, 1866-11-09

William L., or by his deep-schem1ng MIN
lister. Prussia has fought and conquered,
and after Sadowa she was quit for ever
of Austrian rivalry, and she had the Ger
man Princes at her feet. She had also
to deal with a people sebered by seven
teen years disenchantment, and among
whom the aspirations of 1848, and the
very reminiscence of the Frankfort AS
sembly and Constitution, had died out.
1t might have been easy for Count
Bismark, in the estimation of the Frank
f~orters, to strike off these last seventeen
years from the roll of time, go back to
The scheme of 184S, proclaim German
unity, and associate the South no less
than the North of the Fatherland to COM
mon deslinies, in which event the Impe-
rial CITY would have been fain to merge
her own separate existence in the broad
tide of national life. But, in order that
Count Bismark should pitch his aspira-
lions as high as these tOut-Ou-IIen patriots
suggest, it would have been necessary
for him TO grasp at once all the complete
ness of his victory at SadoWa, the sud
denness of Austria'S collapse, and the un-
accountable panic and bewilderment in
all the European Councils, consequent
upon that astounding success. The re-
suits of great deeds do not all at once
dawn before the eyes even OF the man
who has the greatest share III their
achievement. Count BiSmark was a
statesman rather than a patriot, a gam
bier rather than an enthusiast he acted
upon calculation rather than faith. He
carried his boldness TO the extreme verge
&C xocIVoZn. bnt fhorA yryo n1otbni and
reason, and discretion even in his utmost
daring. It seemed to him that he had
carried a great point when, in the PreIl-
minaries of Nikolsburg, he had ousted
Austria and reserved to himself full con-
troll over Germany. But Austria, al
though PROSTATE, was not annihllated
France, though perpEeXed, was not para
lived Europe, though stunned, was not
persuaded. Bismark, who had obtained
so much, could not venture on demand
ing too much. Had he put forth q
scheme for a German Empire; had he
claimed the South no less than the North,
and insisted on the unity Of the whole
country had he at once and rudely re-
iected France and AuStria's plea for Sax
ony, and Russia's for Darmstadt, he
might have conjured up a storm which
all the support of German patriotism
would hardly have enabled him 10 wea-
Their. He could not but bear in mind
that on the one side he was no popular
hero, no %favorite either with the Liber-
ais Of Germany or of his own Prussia on
the other i; that he had to deal with a
King, a nobility, and an army, who had
to be forced into a war, and would bear
no hand in a revolution.
!. Bismark deemed it expedient to stop
in mid-career he limited himself to
half-measures. He did not set up the
German standard ; he stunned all allu-
sion to the Imperial diadem. He simply
laboured at Prussian ACKNOWLEDGMENT, and
threw out the scheme Of a Northern
Confederacy and of a National Parlia-
ment, apparently without attaching to it
any well-deined meaning. Anything
more shapeless and monstrous than the
Germany which came out of Bismark's
brain, anything more calculated to wound
all feelings and injure all interests, could
hardly be conceived. Any thought of
fair terms, or even-handed justice to
friends or enemies, never entered his