minions by the sacrifice of territories which it was indeed Christian, but of a heathen virtue "which

not hers to dispose of, and thus entirely lost the character of a protector. The advantages also of a multiplicity of states could not be overlooked. Provincial towns were here cities; and all the appurtenances of social life were multiplied in a proportionate extent. Libraries, picture galleries, theatres, academies, and, above all, universities, abounded as in no other country; and the upper classes found a compensation for the comparative insignificance of fractional states, in the large number of offices and dignities distributed among themselves. For one man whose ambition was thwarted by the limited area he could command, ten were satisfied with an importance which in a great kingdom they could hardly have acquired, It required the French invasion to expose the decay of national feeling and its consequences. The bravery and discipline of the Austrian army, and the devotion of princely and noble personages, could not save Vienna. The far-famed military spirit of Prussia, supported by the ardor which inspired Arndt and Körner, could not protect Berlin. It required years of foreign occupation, insult, and oppression to arouse the common German feeling, which on the field of Leipsic at length recovered the national independence. Terrible experience! The political divisions of Germany had laid her open to the invasion and rule of the stranger, though in the enjoyment of all the powers of which regular governments and established authorities can dispose; while the unity of France had preserved her independence even in the crisis of anarchy, and had enabled her at once to regain her social order and to dictate to Europe.

God sometimes stirs up to punish Christian hypocrisy." Examining, at that period, the prospects of a German revolution, he writes:-"In addition to the ideas from whose agitation France underwent a complete change, we have one peculiar to ourselves, namely, that of unity; and such an increase of the fermenting matter must necessarily give rise to a stronger fermentation;" and he implores the governing powers to do all they can to effect these purposes by a gradual transformation; for "things are not so ordered, that any party may first try any other course, and then, at last, when things come to an extremity, fall back on that which was the wiser and the better. When events have once reached the brink of the precipice, all appeal is vain, all discourse is fruitless. No one then stops to ask after consequences." The author of a book containing such council was, of course, persecuted; but even in his lifetime, the Providence that rules the world has vindicated his sagacity; and if the very worst of his predictions are not realized, it is because, in some partial instances, preparation has been made for the coming day.

The Austrian policy was avowedly one of repression, both for the national and constitutional feelings in Germany. Through the intricate network of its employés, and by the presence of its immense army, a temporary security-and, in many provinces, prosperity-was procured. A strict centralization, though it delayed justice, checked the abuses of provincial caprice; and, by an adroit management of the different races who were mingled in several departments of the empire, Yet no sooner was peace restored to Germany, what might have been, and will be, a chief source than the princes combined to destroy the very of confusion was converted into a system of neuspirit which had saved the country and themselves. tralized forces. Where the nobility were a separate The titular Roman empire had been abolished- race from the peasantry, as in Gallicia, the local the diet was reduced to a minimum of power and authorities could play off their mutual animosities, responsibility-and not only indifference but per- as they chose, for the imperial service: where the secution awaited those who could not abandon the upper class consisted of a conquering race, as in hope for which they had risked life itself. As Hungary, considerable freedom was allowed to long as the Germans had fought for their dynasties them as long as they contributed liberally to the they had been defeated; when they fought for Ger- wants of the empire, and kept a strong hold over many they were victorious. This, however, it suited the mass of the people; while the purely German the powers to forget; and while the Holy Alliance populations were treated with favor, and their attempted to bind the princes in one bond of com- Austrian sympathies carefully encouraged. The mon interest, it utterly neglected the union of the representatives of this system were the Emperor people. Still the sentiment went on, in associ- Francis and Prince Metternich; the former by his ations open and secret, in poetical and historical very nature, the latter by his education and habits, literature, in occasional storms of frantic violence, and, above all, by his belief that this was the only sometimes in flagrant crime. thing to be done. He is said to have consulted some one for an affection of the "plexus pectoris ;" which, he added, "he must attend to, for he was himself the plexus Europa." He did not, perhaps, believe that he could check the flight of time; but, at any rate, he would hang heavy on his wings. It is interesting at this moment, to read M. Von Usedom's estimate of this remarkable man, as a fair specimen of his treatment of his subject, and as conveying what we believe to be a very just impression. We are sorry that our space does not permit us to give the whole.

The state of feeling generated in Germany by the conferences at Carlsbad and the subsequent proceedings of the diet are admirably illustrated by the work of Professor Görres on "Germany and the Revolution," ," which-proceeding, as it did, from a man of a pure, devotional, spirit-shows what must have been the political excitement of the time, which could make such a person speak of the assassination of Kotzebue as an act, not

*Excellently translated into English, in 1820, by Mr. Black.

As often happens to us in our inward life, he ing the same just and good objects by different completely identified himself both consciously and means. With the most spontaneous openness he unconsciously with his system; and at last even in would lead you to the very edge of confidential those points which he himself must have known, communication, and in that way keep still closer could not hold. For this system was no tree of natural all he himself wished to conceal. The words and growth which could without danger lose a branch writings in which he has vindicated his system, and here and there, but a fast-cemented, dogmatic, mathe-directed it to a particular object, all contain so much matical edifice, of which no one stone could fall with that is really true and excellent, that the reader or impunity. You may be surprised when I tell you, hearer swallows what is half-true and apparently that of all the statesmen of our time, Prince Metter- true along with it. * * *It is not Prince Metternich has the most the character and mode of thought nich but Genz, and those like him, who acted parts of a man of letters (Gelehrter.) I don't mean, as in the system without believing in it. Of the prince is the case with many others, that he has crammed himself, I have never had the impression, however himself with a mass of encyclopedic and material paradoxical it may sound, that he was one of those information, to use either in public transactions or persons whose soul was really inaccessible to the in conversation. But the direction of Prince Met-ideas of political freedom. His political education, ternich's mind is rather towards the investigation the impressions of which long influenced him, did of things, rather towards their scientific knowledge, not fall on a time when absolutism was taught as than their practical comprehension. He had indeed, the political gospel. Do you remember the writings it is said, in his youth devoted himself to a purely of Koch, who was, I believe, Metternich's teacher literary life, and was only diverted from it by out- at the University of Strasbourg, how completely ward influences. By means of this dogmatical dis- they are pervaded by an objective, impartial, political position, everything that he asserted had at once spirit? Koch wrote political physiology without the weight of a precept, and eventually grew up into always regarding society either as a judge or as a an axiom at least it made that impression on super-physician. It is in this historical and scientific way ficial minds. But there have been many pedants among our statesmen, who have attempted this without attaining it; for the power of Metternich, as of Hegel, lay not in the system itself, but in the clear and clever and often profound thoughts with which he knew how to fill it. These thoughts were never petty their expression was always brilliant and natural; and for the use of more simple hearers, they were dressed up with sharp turns and claptraps, which by frequent repetition were meant to acquire, and did acquire, in the minds of the listeners, all the force of a confession of faith. (Pp. 58, 59.)

Shall I say something of the method by which Prince Metternich managed to keep his system going so long? I must confess that I have known no political man of our time who has sustained a system, every day crumbling beneath him, by so complete an impersonation of the statesman as he has done. There was, in his personal demeanor, a union of grandeur and goodness, of simplicity and power, which at once attracted and imposed. Every one knew how far extended the mistrust of his system, and to what a terrible extent it maintained the arm of suspicion throughout Europe; but in the prince himself no trace of this could be found. He seemed to suppose nothing but good in every one that came near him, and placed him at once on a footing of equality, however far he knew him to be removed from himself in political opinion. It must have made a surprising and often an overpowering impression on a strange visitor, to find in Prince Metternich, the soul of the system, a humane and liberal man, friendly and easy, unmatched in intelligent unpretending conversation, and showing the most natural kindness in little things. Thus the clever, vain, literary opponents of the prince almost always gave way before him; and I doubt whether among the many whom he saw and spoke with, there is a single one who has so far got over those impressions as to have spoken or written of him in otherwise than a respectful tone. * The transaction of business was in his hands the simplest and most natural you can imagine. He never, indeed, placed himself in your point of view, but always placed you in his, and never seemed to suppose, but that at the bottom you were perfectly agreed with him, although you might be for obtain

*

that I believe that the prince accustomed himself to
regard the relations of political life, until by later
events he was led into the contest against Napoleon,
and afterwards was exclusively employed in recon-
structing the system of legitimacy. In later years,
it is true, this physiological view more and more
gave way, and the exclusiveness of the system got
the upper hand; his attention became fixed on the
requirements of the moment; and after a certain
step in the ladder of life, a man changes no more.
The maintenance of the empire of Austria, which
was only glued together by the system, and the
continuous sustentation of the system itself, became
an ever-present necessity, which sufficiently explains
his position towards Europe. That at once it all
fell to pieces, he could not prevent; he submitted to
the new destiny; with incessant labor he tried to
rescue from the wreck all that could be saved; but
the moral bankruptcy of the system worked its way
into the public opinion of Austria herself, and all
the material forces of government gave way. From
my personal knowledge I can testify at least to this,
that he foresaw with absolute certainty the great
shipwreck of last spring. I was, as you know, at
Vienna in the autumn of 1847, being employed in
a transaction connected with the events of Italy.
He had spoken to me at much length of the political
ruin which threatened to fall on Europe soon, per-
haps very soon, and of the ever deeper growth and
ever wider range of radical and communistic ideas,
against which all means of repression had proved
ineffectual. I could not at that time believe that
things had gone so far, but rather thought that the
age would take counsel from these events, and learn
prudence from the failure of such a policy. With
respect to the future, the prince would assert noth-
ing:-"I am no prophet," he said, "and I know
not what will happen: but I am an old practitioner,
and know how to discriminate between curable and
fatal diseases. This one is fatal: here we hold fast
as long as we can, but I despair of the issue.'
spoke Prince Metternich walking up and down in
the gay apartment of his villa at the Rennweg, on
the evening of the 9th of October before he returned
to Vienna. He never saw it again. But even then,
knowing as I did with what continual anxiety and
labor he occupied himself in the affairs of Italy and
Switzerland, and how he frequently wrote and gave

So

There is indeed something profoundly pathetic in this picture; and however well we know that Prince Metternich's fall was just in itself and good for humanity, yet this brave defence of the impossible was not without a certain grandeur-like the struggle of those elder gods, to whose patriarchal tyranny distracted later generations looked regretfully back-idealizing the Saturnia regna.

66

instructions for fifteen hours together without repose | in Prussia to execute the law; and since, (for the -whenever the inscription over the entrance of that Germans make a theory of everything,) we have fine and spacious country-house, " Parva domus, heard Held, then a leading Berlin democrat, enunmagna quies," presented itself to my eyes, I felt ciating that it has always been the law by which that falser words had never been engraven upon freedom has been fettered, and against which the stone. (Pp. 64-69.) people have struggled; only do away altogether with law, and the tranquillity of the people follows as a natural consequence; pure anarchy is our only hope." Such language could never have been held or endured where the people retained any reverence for anything above them; but to this condition a bad political system had reduced the best educated and most reasoning of continental nations, which has now, indeed, entered on a safer path, The unwillingness of the nobility to take any and may profit by recent experience. In the smaller part in political life-in some families, such as states, the royal and noble classes still stand in the Lichtensteine, it was a tradition that no mem- hopeless fear of the unorganized masses, on whose her had been in the civil service-was one of the spontaneous moderation hangs the daily safety of causes of Prince Metternich's despair of the fu- their lives and property. The word " Republic" ture of Austria; and we say with regret that the has come to mean whatever the people choose to new constitution of Count Stadion does not author- do; lass uns Republik machen, imports, "let us go ize us to believe that he is the man to save the and make a row.' 99 Even the poor temporary remdistracted and all but dismembered empire. If edy of military force is not here at hand, for the really worked out it would give the Sclavonic ele- armed contingent of the smaller states is inefficient ment the preponderance, which the German popu- for any such purpose. The people, on their side, lation could not endure; and yet its special provi- stand aloof in sullen discontent; they have the sions are so unwelcome to that very race, that power, but not the right; they, too, have their little Bohemia and Croatia have received it with repug- property, which they do not wish to endanger; nance. It is altogether founded on the assumption they, too, have their families, for whom they wish of the existence of an uncontested, strong and res- to live; and thus they look anxiously for means to olute government-whereas there is nothing but a attain their ends without civil strife. The " cenlarge army. The contempt for the representative tral power" at Frankfort thus attracts both high system, shown by the forcible dispersion, without and low-the necessities of the princes and the official notice, of the unresisting assembly at desires of the people-and it owes this distinction Kremsler, has neutralized all the good the procla- to its object and its origin. Its object, although, as mation of the constitution might have effected. It we have stated, the long desire of Germany, was contains no such clause as that in the present principally fostered in the liberal states of the south Prussian one: "That it will be subject to the im- and west. The Upper Rhine was left defenceless mediate revision of a new assembly."* It pro- by Austria, who had undertaken to protect it; and vides nothing for the federal development, which the ramparts of Germany in that quarter began at is alone possible, if Austria is to hold together; Ulm. The statesmen of Baden, Darmstadt, and but it attempts to construct the edifice of future Nassau, had not even the field, which the monarliberty out of the very ruins which Prince Met- chies afforded, for their influence and fame-and ternich left behind. The contest with Hungary is yet such men as Gagern were among them. These still a drawn battle; in Lombardy the war is re- and other causes induced the more liberal portion newed, even while we are writing, exacerbated of Germany earnestly to look to the establishment by the victories and violences of Marshal Radet- of a centre of rule, as the best security both for the sky in Vienna and Prague the murmurs of insur-material interests and political development of their rections, fiercely suppressed, are yet audible; and common country. Again, the origin of the Assembehind all, lower the ambitious instincts of Slavonia, bly at Frankfort was thoroughly spontaneous; there guided by the diplomacy of Russia. What paper was nothing octroyé about it. History affords no constitution could live here? Perhaps not the example of such an authority as that of the "Vorwisest. parlament" growing up without any extraneous M. von Usedom's "Reflections on the Political support, simply because it was wanted-though M. State of Germany" admit the total subversion, or von Usedom compares it to the rise of the Papacy. rather suspension, of authority throughout the coun- The Assembly which it summoned has rather ratitry. The princes, however personally amiable and fied than enacted what the time demanded; but it well-intentioned, have produced no one man who is of inestimable importance that the fundamental can wield and guide the new elements of society. rights (Grund-rechte) which are to close the feudal In a former article we drew the gloomiest anticipa- system in Germany, should have this solemn sanctions from the inability of the constituted authorities tion, and not proceed from the mere strong popular *Art. 112 of the Prussian Constitution of December will: it is of incalculable worth for the future, that the people should look on the abolition of the cor

5, 1848.

things in Austria, also, as confirmed by the new constitution, gives no hope of any such sepárate provincial development, as might enable the German subjects of Austria to become connected with the German empire by some process, which should not implicate German interests with non-German.

vée, the game-laws, and other privileges, by which | rights-an inconsistency too flagrant even for the they suffered, as proceeding from a superior wis-assembly that accused Arnold Rüge of treason dom, and not from their own physical strength. when he compared Radetsky to Tilly, and wished But it is, above all, necessary that the character no success to his arms. The present state of of the central power should be rightly understood and carefully preserved. A mere confederation can do nothing in such a conjuncture as this; where what is wanted is not the expression of a harmonious will, but the exercise of a recognized and legitimate authority. De Tocqueville-in that work which is to our times what Aristotle's "Politics" All these difficulties presented themselves clearwas to antiquity-clearly expounds the distinctions between the first and second American unions, and shows how the one was transitory and powerless, the other the firmest government the world has yet The whole turns, not so much upon the extent of the powers delegated to the central authority-as upon the right of that authority itself to execute its own laws. Though every citizen remains a member of his own state, in the enjoyment of his state rights, he is a subject of the union; and thus all the vitality of central power is combined with all the freedom of distinct legislation.

seen.

ly to the statesmanlike intelligence of Baron Gagern, and received what seems to us their best solution in his speech of the 30th October of the last year. He proposed that Germany and Austria should constitute themselves into two distinct independent empires-linked together by a perpetual defensive league, as far as regards the German possessions of Austria, on the basis of the confederation of 1815. This would include Moravia, Bohemia, and Istria, as far as Trieste and its territory; and if any alteration was to be made in the terms of the alliance, it should be of a nature rather to strengthen than to weaken the federal act of 1815. By this arrangement Austria could lose nothing, whatever Germany gained. For all purposes of national defence she would have the assistance of the compact army of the German empire, instead of a number of separate contingents-the value of which change every military man will at once appreciate and she would remain perfectly independent in all her own international relations. The majority of the Frankfort Assembly would not listen to this proposal at the time; in the belief that Austria would be forced to waive all other considerations, and to allow her German provinces to be absorbed into Germany. Austria, on the other hand, instead of yielding the point, has attempted, by many covert plans, to gain for herself such a predominance in the German constitution as would really give her the empire of central Europe. She has tried to induce the assembly to substitute a parliament composed of delegates of the princes and deputies from the assemblies of the different states, with an executive directory of seven princes, for the two houses already agreed upon by Prussia and thirty of the other German states. By this plan the popular elements, which can alone give a permanent vitality to the constitution, would be altogether suppressed; and the mixed thirty-eight millions with which Austria would join the confederation might easily be made to give her a predominance over the German thirty-five. But it is very improbable that any such attempt can now succeed. The opinion of Gagern has been gradually gaining ground in the minds of the best men in the assembly, in the rest of Germany, and even *When Germany itself shall be united upon this point, in England. It may be retarded by the late votes all the old notions of a balance of power will give way of the assembly, where a small majority, dexterof necessity in Europe, as they have done here. And any menaces of England, France and Russia, will be as little ously summoned. has thrown their proceedings heeded as was M. Guizot's foolish threat of establishing into disorder. But it combines so many advana balance of power in America. The people need no balance of power against their own weight-nor can any tages, otherwise unattainable, that, unless Austria is to keep aloof entirely, we incline to believe

This is, in fact, the model which the constituent assembly of Frankfort has long kept in mind; and this, of itself, has been felt to be sufficient to render the incorporation of Austria with Germany impossible. To require of Austria, that she should have no separate diplomatic representation, and no military force distinct from the German Federal army-no line of custom-houses between herself and Germany, and yet one between her German and her non-German provinces-would have been a demand tantamount to a dissolution of the Austrian empire. That, on the other hand, the diplomacy, the army, and the Zollverein of Germany should be absorbed into Austria, and that the high intellectual and political development of the north should merge itself in an inferior civilization, was just as impossible. And, beyond all other considerations, it was evident that, if either of these schemes were realized, Europe would not quietly stand by and watch the construction of a monarchy of seventy-four millions of inhabitants-far more compact and homogeneous than ever Napoleon had realized.* The embarrassments which the German subjects of Denmark and Holland have brought into the scheme are as nothing compared with the difficulties and dangers which would accrue to any arrangement that mixed up the rights and powers of Germany with the claims and possessions of Austria in countries not German. If Germany should guarantee to Austria the retention of her fifteen millions of non-German subjects, she would have to inaugurate her new national constitution by two sanguinary wars with nations striving for their national

such balance be found.-LIVING AGE.

that it, or some scheme very similar, will at last | follow the banners he had blessed, cannot return prevail. In France revolutions little alter the in- to the Vatican over the dead bodies of his subjects, ternal fabric of society, and slightly affect its without shaming Christendom. If he and the foreign relations; though the independence of Grand Duke bide their time, it may come; and Italy demands the sympathy of all men who, being they may regain a power which it must be allowed freemen at heart, honor the desire of freedom in they did not abuse. Let them stand apart, if they others, the political question will probably remain will; but do not let them aggravate the calamities exclusively Italian; but the solid establishment of a of the great contest on which Italy is again enterGerman empire on a constitutional and representa-ing, and which, if anarchy does not succeed destive basis would soon make European despotism potism, may give to Rome itself a fresh significance impossible and Europe really secure. in the history of mankind.

As long as Austria possessed Belgium, the ecclesiastical states and the Brisgau, she, as it were, wrapped round the German territories, and was their natural protector; now she is a conterminous kingdom to Germany, and has another function to perform. She has to protect Europe from eastern aggression; to extend an efficient protection to the menaced principalities of Turkey; and to raise up a southern and more civilized Slavonia, as a balance to the power of the north. Disembarrassed of alien conquests, which exhaust her strengh, and give her the character of an oppressor in Europe, and safe from Russian aggression in her alliance with Germany, there would still be a glorious and useful future for Austria, in which no power would more heartily rejoice than England, her old ally.

THE THREE SISTERS.

"WE are three sisters worn with grief and tears,
Grown gray with sorrow rather than with years;
Well versed in grief, dejected, and deprest,
Each deems her own has been the hardest part.
Approach; the poet knows the human heart-
Be it thy task to set the strife at rest.

First, learn my grief, how fearful and how deep;
Starting, I woke from childhood's rosy sleep,

The bud unclosed, a secret thrill came o'er me-
Love's breath drew forth the blossom to the light,
A hero raised me to his own proud height,
And life and all its charms lay bright before me!
Already with the bridal myrtle crowned,
For him in whom my very being was bound,

I watched with mingled fear and rapture glowing.
The marriage torches cast their ruddy glare-
They brought me in his corpse and laid it there;
From seven deep wounds his crimson heart's blood
flowing.

The nameless horror of that awful night,
That is the image stamped upon my sight;
Waking or sleeping, oh! it haunts me still.
I cannot live-to death I now belong;
And yet I cannot die! O God! how long

Supposing the erection of a German Empire, there is the further question-Who is to be emperor? In this case, notwithstanding the facts of M. Welcker's motion, it still appears to us as the most probable issue out of the difficulties of Germany, that its imperial crown should finally rest on the house of Hohenzollern. Already all the states below the rank of kingdoms, with the exception of Lichtenstein, an Austrian dependency, have submitted their claims to its present head. The northern monarchies are not in a condition to resist the popular demand; and Bavaria can scarcely stand alone. The King of Prussia may, then, soon have to undertake this solemn responsibility. Whatever have been his faults, he has suffered much, and he is a man to learn by suffering; he" has a sound and generous heart. And we, who did not flatter him in his easier days, would bid him good cheer in this great and difficult work, on the success of which may depend the principle, not, perhaps, of national independence-which, we trust, is above the acts of individual menn-but that of constitutional monarchy, which kings can really emperil and destroy.

We would willingly follow M. von Usedom to Italy, where he recognizes the identical difficulties he has signalized in Germany. But for the passion of Italian nationality, aggravated by the presence of the stranger in the north, the timely reforms of the Pope and the Grand Duke of Tuscany would have fully succeeded. Even now we deprecate foreign intervention, because such an interference is police, not government; it may put down a riot, but it can only embitter a revolution. The Pope, whose Christian feelings would not allow him to act on his Italian sympathics and to

Must all these tortures last that will not kill?"
The second took the word with trembling frame;
The image is of blood, and not of shame,

That sleeping still, or waking, meets her view.
My heart, too, opened to that breath divine,
Anguish and rapture, they have both been mine;
In me the cup of love has mantled, too.
The glory vanished from the loved one's brow,
I saw him selfish, mean! How faded now

His brightness! yet I loved him-him alone!
He fled: if shame yet chain him to her side,
Or raving madness drive him far and wide,

I know not; but the grief is all mine own." She ceased; her sister sadly took the word.

Thou pausest now their sorrows thou hast heard, Uncertain how to choose betwixt the twain. Have they not lived and loved? Our common doom, Though Sorrow wrapt them in her veil of gloom, And bade them to the dregs her chalice drain.

In one brief sentence all my bitter cause
Of sorrow dwells: then, arbiter, oh pause,

And learn my better right-too clearly proved:
Ere yet thy final judgment thou assign,
Four words comprise it-1 was never loved!

The palm of grief, thou wilt allow, is mine."