a great man. Our editor himself says: "There is nothing very great in Hardenberg himself. His only title to a historic delineation is that he did more than any one towards the securing and restoring of Prussian independence." In his personality there was not the same strongly marked character, force, and grandeur that is to be observed in that of Stein, of whom we may observe that our editor speaks in a very different tone, e.g. "We have to introduce here again the Titanic Stein, who then took a world-historical position worthy of himself by Alexander's side;" and again, "Stein is the first and grandest representative of the German idea; he had Germany as a commonwealth ever before his eyes, and its unity ever as a thing in one way or another to be restored."
Nevertheless Hardenberg had force enough to carry him through the tasks, heavy as they were, which his lot imposed upon him; and as he was at the head of affairs far longer than Stein, the sum total of the services he rendered to Prussia is very great; his performance, though less unique in quality, is scarcely inferior in quantity to that of Stein; and his name is inseparably connected with that reorganization of Prussia which has led to her present greatness. Moreover his importance is materially increased now that he appears as a historian of some of the events in which he had a share.
It is to be observed, however, that he cannot be called the historian of his own achievements. Those achievements began with his assumption of office in 1810, two years after the fall of Stein. From that time to his death in 1822 he remained first minister. His important legislation belongs mainly to the years 1810 and 1811, and the memorable resurrection of Prussia belongs to 1813. But his original memoir deals exclusively with the time preceding the Peace of Tilsit, which was concluded in July 1807, a time in which he achieved nothing memorable. It is in fact mainly apologetic in its tone, explaining the reasons why its author was not able, in spite of all his efforts, to prevent, or even in any degree to mitigate, the calamity which fell upon Prussia at the close of that time. Instead of describing the restoration of Prussia, in which, he had so large a share, he has described only its fall, which he witnessed and foresaw, but was unable in any degree to prevent. The fall of Prussia, however, is not less interesting, if it is less agreeable to read of, than its restoration, and just at present it may be even more instructive to English people. For in our extreme scarcity of English books on the history of Prussia, in the fragmentary state of our knowledge about it, we are in danger of arriving at erroneous conclusions by piecing arbitrarily together the fragments of knowledge that we have. Thus we are apt to jump from the one book on the subject which we have read, Carlyle's "Frederick," to those modern Prussian triumphs which we know so well, and to argue — then Carlyle was right after all, and the heroic form of government turns out to be, in the long run, the best! I by no means wish the reader to run hastily into the exactly contrary conclusion, yet it is the exactly contrary conclusion which is really suggested by the facts. Frederick's government did not lead to those modern triumphs, but to the unparalleled catastrophe of Jena, and after that catastrophe the necessity was forced upon the country of radically destroying his system. By a series of changes, scarcely inferior in magnitude to those which France underwent in her first Revolution, both government and society in Prussia were reconstructed. A generation later a Parliament was added, and the triumphs which have impressed us so much began nearly twenty years later still. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc is of course a very weak argument; but the slight presumption that it may afford is really a presumption against and not in favor of, the régime of Frederick, for it was not Sedan, but Jena, that was after it.
This account then of the downfall of the old system we have from Hardenberg himself, and Von Ranke's first volume furnishes an excellent introduction to it. His second volume, the fourth of the work, gives some account of the reconstruction. But we should by no means describe it as a complete account. The historical manner of Von Ranke is well known; his element is diplomacy and international affairs. In his view of the period between Tilsit and the War of Liberation, he has traced with much care the fluctuations of the long negotiation that went on between Prussia and Napoleon, but the internal reform that went on at the same time does not suit his pen so well, and is therefore not so fully treated. Altogether, though the work before us, if we consider only what it gives, seems to us the most important historical work of recent years, yet it has deficiencies, whether it is considered as a biography of Hardenberg or as an account of the fall and reconstruction of Prussia. As a biography of Hardenberg, besides closing at 1814, instead of 1822, which was the end
