ENGLISH INTELLIGENCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 411, 11 October 1856, Page 4

ENGLISH INTELLIGENCE.

BY TilK SALOANH.A, (From tne Meibourm; •• Argus.1') We have received our London correspondent's let'er, dated ihe 4th of Jui.e, by ilils* in; i ; and .subjoin such portions of the cuniinuiiicHtioii as are ealcumted to interest our re;uiei'K ; \h>: connnenLs possessiny a character of freshness, though the intelligence it-self is stale : — STATE OF EUKOPE. Although peace has been proclaimed and

celebrated and rejoiced over, with all the forms, there is still a sort of diplomatic ground-swell after the tempest —a eommo:. tion of some protocoiiing which altogether interferes with our faith in the calm. Not all the jargon of all the Foreign Offices can convince Europe that' the treaty of Paris between all the powers was " honorable and satisfactory." seeing that on the 15th of April afterwards, France, Austria, and England concocted a supplementary treaty, based upon a disbelief in the treaty d tout, and converted themselves into a political trinity, which is to be a perpetual Providence in guarding the "integrity" of the Turkish dominions. The resentment of Russia is undisguised at a proceeding which is an open declaration of infidelity in her honor. Russians, beaded by the Dowager Empress, are pouring into Germany to taste of the long-denied sweets of a civilization which is a little more than skin deep, and therefore something more than Russian ; but most of them avoid Austria ; and those who do get to Vienna make little concealment of their intense loathing at the " magnificent ingratitude long ago promised by Schwartzenburg, smarting, in the Hungarian war, under a sense of obligation. The house of Austria, in fact, is in Coventry— all the Russian feeliug towards her as the English felt when Cceur-de-Lion was entrapped and locked up ; and all the disgust and indignation being o.Tcially authorised, we may look for political consequences— Russian intrigue, in stirring up the dangerous elements on which that ill-foundatioued House is built. But as Russia accepts, as part of her mission, the patronage of Germany, Berlin gets the benefit of the snubbing of Vienna; and in that generally gloomy capital there are now congregated a crowd of small Princes, doing homage to Alexander Czar, who has paid his uncle a visit in the wake of his mother. Then Austria, conspired against in Germany, has Italian work on hand of a severe character : Count Buol, her first minister, has issued a circular in comment on the Sardinian lecture on the " Italian question," which attempts to justify her own occupations and interventions in the Peninsula, and which stigmatises the Court of Turin as the main agent of the disorders and disafFections complained of by Count Cavour at the Paris Conferences. Here, therefore, we have the "crisis" so long talked of, somewhat intensified by the precision with which Vienna and Turin take up antagonistic positions : the " patriots" forseeing the storm—Mazzini, the petrel of Italian politics, leaving London—''it is said for Switzerland," while Manin, from his re'.reat at Paris, counsels all the republicans to accept, for the time, the constitutional lead of Austria. Even with France the Austrian position is not completely comfortable ; for in answer to the Austrian Emperor's order of the day, thanking and complimenting the annv which has so long occi pied the Diinubiau Principalities, the Par's p.ess teems with insulting accounts of the cruelties committed by that " gallant f«rmy' v upon the unoffending inhabitants. In Northern Europe we find D-Mimark in trouble about the Sound dues, the ouited Stales only postponing- a repudiation of that toll, while the English Chancellor of Hie Exchequer obtains from the House of Commons a committee to inquire why Great Britain pays it, —the general attitude of the maritime states, Fiance included, in respect to the matter of threatening the finance of Denmark, deprived of this immemorial rewiiue, with utter insolvency. France Iw^hW is not so serene as pi-ace shriild find her. The

'"Credit Mobilier" is developing as no scheme ever developed since the days of the Mississippi bonds, and "companies" for every description of enterprise are rife; but something is incessantly heard of

" Socialist schemes," also of the "'revolutionary party" "and secret societies"—all indicating that, though the surface of the .volcano is undergoing cultivation of the moat improved character, the fires arc still beneath. Boll) France and England are troubled with Greece, the pettj monarch of which becomes daily more and more unmanageable, in respect both to paying his debts and securing' order of his people,-— this slate of things in Athens requiring, in the views of the cordial allies, a continual naval occupation of the Piraeus—but for what purpose beyond armed reproach it is difficult to conjecture. We do not know the reasons influencing the French Cabinet, but Lord Falmerston explains his own on Monday night to the House of Commons in a . manner that will scarcely have been accepted as unironical at Paris. " There was a constitution embodying representative government granted to the Greeks in 1843," sa} rs Lord Palmerstou, " and our quarrel with King Otho arises in the fact that he has done everything in his power to violate that constitution, while he practically renders the representation a perfect sham.'' Is it among the illogicalities of the day that France is to make war on Grer>ce, because the Areopagus is rather a delusion, and that freedom of speech and of press 's non- t/

existent : Does Emperor Louis Napoleon attack King Otlio because King- Otho violates liis word and abolishes a constitution ? While all these " Powers," first to tliird rates, are wrangling, the Pope makes "his game. Kossuth lectures, and makes money among us '^thereby, against the Concordat between Austria and the Pope; but it is an established fact, rendering every Protestant in Austria a slave to Rome, while his Holiness is proceeding to " annex." Tuscany, to the endangerment of possible Madiais, under a similar concordat—our Exeter Hall notwithstanding. Even in Turin lately an act of base subservience to Rome has lately taken place, under circumstances most disturbing to the recent British theory—that Sardinia was governed • by "Reformers." Lastly, to conclude this summary of European disturbances we find Spain, her hildalgo pride not altogether extinct, fastening a quarrel upon her ancient dependency of Mexico, and declaring war against that now indecently anarchical State. But the announcement of such a fact is received with some incredulity. Spain has no doubt troops enough and ships enough at Havana to add to the misery of Mexican subjects, to perform some exploits in the Gulf, and further to deteriorate the. quality of central government in the afflicted country. Yet, could Spain thus blindly play the Yankee gamer The Mexicans could assuredly call in a General Walker, with a condotieri army of riflemen, and from the days of Hengist and Horsa downwards, the "party" called in generally remains on the premises and makes his own terms. THE A"NGLO-AMKKICAN DISPUTE. The diplomatic difficulty between the Cabinets of Washington and London is being terminated in the^only manner which the diplomatists had left possible. Lord Clarendon steadily declining to withdraw Mr. Crampton our minister at Washington, and compromised in the enlistment imbroglio, the American cabinet has handed him his passports. The actual news is not in England ; but writing at this date in the past tense may safely be used. This is not war, even if the d: smissal of Mr. Crarnptou be followed by the departure from London, (probably to be feted at Manchester and Liverpool, on his way home! ) of Mr. Dallas; but.it is the establishment of bad blood, in course of being inflamed by the complications which are taking place, as I predicted, in Central America. General Walker being recognised by the President of the United States as head of a state—

Nicargua—the Yankees will be fixtures in those regions, and so disappears all further necepsit}' for controversy on the Clay ton - Bulwer treaty, which becomes a dead letter. Eat the Costa Ricans, if conquered in the piesent r struggle, .may appeal to the British ; the British Government may intervene ; and then, national feeling excited on both sides, ill feeling may arise between the two publics of Great Britain and the United States which would be a much more serious thing than ill-feeling between two sets of diploma, tists. So far, it is understood that the British Government will do no more than protest against the recognition of General Walker; but if the British fleet which is cruisinig (and the Yankees say blockading) in those regions commits any indiscretion, matters may get beyond the management of Lord Clarendon, whose feebleness is always marked by a fuss. The act of President Pierce, in granting the recognition, so long refused and delayed, is attributed by some of the American papers, and by nearly all ours, to his electioneering necessities in his attempt at a re-election ; but the fact that the sneer comes from so many of his countrymen, and the fact that the approval is by no means unanimous, suggest that he may be risking his chances by the proceeding. Looked at fairly, it is not easy to see how he could have avoided the recognition. Walker is an adventurer, a filibusterer, and so on ; and he is a Yankee born, and was a Yankee subject; but he went into Nicaragua, as Duke William went into England, at the invitation of a large party: and having been chosen Governor, he becomes Nicaraguan, and ceases to.be Yankee, and not to recognise him would be to ignore an independent State. The Anti-Slavery party in the Union of course deplore his success, and this ratification of it at Washington ; for that party view every southward movement of the Anglo-Saxons as an advance of Slavery, as a:i approach to Cuba. But there is no necessary sequence; and if the progress south broke up the balance of the Union, ought not the anti-slavery politicians to rejoice? Tn the meantime the merchants, as distinguished from the politicians, keep their nerve. . Business goes on steadily at Wajl-street, and though the funds fell in London when the news came, they went up again in due course. At Liverpool they cannot realise the conception of a war with the United States, under any possible 'combination of diplomacy.

If the perplexities terminate like the Oregon dispute in a special embassy, Lord Elgin would be the man selected for a propitiation of brother Jonathan. This would be a step, no doubt, to the Secretaryship of State, to which his Lordship is understood to aspire—an aspiration accounting for his refusal, an indignant, one, his friends say, of the Governorship of Victoria. THE COURT." —CELEBRATION OF THE PEACE. I —THE SEASON IN XONDON. Whatever may be the views of the public and the nationalities as regard peace, the consummation of it has certainly been attended with every indication of satisfaction and jubilee at the courts in the different, capitals. But it is the court of Queen Victoria chiefly which is glad. Her Majesty and the Prince Consort appear to have arrived at, the middle-aged state of mind, when the main pleasure of life consists in giving-in marriage; and Prince William Frederick of Prussia being1 now "one of the family," undergoing the domestic intimacy that is to precede formal befhrothal, tin; Queen sends invitations out to friends to come and see the love-making. A battalion of Prussian Princes are due, and would have been in London a week ago, but for the sudden dropping in on them of the Czar ; "* ; 'ioe Regent of Baden is here

already, wilh a cohort of pettier Teuton potentates, all first cousins in the most intense degree. Accordingly, the Court, having to amuse these personages, se^s a great deal of company. The season is hastened into full bloom. There are two Opera Houses—thanks to the pre-existing one Opera House being burnt down —open and filling; a rage about Piccolo:nini, who is very little, and very pretty, and very brave in ac'ing, and of noble family, and' cannot sing ; another rage about Ristori, the Italian Mrs, Siddons, who makes her debut to-night; a rush every Friday of from 5,000 to "10,000 people to the Crystal Palace evening concerts ; all the exhibitions crammed ; the literary " Fielding Club," headed by Albert Smith, tumbling in an amateur pantomine, and exceeding the antics and tricks of the regular buffoon —so that the provision of gaieties and excitements is ample. The Queen and Court are in the thick of it all, with some extra gaieties and excitements of their own. On Saturday, Prince Albert laid the foundation-stone of an hospital and " Home " for foreign sailors at the Docks end of the town, and made a good speech, and was cheered to and fro, by an amazing Wapping-mob. On the Derbyday he, with his future son-in-law, (who dressed like a sporting man for the day, and made the most of his English-like red whiskers,) were on the Grand Stand at Epsom. On Monday the Queen and all the Princes laid the foundation-stone of the Wellington College, which is to be paid for by the "Memorial" money subscribed at the death of the great Duke ; and the s?-ene was magnificent, a bright May sun lighting up a heathery Hampshire waste, crowded with white tents, red and blue uniforms, and parti-colored muslins and satins and silks; a review of a few thousand militia men concluding the busy and festive day, and only two or three soldiers dying in consequence of the tight-stock system. To live in London now is to taste of the essence of life of ihe nineteenth century : and, amid such frenetic pleasures or pleasure seekings, it is idle to hope that thepublic, and still less public men, will think of the refuse, beneath and around, out of which this airy and odoriferous essence comes. News arrives that 30.000 human beings are starving unto death in the Cape Verde Islands, but "no one" has time to be startled; he is rushing to somewhere for a ticket for something. PARLIAMENT. The Parliamentary summary may be placed low down in the general account of affiiirs, for truly, Parliament has become— allowing itself to become—a singularly subordinate matter. The Palmerston Ministry—'distrusted at:d disliked generally, and among the coteries abhorred, pai-tienlarly for the insolent and autocratic tone of the first Minister—is safe if not steady, for it has accomplished the peace, and it so happens that there is nothing else to accomplish. The opposition, reduced to ludicrous insignificance by their own disruption on the Rars debate—Lord Derby inatlentive, Mr. Disraeli disliked, and Lord Stanley seriously inclining to radicalism,-is quiet, after the fashion of the helpless.

The statesmen find, indeed, so little to test statesmanship, that, weary of their profession, they get away from the senate altogether. It is now seldom that Mr. Gladstone is seen in his place. Mr. Bright is fishing in Pet thshire, taking the opportunity of the pause in public proceedings to brace the nerves th;=t his long combative career has shaken. Mr. • Cobden has gone to his farm in Sussex, to mourn the death of his only son, and not, as is said, with any intention of again entering public life. Lord Brougham, on the pretext of the death of an aged sister, has thrown up his law bills,

and taken to retirement, leaving a letter with the Lord Chancellor of a very valedictory character.

Lord John Russell is going to Switzerland. Lord Derby, it is rumoured, is sick of Parliament. The worst of it is, as the old stagers withdraw, few young men present themselves. Lord Stanley ig speaking at other place,? that new political philosophy which he propounded at the Australian.postage meeting at the London Tavern, and, as I thought itf would, the view is ' taking' with the Press and with the public. His vision of Great Britain turning her back upon Europe, and upon small squabbles such as that with Greece,in which the 'oldschool,' like Lord Palmerston, love to finesse—la's aspiration of an Anglo-Saxon confederacy, British, American, and Australian, developing the grand destiny of our abounding race, is magnificent. This is a philosophy which practicclises and elevates the 'Manchester School,' giving the hue of poetry to our materialism. But Lord-Stanley among the statesman class stands alone; and with this American difficulty on hand, the ' new school,' however it may fare in Australia, must not expect pupils from the States. LITBRA.TTTSE. ABT. SOCIAL SIGNS. The peace, it was thought, would arrive with a considerable number of ' blessings,' in an increase of literary and art products. But the war was too short and too meaningless to have a literature to mark it in history. There are no ; sensation'hooks of late. Lord John Russell has finished his Fox and Moore memoirs, and everybody is very glad of it. Lord Stanhope and Mr. Cardweil, the ' literary executors,' have published from the Peel papers Sir Robert's own narrative of the part he took in Catholic Emancipation in 1827-9; but the volumes have scarcely raised a controversy, and are only interesting to political students, in suggesting that Sir Robert was too sensitive for comfort.in the political work which he was born to do, and which his conscientious practical duty compelled him to do. The historians are either pausing or are permanently silent— Grote, Macaulay, liallam. The political economists, the Mills and M'Cullochs, have got nothing fresh to pay. Of the great novelists, only the incessant Dickens is at work, and that a novel which is of so ' radical' a character that many of' his middle-class

friends will fall away from him. Thackerayis home from America, not with any large sum made by the trip, and with no eagerness to return to writing, Buhver Lytton is now too much of the statesman lo touch fiction. Mrs. Gore, Mrs. Trollops, and all the first-class ladies, Mrs. Marsh excepted, are idle—or on!}- re publishing their old successes in.Tioutledge's shilling and staring series. The poets are taciturn. So, the Victorian age of literature is not very promisi.'i"- —in letters, as in other matters in England just now, there being tew young men coming up i.s the old men and women die out In art there are young men of promise. Two men under thirty-five, Millars and Phillips, are the successes at the Royal Academy Exhibition this season : the first with three or four subdued pre-Ilaphaelite pictures, the latter with gorgeous paintings of sunny Spanish life. The artist world, generally, is agitated by what is called a •job,' for which the Queen is held accountable—the selection for the Scutari monument work of Buron Maroehelti, who. iv the first place, is an inferior artist, and, in, the next place, is a foreigner. The English artists seem to want two tilings—protection, as agai.ist foreigners, though they do not quite admit this, and competition for all public works. On neither ground do they rind the public sympathising with them. A vast, picture exhibition, embracing all the European schools, has been t >»w\ »t

the Sydenham Crystal Palace, on the Parisian Exhibition model. It is a success. Manchester is getsingupan art. exhibition for next summer; hut these things are only suited to a metropolis, where artists are numerous, nnda larsre artistic public. Among the mills they would prefer an exhibition that would be more intelligible in character to the masses. However, wealthy capitalists are paying for the experiment. The Londoners just now have a mania about music. They never discovered that they were so devoted to it. until Lord Palinerston, at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury, withdrew the military bands recently permitted io pay in the parks on Sundays. As the people connot get military bands they got other bands—German bands ■ —and these play in the parks, no^sy protests against the archiepiscopal notions of seventhday observance. During the fine weather this protest will be maintained : but the pious are only shocked. Perfect order and good humour characterise these popular gatherings. "*