THE financial crisis of this year was not only one of the most severe, but also the most remarkable in the financial history of the United States. A American financial crisis Congressional act of the previous year provided that after January 1, 1837, all surplus revenues of the government should be divided as loans among the States. The amount to be distributed this year aggregated $28,000,000. No part of this large sum was ever recalled. When the government called for its deposits in order to distribute the surplus an immediate shrinkage of specie was the result. As bank after bank suspended, it was found that the paper issue had increased from $51,000,000 in 1830 to $149,000,000 in 1837. Jackson's attacks on the National Bank had shaken public confidence in this institution, and it likewise suspended specie payments. The mercantile Government relief measures failures of a single fortnight in New York City amounted to $100,000,000. A repeal of Jackson's order that payments for public lands should be in coin filled the National Treasury with paper money. Congress met in special session to relieve the financial distress. A law was passed authorizing the issue of $10,000,000 in Treasury notes. This brought some relief. President Van Buren's first message recommended the adoption by the government of the Sub-Treasury plan. A bill for the establishment of an independent treasury passed the Senate, but was defeated in the House by a union of Sub-Treasury system Whigs and Conservatives. The Sub-Treasury plan, as eventually carried out, provided for complete separation of the National Bank and the government, and established the principle that the government revenues should be received in coin only. President Van Buren in his message specially deprecated any interference by Congress in the struggle between Texas and Mexico. Texas, which had been bargained away by Southern votes in 1819, was Texas independent now an eagerly desired prize. It had now become a part of Coahuila, and had declared its independence. Still Congress persisted in its attempt to interfere, but a bill to that effect was voted down by the adherents of the President.

In Mexico, Bustamente had again become President. In the neighboring State of Colombia, President Marquez, likewise, had himself re-elected. The influence of North American progress was shown in Cuba by the opening of Distress in Spain the first railway there, long before the mother country, Spain, could boast of such an advance in civilization. There the civil war was still draining the resources of the country. On May 17, General Evans took Trun, but failed to follow up his success. In Portugal, the restoration of Pedro's Charta de Ley was proclaimed by the Duke of Terceira.

In France, an unfortunate attempt to fix large dowries on the Duc de Nemours and the Queen of the Belgians raised an outcry against the private avarice of the King. As the result of the Ministerial crisis that followed Fall of Guizot the defeat of these measures in the Chambers Guizot had to retire from the Ministry. Molé remained in charge with the reconstituted Cabinet. The success of a second expedition against Constantine, in which the Duc de Nemours gained distinction, invested Molé's new Ministry with a certain popularity. Measures for a general political amnesty and for the closing of gambling houses were readily voted by the Chambers. The people of Paris were kept amused first by the marriage of the Duc d'Orleans to Princess Hélène of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and by the subsequent wedding of Princess Marie d'Orleans, the amateur sculptress, to Duke Alexander of Wurtemberg, a dilettante, like herself, in letters. The occasion provoked the German poet Heine, then lying ill at Paris, to some of his most pungent witticisms. Ailing though he was, Heine was made a member of the new "Société des Gens de Lettres," founded by Balzac, Lamennais, Dumas and Georges Sand. Further events in French letters were the publication of Eugène Sue's Death of Fourier "Latréaumont," and the appearance of the early part of Michelet's "History of France." François Charles Marie Fourier, the philosophic writer and follower of St. Simon, died in his sixty-fifth year. Before his death his well-elaborated system of communism, as put forward in his "Traité de l'Association Domestique et Agricole," had found general acceptance among the radical orders of France.

Count Giacomo Leopardi, the foremost lyric poet of modern Italy, died on Death of Leopardi June 14. Leopardi's genius was tinctured with pessimism. Like Byron, he was powerfully moved by the painful contrast between the classic grandeur of ancient Italy and the degeneracy of its latter days. The tendency toward pessimism was increased by his own ill health. His first works were the result of his eager study of classic antiquities. Thus he brought out a new edition and translation of Porphyrios' "De vita Plotini." His earliest verses, such as the fine "Ode to Italy," and his poem on a projected monument for Dante, already contained the strain of sadness that ran through all his later poems. On the publication of Leopardi's first collection of verses, Niebuhr, the Prussian Ambassador at Rome, offered him a professorship at Berlin, but the poet's failing health prevented Ode to Brutus Minor acceptance. Religious dissensions with his father depressed his spirits still more. He gave expression to his increasing sadness in the beautiful ode on the "Minor Brutus." In 1825 he took part in bringing out the famous "Antologia" at Florence, and also issued an edition of Petrarch and two collections of Italian verse. Another collection of his own poems was published in 1826, followed by the prose dialogues "Operette Morali." In 1833, declining health led Leopardi to withdraw to Naples. One year before his death he brought out a last collection of poems distinguished alike for poignant pessimism and for their high lyric beauty. Characteristic of Leopardi's verse is this poem addressed to himself:

Now lie forever still,
A self-apostrophe My weary heart. Farewell, my last illusion
The dream that we endure. Farewell! Too surely
I know my end, and now of self-deception
The hope long since and dear desire has left me.
Be still forever! Enough
Of fluttering such as thine has been. Vain, vain
Thy palpitation, the wide world is not worth
Our sighs; for bitter pain
Life's portion is, naught else, and slime this earth.
Subside henceforth, despair forever!
Fate gave this race of ours
For only guerdon death. Then make a sport
Of thine own self, of nature, and the dark
First power that, hidden, rules the world for harm—
And of the infinite emptiness of all.

Russia lost her foremost man of letters at this period by the death of Count Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, as the result of a duel. His last Death of Pushkin work, the drama "Boris Goudunov," was left uncompleted. After his recall from his exile in Bessarabia, Pushkin had been appointed as imperial historian by Czar Nicholas, in which capacity he wrote a history of Peter the Great and an account of the conspiracy of Pugatshev. Of his poetic works, the most important was "Eugene Onegin," an epic written after the manner of Byron's "Don Juan." "Eugene Onegin" has remained one of the Lermontov classics of Russian literature throughout the Nineteenth Century. Pushkin's brother poet Lermontov, then an officer of the Guards, wrote a poem demanding vengeance for Pushkin's death. He was banished to the Caucasus, and his writings were suppressed. Under a false name he now wrote his famous epic: "Song of Czar Ivan Vasilyevitch."

A joyful event in German letters was the great festival at Mainz in honorThe first kindergarten of Gutenberg and his invention of the art of printing. Froebel opened his first kindergarten at Blankenburg in Thuringia. Auerbach, the popular novelist, brought out his "Spinoza." Much was made by Germans of the opening of the first railway between Dresden and Leipzig, and of the invention of coal-tar colors, or aniline dyes, by a process destined to revolutionize the arts of coloring and dyeing throughout the world. A great German clerical struggle stir was created by the imprisonment of the Archbishop of Cologne at Minden after a quarrel with the Prussian Government concerning marriages between persons of different creeds. He was forbidden to go to Bonn. Backed by the Holy See in Rome, he continued to defy the Protestant authorities.

A change of rule, fraught with future consequences for Hanover, resulted from the death of William IV., King of England and Hanover, on the 20th of Death of William IV. June. By the death of the old King, his niece, Victoria Alexandra, then in her eighteenth year, became Queen of England. Miss Wynn, in her "Diaries of a Lady of Quality," has told how the news was brought to the young Princess at Kensington by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Howley) and the Lord Chamberlain (Marquis Conyngham): "They did not reach Kensington Palace until five o'clock in the morning. They knocked, they rang, they thumped for a considerable time before they could rouse the porter at the gate; they were again kept waiting in the courtyard, then turned into one of the lower rooms, where they seemed forgotten by everybody. They rang the bell, and desired that the attendant of the Princess Victoria might be sent to inform Her Royal Highness that they requested an audience on business of importance. After another delay, and another ringing to inquire the cause, Victoria's accession the attendant was summoned, who stated that the Princess was in such a deep sleep that she could not venture to disturb her. Then they said, 'We are come on business of state to the Queen, and even her sleep must give way to that.' In a few minutes she came into the room in a loose white nightgown and shawl, her nightcap thrown off, and her hair falling upon her shoulders, her feet in slippers, tears in her eyes, but perfectly collected and dignified."

Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister, was summoned, and at eleven o'clock that same morning a Privy Council was held, which is thus described by Charles Greville, an eye-witness: "Never was anything like the first impression she produced, or the chorus of praise and admiration which is Her first Privy Council raised about her manner and behavior, and certainly not without justice. It was very extraordinary, and something far beyond what was looked for. Her extreme youth and inexperience, and the ignorance of the world concerning her, naturally excited intense curiosity to see how she would act on this trying occasion, and there was a considerable assemblage at the palace, notwithstanding the short notice which was given. The first thing to be done was to teach her her lesson, which for this purpose Melbourne had himself to learn.... She bowed to the Lords, took her seat, and then read her speech in a clear, distinct, and audible voice, and without any appearance of fear or embarrassment."

The first signature to the Act of Allegiance was that of Ernest, Duke of Hanover separates from England Cumberland, eldest surviving brother of the late King William. To him passed the crown of Hanover, which for a hundred and twenty-five years had been held by the occupants of the British throne. Under the Salic law, restricting succession to the male line, Hanover now became separated from England. On June 28, the new King arrived in Hanover. He refused to receive Ernest, King of Hanover the deputation of the estates that had come to greet him. Dispensing with the formality of taking the required oath to the constitution, he dissolved the estates. The validity of the Hanoverian Constitution was next called in question, and the restoration of the less liberal constitution of 1819 was ordained. The first to protest against this royal breach of faith were Royal breach of faith seven professors of the University of Göttingen. Among them were the two brothers Grimm, to whom the German language and literature are so deeply indebted, and Gervinus, the great historian of modern Europe. The professors were instantly dismissed. This high-handed act provoked an Revolt at Göttingen insurrection among the students, which had to be quelled by troops, with bloodshed.