Ar present, when the valour and ability shown by the Turks in resisting their hereditary enemies are so conspicuous, one cannot help looking back to the time when they were the dread of European states, and when the country which now stands at the head of the nations in her military efficiency and preparedness felt alarmed at the prowess and the power of the Ottoman armies. Early in the seventeenth century, Busbequius, ambassador from Ferdinand LI to the Sultan Solyman LI, wrote thus:—"When I compare the "power of the Turks with our own, I confess the consideration fills me with "anxiety and dismay, and a strong con-"viotion forces itself on my mind that we cannot long resist the destruction "which awaits; they possess immense "wealth, strength unbroken, and per-"fect knowledge of the orb of war, patience under every difficulty, union, "order, frugality, and a constant state "of preparation. On our side, exhausted finances and universal luxury, "our national spirit broken by repeated "defeats, mutinous soldiers, mercenary officers, licentiousness, intemperance, "and a total contempt or neglect of "military discipline fill up the dismal "catalogue. Is it possible to doubt "how such an unequal conflict must "terminate? The enemy's forces "being ab present directed against "Persia only suspends our fate; after "subduing that power, the all-conquer-"jing Mussulman will rash with un-"divided strength and overwhelm at "once Europe as well as Gormany."—The sword of the Polish King John-Sobieski delivered Austria from its dreaded enemy. And in return Austria, Prussia, and Russia parted Poland amongst them, thereby sharing, though not with equal guilt, in the greatest crime of modern times; for, as has been forcibly and traly said, "Philip TI and Louis XIV had often violated the law of nations, but the spoilers of Poland overthrow it." impossible to predict what will be the result of the present war; but we have lately read that the Russians have withdrawn their armies from Poland to take part in the war in Bulgaria; and the idea will suggest itself that, if the Poles should select the moment for a rising, it would seriously cripple the Russians who are already exhausting themselves in their efforts to preserve their prestige, and who must be keenly feeling their enormous losses. That the Poles cannot be happy under the rule of the Czar, we are convinced in spite of the assurances of the Russophiles. Such a sway can never be popular. The spirit which actuated Repnin and Drewitz, the first Russian ravagers of Poland, is still extant. Most of us remember, partially perhaps because it was the subject of an exquisite poem, the savage vengeance exercised in the time of Nicholas on the unfortunate nuns of Minsk, Russia is the same in Poland as she is everywhere, and we confess it seems to us a most hazardous step to leave that country without its ammies of occupation. People who have been subjected to the power of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.