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THE LEAGUE OF PEACE.

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him in her decided way that he was proba-called out timidly, "Mr. Griffiths, Mr. bly sacrificing two people's happiness for Griffiths!" but no one answered. Then she life by his ill-timed interference. When at remembered her dream in sudden terror, last Belinda came down, she looked almost and hurried into the kitchen-garden to the as ill as Griffiths himself. She rushed into fountain where they had parted. H.'s arms with a scream of delight, and eagerly asked a hundred questions. were they all-what were they all doHow ing?” H. was very decided. Everybody was very ill and wanted Belinda back. father says he can spare you very well," "Your said she. 66 Why not come back with me this afternoon, if only for a time? It is your duty," H. continued, in her dry way. You should not leave them in this uncertainty." "Go, my child-pray go," urged Mr. Barly. And at last Belinda consented shyly, nothing loth.

H. began to question her when she had got her safe in the carriage. Belinda said she had not been well, She could not sleep, she said. She had had bad dreams. She blushed and confessed that she had dreamt of Guy lying dead in the kitchen-garden. She had gone about the house trying, indeed she had tried to be cheerful and busy as usual, but she felt unhappy, ungrateful. "Oh, what a foolish girl I am," she said. All the lights were burning in the little town, the west was glowing and reflected in the river, the boats trembled and shot through the shiny waters, and the people were out upon the banks, as they crossed the bridge again on their way from Dumbleton. Belle was happier certainly, but crying from agitation.

"Have I made him miserable, poor fellow? Oh, I think I shall blame myself all my life," said she, covering her face with her hands. "Oh, H.! H.! what shall I

do?"

H. dryly replied that she must be guided by circumstances, and when they reached Castle Gardens, kissed her and set her down at the great gate, while she herself went home in the carriage.

It was all twilight by this time among the roses. Belinda met the gate-keeper, who touched his hat and told her his master was in the garden; and so instead of going into the house she flitted away towards the garden, crossed the lawns, and went in and out among the bowers and trellises looking for him frightened by her own temerity at first, gaining courage by degrees. It was so still, so sweet, so dark; the stars were coming out in the evening sky, a meteor went flashing from east to west, a bat flew across her path; all the scent hung heavy in the air. Twice Belinda

What had happened? Some one was ly-
was it Guy? was he dead? had she killed
ing on the grass. Was this her dream?
him? Belinda ran up to him, seized his
hand, and called him Guy - dear Guy;
weariness and sadness of heart, opened his
and Guy, who had fallen asleep from very
eyes to hear himself called by the voice he
loved best in the world; while the sweetest
eyes, full of tender tears, were gazing_anx-
iously into his ugly face. Ugly?
tales have told us this at least, that ugliness
and dulness do not exist for those who truly
Fairy
uncouth, unlovable? Ah! she had been
love. Had she ever thought him rough,
blind in those days; she knew better now.
As they walked back through the twilight
garden that night, Guy said humbly,

can only love you."
"I shan't do you any credit, Belinda; I

"Only!" said Belinda.

understood very well what she meant.
She didn't finish her sentence; but he

From the London Review, June 1st.

THE LEAGUE OF PEACE.

THE Exposition in the Champs de Mars, the glowing anticipations of the French Emhowever it may realize in material grandeur peror, has certainly failed to attain the moral prestige which distinguished the Crystal Palace of 1851. Few now see in these huge ful guarantee of universal happiness and collections of arts and manufactures a hopetranquillity; and even while the great Show at Paris is highest in the interest of novelty and reputation, rumours and guine and zealous of humanitarians. By a war are rife enough to dismay the most sanmenaces of notable coincidence, however, a pacific movement is now making its way on the Continent which, inasmuch as it is based on less purely sentimental grounds, is likely to be more durable and strong than any similar tendency that has been manifested of late years. The International League of Peace, aiming, as it does, at the extinction of war and a general disarmament of nations, is not likely, for a time, to produce any immediately beneficial result; but much will be achieved if the industrial classes throughout Europe, who are daily becoming more and

more the ultimate arbiters and depositaries | opinion and developments of ideas in the of political power, can be brought to recog- French mind. Unfortunately, neither the nise principles which have long received thinkers nor the artisans have been specially the sanction of the soundest and most liber- favoured by the Imperial rule. Both are al thinkers in England, France, and Ger- suspected as tainted with Republican views, many. The Peace Society of England -a and neither class has yet frankly accepted body which, from peculiar circumstances, the Buonaparte dynasty. The Emperor, has not been eminently successful, but which then, falling back upon other support, is has done in a quiet way an amount of good likely to be less influenced than he otherwork that deserves all grateful recognition wise might have been by the growth of a at the fifty-first anniversary meeting, peace movement under his military monheld on the 21st ult., brought forward some archy; but we have no reason to believe facts relative to the Continental movement him personally desirous of war. In the abwhich are highly interesting and instructive. sence of any aggressive disposition on his The Rev. Henry Richard, secretary to the part, we feel convinced that the bold and Society, has further illustrated the history sincere action of the " Ligue de la Paix" of the agitation, its progress and its success, must have a good effect upon public opinion in a series of letters to a contemporary. In in France and throughout Europe. every point of view, the facts which he brings forward are most worthy of notice, and, however chimerical we may deem the hopes of the chief leaders of the "Ligue de la Paix, we are bound to pay some regard to the introduction of a new and, as it may prove, a most potent element into the complications of French political ideas.

It has been readily believed in England that for a year or more the mass of the French people have been profoundly incensed against Prussia, have revived the militant ardour of the First Empire, and have been with difficulty restrained from embroiling all Europe in a war to which any that we have witnessed in the present generation would be no more than child's play. Without doubt, there was much reason for this belief. Certain numerous and powerful classes in France, and those the most demonstrative and presumptuous, led the cry for war. Out-of-date politicians, like M. Thiers-disappointed and conceited politicians, like Emile de Girardin - with the military classes and the clerical champions of Austria, were too successful in rousing the least intelligent and the vainest part of the proletariat to a bitter hatred of Germany. But these classes do not make up the French nation; otherwise than numerically, they are but the insignificant section of the nation. The two great classes in which the real strength of a people consists the thinkers and the skilled artisans were all but unanimous in favour of peace. That the first class should be so is not surprising, is indeed almost necessary in France, where, since the Revolution, theories of human brotherhood have exercised so wide a sway. The adhesion of the artisans to the cause is perhaps to be explained by that powerful leaven of Socialist views which has already wrought such strange mutations of

It was the colision of sentiment and prejudice, culminating in the dangerous crisis of the Luxembourg bargain and negotiations, which aroused the friends of peace in France to a vigorous course of action. Le Temps, which has always been a calm and moderate advocate of liberal and peaceful progress, and to which the pen of Louis Blanc has added deserved honour, became in the first instance the means of promulgating the views which have been formulated by the League. M. Nettzer, the editor of Le Temps, declined at first to pledge his paper to the opinions of the Peace party; but he published some very able letters from MM. Charles Dolphus, Gustave d'Eichthal, and Martier Paschond, in which the necessity of averting the great calamity of a European war about a paltry question of frontier was forcibly urged. Immediately, unexpectedly, and rapidly, there appeared strong symptoms that the feelings expressed in these letters were shared by a large section of the French people. M. Frédéric Passy, who has, we believe, been long connected with the Peace Society in this country, was the first to take the question out of the region of mere temporary palliatives, and to suggest the formation of a League for the discouragement and ultimate suppression of war. To his eloquent appeal, answers poured in from every part of the country. The Working Men's Associations adopted addresses in favour of the League. Commercial and even agricultural bodies gave their adhesion. Distinguished literary men, such as MM. Léonce de Lavergne and Charles Lemonnier, spoke out in decided language. The French Protestants, headed by MM. Coquerel and Paschond, were unanimous in their approval. Kindly declarations of sympathy were sent in day by day from Germany, from Belgium, and from England;

the last coming not only from the Peace Society, but from eminent writers who hold Positivist views-Mr. G. H. Lewes, Mr. Frederick Harrison, Mr. Congreve, Dr. Bridges, Professor Beesley, and others. A still more important feature in the movement is the manifestation of a solidarité between the working classes of the western part of the European continent. The organ of the co-operative societies, La Cooperation, an able journal published at Brussels, is filled with addresses and answers that have passed between Associations of Artisans in France and Germany, all of which adopt without modification the entire creed of the "Ligne de la Paix." The same exhibitions of unity of feeling and abnegation of national jealousies have taken place on the part of the students and professors in the universities, colleges, and professional schools on either bank of the Rhine. Indeed, one of the most encouraging signs in the whole movement has been the tendency of the younger generation in France that which might be supposed especially subject to fits of war fever to accept the principles of universal peace.

The first Conference of the League was held on April 23d, in the splendid amphitheatre of the Ecole de Médecine, and has proved, we believe, a complete success. Le Temps, and the other journals throughout France and Belgium that have joined the League publish almost daily very copious lists of the names of new supporters, and there are indications that an International Union will grow out of M. Frédéric Passy's idea. It is too soon, of course, to predict anything of an enterprise apparently so desperate as the extinction of war, especially when that enterprise originates among the most warlike people in the world. But we should guard ourselves from the easy triumph of sneering at a sincere and a determined effort of a few honest men to paralyze the pernicions influence of that passion for military glory which has done so much to retard the advance of Europe in the path of civilization and prosperity. We have little doubt that the numerical majority of the French nation is still, as in the days of Napoleon I., intoxicated with the splendour of the battle-field; but we are quite certain that the number and the influence of those who believe in the opposite doctrine who regard war as an unholy and brutal thing, to be justified only by the most stringent necessity are increasing and will continue to increase. Anything with respect to which the brain and the hands of a people are at one must ultimately

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become the law for that people; and though neither the thinkers nor the workers in France are as yet unanimous in detestation of war, the current of opinions flows in that direction. The truest French Liberals believe that the "solidarity of peoples" was one of the most vital principles developed by the Great Revolution. Only those who, like M. Thiers, hang to the skirts of an effete Orleanism, a spurious constitutionalism which would ignore the people, still preach the maintenance of a balance of power by the sword. To the ignorant peasant, blinded by the glitter of arms and deluded by the fanaticism of priestly teachers as ignorant as himself, the dream of European domination which dazzled even the great Emperor, and led him to his ruin, may yet have vague and alluring charms; but the intelligent ouvrier of the great towns, who probably believes in Fourier, who no doubt has read Cabet and Louis Blanc and the Economist, knows as well as Mr. Cobden or Mr. Gladstone what war really is, and what it really does. He knows that war means to him harder fare and slacker work, with no unlikely prospect of starvation for his wife and children in the background. He will not readily accept this fate to serve the purposes of others— to prop a falling cause, or to cover marshals and generals with "glory."

Sybil's Second Love. By Julia Kavanagh. Three vols. (Hurst and Blackett.) — Miss Kavanagh ought not to spoil a genuine style by attempts at sensation. Her forte lies in quiet portraiture, as she has shown in some novels of high merit. But since other lady writers have earned a transient fame, and money which we hope they have invested more profitably, Miss Kavanagh has also tried her hand at murder and mystery. We say murder, though we are not sure that a murder is intended, but we never arrive at a satisfactory solution of the great riddle in Sybil's Second Love. Sybil herself is a charming character, and there is power in the portrait of her husband, as well as in that of her bosom friend and false stepmother. But both of these last suffer from the mystery to which we have alluded, and while Miss Kavanagh makes them scheme she thinks herself absolved from the necessity of keeping them natural. We regret these blemishes, for the novel is good in many points, and may occupy a conspicuous place in the list of those to be ordered from Mudie's. - Spectator.

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JOHN STUART MILL'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS, Delivered to the Univer sity of St. Andrews, Feb. 1, 1867, on the Proper Course of Collegiate Study. 25 cents. THE STARLING, by Norman Macleod, D.D., Editor of "Good Words," London. 38 cents. "OUT OF CHARITY." 75 cents.

NINA BALATKA, The Story of a Maiden of Prague. 38 cents.

THE CLAVERINGS, by ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 50 cents.
VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF, by MISS THACKERAY. 25 cents.
MADONNA MARY, by Mrs. Oliphant. 50 cents.

SIR BROOK FOSSBROOKE, by Charles Lever. 50 cents.

ZAIDEE, the best of Mrs. Oliphant's Novels. 75 cents.

MISS MARJORIBANKS, by Mrs. Oliphant. 75 cents.

WITCH-HAMPTON HALL, AND LODGINGS AT KNIGHTSBRIDGE.

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KATE COVENTRY: an Autobiography. 38 cents.

CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD, by Mrs. Oliphant. 25 cents.

THE LUCK OF LADYSMEDE. 50 cents.

EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, by Mrs. Johnstone. 25 cents.
FARDOROUGHA, THE MISER, by Samuel Lover. 25 cents.

THE MODERN VASSAL, a Story of Poland. 25 cents.

AN ONLY SON. 38 cents.

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From the appreciative notices of the press, and letters received from eminent teachers and practical scientific men, as well as persons of general culture, the Editors feel assured that the publication of the AMERICAN NATURALIST, which covers a new field in this country, will prove a decided success.

The circulation of the first number of the NATURALIST has already reached two thousand during the first month of its existence, and is rapidly increasing, showing the demand for a popular Natural History Journal adapted both for family reading, and as a medium of interchange between all lovers of Nature, who already can be counted by thousands in our country.

The NATURALIST will prove a pleasant companion during summer excursions or residence by the sea side and among the mountains, as its main object is to induce its readers to open their eyes and observe the common things in Nature met with in their walks.

For the small subscription price of $3.00 we give a handsomely printed yearly volume of over six hundred pages, with upwards of fifteen full page illustrations and many wood-cuts, mainly illustrating the Animals, Plants, and Geology of our Country. It thus affords a rich fund of facts about the Haunts and Habits of the Inhabitants of our Fields, Woodlands, and Waters.

Contents of Vol. I., No. 4.-June, 1867.

THE RECENT BIRD TRACKS OF THE BASIN OF MINAS, By C. Ered. Hartt, A. M. THE HABITS OF THE GORILLA. By W. Winwood Reade. THE MOSS-ANIMALS; OR, FRESH WATER POLEZOA. By Alpheus Hyatt, concluded, with a plate. THE LAND SNAILS OF NEW ENGLAND. By E. S. Morse, continued. Illustrated. PARASITIC PLANTS. By G. D. Phippen. Illustrated. OYSTER CULTURE. By F. W. Fellowes. THE SCORPION OF TEXAS. By G. Lincecum, M. D. Illustarted. A NOTE FROM THE FAR NORTH. By J. T. Rothrock. REVIEWS:- Prodrome of a Work on the Ornithology of Arizona Territory. By Elliott Coues, M. D. NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY:- Botany.-The Lotus. Zoology.- Artificial Nests of Insectivorous Birds in Switzerland. Geology. - Advance of Geological Science. Microscopy.-The Microscope in Medical Jurisprudence; The Polycystina. Explorations and Works in Progress, Correspondence. - The Trichina spiralis, Illustrated; The Study of Science and the Classics; The False-Scorpion. MATURAL HISTORY CALENDAR.- The Insects of June. Illustrated. PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES,

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