He was not a great man, but he was an honourable, loyal, and courteous gentleman; he had not always understood the course of Bismarck’s policy or approved the views which his Minister adopted.  The restraint he had imposed had often been inconvenient, and Bismarck had found much difficulty in overcoming the prejudices of his master; but it had none the less been a gain for Bismarck that he was compelled to explain and justify his action to a man whom he never ceased to love and respect.  How beneficial had been the controlling influence of his presence the world was to learn by the events which followed his death.

That had happened to which for five and twenty years all Bismarck’s enemies had looked forward.  The foundation on which his power rested was taken away; men at once began to speculate on his fall.  The noble presence of the Crown Prince, his cheerful and kindly manners, his known attachment to liberal ideas, his strong national feeling, the success with which he had borne himself on the uncongenial field of battle, all had made him the hope of the generation to which he belonged.  Who was so well suited to solve the difficulties of internal policy with which Bismarck had struggled so long?  Hopes never to be fulfilled!  Absent from his father’s deathbed, he returned to Berlin a crippled and dying man, and when a few weeks later his body was lowered into the grave, there were buried with him the hopes and aspirations of a whole generation.

His early death was indeed a great misfortune for his country.  Not that he would have fulfilled all the hopes of the party that would have made him their leader.  It is never wise to depend on the liberalism of a Crown Prince.  When young and inexperienced he had been in opposition to his father’s government—­but his father before him had, while heir to the throne, also held a similar position to his own brother.  As Crown Prince, he had desired and had won popularity; he had been even too sensitive to public opinion.  His, however, was a character that required only responsibility to strengthen it; with the burden of sovereignty he would, we may suppose, have shewn a fixity of purpose which many of his admirers would hardly have expected of him, nor would he have been deficient in those qualities of a ruler which are the traditions of his family.  He was not a man to surrender any of the prerogatives or authority of the Crown.  He had a stronger will than his father, and he would have made his will felt.  His old enmity to Bismarck had almost ceased.  It is not probable that with the new Emperor the Chancellor would long have held his position, but he would have been able to transfer the Crown to a man who had learnt wisdom by prolonged disappointment.  How he would have governed is shewn by the only act of authority which he had time to carry out.  He would have done what was more important than giving a little more power to the Parliament:  he would at once have stopped that old and bad system by which the Prussian