Library of the Worlds Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 5 | Page 2

Church' Opening of the Funeral Oration on Henrietta of France From the 'Discourse upon Universal History' Public Spirit in Rome
JAMES BOSWELL 1740-1795 2227
BY CHARLES F. JOHNSON
An Account of Corsica A Tour to Corsica The Life of Samuel Johnson
PAUL BOURGET 1852- 2252
The American Family ('Outre-Mer') The Aristocratic Vision of M. Renan ('Study of M. Renan')
SIR JOHN BOWRING 1792-1872 2263
The Cross of Christ Watchman! What of the Night? Hymn From Luis de Gongora: Not All Nightingales From John Kollar: Sonnet From Bogdanovich (Old Russian): Song From Bobrov: The Golden Palace From Dmitriev: The Dove and The Stranger From Sarbiewski: Sapphics to A Rose
HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN 1848-1895 2272
A Norwegian Dance ('Gunnar')
MARY ELIZABETH BRADDON 1837- 2279
Advent of the Hirelings ('The Christmas Hirelings') "How Bright She Was--" etc. ('Mohawks')
GEORG BRANDES 1842- 2299
BY WILLIAM MORTON PAYNE
Bj?rnson ('Eminent Authors of the Nineteenth Century') The Historical Movement in Modern Literature ('Main Currents in the Literature of the Nineteenth Century')
SEBASTIAN BRANDT 1458-1521 2311
The Universal Shyp Of Hym That Togyder Wyll Serve Two Maysters Of To[o] Moche Spekynge or Bablynge

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME V
* * * * *
PAGE Saint Dunstan (Colored Plate) Frontispiece Bismarck (Portrait) . . . . . . . 1930 "The Surrender at Sedan" (Photogravure) . . 1944 Richard Doddridge Blackmore (Portrait) . . 2012 "Rembrandt and His Wife" (Photogravure) . . 2055 Giovanni Boccaccio (Portrait) . . . . 2090 "The Decameron" (Photogravure) . . . . 2108 "Fatima" (Photogravure) . . . . . . 2120 "Domestic Happiness" (Photogravure) . . . 2206
VIGNETTE PORTRAITS
Bj?rnstjerne Bj?rnson William Black William Blake Mathilde Blind Friedrich M. von Bodenstedt Johann Jakob Bodmer Bo?tius Nicholas Boileau-Despr��aux Gaston Boissier George H. Boker George Borrow Jacques B��nigne Bossuet James Boswell Paul Bourget Sir John Bowring Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen Georg Brandes Sebastian Brandt

OTTO EDWARD LEOPOLD VON BISMARCK
(1815-)
BY MUNROE SMITH
Otto Edward Leopold, fourth child of Charles and Wilhelmina von Bismarck, was born at Sch?nhausen in Prussia, April 1, 1815. The family was one of the oldest in the "Old Mark" (now a part of the province of Saxony), and not a few of its members had held important military or diplomatic positions under the Prussian crown. The young Otto passed his school years in Berlin, and pursued university studies in law (1832-5) at G?ttingen and at Berlin. At G?ttingen he was rarely seen at lectures, but was a prominent figure in the social life of the student body: the old university town is full of traditions of his prowess in duels and drinking bouts, and of his difficulties with the authorities. In 1835 he passed the State examination in law, and was occupied for three years, first in the judicial and then in the administrative service of the State, at Berlin, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Potsdam. In 1838 he left the governmental service and studied agriculture at the Eldena Academy. From his twenty-fourth to his thirty-sixth year (1839-51) his life was that of a country squire. He took charge at first of property held by his father in Pomerania; upon his father's death in 1845 he assumed the management of the family estate of Sch?nhausen. Here he held the local offices of captain of dikes and of deputy in the provincial Diet. The latter position proved a stepping-stone into Prussian and German politics; for when Frederick William IV. summoned the "United Diet" of the kingdom (1847), Bismarck was sent to Berlin as an alternate delegate from his province.
The next three years were full of events. The revolution of 1848 forced all the German sovereigns who had thus far retained absolute power, among them the King of Prussia, to grant representative constitutions to their people. The same year witnessed the initiation of a great popular movement for the unification of Germany. A national Parliament was assembled at Frankfort, and in 1849 it offered to the King of Prussia the German imperial crown; but the constitution it had drafted was so democratic, and the opposition of the German princes so great, that Frederick William felt obliged to refuse the offer. An attempt was then made, at a Parliament held in Erfurt, to establish a "narrower Germany" under Prussian leadership; but this movement also came to nothing. The Austrian government, paralyzed for a time by revolts in its own territories, had re-established its power and threatened Prussia with war. Russia supported Austria, and Prussia submitted at Olm��tz (1850). In these stirring years, Bismarck--first as a member of the United Diet and then as a representative in the new Prussian Chamber of Deputies--made himself prominent by hostility to the constitutional movement and championship of royal prerogative. He defended the King's refusal of the imperial crown, because "all the real gold in it would be gotten by melting up the Prussian crown"; and he compared the pact which the King, by accepting the Frankfort constitution, would make with the democracy, to the pact