tablished bishops know how powerful is the support - all the more powerful because so often indirect which they receive from the stately relative at home. It is the old story, very familiar in novels, and yet frequently to be found in real life, of the big house which has sent off its younger sons to fight their way across the sea. They value their own independence; but they would struggle to the death to keep up the old manor, which is to themselves so often a harbor of rest. The self-sustaining churches are not merely indebted to home for the hard cash. En dowment has bred learning and culture, of which they know themselves to be reaping the fruits. The theology of Oxford and Cambridge_nourishes the teachings of Australia, Canada, and south Africa no less than of Minnesota and Nebraska. The architects of London build the churches which serve for the congregations of those far-off regions, or else furnish models which may be copied with a pardonable breach of copyright. Fantastical innovators are easily put to silence by the observation that, if they persist in seeking out quagmires for the pasturage of their bewildered flocks, the shepherds at home will leave the silly sheep to scramble out as best they may.

ment can give and take bishops, priests, and deacons to and from them. But the general framework is unchanged. If, however, the primate of all England were once formally invested with a more than primatial dignity over all the quarters of the world, susceptibilities would be roused and questions asked which would more probably be answered to the disadvantage of the primacy than to the exaltation of the patriarchate. The true controlling and regulating influence which the old Church of England ought to retain over the new Churches of the colonies and the United States resides in its own hereditary and long-garnered advantages, and in the public opinion that those younger members of the family can only continue to enjoy the benefits of participation in the ancestral store by cherishing the affection which is consistent with self-respect, and the deference which springs from good feeling and reason.

FOR Some time past we have heard that Some prosaic theorizers have devised things were taking a turn in Egypt; that an opinion that the reliance of the inde- the khedive had been brought to see the pendent communities upon England might error of his ways; that the judgments of be regulated and strengthened by declar- the courts were being enforced even against ing that the Archbishop of Canterbury his Highness himself; and that the era of was a patriarch, and Lord Penzance, we payment of just debts had succeeded the suppose, family lawyer all round. This laxity of universal borrowing. All this would simply be one of those stupid de- was very pleasant to know, but it scarcely vices by which matter-of-fact pedants are prepared us for the extraordinary arrangeso prone to spoil delicate arrangements ment which it appears the khedive has now which are valid in proportion to the silence sanctioned. That an oriental potentate with which they are accepted. Such a should forego his imported opera, cut down suggestion would breed the maximum of the number of his ballet-girls, and even inconvenience on every side. It could not desist from those ordinary extravagances be pressed without stirring up all the pug which had become a second nature, is in nacity inherent in men who have had to itself highly creditable; but that he should fight (however succored) for their position, sell a favorite palace is an effort of selfand if it were carried it would hopelessly denial which seems almost incredible. embarrass the position of the Church of Therefore we desire, in justice to the kheEngland and its dignitaries in England. dive, that it should be known that he has That body, in those legal and external sold his palace of Ramleh for the benefit conditions in which it is brought into direct of all and sundry. How far and yet how contact with the civil polity, exists now near that benefit extends will appear from that Ireland has been withdrawn as the the official record of the transaction. For spiritualty of two provinces which are years past his creditors have been assured generally conterminous with England and that they should be paid so soon as his Wales. To be sure co-operation with the Highness could realize his private propother churches of the same communion erty. Seeing that this property, which on has been made possible by various meas- his accession consisted of only thirty thouures of wise legislation, and the Establish- | sand feddans of land and one palace, has

since grown to one million, two hundred | literature who knows not that it is at such thousand feddans (or about nine hundred a period as this that the true generosity of thousand acres) of land and some forty the Oriental potentate makes itself felt. palaces, it would appear that here there How could his Excellency Ismail Pasha, was security enough, and that the realiza- the khedive of Egypt, consent, after he tion would produce ample funds to satisfy had disposed of his palace, to accept such all comers; or, failing reimbursement in a sum from his own wives? Never should cash, they might under judgment of the such a slur rest upon his name. So we European tribunals attach the various are further informed that "his Excellency properties for their benefit. Nor could the Ahmed Bey, in his capacity as legal manakhedive escape from his just obligationsger of the khedive above-mentioned, being by illusory donations, seeing that un- in full possession of all his intellectual der Article 74 of the civil code actu- faculties and all due conditions required ally in force "none can make a deed by the law," has "of his own motion filed of gift to the prejudice of his bona fide a true, legal, voluntary declaration" to the creditors." So the khedive has sold the effect that in virtue of the powers conRamleh palace for the sum of £300,000, ferred upon him he releases the aforesaid Egyptian gold money. "The purchase is princesses from the payment of the sum a bona fide and legal purchase -so runs of three hundred thousand Egyptian the deed of transfer; and the sale is, if pounds. Such release is "entire and abpossible, still more complete, for it is "ef- solute," and the three illustrious ladies are fective, undoubted, operative, good, for full forever absolved from the necessity of consideration, and equitable, free from finding the purchase money. His Excelmortgage, debt, or recourse, not open to lency who represented the princesses misunderstanding, excuse, or pretext of gracefully accepts this release on their beavoidance on the part of the contracting half, and covenants for himself to hand parties." Never was Arabic deed drawn over the palace of Ramleh and all its bemore stringently. As to the right of the longings to his clients the purchasers at no khedive to sell this his palace in virtue of price, in accordance with the agreement. its being absolutely his, that point is set at Once more is it repeated that by reason of rest by reason of three enactments of va- the considerations set forth the three prinrious dates, to which due reference is cesses become the absolute possessors in made. Nor can there be any question as fee of the palace and its grounds, and to the value and extent of the property so must pay such taxes as are levied upon it. disposed of; for an elaborate description So ends this important contract of purof the palace and its belongings, its gar- chase and sale. Article 74 of the civil dens and other surroundings, is fully set code still remains intact; but a purchase out. Its situation and its limits, its exits has been arranged and a sale effected withand its entrances, its offices and outhouses out a price, to the advantage of those of all appear in the deed; and no exception | his wives whom it pleases the khedive to can hereafter be taken on the ground that honor for the purpose. But the khedive the purchasers were not sufficiently in- has many wives, more children, and a host formed as to the nature of their purchase. of slaves. A succession of such contracts But perhaps there was no necessity for would very completely dispose of his this elaborate detail, seeing that the palace whole property (Article 74 notwithstandof Ramleh was bought for the sum above-ing), of which the creditors might fail to mentioned "on account of their High- see the joke. But this would be to enter nesses, the glory of their species, the faith- on the serious side of what we are content ful and high-minded princesses Chohra for the moment to regard as one of the Hanem, first wife of his Highness the most amusing transactions we have ever khedive of Egypt; Hanen, the second read or heard of. It is clear that a hu wife of the aforesaid; and Gachem Akat morist of this description needs watching; Hanem, the third wife of the same exalt- and if the joint commissioners, or others ed personage." Under ordinary circum-appointed to see justice done, are unable stances we might stop here to consider to find some equally jocular means of setwhere these great ladies could have amassed so large an amount in cash as the £300,000 purchase-money, or what rate of interest they might have to pay for the advance. But he is little versed in Oriental

ting aside this bargain, and of replacing the palace of Ramleh at the disposal of those whom the khedive is anxious to defraud, they must be very deficient in the sense of fun.

From The Academy. THE WILL OF PETER THE GREAT.

IN the April number of the Deutsche Revue Prof. Harry Bresslau discusses the question of the authenticity of the so-called will of Peter the Great. The existence of a document corresponding more or less with the current texts of this enigmatical programme of Russian policy was asserted in the last century. Nothing can be more precise than this extract of a report from Podewils to the great Friedrich, lately discovered in the Berlin archives, in which the Prussian minister speaks of a conversation with the Russian envoy: "Kaiserlingk told me that he remembered to have seen an autograph manuscript of the deceased Czar Peter on the fundamental maxims of his house, in which his successors were recommended to maintain friendship with Prussia." The Berlin archives also contain a report of a Baron Leutrim's conversation with Friedrich in 1754, when the king reminded him of the will of Peter "of glorious memory." Further, in 1798 Friedrich Wilhelm gave his ministers a memorandum which he said had been laid before the French government by one Sokolnicy, who professed official connections with Poland. This paper included an approximate text of Peter's will written from memory by the Pole after a perusal of the original, which he said was in the secret Russian archives.

jective document, was reached when Gail. lardet published his romantic life of the famous epicene diplomatist, the Chevalier d'Eon, who, according to the veracious biographer, had found in the Peterhof archives (which never existed) a true copy of Peter's will. Gaillardet professed to have worked in the French archives, and Bresslau maintains that his text of fourteen articles was concocted either from Lesur or from the papers on which Lesur worked.

If our confidence in the penetrating power of the critical microscope were up to the German level, we should attach decisive importance to the elements indicated in the evolution of Peter's will. The internal evidence against the authenticity of the document is strong. The phantasmagorical character of its recommendations and historical visions strikes us as hardly compatible with the cool, reasoning character of Peter, while it lies suspiciously open to the charge of containing vaticinia post eventum in such articles as those advising Russian marriages with German princesses, and the maintenance of anarchy in Poland in order to the eventual partition of that republic. Article 5, suggesting the union of Russia and Austria for the expulsion of the Turks from Europe, seems to be an allusion to the alliance of Catherine and Joseph. Article 14 is the rhapsody of a diplomatic maniac, especially where the imaginary successor of Peter devours all Europe by letting loose "a swarm of his Oriental hordes and greedy nomads" on Italy, France, the Rhine, etc., so as to deport the inhabitants of those parts in the most correct Accadian or Ninevite style to the depths of Siberia.

These facts, or shadows of facts, were cabinet secrets till the year 1812, when M. Lesur, a clerk in the French foreign office, published a large book, written from the Urquhartite or Rawlinsonian point of view, on the progress of Russia, which gave without any other explanation as to authenticity than a mere "we are assured" Professor Bresslau thinks, on the whole, not a will, but a "résumé of a plan" that some Urtext of the will was made up sketched by Peter. Whether or not Lesur by anti-Russian Poles about 1790, that this really wrote, as is said, by order of his got into the hands of the French governchief, the Duc de Bassano, the circum-ment, and was afterwards touched up by stances of the publication, coinciding as it Napoleon. The hypothesis is simple and did in date with Napoleon's invasion of likely: but the probable has not always Russia, seem suggestive of a "tenden-happened; and this explanation does not tious "stroke of official French authorship. sufficiently connect our canonical docuThis point was argued by Berkholtz, of Riga, whose "Napoléon I. auteur du testament de Pierre le Grand" was an ingenious attempt to show, by the light of the "higher criticism," that the supposed will was written, not by a member of the Orthodox Church, but by a Roman Catholic, who was no other than the French emperor. A new phase in the history of the text, or rather description of the text, of this sub

ment with the statement of Podewils. We must add that Prof. Bresslau has not exhausted the last-century evidence on the subject, and that Fourmestraux (“ Etude sur Alexandre II.") gives a text differing again from those named above. A recent French pamphlet, "Les auteurs du testament de Pierre le Grand," has been attributed to M. Thiers.

Fifth Series,

No. 1782.-August 10, 1878.

SFrom Beginning,
Vol. CXXXVIII.

CONTENTS.

I. GIORDANO BRUNO AND GALILEO GALILEI, Quarterly Review,
II. A DOUBTING HEART. By Miss Keary,
author of "Castle Daly," "Oldbury," etc.
Part IV.,

323

Advance Sheets,

340

For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage.

An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of

LITTELL & GAY.

Single Numbers of fнE LIVING AGE, 18 cents.