THE EUROPEAN PERIODICAL PRESS. 193 



achieved, we may hesitate to believe; that they will be swallowed 

 in pure simplicity of heart, by bond-holders, or depositors in savings' 

 banks eager to add to their little hoards, we cannot assert, after what 

 we have witnessed, to be impossible ; that they will be printed and 

 published and bruited about from high authority, let no one doubt. 

 We judge of the things that will be, from those that have been. Let 

 the people, for whom we write, take heed by our warnings in due 

 season, and treat such rumours as the vox et preterea nihil, " full of 

 sound and fury, signifying nothing." 



For Spain there is hope, and then only, when she shall have a mi- 

 nistry free from the taint of stock-jobbing. Under any circumstances, 

 nothing, we fear, awaits her and her unfortunate creditors, but a na- 

 tional bankruptcy. But the evils of even so direful a state of things 

 may be greatly mitigated, if honest intentions, good faith, and pure 

 patriotism preside at the helm of her affairs. She possesses public 

 men who enjoy, and, what is more, who deserve, confidence both at 

 home and abroad. With Agustin Arguelles at the exchequer, the 

 science of finance would cease to centre in, or be made subservient 

 to, the price of bonds or vales ; with Alcala Galiano at the home 

 department, virtue and vigour would be infused into the constitutional 

 system. Other coadjutors equally honest, if less able, we could 

 name to assist them in the work of regeneration, but this needs not 

 to accomplish our task. In bidding farewell to the subject, let us 

 not, however, be unjust to Martenez de la Rosa, the late prime 

 minister of Spain. Honourable and honoured, he has descended 

 into a private station, not convicted of incapacity for his high func- 

 tions, but deficient, .physically as mentally, of the iron-hearted energy 

 demanded for the eventful times in which his lot was cast. His 

 hands are untainted with the leprous defilement of the stock-jobbing 

 fellowships ; he boasts no palaces built up from the spoils of a much- 

 wronged country, whose quarried blocks of polished marble are 

 cemented with the tears of widows and orphans despoiled of their 

 rnites, and affectionate fathers too eager for the worldly weal of those 

 they cherish, to be wise even in the ways of this generation. Gentle 

 was the rule, patriotic as philanthropic the aims of the retired states- 

 man ; in the bosom of his family, amid the circle of friends who 

 loved the man, and fawned not on the minister, in the enjoyment of 

 that literature to which he was ever so fondly attached, and of which 

 he has the glory of being crowned the presiding genius, may he find, 

 as he will find, that peace and happiness which are vainly to be sought 

 in the turmoil of party, and the strife of vulgar ambition which po- 

 litical storms shall invade and assail in vain. 



THE EUROPEAN PERIODICAL PRESS. 



As society advances in civilization most callings are materially 

 varied. Numerous circumstances give individuals, devoted to the 

 same labours, at distant periods, very different stations in life ; and 



M. M. No. 8. 2 B 



