popular ridicule. The family of Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte was adopted by the Norwegian nation as their future royal dynasty, under an express compact, and sworn condition of maintaining their constitution, framed and adopted by them on the previous 17th of May. The Norwegians are acute enough to see that what the king gave, the king might alter or take away, without any direct breach of the compact by which alone he holds the crown; and are of so highly sincere, open, and honourable a character understanding no chicanery or disguise in affairs—that the assumption is received with disgust, as well as surprise at its folly. They hold the faster by the historical fact, and celebrate the 17th of May in spite of the declared displeasure and animosity of their sovereign to this anniversary of their constitution, and the attempts fruitlessly made every year, and in 1821 even with the unnecessary intervention of military force, to suppress the celebration and transfer it to the 4th of November. This idle spirit of animosity to the celebration of a national anniversary - a dispute in which a government never can prevail against a people and which, if not idle and without object, is insincere and unprincipled, has by degrees led on the new dynasty into a very awkward position, opposed to the constitutional and liberal principles upon which alone its own right or existence as a royal dynasty can be maintained, and has also thrown a shade of insincerity and double dealing over its proceedings and objects; as the plain common sense which the Scandinavian people abundantly - possess, cannot see why such a strife is kept up about so unimportant a matter as the date of an anniversary, unless some hidden, unseen uses were to be made of the concession when once attained. It has also unnecessarily and mal-à-propos brought out high flown principles of royal and legitimate rights independent of the people, which, however natural and to be expected from the ancient dynasties of Austria or Russia, surrounded by their flourishing aristocracies, and with their origin lost in the distant gloom of history, appear to the common sense of all men out of place and even ridiculous from a family raised accidentally from the obscurity of private life within these twenty years, to a constitutional throne. The favour is withered with which a new dynasty in Europe, planted upon constitutional rights by the people themselves — which is the position the new dynasty might have assumed-would have been cherished by that great European interest-the liberal-if it had carried from private life to the throne a spirit consonant to the spirit of the age, a regard for the liberal principles upon which it might have rested its establishment, and a disregard of the frippery and artificial state of the legitimate sovereigns, and of their divine inherent rights, to which it could have no claim in reason. In another way the acquisition of the Norwegian crown is detrimental to the new Swedish dynasty. There being two distinct crowns and two distinct dynasties, all men see that an equitable and peaceful adjustment of claims which might disturb the tranquillity of Europe is practicable without infringement of any just right or principle, that it is a duty which the great adjusting powers in the European system owe to the European people; that the importance of the two crowns united is too little in modern times for considerations of political expediency to supersede the ordinary rules of equity, and that the crown of Sweden is not too large a recompence to the descendants of the great protestant hero Gustavus Adolphus, nor that of Norway too small to those of Marshal Bernadotte, for the benefits which mankind enjoy from their respective military achievements. With the liberal interests alienated, the conservative or legitimate secretly hostile, the Protestant unfriendly, the argument in equity adverse and the political expediency insufficient to cover its defects, the Bernadotte dynasty can scarcely hope to hold both crowns. Unless upon grounds of political expediency, it has no plea for holding both. These grounds, therefore, require examination. The union of the two or even the three northern kingdoms into one mass of power, which might be a bulwark to Europe in the north against the giant might of Russia, is a favourite vision of many continental politicians. They regret that the union of Calmar, which lasted 126 years-from 1397 to 1523occurred a century too soon, before commerce and the wants of civilised life had knit communities together, and was dissolved before the three nations were amalgamated. The speculation looks well on ; the map, but will not bear investigation. Of the six sovereigns who held the sceptre of the three kingdoms during the Calmar Union*, only one, the first, died a natural death in undisturbed possession of the three-if it can be called a natural death for a queen to die in the cabin of a merchant vessel and the union was dissolved as far as regards Sweden, on the expulsion of Christian II. by Gustavus Vasa, as readily as if the union had existed but for a day. The remainder of this union, that of Norway with Denmark, was, after a continuance of 400 years, dissolved in our times in 1814, and so easily as to prove that there was no amalgamation, no community of feelings and interests, between the two nations. Historically, therefore, experience tells us that there was something wanting to produce an effective union; that the mere gilded pegs of nobility, functionaries, and a court, are not fastenings sufficient to unite nations into one effective whole. If we look for the cause, we find that the only real elements of union - the interests of the people - are naturally wanting between these nations. The one can give no market to the products or industry of the other: each is sufficient in itself for all it requires. The three British nations are united into one mass of power, because one of Margaret established the Calmar Union, 1397 ... died, 1412. Eric of Pomerania her co-regent Christopher of Bavaria ..... ...... deposed, 1439. poisoned, 1448. Christian I. deposed in Sweden, 1464 ................ died, 1481. John deposed in Sweden, 1501 ........................... died, 1512. Christian II. deposed and expelled, 1523 died, 1559. In them requires and buys all the produce of the labour, and all the labour itself, which the others can spare. Their interests unite them. If O'Connell could dissolve the union, and give Ireland a separate parliament, laws, and executive power, the two populations would nevertheless remain as closely united by their mutual interests and wants, as at this day; and their separate governments would be declared in six months a common nuisance, hindering each other in objects of equal advantage to both countries. But Sweden and Norway interchange nothing with each other. Their natural products are the same. The one people can give no employment to the other. the foreign markets to which both must resort, their interests are rather opposed to than in unison with each other, being competitors both in the sale and purchase of similar products. Denmark has indeed corn, which both the other countries require, but could take very little of the products of the other two countries in payment. A junction of countries under such natural impediments to effective union, is weakness, not strength; as the national feelings and even interests of the one must necessarily be sacrificed to the predominance of the other, and no common interest, as in the British nations, binds together all other interests and feelings. But if the two, or even the three northern kingdoms were as perfectly amalgamated as the British, the speculation would still be a mere delusion in politics; for they form no mass of power. The whole population of Sweden is but |