In such a position of affairs, it was to be expected that if any change took place in the policy of England towards Denmark, it would be towards the side of friendliness. Yet the very reverse has been the case. Reversing the policy of his predecessors, and even of the present Government, Lord Russell has withdrawn the support of England from the Danish Government, and now backs up the Germanic Diet in its unfounded pretensions and serious attack upon the integrity of Denmark. His Lordship’s bizarre blundering on past occasions has prepared us for almost any folly which it was in his power to commit; but his cruel blunder in regard to Denmark is so inexplicable, so wholly devoid either of reason or excuse, and it has been perpetrated, too, in so insensate a fashion, that it is extraordinary and intolerable even for Lord Russell. The States of Holstein and Lauenburg are German duchies which for centuries have formed part of the Danish kingdom, but which are also members of the Germanic Confederacy, and over which, accordingly, the German Diet can claim a certain degree of control. When the present King of Denmark framed a common constitution for his whole dominions, the German Powers objected, and by hostile menaces compelled the Danish Government to give a separate Constitution to Holstein and Lauenburg. Such an _imperium in imperio_ is a grave difficulty for Denmark, as it would be for any State; and recently the Danish Government has agreed “to accord to the Estates of Holstein a legislative and supply-granting power, in conformity with the decrees of the Diet of 4th March 1860 and 7th February 1861.”[7] So far as Holstein is concerned, the Danish Government, to its own great embarrassment, has virtually consented to all that the German Diet demands.[8] But the Diet is not content, and has now undertaken a similar interference with the condition of Schleswig. Unlike Holstein, Schleswig is a purely Danish province. In 1823 the Prussian Government itself declared that “the Confederation was excluded from interfering in the government of Schleswig, as that duchy does not form one of the Confederated States (_Bundeslande_), and is therefore beyond the influence of the Diet.” The sole ground upon which this assumption to interfere is now made, is, that so many Germans have migrated into Schleswig that they now compose half of the population. Upon this preposterous ground the Germanic Diet demands that Schleswig also shall have a separate constitution! If this were conceded, the small territory of Denmark would contain no less than four separate constitutions, and four rival Estates—namely, of Lauenburg, Holstein, Schleswig, and Denmark Proper—each of which could give check to the others, and bring the whole administration to a dead-lock. To add to the extravagance of this project, the German Diet, after long declining to formulate its demands, proposes to accomplish the autonomy of the Danish