The Grand-duke Michael is said to have predicted the dismemberment of the Russian Empire soon after the death of the present autocrat. Whatever be the claims of that prince to the character of a prophet, it is evident that Russia is now approaching a more important crisis. Russia will give way, or she will not. If the former, her prestige is gone, and the pettiest Continental kingdom may regard her with indifference. If the latter, a more terrible fate may await her, for she can scarcely resist all that is powerful in Europe combined against her. Russia has been to Europe, for the last forty years, what a ball remaining in an old wound is to the limb of a veteran. Every change of temperature, the heat of summer, the cold of winter, produces uneasiness and pain. The ball must now be extracted; the wound must now be entirely closed up, that we may be all at rest. Since the preceding pages were written, a “Confidential correspondence” has been brought to light, which no longer leaves any mystery in this once incomprehensible question. Our readers will find these important documents, and the indefensible conduct of the Ministry in the matter, fully discussed in the concluding article of this Number. LIFE IN THE SAHARA. Tired of poetical criticism, in which we last month so freely indulged, and turning with satisfaction from the political disquisitions now going through the press for the benefit of our sorely-perplexed countrymen, we feel disposed, cutting both poetry and politics, fairly to fly our shores, and recreate ourselves and readers in some less troubled quarter of the earth. Among the host of new books on our table, redolent of Cossack and Turk, Cross and Crescent, and here and there interspersed with cabalistic-looking titles, which, we are requested to believe, signify the “Doom of Turkey,” or the “Drying up of the Euphrates”—lo, there peeps forth one of a more pacific hue. There, lustrous on its boards, rises the feathery palm-tree of the Desert,—the Arab tent,—the camel; and what an emblem of peace is that cross-legged Oriental, smoking his long pipe, imperturbable as a statue! _Sedit æternumque sedebit._ We open the book, and, amidst the intricacies of a very long title, catch the piquant words—“Wanderings in the African Sahara.”[10] How we feel the breezes of the Desert come around us!—the freedom,—the expanse,—the wild novelty of the scene;—the heaving motion of the camel beneath us,—the flashing spears and pennons of the escort, as they whirl in mimic warfare around. Away into the Desert! with a sea of rigid white sand beneath, and a twin sea of glowing light above! On, over the waste, till the glare of day is done, and the cool breeze comes forth, and all the stars of night,—and we kiss our hand to the moon “walking in brightness,” and say, with Southey,