But Williain II. seems determined to break with those traditions, deeming that a throne might very well be made to serve the purposes of a pulpit, and Delphic tripod, as well as of a silent and serene Olympus-top. And what, indeed, is the use of a father (or pater patria) if he rarely or never addresses to his children words of encouragement, correction, and guidance? It is the only means he has of keeping in touch with them, and promoting a mutual understanding between them. A keen observer of the spirit of the time, the Emperor perceives-in spite of Carlyle's dictuin as to the relative metallic value of speech and silence-that free and frequent utterance is in barmony with the rapid methods of the age, and its wire-hung whispering gallery of a shrunken world. Estrangement between subject and sovereign is generally due to mere misunderstanding; and to obviate this, at least, His Majesty is resolved that no one need be in doubt as to what his thoughts and plans and impulses really are. This habit of speech upon favorable occasion is one which the Emperor has borrowed from the statesmen of England, as indeed he is otherwise very much more English in his tastes and sympathies than is, or was, at least, generally supposed; and, in spite of all that has been said and suspected on the subject, I am very much mistaken if he has not inherited from his mother the predilections which made Bismarck once write from Frankfort to his Foreign Office chief Manteuffel, at Berlin, that, after his own countrymen, he liked the English and their ways best. Our own William IV., too, had a peculiar mania for after-dinner speeches; though, if the evidence of the ingenious Mr. Greville may be trusted, he rarely indulged this consuming passion without making an utter fool of himself. But not so his German relative and namesake, whose matter is always good even if his manner is indifferent, for he affects none of the orator's arts save those of strength and straightforwardness.

His

voice is rather harsh and rasping, jagged and jerky, while his delivery is slightly more suggestive of a stern command to a battalion than of a bland and gracious address to a social circle of friends. He takes little thought of preparation, and in the selection and arrangement of his matter trusts less to premeditation than to the spur of the moment.

The banquet at the Guildhall was the only occasion where I ever saw the Emperor read a speech, not being one from the throne; but then, be it remembered, he had to express himself in a language which, with all his fluent power over it, was not exactly his own. And the rules of dignity forbid an Emperor from making a slip of grammar or syntax (though, indeed, one of His Majesty's predecessors on the throne of the Cæsars was super grammaticam), just as the laws of public safety are equally opposed to the bare possibility of a Sovereign lapsing into a literal mistake which might have the conceivable effect of perverting his meaning to the perturbation and panic-terror of all the bourses of Europe. In all the Emperor's after-dinner and ceremonial speeches there is ever a fine manly ring of resolution and of originality, and sometimes they are positively aflame with patriotic fervor, albeit now and again dashed with a formidable spirit of "dourness," as when, at the unveiling of a monument at Frankfort-on-the-Oder to Prince Frederick Charles, the captor of Metz, His Majesty in the first year of his reign declared that, rather than surrender back to the French one single inch of Alsace-Lorraine, the eighteen Army Corps then guarding the Fatherland, as well as its forty-eight million inhabitants, would shed the very last drop of their blood. Moreover, it must also be admitted that sometimes, too, the young Emperor is apt to let himself be carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, as when, last spring, at Bonn, when presiding over a Beer-Commers, he expressed the hope that, "as long as there were German Corps (or fighting-club) students, the spirit which was fostered in these Corps, and which was steeled by strength and courage, would be preserved, and that they would always take delight in handling the duelling-blade"-the expression of a hope in which many olderheaded Germans were sorry to discover a direct incitement to a breach of the antiduelling laws prevailing in Prussia.

But there are few men who have the courage of their convictions in a greater degree than the Emperor, and this courage was never more clearly and emphatically evinced than when he lectured the municipality of Berlin-which Prince Bismarck had once denounced as a "Radical nest"-on the licentious and libellous

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spirit of the Press that he assumed to be under its immediate inspiration and control. This was just after his return from his first trip to Russia, when a civic deputation, headed by the Burgomaster, waited upon His Majesty to offer him the erection of a fountain (by a master-hand) as a token of loyalty as well as of joy at his safe return home. This offer the Emperor was graciously pleased to accept; but at the same time he profited by the occasion to read the astounded deputation a most cutting lecture on the sins of its supposititious organs, which had been guilty of meddling with the private affairs of his family, and which, therefore, the city fathers ought to whistle into heel, as yelping hounds who were preparing to set upon an illegitimate quarry. Perhaps it was this first unfortunate experience of his with the Press of Berlin-which for some time after his accession was full of painful Court scandals and controversies-that inspired the young Emperor with a deep aversion from journalists, to whom he contemptuously referred in his opening speech at the Conference on Educational Reform, as Pressscamps" (Press- Bengel); and apparently this feeling of contempt was uppermost in His Majesty's heart when he decreed, in opposition to the practice observed by his grandfather, that no foreign Correspondent could be received at his Court, even though he had been previously presented to his own Sovereign. At the same time, His Majesty, like his father, is a diligent, and indeed voracious, reader of newspapers; and one of the first things he does of a morning is to peruse the extracts from the Press of Germany and Europe, which are selected for him and gummed on to folio-pages by the officials of the Press Bureau-an institution of which this is now the main, if not, indeed, the only function, but concerning which more downright nonsense has been written than about any other part of the organism of the Prussian State. These extracts the Emperor frequently annotates in this or that sense, and it is such marginal remarks which serve as the basis of many a semi-official démenti or rectification.

From journalism to literature there is but one step-or call it a stride ;-but there is nothing to show that, while desiring in many other ways to emulate the example set by Frederick the Great, Will

iam II. is also eager to play the part of a Mæcenas of the Muses. I was once at a dinner-party in Berlin which included some of the chief authors of the capital; and afterward, in the smoking-room, the talk was of Literature and its relation to the Crown. Said one of these writers-a novelist whose personal modesty is scarce ly equal to his European reputation," But, gentlemen, just consider my case. Here am I, one of the foremost writers in Germany, and I have never yet been bidden to court: what think you of that, meine Herren?" It must be admitted, in all candor, that German authors, as a rule, are a most uncourtly class of creatures; but very few of them, indeed, are ever admitted even to a back seat in the social assemblages which, in the winter season, gather round the Throne, though the artists, as being a more innocuous raceless prone, that is to say, to taint their creations with the hue of party politics— are slightly favored in this respect. The Emperor will go to a theatre, and ask the manager or a leading actor round to his box, to discuss with him, in the face of all the house, "some necessary question of the play," and even send him a decoration now and then. But when a Berlin actor hears that prominent members of his own guild in England are occasionally invited to Marlborough House, he simply rolls his eyes and clasps his hands in petrified astonishment. The worst of it (or the best of it, according to fancy) is that most of the leading authors and actors in Germany are of Semitic origin a fact that tends to complicate the question of their social status in the eyes of a proud aristocratic community, which reasons that equality before the law need not carry with it the privilege of equality before the social lord or lady. Here, in England, I have heard expressions of some little astonishment that the Emperor did not try to widen the field of his experience, during his recent visit to us, by inviting the acquaintance of some of our most representative men in art, science, and literature. But can a man, even when endowed with all the Emperor's surpassing energy, do everything? And how, indeed, could English Science and Literature hope to fare well at his hands, when His Majesty found it impossible to pay even so much as a flying visit to the Exhibition of his own country's art and industry?

One of the most interesting objects in all this Exhibition-picture gallery section -is the copy of a fine battle-ship, of the old three-decker type, from the hand of the Emperor himself (when Prince William), which proves that, apart from the other splendid qualities of heart and head bequeathed to him by his English mother (and he has much more of his mother's than his father's character and temperament), he has inherited her love of, and capacity for art. It has long been a tradition of the House of Hohenzollern that

each of its sons should learn some handicraft or other, and it is clear that the present head of that House might have become a very respectable artist instead of an artisan. As it is, he loses no opportunity of promoting the interests of Art as a necessary element in national culture, while his accession to the Throne proved a perfect godsend to the portrait painters and sculptors of Berlin-a very numerous class. For there are few of them, at the top of their profession, to whom His Majesty has not himself repeatedly sat. Frederick the Great was very chary of having himself reproduced, and, indeed, he left behind him but few original portraits of himself-you might number them all on the fingers of one hand. But the various counterfeit presentments of his reigning descendant, already in existence, would fill a goodly picture gallery by themselves. One reason for this artistic multiplication of himself on such an extensive scale is that the Emperor is chief of so many regiments, native and foreign, in the mess-rooms of which he naturally enough desires his portrait, in the appropriate uniform, to be hung; while, again, his numerous visits to the Courts of Europe, where they load him with honors, entails upon him the obligation of counter favors, which generally take the shape of his own speaking likeness. And can a monarch pay a higher personal compliment than is embodied in his bust or his portrait ?

But while speaking of portraits I may as well recount an incident which sheds not a little light on the character of the Emperor. One of the chief attractions at Berlin this year is an International Exhibition of Art, which was got up by the Society of Berlin Artists to celebrate the jubilee of their existence-for is this not an age of universal jubilees? Neverthe

less, this exhibition brought anything but jubilation to a lady artist from Hungary, Madame P― by name, whose achievements with the brush entitled her to believe that she had a splendid future before her and an easy triumph in Berlin. Now, among her other chefs d'œuvre, this lady claimed to reckon a portrait of Count Moltke, who, when Madame had expressed her joy at having been able thus to delineate a man so famous for the making of Weltgeschichte (world-history), capped the compliment by saying that this portrait of his decidedly seemed to mark an era in Kunstgeschichte (history of art). What, therefore, was the surprise and mortification of the fair artist to find that the Hanging Committee of the Exhibition affected to consider her presentment of the great strategist as beneath the standard of excellence necessary to admit it to their art-show! Rage and protest, naturally enough, on the part of Madame. P, who vowed that she had been made the victim of professional jealousy and intrigue; but nothing would avail against the decision of the jury, who firmly closed its doors in the face of the Hungarian lady and her "epoch-making" portrait of Moltke. But she bided her time, and had her revenge. For the Emperor, returning to town from one of his excursions, was struck by the violence of the storm that was raging, and made haste to send for Madame and her picture, with the excellence of which His Majesty was so deeply impressed that he there and then gave a handsome price for it, and, exercising his royal privilege, sent it straight to the Exhibition with instructions that it should be hung at once in the Salle d'honneur, and after that in the National Gallery! Then we had abashed looks and bated breath on the part of the Hanging Committee, as well as rude awakening from the complacent dream that they were better critics than a young Emperor. It was in the same spirit of superior judgment that made His Majesty sweep away, by one impatient motion of the hand, the mountain of models which was the result of the competition for the National Monument to be erected to his grandfather. The jury had awarded the highest prizes to architects who, aiming only at effect, and forgetful of the wherewithal that would be necessary to realize their schemes, had embodied their ideas in stupendous piles

of a most grandiose character. But the Emperor, with a sharp eye to all the practical as well as the patriotic aspects of the question, brusquely turned his back upon all the colossal projects, declaring that the simpler work of a sculptor must suffice; and since then the decision of the matter has mainly rested with him. Thus, contrary to the original sense of Parliament, the crection of the old Emperor's monument promises to be the final outcome neither of representative opinion nor of free artistic competition.

Minerva is by no means distasteful to the Emperor; but he is fondest of this goddess when she exerts herself in the service of Mars. Military and naval pictures are his chief delight; and on all his jour. neys by sea he is accompanied by a marine painter (Herr Salzmann), whose duty it is to transfer to canvas the chief scenes and incidents of his master's devious wanderings. He hastens to buy up every military piece of art he can lay his hands on; and thus it was that, when at Constantinople, and hearing that Kaulbach's "Battle of Salamis" was for sale, he telegraphed to the widow of that great artist begging her to name her own price for the piece. It will still be fresh in memory how, on the death of Meissonier, the Emperor hastened to convey to the Academy of Fine Arts at Paris his grief at the loss of this master, who was one of the greatest glories of France and of the Art of the whole world," but it is doubtful whether His Majesty's encomiums would have been half so warm, or his sorrow so acute, had Meissonier not been a painter of battles.

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I do not believe that, like Frederick the Great,--whose own confession is the justification of the statement-the Emperor William would plunge his people into a war merely in order to get himself talked about, and to cull what is called glory. His Majesty is not bellicose; but, at the same time, his whole soul is wrapped up in soldiering. As long as he is seated on the Throne, Germany will never be hurried into a heedless or unjust war. If she draws the sword at all, it will only be in her own defence or that of her allies. Of that the world may be absolutely sure, though the French still affect, much to the discredit of their judgment, to have their suspicions. But, while the Emperor is not aggressive, there is no more ardent and devoted student of the military art in

all Europe. His passion for reviews (defilir-ium tremens, as the wanton wit of a Frenchman called it) is absorbing; and of all the great state functions of the year in which he has to figure, that of the grand autumn manoeuvres pleases him best. On these occasions His Majesty generally takes personal command of an Army Corps. Last year he directed the movements of two, which he did with singular ability. As I wrote at the time: "This is not mere flattery, but the clear and deliberate opinion of those who are best entitled to judge, and who maintain that, both as an active commander and as a critic of others in the field, the present occupant of the Throne of Prussia, among his other sterling gifts, shows indications of a military genius of the very highest promise." Even his favorite diversions are military, a game of Kriegspiel or a lecture on some campaign; but more attractive to him still than either of those occupations is the serious pastime of taking garrisons unawares. In this respect the Emperor seems ubiquitous: like the ghost in Hamlet, 'tis here, 'tis there, 'tis gone;" so that, for miles around any particular place where His Majesty chances to be, the troops have learned the useful art of sleeping with one eye open and either ear attent. But of all these alarmings, the most sensational, because the most surprising, happened on the day of the last General Election to the Reichstag, when the electors (and they have universal suffrage over there) were crowding in their thousands to the urns. One would have thought that the very shadow of superior power would have been withheld from the sight of the voters on such a day. But no; for, as all over Berlin they were trooping to the polls, their paths were crossed and deflected by ten thousand troops of all arms, who had suddenly been called out by sound of bugle and tuck of drum, and were racing, helter-skelter, to meet their supreme War Lord" on the trysting ground-a remarkable spectacle, to be sure, and one wellcalculated (as it was doubtless intended) to remind the electors that, after all, there was a very much higher power for good in Germany than the ballot-box, and that the Fatherland owed far more to her aring than to her Parliaments.

It was characteristic of the two men that, whereas Frederick III., on succeed

ing to the Throne, issued his first proclamation (which had been written for him years before by the unfortunate Dr. Geffcken) to his people," and the next to his army, his son William simply reversed this order of address, and, in his own words of burning devotion, spoke primarily to his army, and then to his navy. It was his " people in arms" he first thought of, and after that his citizen subjects; and a very large proportion of the German people in arms" is now the German navy, which is the object of as much solicitude and devotion on the part of the Emperor as his beloved army. As the Prussian army, the most perfect instrument of its kind the world had ever seen, was inherited a ready-made weapon by Frederick the Great from his father, so William I. bequeathed to his grandson another equally new fighting machine namely, the German navy, which, as I have always thought, is one of the most astounding facts connected with the refounding of the Empire, seeing that this fleet, which scarcely existed in embryo after the French war, is now second to the French navy among the fleets of the Continental Powers. William II. grew up with the building of this navy, of which he was quick to grasp the significance, especially in an age when his countrymen (recovering from the colonial indifference that seized upon them after the death of the Great Elector) were all beginning to grope about for further elbow-room beyond the sea; and of this movement for creating a new Germany outre mer, thus making the Fatherland a World Power as well as a Continental Power, he has constituted himself the ardent yet circumspect champion. The German fleet knows that its Kaiser has its interests just as much at heart as those of the army, and repays this devotion by making him its darling. For sea life, too, as well as for the naval traditions of England, he bears an emulating fondness; and I am quite sure that, of all the compliments which have been paid him by foreign sovereigns, none ever filled him with half so much pride and pleasure as the Queen's appointment of him to be an Admiral of her Fleet. But, with all this, his master passion is the army. William II. has inherited to the full the military tastes and instincts of his grandfather, while to these he has added an originality and force of charac

ter capable of raising him above the rank of a mere plodding organizer to that of an independent commander. It is, indeed, doubtful whether there will be any room for a Moltke (who was entirely responsible for the strategy both of 1866 and of 1870) beside the present Emperor, in the event of his ever having to take the field. Certainly, at least, he aspires to be his own Chief of the Staff as well as his own Chancellor, and there is no one among those who know him best that is prepared to mock at his double ambition.

I was once discussing this subject with a high official in Berlin, who had enjoyed exceptional opportunities of reading the character of the new Emperor; and he declared his honest opinion that, taking him all round, His Majesty was by far the most capable and promising monarch who had mounted the throne of Prussia since it was vacated by Frederick the Great. Some of his marginal notes on official documents were truly striking in their force and clearness, and in respect of their indication of an ability to go straight to the root of a question through all encumbering side issues and obscurities. His Majesty is not fond of reading reports; but he is a willing listener, and, having a retentive memory, he prefers oral dealings with his subordinates. Nor do many of these subordinates find that they know very much more of a particular subject than their Imperial master, who is as full of information about things in general as he is eager to learn more. Sir John Gorst and his fellow-delegates went to the Labor Conference in Berlin they were quite taken aback by the Emperor's grasp of economic questions in all their details; and I remember the case of an English officer who marvelled much at His Majesty's acquaintance with the separate history of certain British regiments. Similarly, an American attaché who had an interview with the Emperor came away astounded at His Majesty's familiarity with English naval nomenclature. It is quite true, as the Scotch proverb has it, that " a king's caff [i.e., chaff; and you can take it in the banter sense, if you like] is aye better than ither fouk's corn;" but, indeed, there is remarkably little "caff" in the conversation of the Emperor, who is always ready with an apposite fact, a well-reasoned opinion, or a rattling good joke-as when, in good

When