Fleet, and the capture of Winter-Quarters, on the South-side of the beleagured City. Such resources had the Allies brought to the conflict, and with such fury did they wield them, that when at length the Citadel fell, the Spectator beheld a scene of desolation, exceeding all description; a scene, such as might have been looked for, from a concentration of the lightnings of Heaven, on the devoted City, but utterly beyond all that could have been expected, from the thunderbolts of War. A sad lesson of humiliation, this, to that Royal House, whose dynastic pride and grasping policy, had brought it into conflict with two of the mightiest nations in the world, in defence of a third, whose helplessness, it was thought, would make it an easy prey. Successive Czars had plundered the smaller provinces of Europe and Asia, watching with the characteristic cunning of their race, each opportune moment, for extinguishing nationalities-incorporating territories-and devouring neighbouring states, until they filled up the measure of their villanies, in a period of profound Peace, and in contempt of a European Protest, by the invasion of the Principalities, and the massacre of Sinope. But their hour was come. Providence, for their chastisement, permitted or ordained,-we presume not to determine which—the formation of the closest possible Alliance, among three nations who had scarcely anything in common; and for the last sixteen months, their proud Empire, which, they affected to regard, as capable of devouring all others, has suffered discomfiture in every scene, where its pretensions have been submitted to the arbitrement of the Sword; in the Black Sea-in the Sea of Azov, and in the Baltic; at Alma-at Inkermann-on the Tchernaya-on the Heights of Sebastopol, indeed everywhere, from Kertch to Kinburn, from Silistria to Sweaborg, and from the banks of the Danube to those of the Ingour.* Humiliation stares her in the face, even before the gates of her great Metropolis, where she beholds that proud Fleet, with which she has so long overawed the Scandinavian Nations, laid skulking behind Granite Walls, which it dares not to leave; thus awaiting the same ignominious doom at the mouth of the Neva, which the Guns of Sebastopol could not avert from that sister Fleet which once swept the Euxine, and threatened the ancient city of the Eastern Cæsars.

Seldom have we known anything more humiliating, than the contrast between the state and prospects of Russia now, and in the corresponding part of the year 1854. Then, her Power inspired awe in the one half of Europe, and her professions of Moderation, respect in the other; but now she is so humbled, that among the crowned Heads of the Continent, none can be found to do her reverence. That puppet, King Otho, has given her up, and the Princes of Germany treat her claims with an ominous silence, except indeed, the anomalous Sovereign of Prussia, who, blows hot and cold on the same subject: one day, all for the Allies, the next, all for Russia-now "full of valour against his overweening" neighbour, then attacked by a fit of cold and shivering, at the bare thought of a rupture with its bewildered, almost prostrate * Since this Sheet went to the Press, a Rumour has been afloat concerning the Capitulation of Kars. But it has not yet been authenticated.- Editor.

Czar. Such is the position of this unhappy country !-whose every interest has been sacrificed to the mad policy of her grasping Rulers. The sun of her Civilization had scarcely emerged from the NIGHT of Ages, before this fearful contest brought on an eclipse, which, will probably out-last the present generation. Her sufferings have been truly appalling. Her best men have been sacrificed in myriads at the shrine of AMBITION, and still new victims are dragged to the Altar. The War not only exhausts her wealth and destroys her COMMERCE, but by devouring the most valuable element in her vast population, it places the prospect of redemption, at an indefinite distance. With the continuance of the WAR, that prospect-already far, far, away; must recede farther and farther from her. "Slowly, but certainly losing ground in the Crimea before the Western Powers, she finds new armies required to meet the Turks in the CAUCASUS, and apprehends that at one word, one stroke of the pen, on our part, she will have to find a hundred thousand men for the defence of her NORTHERN frontier. Meanwhile every Dock-yard in ENGLAND and FRANCE, is preparing the means for attacking what has hitherto been deemed impregnable in RUSSIA. . . . Ominous circumstances indicate something wrong within. The youth and inexperience of the later levies, betray a greater drain on the class capable of bearing arms, than the mere succession of Ukases would lead us to expect; and it is evident that the Russian serf, is often tied to the soil, in a sense, which even an imperial UKASE cannot disturb. What will be the case, when a stronger pressure is applied. When the Czar has to announce that his territory is attacked on all sides, and that for one army destroyed, two new armies must be found? It will, then be seen, whether there is indeed no opinion in RUSSIA, even when it is a matter of self-preservation."

Persons versed, at all, in ancient literature, must now and then have stumbled on certain legends relating to the Amazons, or female warriors, whose mighty deeds are said to have been performed in Albania, in Attica, and at the siege of Troy. Their existence, notwithstanding, the numerous allusions to them in classic story, has been doubted; their vaunted deeds, have been ranked among those fictions, which we often meet with, at the dawn of History. But, if such a race ever did exist, the East, was undoubtedly the scene of their glory. It was there, that they warred against Hercules; it was there that they fought against the Greeks, and there, that they were slaughtered by Achilles. Now, in the lamentable conflicts of the past year, our rulers have not illustrated the legends of antiquity, by sending out whole Squadrons of female Cavalry. Not, indeed, that we have been without our Heroines in this memorable struggle, or that, they have not contributed greatly to mitigate its disasters. Numbers of women of various ages, and in various ranks of life, have gone forth from these shores, undaunted by the perils of a sea-voyage -by the pestilential vapours of the East-by residence, amid a people, long known in the West as the sworn enemies of the Christian faith. But they have gone, as Angels of Mercy; not to make wounds, but to heal them; not to destroy lives, but to save them. Their

"I

Mission contrasts greatly with that of other individuals, drawn thither, merely by the love of enterprise. Of this band of distinguished Women, Miss Nightingale, and Mrs. Willoughby Moore, have come most prominently before the public eye; but numbers more, have evinced the same kindness of heart, towards thousands of poor soldiers, who had been all but devoured by the iron jaws of War. Before they went to the East, the Hospitals were like so many Lazar-Houses for disease; so many Ante-Chambers of Pandemonium for wickedness. Since their arrival, they have become models of cleanliness and decorum. Such has been the influence of love and devotion, on these sons of Mars. One writer on the spot, in allusion to the gentle Leader of this band of Heroines, says;have just heard such a pretty account from a soldier, describing the comfort it was, even to see her pass. 'She would speak to one and another, and nod and smile to as many more, but she couldn't do it to all, you know, for we lay there by hundreds, but we could see her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on the pillow, again, content.' Mrs. Willoughby Moore was chained to the oar in this godlike enterprise, and like her never-to-be-forgotten Husband, fell a victim to her attempts to rescue others from a premature grave. Miss Nightingale still survives. She is animated by the same spirit, and it is pleasing to learn, that while so many Aristocratic Officers have found occasion to leave the scene of suffering on "urgent private business," this angelic Woman, resolves not to permit herself to have any 66 urgent, private business," so long as there is a soldier's life to care for, in the Hospitals of the East. What a contrast between the power of military excitement, and the luxury of doing good, to enchain the spirit to scenes of self-denial, and of danger. The Allied Armies in the East may secure the independence of Turkey, and maintain the Balance of Power by their feats of arms, for a few years, longer; but the example of these devoted Women will command the homage of Mankind to the latest posterity. When War shall be mentioned, only to be execrated, their deeds will remain inscribed on the Tablets of Fame, in immortal characters! In ages to come, their names will shine forth on the historic page, as the most illustrious, and most heroic too, of all the Captors of Sebastopol !

But the most important event of the past year, in the estimation of one half of Christendom, the most disastrous in the judgment of the other, is the concluding of the Concordat between the Court of Vienna, and the See of Rome. By this singular instrument of policy, the Emperor has given up, all liberty-civil and religious -both for himself, his counsellors and his people. It must strike the intelligent reader, as a striking instance of self-inflicted retribution on the House of Hapsburg, that one of that line, which had so long planted the Iron hoof of despotism on Italy, should voluntarily concede to a Spiritual Sovereign-whose authority in Rome itself, could not endure for a single day, without foreign support-all the Powers claimed by the laws of the Church in his behalf, even to the putting down by fire and sword of every vestige of opinion,

at variance with his pretensions, or his claims. Infatuated Monarch! for him, Hildebrand might still excommunicate the Sovereign from the Church, and absolve the subject from his allegiance; to him, the massacre of Bartholomew, the persecution in the Lowlands, and the atrocities of the Inquisition, teach no lesson. It may be true of the wheels of Nature that they were not made to roll backward, but assuredly the Emperor Joseph's wheels of Policy go in that direction. Their motions are adapted to remind one much more of the age of Wenceslaus, Ferdinand, and Old Spain, than of the times of Victor Emanuel, and Sardinia. In imitation of the superstitious Ruler of the Mædieval age, but without his apology, he has placed all the Schools, public and private, throughout the Austrian Empire, under the control of the minions of Rome : he has armed irresponsible ecclesiastics with the power of inflicting Penalties on all classes of his subjects, and authorized their Courts to do anything they please, except determine a case of disputed succession to the Throne. The young Emperor has been tardy enough about striking a blow on the side of the Public Law of Europe, but he has with the alacrity of a Fanatic, supplied Rome with the means of riveting on his people, the fetters of the most hateful Despotism, that God or Man ever witnessed. The Pope has been permitted to inveigle him into the same track that the Rulers of Old Spain had trod before him; and we greatly fear, the results will be parallel. What in the following passage is now matter of history in the one case, will in due course become so in that of the other. virtue of a Concordat, will be found to be quite as great in Germany, as in Castile.

The

"Spain might now boast that the stain of heresy no longer defiled the hem of her garment. But at what a price was this purchased! Not merely by the sacrifice of the lives and fortunes of a few thousands of the existing generation, but by the disastrous consequences entailed for ever on the country. Folded under the dark wing of the Inquisition, Spain was shut out from the light which in the 16th Century, broke over the rest of Europe, stimulating the nations to greater enterprise in every department of knowledge. The genius of the people was rebuked, and their spirit quenched, under the malignant influence of an eye that never slumbered, of an unseen arm ever raised to strike. How could there be freedom of thought, where there was no freedom of utterance, where it was as dangerous to say too little as too much? Freedom cannot go along with fear. Every way the mind of the Spaniard was in fetters."

Let this Austrian Concordat abide in force, and a fearful penalty will be exacted on those who have submitted to it. The History in the case of Spain, is the Prophecy in that of Austria. The laws of the moral, are as stable as those of the material Universe. Religious defection must, sooner or later, bring its own punishment.

In immediate connexion with the first announcement of the above outrage on the dearest rights of man, in the very centre of Germany, Cardinal Wiseman perpetrated a scarcely less revolting outrage on common sense and decency, in the metropolis of this country. The Advocate of Rome had the audacity, on one and the same day, to

welcome the King of Sardinia to the shores of England, and to vindicate the Concordat with the Court of Vienna. To vindicate it, at all, especially in this country, required prodigious assurance in the Advocate, but to do it on the same day, and almost with the same breath, that welcomed the King of Sardinia, was an outrage on all decency, O shame! where is thy blush? The dignitary who eulogised the virtues and intelligence of the Emperor Joseph-the tool of Rome-did, on the very same day, meet Victor Emanuel, the representative of Italian Nationality, the upholder of Constitutional Government, and the Champion of Civil Rights against the encroachments of Rome—and bade him welcome to this country in the name of the Catholics of the metropolis. Whilst we had before us examples of what came of drawing closer the cords that bound Spain and the various States of Italy to the Chair of St. Peter, the Cardinal had the effrontery to come forth and vindicate this new instrument of Romish state-craft. And such a defence! The Concordat, we are told, had been two years under consideration, and it must, therefore, be a good and valuable document; as if deliberation could not be pressed into the service of Vice as well as of Virtue. But another matter on which he laid great stress, carries us to the crowning point of the Cardinal's sublime argumentation in favour of Rome and the Concordat. We allude to the Doctor's distinction between classical and ecclesiastical Latin, by virtue of which the journalists of this country are unfitted, it would seem, to judge of the nature of this most precious document. Certainly, this is conclusive. No case could be more admirably put. So Rome, for purposes of intrigue, has so corrupted its chosen vehicle of thought-the Latin language, that no individual can understand the terms used by the Church, unless he has studied Latin in the Vatican Library, under the direction of the Scarlet Lady whose name is MYSTERY, Mother of Harlots, and Abominations of the Earth! We do, from our hearts, pity the infatuated men, who could calmly listen to such a defence. How deplorably bad must be the cause, in favour of which Rome's favourite advocate has nothing better to urge!

The instinctive dread of the spread of knowledge which led the Roman See to negociate the Concordat with the Emperor of Austria, has moved its emissaries in the sister country to attempt to arrest the progress of Divine truth there. A Concordat with Queen Victoria was out of the question. New measures were required. What were they? The shortest and most direct possible. Unable to prevent the printing of the Word of God, they determined to encounter its circulation, by fire. Within the last few weeks, the Protestant people of this land have been shocked with an account of the BIBLE having been committed to the flames-an atrocity countenanced by, at least, one high dignitary of the Romish Church in Ireland. A prosecution has been instituted against the party more immediately concerned, and it remains to be seen whether this blasphemous act shall go unpunished; whether the moral incendiary, by whom it was perpetrated, shall be permitted, with impunity, to destroy a Book, whose "leaves are for the healing of the nations." In the meantime, we