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wealth and the new interests and relations to which it gave rise. This balance, as a mere artificial arrangement, would not have been durable, had it not been permanently supported and upheld by the genius of the nation. In Russia all the powers of the state, moral and material, were at least concentred in one hand, so that any great internal discord was thereby prevented, and a form of government established, which, powerful without and secure within, although not entitled to unqualified praise, was yet adapted to the genius and to the circumstances of the nation.

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The convulsion was altogether a universal one. vailing giddy rationalism had seized not only on the nations, but on the governments also. In many countries, it is true, the adherents of the new system of political materialism succeeded in exciting the people to a fanatical sympathy with what was in truth repugnant to their inmost feelings and ancient faith. In other states, however, hostility to this new mechanical policy, as well as attachment to the ancient moral system, more congenial as it was to the national manners, were the cause of considerable popular movements and general resistance. As a proof how much the general causes of these convulsions existed, not in this or that state only, but in the age and its peculiar circumstances, we may observe, that the attempt to introduce among the nation the least disposed towards new political ideas, the Turks, a new military system more mechanically perfect, and which the general rivalry of all civilized nations seemed to render necessary, have led in our days to no inconsiderable commotions and catastrophes. Two only of the greater Protestant states remained in the first instance altogether free from the general agitation that pervaded Europe. In these states, together with the old order of things, even the constitution of parliamentary estates had been long utterly abolished, and hence no essential obstacle to the new system remained-nothing was left to be destroyed. In the larger Catholic states the agitation was necessarily far greater, and greatest of all in France and Austria. Spain, by her exclusion of all foreign influence, by her internal simplicity, was, in the first instance at least, better guarded against revolution; Italy, and the smaller German states, depended on France or Austria.

The germ of the revolution in France lay more immediately

in the fluctuations between the military and the commercial systems, which produced even in finance the opposite systems and parties for manufactures and for agriculture. The European revolution, however, did not first break out there, but in another state. In Austria the heterogeneous composition of the monarchy itself furnished an opportunity for many reforms and necessary changes; they were precipitately introduced and undertaken by the powerful mind of the Emperor Joseph, who was absolutely ruled and carried away by the spirit and by the doctrines of his age.

Who more than the Emperor Joseph seemed destined not to be hurried away by the spirit of the age, but to govern it and to guide its just movements with a steady hand? For, besides the requisite energy and understanding, no one was so firmly convinced that he only sought right, and no one possessed a will so resolved and constant. The question has been before proposed, wherefore were these great hopes nevertheless unfulfilled, wherefore did Joseph's illustrious successor acquire the reputation of distinguished wisdom, and in part, too, by the rare union of firmness and conciliation with which he revoked a portion of his predecessor's projects and measures? With the answer to this question, as far as it is furnished by history, I shall conclude these lectures. In doing so I shall only take the general point of view. The details of the Emperor Joseph's plans, principles, and measures, the manner in which they were in part, but in a small part only, fitly carried out, in part revoked, in part left incomplete and half-executed, are still rather a theme for intense, immediate, and animated discussion, than a subject for the calm meditations of history.

Most writers assign the emperor's rashness, his desire to reap the fruit as soon as he had sown the seed, without leaving time for its silent growth, as the general cause of the imperfect success of his measures. Easily as this tendency may be explained by Joseph's position, education, destiny, and character, correct as the remark may therefore in general be, yet it does not account altogether for the failure of his plans. Not all useful reforms can be brought about in a state of themselves without active co-operation, and merely by biding one's time. Many changes, when once they are acknowledged to be good and wholesome, can only be effected

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at once or not at all, and in such cases conciliatory forms cannot always be observed.

It appears to me that it was Joseph's neglect to win over and guide public opinion, that created the principal obstacles to his measures, and often hindered their success. It would be superfluous to expatiate on the great obstacles, the often insurmountable difficulties, this omission threw in his way in the Netherlands and in Hungary, in the Catholic church, aud among Protestant powers in his own kingdom, and in Europe at large.

His enemies knew how to take advantage of this omission. So it happened, that he, who first destroyed the old forms and rights of the constitution of Germany, started up as the protector of German freedom, using the high-sounding name of a confederation of princes, as was done in earlier times by other foes of the empire, and of the German name. Hence, this worn-out farce, with all its scandalous gravity, again found credence among our too-well disposed and credulous nation, and the enemy was able to bring public opinion decidedly over to his side.

Even in regard to religion the emperor Joseph's intentions were entirely mistaken and erroneously judged. The society of the Jesuits was suddenly overthrown by a blow prepared in secret, while the jealousy of the other religious orders contributed to their downfall. This society, long after other ecclesiastical institutes had sunk into utter inactivity, had continued efficient and ever active for the weal of the church, both in Europe and in the other quarters of the world; and by their services to science and to education, best corresponded to the spirit of the age, and satisfied its wants. What other order could now reasonably hope to remain altogether unchanged, to be alone made an exception? What changes in the ecclesiastical constitution could still appear impracticable, or even arduous, after the enemy had once succeeded in inflicting so great a blow?

Certain reforms were unavoidable; and how wholesome might they not have proved, if the innovators had not been merely content with destroying and sweeping away old institutions, but had founded in their place new ones, had rightly discerned and comprehended how much good was to be found in existing establishments, had restored all that was paralyzed

and degenerate to its original functions, and had vigorously stimulated activity, reanimated mind, and given a new organization to ecclesiastical institutes more suited to the altered circumstances of the times. This would have been really a reform; and undoubtedly it would have been a hard and toilsome work. The lighter task, mere destruction, without substituting ought in its place, was better suited to the spirit of the age. Were we to ascribe to some of the less intelligent advocates of these new church reforms a weight, to which, indeed, they are not entitled, we should almost believe, that it had been the object of their authors to bring about an unnatural fusion of the Catholic and Protestant creeds, or even to separate from the Catholic church altogether, and to establish a sort of special, Austrian, national Christianity. All this was quite alien to the emperor Joseph's strong understanding, and equally so to his sound sentiments. Those who have described him from intimate personal knowledge, have sufficiently proved that, in this respect, his own sentiments and convictions were thoroughly right, and conformable to religion. Any single measure which may be cited, as apparently proving the contrary, is either in itself of little importance, or did not originate with him, but in the misunderstanding and exaggerations of functionaries, or in the influence of counsellors, to whom the most sagacious and self-relying monarch cannot avoid intrusting details.

It were superfluous to refer to all the points, on which the emperor Joseph has been in a like manner misjudged; for he had many enemies, and he had himself neglected to win public opinion. This neglect is the more to be lamented, as public opinion soon acquired a power so great and formidable, and almost exclusively governed the age. How many means, too, stood at his command to influence public opinion, to become the pilot of that age, and to steer it towards the haven of universal well-being! He, the offspring and heir of Maximilian, and Charles the Fifth, the successor of Matthias Corvinus, emperor of Germany, sovereign of the French and German Netherlands, protector and lord of the most refined and industrious provinces of Italy-a man, too, of penetrating mind and restless energy and activity; well versed in the useful sciences; familiar with the various countries and peoples of Europe from personal observation; master of so many

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languages; in personal intercourse so attractive and irresistible; he, we say, ought to have swayed the minds of all men, and have been the saving genius of Europe, by imposing silence on the storms that were menacing her with destruction.

It would, moreover, have had a beneficial influence on his own mind, had he placed himself in living contact with public opinion, and had he watched and studied it more. He would not then have confounded the one-sided theories and transitory systems of individual writers with the measures really required by the general wants and by the new circumstances of the age. This has been objected to his views on some points of legislation and internal administration.

The emperor Joseph sought the same thing, with far more energy and decision, it is true, but still precisely the same thing, as did most of the sovereigns of the eighteenth century the internal unity, namely, of his own states, and their rigid isolation from others. The latter was unsuited to the peculiar nature of the Austrian state. That monarchy, from its very situation, can scarcely be an isolated kingdom; as the heart and central point of Europe, it was brought by this its original destination into the closest connection with the most important countries, and from all times was emphatically a universal and truly imperial state, and such in all probability it will never wholly cease to be. This isolation of the state, and its self-seclusion within its own frontiers, even in itself of doubtful policy, was utterly impracticable as long as the sovereign of Austria was at the same time emperor of Germany.

Union, on the other hand, between all the separate parts of the empire, and especially a closer connection between Hungary and German Austria, was unquestionably a great and most desirable blessing. But it was not a mere mechanical uniformity in external forms of administration, it was not a mere material fusion, that was to be wished for; but chiefly that the old moral ties which linked Hungary and Austria together might be drawn closer, and be more generally recognised. The matter will be best explained by an illustration. The greatest of the Emperor Joseph's ancestors, Charles the Fifth, reigned over a monarchy which, if possible, was composed of more various elements than Austria was in the