30 OCTOBER 1886, Page 2

The death of Count Beast, born a Prussian subject, but

once Premier of Austria, is not an event of interest, but it deserves record if only because of the rapidity with which he has been forgotten. In 1867, only nineteen years ago, he was one of the great men of Europe, and he performed a great ser- vice for the Austrian Monarchy. He convinced the Emperor Francis Joseph of his abilities and his friendliness, induced him to accept the Deltic idea as to Hungary, and carried through the Constitutional reforms which have contented the many States of the Monarchy, yet have left the Emperor the strongest person in it. When the Hapsburgs accepted the alliance with Germany —one of the strangest incidents in history—Count Beast retired to an Embassy, and the aristocratic party, whom he had mor- tally offended, speedily drove him even from that ; but he retained to the last the strong regard of his adopted naster. The present writer had once an opportunity of studying him care- fully, and came to the conclusion that a man of great quickness, vast information, and much principle was rendered weak by a peculiar egoism. It was not exactly vanity so much as- exaggerated self-respect. He could not bear to be beaten by Prince Bismarck, even when, somewhere in the back of his head, he recognised that Prince Bismarck, if Europe was to, advance, ought to beat him. He had the fight in him of a first-class bourgeois, not that of an aristocrat.