would calmly bear an organised system
of oppression, has passed away for ever.
In Hungary, therefore, as elsewhere, the
duration of the government is merely a
question of chances. The democrats, warned
by the dreadful experience of the past, will
not rise again till they have a fair prospect
of success. Then exeunt the princes of
Hapsburg Lorraine, with their whole posse
of policemen, gaolers, scourgers of women,
and murderers of the innocent.

Still, the present emperor has a little time
allowed him, and a noble part to play in
history. It is in his power to become one
of the greatest and most beloved monarchs
who ever ruled an empire. There seems
good reason to have hope in him. Young,
brave, generous, intelligent, what might he
not yet do to deserve the lasting esteem and
gratitude of millions! It would be melancholy
indeed to disappoint hopes so grave and
earnest. Hitherto the prospect, however,
has been dark indeed. All the silliest traditions
of the imperial court have been revived.
The constitution has been most impolitically
abolished with every circumstance of scorn
and ignominy. The liberties of the land
have been annihilated one after the other;
the wise and valiant have been banished in
crowds; the public money has been
squandered on an army of six hundred thousand
men, which it is dangerous to employ, and
impossible permanently to maintain; all
honest capital and enterprise have been driven
from the country, till the commerce of Austria
is almost entirely in the hands of Jews and
monopolists. Meanwhile the tone of public
morality is about on a par with that which
existed in England during the merry reign of
Charles the Second. The nobles are of course
the dominant faction. They are needy, ill-
educated, and overbearing. They monopolise
all privileges and honours. There is no
justice for the poor; no security for the
middle classes. The taxes which support the
lavish expenditure of the state are eked out
by government lotteries, government
monopolies, government railways,—everything that
can interfere with healthy enterprise, and
permanently cripple the resources of a nation.
To these may be added a forced paper
currency, usually at from thirty to seventy per
cent discount and a national bankruptcy
every now and then.

Passing on through Saxony, Prussia,
Hanover, Brunswick, things are still very
much the same.

The whole of Germany seems to take
its tone from Austria. The constitution
of Prussia exists in name only. In
Saxony, the less said about the government
the better. Hanover, and most of the
smaller states of Germany are essentially
Russian, as far as regards the feelings and
sympathies of their rulers. As for the
people, they seem to have fallen asleep, and
to be labouring under a kind of nightmare.
They have been so cowed and dispirited,
that they make no sign; they stupify
themselves with beer and smoke, and let the
affairs of the world go on altogether without
their interference. The race of statesmen
and lawgivers which seemed to start so
suddenly into life a few years ago, had vanished
entirely. The moral atmosphere is unhealthy
and close, as if heavy with a thunderstorm.
The traveller only begins to emerge into a
purer air when he gets into Belgium; though
there, the state of affairs is anything but
satisfactory. The truth is, the present state
of Germany and the countries immediately
bordering on it, is constantly reminding one
of the quaint old fable of the bundle of sticks.
There is no union, no common object. If
the liberal party could once fairly understand
each other; if the chiefs would meet and agree
together on some means of acting in concert,
their griefs might be relieved at once: but it is
inconceivable how a people, coming obviously
from a common stock, speaking the same
language, having the same manners and customs,
should be so disunited, factious, and jealous of
each other. There are thirty-four independent
sovereigns in Germany, and all are
constantly engaged in a species of social war.
Each levies taxes, plays at king and courtiers,
and manages the affairs of his subjects as he
pleases. Thus Germany, instead of being a
mighty whole, bearing a fair part in the
councils of nations and holding her share of
legitimate influence throughout the world,
is split up into all sorts of contemptible
atoms, whose friendship or enmity are alike
worthless, and signify nothing. The
impoverished and absurd nobility form a class
apart: they will not intermarry with the
rest of the community; they will not mix or
associate with them on equal terms; they
will not employ themselves in useful trades
or professions, considering such occupations
entirely beneath their dignity. They
arrogate to themselves, therefore, all public
employments; they swarm in the piping and
taboring armies, and about the funny little
courts. Every individual belonging to a
family of which the chief possesses a title,
takes the title also. Thus, it is no uncommon
thing to see two or three score of counts and
countesses bearing the same name, and all
disqualified thereby from earning an honest
livelihood.

Now, we certainly have no right to judge
other countries by our own peculiar standard
of right and wrong; but there must surely
be something radically rotten in all this, and
the end is not yet. Germany is very much
in the same state as was France under the
ancien régime. The nobility form a class
apart; they are full of silly pride and
extravagant pretension; they are more numerous
than gnats in summer, and quite as
inconvenient. The commonalty, meantime, are
superior to them both in wealth, sense, and
education. How long, therefore, they will