The Express.
London, England, 1863-08-07 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 7.

IF King WILLIAM of Pitussia bad ears to hear
or eyes to see what is passing around him, there
is enough in the latest news from Vienna to give
him pause in his downward course along the royal
road to ruin. The t:overament of Austria, with
that resolute and wary promptitude in seizing op-
portunities, and mastering events, and moulding
circumstances, which has so often confounded the
fears of its friends and the hopes of its enemies,
has once more stolen a march on its great rival
and competitor for the national sovereignty of the
German people. Taking the new-fangled liberal
propensities of a military monarchy for what they
are worth, it is impossible to refuse to the Cabi-
net of Vienna the credit of a masterly dis-
cernment, a consummate tact, and • rare felicity
in the art of turning disaster to advantage and
making a footstool of defeat. There is a sup-
pleness in Austrian statecraft that bends but break/
not with the severest tension ; an elasticity of
temper and resource that rebounds like a bow from
a strain that would snap a more homogeneous
policy asunder. In fact, it is only in South
Germany that such a thing as statesmanship is to
be found, but there it is found in perfection,
uniting infinite patience and inflexible pride with
a capacity for immense concessions to the inevit-
able, and a masterly handlingof "the unforeseen."
Since the peace of Villafranca Europe has wit-
nessed one of those wonderful changes of front in
Austrian policy which so terribly disconcert royal
orthodoxy at Berlin ; a change which has restored
the credit of a bankropt treasury, and converted a
military despotism that owed its salvation to
Russia fourteen years ago, and that looked to
Prussia as its last hope four years since, into a
constitutional monarchy that menaces its deliverer
and patronises its conqueror ; that holds Russia in
check in Poland, and gives lessons of liberty to
Paris. But it is in Germany, and as a great
German power, that the genius and vitality of
Austria have been moat remarkably manifested.
The feeble pedantry and degraded vassalage of
Prussian policy have no doubt played into the
hands of the adroit and vigilant successors of
MiTTEHNICH and SOMWASZENBERO. But is not
the readiness to profit by the weakness and errors
of rivals, in itself the mark of men wise in their
generation, and proof of a superiority destined to
command success

Only the other day the King of Parma was
the foremost arbiter of German politics, the pro-
mised liberator and uniter of the German people,
the centre and soul of the reviving aspirations of
1813 and 1848, the chosen champion of all the
hopes and dreams of countless enthusiasts, whose
belief in one common Fatherland is a generous illusion
as undying as their trust in Princes. The Prussian
Monarchy was, in the fullest sense of the phrase,
master of the situation. Austria, with its perilous
burden of non-German provinces ever smouldering
with suppressed revolt and tempting the eagles of
France, its blind and bigoted resistance to all political
progress, its impending bankruptcy, its shattered
military strength, was universally discarded and
denounced as an incumbraace, a blight, an ob-
stacle, a nightmare, and a nuisance. Prussia was
the natural and rightful leader of all true
Germans who desired liberty and unity ; and who
so fit as the descendant of FREDERICK the GREAT
to be the soldier of such a muse f The most high-
minded and enthusiastic of German Princes, the
Duke of Sazai-Cozoin, out of the fulness of his
faith in the mission of the Prussian Crown,
actually mediatized his little army, as a sign of his
readiness to follow the standards of the House
of HOHENZOLLERN. A vast national Society
was organized for the propagation of the idea of
German unity under the sovereignty of the Royal
House of Prussia, and a subscription was begun
for the purchase and presentation to the Prusaian
Government of a German navy. The project of a
new Commercial Union, independent of or indif-
ferent to Austria, was very favourably regarded by
German Liberals. The ancient and everlasting
scheme for the democratization of the Federal au-
thority at Frankfort was more hotly discussed than
ever as a question of legitimate and necessary
Prussian supremacy. Meanwhile, the crowned head
for which all these wonderful destinies
were reserved was sinking into a chro-
.. . _

nic condition of drowsy bewilderment, per-
turbed perhaps by visions of the right divine
rushing down a precipice into a sea of democracy.
And meantime Austria was waiting for what was
sure to come, the defection of King WILLIAM,
prepared to take up the splendid hand which he
had not the courage to play. The visit of the
Duke of Cosuan to Vienna, the auspiciously
friendly reception at that court of a Prince hitherto
almost ostentatiously Prussian in his sympathies,
looked like an augury of conversions more impor-
tant still. It is no secret that for months past
the young Emperor of Avernus has lost no
opportunity of making known his conscientious
fidelity to the institutions he freely gave to
his subjects, and even his decided preference for
constitutional government as the best adapted to
the requirements of the age. The strength of
these novel and strange convictions in the mind of
a young man whose intellect from his youth up
bad been drilled by the Jesuits, and whose inti-
mate advisers had been the aristocratic martinets
of a military household, is to be attributed, we
believe, to the stedfast and sagacious counsels of
M. SC/MERLIN° ; hut in such a case as this the
willing Imperial recipient is perhaps even more com-
mendable than the honest ministerial giver of good
advice. At all events, in the opinion of
the counsellors of Feancts JOSEPH, the
moment appears to have arrived for a
bolder and more decisive stroke of policy than
King WILLIAM of PRUSSIA in his most confi-
dent and expansive mood has ever imagined.
We shall be curious to see how M. DE
Itisitsnot, who unites with a cordial admira-
tion of French Imperialism an equally cordial
hate and jealousy of Austria, recommends his
master to take the initiation addressed to him, in
common with all the sovereigns of the German
Confederation and the Senates of the Free Cities,