have
sketched, we think we can indicate the four chief causes of the Scottish
failure as existing in the present crisis.

DISSENSIONS AMONG THE REBELS. These of course are hid from us by the
veil of smoke that rises above Bull Run. But as between the party of
advance and the party of defence, between the would-be spoilers of New
York bank-vaults and Philadelphia mint-coffers, and the more prudent who
desire "to be let alone," there is already an issue created. There are
State jealousies, and that impatience of control which is inherent in
the Southern mind, as it was in that of the Highland chieftains. There
will be, as events move on, the same feud developed between the Palmetto
of Carolina and the Pride-of-China of the Georgian, as then burned
between Glen-Garry of that ilk and Vich Ian Vohr. There are rivalries of
interest quite as fierce as those which roused the anti-tariff _furor_
of Mr. Calhoun. Much as Great Britain may covet the cotton of South
Carolina, she will not be disposed to encourage Louisiana to a
competition in sugar with her own Jamaica. Virginia will hardly brook
the opening of a rival Dahomey which shall cheapen into unprofitableness
her rearing of slaves. While fighting is to be done, these questions are
in abeyance; but so soon as men come to ask what they are fighting
for, they revive. There is selfishness inherent in the very idea of
secession.

There is a capital story, we think, in the "Gesta Romanorum," of three
thieves who have robbed a man of a large sum of gold. They propose a
carouse over their booty, and one is sent to the town to buy wine. While
he is gone, the two left behind plot to murder him on his return, so
as to have a half instead of a third to their shares. He, meanwhile,
coveting the whole, buys poison to put into the wine. They cut his
throat and sit down to drinking, which soon finishes them. It is an
admirable illustration of the probable future of successful secession.
Something very like this ruined the cause of James III., and something
not unlike it may be even now damaging the cause of H.S.I.M.,--His
Sea-Island Majesty, Cotton the First.

THE WANT OF EFFICIENT AID FROM ABROAD. We are not yet quite out of the
woods, and it behooveth us not to halloo that we certainly have found
the path. But it is more than probable that the Southern hope of English
or French aid has failed. Either nation by itself might be won over but
for the other. He is a bold and a good chario