o places in the new
Parliament, they may, as Senators, exercise a power and skill in
legislation, which will be beneficial not only to their own order, but
to their country. They have the advantage of us, in England, in the
presidential term being ten years; ours, with difficulty, having been
prolonged only to eight. I believe that the preservation of the rank and
property of the aristocracy during the critical times just past, and,
indeed, the bloodless character of the revolution altogether,--have been
mainly due to the sagacious policy of a number of noblemen of large
influence;--especially the Argylls in Scotland and the Derbys and Dukes
of Northumberland and Bedford, in England, in timely bending to the
storm; yielding, step by step, what _must_ be yielded, and so keeping
more than if they had resisted all changes to the bitter end.

Especially do they now reap a reward for the good work of the
Anglo-Irish Landlords' League; who, with their fitting motto, "_Noblesse
oblige_," so liberally purchased from the old landlords, some years
since, most of the properties in the distressed and disturbed parts both
of England and Ireland, and sold them out in small farms to the
peasantry. Glancing the other day, in our library, at Hack Tuke's
pamphlet of 1880, on the Distress in Ireland, it is gratifying to know
that, to-day, nearly three-fourths of the whole island are possessed by
independent peasant farmers.

* * * * *

And India! It reads almost like one of Southey's or Edwin Arnold's
oriental poems to peruse the account of the splendid coronation of the
Afghan Emperor of All India. Retribution here, indeed, for the folly of
that charlatan prime minister who once prated about a "scientific
boundary" of the _British_ Empire of India. Another instance of the
"slow grinding of the mills of the gods," which is so very sure.

Good news continues to come from France. Republican principles were
never stronger; not a ghost of imperialism, and scarcely a thought of
monarchical reaction, appears. Bourbons and Bonapartes alike are
politically and sentimentally dead. Evangelical protestantism is
spreading and deepening in its influence. The extreme intolerance of
Romanism which prevailed for a while is giving way to a more reasonable
freedom of conscience for all religions. Yet I doubt whether any city in
Europe has fewer Roman Catholic worshippers than Paris, unless it be
Rome; where the hatred of