71/NE PERIODICALS. * THE apathy which prevails in the political world

at present seems to have infected the monthly periodical press : those who look for inspiration in the leading magazines will certainly not find it in their lucubrations on politics. Fraser, which has been in the habit of giving a monthly review of our political progress or our blunders, as the case ma3r be, seems at a loss to speak definitely on the subject. "We have ventured" in former numbers says the writer of" Political Ruminations," "to pronounce pretty boldly of the future fortunes of the war, and the events have Justified our expectations. If we were to make a similar experiment with regard to the probable course of domestic polities for the next few years, we should speak much more diffidently." Therein the ru- minator exhibits sound discretion ; for we question if any man, however much inclined to vaticinate, would risk a prediction as to what is likely to take place during the next few years. The truth is, as the writer in Fraser remarks, "the diminution of party-spirit has greatly increased the difficulties of government."

difficulty, however, is not likely to be a permanent one. The course of events will inevitably bring into prominence some question or other which will divide the community once more into two great parties. Till that happens, the public must exer-

• Fraser's Magazine, No. 318. Published by Parker and Son.

Blackwood '8 Edinburgh Magazine, No. 488. Published by Blackwood and Sons. The New Monthly Magazine, No. 428. Published by Chapman and Hall. Bentley's Miscellany, No. 234. Published by Bentley. The Dublin University Magazine, No. 282. Published by Hodges and Co.

eke patience. The story of "Kate Coventry" is brought to a close in the present number in rather a huddled-up fashion. One can hardly help fancying that the author of "Mr. Digby Grand," who professes to edit the story, had received orders to finish it as rapidly as possible. An article on the "Decline of French Romantic Literature," after pointing out the vices of the modern' French school, takes pains to show that there is "a rising genius worthy to continue the race of the old giants, and whose reputa- tion shall yet stand towering above these feeble and flashy crea- tures who for the moment amuse the public gaze." This giant it has discovered in Edmond About, whose name is becoming pretty well known in England as well as in France.

The opening chapters of a new story—" The Athelings, or the Three Gifts"—will please a numerous section of the readers of .Blackwood. Though no imitator, the writer frequently reminds us of Fredrika Bremer in her truthful and kindly pictures of the home life of the middle classes. In all her fictions the parlour- fireside is prominent, and she contrives to invest that common- place locality with much greater charms than were ever bestowed on it by Miss Burney or Miss Austin. A comparison of "The Old and New Style at Oxford" shows little reason for congratu- lation on account of the reforms which have lately taken place there. The writer is not a mere laudator of the past. He argues strongly against the monkish system of celibacy, as one of the causes of Oxford's having fallen so far short of what it might have been. In urging the abolition of this remnant of antiquity, he contends that the intention of the founders is virtually de- feated by the working of the system.

"By the present state of things, the intentions of the founders are in every point of view defeated. If their object was to glorify their religion by the exhibition of a number of cases of persons devoted to that single life Which was thought in old time so holy, that object is contemptuously ig- nored by those who merely make the breach of the monastic rule an affair • of having sufficient means to be able to effect it with impunity. If their

• object was to continue valuable and efficient men in the service of the University, this object is defeated by the immediate flight from the Univer- sity of most of those who find the condition of single life incompatible with their happiness or their efficiency. And as it is the fact that strong affections and mental vigour are generally combined, we find here a reason why the cream of learning, as soon as it has had just time to form and settle, is so regularly and periodically skimmed from the surface of University society."

"Travels in Circassia," of which No. I. is given, promises to be an interesting account of the Eastern shore of the Black Sea, by one who has visited it lately. The writer does not seem to think that we have left a very favourable impression of this country by our management in that region. "In future," he says, "it is not to be expected that Englishmen attempting to travel in Cir- cassia will be received even as we were ; for not only is the power of the Naib spreading, but our conduct in having allowed the Russians to reestablish their blockade will make us unpopular, while the difficulty of breaking through it will remain the same as before the war." With this slight difference, however, that there is no more a formidable fleet in Sebastopol harbour. How far the Russians may be able to maintain a strict blockade of the Circassian coast, remains to be seen. The writer of "Speculations on the Future—Our Alliances" takes a very gloomy view upon the whole. What he thinks we ought specially to guard against is, "a confederacy lhich may be able to bring together naval ' forces superior to our own." That, no doubt, is a danger to be watched and guarded against in our foreign relations. As regards Central America, the writer sees no important interest that we have in that region. He thinks it would even be advisable to abandon our settlements and protectorates on the mainland, in order to avoid contention.

plain how the Administrative Reform movement has proved a

failure' ; but hiteeadoesg,not seem Ngew Monthly, enowdeahvoowursit tox eh-t have succeeded. From his query as to whether the Committee is so far content with the result of its labours as to leave things as they are, we infer that he has not heard of the remodelling of the Association, with Mr. Roebuck as chairman. An article on "The Food of Paris," compiled from Armand Husson's work "Lea Consommations de Paris," might lead one to believe that our French neighbours are not so much worse fed than the Londoners as is commonly supposed. General statements and averages, however, are deceitful guides as to the actual condition of a people. Having ascertained that the inhabitants of Paris con- sume 730,501,195 kilogrammes of solid food annually, we are as far as ever from an answer to the question how the working classes are fed, unless we can tell, with some degree of accuracy, in what proportion the various items of that enormous mass are distributed among rich and poor. The remark that poverty has been dinrinishing in Paris ever since 1791 is, we fear, not well founded. The writer, in adding that" this is precisely the j reverse of what we see in this country," shows that he is not very familiar with the statistics of pauperism, or he would be aware that the total number of persons receiving relief in England and Wales at present is not so great as it was at some periods forty or fifty years ago, when the population was little more than half its present amount.

"A Winter in Kerteh," in Bentley's Miscellany, is worth reading, for the account it gives of the formation of the Turkish Contingent. The sudden termination of the war deprived that new species of force of all opportunity of showing what it could do, Had a chance occurred, we have no doubt that the result of General Vivian's excellent management of the Contingent would have furnished another instance of what capital soldiers the , Turks become under English officers. An amusing article entitled "Disjointed Gossip, from the other side of the Big Pond," gives , the following account of the mutual hostility of Negroes and Irish emigrants in America.

"The hatred between them and the Irish is intense ; as well it may be, upon their part, for the Irish immigration has entirely changed their posi- tion and prospects in the Free States. Every ship-load of these Celtic im- migrants helps to elbow some persons of this unhappy race out of the means of getting an honest living ; and whenever the occasion offers, the Irish are too glad to raise a row and come to fisticuffs with the nagurs.' The pre- sent Know-nothing movement, which is excluding the Irish of all ranks from any claim to any public office even of the lowest kinds, is to the ad- vantage of the opponents of the Fugitive Slave Law. A United States marshal in the New England States would run a better chance of bringing his victim down if he hunted with a pack of Irish beagles. In the Slave States, where the Negroes have decidedly the advantage over the Irish in houses, habits, and general consideration, the scorn with which they look on them as 'White treish,' is exceedingly amusing. Nor is the feeling less keen in the Free States, where social advantages are all on the side of the Irish population. We were walking up a hilly street in Newport some time after our arrival when a party of little Mulatto boys coming out of school were engaged in blackguarding each other : one at length used an epithet to which, for a moment, his adversary could find no bad word strong enough to reply; when, trembling with rage, he shook his fist in his opponent's face, and stammered out, You—you Irish Niggar you!'"

This hostile feeling explains, in some degree, why the Irish emigrants have ranged themselves with the Slavery party in the United States.

The writer of an article in the Dublin University, on "The Protectorate of Richard Cromwell," founded on M. Guizot's re- cent work, expresses his surprise that this most eventful of all the epochs of corresponding duration in the history of England should have been passed over so slightly by the whole of our his- torians. "Hume has devoted to it no more than about forty pages. Mr. Macaulay describes it in a manner at once con- temptuous and laconic. Mr. Carlyle does not condescend to deal with it at all. He chooses that the curtain should fall over the name of Cromwell while yet in the zenith of its glory." This neglect is easily accounted for, when we consider that neither the enemies nor the admirers of Cromwell could have much pleasure in dwelling on the events of that brief period, during which the government of England was transformed from a military dicta- torship into a constitutional monarchy. The writer of the article we have named gives a clever outline of what took place from the accession of Richard till the period of his abdication. Among the illustrations of the political morality of that age, President Pierce, if he has leisure to dip into our Magazines for June, may find a precedent in it for his desperate expedient of getting up a 1, foreign war as a means of gratifying personal ambition. Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon, in writing from Breda to a Royalist in England as to the best means of damaging Cromwell, says— "There is one other thing that our friends will not fail to watch; which is, to do all that may be to make a war with Holland, in which the honour and trade of the nation is so much concerned."

Some fifty or sixty years hence, when the private history of the Pierce Cabinet comes to light, we shall, no doubt, find as deli- berate proposals as this for a somewhat similar object : indeed, we hardly need to wait so long for such revelations. The appoint- ment of Mr. Soule, a member of the Lone Star Association, as Ambassador to Spain a few years ago, was understood to be for the express purpose of getting up a war with Spain.