Utrecht to the French Revolution-in the war of 1740, in that of 1756, and in that of 1775-France and England were hostilely opposed, and that on each occasion France was joined by Spain; and that during the revolutionary war itself, from St. Vincent to Trafalgar, the naval strength of the allies greatly outnumbered ours.' It is true that Louis XIV. imagined a vain thing, in dreaming that this union could crush the empire of the English fleets; but it is not less true, that we never emerged from any one of these conflicts without having suffered deadly wounds. It is not less true, that but for this fatal alliance, we should have triumphed at Havanna and Finisterre, at a cheaper price in blood and gold; and that when Paul Jones disgraced civilized warfare with his bucaneering butcheries, when De Grasse was ravaging Tobago, and a fleet of seventy Spanish and French vessels spread terror along the shores of Cornwall and Hampshire, we were paying the penalty for the treason of our rulers at Utrecht. The quarrel between Philip V. and the Regent Orleans is rather an illustration of, than an exception to, the steady policy which linked the two Bourbon Houses for it resembled a civil, more than an international struggle; and was simply an effort, by the nearest connection of the minor Louis XV., to arrest the reaction which followed the death, and subverted the policy of Louis XIV. This policy found its consummation in the Family Compact of 1761-a league in which political interests had their share, but the inner cipher of which is brought to light by the remarkable circumstance, that when Maria Theresa was most closely allied to France, she begged to be admitted to a share in the new treaty, and was distinctly refused, on the plea of her non-participation in Bourbon blood! The Family Compact survived the Revolution; and though nominally renounced in 1814, has never been abandoned by French statesmen. It was but nine years ago, (to come down no later,) that the first blow was struck at Espartero's regency, when M. de Salvandy, as Family Ambassador at Madrid, refused to hold himself accredited to that Minister. Even now, the Revolution of last February, and the recent declaration of M. Bastide, will scarcely warrant our listening with unconcern, to Mr. Hallam, while he gravely recapitulates the charges against the peace of Utrecht. "In distant ages, and after fresh combina * Alison's Life of Marlborough, 480. tions of the European commonwealth should have seemed almost to efface the recollections of Louis XIV. and the War of the Succession; the Bourbons on the French throne might still claim a sort of primogenitary right to protect the dignity of the junior branch, by interference with the affairs of Spain; and a late posterity of those who witnessed the peace of Utrecht might be entangled by its improvident concessions. the M. Mignet winds up the historical introduction to these negotiations with an exposition of the geographically dependent character of Spain, and of the benefits she has derived from her connection with France. The first point is argued with a disregard for national rights, which from the pen of an official writer, contrasts remarkably with the Polish paragraph in the annual addresses of the late Chambers; and on this, it may be enough to say, that the severest blow ever dealt to the independence of the Peninsula was the aid which Louis afforded to Portugal, thereby forcing Spain on the Pyrenees. For the second point, when M. Mignet looks to his own great and famous country, with its organized society, its unrivalled army, elastic spirit of its statesmen, and the majestic unity, in spite of every convulsion, impressed on all its splendid civilization, we can scarcely think he will seriously challenge a comparison between what France has developed for herself, and what she has crippled and thwarted in Spain. The dependent helplessness of Philip V. has clung, like a curse, to the dominions which his posterity have ruled. It has been equally fatal to their monarchy of the last century-to their Revolution of yesterday-to their constitutional government of to-day. Not only has the spirit of the Family Compact infatuated and compelled Spain to be the handmaid of every French aggression, and to bear a heavy share of the losses incurred in every war with England, but it has worked yet more fatally in reducing Spain to a condition of diplomatic tutelage, in which the destinies of the nation are not entrusted to its own energies, but made dependent on the struggles of rival ambassadors for influence. To the imbecility of the Austrian, the Bourbon princes superadded the corruptions of French despotism; but they imported no admixture of its high spirit, its national pride, or of its vigorous centralization. Hear M. de Marliani himself, a Spanish diplomatist, and an official of the House which M. *Const. Hist. iii. 293. 1849.] que erreurs. ses Mignet delights to glorify. "Partout ail- | leurs, la mauvaise organisation sociale a vécu à côté d'un gouvernement mauvais aussi, mais agissant régulièrement dans le cercle de principes organiques d'administration, tels la civilisation des temps les comprenait. En Espagne, au contraire, à aucune époque et sous aucune forme, il n'a existé de gouvernement, autre que l'arbitraire et L'administration publique n'a jamais eu d'autre règle que le caprice de ceux Ce mal invétéré n'a qui commandaient. subi aucune modification; et il atteint l'époque actuelle avec l'autorité que donne Nor did the nala force des traditions."* tional character gain in gentleness what it lost in independence. While French manners, and art, and literature were eating at the very roots of Spanish nationality, in the single reign of Philip V., the victims of the Inquisition were no fewer than 9992, of whom 1032 were burnt alive.t With the outlying portions of the Empire Humboldt gives us it has fared yet worse. a memorial from the Bishop and Chapter of Mechoacan, presented to the Spanish court in 1799, which singularly illustrates the misgovernment of Mexico. The viceregal administration was mainly bent on separating the various races of inhabitants, as if it sought actually to train them for such ferocious feuds and outbreaks as disgraced Peru at the end of the 18th century. With Naples and Sicily, which though not ceded by the treaty of Utrecht, have been governed by Bourbon princes for a hundred years, it is the same. "The government here is only an additional cause of disorder," writes the President Du Paty, in 1785. Count Orloff, a warm admirer of the Bourbons, dwells at length on the accumulation of all those abuses which a moderately wise administraon the tion has in its power to remove; fetters which the concurrent claims of the crown and of the feudal proprietors imposed on agriculture; on the flagrant system of the corvées; on the baneful ingenuity with which the tythe system reached even to the instruments of labor.§ It is curious that the only benefits which the kingdom of the Two Sicilies received from its French government, were derived from its revolutionary rulers, and infringed by the House of Bour * Marliani, Histoire Politique de l'Espagne modeme, i. 8. Ibid. i. 116. Nouvelle Espagne, i. 435. Orloff, Mémoire Politique, &c. sur le Royaume de Naples, iii. 179, bon. 397 The governments of Joseph and It is difficult for men of other countries *By the new code of 1819. See Lord Brougham's Political Philosophy, i. 617, 618. 1 secure him a position among the ablest | rulers of his country-by the side of Henry IV., of Richelieu, of Napoleon. And whatever political or social changes France is destined to undergo, we do not anticipate that she will ever cease to look back with respectful admiration upon Louis XIV, as alone representing and embodying a very brilliant epoch of her development-an epoch, however, which has passed utterly away, and which, fortunately for mankind, it is forever impossible to recall. PRODUCE OF THE PRINTING PRESS. AN intelligent bookseller, who has been many years conversant with the industry of the great literary hive of London, has made the following computations of the productiveness of the British press. There is every reason to believe them quite accurate, however astounding. The periodical works sold on the last day of the month amount to 500,000 copies, the amount of cash expended in the purchase of which is $125,000. These go into the country in 2,000 packages, few remaining behind over the day. The annual returns of periodical works amount to $1,500,000. The number of newspapers published in the United Kingdom in the year 1843, as ascertained through the Stamp Office, was 447; the number of stamps issued, which determines the number of copies issued during the year, was above sixty millions and a half. The proportions were as follows: 60,592,001 tion addressed to the Pope in 1471, by $2,178,000 31,692,092 In 1743, only one century ago, the sales 17,058,056 of books, periodicals and newspapers hardly 339,500 amounted to $500,000 per annum. The in5,027,588 crease is twenty-fold. The reason is found 6,474,764 in the diffusion of knowledge. The whole course of English literature has been that of gradual and certain spread from the few to the many-from luxury to a necessary; as much as the spread of the cotton to the silk trade. Henry VIII. paid what was equal in our day to $30,00 a yard for a silk gown for Anne Boleyn. Now the thousands buy their silk gowns for fifty cents a yard. The printing press has done for the commerce in literature, in its various forms, what the mule and the Jacquard loom have done for the commerce in silk; it has made it accessible to all, at the same time it is sought by all. Can a stronger argument be framed for a moral, intelligent and Christian press, when the universal mind is formed by it, and it controls the world? What are a thousand eloquent living voices by the side of it? The number of different papers published in Great Britain does not compare with the number in the United States, which exceeds 1,000; but the circulation of some of the London papers is immense. The average price of the English papers is five pence each; so that the sum annually expended in newspapers is about $6,250,000; above six millions of dollars. The quantity of paper required for the annual supply of these newspapers is 121,184 reams; some of the paper is of an enormous size. The difference in reading matter and in the extent of reading in three hundred and seventy-five years is seen in the follow facts. In a peti From the New Monthly Magazine. THEODORE HOOK. THEODORE HOOK may be said to have been nurtured in a hot-bed of talent, wit, and dissipation. His father was a musical composer and an established favorite, for upwards of half a century; first at the Mary-le-bone Gardens, and, lastly, at Vauxhall. His mother was the author of at least one theatrical piece, "The Double Disguise," played with success at Drury Lane in 1784. There were two brothers, James and Theodore, and the elder, although sent to Wesminster School, and afterwards to Oxford, where he graduated and took holy orders, and became ultimately Dean of Worcester, still exhibited throughout life the wit and vivacity of the stock, and the same indications of the family taste for the drama and authorship. But James was blessed with advantages which never fell to the lot of Theodore; in his case the inebriety of wit was sobered by a regular education, and the exuberance of animal spirits was restrained by the ties of his sacred calling, which were further strengthened by an early and happy marriage. Who,' asks his biographer, the Rev. R. H. Dalton Barham, "does not lament that such a boon was denied to Theodore?" The first school that Theodore, born on the 22d of September, 1788, in Charlotte Street, Bedford Square, was sent to, was a sort of "seminary for young gentlemen," a green-doored, brass-plated "establishment," in Soho Square. Subsequently, he went to Dr. Curtis's, and thence to Harrow, but with little or no real advantage, and, as his biographer justly remarks, a sufficient reason for his want of success is to be found in the confessions of "Gilbert Gurney," where he says, with evident reference to himself: "My school life was not a happy one. I was idle and careless of my tasks. I had no aptitude for learning languages. I hated Greek, and absolutely shuddered at Hebrew. I fancied myself a genius, and anything that could be done in a hurry, and with little trouble, I did tolerably well, but application I had not." And who can fail to discover throughout life, and even in employments less distasteful to him, traces of the same haste and impatience of labor? Theodore soon left Harrow, and the death of his mother, the only one who could restrain the youth's exuberance of spirits, left him in the charge of a worldly, pleasure-loving father, who at once employed his son's talents in writing songs and plays. The success of his first farces, and his love of fun, soon established Master Theodore's reputation, both before and behind the curtain, and he became at this early period of his life, the pet of the green-room, and at the same time, by his incessant indulgence in practical jokes, the plague of the property-man and of all the minor officers of the establishment. Even Liston himself was made one of the victims of this besetting propensity. "Having procured a bladder with a penny whistle attached to it, after the fashion of a bagthe performance of the Finger Post,' and intropipe, Hook made his way under the stage during ducing the orifice of the tube into the opening of the float,' close to Liston's foot, as the latter was about to commence his song, When I fell into the pit of love,' proceeded to elicit from his apparatus the most discordant squeaks imaginable, by way of accompaniment, not more to the amusement of the audience than the bewilderment of the actor, who could not conceive whence on earth, or under the earth, the sounds proceeded. The song was tumultuously encored, and, mystified as he was, Liston of course had no alternative but to repeat it, his unseen assistant squeezing and squeaking the while more vigorously than ever." At this early time, also, when he was scarcely in his twentieth year, Theodore Hook gave evidence of the possession of that talent which he afterwards cultivated to so much perfection, and compared with which, mimicry in its perfection sinks into insignificance-that of the improvisatore. In the art of pouring forth extemporaneous poetry, music and words, rhyme and reason, all impromptu, Hook stood alone-rival he had none. "Of course (says his biographer) he had his | of advice given in the John Bull many years imtators: 'The charming extempore verses of T-s's,' for example, will not readily be forgotten; another gentleman also found reason to remember his attempt at rivalry. Ambitious of distinction, he took an opportunity of striking off into verse immediately after one of Hook's happiest efforts. Theodore's bright eye flashed, and fixed on the intruder, who soon began to flounder in the meshes of his stanza, when he was put out of his misery at once by the following couplet from the master, given, however, with a goodhumored smile that robbed it of all offense : 'I see, sir, I see, sir, what 'tis that you're hatching, But mocking, you see, sir, is not always catching. after his own connection with the drama had ceased. The name of Theodore Hook became, however, most notorious, even at this early period of his career, for his performances off the stage; for that series of practical jokes or hoaxes, of which his biographer remarks, that inexcusable as they must be considered, they were so inexpressibly ludicrous in effect, as well as original in conception, and were carried out with so unparalleled a degree of impudence, as to provoke the dullest of mortals to mirth. This is saying very little for them. Many of these hoaxes were far from original in conception, although often much so in the manner they were carried out; and the sense of humor which they ever, pre-eminently evanescent. Men en-excite is as frequently mingled with a feeling dowed with such gifts must be content, like of commiseration for the man who would actors, whom they in a measure resemble, so expose himself. Most of the more with the applause of their contemporaries; amusing instances of Hook's practical joking they have little to hope for from posterity; have been detailed, and with but slight emand in Hook's case scarcely a record has bellishment, in "Gilbert Gurney," which is been kept of any one of those performances indeed little more than a record of his own which used at once to delight and astonish mad doings, loose thoughts and feelings. Others have appeared in the very entertaining "Reminiscences of the late Mr. Mathews," by his Widow, and a few have been recently printed in the "Life of Thomas Ingoldsby. This is a kind of success which is, how the circles in which he moved. "Mrs. Muggins's Visit to the Queen," stanzas it was. who feature, and involving equal impudence, That an occurrence similar in the principal though less of humor, than the well-known projection of the line. of the Paddington Canal across a gentleman's lawn, and the subsequent dinner did take place, the biographer tells us, is undoubtedly true, only that the venue is to be laid in the neighborhood of Soho Square, Frith Street, or Dean Street, both at that period places of comparatively fashionable residence. |