solidating, and not of subdividing, its political power. The revival of the old cumbrous political and ecclesiastical subdivisions would be productive only of national weakness. The materials of which the Germanic body was formed, should be re-cast; and the new model, preserving the best features of its pre-existent shape, should exhibit its colossal strength, undeformed by every useless appendage. The actual political divisions of Germany might not be unfavorable to the execution of such a project for the consolidation of its power. With reference to its former state, the rights of sovereignty are now vested but in few sceptres. Many of the minor States have been melted down, and amalgamated with more substantial bodies, in the political crucible, in which the temper and character of their various properties have been examined and assayed. If there were not too much of innovation in the measure, this principle of a reduction of subdivisions of territorial authority might be extended with general advantage to the German nation. Distributed into a few large States, its increase in real power and strength would nearly follow the ratio of such reduction. If a common sense of independence, and a feeling of common interest, united them in one effective confederation, even without the investiture of supreme authority in an imperial chief, would not Germany, under such circumstances, possess the means of resisting the whole power of France? Or, might not, at all events, the deficient equiponderance of the former be then easily supplied by the ready aid of other powers, equally interested in repelling the encroachments of French ambition?

But why should not the imperial diadem be replaced on the head of the Emperor Francis? Would not the connection of the German States with Austria, and their dependence, to a certain extent, upon the Emperor, be, in every respect, more congenial to their interests and their feelings, than their present connection with France, and their present precarious dependence on the Ruler of that country? Should the Confederation of the Rhine continue to exist, and should Buonaparte, at a future time, in a fit of anger or spleen or revenge, think proper to wrest the ensigns of royal authority from any of the German Kings of his creation, would the poor menaced petty Sovereign be able to resist the mandate, which commanded him to deposit his crown at the feet of the arrogant

Monarch from whom it was received, and who, having assumed the power of bestowing it, might presume to exercise the power of redemanding it, at his own good will and pleasure?

The dissolution of the Confederation of the Rhine, the expulsion of the King of Westphalia, and a strict and cordial union of all the German Princes, including the Emperor of Austria, in his capacity of King of Bohemia, would certainly constitute a most important, perhaps an effectual step, towards the restoration of Germany to her just rank among the Continental States. But far more solid would be the security against future attempts to violate her independence, if this resumption of national dignity were shielded by the powerful sanction of Austria, re-invested with imperial splendor, and strengthened by a liberal accession of influence and of power. Without a main stream into which the smaller currents may glide, the latter would only run to waste; or, fertilizing the soil by diffusion, invite the plunder of the foe. United in one impetuous tide, its force might baffle every effort of the enemy to ascend it, and compel him to follow its course till it reach the boundaries of his own dominions.

Unless Germany revive under such auspices, how is the mischief of conflicting jealousies to be obviated? States nearly co-equal, acting in confederacy, will soon be dissatisfied with their presumed equality. This dissatisfaction may lay each more, open to the poison of corruption. The desire of ascendancy may soon produce a competition for ascendancy; and the struggle may be made light to the party whom the enemy may wish to detach from the rest, and who may become disposed to be detached, on a promise of investiture with that superiority to which his pretensions aspire.

But this disturbance of every principle of union might be prevented by general concession to a Sovereign, whose dignity is too elevated, and whose power is too great, to encourage the most distant hope of successful competition. And whom could the Kings and Princes of Germany select, for this distinction, with brighter prospects of permanent benefit to the common cause, than those which would open to them on every side, by their unanimously choosing, for their august head, the illustrious individual, who, though deprived of the German imperial crown by the fortune of

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war, may, in the present conjuncture, be almost intitled to assert a prescriptive claim to its immediate restoration?

To this scheme of union, under an imperial Sovereign, Bavaria would, without doubt, present most opposition. She would be a territorial loser by the project; for it is not to be imagined that Austria would re-assume her former imperial supremacy, and submit to the sacrifice of the Tyrol, and her valuable possessions in Germany. But whatever apparent losses Bavaria might sustain, from the restoration of provinces given to her as the price of her defection from the Germanic body, and to which she has no title upon the ground of conquest, she would re-acquire that security for her relative independence, which she has now lost. Can she, if the extravagant ambition of France should progressively realize its plans of universal subjugation, flatter herself, that she would be suffered quietly to transmit, in the usual order of hereditary succession, the crown which she has received as a bribe for her treason to the Empire? Reduced to her former size and shape, or at least aggrandized only by a few trifling incorporations of such petty States as, consistently with a more simple, but more efficient constitution of the renovated Empire, cannot well be permitted to resume their dwarfish, but embarrassing existence, Bavaria may soon, perhaps, become sensible of the strength she would derive from florishing again as a main branch of the old but vigorous German stock, instead of adhering as an offensive fungous excrescence to the trunk of Gallic despotism. As a fair and just compensation for the sacrifices and exertions which Austria might thus be called upon to make, in executing the great and noble enterprise of restoring the German Empire, and securing its independence, she may surely be permitted to claim the full restitution of what was once her own, and what did not fall under the dominion of its present ruler by any direct right of arms.. Bavaria should make a grace of a cession, for which she would be more than adequately repaid by the ample security it would purchase for the permanent safety of her dominions.

Nothing, perhaps, has indirectly contributed more to the aggrandizement of France, than the feeble efforts successively made by the German powers to oppose it. Subdivided and conflicting in

terests prevented them from taking the field with that imposing attitude, of which their military resources and military character would have justified the assumption. In detail they fought-in detail they were subdued. The strength of the Empire was thus gradually wasted, while that of the enemy continually augmented; Disunion frustrated every attempt to act, either for offensive or defensive purposes, with all the energy of a vigorous collective effort. At the commencement of the revolutionary war, the amount of population was in favor of Germany; at the present period, France has decidedly a superiority. The whole military force of Germany, including all the troops which Austria and Prussia could possibly bring against the enemy, would now be numerically inferior to those which France can summon to battle. But this inferiority, however, is not so great as to furnish reasons only for despondency. If ardent patriotism imparted a national character to German hostilities-if the whole military force of a new Empire fought around the standard of national independence-if it were animated by a sacred feeling of honor and of duty-if in discipline, in enthusiasm, celerity of movement, and skilfulness of general ope ration, it could boast of equality with its adversaries; why should not its inferiority in physical strength be amply supplied by the efficient support of a bold peasantry, and by all the aid that can be derived from those for whom they have unfurled the standard of patriotic war, together with the stimulating excitement of a cause infinitely more just, than that in which their adversaries have embarked?

It should be recollected, that it was the weakness and the folly of Germany, that chiefly contributed to swell the despotism of France; but it should also not be forgotten, that Germany possesses, to a greater extent than any other nation, most substantial materials for erecting a solid mound against the destructive inundation of that power, whose early growth derived its principal nourishment from her imbecility. As an Empire, well consolidated, it may repel, and ultimately restrain, the encroachments of France; as a State, weakened by multifarious divisions of sovereignty, her opposition to them must evidently prove ineffectual. All German alliances with France cannot, in this case, fail to end in incorporations with that Empire. The progress from alliance to subserviency, and

from subserviency to incorporate identity, would probably be more rapid than is at present suspected. How then are these fatal consequences to be prevented, but by a perfect union of interest, and a perfect unity of co-operation? If these should still be found to be deficient, she must secure to herself effectual aid from contigu ous and friendly powers, who, as their interests are identical, ought naturally to afford the demanded assistance with equal alacrity and zeal.

If Prussia be now enabled to assume an attitude of greater national independence, than at the period of her compulsory alliance with France, this advantageous change in her condition is to be ascribed to the effects produced by an explosion of patriotic feeling; which, though long nourished in secret, would, probably, not have burst forth, without the powerful protection of Russia. Without her aid, this patriot zeal might still have slumbered, and the indignation excited by the oppression of her late insidious ally, might still have been forcibly suppressed. The proposed admission of Prussia to negociate with other powers, amounts indeed to a qualified acknowledgment of her independence, and may contribute to remove her apprehension of seeing the possessions of the House of Brandenburgh transferred, by her former capricious and vindictive ally, to the dominion of his newly-created Prince of Neufchatel.

Besides the hope of resuming a dignified rank among the mili tary powers of Europe, Prussia can hardly fail to be animated to better exertions by the painful remembrance of past errors by the consciousness of having pursued an inglorious career, when the path of honor and of glory was open to her. She has a long list of political and military disgraces to expunge from the catalogue of her national offences; and, had she not expiated her folly and her guilt by the sacrifices they have entailed upon her, she would still owe a deep atonement to the world for the many miseries, of which her crooked policy-her criminal inactivity-and her illtimed and selfish hostilities, have been the lamentable cause. Her lost character is now to be redeemed-her lost independence now to be re-established. The narrow, partial, vacillating views, which formerly misguided her councils, must be dismissed-an enlightened, generous, comprehensive scale of policy should be the mea