ses were the consequence until the capture and execution of Horja. The Emperor, being alarmed by this indication of what the peasantry would do, if more liberty was conceded, felt himself compelled to suspend his reformatory measures, and allow the Hungarian magnates to have their own way.

In another land, then connected with Austria, but remote from the rest of the empire, still more serious troubles grew out of the Emperor's plans. The Netherlands, since the peace of Utrecht, had been transferred from Spain to the Austrian house, where, by right of inheritance, they belonged; and were governed by a viceroy residing chiefly at Brussels. The old political forms of the middle ages continued in the seven provinces composing this country, and new abuses had from time to time crept in. The clergy were more powerful than in any other country of northern Europe; while the separate estates of the various provinces, the local franchises and the constitutions of the towns made a most complicated political system. This was too tempting a structure for Joseph's love of simplicity not to seek to alter; but his innovations nearly pulled down the building upon his head. He provoked the hostility of the clergy by changes in the university system, good in themselves and calculated to improve the education of those who were to be priests. He provoked the hostility of the estates general, particularly in Brabant, by changes in the administration. The towns became seats of tumult and sedition. The Emperor's representatives managed the government with extreme want of wisdom; now conceding every thing, and again repressing popular commotion by sanguinary measures. The rebels were encouraged also by England, Holland and Prussia. At length, in the last year of Joseph's reign, to his extreme mortification, the insurgents obtained possession of the country in practical independence. These troubles contributed to the severity of his last illness and embittered his dying hours.

At the same time commotions among the Hungarian nobles seemed to be impending; and the central government issued in January, 1790, a Latin decree, entitled "a revocation of ordinances which, according to the general sentiment, seem to be opposed to the laws," by which every reform projected for Hungary, except the act of toleration, was stayed in its course.

Thus the extreme branches of the empire were either broken off or exposed to violent tempests in consequence of the Emperor's philosophical reforms. To these scenes, so painful for the last moments of Joseph, was added the death, just before his own, of the wife of his successor and nephew-the being whom of all others he most tenderly loved. His own sufferings, too,

were severe. In his last days he said, "I could wish there might be written over my grave the words-here lies a prince whose intentions were pure, but who had the misfortune to see all his projects frustrated."

It remained for his brother and successor, Leopold II, to begin his short reign with undoing nearly everything which Joseph had attempted in the way of reform, and had not himself been forced to abandon. But although the government was placed again on the old basis, a new impulse was given by Joseph to Austria, which it has never entirely lost, notwithstanding the follies and the tyranny of his successors.

The history of Joseph's reforms explains the causes of their failure and of the subsequent reactions. Among those reasons may be named first, that the nation was not prepared for them. The emperor was one of the few enlightened and benevolent men in his kingdom. Everything originated in his own mind, and could be carried into effect only by resources at his control. He could look for no assistance from the clergy, the nobility, or the officers of government, for the reforms tended to abridge their privileges, destroy their license and bring them down, in relation to public law, to the level of ordinary citizens. He had no sympathy with anything which was not useful, and which did not within certain prescribed limits promote the good of the state. He was a man of no imagination, and therefore entirely averse to institutions which were venerable from their antiquity alone in attempting to overthrow these institutions he encountered local, family and class interests, diffused through all his dominions. He might calculate to have on his side the feudal peasant and the burgher, but neither of these classes had any considerable political strength. Thus by mere administrative energy and sovereign power he undertook to alter institutions, while men remained unaltered, and interests continued opposed to him. Joseph, again, was not a practical man; his plans and views were those of a philosopher. It is hard for any despotical prince to have a practical knowledge of his people. And hence, we find that when the tone of thinking in society changes, princes are the last to perceive it. They have not changed because they are remote from the causes of change, and so they think the world has stood still. But beside this evil, incidental to his rank, Joseph shared with many princes of the last century in admiration of that abstract philosophy of French origin, which went abroad to make the nations happy on one and the same rule applied to all, as a quack would give the same medicine to all diseases. The purely speculative and the bold character of that philosophy, was perhaps exemplified by no French

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revolutionary leader more fully than by this despotical Emperor. It is true that he did not recognize the self-governing power of the state, but considered himself as the state's representative. Yet within these limits he showed a recklessness, a want of caution, an inability to estimate the strength of local and historical attachments, which place him among the most daring revolutionists of modern times.

We only add the remark that Joseph's reforms illustrate the radical weakness of despotical power as an instrument of progress. Suppose a prince of this description animated by the very best intentions and enlightened as well as counseled by the soundest political wisdom. It would seem as if he could do everything. What man in the world has to the same degree the power of commencing reforms, and of carrying them through with rapidity,-reforms which in freer countries meet vested interests, and go forward only against opposition and by slow degrees? But let him make his reforms; what is there to prevent his successor from overthrowing them all? And what more likely than that he will do so, since the classes in society, which the reformer abridged in their privileges, will be apt to court the successor in order to regain what they had lost. It is true, some reforms can never go backwards; as, for instance, the enfranchisement of serfs, which a despot might find it for his interest and for the interest of the country to ordain, and which it would be difficult for any power afterwards to revoke. But reforms of a less sweeping nature may be limited by the life of a single man. Despotism has no institutions; it is the government of arbitrary will; and the most necessary of all changes is to put an end to the reign of mere personal will which it never attempts of itself. Hence, what seems its strength is its weakness; it has no checks upon it, and therefore the good beginnings of the past can be rendered ineffectual by the weak or the crazy successor of an enlightened sovereign. His reforms were prevented from having their full effect while they lasted, by the resistance of ancient interests; but the reaction goes on with rapidity and thoroughness, because no power was created on the side of reform, and all selfish interest in ruling classes is against it.

ART. V.-LIFE AND CHARACTER OF PROF. B. B. EDWARDS.

Writings of Prof. B. B. Edwards, with a Memoir by E. A. Park. 2 Vols. Published by John P. Jewett & Co., Boston.

We take pleasure in introducing afresh to our readers one of the most accomplished scholars and excellent men which our country or the age has produced. The name of Prof. Edwards, well known in England and on the continent, will never be forgotten in the United States. While the republic of letters laments his too early decease, and private friendship grieves over the void which his removal has left, both the one and the other will acknowledge with gratitude, the rich legacy of wisdom, learning and Christian worth which he has bequeathed. If he lives long who answers life's great ends, Prof. Edwards must ever be regarded as a venerable man. Many whose privilege it was to feast daily at the banquet of Christian scholarship which he provided for them, will scarce cease for many coming years to exclaim, "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof."

Prof. Park, in preparing a Memoir of his colleague, and in making a wise selection from his voluminous writings, has done a work which entitles him to the gratitude not only of Christian ministers, but of the entire community. Real men, in the highest acceptation of that term, are few, but smaller is the number who find biographers worthy of their merits. Many a beautiful life has been marred by the unskillfulness of the pencil to which the delineation of its features were entrusted. Great as was Achilles, who would now admire his heroic deeds, had not Homer lived after him, to make them immortal.

The professors were true brothers. Sufficiently diverse in mental constitution and in daily studies, for that variety in their social intercourse which genius craves, they had enough in common for an appreciating sympathy and a friendship which could not be broken. Envy seems never to have disturbed the delightful communion of those highly cultivated Christian minds. No ambition for preeminence, no humiliating sense of inferiority could find lodgment in either heart. The question "which should be the greatest," was not a question which they found it necessary to discuss. What we have often admired in these professors, while both were living, appears no less admir

able in the literary monument which the survivor has erected to the deceased. We see in it not only an expression of justice and kindness to the dead, but of that love by which the soul of David and Jonathan were knit together. There is, however, no extravagant laudation nor effort to exaggerate the merits of a friend. On the contrary, a modest reserve characterizes the production, and we are left to gather chiefly from inference the greatness of the admiration which is felt. But when we read such words of tenderness as these, "How sadly shall we need his mild councils, when we gird on our armor and go out to meet a challenge of the Philistines! How sorrowful shall we be when we come back from the dust and clamor of the warfare, that we shall no more be greeted by his words of sweet charity," and the description of his burial which sounds in our ears like a blessed requiem, "We bore him onward toward his grave so pleasant to him-in that field of God where the corruptible is planted, that it may spring up incorruptible. We passed the new resting place of his venerable colleague who was not disturbed by our sobs and sighs. We laid him down by the little son whom he had loved so tenderly, and at whose side he had in his last will charged us to bury him, and over whose grave he had inscribed the stanza:

These ashes few, this little dust,

Our Father's care shall keep,
Till the last angel rise and break
The long and peaceful sleep.

We sung his old family hymn, which had been sung by his own request at the grave of his mother, whom he so much resembled; and then the faithful tomb unveiled its bosom and took the new treasure to its trust. And so we buried him; and wended our way back slowly and sadly to his house,"-and much more in a strain not unworthy of Mozart, our sympathy with the living is scarcely less mournful than our sorrow for the dead. But while the surviving professor has thrown the drapery of his own fine genius and of his unfeigned love over the noble statue which he has reared to the memory of his friend, he has nowhere concealed the true majesty and beauty of its form.

We trust we have not invaded the sanctuary of private sensibilities by this freedom of remark. Moderate commendation, provided it is just, rarely injures the wise. Let it rather alleviate those stings of envy with which independent and superior powers are so often assailed.

Rev. Bela Bates Edwards, Doctor of Divinity and Professor of Biblical Learning, in the Theological Seminary at Andover, was