in Mexico, Berryer exclaimed, "You are leading an archduke from Austria to Mexico: what fate are you reserving for this child of your victories, — bankruptcy, or death?" On the withdrawal of the French troops, the Emperor Maximilian was shot, June 19, 1867.

THOMAS BETTERTON.

[An English dramatist, and one of the most popular actors of his time; born in Westminster, 1635; excelled in the rôles of Othello, Macbeth, and Hamlet, and was commended by Addison, Pope, and Dryden; died 1710.]

Actors speak of things imaginary as if they were real, while you preachers too often speak of things real as if they were imaginary.

When asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury why actors. were more successful in impressing their auditors than preach

ers.

BIAS.

[One of the Seven Wise Men of Greece; a native of Priene, in Ionia; flourished about 550 B.C.]

I carry all my effects with me (Omnia mea mecum porto).

Cicero, "Paradoxa,” I., 1, quotes the words, "Omnia mecum porto mea;" Valerius Maximus, "Ego vero bona mea mecum porto." Seneca and Plutarch have similar expressions, attributed by the former to the Greek philosopher Stilpo, the teacher of Zeno. Phædrus ascribes the remark to Simonides. The reply of Bias, during the siege of Priene, was given to those who were surprised to see him making no preparations for flight; and referred to his wisdom, his sole possession.

Mlle. Fanny Bias, an opera-singer, replied to a friend who remarked that she was leaving Paris for a journey with but small baggage, by pointing to her figure and face, saying, "Do you not see, that, like my illustrious ancestor, omnia mea mecum porto?"-LAROUSSE: Fleurs Historiques.

Take by persuasion, not by force.

So order your affairs as if you were to live long, or die soon.

He reproved some sailors who were calling upon the gods in a storm by saying, "Be quiet, lest the gods discover you are here."

MARQUIS DE BIÈVRE.

[A French littérateur and wit, born 1747; published several dramas, and the "Almanac of Puns;" died 1789.]

Your majesty is not a subject (Votre majesté n'est pas un sujet).

To Louis XVI., who said to him, "You, who make puns on everybody, make one on me."

When told that the Abbé Maury had distanced him in a contest for a seat in the French Academy, he replied,

"Omnia vincit Amor, et nos cedamus amori" (à Maury).

DUC DE LAUZUN DE BIRON.

VIRGIL, Eclogues, X., 69.

[A French general, born 1747; fought in America; general-in-chief of the army of the Rhine, 1793; insisting upon resigning his command, he was executed Dec. 31, 1793.]

I beg a thousand pardons, my friend, but permit me to finish this last dozen of oysters (vous me permettrez bien encore une douzaine d'huîtres).

To the executioner's messenger, who surprised him at a breakfast of oysters and white wine, and said he was at the duke's orders; to which the latter rejoined, “No, morbleu, 'tis just the other way: I am at yours!"

His execution occurring on the last day of the year in the old calendar enabled him to say, "I shall arrive in the other world in time to wish my friends a happy new year."

His last words were, "I have been false to my God, to my order, and to my king: I die full of faith and of repentance" (J'ai été infidèle à mon Dieu, à mon ordre, et à mon roi: je meurs plein de foi et de repentir).

PRINCE VON BISMARCK.

[Carl Otto, Prince von Bismarck- Schönhausen, a distinguished Prussian statesman; born at Brandenburg, 1813; member of the Diet, 1847; ambassador to St. Petersburg, 1859; to Paris, 1862; prime minister in that year; chancellor of the North-German Confederation, 1867; of the German Empire, 1871.]

Blood and iron.

In a letter from St. Petersburg to Baron von Schleinitz, the Prussian minister of foreign affairs, May 12, 1859, Bismarck wrote, "I see in our relations with the Bund [the old German Confederation, at the head of which stood Austria] a fault of Prussia's, which we must cure sooner or later ferro et igne" (Ich sehe in unserm Bundesverhältnisse ein Gebrechen Preussens, welches wir früher oder später "ferro et igne" werden heilen müssen). This letter only saw the light in 1866, when Prussia applied the cure to her Bund-relation ferro et igne. He had already made a public use of the words in a speech before the Budget Commission of the Prussian House of Delegates, Sept. 30, 1862: "It is desirable and necessary that the condition of affairs in Germany and of her constitutional relations should be improved; but it cannot be accomplished by speeches and resolutions of a majority, but only by iron and blood" (Die deutschen Zustände und Verfassungsverhältnisse zu verbessern ist wünschenswerth und nothwendig, was jedoch nicht durch Majoritätsbeschlüsse, Reden, u. s. w., sondern nur durch Eisen und Blut bewirkt werden kann). There was, however, nothing original in the expression. Quintilian speaks of slaughter as meaning blood and iron (cædes videtur significare sanguinem et ferrum). - Declamationes. Arndt, the soul-stirrer of the "War of Liberation," had introduced the words to a German audience,—

"Zwar der Tapfere nennt sich Herr der Länder

Durch sein Eisen, durch sein Blut."

Lehre an den Menschen: 5.

Schenkendorf, in "Das Eiserne Kreuz," declared that only iron and blood could save his countrymen; and Heine, in manuscript memoranda found after his death, anticipated the "healing" as well as the "blood and iron" in Bismarck's letter to von Schleinitz; for he said that "Napoleon healed through fire and iron the sick nation."

Somewhat similar was Bismarck's remark, expressive of his dislike of political speeches, concerning the popular indignation excited by Manteuffel's arrangement with Austria during an insurrection of the people of Hesse-Cassel against the government in 1850, "Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches," (Lieber Spitzkugeln als Spitzreden).

He used a striking equivalent for cannon-balls, when speaking in Parliament at another time of the insufficiency of debates: "The decision will come only from God, from the God of battles, when he lets fall from his hand the iron dice of destiny."

Bismarck denied on four different occasions, from 1866 to 1875, the use of the expression "Might before Right" (Macht geht vor Recht), which was imputed to him in the House of Deputies in 1863.

In the same debate in which he used the words "iron and blood," he said, "We have too many critics of government, too many parliamentary candidates, too many Catilinarian existences" (zu viele catilinarische Existenzen): this latter phrase had already been employed as the title of a romance by Theodore König (Breslau, 1854, " A Catilinarian Existence"), being meant in both cases to express an existence supported by conspiracy.

The definition of a newspaper-writer, that he is "a man who has failed in his career," although not given in that form by Bismarck, is derived from a remark of his to a deputation from Rügen to the king, Nov. 10, 1862; to the members of which he said a few days previously, "An amicable relation between the government and the House of Deputies is rendered impossible by the opposition press, which is in the hands of malecontents who have failed in their career." With this may be compared Disraeli's well-known observation in "Lothair," that "a critic is a man who has failed in literature and the arts."

Only one other saying belongs to this period of Bismarck's life, but that is the earliest in point of time: it is significant of his own "Junker" politics, and may have recommended him at the outset of his career to the favor of a prince who was to claim during a long reign the authority of divine right. Bismarck declared in the Prussian Parliament in 1847, that "the Prussian sovereigns are in possession of a crown, not by the grace of the people, but by God's grace."

A great unrecognized Incapacity.

While minister to Paris for a short time in 1862, he studied the men with whom he was afterwards to deal, and mystified the official world by his undiplomatic frankness. He easily read the character of Napoleon III., whose silence had imposed upon the French people, and of whom the English ambassador, Lord Cowley, had said, "He never speaks, and always lies " (Il ne parle jamais, et il ment toujours). Events were to prove the justice of Bismarck's verdict, "He is a great unrecognized Incapacity" (une grande incapacité inconnue). It was more accurate than the judgment which the Prussian's apparent levity caused the emperor to pass upon him, "He is not a serious man" (Ce n'est pas un homme sérieux); a judgment "of which," said Bismarck, "I naturally did not remind him at the weaver's of Donchery," where, after the battle of Sedan, the emperor surrendered himself to the king of Prussia, and discussed with Bismarck the terms of capitulation. Thiers said later of the Prussian chancellor, "He is an amiable barbarian" (C'est un barbare aimable); and Francis Joseph of Austria, hearing him criticised after the battle of Sadowa had destroyed the hegemony of Austria in the Germanic Confederation, exclaimed, “Oh, if I had but him!"

His "Junker" politics, by which is to be understood the "high and dry" conservatism of the landed nobility, is illustrated by a remark, which he made during this time concerning constitutional government, that it was democracy in its Sunday best" (la démocratie endimanchée).

66

While in Paris, Bismarck accused Thiers of sulking with his friends and his books, instead of taking that part in public affairs, even under the Second Empire, to which his ability and previous career would entitle him. "Be minister," said the Prussian, "and we will between us re-make the map of Europe." When the map of Europe was re-made in 1871, it was not "between them," in the sense of 1862.

Even Bismarck's slightest remarks at this time were considered afterwards as prophetic. Walking one day with the emperor on the terrace of St. Germain, he saw the dome of the Invalides shining on the distant horizon. "It looks," he observed, “like a gilded Prussian helmet" (il ressemble à un casque prussien doré).