the name of two princes of the house of Hapsburg, emperors of Germany in the eighteenth century.

Joseph I, son of Leopold I, was born in 1678, mounted the throne of Hungary in 1689, and was soon after crowned king of the Romans. In 1705 he succeeded his father as Emperor of Germany. Besides the imperial dignity, he inherited the war of the Spanish succession, which, begun in Joseph II, 1701, outlasted the whole period of his reign. Studiosus, tolerant, pious, and humane, he was of too gentle, perhaps weak, a spirit, to interfere personally in the conduct of the war, yet success everywhere attended his arms and those of his allies. Marlborough and Eugene shared between them the honours of Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet; and these victories, combined with the surrender of Naples, the rescue of Turin, and the progress of the Archduke Charles in Spain, seemed to have settled the question in favour of Austria. In the midst of these successes, however, Joseph died, rather suddenly, of small-pox, April 17, 1711, and bequeathed the war and the crown to his brother Charles.

Joseph II, the eldest son of Maria Theresa and Francis duke of Lorraine, was born March 13, 1741, was elected king of the Romans in 1764, and, on the death of his father in the following year, became emperor of Germany. During his mother's lifetime, he was nominally a co-regent with her in the hereditary states of the house of Austria, and held the command in chief of the army. But his real power was small, as the empress-queen kept in her own hands the administration of her vast dominions. Much of his time was spent in travel, both in his own and adjoining countries. More than once he visited the hereditary enemy of his house, Frederic of Prussia, for whom he cherished an unbounded admiration, and whom in his subsequent political career he seems to have copied, or at least imitated, as his model. Mounting the Austrian throne on the death of Maria Theresa in 1780, he gave a loose to that spirit of innovation and reform which gained for him the title of imperial avant-courier of the French revolution. His reign naturally falls into three epochs of innovation, organization, and restoration. The first period, from 1780 to 1783, was given up to experimental failures. The next three years were devoted to useful governmental reforms. The third and last period was occupied in retracing most of the steps which he had taken in the previous periods, more especially in the first; and the close of it was marked by the revocation of the various edicts by which he had abolished the constitutional liberties of the several parts of the empire. Uniformity became his ruling passion, and to establish it he did not hesitate to overturn and destroy the historical and political peculiarities of the various nations under his sceptre. Declaring that he alone understood the wants of the country, he issued edict after edict, many of them in the highest degree praiseworthy in their object, but arbitrary and despotic in their operations. Disregarding the various nationalities, he parcelled out his dominions into thirteen governments, and subdivided these into circles, establishing in each a uniform civil and judicial administration. He established general toleration in religious matters, suppressed many convents, withdrew the censorship of the press from the clergy, and forbade papal bulls to be published in his realms without the sanction of the government. The Jews were not only permitted to follow whatever calling they chose, but had access allowed them to the colleges and universities. As all these changes were introduced in total disregard of individual and local rights and privileges, they excited in many places a feeling of hatred which at last found vent in rebellion. His attempts to force the German tongue on his Hungarian subjects led to a revolt, of which he did not live to see the end. A similar indiscretion cost him his valuable Belgie provinces. These disasters, combined with the doubtful issue of the Turkish war, in which he took part along with Russia, preyed upon his mind, and cut him off in the midst of his career, February 20, 1790.

See AUSTRIA.