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Of how many feats of chivalry had those old walls been witness, when hostile kings contended for their possession? how many an army from the south and from the north had trod that old bridge? what red and noble blood had crimsoned those rushing waters? what strains had been sung, ay, were yet being sung on its banks? some soft as Doric reed; some fierce and sharp as those of Norwegian Skaldaglam; some as replete with wild and wizard force as Finland's runes, singing of Kalevale's moors, and the deeds of Woinomoinen!

The weakness of Finland's position lay in the fact that her liberties really depended upon the personal whim of the Grand-Duke: in theory her constitutional laws were only alterable by the joint sanction of monarch and people; in practice the small but courageous nation had no means of redress should the Tsar, swayed by bureaucratic reaction, choose to go back upon the policy of his ancestors.

J.R. FISHER. Finland and the Tsars, 1800-1899. 1899. 12s. 6d. The best account in English of the history of Finland's relations with Russia up to the beginning of the reactionary period. K.P. POBIEDONOSTSEV. Reflections of a Russian Statesman. 1898. 6s. For Slavophilism. P. KHOPOTKIN. Memoirs of a Revolutionist. 1907. 6s. MAURICE BARING. Russian Literature.

To the protracted sway of Sweden and Finland's continuous relations through her intermediary with Western Europe, the circumstance is to be ascribed that the thinking spirits among the Finns gravitate in matters of culture not to Russia but to the West, and in particular to Sweden, with whom Finland is linked by bonds of language through her highest social class and of religion, laws, and literature.

I saw the gathering frown on the King of Finland's dark face; I saw Sir Peter Grebe grow redder and redder, and press his thick lips together to control the angry "Bosh!" which need not have been uttered to have been understood.

The Kolchak government was ready to treat with the Finnish Cabinet, as the de facto government, and to recognize Finland's present status for what it is in international law; but as they could not give what they did not possess, their recognition must, they explained, be like their own authority, provisional. A similar reply was made to the Esthonians; to this those peoples demurred.