Seville possessed more than 140 churches; the number of convents and nunneries in most large towns averaged from 40 to 50; while other monasteries were scattered all over the land, wherever sunny vine-slopes or rich plains and pasture suited cowled retirement, and attracted ascetic and mendicant devotion. They, with their good and bad, their fine arts and rank superstitions, are gone, and it is to the cathedrals, the collegiate and parish churches, that the student of Spanish architecture must chiefly turn; of the former some 80 yet remain, the latter must be counted by ten thousands.

These metropolitan cathedrals offer a mother's example and model to the daughter parish-churches. They do not lie dead and idle as tombs. The door of these houses of God is open, as his ear and mercy to all and always. There is no tariff of fees hung up to scare the poor; native and stranger, Romanist and Protestant, enter alike, free as the air and light of heaven; hearty and wide is the portal's welcome which invites the saint and repels not the sinner. Here, when the sudden still voice is heard, the warning may be realized at once; to day, now, and in the place where prayer is offered up the best. There is no risk of sanding life with good intentions: no need of putting off to a more convenient season, when greedy vergers, the tax-gatherers of Uxorious Canons and prolific Deans,'

will creep out of their spider-holes and unlock-the price of admittance having been first paid-their spiked gratings. None here deny a gratuitous glance to rich man or pauper, whether coming to bow down in penitence, or to elevate the mind with the glory and magnificence of religious architecture. So says the Spanish Red Book,'-and we hope the new Dean of Westminster will read its sermon in full, on some drizzling day when he can steal a moment from his Album Græcum.

ART. VII.-1. Observations on the Present State of our National Defences. By the Lord Viscount Ranelagh. London. 1845. 2. Warrant of 13th December, 1845. Published by authority of the Queen.

3. Hart's Quarterly Army-List.

WE would fain hope that, in spite of sundry appearances to the contrary, the peace of the Christian world is not on the point of being disturbed. All the energies of all the governments and nations in Europe seem to be directed to nobler purposes They are rivals now in the race of civilization, each

than war.

striving

striving to take the lead in the adoption of measures which shall diffuse knowledge and open up the channels of commerce; and if here and there a little clashing of interests or of apparent interests occur, they are all wise enough to submit their grievances to a better arbitration than that of the sword. In America, likewise, notwithstanding the insane insolence of the rabble, and the unwise language of the government, we hope and believe that the most influential classes of the nation are too sagacious, and too virtuous also, not to be the friends of equity and of peace.

Meanwhile, in this month of February, 1846, the note of military preparation rings throughout the United Kingdoms with a sharper tone than it has emitted for many a long day. Our arsenals, dockyards, foundries, powder-mills, are all alive with workmen. The great naval stations from the Medway to the Tamar present such scenes as only the men of a passing generation have witnessed. Along the course of the Channel, harbours of refuge are marked out for construction, such as shall afford shelter to our shipping against the attempts of an enemy, not less than against the elements. And for the better defence of these, as well as for the general protection of the coasting trade, guard-frigates, propellable by steam, are constructed out of razéd 74-gun ships; to put which in a state of efficiency the most strenuous exertions are made. As to our seagoing fleet, it is a match for the navies of all the rest of the world put together. Not to speak of such floating castles as the Queen, the Formidable, and the St. Vincent, it appears to us that to our steam-navy alone, nothing either afloat or along the sea-board of any country under heaven could offer successful resistance. Moreover, that we may be in some sort secure at home, as well as capable of annoying our enemies abroad, large numbers of hands are employed in the strengthening of our old coast defences and the construction of new ones. Portsmouth and Plymouth present a more formidable front to the sea than ever they did. The lines which are to cover the dockyard at Sheerness and the arsenal at Woolwich are marked out; and, in addition to the corps of armed pensioners-10,000 strong-which has of late sprung up, and of which the importance is incalculable, a reinforcement of 9000 men to the regular army has been determined upon. And last, though not least, the militia is about to be resuscitated.

What can be the meaning of all this? Are we deceived in the hope which we have ventured to express as to the peaceable temper of the world; and, being on the eve of a war, are we making such preparations as shall hinder it from becoming a little one? A stranger arriving among us from some remote country would naturally suppose so; and, in spite of the good faith which cha

racterizes

racterizes the dealings of our government with foreign powers, it is possible that the timid or the jealous among our allies, if any such there be, may entertain a similar suspicion. But we beg to assure both parties that they are mistaken. England is not at this moment taking a single step which common prudence and a just regard to her own safety does not require. She is merely adapting her means to the circumstances of the times on which she has fallen. She is striving to keep pace with the progress of the age, and taking due account, and no more, of the necessities which the altered state of the world imposes upon her. England, being (among other things) a great commercial country, is averse to war, the great enemy of the trade of Nations. Her colonial empire is too weighty for her strength already; she cannot, therefore, harbour the slightest desire to extend it. But what she possesses she feels that it is her duty to keep; and, above all, it is necessary that she should be in a condition to defend herself effectually from any sudden blow, should it be struck at her vitals.

A moment's thought will convince every unprejudiced inquirer that up almost to the present moment the English government has not sufficiently attended to these matters. While science was achieving over nature triumphs which even now may be, and probably are, but the forerunners of greater triumphs still, our rulers seem to have considered that our insular position and the acknowledged superiority of our fleets continued to secure to us the same exemption from attack, both at home and abroad, that we used to enjoy during the late war. It never appears to have occurred to them till of late, that the sea on which our fathers depended has ceased to form an impassable ditch round the island of Great Britain itself; and that for enemies who may make up their minds to a sudden attempt on our detached military posts in either hemisphere, it constitutes, in point of fact, a safe and easy way by which to approach them. What would have become of Malta, for example, a few years ago, had the quarrel between Lord Palmerston and M. Thiers deepened but a little? There was a critical time when the harbour of Valetta could not show so much as a sloop of war within its anchorage. The guns upon the ramparts, besides being of small calibre, had become, through age and the effect of weather, well nigh unserviceable; of artillerymen there were scarce sufficient in the place to fire a double salute; and the infantry of the garrison consisted of a single weak battalion. What would have happened had the French fleet from the Dardanelles suddenly steered-as was expected by both parties-in a hostile spirit thither? Indeed, what would have taken place in England itself, had the 20,000 men, whom the

French

French are known to have kept in hand, embarked suddenly in the fleet of steamboats which lay at Cherbourg, and passed over to the coast of Hampshire? We happen to know that at the moment when this bold stroke was meditated, the sole representative of England's gallant navy in Portsmouth and at Spithead was the Victory; and we need not stop to add, that neither the glories which surround that time-honoured name, nor the handful of troops which lay behind the lines, could have hindered the entire destruction of our most important dockyard, or interposed any serious hindrance to the march of its destroyers upon London.

The military preparations which England is now making are but the unavoidable results of circumstances. We have already felt, and do not desire to have the truth more practically demonstrated to us, that the application of steam to the purposes of locomotion has entirely changed our position as a military power. Not only are we liable to sudden descents, for to these we were always more or less exposed, though we rarely suffered from them, but a dark night or a Channel fog would enable an enterprising enemy, circumstances otherwise favouring him, to throw thirty, forty, even a hundred thousand men upon our shores, without our having any means to prevent it. For it is not now as it used to be a quarter of a century ago, that the manœuvre to concentrate an army on the opposite coast would put the English government sufficiently on its guard, and afford time to counter. work the project of an invasion. France will soon be as much intersected by railways as England. Her capital is already connected by them with some of her frontier towns, at least in part, and will soon be entirely connected with all; and railways, as Sir Willoughby Gordon can vouch, are quite as available for troops and the munitions of war as for peaceable citizens and their merchandise. An operation, therefore, which in former times it required a fortnight to accomplish, will soon be brought within the compass of a few hours; and the effects of this change, as they must bear upon us, supposing a rupture to take place, there needs very little foresight to discover.

To carry 40,000 men across the narrow seas, supposing that no more serious obstacles than nature offers stood in the way, would be the easiest thing in the world. From Brest to Falmouth twelve hours steaming carries us.* Dunkirk is scarce seven hours from the mouth of the Thames; Cherbourg is about the

The expense to which our neighbours have gone, and the care which they have taken, to fortify and improve the harbours at Brest and Cherbourg, are well known to all intelligent travellers. Both stations may now bid defiance to insult; and either is capacious enough to shelter a steam-fleet of tonnage sufficient to carry a hundred thousand men anywhere.

same

same from Spithead. From Boulogne and Calais to the open shore between Ramsgate and Walmer you may pass in three hours; from Dieppe to Brighton in six. Suppose, then, that some change should occur in the feelings of our neighbours towards us. Suppose Lord Palmerston to embellish once more the Foreign Office; or the present wise and dexterous King of the French to die; or the war party in France to gain the ascendant; or any one of the thousand accidents to occur which, without blame being attributable anywhere, may excite the jealousy or wound the pride of a sensitive people — suppose some mishap of this sort to befall, and France to get into a sudden fury, is there, among all our readers, one individual so innocent as to suppose that she would bully and bluster, as the Americans do, for a year without striking? No such thing. Our friends in Paris are as well aware as we, that the only chance which France has of success in war with England she must seek at the beginning. Accordingly, let warlike counsels once prevail in the Tuileries, and the first intimation which we receive of impending hostilities will come, if we be off our guard, in the shape of a report that a French army has landed. We may have our suspicions awakened before the storm burst; and our cruisers may be directed to keep a good look-out, and to observe, as far as they are permitted, all that is going on in the harbours on the other side of the Channel; but even if they ascertain that there is a mighty bustle there, and that steam-vessels of all sorts and sizes are collecting, will it be competent to us so much as to remonstrate? The French are but adopting the same precautions which we adopt ourselves. They are getting their traders, and it may be their steam-frigates also, into places of safety, and may well take offence if we presume to question the propriety of their doing so. Neither have we the means, supposing the moral right to be with us, of hindering them from doing what they will with their own, by the establishment of a blockade. Nothing will be found to have been more entirely altered by steam than the system of blockades on the European coasts. A sudden storm will disperse your blockading squadron, whether it consist of steamers or of sailing vessels; and before it can come together again, every boat from all the harbours along the shore has put to sea. Some of them you may fall in with in the course even of a three hours' voyage, but others will escape; and if the attempt be made under cover of night, the chances are that all will escape. Besides, our neighbours, having made up their minds for a brush, will scarcely choose for the moment of telling us so a period when the British fleet happens to be assembled in force either in our own ports or in front of theirs.

On