Metternich spent four years in Berlin, ferreting out the schemes of Napoleon, and striving to make alliances against him; but he found his only sincere and efficient ally to be England, then governed by Pitt. The king of Prussia was timid, and leaned on Russia; he feared to offend his powerful neighbor on the north and east. Nor was Prussia then prepared for war. As for the South German States, they all had their various interests to defend, and had not yet grasped the idea of German unity. There was not a great statesman or a great general among them all. They had their petty dynastic prejudices and jealousies, and were absorbed in the routine of court etiquette and pleasures, stagnant and unenlightened. The only brilliant court life was at Weimar, where Goethe reigned in the circle of his idolaters. The great men of Germany at that time were in the universities, interested in politics, like the Humboldts at Berlin, but not taking a prominent part. Generals and diplomatists absorbed the active political field. As for orators, there were none; for there were no popular assemblies,--no scope for their abilities. The able men were in the service of their sovereigns as diplomatists in the various courts of Europe, and generally were nobles. Diplomacy, in fact, was the only field in which great talents were developed and rewarded outside the realm of literature. In this field Metternich soon became pre-eminently distinguished. He was at once the prompting genius and the agent of an absolute sovereign who ruled over the most powerful State, next to France, on the continent of Europe, and the most august. The emperor of Austria was supposed to be the heir of the Caesars and of Charlemagne. His territories were more extensive than that of France, and his subjects more numerous than those of all the other German States combined, except Prussia. But the emperor himself was a feeble man, sickly in body, weak in mind, and governed by his ministers, the chief of whom was Count Stadion, minister of foreign affairs. In Austria the aristocracy was more powerful and wealthy than the nobility of any other European State. It was also the most exclusive. No one could rise by any talents into their favored circle. They were great feudal landlords; and their ranks were not recruited, as in England, by men of genius and wealth. Hence, they were narrow, bigoted, and arrogant; but they had polished and gracious manners, and shone in the stiff though elegant society of Vienna,--not brilliant as in Paris or London, but exceedingly attractive, and devoted to pleasure, to grand hunting-parties on princely estates, to operas and balls and theatres. Probably Vienna society was dull, if it was elegant, from the etiquette and ceremonies which marked German courts; for what was called society was not that of distinguished men in letters and art, but almost exclusively that of nobles. A learned professor or wealthy merchant