For example, there is known, or as good as known, to be virtually some Family Compact, or covenanted Brotherhood of Bourbonism, French and Spanish: political people quake to ask themselves, "How will the French keep out of this War, if it continue any length of time? And in that case, how will Austria, Europe at large? Jenkins's Ear will have kindled the Universe, not the Spanish Main only, and we shall be at a fine pass!" The Britannic Majesty reflects that if France take to fighting him, the first stab given will probably be in the accessiblest quarter and the intensely most sensitive,--our own Electoral Dominions where no Parliament plagues us, our dear native country, Hanover. Extremely interesting to know what Friedrich of Prussia will do in such contingency? Well, truly it might have been King George's best bargain to close with Friedrich; to guarantee Julich and Berg, and get Fredrich to stand between the French and Hanover; while George, with an England behind him, in such humor, went wholly into that Spanish Business, the one thing needful to them at present. Truly; but then again, there are considerations: "What is this Friedrich, just come out upon the world? What real fighting power has he, after all that ridiculous drilling and recruiting Friedrich Wilhelm made? Will he be faithful in bargain; is not, perhaps, from of old, his bias always toward France rather? And the Kaiser, what will the Kaiser say to it?" These are questions for a Britannic Majesty! Seldom was seen such an insoluble imbroglio of potentialities; dangerous to touch, dangerous to leave lying;--and his Britannic Majesty's procedures upon it are of a very slow intricate sort; and will grow still more so, year after year, in the new intricacies that are coming, and be a weariness to my readers and me. For observe the simultaneous fact. All this while, Robinson at Vienna is dunning the Imperial Majesty to remember old Marlborough days and the Laws of Nature; and declare for us against France, in case of the worst. What an attempt! Imperial Majesty has no money; Imperial Majesty remembers recent days rather, and his own last quarrel with France (on the Polish-Election score), in which you Sea-Powers cruelly stood neuter! One comfort, and pretty much one only, is left to a nearly bankrupt Imperial heart; that France does at any rate ratify Pragmatic Sanction, and instead of enemy to that inestimable Document has become friend,--if only she be well let alone. "Let well alone," says the sad Kaiser, bankrupt of heart as well as purse: "I have saved the Pragmatic, got Fleury to guarantee it; I will hunt wild swine and not shadows any more: ask me not!" And now this Herstal business; the Imperial Dehortatoriums, perhaps of a high nature, that are like to come? More hopeless proposition the Britannic Majesty never made than this to the Kaiser. But he persists in it, orders Robinson to persist; knocks at the Austrian door with one hand, at the Prussian or Anti-Austrian with