of any law of primogeniture leads to a constant subdivision of landed estate, and its appropriation by a number of small proprietors. This tends to greater care and more complete cultivation than would be the case were the vine-growing districts parcelled out into a few large domains. It also leads to the increased cultivation of the poorer sorts of wine. The vinegrower being in point of means not much better off than an ordinary day-labourer, he is naturally anxious to secure a large return readily convertible, and he thinks more of quantity than of quality; he thinks more of possessing the richer soil, which will yield him an abundant produce, than of those poor light lands with a favourable exposure, from whence the choicest and best-flavoured wines are alone to be derived. In consequence of the profitable nature of this species of agriculture, the growth of the vine has largely increased; all kinds of soil, fallow, waste, even pasture, meadow, and arable lands, being now converted into vineyards.

The largest importation of French wines into England since the Revolution was in the financial year just closed, and amounted to two and a half millions of gallons. We have, on the contrary, to consider that before the Revolution we imported an amount which, taking into consideration the increase of population since that time, would be equal now to sixteen millions of gallons, and the question is, Can France supply it?

The question admits at once of an affirmative answer, both by reference to the actual produce of France and the wonderful increase of the last few years. It is said that 10,000 hectares, or about a quarter of a million of acres, have been added recently every year to the superficial area of French vineyards, that the increase of production has been greater still than in proportion to the additional extent of land so cultivated, and that in spite of this the value of wine property has risen. About two millions and a quarter hectares, or more than fifty millions of acres, represent the extent of land devoted to the cultivation of the vine in France; and nearly half of these lands lie by the Rhône and the Pyrénées, from whence the more highly alcoholised wines are produced. So that, even if our taste for the more highly flavoured wines undergoes no variation, still there is every reason to believe that France can supply our wants, though possibly not at that price which would render their use general. The total yield in gallons of the French vineyards would be upwards of one thousand millions of gallons per annum. About half that quantity appears to suffice for home consumption in France. The remainder is exported, Algeria being a large importing colony.

We have considered the reduction of duty upon French wines as one of the most advantageous, if not the very best, of the commercial changes introduced by the treaty of 1860. It is most probable that, as we have endeavoured to show, its influence upon the state of English society will increase as time goes on, and may be of signal service in curing some of its greatest evils. But the effect in France must not be overlooked. If our hopes are not disappointed, and a demand for French wines becomes a growing one, then the means of supplying them will absorb so large a portion of the industry and occupation of France as to render peace and amity between the two countries an indispensable consideration to its legislators.

A demand, such as that which we have ventured to consider as reason

able and probable, added to the growing wants of France herself, and of other countries in Europe, would give employment to between three and four millions of Frenchmen. So much of this labour (and it would be considerable) as would be devoted to supply the wants of foreign countries would not, and could not, be withdrawn from the support of France. They must have the produce of other labour in exchange, and none, apparently, would be more in request than these English manufactures and products which have recently been, by the sagacity and wisdom of the French rulers, unfettered from the restrictions of high, and in some cases almost prohibitive, duties. No one who takes an interest in the welfare of his species, or who regards with pleasure its recent rapid progress in everything which can secure its liberty and prosperity, can look without the deepest interest upon any event in politics, or in commerce, which will tend to draw closer the ties of friendship between England and France. A contest between them would throw all previous wars into the shade, not merely by reason of the immense expenditure of blood and treasure which it would entail, but because its disastrous effects would be keenly felt in every quarter of the globe, wherever commerce had inspired and satisfied the wants of mankind. Fortunately for mankind, the common sense of Europe, the efforts of statesmen, and the interests, and in time almost the necessities, of the two countries are conspiring to render war impossible. This, together with the more positive advantages of increased commercial intercourse, will, if the legislation of last year be crowned with continued success, establish for ever the final victory and glory of Free Trade. Twenty years of successful struggle to vindicate that principle have extended our wealth and multiplied our treasure with a rapidity unparalleled in any age or country, have increased the resources of the nation by one half, while at the same time taxation has been diminished, and have raised the renown of parliament for wisdom, moderation, and public spirit, to a height which challenges the veneration and respect of all the higher and more enduring sympathies of mankind.

THE TURKISH CEMETERY.

BY NICHOLAS MICHELL.

THEY sleep on Asia's lap of green,
And where may Grief find lovelier scene,
More full of holy sadness?

Nature, like mortals, seems at rest,
And chases, from the gayest breast,
All levity and gladness;

Wild Riot here might cool her fire,
Ambition's vaulting dreams expire,

And Passion check her madness.

The gently undulating hill,
The babbling of the tearful rill,
Babbling beneath the willow;
The whispers melancholy, deep,
The whispers that will never sleep,
The whispers of the billow;
The bending of the cypress-trees,
Bending to talk unto the breeze-

Sounds that might soothe death's pillow:

The azure of the roofing sky,

God's palace of eternity;

Flowers shaded yet still blowing;
The nightingale that sings all day,
Like some lorn spirit 'mid the spray,
His song rich, flute-like flowing,
That still, as Night comes down, more deep
Is poured in tones that bid us weep,
So sad, so plaintive growing:

All yield unto the sacred scene
A spell of sorrow, a serene,
Sweet beauty never dying;

Who wanders 'mong the turban'd tombs,
E'en where the thickest cypress glooms
O'er thousands round him lying,
Doth feel no chill, no terror, woe
Spreading like angel-wings of snow
O'er all that field of sighing.

They sleep at Scutari, and oft
The living come with footsteps soft,
To mourn the friend departed;
To strew the mound with freshest flowers,
And muse on long-gone cherished hours,
Ere Azrael's shaft was darted;
Yet as they kneel upon the sod,
'Mid scene so sweet, so full of God,
They ne'er grow broken-hearted.

But yesterday, across yon wave,
A sultan sought his pompous grave,
Nor great, nor famed in story;
Happier, perchance, in manhood's prime,
To close his eyes on earth and time,
Than live sunk, fall'n, and hoary;

Rest, Mahmoud's son! naught now to thee
The crash, the ruin, that may be-
The close of Islam's glory.

*Abdul Medjid.

THE MARQUIS'S TACTICS, AND HOW THEY SUCCEEDED;

OR,

A BET I ONCE MADE AT THE CONSERVATIVE.

BY QUIDA.

I.

LORD GLEN'S PRELIMINARY SHOTS.

"My dear Cyril, why don't you marry?" asked the Marquis of Glenallerton of his second son.

St. Albans, lying on his sofa in his rooms in the Mansion, smoking a hookah, and drinking hock and Seltzer, looked up, stared, and laughed. "Why don't I marry? My dear governor, you shouldn't ask pointblank questions like that. Please remember one's nerves. Why don't I? Because, though Pascal says L'homme n'est ni bête ni ange,' I think he is most irrevocably and undeniably bête when he assumes the matrimonial fetters ?"

"Of course," responded the Marquis, familiarly known as Lord Glen. "We all know that marriage is a social arrangement, and inconvenience, like the income-tax, and one conforms to it as such. I'm not asking you to go and fall in love, and crown a thousand follies with an irremediable one; God forbid ! with all your absurdities you are too much a man of the world to make me fear that. I was merely thinking—You're near thirty, ain't you?"

Three-and-thirty, last January," responded St. Albans, with a profound sigh, as if it were the finale instead of the commencement of manhood.

Very well. You have mené la vie to your heart's content; you have had bonnes fortunes in plenty; you are a most shockingly indolent dog; your debts are very heavy; you will bet-and on the most unlikely events, too-as if you were a millionnaire like Crowndiamonds. I think, considering you are a younger son, and will get nothing more from me, that a good marriage, far from being a bêtise, would show greater wisdom than I should give you credit for after your tomfoolery at Wilverton-the idea of losing a borough that your family have had in their pocket for ages, for a pack of rubbish about 'not bribing!' Bacon took bribes, however they try to smooth it over as 'fees,' and Walpole gave 'em. Do you set yourself above them, pray?"

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Certainly not; one was a lawyer, and had the devil to sharpen his wits; the other was a toper, and did very shrewd things in his cups. But don't worry me about it, pray. I assure you it wasn't any bosh about honour or virtue that made me refuse to bribe the Wilvertonians; it was only laziness, on my word; I hated the bore of St. Stephen's, and didn't know how else to get rid of the affair. Indolence is hereditary and chronic in me. I can't help it."

"Well, well, you lost the election, so there's an end of it," said the

Marquis, impatiently, in happy ignorance of the sneer on his son's lips, "but with regard to your marrying. Well, don't you think you could do it?"

"Decidedly, I could do it," replied St. Albans, with a glance at himself in an opposite mirror.

"Then do do it. You have only to choose; any woman would have you. I don't mean a nouvelle riche, you shouldn't ally us with a parvenue to save yourself from starving; but such as Lady Elma Fer

"Not for an El Dorado! She is eight-and-twenty, is freckled, and has red hair

"Pray what does beauty matter in a wife? You will have plenty of beauties left elsewhere, won't you?"

"I hope so; but I shouldn't be able to enjoy them, for one tête-à-tête with a freckled woman would have killed me."

"Talk sense," interrupted old Glen, angrily. "One would think you had no brains, Cyril. Look at it rationally. Is there anything for you but to make a rich marriage?"

St. Albans took a few silent puffs from his hookah with a profound sigh, and answered not.

"I can give you no money, and you have the devil's own taste for expensive pleasures and raffinés luxuries; you have lived at double the rate your brothers have for the last fifteen years. Go on as you are now, you must go to the dogs your own way; I can't help you; I'm en route there myself. Marry an heiress, your difficulties are cleared, and you can have your pleasures à votre gré. As for wanting beauty in your wife, one would think you were twenty! Your mother was plain; she had good blood and money, but she was remarkably plain; you take all your beauty from me. Now there is Avarina Sansreproche, most unobjectionable in every way, will be Baroness Turquoise and Malachite in her own right; not exactly pretty, perhaps, but very good style: a woman who would never do a silly thing, or make a dubious acquaintance. Her mother, I know, would not object to the alliance; in fact, you need only be a little rational and passive, and I could arrange it for you; the mere whisper of an alliance with her would quiet those Jews in a moment. Are you listening, Cyril?"

St. Albans yawned and stretched himself a little more comfortably: "Most attentively, sir; but you must really excuse my answering; it's too warm to talk."

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Well, say yes or no, if that's not too much exertion. You are in a perfect Gordian knot of difficulties. Do you see any way of cutting it but the one I propose ?"

His son yawned again, sighed, and took a long whiff of his perfumed hubble-bubble:

"My dear governor, if you will make me speak, no, I don't see any other way; I wish I did, because really the trouble of thinking is odious; the day's so much too close to do anything but drink Seltzer." "You admit you don't see any other way of getting out of your laby

rinth of debts, and going on smoothly in the future?"" Cyril St. Albans shut his eyes and shifted his cushions: "I said I didn't-pray don't worry. I dare say I could get a very

VOL. L.