THE RULERS OF THE AGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7788, 6 November 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE RULERS OF THE AGE.

Referring to the tour of the German Emperor over the soene of his old triumphs, the Standard thinks there is something pathetic in the peaceful campaign of the nonogenarian Emperor, with bis grizzled lieutenants, on the territory which they onoe traversed in such grim earnestness. It would seem as if the work of the world wer& sometimes destined to he done, by a band of young men, and sometimes by a group of old ones. At the beginning of the present 'century, for instance, most of the heroes of peace and war were young. Napoleon was not much over 30 in the days of Austerlitz and Marengo; few of his Marshals were older. Wellington passed his 40th year in the Peninsula Campaign. Pitt, after 20 years in the Premiership, died at 47» Nelson was just the same age at Trafalgar. Our poets — Byron, Shelley, Keats, and Coleridge— were young; Sir Walter Scott was looked upon as quite a patriarch of letters at 55. At present we are in the cycle of the seniors. We have Mr. Gladstone and M. Grevy, Prince Bismarck and the German Emperor, all of whom, if they belong very actively and vividly to the present, would have left a good record of notable work behind them if j they had joined the majority before M. ! Bendetti altered the map of Europe by fori getting his manners on the promenade at Ems on a certain critical day. And the strange thing is that when these veterans disappear from the stage they seem likely to leave no successors. No doubt Providence has not forgotten posterity, and the next generation will be duly provided with its proper proportion of great men. But it must be admitted that they are slow in making their appearance. Who is to sucI ceed Prince Bismarck in Germany ? Who has taken op the mantle of Victor Hugo in France ? Who are to be the successors of Lord Tennyson and Mr. Browning ? As for politics, we do not forget Lord Randolph Churchill and Mr. Chamberlain in this country, or Count Kalnoky, M. Tisza, and M. de Freycinet abroad, when we say that the nineteenth century—the century of statesmen—show at present but faint prospect of closing with such a galaxy of great men as that which shed lustre over its infancy and its middle age. Let us hope that Destiny, in one of its freaks, is only waiting tiil the old heroes are cleared off the board to startle us with a constellation of young geniuses in peace and war, in letters and in arts. In the meanwhile, we have old men, and may be thankful for them.