Next to anecdotes about the Court, Ego
is greatest, I think, in reminiscences of the
camp and the forum; and in many of these—
if he judge his audience to be a fit one—he
will dispense with Balbus altogether; he
then figures alone; generally, in racing experiences
and tremendous winnings and losings
at unlimited loo and brag. I have known
—three—several Egos who have given me
to understand by hint and nod, and affected
secrecy, that they were the authors of that
"Advice to persons about to marry," which
appeared in Punch, as "Don't!" and I have
known, at least, a score who were acquainted
with that fortunate and well-paid Balbus,
who received from five to five-and-twenty
pounds for that brief witticism. The Englishman,
in the Times newspaper, has been
introduced to me (always by his personal
friend) as Lord John Balbus, as Thomas
Babington Balbus, Mr. Samuel Balbus, Q.C.,
and even as Mrs. Barker Balbus, and Miss
Eliza Balbus, poetesses. In the days of the
man in the iron mask, and during the
circulation of the letters of Junius, Balbus
must have had a busy time of it. He
was worked pretty hard, when The Vestiges
of Creation first came out, and lately, since
the publication of Church Parties in the
Edinburgh Review; nor is it indeed unusual
for me to hear my own popular and brilliant
articles appropriated, in toto, by the much-
tempted Ego, on behalf of his anonymous
but sparkling friend Balbus.

All of us, publicly and privately, individually
and professionally, have suffered much,
from this arrogating pair. Our only way
is to treat their combined evidence as so
much ghost-story which we will steadily
refuse to believe, unless from the lips of the
Principal; and, perhaps, not even then. There
is very little fear of Balbus being produced
in court, or anywhere else; but as for killing
outright, and making an end of him, it
is as much out of the question and as
impossible, as in the old time, when he caught
his deathly fever in the Pontine marshes.

THE LAST DAYS OF A GERMAN
REVOLUTION.

EVERYBODY recollects something of the
German parliament that sat not very many
years ago at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, and has
heard of the constitution emanating from it.
In those days, princes had reasons of their
own for promising some satisfaction to their
subjects. Twenty-eight of them accordingly
accepted this Germanic constitution, and
some even went so far as to have it sworn to
by their soldiers. Changes again occurring
in the aspect of affairs, the princes began to
back out of their pledges. Armies found
that the oaths they had taken were accounted
dead words after the lapse of a few weeks.
Some of them were slow to understand why
they were not to defend what they had sworn
to defend; and among them, the army of the
Grand Duke of Baden rose in a mass, declaring
that it would defend the Germanic constitution,
though it was their own prince who set
it at defiance. The same thing occurred in the
Bavarian Palatinate; and it was supposed
that the same would occur also in Wurtemburg.
These things gave courage to patriotic,
or, if you will so have it, revolutionary
people, and in the movement many joined—I
among others. The proceedings in which I
took part may be considered very democratic,
and altogether wanting in respectability.
For the reassurance of some readers,
therefore, I may say, that the name I bear
is known in history as that of one of the most
famous kings of Hungary; my ancestors
have been princes and kings, and have had
emperors for blood-relations. When my
great-grandfather settled in Prussia, he built
a castle there, and bought about thirty
knightly estates. My grandfather, who had
twelve sons, became a Prussian general.
Several of my uncles held also the highest
rank in the Prussian army, and some fell in
the French wars.

I was educated at the cadet-schools of
Potsdam and Berlin; and, at the age of
seventeen, passed as a lieutenant in the
Prussian army. Then, I despised civilians,
and talked against canaille. The long peace
wearied me of drilling-ground, parade, and
drawing-room. Reflections grew upon me.
To the horror of all my aunts and she-cousins,
I quitted military service; to the greater
horror of all my uncles and he-cousins, I
became an author. To crown my folly, I
abandoned Prussia, and became a citizen of
the free city of Frankfort; afterwards of
Leipsic. The opinions expressed in my
historical and other books, caused my name to
be written in the black books of the
governments of Germany. In February, eighteen
hundred and forty-eight, I was in Paris; but
not as a spectator only of the revolution there.
Yet I had no part in the absurd schemes
and foolish theories by which many of my
comrades helped to bring the cause of public
liberty to wreck. Fresh from the experience
of Paris, I went to the revolted Grand Duchy
of Baden, whence the grand duke had fled by
night, sitting upon a gun-carriage.

I write this true sketch from personal
experience of the extinction of a little German
revolution, for an English public that has
been taught to dwell rather unduly on its
littleness. The Baden revolution—guided, no
doubt, by the counsels of a great many foolish
men; for there is no lack of hot-headed
direction among democrats—was, at any rate,
supported by a regular army of twenty thousand
men, both cavalry and infantry; by plenty of
very good artillery; by a militia (chiefly
without arms) eighty thousand strong; and
by many thousands of the citizens and people.
The little revolution was so far considered
formidable, that one hundred and twenty