comfort, having won a rich wife while in the Prussian capital. The success of his poems, the fire of their contagious spirit, and, above all, the éclat of his tour, have, as might be expected, given birth to fresh young poets and fresh issues of songs, which, however, have not yet acquired sufficient importance to be included in this group.

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CHAPTER IX.

THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE.

SINCE the chapter on the Political Poets was published in the Athenæum, the King of Prussia has issued an order to arrrest Herwegh, wherever and whenever he can be found on the Prussian territory. This monarch seems now to have flung off the last hypocritical pretence of liberal sentiment. Every day he is doing some act of defiance to his people, and of despite to their prayers for the promised boon of constitutional liberty.* For what was this man received with such enthusiasm in England? For what did the people run after him, and shout, as well as the nobility fête him? For what did Mrs. Fry invite him to breakfast? Was it for any congenial expression of sentimentfor any deeds of liberality done either in politics

In a letter just received from one of the most celebrated and, I may add, moderate men of Germany, dated April 13th, I find this sentence:-"Seit Sie Deutschland verlassen haben, ist es schlimmer und schlimmer bei uns geworden, namentlich in Preussen. Die Presse wird mehr und mehr gedrückt, jede freiere Regung des Volksbewnsstseins wisd mit Füssen getreten: der König hat durch die jüngsten Landtagsabschiede klar bewiesen, dasser nicht mehr und nicht weniger, alseben ein absoluter Herrscher sein will."

or religion? or was it really because he has, more than, perhaps, any man of his time, wilfully, unsolicitedly, made promises of good that he never meant to fulfil, and assumed pretences that were intended only to bamboozle and insult his people? Did Mrs. Fry, when she gave this man of her toast and tea, her prayers and benedictions, think of asking him the simple question-Why he had continued to enforce the religious compulsion of his father, which has driven 5000 poor Lutherans into exile from their native land, and still continues to drive them thence? Did the Queen, or did the Lord Mayor, when they fêted and flattered this man, ever think of asking him why he has promised freedom to his people, and every day more sternly denies their prayers for that freedom,nay, more, remorselessly lops away what little of freedom they have? It is said that her Majesty contemplates a visit to Berlin, to this wretched dissembler, where she is to meet also the Czar of Russia. She might surely keep better company. No one can expect her to return from such society with a more liberal and truly English mind.

Here is a man who does not, like many monarchs, sin against his people because he is ignorant of them, of their real feelings and condition. No; he is better acquainted with all that concerns his people than any monarch in Europe. In his youth he was a wild fellow; he roamed amongst his people, he descended into the very lowest of their

haunts for the gratification of his roving pleasures. But when he comes to the throne, at a mature age, he puts on a face of piety, and promises his people unasked, on his coronation, a free representative constitution. In vain, however, have they looked for it. What has been his reply? "I mean to give it you, when you are really prepared for it!” As the Cosmopolitan Watchman says, "Kings should not be witty, but speak plain truths." He should have freely given his explanation when he gave the promise, and there would have been no mistake. But here now is this man in close alliance with the Russian Autocrat, who hates all liberty. Here he sends his troops, when this Czar fears insurrection amongst his own people, to help to keep them down. Every day Prussian subjects, on pretence of being Russian fugitives, are seized on the Russian frontiers, and dragged away into Russian slavery; and spite of the outcries of his own people for help and protection, this liberal king takes no notice of these outrages. No; he is too busy in quenching the remaining sparks of liberty amongst his people himself. He issues an order to seize a poor poet, who is none of his subject, if he can be at any time found on Prussian soil. His Rhenish provinces have, by the act which made them over to Prussia after the war, a right, in their Landtag, or Parliament, to propose measures of amendment to him. This very year, but a few months ago, they exercised this right, and proposed

eight-and-forty measures of improvement, including the adoption of trial by jury. Of these he flings back forty, and that with harsh reproaches, telling them that "he is called upon to diffuse a German and not a French sentiment," i.e. not trial by jury, and such things. The lawyers of Germany have united themselves into a society for the consideration of the revision of the whole legal system of Germany, of that horrible system without publicity, juries, or oral evidence. They meet at Mayence, but the King of Prussia forbids any of his subjects to appear there! Nay, he makes war on the very pastimes of the people. In their carnivals they have been accustomed to express, in jokes and witticisms, their political privations,—he has therefore this year forbidden those carnival frolics at Düsseldorf! The Hegelians petition to be allowed to publish a literary journal, for the diffusion of their philosophical opinions,-it is forbidden! Thus this man, who so freely at his Huldigung promised freedom of press and constitution, now trembles alike at philosopher and Hans Wurst. Every week witnesses some new and arbitrary attack on the liberties of his subjects.

Ferdinand Freiligrath, a beautiful and very popular lyric poet, but very temperate in his assertion of his ideas of political liberty, he gave a paltry pension to of some two or three hundred dollars, no doubt in the hope of keeping him silent; but