firmly sustained, and those reverses nobly retrieved, by the steady and gallant loyalty of its subjects. It was the practical freedom and good government enjoyed by the Austria peoples which prevented the sundering of an empire above all others most liable to be split up under the effects of great reverses, and which rallied the noble races of the Tyrol and Hungary around the throne of their sovereign in the gloomiest hours of the empire. The Emperor Francis-Joseph is now doing his best—wisely and bravely—to retrieve the mistakes, and obliterate from memory the stern necessities of the recent past. And he is already reaping his reward in a revival on the part of his people of the old loyalty which formerly so brightly illustrated the annals of Austria. These happy changes in Austria have produced a corresponding change of public feeling towards her in this country. Four years ago, the epithet “Austrian” was devised by the Liberals as the most telling which could be employed against the Conservative Government. It was purely an “invention of the enemy;” for the Conservative Government showed no special favour to Austria, but only found in her a Power desirous of peace, and willing to make concessions; whereas they rightly discerned in the French Government a fixed resolve to force on a war, and to evade all attempts at a compromise. But who would use the same epithet as opprobrious now? Lord Palmerston himself, who more than any British statesman has acted an unfriendly part towards Austria, now goes out of his way to attend a dinner to Baron Thierry at Southampton, and to express himself in the most friendly terms towards that Government. Austria, in truth, during the last three years, has been doing more for the spread of constitutional government than all the other Governments of the Continent put together. The French Government has felt itself compelled to follow in her wake—first, by allowing freedom of debate to the Chamber of Deputies; and, secondly, by abandoning the right to open “extraordinary credits” on the mere will of the Sovereign; the example in both cases having first been practically given in the new Austrian Constitution. Unhappily the press of France has still to envy the freedom so fully enjoyed by the journals of Austria.