Duke of Wellington was deservedly trusted by a large portion of his countrymen for his sound common-sense in matters political; and his reputation was not confined to England. He told a friend in 1832 that "few people will be sanguine enough to imagine that we shall ever again be as prosperous as we have been." Whether we measure prosperity by wealth, by empire, or by general content, it can scarcely be doubted that the England of 1892 may challenge comparison with the country, as it was at any time, which the Duke of Wellington is likely to have had in his mind. Thirty years ago, a great quarrel broke out between the Northern and Southern States of the American Union. Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, whose sympathies did not mislead him, for they were with the North, declared in 1861 that "their true policy was to negotiate with the South, and recognise the Secession"; and Mr. Gladstone in 1863 said that the Southern President had made an army, had made a navy, and, more than that, had made a nation. We now know that the North was certain from the first to win, if it was only true to itself; and that though Mr. Davis created an army, he was powerless to do more. These mistaken forecasts by eminent statesmen were habitually in accord with public opinion; and the general estimate of what is about to happen is as likely as not to be curiously unwise. The English Press, with very few exceptions, was as wrong in its judgment of the American war as Mr. Gladstone and English society for ten or twelve years at least believed that

1 Raikes's Journal, vol. i. p. 68.

2 Sir G. Cornewall Lewis's Letters, p. 395. M'Carthy's History of Our Own Times, vol. ii. pp. 138, 139.

Even when

Louis Napoleon had founded a dynasty. Even when the war of 1870 broke out, though a few military experts were alive to the efficiency of the Prussian organisation, the general opinion was that France would win in the early part of the campaign and every map of the seat of war, published in London, was a map of the Rhine Provinces, and of North Germany. Every map was accordingly useless after a few days.

It would not, however, be difficult to produce instances where remote and generally unexpected changes have been prophesied with considerable accuracy. As early as 1748, "reasoning men in New York foresaw and announced that the conquest of Canada, by relieving the Northern colonies from danger, would hasten their emancipation." “We have caught them at last," said Choiseul, when it was definitely agreed that Canada should be surrendered (1763); and in fact little more than twenty years elapsed before the English flag ceased to wave over the States England had colonised.1 Lord Chesterfield, as early as 1753, declared that "all the symptoms which I have ever met with in history, previous to great changes and revolutions in governments, now exist and daily increase in France." 2 "We are approaching the state of crisis, and the age of revolution," wrote Rousseau in 1762. "I think it impossible that the great monarchies of Europe have still long to last; all have had their moment of

1 Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. iv. pp. 460, 461. "The necessary result of such measures" (the annexation of Canada and Florida), "perfectly foreseen at the time, was pointed out by Dr. Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, as well as by others.”—Wraxall's Historical Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 78.

2 Chesterfield's Letters to his Son.

splendour, and every state which achieves this is ready to wane." Goldsmith in the same year declared that "the French are imperceptibly vindicating themselves into freedom"; and prophesied that the country would gain its liberties, "if they have but three weak monarchs more successively on the throne." It needed, as we now know, a good deal less than the "three weak monarchs." Goldsmith, who seems instinctively to have apprehended the conditions of change in Europe, predicted also with perfect accuracy that Sweden was hastening on to despotism; that the German Empire was on the eve of dissolution; and that Holland was only awaiting the advent of a foreign conqueror.2 The first of these prophecies was fulfilled in ten years; the second in 1806; and the third in 1794. The American statesman, Hamilton, of whom Talleyrand said that he had "divined Europe," seems to have prophesied the concentration of commerce in London and New York as the great emporia of the world with remarkable sagacity. Arthur Young's predictions of the results that France would derive from the Revolution-temporary distress from its violence, and permanent well-being from its reforms-were as wise as Burke's were unfortunate.4 De Tocque

1 Emile, livre iii. p. 218. Some years later, Rousseau in his letters expressed the opinion that the Seven Years' War would have broken up the French Monarchy, if it had not been for Choiseul.-Martin, Histoire de France, tome xvi. p. 98. M. Schérer has noticed several minor predictions of the Revolution.—Littérature Contemporaine, p. 346.

2 Goldsmith's Citizen of the World, Letter 55.

3 Talleyrand's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 185. Hamilton predicted that London would absorb Amsterdam, that Cadiz would be supplanted by an American port, and that Marseilles would lose the trade of the Levant. Ticknor's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 16.

4 "The advantages derived to the nation are of the very first im

1

ville foretold, thirty years before the event, that the Southern States were the one part of the American Union in which disruption was likely to be attempted; Sir G. Cornewall Lewis recognised in 1856 that the outrage on Mr. Sumner was the first blow in a civil war;2 and Victor Hugo appreciated the importance of John Brown's execution by comparing it to the Crucifixion. Heine, the most French in feeling of Germans, predicted that if France came to war with a united German people, she would be overborne.1

3

It will be observed that the most conspicuous instances of strikingly false prophecies are taken from the utterances of statesmen of the highest rank; while those predictions that have been verified belong as often as not to publicists, or to statesmen, like De Tocqueville, whose philosophy to some extent disqualified them for active politics. The reason, however, is probably not to be sought in any special fitness of abstract politicians for making forecasts of the future; but in the fact that statesmen are constantly tempted to make predictions of immediate interest, whereas the power of divination among men seems rather to concern itself with general laws. Accordingly, the same man has often been markedly right in his speculations about the distant future, and curiously wrong in predicting the possibilities of portance. On the other hand, the extensive and unnecessary ruin— all these are great deductions from public felicity."-Arthur Young, On the Revolution in France, pp. 343, 344.

1 Democracy in America, chap. xviii. p. 434.

2 Letters of Sir G. C. Lewis, p. 315.

3 In a drawing, which was engraved, and sold in London at the time; and which represented John Brown on the Cross.

4 "You" (the French) "have more to fear from liberated" (i.e. united) "Germany, than from the whole Holy Alliance, together with all the Croats and Cossacks."-Heine, Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland, S. 269.

1

the next few years. Napoleon's alleged prophecy, that all Europe would end by being Republican or Cossack, seems more probable now than when it was first given to the world; but his expectation that Wellington would make himself despotic in England, because he was too great to remain a private person, failed because it was founded on French analogies, and on supposed conditions that were not true of either Wellington or his nation. De Tocqueville's general law, that "among European governments of our time the power of governments is increasing, although the persons who govern are less stable," is receiving additional illustration every year; but De Tocqueville's "unquestionable statement,” that, if any portion of the American Union seriously desired to separate itself from the other States, these would not be able, nor indeed would they attempt to prevent it, was absolutely disproved on countless battlefields within a generation.2 Beyond this it may be observed, that any attempt to fix the date at which a prophecy will be fulfilled is especially hazardous. The break-up of the Turkish Empire has been foretold for centuries. From Peter the Great downwards, every sovereign of Russia has speculated upon it; and several of these have arranged treaties

1 The part of the prophecy that relates to Russia seems the best proved. "You are in the flower of your age, and may expect to live thirty-five years longer. I think you will see, that the Russians will either invade and take India; or enter Europe with 400,000 Cossacks, and 200,000 real Russians."-O'Meara's Napoleon at St. Helena, vol. i. p. 104. "The Continent is now in the most perilous situation, being continually exposed to the risk of being overrun by Cossacks and Tartars.”—Life, Exile, and Conversations of the Emperor Napoleon, by Count de Las-Cases, part vi. p. 2.

2 De Tocqueville's Democracy in America, book iv. chap. vi. and book i. chap. xviii. p. 420.