During the tremendous struggle that proceeded from the French

Revolution, Austria was almost always in the foreground, and next to

England showed greatest powers of endurance in combating the new order

of things. Six times she made war on France, and though in four of these

wars she was beaten, she had the fortune to decide the event of the

fifth,--that of 1814-15; and in 1815 she was as active against Napoleon

as circumstances permitted any of the Allies to be, except England and

Prussia. The effect of this pertinacity, and of her decisive part in

1813, was to secure for her a degree of consideration altogether

disproportioned to her real power. Men took her for what she appeared to

be, not as she was. In truth, very little was known of her condition,

and the few who were aware of her weakness were interested in keeping

their knowledge to themselves. The grand effort which she made in 1809,

single-handed almost, to break the power of Napoleon, was everywhere

looked upon as something alike herculean and heroical, and as such it is

spoken of in all those historical works from which most readers obtain

knowledge of the early years of this century; but now we know from other

sources, and particularly from the Diary of Gentz, that she never was in

a worse state than she knew in the days of Eckmühl, Essling, and Wagram.

Reading what Gentz wrote in the ten weeks that followed Wagram, we feel

as if we were reading of the twenty days that followed Sadowa. But of

this nobody outside of the empire seems to have known or suspected

anything; and the number of persons in the empire who knew it, or

suspected it, was not large. Even Napoleon, who was on the ground, and

who had the country more at his control than it was at that of Francis

II., seems to have been entirely ignorant of the true state of affairs.

He could have "crumpled up" Austria with ease, and have made half a

dozen kingdoms or grand duchies of the spoils he had seized,--and yet he

talked to General Bubna, and to others of the Austrian negotiators, as

if he considered Austria the greatest nation in Europe, and sure swiftly

to recover from the consequences of the blows he had dealt her. He

actually spoke of the ability she would secure to decide the future fate

of Europe, and therein was a prophet of his own ruin. It is possible

that there may have been some affectation in what he said, but there was

as much sincerity, for there is a great deal in the history of his

career that shows he had a high opinion of Austrian power. When Europe

was settled, after his fall, Austria acquired the right to stand between

England and Russia, as their equal; and down to 1848 she was the

superior of both France and Prussia. The events of 1848-49 did not

essentially lessen her prestige, and she had a commanding place during

the Russian war. Even her defeats in the Italian war did not lead to any

serious loss of consideration, and against them was set the striking

fact that the victorious French had halted before the Quadrilateral, and

actually had begged for peace from the vanquished.

We know how deceptive were all appearances in regard to Austrian

strength; but it was in the power of Austrian statesmen to convert what

was simply apparent into a solid reality. Had they been wise men, they

would, during the long peace that followed 1815, have made of Austria a

state as powerful in fact as the world believed her to be. Nothing could

have been easier, as her undeveloped resources ever have been vast; but

they did nothing of the kind, their sole aim being to get over the

present, without any regard for the future. Hermayr says of Thugut, who

was chief Austrian minister in the closing years of the last century,

that "his policy knew neither virtue nor vice, only expedients"; and

these words describe the policy of Metternich completely, and, with

perhaps a little modification, they describe that of all his successors.

So that when the Prussian war came, Austria was in the same state that

she was in 1809,--seemingly very strong, actually very weak; and she

fell in a month, with a great ruin, much to the astonishment of almost

all men. But the difference between 1809 and 1866 is this,--that the

light let into Austria through chinks made by the Prussian bayonet will

prevent the game of deception from being renewed.

It is assumed by most persons, that the house of Austria has at last

reached the turn of its fortunes, and that, having been beaten down by

Prussia, it never will be able to rise again. This is the reaction

against the sentiment that prevailed so generally at the beginning of

last summer, just before the first blood was drawn in that war which

proved so disastrous to Austria. In America, as in England, not only was

it assumed that the Austrians had the better cause, but that the better

chances of success were clearly with them. Black and yellow would

distance black and white, and the two-headed eagle would tear and rend

the single-headed eagle, thus affording another proof that two heads are

better than one. Now, all is changed. In England, opinion is setting

almost as strongly Prussiaward as it did in 1815, though the Prussians

and the Prussian government have made no apologies for those ungracious

acts against Englishmen which it was the fashion to cite as evidence of

the dislike borne to the islanders by the countrymen of Bismarck.

Captain Heehaw, of the Coldstreams, who thought--really, 'pon

honor--that the Prussians would not be able to look half their number of

Austrians in the face, has wheeled about, converted by the fast flashes

of the needle-gun; and the gallant Captain, who would fight like an

Achilles should opportunity offer, is a fair type of his fellows. There

is a complete change of front. The English are countermarching, and will

take up their former ground,--if they have not already taken it,--that

on which they stood when their Parliament thanked Blücher and his

Prussians for helping Wellington and his Britons strike down Napoleon

and the French. Prussia now means a united Germany, to be ruled by the

house of Hohenzollern, whose head is an old king of threescore and ten

years, and who must, in the regular course of things, soon be displaced

by a bold young prince, whose brows are thickly covered with laurels

gathered on the field of Sadowa, and whose wife is the eldest child of

Queen Victoria. Why should not Protestant England rejoice with

Protestant Prussia, and see her successes with gladness? Sure enough;

and English joy over the prodigious Prussian triumph of last summer

ought to be the most natural thing in the world. But we cannot forget

what was the color of English opinion down to the time when it was

demonstrated by the logic of cannon that the Prussian cause was

perfectly pure, and that it was to fly in the face of Providence to

question its excellence. If ever a man was hated in England, Count

Bismarck had the honor of being thus hated. And it was an honor; for

next to the love of a great people, their hatred is the best evidence of

a man's greatness. Napoleon in 1807 was not more detested by Englishmen

than Bismarck in 1866. The obnoxious Prussian statesman was not even

respected, for he had done nothing to command the respect of enemies.

From the tone in which he was talked of, it was plain that the English

considered him to be a mischievous, malicious, elfish sort of creature,

who could not do anything that would deserve to be considered great, but

who did his utmost to make himself and his country the nuisances of

Europe. Books have been made from English journals to show how

extraordinarily they berated this country during the Secession war,

because Americans were so brutally perverse and so selfishly silly as

not to submit their country's throat to the Southern sabre for the

benefit of Britain, which condescends to think that our national

existence is something not altogether compatible with her safety. But a

collection made from the same journals of articles assailing Prussia in

general, and Count Bismarck in particular, would be even richer than

anything that has been collected to show English sympathy with gentlemen

who were fighting valiantly to establish that "better kind of

civilization" which is based on slavery. All is now changed toward

Prussia, as most has been changed toward us for twenty months, ever

since the fall of Richmond. If Prussia should not soon establish a

"cordial understanding" with England, _vice_ France discarded, it will

be because she is not disposed to an English alliance, or because her

fortunes shall have undergone a change, and rendered her unworthy of

being courted. That ancient connection of England and Austria, dating

from the time that the Bourbons became dangerous to Europe, and which

was so often alluded to in the time of the Italian war, and in the days

that immediately preceded the German conflict, is thought little of by

Englishmen, who prefer to think of Pitt's connection with Frederick when

the latter was threatened with annihilation by Austria. Prussia has not

only beaten the Austrian armies; she has conquered English

prejudices,--much the more difficult task of the two.

The Austrians must be amused by the change that has come over the

English mind; but with their sense of the satire which that change may

be said to embody, there is possibly mingled the reflection that their

case, bad as it is, is not so bad as to deprive them of hope. Looking

back over the history of the house of Austria, there is much in it to

allow the belief that possibly it may again rise to the highest place in

Europe. That house has often fallen quite as low as we have seen it

fall, and yet it has not passed away, but has renewed its life and

strength, and has taken high part in effecting the punishment, and even

the destruction, of those who might have destroyed it. When Matthias

Corvinus held Vienna,--when that city was besieged by the great Solyman,

whose troops marched as far to the west as Ratisbon,--when Charles V.

fled before Maurice of Saxony, "lest he might one fine morning be seized

in his bed,"--when Andrew Thonradtel took Ferdinand II. by the buttons

of his doublet, and said, "Nandel, give in, thou must sign" (a paper

containing the articles of the union of the Austrian Estates with the

Bohemians, which Ferdinand refused to sign, and never signed),--when

Gustavus Adolphus was beating or baffling all the Imperial

generals,--when Wallenstein was directing his army of _condottieri_,

with which he had saved the Austrian house, against that house,--when

Kara Mustapha, at the head of two hundred thousand Turks, aided by the

Hungarians, and encouraged by the French, laid siege to Vienna, and sent

his light cavalry to the banks of the Inn, and came wellnigh succeeding

in his undertaking, and would have done so but for the coming in of John

Sobieski and his Poles,--when the French and Bavarians, in 1704, had

brought the Empire to the brink of destruction, so that it could be

saved only through the combined exertions of such men as Eugène and

Marlborough,--when almost all Continental Europe that was possessed of

power directed that power against the Imperial house immediately after

the death of Charles VI., last male member of the line of

Hapsburg,--when Napoleon I. destroyed an Austrian army at Ulm, and took

Vienna, and beat to pieces the Austro-Russian army at Austerlitz,--when

the same Emperor took Vienna the second time, in 1809, after a series of

brilliant victories, wonderful even in his most wonderful history, and

won the victory of Wagram, and allowed the Austrian monarchy to exist

only because he thought of marrying a daughter of its head,--when

Hungarians, Italians, Germans, and others of its subjects were in arms

against it, in 1848-49,--when Montebello and Palestro were followed by

Magenta and Solferino,--the condition of the house of Austria was nearly

as low as it is to-day, and on some of these occasions probably it was

even more reduced than it is at present. Men were ready in 1529, in

1552, in 1619, in 1632, in 1683, in 1704, in 1741, in 1805, in 1809, in

1849, and in 1859 to say, as now they say, that the last hour of the

fortunate dynasty was about to strike on the clock of Time, forgetting

all its earlier escapes from the last consequences of defeat,

recollection of which would have enabled them to form better judgments.

On a dozen occasions Austria has risen superior to the effects of the

direst misfortunes, and she may do so again. And her triumphs,

proceeding out of failures, have not been won over common men or in

ordinary contests. She has rarely had to deal with mean antagonists, and

her singular victories have been enhanced in value by the high grade of

her enemies. Francis I., Sultan Solyman, Gustavus Adolphus, Wallenstein,

Richelieu, Louis XIV., Napoleon I., and Kossuth are conspicuous in the

list of her enemies. They were all great men,--deriving greatness some

of them from their intellectual powers, others from their positions as

sovereigns, and yet others from both their positions and their powers of

mind. Yet she got the better of them all,[31] and some of them fell

miserably because of her enmity to them,--as Wallenstein and Napoleon.

Frederick the Great was in some sense an exception, as he accomplished

most of his purposes at her expense; and yet it cannot with propriety be

said that he conquered her, or that, at the utmost, he was ever more

than the equal of Maria Theresa or Joseph II., with all his undoubted

intellectual superiority. When we compare the Austria of 1813 with the

Austria of 1809, and see how wonderfully fortune had worked in her favor

under circumstances far from promising anything for her benefit, we are

not surprised that Austrians should still be full of confidence, or that

a few other men should share what seems to be in them a well-founded

hope. A belief in good luck sometimes helps men to the enjoyment of good

luck,--and if men, why not nations?

Yet against this reliance on her luck by Austria must be placed the

wonderful changes that have come over the world since those times when

it was in the power of a government like the Austrian to exert a great

influence on the course of events. Down to the time of the French

Revolution, Austrian contests were carried on against nations,

governments, and dynasties, and not against peoples. Even the wars that

grew out of the Reformation were in no strict sense of a popular

character, but were waged by the great of the earth, who found their

account in being champions of progressive ideas,--the liberalism of

those days. Almost all the renowned anti-Austrian leaders of the Thirty

Years' War were kings, nobles, aristocrats of every grade, most of whom,

we may suppose, cared as little for political freedom as the Hapsburgs

cared for it. Gustavus Adolphus could be as arbitrary as Ferdinand II.,

and some of his most ardent admirers are of opinion that he fell none

too soon for his own reputation, though much too soon for the good of

Europe, when he was slain on the glorious field of Lützen. The most

remarkable of all the wars waged by the Austrian house against human

rights was that which Philip II. and his successor directed against the

Dutch: the latter were the champions of liberty; but the opponents of

the Spanish Hapsburgs even in that war can hardly be called the people.

They were--at least the animating and inspiriting portion of them--the

old Dutch municipal aristocracy, who on most occasions were well

supported by the people. Down to a time within living memory, the German

Hapsburgs contended only against their equals in blood and birth, if not

always in power. In 1792 a new age began. The armies of Revolutionary

France were even more democratic than our own in the Secession war, and

not even Napoleon's imperializing and demoralizing course could entirely

change their character. Democracy and aristocracy, each all armed, were

fairly pitted against each other, in that long list of actions which

began at Jemappes and terminated at Solferino. The Austrian army, like

the Austrian government, is the most aristocratic institution of the

kind in the world, and as such it was well ranged against the French

army, the only great armed democratic force Europe had ever seen till

the present year. Democracy had the better in most of the engagements

that took place, though it had ever to fight hard for it, the Austrians

rarely behaving otherwise than well in war. The Prussian army that did

such great things last summer was conscribed from the people to an

extent that has no parallel since the French Republic formed its armies;

and it broke down the aristocratical force of Austria as effectively as

Cromwell's Ironsides,--who were enlisted and disciplined yeomen,--broke

through, cut down, and rode over the high-born Cavaliers of England. Now

what Austria's army encountered when it met the French and Prussian

armies, the Austrian government has to encounter in the management of

affairs. In the old diplomatic school, Austria could hold her own with

any foe, or friend either,--the latter the more difficult matter of the

two. There seldom have been abler men in their way than Kaunitz and

Metternich, but they would be utterly useless were they to come back and

take charge of Austrian diplomacy, so changed is the world's state. And

their successors are of their school, with abilities far inferior to

theirs. The people have now to be consulted, even when treaties are

arranged and political combinations made. Such a parcelling out of

countries as was so easily effected at Vienna in 1815 would no more be

possible now, than it would be to get up a crusade, or to revive the

traffic in slaves. The ground which the people have gained in fifty

years' course they have no intention of giving up, rather meaning to

strengthen it and to extend it.

This is the reason why Austria cannot very hopefully look for a revival

of her power, as it so often revived after defeat in old days, and under

an entirely different state of things from that which now exists. A

power has come into existence such as she has never been accustomed to

deal with, and of which her statesmen have no knowledge. An Austrian

statesman is scarcely more advanced than a Frenchman of the time of

Louis Quatorze; and we verily believe that Louvois or Torcy would be

quite as much at home in European politics at this moment as Mensdorff

or Belcredi. Had they been well informed as to the condition of the

times, they never would have so acted as to bring about the late war. It

was their reliance on the ability of mere governments to settle every

question in dispute, that caused them to plunge into a conflict with

Prussia and Italy, when their master's empire was bankrupt, and when

more or less of discontent existed in almost every part of that empire.

Statesmen who knew the age, and who were aware of the change that has

come over Europe in half a century, would have told the Emperor that to

rely on "something turning up," after the ancient Austrian custom, would

not answer in 1866, and that peoples as well as princes had much to do

with the ordering of every nation's policy; and with every people

Austria is unpopular. It is not difficult now to understand that Francis

Joseph had a profound reliance on Napoleon III., that he believed the

Frenchman would prevent his being driven to the wall, and that Prussia

would be the greatest sufferer by the war, as she would be forced to

part with the Rhine provinces. His mistake with respect to France was

not a great one, as the French saw the triumph of Prussia with much

bitterness of feeling, and gladly would have joined the Austrians; but

the mistake he made in regard to Germany was very great, and shows that

he and his advisers knew nothing of Germanic feeling. If they could thus

err on a point that was plain to every intelligent foreigner, how can we

expect them to exhibit more intelligence and more sense with respect to

the new state of things proceeding from the event of the war? If they

could not comprehend matters of fact at the beginning of last June, why

should we conclude that they will be Solomons hereafter? Brought face to

face with a new state of things, they so proceeded as to convince all

impartial observers that they were wellnigh as ignorant of what had been

going on among men, as the Seven Sleepers were when roused from their

long slumber. But for this, unless we assume that they were fools, not

only would they not have admitted war to be possible, but they never

would have allowed the coming about of such a state of things as led to

the dispute with Prussia. The entire action of the Austrian government

with reference to the affairs of Germany, for several years, was

admirably calculated to lead to what has taken place this year. That

government, had it been wise, never would have acted with Prussia in the

matter of the Danish duchies. It would have insisted on the fulfilment

of the arrangement that was made years before, in which case it would

have been supported by the whole power of France and England, and not

improbably by that of Russia; and against so great an array of force,

Prussia, even if backed by the opinion of Germany, never would have

thought of contending,--and some of the German governments would have

sided with the allies, and would have behaved much more efficiently than

they did in the late war. Prussia would have been isolated, as France

was in 1840; and that party which was opposed to Bismarck's policy would

have obtained control of her councils, the effect of which would have

been to preserve peace, the very thing that was most necessary to

Austria's welfare. Instead of opposing Prussia, Austria joined her, and

insisted on having a part in the very business that offended the Germans

as much as it disgusted foreigners. Thus a state of things was brought

about which made a German war inevitable, while Austria was deprived of

all aid from abroad. England's sympathies were with Austria, as against

Prussia; and yet England had been shabbily treated by Austria in respect

to the duchies, and it was impossible for her either to forget or

forgive such treatment. France had less cause to be offended; but

Napoleon III. could not have approved of action which seemed to be taken

in disregard of his high position in Europe, and was calculated to

advance the ends of Prussia,--the power least respected by the

French,--and which finally made of that power the destroyer of the

settlement of 1815,[32] a part the Emperor had intended for himself.

Having acted thus unwisely, and having no support from Russia, Austria

should have avoided war in 1866, at any cost; and it was in her power to

avoid it down to the time that she made the German Diet so proceed as to

furnish Prussia with an excellent reason for setting her well-prepared

armies in motion against the ill-prepared forces of her foe. Noting the

folly of Austria, and observing that the French government, if M. de

Lavalette's circular can be depended upon as an expression of its

sentiments, is all for peace, we can see no opening for that renewal of

warfare in Europe which the defeated party is said to desire, as an ally

of France, in the expectation that she might recover the place she so

lately lost. The reopening of the Eastern Question, of which much is

said, might afford some hope to Austria, but not to the extent that is

supposed; for she is not strong enough at this time to be a powerful

ally of Russia as against Turkey, or of England in support of Turkey.

She has parted with her old importance; for there is no further hiding

from the world that her system is vicious, and that nothing could be

gained from an alliance with her, while any country with which she

should be associated would have to extend to her much support. She may

rise again, but how, or in what manner, it is not in any man's power to

say.

FOOTNOTES:

[25] The following is the epigram of Matthias Corvinus:--

"Bella gerant alii; tu felix nube!

Nam quæ Mars aliis dat tibi regna Venus."

Which Mr. Sterling thus renders:--

"Fight those who will; let well-starred Austria wed,

And conquer kingdoms in the marriage-bed."

Some other hand has given the following translation, or rather

amplification, of the epigram:--

"Glad Austria wins by Hymen's silken chain

What other states in doubtful battles gain,

And while fierce Mars enriches meaner lands,

Receives possessions from fair Venus' hands."

There would seem to be an end of these fortunate marriages, no member of

the Austrian imperial family being now in condition to wed to much

profit. The Emperor Francis Joseph, who is yet a young man, took to wife

a Bavarian lady, said to be of extraordinary beauty, in 1854; and he has

a daughter, who was born in 1856, the same year with the French Prince

Imperial, whom she might marry, but that the two are children. Besides,

marriages between French princes and Austrian princesses have turned out

so badly on two memorable occasions, within less than a century, that

even the statesmen of Vienna and Paris might well be excused if they

were to think a third alliance quite impossible. The heir apparent to

the Austrian throne is but eight years old. The Emperor's next brother,

Ferdinand Maximilian,--well known in this country as Emperor of the

Mexicans,--made a good marriage, his wife being a daughter of the late

Leopold I., King of the Belgians. She has labored with zeal to found an

imperial dynasty in Mexico, but the task is beyond human strength. The

imperial system fell in Mexico on the same day that Richmond fell into

the hands of General Grant. The fortunes of the Austrian prince and

those of Mr. Davis were bound up together, and together they fell.

[26] We give the imperial anagram:--

A: Austria Alles

E: Est Erdreich

I: Imperare Ist

O: Orbi Oesterreich

U: Universo Unterthan.

[27] Mr. Bryce credits Maximilian I. with the founding of the Austrian

monarchy. "Of that monarchy," he observes, "and of the power of the

house of Hapsburg, Maximilian was, even more than Rudolph his ancestor,

the founder. Uniting in his person those wide domains through Germany

which, had been dispersed among the collateral branches of his house,

and claiming by his marriage with Mary of Burgundy most of the

territories of Charles the Bold, he was a prince greater than any who

had sat on the Teutonic throne since the death of Frederick II. But it

was as Archduke of Austria, Count of Tyrol, Duke of Styria and

Carinthia, feudal superior of lands in Swabia, Alsace, and Switzerland,

that he was great, not as Roman Emperor. For just as from him the

Austrian monarchy begins, so with him the Holy Empire in its old meaning

ends." (The Holy Roman Empire, pp. 343, 344.) Mr. Bryce's work is one of

the most valuable contributions to historical literature that have

appeared in this century, and great expectations are entertained from

the future labors of one so liberally endowed with the historic faculty.

[28] The division of the house of Austria into two branches, which alone

prevented it from becoming supreme in Europe, and over much of the rest

of the world, took place in 1521. After the death of their grandfather,

Charles and Ferdinand possessed the Austrian territories in common, but

in 1521 they made a division thereof. Ferdinand obtained Austria,

Carinthia, Carniola, and Styria, and, in 1522, the Tyrol, and other

provinces. In 1531 he was chosen King of the Romans, which made him the

successor of Charles as Emperor. How Charles came, not merely to consent

to his election, but to urge it, and to effect it in spite of

opposition, when he had a son in his fourth year, is very strange. The

reasons commonly given for his course are by no means sufficient to

account or it. Many years later he tried to undo his work, in order to

obtain the imperial dignity for his son; but Ferdinand held on to what

he possessed, with true Austrian tenacity. Had Charles kept the imperial

crown for his son, as he might have done, Philip's imperial position

must have sufficed to give him control of the civilized world. He would

have made himself master of both France and England, and must have

rendered the Reaction completely triumphant over the Reformation.

Fortunately, he failed to become Emperor, and during a portion of his

time the imperial throne was occupied by the best of all the Hapsburg

sovereigns,--the wise, the tolerant, the humane, and the upright

Maximillian II., who was the last man in Europe likely to give him any

aid in the prosecution of his vast tyrannical schemes. Besides, there

was a sort of coolness between the two branches of the great family,

that was not without its effect on the world's politics. Seldom has it

happened that a more important event has occurred than the election of

Ferdinand as King of the Romans. We are not to measure what might have

been done by Philip II. as Emperor, by what was done by Charles V.; for

Charles was a statesman, a politician, and, down to his latter years,

when his health was utterly gone, he was no fanatic; but Phillip was a

fanatic only, and a fierce one too, with a power of concentration such

as his father never possessed. Then the contest between the Catholics

and the Protestants was a far more serious one in Philip's time than it

had been in that of Charles, which alone would have sufficed to make his

occupation of the imperial throne, had he occupied it, a matter of the

last importance.

[29] The main line of the German Hapsburgs ended in 1619, with the death

of the Emperor Matthias. He was succeeded by Ferdinand II., grandson of

Ferdinand I., and son of that Archduke Charles who was sometimes spoken

of in connection with the possible marriage of Elizabeth of England. Out

of Ferdinand II.'s elevation grew a new union of the entire family of

Hapsburg. During the long ascendency of the Cardinal-Duke of Lerma in

the Spanish councils, _temp_. Philip III., the breach between the two

branches, which had been more apparent than real, and yet not

unimportant, was made complete by the minister's action, the policy he

pursued being such as was highly displeasing to the German Hapsburgs,

who had relapsed into bigotry. Philip III. set up pretensions to Hungary

and Bohemia, as grandson of Maximilian II. Ferdinand, who was not yet

either emperor or king, got rid of Philip's pretensions by promising to

resign to him the Austrian possessions in Swabia. This led to the fall

of Lerma, and to the reunion of the two branches of the Austrian house,

but for which it is probable Ferdinand II. might have been beaten in the

early days of the Thirty Years' War. It was to Spanish aid that

Ferdinand owed his early triumphs in that contest; and many years later,

in 1634, the great victory of Nordlingen was gained for the Imperialists

by the presence of ten thousand Spanish infantry in their army,--that

infantry which was still the first military body in Europe, not then

having met with the disaster of Rocroy, which, however, was near at

hand. This was a kind of Indian-summer revival of Spanish power, and at

the beginning of the new alliance between Madrid and Vienna, "there

appeared," says Rankè, "a prospect of founding a compact Spanish

hereditary dominion, which should directly link together Milan with the

Netherlands, and so give the Spanish policy a necessary preponderance in

the affairs of Europe." Richelieu spoilt this fine prospect just as it

seemed about to become a reality, and the Spanish Hapsburgs gradually

sank into insignificance, and their line disappeared in 1700, on the

death of Charles II., the most contemptible creature that ever wore a

crown, and scarcely man enough to be a respectable idiot. Such was the

termination of the great Austro-Burgundian dynasty that was founded by

Charles V.,--at one time as majestic as "the broad and winding Rhine,"

but again, like the Rhine, running fast to insignificance.

[30] If the house of Austria was not in the greatest danger it ever

experienced in 1704, its members and officers could affect to feel all

but absolutely desperate. The following letter, written in queer

German-French, by the Imperial Minister near the English court, Count

John Wenceslaus Wratislaw, to Queen Anne, conveys an almost ludicrous

idea of the fright under which the Austrian chiefs suffered:--"Madame,

Le soussigné envoyé extraordinaire de sa Majesté Impériale ayant

représenté de vive voix en diverses occasions aux ministres de votre

Majesté la dure extremité dans laquelle se trouve l'Empire, par

l'introduction d'une armée nombreuse de François dans la Bavière,

laquelle jointe à la revolte de la Hongrie met les païs héréditaires de

sa Majesté Impériale dans une confusion incroyable, de sorte que si l'on

n'apporte pas un remède prompt et proportionné au danger présent, dont

on est menacé on a à craindre une revolution entière, et une destruction

totale de l'Allemagne." Luckily for Austria, Marlborough was a man of as

much moral as physical courage, and he took the responsibility of

leading his army into Germany,--a decision that, perhaps, no other

commander of that time would have been equal to,--and by the junction of

his forces with those of Eugène was enabled to fight and win the battle

of Blenheim (Blindheim), which put an end to the ascendency of France.

Emperor Leopold was positively grateful for the services Marlborough

rendered him, and treated him differently from the manner in which he

had treated Sobieski for doing him quite as great a favor. He wrote him

a letter in his own hand, gave him a lordship in fee, and made him, by

the title of Mindelheim, a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire.

[31] As it is generally assumed that Richelieu got the better of the

Empire in that contest which he waged with it, perhaps some readers may

think we have gone too far in saying he was one of those antagonists of

whom the Austrian family got the better; but all depends upon the point

of view. Richelieu died when the war was at its height, and did not live

to see the success of his immediate policy; but what he did was only an

incident in a long contest. The old rivalry of the house of Valois and

the house of Austria was continued after the former was succeeded by the

house of Bourbon. Richelieu did but carry out the policy on which Henry

IV. had determined: and when the two branches of the Austrian family had

united their powers, and it seemed that the effect of their reunion

would be to place Europe at their command, the great Cardinal-Duke had

no choice but to follow the ancient course of France. But the contest on

which he entered, though in one sense fatal to his enemy, was not

decided in his time, nor till he had been in his grave more than sixty

years. He died just before the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV., and

that monarch took up and continued the contest which Richelieu may be

said to have renewed. For an unusually long period the Bourbons were

successful, though without fully accomplishing their purpose. From the

battle of Rocroy, in 1643, to the battle of Blenheim, in 1704, France

was the first nation of Europe, and the Bourbons could boost of having

humiliated the Hapsburgs. They obtained the crowns of Spain and the

Indies; and the Spanish crowns are yet worn by a descendant of Louis le

Grand, while another family reigns in France. But Spain and her

dependencies apart, all was changed by the result at Blenheim. The

Austrian house was there saved, and re-established; and it was there

that the policy of Richelieu had its final decision. The France of the

old monarchy never recovered from the disasters its armies met with in

the War of the Spanish Succession; and when Louis XV. consented to the

marriage of his grandson to an Austrian princess, he virtually admitted

that the old rival of his family had triumphed in the long strife. The

quarrel was again renewed in the days of the Republic, maintained under

the first French Empire, and had its last trial of arms under the second

Empire, in 1859; but the old French monarchy gave up the contest more

than a century ago. Besides, we are to distinguish between the German

Empire and the house of Hapsburg that ruled from Vienna. The Peace of

Westphalia (1648) left the Germanic Emperors in a contemptible state,

but the effect of it was highly favorable to these Emperors considered

as chiefs of the Hapsburg family. "Placed on the eastern verge of

Germany," says Mr. Bryce, "the Hapsburgs had added to their ancient

lands in Austria proper and the Tyrol new German territories far more

extensive, and had thus become the chiefs of a separate and independent

state. They endeavored to reconcile its interests and those of the

Empire, so long as it seemed possible to recover part of the old

imperial prerogative. But when such hopes were dashed by the defeats of

the Thirty Years' War, they hesitated no longer between an elective

crown and the rule of their hereditary states, and comforted themselves

thenceforth in European politics, not as the representatives of Germany,

but as heads of the great Austrian monarchy." (The Holy Roman Empire,

new edition, p. 355.) Thus, by diverting the Hapsburgs from their

impracticable schemes, and throwing them upon their hereditary

possessions, Richelieu really helped them; and in so far his policy was

a failure, as he sought to lessen the power of the house of Austria,

which in his time ruled over Spain, as well as in Germany, Bohemia,

Hungary, and other countries. It is intimated by some European writers,

that the Austrian family will once more turn its attention to the East,

and, giving up all thought of regaining its place in Germany, seek

compensation where it was found in the seventeenth century, after the

Peace of Westphalia. But what was possible two hundred years ago might

be found impossible to-day. Russia had no existence as a European power

in those days, whereas now she has one of the highest places in Europe,

and a very peculiar interest in not allowing Austria, or any other

nation, to obtain possession of countries like the Roumanian

Principalities, the addition of which to his empire might afford

compensation to Francis Joseph for all he has lost in the south and the

west. It is one of the infelicities of Austria's position that she

cannot make a movement in any direction without treading on the toes of

some giant, or on those of a dwarf protected by some giant who who

intends himself ultimately to devour him.

[32] Prussia, the most thoroughly anti-Gallican of all the parties to

the Treaty of Vienna, completed the work of overthrowing the "detested"

arrangements made by the framers of that treaty. The federal act

creating the Germanic Confederation was incorporated in the work of the

Congress of Vienna, and was guaranteed by eight European

powers,--France, England, Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, Spain, and

Portugal. Prussia destroyed the Confederation without troubling herself

about the wishes and opinions of the other seven parties to the

arrangement of 1815. That all those parties to that arrangement were not

always indifferent to their guaranty appears from the opposition made by

Russia, France, and England to Prince Schwarzenburg's proposition, that

Austria should be allowed to introduce all her non-Germanic territories

into the Confederation, that is to say, that the _Austrian Empire_,

which then included the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, should become a part

of Germany, which it would soon have ruled, as well as overruled, while

it would have extended its dominion over Italy. Had Schwarzenburg's

project succeeded, the course of European events during the last sixteen

years must have been entirely changed, or Austria would have been made

too strong to be harmed by the French in Italy, or by the Prussians in

Germany and Bohemia. Russia was specially adverse to that project; and

the Treaty of Vienna was forcibly appealed to by her government in

opposing it. The time had not then come for making waste-paper of the

arrangements of 1815.

* * * * *

RECONSTRUCTION.

The assembling of the Second Session of the Thirty-ninth Congress may

very properly be made the occasion of a few earnest words on the already

much-worn topic of reconstruction.

Seldom has any legislative body been the subject of a solicitude more

intense, or of aspirations more sincere and ardent. There are the best

of reasons for this profound interest. Questions of vast moment, left

undecided by the last session of Congress, must be manfully grappled

with by this. No political skirmishing will avail. The occasion demands

statesmanship.

Whether the tremendous war so heroically fought and so victoriously

ended shall pass into history a miserable failure, barren of permanent

results,--a scandalous and shocking waste of blood and treasure,--a

strife for empire, as Earl Russell characterized it, of no value to

liberty or civilization,--an attempt to re-establish a Union by force,

which must be the merest mockery of a Union,--an effort to bring under

Federal authority States into which no loyal man from the North may

safely enter, and to bring men into the national councils who deliberate

with daggers and vote with revolvers, and who do not even conceal their

deadly hate of the country that conquered them; or whether, on the other

hand, we shall, as the rightful reward of victory over treason, have a

solid nation, entirely delivered from all contradictions and social

antagonisms, based upon loyalty, liberty, and equality, must be

determined one way or the other by the present session of Congress. The

last session really did nothing which can be considered final as to

these questions. The Civil Rights Bill and the Freedmen's Bureau Bill

and the proposed constitutional amendments, with the amendment already

adopted and recognized as the law of the land, do not reach the

difficulty, and cannot, unless the whole structure of the government is

changed from a government by States to something like a despotic central

government, with power to control even the municipal regulations of

States, and to make them conform to its own despotic will. While there

remains such an idea as the right of each State to control its own local

affairs,--an idea, by the way, more deeply rooted in the minds of men

of all sections of the country than perhaps any one other political

idea,--no general assertion of human rights can be of any practical

value. To change the character of the government at this point is

neither possible nor desirable. All that is necessary to be done is to

make the government consistent with itself, and render the rights of the

States compatible with the sacred rights of human nature.

The arm of the Federal government is long, but it is far too short to

protect the rights of individuals in the interior of distant States.

They must have the power to protect themselves, or they will go

unprotected, spite of all the laws the Federal government can put upon

the national statute-book.

Slavery, like all other great systems of wrong, founded in the depths of

human selfishness, and existing for ages, has not neglected its own

conservation. It has steadily exerted an influence upon all around it

favorable to its own continuance. And to-day it is so strong that it

could exist, not only without law, but even against law. Custom,

manners, morals, religion, are all on its side everywhere in the South;

and when you add the ignorance and servility of the ex-slave to the

intelligence and accustomed authority of the master, you have the

conditions, not out of which slavery will again grow, but under which it

is impossible for the Federal government to wholly destroy it, unless

the Federal government be armed with despotic power, to blot out State

authority, and to station a Federal officer at every cross-road. This,

of course, cannot be done, and ought not even if it could. The true way

and the easiest way is to make our government entirely consistent with

itself, and give to every loyal citizen the elective franchise,--a right

and power which will be ever present, and will form a wall of fire for

his protection.

One of the invaluable compensations of the late Rebellion is the highly

instructive disclosure it made of the true source of danger to

republican government. Whatever may be tolerated in monarchical and

despotic governments, no republic is safe that tolerates a privileged

class, or denies to any of its citizens equal rights and equal means to

maintain them. What was theory before the war has been made fact by the

war.

There is cause to be thankful even for rebellion. It is an impressive

teacher, though a stern and terrible one. In both characters it has come

to us, and it was perhaps needed in both. It is an instructor never a

day before its time, for it comes only when all other means of progress

and enlightenment have failed. Whether the oppressed and despairing

bondman, no longer able to repress his deep yearnings for manhood, or

the tyrant, in his pride and impatience, takes the initiative, and

strikes the blow for a firmer hold and a longer lease of oppression, the

result is the same,--society is instructed, or may be.

Such are the limitations of the common mind, and so thoroughly

engrossing are the cares of common life, that only the few among men can

discern through the glitter and dazzle of present prosperity the dark

outlines of approaching disasters, even though they may have come up to

our very gates, and are already within striking distance. The yawning

seam and corroded bolt conceal their defects from the mariner until the

storm calls all hands to the pumps. Prophets, indeed, were abundant

before the war; but who cares for prophets while their predictions

remain unfulfilled, and the calamities of which they tell are masked

behind a blinding blaze of national prosperity?

It is asked, said Henry Clay, on a memorable occasion, Will slavery

never come to an end? That question, said he, was asked fifty years ago,

and it has been answered by fifty years of unprecedented prosperity.

Spite of the eloquence of the earnest Abolitionists,--poured out against

slavery during thirty years,--even they must confess, that, in all the

probabilities of the case, that system of barbarism would have

continued its horrors far beyond the limits of the nineteenth century

but for the Rebellion, and perhaps only have disappeared at last in a

fiery conflict, even more fierce and bloody than that which has now been

suppressed.

It is no disparagement to truth, that it can only prevail where reason

prevails. War begins where reason ends. The thing worse than rebellion

is the thing that causes rebellion. What that thing is, we have been

taught to our cost. It remains now to be seen whether we have the needed

courage to have that cause entirely removed from the Republic. At any

rate, to this grand work of national regeneration and entire

purification Congress must now address itself, with full purpose that

the work shall this time be thoroughly done. The deadly upas, root and

branch, leaf and fibre, body and sap, must be utterly destroyed. The

country is evidently not in a condition to listen patiently to pleas for

postponement, however plausible, nor will it permit the responsibility

to be shifted to other shoulders. Authority and power are here

commensurate with the duty imposed. There are no cloud-flung shadows to

obscure the way. Truth shines with brighter light and intenser heat at

every moment, and a country torn and rent and bleeding implores relief

from its distress and agony.

If time was at first needed, Congress has now had time. All the

requisite materials from which to form an intelligent judgment are now

before it. Whether its members look at the origin, the progress, the

termination of the war, or at the mockery of a peace now existing, they

will find only one unbroken chain of argument in favor of a radical

policy of reconstruction. For the omissions of the last session, some

excuses may be allowed. A treacherous President stood in the way; and it

can be easily seen how reluctant good men might be to admit an apostasy

which involved so much of baseness and ingratitude. It was natural that

they should seek to save him by bending to him even when he leaned to

the side of error. But all is changed now. Congress knows now that it

must go on without his aid, and even against his machinations. The

advantage of the present session over the last is immense. Where that

investigated, this has the facts. Where that walked by faith, this may

walk by sight. Where that halted, this must go forward, and where that

failed, this must succeed, giving the country whole measures where that

gave us half-measures, merely as a means of saving the elections in a

few doubtful districts. That Congress saw what was right, but distrusted

the enlightenment of the loyal masses; but what was forborne in distrust

of the people must now be done with a full knowledge that the people

expect and require it. The members go to Washington fresh from the

inspiring presence of the people. In every considerable public meeting,

and in almost every conceivable way, whether at court-house,

school-house, or cross-roads, in doors and out, the subject has been

discussed, and the people have emphatically pronounced in favor of a

radical policy. Listening to the doctrines of expediency and compromise

with pity, impatience, and disgust, they have everywhere broken into

demonstrations of the wildest enthusiasm when a brave word has been

spoken in favor of equal rights and impartial suffrage. Radicalism, so

far from being odious, is now the popular passport to power. The men

most bitterly charged with it go to Congress with the largest

majorities, while the timid and doubtful are sent by lean majorities, or

else left at home. The strange controversy between the President and

Congress, at one time so threatening, is disposed of by the people. The

high reconstructive powers which he so confidently, ostentatiously, and

haughtily claimed, have been disallowed, denounced, and utterly

repudiated; while those claimed by Congress have been confirmed.

Of the spirit and magnitude of the canvass nothing need be said. The

appeal was to the people, and the verdict was worthy of the tribunal.

Upon an occasion of his own selection, with the advice and approval of

his astute Secretary, soon after the members of Congress had returned to

their constituents, the President quitted the executive mansion,

sandwiched himself between two recognized heroes,--men whom the whole

country delighted to honor,--and, with all the advantage which such

company could give him, stumped the country from the Atlantic to the

Mississippi, advocating everywhere his policy as against that of

Congress. It was a strange sight, and perhaps the most disgraceful

exhibition ever made by any President; but, as no evil is entirely

unmixed, good has come of this, as from many others. Ambitious,

unscrupulous, energetic, indefatigable, voluble, and plausible,--a

political gladiator, ready for a "set-to" in any crowd,--he is beaten in

his own chosen field, and stands to-day before the country as a

convicted usurper, a political criminal, guilty of a bold and persistent

attempt to possess himself of the legislative powers solemnly secured to

Congress by the Constitution. No vindication could be more complete, no

condemnation could be more absolute and humiliating. Unless reopened by

the sword, as recklessly threatened in some circles, this question is

now closed for all time.

Without attempting to settle here the metaphysical and somewhat

theological question (about which so much has already been said and

written), whether once in the Union means always in the

Union,--agreeably to the formula, Once in grace always in grace,--it is

obvious to common sense that the rebellious States stand to-day, in

point of law, precisely where they stood when, exhausted, beaten,

conquered, they fell powerless at the feet of Federal authority. Their

State governments were overthrown, and the lives and property of the

leaders of the Rebellion were forfeited. In reconstructing the

institutions of these shattered and overthrown States, Congress should

begin with a clean slate, and make clean work of it. Let there be no

hesitation. It would be a cowardly deference to a defeated and

treacherous President, if any account were made of the illegitimate,

one-sided, sham governments hurried into existence for a malign purpose

in the absence of Congress. These pretended governments, which were

never submitted to the people, and from participation in which four

millions of the loyal people were excluded by Presidential order, should

now be treated according to their true character, as shams and

impositions, and supplanted by true and legitimate governments, in the

formation of which loyal men, black and white, shall participate.

It is not, however, within the scope of this paper to point out the

precise steps to be taken, and the means to be employed. The people are

less concerned about these than the grand end to be attained. They

demand such a reconstruction as shall put an end to the present

anarchical state of things in the late rebellious States,--where

frightful murders and wholesale massacres are perpetrated in the very

presence of Federal soldiers. This horrible business they require shall

cease. They want a reconstruction such as will protect loyal men, black

and white, in their persons and property; such a one as will cause

Northern industry, Northern capital, and Northern civilization to flow

into the South, and make a man from New England as much at home in

Carolina as elsewhere in the Republic. No Chinese wall can now be

tolerated. The South must be opened to the light of law and liberty, and

this session of Congress is relied upon to accomplish this important

work.

The plain, common-sense way of doing this work, as intimated at the

beginning, is simply to establish in the South one law, one government,

one administration of justice, one condition to the exercise of the

elective franchise, for men of all races and colors alike. This great

measure is sought as earnestly by loyal white men as by loyal blacks,

and is needed alike by both. Let sound political prescience but take the

place of an unreasoning prejudice, and this will be done.

Men denounce the negro for his prominence in this discussion; but it is

no fault of his that in peace as in war, that in conquering Rebel armies

as in reconstructing the rebellious States, the right of the negro is

the true solution of our national troubles. The stern logic of events,

which goes directly to the point, disdaining all concern for the color

or features of men, has determined the interests of the country as

identical with and inseparable from those of the negro.

The policy that emancipated and armed the negro--now seen to have been

wise and proper by the dullest--was not certainly more sternly demanded

than is now the policy of enfranchisement. If with the negro was success

in war, and without him failure, so in peace it will be found that the

nation must fall or flourish with the negro.

Fortunately, the Constitution of the United States knows no distinction

between citizens on account of color. Neither does it know any

difference between a citizen of a State and a citizen of the United

States. Citizenship evidently includes all the rights of citizens,

whether State or national. If the Constitution knows none, it is clearly

no part of the duty of a Republican Congress now to institute one. The

mistake of the last session was the attempt to do this very thing, by a

renunciation of its power to secure political rights to any class of

citizens, with the obvious purpose to allow the rebellious States to

disfranchise, if they should see fit, their colored citizens. This

unfortunate blunder must now be retrieved, and the emasculated

citizenship given to the negro supplanted by that contemplated in the

Constitution of the United States, which declares that the citizens of

each State shall enjoy all the rights and immunities of citizens of the

several States,--so that a legal voter in any State shall be a legal

voter in all the States.

* * * * *

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

_History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American

Continent._ By GEORGE BANCROFT. Vol. IX. Boston: Little, Brown,

& Co.

This volume of Mr. Bancroft's History, the ninth of the entire work and

the third of the narrative of the American Revolution, comprises the

period between July, 1776, and April, 1778, including the battles of

Long Island and White Plains, the surrender of Fort Washington, the

retreat of Washington through the Jerseys, the brilliant military

successes of Trenton and Princeton, the capture of Philadelphia by Sir

William Howe, and the memorable event which insured the success of the

Revolution,--the surrender of Burgoyne. This enumeration is enough to

show that, in the ground he has traversed, Mr. Bancroft has found ample

scope for the display of those peculiar literary characteristics with

which the readers of his former volumes are so familiar,--his rapid and

condensed narration, his sweeping and sometimes rather vague

generalizations, his brilliant pictures, his pointed reflections, and

the sharp, cutting strokes with which he carves rather than paints

characters. His usual diligence in the search of materials has not

deserted him here; and he has been even more than usually successful in

the amount and character of what he has found. In addition to very full

collections relating to the war from the archives of England and France,

he has obtained large masses of papers from Germany, among which last

are many of great importance, especially for the study of military

operations in 1777. Very valuable documents from the Spanish have been

secured, through the courtesy of the Spanish government and the kind

offices of that distinguished scholar and most amiable man, Don Pascual

de Gayangos.

Investigators of the past are naturally inclined to overestimate the

value of any new sources of information opened by their own diligence or

sagacity of research, and a little of this feeling is perceptible in Mr.

Bancroft's Preface; but, after all, we apprehend that the new evidence

he has so diligently collected will not shake the deliberate verdict

already passed alike upon men and events. Here and there a gleam is

thrown upon some single incident, or the motives and conduct of a

particular actor; but the general lights and shadows of the historical

landscape remain undisturbed. The statements and the views of Marshall

and Sparks are substantially sustained. The patriotic American will not

regret to see that Mr. Bancroft's investigations and conclusions lead

him to exalt Washington in comparison with the soldiers and civilians

who stood around him; and the reader of his pages will have fresh cause

to admire, not merely the firmness and self-command of that illustrious

man, but his abilities as a commander and a statesman. We have

especially to thank Mr. Bancroft for the distinctness with which he

shows how much the success of the Northern army was due to Washington's

disinterested advice. His high praise of the commander-in-chief

sometimes glances aslope, and lights in the form of censure of some of

his subordinate officers; and we should not be surprised if some of his

strictures provoked replies and led to controversies. Some of those whom

he criticises have left descendants, and those who have left no

descendants have partisans who are jealous of the fame of their

favorites, and will not lightly allow a leaf of their laurels to be

blighted.

During the period embraced by this volume the constitutions of several

of the States were formed, and the Articles of Confederation were

adopted which gave to the several States a semblance of unity, and

smoothed the path to the more perfect union which was established ten

years later. These events present themes peculiarly congenial to Mr.

Bancroft's powers of brilliant generalization and rapid condensation,

and tempt him into that field of discursive reflection where he is fond

of lingering, and where we follow him always with interest, and

generally with assent. We quote with peculiar pleasure the following

observations from the fifteenth chapter, on the constitutions of the

several States of America, as being sound in substance and happy in

expression:--

"The spirit of the age moved the young, nation to own justice as

antecedent and superior to the state, and to found the rights of the

citizen on the rights of man. And yet, in regenerating its institutions,

it was not guided by any speculative theory or laborious application of

metaphysical distinctions. Its form of government grew naturally out of

its traditions, by the simple rejection of all personal hereditary

authority, which in America had never had much more than a

representative existence. Its people were industrious and frugal.

Accustomed to the cry of liberty and property, they harbored no dream of

a community of goods; and their love of equality never degenerated into

envy of the rich. No successors of the fifth-monarchy men proposed to

substitute an unwritten higher law, interpreted by individual

conscience, for the law of the land and the decrees of human tribunals.

The people proceeded with self-possession and moderation, after the

manner of their ancestors. Their large inheritance of English liberties

saved them from the necessity and from the wish to uproot their old

political institutions; and as happily the scaffold was not wet with the

blood of their statesmen, there was no root of a desperate hatred of

England, such as the Netherlands kept up for centuries against Spain.

The wrongs inflicted or attempted by the British king were felt to have

been avenged by independence. Respect and affection remained behind for

the parent land, from which the United States had derived trial by jury,

the writ for personal liberty, the practice of representative

government, and the separation of the three great co-ordinate powers in

the state. From an essentially aristocratic model, America took just

what suited her condition, and rejected the rest. Thus the transition of

the Colonies into self-existent commonwealths was free from vindictive

bitterness, and attended by no violent or wide departure from the past."

A considerable portion of this volume is occupied by a consideration of

the relations between Europe and America. Advancing years do not seem to

chill Mr. Bancroft's faith in progress, his confidence in democracy, his

love of popular institutions, or to check his tendency to throw his

speculations into an aphoristic form, and to present his conclusions

positively, and with less of qualification and limitation than men of a

more cautious temperament would do. So far as literary merit is

concerned, the European chapters will be found the most attractive in

the volume. They are sparkling, rapid, condensed, and pointed; they

gratify our national pride; their animated and picturesque style never

suffers the attention to flag for a moment;--and yet it is in these very

chapters that judicial criticism will find the most frequent occasion to

pause and doubt, whether we consider the direction in which the stream

of thought flows, or their merely rhetorical features. Mr. Bancroft's

glittering generalizations do not always seem to us to wear the sober

livery of truth. For instance, on page 500 we read: "The most stupendous

thought that ever was conceived by man, such as never had been dared by

Socrates or the Academy, by Aristotle or the Stoics, took possession of

Descartes on a November night in his meditations on the banks of the

Danube." It may be coldness of temperament, it may be the chilling

influence of advancing years, but we cannot admire statements like

these, and we are constrained to think them exaggerated and extravagant.

And on the next page Mr. Bancroft says: "Edwards, Reid, Kant, and

Rousseau were all imbued with religiosity, and all except the last, who

spoiled his doctrine by dreamy indolence, were expositors of the active

powers of man." It is certainly an ingenious mind that finds a

resemblance between Edwards and Rousseau. What exactly is the meaning of

"religiosity," we cannot say; but if it be used as a synonyme of

religion, we demur to the assertion that Rousseau was imbued with

religion,--Rousseau, who in his youth allowed an innocent girl to be

ruined by accusing her of a theft which he himself had committed, and in

his ripened manhood sent to a foundling hospital the children he had had

by his mistress,--whose life was despicable and whose moral creed seemed

to be summed up in the doctrine that every natural impulse is to be

indulged. Rousseau was an enthusiast and a sentimentalist; he was a man

of the exquisite organization of genius, and there are many passages in

his writings which are colored with a half-voluptuous, half-devotional

glow; but it seems to us a plain confusion of very obvious moral

distinctions to represent such a man as imbued with the spirit of

religion.

One of the most animated of Mr. Bancroft's chapters is the eighth, on

the course of opinion in England, in which we have glimpses of Wilkes,

of Barre, of Wedderburn, of Lord North, of Burke, and an elaborate

character of Fox. This last is a happy specimen of Mr. Bancroft's

peculiar style of portrait-drawing. The merits and defects of the

subject are presented in a series of pointed and aphoristic sentences;

and the likeness is gained, as in a portrait of Rembrandt, by the

powerful contrast and proximity of lights and shadows. Virtues and vices

stand side by side, like the black and white squares of a chess-board.

Brilliant as the execution is, the man Charles James Fox seems to us

reproduced with more distinctness and individuality in the easier,

simpler, more flowing sentences of Lord Brougham. Mr. Bancroft's sketch

has something of the coldness as well as the sharp outline of

bas-relief. And strange to say, considering Fox's love of liberty, his

love of America, and his hatred of slavery, the historian of liberty and

democracy seems hardly to have done him justice. In the summary of the

contents of the chapters prefixed to the volume, he unreservedly writes

down "Fox not a great man," and such is the impression which the text

leaves on the mind; but if Fox was not a great man, to whom in the

sphere of government and politics can that praise be accorded?

In his Preface to this volume, Mr. Bancroft informs us that one more

volume will complete the American Revolution, including the negotiations

for peace in 1782; and that for this the materials are collected and

arranged, and that it will be completed and published without any

unnecessary delay. This volume will bring into the field Spain, France,

and Great Britain, as well as the United States, and, from the nature of

the subject it presents, will undoubtedly be so treated by Mr. Bancroft

as to be not inferior in interest or value to any of its predecessors.

_Griffith Gaunt; or Jealousy_. By CHARLES READE. With

Illustrations. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

In discussing the qualities of this remarkable novel before the readers

of "The Atlantic Monthly," we shall have an advantage not always enjoyed

by criticism; for we shall speak to an audience perfectly familiar with

every detail of the story, and shall not be troubled to _résumer_ its

events and characters. There has been much doubt among many worthy

people concerning Mr. Reade's management of the moralities and the

proprieties, but no question at all, we think, as to the wonderful power

he has shown, and the interest he has awakened. Even those who have

blamed him have followed him eagerly,--without doubt to see what

crowning insult he would put upon decency, and to be confirmed in their

virtuous abhorrence of his work. It is to be hoped that these have been

disappointed, for it must be confessed that, in the _dénouement_ of the

novel, others who totally differed from them in purpose and opinion have

been brought to some confusion.

It is not as a moralist that we have primarily to find fault with Mr.

Reade, but as an artist, for his moral would have been good if his art

had been true. The work, up to the conclusion of Catharine Gaunt's

trial, is in all respects too fine and high to provoke any reproach from

us; after that, we can only admire it as a piece of literary gallantry

and desperate resolution. "C'est magnifique; mais ce n'est pas la

guerre." It is courageous, but it is not art. It is because of the

splendid _elan_ in all Mr. Reade writes, that in his failure he does not

fall flat upon the compassion of his reader, as Mr. Dickens does with

his "Golden Dustman." But it is a failure, nevertheless; and it must

become a serious question in æsthetics how far the spellbound reader may

be tortured with an interest which the power awakening it is not

adequate to gratify. Is it generous, is it just in a novelist, to lift

us up to a pitch of tragic frenzy, and then drop us down into the last

scene of a comic opera? We refuse to be comforted by the fact that the

novelist does not, perhaps, consciously mock our expectation.

Let us take the moral of "Griffith Gaunt,"--so poignant and effective

for the most part,--and see how lamentably it suffers from the defective

art of the _dénouement_. In brief: up to the end of Mrs. Gaunt's trial

we are presented with a terrible image of the evils that jealousy,

anger, and lies bring upon their guilty and innocent victims. Griffith

Gaunt is made to suffer--as men in life suffer--a dreadful remorse and

anguish for the crimes he has committed and the falsehoods to which they

have committed him. A man with a heart at first tender and true becomes

a son of perdition, utterly incapable of tenderness and

truth,--consciously held away from them by ever-cumulative force. The

spectacle is not new,--it is old as sin itself; but it is here revealed

with the freshest and most authentic power, and with a repelling

efficacy which we have seldom seen equalled in literature. Mrs. Gaunt

justly endures the trouble brought upon her by pride and unbridled bad

temper, and unavoidably endures the consequences of another's wrong.

Mercy Vint is a guiltless and lovely sacrifice to both almost equally.

What is the end? Mercy Vint is given in marriage to the honestest and

faithfulest gentleman in the book, whose heroism we admire without

envying. But in any case so good a woman would have achieved peace for

herself, and it is at some cost to our regard for her entirety that we

consent to see her rewarded by being made a nobleman's wife and the

mother of nine children. In this character she lives a life less perfect

and consequent than she might have led in a station less exalted, but

distant from the circles in which she could not appear at the same time

with the man who had infamously wronged her without exciting whispers

painful to herself and embarrassing to her husband. Indeed, there seems

to be rather more of vicarious expiation in her fate than the interests

of population and of "young women who have been betrayed" have any right

to demand.

Mrs. Gaunt fully expiates her error before her trial ends. But how of

her husband? Mr. Reade seems to like his Griffith Gaunt, who is not to

our mind, and who is never less worthy of happiness than at the moment

when his wife forgives him. It is not that he is a bigamist and betrayer

of innocence that his redemption seems impossible through the means

employed; but how can Catharine Gaunt love a coward and sneak, even in

the wisdom which a court of justice has taught her? This furious and

stupid traitor is afraid to appear and save his wife lest he be branded

in the hand; and we are to pardon him because, at no risk to himself, he

gives the worthless blood of his veins to rescue her from death. If the

fable teaches anything in Griffith Gaunt's case, it is this: Betray two

noble women, and after some difficulty you shall get rid of one, be

forgiven by the other, come into a handsome property, and have a large

and interesting family. If the reader will take the fate of Griffith

Gaunt and contrast it with that of Tito Melema, in "Romola," he shall

see all the difference that passes between an artificial and an artistic

solution of a moral problem.

Defective art is noticeable in the minor as well as the principal

features of the _dénouement_ of Griffith Gaunt. There is the case of the

unhappy little baby of Mercy. It is plain that the infant is a

stumbling-block in its mother's path to Neville Cross; but we have

scarcely begun to lament its presence, when it is swiftly put to death

by a special despatch from the obliging destiny of the _dénouement_. The

event is a coincidence, to say the least, and is scarcely less an

operation than the transfusion of blood by which Griffith Gaunt and his

wife are preserved to a long life of happiness. But this part of the

work is full of wonders. The cruel enchantments are all dissolved by

more potent preternatural agencies, and a superhuman prosperity dwells

alike with the just and the unjust,--Mrs. Ryder excepted, who will

probably go to the Devil as some slight compensation for the loss of

Griffith Gaunt.

But if the conclusion of the fiction is weak, how great it is in every

other part! The management of the plot was so masterly, that the story

proceeded without a pause or an improbability until the long fast of a

month falling between the feasts of its publication became almost

insupportable. It was a plot that grew naturally out of the characters,

for humanity is prolific of events, and these characters are all human

beings. They are not in the least anachronistic. They act and speak a

great deal in the coarse fashion of the good old times. Griffith Gaunt

is half tipsy when Kate plights her troth to him; and he is drunk upon

an occasion not less solemn and interesting. They are of an age that was

very gallant and brutal, that wore gold-lace upon its coat, and ever so

much profanity upon its speech; and Mr. Reade has treated them with

undeniable frankness and sincerity. Mercy Vint alone seems to belong to

a better time; but then goodness and purity are the contemporaries of

every generation, and, besides, Mercy Vint's puritan character is an

exceptional phase of the life of the time. It is admirable to see in

this fiction, as we often see in the world, how wise and refined

religion makes an ignorant and lowly-bred person. As a retrospective

study, Griffith Gaunt cannot be placed below Henry Esmond. As a study of

passions and principles that do not change with civilizations, it is

even more excellent. Griffith Gaunt himself is the most perfect figure

in the book, because the plot does not at any period interfere with his

growth. We start with a knowledge of the frankness and generosity native

to a somewhat coarse texture of mind, and we readily perceive why a

nature so prone to love and wrath should fall a helpless prey to

jealousy, which is a thing altogether different from the suspicion of

ungenerous spirits. It is jealousy which drives Griffith to deceive

Mercy Vint, for even his desolation and his need of her consoling care

cannot bring him to it, and it is only when his triumphing rival appears

that this frank and kindly soul consents to enact a cruel lie. The crime

committed, there is no longer virtue or courage in the man, and we see

without surprise his cowardly reluctance to do the one brave and noble

thing possible to him, lest he be arrested for bigamy. The letter, so

weak and so boisterous, which he gives Mercy Vint to prove him alive

before the court, is in keeping with the development of his character;

and it is not unnatural that he should think the literal gift of his

blood to his wife a sort of compensation and penance for his sins

against her. The wonder is that the author should fall into the same

error, as he seems to do.

The character of Kate Gaunt is treated in the _dénouement_ with a

violence which almost destroys its identity, but throughout the whole

previous progress of the story it is a most artistic and consistent

creation. From the beautiful girl, so virginal and dreamy and insecure

of her destiny in the world, with her high aspirations and her high

temper, there is a certain lapse to the handsome matron united with a

man beneath her in mind and spirit, and assured of the commonplace fact

that in her love and duty to him is her happiness; but as Love must

often mate men and women unequally, it is perfectly natural that Love in

her case should strive to keep his eyes shut when no longer blind. Great

exigencies afterwards develop her character, and it gains in dignity and

beauty from her misfortunes, and we do not again think compassionately

of her till she is reunited with Griffith. In spite of all her faults,

she is wonderfully charming. The reader himself falls in love with her,

and perhaps a subtile sense of jealousy and personal loss mingles with

his dissatisfaction in seeing her given up again to her unworthy

husband. She should have been left a lovely and stately widow, to whom

we could all have paid our court, without suffering too poignantly when

Sir George Neville finally won her.

_Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie._ By HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. With

Illustrations by F.O.C. Darley. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

_Maud Muller._ By JOHN G. WHITTIER. With Illustrations by W.J.

Hennessy. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

_The Vision of Sir Launfal._ By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. With

Illustrations by S. Eytinge, Jr. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

_Flower-de-Luce._ By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. With

Illustrations. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

Of these volumes three have long since taken their place in the letters

of America, and in the hearts of all who know and love the purest, the

truest, and the best that poesy can offer. To them in their secure

position will now be added "Flower-de-Luce,"--Mr. Longfellow's latest

volume,--which, containing indeed for the most part only such lyrics as

he has already contributed for desultory publication, is yet rich with

the fruit of the deep insight, wise thought, earnest feeling, and ripe

scholarship of his full maturity.

But it is not our purpose to pause in criticism over works that may

fairly be said to have passed beyond the province of contemporary

criticism. Rather is it our desire to welcome them as they are tendered

to us in a new form, and to commend the artistic character of their

presentation. For these books indicate that out of the many attempts

which have been made in this country--some of them most creditable, too,

and nearly approaching thorough excellence--to produce illustrative and

mechanical effects equal to those of England and continental Europe,

there has at last come an absolute accomplishment, from which we hope

and are ready to believe there will be no recession.

One book of great beauty would hardly raise our faith so far. It might

be the result of a fortunate combination of propitious circumstances, an

accident of which the best intent in the world could not cause a

deliberate repetition,--for chance can work well as easily as ill, may

make a plan as simply as mar it, and none need be told how often the

best-devised schemes "gang a-gley" by reason of some fortuity for which

no allowance had been made.

But when from the same press there emanate in a single season several

books, prepared at different times by different hands, although, of

course, under the same general direction and supervision, the natural

inference is, that something positive has been attained, either in the

principle of manufacture, or in a better understanding of the elements

which must enter into the composition of a really elegant book, and a

juster estimate of the manner in which these elements are to be

combined.

In the four books under consideration, all the necessary conditions

appear to have been recognized and fulfilled. It is, of course, too much

to say that they are perfect, and many who are versed in the particulars

of lineal art will perhaps find things which they might wish otherwise.

But with all such qualification, these volumes show indisputably that in

the matter of illustration and typography the New World is now quite the

equal of the Old.

The artists engaged--to whose names, as mentioned above, should be added

those of H. Fenn, G. Perkins, S. Colman, Jr., and W. Waud, as

illustrators of "Flower-de-Luce"--are all men well known, and most of

them are eminent in their profession. Each has had a subject which

suited closely his capacity and taste, together, evidently, with the

liberty of treating his theme according to his own discretion, and as

amply as he pleased,--the brief poem, "Maud Muller," for instance,

having been supplied by Mr. Hennessy with thirteen illustrations, while

in the other volumes equal liberality is manifest.

We have not the space to make, as we should like to do, an exact

analysis of these volumes, comparing each artist's series of drawings,

one by one, with his chosen passages of the text; but a careful

examination convinces us that as a whole these designs are remarkably

appreciative and apt. Every person will not expect his own ideal

Evangeline or Sir Launfal to appear before him on the page, but every

reflective mind will find, we think, such a parallelism between poetry

and picture as is not only consistent with exactness, but will further

serve to illuminate and beautify the text.

Intelligent or even inspired drawing is vain, if to it be not added

faithfulness and fervor on the part of those whose handiwork follows

that of the draughtsman, and upon whom his fate and fame greatly

depend,--the engraver and the printer. Heretofore it has seemed almost

impossible for American representatives of these three arts to work

together for good. The drawing might be faultless as it lay intact upon

the wood, but the graver in a heedless hand or the manipulation of an

injudicious pressman left little except the broad, indestructible

characteristics in the impression which was eventually made public.

At last, let us be thankful, a new era has dawned, and we have here

woodcuts which may confidently invite comparison with any as examples of

the highest excellence which has yet been reached in this department.

The thorough and intelligent workmanship of the University Press has

preserved to us every line and shade which was intrusted to its care,

and the prints are free alike from _fade_ indistinctness and from

ruinous weight of color. The engraving which is so admirably represented

is thoroughly good, and, to our thinking, it is of a better school than

that which largely obtains in England at this time, and the degeneracy

and slovenliness of which have been of late so much criticised and

deplored by the best judges. The most of the designs have been engraved

by Mr. A.V.S. Anthony, who ranks probably at the head of American

engravers, and whose delicacy of feeling and touch, beautifully

exemplified in the eighth and twelfth pictures of "Maud Muller," entitle

much of his work to an estimation not far below that accorded to Linton

or Thompson. The few remaining blocks were cut by Mr. J.P. Davis and Mr.

Henry Marsh, who emulate most praiseworthily the excellence, skill, and

fidelity of Mr. Anthony.

_An American Family in Germany._ By J. ROSS BROWNE. New York:

Harper & Brothers.

If the author of this amusing book had been less devoted to his purpose

of making fun, we think he could have made us a picture of German life

which we should have been very glad to have in the absence of much

honest information on the subject and the presence of a great deal of

flimsy idealizing. As it is, we fear that his work, for the most part a

truthful portraiture, will present itself only as a caricature to those

unacquainted with the original, and that, for all Mr. Browne says to the

contrary, many worthy people must go on thinking German life a romantic,

Christmas-tree affair, full of pretty amenity, and tender ballads, and

bon-bons. But some day, the truth will avenge itself, and without the

least air of burlesque show us that often narrow and sordid existence,

abounding in sensual appetites, coarse or childish pleasures, and paltry

aims, and varnished with a weak and extravagant sentimentality,--that

social order still so feudally aristocratic and feudally plebeian, in

which the poor are little better than vassals, and their women toil in

the fields like beasts of burden, and the women of all classes are

treated with rude and clumsy disesteem.

Mr. Browne's book is devotedly funny, as we hinted, but, in spite of

this, is really very amusing. A Californian, rich from the _subiti

guadagni_ of his shares in the Washoe mines, is carried to Frankfort by

his enthusiastic wife, who is persuaded that Germany is the proper place

to bring up American children. They live there in the German

fashion,--Mrs. Butterfield charmed and emulous of German civilization,

Mr. Butterfield willing, but incorrigibly Californian to the last, and

retaining throughout that amazing local pride in the institutions,

productions, and scenery of his adopted State which Americans so swiftly

acquire in drifting from one section of the Union to another. The

invention of this family is not the least truthful thing in the book,

which in many respects is full of droll good-sense and good humor.

_Charles Lamb. A Memoir._ By BARRY CORNWALL. Boston: Roberts

Brothers.

It is not to any very definable cause that this charming book owes the

interest with which it holds the reader throughout. It can scarcely be

said to present the life or character of Lamb in a novel aspect, and

even the anecdotic material in which it abounds does not appear

altogether fresh. The very manner in which the subject is treated is

that to which we are accustomed: for who has ever been able to write of

Charles Lamb but in a tone of tender and compassionate admiration?

Something, however, better than novelty of matter or method appears in

this Memoir, and makes it the best ever written concerning the fine

poet, exquisite humorist, and noble man, who it brings nearer than ever

to our hearts. Much was to be expected of Mr. Proctor in such a work,

though much would have been forgiven him if he had indulged himself far

more than he has done in an old man's privilege to be garrulous upon old

times and old friends, and had confined himself less strictly to the

life and character illustrative of Lamb's. As it is, there is nothing

concerning any of Lamb's contemporaries that we would willingly lose

from this book. In these sketches of the humorist's friends the subtile

and delightful touches bring out his own nature more clearly, and he

appears in the people who surrounded him hardly less than in his essays

or the events of his career; while Mr. Proctor's long acquaintance with

Lamb becomes the setting to a more careful picture than we have yet had

of his singularly great and unselfish life; and we behold, not a study

of the man in this or that mood only, but a portrait in which his whole

character is seen. The sweetest and gentlest of hosts, moving among his

guests and charming all hearers with his stammered, inimitable

pleasantry; the clerk at his desk at the India House, and finally

released from it into a life of illimitable leisure; the quaint little

scholar of Christ's Hospital; the quaint old humorist taking his long

walks about his beloved London; the author, known and endeared by his

books; the careworn and devoted man, hurrying through the streets with

his maniac sister on his arm, to place her in the shelter of a

mad-house,--it is not some one of these alone, but all of these

together, that we remember, after the perusal of this Memoir, so

graceful in manner, so simple in style, and so thoroughly beautiful and

unaffected in spirit. There is no story from which the reader can turn

with a higher sense of another's greatness and goodness, or an humbler

sense of his own.

_Character and Characteristic Men._ By EDWIN P. WHIFFLE.

Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

If we should say this is a book that brings its author under its title,

and that he is in every page of it to the unconscious subject of his own

pen, we might sufficiently express our sense of its reality and vital

strength. But no self-introduction could be more modest or undesigned.

We know of no volume in which vigor walks with less attendance of

vanity, or less motion of covert egotism in the stalwart stride; yet the

_style_, which proverbially is the _man_, does not lack decisive stamp,

but is too peculiar to be confounded with any other. It is not flaming,

or flowing, or architectural. It is not built, but wrought, with blows

of the hammer. We should emphasize the writer's historic taste, but that

his learning is so at the service of his philosophy that it never

burdens, but only arms. There is a tough welding of principle with fact,

and fetching of opposite poles together in the constant circulation

betwixt ideas and events. Sometimes an excess of antithesis shows a

little too much the wrinkled brow of thought, striving to put more into

a sentence than it will fairly carry, and corrugating the elsewhere

smoother lines,--as in a hilly country there was said to be too much

soil to be evenly disposed of, and so part of it had to be pushed up

into the sky. But this roughness is better than thinness; and in Mr.

Whipple's book there are passages of swift, grand eloquence, and of

intense peace and depth. Wit and humor, native to our author, with no

malignity or pride for an ally, combine with sentiment and reflection,

and his talent is never wrapped up in a merely elegant phrase, but in

plain and homely words is the delivery of his sense. We would cite, in

proof of the justness of our criticism, such essays as those on

"Character," "Intellectual Character," and "Washington and the

Principles of the Revolution." Those on Thackeray and Nathaniel

Hawthorne show, with appreciative praise, the literary doctor's fatal

feeling of the patient's pulse. The courtesy of Everett is gracefully

owned; and there is a fine glimpse of that face of Thomas Starr King,

which did not seem so much to mirror the sun as to make the sunbeam a

shadow of itself; while a just tribute is paid to the original and

courageous genius and research of our great enthusiast and naturalist,

Agassiz. But this is a book to be mastered only by a thorough perusal,

and no hasty diagonal glance along the leaves can render justice to it.

While deserving attention for its general merits of intelligence,

morality, humanity, and a spiritual faith, which no eye of friendship is

needed to discern, in the judiciary department of letters it has an

unrivalled claim. For faculty of pure criticism we know not Mr.

Whipple's equal. The judgment-seat shines in his eye. We seem to be

hearing all the time the kindly sentence of an infallible sight. We

should be afraid of the decree which such knowledge, intuition,

imagination, and logic combine to pronounce, but that no grudge

provokes, or bribe can ever bias the court; and, while its just

conscience cannot acquit hollow pretensions, over its own decisions

preside an absolute purity and the loftiest ideal of human life.