But, without conjecturing the personal fate of this man of power, nothing can be clearer than the fact that he has placed himself in a position to mould the fate of Europe for a century to come. If he shall succeed in concentrating all national power in himself, the example is sure not to be lost upon kings. The insults which characterised the triumphs of the mob in the late Continental tumults--the remembrances which must rankle in the hearts of all Continental governments--the revenge, which is the natural passion of arbitrary power--and even the rational alarm at the possible return of the popular excesses, must make all foreign princes partial to the revival of Despotism. This hour is a _Crisis_. Principles are on their trial; the antagonists are in the field; and the first shock may decide, for a long period, the victory of bold measures over impassioned men, and of unlimited might over confused, but daring, and defeated, but obstinate, right--a contest which will never wholly cease henceforth, and which, in its continuance, may shatter the whole frame of society. How far this great political change in the most influential of kingdoms may be but the indication of a new course of Providence--how far it may be connected with those new and singular means and powers of nature and of mechanism which, in our time, have been assigned to man--how far it may be, in politics, a corresponding phase to the railroad, the electric telegraph, and the discoveries of gold in the ends of the earth--can be only a matter of conjecture; but while we are convinced that Providence does nothing without system, and does nothing in vain, we cannot altogether suppress the feeling, that an Era of _Revelations_ in government, science, and society, has begun. But it must be acknowledged that the monarchs of the last century bore their honours well. They were all bold, brave, and intelligent. Whether in the right or the wrong, they showed decision--the first qualification for the government of kingdoms. Some were of remarkable intellectual power, and none, with slight exceptions, were inferior to the weight of the diadem. The age which reckoned among its sovereigns, Frederic II. of Prussia, Maria Theresa of Germany, the Emperor Joseph, the Czarina Catherine, and, in its earlier portion, Louis XIV. and William III., could not be regarded as destitute of minds equal to the conduct of affairs in perhaps the most complicated, struggling, and difficult period of Europe before the French Revolution.