self up for discussion. Austria will have none
of it, for her political worship is the religion of silence, and her
worship of _that_ goes almost to excess. Her schools are worthy of the
highest admiration; we hear nothing about them. She is, after England,
the first country in Europe for railways; and we hear nothing of them,
except by a stray paragraph in the Augsburg Gazette."

The national railroad scheme of Austria is certainly the most splendid
effort of the _tout pour le peuple--rien par le peuple_ system that
has been hitherto seen; the scheme is the first of its class: but its
class is not the first, not the best in the abstract, but the best in
an absolute country, where the spirit of association is scarcely in
embryo. From Vienna to Cracow is now but a step. Prague and Dresden
will shake hands with Vienna next year. If we look southwards, line
upon line interpose themselves between Vienna and the Adriatic, but
the great Sommering has been pierced. The line to Trieste is open
beyond Gratz, the Styrian capital. The Lombard-Venetian line proceeds
rapidly, and is to be joined to that of Trieste. In 1847, the
traveller may go, without fail, from Milan to Stettin on the Baltic.
But the most interesting line for us is that of Gallicia, in connexion
with that of Silesia. If prolonged from Czernowitz to Galatz, along
the dead flat of Moldavia, the Black Sea and the German Ocean will be
joined; _Samsoun and the Tigris will thus be, in all probability, at
no distant day, on the high road to our Indian empire_.

But to return to Austria; this spectacle of rapid material
improvement, without popular commotion, and without the trumpets and
alarm-bells of praise and blame, is satisfactory: but when we look to
the reverse of the picture, and see the cumbrous debt, the frequent
deficits, and the endless borrowing, we think the time has come for
great financial reforms,--as Schiller hath it:--

"Warum denn nicht mit einem grossen Schritte anfangen, Da sie mit
einem grossen Schritte doch enden mussen?"

THE END.

MR. PATON'S WORK ON SYRIA, Post 8vo, price 10_s_. 6_d_.

THE MODERN SYRIANS;

OR,

NATIVE SOCIETY IN DAMASCUS, ALEPPO, AND THE MOUNTAINS OF THE DRUSES.

"Lebanon and its inhabitants, particularly the Druses, Damascus, and
Aleppo, are his leading subjects. His statements, under the first of
those heads, form by far the most valuable portion of the work,
affording, as it does, informatio