who hated the minister who had employed him, got the king to dispense with his services, and consequently Voltaire found himself involved in the ruin and fall of his chef less than a fortnight after his return to Paris.

He went back to Brussels and bided his time for a few months until his friend Argenson became Secretary of State, when he found himself in a better position with the court than ever, and devoted himself to its pleasures. He and his belle Emilie' stole away again to Cirey in the opening spring, and were enraptured with its delights; it is charming, it is a bijou,' he exclaims to one friend, and in writing to another he dates his letter Cirey en félicité.' Here they would gladly have remained for ever, had not les Parques in the shape of Richelieu's desire to see them again before his departure for Spain, and the fêtes given to celebrate the king's convalescence, drawn them resistlessly towards the city of pleasure. Madame du Châtelet dearly loved a little sight-seeing, and the last picture time will allow us to give of her is when, escorted by her poet, she started to see the fireworks in the Place de Grève. Her coachman was a stranger in Paris, and did not know his way; the carriages were to be counted by thousands, and the crowd of sightseers surged and swayed, shouted and shrieked, as they got in the way of one another and the horses. It was impossible either to advance or to retreat, and our two beaux-esprits found themselves likely to pass the night where they were, with hungry stomachs, and without seeing the fireworks. Madame du Châtelet at last could stand it no longer, but persuaded Voltaire to accompany her and make the best they could of a bad bargain. They left the carriage, found their way somehow through the crowd, and gained the hôtel of the President Hénault, whose master was away. Once there they sent to the nearest rôtisseur's for a fowl, enjoyed a hearty supper, drank to the health of the master of the house, and waited till the throng dispersed.

We cannot in this paper follow the illustrious friends to the end of their lives, and we commenced at a considerable distance from the beginning; we have only aimed at giving a few glimpses of their 'middle passage,' which are new to the generality of readers, and placing the great Frenchman before them in a fairer and more amiable light than that in which they have been accustomed to regard him, but we are unwilling to conclude without just noticing one of the most extraordinary pieces of audacity which ever entered the Gallic mind in the person of its foremost genius. Voltaire felt that it was virtually his reputation as an unbeliever that had excluded him from the Academy: he wished to be regarded by the King as an orthodox personage, and also to conciliate that section of his countrymen who were dévots. He therefore hit upon the expedient of

reconciling the Crescent and the Cross by obtaining the Pope's permission to dedicate to him the tragedy of Mahomet. In his own words he cast both the book and its author at the feet of the Holy Father, begging his protection for the one and his blessing for the other.' Benedict the Fourteenth, being a man of the world as well as an ecclesiastic, could refuse neither request, and the poet having got what he wanted, and rejoicing in the shelter of the Papal stole, criticised his Holiness's Virgil, found it somewhat rusty, and calmly sat down to await the course of events and the next Academical vacancy.

ELIZA CLARKE.

THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA.

CANADA has been for more than a century a dependency of the British Crown, and it may with truth be asserted that at no period of its history have the people of all classes been so satisfied with their political institutions as at the present time. There are, of course, two political parties, each, it is only charitable to believe, anxious for the prosperity of the country, and each believing that that prosperity will be best advanced by the adoption of the particular policy which it specially recommends. These parties, though bitterly hostile to one another, are animated by the same feelings of loyalty to the sovereign of the Empire, and of attachment and respect to the representative of the Crown within the Dominion. Neither in nor out of the Canadian Parliament has there been, since the confederation of the provinces in 1867, any manifestation of discontent with the Constitution, or any expression of a desire for change. On the contrary, the minority, which in all the provinces opposed confederation with all the energy in their power, accepted, some with praiseworthy alacrity, others with more hesitation, the decision of the majority, and have cheerfully lent their aid to the development of the new institutions.

Writers in English periodicals have been paying unusual attention of late to the relations between the colonies and the Empire, professing to believe that they are in anything but a satisfactory state. Mr. Goldwin Smith has predicted that sooner or later annexation to the United States will be the destiny of Canada, it being assumed that her present dependent condition cannot be permanent, and that the only other alternative would be for her to form part of a great Imperial confederation. What is called a Pan-Britannic confederation does not appear to Mr. Goldwin Smith to be practicable, and although he admits that under the present Canadian Constitution imperial supremacy is a mere form, and that self-government is independence, all questions that arise between Ottawa and Downing Street being settled in favour of self-government, yet he cannot bring himself to believe that the Canadians will continue to submit to nominal dependence on the crown of Great Britain. Sir Julius Vogel has undertaken to defend Imperial confederation in the Nineteenth Century,

and it is to a certain extent satisfactory to have even a very crude scheme brought before the public for consideration. It was pointed out fairly enough by Mr. Goldwin Smith with reference to imperial confederation: Yet of the statesmen who dally with the project, and smile upon its advocates, not one ventures to take a practical step towards its fulfilment.' Sir Julius Vogel has undertaken to establish the following propositions :—

1. The unsatisfactory nature of the relations between the mother country and the colonies.

2. The urgent necessity for doing something to arrest the disintegration, towards which progress is being made.

3. That a union depending upon the pleasure, for the time being, of the different parts of the Empire, means separation sooner or later. 4. That, under the union-during-pleasure condition, much is being done to hasten separation.

5. That the mother country is entitled to retain and consolidate her possessions.

6. That confederation is desirable, and would be fraught with advantage, both to the parent country and the colonies, in the shape of increased trade, increased value of property, the augmented happiness of the people, and the saving of much misery and disaster.

7. That its accomplishment does not present great difficulties. Before examining these propositions seriatim, I shall venture to submit a few general remarks on Sir Julius Vogel's paper. I shall, of course, write as a Canadian, and from a Canadian point of view. I have no satisfactory means of forming an opinion as to the feelings or wishes of the people in the other self-governing colonies, but I should be much surprised to learn that people who are free from the difficulties with which Canadians have to contend, from their proximity to the great American Republic, are less favourable than they are to the subsisting connection with Great Britain.

On reading Sir Julius Vogel's paper, I was at once struck with its bearing on political parties in England. It is asserted that there was 'a supposed desire' on the part of several members of the Liberal Government to detach the colonies from the Empire, and the indirect pledge on the part of the Conservatives to respect the integrity of the Empire' is said to have been satisfactory to the masses of the people, as the feeling was general that the Liberals did not care how soon it was broken up.' It is far from desirable that there should be any appeals to party prejudices, either in the mother country or the colonies, in regard to their relations with one another. Canadians have occasionally been over-sensitive on the subject of English opinion. Instances might be cited in which a strong article in the Times has caused so much exasperation as to lead thoroughly loyal men to utter very disloyal sentiments, owing to their wounded pride at finding the connection undervalued by that

influential journal. In my judgment, the action of Parliament and the despatches of the responsible Ministers of the Crown are the only safe guide as to the national opinion regarding the relations between the parent state and its dependencies.

Whatever may be Sir Julius Vogel's opinion, and it must be admitted that he is cautious as to making any specific charge, Canada has had no reason to complain of Imperial policy since confederation, and it would hardly be possible to use language stronger than that of Mr. Goldwin Smith in support of this assertion. Sir Julius Vogel is certainly mistaken in thinking that any Canadian governor discussed the separation of the colonies as a contingency neither remote nor improbable,' and it may be doubted whether the extract quoted from a speech of Sir Philip Wodehouse has not been distorted, so as to convey a very different impression from what was intended. Sir Philip Wodehouse, it is well known, was averse to the introduction of responsible government at the Cape, and was not likely to view with particular favour its working in other colonies. If New Zealand was virtually given to understand that she was at liberty to secede from the Empire,' it seems probable that such a suggestion must have been caused by some very reprehensible proceeding on the part of its government.

Sir Julius Vogel dwells chiefly on English public opinion, which he seems to think is not favourable to the present state of our relations. Referring to Lords Carnarvon and Kimberley, he is of opinion that the former administers the Colonial Department as if he thought the colonies would remain with the Empire,' while the latter administered it'in a manner that indicated his aim to fit the colonies for a career of independence.' I should be sorry to think that the paper under consideration was written with the view of extolling one and disparaging the other of the great English political parties. I find no evidence whatever that the English Liberal party is favourable to any change in the subsisting relations between the parent State and the colonies, beyond some vague utterance in favour of Imperial confederation attributed to the Right Hon. W. E. Forster on the occasion of his making a speech at Edinburgh in November 1875. Sir Julius Vogel quotes part of a speech delivered by Mr. Disraeli in 1872 to the Conservative Association, in which, while frankly acknowledging the propriety of conceding self-government to the colonies, the Conservative leader expressed his regret that it had not been conceded 'as part of a great policy of Imperial consolidation.' He then proceeded to explain that it ought to have been accompanied by an Imperial tariff, by securities to the people of England for the enjoyment of the unappropriated lands, which belonged to their sovereign as their trustee, and by a military code which should have precisely defined the means and the responsibilities by which the colonies should have been defended, and by which, if necessary, this country should call for aid from the colonies themselves. It ought further to have been accompanied by the institution of some representative council in the metropolis, which would have brought the colonies into constant and continuous relations with the Home Government.