XXVII. 1847. CHAP. of the Spanish army, the object of such impassioned laudation from the liberal party all over the world, in reality promoted nothing but the interests of Russia, for it rallied all the friends of order over Europe to its standard. This advance of Muscovite sway was still more furthered by the triumph of the Barricades, and the establishment of a revolutionary government on the left bank of the Rhine. The lesser German powers, violently assailed, and some of them overturned, by the outbreak of the democratic spirit in their own bosoms, were fain to take shelter under the ægis of the great conservative colossus of the north. The fall of Charles X., for which the short-sighted Liberals chaunted io-paans all over the world, in reality had no other effect but that of extending the Russian influence from the Niemen to the Rhine, and throwing back for half a century the cause of German freedom. 90. ing influ ence of these causes. Such were the chief causes which acted upon the Counteract people of Germany during the thirty years which followed the termination of the war of liberation. The most cursory observation must show that they were on each side so powerful, and yet so contradictory to each other, that they could terminate only in a vehement struggle or an entire disruption of society. The restraining causes and influences were the more powerful in the commencement of the period, but the disturbing became more efficacious as time rolled on, and it was evident, at its close, that nothing but a violent shock from the neighbouring kingdom was required to throw society into convulsions. The thirty-three years which elapsed from 1815 to 1848 were nothing but a long-continued preparation for the terrible convulsion in the latter year in Germany; just as the fifteen years from 1815 to 1830 were for the Revolution of France, which overturned Charles X.; and the seventeen years from the same epoch to 1832, for that which subverted the old constitution of England. The convulsion was longer of com ing in the Fatherland, because the aristocratic and monarchical influences were more powerful, and the innovating principles less active, in a great inland and agricultural Confederacy than in either of the adjoining states, where commerce and manufactures had, from the possession of coal and the vicinity of the ocean, made much greater progress. CHAP. XXVII. 1847. 91. of the Con left the seeds tion in all And here a mark worthy circumstance deserves to be noted, eminently characteristic of the ceaseless vicissitude The triumph from good to evil and from evil to good, which in the servatives unbroken chain of events marks the progress of human of revolu affairs. It was the triumph of the conservative powers, the Euroat the close of the terrible struggle with France, which pean states. left the seeds of revolution in all the countries which had proved victorious in the strife. This History has been written to little purpose if it is not apparent that it was the vast growth of wealth and realised capital in Great Britain, during and after the war, from the immense extension of the empire which occurred during its continuance, which, by enabling the holders of it to get possession of the close boroughs, put it in their power to pursue measures calculated for their exclusive advantage, and brought on the Reform revolution. Spain was revolutionised in consequence of the successes of Wellington and the restoration of Ferdinand VII. in the Peninsula; Flanders, from the effects of the triumph of Waterloo. Russia was shaken to its centre from the participation of its armies in the strife of central Europe and the conquest of Leipsic; France, by the consequences of the restoration of the elder branch of the house of Bourbon; and Germany was no exception to the general law. In the effects of the great and formidable Confederacy which arose out of the strife of which its fields had so long been the theatre, is to be discerned the remote but certain spring of revolutionary movement in its bosom, more determined and bloody than any which have yet con XXVII. 1847. CHAP. vulsed the world. Such strength as was there given to the conservative and democratic principles in the different classes of society, and such antagonism as was there created between them, could not but lead at no distant period to a frightful social convulsion. Whoever would rightly apprehend the German revolution of 1848, must devote his days and his nights to the study of the moving principles which had been brought into action among its inhabitants subsequent to the battle of Waterloo and establishment of their independence. 92. these causes The causes which have been mentioned have exercised Influence of an influence not less powerful on the LITERATURE of on German Germany than on its political condition and social state. In the speculations of its philosophers, equally with the visions of its poets and the imaginations of its dramatists, is to be seen the traces of genius chafing against the fetters of conventionalism, of freedom seeking to burst the bonds of power. Excluded from a share in the direction of affairs, debarred from exercising an influence on present events, shut out in consequence from a practical direction, the thought of Germany has been forcibly turned into the realms of imagination, and has sought a vent for its ardent feelings in the picture of ideal beauty, the creations of erudite fancy. All the events of time, from the earliest ages, have floated before its vision; all the characters of men in all nations have peopled its ideal world; all the thoughts which have been wrung by joy or suffering from the human heart in the endless vicissitude of human affairs, have found a vent in its poetry. Hence the perfection, unrivalled in modern times, to which the German drama has suddenly arisen. The stage was the only theatre on which the ardent aspirations of an age of intellectual activity and impassioned energy could be exerted. The German drama and poetry is the result of excited genius and enthusiastic feeling wielding the treasures of great learning, but In XXVII. 1847. debarred from any practical application. Like the poetry CHAP. of Racine and Corneille, it contained the aspirations of minds born to be free, but permitted to expatiate only in the realms of imagination. And genius wrote for the drama because it had no real stage to write for; men went to the theatre because they had no house of lords or commons to go to. This circumstance invests the German literature during the period of its greatness— that is, the last half-century-with an interest, and gives it an importance beyond what usually belongs to the efforts of thought, how great or splendid soever. it, as in a mirror, and far more than in the political history of the period, may be traced what ideas have been really fermenting in the minds of men; and if "coming events ever cast their shadows before," it is when the sunlight of genius throws its radiance over the dark and troubled ocean of the moral world. In the extravagant doctrines and corrupt conceptions which prevailed in France in the latter part of the eighteenth century, Lord Chesterfield saw the harbingers of the coming revolution in that country; and he must be blind indeed who does not perceive in the German literature of the nineteenth the heavings of a pent-up fire destined to produce throes and convulsions more earnest, more serious, but not less bloody, than those which have stood forth as a beacon to the world in the French Revolution. 93. of the Ger the peace of There can be no doubt that, in a social and political point of view, the formation of the German Confederacy Advantages has proved a very great blessing, not only to its own man Conmembers, but to Europe in general. To its existence federacy to humanity is mainly indebted for the long peace which Europe. succeeded the revolutionary war, with the inestimable blessings which it brought in its train. Germany, for two centuries before, had not merely been the battlefield of Europe, but the coveted prize which provoked its wars. The lesser states, incapable of resisting the CHAP. assault of the greater, afforded only a bait to tempt their XXVII. cupidity. Religious zeal strove at one period to effect 1847. their subjugation, in order to realise the seducing dream 94. German on domestic of unity of belief; regal ambition, at another, to effect the substantial acquisition of universal dominion. The lesser states of Germany formed a sort of "land debatable," into which Gustavus Adolphus rushed to defend the cause of religious freedom, and Frederick the Great to anticipate the dreaded partition by Austria, and revolutionary France to convulse and overturn the world. The Thirty Years' War, the Seven Years' War, the Revolutionary War, the fiercest strifes which have stained the soil of Europe with blood in modern times, have all arisen from the political weakness and defenceless condition of the lesser states of Germany. But the case was very different when these little principalities formed part of a vast Confederacy, capable of bringing 300,000 men into the field, and backed by Austria and Prussia, whose armies could in a few months double that armed host. Even the greatest powers shrank from provoking such a colossus. More than this, its existence in the centre of Europe prevented the great powers from attacking each other. Beyond all doubt, it was the impediment of the German Confederacy which kept asunder France and Russia in 1831, and preserved the peace of Europe at a time when it was so violently threatened by the propagandist efforts of the French revolutionists and the despotic tendencies of the Russian autocrat. If we consider the German Confederacy with reference Effect of the to the internal development of constitutional ideas, and Confederacy the progressive growth of civil liberty, there is unfortupeace and nately much less to admire. As the majority both of the progress votes in the Diet and of physical strength in the field was decidedly in favour of the great military powers, while the peace which they secured for the whole Confederacy was equally favourable to the growth of a passionate desire for freedom and self-government in the of freedom. |