the Sultan? The interests of Russia are unquestionably bound up in its permanence and developement. The interests of the Porte are actually sas crificed by its provisions. The interests of Great Britain, France, and Austria are necessarily compromised by the Russian possession of the Bosphorus, which virtually that treaty ensures. By the treaty of Adrianople, Turkey obliged herself to pay to the autocrat ten millions of ducats. By the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, she sold her freedom for a mess of pottage. As she was unable to defend herself, and as her " faithful" allies would not defend her, therefore, by an everlasting law of life among nations, she is no longer an independent state-she is no more. Is this treaty, then, to be suffered to remain as the political nightshade over the destinies of the Porte? If so, Turkey must expire, Russia announces her fixed resolution to maintain the integrity of the treaty, and to make war for its preservation. England has refused, by the Whigs, to go to war with Russia. She has sacrificed the freedom of the Black Sea, and the independence of the Bosphorus, to her policy in Ireland and her internal squabbles about pretended reform. France looks on. Austria imitates her example. The treaty of Unkiar Skelessi exists, and Turkey Turkey is gradually expiring beneath the "protection" of the Czar.

Seventh, and finally, Is the Turkish empire to be reconstituted? or is an Egyptian and Syrian empire to be founded? Are we approaching the pe riod when that mighty Mohammedan colossus which bestrode the world is for ever to disappear, and when new states and empires are to arise on the ruins of error, vice, and superstition?

or has the world yet to witness new phases in this Eastern question, and are centuries still to elapse before "the river Euphrates shall be dried up, that the way of the kings of the East may be prepared?" The status quo is next to impossible; not perhaps for the hour, the month, or the year, but for almost the shortest period of a nation's history. We count our lives by moments-those of nations by years. The Eastern question cannot be SETTLED without war and conflagration. It may be postponednot long-but for a short space of time, its settlement by diplomacy is impossible. The decline and fall of empires, long since unknown but in the works of the historian, should teach us that the present position of the affairs of the East is only preparatory to a mighty catastrophe. The Mohammedan empire is reaching the closing period of its eventful history. But what is to supersede it? Is the Stamboul of the past to be inhabited by advancing Cossacks, and the yet uncivilized hordes of the Russian forests? Is the ancient Byzantium, once the seat of the Roman empire in the east, to become the capital of another despotism, not less tyrannical, but far less enlightened? Is the Archipelago to become the private property of the Russian Czars? Is the Sea of Marmora to be closed to all pendants but that of the eagle of the north? Are the Turks to saunter, as strangers in a strange land, amongst the ruins of their former glories? Are their children to feel that they are ruled by a stranger's hand as they walk on the Hippodrome, or enter the temple of St Sophia? We cannot answer these questions; but appearances are all in favour of the affirmative.

"IT is many years," says Dr M'Henry, "since I first entertained the design of writing a narrative poem, on some great event in the history of Man; but the selection of that event was a matter of no slight difficulty. A good subject, I knew, was the first step towards success in any literary undertaking; and I resolved to adopt none which I did not feel persuaded would form a recommendation to my work." Mrs Hannah and Mr Thomas Moore, and our friend Mr John Stewart, have furnished us with elaborate pictures of gentlemen respectively in search of a wife, a religion, and a horse; but none of the three is so impressive as the Doctor's of a poet in search of a subject. In that search his sconce has become slape his eyes have lost their lustre -his frame has been bent earthwards; so that, while yet little more than threescore, his semblance is that of extreme old age. Even we ourselves look-nay feel young, in his presence;

to us

"The oldest man he seems that ever wore grey hairs."

66

This comes of devoting one's-self for many years to the selection for the subject of a narrative poem of some great event in the history of man. Their multitude is overwhelmingand shifting as the clouds. An event that to the eyes of imagination overshadows the whole morning sky-at meridian looks but a speck-in the gloaming, is gone. Among great events, alas! how few good subjects!" mentally exclaims the solitary, with a sigh. But a good subject is "the first step towards success in any literary undertaking;" and till that is taken, lack-a-daisical indeed must be the aspect of the meditative poet-sitting by himself with his pen in his hand. Every year he grows harder and harder to please subjects not to be sneezed at on the score of size, to his fastidious optics seem contemptibly small-mountains dwindle into molehills rivers into rills-seas into ponds; and the consequence is, that, "resolved to adopt no subject which he does not feel persuaded would form a recommendation to his work," he

adopts none at all, and, after a term protracted far beyond the narrow span usually allotted to human life, he dies without his fame, and leaves no proof of his existence here below, except, perhaps, a few pieces of prose.

Such, however, will not be the fate of Dr M'Henry-though he has made a narrow escape. "The annals of mankind," he acutely remarks, "furnish many great and stirring events, well adapted to poetic narration; but I wanted one not only great in its character, but universal in its effects, that all men might feel an interest in its details." That was a noble ambition, and proved how just an appreciation the Doctor had been led to make of his powers, aspiring very early to the most extensive practice. "Neither the founding of a state," he exultingly declares, "the achievement of a victory, nor the overthrow of an empire, was therefore adequate to my wishes."

"Tantæ molis erat Romanam condere gentem,"

a line by many thought to be magnificent, seemed almost mean to his imagination

Μῆνιν αειδε, Θεὸς, Πηληιάδες ̓Αχιλλῆος, an invocation by all felt to be sublime fell far short of the reaches of his sou

and thus the Iliad and the Æneid appeared to the Doctor to be respectable poems in their way" on great and stirring events, well adapted to poetic narration"-but because "not universal in their effects," sufficient for the genius of a Homer and a Virgil, but inadequate to that of a M'Henry, born in the fulness of time and for the illumination of the whole race of man.

"The discovery of the New World," he admits, "was an event of great and general interest; but it was already poetically occupied, and therefore forbidden to me by both courtesy and policy." America, it may be remarked as we go along, is not a new world, but merely one of the four quarters of the old-and the old world went on well enough for the purposes of poetry, while it was supposed to consist but of Europe, Asia, and Africa - yet do we cheerfully grant that the disco