elapse, and France is proclaimed a Republic, and Louis Philippe
and his Ministers have fled. Britain at once recognises the
Provisional Government; but what are the great despotisms of the
Continent to do? Six days more pass, and the Canton of Neufchatel
declares itself independent of Prussia. In a few days after, the Duke
of Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha grants to his subjects a representative
constitution, freedom of the press, and trial by jury; the King of
Hanover has also to yield, and the King of Bavaria abdicates. These,
however, are comparatively small matters. But still the flame spreads.
There is a successful insurrection at Vienna, the very stronghold of
despotism in central Europe; and the Prime Minister, Metternich, the
grim personification of the old policy, is compelled to resign. Then
follows an equally successful insurrection at Berlin; Milan, Vicenza,
and Padua are also in open insurrection. Venice is proclaimed a
Republic. Holstein declares itself independent of Denmark, Hungary of
Austria, Sicily of Naples. Prague and Cracow have also their
formidable outbreaks. Austria and Prussia proclaim new constitutions.
Secondary revolutionary movements in both Paris and Vienna are put
down by the military. There are bloody battles fought between the
Austrians and the Piedmontese on the one hand, and the Germans and the
Danes on the other; and, in a state of profound peace, the people of
a British port hear from their shores the boom of the hostile cannon.
The Emperor of Austria abdicates his throne, the Pope flees his
dominions, and a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte is elected President of
France. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, the ebullitions of the
revolutionary element serve but to demonstrate its own weakness. In
both England and Scotland, the moral and physical force of the
country--in reality but one--arrays itself on the side of good order
and the established institutions. A few policemen put down, without
the assistance of the military, the long-threatened rebellion in
Ireland; and the Sovereign Lady of the empire, after journeying among
her subjects, attended by a retinue which only a few ages ago would
have been deemed slender for a Scotch chieftain or one of the lesser
nobility, and without a single soldier to protect her, and needing no
such protection, spends her few weeks of autumn leisure in a solitary
Highland valley,--a thousand times more secure in the affections of a
devoted and loyal people than any o