once the case, has no real taste for the profession of arms, family traditions insist upon his at least carrying out the pretensions for such. But the present King of Prussia has all the qualities of a soldier, and with him it is a real vocation that inspires the attitude. Even a FrancoSwedish alliance would have no terrors with one who could cement German unity with one hand, and pluck an English alliance with the other.

This noble military figure is at the same time characterised by much courtesy and amenity-charming gifts, for which the prince is indebted to his illustrious mother, Queen Louise. It is very fine, no doubt, to be a brave soldier and to look it, but to be a king it requires more. The military character of the present king has been much exaggerated at the expense of his political abilities. With a quick intelligence, open to conviction, and honest at the same time, the present king belongs to that class of men upon whom no teaching is lost. He has had his bad days as well as another distinguished potentate, and his times of error and trouble, to which, unfortunately for the principles which they represent, the legitimate heirs of royal races are as subject as other men, and if we revive here an allusion to the emigration into England in 1848, and the precipitate abandonment of his native soil at the crisis of a revolutionary movement, it is not to bring up a fault long ago forgotten, but to show how he could make even an error profitable to the future guarantees of Germany. The atmosphere of a free country is not always breathed with impunity. Emigrating to England by the advice of the blindest of all partisans, the brother of Frederick William IV. completed there his constitutional education, and it was the same residence that, no doubt, at a later epoch, brought about that alliance between the young son of the prince and the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria, of which Prussia has a right to show herself so proud.

We might mention another circumstance which helped with this enforced residence in England to expel the spirit of coterie from the mind of the Prince of Prussia. The violent debates that arose upon the subject of the federal constitution, of which the majority of the Assembly of Frankfort demanded the reform, must be fresh in the minds of all. The Assembly expressed the views of the majority in Germany, and nothing was wanting but that the policy of Prussia should have adapted itself to the crisis; but, despite of all efforts, the policy of the day failed. The Prince of Prussia, who had openly declared in favour of reform, was seriously annoyed at this failure, and he from that epoch turned his back on the party of the "Cross." He could not, however, openly oppose the government of his brother-that would not have been consistent with his loyalty so he confined himself to the military government of the provinces on the Rhine, till the war in the East came once more to place parties in opposition to one another. The differences that arose between the king and the Prince of Prussia were ably and actively turned to the advantage of Russia, which, seconded by the party of the "Cross," brought about the dismissal of General de Bonin, minister of war. Anywhere else but in the bosom of a family so deeply united, such an incident would have entailed unpleasant consequences. The inviolable friendship which those two noble hearts had vowed to one another from childhood resisted this trial, as it had done many before; and if the Prince

of Prussia was for a moment about to withdraw from public affairs, the king was prepared to anticipate him by naming him superior general of infantry-a dignity equivalent to that of field-marshal-which it is not customary in Prussia to grant to princes of the royal blood.

This tender and pious affection of two illustrious brothers, which no untoward events could sever, serves also to explain the painful trials which the prince had to undergo when, his brother being still living, he had, as Prince Regent, to take the reins of government in hand. To continue as such the policy of Frederick William, which he had so openly disavowed and opposed, could scarcely be consistent with his dignity as a man. On the other hand, the honesty of his conscience reproached him with the idea of bringing to the government of a great country principles which he knew to be opposed to those of the reigning king. What would Frederick William IV. think of his conduct? What would his beloved brother have said of the changes brought about, should it have happened that his mind had awakened from the stupor into which it was plunged ? The news of these changes might also be conveyed to the ears of the afflicted king under the most malevolent aspects. Mere scrupulousness, some will say. Well, let it be so. We will admit the scruples, since they are becoming so rare, that it is high time to give some credit to such things, even among those who are called upon to govern men. Besides, such motives and such impulses only belong to elevated minds, and can in no way compromise the firmness, which is one of the most remarkable qualities of the present king, as well as of the party by whom he is surrounded.

The rare beauty of the present Queen of Prussia has been much spoken of, her high intelligence, her varied and solid instruction, her passionate taste for science, letters, and arts, have been the theme of universal admiration. All these advantages are not fictitious in her. M. de Humboldt, who was a good judge, would have said that merit in this instance exceeded praise; but a further superiority, which has not been remarked upon in this amiable person, is the strength of her character, her good sense united to a quick imagination, an implacable will, with supreme art in regulating it, moderating it, and even, if necessary, disguising it. Few do so much at the same time that they appear to do so little. The law of always living apart from public affairs, which she had imposed upon herself, had its origin in other feelings besides the love of study and the pleasures of an intimate circle of society. Unpleasantness at the court of her brother-in-law there could not be for her, but her presence might have excited such. There are disappointments, associated with the existence of some people, that nothing can console them for, and which would finish by souring the heart of an angel. The wife of Frederick William IV., Queen Elizabeth, having had no children, could only see in the Princess of Prussia the happy mother of the heir to the throne. Beauty, intelligence, and youth, may be easily forgiven; but there are gifts of Providence that the noblest and purest spirit forgets itself in envying, even in a sister. So far from seeking to court favour by the advantages of her position, the Princess of Prussia, on the contrary, sought, as it were, to excuse herself from even the responsibilities; she, indeed, seldom dwelt at Berlin, but mainly at Coblentz and in the Grand-Duchy of Baden, where her virtues, her benevolence, and her exquisite tact, earned her an exceeding popularity. How many in her place would have only seen in

the occupation of the Grand-Duchy by the Prussian troops an occasion for coming forward and domineering? The Princess of Prussia under stood her duty in quite a different manner, and it was by dint of perse vering good taste, by kindnesses to the one, and graceful attentions to another, that she succeeded in making the temporary authority of her husband accepted by a country only recently conquered from the revolutionary bands, but in which it was desirable at once not to irritate the public mind or the sovereign family, to which support was given.

In spite of her rare instincts as an artist, the Queen of Prussia was born for the active field of politics. If we find in her the blood of that Charles Augustus who was the friend of Goethe, we must admit that she is, at the same time, the worthy daughter of her mother, the Dowager Grand-Duchess of Saxe Weimar, eldest sister of the Emperor Nicholas. Maria Paulowna was, indeed, the soul of the court, and of all that charming country which owes so much to her under the last reign. Schiller intoned hymns to her glory, and Goethe, whose inspiration cared not to lash the proudest, felt nothing but respect in her presence. So much goodness, mildness, and sympathy under so noble a physiognomy and so much apparent coldness, can scarcely be imagined. The Queen of Prussia exercises, as her mother did, at once a moral and intellectual ascendancy, from which her enemies have never been able to withdraw themselves at Baden any more than at Berlin.

The constitutional rise of Prussia has been laborious, uncertain, sometimes retrograde, but it is only all the more instructive on account of these very circumstances, and let us hope it will only be all the more vivacious. The Germans have been reproached with being too speculative, at one moment abstracted, at another violent; with being better pleased with the vague independence of systems than with the practical liberty of institutions; it was even against these presumed national tendencies that King William struggled with all his energies in his best days, and he perhaps went to an excess in only admitting as liberties those which he designated as "historical consequences," and rejecting the rest as dangerous theories. However that may be, the resistance was loyally obstinate without being absolute: it combated without destroying; it restrained the impulse without breaking it, or without destroying the spring. Hence a comparatively easy and rapid progress for a new ruler; hence the more noble the mission to be accomplished by the enlightened prince who has received the crown in his keeping, the affirming the constitution by leaving to it complete action and the rallying of minds by the movement of the Legislative Chambers themselves, and by the just influence which is assured by this movement to patriotism, to talent, and to political aptitude.

The old king said many years ago upon one of those solemn occasions that preceded intestine disturbances, that Prussia, strong in its compact territory and its fifteen millions of souls-Prussia, agricultural and warlike, had for the future an important part to play in Europe, and that it would never abandon that position. It must be admitted that that part may attain the highest elevation in the moral and political scale, by the free and happy action of the social guarantees of which Prussia already possesses the framework and the form. Minds are prepared for such: the first experiment has been made, the inconveniences are known and signalised, the advantages well understood and appreciated.

The doctrines of M. Ancillon would no longer find a single accredited echo in Prussia: all the opinions that are admitted determine for a monarchy acting by the Chambers and with the Chambers. It is to this dominant disposition that the wise and firm language of the Regent was mainly addressed before he assumed the responsibilities of constitutional monarchy. The result will put a memorable experiment in evidence. The penetrating and tenacious spirit, which is also one of the attributes of the German race, will, ultimately, carry the day without an obstacle over the spirit of illusion and reverie. Prussia is, on that very account, better prepared for the introduction of new practices than any other country in Germany, the men answer to the circumstances, and the most noble pledges for the future bring aid to the present. Prussia, under such auspices, appears to be destined to give two great examples to the world—the free action of liberal institutions in a monarchy, and the intelligent and real practice of those institutions, as at once upholding the stability of the throne, and ensuring the prosperity, while they maintain the dignity, of the country.

A FEUILLE VOLANTE

APROPOS OF SOME TASTES OF THE DAY.

STRAWS tell us the way of the wind, and every-day trifles are a fair gauge of popular taste. As the septum of an ammonite's shell, or the splintered bone of a fossil skeleton, tell the geologist or naturalist; class, order, and period, so its art, its literature, and its decorations, from the form of its public buildings to the mere burden of its street ballads, show the tastes of a bygone generation to the student or historian. Those household meubles turned up afresh the other day at Pompeii speak with living voices; the soul of the dead Greeks exists as plainly in the peristyle of the Parthenon as in the pages of Eschylus and Thucydides; the courts of Versailles, a miniature by Mignard, a cafetière that has belonged to the Du Barry, brings the Age Doré back again upon the scene, with its point ruffles and powdered locks, its costly magnificence and brilliant genius, its bonbonnières jewelled with diamonds, and its racaille brooding over the nucleus of that storm destined to burst a century afterwards over the Place de la Révolution, as clearly as the pages of Montespan Sévigné, Saint-Simon, and De Richelieu.

Sometimes I wonder what future generations will say about the taste of our day when, centuries hence, some dilettante inspects one of our tableaux de genre with a reverential "Hush! it is very old! Look at the date-as far back as 1861!" or some antiquarian, bent on learning all he can of the social customs of the time for his great work, the History of the Nineteenth Century, takes from the accumulated dust of ages some novel illustrated by Phiz, and written in the far-off reign of Victoria Guelph? I wonder! An age, perhaps, cannot judge of itself much better than a man can judge of the sound of his own voice; he

knows how its tone strikes on his own tympanum, but he can hardly tell how it may strike on the tympana of others. With the rush of its crowd, the roar of its eddies, the whirr of its wheels within wheels in our ears, with the fight of factions, the flambeau glare of contemporary fame, the party-sifflage of personal spite seething around to warp our judgment or to bribe our praise, looking now through Claude glasses, now through burnt ones, believing all the while that we use but our own eyesight, it must be difficult for any man to estimate entirely how his own age will appear in the eyes of future ages. Its true verdict will be given by those who stand at a distance and give judgment dispassionately; you must go for the plan of a battle to those who look on from a height; a soldier in the thick of the mêlée knows little beyond his own quarter of the science or issue of the fight.

Still, straws tell the way of the wind; and from things of the day one can give an accurate gauge of the taste of the day; and glancing at the bias of taste in ours, I am afraid that those future dilettanti and bibliopolists will agree and not unmeritedly so, either-that it was-vulgar! Vulgarity is an unflattering verdict; a discreditable; possibly, considering it is among the pet prides of the time to look upon and vaunt ourselves as super-raffinés and hypercritical, it may be thought a startling and impertinent one. But is it possible to disprove it? I think not. The general bias of the day is, more or less, low, the general taste of the day meretricious; and most of those who should lead and elevate popular taste, unhappily only succumb to the clap-trap and go with the tide, doing little to improve and raise it.

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If we look to the general taste in dramatic literature, what is the favourite it has selected for a patronage almost unparalleled in histrionic annals? A sensation drama, "The Colleen Bawn," whose scenes are laid among an Irish peasantry, and whose interest turns on the excitement of represented assassination. Tested by literary merit, has it anything to account for its success? To merit such success, it needed the brilliance of "The Rivals" or "The Critics," the power and pathos of "Marion Delorme" or "Le Roi s'Amuse," the divine genius of a second "Othello," a new King Lear." It has no such claim, yet we know that the Adelphi piece has drawn as none of those would do. Wherein lies the key to its success? In its melodramatic element, in the thrill of horror it sends through the nerves of its spectators, in its gratification of that same low thirst for excitement which gathers crowds round Roberts's house in Northumberland-street, and makes any account of M. de Vidil received with such bloodhound gusto? It pleases the palate of the majority better to have their nerves strung to concert pitch by the loathsome terror of well-imitated murder, than to enjoy mere intellectual gratification from the corruscations of wit and the utterances of genius. In no age, either, save in one vulgar at the core, however refined and irreproachable in speech and profession, would the recent exhibition at the Crystal Palace have had so much countenance and fascination. An acrobat's tours de force advance no purpose, display no genius, answer no aim. Their sole attraction lies in the hazard attendant on them, and in either the sickening sense of impending danger to the poor wight who has spent a lifetime in attaining a useless perfection in a purposeless art, or in a low taste for a silly diversion that ought not to have a moment's attraction for any person of the smallest intellect or cultivation. Does the