and
courteous, and not overbearing like a literary dictator. He is well read
in history, but not in art or science or poetry. His stories are
admirable when he is in convivial mood; all sit around him in silent
admiration, for no one dares more than suggest the topic,--he does all
the talking himself. Bayard Taylor, when United States minister at
Berlin, was amazed and confounded by his freedom of speech and apparent
candor. He is frank in matters he does not care to conceal, and simple
as a child when not disputed or withstood; but when opposed fierce as a
lion,--a spoiled man of success, yet not intoxicated with power. Haughty
and irritable, perhaps, but never vain like a French statesman in
office,--a Webster rather than a Thiers.

Such was the man who ruled the German empire with an iron hand for
twenty years or more,--the most remarkable man of power known to history
for seventy-five years; immortal like Cavour, and for his services even
more than his abilities. He had raised Prussia to the front rank among
nations, and created German unity. He had quietly effected more than
Richelieu ever aspired to perform; for Richelieu sought only to build up
a great throne, while Bismarck had united a great nation in patriotic
devotion to Fatherland, which, so far as we can see, is as invincible as
it is enlightened,--enlightened in everything except in
democratic ideas.

I will not dwell on the career and character of Prince Bismarck since
the Franco-Prussian war. After that he was not identified with any great
national movements which command universal interest. His labors were
principally confined to German affairs,--quarrels with the Reichstag,
settlement of difficulties with the various States of the Germanic
Confederation, the consolidation of the internal affairs of the empire
while he carried on diplomatic relations with other great Powers,
efforts to gain the good-will of Russia and secure the general peace of
Europe. These, and a multitude of other questions too recent to be
called historical, he dealt with, in all of which his autocratic
sympathies called out the censures of the advocates of greater liberty,
and diminished his popularity. For twenty years his will was the law of
the German Confederation; though bitterly opposed at times by the
Liberals, he was always sustained by his imperial master, who threw the
burdens of State on his herculean shoulders, sometimes too great to bear
with placidity. His foreign