kingdom of Greece. The commercial treaty with France effected,
through the agency of Mr. Cobden, on Free Trade lines, and Mr.
Gladstone's memorable success in carrying the repeal of the paper
duty, and thereby immensely facilitating journalistic enterprise,
were hailed with great delight as beneficial and truly progressive
measures. But events of a more gigantic character now took place,
which at the moment affected our prosperity more directly than
any fiscal reform, and appealed more powerfully to us than the
savagery of our Turkish _protégés_ or even than the union of
Italy under Victor Emmanuel into one free and friendly State. The
long-smouldering dissensions between the Northern and Southern States
of the American Union at last broke into flame, and war was declared
between them, in 1861.

The burning question of slavery was undoubtedly at the bottom of this
contest, which has been truly described as a struggle for life
between the "peculiar institution" and the principles of modern
society. The nobler and more enthusiastic spirits in the Northern
States beheld in it a strife between Michael and Satan, the Spirit of
Darkness hurling himself against the Spirit of Light in a vain and
presumptuous hope to overpower him; and their irritation was great
when an eminent English man of letters was found describing it
scornfully as "the burning of a dirty chimney," and when English
opinion, speaking through very many journalists and public men,
appeared half hostile to the Northern cause. Indeed, it might have
been thought that opinion in England--England, which at a great cost
had freed its own slaves, and which had never ceased by word and deed
to attack slavery and the slave-trade--would not have faltered for a
moment as to the party it would favour, but would have declared
itself massively against the slave-holding South. But the contest at