FREDERICK-WILLIAM IV., OF PRUSSIA, son of the foregoing, was b. Oct. 15, 1795. He had been carefully educated, was fond of the society of learned men. and was a liberal' patron of art and literature. He exhibited much of his father's vacillation and instability of purpose; and although he began his reign.(June 7, 1840) by granting minor reforms, and prentising radical changes of a Iiberal charactdr, ho arrays, on one plea or other, evaded the fulfillment of these pledges. He was possessed by high but vague ideas of " the Christian state," and showed through life a strong tendency to mystic pietism. The one idea to which he adhered with constancy was that of a union of all Germany into one great body, of which lie offered himself to be the guide and head. He encouraged the duchies of Holstein and Slesvig in their insurrectionary movement, and sent troops to assist them against Denmark; but he soon abandoned their cause, and being displeased with the revolutionary character of the Frankfort diet, refused to accept the imperial crown which it offered him. The conspiracies in Prussian Poland were suppressed with much rigor; and the popular movement which followed the French revolution of 1848, was at first met by the king with resolute opposition; but when the people persisted in demanding the removal of the troops from the capital, and enforced their demand by storming the arsenal and seizing on the palace of the prince of Prussia (the present king), who was at that time especially obnoxious to the liberals, he was obliged to comply with their wishes. Constituent assemblies were convoked,
only to be dissolved when the king recovered his former security of power, and new constitutions were framed and sworn to, and finally modified or withdrawn. After the complete termination of the revolution in Germany, the revolutionary members of the assembly of 1843 were prosecuted and treated with severity, the obnoxious "pietistic" party and the nobility were reinstated in their former influence at court, and the free dom of the press and of religious and political opinion, was strictly circumscribed. The life of the king was twice attempted; first in 1847 by a dismissed burgomaster, named Tschech; and secondly, in 1850, by an insane discharged soldier of the name of Sefeloge. In 1857, Frederick-William was seized with remittent attacks of insanity; and in 1858 he resigned the management of public affairs to his brother and next heir, who acted as regent of the kingdom till his own accession, in 1360, as William I. Frederick-William died in 1361.