only by Austria, Russia, and France.  It led to great standing armies and a desire of aggrandizement.  It made the army the centre of all power and the basis of social prestige.  It made Frederic II. the great military hero of that age, and perpetuated his policy in Prussia.  Bismarck is the sequel and sequence of Frederic.  It was by aggressive and unscrupulous wars that the Romans were aggrandized, and it was also by the habits and tastes which successful war created that Rome was ultimately undermined.  The Roman empire did not last like the Chinese empire, although at one period it had more glory and prestige.  So war both strengthens and impoverishes nations.  But I believe that the violation of eternal principles of right ultimately brings a fearful penalty.  It may be long delayed, but it will finally come, as in the sequel of the wicked wars of Louis XIV. and Napoleon Bonaparte.  Victor Hugo, in his “History of a Great Crime,” on the principle of everlasting justice, forewarned “Napoleon the Little” of his future reverses, while nations and kingdoms, in view of his marvellous successes, hailed him as a friend of civilization; and Hugo lived to see the fulfilment of his prophecy.  Moreover, it may be urged that the Prussian people,—­ground down by an absolute military despotism, the mere tools of an ambitious king,—­were not responsible for the atrocious conquests of Frederic II.  The misrule of monarchs does not bring permanent degradation on a nation, unless it shares the crimes of its monarch,—­as in the case of the Romans, when the leading idea of the people was military conquest, from the very commencement of their state.  The Prussians in the time of Frederic were a sincere, patriotic, and religious people.  They were simply enslaved, and suffered the poverty and misery which were entailed by war.

After Frederic had escaped the perils of the Seven Years’ War, it is surprising he should so soon have become a party to another atrocious crime,—­the division and dismemberment of Poland.  But here both Russia and Austria were also participants.

     “Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime.”

And I am still more amazed that Carlyle should cover up this crime with his sophistries.  No man in ordinary life would be justified in seizing his neighbor’s property because he was weak and his property was mismanaged.  We might as well justify Russia in attempting to seize Turkey, although such a crime may be overruled in the future good of Europe.  But Carlyle is an Englishman; and the English seized and conquered India because they wanted it, not because they had a right to it.  The same laws which bind individuals also binds kings and nations.  Free nations from the obligations which bind individuals, and the world would be an anarchy.  Grant that Poland was not fit for self-government, this does not justify its political annihilation.  The heart of the world exclaimed against that crime at the time, and the injuries of that unfortunate state are not