Ring Frederick William has taken the oath to the new
Prussian Constitution, with a characteristic speech, full of bonhomie, abso- lutist doctrine, and religionism. He wins your liking by a kind of straightforward homely language, which decidedly appeals to English sympathies—perhaps not unmoved by the Teutonic idiom, whether of word or thought. Then he amazes you by wrapping in the inaugural speech of a free constitution the avowal that " he means to govern, because God wills it." With one eye leering humorously at his beloved Berliners and the other leering at Hea- ven, he exposes his game of trying to compound his kingly policy out of all elements—patriarchal influence and Divine right, the spirit of English institutions and Austrian authority, the spirit of free will and of evangelical dogma. But above all, he will govern --that he will do to the last ; that is, till the power be snatched out of his hands in the natural course of political events.
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