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GENERAL VON RADOWITZ.

(FROM THE MORNING CHRONICLE, DEC. 31, 1853.)*

THE recent death of General von Radowitz, at the age of fifty-six, after a prolonged illness, may well be deemed an event of no mean significance in the present crisis of Continental affairs; for his personal influence with his royal friend and master remained unshaken to the last, and the object which he had most thoroughly at heart was how to unite Germany under constitutional forms of government, and then to interpose her as an insurmountable barrier against the threatened encroachments of Northern despotism. There is no saying how much real and lasting good might have been effected through his instrumentality, had life and health been spared to him. Indeed, the same persons who, in 1850, spoke and wrote of him as a theorist or a dreamer, are now forced to acknowledge that, if the season he chose for his grand effort was unpropitious, and if the resources at his command were inadequate, still his views were noble, generous, comprehensive, and sound in the main-above all, that they were based on an accurate appreciation of the true interests of his countrymen, and tended to exalt and dignify the position of their common Fatherland.

His career must be regarded as strange and romantic, even in an age which has witnessed so many extraordinary reverses of fortune and of fame. Passing over his boyhood, we find him in 1812, when

The date is material. We were then drifting into the war with Russia, and the King of Prussia was keeping all Europe in suspense by his vacillation.

he was between fifteen and sixteen years of age, a Westphalian officer of artillery; and he commanded a battery at the battle of Leipsic, where he was severely wounded and taken prisoner. He had already received the riband of the Legion of Honour for his services in the early part of that campaign. In times when kingdoms were annually made and unmade at the bidding of a successful soldier, to have changed sides or cockades in the universal mêlée can hardly be made the foundation of a serious charge against a young subaltern, who went with the crowd, and who had no individual motive in combating for or against the rulers to whom his allegiance may have been alternately transferred. It would be absurd, therefore, to draw any unfavourable inference from the fact that, after the dissolution of the kingdom of Westphalia, Radowitz entered the Hessian artillery, and served against France in the ensuing campaign. At the conclusion of the war, being then only eighteen, he was appointed first teacher of mathematics and the military art at Cassel; and in 1823 he had risen to the rank of captain, and was attached to the Electoral Court as military and mathematical teacher of the heir apparent. This was the turning point of his destiny; and his conduct at this period, under very trying circumstances, may be cited as an unanswerable proof of the fine sense of honour, the moral courage, and the lofty independence of character which never left him, and wanting which, no royal favourite ever yet preserved national confidence, or his own self esteem, or the elevating and inspiring hope of contributing to the well-being of his fellowcitizens and of mankind.

The incidents to which we allude may be briefly told. The Elector of Hesse, who was married to the sister of William III. of Prussia, peremptorily insisted that his mistress, Emily Ortlopp, on whom he

had bestowed the title of countess, should receive some mark of personal recognition or attention from his royal consort. The Electress consulted Radowitz, who boldly advised her not to submit to the degradation. One of his letters on this delicate topic fell into the Elector's hands, and he instantly became a marked and ruined man so long as he remained in Hesse. He repaired to Berlin, where the sacrifices he had incurred in the cause of truth and honour for a daughter of Prussia, naturally formed a very high recommendation. He was immediately indemnified, so far as military rank and employment were concerned, by receiving exact equivalents in the Prussian service for what he had lost; and-what was of incalculably higher moment, as giving him the required opportunity for the practical application of his vast treasures of thought and knowledge-he very soon became the most intimate and trusted friend of the heir apparent, the present King, of whose military and mathematical education he had the charge.

But Radowitz could hold his own against the most formidable rivals or antagonists, without any aid from the prestige of Court favour. His principles in government and legislation were Liberal-Conservative. Making, of course, ample allowance for the difference between German institutions and modes of thought and our own, we should say that the nearest parallel to his political views might be found in the rational, moderate, and thoughtful English creed which foolish people think to stigmatise by designating it as "Peelite." With a pardonable leaning towards what had stood the test of long experience, he refused to be bound by mere names, cries, or watchwords; and he was one of that sound and safe school of reformers who adopt unchecked discussion as their crucible, and enlightened public opinion as their test. When, under the influence of the French

Revolution of 1848, Prussia was hurrying beyond the bounds of regulated and tempered liberty, he threw up the whole of his appointments (including his embassy at Carlsruhe) rather than aid in the dangerous development and extension of democracy; and he soon afterwards took his seat in the Frankfort Parliament, as the foremost and most eminent champion of "Constitutionalism."

His appearance and position there are graphically sketched by one of the most violent of his opponents, the revolutionary poet, Alfred Meissner, whose youthful and innocent appearance, contrasted with his glorifications of the guillotine, had earned him the sobriquet of "The Blood-red Dove":

"Three individualities stand prominently forward-the three capacities of the nobility, a resumé of its three great categories. I mean Herr von Radowitz, Herr von Vincke, and Prince Lichnowsky. Of these three, Herr von Radowitz incontestably ranks first. He is the head and the brain of the party of reactionary ideas, and which is audaciously continually arming against a movement that has already deprived it of so much, and would annihilate it if it took one step more in advance. But what else could be expected? The man who has devoted the energies of a whole life to the service of Absolutism, cannot in a day become the partisan of a Constitutional system. If Herr von Radowitz-the friend of Louis Philippe, the pupil of the Jesuits, who conspired with Guizot and Metternich for the suppression of the Swiss Confederacy, and afterwards endeavoured to excite Russia, Prussia, and Austria to a war against the French Republic-now enters the lists as a champion for Constitutionalism, I only the more believe in his dark machinations, and endeavour to trace them in the furrows on his brow and in the marked lines of his countenance. There he sits, as characteristic a head as ever stepped forth from the canvas of Velasquez, the very portrait of a warrior-monk. His face of a pale yellow hue, his grey hair, his jaundiced eye, his compressed lips concealed by a dark moustache, his sinister glance, always directed on the paper before him; — the whole

of his outward man has something imposing in it. He is no orator, yet all his speeches tell forcibly. On his seat he is silent as the grave; - he sits and broods, except when an important vote takes place; then he looks eagerly around him, and like a general gives the word to remain seated' or to 'rise,' as the case may be. They obey like soldiers."

A less prejudiced critic describes the General as not merely an effective but a popular speaker, "inasmuch as whilst he took part against the Poles, the Italians, and the further progress of the revolutionary movement, he never wounded the national feelings of the majority, and always strove to apply and realise the popular tendencies of the day." Meissner says that Radowitz was no orator; but this (as is clear from the context) must mean merely that eloquence was not his highest merit, for his powers of oratory were indubitably of a very high order. In April, 1849, he was recalled to Berlin, to be entrusted with the chief conduct of affairs, both at home and abroad, and he was named (by special ordinance) LieutenantGeneral. On him devolved the task of explaining the new policy and the constitutional doctrines which the King of Prussia was anxious to carry out; and on the 25th of August, 1849, he fully developed these in the Second Prussian Chamber at Berlin. The following description of him on this occasion is also from the pen of an adversary, a distinguished member of the Extreme Right:

"The heat was overpowering, the galleries filled to every corner, even the Court box; and in the places reserved for the corps diplomatique, the ambassadors of the highest rank stood upright against the wall, the perspiration pouring off their faces. A few unimportant generalities excited impatience, until Herr von Radowitz, dressed in a black tail-coat and black cravat, left his place behind that of Count Brandenburg, and advanced quietly amidst death-like silence to the tribune. His head is remarkably fine. His forehead