GERMAN UNITY.* IT is rather curious to observe, at a

season when our own Government is holding secret councils upon the best means of dismembering and weakening our own Empire, how almost every other nation in Europe is taking occasion to congratulate itself upon the progress it has made towards greater unity and consolidation, and even points to move- ments in this direction as typical of the nineteenth century, with a lamentable disregard of Mr. Gladstone's utterances

Tim Growth of Gorman Unity an Historical and Critical Etudv, By Gustav Kra.no. London: David Nutt. 1892.

about European opinion. Such is, however, the tendency that we observe on every side. The unification of Germany, with its immense consequences to the world at large, is so complete and irrevocable, that even the principal disturber of the con- ditions he himself built up cannot injure his successors in office by any insinuations of unsoundness, In Italy, politicians have been at a loss to find any cry to move the electors, for the reason that, on all matters of national importance, the people —with the exception of a handful of fanatics of the type of Signor Imbriani, who are Republicans first and hardly Italians afterwards—are practically unanimous. Even the incongruous constituents of the Austro-Hungarian Empire appear willing to seek a closer union, though this may be put of for a while by the efforts of small and professedly irreconcilable factions, supported and cherished by the crusade of discord at present preached by the Church of Rome, Whether such ephemeral influences will outlive or not the temporarily rampant minority which is troubling us at home, is a matter of merely specula- tive interest.

The author of the book before us is extremely enthusiastic about his subject, as might be expected. We are afraid that it is somewhat difficult for a denizen of another country quite to follow the enthusiastic German in all his rhapsodies about the Vaterland, especially when he is of a lyrical turn, and quotes poetry, as Mr. Krause does, by the cubic yard. The ardour of the unadulterated Teuton is difficult to gauge by com- parison with nationalities less full of soul. In one of the late Paul Fevars delightfully impossible novels, it is laid down that the true German de in bonne roche requires three things to set him up in life,—" a tyrant to fight against, some bad verses to string together, and a secret society of some kind which entitles him to drink beer with an air of mystery." But this was the German of days gone by. The beer is drunk openly now, and with an air of triumph ; and, if the verses are no better, they, at least, com- mand a larger audience. The poetic spirit which inspires Mr. Krause to sing the greatness of Prince Bismarck in a single sentence which extends over the whole of one page and several lines of another, remains the same ; and such thrilling passages as that which describes the same statesman's arrival at a "summation of undeceptions," cannot be criticised ac- cording to the strict canons that regulate common-place English prose. But after making all due allowance, it is still difficult for the foreigner to summon up enthusiasm, at least, in following the history of the rise and aggrandisement of Prussia, which, for some reason or other, has always been, and will probably remain, the most universally unpopular of European nationalities. There is little that is naturally at- tractive in the systematic policy of encroachment on a colossal scale, which has made the Hohenzollern Monarchy almost the first in Europe. With a truly admirable singleness of purpose, this process has been carried on from the time when the Burggrave of Nuremberg bought the March of Branden- burg from the Emperor Sigismund, to the treaties of 1814-15, in which Prussia, having recently suffered much, was treated. very liberally. Since that time she has been comparatively quiescent, having only absorbed one kingdom, one electorate, two duchies, two principalities, one landgraviate, and one free city in the last seventy years. Histories of this kind are impressive, but they are not altogether fascinating.

Of course, our author goes back into the mists of antiquity to bring out more clearly the greatness and glory of Germany, to whose credit he calmly appropriates all the un-Germ an, and, indeed, often anti-German elements, of the curious agglomera- tion called the Holy Roman Empire. The greatness of that Empire no one will deny ; but its Deutechheit—to use a favourite word of the strivers after German unity—is some- thing less apparent. When Lord Arundell pleaded in defence of his acceptance of the dignity of a Count of the Empire that it was not a foreign title he had received, because the Empire was communis patria, he bad certainly no idea of asserting that the world was German ; but we have little

doubt that Mr. Krause would think so. Similarly, we have kaown a French friend to be perfectly convinced that England and the Lowlands of Scotland were but French colonies ; for he had heard that most of the good families were of Norman extraction, and has not Normandy been for centuries a pro-

vince of France ? The Saisersage is also plentifully referred to—the legend of the long sleep of the Emperor Frederick, and of his future reappearance, of which Victor Hugo made such skilful use in his fine dramatic poem, Les Bur graves— as a proof of the early aspirations of the German people. This is an intensely German idea,—or, at least, it might be, if many other nationalities did not possess much such another legend.

The actual beginning of German unity, as it at present exists, we should rather reckon from the general rising of Germany against Napoleon in 1813, perhaps most exactly from the battle of Leipzig. There is much in fighting together, and more in conquering together; and this, in a, thoroughly national spirit, the Germans had not yet done. One of the most sober and weighty of writers on German affairs, M. Charles Grad, formerly deputy for Alsace in the Reichstag, describes the German Army, "the spiked helmet and the uniform," as "the best mode of disciplining all Germans of different nationalities, and penetrating them with the national idea." Other countries, the same writer points out, have been influenced in the same manner. "For five hundred years Italy had a common language and literature without becoming a nation five or six years of a national army sufficed to effect its unity under our eyes." So it has been, to a certain extent, with Germany. It is true that unity did not come so quickly as it might have, and the German nations

had for many years to submit to the nominal government of the amusing and impracticable body called the Bund. But

the idea of nationality had taken root in the German mind,

and was sedulously kept alive by such popular associations as the Burechenschaften—those very mysterious beer-drinkers

to whom F6va1 referred—and even the Federal Council, perhaps, did its best to assist by proving its utter incapacity. The growth of the feeling of unity is calculated in the book

before us, perhaps truly enough, as proportionate to the increase of the power of Prussia, till the moment when that country declared the Bund to have come to an end by having voted against her wishes.

It is a pity that a German writer is hardly capable of form- ing a cool opinion of Prince Bismarck. As a rule, he thinks it his duty to rave in praise, or occasionally in condemnation, of him ; and perhaps this is naturally to be expected. But there would be much interest in a dispassionate study of the intensely selfish, but still undoubtedly genuine, patriotism which appears to have been that statesman's guiding principle. In early life he was only a Prussian patriot, but he saw reason to extend his views beyond this narrow limit, and

devoted himself to the interests of Germany, only retaining his original Stockpreuesenthuan in so far as he insisted that

Prussia must always be at the head of Germany. His theory has always been that charity not only begins at home, but ends there ; but it is genuine charity as far as it goes. The cynical manner in which he has treated matters outside the Empire is on the same principle. "My good friend," he has practically said to foreign nations who wanted some- thing of him, "I have nothing to give you myself ; but if you like to rob the gentleman over the way, I will keep the policeman from coming round the corner." It is unfortunate that the gentleman over the way happened generally to be England ; but when Prince Bismarck advised France to take Egypt,--it is remarkable that Leibnitz made the same proposal to Louis XIV. to divert his attention from Germany—or Russia to occupy Constantinople and advance upon India, we need not assume that he was actuated by any personal spite against this country. It is a common notion among Continental statesmen that England is the safest country to offend ; while Russia, which is about the most dangerous, will always be gratified by a check to British interests. Englishmen may hope that Prince Bismarck will never return to office; but it would be absurd to deny his great claims on the gratitude of his countrymen.

The last chapter, which contains Mr. Krause's own opinions on the expansion of Germany, will be read with amusement, and might be read with some alarm, did the vapourings in which he here indulges proceed from any more responsible person. As things are, they are merely comic. The kindly

proposal to Austria that she should just hand over -Vienna

and the German provinces to her more thoroughly Gorman neighbour, and transferring her capital to Buda-Pesth- which would be so much nicer for her—recoup herself by robbing other nations whose territories lie on the frontier farthest from Germany, is truly delicious. We should advise Mr. Krause to study his Rabelais, and especially to read the advice given to King Picrochole by counsellors who had even wider aspirations, and the subsequent fate of that deluded monarch. Were Germany, indeed, to exhaust her energies in the pursuit of such fantastic dreams as are here put forth, we should not be surprised if she also had to wait, even for the recovery of the strength and prosperity which is her boast at present, till the coming of the Cocqueeigrues.