit, too, wasthenunlimited. Lastly—and this was far from the least of their advantages—they had in their favour the great discouragement and discontent engendered amongst the partisans of the Miguelite government, by the numerous and gross blunders which that government had committed—blunders which contributed even more to itsdownfall than did the attacks of its foes, or the effects of foreign hostility. In short, the Liberals were complete and undisputed masters of the situation. But, notwithstanding all the facilities and advantages they enjoyed, what has been the condition of Portugal since they assumed the reins? Whatisits condition at the present day? We need not go far to ascertain it. The wretched plight of that once prosperous little kingdom is deposed to by every traveller who visits it, and by every English journal that has a correspondent there; it is to be traced in the columns of every Portuguese newspaper, and is admitted and deplored by thousands who once were strenuous and influential supporters of the party who promised so much, and who have performed so little that is good. The reign of that party whose battle-cry is, or was, Donna Maria and the Constitution, has been an unbroken series of revolutions, illegalities, peculations, corruptions, and dilapidations. The immense amount of misnamed "national property" (theInfantadoand church estates,) which was part of their capital on their accession to power, has disappeared without benefit either to the country or to its creditors. The treasury is empty; the public revenues are eaten up by anticipation; civil and military officers, the court itself, are all in constant and considerable arrears of salaries and pay. The discipline of the troops is destroyed, the soldiers being demoralised by the bad example of their chiefs, including that of Marshal Saldanha himself; for it is one of the great misfortunes of the Peninsula, that there most officers of a certain rank consider their political predilections before their military duty. The "Liberal" party, divided and subdivided, and split into fractions, whose numbers fluctuate at the dictates of interest or caprice, presents a lamentable spectacle of anarchy and inconsistency; whilst the Queen herself, whose good intentions we by no means impugn, has completely forfeited, as a necessary consequence of the misconduct of her counsellors, and of the sufferings the country has endured under her reign, whatever amount of respect, affection, and influence the Portuguese nation may once have been disposed to accord her. Such is the sad picture now presented by Portugal; and none whose acquaintance with facts renders them competent to judge, will say that it is overcharged or highly coloured.

The party in Portugal who advocate a return to the ancient constitution,[7]under which the country flourished—which fell into abeyance towards the close of the seventeenth century, but which it is now proposed to revive, as preferable to, and practically more liberal than, the present system—and who adopt as a banner, and couple with this scheme, the name of Don Miguel de Bragança, have not unnaturally derived great accession of strength, both moral and numerical, from the faults and dissensions of their adversaries. At the present day there are few things which the European public, and especially that of this country, sooner becomes indifferent to, and loses sight of, than the person and pretensions of a dethroned king; and owing to the lapse of years, to his unobtrusive manner of life, and to the storm of accusations amidst which he made his exit from power, Don Miguel would probably be considered, by those persons in this country who remember his existence, as the least likely member of the royal triumvirate, now assembled in Germany, to exchange his exile for a crown. But if we would take a fair and impartial view of the condition of Portugal, and calculate, as far as is possible in the case of either of thetwo Peninsular nations, the probabilities and chances of the future, we must not suffer ourselves to be run away with by preconceived prejudices, or to be influenced by the popular odium attached to a name. After beholding the most insignificant and unpromising of modern pretenders suddenly elevated to the virtual sovereignty—however transitory it may prove—of one of the most powerful and civilised of European nations, it were rash to denounce as impossible any restoration or enthronement. And it were especially rash so to do when with the person of the aspirant to the throne a nation is able to connect a reasonable hope of improvement in its condition. Of the principle of legitimacy we here say nothing, for it were vain to deny that in Europe it is daily less regarded, whilst it sinks into insignificance when put in competition with the rights and wellbeing of the people.

As far back as the period of its emigration, the Pedroite or Liberal party split into two fractions. One of these believed in the possible realisation of those ultra-liberal theories so abundantly promulgated in the proclamations, manifestoes, preambles of laws, &c., which Don Pedro issued from the Brazils, from England and France, and afterwards from Terceira and Oporto. The other fraction of the party had sanctioned the promulgation of these utopian theories as a means of delusion, and as leading to their own triumph; but they deemed their realisation impossible, and were quite decided, when the revolutionary tide should have borne them into power, to oppose to the unruly flood the barrier of a gradual but steady reaction. At a later period these divisions of the Liberal party became more distinctly defined, and resulted, in 1836, in their nominal classification as Septembrists and Chartists—the latter of whom (numerically very weak, but comprising Costa Cabral, and other men of talent and energy) may be compared to the Moderados of Spain—the former to the Progresistas, but with tendencies more decidedly republican. It is the ambitious pretensions, the struggles for power and constant dissensions of these two sets of men, and of the minor fractions into which they have subdivided themselves, that have kept Portugal for seventeen years in a state of anarchy, and have ended by reducing her to her present pitiable condition. So numerous are the divisions, so violent the quarrels of the two parties, that their utter dissolution appears inevitable; and it is in view of this that the National party, as it styles itself, which inscribes upon its flag the name of Don Miguel—not as an absolute sovereign, but with powers limited by legitimate constitutional forms, to whose strict observance they bind him as a condition of their support, and of his continuance upon the throne upon which they hope to place him—uplifts its head, reorganises its hosts, and more clearly defines its political principles. Whilst Chartists and Septembrists tear each other to pieces, the Miguelites not only maintain their numerical importance, but, closing their ranks and acting in strict unity, they give constant proofs of adhesion to Don Miguel as personifying a national principle, and at the same time give evidence of political vitality by the activity and progress of their ideas, which are adapting themselves to the Liberal sentiments and theories of the times.[8]And it were flying in the face of facts to deny that this party comprehends a very important portion of the intelligence and respectability of the nation. It ascribes to itself an overwhelming majority in the country, and asserts that five-sixths of the population of Portugal would joyfully hail its advent to power. This of course must be viewed as anex-partestatement, difficult for foreigners to verify or refute. But of late there have been no lack of proofs that a large proportion of the higher orders of Portuguese are steadfastin their aversion to the government of the "Liberals," and in their adherence to him whom they still, after his seventeen years' dethronement, persist in calling their king, and whom they have supported, during his long exile, by their willing contributions. It is fresh in every one's memory that, only the other day, twenty five peers, or successors of peers, who had been excluded by Don Pedro from the peerage for having sworn allegiance to his brother, having been reinstated and invited to take their seats in the Chamber, signed and published a document utterly rejecting the boon. Some hundreds of officers of the old army of Don Miguel, who are living for the most part in penury and privation, were invited to demand from Saldanha the restitution of their grades, which would have entitled them to the corresponding pay. To a man they refused, and protested their devotion to their former sovereign. A new law of elections, with a very extended franchise—nearly amounting, it is said, to universal suffrage—having been the other day arbitrarily decreed by the Saldanha cabinet (certainly a most unconstitutional proceeding,) and the government having expressed a wish that all parties in the kingdom should exercise the electoral right, and give their votes for representatives in the new parliament, a numerous and highly respectable meeting of the Miguelites was convened at Lisbon. This meeting voted, with but two dissentient voices, a resolution of abstaining from all share in the elections, declaring their determination not to sanction, by coming forward either as voters or candidates, a system and an order of things which they utterly repudiated as illegal, oppressive, and forced upon the nation by foreign interference. The same resolution was adopted by large assemblages in every province of the kingdom. At various periods, during the last seventeen years, the Portuguese government has endeavoured to inveigle the Miguelites into the representative assembly, doubtless hoping that upon its benches they would be more accessible to seduction, or easier to intimidate. It is a remarkable and significant circumstance, that only in one instance (in the year 1842) have their efforts been successful, and that the person who was then induced so to deviate from the policy of his party, speedily gave unmistakable signs of shame and regret. Bearing in mind the undoubted and easily proved fact that the Miguelites, whether their numerical strength be or be not as great as they assert, comprise a large majority of the clergy, of the old nobility, and of the most highly educated classes of the nation, their steady and consistent refusal to sanction the present order of things, by their presence in its legislative assembly, shows a unity of purpose and action, and a staunch and dogged conviction, which cannot but be disquieting to their adversaries, and over which it is impossible lightly to pass in an impartial review of the condition and prospects of Portugal.

We have already declared our determination here to attach importance to the persons of none of the four princes and princesses who claim or occupy the thrones of Spain and Portugal, except in so far as they may respectively unite the greatest amount of the national suffrage and adhesion. As regards Don Miguel, we are far from exaggerating his personal claims—the question of legitimacy being here waived. His prestigeoutof Portugal is of the smallest, and certainly he has never given proofs of great talents, although he is not altogether without kingly qualities, nor wanting in resolution and energy; whilst his friends assert, and it is fair to admit as probable, that he has long since repented and abjured the follies and errors of his youth. But we cannot be blind to the fact of the strong sympathy and regard entertained for him by a very large number of Portuguese. His presence in London during some weeks of the present summer was the signal for a pilgrimage of Portuguese noblemen and gentlemen of the best and most influential families in the country, many of whom openly declared the sole object of their journey to be to pay their respects to their exiled sovereign; whilst others, the chief motive of whose visit was the attraction of the Industrial Exhibition, gladly seized the opportunity toreiterate the assurances of their fidelity and allegiance. Strangely enough, the person who opened the procession was a nephew of Marshal Saldanha, Don Antonio C. de Seabra, a staunch and intelligent royalist, whose visit to London coincided, as nearly as might be, with his uncle's flight into Galicia, and with his triumphant return to Oporto after the victory gained for him as he was decamping. Senhor Seabra was followed by two of the Freires, nephew and grand-nephew of the Freire who was minister-plenipotentiary in London some thirty years ago; by the Marquis and Marchioness of Vianna, and the Countess of Lapa—all of the first nobility of Portugal; by the Marquis of Abrantes, a relative of the royal family of Portugal; by a host of gentlemen of the first families in the provinces of Beira, Minho, Tras-os-Montes, &c.—Albuquerques, Mellos, Taveiras, Pachecos, Albergarias, Cunhas, Correa-de-Sas, Beduidos, San Martinhos, Pereiras, and scores of other names, which persons acquainted with Portugal will recognise as comprehending much of the best blood and highest intelligence in the country. Such demonstrations are not to be overlooked, or regarded as trivial and unimportant. Men like the Marquis of Abrantes, for instance, not less distinguished for mental accomplishment and elevation of character than for illustrious descent,[9]men of large possessions and extensive influence, cannot be assumed to represent only their individual opinions. The remarkable step lately taken by a number of Portuguese of this class, must be regarded as an indication of the state of feeling of a large portion of the nation; as an indication, too, of something grievously faulty in the conduct or constitution of a government which, after seventeen years' sway, has been unable to rally, reconcile, or even to appease the animosity of any portion of its original opponents.

Between the state of Portugal and that of Spain there are, at the present moment, points of strong contrast, and others of striking similarity. The similarity is in the actual condition of the two countries—in their sufferings, misgovernment, and degradation; the contrast is in the state and prospects of the political parties they contain. What we have said of the wretched plight of Portugal applies, with few and unimportant differences, to the condition of Spain. If there has lately been somewhat less of open anarchy in the latter country than in the dominions of Donna Maria, there has not been one iota less of tyrannical government and scandalous malversation. The public revenue is still squandered and robbed, the heavy taxes extorted from the millions still flow into the pockets of a few thousand corrupt officials, ministers are still stock-jobbers, the liberty of the press is still a farce,[10]and the national representation an obscene comedy. A change of ministry in Spain is undoubtedly a most interesting event to those who go out and those who come in—far more so in Spain than in any other country, since in no other country does the possession of office enable a beggar so speedily to transform himself into amillionaire. In Portugal the will is not wanting, but the means are less ample. More may be safely pilfered out of a sack of corn than out of a sieveful, and poor little Portugal's revenue does not afford such scope to the itching palms of Liberal statesmen as does the more ample one of Spain, which of late years has materially increased—without, however, the tax-payer and public creditor experiencing one crumb of the benefit they might fairly expect in the shape of reduced imposts and augmented dividends. But, however interesting to the governing fraction, a change of administration in Spain is contemplated by the governed masses with supreme apathy and indifference. They used once to be excited by such changes; but they have long ago got over that weakness, and suffer their pockets to be pickedand their bodies to be trampled with a placidity bordering on the sublime. As long as things do not getworse, they remain quiet; they have little hope of their gettingbetter. Here, again, in this fertile and beautiful and once rich and powerful country of Spain, a most gratifying picture is presented to the instigators of the Quadruple Alliance, to the upholders of the virtuous Christina and the innocent Isabel! Pity that it is painted with so ensanguined a brush, and that strife and discord should be the main features of the composition! Upon the first panel is exhibited a civil war of seven years' duration, vying, for cold-blooded barbarity and gratuitous slaughter, with the fiercest and most fanatical contests that modernTimeshave witnessed. Terminated by a strange act of treachery, even yet imperfectly understood, the war was succeeded by a brief period of well-meaning but inefficient government. By the daring and unscrupulous manœuvres of Louis Philippe and Christina this was upset—by means so extraordinary and so disgraceful to all concerned that scandalised Europe stood aghast, and almost refused to credit the proofs (which history will record) of the social degradation of Spaniards. For a moment Spain again stood divided and in arms, and on the brink of civil war. This danger over, the blood that had not been shed in the field flowed upon the scaffold: an iron hand and a pampered army crushed and silenced the disaffection and murmurs of the great body of the nation; and thus commenced a system of despotic and unscrupulous misrule and corruption, which still endures without symptom of improvement. As for the observance of the constitution, it is a mockery to speak of it, and has been so any time these eight years. In June 1850, Lord Palmerston, in the course of his celebrated defence of his foreign policy, declared himself happy to state that the government of Spain was at that time carried on more in accordance with the constitution than it had been two years previously. As ear-witnesses upon the occasion, we can do his lordship the justice to say that the assurance was less confidently and unhesitatingly spoken than were most other parts of his eloquent oration. It was duly cheered, however, by the Commons House—or at least by those Hispanophilists and philanthropists upon its benches who accepted the Foreign Secretary's assurance in lieu of any positive knowledge of their own. The grounds for applause and gratulation were really of the slenderest. In 1848, theun-constitutional period referred to by Lord Palmerston, the Narvaez and Christina government were in the full vigour of their repressive measures, shooting the disaffected by the dozen, and exporting hundreds to the Philippines or immuring them in dungeons. This, of course, could not go on for ever; the power was theirs, the malcontents were compelled to succumb; the paternal and constitutional government made a desert, and called it peace. Short time was necessary, when such violent means were employed, to crush Spain into obedience, and in 1850 she lay supine, still bleeding from many an inward wound, at her tyrants' feet. This morbid tranquillity might possibly be mistaken for an indication of an improved mode of government. As for any other sign of constitutional rule, we are utterly unable to discern it in either the past or the present year. The admirable observance of the constitution was certainly in process of proof, at the very time of Lord Palmerston's speech, by the almost daily violation of the liberty of the press, by the seizure of journals whose offending articles the authorities rarely condescended to designate, and whose incriminated editors were seldom allowed opportunity of exculpation before a fair tribunal. It was further testified to, less than four months later, by a general election, at which such effectual use was made of those means of intimidation and corruption which are manifold in Spain, that, when the popular Chamber assembled, the government was actually alarmed at the smallness of the opposition—limited, as it was, to about a dozen stray Progresistas, who, like the sleeping beauty in the fairy tale, rubbed their eyes in wonderment at finding themselves there. Nor were the ministerial forebodings groundless in the case of the unscrupulousand tyrannical Narvaez, who, within a few months, when seemingly more puissant than ever, and with an overwhelming majority in the Chamber obedient to his nod, was cast down by the wily hand that had set him up, and driven to seek safety in France from the vengeance of his innumerable enemies. The causes of this sudden and singular downfall are still a puzzle and a mystery to the world; but persons there are, claiming to see further than their neighbours into political millstones, who pretend that a distinguished diplomatist, of no very long standing at Madrid, had more to do than was patent to the world with the disgrace of the Spanish dictator, whom the wags of the Puerta del Sol declare to have exclaimed, as his carriage whirled him northwards through the gates of Madrid, "Comme Henri Bulwer!"

Passing from the misgovernment and sufferings of Spain to its political state, we experience some difficulty in clearly defining and exhibiting this, inasmuch as the various parties that have hitherto acted under distinct names are gradually blending and disappearing like the figures in dissolving views. In Portugal, as we have already shown, whilst Chartists and Septembrists distract the country, and damage themselves by constant quarrels and collisions, a third party, unanimous and determined in its opposition to those two, grows in strength, influence, and prestige. In Spain,noparty shows signs of healthy condition. In all three—Moderados, Progresistas, and Carlists—symptoms of dissolution are manifest. In the two countries, Chartists and Septembrists, Moderados and Progresistas, have alike split into two or more factions hostile to each other; but whilst, in Portugal, the Miguelites improve their position, in Spain the Carlist party is reduced to a mere shadow of its former self. Without recognised chiefs or able leaders, without political theory of government, it bases its pretensions solely upon the hereditary right of its head. For whilst Don Miguel, on several occasions,[11]has declared his adhesion to the liberal programme advocated by his party for the security of the national liberties, the Count de Montemolin, either from indecision of character, or influenced by evil counsels, has hitherto made no precise, public, and satisfactory declaration of his views in this particular,[12]and by such injudicious reserve has lost the suffrages of many whom a distinct pledge would have gathered round his banner. Thus has he partially neutralised the object of his father's abdication in his favour. Don Carlos was too completely identified with the old absolutist party, composed of intolerant bigots both in temporal and spiritual matters, ever to have reconciled himself with the progressive spirit of the century, or to have become acceptable to the present generation of Spaniards. Discerning or advised of this, he transferred his claims to his son, thus placing in his hands an excellent card, which the young prince has not known how to play. If, instead of encouraging a sullen and unprofitable emigration, fomenting useless insurrections, draining his adherents' purses, and squandering their blood, he had husbanded the resources of the party, clearly and publicly defined his plan of government—if ever seated upon the throne he claims—and awaited in dignified retirement the progress of events, he would not have supplied the present rulers of Spain with pretexts, eagerly taken advantage of, for shameful tyranny and persecution; and he would have spared himself the mortification of seeing his partydwindle, and his oldest and most trusted friends and adherents, with few exceptions, accept pardon and place from the enemies against whom they had long and bravely contended. But vacillation, incapacity, and treachery presided at his counsels. He had none to point out to him—or if any did, they were unheeded or overruled—the fact, of which experience and repeated disappointments have probably at last convinced him, that it is not by the armed hand alone—not by the sword of Cabrera, or by Catalonian guerilla risings—that he can reasonably hope ever to reach Madrid, but by aid of the moral force of public opinion, as a result of the misgovernment of Spain's present rulers, of an increasing confidence in his own merits and good intentions, and perhaps of such possible contingencies as a Bourbon restoration in France, or the triumph of the Miguelites in Portugal. This last-named event will very likely be considered, by that numerous class of persons who base their opinions of foreign politics upon hearsay and general impressions rather than upon accurate knowledge and investigation of facts, as one of the most improbable of possibilities. A careful and dispassionate examination of the present state of the Peninsula does not enable us to regard it as a case of such utter improbability. But for the intimate and intricate connection between the Spanish and Portuguese questions, it would by no means surprise us—bearing in mind all that Portugal has suffered and still suffers under her present rulers—to see the Miguelite party openly assume the preponderance in the country. England would not allow it, will be the reply. Let us try the exact value of this assertion. England has two reasons for hostility to Don Miguel—one founded on certain considerations connected with his conduct when formerly on the throne of Portugal, the other on the dynastic alliance between the two countries. The government of Donna Maria may reckon upon the sympathy, advice, and even upon the direct naval assistance of England—up to a certain point. That is to say, that the English government will do what itconvenientlyandsuitablycan, in favour of the Portuguese queen and her husband; but there is room for a strong doubt that it wouldseriouslycompromise itself to maintain them upon the throne. Setting aside Donna Maria's matrimonial connection, Don Miguel, as a constitutional king, and with certain mercantile and financial arrangements, would suit English interests every bit as well. But the case is very different as regards Spain. The restoration of Don Miguel would be a terrible if not a fatal shock to the throne of Isabella II. and to the Moderado party, to whom the revival of the legitimist principle in Portugal would be so much the more dangerous if experience proved it to be compatible with the interests created by the Revolution. For the Spanish government, therefore, intervention against Don Miguel is an absolute necessity—we might perhaps say a condition of its existence; and thus is Spain the great stumbling-block in the way of his restoration, whereas England's objections might be found less invincible. So, in the civil war in Portugal, this country only co-operated indirectly against Don Miguel, and it is by no means certain he would have been overcome, but for the entrance of Rodil's Spaniards, which was the decisive blow to his cause. And so, the other day, the English government was seen patiently looking on at the progress of events, when it is well known that the question of immediate intervention was warmly debated in the Madrid cabinet, and might possibly have been carried, but for the moderating influence of English counsels.

If we consider the critical and hazardous position of Marshal Saldanha, wavering as he is between Chartists and Septembrists—threatened to-day with a Cabralist insurrection, to-morrow with a Septembrist pronunciamiento—it is easy to foresee that the Miguelite party may soon find tempting opportunities of an active demonstration in the field. Such a movement, however, would be decidedly premature. Their game manifestly is to await with patience the development of the ultimate consequences of Saldanha's insurrection. It requires no great amount of judgmentand experience in political matters judgment to foresee that he will be the victim of his own ill-considered movement, and that no long period will elapse before some new event—be it a Cabralist reaction or a Septembrist revolt—will prove the instability of the present order of things. With this certainty in view, the Miguelites are playing upon velvet. They have only to hold themselves in readiness to profit by the struggle between the two great divisions of the Liberal party. From this struggle they are not unlikely to derive an important accession of strength, if, as is by no means improbable, the Chartists should be routed and the Septembrists remain temporary masters of the field. To understand the possible coalition of a portion of the Chartists with the adherents of Don Miguel, it suffices to bear in mind that the former are supporters of constitutional monarchy, which principle would be endangered by the triumph of the Septembrists, whose republican tendencies are notorious, as is also—notwithstanding the momentary truce they have made with her—their hatred to Donna Maria.

The first consequences of a Septembrist pronunciamiento would probably be the deposition of the Queen and the scattering of the Chartists; and in this case it is easy to conceive the latter beholding in an alliance with the Miguelite party their sole chance of escape from democracy, and from a destruction of the numerous interests they have acquired during their many years of power. It is no unfair inference that Costa Cabral, when he caused himself, shortly after his arrival in London, to be presented to Don Miguel in a particularly public place, anticipated the probability of some such events as we have just sketched, and thus indicated, to his friends and enemies, the new service to which he might one day be disposed to devote his political talents.

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