to the country. The war-cloud
was heavy over Europe, and great was the excitement in Berlin. Under
fear of a bolt which might strike at any moment, the elections for a
new Chamber were held, and Bismarck had his will.

The Reichstag is the representative body of the whole German Empire,
with its four kingdoms, six grand duchies, and sixteen lesser
principalities and powers united under one emperor. Prussia is a
kingdom which forms but one, though the most important, of these
constituent parts. The Reichstag is a kind of Upper and Lower House in
one; the Bundesrath or Federal Council, with somewhat arbitrary
powers, has its private Council-room; but the Chancellor of the Empire
is its presiding officer, and, with the members of this Council,
occupies the elevated platform at the right of the President of the
Reichstag. The chief function of the latter as a legal Chamber of
Deputies is to check the power of the Bundesrath. It can thus reject
bills and refuse appropriations, but has no power to bring about a
change of administration.

The Prussian Diet is composed of two separate houses. The building of
the Lower House--the Abgeordnetenhaus--is near the eastern extremity
of the Leipziger Strasse, and the House of Lords--Herrenhaus--is
adjacent to the Reichstag-Gebaude. The Prussian Lower House is
somewhat larger in numbers than the Reichstag, and is of course an
elective body. It contained a number of eminent men,--as Herr
Windhorst, also the leader of the Catholic party in the Reichstag,
and Professor Virchow. On the day of our visit no business of special
importance was before the assembly, and visitors' tickets were
obtained with an ease in pleasing contrast to the most difficult feat
of obtaining entrance to the Reichstag on a great occasion.

The House of Lords is reputed a dull place, and is seldom visited. In
a dwelling formerly occupying this site (No. 3 Leipziger Strasse), and
of which some memorials remain, Felix Mendelssohn spent, with his
parents and sister Fanny, several years of his wonderful youth; and
the "Gartenhaus" of this estate witnessed the memorable private
performance of the work which first revealed his greatness to the
world,--the "Overture to the Midsummer Night's Dream."

VII.

PROMINENT PERSONAGES.

"I love my Emperor," said "our little Fraeulein," laying her hand on
her heart, one day when we were talking of him.

It was on our first day in Germany that we, returning from chu