particular are explained by the great share the latter took in the
formation of the Empire and by his unbounded popularity. The Crown
Prince was an affectionate but not an easy-going father, with a
passion for the arts and sciences; his mother also was a
disciplinarian, and, equally with her husband, passionately fond of
art; and it is therefore not improbable that these traits descended to
the Emperor. As to whether the alleged "liberality" of the Crown
Prince descended to him depends on the sense given to the word
"liberal." If it is taken to mean an ardent desire for the good and
happiness of the people, it did; if it is taken to mean any
inclination to give the people authority to govern themselves and
direct their own destinies, it did not.

The mother of the Emperor, the Empress Frederick, had much of Queen
Victoria's good sense and still more of her strong will. A thoroughly
English princess, she had, in German eyes, one serious defect: she
failed to see, or at least to acknowledge, the superiority of most
things German to most things English. She had an English nurse, Emma
Hobbs, to assist at the birth of the future Emperor. She made English
the language of the family life, and never lost her English tastes and
sympathies; consequently she was called, always with an accent of
reproach, "the Engländerin," and in German writings is represented as
having wished to anglicize not only her husband, her children, and her
Court, but also her adopted country and its people. A chaplain of the
English Church in Berlin, the Rev. J.H. Fry, who met her many times,
describes her as follows:--

"She was not the wife for a German Emperor, she so English
and insisted so strongly on her English ways. The result was
that she was very unpopular in Germany, and the Germans said