On this page
- Departments (2)
-
Text (6)
-
f^TJT\ *7ji£v\ ^y-v ^IM *r ¦ * 4^£J*^ r\w^f$& *£i ^f i% \^ ~//j \ iLA/JLI JLf jt f C\/£p ( < -^) a
-
Untitled Article
-
, .;. .. .. . . = =y= f& ft k I tt» (ki "tifrrti* a JylkulIT ^HUlTH* ' ' • • '"
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
F^Tjt\ *7ji£V\ ^Y-V ^Im *R ¦ * 4^£J*^ R\W^F$& *£I ^F I% \^ ~//J \ Ila/Jli Jlf Jt F C\/£P ( ≪ -^) A
fflP ^ W ^ Jmtniftr .
Untitled Article
THE SELVER WEDDING . Q Pidb twenty-ftftli annrversajy of the marriage of Prince William of Prussia is a point of time fifbjtn vfbicli the veteran bridegroom may well be supposed i ; o turn round and survey the path that ihe lias followed thus far , with an eye o £ comparison to the present , and . perhaps to the future * . It ia true that time pays Uttle regarcl to human anniversaries ; a year as we measure it is unknown to the move free
JJienteJ of the spheres ; our line and rule are j ^ ipe ^ e ^ by the and eccentric movements | p Siick , our bal ^ iida ? can only adjust itself byleap 3 . TC-he . day passes into yesterday , and tomorrow takes its torn ; but , in truth , as the e | Sr ! ti turns . round tHere is no division bet ^ f ^ a * sun and night . To the sun there is hut one day , and night is but the transient delusion of the smaller half of the globe . So many times have we passed through our own shadow , and we say that a year has passed .
This anniversary has no real identity with that short period between two shadow-passitigs Vrhich is marked m . the calendar as Prince " ^ ifljbMnl ' s wedo ^ qijg-diay ' in , ' -1829 . Nevertheless pydjiljiW ^ ^^ of the calendar he has a . right to . draw "hia comparisons , and he « w $ Jl find many things changed , both at home and abroad . " ^ SBSftfft ^ Jwr ^? ^ as ^ ut tjb e younger son of tte reignugig king , and how much is implied . for his . changed position in the fact that his elder brother has since come to the throne , has remained without issue , and is manifestly declining in "health as he is in popularity and influence . Since Prince William married
great changes have taken place in his own country and in its relations abroad . The revolution of 1848 has taught him that the Prussian throne is not without its perils , and that the great body even of the German people cannot he altogether forgotten . The vacillating conduct of his brother has taught him that honesty and straightforwardness are essential to strength , unless there be , surpassing acivfceness and vigour of mind . If he looks to the actual state of his country , although he may congratulate himself that the efforts of Frederick the Great and of that
monarch's Father are apparent in the excellent condition of tlie army , and in the development of learning , both of which have so contributed to adorn , and strengthen Prussia , he may say that the Commercial League , which was the project of hia father , and adopted by his brother , has not yet secured the political objects for which it was instituted , and has certainly not developed the trade and riches of Prussin . No , the future king of that intelligent kingdom will have to confess that the influence of time in more
apparent in himself nnd in his bride , nioro happily apparent , too , in the children that have been T > om to them , than in the- growth of Prussian commerce . If he would seek to calculate the horoscope of Uie future , the King presumptive of Prussia inay look somewhat further back than the period of hia own wedded life , and not without instruction . The kingdom of Prussia itself ia not of such very ancient
"ate . It was a fief of Poland within two hundred years , for it is just one hundred and eighty-eight years since the , first Frederick William declared it independent of tribute to Poland . It has not been a kingdom for two centuries , for it became royal no earlier than 1688 . £ Tot eight times the wedded life of Prince William has Prussia been
independent ; not seven times has its Sovereign been a king ; and when he looks to the mode in which his future possessions , —if they are to be his , —were acquired , he cannot say that he holds them , all by ancient tenure , by national solidity , or by manifest justice . Saxony , Austria , Poland , and Sweden , have surrendered , to the arms of Russia—possessions wlich were not always fairly won even in
the field ; for much sharp practice in the closet sometimes took more than the rightly-earned fruits of equivocal victories . He cannot say that Prussia may claim from the other states of Europe acknowledgment that she has been faithful to her engagements , or even to her stipulated treaties . To one declaration , indeed , Germany has been faithful for about as many years as it has been royal—sinee it has stuck , we cannot say to the national
phrase , but to the selfish phrase , " Germans we are , and Germans we should continue "the p hrase with which Frederick William II . initiated his reign . Prussia has been German ; but chiefly in her eagerness to eat up Germany and make the ancient fiefs of the Hapsburg family the territories of the Hohenzollem . Prince William is a soldier , and he may glory justly in the honours of the Prussian arms ; , but if Frederick the Great was not always undefeated , if [ Republican France left her mark upon Prussia , he may
remember that something very like cowardice , mingled with 13 ie » bad faith of the Prussian 5 £ ing , who joined in alliance with his old enemy France , after , in alliance with Austria , he had conspired to attack Napoleon in the rear , and after his intended victim had conquered . Austria at Austerlitz . Crowning his bad faith with a new breach of treaty towards France , the IKing provoked that extinction of the Prussian monarchy which wa 3 his punishment in 1806 , and which , in fact , cuts off even the short lease of two centuries for
Prussian independence . It is true that Prussia recovered her independence by the victory of "Wellington ia 1815 ; but , granting all the share that she had as an ally in securing that victory , it must be confessed that Prussia has only a title that is thoroughly recognised and completely established for some forty years or less—not double the time that has seen Prince William a husband . Even
then Prussia vitiated her claim upon the German States by giving only too tangible an interpretation to tho saying of Frederick William tho Second . Conquering the invader , by the help of Wellington , Prussia claimed as her wages the cession to her crown of Saxony and many other German
provinces ; and if her Commercial League has failed in its political objects during the fifteen years of its existence , it haa stood as a practical confession that Prussia has aimed at securing hy circumvention those objects which she openly demanded in 1815 , and which have continued to be tho aim of her
monarchs since she became royal , and evenbefore . The house of ^ Brandenburg has lived by devouring its neighbours ; and with a broken tenure , and a lease vitiated by weakness , bad faitk and fraud , how can tho presumptive Monarch of Pruasia look forward into the future , and say that he has a throne guarded , as the English throno is , by its own inherent strength , by tho respect of its neighbours , and the affection of its people , or its long tenure ? There ia , indeed , one solid hold which the Prussian Government has upon the Prussian people ; and , like all great influences , it is
reciprocal . It ; consists in the thoroughly military training which is extended to the whole male population . Every Prussian miist be a soldier ; but it is an obligation which confers a right and creates a pover . The King of Prussia is but the chief of a nation of soldiers ; and absolute as the constitution may be , he cannot forget his subjects ; imperfectly as public opinion may be developed , the people has the strength which enables it to give that public opinion a considerable effect .
Prince William , however , has had some opportunities which fate has denied to his brother : he ia really a soldier , a husband and a father . Although still far from being an old man , —he is but fifty-seven years of age , —he has known a quarter of a century of wedded life with the same wife . He was , nevertheless , no longer a youth when he married , in 1829 , the young Princess Augusta of Saxe Weimar , then in her eighteenth vear . The Weimar , then in her eighteenth year . The
marriage was suitable in point of rank , anct ^ it doubly connected the Prince with . Russia ; since his sister was married to the Emperor Nicholas , and the Princess Augusta was the daughter of a Russian mother . But it is quite possible that with a manlike Prince William something more entered into the marriage than mere state considerations ; and the unanimity with which the Prussian people are contributing to the presents and
homage that he received on the anniversary of the day after the -wedding , incline us to think as much . Tt must be in great part because the soldier-Prince is supposed , for all his absolute tendencies and Russian alliances , to counsel a sturdy independence of Hussia ; but it would seen * to imply a more general sympathy with the Prince as a man and as a husband . If this be so , then , indeed , the Prince has known something higher than the enjoyment of royal dignity .
Sovereigns may meet to arrange state matrimonies , —heralds may arrange gorgeous pageants , —^ archbishops may bless the union with cathedral solemnities , —expectant crowds may hail the alliance of realms aa well as spouses , —tire-women may dress the bride in silks , brocades , and golden robes ; but the bridegroom , if he be upon an equality with his happier , though humbler countrymen ,
knows that his bride does not appear to him in all her power until the pageant is over , the heralds are gone , archbishops are silent , multitudes are sunk in oblivion , kings forgotten—until the lady of his thoughts comes to him without ministering retinue , without pageant , without robes . This , the living part of life , is known only to those that undergo it . Even the very existence of the life where its home is built remains but matter of
conjecture . If true life 13 there , then the lovers learn , in the exchange of life , that there is something more in such union than enjoyment ; and the noblest bridegroom may learn through lessons of tho soul which woras cannot teach , that the Prince is inferior to man when man wins tho full measure of his destiny , even here on earth .
Such wisdom , if he attain it , may knit a Prince to his kin and countrymen far more than any man-made laws , be they ever so constitutional and representative . The man that has enjoyed the true taste of life—even if there was some alloy in it—for tho twenty-five years before hia Hi Ivor Wedding , must have earned his happiness by reciprocating tho gift ; and it'he take a soberer view , if ho confess
aspirations less self-seeking than the younger bridegroom ' s are wont to bo , a hearty sympathy with his kind will make him none tho worse ruler . Prussia owes many a heavy fine to ISurope , for wrongs committed and states defrauded , oven during her brief existence as a realm ; restless Poland , once her suzerain , since her victim-slave , may yet be a
, .;. .. .. . . = =Y= F& Ft K I Tt» (Ki "Tifrrti* A Jylkulit ^Hulth* ' ' • • '"
' n « - - — ¦ ——¦ . ¦ -, ¦ — - —¦— ,.-.. ^_ , . ——r—^ tt hltr Mnirs .
Untitled Article
! hflca is nothing so revolutionary , because there is . ixothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain % a keep things fixed when all the world ia by the very law of ita creation in eteraal progress . —Da . Abkouk
Untitled Article
SATURDAY , JUNE 17 , 1854 .
Untitled Article
564 THE LEADER . [ Saturday , - ^ ^^^ t ^^^ t ^^^^^^^^^ t ^^ t — — . ¦ ¦ ¦ - — ¦ . ¦ i ¦ ¦ i ¦ — , ___
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), June 17, 1854, page 564, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2043/page/12/
-