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inordinate length. To give an example of this extreme caution in deliberating, a few dates may suffice. On June 1, 1645, the first French proposal was sent in to Count Nassau-Hadamar, to which a reply was returned on December 17 of the same year, more than six months after. To this communication an answer was given by Count d’Avaux, March 7, 1646, provoking a fresh reply from the Imperial Commissioner, under date August 31 of the same year, which second message left the two parties further from each other than ever they were before. Mediators, appointed by both of them, now intervened, and sent in a report on September 10, 1646, which concluded that the Kaiser’s envoy should take the initiative in making further proposals. In consequence of this decision, Count Nassau-Hadamar forwarded a project of treaty in June, 1647, and was met by a counter-project of the French, three months after, which again left affairs as they had been at the beginning. In short, the deliberations threatened to be endless; and, worst of all, now, after more than eleven years of parleying, dating from the first proposals at Cologne, the war was raging as fiercely and the future seemed as hopeless as it had been at the day when Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus were crossing swords on the field of Lützen. To judge from the beginnings of this great Congress, it did not appear as if meetings of the kind had much chance in substituting for the future the force of reason for the force of arms.

However, to us now, who look through the vista of two centuries at the meeting of Münster and Osnabrück, this delay, long though it was, will not appear surprising, seeing that this first of modern European congresses had to solve problems more gigantic than any which had ever before occupied the attention of statesmen and philosophers. A religious as well as political war of unheard-of duration had shaken the whole of Central Europe to its very base; and to rebuild the tottering edifice of states was clearly a task of Herculean dimensions. That the work was finished successfully in the end, though after long and wearisome toil, is, on the whole, to be reckoned as something marvellous, and as a high proof of what congresses are able to do. And it is most remarkable that, in this instance, as well as in succeeding ones, the ultimate success was owing not so much to the ensemble of the statesmen and diplomatic personages who had met together, as to the energetic perseverance of a few among them who, with a clear and distinct object before their eyes, were determined to carry it through a thousand difficulties. Of the hundred or more commissioners present at the Congress of Münster and Osnabrück, not more than one-tenth seemed to have been really inclined for peace, or to have had bonâ fide instructions to conclude it; and among this minority there were, as it turned out, not more than two persons energetic enough as well as willing to meet the host of silent or open adversaries. But these two men, backed as they were by public opinion, proved, in the end, strong enough for the intrigues and secret influences at the round tables at Münster and Osnabrück, and were enabled to demonstrate, after all, the case of word versus sword. From the first commencement of the Congress, Count Trautmannsdorf, one of the imperial envoys, and Dr. Volmar his colleague, had shown themselves determined—as it afterwards appeared, somewhat against the will of their own master,—to make an end of the sufferings of war at any price and under every circumstance; and, after more than five years of hard labour, they had the satisfaction of gaining their object. A glance at the nature of this labour will show the merit of such work. The Thirty-Years’ War, as is well known, commenced in a struggle between the Protestant and Catholic states of Germany; it was protracted first by the interference of the King of Sweden, who took the part of the Protestants; next by that of the King of Spain, who assisted the Catholics; and, finally, by the intervention of the French, who did not declare strictly for either faction, but had a strong desire of fishing in the troubled waters of European politics. Four points, therefore, had of necessity to be settled at the Congress—namely, first, the relative position of the Catholic and Protestant states of Germany; secondly, the demands of Sweden on the Empire; thirdly, the demands of Spain; and, lastly, the claims of France. Thanks to the unwearied exertions of the two commissioners already named, and in spite of the active resistance of some and the passive objection of other members of the Congress, all these questions came to be finally arranged by the middle of the year 1648, after unbroken deliberations extending over more than three years. The four questions were, leaving out details, to be settled in the following manner. The Protestant and Catholic states of the Empire to be on a footing of perfect equality, and all past offences to be extinguished by a complete amnesty on both sides, extending to princes as well as subjects. Sweden to receive the sum of 5,000,000 of thalers, equal to three-months’ pay of an army of 34,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry, and to have besides the towns of Bremen and Verden and a part of Pomerania. Spain to remain in statu quo ante bellum; and France to have part of Alsace and the other Austrian dominions on the left bank of the Rhine. Finally, the independence of Switzerland and of the Netherlands to be publicly acknowledged. These stipulations, after having received the consent of the respective governments, were signed and sealed at Münster and Osnabrück on the 24th of October, 1648. On the morning of that day the French and Swedish ministers, accompanied by the commissioners of most of the other states, rode in solemn procession to the palace occupied by the imperial envoys at Osnabrück, and appended their signatures to the instrument of peace; this being accomplished, the ambassadors of the Kaiser, in their turn, proceeded to the residences of the representatives of France and Sweden, and went through the same formality. At noon on the following day, peace was proclaimed by heralds through the streets of Münster, Osnabrück, and Cologne, and for weeks following public rejoicings were held in the principal towns of Germany and Holland in celebration of the happy event. A picture, by Van der Helst, pronounced by Sir Joshua Reynolds to be “the first