A Cæsar, a Cromwell, a Napoleon, arises like an avatar to stay the wrath of Heaven let loose in the unbridled passions of men; and ages of servitude succeed one terrible and unforgotten period of popular license. It is the more important to refer to these lasting principles in human affairs at this time that the events which have recently occurred on the Continent seem at first sight to set all former experience and history at defiance. Not only has monarchy been again overthrown, and a republic restored in France by a single urban tumult, but the contagion of the example has spread to other countries, hitherto deemed the stronghold of the conservative principle, and farthest removed from the influence of the revolutionary mania. That Italy, following in the wake of a reforming Pope, should be speedily convulsed by popular fervour, was anticipated, and might easily be understood. That Lombardy and Venice, long impatient of the Tramontane yoke, should seize the first opportunity to cast it off, was what every person acquainted with the feelings of the people in those beautiful provinces has long expected. That Prussia, the most highly educated state in Europe, and which has long murmured at the delay in conceding the popular institutions promised during the struggle with Napoleon in 1813, should make an effort now to obtain them, might be understood. That the Poles, smarting under their recent dismemberment, and mourning their lost nationality, should eagerly grasp at the shadow even of the means of restoring it, was of course to be expected. But that Austria, the most aristocratic monarchy in Europe--that Austria, without either seaports, commercial cities, or manufacturing emporiums, should be seized by the same passions, and that the monarchy which had defeated Napoleon at Aspern, and all but destroyed him at Wagram, should be overturned by an urban tumult, headed by a burgher guard and the beardless students of the university--this indeed surpassed human comprehension.