_Improvidus futuri_. In the present aspect of affairs, we begin to think anew of his Budgets before the Crimean War; and we can only hope that the year 1864 will not be like 1854, and that the country will not find itself again in straits and embarrassments like those which proved wellnigh overwhelming ten years ago. _Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh._ ----- Footnote 1: ‘Prehistoric Man; Researches into the Origin of Civilisation in the Old and the New World.’ By Daniel Wilson, LL. D., Professor of History and English Literature in University College, Toronto; Author of the ‘Archæology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland,’ &c. Macmillan & Co., Cambridge. Footnote 2: There is one instance of a fragment of human bone found in company with these flints, but we have heard doubts thrown on the nature of this fragment. Footnote 3: ‘The Life of General Sir Howard Douglas, Bart, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., F.R.S., D.C.L. From his Notes, Conversations, and Correspondence.’ By S. W. Fullom. John Murray, London. Footnote 4: Fact. Footnote 5: Heldreich (author of ‘An Essay on the Useful Plants of Greece’) finds it in a single oak forest in Elis. Footnote 6: According to the prevalent opinion: the high authority of Decandolle is the other way; he believes it indigenous in the South of Europe generally; but the contrary evidence is very strong. Footnote 7: It was noted as something semi-prodigious that a palm-tree took root at Rome, in the temple of Jupiter, on the Capitol, during the war with Perseus; and another in the pavement of Augustus’s house on the Palatine.—Ampère, ‘L’Histoire Romaine à Rome.’ Footnote 8: Diplomatic Correspondence, 1861, 1862. Washington. Footnote 9: