"What form so omnipotent an element will assume--how long it will welter to and fro as a wild democracy, a wilder anarchy--what constitution and organization it will fashion for itself, and for what depends on it in the depths of time, is a subject for prophetic conjecture, wherein brightest hope is not unmingled with fearful apprehensions and awe at the boundless unknown. The more cheering is this one thing, which we do see and know--that its tendency is to a universal European commonweal; that the wisest in all nations will communicate and co-operate; whereby Europe will again have its true Sacred College and council of Amphictyons; wars will become rarer, less inhuman; and in the course of centuries, such delirious ferocity in nations, as in individuals it already is, may be proscribed and become obsolete for ever." My last and not least conclusive extract (for it shows the actual hold which these speculations have taken of the minds of practical men--of men out in the world, and even of _soldiers_) is from a book popular among all classes of readers--the _Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau_, written by Major Sir Francis Head. What he says of one country's educating another, by the natural progress of books and opinion, and of the effect which this is likely to have upon governments even as remote and unwilling as Russia, is particularly worthy of attention. The author is speaking of some bathers at whom he had been looking, and of a Russian Prince, who lets us into some curious information respecting the leading-strings in which grown gentlemen are kept by despotism:-- "For more than half an hour I had been indolently watching this amphibious scene, when the landlord entering my room said, that the Russian Prince, G----n, wished to speak to me on some business; and the information was scarcely communicated, when I perceived his Highness standing at the threshold of my door. With the attention due to his rank, I instantly begged he would do me the honour to walk in; and, after we had sufficiently bowed to each other, and that I had prevailed on my guest to sit down, I gravely requested him, as I stood before him, to be so good as to state in what way I could have the good fortune to render him any service. The Prince very briefly replied, that he had called upon me, considering that I was the person in the hotel best capable (he politely inclined his head) of informing him by what route it would be most adviseable for him to proceed to London, it being his wish to visit my country.