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4 The Leader and Saturday Analyst. |Jan....
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"ANNUS LETHALIS." THE old year is dead. ...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Our National Out-Look Foe 1860. The Open...
pledge of his intention and desire to ' maintain the English alliance could by possibility have been given by Napoleon III . than his conduct in this respect . It would be folly to deny that , until yesterday he exercised an influence over millions . in- these islands by virtue of his assumed protectorate of the Papacy , which no friend to national unity amongst ourselves could regard without concern;—that influence he has destroyed with his own hand spontaneously and irreparably ; no diplomatic explanations or shiftings can replace him in the hearts of Irish and English catholics where he was before . He has deliberately and with his eyes open put an end for ever to a source of . annoyance arid distrust . which' our Government , however they may affect to disguise the truth , would have given a great deal . to be relieved from . We have never been among the flatterers of the French Emperor , but we must own that his recent conduct seems to us calculated to disprove and defy sinister suspicions .
4 The Leader And Saturday Analyst. |Jan....
4 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . | Jan . 7 , 1860 .
"Annus Lethalis." The Old Year Is Dead. ...
" ANNUS LETHALIS . " THE old year is dead . The sycophant eagerly waited for the signal , to proclaim the accession of his heir . The doctors rushed , scalpel in hand , to dissect his corpse . In fact , the year of grace 1859 , our " Annus mirabilis , " has passed his death agony . There were but few friends about his bed , and fewer mourners , He lived a prodigal , and he dies a pauper . He leaves a scant inheritance , and many debts : He has but short space left for repentance , and a heavy burden of sins to confess . Let us shrive him , while we may .
Tf the dead year has failed in all else , in the science of chronological symmetry it has been a year without an equal . Twelve months , day for day , have contained the rise , the decline , and ( must we add ) the fall , of the Italian war of independence . The very birth-day of the year was a day of gloom and trouble . On New Year ' s daj-, the Emperor of the French gave the first notice of the coming Avar , oh behalf of Italy and freedom . On the last day of the self-same year , we see the envoys of'Austria and Home and Naples . journeying towards Paris , to attend the European congress , on behalf of what—we hardly know ^—but " not" -on behalf of Italy , still less on behalf of freedom . What a world of change , of hopes-, and troubles , and fears , lies between
those two epochs ! When we seek to realize the past , our minds grow confused , just as the sight grows dim and Aveary , looking on phantasmagoric changes , without pattern and without . purpose . The message of the Emperor ; the arming of Sardinia the proclamation of war by Austria ; the crossing of the Ticino ; the march of the French armies to the rescue of Turin : so runs . the . first act of the World-drama , full of hope and promise . Then follow the annals of the war , which read like some Ariosto legend , where the armies of the Infidel fall , prostrate' without a blow , before the champion of the Gross . The expulsion of the Austnans from Piedmont ; the evacuation of Milan ; the flight of the German grand dukes ; the wild exploits pf Garibaldi ; Novara , Magenta , and Solferino—follow each other in rapid succession , till the proud saying of the Emperor is ahuqst
accomplished , and , from the Alps to the Adriatic , Italy is all but free . Then the scene changes . In the very hour of conquest the conqueror abdicates his victories . The peace of ViUafronca divides the year , riot only in time , but in-character . In the first half , there are hope , and life , and war ; in the second ; there are despair , and death , and peace . After the bright dream of the beginning , the dreary sequel of the end weighs on us as a troubled nightmare . ' The return of the French armies to a hollow triumph ; the petty details and pettier . "disputes of the Zurich congress ; the ft ; ebl < 5 efforts of the Italian states to continue a hopeless struggle ; the little triumphs of diplomacy , and the retirement of the lfist of Italian heroes , are things all so painful to dwell upon , that we would fain , fall asleep again , . and dream that we were dreaming still .
The year , too , has witnessed the fall of a great kingdom . It needs no gift of prophecy to foresee that ere long the empire of Austria will be numbered among the- things that were . Hence " forth the title of King of Loiribardy belongs no longer to the House of Hapsburg . The writing is upon the wall , written in no mystic characters . The last grcjit bulwark between Russia and the South of Europe will soon , have ceased to exist , Whether for evil or for good , this year , fatal to many things , has been ,
Our own domestic annals , if less eventful , are not much more fruitful of good . There has been much change , and little progress . The Indian mutiny is over , suppressed , we care little to think how ; the old system is being re-established with the old riders The promises of a new policy , ' which was to call forth the resources of India , have not been fulfilled . The re-instatement of the Talookdars in their rights and properties shows that in our Indian Government the advocates of the old system have tphedand that what has been , is henceforth to be again .
ump , In China , we have the fact of an unsatisfactory repulse , and the prospect of a war even more unsatisfactory yet . One parliament at home has followed another , and one ministry has succeeded another , without any definite result . The cards have been shuffled , but the hands are not changed . The old names and the old men have got a new lease of the old i ^ laces . TIi p . Conservatives had no policy in office , and have lost office without finding what they wanted ; the Liberals had no policy m opposition , and have not supplied the want by the acquisition of
office . The Manchester party , under Mr . Buight , have been trying hard , desperately hard , ' to get \ vp a political agitation . The corpse of the . old Reform movement has been galvanized with most powerful batteries , but not a spark of life has been evoked . Somehow or other the old quack medicines seem to have lost their charm . The patient has grown incredulous , and refuses to
be . dosed ; in fact , we still go on governing and being governed , on the general principle that something will turn up . Possibly some day or other something Avill turn up—not in the least expected . The past year , indeed , has turned up much that we looked upon as settled . It has been a year of mutiny . We have'had mutiny in our army—mutiny in our fleet—mutiny , of a social kind , among our labouring classes . In each case the outbreak has been subdued , order has been restored—and the
fact remains . The year , however , Ms been above all conspicuous , for the exposures of our social system . In every sphere of life , in every rank of society , there have been a number of" causes celebres , '' Avhich are not likely soon to be-forgotten . The Divorce Courts have thrown doubts upon the supposed sanctity of the marriage bond . The electoral commissions show how whole populations hi ordinary English country toAyns are gangrened with corruption , how " true it is that every man has his . price , and that that price too is not a very high one . The army commission trials have left an ugly suspicion upon the vaunted integrity of our
governing classes . The trial , conviction , reprieve , pardon , and second trial of Dr . SMETiiuitST have not increased our respect for national justice , and have impaired our-faith-in the infallibility of science . The disclosures of the Oude royal family during their visit to England suggest most painful suspicions as to the reliance to be placed on English honour and British good faith , even amongst men of position and character ; while the failure and mismanagement of the " Great Ship" throws discredit on the integrity , as well as the ability , of the commercial world . The Church ' itsclf has not escaped unstained ; and even the private morality of the clergy , of which we used to hear so much , is now not unquestioned . The social system seems breaking up , and these instances of corruption in every class look like the premonitory symptoms" of general decay . The necrology of the year is symptomatic of its general character . The men of eminence who have died have been , more than is usually the case , the last representatives of old systemslast survivors ' of a time that , with thorn , passes out of sight for ever . Mkttkiinigh is dead , dying on the very eve of the downfall of that dynasty he hod served so well , if not so wisely . With him dies the age , and the spirit of the age , that restored the Bourbolis to Franco and framed the treaties of Vienna . Bombn , too , has completed the measure of his miserable existence . The last of the dynastic race of petty tyrants , he has left behind him no successor . New despots may hove new vices , but with the la to king of Naples , ail old and a bad era has passed away . In the world " of letters , the deaths of Lord Macaulay , Leigh Hunt , of De Quincey , and of Washington . Irving have removed well nigh the last remnants of that great and goodly company of authors , who were in their prime somo half-century ago . With the exoeption of Savage Landqju ., wo know not that wo have now one writer of pminoneo left who wvoto in the old days , when Bvkon , and Scott , and Shelley wero not olone in their glory . Wo called the past year an " annus mirobilis . " We think wo should have . baptized it more truly as an " annus lotlioljs . " Whatever it lias touched , has withered and died . Whether- 'the yoar shall provo not only the end of on , old system , but tho beginning of a now , timq alone can show . ftloainvhilo , wo port from 1859 Avithout rogret , and look forward , it with doubt , not altogether without hope ,
above oil others , fatal to the great German Empire . In the annals of Spain , 1859 will bo recorded as the time of the dying struggle of a deoaying people . A despotism without poAveV to dignify its usurpation , has producotl its worthy fruit in a orusado without faith , to sanctify its iniquity ; , Jn the Now World , the grandest pf the old Spanish conquests , Mexico , has sunk into a stato of barbarous nnorchy ; whilo in the great Anglo-Saxon republic tho year Avill bo ever memorable for tho first , avo foar not tho last , outbreak of a civil nnd a servilo insurrection .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 7, 1860, page 4, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07011860/page/4/
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