Nile might even find it profitable to skirt the sea to Babelmandel, and thence to the Mozambique channel and the Cape. That the northern shores of Lybia (on the Mediterranean), Algeria, and the land of the "Muleys" to the Straits of Hercules, and the foot of Mount Atlas, will be lined with railways even before this century is completed, is a fancy by no means impossible to realize. The world wants but roads to bear on its denizens to what height of intellectuality and physical happiness they are capable of reaching or enjoying. The principle of aggregation, if only on periodical occasions, is one that in its attraction smooths away the sharp asperities of our kind; and, instead of that strange and unaccountable jealousy that the people of one country feel towards those of another, a large hearted and generous accessibility of all classes of men, with all peculiarities, defects, and perfections (both of which latter being relatively possessed by all in common)-would assuredly be the result.

It is absurd, so far as man is connected with this world, to place a higher actuating element before him than commerce, trade, bread-winning, and money-gathering. All else depends on these. Historians, poets, painters, sculptors-the teachers of the world-require more than bread and salt, herbs and fresh water, to intensify the afflatus with which they vivify dead things; and make them speak as stones do sermons, and the running brooks elegiacs on decay and rejuvenescense; and for this reason we must rationally hold that all mental creations upon any scale of greatness are bound to thank those who pioneer the way for the sons of industry to arrive at independence, whereby the world. is bettered and man made more capable of appreciating the benignities of life and nature. If commerce, trade, barter, what-not, suggest or create a railway, it has been created by its proper agent. Fashion, wealth, aristocracy, and so on, have done none of these things, but have benefitted by them and use them; but if we depended upon what are called "refined tastes," or ebullitions of the "cacoethic" energy, the “mens divinior," &c., &c., we should have a very primitive world and a very chaotic Eden. We owe more to the "shopkeeping" spirit of England than we fairly love to acknowledge; and the enterprize of trade has opened more "fresh fields and pastures new" to the poet than he is, perhaps, aware of. Behold, then, in these struggles and triumphs the Promethean Titan-an incarnate man-conquering the great elemental powers of Nature herself, and by his genius bending them to use and profit, making of the aridities of the desert even, an actual blessing.

Of the electric telegraph, which occupies the concluding

chapter of this book, we need scarcely enter into a disquisition, since our readers by the medium of the journals must necessarily be au courant with its beginning, its difficulties, and the ultimate complete success which has attended the daily improvements made in its machinery and manipulation. A message borne at the rate of something like a hundred miles a minute must be a wonderful proof of the subjection to which we have brought this still mysterious and impalpable agent; and to "put a girdle round the world in forty minutes" is not so vague and insane a fancy as the sceptical may imagine. On the stealthy step of the escaping murderer the winged Nemesis follows, and the shuddering wretch finds himself standing within one step of his doom! Congratulations, messages, an order for a dinner, and a command to a fleet to put to sea, go by the same agency. Time and space, matter, and motion are annihilated and rendered nugatory as negations. The birth of an heir, and the reprieve of the condemned, traverse alike the silently eloquent wires, and the new and superb language is perfect.

Of the splendid results of the railways, the last half century is in itself a convincing proof. The arena of labour is extended— pauperism has received notice to quit. Thear ts flourish : if not quite so correct in taste as might be desired, it is neither from lack of patronage or want of money. We are, in fact, lavish in expenditure, and we feel satisfied that ere long (with the new Schools of Design to aid us) we shall change all this. The world, neither distant from us, nor niggardly in its gifts, pours them prodigally at our feet. Science has soothed the benign genius of plenty, and every land contributes to our wants and our luxurious tastes. If it be an age rapid in its advancement, it is one, after all, that we can keep pace with. Every man has more to learn than any of his predecessors; but we attain knowledge easier, and we test it more severely too; and there are few things that we can refer all this to-and the future opening out with such fair promise-with more right than to the railway.

The assembling of the people of the earth at the Great Exhibition of 1851, like the assemblage of the Amphictyonic Council and the Olympic Games, had the like result. With the men, manners, and productions of strange and foreign nations, we became acquainted-we are less ignorant now than before, and that is a direct benefit. Everything that has tended in any way to gather men together has had a direction for good

in the most extended sense of the word.

The cost of travelling commodiously, well-sheltered from sun and rain, being reduced to an average of a penny a mile, the dangerous results of monster excursion trains will doubtless in

duce a still further reduction; and, for safety of life and limb (since it is assumed that the proprietors can profitably do so), such is to be recommended. This is a boon to the poor which it is scarcely possible to give an adequate conception of. In it are involved affections, interests, hopes, fears, anxieties, necessities, and other sentiments of more or less import, which, being human, we may comprehend without being able to detail them ; while the merchant who leaves London in the morning for York, Liverpool, Manchester, &c., sleeps the same night under his own roof-his whole business being done, time and money saved, by jumping out of a cab into the "express-train," which wheels him along at a rate that makes miles and minutes equivalents, and almost convertible terms.

They have bound together sundered kindred, healed enmities, renewed broken ties, and made strong and lasting friendships. They have borne many a blessing on their iron wings, and smoothed away many a difficulty in the path of life. The remote recesses of the country have become known, and the peasant was enabled to behold a world's wonder during this last year such as no age ever before witnessed. They have cheapened the cost of many necessities, and towards poverty have shown a benignant aspect. By means of the iron highway we know within twenty-four hours what passes daily in every corner of the land. There is no longer mystery and darkness with regard to the distant; for, in less than twice twenty-four hours, we can read in clear type the whole events of a continental event; and to what is passing in the kingdom of the Czar, add a few more in the city of the Sultan. No foe can attack us—no internal commotion can take place-no tyranny of princes or of people (the one being quite as despotically inclined as the other)-but we can know the extent of the menace or the mischief in a few minutes where the electric telegraph is placed; while by the train there come those devoted to the cause of law and order, and peace is restored. Every branch of the arts, every department of science, every phase and condition of existence, owe a debt to this sublime power, which, terrible and destructive as the lightning, can be checked and wielded by the hands of a mere child.

It will be seen, then, that we appreciate and recommend this really excellent work. That Mr. Williams has made himself completely a master of his subject, the whole arrangement, his mass of facts, tables of statistics, his data, his deductions—all, in fact, bear ample testimony to; and, as it is the history from beginning to end of that which creates an entirely new era in the annals of the world's progress, it cannot meet with too encouraging a reception or be too carefully perused.

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ART. V.-The Life of Marie de 'Medici, Queen of France, Consort of Henry IV., and Regent of the Kingdom under Louis XIII. By Miss PARDOE, Author of "Louis XIV. and the Court of France in the 17th Century," "the City of the Sultan," &c. Three Vols. London: Colburn and Co. 1852.

THOSE who have studied the history of France can hardly fail to have noticed the wide difference between the political principles which prevailed during its earlier eras and those on which the Government was carried on in later times. Among ourselves we watch the growth of free institutions; trace their bearings on every branch of society age after age; and note how gradually the obstacles to their free-action and entire development were removed by the advancing intellect of the nation. Nothing appears that does not naturally arise out of the progress of a free people. England now is as much the England of any other period as any man at any period of his life is the same man who existed at any time previously.

When we turn our attention to France, we see a very different spectacle. There the institutions of one age have been again and again removed to make way for those of another: a series of experiments takes the place of a natural development; and the power for the time dominant sweeps away, as far as it can, all that stands in the way of its own operations. We do not mean to assert that no progress took place-far from it. The externals of civilization were, indeed, rather in advance of than behind those on this side of the channel; the arts flourished more rapidly; a kind of graceful polish was given to society which was but imperfectly imitated elsewhere; and, if profligacy and licentiousness were rampant, they were at least less gross in France than in the rest of Europe; and we have no reason to believe that any greater proficiency of iniquity prevailed in the Court of Paris than in our own. Recent memoirs have displayed somewhat of the deformity of our social condition, and have shown that, even in the middle of the reign of the Third George, it was but partially amended: we therefore are hardly entitled to throw the first stone at our neighbours, whatever we may think of our greater advantages and the use which we ought to have made of them.

The early history of France displays it as a very limited monarchy, the king being surrounded by a powerful body of all but sovereign princes, each independent within his own dominions, and not unfrequently at war with their suzerain. With

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Normandy, Guienne, and a considerable part of Picardy in the hands of the English-with the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany ever prone to revolt-with Navarre independent and more readily attached to Arragon than to France, the condition of the French Sovereigns was far more brilliant than secure; and we may, perhaps, rightly attribute to the disadvantages of such a position the slow growth of civil rights and municipal institutions in France as compared with that which our own history presents.

At length a happier age began to dawn : our illustrious Henry V. was gathered to his fathers and France was delivered from a foe whose genius was but just culminating. Had that great prince lived to enjoy the fruits of his conquests, it is but too probable that both nations would have had to look back to his memory with regret. His extraordinary abilities were well adapted to consolidate his heterogeneous empire—at least during bis own life: the merits of his administration in peace were likely to have rivalled his success in war; and the result would have been the transferring of the Court to Paris. It is not needful that we should speculate on evils which were never permitted to take place. The conquests of Charles VII. broke the power of the English in France, and left to his able but unnatural son, Louis XI., leisure to bring into subjection his overgrown vassals. To this end that astute prince steadily applied himself, and wonderful was the success with which he accomplished his plan. Charles VIII. was able to bring the whole power of France to bear upon Italy; and Louis XII. gave the nation he so wisely ruled the inestimable advantages of a just administration and internal tranquility. Then followed the splendid but profligate reigns of Francis I. and Henry II., and now a new element of disturbance arose in the struggles of the Huguenots. We think that this part of French history has scarcely ever yet received the attention it deserves. The generality of writers view the contest as a religious one, or at most as a contest for religious liberty; but it seems to us that rightly to understand it we must again refer to the period of Louis XI. The nobles of France felt his Government to be a grinding tyranny: the material interests of the country were cared for and prospered: the towns were favoured and commerce was encouraged; but the great vassals, and their vassals in turn, were treated with a view to the entire extinction of their power. To this end did the king systematically thwart them in all their designs-keep up a perpetual jealousy among them—and by manoeuvres, frequently of the most treacherous and detestable character, prevent, during the latter portion of his reign, those Combinations which had so greatly limited the power and fettered