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    carried out , especially on that part of the coast nearest England ; viz ., Lbrient , St . Malo , Carentan , Port-&-Befsin , Isigny , Caen , Havre , Fecamp , Dieppe , while in the interior her army has increased beyond all precedent , requiring the strongest mind to restrain its warlike outpourings , as evidenced very lately in the case of the regimental colonels ; even the Emperor himself has adopted an instrument , of destruction : the battering in short , a military ardour seems the order of the day , and it only remains to be considered in what direction these costly means of destruction are to be

    era-The attention of the English is naturally awakened by the unwonted vigour of their neighbour . Suspicion may well be aroused when that neig hbour doubles his fist in the face of an intimate friend and ally , and moreover strengthens that suspicion by deeds quite at variance ¦ with the poetical words used at Cherbourg . The reason for the present attitude of France towards England it is difficut to conceive . No nation could have proved a more faithful ally or firmer friend , and certainly no friendship can be more essential to the welfare , the happiness , the prosperity , nay , the very safety of the present Government , . than that of England . The demonstrations cannot have arisen from fear , for it is well known that the alliance is popular with the English people to a man ; that they have a constitutional dislike to war , and that it is not till well in it that they

    " bear themselves so that their adversaries may beware of them ; " therefore , it is absurd to suppose that th « French have any dread of aggression on the part of England . One thing , however , is beyond conjecture , that ¦ war will burst upon Europe before long , for even if the toish does not exist , no government has the power to keep so mighty an armament as that of France iu peaceful cantonments . England may be the last place upon which the ruler of France would choose to let loose his legions , because he of all men is least desirous to be " written down an ass ; " but war becomes a stern necessity with certain potentates , and * when the day Comes to . select the field of operations , can that " remarkable man" resist the temptation of attacking the richest country in the world , when he sees it profoundly indifferent and systematically unprepared .

    The only means of check-mating this formidable move , and maintaining the friendship so important to both nations , is to remove the temptation to any aggressive act , by the instant equipment of such a fleet as will render any warlike attempt utterly hopeless . It is of vital importance to England—due to her rank among nations—to be pkeparkd , because the French Emperor is far too sagacious , even with the immense means at his disposal , to make the attack alone , when the cordial co-operation of a great Northern Power could be easily obtained , whose fleets and armies could prevent any friendly powers ( if such there bey from affording the least assistance . Great Britain baa before withstood the world in arms , and can do so again if only true to herself ; but it cannot be denied that never before has the nation been so entirely without defences , and without defenders . These are warnings that both the nation and the Government , whichever party may be in j > ower , will do well to bear constantly in mind . Let us close with the well-worn p iece of ancient wisdom , " The best way to maintain peace is be prepared for war . "

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    THE QUARTERLIES . The British Quarterly Review . —The Third and Fourth VolumesofFroude ' sHistory ofJEnglandcoines first under notice . Thereviewer adheres to his original judgment that the history , as far as it goes , " has been written under a conception essentially just , that its method is excellent , its research profound , and its style admirable , but that it is deficient in some important particulars , that it abounds in genius and imagination rather than in reason and judgment , and that it has run out into extravagant paradoxes . " To this judgment we have little to dWnur , and like the reviewer we have only * to

    Master of the Rolls . Mr . Shirley ' s volume , contains portions of Wycliffe ' s writings , but the reviewer justly , we think , complains that marks of haste and carelessness are visible throughout the compilation . Further , the reviewer soundly rates Mr . Shirley for giving expression and factitious influence in this volume printed at the public expense , to " personal prejudices and party feeling . " The reviewer also comes intor collision with the Quarterly Review for its unqualified praise of Mr . Shirley ' s performance . We will not enter into the merits of this difference of opinion—we shall

    content ourselves with repeating that the article is very good throughout , and will assist to place Wycliffe in that high position among English worthies which he has not yet been permitted properly to occupy . M . Comte ' s " Religion for Atheists" professes to be a criticism on Comte ' s " Catechism of Positive Religion , " but is rather a piece of scolding than a sober review of the author ' s theory . Comte has numerous admirers and adherents on the Continent and also a small coterie in this country , who will not thank the reviewer for describing the " Catechism" being " so puerile , sillv , and drivellinsr in conception and execution ,

    that no other alternative is left for M . Comte ' s admirers than the unpleasant one of supposing that just when , in his own estimate , he had put the copestone on the system of Positivism , and annihilated all the ' theologies , ' he went mad , and that , this volume of inanities is the sign and consequence thereof . " No doubt there is a good deal of nonsense in M . Comte ' s speculations ; take , for instance , that part wherein lie declares that " his system of Positivism" will , within a century , regenerate the world—ancL

    Before the end of the nineteenth century the French Republic will , of its own free will , break up into seventeen independent republics , each comprising five of the existing departments . Ireland will , erelong , separate from England . This will lead to the rupture of the artificial bonds which now unite Scotland and even Wales , with England proper . But then it must be remembered , in charity to Comte , that our own Bacon is held to be the spring from whence Cdmte oi'iginaUy drew his rhapsodical theories of Positivism . "Herodotus , " by Rawlinson and Wilkinson , and a " Commentary , " by Blakesley , are subjects well handled , and will be

    vations at Budrum by one evidently having especial acquaintance with the subject . Ir " ¦ Woman , " the woman ' s right question is con sidered partly on physiological , partly on psycholo gical grounds . Female education is treated upor as a part of the question , and consequently an un favourable view of the political claims of women is arrived . at . The .. reviewer , by establishing distinctions between the mental -characteristics ol man and woman , is led to pay a high tribute to the latter . Under the head of " Russian Literature" an onnlncia ic rpuroti i *\ r 4-Iva I ifa oviri tirnvirc e \ P 'Pn c \\ tr i n lysis iiven of the life and works of Pushkin

    ana s g in a very liberal spirit . "By placing Mr . John Forster and Mr . John Langton Sanford . in opposition in the Parliamentary war , the reviewer takes up a place as marshal of a tournament , in which he shows himself impartial , although he enters the lists wrfflt a banner having inscribed " The Great Rebellion . " Mr Trollope ' s novels receive a favourable notice A remarkable article in the number is one on the Kabaii or Zwave languages and the Tifinagl : alphabet . In these days , when philological studies are no longer the monopoly of a few philosophers ,

    but have spread to the universities , and form apart of the college course , we have philological articles more than enough , in which the ' principles of Voltaire ' s joke receive a practical application , vowels count for nothing , and consonants for very little . The fashion alone of philology has changed ; in the last century every word was derived from the Hebrew , in this , Sanskrit has become the standard . The article on the Kabaii languages is of the more interest under these circumstances , because it exhibits the treatment of a man of wide attainments and tempered judgment . In this article the relations of the Libyan languages to the Semitic

    stock are treated of , and the labours of F . W . Newman , Hodgson , Pulszky , and Hannoteau carefully discussed . The reviewer refers . briefly to the relations between the North African Semitic languages and the Houssa negro language . He also takes up subsidiarily the inquiry , whether Africa or Asia ought to be regarded as the country out of which the Hcbroeo-African family developed itself , and considers the popular assumption that everything human has come out of Asia as invalid , " except on the very superficial hypothesis that human nations all sprung , from the three men and three women left some four thousand years ago ; an hypothesis

    opacceptablc to scholarly minds . The article on " Political Party since the Revolution" is hardly correct or complete . But we are quite with the writer in lamenting the disunion of Liberals , and the obstacles which this disunion is creating to the " Cause of Progress . " The writer thus winds up—Whatever be the character of the measures of the present Government , each successive day of their existence adds to the adherents of Toryism in the church and magistracy , on the judicial and episcopal benches , and delivers some stronghold of the Whigs into their bands . It is foolish to think of strengthening the army by

    surposed to every known fact of extreme antiquit y and to all the evidence of language . " If the Hebrseo-African family be considered as an offshoot from Persia , then the Syro-Arabians would be " the rear of the emigration left behind after its peculiarities had fixed themselves unchangeably in the race ; but those to whom a manifold local origin of human races appears more reasonable , and who believe creative power to have displayed itself independently in the man of China , the man of Persia , and the man of Africa , will perhaps , of necessity , regard the Syro-Arabians as an early efflux from Africa . " The reviewer does not , however , follow the subject

    rendering the camp , The leaders may support liberal measures , but so long as they continue to harass each other ' s flanks , and refuse to give effect to their principles by the adoption of any concerted line of action , they as virtually abandon the cause as if they went over to the enemy . How long Will the country allow its liberal instincts to be neutralized by chronic dissension ? How long will country gentlemen register ; artisans and mechanics leave their looms and anvils for the polling-booth , and busy townspeople perspire in

    further , but leaves the question of the number of primitive centres of population , and of a single centre , without other discussion . The Tifinagh alphabet is examined and compared with the modem Hebrew . It is an alphabet very remarkable , consisting partly of letters from the Western alphabet , and partly of a peculiar system of dots and lines . Thus , aleph is represented by . —van by -. ' —nun by —lamed oy I X—samech by ©—/>

    close committee-rooms , to return a Liberal majority to Parliament , which virtually annihilates itself as soon as it gets into Westminster ? If these divisions continue , the country at the next general election , which cannot be far distant , will not only have to secure a majority of Liberal tnejmbers , but to take upon itaelf the functions of those members , in organising a party , prescribing a policy , and naming a leadership . The publicrinterests suffer when tho weak rule by the dissensions of the strong . * 4 \ A yMfjl

    The National Review begins with an article on Carlylo | s History of Frederick the Great , or , as he calls him , on some strange philological crotchet , Fricdrich , and in whioh Carlyle ' s affectation , extravagances , and exaggerations are b y no means spared . The merits ol the work arc acknowledged , but it is carefully dissected . The " Relations of France and England" is the heading of an article in which tho antagonism and alliances of the two countries aro historically treated , and with a result tho value of which our readers , as they either do not know Franco or do know it , will judge of by tho following statement : — "As to tho mass of the population [ of France ] , tho time is now long past when tho name of England excited their passionate hostility , " Tho " Soulpturos from Halicarnnssus " is an archaeological discussion on tho

    excato them the- mini and the resh , and believe on further study the list will be extended . The Tifinagh is likely to prove a very interesting contribution to that extraordinary chapter in primitive history , the alphabet . The beth we have no doubt about . It takes nearly tho form of 6 , but is thereby much nearer to the hieroglyphic for "house" than tho modern , Hebrew is . Thoro aro several forms of da loth , one of thorn is A . Teth is represented by two forms of m , and thoro is a peculiarity not pointed out by the reviower that many of the letters have a perpendioular form and an horizontal form , or tho same typo placed perpendicularly or horizontally , which is another feut-ure of antiquity . Tho m we aro inolinod to consider of tho mim typo , and the resit wo think , in its two forms of a square and oirole , may liavo originated in the hieroglyphic or Punio .

    repeat our own opinion that the estimation of the character of Henry VIII . by Mr . Froude is contradicted in material particulars by public documents that have recently ^ come to light . " Kalendars and old Almanacs' * is hardly as good as it might have been made , nevertheless there aro some agreeable reading and anecdotes in tho article "Wyohffe . hisBiographers andCritics , " is a very good articlo indeed . The reviewer docs ample justice to thift great but somewhat neglected reformer , and

    points out not without something like a feeling of shame that it is to German thinkers the world is mainly indebted for . a true estimate of the value of Wyoliffo ' s masouline mind , his immense labours , and tho pioneer part ho played in the groat religious movement . Tho reviewer is particularly severe on Mr , Sbirloy , who has prepared a volume under the sanction of tho Lords Commissioners of her Majesty ' s Treasury at tho suggestion of the

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    No . 44 . fi , October 9 , 1 S 58 . 1 T H E : L E A D E E . 1069

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 9, 1858, page 1069, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2263/page/21/