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    Untitled Article

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    Untitled Article

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    "ANNUS LETHALIS."

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    Untitled Article

    pledge of his intention and desire to maintain the English allianpe 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 sliiftings 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 and 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 .

    Untitled Article

    THE old year is dead . . The sycophant eagerly waited tor signal , to proclaim the accession of his heir . The doctors rushed , scalpelin hand , to dissect his corpse . " In fact ,, the year of-grace . 183 . 9 , our "Annus mirabilis , " has passed his death ao-ony . 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 . If 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 tro \ ible . On New Year's day , the Emperor of the French gave . the first notice of the . coming ' , on behalf of ^ Italy and freedom . On the last day of the self-same year , we see , the envoys of Austria and Koine and Naples journeying towards Paris , to attend the European" congress , on behalf of what ^— we . hardly know—but " not" oil behalf of Italy , still less on behalf of freedom . What

    a world of change , of hopes , and troublesT " and fears , lies between those two epochs 1 When we seek to realize the past , our minds grow confused , just as the sight grows dim and weary , looking on phantasmagoric changes , without pattern , and without purpose . The message of the Emperor ; the arming of Sardinia ; tbo proclamation of war by Austria ; the crossing of the Ticino ¦; the inarch 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 Cross . The expulsion of the Austrians from Piedmont ; the evacuation of Milan ; the flight of the . Germain grand dukes ;• the wild exploits of GakiualdI ; Novaira , Magenta , and SolferinoT—follow each other in rapid

    succession , till the proud saying of the Emperor is almost 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 Villafrnnca divides the year , not only in time , but in elm racier . In the-first half , there aire hope , and life , und war ; in the second ,- there are despair , and deaith , 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 ; tho feeble efforts of the Italian states to continue ai lvopwless struggle ; tho little triumphs . of diplomacy , and the retirement of the last of linlinu heroes , are things all so painful to dwell-upon , that we would fain fall ^ risleep again , and dream that we were dreaming still .

    The your , too , has witnessed the fall of a great kingdom . It needs no gift of prophecy to foresee that ere long the empiro of Austria will be numbered among tho things that were . Henceforth the title of King of Loinbtmiy belongs no longer to tho House of llnpsburg . Tho writing is . upon the wall , written in no mystic characters . The last great bulwark between Kussin Und the South of Europe will soon have ceased to exist . Whether for evil or for good , this year , fatal to many things , has been ,

    above all others , fatal to the great German Empire . In the annals of Spain , 1859 will be recorded as the time of the dying struggle of a decaying people . A despotism without power to dignify its usurpation , has produced its worthy " fruit in a' misadn without faith to sanotify its ¦ iniquity ,. In the New World , tho grandest of ( ho old { Spanish conquests , Mexico , has sunk into a state of barbarous anarchy ; while in tho groat An ^ lo-Saxon republic tho year will be ever memorable for tho first , wo fear not tho last , outbreak of a civil and a servile insurrection .

    Our own domestic annals , if less eventful , are not much more fruitful of good . There has been much changfc , and little progress . The Indian mutiny is over , suppressed , we- care little to think how ; the old system is being re-established Tv'ith the old rulers . The promises of ; a new policy , which was to call forth " the resources of India , have not been fulfilled . The re-instatemeht of the Talookdars in their rights and properties shows that in our Indian Government the advocates of the old system have triumphed , and that what has been , is henceforth to be again . 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 places . The Conservatives had no policy in office , and have lost office without finding what they wanted ; the Liberals had no policy in opposition , and have not supplied the want . by the acquisition of office . The Manchester party ,, under Mr . Bright , have been trying hard , desperately hard , to get up 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 will 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 m pur 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 , has 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 celebrest " which are notJikely-. soon to -b t forgotten , . The Divorce Courts , have thrown doubts upon the supposed sanctity of the marriage bond . The electoral -commissions show how whole populations , -in ordinary English country towns 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 l ) r . SmEtiiuust have not increased our respect foiv national justice , and have impaired our faith in the infallibility of science . The disclosures of the Oude royal family ( luring 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 ( t Great Ship " throws discredit on ¦ th e ' integrity ,-as well as the ability , of the commercial world . The Church itself 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 goioral char racter . The men of eminence who have died have been , more than is " usually the case , the last representatives oi'old systemslast survivors ' of a time that , with them , passes out of sight for ever . JVTktteknIcmi is dead , dying . on the very eve of the downfall of that , dynasty lie had served so well , if not so wisely . With-• him dies the age , and the spirit of the age , that restored tho Bourbons to France and framed tho treaties of Vienna . Bojnba , too , has completed the measure of his miserable existence . Tho last of the dynastic race of petty tyrants , he has left behind him no successor . New despots may have new vices , but with the late king of Naples , an old and a bad e-ra . lms passed away . In the world of letters , the deaths of Lord Macaulay , Lfjoji Hunt , QfJ ) j ? Quincky , and of Washington Irving Iihvc removed well nigh tho last remnants of . that great and goodly company of authors , who were in their prime some half-century ago . With the exception of Savacin Landou , we know not that wo have now one writer of eminence left who wrote in the old days , when Byron , and Scott , and Sheij . ey were not alone in their glory .-. We called the past year an " annus ihirabilis . " Wo think we should have-baptized it more truly as im" annus lotlialis . " Whatever it has touched , has withered and died . ' Whether tho year shall prove not only the end of an old systcrn , buf tlio beginning of a new , tune alone can show . Mnnn . whilu , we part from 18 BU without . re ^ et , and look forward , if with doubt , not altogether without hope . . .

    Untitled Article

    4 The Leader arid Saturday Analyst . . ' . \; - ; ¦¦ . ^[ JA »* . 7 , . 186 O .

    "Annus Lethalis."

    " ANNUS LETHALIS . "

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 7, 1860, page 4, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2328/page/4/