"Oh! what a tangled web we weave,

while contriving to deceive the Se- makes it improbable that we shall nate, deceived each other; how the have precise information concerning deceit which underlay the whole their action before we go to press. misunderstanding prevented both The general expectation appears to sides from openly appealing to do- be, that either by formally adjourncuments or quoting expressions ing or by refusing to adjourn they used; and how finesse may often will postpone indefinitely their trial bring its own speedy reward. A of the Case. It does not matter Treaty which the American Senate much in what manner they declare would not pass with a clear under- their occupation to be at a standstanding of its import should have still; but it matters much whether been regarded from the first as an Parliament may or may not turn to impracticable Treaty, and so aban- right account the opportunity which doned. The less accurate expres- will be given for sifting the whole sions, if they have had the effect of question when the Arbitrators shall cheating the Senate, have likewise pause. It will surely not be perhad the effect of cheating the Com- mitted to our Ministry to keep missioners, and of wrecking the Parliament silent and submissive negotiation. any longer by reopening telegraphic correspondence with the United States, and announcing day by day an immediate satisfactory settlement. We fear that this game may be tried; but Parliament will not be true to the country if it allows the time of prorogation to draw near without making that examination into past negotiations for which the country is anxious, and without taking order to prevent a repetition of the imbecile transactions by which we have been so much damaged. Forbearance has been shown up to the last point at which it is safe. A Conservative Ministry confronted by a Liberal Opposition would doubtless have been run into and had its operations balked long ago. We by no means wish to see Conservatives act as their opponents would have acted; on the contrary, we have been pleased at their patriotic and generous conduct, and have rejoiced to hear the tribute which has been paid to their discretion and moderation. Nevertheless, there is a limit beyond which inaction would be culpable and generosity misplaced; and this limit would now seem to have been reached. The still friendly Times' hints that Ministers themselves will hail the coming opportunity of setting them

When first we practise to deceive !" will be the reflection of every one who may adopt our hypothesis; and the tangled web may be traced, not only in the interminable correspondence and telegrams, but in the shufflings, the concealments, the partial revelations and the grudging confidences of the British Ministers in their communications with the British Parliament. The possibility of any Ministers whatever being allowed for upwards of four months to treat Parliament as it has lately been treated, would have been denied last year. How our Ministers have contrived to carry on such a game, is a puzzle even now. All through the period they have been grievously suspected and treated with suspicion, while they have shown not the slightest desire to remove the ill opinion which they have created. Their existence, and the possibility of their negotiating further, depends on the will of Parliament; and yet Parliament is not thought worth propitiating by the appearance even of treating it with confidence.

The adjournment of the Arbitrators on the 19th June for a week,

selves right with the public, but we have no hope of the kind; we apprehend a recommencement of the mysteries, as we have said above, and that there will be no faithful revelation until they shall be dragged like badgers from their holes. Our hope is in Parliament alone.

real injustice at all to the Line cap-
tains. The captains of Artillery
and Engineers may be, indeed in
many instances are, junior as cap-
tains to those over whom they
would be promoted; but though
junior as captain, they have, as a
rule, been longer in the army-they
are older soldiers. While the Lines-
men went rapidly over their subal-
terns' service, the Ordnance men
languished long in the lowest rank.
Therefore, if they were to pass the
Linesmen now, it would only be re-
turning the compliment which the
Linesmen paid them in times past.
Viewed in this way, and when it is
seen that Mr. Cardwell intended only
to restore the Ordnance officers to a
position corresponding to their length
of service, the plan which seemed
so unfair to the House of Lords
loses its apparent injustice.
the cause of a step so unusual as
the interference of Parliament with
Army Promotion is really to be found
in the vacillation and weak action
of the War Office. Since the time
when Mr. Cardwell promised some
promotion to the Ordnance officers-
i.e., since the day when the Army
Estimates for 1872-3 were intro-
duced into the House of Commons

But

While we waited to be informed of the manner in which the Convention at Geneva would proceed, the action taken by the House of Lords for delaying the promotions promised to the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers is indicative of much coming trouble. The ill-considered measure of abolishing Purchase is beginning to bear bitter fruit-beginning, we say, for the legacy of Army disorder which Mr. Cardwell will leave behind him on quitting office has yet to be realised. The argument by which Lord Abinger prevailed to institute further inquiry, and so possibly to delay the changes on which Ministers had decided, was that, by a wholesale promotion of captains in the Ordnance Corps to the rank of major, while no corresponding promotion should take place in those regiments which have been heretofore under the system of Purchase, many captains in the last-named it is notorious that three or four branches would of necessity be superseded. Of course this is a plausible complaint, and a sound one, so far as it shows that some of the captains of Line regiments would have to submit to something disagreeable for the sake of equalising promotion throughout the Service. The Ministerial respondents, and even the military Peers, including the illustri ous Duke at the head of the Army, pointed out that the supersession would be but temporary, and that measures were in contemplation to put the whole Service on an equal footing; but they appeared entirely to miss the real convincing answer, which is, that the proposed scheme of promotion involved no

widely-differing schemes for alleviating the grievances of the Ordnance Corps have been conceived, decided on, pushed so far as to be embodied in warrants which waited only the Royal Signature, and then abandoned. Mr. Cardwell, blown about by doctrines coming from this side and from that, not understanding the case himself, and unable to seize the important points of the arguments set before him, has been dallying with the matter until the Linesmen have taken heart to get up a case, and the Lords have essayed to take the decision out of the weak Minister's hands. A Secretary of State of any force of mind or of will would long ago have promulgated a

be made to rank with the incendiary of the Temple of Diana, what sort of a reputation would that be? He has performed an unblushing act of tergiversation, going over to the winning side; but this-shame to our nature-has been so frequently done that it hardly confers dishonourable notoriety. A palate-scraping claret is associated with his name, which name men are apt to invoke with their teeth set on edge; and the pleasant beverage may possibly for a time perform for him the same service that the pillar in the King's Dale did for Absalon-but this again is not fame. And the rest of the acts of Mr. Glad

warrant, and so put the matter beyond interference; but Mr. Cardwell, first begging for the concurrence of the India Office, then of the Horse Guards, then of the Treasury, and being thwarted by each in turn, showed so much indecision and gave so much opportunity to cavillers, that now he is in the humiliating position of not being allowed to decide the matter at all. The action of the Lords is very like a vote of want of confidence in the Secretary of State for War. We have even heard it said-perhaps very unjustly that Mr. Cardwell only held out the prospect of these promotions to stop the mouths of stone-how he broke the laws, how objectors to the Army Estimates, and that he will not be sorry that the Lords have deprived him of the power of keeping his word. The only circumstance which, to our mind, supports this ungenerous view, is, that Mr. Cardwell intrusted the defence of his plan to Lord Ripon of Washington, which looked certainly as if he wished the defence to fail. By a statement made by Mr. Cardwell on 20th June, we find that he was hesitating whether to accept or not the action of the Lords as sufficient to prevent his carrying out promotions for which (so he says) the House of Commons has made provision. We should like to know when or how the Commons made this provision, for the promotions do not appear in their proper places in the Army Estimates!

Once more we have to take leave of Mr. Gladstone in his usual circumstances of concealment, mystery, and muddle, doing all he can to dissipate any shred of respect which may yet be felt for him. It is a most distressing reflection that a man of his undoubted abilities should be unable to make himself a reputation. He has been great in destruction; but even though he should

he made a Treaty, and how he
made a Marquis, duly chronicled
though they be-will hardly cause
his Dame to interest posterity.
There is surely great contrariety in
this, great counteraction of the eter-
nal fitness of things. Given such
talents as Mr. Gladstone's, and bodily
health and strength to use them, it
must require peculiar misapplication
of them, and peculiar operation of
his intellectual and moral disquali-
fications, to make him fail of success.
Howbeit such failure has been so
far the result of Mr. Gladstone's
career; and the whole community
may find cause for regret that so
great ability has done nothing for
the public advantage.
nition of Mr. Gladstone's attain-
ments would mean that accession
of knowledge or other great benefit
had accrued to the public through
their exercise.
It is idle to say
that there are not a hundred ways
in which they might have been
exercised to the great gain of the
possessor and of his fellow-men.
How deplorable, then, has been the
blind ambition which led him to
single out a career-the carcer, one
may perhaps say, for which he is
eminently unfit! To pretend, from
mere theoretical knowledge, to con-

A recog

trol the Government of a country, falls of his office (although he
practical as this country is-for are thought that he knew them better
we not Philistines, every one to the than most), and he was innocent of
very marrow?-was not only a wild, the beaten ways of escape which
but a most unfortunate piece of pre- the trained and experienced have
sumption. The silly doings, the learned as part of their business.
contrary acts, the helpless diplo- If he knew not the thrusts, of
macy, which we have monthly to course he had never heard of the
complain of, are the consequences parries. Hence his childish deceits,
of it. And there are consequences his mistrust of Parliament, and his
which, to Mr. Gladstone's own repu- adoption of a policy which is his
tation, are more damaging than as opposed to that of the nation.
those we have named-to wit, the Of course subtlety and insincerity
evasions, concealments, misleading are in his nature; but they
representations, subterranean mazes, would never, probably, have been
and questionable expedients, which brought into prominence if he
excite so much comment. The sub- had not sought for and attained
tleties of Mr. Gladstone's character a false position. Not many years
have been brought out by the neces-,
sities of office. In his earlier days
they were not often, certainly
not habitually, manifested. We
not unfrequently found to our cost
that Mr. Gladstone had said a
great deal more than he ought,
but we seldom had to complain of
his reticence. When he was Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, there was
an excess of candour and openness
about his proceedings: he not only
desired to clear away every doubt
which Parliament might feel as to
his doings, but he was ready to
enter into judgment with Tom,
Dick, and Harry in the newspapers.
He evidently had then the same
trust in plain, open dealing which
he has now transferred to occult
practice. The subterfuges are the
expedients of a well-intending, but
very weak, mind. The Premier
knew not the difficulties and pit-

of life can remain for this erudite man, who, in order that he may make a name for himself, will require to employ them all in some occupation wherein he is fitted to excel. Every season spent in the vain attempt to prove himself a great statesman diminishes appreciably his chances of being favourably known to posterity. Lasting ridicule he may possibly attain to; but nothing better as a statesman. Whatever of good there may be in him has been lost to the world, because he has lent his ear to the promptings of a suicidal ambition. man who said that he would be Cæsar or nobody, knew well enough that he had all the capacity for being Cæsar: if it is to be Gladstone or Nobody in the line of statesman, the prospects of Nobody are decidedly encouraging.

The

དྷ ས ས

CHARLES JAMES LEVER.

We have lost in Charles Lever one of those brilliant and cheering lights, the extinction of which may be said to "eclipse the gaiety of nations." He died of heart disease, at Trieste, on the 1st of June current, in the 63d year of his age. He had been very unwell for some time past, and his dangerous state was well known to his family, and its termination calmly contemplated by himself. His death at last seems to have been painless and peaceful, and had apparently occurred in sleep, without a struggle. His letters latterly bore constant allusion to the broken state of his health, and expressed his conviction that the end was very near at hand; but the very letters which conveyed these melancholy but resigned forebodings were, at the same time, so full of life and fun, that his correspondents could not and hardly can now realise the fact that his bright spirit was so soon to be quenched.

In conversation his cheerfulness was all along unimpaired; and those who saw him at the close in Trieste, sitting with his daughters and one or two friends in his house, or more frequently in his garden, bright, clear, and pleasant as ever, though labouring under the painful struggling breathlessness of that malady which was so soon to prove fatal, will always bear with them a solemn but not at all sad recollection of the last days of Charles Lever. Painful as the end must ever be of those we love, his was such as all of us could wish to see, and none could fail to sympathise with, for the stout fresh-hearted old man of genius, whose tales had gladdened so many of us in our youth, and stimulated all who read to bold and honourable action.

It is now nearly forty years ago since he began to issue that remarkable series of joyous and genial fictions which have filled so many young hearts with so much innocent mirth, and which have flowed forth ever since in a continuous stream without intermission, and without sensible abatement in their vigour and vivacity. Only in our last Number we had occasion to notice his last production, which is distinguished by some of the best excellences of his style. We mean to take an early opportunity of saying again more at length what we think of those Harry Lorrequers,' Charles O'Malleys,' &c. &c., over whose fun, frolics, and adventures, most active men now of middle age have rejoiced, and in which we are glad to believe our younger friends still heartily delight. We may venture now, however, to mention the Dodd Family Abroad' and the 'O'Dowd Papers,' not so generally associated with his name as the novels, but showing that the brilliant novelist was an infinitely deeper thinker than many an essayist of much more solemn pre

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