he time of
the deepest degradation of Prussia at Olmuetz, the final and inevitable
triumph of that cause which counted among its heroes and martyrs such
names as Stein, Gneisenau, Niebuhr, Arndt, and, we may now add, Bunsen.

After the reaction of 1849 Bunsen's political influence ceased altogether,
and as Minister in England he had almost always to carry out instructions
of which he disapproved. More and more he longed for rest and freedom, for
"leisure for reflection on the Divine which subsists in things human, and
for writing, if God enables me to do so. I live as one lamed; the pinions
that might have furthered my progress are bound,--yet not broken." Yet he
would not give up his place as long as his enemies at Berlin did all they
could to oust him. He would not be beaten by them, nor did he altogether
despair of better days. His opinion of the Prince of Prussia (the present
King) had been raised very high since he had come to know him more
intimately, and he expected much in the hour of need from his soldier-like
decision and sense of honor. The negotiations about the Schleswig-Holstein
question soon roused again all his German sympathies, and he exerted
himself to the utmost to defend the just cause of the
Schleswig-Holsteiners, which had been so shamefully misrepresented by
unscrupulous partisans. The history of these negotiations cannot yet be
written, but it will some day surprise the student of history when he
finds out in what way public opinion in England was dosed and stupefied on
that simple question. He found himself isolated and opposed by nearly all
his English friends. One statesman only, but the greatest of English
statesmen, saw clearly where the right and where the wrong was, but even
he could only dare to be silent. On the 31st of July, 1850, Bunsen
writes:--

"Palmerston had yielded, when in a scrape, first to Russia, then
to France; the prize has been the protocol; the victim, Germany.
They shall never have my signature to such a piece of iniquity and
folly."

However, on the 8th of May, 1852, Bunsen had to sign that very piece of
iniquity. It was done, machine like, at the King's command; yet, if Bunsen
had followed his own better judgment, he would not have signed, but sent
in his resignation. "The first cannon-shot in Europe," he used to say,
"will tear this Pragmatic Sanction to tatters;" and so it was; but alas!
he did not live to see the Nemesis of that iniquity. One