o ascend to the times of Diocletian, to
find an example of a similar abdication of empire, on so deliberate and
extensive a scale, and the great English historian of the Roman Empire
has compared the two acts with each other. But there seems a vast
difference between the cases. Both emperors were distinguished soldiers;
both were merciless persecutors of defenceless Christians; both exchanged
unbounded empire for absolute seclusion. But Diocletian was born in the
lowest abyss of human degradation--the slave and the son of a slave. For
such a man, after having reached the highest pinnacle of human greatness,
voluntarily to descend from power, seems an act of far greater
magnanimity than the retreat of Charles. Born in the purple, having
exercised unlimited authority from his boyhood, and having worn from his
cradle so many crowns and coronets, the German Emperor might well be
supposed to have learned to estimate them at their proper value.
Contemporary minds were busy, however, to discover the hidden motives
which could have influenced him, and the world, even yet, has hardly
ceased to wonder. Yet it would have been more wonderful, considering the
Emperor's character, had he remained. The end had not crowned the work;
it not unreasonably discrowned the workman. The earlier, and indeed the
greater part of his career had been one unbroken procession of triumphs.
The cherished dream of his grandfather, and of his own youth, to add the
Pope's triple crown to the rest of the hereditary possessions of his
family, he had indeed been obliged to resign. He had too much practical
Flemish sense to indulge long in chimeras, but he had achieved the Empire
over formidable rivals, and he had successively not only conquered, but
captured almost every potentate who had arrayed himself in arms against
him. Clement and Francis, the Dukes and Landgraves of, Clever, Hesse,
Saxony, and Brunswick, he had bound to his chariot wheels; forcing many
to eat the bread of humiliation and captivity, during long and weary
years. But the concluding portion of his reign had reversed all its
previous glories. His whole career had been a failure. He had been
defeated, after all, in most of his projects. He had humbled Francis, but
Henry had most signally avenged his father. He had trampled upon Philip
of Hesse and Frederic of Saxony, but it had been reserved for one of that
German race, which he characterized as "dreamy, drunken, and incapable of
intrigue,"