such it could not fail to rouse the jealousy and ill-will of the power which had hitherto boasted itself the arbiter of the Eastern hemisphere. The motives of France's defiance of Germany to a death-struggle are too notorious, and the events of that terrible conflict stand too vividly before us, to call for narration here, and we shall therefore devote the few remaining paragraphs of this paper to some brief observations on the general results of the historical events of which it has endeavored to present an outline.

The most conspicuous characteristic of Prussia's history, since the death of Frederick the Great, seems to us to be that she has attained, almost, as it were, blindly, to her present position; has been forced into it partly by two or three of her own statesmen, acting with more or less consciousness of the direction in which they were impelling her, but mainly by pressure from without, by the agency of forces which she herself constantly repudiated and ignored. The influence of her rulers upon the development of her destinies has been uniformly prejudicial.* All the Hohenzollerns, with the exception of the present king, who has been sometimes the instrument and sometimes the accomplice, but never the director of his Minister, have been absolutely hostile to Prussia's unitarian instincts, and have been so almost inevitably from an obstinate attachment to the effete doctrine of divine right, which rendered their sympathy with the great unitarian party utterly impossible. The success of Count Bismarck in his policy has something about it, at first sight, of the magical. But when closely analyzed it amounts to nothing but the utilization of forces in whose creation he himself had absolutely no part, but which had been scattered and lost until, with matchless skill, he gathered them together and gave them unity of direction.

Is it visionary to see in these remarkable incidents, all gradually combining towards one vaguely perceived but most momentous end, the traces of a higher controlling power? The stream of history displays, when comprehensively viewed, uniformity of direction and persistency both of development

*This must be understood to apply to political interests only. As far as the material interests of the country are concerned, the Hohenzollerns have generally shown an enlightenment decidedly above the average.

and, we believe, of purification. But if we look closer, this uniformity shows, at intervals, breaks of turbid confusion, where the set of the current seems to change and all movement to become retrograde. As we gaze, however, some new element appears to mingle with the troubled flood. The suspended impurities disappear, the eddies smooth down, and the waters resume their natural flow.

The present age has many of the characteristics of a break in the stream of progress. Europe's political life is disturbed by the eddies of democratic and socialistic under-currents, and her moral life is troubled and obscured by the gradual elimination of faith from its constituents. The reconciliation of religion and science is the grand task of our day, and upon its failure or success all our religious future depends. Now there cannot be a doubt that the predominance of the Celtic intellect, with its marked tendencies to frivolity and sarcasm, is directly hostile to all earnest effort in such a direction.* The Teutonic intellect, on the contrary, serious, profound, truth-loving, and reverential, is eminently fitted for the task. The common assertion that German rationalism is worse than French infidelity is a most superficial one. To an undereducated priesthood the former will doubtless prove far the more formidable antagonist. But between the two there lies the vast difference which separates an earnest endeavor to attain to truth from a flippant pleasure in sneering at everything sacred.

The political supremacy of Germany over France will inevitably carry with it the intellectual supremacy also, for which, in the spreading study of German literature, a remarkable preparation has been long going on; and by that intellectual supremacy we do not doubt that civilization will, on the whole, largely profit.

From an international point of view, the unification of Germany would seem to be, in like manner, beneficial. The immense-mass of the inferior Russian element is constantly bearing with increased pressure upon the rest of Europe, and

*We would not be supposed to impugn the great obligations of intellectual civilization to France, the refinement of taste, the polish of wit, and, above all, the precision of ideas, which are essentially due to her influence.

to this pressure united Germany will oppose a resistance which could not else have been provided.

The home results of this unity will obviously be favorable to the cause of progress. Achieved by a simultaneous, earnest national effort, perfectly self-conscious, and with nothing about it of the spasmodic character which belonged to the rising of 1813, it places political power firmly in the hands of the people, not, in all probability, leading at once to a republic, or rather a confederation of republics, but bringing the whole country nearer to that consummation, for which the persistent duplicity of its rulers and the deterioration of the nobility have been long preparing it.

Into the remoter and dimmer eventualities with which this unification is doubtless pregnant, - the stimulus thereby given to the principle of nationality, the probable disappearance of Austria from the map of Europe, and the final exorcisement of the spectral" Eastern question," we forbear to enter. The realities as they stand are colossal enough to fill the average mind. We leave it to others to play Edipus to their enigmatical future;

Τὸ σήμερον μέλει μοι
Τὸ δ ̓ αὔριον τὶς οἶδεν ;

H. W. HEMANS.

NOTE BY THE EDITOR.-The article upon " France and the Second Empire" in the October number of this Review was by inadvertence signed with the name of Henry W. Homans. The editor wishes to call attention to the fact that the author of that article was Mr. H. W. Hemans, who contributes the foregoing essay upon "Prussia and Germany."

THERE has been a lull in the angry debates about modern architecture, which for thirty years had kept people busy and interested. This pause may be the result of better knowledge and wider sympathies; but it has in it something very like despair. The discussions of twenty years ago, and since that time, have been narrow-minded enough; but they were possible only to hopeful men intent upon a great result, supposed to be within easy reach. There is too much reason to fear that the eagerness has vanished only with the hope. The partisans of the different styles had their infallible schemes for creating the architecture of the future; schemes wild enough, and theories unfounded enough, as experience seems to show, and as recent criticism has proved to every one's satisfaction. But the immense advance that has been made in the knowledge of the fine and industrial arts of the past has brought to the present generation a sense of its own shortcomings, which has made it wellnigh hopeless of any good result from its own efforts to apply fine art to building. A well-known instance is the attempted Gothic revival, which began in the general belief that the desired "new style" of architecture was to be sought by adopting some old style, and a mediæval one, as most available, and working in it until the new should develop itself. Unfortunately, in England and in Germany, where the controversy was most warm between the advocates of the Gothic revival and the classic status, the question of purity of style was allowed to assume so much importance in the Gothic camp, that architectural design became more and more a matter of archæological knowledge and faithful copying. In this instance, then, we find that the earlier buildings of the Gothic revival were wretched Gothic and poor architecture, but that their authors believed in them, and saw their way in imagination to a new Gothic, as real, as universal, and as splendid as the old. Nowadays, while better buildings are built by the English churchbuilders at least, and although workmen have grown more skilful, and some "lost arts" of medieval decoration have been rediscovered, it is found that the hope of a modern Gothic archi

tecture, fit for every occasion, universally inspiring and universally recognized, has almost wholly passed away. In the same manner all other attempts have failed, the rediscoverers of the one great lost art of architecture are silent, and although everybody is profoundly dissatisfied, no new experiment is being tried and no new theory proclaimed.

If, then, no change for the better is seen to be at hand, is it safe to conclude that such a change is as far away as ever? Is the present to be accepted as the only possible state of things, at least during the present generation? There are many reasons for thinking so, at least. The consideration of some of these reasons is the business of this essay. The main inquiry will be confined to this country, in which, while there are no monuments of the past for example and for encouragement, there are, or should be, an independence of routine, and a willingness to disregard precedent, which have been too rare among the modern architects of Europe,- virtues that might prove saving ones, if we had knowledge and judgment enough to use them.

In this paper the word "architecture" will not be used very often, because it is of very uncertain and indefinable meaning. Thus, the definition of it that might be deduced from the writings of Viollet-le-Duc would be, "intelligent building." That is to say, a noble architecture will be one in which all the needs of life-shelter, defence, public worship, state- are provided for in the most complete way, by means of edifices of the most economical, permanent, useful, and dignified character, decorated, if at all, by the appliances and in the style best adapted to help the impressiveness of the structure. Such a definition might seem sufficient but that other definitions have an equal claim. What word have we for modern falsehoods and absurdities, if we give to the word "architecture " a strictly favorable meaning? Moreover, it is common to speak of naval or marine architecture, and of military architecture, and with reasonable propriety, considering the derivation of the word; but beauty of design is ignored in those arts, and if a glacis or the bow of a boat is beautiful, it is not intentionally made so. The fact that they are beautiful may help our inquiry, but the duce them are not less purely mechanical because of that beauty. VOL. CXII. NO. 230.

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