Twice within the public recollection, two political parties in England have been formed, and made furious by a common ignorance. During the great Slave War in America, the Southern planter was held up as a gentleman of polished manners, of cultivated tastes, a paternal master and courteous host By others he was described as selfish, sensual, tyrannical, with whom any guest who betrayed sympathy with slaves had an unpleasant time. Both accounts were true. The same model gentleman who showered upon you courtly attentions would tar and feather you if he found you display emotion when you heard the shriek of the slave under the whip. Later, Parliament, the press, and the Church were divided upon the character of the Turk. One party said he was tolerant, picturesque, abounding in concessions and hospitality. The other party described him as subtle, evasive, treacherous, vicious, and cruel. No one seemed to recognise that all the while he was both these things. He was an adept in personal deference, generous in professions, evasive and treacherous--in short, "Abdul the Damned." To those from whom the Sultan had anything to hope, his graciousness was superb--to those at his mercy he was rapacious and murderous. The Circassians will offer their daughters to the Turk--they send their virgin beauty into the market of lust, and then fight for the purchasers. The Hindoos seem a gentle, unresisting, rice-minded people; yet have such capacity of heroic and vigilant reticence, that though we have been masters of India for one hundred and fifty years, it is said by experienced officials, we do not know the real mind of a single man. The Zulus have savage instincts and habits; but they are honest, speak the truth, and despise a man who is angry or excited. Thiers, the great French statesman, had trust in individuals, but despised the masses. Yet the masses pulled down the Bastile, where only gentlemen were imprisoned and not themselves. The masses were moved by a generous dislike of oppression as strongly as Thiers himself. President Washington, looking only at the corruption of classes he came in contact with, predicted evil to the future of American society. Yet, one hundred years after, a latent nobleness of sentiment appeared, which gave a million of lives in order that black men with large feet, as was scornfully said, should be free. Because oppression had made, for years, assassination frequent in Italy, many thought every man carried a stiletto, and did not know that Italians are more patient and cooler-headed on great occasions than Englishmen or Frenchmen. The Irish do not conceal that they are our enemies, and ruin every English movement in which they mingle, yet who have such brightness, drollery of imagination as they? Or who will stand by a friend of their country at the peril of their lives without hesitation as they do?