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tion of the Quadrilateral, deserve serious attention; secondly, the pride of the Austrian army appears to be engaged in favour of not surrendering this piece of Italian soil without a struggle; thirdly, the Emperor is himself understood to feel very strongly on the subject; fourthly, a very large number of persons in the Germanic provinces would consider the abandonment of Venetia as a heavy blow, and a great discouragement; fifthly, there is no evidence that the Hungarians, if their own demands were satisfied, would not be willing to fight against Italy.

To these various considerations we may reply, first, that if Italy becomes reasonably powerful, there is little chance of French armies repeating against Austria the tactics of Napoleon's Italian campaigns, while it is hardly probable that the Italians, if once they have Venetia, will allow themselves to listen to those zealots who would teach them to clamour for Istria and other suchlike revendications. The second and third objections are serious, and we confess we do not see how anything but the ultima ratio regum is likely to overcome them. To the fourth, we answer that we do not believe the majority of persons in the Germanic provinces would allow, when it came to the point, their passions to overcome their interest, in a matter which is capable of being translated into a question of figures. We have heard a prominent member of the most essentially German section of the Reichsrath, admit that the question of Venetia must one day be settled against Austria, although not without a war. To the fifth objection, we hardly see what to reply, but trust that the argument of the purse might, at the critical moment, not be without its influence on the other side of the Leitha.

When we balance these considerations, we may well doubt whether Austria is at all likely to sell Venetia, but hold it to be more than probable that, if she does not do so, she will ere long lose it by war. Much depends on the course that things take in Italy. If the new kingdom becomes gradually consolidated, if its miserable finances are put in order, if the brigandage which makes people almost long for the rule of the Dukes and the Bourbons is effectually put down, if the Roman question is solved, and the country begins to be respected rather than patronized, public opinion in Europe, and common sense at home, may possibly become too strong even for the pride of the House of Hapsburg-Lorraine, and the susceptibilities of that devoted army to which it owes so much. In one way or another, however, we cannot doubt that Italy must eventually possess Venetia, and that Austria must make up her mind to the loss, if loss indeed it be.

The future position of Austria with regard to Northern and Central Germany, is another question of even greater difficulty. The relations of Austria to Germany have been treated at great length, in a very interesting work, by Baron Eötvös. His thesis is that the unity of Germany is necessary to the peace of Europe, and that the legislative separation of Hungary, and her connexion with the rest of the Empire by a merely personal union, is a necessary condition of German unity. Unlike Baron Eötvös, we should prefer to see Austria altogether divorced from her connexion with the Bund, although we are, of course, not insensible to the grand features of the so-called GrossDeutsch idea, and to the maimed and truncated appearance which Germany would present if she lost all the fair and historic German-speaking lands which are politically connected with Austria. Looking, however, not to what is abstractedly desirable, but to what is not wholly impossible, we pronounce for the view which finds favour in Prussia. So vast, however, are the difficulties which lie in the way of any such solution of the German question, so much has the popular sentiment in the Middle States been damped by the succession of follies which have characterized the reign of the present King of Prussia, so fiercely will a hundred menaced interests fight each for their own hand against the Klein-Deutsch solution of the problem, that it may well be that many decades may pass before any revolution in Germany comes about. German patriots pray for sages on the throne of Prussia, and fools on all the minor thrones, but as yet their prayers do not meet with any very satisfactory answer.

There are some who say, and we can well believe them, that the Austrian dynasty will give up anything rather than its hold upon Germany. Venetia may go, Hungary may go-anything and everything-rather than the old recollections of Frankfort. Nothing is more natural than that the Kaiser should think the felicity of reigning over any given number of Roumans, Bulgarians, or Bosnians, would be dearly bought by the loss of even a single German province; and if we look at the latest information from Northern Turkey in Europe, the little work lately edited by Mr. H. Sandwith for two enterprising English ladies, we shall see great reason to doubt whether the prospect of only exchanging Turkish for Austrian rule would excite any particular enthusiasm on the southern side of the Save. If this be so, however, and if it be true, as we fear it is, that the Austrian occupation of the Principalities has left behind it more bitter recollections than either the Russian or the Turkish, what is the idea of an Austria whose centre shall be Pesth, and which

shall extend all down the Danube valley, but a pleasant dream? We say this with sorrow, and should like nothing better than that some one might prove to us that we are too desponding; for since the resignation by the Emperor Francis of the imperial German crown, with all its shadowy and sublime prerogatives, this has seemed the natural and logical solution of many of the great difficulties of Central Europe.

We do not wonder, then, that the policy of the modern statesmen of Austria with regard to Turkey should be, and has been, a Conservative one. They have quarter-barbarians enough of their own to manage without the addition of a few millions semi-barbarians from the spoils of Turkey; and considering the powers of national deglutition and digestion which Russia has shown, they may well fear that the death of the Sick Man would add far too largely to her inheritance.

The views which any one will form about the Polish question in its bearings upon Austria, will of course depend upon his views of the far larger question as to the future of Poland, which has recently been discussed in this Journal. Nothing that has occurred since August 1864 has led us to speak with more hope of the affairs of that unfortunate country. The Russian Government is evidently determined to consider the struggle between itself and the Poles, at least in the Western Provinces of Russia, as one of life or death; and the moderate proposals of Schedo-Ferroti which have been published, and the characteristically fair and wise suggestions of Mr. Nicholas Tourgueneff-which are, we believe, not yet published, but which we have seen in manuscript-are hardly, we fear, likely to influence a Government whose traditions are not in favour of moderate counsels, even when it is clear that such counsels could be safely adopted. The literature of the subject, which English politicians should not forget, although it no longer fills the columns of the newspapers, has recently been supplemented by the extremely interesting work of Mr. Sutherland Edwards, The Private History of a Polish Insurrection, which we wish, in passing, to recommend to those students of contemporary politics who have not already seen it.

When we remember how bitterly hated the Austrian Government was in this country only a few years ago, it is satisfactory to see with how much good feeling our press has recognised the efforts which it has recently made to improve the institutions of the Empire. There are, however, still persons among us who can only look at Austria through Italian spectacles, and who believe that out of her no good thing can come. We are, we need hardly say, of a very different opinion. There is no

country of the Continent for whose prosperity we feel more anxious. This Europe in miniature, comprising in itself more contrasts of climate, of scenery, of race, of language, of religion, of civilisation, than any other region of equal extent in this quarter of the globe, can hardly fail to excite the interest and conciliate the good-will of every one who makes a study of her affairs. We cannot name any country which affords so many facilities for experiments of living under unfamiliar but not unfavourable conditions. That out of her disorder may come a many-sided order, that out of her discouragement may come cheerfulness, and out of her errors wisdom, is our fervent hope; but as we close the review of her recent history-by no means the darkest portion of her annals-we cannot help counting up the sins of her rulers, and asking ourselves whether it is not but too possible that for those sins there may yet come a day of reckoning, even worse than that of 1848. How often, during the period through which we have been conducting our readers, must not the wisest observers of what was passing at Vienna have been tempted to exclaim with the poet

"Aber sie treiben's toll;

Ich fürcht', es breche."
Nicht jeden Wochenschluss
Macht Gott die Zeche.'

ART. IV.-Faust: A Dramatic Poem, by Goethe. into English Verse by THEODORE MARTIN. tion. W. Blackwood and Sons, 1866.

Translated

Second Edi

It was in the spring 1770 that Goethe, then a young student of twenty, conceived at Strasburg the design of writing his Faust. Sixty-two years after, in the spring of the year 1832, he died at Weimar, finishing at the same time his life, and the poem of his life. A poem which thus has occupied for sixty-two years the greatest poet of modern times, has naturally excited deep interest. It has been translated repeatedly into all European languages, and imitated by great and little poets; it has given subjects to the most eminent painters, to Cornelius, Ary Scheffer, Lacroix, Retzsch. And after all, each successive commentator sends his readers back to the book itself, and confesses his inability to do it justice. Faust groans under the weight of its commentators as much as the Divine Comedy. So much has been written about it, that it seems almost impossible to say anything new. To some extent all writing on Faust must be a kind of mosaic. There are so many interpretations of every controverted passage, that the great difficulty is to choose the interpretation which will produce the most harmonious effect with what precedes and follows.

The myth of Faust had its origin in the Reformation, and embodies the popular thoughts and feelings about that event. It is an epitome of the tendencies of the Reformation. Protestant and Catholic alike have contributed to fashion it, as the work of the Reformation proceeded. We can clearly trace how this legend was step by step refined by poets and romancers of different countries, of various religious and political creeds, until Goethe gave such an expression to the ideas shadowed forth by it, that his Faust became the Faust.

The man, around whom this mythology of modern times groups itself, was himself no myth. Johann Faust was born at Kundlingen, in Swabia, four miles from Bretten, the birthplace of Melanchthon, with whom he was personally acquainted. He probably was a teacher of Greek, but chiefly excelled as a professor of witchcraft, which he had studied in the University of Cracow, where sorcery was taught during the middle ages as a liberal art. As a scholasticus vagans he wandered from university to university, but Wittenberg, the seat of the Reformation, is fixed on by tradition as the scene of his most remarkable necromantic exploits. This in itself is a most significant fact. Melanchthon, who, like all his contemporaries, believed in sorcery and the possibility of a bond with the devil, exhorted

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