existing state of division many A make two evils. The senism, martyan has 4, No m thy " Such, then, wore the political men at the h formation. After a state of doubt and hesitation, before the new doctrines were fully understood a state that lasted fifty years, and included the first isolated wars in Germany and Switzerland-there ensued a general religious war of eighty years' duration. When, at last, by a treaty of peace, the impossiblility of any decision by force of arms was recognised, once for all there gradually ensued, through the fixed establishment of the schism, an internal disorganization of all the principles and maxims by which life is guided, moulded, and regulated. Under the delusive show of moderation and peace, moreover, this great internal change finally brought about violent commotions and revolutions, not less mighty and stormy than those of old; it was demonstrated more clearly than ever, that mind, that ideas, are the motive powers of history. As a European treaty of religious peace (and such it was, at least in its general spirit and in its remoter effects, although isolated facts at a later period, especially in England, may recall the earlier epoch of bitter religious wars), as a great European religious pacification, the treaty of Westphalia was at least the termination of a great and protracted evil. In respect to Germany, its results, like those of the preceding war, were altogether pernicious. The influence of foreign powers became now fully recognised, and admitted as constitutional; so that even in times of peace, the manifest germs of further troubles, and encroachments, and ulterior wars (all of which actually ensued), and even of a total political disorganization and dissolution, were plainly perceptible. It was only the length or the shortness of the term, and the diversity of the mode wherein this dissolution should take place, that could remain a subject of doubt. From this period, moreover, the power of the middle class in Germany has gradually declined. The free towns of the empire, it is true, remained as a monument of ancient freedom, and in several districts the towns dependent upon the princes still participated in some degree in parliamentary rights. This, however, as the military art had been totally changed, and the power of the princes was always on the increase, was a mere outward semblance, rather than a genuine effective power, such as the towns possessed in southern and Rhenish Germany before the religious schism, when they were able to cope in war even with the princes periods in this eighty years' war, we may rather ask why the Protestants having once succeeded in gaining so much, did not follow up their success, and become completely victorious? Regarding all the Catholic powers as one of the belligerent parties, the cause of their feeble efficiency in despite of their apparent strength, lay not so much in the decay of Spanish power (for after the nerveless reign of Philip the Third that kingdom revived once more with new lustre and new energy under Philip the Fourth), but rather in the want of union among the different powers themselves. Between the two branches of the Austrian house, concord rarely prevailed; despite their frequent family alliances, distrust and alienation in the time of Philip the Second had been too long and too deeply at work to be so easily removed. Even when by the exertions of a great statesman, a co-operation was brought about between Philip the Fourth's ardent activity and Ferdinand the Second's great designs, the union still was not so perfect as it ought to have been; the difference of principles and views often produced results most adverse to their joint efforts. It was peculiarly the function of the court of Rome to serve as the bond of union between the two powers, and to knit them together in uninterrupted concord. As a mediator between them, it should have preserved the balance of power, and have once more claimed, with benefit to the common weal, the office of umpire in the affairs of Europe. The Roman court undoubtedly at times discharged this duty, and served as the common bond of union between the Catholic powers, but it was far from exercising this function with sufficient energy and perseverance. Nothing perishes more easily than the living spirit of a confederation; and half a century of concord and of joint co-operation is often insufficient to supply what was neglected or lost in a far briefer period of mutual distrust or selfish isolation of views. If the Roman court, as is generally acknowledged, was often not considerate enough towards the Austrian emperors, and seemed to require of them what the state of affairs in Germany rendered utterly impossible for them to grant or to accomplish, yet it is infinitely more to be censured for failing to recognise the true seat of the evil, for being almost always too forbearing towards France. For the peculiar weakness of the Catholic power in Europe originated in the fact, that SELFISH POLICY OF FRANCE. 257 France belonged in name only to the Catholic party (and not always even so), while in fact, from her thoroughly selfish system of policy, she formed a separate party of her own. At Rome it should have been understood and foreseen, that a Gustavus Adolphus, at the head of a victorious Protestant party, was less dangerous by far to the church than the merely political and nominal Catholicism of the latter Valois, developed by the energy of a Richelieu. The church has ever had to fear her greatest foes and corrupters in her own bosom more than all her external enemies. If we look merely to this internal weakness of the Catholic party, we may almost wonder that it did not totally succumb in the struggle, that the Protestants did not gain a complete victory. But in England and in Holland the political and religious principles and objects of the various political and religious parties thwarted each other far too much to render it possible, that even in England the Catholic party should be wholly crushed; or still less, as in Sweden, for the national mind to be turned towards schemes of conquest. And the dangerous situation and small extent of Holland would naturally render such projects alien to the national feeling. Here an obstinate, unconquerable resistance, and an independence won by the sword, was all that the Protestants could aim at or accomplish. Germany was the only country in which the victory could be complete, in which Protestantism could become a conquering power; and undoubtedly, if it had once been victorious here, it might have established its ascendancy over the whole of Europe. In Germany alone had the new faith been diffused by a real popular movement, whose power was not wholly extinct, even after the first violent outbreak, till the period of the treaty of Westphalia. In a country like Germany, so great, populous, and then so warlike, this popular energy, which exceeds all calculation, stood more than once at the entire disposal-and ready too for the most daring enterprises-of any victorious prince of the party who was competent to turn it to account. But a prince of this kind, a great hero (if we except Gustavus Adolphus alone, who was so early snatched from his brilliant career), there was none, otherwise Germany would undoubtedly have become wholly Protestant, and in the sole victor would have found one sole sovereign; and after the |