The Sun.
London, England, 1848-03-27 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, IslAßCli-0.7, 1848.

FREDERICK WILHELM, the King, has not abdicated,
according to the frivolous rumour circulated by the
alarmists. Prussia has not built itself up into a Re-
publican institution upon the scaffolding of barricades,
and with the cement of the blood of the multitude.
No ; similar as the insurrections of February and
March have been to each other in character, they have
proved essentially different in their consequences.
The distinction between them is so remarkable
as to deserve a very serious and scrutinizing
consideration. Among the Berliners as among the
Parisians, there has been long recognised an
inveterate but suppressed animosity to . the re-
cent Governments ; but while this animosity
on the part of the former was tempered by a senti-
ment of devotion towards the SOVEREIGN, it was im-
bittered and intensified among the latter by an un-
utterable loathing for Lours PrirrArru. This dissi-
milarity accounts in an extraordinary measure for the
diversity of events in the two capitals. It explains
the cause of the expulsion from the Tuileries, of the
dispersion of the royal fugitives, and of the inauguration
of the Provisional Government ; and it accounts also
for the more permanent establishment of the dynastic
interests of FREDERICK WILHELM, for the confirma-
tion of the popularity already reposed in members of
the Liberal Cabinet, and for the satisfactory adjust-
ment of the hostilities unwittingly excited between
a reforming Prince and a regenerated People. In
Berlin, the carnage resulting from the colli-
sion between the troops and the civilians had
thrown into insignificance the bloodshed in the
French metropolis. Blood was sprinkled on the
pavements of the latter by the dropping fire of an en-
counter which the latent sympathies of the belli-
gerents brought to a very speedy termination. Blood
streamed like a rain-torrent down the streets of the
former from the hideous butchery which raged for
sixteen hours within the ramparts of the Prussian
capital.
Historians will turn to the occurrences which have
just transpired in the principal city of Germany with
mingled sentiments; of horror,' amazement, and exul-
tation. Horror at the slaughter which re-
sulted from an accident. Amazement at the
stupendous victory achieved in a single night
by the Prussians. Exultation at the trans-
actions which have conducted the enlightened
hosts of Allemania to the age of their liberation, and
the dawn of their nationality. A few sentences will
enable the mind to comprehend in a retrospective
glance the vast and almost inconceivable progress
recently made in the emancipation of the northern
territories of the European Continent. German in-
telligence, it must be remembered, is not a fact of
yesterday—the epochs of its germination, its growth,
its juvinescence, and its maturity are strictly arid
accurately traceable. It is visible not so much
in the barbarian conquests of CBSA.R, or
in the days when Ronorxis was raised
upon the bucklers of his adherents, as in the more
pacific oratory of MELANCTIION and in the work -
shop .f GUTTEMBURG. The instrument of German
advancement was neither the sword nor the plough—
it was the printing press—that Apostle of Civiliza-
tion—that Palladium of Knowledge—that universal
and indestructible mouthpiece of Reason and Religion,
born of the genius of a German mechanician, and
first employed by the daring of a German monk.
From the invention of typography dates the
fruitfulness of the mind of Allemania its
literature—its science—its erudition—its yearn •
ing for independence, and its august and
insatiable ambition. From that epoch were
afterwards evoked SCHILLER and GOETHE,
KANT and RICHTER, MULLER and LIEBIG. The
development has been progressive, it is true, but its
progress has been one of nearly miraculous swiftness.
Towards the conclusion of the eighteenth century
the moral revolution created by the French philoso-
phers sent the waves of thought surging over the
southern frontiers of Fatherland, and their influence
was experienced in its most remote extremities. As
yet, however, the opportunity of German liberation
had not arrived. The children of those enormous
dominions—allied in reality, by sympathy and dis-
position, to the democratic inhabitants of France—
were marshalled among the mercenaries of Abso-
lutism. An accident or panic, indeed, seemed to
render the beautiful principalities, situated along the
Rhine, the natural fortresses of the refugees of royalty
There it was that the emigrant Bourbons plotted
the conquest of their native land, and endeavoured
to awe France into subjection by repeated coalitions
of despots. During the predominant days of the Em-
peror and King NAPOLEON, there was subsequently
an ostensible fraternization between the populations
of France and Allemania, when that wonderful man
stretched his sceptre over the fisheries of the Baltic,
and invested himself with an additional responsibility
as Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine.
Waterloo 'dispelled even that semblance of brother-
hood, and Germany became once more an incon-
gruous assemblage of disjointed and ill-balanced
sovereignties. The political convulsion of 1830
tended little, if anything at all, towards the modifica-
tion of this pernicious system of government.
Allemania was literally what Prince METTER..
Nauss lately called Italy, "a mere geographi-
cal expression." Its splintered particles appeared
to be unfitted to coalesce. To the superficial observer,
there was not an affinity even of hope among the petty
principalities of the Confederation. Paris has re-
lieved itself from the Orleans dynasty—France has
proclaimed itself a Republic—and behold the majestic
and gigantic changes which have already been accom-
plished in the capitals of Germany !
The people of Allemania must not look, however,
for the beacon of their regeneration upon the pinna-
cles of revolted and liberalised Vienna. Austria has not
leisure, in fact, to undertake the perfect emancipation of
Germany. Its attention must be necessarily engrossed in
a great measure by Hungary, by Bohemia, and by the
Lombardo-Venetians. It is not to Vienna, there-
fore, that the gaze of the German million must be
directed—it is not to Vienna—crowned as her palace
is by the banner of a Constitutional EMPEROR—
that the eyes of the German populace must be
turned. Not to Bavaria, not to Hanover, not to any
of the minor princedoms of the Confederation must
the sanguine aspirations of that race be
directed—not to these—to the capital of Prussia
—to the gory ;streets of that Berlin in
which the people hare fought and conquered.
There has been unfurled the gonfalon of
Allemania—the tri-colour of German nationality—
the banner of that soil of heroism and greatness. On
the 21st instant King FREDERICK WILHELM IV.
rode through the metropolis of Prussia, clad in the
armour of patriotism, and bathed in the sunshine of
popularity. His war-horse could barely move
through the multitude from the ardour of their gra-

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