Chap. III.} |
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the will of the inhabitants been consulted and re-
spected.
In Saxe-Weimar, the collision predicted for Germany by Goethe, between monarchy and popular freedom, was avoided by the wisdom of its administration.
Nor is the different fate of the princes to be attributed to accident.
The same infidelity to duty which induced some of them to support their vices by traffic in their subjects colored their career, and brought them in conflict with the laws of the eternal Providence.
The prince who, next to Joseph of Austria, governed at that time the largest number of men having the German for their mother tongue, was Frederic of Prussia, then the only king in Germany.
He united in himself the qualities of a great regent.
Superior to personal and dynastic influences, he lived with and for the people.
Free from prejudice, he saw things as they were.
His prudence measured his strength correctly, and he never risked extreme danger but for a necessary object.
He possessed the inventive faculty which creates resources.
He had the strong will that executes with energy, swiftly, and at the right time.
He had also the truest test of greatness, moderation.
The people bore him no grudge on account of the distribution of employments; for he never yielded the smallest fraction of political power to the class of nobles, was frugal in rewarding their service, and exacted of them the fulfilment of duty as unsparingly as he exacted it from himself.
From an unhappy defect in his education, he never acquired a mastery of the German tongue, and slighted German men of
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1874.
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