BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. NO. DLXX. APRIL 1863. VOL. XCIII. CONTENTS. SENSATION DIPLOMACY IN JAPAN, 397 MRS CLIFFORD’S MARRIAGE—PART II., 414 SIR JAMES GRAHAM, 436 THE INEXHAUSTIBLE CAPITAL, 457 CAXTONIANA—PART XV., 471 NO. XX.—ON SELF-CONTROL. NO. XXI.—THE MODERN MISANTHROPE. SPEDDING’S LIFE OF BACON, 480 THE YEANG-TAI MOUNTAINS, AND SPIRIT-WRITING IN CHINA, 499 MARRIAGE BELLS, 521 EDINBURGH: WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET. AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. _To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._ SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH. BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. NO. DLXX. APRIL 1863. VOL. XCIII. SENSATION DIPLOMACY IN JAPAN.[1] Footnote 1: ‘The Capital of the Tycoon.’ By Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B. London: Longmans. It is one of the most singular features of our institutions that, when our diplomatic relations with remote and semi-barbarous countries become so involved that even the Government is at a loss to know what course to pursue, the public take up the question in a confident off-hand way; and though, by the force of circumstances, deprived of the information possessed by the Foreign Office, they do not hesitate either to denounce or to approve the policy recommended by those who have studied the subject on the spot, and who alone can be competent to form an opinion on the matter. It is true that papers are occasionally laid before Parliament, but what proportion of those who hold such decided views have read them? In the case of the Arrow, when people voted for peace or war with China, how many members of Parliament had informed themselves on the merits of the question? and what did their constituents know about it? Yet so it is; the ultimate decision upon all important and complicated questions of foreign policy necessarily rests with the most ill-informed class. If they generally decide wrong, we must console ourselves by the consideration that even free institutions have their drawbacks, but in compensation have made us so rich and powerful, that we can always scramble out of any scrape they may get us into. In countries despotically governed, the merits of a secret diplomacy are inestimable; but where the Government is responsible, though it would be