miss your object-but betake yourself straightway to the Turkish Museum, at Hyde-Park Corner, where you will see and comprehend all that we have mentioned, and a great deal more well worthy of being known.

A more complete Exhibition than this it would be difficult to imagine. You enter the well-known St. George's Gallery, and see different groups in wax-work, so exquisitely finished that it is difficult to persuade yourself they are not living creatures. There are different apartments also-such as a public bath, a coffee-house and barber's shop, a shoemaker's store, a sleeping apartment, a Sultana's drawing-room, and even the late Sultan on his throne, in full divan, with all his many officers of state about him. There is a full-sized Turkish carriage, drawn by fullsized oxen, and containing within it some beauties of the harem. There are people of every rank-from a life-like figure of the present Sultan, Abdul Megid Khan, down to the porters of Constantinople, with their tremendous burdens. The costumes are beautiful: some of them rich and gorgeous in the extreme, others graceful and pleasing, and all picturesque. The Janissaries are especially interesting.

This Museum is as instructive as it is amusing, and we sincerely trust it will prove as remunerative to the proprietors as it deserves to be. We could scarcely wish it higher success than this. If you go and see it on our recommendation, we feel sure you will be obliged to us for having sent you there.

The Guide-book to this Exhibition deserves a word of praise: it is just what such a work should be-full of information, succinctly and pleasingly given.

THE STATE AND PROSPECTS OF THE WAR.

The conclusion of the Parliamentary Session, by the rising of the Houses on the 12th of August, presents a fair occasion for reviewing the state and prospects of the war; and now that the voice of party is for awhile silenced, and power again vested only in the hands of the Crown, it may not be unprofitable to consider dispassionately in what position we stand with regard to the other kingdoms of the world, and to ascertain, of all that has been done, how much remains for congratulation, and how much for regret.

The observation of Prince Metternich that " Europe was not in a state of war but only of disorganized diplomacy," has been partially corroborated by the slow progress of naval and military events. In April last, to pacify the people, a large armament was despatched, in hot hastc, to the seeming assistance of the Turks; and after landing at Malta, and again at Gallipoli and Scutari, and losing all possible time in forming needless encampments, at a distance from the seat of war, they were at length forwarded to Varna, where they arrived too late to be of any use to the Turks, as Silistria was left to its fate, and must have fallen had it relied, for its safety, on its tardy allies. In fact we have reason to believe that the commanders of the Allied troops were instructed to consider Silistria as a doomed fortress; and they probably dissuaded Omer Pacha from wasting his energies by going to its assistance, and advised him to await, with them, the further advance of the Russians, so that their united forces might have a better chance of giving the enemy an effectual check. The result of that siege in the repulse and retreat of the appears to have been entirely unlooked for.

Russians

In the meantime, when ministers are interrogated, they declare that everything is going on in the best possible manner-that no one is aware of the difficulty of getting the materiel of war ready for an actual advance against a powerful enemy-and having lighted on the saying of a great commander, in a moment of pique, they quote him as authority, that in war the English are never satisfied without "bloody battles." Thoroughly ashamed of the accusation, and feeling that the very enquiry he is making implicates him in the sanguinary charge, the inquisitor sneaks off ignobly, leaving the ministry in triumphant possession of the deserted

field. With history before us, and our reason to appeal to, it is surprising how much honest credulity still remains to us.

To accomplish great events, great expedition was always used in real war. Had not the Egyptian legions of Dessaix been pushed on by forced marches to the field of Marengo, how different had been the result of that day; and if Blucher had not dragged his artillery through thirty miles of mud, on the celebrated 18th of June, the whole subsequent history of Europe might have been differently written. The nation, however, accepts the situation, advances any amount of cash, and is willing to await the result of this "disorganized diplomacy," which is not a war, and in school-boy parlance "to open its mouth, shut its eyes, and see what God will send it!"

But while a great deal of money has been expended in fitting out expeditions-which appear to have been forwarded without an object, and which have as yet achieved nothing worthy of their might-the progress of the war has developed some very satisfactory facts. It has turned out that the power of the Emperor of Russia was only colossal for aggressive warfare while it was believed to be so, and that when opposed resolutely it shrinks into very ordinary dimensions; and that his coasts may be blockaded, and Russian trade suspended, with less injury to the commercial interests of Western Europe than, probably, would arise from simply shutting up the Adriatic Sea. Then again the long oppressed nationalities of the Caucasus are liberated from the incubus of Russian aggression, and civilization will be at liberty to raise her head again in those trans-Euxine lands. If the war had no other result than that of permanently re-establishing the independence of these regions, it would not have been made in vain; and civilized Europe would be a gainer by it. The destruction of the Russian forts on the Sulina branch of the Danube, which re-opens the carrying trade on that river, is also of importance; and should the Crimea be occupied by the French and English armies, and Sebastopol disarmed and destroyed -which ought, it is now evident, to have been the first object of the Allied expedition instead of the last-a material guarantee will be in the hands of the Allies, which may possibly turn the war into a simple blockade, until it pleases the Czar to make peace.

The proceedings of the Allies in the Baltic, however, are of more questionable value. Before any attempt was made to take forts and occupy towns and garrisons there, it is to be hoped that some arrangement had been come to with Sweden, for their preservation and the safety of the native populations when the season shall compel our ships to retire from those seas, otherwise we are only wasting our energies without effecting any permanent good. In neither Poland nor Russia-proper do we appear as

yet to have acquired a foot of territory, nor to have garrisoned a single stronghold; and though we have attempted something in Finland-where the people, foreseeing that we may have to desert them at the approach of winter, receive our overtures without enthusiasm-we have carefully avoided calling to our aid the sympathies of Poland, which would be more permanently within the reach of our protection, and whose people would, probably, rise en masse to our assistance, if we had declared ourselves their friends. But while we are no longer in dread of the offensive power of Russia, it must be confessed that this tampering with the war is complicating the affairs of Europe in a silent but progressive manner.

The unfortunate declaration of England and France, that they would countenance no revolutions in this contest, has given immense advantage to the Czar. It is like playing a game of chess, against a formidable antagonist, with a silly agreement not to take his queen. In the first place, the Autocrat is not bound by any similar obligation: and nations groaning under oppression—or that sense of being cheated and betrayed, which rankles in the heart worse than oppression itself-have no sympathy with England and France, which have openly deserted them; while they may hope that Russia, driven to extremities and wanting their aid, may reverse a policy no longer practicable, and that the Czar, to weaken his enemies and strengthen himself with new friends, may proclaim himself the advocate of popular governments or constitutional monarchies, and shake to its foundations every dynasty in Eastern Europe.

Austria, by the connivance of Russia on the one hand and the obsequiousness of the Western Powers on the other, is now permitted to hold the balance of European power in its hand; and while we pretend to think him warmly in our interests, Francis Joseph knows well enough that the key of the Austrian Empire is at the disposal of the Czar, and that, if driven to extremity, he might offer a Constitution to Hungary, which he has good reason to know no other European government has spirit enough to do-and such is the hatred of Austrian rule, that no doubt Kossuth himself would accept the Czar's alliance, in a treaty offensive and defensive, to throw it off.

Italy, Hungary, Greece, and even Poland, all look now to the Czar as the only one who can befriend them; and who, to humble and disconcert his enemies, to render the English ridiculous, and to upset all the thrones in Europe which have not bowed down to him, may any day come forward as their liberator from the dynasties which oppress them. He who partitioned Poland may as easily reclaim its dismembered fragments from his ungrateful fellow-robbers, and restore it again in its integrity to a Polish Diet, with the right-hand of friendship. He who gave up Hungary to Austrian domination may any day proclaim his mistake to a sensitive and

generous people, and proffer them his alliance to recover again their liberty and independence. In fact, the untoward compact entered into by the Western Powers has constituted the Czar the load-star of Europe, and assigned him a part to play which may honourably immortalize him, and give him a name in history superior to those of Alexander and Napoleon, if he has sufficient greatness of mind to reverse the traditional policy of his family.

But up to the present time "the hour and the man are not come : that is the Austrian and Prussian monarchs are not proven ungrateful. They have nothing to fear from France and England, and their people nothing to hope. They therefore linger about the Czar, pretending to sympathize with the Western Powers, whose friendship is convenient to them, and they use all possible efforts to avoid compromising themselves inextricably with their master. When we read in the Times of the sincerity of Austria, her determined aspect with regard to Russia, and her noble intentions to co-operate with us in the cause of Turkey, we shall be able to estimate the real value of all this by keeping in mind the position in which she really stands with respect to the Czar, which is in no material degree altered by the successes of the Allies, nor by any successes they are likely to obtain, while their unpopular declaration remains in force. Austria and Prussia might be dismembered in a week if the Czar were to really determine to do it, and their resource would then be in the Western Powers, who to sustain these friends must wage an unpopular war, for which no English Parliament would dare vote the supplies; or if the supplies were voted, the world would behold England united with the despotism of France (we use not the word offensively), to put down liberty on the continent, and perhaps the United States-already beginning to sympathize with our opponent-leagued with Russia, declaring war against us to sustain it.

The game we are playing makes this view of the case not only possible but likely. Does anyone imagine that the Czar will not, in case of need, make use of the tremendous power his adversaries have placed at his disposal? Suppose him deserted by his friends the Sovereigns of Austria and Prussia-if it were possible, under existing circumstances, that they should so stultify themselves—and his strongholds in possession of the enemy, will he considerately abdicate, to oblige all parties, and surrender to the English in order to spend the remainder of his life in the contemplative retirement of St. Helena? How he would deride the thought, as he sees that the thrones of all the neighbouring governments are still at his feet; and that though he may be weak to sustain despotism, he has still more power than any other Sovereign, if he would become the friend of the nations themselves.