is instructed to abandon all the more
grotesque and absurd of the American
positions on the Alabama question, and to
ask, if not precisely for what we can give,
yet for what at least there is a reasonable
pretext for asking. It seems to be be-
lieved on all sides that he is not to ask for
what may be called "general damages'
i.e., damages caused by the general com-
fort and encouragement given to the Con-
federate cause, such as Mr. Sumner
desired to claim; nor is he apparently to
demand any formal apology. He is at
most to ask for compensation for the
losses caused by the escape of the Alabama
and the other Confederate cruisers, and
for such an adjustment of the law for the
future that these complications may be-
come, if not impossible, at least much
more difficult.

the other, were there not an absolute other side of the Atlantic, General Schenck necessity that every great nation should refuse to yield to mere dictation and fight rather than lose her own self-respect by doing under threats what there is no case to justify. No doubt it is possible for any country to fight, and rightly fight, about what is nominally a mere trifle, simply in order to resist gratuitous aggression. But then the only possible gain is the defeat of the aggression, and not the material value of the encroachment resisted. And the war, even if it ends by the success of the juster cause, adds no new triumph of freedom or civilization nothing but the history of a successfully resisted menace -to the history of the world. Indeed, it is more than probable that if ever we did get into a struggle with America, both parties would be so firmly convinced that they were fighting for the defeat of an aggression on the side of the other, that the defeated party would suffer ever after from the sense of an undeserved calamity, till the time came to revenge it. No war in which we can engage with the United States is ever likely to leave any of the people of the American continent more just, or happy, or free than they were when it began, unless, indeed, it should be waged for the resistance of a purely unprovoked invasion. Surely, then, if we are to have even a "spirited foreign policy," let it be undertaken for the purpose of preventing or redressing some great political oppression, and not for the sake of maintaining a doubtful interpretation of some confused engagement with a people at least as independent and free and a good deal happier than our own. If it be possible to settle the moot points between us and America, it is scarcely feasible to exaggerate the importance of doing so. It would make us far safer at home, if safety is what we want. It would make us far stronger abroad, if strength is what we want. It would establish a heartier feeling between two great branches of the same race. And it would prevent, or greatly postpone, the most inconceivably mischievous, hopeless, and murderous of all wars, a war very nearly a civil war in character, but yet stimulated by all the jealousies of national rivalry.

And now, in General Schenck's mission, it would seem likely that we really are going to obtain a good opportunity of healing the old sore, and obtaining once more a cordial understanding with the United States. At least if we may trust all the reports which reach us from the

Now, as far as we are concerned, we should see no difficulty in conceding at once the special damages caused by the escape of the Alabama, as distinguished from the other Confederate cruisers; nor in submitting to fair arbitration the question whether in the case of the other cruisers, the Georgia, Florida, Shenandoah, and the rest, we had really been guilty of the same sort of administrative negligence of which it is hardly possible to deny that, in the case of the Alabama, we were really guilty; nor, again, in earnestly and impartially discussing the question of any change in our municipal law and that of other countries, which might seem to promise relief from any such complications in future,- though we admit we are not very sanguine that any such change could be pointed out. And if only England can be persuaded to concede as much as, in our opinion, might be frankly conceded at once, we do not see why General Schenck should not solve the problem which has so long threatened to throw the two countries into war. Of course, we cannot and must not concede anything of the real justice of which we are not convinced. The practice of buying off an enemy is the most dangerous and fatal, as well as immoral, which can be proposed; and assuredly it will have no friends in this country. But we feel so sure that had we been at war,and had an Alabama escaped from New York under the sort of circumstances under which this Alabama escaped from Liverpool,― England would never have ceased to denounce the gross negligence of America in the case, nor to believe it wilful, that there can be no real sacrifice of dignity in admitting at once the fault of

wholly admissible demands, - demands which we certainly ought to consider most gravely, and of which we should do well to yield frankly and freely all that we should ourselves feel called upon, in the same circumstances, to press. If we do so, General Schenck's mission may make England safer and stronger than she

which our administration was guilty. And as for the other cruisers, though no case of this kind has yet been produced, or as far as we know, can be produced, it is only fair that where two countries differ so widely as to the evidence, it should be submitted to the judgment of an impartial umpire. At all events, unless the accounts from many quarters as to General has ever been since the close of the Civil Schenck's instructions are utterly belied, the new American Ambassador will bring us quite reasonable, though not perhaps.

War in 1865, and will give her a reputation for moderation and candour as well.

BURNS.

ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF HEATHER IN BLOSSOM.

No more these simple flowers belong
To Scottish maid and lover;
Sown in the common soil of song,

They bloom the wide world over.

In smiles and tears, in sun and showers,
The minstrel and the heather,
The deathless singer and the flowers
He sang of live together.

Wild heather-bells and Robert Burns!
The moorland flower and peasant!
How, at their mention, memory turns
Her pages old and pleasant!

The gray sky wears again its gold
And purple of adorning,
And manhood's noonday shadows hold
The dews of boyhood's morning.

The dews that washed the dust and soil
From off the wings of pleasure,
The sky that flecked the ground of toil
With golden threads of leisure.

I call to mind the summer day,
The early harvest mowing,
The sky with sun and clouds at play,
And flowers with breezes blowing.

I hear the blackbird in the corn,
The locust in the haying;
And, like the fabled hunter's horn,
Old tunes my heart is playing.
How oft that day, with fond delay,
I sought the maple's shadow,
And sang with Burns the hours away,
Forgetful of the meadow.

Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead
I heard the squirrels leaping,
The good dog listened while I read,

And wagged his tail in keeping.
I watched him while in sportive mood
I read "The Twa Dogs" story,
And half believed he understood
The poet's allegory.

That he who loved like Magdalen,
Like her may be forgiven.

Not his the song whose thunderous chime
Eternal echoes render, -

The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme,
And Milton's starry splendour!

But who his human heart has laid
To Nature's bosom nearer?
Who sweetened toil like him, or paid
To love a tribute dearer ?

Through all his tuneful art, how strong
The human feeling gushes!

The very moonlight of his song

Is warm with smiles and blushes!
Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time,
So" Bonnie Doon" but tarry;
Blot out the Epic's stately rhyme,
But spare his Highland Mary.

John G. Whittier.

=

A CORRESPONDENT of the Gardener's Chron- | tent, demolished by shot coming down here as icle has forwarded to that paper the following thick as hail, and the plants they contain are account of the condition of some of the nurseries dried up or frozen, for we had 6° R. 18° near Paris, dated "Châtenay, Dec. 4, 1870.-F. the day before yesterday, and yesterday I am sorry I have but sad news about the estab- morning a considerable quantity of snow. It lishments; they are all deserted, and the mag- will be about the same with the other establishnificent collections are perishing. In detail I ments not visited by me, and it may be taken can only report of the establishments of MM. for granted that the losses of these people are Croux and Durand Fils; the others near Ba- beyond replacement, and will bring many of gneux, Châtillon, and Bourg-la-Reine we only them to the grave." passed several times at night, when marching to the batteries in course of erection, for the staying there during the daytime is not very agreeable on account of the shells from Vanvres, Mont- A CORRESPONDENT in Honolulu, after making rouge, and Bicêtre. M. Croux's principal es- a botanical tour in the Kaala range, says, tablishment at Châtenay is the quarters of the "Botanizing on this island is not without conStaff of the Bavarian Artillery; the large Palm-siderable danger. Only imagine descending a house, sixty to eighty feet long, is occupied by steep decline of 70°, which had to be done the horses, the flower-tubs being made use of chiefly by swinging from the roots of one tree for cribs; the magnificent Conifers (Wellingto-to the branches of the next one below, and that nias, Pinus Pinsapo, &c.), of which we found at a height of 2,000 feet above the deep gorge numbers of fine specimens, have all been cut beneath our feet." Nature, however, seems in down to form a fence along the road to Fonte- all cases to provide a reward for her admirers, nay-aux-Roses, to prevent the French from hav- who voluntarily expose themselves to such daning a look into our batteries from their forts. gers for the purpose of bringing to the eye of But the must sad sight is offered by the Jardin science her numerous hidden beauties, for the pour les études pomologiques, belonging to M. writer continues to say, he was not a little surCroux, and situated near Aulnay. The beauti- prised by the discovery of a violet with splendid fully trained fruit trees, after having been much snow-white waxy flowers, some of which were broken by the pulling out of the wires, which almost half an inch in diameter and exquisitely were used for making gabions, are now com- perfumed. He considers it probably a variety pletely eaten down by the 2,000 sheep and 80 of Viola chamissoniana, which he found in its to 100 cows shut up in the garden. Nor have ordinary state lower down in the forest; but the the nurseries in the open field been spared; the pure white flowers stretching out their long pestems of the young trees had to serve as stakes duncles above the surrounding low undergrowth, for gabions, while the branches were used for and luxuriating in the full sunshine of an azure fagots. A similar sad sight is afforded at the blue sky, far exceed in beauty those of V. chabranch establishment of M. Durand Fils, near missoniana, which are of the ordinary violet Clamart; the greenhouses being, to a great ex-colour.

Nature.

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