so tenderly, his connexion with the press of France-perhaps we should say its subjugation-his victory over the Gallic broadsheets, Mr. Wikof is at a loss to know what further services Lord Palmerston supposed he could do him. It was evident enough, it may be thought, that as to France this was no difficult question upon the achievements we have recorded, but his lordship, it was presumed by Mr. Wikof, counted upon a more gigantic exploit on his part, namely, using his vast experience to support the policy of the British foreign minister in the United States; having subdued the press of France, he was expected to add to his diplomatic glory the conquest of that of America. This expectation of chaining to his chariotwheels the Transatlantic as well as the Gallic press, was much relished by Mr. Wikof. He felt it a task worthy of his sublime aspirations to dare the enemies of the placability of England and America, the vast territory of which, from the Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, no doubt lay maplike before his imaginative vision in all its vastness, and "spurred the sides of his intent." The aristocracy of England, he informs us very untruly, view the United States with distrust and aversion. The English press had handled most rudely the reputation of that of America, and though he does not particularise, slave dealing was no doubt included in the causes of censure. The English aristocracy at length gave up detraction regarding America. Lord Palmerston declared for a pacific policy in her regard. Any other instruction his lordship did not, very wisely, we think, vouchsafe. The ministers of England, by journalism and the windings of diplomacy, had for years endeavoured to arrest American expansion (qy. Filibusterism ?). This was a most unjust policy. Why should not the United States have Cuba, and Walker Costa Rica? But here Mr. Wikof does not particularise. His main charge is that the aristocracy of England saw with distrust the democratic institutions of the American States a fearful thing, had not the English commercial classes forced the aristocracy to reason, which at length abandoned its virulence against the zealous heaven-born Yankee. Palmerston gets the credit for causing the abandonment of this detractive policy. Still, our wandering diplomatist had a superior knowledge of his own country, and set about proving it by a fascinating support of the English government in the American press. Out of a thousand and more papers published in America, we are left in the dark as to those particular papers in which Mr. Wikof wrote. These, we presume, were to convert their brethren, thus soothing the Americans, sustained by the hope to remove causes of difference and live with Englishmen like brothers. About the end of 1850, Mr. Wikof began his operations on the papers of America, whose names were legion. North and South were subjected to his expositions of what he styles English policy. He thus realised the labours of Hercules, in coping with such numerous and such varied elements as the bland and calmly reasoning newspapers of America. How he intended to do what he succeeded in doing in France, if he is to be credited, we do not know. The task was not the subjugation of three or four well-educated French gentlemen, it was the change of opinion. among a thousand Federalists, Democratics, Know-Nothings, Mormonites, and their organs. Perhaps he designed ultimately to follow the example of the Hibernian soldier, who took a vast number of prisoners by surrounding them himself. Mr. Wikof did not trouble the Foreign Office

Lord

a

with specimens of his inflictions, but he exhibited them to Mr. Edwardes, in Paris, who was astonished at their tone and manner. These diatribes were some of them submitted to Mr. Crampton, who happened to visit Paris at the time, and that exiled diplomatist, it would appear probable, made a joint report upon them with Mr. Edwardes, afterwards sent to Lord Palmerston. Soon after this, Mr. Wikof was recommended by Mr. Edwardes to resign. His correspondence, framed to prevent his committing himself in his native land, was no doubt the cause of this hint. Mr. Wikof would not take it, while he was conscious that his countrymen might regard him as a British spy. The hint was nominally grounded on the expectation, at that time, of Lord Palmerston's going out of office and not liking to bequeath so valuable a servant to his successorservant who might show, perhaps, by whose assistance the noble lord himself acquired his new Parisian influence, and might, of course, have secured the United States, from Lake Erie to Galveston, by taking Mr. Wikof's opinion, through his superior knowledge of the people. Meanwhile he went to Lille, in company with a French deputation, to examine into the state of the poor. He next visited London to receive his salary, and found he could learn nothing there of his being wished to resign. He was still in his post. If it was desirable he should resign a little time before, the storm, he thought, had blown over. He called at the Foreign Office in 1851, and did not see Lord Palmerston, who was engaged. His lordship, by note, announced his presence at a given hour the next day at the Foreign Office. Mr. Wikof went, but his lordship was gone. Mr. Wikof returned to Paris, and there found a note fixing another day for an interview, despatched to France after him. He heard no more about resigning, and shrewdly conjectured his official life was for a short time prolonged. It was soon evident a misconception had taken place about America, the blame of which was by Mr. Wikof thrown upon the Foreign Office. He now had notice that his engagement must terminate at the end of the year. Mr. Wikof then appealed for support to the somewhat notorious Peter Borthwick, who got into parliament for Evesham through Sir Bethel Codrington, having been imagined by Sir Bethel as profound in state policy as in divinity, and styled by Mr. Wikof " a very amiable and most sagacious gentleman!" Peter contrived to get Lord Palmerston to consent to see Mr. Wikof in Carlton-gardens, but his lordship was not at home, and ultimately declined all further interviews with him. At this the reader need not feel much surprise. Wikof was retained in the Foreign Office until the end of June, 1851, when he was finally paid off. Thus Lord Palmerston lost America, and that country, as well as Great Britain, was abandoned to its doom, at least as far as Mr. Wikof's saving influence could intervene. It would have been a happy thought to have got Peter Borthwick to move the House of Commons for the impeachment of the foreign minister, on the ground of his damaging British interests, and running the risk of war, by the rejection of Mr. Wikof's profound policy regarding America.

There can be no doubt that the ministers of a nation must encounter strange persons, and see themselves sometimes mistaken in judging character. There is so much effrontery which makes its way in the world beyond merit, which is generally retiring, it is not wonderful errors in estimating it are continually committed. Servants and agents

must be employed, while the heart of man is fearfully hypocritical. Pretension is ever busy even among the more ignorant, and the chiefs of office are too much occupied to be able to observe narrowly the character of those whom necessity requires them to employ. Lord Palmerston, in the present case, employed an instrument who undertook to effect certain objects, and ran counter to the mode of thinking of the heads of the office that employed him. He was then discharged, after being retained months beyond his time. No harshness was exhibited towards him, and Lord Palmerston's conduct was exceedingly kind and considerate, worried as he was. His lordship will have the duty he wishes duly performed: very rightly, as regards the public as well as himself. He knows his own duties and performs them, and so must those under him. No man in England works harder, or is more considerate to those he employs; and Mr. Wikof, did the tale end here, made out no case in his own behalf. A little more modesty, too, in his character and conduct, would have done good even to the victor intoxicated with his glory over the French.

We have had the sublime, next comes the ridiculous. This same soother of the political acerbities of nations had made love to an American lady in Russell-square, named Gamble. For five or six long years their cooing and billing had lasted. After such a deliberate courtship-modern love gets chill soon, like iron kept long out of the fire -they still pledged each other to be true as magnetic needles. The marriage was fixed upon, but postponed because the lady wished to pass the winter in Italy. Mr. Wikof was no diplomatist in love affairs, it is very clear. The lady, on her solitary way to Italy, repented of her caprice towards her Romeo. This fact was communicated to him. At once he flew on enraptured pinions after the fair Jane Gamble. No sooner did he reach the place where his true love was to be found, than the fitful lady again showed she loved the absent, not the present, swain. He sought to remonstrate, and the lady refused to receive him. He had recourse to a stratagem once more to behold her, again carried his point, and she forgave his devotion. No sooner had the interview ceased, than the fickle Jane Gamble jilted her lover again, "and, by a series of acts, totally unpremeditated," lodged Mr. Wikof in an Italian prison, he being charged with abduction. The lady, an American by birth, now again repented, but her Romeo was consigned to a miserable cell in Genoa. She had made her complaint to the British consul there, who, by obtaining an order of arrest, got him thrown into prison. In vain the relenting lady appealed to this official; he would not hear her pleadings, having a flinty heart. Wikof was imprisoned in all fifteen months. The lady let it out to Brown that Wikof had been an employé of the Foreign Office. No matter, nothing would pacify Brown. Now comes the main point: to fix on Lord Palmerston and the Foreign Office the blame of this harsh treatment, and all the cruel usage the conqueror of the Parisian press had received. Mr. Hudson, our ambassador at Turin, he charged with influencing the Sardinian government against him, of which we do not believe one word. After his incarceration he came to England, and demanded justice against Mr. Consul Brown in vain. Lord Clarendon justified Mr. Hudson; and we do not even see, when Miss Gamble's solicitor

acted for her, and Brown was only a witness, what any one but the United States ambassador or consul had to do with the case, either in Genoa or England. As to Lord Palmerston's conduct, it appears to us that at first he imagined Mr. Wikof might have been of service to his department; that he was really of very little use indeed; and therefore his lordship parted with him on the score of economy, as he had a right to do, especially when Wikof set out with the Quixotic idea of controlling the American press. Boccolini tells us of a traveller who, annoyed by grasshoppers, got off his horse to kill them all. It seems to us just as bright an idea as that of Mr. Wikof, that one writer could render the Yankee newspapers unanimous in praise of brother Bull. As is natural, the present work closes with denunciations of the British Foreign Office, sneers at John Bull for torture in India to balance slave torture in America, and quant. suff. of that recriminative spirit which people, when forgetting they are the sons of their own actions, employ to gratify their disappointed feelings. It is pretty clear, from the tendency of the present volume, that the writer would be a dangerous ally or confidant. Of his high feeling and discretion we have another instance in the fact that he actually published in England a work, entitled "My Courtship and its Consequences," which preceded the present.

If she be not fair for me,

What care I how fair she be?

should have been the burden of his song; but love is as blind now as of yore, and a diplomatist in love not a jot more sagacious in such unhappy circumstances than any other animal.

Mr. Wikof's pertinacity as a lover seems to resemble that he displayed as a diplomatist, and makes us suspect that Miss Gamble must have had an attractive purse, or Mr. Wikof must have been a swain of no common perseverance after a capricious lady.

We should hardly have noticed this book, but copies are continually coming over, and the heads of our departments are often assailed for that to which no blame attaches. Of all men, Lord Palmerston, when foreign secretary, was least open to such charges as this disappointed American brings against him. It therefore becomes us to be awake to similar works when abroad, which, however unjust, are applied by disappointed natives and foreigners as censures upon public men.

Mr. Wikof has the boldness to claim English copyright as well as American. This is not sustainable. It must be regarded as a bit of the author's diplomacy. We referred the case to Mr. H. G. Bohn, of Yorkstreet, Covent-garden, who perfectly well comprehends the law upon that point, and he informs us there is no validity in the assertion, no international treaty being in existence between England and America. It would be well there were, for very weighty reasons in relation to authors and publishers. By this claim it is very probable the author contemplates an English edition. It can hardly be expected to pay if the attempt be made, for it is a work of little general interest, however it may display the animus of the writer towards the Foreign Office, the heads of which must be continually exposed to similar complaints from those whose amour propre they may happen to scarify a little.

July-VOL. CX. NO. CCCCXXXIX.

X

THE QUEEN OF SPADES.

FROM THE FRENCH OF PROSPER MÉRIMÉE.

BY WILLIAM BATES.

I.

Ir was high play at Naroumoff's, a dashing lieutenant of the Horse Guards. A long winter evening had glided away, but the guests were unconscious of the progress of time, and it was five o'clock in the morning when supper was announced. The winners, with keen appetites, eagerly took their places at the table; while those whom fortune had not favoured, gazed at their plates in gloomy silence. Gradually, however, the genial champagne had its usual kindly effect, and the conversation became animated and general.

"How have you fared this evening, Sourine?" asked the master of the house of one of his guests.

"Lost, as usual. Indeed, I've not a grain of luck. I play the mirandole; you know my sang-froid; I'm the most systematic of players; I never change my game, and yet I always lose!"

"What! through all the evening have you not ventured once upon the red? Your constancy is indeed astonishing."

"Now, what think you of our friend, Hermann?" cried one of the guests, pointing to a young officer of the Engineers. "He has never made a bet, or touched a card in his life, and he watches us while we play till five o'clock in the morning."

"The game interests me," said Hermann; "but I do not feel inclined to risk the necessaries of life to gain the superfluities."

"Hermann is a German, and therefore economical and prudent," cried Tomski; "but what does astonish me, is my grandmother, the Countess Anna Fedotovna."

Why so?" asked one of his friends.

"Have you not noticed that she never plays?" replied Tomski.

"Verily," said Naroumoff, "a lady of eighty never to touch a card is wonderful indeed."

66 Do know the reason ?" you

"No. Has she a reason for such a determination ?"

"That she has, indeed. You shall hear. You must know that my grandmother visited Paris some sixty years ago, and there created quite a furore. She was the lioness of the day, and every one raved about the Muscovite Venus. Richelieu himself was among her adorers, and, to listen to my grandmother, he was within an ace of blowing out his brains in despair at her severity. In that day, all the women gambled, and faro was the fashionable game. One night, at a court ball, my grandmother lost a fearful sum to the Duke of Orleans. She returned to her hotel, stripped off her patches, threw her hoops aside, let her hair fall dishevelled over her shoulders, and in this tragic costume rushed into the apartment of my grandfather, and relating her ill-luck to him, asked him for money to dis