SOME MAGAZINES.

Mn. H. MERIVALE'S paper in the Fortnightly on "Some Features of American Scenery" strikes us as the freshest thing in the November Magazines. The subject has been very little discussed, travellers in the United States usually confining themselves to cities, people, and institutions. The American, on the other hand, is apt to be daunted by the greatness of the distances, the imperviousness of the forests, and, perhaps, by the special feature of his scenery, a certain monotonous vastness which appeals rather to the arith- metician than the artist :— "A western prairie, viewed as it generally must be with little advan- tage of height, is certainly not grander than Salisbury Plain, and cer- tainly far loss so than the Campagna of Rome, with its encircling outline of exquisite mountain forms. It is the fact that it is a prairie—part of a vast rolling series of the same which extends from the Great Lakes to the Rocky Mountains, which is already attracting to its womb im- measurable, and infinite breast,' army after army of hungry immigrants, and will continue to do so until it has become the seat of human industry and human luxury, to an extent which the world has as yet never witnessed ; it is this which causes the little round table of green earth, visible around us as we journey, to attain the attribute of grandeur. So, again, the shores of the great American Lakes are in general utterly deficient both in beauty and picturesqueness ; like mere tame bits of sea coast, the opposite side being seldom visible ; but we know that these lakes contain the greatest masses of fresh water anywhere to ho found on the earth, and we respect them, not according to the verdict of our eyes, but according to what we remember to have read of them in geographical dictionaries."

American mountains are usually long rolling slopes, lacking all signs of past or present habitation ; and American forests in their general effect are somewhat disheartening. "Gaze upon the huge zone of woods which circles with its frontier belt the lands occupied by man beyond the Allegbanies and on the St. Lawrence ; the mightier trees, the old denizens of the forest, have almost all dis- appeared; they have been cleared away by the woodman ; only a few scattered specimens are left, such as the tall, meagre skeletons of the white pine, which dot the landscape, rising far above the deciduous trees, all along theatmits of the cultivated land of Canada ; the rest consists now mostly of under-growth, or inferior specimens, not worth removal, left to struggle and perish together. Moreover, the mere partial clearing of a forest is found to admit into it great rushes of wind, which devastate it far and wide ; and much greater destruction is occasioned by the casual fires occasioned

by settlers." These forests, however, repair themselves with singular -vigour. It is said that the ravages of the great fire of Miramichi,

in 1826, which destroyed the timber over six thousand square miles, were practically repaired in twenty-five years. The forests are only beautiful in the fall, when the endless variety of colour presents a scene of almost unequalled loveliness ; but America has marvellous waterfalls, like that of the Ottawa, where a river as great as the Danube in Hungary leaps over a limestone rock forty feet high. "The stream above the fall is not green or blue in colour, like those which issue from lakes, but amber, or rather coffee-coloured,

rolling on like Dante's Lethe, bruna bruna sotto l' ombra per- petua,' as indeed do Western forest rivers in general. So huge is

the volume of fluid, and so great its depth, that it does not shiver • into foam on taking its leap, but curls over, along great part of the line, unbroken until it reaches the bottom, appearing to the spectator, posted on the wooden bridge immediately below, like a gigantic wall of brown crystal (tourmaline) advancing bodily to- wards him." And she has beautiful lakes, like Lake George, filled with water "of the most perfect and brilliant purity," winding among the mountains ; or Lake Champlain, a Windermere 130 miles long ; or Horicon, with its endless islands ; and views like that from the Mountain House of the Katskills, near New York :—

Ss' The hotel stands within a few yards of the sheer verge of a preci- pice, falling, in successive perpendicular ledges, 2,000 feet directly down to the low country below, and 2,500 to the Hudson. The rocks of which it is formed are entirely of the old red sandstone, and answer precisely in appearance, as well as in geological date, to those with which we are familiar here in South Wales, the Forest of Doan, and again in the north of Scotland. Their deep crimson colour relieved by the bright masses of foliage, they rise along the summit of the ridge, as in a gigantic line of broken parapet, as if Nature, in mockery, was bent on showing how trifling the cyclopean walls of ancient cities would look beside the castellated magnificence of her own structures At our feet flows the Hudson, for seventy miles from left to right, in a straight line, like an enormous canal, occupying exactly the place of the Severn. Far across its waters, the eye travels over a wide undulating region, stretch- ing into the interior of New England. Immediately at our feet, and on both banks of the Hudson, lies a country comparatively well cultivated and occupied ; but instead of being cut up by thousands of hedgerows, as in the midland counties seen from Malvern, it is massed into large spaces of green pasture and corn land, alternating with parallelograms of dark forest, 'sections ' left as yet uncleared. There is something impressive, and at the same time rather burdensome to the mind, in such a view as this, ranging over several thousands of square miles, for which nature seems to have done so much, and man as yet so little. He has

been here for centuries engaged on his great work of reclamation, and he is very far as yet from having reproduced the aspect of an old country."

The reader will only regret that this paper is so short, and that Mr. Merivale does not describe the Hudson and its high- lands, which, as a friend informs us, " beat the Rhine and the- Forth hollow " for beautiful variety of effect. The rest of the number seems to us a little heavy, though Mr. Farrar's paper on the causes of the present alienation between intellect and the Church will suggest thought. He is right in saying that among the main causes are sacerdetalism and the clerical want of sym- pathy with the movement of the age, bat he fails to explain, per- haps did not intend to explain, why sacerdotalism and isolation from the world have so completely lost their old hold over thought- ful men, and does not suggest any remedy for those two clerical diseases.

Fraser and Blackwood each publish a paper on the Spanish Revolution, the latter, strange to say', being by far the more appreciative. It is evidently written by a man who has resided long in Spain, and is full of curious details of the movement and sketches of its principal actors. He holds that the Queen, a harsh- voiced, large-built woman, with all the Bourbon tendencies, lost her throne solely through her own vices, and gives a spirited account of the successful conspiracy, which was planned, it appears, originally by Olozaga, "portly, rubicund, unctuous, with remarka- ble dark eyes, and a genial manner," but au fond diplomatist ; and General Dulce, "meagre, bilious, sallow, taciturn" person, always in bad health, and possessed through his wife of enormous command of money. These two framed the plan, Serrano was the first great soldier admitted, and the conspiracy rapidly embraced all classes, including the officers of the Fleet, who had a private grievance about some reductions, and were so enthusiastic "that even the squadrons in distant waters, at the Antilles and the Philippines, were ready to take shares in the movement." They were speedily joined by Prim, slight, sinewy person, with finely-cut features, dark hair, elastic step, and look of youth, though he must be fifty, of whom the essayist draws the following intellectual portrait :— " It has perhaps been too hastily assumed that he is a mere sabreur- admirable on the battle-field, first-rate at encouraging his men to. encounter heavy odds, ever as ready to risk his own life as if he were a subaltern burning for promotion, instead of a lieutenant-general and grandee of Spain, of large fortune, and laden with titles, honours, and decorations, but, beyond that, possessed of none of the qualities which raise a man high in political life, and qualify him to take share in the government of a country, as well as to ride at the head of an army.. Such an estimate of his character is not altogether a fair one, nor is it borne out by the history of his life up to the present time. During many sessions that he sat in the Spanish Parliament he showed himself a fluent speaker and intrepid debater—served there, as on the battle-field, by his remarkable coolness and presence of mind. Quickness of concep- tion and promptitude in execution are the gifts to which he chiefly owes the success of his career."

In Mexico he showed singular insight, warning Napoleon that monarchy was impossible, that the monarch would have nothing to sustain him when the French troops were withdrawn, and the writer hints that he may be a man of great personal ambition. He also affirms, and the assertion seems to explain some otherwise inexplicable facts, that Madrid had strict orders from the Chiefs not to revolt till everything was secure, they fearing, we presume, lest the troops in the capital should remain faithful, and the spectacle of failure at the centre disconcert the provinces. Defeat in Barcelona might be repaired, but not defeat in Madrid. Black- wood ventures no prediction as to the result of the revolution, but declares that the election of the Duke de Montpensier is impos- sible, Spaniards considering that Prince not only mean but cowardly, the second a charge resting on scanty evidence. For the rest, Blackwood is evidently more hopeful than Fraser, whose contributor (Mr. Fronde?) evidently thinks the Spaniards unfit for freedom, declares that the electors cannot be induced to vote ; holds that bigotry is as powerful as ever ; and warns his readers that the army is sullen or hostile to the revolution, believing that it will end in its own subjection to the civil power. " Unless the army can be reorganized or placed on an entirely new footing, all that has been done will be speedily undone, and the old system of military pronunciamientos will recommence." The writer forgets that any ruler on the Continent, though he may be unable to master the army, is able to dissolve it by a simple decree, con- scripts being only too glad to get home on any terms, but there is no doubt that the "reserved" attitude of the Army is a source of great anxiety in Spain. The writer suggests the Due d'Aumalc as the best candidate for the Spanish throne, but ends with this fierce tirade against the country :— ." There are no Near Worlds to conquer or plunder when they are conquered. Her wealth, when she was wealthy, was imported, not home-made or home-grown. Her fame, when she became famous, rested on a union of faith, genius, and heroism, for which she is no longer a congenial soil, and which no effort of legislation can reproduce. Her revival, if she revives, must be by the arts of peace, which she has never cultivated with success ; by industry, regularity, and scrupulous honesty in matters of business. The old Castilian virtues, linked with pride and poverty, are out of date. 'Tho age of chivalry is gone. That of economists and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever.' For Europe read Spain, and this famous burst of Burke's may be accepted like an unadorned truth. Economy and cal- culation are not her forte, and it is precisely because we live in an ago of economists and calculators, when the characters of nations are weighed asnd settled on the Stock Exchange and the Bourse, that her glory has declined with her declining credit."

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True most of it, but South America speaks Spanish, the only

successful attempt ever made to organize savages was made in raraguay, and Nelson said, though he feared no sailors, he would rather fight two French than one Spanish ship. While courage and self-denial exist no nation is lost, and no soldier is the superior of the Spaniard in courage or in self-restraint. Fraser has an entertaining light paper on the Mancinis, Mazarin's nieces ; and O'Dowd, in Black- wood, besides inditing a clever and not wholly unreasonable tirade against Whig Lords who kindly say their tenants may vote with- out orders, gives a sketch such as very few men could pen of the late Count Walewbki :— " With the world of society and the salon,' Walewski was the only Link the Emperor possessed. Pion Plon could tell him what Mazzini was plotting, and what the • Reds' were hoping, what increase of force democracy was gaining on the Rhine, and how discontent was welling up through every crack and fissure of each European Government. Fleury could report the spirit of the Army, and relate what impatient sareurs said as they sipped their absinthe, and Persigny could repeat the warning of seine prefect and tell how elections should be won over to the State ; but Walewski alone could bring back to his master the opinions of those who discussed politics in epigrams, or wo,ghed the policy of the ruler in the fine scales of social appreciation. Walewski hung to legitimacy by his Popery, and to Orleanistri by tradition ; but he was Buonapartist surtout. Perhaps the Empress will regret him more deeply than even the Emperor. He was a faithful follower of her opinions, an honest believer in the Popedom, and a hearty hater of the Plon Plon school."

With Walewski died the Pope's best friend in France, the Empress always excepted, and the greatest supporter of the reaction. His opinions did not move the Emperor greatly, but his convictions did, helping with other causes to produce the strange vacillation the Emperor has always displayed in his dealings with Rome.

Neither Macmillan nor the Cornhill contains much of interest, the best article in the former being an analysis of some despatches in which Michiel, the Venetian Ambassador to Queen Mary's Court, describes some incidents of her reign ; and in the Cornhill an account of the new population which, according to Mr. Gifford Palgrave, is refilling the provinces of North-East Turkey, the region of which the double-headed cone of Ararat is the centre :- "No part of the world is, it would seem, better fitted to become what men call the cradle of a nation. The soil, everywhere fertile, is, up to a height of 6,000 feet and more above sea-level, rich to superabundance in all kinds of cereals, —corn, rye, barley, oats, and the like; higher up are summer pasture lands, or yailas,' to give them their local name, of vast extent, clothed withexcellent grass ; in the valleys below ripen all the products of our own South-European climate,—vines, fruit trees, maize, rice, tobacco, and varied cultivation, alternating with forests un- eideptionally the noblest that it has over been my chance to see : ash, walnut, box-wood, elm, beech, oak, fir, and pine. If to its above-ground riches we add the metallic products of the land, principally iron and copper, with not unfrequont silver and lead, and also, I am informed, but must speak with hesitation on a subject where so much technical

knolvledge is required, coal; add also a pure and healthy climate, ateraging in temperature that of Southern Germany ; add perennial snows on the heights and abundant rains in the valleys, whence flow down those great rivers, Chorook, Araxes, Tigris, and Euphrates, with all their countless tributaries, and other watercourses of less historic note, but of scarce less fertilizing importance, some to seek the Black Sea atid,tha Caspian, some the Mediterranean tad the Persian Gulf ;- all this, and we may reasonably conclude that few portions of the earth's surface are, natural resources considered, better adapted for the habita- tion, increase, and improvement of man."

Into this space are pouring Turkomans from South-Eastern Russia, and from Persia, Koords, and Georgians, and Circassians, all of them Mohammedan to fanaticism, all men fleeing from oppression, and all animated with a spirit, if not of freedom, at least of self- government. The Turkomans, with their native energy, rule them all; but the beauty of the Georgians and Circassians tempts them to intermarriage, and the races are gradually intermingling into one nationality of singular vigour and beauty. "Natural selection" is apparently doing its work to the full. There are now 700,000 of these races; the Armenians have almost disappeared ; the Turkish Government, being weak, interferes very little, and there

is growing up in the ancient Armenia a strong people whom Russia will find it as difficult to conquer as she found the Caucasus,— which, nevertheless, she conquered. We fear Mr. Palgrave is too sanguine, and believe that the Asiatic revival which must happen some day, must be preceded by the birth of a new creed ; but his facts are of singular interest, and worth more space than he has devoted to them. It is not given to every one to witness the birth of a new nation, even though that nation should not, in an age of rockets and Moncrieff gun-carriages, have before it any world- wide career.