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On the right, separated from the coffin of his father only by the short aisle, is that of Frederick the Great. Three wreaths were lying upon it,--placed there by the Emperor and by the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess on the hundredth anniversary of the death of this founder of Prussia's greatness, August 17, 1886. Fortunate is the visitor to Potsdam who does not altogether overlook this Garrison Church, misled by the brief mention usually accorded to it in the guide-books.

"What God doeth is well done."

Fitting it is that in this "Church of Peace" should rest all that was mortal of the immortal Prince who could say, as he entered Paris in the flush of victory: "Gentlemen, I do not like war. If I should reign, I would never make it."

MUSEUMS.

The department of the Museum known as the Antiquarium has its treasures. Here is the original silver table service, supposed to be that of a Roman General, dug up in 1868 near the old German mediaeval town of Hildesheim. A handsome copy of this service is among the beginnings of Chicago's Art collections. Here are the exquisite terra-cotta statuettes from the ancient Grecian Colony of Tanagra, which no modern work of plastic art can imitate in grace of form and delicacy of color,--dating three or four hundred years before the Christian era; and in other rooms, a fabulous collection of jewels, and numberless precious vases, illustrating especially the progress of Ancient Grecian Art.

The New Museum, connected by a colonnade with the Old, is not, like it, remarkable for architectural beauty; but its vast collections, especially in marble, already need and are to have a new building. The masterpieces of ancient sculpture gathered at Munich, Vienna, Paris, Rome, Naples, and elsewhere, are here reproduced in casts, making up a collection said to be, in its way, unrivalled in the world. The collection of originals in Renaissance sculpture is also extensive and valuable.

Referring to sculpture in Berlin, George Eliot wrote: "We went again and again to look at the Parthenon Sculptures, and registered a vow that we would go to feast on the originals the first day we could spare in London." At the date before mentioned, her opinion was that "the first work of art really worth looking at that one sees in Berlin is the 'Horse-Tamers' in front of the palace. It is by a sculptor who made horses his especial study; and certainly, to us, they eclipsed the famous Colossi at Monte Cavallo, casts of which are in the New Museum."

The Department of Coins has 200,000 specimens, many very old and rare; and that of Northern Antiquities illustrates with great fulness the prehistoric and Roman periods. The Cabinet of Engravings is extremely interesting, and has some specimens of very great value; but it is open to the general public for a few hours on Sunday only, and even then the greater part of its collections is reserved to art students, who have the entire monopoly of its treasures on other days of the week. It well repays persistent effort, however, to make a few quiet visits to this rare cabinet. Some of the finest works are hung on the walls of the pleasant rooms.

The famous mural paintings by Kaulbach adorning the upper staircase walls of the New Museum are widely admired, but critics differ in the estimate of their place as works of art. The upper saloons reached by this staircase show the cartoons of Cornelius, and foreshadow a grandeur in German art not yet realized.

The third building in the group which holds the chief art treasures of Berlin is the National Gallery, its pictures partaking, as such a collection should, strongly of the German spirit as shown in modern German art. The paintings are of various degrees of merit, many being of value chiefly as reflecting the national life. A fine portrait of Mommsen arrested me, on one visit; a striking picture, "Christ healing a Sick Child in its Mother's Arms," by Gabriel Max, was a continual favorite; and many others were among those to which we went frequently and before which we lingered long.

The crowning excellence of all the Royal Art Collections is their singular method and completeness. The Old Museum, especially, in its arrangement and illustration of the history of painting in all schools, is without a peer, and it is particularly rich in the early Italian masters. The National Gallery in London has been compared in arrangement with the Berlin Museum, but our observation showed nowhere else in Europe so great facility for systematic study of art as here.

The Museums are under the care of a Director-General, with nine or more Directors of Departments. Dr. Julius Meyer, Director of the Picture-Gallery, is said to be probably unequalled by any living writer for a wide and philosophic grasp of the whole subject of Art History, to which his life has been devoted; while the names of distinguished scholars and professors at the head of the other departments are guaranties of similar excellence. A series of four illustrated volumes is now in process of publication, which will present, in photographs and engravings, large or small, every picture of importance in the gallery. The text of these volumes, by Drs. Meyer and Bode, will be extremely valuable, and the whole will doubtless stand foremost among publications designed as exponents of European galleries.

Among the ancient representations are models of the boats in which the old Norsemen sailed the seas, and of those by which our Anglo-Saxon ancestors invaded England from Germany. These are strikingly contrasted, in their simplicity and clumsiness, with a fully equipped model, from four to six feet long, of a modern North German Lloyd Atlantic mail steamship, than which no better equipped boat sails the main. One goes on, past a Gobelin tapestry representing a mail-scene at N?remberg in the Middle Ages, through long halls and corridors where are hundreds of models of post-office buildings of the most convenient and approved plans, in all parts of the world. These are of every variety of architecture, from the great general post-office in London, the handsome Hanover post-office building, those of the central and district post-offices in Berlin, Dresden, Cologne, Heidelberg, and many others in South Germany, to the modern edifices which adorn, and yet seem strangely out of keeping with, the picturesque old North German towns. These models are miniature copies of the exteriors of post-office buildings, varying in length from one and a half to six or eight feet, and of corresponding height. One most interesting model shows the interior of a modern post-office, each floor showing an exact copy of its department of the service, with all appliances and conveniences.

In another room are miniature mail-coaches of different kinds. In the centre of this apartment stands a life-size figure of a mail-carrier in Germany of four hundred years ago. He is a wild-looking official, reminding one by his bronzed features and general appearance of some trusty Indian scout, as he holds his gun in an attitude of suspicion and menace, while a bear-cub opens a capacious mouth at his feet.

Upwards of twenty years ago, German trade was falling behind in the best markets of the world, because the products of German industry were largely poor in quality and deficient in artistic value. With the Duke of Ratisbon, President of the Herrenhaus, as chairman of a committee appointed to consider the subject, a few leading minds combined in a movement which issued in the establishment of the Industrial Art Museum. The Crown Prince and the Crown Princess were much interested in the subject, and gave the plan their hearty support. Less than ten years since, the fine new building in Zimmer Strasse near K?niggr?tzer was opened on the birthday of the Crown Princess, to receive the vast treasures accumulated, by gift, loan, and purchase, for the permanent exhibition. A cursory visit, though most interesting, is sometimes bewildering from the extent and variety of the collection. The centre of the edifice consists of a large court, roofed with glass and surrounded by two galleries. This is the place reserved for loan exhibitions, and several of importance have already been held here. One of the earlier was of some of the treasures of the South Kensington Museum, loaned by Queen Victoria. Opening upon these arcades are numerous halls on the lower floor, devoted to the permanent exhibition. The classification of the objects exhibited, if not loose, is very general, seeming to us inferior to the method which makes the South Kensington a delight, whether one has hours or months in which to visit it. On the ground floor of this Berlin Museum are "objects in the making of which fire is not used." This includes domestic and ecclesiastical furniture of different countries and historical periods, musical instruments, tapestries, carvings in ivory and wood, and many other objects widely separated in thought. A fine exhibit is made of articles in amber wrought by workmen of rich old Dantzic, for which Baltic Germany furnishes the raw material. The ancient Italian carved bridal-chests brought vividly to mind our childhood's favorite story of Ginevra, by chance imprisoned in such a chest on the day which was to have witnessed her marriage.

The upper floor, with an arrangement similar to that of the lower, shows "objects in the manufacture of which fire is necessary." The very extensive collection of pottery and porcelain was surpassed, in our observation, only by that at S?vres; and there are many rare and valuable specimens of work in glass and metals. The ancient municipal silver service of the city of L?neberg, bought at a cost of 5,000, deserves the attention it attracts; and the work of German mediaeval goldsmiths--particularly of the famous Augsburg artisans--is a revelation of the possibilities of human handiwork. Stained glass, of much historic and artistic value, fills the windows of the entire building. The specimens of textile fabrics, in completeness and extent, are matchless, and are so arranged as to afford the utmost facility to students of the history of this important subject, as well as great pleasure to the favored visitor who has the opportunity to inspect them.

This "K?nstgewerbe Museum" is open to the public without charge on three days of the week, and for a small fee on the remaining days; while its valuable industrial library may be freely consulted on four week-day evenings. Its influence is already strongly felt along the lines of trade and industry throughout the Empire.

The great Ethnographical Museum adjoining, on the corner of K?niggr?tzer Strasse, has the kind and variety of objects usually found in such exhibitions, including those connected with several races of American Indians. The other departments were, to us, eclipsed in interest by the Schliemann exhibition of Trojan remains on the ground floor. Here we found, on the walls, framed pencil or India ink sketches of the localities where the earlier excavations were made, plans of the work, sections of the unearthed portions, and the precious old Trojan antiquities themselves, deposited here for inspection and safe keeping.

The M?rkische Museum, in the Fisch Markt, a centre of Old Berlin, illustrates the history and the prehistoric times of the Mark of Brandenburg, including an interesting department of curiosities from the lake-dwellings and tumuli. There are also ancient coins and other objects picked up at different times within the province. One of the later treasures of this unique museum is the box from which the monk Tetzel sold the indulgences which fanned into a flame the rising fires of the Reformation.

THE GERMAN REICHSTAG AND THE PRUSSIAN PARLIAMENT.

The Reichstag, or Imperial Diet of the German Empire, was, during our stay in Berlin, a focus for the eyes of all Europe and America. The Government, professedly actuated by a fear of war, asked for an appropriation, largely to increase the army annually for a term of seven years. This House of Deputies, elected by the people and numbering nearly four hundred members, contained a considerable element of opposition to the Government. The debate over the Army Bill brought Chancellor Bismarck up from his distant country-seat, where he had spent several previous months, to a participation in the contest which was anticipated on both sides with eagerness and solicitude.

The building on Leipziger Strasse, as severe in inner details as in the sombre gray of its outer walls, was hastily constructed in 1871 for the accommodation of the newly consolidated German Empire, and has long been inadequate to the need. A single gallery surrounds three sides of the hall, and is occupied on the right by boxes for the Imperial household, the diplomatic corps, and high officials. The left is appropriated to English and American visitors; and the centre, immediately above the desk of the presiding officer and the elevated seats of the Chancellor and members of the Bundesrath, is alone left for the general public. When the new building near the Thiergarten shall be occupied, it is hoped that greatly improved acoustics and ventilation may be secured, and the accommodations for visitors such that it may not be said that there are Germans in Berlin who have for years desired visitors' tickets of admission without having been able to secure them.

The Reichstag is the representative body of the whole German Empire, with its four kingdoms, six grand duchies, and sixteen lesser principalities and powers united under one emperor. Prussia is a kingdom which forms but one, though the most important, of these constituent parts. The Reichstag is a kind of Upper and Lower House in one; the Bundesrath or Federal Council, with somewhat arbitrary powers, has its private Council-room; but the Chancellor of the Empire is its presiding officer, and, with the members of this Council, occupies the elevated platform at the right of the President of the Reichstag. The chief function of the latter as a legal Chamber of Deputies is to check the power of the Bundesrath. It can thus reject bills and refuse appropriations, but has no power to bring about a change of administration.

The Prussian Diet is composed of two separate houses. The building of the Lower House--the Abgeordnetenhaus--is near the eastern extremity of the Leipziger Strasse, and the House of Lords--Herrenhaus--is adjacent to the Reichstag-Gebaude. The Prussian Lower House is somewhat larger in numbers than the Reichstag, and is of course an elective body. It contained a number of eminent men,--as Herr Windhorst, also the leader of the Catholic party in the Reichstag, and Professor Virchow. On the day of our visit no business of special importance was before the assembly, and visitors' tickets were obtained with an ease in pleasing contrast to the most difficult feat of obtaining entrance to the Reichstag on a great occasion.

The House of Lords is reputed a dull place, and is seldom visited. In a dwelling formerly occupying this site , and of which some memorials remain, Felix Mendelssohn spent, with his parents and sister Fanny, several years of his wonderful youth; and the "Gartenhaus" of this estate witnessed the memorable private performance of the work which first revealed his greatness to the world,--the "Overture to the Midsummer Night's Dream."

PROMINENT PERSONAGES.

"I love my Emperor," said "our little Fr?ulein," laying her hand on her heart, one day when we were talking of him.

The life led by the aged Emperor was simple and methodical to the last. Rising at half-past seven, he breakfasted, looked over his letters and papers, and was ready by nine or half-past nine to begin his reception of officials or other callers, which lasted till after midday. After lunch, he usually drove for an hour or so in the afternoon, often accompanied by a single aid, bowing right and left to the populace, who thronged for a look and a smile. His plain military cloak enveloped him in cold or rainy weather, and his was often one of the plainest equipages on the brilliant street. "I do not think," said General Grant, after having visited the Emperor, "that I ever saw a more perfect type of a soldier and a man. His Majesty went off into military affairs. I was anxious to change the subject, as I had no interest in the technical matters of war. But the Emperor held me to the one theme, and we spoke of nothing else. I fancied Bismarck sympathized with me, and would have gladly gone off on other subjects, but it was of no use. The manner of Bismarck toward the Emperor was beautiful,--absolute devotion and respect. This was my one long talk with the Emperor. I should call him the embodiment of courage, candor, dignity, and simplicity; a strikingly handsome man."

Sometimes the Kaiser would hold up to the palace window his eldest great-grandson, now Crown Prince, then a beautiful child of four or five years; and the little fellow would go through his military salute of the passing guard with great gravity and propriety, while the huzzas of the crowd burst forth with renewed zeal. This child was the favorite of the aged Emperor, and sometimes took liberties with his great-grandsire which would hardly have been tolerated from any one else. If it was touching to see the devotion of the people to their Emperor, it was no less so to see how he trusted himself with them. He could remember when, with the revolutionary spirit of 1848, the mob in the streets of Berlin had so insulted him, a prince, that he had fled for a time from his country. But that he had forgiven and they had forgotten long ago. The times had "changed all that." Now he lived daily in sight of the people, with only a pane of glass for a shield. He loved his people, and they worshipped him with no temporary oblations. One of the last occasions in which we saw him in public was that of the spring manoeuvres in the last May-time of his long life.

The German Emperor can place, if need be, nearly three million trained soldiers in the field. All able-bodied Germans are liable to service, with few exceptions, from the age of twenty to that of thirty-two, and can in exceptional circumstances be called out up to the age of forty-two. But the German youth spends only the first three years, of his twelve of liability, with the colors, the remaining nine being spent in different branches of the reserve forces. The effective force in time of peace is about half a million, which is distributed through the Empire in seventeen army corps, of which the Third has its headquarters at Berlin. The ordinary strength of an army corps is about thirty thousand, including infantry, cavalry, and artillery; but the garrison of Berlin and various extra and unattached troops bring the number up to fifty thousand or more, stationed mostly in Berlin and Potsdam. These have their spring manoeuvres at Berlin; and the special parade, for which every day for two months beforehand seemed parade-day in the streets of Berlin, was that for which we were so fortunate as to receive tickets. Nearly every day for a week previous, his Majesty was to be seen, in his low two-horse carriage, passing through the Unter den Linden and south through Friedrich Strasse, to the parade-ground. On this grand and final parade-day the three hundred carriages of the privileged spectators were in good time on the ground assigned them, prepared to welcome the Emperor and the Imperial party as loyally as the soldiers themselves. A deafening hurrah burst from the throats of all, as his Majesty appeared in a carriage and drove to his post of observation. Many of his princely retinue, both ladies and gentlemen, were on horseback; and it was formerly his custom to review the troops, mounted on his black war-horse. In spite of a piercing wind which swept over the wide Brandenburg plains, we hugged our warm wraps, and stood in our carriages, like all the rest, in eager watchfulness and admiration, as the evolutions of the most perfectly drilled troops in the world went forward. The infantry marched and countermarched; plumes of all colors waved in the sunlight and kept time to the music; uniforms and men seemed but part of one grand incomprehensible automatic movement; battle-flags scarred with the history of all the wars fluttered their tattered shreds in the wind, waking memories of irrepressible pathos and joy; the artillery rumbled and thundered; the evolutions of the cavalry were like systematic whirlwinds; and the scarlet Zouaves, the blue Dragoons, the white-uniformed and gilt-helmeted Cuirassiers, and the dark Uhlands with lances ten feet long poised in air above their prancing horses, commingled the "pomp and circumstance of war" without its pain. Now the infantry come on at double quick, in the step with which they entered Paris; now the artillery is lumbered across a vast stretch of the field with a rapidity and precision which almost take away one's breath; and anon the cavalry seem to burst in orderly confusion upon the scene, flying in competition, across, around, athwart, until the cheers and huzzas burst forth anew with, "Hail to the Kaiser!" "Long live the Fatherland!" It was with joy that the soldiers received the commendations of their Imperial chieftain on that field-day, and it was to us a fitting place and moment of farewell to the great military Emperor.

I saw this foremost prince of Europe in the nineteenth century always and increasingly to admire him, whether in the largest or the smallest relations of life; whether as royal host entertaining the sovereigns of Europe and their representatives when that magnificent assemblage came to greet the ninetieth birthday of his father; dashing on horseback through the streets of the capital and the riding-paths of the park; saluting with stately grace his Imperial sire, as he alone entered the place where the Emperor sat; handing the Crown Princess to her seat, or going down on his knees to find her Imperial Highness's misplaced footstool in her pew at church; accompanying his daughters to places of public amusement and looking upon them with manly tenderness; or standing with military helmet before his face in silent prayer, as he entered the house of God to worship before the King of kings.

The audience, moved as it seemed by a common impulse, joined in that last song. The Crown Prince, with the Crown Princess and their daughters, and the Princess Christian, then on a visit to Berlin, were in the royal box in the concert-room. With his family and his royal visitors, Frederick, his voice already in the penumbra of a dim, unknown, unforeseen, but fateful shadow, took up the strain. "He sang it through," said a friend to me, who knew him well, "and I could see that he was deeply touched." There we left the story, as almost nineteen hundred years ago it was left, on that Friday evening in Jerusalem, with the full light of the Paschal moon falling on the closed and silent tomb, in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea.

Two days later, on the evening of Easter Sunday, the Crown Prince united in the service of the English Church, with his family, in celebrating the joyous anniversary of a sure resurrection, and during the same week left Berlin in quest of rest and health. He came not back until, before another Good Friday, "Unser Fritz" was Emperor of Germany, and already walking through the Valley of that Shadow in which he sorrowfully sung of his "dear Jesus," one short year before.

Of the Empress Frederick much has been said, and much invented, since the days when she left England, a bride of seventeen, to make her home in a foreign land.

"Is the Crown Princess popular?" I said to a young German lady, in the early days of our residence in Berlin.

"Not very."

"She is strong-minded, is she not?"

"Yes, too strong," replied the lady.

"When you say 'Germany,'" said our "little Fr?ulein" to us one day, "nobody is afraid; when you say 'Bismarck,' everybody trembles." Reports about the ill health of the Iron Chancellor were, two or three years ago, possibly exaggerated, but doubtless they had some foundation in fact. Previous to the great debate on the Army Bill, it had been said that his physical health was a mere wreck. No sign of this appeared, however, when we saw the great Diplomatist in his seat in the Reichstag on that memorable occasion. His speech, though occasional cadences lapsed into indistinctness in that hall of poor acoustic properties, was in the main easily heard in all parts of the house. The yellow military collar of his dark blue coat showed his pallid face not to advantage, but that fierce look was unsubdued, the broad brow loomed above eyes before which one instinctively quails, and the pose and movements were those of vigorous health. Every afternoon in the ensuing spring, his stout square-shouldered figure might be seen, in military uniform and with sword rattling in its scabbard, accompanied by a single aid, on horseback, trotting through the shaded riding-paths of the Thiergarten,--for the sake of health, doubtless, but evidently with no little pleasure. On his birthday in April he received, at his palace in the Wilhelm Strasse, the greetings of his regiment, to whom he distributed wine and cake and mementos, and also saw many other friends. At his country-seats in Pomerania and Lauensburg most of his time is spent, divided between the cares of State and the enjoyments of a rustic life. On the occasion referred to in the Parliament, speaking of the Army Bill which the Opposition professed a willingness to grant for three years but not for seven, he said, "Three years hence, I may hope to be here; in seven, I shall be above all this misery." The three years have not yet passed. For the glory of Germany, many will hope that twice seven may find the name of Bismarck still inspiring with dread the enemies of his country.

General Von Waldersee has, by the recent retirement of Von Moltke, become Chief of the German Army Staff. The Countess Von Waldersee, closely related by her first marriage to the present Empress, is a devout Christian lady, an American by birth, and has much influence in the German Court. Her most romantic history is known to many since, the daughter of a wealthy New York merchant, she went abroad some twenty-five years ago, met and married a wealthy Schleswig-Holstein baron, by which marriage she became related to more than one royal house in Europe; was soon left a youthful widow with great wealth, and after a few years, in which she maintained the estate and title of an Austrian Princess also bequeathed her by her first husband, married the German nobleman who is now the head of the German army. She is devoted to her home, her husband and children, and to quiet ways of doing good. Her dazzling history is her least claim on the interest of American women. A noble character, devoted consistently in her high station to the service of God and to even the humblest good of her fellow-creatures, gives regal lustre to her name, which is a synonym for goodness to all who know her.

THE NINETIETH BIRTHDAY OF EMPEROR WILLIAM.

To those who are fond of pageants and who linger lovingly with past ages, such a spectacle as Berlin witnessed on the 22d of March, 1887, must have extraordinary attractions. Never in the long life of the aged Emperor, whose ninetieth birthday it was, had there been in splendor a rival to that day, although his whole career was prolific of great scenes and dramatic situations. Eighty-five royal personages had accepted the invitation to visit the Emperor on that occasion; and they came in person, or sent special envoys, each accompanied by a more or less imposing retinue. As guests of the Imperial family, they were lodged in the various palaces of Berlin and Potsdam, and entertained with most thoughtful and sumptuous hospitality. The arrivals began on Friday, March 18, and continued through the three following days, until the list included the Prince of Wales; the Crown Prince of Austria; the Grand Duke and Duchess Vladimir and the Grand Duke Michel of Russia; the Crown Prince and Princess of Sweden; the King and Queen of Roumania; the King and Queen of Saxony; the Prince and Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein; the Grand Duke of Hesse and his daughter the Princess Irene; the Grand Duchess of Baden; the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen; the Hereditary Prince and Princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; the Duke of Waldeck-Pyrmont, father of the Queen of the Netherlands and the Duchess of Albany; the Dowager Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin; the Grand Duchess Marie, and a host of other royal notables. Costly presents and beautiful flowers had been pouring in to the Emperor for days before, from the members of his own large family, the various diplomatic corps, from royal friends, from learned societies, industrial and philanthropic associations, with gifts from China, Turkey, and other distant countries. Many of the presents were arranged in a room in the Kaiser's palace, the centre-piece being a portrait of his favorite and eldest great-grandson painted by the Crown Princess, and surrounded by an elegant display of flowers. This palace was reserved for the calls of the distinguished guests, and for a State dinner of a hundred covers, given to the visiting royalties on the eve of the birthday by the Emperor and Empress. The palace of the Crown Prince was decorated about the entrance with palms and other exotics. Here the Crown Princess entertained the Prince of Wales and the Princess Christian with her family,--three children of Queen Victoria under the same roof. The Grand Duchess of Baden, only daughter of the Emperor, was entertained in the Dutch Palace, connected with the Emperor's by a corridor. One of those dramatic touches in real life of which Emperor William was fond, was the betrothal of the Princess Irene, daughter of the Grand Duke of Hesse and the late Princess Alice of England, to her cousin Prince Henry, second son of the Crown Prince. It was announced by the Emperor on his birthday, standing in the midst of the assembled family, with the foreign princes grouped in a semicircle around, the bride-elect leaning on her father's arm and blushingly receiving the congratulations of all present. In the two days preceding his birthday, the Emperor received not only his royal visitors, but the representatives of Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Servia, Japan, and China. The Old Schloss, with its six hundred apartments and reception-rooms, was used for the entertainment of royal guests. All the sunny south windows facing the Schloss Platz rejoiced for days beforehand in open draperies and freshly cleaned plate glass, giving an unwonted look of cheer and human habitableness to the majestic and venerable pile through which we had walked, a few weeks before, with hushed voices and muffled footsteps, gazing on the rich decorations of the public rooms, the glittering candelabra, the silver balustrades, the ancient plate, the historic paintings and monuments which recall past centuries and vanished sovereigns.

But the streets witnessed the most memorable scenes. On the eve of the birthday a torchlight procession of more than six thousand students represented the Universities of Berlin, Bonn, Heidelberg, Jena, K?nigsberg, Leipzig, Marburg, Munich, Strasburg, and others; the Polytechnic Schools of Berlin, Brunswick, Darmstadt, Dresden, Hanover, Karlsruhe, and Stuttgardt; the Mining Academies of Berlin, Clausthal, and Freiberg; and the Agricultural Schools of Berlin, Eberswalde, and Tharandt. Opposite the Imperial Palace stands the University,--formerly the palace of Prince Henry,--amid old trees and gardens, and with the fine colossal statues of the brothers Humboldt in white marble, sitting on massive pedestals on either side the main gateway. This was the starting-point of the great procession, which was led by two mounted students in the garb of Wallenstein's soldiers. Five abreast the torch-bearers approached the Emperor's palace, and before his windows the Ziethen Hussars wheeled in and out in mystic evolutions. A labyrinthine series of movements, marked in the darkness only by the flaming torches, was executed in perfect silence; then a simple hymn of the Middle Ages was sung with singular effect by these thousands of young and manly voices; and from the silence which succeeded, at the call of a student standing in the midst and waving his sword above his head, there arose a "Three cheers for the Emperor!" while six thousand torches swung to and fro, and hundreds of flags and ancient banners waved in the evening air. Again there was silence, when one struck the National Anthem, which was sung with all heads uncovered, the aged hero bowing low at his window in acknowledgment until emotion obliged him to withdraw. An incident soon on every tongue was the Emperor's sending for a deputation of the students to wait on him, his kind reception of and conversation with them, and their elation at the honor, notwithstanding their mortification at the contrast of the smoke-soiled hands and faces of the torch-bearers with the brilliance of the Imperial chamber and the full dress of distinguished visitors. Leaving the Emperor's palace, the procession passed through Unter den Linden and the Brandenburg Gate to the Thiergarten, where amid a dense and surging throng the students threw their burning torches in a heap and sang over the expiring flames, "Gaudeamus igitur juvenes dum sumus." Deputies from all the Universities, dressed in black velvet coats, high boots, and plumed hats, and bearing fine swords, brought up the rear of the procession in thirty carriages, with the flags of the old German towns and Universities floating above them. I watched this torchlight procession from a second-story window-seat on Unter den Linden, and was much impressed with the general view, extending from the equestrian statue of Frederick the Great before the Emperor's palace, where the entire area was filled with reflected light, for nearly a mile to the Brandenburg Gate, the various forms of the waving torches on the long line seeming the very apotheosis of flame. Many of the young men were dressed in the picturesque taste peculiar to German students. Gay feathers and unique caps set off to advantage the fine features and fair complexions which render some of the students remarkable, though the faces are too often disfigured by tell-tale sabre-cuts. After the passing of the procession, we drove through a portion of the Potsdamer Strasse where the lamps were rather infrequent and the overarching branches of the trees shut out the starlight from the handsome street. Crowds were hurrying to and fro,--but to this we had become accustomed,--when suddenly we met a company of mounted students returning from the park. In white wigs and high-peaked caps, close-fitting white suits embroidered with gold, brilliant sashes, and top-boots, they looked, in the dim light, like knights of the Middle Ages returning from some quest or tournament; and as they slowly filed by, bowing to the greetings of the passers, it was hard to believe for the moment that they were other than they seemed.

The morning of the birthday dawned bright and beautiful. "Emperor's weather this," the Germans fondly said. Before we left our breakfast-room the sound of chimes was calling all the children of the city to the churches for their share of the celebration. From my window I saw at one time three large processions of children passing in different directions through diverging streets. All were marshalled by teachers from the public schools in strictest order, and with fine brass bands playing choral music as they entered the church. Here the pastor, after prayer, addressed the children on the blessings of peace and the life of the good Emperor, and the children sang, as only German children can, the patriotic songs of their country. No more touching sight was seen that day than these thousands of boys and girls passing into the churches, with the sound of solemn music, to thank God for the blessings of Fatherland and Emperor,--a scene which caused tears to roll down the cheeks of many a spectator. It will be hard to uproot German patriotism while its future fathers and mothers are thus trained.

While the children were marching, another procession was also passing, composed of the magistrates and city officials, going to the Nicolai Kirche for a similar service. Every one was astir early, and before ten o'clock a dense crowd filled the streets. Horses, omnibuses, and tram-cars were garlanded and decorated with flags, and the house fronts were bewildering in color and decorations. The double-headed eagle, signifying in the heraldry of Germany the Empire of Charlemagne and that of the Caesars, was everywhere intermingled with the German tri-color of red, white, and black, with the black and white of Prussia, the green of Saxony, the blue of Bavaria, and the orange, purple, and other colors of the various principalities and powers of the German Empire; hardly a house lacking some brilliant flutter of symbolic colors. Only an American in a foreign land can know how welcome was the sight of "the stars and stripes" floating majestically from two or three points on the route; though in one case it was flanked by the crescent and star of the Turkish Empire, and in another contrasted with the blue dragon on a yellow ground which formed the triangular flag of China. Miles of business thoroughfares showed glittering and artistic arrangements in the shop windows; nearly every one having its picture, bust, or statue of the Emperor,--some with most elaborate and expensive designs. Between ten and eleven A.M. the deputations from the Universities passed through Unter den Linden, making a daylight parade but little inferior to that of the evening before. The dense throng immediately closed in after the procession, but by great efforts the mounted police cleared a passage for the State carriages to the palace of the Emperor. At eleven o'clock a magnificent royal carriage drew up at the palace of the Crown Prince, who entered it, accompanied by the Crown Princess and two daughters. They proceeded to the presence of the Emperor, to offer the first congratulations. Next came a carriage whose splendid accompaniments eclipsed all others. Preceded by a mounted herald in scarlet and silver, on a mettled and caparisoned steed, and by other outriders in the same glittering fashion, came the carriage, surmounted by silver crowns, drawn by six horses; carriage, steeds, coachman, and footmen in shining livery and flowing plumes. At the door of the Crown Prince's palace the stout figure of the Prince of Wales, in comparatively plain attire, stepped into this coach; a lady was handed in after him, and the splendid equipage rolled toward the Emperor's palace, amid the cheers of the multitude. From the Old Schloss, a succession of royal carriages passed in the same direction, all glittering in silver and gold and flowing with plumes, many with four or six horses; until fully fifty State carriages had deposited their occupants at the palace of the Kaiser, and awaited, in the fine open spaces around the famous equestrian statue of Frederick the Great, the return of royalty from its congratulations to the venerable object of all this attention. Many of the royal visitors were known by sight to the crowd, as Berlin sees much of royalty; but many were not. The cheering was not enthusiastic, except in special cases. "Who is that?" said one near me, as a splendid carriage passed. "I do not know," replied another man; "it is only one of those kings." But when the Crown Prince Frederick returned from his call, "This is something else," said the proud German heart; and the cheers were deafening. The greatest enthusiasm of the day was shown when Prince William and his family passed, in the most striking equipage of all, except that of the Prince of Wales. It was a State carriage of the time of Frederick the Great, its decorations of gold on a dark body; a large, low vehicle whose glass windows revealed the occupants on every side. Six Pomeranian brown steeds of high mettle were guided by the skilful driver, horses and outriders being splendidly caparisoned in light blue and silver. Rudolph, Crown Prince of Austria, solitary in his carriage, received his share of attention, as did the Russian Grand Dukes and Grand Duchess, the fine-looking King and Queen of Saxony, the Prince-Regent of Bavaria with his two sons of ten and twelve, and the Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, venerable sister of the Emperor. The Queen of Roumania bowed to the throng with utmost grace, smiling and showing her brilliant teeth; but whether the special huzzas were a tribute to the beauty of the Queen, or to the poetry of Carmen Sylva, we could not determine. All things have an end; and so did this dazzling State pageant, at which all Europe assisted and where all Europe was looking on; but not until Bismarck's carriage had conveyed the Chancellor to his chief, followed by General Von Moltke, who had the good taste to drive up simply, with two horses and an open carriage that interposed not even plate-glass between the great soldier and the loyal multitude. A few moments after their entrance, the Emperor appeared at the palace window, Bismarck on his right and Von Moltke on his left, and the hurrahs of the crowd burst forth anew.

Later in the day the Crown Prince and Crown Princess entertained the royal guests at dinner; and Prince Bismarck, as usual on the Emperor's birthday, gave a dinner to the Diplomatic Corps. A drizzling rain set in suddenly in the afternoon, sending dismay to the hearts of all; for the most brilliant part of the celebration was still in reserve for the evening. The rain fell in occasional light showers up to a late hour, but it dampened only the outer garb, not the hearts, of the undiminished multitude, which at night-fall, on foot or in carriages, thronged the streets of the brilliant capital, whose myriad lights showed to better advantage under the reflecting clouds than they would have done under starlight. The carriages numbered scores of thousands, and the people on foot hundreds of thousands; but so complete were the arrangements of the police and so obedient the concourse, that all proceeded in nearly perfect order. Our coachman fortunately drove through Old Berlin and K?ln, as a preliminary to the evening's sight-seeing. Long arcades filled with Jews' shops were worthy the pen of Dickens. This festal day made this most ancient portion of the city also one of the most picturesque. Houses with quaint dormer windows roofed by "eyelids," of an architecture dating back two or three hundred years, gleamed with candles in every window. Almost no house or shop was so poor as to dispense with its share of the universal illumination. At least three horizontal lines of lighted candles threaded both sides of every street of this city of a million and a half inhabitants. Many private as well as public buildings in the old part showed by colored lights the picturesque, quaint streets and nooks, as no light of day can ever do. We were passing the Rath-haus, or City Hall,--a modern and imposing edifice,--at the time when its great tower was being lighted up. Three hundred feet above the pavement floated the flags grouped in the centre and at the corners of the square tower. Invisible red fires illuminated them, the shafts of crimson light rising to the clouds above, the outlines of the remainder of the building dimly reposing in darkness. An immense electric light, guided by a reflector in another tower, shot a bridge of white light high in air across the river, and fell, like a circumscribed space of noonday amid black darkness, on the fine equestrian statue of the Great Elector by the bridge behind the Old Castle, with an effect almost indescribable. As we entered Unter den Linden by the Lustgarten, the beautiful square and its historic edifices, which form an ideal sight even by daylight, glowed and gleamed with jets of light from every point. The Old Schloss showed continuous lines of illumination in the windows of its four stories, along its front of six hundred and fifty feet, while the majestic dome caught and reflected rays of light from every point of the horizon. On the opposite side of the Lustgarten, the Doric portico of the National Gallery glowed with rose-colored light from massive Grecian lamps, while the arched entrance beneath its superb staircase gleamed with a pale sea-green radiance like the entrance to some ocean cave. The incomparable architecture of the Old Museum was set in strong relief by white light, which flooded its immense Ionic colonnade and brought out the high colors of the colossal frescos along the three hundred feet of its magnificent portico. The front of the palace of the Crown Prince was thrown, by innumerable jets, into a blaze of crimson. The Roman Catholic Church of St. Hedwig, with its dome in imitation of the Pantheon, its Latin cross and window arches beaming in pale yellow, made a fine background for the only unilluminated building, the palace of the Emperor. From the Opera House, the Arsenal, and the University, crowns and elaborate designs were burning, yet unconsumed. Most elaborately decorated of all Berlin buildings was the Academy of Arts and Sciences, opposite the Imperial Palace, with colossal warriors in bronze keeping guard at its portals, and the Angel of Peace laying a laurel wreath on the altar of Fatherland as its decorative centre-piece. No high meaning of all its symbols was more touching and significant than the appropriate texts of Scripture written for the Kaiser's eye, underneath its elaborate frescos. But of what avail would be an attempt to describe two miles of most beautiful decorations along Unter den Linden, each one a study in itself, and having nothing in common with the others, except the eagles and the Emperor's monogram; and the innumerable points of light, massed in a world of various forms, and in all the colors of the rainbow! This glow of splendor surrounded by the dense darkness covered the city, and the dazzling coronals of its lofty towers and domes and spires must have been visible to a great distance across the plains of Brandenburg.

Slowly the triple line of carriages and the surging throng pressed onward, past the palaces and diplomatic residences of the Pariser Platz; some diverging down the Wilhelm Strasse, where streaming flags and blazing illuminations made noonday brightness and gayety about the palace of the Chancellor, but most passing through the Brandenburg Gate. The massive Doric columns of this impressive structure were in darkness, but the Chariot of Victory with its fine bronze horses, surmounting the gate, was weird with the scarlet light of Bengal fires burning on the entablature.

As the artist rests his eyes by the spot of neutral gray which he keeps for the purpose on wall or palette, so brain and eye were prepared for sleep at the close of this long day, by sitting in our carriages, safe sheltered from the soft-falling rain, outside the great gate which divided the splendor from the darkness, for three quarters of an hour, in an inextricable tangle of carriages, until the perturbed coachmen and the sorely vexed police could evolve order from the temporary confusion, and set the hindered procession again on its homeward way.

Meantime the day was not over for the much-enduring Emperor and his royal guests. In the famous White Saloon of the Old Schloss an entertainment was going forward. Blinding coronets and necklaces on royal ladies made the interior of this ancient palace more brilliant than its shining exterior on this birth-night. The Empress Augusta, leaning on the arm of her grandson, Prince William, was attired in a lace-trimmed robe of pale green, her diamonds a mass of sparkling light; the Crown Princess was in silver-gray, the wife of the English Ambassador in pale mauve, the Princess Christian in turquoise blue; and the Grand Duchess Vladimir of Russia wore a magnificent robe of pink satin trimmed with sable, with a tiara of diamonds and a stomacher of diamonds and emeralds. From the neck and forehead of the Queen of Roumania flashed a thousand prismatic hues; and the Green Vault of Dresden sent some of its most precious treasures to keep company with the fair Queen of Saxony in adding brilliance to the scene.

Our reverie led from this starry point in history back to the time when, as on this memorable day, the royal salute of Berlin artillery shook the city, to announce the birth of a prince ninety years ago. A rapid, almost a chance recall of the years shows us Washington then living on his estate at Mount Vernon, Lafayette a young man of forty, Clay a stripling of twenty, Webster a boy of fifteen. The Directory in France had not yet made way for the First Republic; the younger Pitt and Canning held England; Metternich and O'Connell were in their youth, and Robert Peel was a child of nine. Napoleon Bonaparte was in the flush of youthful success, soon to become the idol of France and the terror of Europe, before whom the boy, now Kaiser Wilhelm, and his royal family fled to K?nigsberg by the Baltic, while the conqueror held Berlin and reduced Prussia to a second-rate province. To this boy the flames of burning Moscow were a transient aurora-borealis under the pole-star; and Nelson and Wellington were unknown to the stories of his childhood, for as yet their fame was not. Goethe and Schiller were in the prime of early manhood; Kant and Klopstock elderly, but with years yet to live; Scott was just laying down his poet's pen and preparing to take up the immortal quill with which he wrote his first "Waverley;" Moore was singing his sweet melodies; Wordsworth had yet to lay the foundations of the "Lake Poetry;" and the fair boy, Byron, was chanting his early songs, not yet for many a year to die at Missolonghi.

This wonderful old man of ninety, gayly stooping to kiss the hand of a lady to-night in his hospitable palace, like the young man that he is, has a memory stretching from the battle of Austerlitz across the gigantic struggles of the century to the battle of Sedan,--all of which he has seen, and a part of which he has been!

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