obstacles that in practice he found insuperable. At home Maximilian
raised the Imperial power from a mere cipher to considerable weight.
We judge him as if he had been born in the purple and succeeded to a
defined power like his descendants. We forget that the head of the
Holy Roman Empire had been, ever since the extinction of the Swabian
line, a mere mark for ambitious princes to shoot at, with everything
expected from him, and no means to do anything. Maximilian's own
father was an avaricious, undignified old man, not until near his
death Archduke of even all Austria, and with anarchy prevailing
everywhere under his nominal rule. It was in the time of Maximilian
that the Empire became as compact and united a body as could be hoped
of anything so unwieldy, that law was at least acknowledged, Faust
recht for ever abolished, and the Emperor became once more a real
power.

The man under whom all this was effected could have been no fool;
yet, as he said himself, he reigned over a nation of kings, who each
chose to rule for himself; and the uncertainty of supplies of men or
money to be gained from them made him so often fail necessarily in
his engagements, that he acquired a shiftiness and callousness to
breaches of promise, which became the worst flaw in his character.
But of the fascination of his manner there can be no doubt. Even
Henry VIII.'s English ambassadors, when forced to own how little they
could depend on him, and how dangerous it was to let subsidies pass
through his fingers, still show themselves under a sort of
enchantment of devotion to his person, and this in his old age, and
when his conduct was most inexcusable and provoking.

His variety of powers was wonderful. He was learned in many
languages--in all those of his empire or hereditary states, and in