Both had attained to an acmé of hauteur, at once insupportable and ridiculous, on account of their achievements in arms. But the grounds of this insolent bearing were not equal. Austria had for a long period been distinguished for her warlike propensities and illustrious deeds. She had met the Turks in a hundred battles, and, aided by Poland, had been the bulwark of Christendom against the Moslems. She had often measured her strength with the Gallic race, and not without success. She had, therefore, something like an ancient greatness in military affairs, and her renown was world-wide extended.

As to Prussia, she was a parvenu among the great powers, not having, in fact, completed a century of national existence.* She had been singularly fortunate in the main, in her rulers; no royal house in Europe having, from the first, produced more great men than that of Brandenburg. But Prussia is, for the most part, a poor country, and originally its extent was very limited. Its position, too, is one of essential and innate weakness. But Frederick the Great, whose equal in military talent has seldom been seen, either in ancient or modern times, had raised her up from the condition of a third or fourth-rate power, to a place in the very first rank. In his Seven Years' War, he resisted, successfully, Russia, Austria, France, Poland and Sweden, together with several of the smaller powers of Germany. Indeed, at

* The national existence of Prussia dates from January, 1701, when Frederick III., Duke of Brandenburg, assumed the title of King of Prussia, and the name of Frederick I. of that kingdom.

one time, it seemed as if he should be com pelled to stand against all continental Eu rope.

And what a spectacle did he pre sent! At one moment, we see him beating the Russians on the Oder, and driving them back towards Poland; anon he is fighting the Austrians amid the mountains of Silesia, or attacking and battering down the battlements of Prague! At one while, all seems to be lost! The enemy takes possession of his blazing capital, whilst he flies with his shattered legions to the banks of the Elbe. But soon victory perches again on his standards, and "Old Fritz" is in possession of his sandy, pineproducing realm. Nothing could daunt him. He might be beaten, but conquered, never. His mind was as active as his body, and his right hand wielded the goosequill as readily as the sword. For him to write two hundred verses on the eve of a great battle, was almost an ordinary night's work!

That such a consummate general, the monarch of the nation, should be surrounded with able commanders, is no way astonishing. Himself sharing in all the fatigues aud exposures of the camp-with as much patience drilling a company of grenadiers, on foot, in the midst of a drenching rain, as he marshalled a hundred regiments on a Champ de Mars-it was inevitable that his spirit should be imparted to the officers around him, be they princes of the blood, nobles of high birth, or plebeians from the lowest ranks. The same enthusiasm pervaded the non-commissioned officers and common soldiers. And at his death he left Prussia the most distinguished nation in Europe for military prowess. He left, too, an able corps of great commanders, whom his own genius and example had trained And Prussian tactics were adopted, as the French are now, by all the civilized world, and the plans of her cam

up.

At the commencement, Prussia was a very small kingdom. Even when Frederick II. (commonly called Frederick the Great) ascended the throne in 1740, Prussia was not larger in extent than the State of Pennsylvania, and its population was about three millions! He left it greatly enlarged and quite powerful. At present, Prussia exceeds 120,000 square miles, and has about fifteen millions of inhabitants. Its disjointed state, as well as its natural position, is a great obstacle in the way of its being a very strong country. For its defence it must emphatically depend, under God, on the wisdom and valor of its inhabitants,

In the year 1786, died Frederick the Great, and with him the military glory of Prussia went down to the tomb, and remained there for a quarter of a century. Frederick William II. succeeded to the throne of his illustrious uncle, and ingloriously reigned till the year 1797. Neither the nation nor the world had very elevated

It augured anything else than greatness,that "Old Fritz" had driven him in his younger years from the army, telling him to go home and take care of his children! And most certainly and amply did his life and actions establish the correctness of the great warrior's opinion. The best thing that can be said of his reign is, that it was one of peace. But it was one of wasteful extravagance and mal-administration. A large army was maintained in idleness, corrupting, by its relaxed discipline and dissolute manners, the moral atmosphere, far and wide, wherever any portion of it was stationed. Nothing could exceed the pride and audaciousness of the officers, especially those of the lower grades. Every one thought himself the heir of all the military capacity and glory of the "Great Frederick." He who had served with the renowned Captain, in whatever rank, deemed himself invincible! And when, in the early part of the French Revolution, the Prussian troops met with some pretty serious defeats (though they gained some victories) on the Rhine, their disasters seem not to have opened their eyes to the possibility, either that they had lost of the prowess which they had acquired under Frederick the Great, or that their enemies had made any advances upon the tactics and the discipline of a by-gone generation. Nothing of the sort seems to have entered their heads.

any

They heard, indeed, with some degree of astonishment, of the victories of the French in Flanders, on the Rhine, under their Republican generals, Dumouriez, Jourdan, Bernadotte, Moreau, and others, and especially those of Napoleon in the north of Italy. But they attributed them to the inferiority of their antagonists. Even the victories of Marengo and of Austerlitz, at later epochs, scarcely agitated their selfcomplacency, or made them believe it possible that similar reverses might await them in their turn. "They have beaten the Austrians, but they have not met the Prussians!" "Let Prussia," said they, "but once enter the lists with France, and the superiority of her high-born officers, of the school of Frederick the Great, over the French bourgeois troops, will soon appear."

Nothing could exceed the arrogance of the Prussian officers, save their contempt for the French. And yet, to the eye of

couraging. The officers who had served under the great Frederick, were mostly old and infirm men: some were afflicted with the gout, and others were unfit for service from other causes. Among the younger officers, infidelity and immorality extensively prevailed, as, alas! too generally in the nation at large. The common soldiers were ignorant, and treated too much like machines, or like beasts. There was no morale among either officers or men. Among the former the prestige of the great Frederick and his victories, was almost the only stimulus that was effective to wake up their courage. Among the latter, there was little enthusiasm in behalf of any cause. A blind, unreasoning obedience was all that was expected of either officers or soldiers. Count Henkel says, in his 'Memoirs," that when Frederick William II. died, the colonel of the regiment to which he belonged assembled his men, and made them this remarkable speech :

"His Majesty Frederick William II. has been pleased to die. We have therefore to swear allegiance to a new king. What his name will be, whether Frederick William, or Frederick, we cannot exactly tell; but that does

not signify. Herr Gerichtschreiber, read the oath aloud."

prepar

In the year 1797, Frederick William III. ascended a throne environed by many trials. Napoleon was conquering everything before him in the north of Italy, and ing to enact the part of another Alexander of Macedon. The King was still young. Conscious of the many difficulties which beset his path, and distrustful of his own capacity to meet the storm, which he soon saw was approaching, he was disposed to act with a caution that bordered on timidity. But he was surrounded by rash counsellors, who clamored for war with France. War with France was more and more earnestly demanded by a large party every year. At the head of this party was the King's cousin, Louis Ferdinand, a man of great influence among the younger officers, and of vast popularity with the people.

At length, after years of very complex, and it must be confessed, of very doubtful diplomatic manoeuvring, in which her character for wisdom, not to say justice,

excellent King shared deeply in this conviction. A happy reaction took place; the plague of infidelity and irreligion was stayed; and a regenerating process commenced, affecting alike the court, the army and the nation. A deep sense of disgrace, combined with the indignation which injustice and oppression engendered, inflamed every heart, from the monarch on the throne, to the humblest peasant. The smothered fires gained strength year by year, until, when the proper time had come-the fatal year, to Napoleon, of 1813 -it burst forth like a volcano, and overwhelming the French, drove them out of Germany.

To say that Prussia lost everything at Jena, would be to utter what all the world has said these forty years past. To say that that defeat saved her, (by leading her in what was probably the only practicable way of regeneration,) is a paradox in which there is a pregnant meaning. Another paradox has also been uttered respecting that same disastrous battle, - namely, that Frederick the Great (by the blind and vain reliance of the Prussians on his name) was the cause of it.

Frederick William IV. was eleven years old when the battle of Jena was fought and his country ruined; and he was eighteen when the dreadful battle of Leipsic was fought, and the day of deliverance was come for down-trodden Prussia. And terribly was she avenged of her great enemy there, as well as at many other places, and among them the plains of Waterloo. Awaking from long years of oppression and anguish, she drove that enemy from her borders, nor ceased from the pursuit, until she saw him humbled in the dust. What a lesson of warning to the oppressor, and of hope to the oppressed, does her history teach!

In the month of May, 1840, died Frederick William III. at his palace in Berlin. The first half of his reign was eminently

sor Steffeus, Ernest Moritz Arndt, Johannes Gustavus Droysen, Chamisso, and Varnhagen Von Ense-the last named of which has been translated into English, by Sir Alexander Duff Gordon, and was published in London, in 2 vols. 8vo., last year. This is a work full of interesting facts. The Was ich erlebte of Professor Steffeus is even more interesting: it is quite voluminous, however, and has not been translated into English, so far as we know. Almost all these works have appeared within the last seven years.

disastrous in many respects, but the last fifteen years were peaceful, prosperous, and in the main happy. Gradually the kingdom recruited its resources and its energies; its population has steadily increased; and its proper influence in the European family of nations has been recovered. The reign of the late King, however gloomy the times during the former portion of it, secured many blessings to the people. A number of important ameliorations in the administration of its affairs were effected. It is indebted to that monarch for the existence of two of its best universities—those of Berlin and Bonn*-and for the renovation of the rest. Above all, it owes to his wisdom and fostering care, both the existence and the high degree of perfection of its admirable School System, which has secured the admiration and the imitation of all the German States, France, and several other countries.

It is true, that the nation were not well satisfied in regard to several subjects. In the first place, the King had promised, in 1815, to give his people a Constitution adapted to the demands of the age. Instead of this, he only restored provincial assemblies to those of the eight provinces of the realm which formerly had them, and created them in those which never had them. That these provincial assemblies, which are entirely consultative bodies, have been of use in directing the government, and in preparing the way for a constitutional government for the entire kingdom, cannot be denied; but they were far from fulfilling the expectations excited by the royal promise.

In the next place, the government sympathized entirely too much with Austria and Russia, in their abhorrence of everything like political agitation. In consequence of this, many young men of the universities, as well as other suspected persons, were made to undergo severe punishments in the shape of imprisonment, fines, banishment, &c., which were alike excessive, unjust, and impolitic.

Again, the army was kept on a footing entirely too large for a nation not abounding in wealth, and having scarcely 14,000,000

*The University of Berlin was founded in 1809; that of Bonn in 1818.

of the nation were very heavy.

Carried away by the desire of uniting the Lutheran and Reformed, or Calvinistic, Churches of his realm, in one "Evangelical Church," as it was called, he allowed measures to be employed to coerce the reluctant and the conscientiously opposed, which led to a grievous persecution, especially in Silesia.*

But whatever were the disappointments and grievances of the Prussians, they bore them patiently; for they entertained a heartfelt respect for Frederick William III. The belief was universal, that he was an honest and good man, who loved his people, and sincerely aimed at promoting his country's welfare. In that extreme simplicity of heart, for which the Germans are distinguished, the masses were ever ready to put the best construction on everything. When they heard of an instance of injustice on the part of the government officers, the common remark, especially among the peasants was, we are told, "Well, our good old Frederick knows nothing of this." They had sympathized with him, and he with them, in the great calamities which befell the nation, and which fell upon all-King as well as people;-and though they may never have esteemed him a great and capable prince, they believed him to be, what he eminently was, a good man.t

Judging from the well-known character of Frederick William III., we should come to the conclusion, that his ministers and other men of influence about him, were often much more to blaine than he, in regard to many of the unjust things done under his government. We are quite sure that some of these men greatly abused the influence which they had with him. In particular, we believe that the cruel persecution of the Lutherans in Silesia, who could not be induced to come into the Union of the Churches on the royal basis, was greatly owing to false representations and bad counsel given him by his favorite chaplain, or court-preacher, Dr. Strauss-not to be confounded with the heresiarch of the same name. It is well known that Dr. S. was a vile flatterer of his late majesty, and a great enemy to all dissent. He is still alive. We hope the present King will be on his guard against him.

+Frederick William III. was a man of great purity of life, which is the more remarkable, inasmuch as he grew up in the midst of a court which was very dissolute, and among a people amid whom the foundations of virtue had been widely and deeply undermined by the principles of the Voltairian philosophy-which is only a euphonious and polite name for Infidelity. He loved his beautiful Queen, Louisa, (a princess of Mecklenburg Strelitz,) whom he married in 1793, and who died of

The youth and early manhood of this monarch, as has been seen, were passed amid scenes of painfully surpassing interest. At a very early age, he, with two of his younger brothers, William and Frederick, entered the military service of the country, and was present in several severe battles, and displayed great enthusiasm and courage in behalf of its prostrated interests and its bleeding honor. The great battle of Leipsic, in the autumn of 1813, may be said to have terminated the domination of the French in the north of Germany, for the fortresses remaining in their hands were surrendered a few weeks later, But it was not until the battle of Waterloo had occurred, that the drama of the first Revolution of France terminated, and Germany and the world were forever delivered from the ambition and the arms of Napoleon. At this epoch Frederick William IV. was well advanced in his 20th year, and although he then felt that he might put off his arms-the exigency which had required their assumption having passed away-yet the spirit which the times had created has not even yet ceased to manifest itself in fondness for military display and the maintenance of a large military establishment, which makes a very heavy draft annually on the treasury of the nation.

From 1815 to 1840 Frederick William enjoyed a long period of comparative leisure for the improvement of his mind and the enjoyment of domestic happiness, which it has been his good fortune to share to an extent which rarely falls to the lot of a prince, especially of one who is

grief for the losses of her country in 1810. She bore him four sons and three daughters, all of whom, we believe, still live. In the charming forest in the rear of the palace of Charlottenburg, some four miles distant from Berlin, he erected a small but appropriate mausoleum for her remains. On her tomb lies the exquisite statue which the sculptor Rauch made of purest marble. Nothing can exceed the sweet dignity of the countenance, and great propriety of drapery, which the artist has compelled the marble to express. The King was in the habit, when staying at Charlottenburg-which was often-of visiting this tomb daily, and was ever observed to come out wiping the tears from his eyes."

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