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TOUR IN GERMANY,
AND SOME OF
THE SOUTHERN PROVINCES
OF THE
AUSTRIAN EMPIRE,
IN THE TEARS
ISaO, 1821, 1822.
B¥ JOHN RUSSELL, Esci.
REPRINTED FROM THE
BOSTON:
WELLS AND LILLY — COURT STREET.
1825.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
The East of France Alsace . . .
StRAS BURGH ....
French and German Cookery
The Cathedral
The Monument of Marshal Saxe
The passage of the Rhine The Plain of the Rhine
German Stage Coaches
Grand Ducal Family of Baden Carlsruhe Manheim
Sand Heidelberg Darmstadt Frankfort
The Fair
The City
The Arts
The Jews
The Germanic Confederation Seligenstadt ....
Pa»e
1
2
3
4
5
6
9
10
11
13
15
16
17
19
20
21
21
22
24
25
28
32
CHAPTER II.
The Thuringian Forest Weimar
The Grand Duke
Literature
Wieland
Schiller
Gothe
The Drama
Character of the People
The Grand Duchess
Amusements
34 35 37 38
42 43 47 52 54 55 «1
IV
CONTENTS.
Weimar [continued)
Political Conduct of the Grand Duke Constitution of the Parliament of the Grand Duchy- Its Spirit and Proceedings ....
The Press .......
State of Political Feeling in Weimar
Influence of the Small German States . t
CHAPTER III.
General Character of the German Universities Jena .......
The Battle
The University — Its Constitution
Emoluments of the Professors
Public and Private Lectures
Division of a Subject into Different Courses
Additional Occupations of the Juridical Faculty
The Mode of Teaching The Students — Their Evening Carousals
Their Songs ......
The Landsmannschaften, or Secret Associations
Duels
Behaviour of the Students to the Townsmen
The Burschenschaft ....
Academical Liberty ....
Academical Jurisdiction and Discipline
Bursaries ......
Decline of Jena^ and its Causes
Dismissal of Professor Oken
Professors Luden and Kotzebue
PAGE
62 64 68 70 72 74
76
77
78
78
80
81
84
88
90
90
93
96
105
107
108
111
114
118
120
121
123
CHAPTER IV.
Rural Population of Weimar Weissenfels
Dr. Mullner .
LUTZEN ....
Leipzig — The City
The Arts
The Book-Trade .
Piratical Publishers
Mr. Brockhaus The Elbe Dresden — The City
The Royal Family
The Churches
Music
The Monument of Moreau
The Saxon Switzerland c
127 128 128 130 132 133 134 136 138 140 140 144 147 149 151 151
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER V.
Dresden (^continued)
The Picture Gallery The Collection of Copperplates *" Sculpture ....
The Green Vault . The Armoury
Literature and the Language . Administration of Criminal Justice Constitution of the Government
CHAPTER VI.
Erfurth
Luther's Cell
Ursuline Convent GOTHA . . . .
Eisenach .,,,,. Hesse Cassel .....
Westphalian Peasantry . , Cassel
King Jerome
The late Elector
Wilhelmshohe
The Arts ....
CHAPTER Vn.
Gottingen
Competition among the Professors
Professor Blumenbach
Scientific Collections
The Library .
The Widows' Fund
Hospitals
Prosperity of Gottingen
Expenditure of the Students
General Character of the University
CHAPTER VIII.
Kingdom of Hanover . . . .
Forest Laws . . . . .
Wood-Thieves . . . .
The Peasantry . . . .
The Magistracy of the Small Towns Hanover .......
The Theatre . . . .
Easter Festivities . . . .
Leibnitz
PAGE
156 168 168 169 170 171 173 179
182 183 184 187 187 189 190 192 193 195 197 199
202 203 205 207 208 210 211 212 214 217
219 220 220 221 222 223 224 225 226
|
Vi ' CONTENTS. |
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Hanover (continued) |
PAGE |
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The Library |
. 226 |
|
Pictures ....... |
. 228 |
|
National Character .... |
. 228 |
|
The Estates |
. 231 |
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Relation of Hanover to England |
. 235 |
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CHAPTER IX. |
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Roads in the North of Hanover |
. 236 |
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BrUxVSVVICK ....... |
. 237 |
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The Burial Vault of the Family of Brunswick |
. 237 |
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The Museum ..... |
. 238 |
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Magdeburgh ........ |
. 240 |
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Roads |
. 240 |
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Potsdam ........ |
. 241 |
|
Sans Souci ...... |
. 242 |
|
The Picture Gallery .... |
. 244 |
|
Berlin— The City |
. 247 |
|
The Spree |
. 251 |
|
Architecture ...... |
. 253 |
|
The Drama |
. 255 |
|
Music ....... |
. 255 |
|
Sculpture ....... |
. 257 |
|
Iron Manufacture ..... |
. 260 |
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The Thiergarten ..... |
. 261 |
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Charlottenburgh ..... |
. 262 |
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The late Queen of Prussia . . . , |
. 263 |
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The King . . . . |
. 268 |
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The Crown Prince .... |
. 272 |
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CHAPTER X. |
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Berlin (^continued) |
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The Aristocracy |
. 274 |
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The Lower Orders .... |
. 277 |
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The War |
. 278 |
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The University ..... |
. 281 |
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Profe.ssor Wolffe ...... |
. 284 |
|
The Press |
. 287 |
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The Administration of Justice |
. 291 |
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The Government ...... |
. 302 |
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Stein ........ |
. 303 |
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The late Chancellor, Prince Hardenberg |
. 303 |
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Reforms of the Government in the Agricultural |
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Population ...... |
. 304 |
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in the Towns |
. 311 |
Effect of these Changes on the Political Prospects of Prussia . . . . .
314
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XL
Frankfort on the Oder .
The Oder ....
Cemeteries ....
Crossen — Vineyards ....
Silesia ......
BUNZLAU ......
Monument of Prince Kutusoff .
HiRSCHBERG .....
The Silesian Linen Manufacture
Mineral Springs
Wolkenbruche and Tliunder Storms
The River Zacken
The Kienast ....
Ascent of the Schneekoppe
Adersbach
County of Glatz ....
Colonization of Silesia Cracow ......
Jews .....
The Cathedral
Monuments of Polish Kings
The Weichselzopf
The Salt Mines of Wieliczka Moravia ......
First Sight of Vienna
Vll
PAGE
318 318 319 320 321 322 323 323 324 329 330 331 333 335 339 341 342 344 344 345 347 348 353 358 359
CHAPTER XIL
Vienna
The City Architecture . Squares and Fountains Statue of Joseph U. Canova's Monument of the
Theseus .
Churches
The Basteyen (the Ramparts)
The Suburbs
The Prater
Archduchess Christina
359 360 365 366 369 370 372 374 376 378 379
CHAPTER XIIL
Vienna (^continued)
Manners — Mixture of Character in the Population Theatres, and the Drama Music
381 383 389
VUl
CONTENTS.
Vienna (continued)
Beethoven ......
Looseness of Principle ....
Fondness for Titles ....
Religion
The New Religious Order — Father Werner Pilgrimages ......
The Government^ its General Spirit
The Police
The Press
The Imperial Family ....
The Emperor
Prince Metternich
The Aristocracy ..... State of Political Feeling in Ausjtria
CHAPTER XIV.
Baden .......
Mineral Springs, and Mode of Bathing
Valley of St. Helena Heiligen Kreuz
LiLIENFELD
The Annaberg
Pilgrims to Mariazell Upper Styria — Mariazell
The Mur
Bruck
Gratz Lower Styria
The Winden Carniola — Laybach
Mines of Idria
The Peasantry
Planina
Lake of Zirknitz
The Proteus Anguinus
Adelsberg
The Karst
PAGE
. 392
. 395
. 399
. 400
. 401
. 404
. 405
. 406
. 410
. 413
. 413
. 415
. 419
. 421
423
424
425
426
427
429
430
432
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
452
455
458
461
463
468
&c.
CHAPTER I.
STRASBURGH — THE PLAIN OF THE RHINE— FRANKFORT.
Im niedersteigen strahlen
Soil umher der Freudenschein, In des Neckars Reben-thalen,
Und am silberblauen Main.
The prejudices of English travellers in favour of their own country are now proverbial, and have often ex- posed them to ridicule, sometimes to reproach. But if even the gaieties and novelties of Paris fail to re- move this feeling of national superiority, every one is entitled to a plenary indulgence for railing, who has made a long journey in winter through the east of France. From Paris to Strasburgh, even the pro- fessed hunter of curiosities would find little to reward his pursuit, and the mere passing traveller, who is hastening to a certain point, finds nothing at all. The tame banks of the Marne, which the road accom- panies in long, stiff stretches, as far as Chalons, give no relief to the dreariness of the scene ; the fortifica- tions of Metz are Interesting only to the engineer; and, in the open country, the difference between a French and an English landscape is felt at once. The want of in- closures Is a hackneyed topic of remark and dispute ; and, though nothing is more impossible than to con- vince a Frenchman that he or his country ever has blundered, or ever can blunder, we may be allowed t& 1
2 ALSACE.
prefer our own still life, and to believe that hedge&v co|)sewood, and plantations, are comfortable things even in winter. Bat it is in the appearance, or rather in the disappearance, of the population, that the dif- ference is most striking. In a well cultivated part of Eijgland, even the winter landscape is not entirely desolate. Everywhere the smoke of the farm-house rises; the merry inmates are, at least, heard from witfiin; at every turn one comes across a sportsman and his dog; the seats of the gentry are more blithe and bustling than ever; to say nothing of the resolu- tion with which stage-coaches, and stage-coach travel- leis, hold out against the worst that winter can do. All ^iruund are sounds and sights of human industry, or hu^nan enjojmeiit. In France, man seems to be as dead as nature. The traveller looks out over an end- less, dreary extent of brown soil, seldom varied by the meanest cottage. The country population is drawn together in the villages, and these villages must be sought for to discover that the country is inhabited. It would seem that even the peasant cannot endure the comparative solitude of an English farmer's life. Like his brethren of Paris, he must have the plea- sures of society.
On approaching Alsace, the character of the coun- try rapidly changes. It becomes hilly, precipitous, and romantic, rising into a branch of the lofty ridge ^vhich flanks the left bank of the Rhine, nearly from the frontiers of Switzerland to the mouth of the Mo- selle. The luxuriant plain of the Rhine, with its numberless towns and villages, is occasionally seen below through the apertures of the ridge. The river itself is too deeply sunk to be visible. As if this " Father of wine," as the Germans fondly style him, would suffer nothing but the grape in his vicinity, the vineyards reappear so soon as the mountain begins to sink down in more gentle slopes. On this side of the Alps, however, a bare field is, in winter, a more pleas-
STRASBURGH. a
ing object than a vineyard. The vines either die, or are intentionally cut down, nearly to the ground. If the poles which supported them are removed, as they generally are, the vineyard becomes a field of bare, black stumps; if they are allowed to remain, it be- comes a field of stilF, straight poles, marshalled in re- gular array. Even in summer and autumn, these vine- yards add less to the beauty of a landscape than many other species of verdure. The vines, having reached in their growth the top of the stakes along which they are trained, curl downwards ; they are ranged in parallel lines ; the clusters avoid the eye, and lurk beneath the leaves. All the beauty that such a vine- yard gives to the scene consists merely in the mantle of deep verdure with which it clothes the soft and sunny slopes of the hills, a merit not at all of rare oc- currence, even in countries where the grape never ripened. When near, the vineyard is in itself inferior to a hop plantation, which is the very same tiling in kind, with more body and stateliness ; in the distance, it is no greater ornament than a field of prosperous turnips would be. But our northern imaginations, warming at the idea of the vine, just as our blood glows with its juice, bestow on every garden of Bac- chus the beauties of Eden.
Strasburgh itself is an irregular, old-fashioned, heavy-looking town, most inconveniently intersected by muddy streams and canals, and full of soldiers and customhouse-officers ; for it has the double misfortune of being at once a frontier trading town, and an im- portant frontier fortification. The appearance of the inhabitants, and the mixture of tongues, announce at once that the Rhine was not always the boundary of France. Nearly two centuries have been insufficient to eradicate the diffisrence of descent, and manners, and language. . The situation of the town, more than any thing else, has tended to keep these peculiarities alive, and prevent French manners from establishing,
4 STRASBURGH.
even in a French city, that intolerant despotism which they have often introduced into foreign capitals. As it is the centre of the mercantile intercourse which France maintains with Swabia, Wirtemberg, great part of Baden, and the north of Switzerland, the Ger- man part of the population has always among them too many of their kindred to forget that they them- selves were once subjects of the Holy Roman Em- pire, or to give up their own modes of speaking, and dressing, and eating. The stolid Swabian and serious Swiss drover are deaf to the charms of the universal language and kitchen. At Strasburgh you may dine on dishes as impenetrably disguised, or languish over ew- tremets as nearly refined away to nothing, as at the tables of the great Parisian rivals, Very and Vefours; or, on the other side of the street, for half the money, you may have more German fat, plain boiled beef, and sour cabbage. The German kitchen is essentially a plain, solid, greasy kitchen ; it has often by far too much of the last quality. People of rank, indeed, in the great capitals, are as mad on French cookery as the most delicate of their equals in London ; but the national cookery, in its general character, is the very reverse of that of France ; and it is by no means cer- tain that the national cookery of a people may not have some connection with its national character. The German justly prides himself on the total ab- sence of parade, on the openness, plainness, and sin- cerity which mark his character; accordingly, he boils his beef, and roasts his mutton and fowls, just as they come from the hands of the butcher and the poul- terer. If a gourmand of Vienna stuff his Styrian capon with truffles, this is an unwonted tribute to deli- cacy of palate. French cookery, again, really seems to be merely a product of the vanity and parade which are inseparable from the French character. Culinary accomplishments are, to the dinner of a Parisian, just what sentiment is to his conversation. They are both
THE CATHEDRAL. 5
substitutes for the solid beef and solid feelinfi: which either are not there at all, or, if they be there, are intended for no other purpose than to give a name. INo one portion of God's creatures is reckoned fit for a Frenchman's dinner till he himself has improved it beyond all possibility of recognition. His cookery seems to proceed on the very same principle on which his countrymen laboured to improve Raphael's pic- tures, viz. that there is nothing in nature or art so good, but he can make it better.
The far-famed cathedral is, in some respects, the finest Gothic building in Europe. There are many which are more ample in dimensions. In the solemn imposing grandeur to which the lofty elevations and dim colonnades of this architecture are so well adapted, the cathedral of Milan acknowledges no rival ; and not onlv in some German towns, as in Niirnberg, but likewise among the Gothic remains of our own country and of Normandy, it would not be difficult to find samples of workmanship equally light and elegant in the detail with the boasted fane of Strasburgh. Certainly, however, nothing can surpass it. The main body of the building is put together with an admirable symmetry of proportion ; and to this it is indebted for its principal beauty as a whole. Connoisseurs, indeed, have measured and criticised ; they have found this too long, and that too short : but architectural beauty is made for the eye ; and, even in classical architecture, where all has been reduced to measurement, the rules of Vitruvius or Palladio are good only as expressing in the language of art judg- ments which taste forms independent of rules. The harmony of proportions, and the elegance of the work- manship, appear to still greater advantage in the spire, Avhose pinnacle is more than five hundred feet above the pavement, and whose mere elevation forms, in the eyes of most people, the only good thing about the cathedral. It has nothing uncommon in its general
6 STRASBURGH.
form. The massive base terminates just at the point -where, to the cje, it would become too heavy for the elevation; and it is succeeded by the lofty slender pyramid, so delicately ribbed that it hardly seems to be supported, and bearing, almost to its pinnacle, the prolusion of Gothic ornament. Yet there is no super- fluity or confusion of ornament about the edifice; there is no crowding of figure upon figure, merely for the sake of having sculpture. With more, it would have approached the tawdry and puerile style of the present day; with less, it would have been as dead and heavy as the cathedral of Ulm, which, though ex- quisite in particular details of the sculpture, yet, with- oul being more imposing, wants all the grace and ele- gance of the fabric of Strasburgh. Few things in art seem so unwilling to submit themselves to good taste as the ornaments of Gothic architecture. How many imagine that they constitute the essential part of it ; that they are handsome things in themselves, (which, in an hundred instances, they are not,) and, therefore, the more of a good thing the better ; without regard- ing any ulterior object, or suspecting that these have, or ought to have, some determinate relation to plan and proportion. In every town we ourselves have things which we facetiously denominate Gothic chapels, because they arc covered with little pinnacles, and small curves, and are full of holes. The Gothic in small is fit only for the pastry-cook, or the toy-shop.
The church of St. Thomas, wdiich is still devoted to the Protestant worship, contains the uionument erected by Louis XV. to Marshal Saxe. It is the most cele- brated production of Pigalle, and is a very fair specimen of the style of the French artists of the last century, in wliich Roubilliac has left us so many works marked with all its beauties and all its defects. The back- ground of the whole is a tall and broad pyramid of grey marble, set against the wall of the church. The pyramid terminates below in a few steps, on the lowest
SCULPTURE. r
of which rests a sarcophagus. The Marshal Is in the act of descending the steps towards the tomb. On the right, the symbohcal animals of England, Holland, and Austria, are flving from him in dismay; on the left, the banner of France is floating in triumph. The warrior's eve is fixed with an expression of tranquil contempt on a figure of Death standing below, thrust- ing out his raw head and bony arms from beneath a shroud, holding up to the Marshal in one hand an hour- glass in which the sand has run out, and, with the other, opening the sarcophagus to receive him. A fe- male figure, representing France, throws herself be- tween them, exerting herself at once to hold back the Marshal, and push away Death. On one side of the whole, a genius, according to the most approved recipe for monument making, weeps over the inverted torch, and, on the other, Hercules leans pouting on his club. All is in marble, and large as the life. The individual figures are of moderate merit; they are full of that exaggeration of feature and attitude of which the French artists have never yet got rid ; but the first impression of the whole composition is extremely striking, though the style is not sufficiently pure to make the impression lasting. It dazzles at first, and immediately fatigues.
The figure of the Marshal himself has often been adduced as an example, to prove that sculpture can deal as advantageously with the tight fantastic gar- ments of modern times as with the loose drapery of antiquity ; but who can look at Marshal Saxe as he stands here, without wishing that the paludamen- Uim occupied the place of the coat and waistcoat ? There may be much industry, and much skill of manipu- lation, in hewing out accurately buttons and button-holes, laces, and ruffles ; but this is a merit of which no sta- tuary, who knows the true province and feels the true dignity of his art, will boast; for it lies in a species of imi- tation which requires manual dexterity rather than
8 STRASBURGH.
genius, and has more in common with the carving of Dutch toys than with the divine art, whose proudest triumphs are achieved in creating human forms. Mea- sured by such a standard, old General Ziethen, who, with other heroes of the Seven Years' War, frowns on the Wilhelms-Platz of Berlin in a hussar uniform wrought out in the most laborious and precise detail, would be, what many a Prussian holds it to be, the finest statue in the world. It is the business of sculp- ture to represent the human form, and every mode of dress, whether ancient or modern, is an obstacle in her way. But custom and propriety, which frequent- ly compelled the ancient artists to adopt a covering, are still more tyrannical towards their modern follow- ers. A naked Cicero would have been as little proper as a corsetted Venus, and a naked statesman or field- marshal of our own age would be more incongruous than either. Where dress, then, is unavoidable, the question seems just to be, what mode of attire trenches least on the peculiar province of the sculptor, and is most susceptible in itself of being worked into graceful forms? JNow, the free and flowing dress of Athens or Rome was not only more graceful and noble in itself than the sharp angles, the stiif lines, the numerous joinings of our multifarious habiliments, but, in the hands of the sculptor, it was pliant as wax, to be moulded into any form which beauty or dignity might require. But the artist who is to clothe a statue in a modern dress, has to work on much less manageable materials. His audacious hand must attempt no inno- vation on the received forms of buckram and broad cloth. In the drapery of his statue, if such an abuse of words may be tolerated, he must turn taste and genius out of doors, and work according to the mea- sures of some tailor of reputation.^
* In few modern statues has the difficulty been so successfully surmounted as in Chantry's beautiful statue of the late Mr Horner.
THE RHINE. 9
Beyond the fortifications, there is still about a mile to the bank of the Rhine. The wooden bridge thrown across the river, though less ingeniously combined than the destroyed one of Constance, used to be reckoned the most stately structure of the kind in Europe. It is now useless. In the campaigns which conducted the allies to Paris, great part of the bridge towards the German side was cut away, and has not yet been repaired. The communication is kept up by a bridge floated on boats, a little farther down the stream. This is reckoned altogether a more commodious struc- ture. When the ice breaks up, part of the boats are cut away to give it free passage ; and though the com- munication be thus partially interrupted for a day or two, yet, when the ice has once passed, in half an hour the bridge is again formed. If, on the other hand, the floating ice, which descends on this majestic river in huge masses and with terrific impetuosity, should carry away the wooden piers of a bridge like the old one, the interruption continues much longer, for the repairs are at once more tedious and expensive. The ice had broken up two days before, and was still hurrying downwards incessantly ; the bridge was cut away in the centre, and the passage was made in an
By avoiding every thing like exaggeration of the particular parts, and softening them down to a degree which an artist of less taste would not have aimed at, he has identified, as far as might be, the dress with the form. The gown conceals the least poetical pecu- liarities, and is itself disposed in an arrangement extremely simple and becoming. The sculptor has dispensed with the wig of a Chancery barrister, and who, that is not a disciple of Roubilliac, will not rejoice that he has done so ? The French artist executed the statue of President Forbes, in the hall of the Second Division of the Court of Session at Edinburgh, and bestowed on him the utmost plenitude of judicial curls and tippets. Chantry executed that of President Blair, which adorns the hall of the First Division, clothed in a more simple drapery, and left the lofty, open brow unencumbered by the official mass of hair. To look at these two statues is sufficient of itself to determine the comparative merits of these different styles.
10 PLAIN OF THE HHINE.
ordinary boat, kept up against the current by running along a rope stretched across the opening in the bridge. A French customhouse guards the approach on the French side ; but the search is brief and slight, for no- body minds what you carry out of the country. The playful quarrel about examining the baskets of a number of peasant girls returning from market in Strasburgh, seemed to be pertinaciously kept up by the officers, much more to have an opportunity of ra- vishing illicit kisses, than from any wish to detect illicit commodities. " Father Rhine" was passed safely and speedily. There comes a new country, new forms, new manners, a new language ; but, amid all that is new, the old pest of police and customhouse-officers. You have just slipped from the hands of French Dou- aniers, and are caught in the fangs of German Mauth- beamten,
Kehl, the first village on the German side, wears an open and regular appearance, which seldom recurs in tne villages farther in the interior of the country. At first, long tracts of willow grounds, and occasional sandy flats, stretching on both sides of the river, mark the ex- tent of its inundations ; but, less than a couple of miles from the bank, the country is already one of the most beautiful in Europe. It is the opening of the plain of the Rhine, the Campagna (Toro of Germany — every foot of which teems with population, industry, and fer- tility, and, during two hundred years, has been fattened with the best blood of Europe. The Rhine is its uni- form boundary on the west. On the east it is inclosed in the distance by irregular eminences, whose surface is the favourite abode of the grape, while their interior sends forth the mineral springs, which collect to Baden and Hueb all the fashion and disease of this part of Germany. Behind them tower the prouder and shag- gy summits of the Hercynian or Black Forest. It has long since lost its extent of sixty days journey, as well as its Elks and Urochses. What remains is still gloomy
PLAIN OF THE RHINE. 11
with primeval oaks and pines ; but from their shades have been expelled even the banditti, who, by the re- ceived laws of romance, are as regularly the inhabitants of a German forest as the dagger or the drug are the weapons of the Italian. Between these boundaries, the plain runs along to the north, varying in breadth according as the hills press closer upon or retire far- ther from the river. The great road from Switzer- land avoids the plain, running along the eminences which border it on the right. The champaign coun- try, rivalling the plain of Tuscany, as seen from Fie- sole, or that portion of Lombardy which stretches out beneath the Madonna di San Luca at Bologna, lies be- low, and the eye never tires. The general character of the objecfs, indeed, does not vary; it is a perpetual succession of villages and small towns, lurking among vineyards, and corn-fields, and orchards; but, at every turn, they combine themselves into new groupes, or lie under new lights. Here a long stretch of the broad and glittering Rhine bursts into view^, bounding the dis- tant landscape like a silver girdle ; there his place is occupied by the remoter summits of the Vosges. Here you may linger among the cottages of Oifenthal, whose vine still retains its character, and hangs its clusters round the window of the peasant; or, close by that little churchyard, you may muse beneath the tree where Turenne fell on the last of his fields, and make a brief pilgrimage to the rustic chapel beneath whose altar the heart of the hero was deposited.
What the Germans call a Diligence, or Post-wagen, dragging its slow length through this delicious scene, is a bad feature in the picture. Much as we laugh at the meagre cattle, the knotted rope-harness, and lum- bering paces of the machines which bear the same name in France, the French have outstripped their less alert neighbours in every thing that regards neat- ness, and comfort, and expedition. The German car- riage resembles the Frencn one, but is still more clum-
12 PLAIN dF THE RHINE.
sy and unwieldy. The luggage, which generally con- stitutes by far the greater part of the burden, is placed, not above, but in the rear. Behind the car- riage, a flooring projects from above the axle of the hind wheels, equal, in length and breadth, to all the rest of the vehicle. On this is built up a castle of boxes and packages, that generally shoots out beyond the wheels, and towers above the roof of the car- riage. The whole weight is increased as much as pos- sible by the strong chains intended to secure the for- tification from all attacks in the rear ; for the guard, like his French brother, will expose himself neither to wind nor weather, but forthwith retires to doze in his cabriolet, leaving to its fate the edifice which has been reared with much labour and marvellous skill. Six passengers, if so many bold men can be found, are packed up inside ; two, more happy or less daring, take their place in the cabriolet with the guard. The breath of life is insipid to a German without the breath of his pipe ; the insides puff most genially right into each other's faces. With such an addition to the ordinary mail-coach miseries of a low roof, a perpendicular back, legs suffering like a mar- tyr's in the boots, and scandalously scanty air-holes, the Diligence becomes a very Black Hole. To this huge mass, this combination of stage-coach and car- rier's cart, are yoked four meagre, ragged cattle ; and the whole dashes along, on the finest roads, at the rate of rather more than three English miles an hour, stoppages included. The matter of refreshments is conducted with a very philanthropical degree of lei- sure, and at every considerable town, a breach must be made in the luggage castle, and be built up again. Half a day's travelling in one of these vehicles is enough to make a man loathe them all his lifetime.*
* In the Rhenish provinces of Prussia, the estahlishment of the new French mails has created some rivalry, or the government has been brought to bestir itself to facilitate the means of communica°
BADEN. ts
It can only be ascribed to the amazing fertility of this country that its population seem to have recover- ed so rapidly from the devastation with which the war visited them again and again. From Basle to Frank- fort there is scarcely a field that has not been trodden down by contending armies. They are not wealthy, and, if their practice in domestic comforts were weigh- ed against our own ideas, they w^ould be found want- ing ; but they exhibit, in full measure, the more indis- pensable possessions of industry and hilarity, a simple and most affectionate disposition. The family of Ba- den has long filled a respectable rank among the minor princes of Germany, as ruling with economy and kind- ness. It went by the side of that of Weimar in sup- porting the young genius of the country against the preposterous domination of French literature, and did not blush to call Kiopstock to Carlsruhe as the orna- ment of its court. The present Grand Duke was among the first of the German princes to give his peo- ple a representative government, when the termination of the war left him and them their own masters. On such a soil, and with a people so industrious and easily contented, a good government, well administer- ed, should produce a rural population that would have no reason to envy any corner of Europe.
The Grand Duke is a popular prince, particularly in the hereditary dominions of his house. It is in the Swabian part of his territories that he has found it most difficult to conciliate favour; not that he was un- deserving of it,* but because the Swabians could not easily throw off their hereditary attachment to the House of Hapsburgh. These hardy fatteners of snails, and distillers of cherry water, a tribe, however, of
tion in that commercial district of the kingdom. On the great road between Frankfort and Cologne, a species of mail has been esta- blished, which they have dignified with the name of SchncUwagen, or Velocity Coach, because, by throwing off the carrier's cart, it jnakes out between five and six miles an hour-
14 BADEN.
VFhose intelligence their countrymen entertain so low an opinion, that, all over Germany, a piece of gross stu- pidity is proverbially termed a Schwabenstreich, longed to return beneath the wing of the double eagle. Du- rino- the first advance of the allies, when the Emperor and the Grand Duke were together at Freyberg, the former was actually receiving, in one room, an address from the Swabians, praying him to take them back under the imperial sceptre, while the Matter, his host and their sovereign, was under the same roof. The Emperor wept with them over old stories and old at- tachments, for there is not a more kind-hearted man in his empire ; but other views of policy were imperi- ous, and they remained with their new master. This disposition, in fact, is said to have been part of the se- cret history of the constitution of Baden; the Govern- ment resolved to bestow the boon to turn the popular opinion in its favour.
Except some of the small capitals, which are light and open, the general character of the towns strewed round in all directions does not correspond with the beauty of the country. They are irregular, inconveni- ent, and gloomy. The inhabitants are content to creep through dark, narrow streets during the day, if one spot be left open and planted with trees for their eve- ning promenade. Carlsruhe, the capital of the Grand Duchy, besides being enlivened by the bustle and pa- rade which the residence of a court in a small town al- ways occasions, has a peculiarly rural appearance : it strikes one just as a large and very handsome country village. There has not been much taste shown in the poplar groves which surround it, and border, in long tedious lines, the roads that approach it. The poplar is not a tree to be planted in masses ; even as forming an alley, it has no breadth of foliage, or depth of shade, to atone for its stiff, pyramidal, unvarying form. Carl- sruhe is buried among them, and they sink into utter insignificance when the eye, through the artificial open-
MANHEIM. 15
ings, catches the masses of the Black Forest in the back-ground.
Without the presence of the court Carlsruhe would not exist. Its population has been created, and is sup- ported, only by the wants of the court, and the rank and wealth that always follow a court on business or pleasure. Gay and idle people form so large a pro- portion of the small whole, that poverty and misery do not easily come under the eye of the strans^er. The first sight of Carlsruhe tells him it is a place of amuse- ment and elegant enjoyment rather than of business j he feels himself everywhere merely within the pre- cincts of a palace; and, unless he penetrate into the debates of the chambers, he will not soon discover that the more serious occupations of life are much attend^ ed to.
Beyond Carlsruhe the plain, for some miles, becomes broader ; but, in the neighbourhood of Heidelberg, a mountainous ridge, through whose vallies the Neckar finds its way, presses forward to the Rhine. Heidel- berg rests on the last slope, and at the foot of the ridge ; corn and wine crowd upon each other along the Neckar, during all that remains of its course, to the walls of Manheim. Manheim itself is the most mathematically regular town in Europe, a mere col- lection of straight lines and parallelograms, every street and every mass of building like every other. It was not difficult to attain this uniformity in a town of twenty-five thousand inhabitants, but, besides being monotonous, it produces confusion. One encounters more difficulty in finding his way through the streets of Manheim, than in much larger towns which have not bowed the knee in such absolute subjection to a ground plan, and in which, though the whole be irre- gular, the parts are noticed and remembered for their own peculiarities. The Cicerones boast of one or two churches, which are very gaudy, and the palace, which is very large and heavy ; but the great charms
16 MANHEIM.
of Manheim are due to nature. On the north it is skirted by the blue waters of the Neckar, which, at Heidelberg, has quitted for ever its mountain gorge, and here pours itself, placid and slow, into the bosom of the Rhine. The Rhine itself rolls its ample stream on the west, washing the walls ; the plain beyond runs back from the left bank, disappearing at length in the shadow of the forests and precipices of the Vosges. Except in the Rheingau itself, there are few spots on the Rhine where this imperial river makes so splendid an appearance — the expanse of water, spread out like a mighty lake, its slow majestic motion, its tinge of green, not deep enough to prevent the vivid reflection of the ramparts and towers that bristle on the one bank, and the cottages, and orchards, and vineyards, that stud the other. It is not wonderful that the coolness which lingers round his waters, even in the greatest heats of summer, should draw gay proces- sions of stroller^ to the ramparts and bridge to enjoy the magnificent spectacle, or that they should proudly challenge Europe to equal their native stream. If Virgil had still to write, the Po would no longer be the " Rex fluviorum," even in Europe, for in every- thing but sky and classical association the Rhine is his superior. The artificial embankments of the Po, sin- gular though they be as works of labour and skill, de- form his beauty, and the sand with which he threat- ened to encroach on the Adriatic discolours his own waters. The Rhine that Virgil knew washed no vine- yards, and reflected no temples : he had heard of it only as a savage and unadorned stream, rolling itself through interminable woods, and guarding the haunts of barbarians who had checked the flight of the Ro- man eagle.
The delights of the situation, and the pleasures of the society, attract a number of resident strangers ; for here, too, as being the residence of the Markgra- vine Dowager, there is something of the parade and
MANHEIM. IT
elegance of a court. Many of the sojourners are per- sons of literary habits, and the coteries of Manhcim have gradually been acquiring a character for informa- tion and bon ton. There is a considerable number of Russians, particularly Livonians. The subjects of the Autocrat of all the Russias seem to have a natural fondness for nestling in every warmer climate, or more civilized country, than their own. These were the circumstances which made Kotzebue choose Manheim for his residence, when the notice excited by the sur- reptitious publication of his unfortunate bulletin induc- ed him to quit Weimar, and it was here, in a small house towards the Rhine, that he fell a victim to the fanaticism of Sand. I found the murderer, who had been executed shortly before, still the subject of gene- ral conversation. Though his deed, besides its moral turpitude, has done Germany much political mischief, the public feeling seemed to treat his memory with much indulgence. Most people, except the students, were liberal enough to acknowledge that Sand had done wrong in committing assassination, but they did not at all regard him with disrespect, much less with the abhorrence due to a murderer. The ladies were implacable in their resentment at his execution. They could easily forgive the necessity of cutting off his head, but they could not pardon the barbarity of cut- ting off, to prepare him for the block, the long dark locks which curled down over his shoulders, after the academical fashion. People found many things in his conduct and situation which conspired to make them regard him as an object of pity, sometimes of admira- tion, rather than of blame. Nobody regrets Kotze- bue. To deny him, as many have done, all claims to talent and literary merit, argues slieer ignorance or stupidity ; but his talent could not redeem the im- prudence of his conduct, and no man ever possessed in greater perfection the art of making enemies where- ever he was placed. Every body believed, too, that 3
18 MANHEIM.
Sand, liowever frightfully erroneous his Ideas might be, acted from what he took to be a principle of pub- lic duty, and not to gratify any private interest. This feeling, joined to the patience and resolution with which he bore up under fourteen months of grievous bodllv suffering, the kindliness of temper which he manifested towards every one else, and the intrepidity with which he submitted to the punishment of his crime, naturally procured him in Germany much sym- pathy and indulgence. Such palliating feelings to- wards the perpetrator of such a deed are, no doubt, abundantly dangerous. If they pass the boundary by a single halr's-breadth, they become downright de- fenders of assassination, and it is one of the greatest mischiefs of such an example, that it seduces weak heads and heated fancies into a ruinous coquetry with principles w^ilch make every man his neighbour's exe- cutioner. Still, it would be untrue to say that it was only his brother students who regarded Sand with these indulgent eyes. To them, of course, he ap- peared a martyr in a common cause. " I would not have told him to do it," said a student of Heidelberg to me, " but I would cheerfully have shaken hands with him after he did it." Even in the more grave and orderly classes of society, although his crime was never justified or applauded, I could seldom trace any inclination to speak of him with much rigour. When the executioner had struck, the crowd rushed upon the scaffold, every one anxious to pick up a few scat- tered hairs, or dip a ribbon, a handkerchief, or a scrap of paper, in his blood. Splinters were chipped from the reekino; block, and worn in medallions as his hair was in rings, false and revered as the reliques of a saint. To the students of Heidelberg was ascribed the attempt to sow with Forget-me-not the field on which l]e was beheaded ; and wliich they have bap- tized by the name of Sand's Ascension-Meadow. Though punished as an homicide, he was laid in con-
HEIDELBERG. 19
secrated ground ; and, till measures were taken by the police to prevent it, fresh flowers and branches of weeping willow were nightly strewed, by unknown hands, on the murderer's grave.
At Heidelberg, the university still flourishes, under the liberal administration of the house of Baden, and the students, by far the most important personages in the town, have their full share of the rawness, and rudeness, and caprices, which characterize, less or more, all the German universities. The shapeless coat — the long hair — the bare neck — the huge shirt collar, falling back on the shoulders — the afl'ectedly careless, would-be-rakish air — the total absence of all good breeding, announce, at once, the presence of the fraternity. But these evil spirits inhabit a paradise. The Neckar, though navigable for small craft, still re- tains all the freshness of a mountain stream. On its left bank, the town is huddled together at the foot of the rocks, plain, irregular, and old-fashioned. The right bank glows with the vine, ripening beneath high- er ridges of rock and wood, which shield it from the north. Behind, the prospect closes as the valley re- cedes along the windings of the river ; to the west, it opens out at once into the wondrous plain, and ter- minates only at the Rhine. The palace of the Elec- tors of the Palatinate, dilapidated by lightning, by war, and by time, frowns above the town. Fortunate- ly it Is a ruin. In the days of its perfect grandeur, a pile so huge and majestic, and, in many of its details, making fair pretensions to classical architecture, must have been out of place, an J, if the exprt^ssion may be used, out of keeping with the surrounding scenery. Gothic towers and loop-lioled battlements may be perched on the summit of a precipice, or stuck on the side of a narrow and romantic valley ; but more ample space, and features more imposing than the merely picturesque, are the iltting accompaniments of such a pile as the Castle of Heidelberg must have been,
2U DARMSTADT.
when its halls glittered with the granite columns wliich had once adorned the favourite palace of Char- lemagne. If this was a defect, time and devastation hav^e remedied it superbly; w'hatever the castle may have been, the ruin is in perfect harmony with the scene, and well deserves its reputation as the most im- posin^jj and majestic in Europe. The wails, of a soli- di-y that seemed to rival the rock on which they were founded, lie in the ditches, in confused masses, " like fragments of a former world." Among the stately reliques of the hail of the knights, there are still many rich remains of the magnificence which had rendered it the boast of Germany; and, amid the smoke Avhich pollutes its walls, one loves to imagine he can trace the course of the flash that lighted up the conflagra- tion.
The humblest part of the whole, the cellars, have alone escaped destruction, for they are hewn out in the living rock, and, if old tales may be believed, ex- tend far beneath the town. In one of them is still preserved the famed Heidelberg tun, that contains I know not how many pipes of wine. Alas ! it is parch- ed and empty, as eloquent a memento of mortal vicis- situdes as the ruined castle. When the halls and courts above resounded with the revelry of knightly banquets and feudal retainers, to fill it was a jubilee, and to drain it an amusement. The family of the Palatinate is on the tlirone of Bavaria, the castle is in ruins, and the tun is empty. It lives only in the drinking songs of the students, and as a lion for the stranger.
At Darmstadt, anotiier small, handsome town, the capital of the Grand Dutchy of tlie same name, and, like Carlsruhe, entirely dependent on the residence of the court, 1 saw nothing but a very splendid theatre, furnished with an excellent orchestra, and over-crowd- ed with spectators, the greater part of whom had come up from Frankfert for the sake of Sacchini's
FRANKFORT. 21
CEdipus. The opera is the ruling passion of the Grand Duke, but his subjects do not vvilnngly see so much money spent on it by a prince who ranks so low among the " German gentles." He has the best orchestra between Basle and Brussels, and the only fortification in his dominions is garrisoned by foreign troops. When, after long reluctance, he at length cpnvoked a repre- sentative body under a new constitution, the first thing the representatives did was to quarrel with it as too antiquated and impotent. He trembled for the or- chestra, become good natured, yielded them more liberal terms, and, as they left his opera untouched, there have been no more squabbles.
A farther drive of fourteen miles, through a country moi'e sandy than any part of the plain on the Upper Rhine, leads to the banks of the Main ; the well-bred listlessness and courtly demeanour of Darmstadt are exchanged for the noise and bustle of Frankfort. Long before reaching the city, the increasing host of carriages and waggons announced the vicinity of this great emporium. On passing the bridge across the Main, the confusion became inextricable, for it was the Michaelmas Fair. The narrow streets, sunk be- tween tall old fashioned piles of building, seemed too small for the busy crowd that swarmed through them, examirjing and bargaining about all the productions of Europe in all its languages. The outside walls of the shops, and, in many instances, of the first floors, were en- tirely covered with large pieces of cloth, generally of some glaring colour, proclaiming the name and wares of the foreigner who iiad there pitched his tent, in French and Italian, German, Russian, Polish, and Bohemian ; rarely in English, but very often in Hebrew. The last, however, being a somewhat inconvenient language for sign posts, was generally accompanied by a trans- lation in a known tongue. Not only the public squares, but every spot tliat could be protected against the encroachments of wheels and horses, groaned beneath
2^ FRANKFORT.
gaudy and ample booths, which displayed, in the most outre juxta-position, all that convenience or luxury has ever invented, from wooden platters, Manchester cot- tons, or Vienna pipe-heads, to the bijouterie of the Palais Royal or the china of Meissen, silks from Lyons, or chandeliers from the mountains of Bohemia. Eveiy fair presents, on a smaller scale, the same va- riety and confusion; but the assemblage of men from all quarters of the globe, and these, too, men of business, in search of bargains, not amusement, that is collected in the streets and inns of Frankfort, during the fair, is to be found no where else, except, perhaps, in Leipzig on a similar occasion.
If the traveller who happens to arrive at this most unfavourable of all seasons for the mere traveller, can rest satisfied with a cellar or a garret, the hotels are not the leas't animated part of ihe whole. Butler and cook have been preparing during weeks for the cam- paign ; larder and servants are put upon a war esta- blishment ; the large hall, reserved in general for civic feasts or civic balls, is thrown open for the daily table d'hote. In one hotel, above a hundred and fihy per- sons daily surrounded the table, chattering all langua- ges " from Indus to the pole." The newly decked walls dis[)layed in fresco all the famed landscapes of the Rhine, from Manheim to Cologne ; the stuccoed ceiling and gilt cornices far outshone in splendour the hall on the opposite side of the way, in Avhich the heads of the Holy Roman Empire used to be elected and anointed. From a gallery at either end, a full orchestra accompanied each morsel of sausage with a sounding march, or, when Hock and Riideshei- mer began to glow in the veins, attuned the company, by repeated waltzes, to the amusements of the evening. The merchants, who flock down from every quarter, are not always allowed to make their journey alone. Their wives and daughters know full well that busi- ness is not the sole occupation of a Frankfort fair ;
THE CITY. 28
that, if there be bills and balances for the gentlemen, there are ball;^, and plays, and concerts for the ladies, and that a gentleman, on such occasions, is never so safe as when he has Ills own ladles bj his side. Though, in general, neither well-informed nor elegantly bred, they are pretty, affable, willing to be amused ; they give variety to the promenades, and chit-chat to the table.
Except in the peculiarities of the fair, there is no- thinor to distinsruish Frankfort from a hundred other large cities. It stretches clilcfly along the nght bank of the Main, which is discoloured by the pollutions of the city, and certainly is not adorned by the clumsy, shapeless things, called ships, which minister to its com- merce. In fact, a river of but moderate size always loses its beauty in passing or trayersing a laige city. The city itself is generally old ; nuich of it is crazy. There is only one good street in it, the Zell, and great part of the good houses in that street are inns. Among them is the one where Voltaire was seized, on the re- quisition of the Prussian resident, when flying from the wrath of the monarch to whom he had so long "washed dirty linen." The growing wealth of Frankfort loves to setHe outside of the walls; for the country in the immediate vicinity, whether up the Main, or back in the vallies of the Taunus, is so rich in natural embel- lishments, that the affluent naturally prefer it as a re- sidence to the slooni of the town. A number of de- lightful villas stud the slopes and crown the summit of the Miihlberg, a moderate eminence, which stretches along the opposite bank of the Main, equally celebrat- ed for the wine and the prospect which it yields. There, reposing from the calculations of the counting- house, the merchant contemplates below, in silent rapture, the passage of sail and waggon that bring the materials of his wealth, and the progress of the vines that are to renew the stores of his cellar.
The cathedral, a work of the fourteenth ceutury, is
24 FRANKFORT.
still less interesting in itself, than for its antiquity ; the unfinished tower, the unfinished lahour of a whole cen- tury, sits heavy on the edifice. The Romer, or Ro- man, a building now used for the public offices, is suj> posed to derive its name from having been, if not built, at least used as a warehouse by Lombard merchants, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, while Venice still distributed the productions of the East into the North. It was afterwards applied to a more noble purpose, which alone gives it any interest ; within its w^alls the German Emperors were elected and crow^ned. There is still preserved, as a solitary remnant of majesty, a copy of the Golden Bull, the document that determin- ed the rights of prince and subject in an empire ano- malous while it endured, and not regretted now that it is gone. The cornice above tlie crimson tapestry, with which the election-chamber is entirely hung, has been allowed to retain the armorial bearings of the electors, and they now witness the deliberations of the Senate of Frankfort. The hall where the emperors were crowned can never have been worthy of so august a ceremony.
A city where every man and every moment is devo- ted to money-raakiijg is not tlie favourite abode of the arts, even though it be decorated with the epithet of free. Frankfort, indeed, possesses a picture gallery, but I saw little in it worth seeing again. The magni- ficent legacy of a banker who, some years ago, be- queathed a fortune of a hundred thousand pounds, for the encouragement of the arts, and the support of young artists, will probably produce, as similar elee- mosynary institutions commonly have done, an abun- dant crop of mediocrity. In the suburban gardens of the wealthiest among the merchants is the master- piece of Dannecker, a sculptor of Wirtemberg, Ariadne on a leopard. The figure is well cut, but the attitude is unpleasant; she is too nicely and anxiously balanced on the back of the animal. Never was sculptor so un-
JEWS. 25
fortunate in his marble ; the Goddess of Naxos looks as if she had been hewn out of old Stilton cheese; her naked body is covered with blue spots and blue streaks, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot The citizens have long wished to erect a monument to their great townsman, Gothe ; but the opposition made to it, even from the press, (for Gothe has many de- tractors,) seems to have convinced them of the pro- priety of deferring it, at least, till the patriarch be H^ cLit dead ; and few men have outlived so many admirers, ^j^ /n^
Frankfort, in consequence of her commercial rela- ^
tions, is so thoroughly under foreign influence, and so polluted by a mixture of all foreign manners, that her population can hardly be said to have a character of their own. Even the multifarious connections with all ends of the earth, which have made her citizens in a manner citizens of the world, have unfitted them to be German citizens; for they judge of the happiness of mankind by the rate of exchange, and the price of wine. Let no one hastily condemn the worthy citizens of Frankfort for thus forgetting, in the pursuits of the merchant and money speculator, what the politician might, perhaps, hold to be the interest of their com- mon country; or, at least, before pronouncing his doom on their imagined selfishness, let him study the port of London, or Liverpool, or Bristol, and discover, if he can, a purer foundation for English mercantile patri- otism.
Of the fifty thousand inhabitants who form the po- pulation of Frankfort, about seven thousand are Jews. Perhaps they might have been expected to increase more rapidly in a city whose favourite pursuits are so congenial to the trafficking spirit of Israel, while its constitution gave them a toleration in religion, and se- curity of properly, which they obtained only at a much later period from more powerful masters. They in- habit chiefly a particular quarter of the town, which, though no longer walled in, as it once was, to separate
4
26 FRANKFORT.
them from the rest of the community, repels the Chris- tian intruder, at every step, with filth much too dis- gusting to be particularized. In the driving of their traffic they are importunate as Italian beggars. Lay- ing in wait in his little dark shop, or little tattered booth, or, if these be buried in some obscure and sick- ening alley, prowling at the corner where it joins some more frequented street, the Jew darts out on every passenger of promise. He seems to possess a pecu- liar talent at discovering, even in the Babel of Frank- fort, the country of the person whom he addresses, and seldom (ails to hit the right language. Unless thrown off at once, he sticks to you through half a street, whis- pering the praises of his wares mingled with your own; for, curving the spare, insignificant boay into obsequi- ousness, and throwing into the twinkling gray eye as much condescension as its keenly expressed love of gain will admit, he conducts the whole oration as if he were sacrificing himself to do you a favour of which nobody must know. When all the usual recommenda- tions of great bargains fail, he generally finishes the climax with " On my soul and conscience. Sir, they are genuine smuggled goods."
It seems to be the lot of the Jew to make himself singular even in trades which he drives in common with Christians, much more palpably than he diflfiers from them in their religious faith. In a Protestant country a Catholic is not known, nor in a Catholic coun- try a Protestant, till you open his prayer-book, or fol- low him into his church ; but the peculiarities which keep the Jew separate from the world belong to every- day life. It is true, that, all over Europe, individuals are to be found who seldom repair to the synagogue, and have overcome the terrors of barbers and bacon; but these are regarded in heart, by their more ortho- dox brethren, as the freethinkers and backsliders of the tribes of Israel, whose sinful compliances must ex- clude them from the church triumphant, though the
JEWS. 9,7
ungodly portion of mammon, which they have contri- ved to amass, may render it prudent to retain them nominally within the pale of the communion below. The peculiarities of the general mass form a lasting wall of partition between them and their Christian neighbours. In his modes of appellation, in his meats, in his amusements, the Jew is a separatist from the world, uniting himself to a solitary community, not only in his religious faith, which no one minds, but in mat- ters which enter into the spirit, and descend to the de- tails of ordinary life. Whether you dine, or pray, or con- verse, or correspond with a pure and conscientious Jew, some peculiarity forces upon your notice, that he is not one of the people ; and in these, more than in the pe- culiarities of their religious creed, rests the execution of the curse, which still keeps the descendants of Israel a distinct and despised people among the Gentile na- tions.
As a recompence for having lost the elections and coronations of the emperors, Frankfort was made the seat of the Gernianic Diet, and would boast of being the seat of government of the whole Germanic body, if the Diet were truly a government. But, except that the presence of the deputies and foreign ministers in- creases the number of dinners and carriages in Frank- fort, the Germans maintain, that the confederation, in which they have been bound, serves no one purpose of a government, but is merely a clumsy and expensive instrument, to enable Austria and Prussia to govern all Germany. The thing looks well enough on paper, they say, for the votes appear to be distributed accord- ing to the population of the different states ; but in its working it manifests only the dictatorial preponde- rance of powers which they will not acknowledge to be German in point of interest, and only partially Ger- man even in point of territory. One-third of the votes, in the ordinary meetings, belong to Austria, Prussia, England, Denmark, and the Netherlands. The small
2« FRANKFORT.
powers, who form the majority with half and quarter votes, or, as in one case, with the sixth part of a vote each, are entirely dependent on these greater states. These greater states, though possessing territories in Germany, are essentially foreign in iheir strength and interests, and, enjoying an irresistible influence in the Diet, they have handed over the government of Ger- many to Austria and Prussia; while Prussia, again, seems to have thrown herself into the arms of Russia, and Austria has been for centuries the bigotted oppo- nent of every thing which might tend to render Ger- many independent of the house of Hapsburgh. The Emperor Francis did well not to labour after the re- storation of the euipire ; for, instead of remaining the limited and elective head of a disjointed monarchy, he has become the hereditary dictator of a submissive confederation ; instead of negotiating at Ratisbonne, he can command at Frankfort. Thus the Germanic Diet is essenliaily the representative, not of German, but of foreign interests, guided by potentates who claim a voice in its measures in virtue of a portion of their territories, and then throw in upon its dehberations the whole weight of their preponderating poMtical and mil- itary influence, to guard their own loreign interests, and effectuate schemes of policy, which have no rela- tion to the union, or independence, or welfare of Ger- many.
The confederation provides, to be sure, a public treasury and a common army for the defence of the country, but of what use are a treasury and army which stand at the disposal of foreign influence? Moreover, it does not leave the states which compose it even political independence among themselves, and the quiet administration of their internal concerns. It seems to be the right of a sovereign prince to give his subjects as popular institutions as he may think proper; but the sovereign princes of Germany must previously pbtain, through the medium of the Diet, the permis-
THE GERMANIC DIET. 29
sion of the courts of Vienna and Berlin. On this body depends the degree to which they shall descend from the old arbitrary prerogative ; for the confederation, while it thus lops off the most unquestionable rights of sovereign states, has formally declared, with ridiculous inconsistency, that it can contain only sovereign princes — and all the world knows what a sovereign prince means in the language of Vienna. Freedom of discus- sion among themselves, and the power of communicat- ing their deliberations to those for whom they legis- late, seem to be inseparable from the useful existence of a legislative body ; but, by the provisions of the confederation, this eternal minor placed under the tu- telage of foreign powers, the Diet is bound to take care, that neither the discussions in such assemblies themselves, where they exist by sulTerance, nor their publication through the press, shall endanger the tran- quillity of Germany — and all the world krjows by what standard Prince Metternich measures public tranquillity.
Even in the states where representative govern- ments have been established, the confederation de- prives them of all power in the most important ques- tions that can be put to a nation, those of peace and war; for it has expressly provided, that no constitu- tion shall be allowed to impede a prince, who belongs to the confederation, in the performance of the duties which the Diet may think proper to impose upon him. Whether Bavaria or Wirtemherg, for example, shall go to war, is not in every case a question for Iter own king and parliament, but for the Prussian and Austrian envoys at Frankfort. If the powers which, though essentially foreign, are preponderatmg. find it useful to employ the money and arrfts of the Germanic body, the constitution at home is virtually suspended. The Diet is despotic in legislative, and executive, and judi- cial authority ; and, if any part of the territory includ- ed in the confederation be attacked, the whole body is
3G FRANKFORT.
ipso facto in a state of war. France quarrels with Austria and the NethcHands ; she attacks the former in Italy, and the latter in the duchy of Luxembourg, whicii is a part of the confederation ; the whole Ger- manic body must fly to arms, for the territory of the confederation is attacked. Although Bavaria, for in- stance, should have no more interest in the quarrel than his Majesty of Otaheite, she must submit to the misery and extravagance of war, as if an enemy stood on the banks of herown Iser. In vain may her par- liament resolve for peace, and refuse to vote either men or money ; it is the duty of their king to go to war for the inviolability of this ricketty and heteroge- neous confederation. The decision belongs, not to the monarch and representatives of the Bavarian people, but to the diplomatists of Frankfort, and if the former be backward, a hundred thousand Austrians can spee- dily supply the place of tax-gatherers and recruiting officers.
These are the sentiments which are heard every where in Germany ; and, making every allowance for national partialities, there certainly is p great deal of truth in them. The Germanic confederation ha^^ noth- ing equal in it ; it is ruled by foreigners, for even the votes of lianover obey the ministry of England. Wei- mar, whose liberal institutions and free press had been guaranteed by this very Diet, was compelled to violate it, and submit to a censorship, at the will of a congress of ministers, whom Germany can justly call foreign, as- sembled at Carlsbad. If I observed rightly, the pre- ponderance of Austria is peculiarly grating to the pow- ers more properly German. They know that Austria is the very last among them which can pretend to be reckoned a pure German state ; the greatest part of her population does not even speak the language; they are at least her equals in military fame, and have far outstripped her in all the arts of peace. It is not wonderful they should feel degraded at seeing their
THE GERMANIC DIET. 31
common country subjected to the domination of a power In which they find so Mttle to love or respect. If you wish to know the pohtics ot ihe confederation, say the Germans, you must inquire, not at Frankfort, but at Vienna or Bcirlm. One thing is certain, viz. that the southern sfates, which have adopted popular institutions, must hang together in good and evil re- port. It is only in a determined spirit of union, and in the honest support of Hanover, that Bavaria, and Wirtemberg, and Baden, can be safe. The "delenda est Carthago" of Cato was not more necessary in Rome, than "cavenda est Austria" is in Munich, and Sluttgard, and Hanover.
The Diet is held to be utterly impotent even in its most important duty, the preservation of that equality among its own members, without which a confedera- tion is one of the most intolerable forms of oppression. The King of Prussia chose to lay taxes, as was alleged, on the subjects of his neighbour the Duke of Anhalt Cothen, both of them members of the confederation. The little duke brought his action before the Diet against the great king. All Germany was on tip-toe expectation to see how the supreme government would discharge its duty. The supreme government was much averse to show its Impotency in a dispute where all was strength on the one side, and all weakness on the other, and contrived to have the case settled out of court ; a phrase by no means out of place, for the form and nomenclature of proceeding in the supreme executive government of Germany would be intelligi- ble only in the Court of Chancery, or, still more, m the Scottish Court of Session. Nothing is managed with- out whole reams of petitions, and answers, and replies, and duplies. A growler of Berlin was asked, " What is the Diet about?" "Of course, examining the sta- tioner's accounts," was the reply.
But these are dry matters. It will be more amus- ing to follow the course of the Main, a dozen miles up-
32 SELIGENSTADT.
wards from Frankfort, to " The Abode of Bliss," (Se- ligenstadt,) a small village which, close on the bank of the river, peeps forth from a decaying forest. It has its name from having witnessed the loves, as it still preserves the remains, of Eginhard and Emma. A scanty ruin, called the Red Tower, is pointed (mt as having been part of the original residence of the lov- ers, after Charlemagne prudently cor.zefittd to save the honour of his daughter, by giving her to the aspir- ing societary. Eginhard built a church on the spot, and stored it with reliques. The peasantry, having forgotten the names, and never known the history, have a version of their own. According to their le- gend, the daughter of an emperor who was celebrating his Christmas holidays at Frankfort, (and one of them told me his name was Emperor Nero,) fell in love with a huntsman of her father's train. She fled with her lover, as young ladies will do now ai?d then, when pa- pas look sour, and young gentlemen look sweet. They found refuge and concealment in the forest, an out- skirt of the Spessart, which, though now so much thin- ned, in those days spread its oaks far and wide over the country. They built themselves a hut, and, of course, lived happily. The young man was expert and industrious as a deer stealer, and the lady boasted acquirements in cookery which subsequently were turned to excellent account. Years pass away; the emperor happens to hunt again in the forest ; over- come by hunger, fatigue, and a long chace, he stum- bles, with his suite, on the solitary cottage, and asks a dinner. The confounded inmates prepare to set be- fore him the only repast which their poverty affords, venison poached in his own forest. The emperor did not recos^nize his Inst daughter in the more womanly form, and rustic disguise, of the hostess ; but the daughter recognized her father; and, as woman's wit knows no ebb, she served up to his majesty a dish which she knew to have been his favourite, and of
SELIGENSTADT. 5S
which he had never eaten except when it was prepar- ed b)' her own skilful hands. Nero has scarcely tasted of the dish, when he breaks forth into lamentations over the daughter with whom ils delicacies are asso- ciated, and anxiously interrogates his young hostess from whom she had learned cookery. The runaway and her hunter fall at his feet : Emperor Nero was a kind-hearted old man ; all is forgiven ; he names the S[)ot the Abode of Bliss, in commemoration at once of his dinner and his daughter, carries the pair to his pa- lace, and till his dying day eats of his favourite meal as often as he chooses. Tlie lovers built a church where their hut had stood, and were buried together within its walls.
Such is the tradition of the Franconian peasant. There is no doubt that the church was built, if not in the reign, yet shortly after the death of Charlemagne ; but it is just as little doubtful that, in its present form, it belongs to a much later age. What is called mo- dern tasle has been guilty of an unpardonable breach of good taste. The bones of Eginhard and his Emma reposed in a massy antique sarcophagus on an antique monument. Some ruthless stone-hewer has been al- lowed to unhouse the ashes of the lovers from their venerable abode, and inclose them in a new shining, toy-shop chest. These are men who would set " Mar- garet's Ghost" to the air of "Pray, Goody," and dash the wallflower from a ruin to plant tulips in its stead.
This Abode of Bliss boasts another species of beati- tude. It is a frontier village of the dutchy of Darm- stadt towards Bavaria, and the traveller who passes the confines for the first time must submit to a Bac- chanalian ceremony. It was here that, in the olden time, the merchants coming to the fair from East, and North, and South, used to assemble. Here they were accustomed to drink deep congratulations on the jour- ney they had accomplished in safety, and good wishes to the approaching fair ; and from hence they were 5
34 WEIMAR.
conducted in triumph Into the city by the town guards of Frankfort. They had procured a huge wooden ladle ; the handle depends from a wooden chain about three feet long, and both ladle and chain are cut out of the same piece of wood. This relique is religious- ly j)reserved in an inn at Seligenstadt. Every travel- ler who passes the frontier for the first time must drain the ladle, brimful of wine, (it contains a bottle,) at one diaught. This is the strict rule ; but, in gene- ral, he can escape without getting drunk, by promising the bystanders the remainder of the bottle. His name is then enrolled in an Album which has now leached the third folio volume, and contains the names of most crowned heads in Europe during the last two hundred years.
CHAPTER II.
WEIMAR.
~Klein ist iinter deii Fiirsten Germaniens freylich der nieine,
Kurz und schmal ist sein Land, massig nur was er veimag. Aber so wende nach innen, so vvende nach aussen die Krafte Jeder, da war ein Fest Deutscher mit Deutsclier zu seyn
Go the.
As the traveller proceeds northward from Frank- fort towards Saxony, the vine-covered hills of the Main disappear to give place to the Thuringian Forest, which still retains its name, though cultivation has stri[)ped much of it of its honours. The country which it covered forms a succession of low rounded ridges, which inclose broad valleys swarmJng with a most industrious population. Except towards Cassel, where many summits still retain their covering of beeches, the corn-field and orchard have only allowed an occasional tuft to remain round the cottages for
WEIMAR. S5
shelter, or to crown the brow of the hill to supply fuel. To the territory of Cassel succeeds part of ihe Grand Duchy of Weimar, for, between the Thurin- gian for<}St and the foot of the Erzgebirge, nestles a crowd of the small princes who, by family iniluence, or pohtical services, have saved their insignificant in- dependence. To a few miles of Weimar succeed a few miles of Gotha; these are followed by a slip ol Prussia, and the Prussian fortress Erfurth ; you are scarcely out of the reach of the cannon, when you are out of the territory, and find yourself again in the donnnions of the Grand Duke of Saxe- Weimar.
Weimar, the capital of a state whose whole popu- lation does not exceed two hundred thousand souls, scarcely deserves the name of a town. The inhabi- tants, vain as they are of its well earned reputation as the German Athens, take a pride in having it con- sidered merely as a large village. Neither nature nor art has done anything to beautify it ; there is scarcely a straight street, nor, excepting the palace, and the building in which parliament assembles, is there a large house in the whole town. In three minutes a person can be as completely in the country as if he were twenty miles removed. The palace is imposing only from its extent, and is still unfinished ; for the Grand Duke, having made as much of it habitable as was required lor his own court and the family of his eldest son, is tdt> economical v»^ith the money of his subjects to hasten the completion of his palace, before his little territory shall have recovered from the mi- sery and exhaustion which began with the battle of Jena, and terminated only after the victory at Leipzig.
Close by the town, the Ilm creeps along, a narrow, muddy stream, devoid of rural or picturesque beauty, and confining its boastings to what Schiller has put into its mouth, in "The Rivers;"
S6 WEIMAR.
Though poor my banks, my strenm has borne along, On its still waters, many a deathless song.
Along the river woods have heen planted, walks laid out, rocks hewn into the perpenclicular where they "Were to be found, and plastered up into monticules where they were not to be found, all to form a park, or, as they often style it, an English garden. In the detail of ornament, the wits of Weimar have fallen into some littlenesses, too trifling perhaps to be notic- ed, were it not that here we expect to find every thirig correct in matters of taste, because Weimar has been the nurse of the taste of Germany. It is quite allowable, for instance, to erect an altar in a shady corner, and inscribe it Genio loci ; but though a ser- pent came forth from beneath the altar on which iEneas was sacrificiiig to the nianes of his father, and ate uj) the cakes, that is no good reason why a stone snake should wind himself round the altar of the Ge- nius of the English garden of Weimar, and bite into a stone roll laid for him on the top.
It is nol in Weimar that the gaiety, or the loud and loose pleasures of a capital are to be sought ; there are too few idle people, and too little wealth, for fri- volous dissipation. Without either spies or police, the smallness of the town and the mode of life place every one under the notice of the court, and the court has never allowed its literary elegance to be stained by extravagant parade, or licentiousness of conduct. The nobility, though sufFicicntlj: numerous for the po- pulation, are persons of but moderate fortunes ; many of them would find it diflicult to plaj their part, frugal and regular as the mode of life is, were thej not en- gaged in the service of the government in some capa- city or another, as ministers, counsellors, judges, or chamberlains. , There is not much dissoluteness to be feared where it is necessary to climb an outside stair to the routs of a minister, and a lord of the bedcham- ber gives, in a^tliird floor, parties which are honoured
THE GRAND DUKE. S7
with the presence even of princes. The man of plea- sure wouid find Weimar dull. The forenoon is devot- ed to business; even tfie straggling few who have nothing to do would be ashamed to show themselves idle, till the approach of an early dinner hour justifies a walk in the park, or a ride to Belvedere. At six o'clock every one hies to the theatre, which is just a large family meeting, excepting that the Grand Ducal personages sit in a separate box. The performance closes about nine o'clock, and it is expected that, by ten, every household shall be sound asleep, or, at least, soberly within its own walls for the night. It is [»Gr- haps an evil that, in these small capitals, the court, like Aaron's serpent, swallows up evevy other species of society ; but at Weimar this is less to be regretted, because the court parties have less parade and for- mality than are i'requently to be found in those of pri- vate noblemen in London or Paris : it is merely the best bred, and best informed society of the place.
The Grand Duke is the most popular prince in Eu- rope, and no |)rince could better deserve the attach- ment which his people lavish upon him. We have long been accustomed to laugh at the pride and po- verty of petty German princes; but nothing can give a higher idea of the respectability which so small a people may assume, and the quantity of happiness which one of these insignificant monarchs may diffuse around him, than the example of this little state, with a prince like the present Grarjd Duke at its head. The mere pride of sovereignty, frequently most pro- minent where there is only the title to justify it, is un- known to him ; he is the most affable man in his do- minions, not simply with the condescension which any prince can learn to practise as a useful quality, but from goodness of heart. His talents are farab^ne me- diocrity ; no prince could be less attached to the prac- tices of arbitrary power, while his activity, and the conscientiousness with which he holds himself bound to
SS WEIMAR.
^vatch over the welfare of" his handful of subjects, have never f:llowed hiin to be blindly guided by ministers. Much of his reign has fallen in evil times. He saw his principality overrun wiih greater devastation than had visited it since the Thirty Years' War; but in every vicissitude he knew how to command the respect even of the conqueror, and to strengthen himself more firm- ly in the affections of his subjects. During the whole of his long reign, the conscientious administration of the pubhc money, anxiety for the impartiality of justice, the instant and sincere attention given to every mea- sure of public benefit, the ear and hand always open to relieve individual misfortune, the efforts which he has made to elevate the political character of his peo- ple, crowned by the voluntary introduction of a repre- sentative government, have rendered the Grand Duke of Weimar the most popular prince in Germany among his own subjects, and ought to make him rank among the most res[)ectable in the eyes of foreigners, so far as respectability is to be measured by personal merit, not by square miles of territory, or milhons of revenue. His people, likewise, justly regard him as having raised their small state to an eminence from which its geographical and political insignificance seemed to have excluded it. Educated by Wieland, he grew up for the arts, just as the literature of Germany w^as begin- ning to triumph over the obstacles which the inditfer- ence of the people, and the naturalization of French literature, favoured by sucii prejudices as those of Fre- derick the Great, had thrown in its w^ay. He drew to his court the most distinguished among the rising ge- niuses of the country ; beloved their arts, he could estimate their talents, and he lived among them as friends. In the middle of the last century, Germany could scarcely boast of possessing' a national literature; her very language, reckoned unfit for the higher pro- ductions of genius, was banished from cultivated socie- ty, and elegant literature : at the beginning of the pre-
LITERATURE. 39
sent, there were few departments in which Germany could not vie with her most polished neighhours. It was Weimar that took the lead in working out tliis great chaiige. To say nothing of lesser worthies, Wieland and Schiller, Gbthe and Herder, are names which have gained immortality for themselves, and founded the reputation of their country among foreign- ers. While they were still all alive, and celebrated in Weimar, their nodes ccEuasque dcorum^ the court was a revival of that of Ferrara under Alphonso; and here, too, as there, a princely female was the centre round which the lights of literature revolved. The Duchess Amalia, the mother of the present Grand Duke, found herself a widow almost at the opening of her youth. She devoted herself to the education of her two infant sons; she had sufficient taste and strength of mind to throw off the prejudices which were weighing down the native genius of the country, and she sought the consolation of her \o\w widowhood in the intercourse of men of talent, and the cultivation of the arts. Wie- land was invited to Weimar to conduct the education of her eldest son, who. trained under such a tutor, and by the example of such a mother, early imbibed the same attachment to genius, and the enjoyments which it affords. If he could not render Weimar the seat of German politics, or German industry, he could render it the abode of German genius. While the treasures of more weighty potentates were insufficient to meet the necessity of their political relations, his confined revenues could give independence and careless leisure to the men w ho weie gaining for Germany its intellec- tual reputation. The cultivated understanding and natural goodness of their protector secured tliem against the mortifications to which genius is so often exposed by the pride of patronage. Schiller would not have endured the caprices of Frederick for a day ; Goihe would have pined' at the court of an emperor who could publicly tell the teachers of a public seminary.
40 WEIMAR.
" I want no learned men, I need no learned men.'' Na- poleon conferred the cross of the Leojion of Honour on Gothe and Wieland. He certainly has never read a syllable which either of them has written, but it was, at least, an honour paid to men of splendid and ac- knowledged genius.
It was fortunate for Weimar, that the talent assem- bled within it took a direction which threw off, at once, the long endured reproach, that Germany could pro- duce minds only fitted tocom[)ile dry chronicles, or plod on in the sciences. The wit and vanity of the French, aided by the melancholy blindness of some German princes, had spread this belief over Europe. It is not didicuit to conceive that Voltaire should have treated Germany as the abode of commonplace learning, where the endless repetition of known facts or old doctrines, in new compends and compilations, seemed to argue an incapacity of original thinking; but it is more difficult to conceive that a monarch like Frederick, who pos- sessed some literary talent himself, and affected a de- voted attachment to literary merit, should have adopt- ed so mistaken an opinion of a country which he must have known so much better than his Gallic retinue. Yet he had taken up this belief in its most prejudiced form. Instead of cherishing the German genius that was already preparing to ^ive the lie to the wits of France, he amused himself with railing at her lan- guage, laughing at the gelehrte Dimkelheit, or " erudite obscurity" of her learned men, and proscribing from his conversation and his library every thing that was not French, except the reports of his ministers, and the muster-rolls of his army. The delirium spread to less important princes, and caught all the upper ranks of society. The native genius of the country, scarcely venturing to claim toleration, wandered forth in exile to the mountains of Switzerland. On the banks of the lake of Zurich, where a small society of literati had as- sembled, Wieland followed, unknown and unnoticed,
LITERATURE. 41
the pursuits which soon placed him among the fore- most men of his age. The house of Baden gave its countenance to Klopstock, and Lessing had found pro- tection in Brunswick ; but it was Weimar that first em- budied, as it were, the genius of the country, and that genius speedily announced itself in a voice which, at once, recalled Germany from her error. The Parisi- ans, who, a few years ago, would have reckoned it in- fidelity to the muses to open a German book, have con- descended to translate Schiller, and translate him al- most as successfully as they do Shakespeare or the Scottish Novels. How truly did Schiller sing of the muse of his country,*
For her bloomed no Augustan age j No Medicean patronage
Smiled on her natal hour; She was not nursed by sounds of fame ; No ray of princely favour came
To unfold the tender flower.
The greatest son of Germany, Even Frederick, bade her turn away
Unhonoured from his throne : Proudly the German bard can tell, And higher may his bosom swell,
He formed himself alone.
Hence the proud stream of German song Still rolls in mightier waves along,
A tide for ever full ; From native stores its waters bringing. Fresh from the heart's own fountain springing,
Scofls at the yoke of rule.
None of the distinguished leaders of the " German Athens" belonged to the Grand Duchy itself. Wie- land was a Swabian, and the increasing body of literary light collected round him as a nucleus. The jealousies of rival authors are proverbial, but at Weimar they seem to have been unknown. They often opposed
* Die Deutsche Muse.
42 WEIMAR.
each other, sometimes reviewed each other's books, but admitted no ungenerous hostihties. Wieland rejoiced when Gbthe and Herder were invited to be his com- panions, although both were vehement opponents of the critical principles which he promulgated in the German Mercury. Gothe had even written a biting satire against him, "Gods, Heroes, and Wieland," 'which, though not intended for publication, had, never- theless, found its way into the world. Gothe himself has recorded how the young Duke sought him out in Frankfort. Schiller was first placed in a chair at Jena; but the state of his health, which, though it could not damp the fire of his genius, converted his latter years into years of suffering, unfitted him for professional oc- cupation, and he was placed in independence at Wei- mar.
Wieland, the patriarch of the tribe, seems likewise to have been the most enthusiastically beloved. All who remember him speak of him with rapture, and it is easy to conceive that the author of Oberon and of Agathon, and the translator of Cicero's Letters, must have been a delightful combination of acuteness and wit, no ordinary powers of original thinking united to a fancy, rich, elegant, and playful. To the very close of his long life, he continued to be the pride of the old and the delight of the young. Much less a man of the world than Gbthe, he commanded equal respect, and greater attachment. Gbthe has been accused of a too jealous sensibility about his literary character, and a constantly sustained authorial dignity, which have exposed him to the imputation of being vain and proud. Wieland gave himself no anxiety about his re- putation ; except when the pen was in his hand, he forgot there were such things in the world as books and authors, and strove only to render himself an agreeable companion. The young people of the court were never happier than when, on a summer evening, they could gather round " Father Wieland" in the
SCHILLER. 43
shades of Tiefurth, or the garden of his own little country residence. Writers of books sometimes mis- understood the man, and talked of him as a trifler, because he did not always look like a folio; Wieland smiled at their absurdities. Gothe, too, got into a passion with people whose visits he had permitted, and who then put him into their books, not altogether in the eulogistic style which he expects, and, moreover, deserves; but, instead ot treating such things with in- difference, he made himself more inaccessible, and as- sumed a statelier dignity.
Poor Schiller, while taking the lead of all his com- petitors in the race of immortality, could not keep abreast with them in the enjoyments of the world. Tender and kindly as his disposition was, his genius sought its food in the lofty and impassioned. In his lyrical pieces he seldom aimed at lightness, and mere elegance was a merit which he thoroughly despised. Continued sickliness of body excluded him, in a great measure, from the world, and the closing years of his too short life were spent in scarcely remitting agony. Yet how his genius burned to the last with increasing "warmth and splendour ! It would be too much to say that he lived long enough for his fame ; for, though he gained immortality, his later productions rise so far above his earlier works, that he assuredly would have approached still nearer to perfection.
No German poet deserves better to be known than Schiller, yet his most successful efforts are least gene- rally known among us. His merits are by no means confined to the drama ; whoever is not acquainted with Schiller's Lyrical Poems, is ignorant of his most peculiar and inimitable productions. In the ballad, he aimed at the utmost simplicity of feeling, and narrative, and diction. It would scarcely be too much to say that, in this style, his " Knight To^genburt!:" has no equal ; in German it certainly has none. Its very sim- plicity, however, is a great obstacle in the way of
44 WEIMAR.
translation ; for this is a quality which is apt, in pass- ing into another language, to degenerate into what is trivial or familiar.
KNIGHT TOGGENBURG.
" Knight, to love thee like a sister
Swears to thee this heart ; Do not ask a fonder passion,
For it makes me smart. Tranquil would I be before thee,
Tranquil see thee go ; And what that silent tear would say,
1 must not — dare not know."
*
He tears himself away ; the heart
In silent woe must bleed ; A fiery, but a last embrace —
He springs upon his steed ; From hill and dale of Switzerland
He calls his trusty band ; They bind the cross upon the breast,
And seek the Holy Land.
And there were deeds of high renown
Wrought by the hero's arm ; Where thickest thronged the foemen round,
His plume waved in their swarm ; Till, at the Toggenburger's name.
The Mussulman would start : But nought can heal the hidden wo
The sickness of the heart.
A year he bears the dreary load
Of life when love is lost ; The peace he chases ever flies ;
He leaves the Christian host. He finds a bark on Joppa's strand ;
Her sail already fills ; It bears him home where the beloved
Breathes on his native hills.
The love-worn pilgrim reached her hall ;
Knocked at her castle gate ; Alas ! it opened but to speak
The thunder voice of fate :
SCHILLER. 45
" She whom you seek now wears the veil;
Her troth to God is given ; The pomp and vow of yesterday
Have wedded her to Heaven."
Straight to the castle of his sires
For aye he bids adieu; He sees no more his trusty steed,
Nor blade so tried and true. Descending from the Toggenburg,
Unknown he seeks the vale : For sackcloth wraps his lordly limbs,
Instead of knightly mail.
Where from the shade of dusky limes
Peei^s forth the convent tower. He chose a nigh and silent spot,
And built hiras^lf a bower. And there, from morning's early dawn.
Until the twilight shone. With silent hope within his eye,
The hermit sat alone ;
Up to the convent many an hour
Gazed patient from beiow, Up i.o re lattice of his love,
Until it oppred slow ; TJii the dear form appeared above,
Till she he loved so well, Placid and miid as angels are.
Looked forth upon the dell.
Contented then he laid him down ;
Blythe dreams came to his rest ; He knew that morn would dawn again,
And in the thought was blest. Thus many a day and many a year,
The hermit sat and hoped ; Nor wept a tear, nor felt a pang,
And still the lattice oped ;
And the dear form appeared above,
And she he loved so well. Placid and mild as angels are,
Looked forth upon the dell. And thus he sat, a stiffened corpse,
One morn as day returned. His pale and placid countenance
Still to the lattice turned.
46 WEIMAR.
Even in the drama, most English readers judge of Schiller only from the Robbers, a boyish production, which gave, indeed, distinct promise of the fruit that was to come, but is no more a sample of Schiller, than Titus Andronicus would be of Shakespeare. It is im- possible to form any idea of the German dramatist without knowing his Don Carlos, Mary Stuart, the Bride of Messina, and, higher than them all, Wallen- stein. It was an unworthy tribute to living genius, to select Gbthe's Iphis^enia for the opening of the new theatre in Berlin; for, high and multifarious as Gothe's merits are, Schiller will always remain the great na- tional dramatic poet of Germany. Before his time, her tragic muse had seldom risen above damning me- diocrity; and ages will probably elapse before another appear to raise her to the same honours. Wiienever a traoredy of Schiller was to be performed, I never found an empty theatre in any corner of Germany. Moreover, on such occasions, the theatre is not crowd- ed with the usual regular play-going loungers, who spend a couple of hours in a box because they have nothing else to do; the audience consists chiefly of respectable citizens, who feel much more truly what nature and passion are, than the ribboned aristocracy of Berlin or Vienna. Schiller nursed his genius by studying Shakespeare ; and it is wonderful how little an Encrlishman regrets Drury-Lane or Covent-Garden, when Madame Schroder, at Vienna, plays Lady Mac- beth in Schiller's translation. We cannot be surprised that Shakespeare is admired; but we owe, at least, our gratitude to those who have introduced him to a people more able to appreciate his excellence than any other except ourselves ; and that, too, in a dress which, from the affinity of the languages, when in the haiids of such men hs Wielaiid and Schiller, Schleorel and Voss, impairs so little the original form. In- stead of sneering at the German drama, we ought to be inchned in its favour by the fact, that it is the dra-
GOETHE. 47
raa of a people which worships at the altar of our un- equalled dramatist with as heart-felt devotion as any believer among ourselves. Shakespeare would seem to have been bestowed upon us, at once to maintain the supremacy of our country, and to teach us humili- ty by the relicction, that it was given to no other, even among ourselves, to follow his course ; — a comet hung in our sky, to be gazed on, and wondered at by us in common with the rest of the world, but as far beyond our reach, though blazing in our zenith, as to those who only caught his more distant rays.
Of the sages and poets of Weimar Gothe alone survives. One after another, he has sung the dirge over Herder, and Wieland, and Schiller: ''his tuneful brethren all are fled." But, lonely as he now is in the world of genius, it could be less justly said of him than of any other man, that he,
neglected and oppressed, Wished to be with them, and at rest;
— for no living author, at least of Germany, can boast of so long and brilliant a career. At once a man of genius and a man of the world, Gothe has made his way as an accomplished courtier, no less than as a great poet. He has spent in Weimar more than one half of his prolific life, the object of enthusiastic admiration to his countrymen ; honoured by sovereigns, to whom his muse has never been deficient in respect; the friend of his prince, who esteems him the first man on earth; and caressed by all the ladles of Germany, to whose reasonable service he has devoted himself from his youth upwards. It is only necessary to know what Gothe still is in his easy and friendly moments, to conceive how justly the universal voice describes him as having been in person, manners, and talent, a capti- vating man. Tliouorh he is now seventy-four vears old, his tall imposinu form is but little bent; the lotty open brow retains all its dignity, and even the eye has not lost much of its fire. The eifects of age are chief-
48 WEIMAR.
\j perceptible in an occasional indistinctness of articula- tion. Much has been said of the jealousy with which he guards- his literary reputation, and the haughty re- serve with wliich this jealousy is alleged to surround his iiitercourse. Those who felt it so must either have been persons whose own reputation rendered him cau- tious in their presence, or whose doubtful intentions laid him under still more unpleasant restraints; for he sometimes siiuts his door, and often his mouth, from the dread of being mi properly put into books. His conversation is unalfected, gentlemanly, and entertain- ing : in the neatness and point of his expressions, no less than in his works, the first German classic, in re- gard of language, is easily recognized. He has said somewhere, that he considered himself to have acquir- ed only one talent, that of writing German. He mani- fests no love of display, and least of all in his favourite studies. It is not uncommon, indeed, to hear people say, that they did not find in Gothe's conversation any striking proof of the genius which animates his writings; but this is as it should be. There are few more intolerable personages than those who, having once acquired a reputation for cleverness, think them- selves bound never to open their mouths without say- ing something which they take to be smart or uncom- mon.
The approach of age, and certain untoward circum- stances which wounded his vanity, have, at length, driven Gothe into retirement. He spends the winter in Weimar, but no man is less seen. Buried among his books and engravings, making himself master of every thing worth reading in German, English, French, and Italian, he has said adieu to worldly pleasures and gaieties, and even to much of the usual intercourse of society. Not long ago, he attended a concert, given at court, in honour of a birth-day. He was late : when he entered the room, the music instantly ceased ; all forgot court and princes to gather round Gothe, and
GOETHE. 49
the Grand Duke himself advanced to lead up his old friend.
For nearly five years he has deserted the theatre, which used to be the scene of his greatest glory. By the weight of his reputation and directorship, he had established such a despotism, that the spectators would have deemed it treason to applaud before Gothe had given, from his box^ the signal of approbation. Yet a dog and a woman could drive him from the theatre and the world. Most people know the French melo- drame, The Forest of Bondy, or the Dog of St. Au- bry. The piece became a temporary favourite in Germany, as well as in France, for it was something new to see a mastiff play the part of a tragic hero. An attempt was made to have it represented in Wei- mar. Gothe, who, after the death of Schiller, reign- ed, absolute monarch of the theatre, resisted the de- sifi^n with vehemence; he esteemed it a profanation of the stao;e which he and his brethren had raised to the rank of the purest in Germany, that it should be pol- luted by dumb men, noisy spectacle^ and the barkings of a mastiff, taught to pull a bell by tying a sausage to the bell rope. But his opposition was in vain ; the principal actress insisted that the piece should be per- formed, and this lady has long possessed peculiar sour- ces of influence over the Grand Duke. The dog made his debut and Gothe his exit ; the latter imme- diately resigned the direction of the theatre, which he has never since entered, and took advantage of this good pretext to withdraw into the more retired life which he has since led.
At Jena, where he generally spends the summer and autumn, he mixes more with the world; and he occasionally mdulges in a month's recreation at To[> litz or Carlsbad, where, among princes and nobles, he is still the great object of public curiosity. Among the erudite professors of Jena, there are more than one "who do not seem to entertain much respect for him,
7
5© WEIMAR.
and have written and done mortifying things against him. One of the few clouds, for example, which liave passed over the sky of his literary Hfe, was an article m the Edinburgh Review, some years ago, on his me- moirs of himself. It vexed him exceedingly; but the most vexatious thino; of all was, that one of his ene- mies at Jena translated it into German, and circulated it with malicious industry.
Gothe stands pre-eminent above all his countrymen in versatility and universality of genius. There are few departments which he has not attempted, and in many he has gained the first honours. There is no mode of the lyre through which he has not run, song, epigram, ode, elegy, ballad, opera, comedy, tragedy^ the lofty epic, and that anomalous production of the German Parnassus, the civil epic, (^Burger liche Epos,^ which, forsaking the deeds of heroes and the fates of nations, sings in sounding hexameters the simple lives and loves of citizens and farmers. Yet the muses have been far from monopolizing the talents of this indefatigable man. As they were the first love, so they are still the favourites of his genius; but he has coquetted with numberless rivals, and mineralogy, cri- ticism on the fine arts, biography and topography, sen- timental and philosophical novels, optics and compara- tive anatomy, have all employed his pen. His lucu- brations in the sciences have not commanded either notice or admiration; to write well on every thing, it is not enough to take an interest in every thing. It is in the fine arts, in poetry as an artist, in painting and sculpture as a critic, that Gothe justifies the fame which he has been accumulating for fifty years ; — for his productions in this department contain an as- semblage of dissimilar excellences which none of his countrymen can produce, though individually they might be equalled or surpassed. Faust alone, a poem which only a German can thoroughly feel or understand, is manifestly the production of a genius quit^ at home
GOETHE. 51
in every thing with which poetrj deals, and master of all the styles which poetry can adopt. Tasso deserves the name oi' a drama, only because it is in dialogue, and it becomes intolerably tiresome when declairjicd by actors; but it is from beginning to end a stream of the richest and purest poetry. It is an old story, that his first celebrated work, Werther, turned the heads of all Germany ; young men held themselves bound to fall in love with the wives of their friends, and then blow out their own brains; it is averred, that con- summations of this sort actually took place. The pub- lic admiration of the young author, who could paint with such force, was still warm, when he gave them that most spirited sketch, Gotz of Berlichingen with the Iron Hand, a picture of the feudal manners of their forefathers. The reading and writing world immediately thiew themselves into this new channel, and German presses and German stages groaned be- neath the knights, the abbots, the battles, and the ban- quets of the fifteenth century. Like every man of original genius, he had novelty in his favour; and, like every successful adventurer in what is new, he was followed by a host of worthless imitators and insipid mannerists.
The regular novels of Gothe are of a very question- able sort. The vivacity of his injagination and fine- ness of feeling supply good individual pictures and acute remarks; but they cannot be [iralsed either for incident or character. They are often stained, too, v^ith the degradation to which he unfortunately re- duces love, where liking and vice follow fast upon each other. "The Apprenticeship of William Meisi- ter," for instance, is a very readable book, in so far as it contains a great deal of acute and eloquent criti- cism ; but who would purchase the criticism, even of Gothe, at the expense of the licentiousness of incident, and pruriency of description, with which the book teems? He now devotes himself chiefly to philoso- phical and critical disquisitions on the fine arts.
52 WEIMAR.
It is scarcely possible for a man who has written so much, not to have written much that is mediocre. Gfithe, having long since reached that point of reputa- tion at which the name of an author is identified, in the eyes of his countrvnien, with the excellence of his work, has been frequently overrated, and men are not awanting who augur that the best of his fame is past. But he can well atford to make many allowances for the excesses into which popular enthusiasm, like popu- lar dislike, is so easily misled; for there will always re- main an abundance of original, and varied, and power- ful genius, to unite his name for ever with the litera- ture of his country. He himself said truly of Schiller, that where the present age had been deficient, poste- rity would be profuse, and the proj)hecy is already re- ceiving its fulfilment. To Gothe the present has been lavish, and the future will not be unjust. From his youth, he has been the favourite of fortune and fame; he has reached the brink of the grave, hailed by the voice of his country as the foremost of her great, the patriarch of her literature, and the model of her genius. In his old age, wrapped up in the seclusion of Weimf^r, so becoming his years and so congenial to his habits, he hears no sounds but those of eulogy and atfection. Like an eastern potentate, or a jealous deity, he looks abroad from his retirement on the intellectual world which he has formed by his precept or his 'ixample ; he pronounces the oracular doom, or sends forth a re- velation, and men wait on him to venerate and obey. Princes are proud to be his companions ; less elevated men approach him with awe, as a higher spirit ; and when Gothe shall follow the kindred minds whom he has seen ,'as; away before him, Weimar will have lost the last ;)illar of her fame, and in the literature of German there will be a vacant throne.
Since the mastiff, backed by the influence of Ma- dame J n, drove Gothe from the direction ol" the
theatre, it has been rapidly declining from its emi-
THE STAGE. 53
nonce. He and Schiller had trained the whole corps dram.atique, and created that chaste, correct style of representation which formed the peculiarity of the Weiroar School. Eveiy thing like rant disappeared from tiie staj^c, hut the opposite extreme was not al- ways avoided; anxiety to observe the great rule of not " o'erstepping the modesty of nature," so?netimes brought down tragedy to the subdued tone and gesture of serious conversation. The patience with whicU he drilled the peiformers into a thorough comprehension of their parts was most meritorious; it produced that accurate conception of character, the foundation of all histrionic excellence, which distinguished the stage of Weimar above every other in Germany, and which, now that the guiding hand and spirit have been with- drawn, is disappearing even there. It was a common saying, that elsewhere particular things might be bet- ter done, but in Weimar every thing was well done. The administration passed into the hands of Madame
J n, who, now reigning absolutely in the green- room, has already contrived by pride, and vanity, and caprice, to sow abundantly the seeds both of deteriora- tion and contention. Bad taste in selecting, w^ant of judgment in casting, and carelessness in performing, are become as common m Weimar as any where else. People are not blind to the progress of the corruption, but the predominating influence stands on that founda- tion which it is most difficult to shake; and, unfortu- nately, no expression of displeasure is allowed in the theatre itself: it is regarded as a private, court thea- tre, where good breeding permits only approbation or silence. If a prince maintain a place of amusement for the public at his own expense, he may have some pre- text for saying, that you shall either stay away, or be quiet; but, when he takes vuur money at the door, he certainly sells you the right of growlin*;!^ at the enter- tainment, if it be badly cooked, or slovenly served up. The liberty of hissing is as essential to the good con-
54 WEIMAR.
stitution of a theatre, as the liberty of the press to the constitution of a state. Three-fourths of all the ex- pences, howev^er, come out of the |^>ocket of the Grand Duac; for, to the abonnes^ a place in the boxes costs oiilj iiine-pence every evening, and in the pit fourperice. S{)ec{ators who are not abonnes pav more than double this price ; but these consist only of occasional stran- gers, and the students who pour over every Saturday from Jena, and throng the pit. These young men have, in such matters, a thorough contempt for menm and timm ; with them it is always abonnemcnt suspendu. They cannot imagine that any man should have the impertinence to claim his place, if a student has chosen to occupy it ; and they are ready to maintain, at the point of the sword, the privilegfes of their brotherhood. Schiller's Robbers never fails to bring the whole uni- versity to Woimar, for the siudeits seem to find in the bandit life somethiriij peculiarly consonant to their own ideas of libertj and independence. When the robbers O'jen the fifth act with the song in which they cele- brate the joys of their occupation, the students stand up in a body, and join vociferously in the strain.
It may be thought trifling to say so much about a theatre; but the only thing that gives Weimar a name is its literarv reputation; and in this reputation the character of the stas^e formed a popular and important eleaient, and exercised a weiglity influence on the pub- lic taste. It is, likewise, almost the only amusement to vs^hich the inhabitants of this celebrated village have accustomed themselves. Tims their vanity is inter- ested no less than their love of amusement ; and, thouo-h it mav scarcely be thought advisable, in so poor a country, to take a large sum from the public revenues to support a theatre, there is no branch of e penditure which the inhabitants would less willingly see curtailed. They are irritated, therefore, that the influence of the queen of the boards with their master should operate so injuriously on the histrionic republic ; they had no
MANNERS. 55
fault to lin(] with his gallantry so long as it did not vio- late the muses. Let not this be ascribed to any want of moral sensibility. We have no very favourable idea of German morality, and, in the larger capitals, partic- ularly those of the South, there certainly is no reason why we should ; but Weimar is a spot of as pure moral- ity as any in Europe. At Munich or Vienna, corrumpe- re et corrunipi saeculum vacatur ; but the infection has not reached these Thurin^ians. It is as surprising to find in Weimar so pure a court, round a priiice who has show-) himself not to be without iiuman frailties, as it is to find in Vienua a society made up of tlie most unprin- cipled Uissoluteness, rouiid an emperor who is, himself, one of the purest men alive.
Like all their sisters of Saxony, the ladies are models of industry; whether at home or abroad, knitting and needle-work know no interruption. A lady, going to a route, would think little of forgetting her fan, but could not spend half an hour without her implements of female industry. A man would be quite pardonable for doubting, on entering such a drawing-room, whether he had not strayed into a school of industry. At Dres- den this is carried so far, that even the theatre is not protected against stocking wires. I have seen a lady gravely lay down her work, wipe away the tears which the sorrows of Thekla in Wallenstein's Death had brought into her eyes, and immediately reassume her knitting. The Weimarese have not yet found it ne- cessary to put softness of heart so absolutely under the protection of the work-bag. They are much more at- tached to music than dancini:;, and sometimes a despe- rate struggle is made to get up a masquerade ; but they want the vivacity without which a thing of that sort is the most insipid of all amusement^. The higher class leave the masquerades to the citizens, who de- murely pace round a room, in back dominos, and stare at each other in black faces.
56 WEIMAR.
As might be expected from the literary tone which so loiig ruled, and still '''ngcrs round the court and so- ciety of Weiiiiar, even the ladies have not altogether escaued a sprinkling of pedantry ; some have been thickly powdered over with it, and, in so small a circle, shake oft their learned dust on all whom they jostle. One coterie forms a regular critical club. The gil'ted members, varying in age from sixteen to sixty, hold their weekly meetings over tea-cups, wrapped up in as cautious secrecy as if celebrating the mysteries of the Bona Dea. A daring Clodius once intruded, and wit- nessed the dissection of a tragedy ; but he had reason to repent the folly of being wise, so long as he remain- ed within the reach of the conclave. But altogether, the ladies of Weimar are, in every thing that is good, a favourable specimen of their countrywomen.
The serious pursuits and undeviating propriety of conduct of the Grand Duchess herself, have had a large share in thus forming the manners of her court and subjects. Her Royal Higliness is a princess of the house of Darmstadt ; she is new venerable by her years, but still more by the excellence of her heart, and the strength of her character. In these little principalities, the same goodness of disposition can work with more proportional effect than if it swayed the sceptre of an em|)ire ; it comes more easily and directly into contact with those towards wliom it should be directed ; the artificial world of courtly rank and wealth has neither sufficient glare nor body to shut out from the prince the more chequered world that lies below. After the baltle of Jena, which was fought within ten miles of the walls, Weimar looked to her alone for advice and protection. Her husband and younger son were ab^^ent with the fraorments of the defeated army; the French troops were let loose on the territory and capital; the flying peasanti'y al- ready bore testimony to the outrages which are inse- parable from the presence of brutal and insolent con-
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Sf
querors. The hope that she might be useful to tlie people in this hour of trial, when they could look only to her, prevailed over every a[)prehension of personal insult and danger; she calmly awaited in Weimar the approach of the French, collected round her in the palace the greater part of the women and children who had not yet (led, and shared with them herself the coarse and scanty food which she was able to dis- tribute among them. The Emperor, on his arrival, took up his abode in the palace, and the Grand Duchess immediately requested an interview witli him. His first words to her were, " Madam, I make you a present of this palace;" and forthwith he broke out into the same strain of invective against Prussia and her allies, and sneers at the folly of endeavouring to resist hitnself, which he soon afterwards launched against the unfortunate Louisa at Tilsit. He said more than once with great vehemence, " On dit que je veux etre Empereur de Vouest ; e^," stamping with his foot, "je le serai, Madame.'''' He was confounded at the firm and dignified tone in which the Grand Duchess met him. She neither palliated her husband's political conduct, nor supplicated for mercy in his political mis- fortunes. Political integrity, as a faithful ally of Prus- sia, had, she told him, dictated the one, and, if he en- tertained any regard for political principle and fidelity to alliances in a monarch, he could not take advantage of the other. The interview was a lonof one ; the Imperial officers in waiting could not imagine how a man, who reckoned time thrown away even on the young and beautiful of the sex, could spend so much with a princess W'hose qualifications were more of a moral and intellectual nature. But from that moment, Napoleon treated the family of Weimar with a degree of respect and consideration, which the most powerlul of his satellites never experienced. He even alFected to do homage to the literary reputation of the town, and shoAvercd honours on the poets of Weimar, while
a
5S WEIMAR.
he was suppressing universities. The last time he was in Weimar was before he led up his troops to the battle of Liitzen. When he learned that part of the contingent of Weimar, as a member of the Confedera- tion of the Rhine, had joined the Allies, he only said smiling, " C^est la 'petite Yorckiade.'^'' He requested the honour of a glass of Malaga from the hand of the Grand Duchess herself, observing that he was getting old; and, accompanied by the Grand Duke, and his second son, Prince Bernard, rode off to attack the enemy at Liitzen.
From this moment, till the thunder-clouds which collected at Leipzig had rolled themselves beyond the Rhine, this tranquil abode of the muses witnessed nothinpf but the horrors of war in all their merciless perfection. That three such armies, as those of France, Russia, and Austria, were let loose on the ex- hausted land, includes in itself the idea of every pos- sible misery and crime; but it was lamentable, that as much should be suffered from the declared liberators, as from the real oppressor of Germany. The Rus- sians fairly deserved the name which the wits of the north bestowed upon them, of being Germany's Ret- tiincrsbestien, or, Brutes of Salvation ; but the Austrians far outstripped them in atrocity, and fired the villages, amid shouts of " Burn the hearts out of the Saxon dogs." There is something exquisitely absurd in an Austrian imagining, that any people of Germany can possibly sink so low as to be inferior to his own. That dreadful period has, in some measure, altered the character of these artless, kuidly people ; you can scarcely enter a cottage, that does not ring with dread- ful tales out of these days of horror. Old village stories of witches on tlie Hartz, and legends of Num- ber Nip from the mountains of Silesia, have given place to village records of individual misfortune, pro- duced by worse spirits than ever assembled on the Brocken, or obeyed Riibezahl, in the clefts of the Schneekoppe.
LITERATURE. 5?
It was precisely by its sympathy, its active humani- ty, and seif-denial araid these horrors, lliat the reign- \ii^ family fixed itself so deeply in the atl'ections of the peo})le. Every source of courtly expense was limit- ed, or cut otF, to meet the miseries of the ruined [)ea- santry, and rebuild the villages which had been laid in ashes. In the short space of a montli, the murders of the soldiery, and epidemic disease, }>roduced by liv- ing in filth and starvation among the ruins of the vil- lages, threw hve hundred orphans on the country. ]\ine were found out of one family, without a rag to defend them against the chilling damps of an autumn night, cowering round the embers of their burned cot- tage, watching by the corpses of their father and mother. The ducal family, assisted by a share of the money which was raised in this country for the suffer- ing Germans, adopted these orphans. They have all been educated in Weimar, instructed in a profession, and put in the way of exercising it. In the summer of 1821, they finished a small chapel, dedicated to the Providence that had led their childhood safe through so much misfortune, of which not only the walls, but all the furniture and oinaments, are the work of their own hands, each in the profession to which he was educated.
It is almost a consequence of the literary charac- ter of Weimar, that nowhere on the continent is En- glish more studiously cultivated. Byron and Scott are as much read, as well understood, and as fairly judged of bv the Germans as among ourselves; they have not merely one, but several translations of the best of the Scottish Novels. The Grand Duke himself reads a great deal of English. Besides his own private col- lection, the well-stored public library, which is thrown open for the use of every body, contains all our cele- brated writers. What a chaiioe in the course of half a century ! The library of Frederick still stands in Sans Souci, as he left it at his death, and does not con-
68 WEIMAR.
tain a volume but what is French. In Dr Froriep^s room, nt the Industrie'Comptoir^^ one could imagine himself lounging in Albemarle Street, instead of being in a retired corner of Saxonj ; the newspapers, the reviews the philosophical periodicals, are scattered about in all their variety, together with all the new books that are worth reading, and a great many that are not.
Gothe, too, is fond of English reading, and whatever Gothe is fond of must be fashionable in Weimar. He is an idolater of Byron, though he holds that his Lord- ship has stolen various good things from him. Don Juan seems to be his favourite, but the paper and type really appeared to have no small share in the admira- tion with which he spoke of the work. Few things astonish the Germans more than our topogra{)hical luxury; the port of London would not give them a higher idea of our national wealth than our ordinary style of printing, joined to the fact that, notwithstand- ing its costliness, a greater quantity of books is de- voured by our population than by any other in Eu- rope. They are themselves very far behind in print- ing, partly because the cheapness of a book is essen- tial to its sale, partly because they have introduced few improvements in an art which they invented. A nesjotiation wnth a Berlin publisher, for printing a translation of PI ay fair's Chronology, was broken off, be- cause " paper could not be found large enough for the tables." Dr Miillner was astonished to find it stated
* This Industrie-Comptoir is an establisbment founded by the late Mr Bertuch, under the protection of the Grand Duke, for printing and ens^raving, and it has already become one of the most important in Germany. Nearly three hundred persons are occu- pied in printing- books, engraving maps and drawings, partly in copper, partly on stone, and constructing globes. The printing department is peculiarly active in the dissemination of foreign, particularly English, literature, by reprints and translations; for Mr Bertuch was a scholar and a man of talent, and so is his rela- tion and successor, Dr Froriep.
AMUSEMENTS. 61
in a magazine, that the few copies of Mr. Gillies's ver- sion of the Schiild, which had been thrown oil for the author's friends, were elegantly printed : '^ for," said he, " with us, on such an occasion, it is quite the reverse."
Though there are carriages in Weimar, its little fashionable world makes no show in the ring; but, so soon as winter has furnished a sufficient quantity of snow, thej indemnify themselves by bringing forth their sledges. They are fond of this amusement, but are not sufficiently I'ar north to enjoy it in any perfection, or for any length of time. The slec'ges would be handsome, were not their pretensions to beauty frequently injured by the gaudy colouis wiih which they are bedaubed. By the laws of sledge-driving, every gentleman is entitled, at the termination of the excursion, to salute his partner, as a reward for ha- ving been an expert Jehu ; and, if once in the line, it is not easy to drive badly. The wholly unprac- tised, or very apprehensive, plant a more skilful ser- vant on the projecting spars behind ; he manages the horses, while his principal, freed of the trouble, tena- ciously retains its recompence. The long line of glit- tering carriages, the gay trappings of the horses, the sound of the bells with which they are covered, and, except this not unpleasant tinkling, the noiseless ra- pidity with which the train glides through a clear frosty morning, like a fairy cavalcade skimming along the earth, form a cheering and picturesque scene.
Few things would raise the wrath of an English sportsman more than a German hare-hunt, except, per- haps, a Hungarian stag-hunt, for the game is cut off from every chance of escape, before the attack is made. The Grand Duke of Weimar is an enthusias- tic sportsman himself, and, when he takes his gun, every respectable person may do the same, and join his train. Peasants are used instead of grey-hounds ; they surround a large tract of country, and drive the hares before them, into the hands of fifty or sixty
62 WEIMAR.
sportsmen with double-barrelled guns. It is a massa- cre, not a hunt. As the circle grows more coijiined, and only a few of the devoted annuals survive, the amusement becomes nearly as dangerous to the sports- men as to the game ; they shoot across each other in all directions ; and the Jagdmeister and his assistants find sufficient occupation both for their voices and their arms, here striking down, thei'e striking up a barrel, to prevent the sportsmen, in the confusion, from pour- ing the shot into each other's bodies. A large waggon, loaded with every thing essential to good cheer, at- tends. After the first circle has been exhausted, the sportsmen make merry, while the peasants are form- ing a new^ one, in a different direction, and preparing a similar murderous exhibition. The peasants say, that, without this summary mode of execution, they would be overrun with hares; and they very naturally pre- fer having it in their power to purchase dead hares for a price which is next to nothing, to being eaten up by thousands of them alive.
The family of Weimar, besides sustaining so hon- ourable a part in protecting the literature of Ger- many, likewise took the lead in the introduction of free governments. The conclusion of the war was followed, all over Germany, by the expectation of ameliorated political institutions. The Congress of Vienna found it necessary, or prudent, to assume the appearance of liberality ; but, unfortunately, the arti- cle regarding this matter, in the Act of Congress, vi^as couched in terms so general, as to leave it to tlie choice of every prince, (and so it has been interpreted in practice,) whether he would submit his prerogative to the restraints of a legislative body. This disastrous ambiguity, whether the effect of accident or artifice, was the origin of the popular irritation which imme- diately ensued in different parts of Germany ; for, amid the variety of meanings of which the words were susceptible, the sovereigns naturally maintained, that
THE GOVERNMENT. 63.
only such expositions were correct, as implied the con- tinuance of iheir ancient undeiined authority. Some, like the King ol* Prussia, allowed, that the article bound tliem to introduce " Constitutions of Estates," but denied that it bound them to do so within any limited period; and held, therefore, that it lay with themselves to decide, whether they should cease to be absolute princes five, or Cwe hundred years hence. Others, who were willifig to submit to a " Constitu- tion of Estates," explained these words of the Con- gress, as meaning merely the old oligarchical estates, not a legislative body to controu!, biJt an impotent body to advise; not so much a parliament, as a privy council. A third party put this gloss on the article, that it only bound the sovereigns to each other, but in no degree to their subjects. Dabelow of Gottingen, a man not unknown in the literary world, wrote a book in defence of this last proposition. The Stu- dents of Gottingen reviewed his work, by affixing a copy to the whipping-post, marching to the author's house, and hailing him with a thrice repeated pereat. In several of the states, particularly in the south, more honest and liberal sentiments have gradually prevailed ; but it was Weimar that sot th.e example. The Grand Duke, disdaining to seek pretexts in the Act of Cono^ress, and Jealous that any other state should take the lead in this honourable course, imme- diately framed for his people a representative govern- ment. He was assuredly the very last prince who could have been exposed to the necessity of makl/io- concessions; his two hundred thousand subjects would as soon have thought of composing a gospel for them- selves, as of demanding any share in the administration of public alFairs. When the first elections took place under the new constitution, considerable difficulty was occasionally experienced in bringing up the electors, particularly the peasantry, to vote. In defiance of the disquisitions of the liberal professors of Jena, they
64 WEIMAR.
could not see the use of all this machinerv. " Do we not pay the Grand Dtike for governino; us," thej said, " and attending to the public business ? Why give us all this trouble besides?" Nay, after the experiment of a representative body had been tried during seven years, many still assert, that matters went on quite as well, and more chea[)ly without them.
This miniature parliament forms only one house, for it consists of only thirty-one members. Ten are chosen by the proprietors of estates-noble, ten by the citizens of the towns, ten by the peasantry, and one by the University of Jena. The last is elected by the Sena- tus Academicus, and, besides being a professor, must have taken a regular degree in the juridical faculty. At the general election, which occurs every seventh year, not only the representatives themselves (Ahgeord- neten) are chosen, but likewise a substitute (Stellver' treter) for every member, in order that the represen- tation may be always full. If the seat of a represen- tative become vacant by his death, resignation, or any supervenient incapacity, the substitute takes his place till the next general election. The ten members for the nobility are chosen directly by all the possessors of estates-noble, (^Riltergilter.^ A patent of nobility gives the same rio^ht. The vote does not bear reference to any fixed vahje of property ; it rests on the nature or the estate; the possessor has a vote for every sepa- rate independent estate of this kind which he possesses, however trifling, or however extensive it may be. The whole doctrine of splitting superiorities and creat- ing votes, in which the freeholders and lawyers of one part of our island have become so expert, would be thrown away on the jurisconsults of Saxony. The pri- vilege of granting patents of nobility would give the prince the power of creating electors at pleasure ; but the Grand Duke has stripped himself of the preroga- tive of raising estates to this higher rank, in so far as the elective franchise is concerned, by a provision in
THE GOVERNMENT. 6$
the constitution, that, in future, he shall erect Riiter* giiter^ to the effect of giving a vote, onlj with the con- sent of the chamber. Even ladies in possession of sucii estates have a vote ; but, if ijriujarricd, they must vote by proxy. A couiify of female I'reeliolders would afford the most amusino- canvass imaginable.
In the representation of the towns and peasantry^ the election is indirect. The towns are distributed into ten districts, each of which sends one member. Weimar and Eisenach form districts of themselves, the former as being the capital, arid containing a popula- tion of seven thousand souls ; the latter, as having some pretensions to be considered a manufacturing town, and containing a population somewhat greater than that of Weimar. In these, as well as in all the towns, great or small, which form the other districts respectively, every resident citizen has a vote, without distinction of religion; even Jews possess the francliise, though they cannot be elected. The whole body of voters in a town choose a certain number of delegates, in the pro- portion of one for every fifty houses the town contains, and these deputies elect the member for the district. At least two-thirds of all the citizens having a right to vote must be present at the election of the delegates, and two-thirds of the delegates at the final election of the member. If no election takes place, in conse- quence of more than a third part of the electors being absent, all the expences of afterwards proceeding to a new election are borne by the absentees. The mem- ber for a district of towns must have a certain and Inde- pendent Inco ne of about L. 75 Sterling (50) rix dol- lars) if he be elected for Weimar or Eisenach, and L. 45 (300 rix dollars) if he be chosen to represent the towns of any other district. In estimating this in- come, no salary is taken Into account, whether It be derived from the state or from a private person, whe- ther paid for actual service, or enjoved as a pension.
9
66 WEIMAR.
The election of the ten representatives of the pea- santry proceeds exactly in the same way. In regard to them, likewise, the duchy is divided into ten dis- tricts : in eacii district all the peasants who are major, and have a house within its bounds, choose their dele- gates in the same proportion to the number of houses as in the towns, and these delegates choose the mem- ber. The member must be one of themselves; they are not allowed to take him from the higher class of landed proprietors, which they certainly would easily have been brought to do, had it not been thus express- ly prohibited. With the same view of preventing no- ble families from gaining undue influence in the legisla- ture, it is provided that neither brothers, nor father and son, shall be capable of sitting in the chamber at the same time.
The three sets of members thus elected, with the representative of Jena, furm the Landtag or parlia- ment of the duchy. They elect their own president, and the election is confirmed by the Grand Duke. He must be chosen from the nobility, and no person is eligible who is in the service of government, or enjoys a salary from it. He holds his office during twelve years, that is, two parliaments, but the house which appoints him may elect him for any longer period, or even for life. This is scarcely reconcileable with the strict elective principle ; for, as the president thus passes from the dissolved chamber into the new one, the district for which he originally sat chooses one member less at the new election, and the new chamber itself finds itself under a president elected by its prede- cessors. Two assistants are given him by the house, taken indiscriminately from the three estates, but they hold their office only for three years, that is, for one session. The president, and these two assistants, (who have all salaries,) form what is called the Vorstand^ or Presidency of the chamber ; they are the organ through which it communicates with the Grand Duke:
THE GOVERNMENT. i^
during the session, thej have the general superinten- dence of the business ; during adjournments and pro- rogations, they remain in lull activity to watch over the course of pubhc ailairs, to prepare the matters of discussion that are likely to be brought before the chamber at its next meeting, to issue writs for new elections where vacancies have taken place, and to apply to the Grand Duke, if they shall think it neces- sary, to call an extraordinary meeting. The chamber elects, moreover, its own clerk, pays him a salary, and may dismiss him at pleasure.
Regularly the chamber meets only once in three years, but the Grand Duke, either of his own accord, or at the request of the Vorstand^ may, at any time, call an extraordinary meeting. He has the preroga- tive likewise of dissolving it at any time ; but, in that case, a new chamber must be elected within three months, otherwise the dissohed one revives ipso jure. The former members are always re-eligible. The members have full privilege of parliament; their per- sons are inviolable from the commencement, till eight days after the close of the session; they are secured in liberty of speech, and legal proceedings cannot be instituted against them without the consent of the chamber. During the session, they have an allowance of about ten shillings a day, besides a certain sum per mile to cover their travelling expences in coming to Weimar, and returning home. The majority of voices determines every questiorj. The speaker has no cast- ing vote; in case of equality, there must be a second debate and division ; and, if the chamber be still equal- ly divided, the right of deciding is in the Grand Duke. In every case, his Royal Highness has an absolute veto.
The powers of the chamber extend to all the branches of loirislation, and its consent is indispensable to the validity of all legislative measures. As it meets only once in three years, the budget is voted for the
m WEIMAR.
whole of that period ; but, a standing committee, con- sisting, besides the Presidency, of lliree members from the nobles, and three from the representatives of the towns or peasantry, continues during the long adjourn- ment, to examine annunllj the pul)hc accounts. The independence of the judges, and the hbertj of the press, which had been introduced into the grand du- chv before this constitution was framed, were confirm- ed by it.
The chamber met for the second time in December 1820, and sal no less than four months. The cereriio- riies at opening it consist in a sptech fiom the Graiid Dui.e, and a banquet in the palace. The members then proceed to business, and, out of San Marino, there is nothing like the sins pie, honest, well meaning legislators who are here brought together. The mem- bers elected by the noble proprietors, the professor from Jena, and, perhaps, a few of those who repiesent the towns, are men of education and experiersce ; but most of the latter, and the representatives of the uea- santry, are still more moderate in education than they are in fortune. Yet, in spite of their bl uti' countenan- ces, homely manners, and shaggy coats, they biing with them two excellent qualities, a \c\y modest dis- trust of their own judgment, and a most laudable de- sire to be saving both oi their own and of tlie public money. A county member, as the representatives of the peasantiy may in some measure be reckoned, who happened to reside not far from Weimar, walked in evevy morning to the house with a sutF.cient quantity of rural viands in his pockets to satisfy the denjands of the day, and walked home again in the afternoon, with his half guinea untouched. These men, as is perfect- ly natural, do not find themselves at houje in the oifice of legislators; i\\e transmigration from resp-eclable shopkeepers and small farmers into members of parlia- ment was too rapid to allow them to move easily in their new dress ; for there had been nothing in their
THE GOVERNMENT. 69
education, or previous habits of life, to prepare them to act ill so vei y diiTerr m r. capacitj. They have no reason to be ashamed of this; an overneening trust in their own quahfications would be no desirable symp- tom ; every man of sense must feel the same uricasi- ness, at being called from bargaining about rye and black cattle, to deliberate on measures of finance, and decide questions of public law.
To this want of experience, and the want of self- confidence, which results from it, are to be ascribed se- veral errors into which they have fallen. For instance, they committed a great blunder in shutting their doors against the public; and it is worthy of notice, as a matter of political opinion, that, on this point, rhey have stubbornly refused to gratify the Grand Duke. In the speech with which he closed the preceding session, he had stated his wish that, at their next meet- ing, they should consider the propriety of tlirowing open their deliberations to the people, and that he de- sired this publicity himself. They did deliberate; but the small manufacturers and small farmers, with all their plain sense and honest interiticns, were so terrifi- ed at the idea of being laughed at fur oratorical defi- ciencies, that they determined, by a great majority, to keep their doors shut, but resolved to print, now and then, an abstract of their journals for the information of the public, always under the proviso that no nanses should be mentioned. Luden, Professor of History at Jena, immediately let loose upon them his nervous and logical, but cutting pen, and rendered them infinitely more ridiculous than they could possibly have made themselves by dull speeches.
They commit led a still more serious mistake in the case of Dv, Ok en, the Professor of Natural H .'story. This gen!lr;m"»n had iosi his chair in the University of Jenn, for scolding Prince Metternich, and laughing at the King of Prussia. He had been dismissed without any judicial inquiry or sentence, because he would not
4
I»
70 WEIMAR.
give up the publication of a journal which other courts considered revolutionary. He and hjs friends, there- fore, loudly maintained that his dismissal was ille'jjal, and the matter came regularly before the Chamber in the shape of a question, whether the Grand Duke could legally dismiss a public servant, without good cause ascertained according to law ? This way of put- ting the question showed, of itself, that they had no clear idea of the dispute, for it placed ministers of state and public teachers, or even judges, on the same footing. The answer which they gave to it was still less satisfactory ; for they decided, though by a very small majority, tliat the Grand Duke does possess this prerogative ; but, at the same time, they voted an ad- dress, in which they prayed him to give them an as- surance, that, till they should find time to concoct a remedial enactment, he Avould not dismiss any other public servant in the same way.* The answer of his Royal Highness was rather touchy, and sounded very like a reproach that they should think him capable of doino^ any thirjg illegal.
There is a Censorship, but its existence is no stain on the government of Weimai*, for it is a child of fo- reign birth which it has been compelled to adopt. The constitution established the freedom of the press, restricted only by the necessary responsibility in a
* This vote naturally excited much anger, and spread some dis- may, among the gentlemen of the Universilv ; it has had no small in- fluence in qualifying their admiration of the popular hody. The la«v vers among them maintain, to a man, that it is in the very teeth of the law. One of the most distinguished of them said to me, with some bitterness, '•'■ Oken deserved it for his silly confi- dence in the representatives of the peo])le, whom he delighted to honour and laud. He would hear of nothng but a discussion be- fore the Clumber, and now he can judge belter what sort of thing the Chamlei is. fjad he m de his application to ttie Supreme Court of Ju-'^ir.'. ipslead cf [^titio.nng his repr-^^erf stive? «" f the peophR, he would have kept his chair, and the Chamber would have been saved from making itseif ridiculous."
THE GOVERNMENT. n
court of law, and the constitution itself was guaranteed by the D<el. Greater powers, however, not only held it imprudent to concede the same right to their own subjects, but considered it d.ingcrous that it should be exercised by any peo[)le speaking the same language. The resolutions of the Ci>ngress of Carlsbad were easily converted into ordinances of the Diet, and Wei- mar was forced, by the will of this supreme authority, to receive a Censorship. Nay, she has occasionally been compelled to yield to external influence, which did not even use the formality of acting through the medium oi' the Diet. Dr Reuder was tlie editor of a Weimar newspaper colled the " Opposition Paper," (^Das Oppositions-Blatt^) a journal of decidedly liberal principles, and extensive circulation. W^hen it was understood that the three powers intended to crush the Neapolitan revolution by force, there appeared in this paper one or two articles directed against the justice of armed interference. They passed over un- noticed ; but, in a couple of months, the Congress of Troppau assembled, and forthwith appeared an edict of the Grand Duke suppressing the paper. No one laid the blame on the government. Every body in Weimar said, "An order has come down from Trop- pau." The politics of Russia must always find an open door in the cabinet of Weimar, for the consort of the heir apparent is a sister of the Russian Auto- crat, and enjoys the reputation of being a princess of more than ordinary talent. Iler husband possesses the virtues, rather than the nhibties of his par#^nt^.
In fact, Irom the moment the liberty of the press was established, Weimar was regarded with an evil eye by the potentates who preponderate in the Diet. In less than three years there were six journals pub- lished in Weimar and Jena, devoted wholly, or in part, to political discussion, and three of them edited by pro- fessors of distinguished name in German learning. Their politics were all in the satoe strain ; earnest
72 WEIMAR-
pleadings for representative constitutions, and very provoking, though very sound disquisitions, on the in- efficacy of tht; new form of conf<ideralive governafent to which Germany has been feubjc'Cted. At VV^eimar no fault was found with all this; more than one of these journals were printed in the Indnstm-Comploir^ an establishment under the peculiar protection of the Grand Duke. Bat a different party, and particularly the government press of some other courts, took the alarm, and raised an outcry against Weimar, as if all the radicals of Europe had crowded into this little ter- ritory, to hatch rebellion for the whole continent. Every occurrence was made use of to throw odium on the liberal forms of her government, or torment its administrators with remonstrances and complaints. The Grand Duke really had some reason to say, that Jena had cost him more uneasiness than Napoleon had ever done. By displacing some, suspending others, and frightening all ; by establishing a Censorship, and occasionally administering a suppression, the press of Weimar has been reduced to silence or indiffe- rence.
These free institutions were in no sense the creation of the public mind, or the r)ublic wishes, for the peo- ple had never thought about the matter, and felt im- moveably that they could not be better governed than they had hitherto been. They were as completely a voluntary gift as could well be bestowed ; they were the work of the sovereign himself, and a few men of honesty and talent, setting themselves down to frame as effective, and yet, as the nature of the caser equired, as simple an or^^an as possible, by which the public opi- nion, if so inclined, might controul tlie government. What thev have done is honourable to their liberality and prudence. Sottin^^ aside the suoreme controul of the Diet, to which neither the wishes nor the interests of prince and people conjoined can oppose any resist- ance, if the people of the grand duchy be misgoverned.
THE GOVERNMENT. 73
they can only have themselves to blame ; for the con* stituhon of their Icfijislative body is sufficiently popular^ and its powers, if duly exercised, sufficiently effective. Hitherto they have taken little interest in what it does. Excrtpt among men of liberal education, repining profes- sors and silenced editors find neither attention nor sym- pathy. In Weimar itself, duiing the session of the Chamber, you seldom hear public matters adverted to; they are still too foreign to all their habits to occupy the citizens. You may possibly stumble occasionally on a couple of ducal statesmen discussing some point in a cor- ner at a party, or during a walk in the Park ; or, at the table d'hote, (for, if practicable, the house pays regu- lar deference to the dinner-hour,) a member may let out some dark hints of what passed within do(Ts ; but in society they are never heard of; political dis- cussions and political parties are there unknown. The coteries of Weimar still keep by the song and the jest, poetry and painting, the newest play or romance, or the adventures of the last sledge-party to Belvidere or Berka ; and nobo iy, save the professors of Jena, seems to care one farthing how the one and thirty may be earning their ten shillings a-day. This lies partly in the national character. They are young in political life, amJ, like all their countrymen, ^ei on slowly, though surely. This is the teinper which wears best ; for, in political education, more than in any other, pre- cocity is the bane of depth and soundness. Die Zeit briagt Rosen, says their own proverb;* it may likewise briiig an interest in public aifairs, and a knowledge of pubhc duties.
Since the termination of the war left the government its own master, it has very wisely avoided that affecta- tion of military parade, by which the smaller princes so often rendered themselves ridiculous, and ruined their finances. Except the few hussars, who act as
* Time brings roses, 10
74 WEIMAR.
sentinels at the palace, and occasionally escort its inha- bitants on a journey, you may traverse the grand du- chy without meetiijo- a uniform. Now, however, that the Diet has ultimately arranged the military contin- gents of the confederates, Weimar will have to sup- port an army of two thousand men. It will be better able to bear the burden, than the still smaller states "wliich are clustered together in the neighbourhood. The Grand Duke is within a day's journey of the ter- ritories of no fewer than twelve sovereign princes. Prussia is the leviathan that is nearest him. Bavaria, Royal Saxony, and Cassel, are within his reach, and are also politically important. Then comes Weimar itself, like a first-born, among the allied Sdxon houses of Got ha, Cobourg, Meinungen, and Hilburghausen. In the vanishing point of the perspective appear the " Wee wee German Laii-dies," the double branches of the lines oi* Reuss and Schwarzenburg.
There is a party in Germany, which still asks, how have these petty princes been allowed to retain their independence, when so uiany others, whose separate existence was in no respect more injurious to the unity and respectability of the common country, have been reduced to the rank of subjects? What has saved Reuss or Sondershausen, when Tour and Taxis has been mediatized ? Their voices in the Diet can never be their own; for, thouj^h they possess every ratio of monarchs, except the ultima, what they want is exact- ly the essential part of political oratory. They neces- sarily become instiuments in the hands oi' the more powerful ; and, so long as they continue to exist, me- morials of an empire which is gone, rather than living efficient members of the Geiaian people, the country can never be redeemed from foreign tutelage, or ac- quire that native union which alone can give it the dig- nity of an independent state. The theory of this par- ty accordingly is, that all foreign powers shall be strip- ped of their Geroian domiuiou». Even Prussia and
THE GOVERNMENT. 75
Austria are to be considered extraneous monarchies ; for, though they may be useful as aihes, they will only be dangerous as curators, and curators they will be, if they aie included at all. Then, all the states below second nites are to be blotter] out, and their territories so apportioned amonjr the pure Gernjan powers of some importance, such as Bavaria, \\ irtemberg. Saxony, and Hanover, that there shall be two powerful kingdoms in the north, and two in the south. Germany, they say, having thus four efiicicnt, instead of I'orty ineflicient monarchs, will command respect fi om all the world. England, alas! has no chance for either of tlie two northern crowns. The very first step to be taken is to strip us of Hanover, and this party rails furiously at the Congress, lor having allowed our royal family to re- tain it. Even the free towns are all to fall, for they are considered as merely English factories, which ruin na- tive industry ; and the twin monarchs of the north are to be specially charged with the duty of liberating God's ocean from our maritime yoke. Such was the plan detailed in the AIs, aus S'dd-DeutschlancU a work which it cost the police a great deal of trouble to sup- press. We may congratulate ourselves, that the dicta- tors of Germany have agreed to consider the::e doc- trines as revolutionary; that, at all events, in the pre- sent state of the world, they are impracticable; and that the Rhine, the Neckar, and the Main, are much more prolific in good wines than in expert seameut
]
7& JENA.
CHAPTER III.
JENA.
Stosst an ! Jena lebe ! hurrah hoch !
Jena Student Hymn.
The vicinity of Jena, always one of the most distin- guished, and, of late years, by far the most notorious of the German universities, is, to a stranger, no small re- commendation of Weimar as a temporary residence ; for a week of the courtly society and enjoyments of the one, interchanged with the week among the raw students and learned professors of the ottier, forms a pleasant alterna- tion. The pecuharlties of the Burschen-iife,* considered merely as matters of observation, are seen to much less advantage in the large capitals, than in what are properly termed university towns; towns, that is, which, in a great measure, have been formed by the presence of the university, and are dependent upon it. In Berlin, for example, however much the Burschen maj be in- clined to tyrannize, they feel that they are but as a drop in the ocean ; they are not sufficiently numerous, in refer- ence to the population, to be personages of importance. Besides, the keen eye with which such a police Watch- es all their vagaries, and the promptitude with which a military police, like that of Berlin, would sjppress them, the ridicule of two hundred thousand inhabitants is more than they could well endure, while tfie man- hood of such a population is more thar) the most per- severing Bohadil amongst them would undertake to de- cimate. It is in towns which consist of scarcely any
* It IB necessary to mention, once for nil, that the word Bursche^ though it only meiins h yimng fellow^ tias been n[»prf>priated bv *he 6tJi<l;-nts, all over Gerninnv, to (ies;g-nate themselves. Tliey have agrfi'^H to consider themselves as b^'jns", par excellence^ the young fellows of Germany, f^as Burschenlebrn^ for example, mean;*, not the mode of life of young men ia general, but only of young men at college.
THE TOWN. 77
thing but the university, and in which the inhabitants are dependent on the presence of some hundreds of young men from all the countries of the Confederation, that the sect appears in its true form and colour. In these, the Burschen themselves constitute the public; in these, no taint of extraneous civilization mars the pu- rity of their own roughness and caprices ; and, so far from acknowledging any superior, they recognize no equal. These little towns are the empires of Com- ments, Landsmaniischaften, and Renommiren ; of beer- drinking and duel-lighting ; of scholars who set their masters at defiance, and masters who, for the sake of fees, occasionally truckle to their scholars ; and no- where do all these elements of the beau ideal of a mo- deii) German university concur in greater perfection than in Jena.
Jena is a few miles to the eastward of Weimar, and stands in a much more pleasing district of country on the Saal. The ground separates into two lofty, pre- cipitous, rocky ridges, presenting a striking regularity and uniformity of structure, but so bare, that even in sutn- mer no covering of verdure conceals the brown stone. These ridges terminate abru[)tly close by the Saal, which meanders through a very delightful valley, where the rich meadows in the bottom, tlie cultivated slopes of tlie hills, the cottages and hamlets peeping out from tufts of copsewood, or lurking beneath ancient elms, are all in a pure style of rural beriuiy. The river itself is a considerable and hmpid stream, altogether majestic in comparison with the muddy II m of Weimar. It is no wonder that Oothe prefers Jena to th.e capital for his summer residence. The town itself lies between the foot (/f the al>rupt emniences and the river. There is nothing about it worth v of remark. Many of the houses dis[)lay a great deal «>f the oi-namental, but some- what grotesque, 'style of buildirig which, at one time, was so common in the south of Germany, and of which Augsburg, in particular, is still so full.
78 JENA.
Before descending into the town by a road which, in winter at least, is among the very worst in Europe, the traveller |)asses the lieid of battle of 180b, of that melancholy day when
Prussia bnstened to the fi''l<1,
And grasped the spe.'.r, but lefi ihe shield.
L'-okinif at the nature of the ground, the defiles w^iich tlie Freiicii army iiad tu pass, the ascents which it had to climb, and the batteries winch it had to en- counter, as it advanced from Jena, a person, who is no tactician, finds it difficut to conceive how the Prussians contrived not only to lose ihc battle, but to lose it so thoroughly, that it decided the fate of the monarchy. Yet there are few things more absurd than the con- tempt with which, from the period of this unfortunate battle, it becatne fashionable for France, and the par- tial friends of Fi'ance in other countries, to speak of the Prussian mihrary, an ignorant atfcctation which even the gigantic eiforts ol the Liberation War have not been able entirely to explode from anu^ng our- selves. A sini^le battle may dec.de the fate of an em- pire, but can never decide the military character of a peo[)le. If France, under Napoleon, conquered at Jena, Prussia, under Frederick, had been equally tri- u.'»iphant at Rossbach. Wljatever errors Prussia may have committed on the heights of Auerstadt, have ail been washed out by the waters of the Bober and the Katzbach.
The university was founded in the middle of the se- ventecth century, by the sovereign princes of the Er- n<^shne branch of the house of Saxony, Weimar, Gotha, Cobourg, and Meinungen. It is the joint [)roperty of these little monarchs, who likewise share the patron- age among them. In practice, however, the profes- sors are named only by Weimar and Gotha ; for Co- bourg and Meinungen have transferred their right to the latter, having probably found that the power of nominating the fourth part of a professor was not worth
PROFESSORS. 79
the expense which the partnership imposed upon them. By the constitution of the university, the new professor should be selecied from a Hst of tljree can- aidates ejiven In by the Sonatus Arademicus; but the senate has allowed this privihji;e to go so entirely into disuse, that, for a long tune, iiot ever» the form has been retained, and the sovereign nominates* dnectly to the vacant chair. The privilege is said to have been abused by the faculties. I was assured by members of the university that the senate has been known, troni mere envy of superior talent, to pass by a man of ac- knowledged genius, and give in a list of three acknowl- edged blockheads.
The constitution of the unHersity is the sahie with that which prevails all over Germany. It consists of the four usual faculties, the Theological, Juridical, JVle- dlcal, and P niosophical, though, in some instances, the distinction be; ween them Is not very accurately ob- served. As eveiy thing not Included under the first three is referred to the philosophical faculty, and as they had been established long before many branches of knowledge rose to the rank of separate sciences, the philosophical assumes a most heterogeneous appear- ance; Greek and Chemistry, Logic and JVlinerahgy, Belles-Letters and B;'tany, stand side by side in -the academical array. For the ordinary departments of study, there are three sets of Instructors. The ordi- nar'y professors are, as their name lm|>orts, the proper corporation : they constitute the faculties, elect from among themselves the members of tlie senate, confer the degrees, exercise the jurisdiction, and appoint the inferior officers of the university, and receive salaries. Jena has twentv-elght ; four theolo<:";iar!S, nc fev»'er than nine jurisconsult^, five medical, and ten philosophical professors. The extraordinary professors are in a man- ner volunteers ; they have no seat in the faculty, no share in the authority of the corporation, and receive either no salary, or a very trifling one. The third
80 JENA.
class, Doctores privaiim docentes, have in reality nothing to do with the university, except that they are under its protechon, and have its authority to teach ; they are merely young men, wlio, having taken a diploma in some one of the faculties, have obtained the per- mission of the senate to give lectures, if they can find hearers. There are likewise attached to the univer- sity, as every where else in Germany, teachers of the principal modern languages, and masters, moreover, in riding, fencing, dancing, music, and drawing. All these, to he sure, are in reality only private teachers, but they are an indispensable appendix to the university, and, in the eyes of great part of the students, this appendiJi, like the postscript of a lady's letter, is the most important member of the Alma Mater. A pro- fessor of law or theology might be of moderate attain- ments without doing much mischief; but few would think of attending a university which did not possess able masters in fencing, riding, and dancing. The first of these three is the only personage whom the Burs- chen recognize as sacrosanct.
The salaries of the professors are small, for how can so DOor and insio^nificant a country be muiuficent in its learned institutions ? They used to be four hun- dred rix dollars; Avithin these few years they have been raised to five hundred, a sum which does not ex- ceed L. 80, and is little more than what is required to bring a respectable student through a well spent yt-ar at Gottiniren. This rule, however, is not always strict- \y observed. When it is wished to bring a person of eminence to the university, and the man knows his own value, (which he generally does,) it is neither unusual nor im[)roper to find him higjj^ling for a hundred or two hundred dollars more. The teachers are thus very far from being independent of the students and their fees, a dependence which has brought with it both good and bad consequences. It has been useful, as competition always is, by urging the professors to
PROFESSORS. 81
acquire reputation, that they may acquire hearers ; but it has been injurious by seducing them to court popu- larity by relaxing the reins of disci phne, and overlook- ing many of the evils of the Burschen-life, tliat they might draw crowds to their university by giving it the character of being the one where the follies and vices of the system which German students have establish- ed for their own government, were least exposed to punishment and restraint. The fee, like the salary, varies with the reputation of the teacher. The usual fee for a session is five rix dollars, (15s. 6d.) yet there are instances of a sturdy higgler beating down even this trifling sum. On the other hand, there are pre- lections, especially in the medical faculty, which go as high as a guinea. In other branches of expense, the German student has not the same overwhelming ad- vantage ; but altogether, living as a respectable Bursche would wish to do, he can enjoy, for half the money, the same education he could command in Scotland. The English universities, in their general character, never come into question ; they are seminaries for par- ticular classes. A distinguished member of the juridi- cal faculty at Jena was particularly inquisitive about the economical relations of his brethren in Britain. When l spoke to him of a professor of law, in Edin- burp[h, for example, adding to his salary a body of three hundred students at four guineas a head, for ^\e months' labour, the astonished jurisconsult could only exclaim, " O das gesegnete Vblklein .'" — " What a blessed flock !" Even the fees, moderate though they be, are but of recent origin. In the original constitution of the Ger- man universities, there was no provision for honoraries; during many years, the professors continued to deliver their lectures gratis. Michaelis of Gottingen was among the first who openly attacked the system, and a revolution, so desirable to the teach.ers, was speedily accomplished. Tfie professors argued thus ; by law we must give lectures gratis, but that is no reason why
11
82 JENA.
we should not likewise give others, not gratis, to those who are willing to pay for them; and if we only take care that the former shall be good for nothing, and re- serve for the latter all that is worth knowing, every body who wishes to learn will choose to pay. This principle once adopted, the progress of the thing was quite natural, and the distinction between public and private lectures in a German program becomes per- fectly intelligible. The professors gradually introduced a separate course of prelections, which they called pri- vate, and for which they exacted fees. The public, that is, the gratis lectures, rapidly became superficial and uninteresting, while every thing important in the science which he taught was reserved, by the profes- sor, for the golden privatim. The natural consequence was, that public or gratis lectures disappeared, and what were called private took their place. These private lectures are, in every respect, except that of expense, the old public lectures ; they are given in the same place, in the same way, on the same topics, but they must be paid for ; because it has unavoidably come to this, that a student as little thinks of attending, as a professor of delivering, public lectures in the old sense of the word. A student could not find a suffi- cient number of them to complete any course ; and, though he did, to take advantage of them would make him be regarded by his fellows as a charity-school boy. Among the host of professors at Jena, there are few who have ever read a puhlicmn in their lives ; and they are perfectly right. If it be bad in a wealthy govern- ment to make public instructors independent of intel- lectual exertion, it would be preposterous in a poor one, which cannot give them a decent independence, to deny them the fruits of their intellectual labour. Even where a wandering piiblice makes its appearance, it is uniformly accompanied with some such significant phrase as, horis et diebus commodis ; or, adhuc definien- dis ; or the subject of the promised prelections has
DIVISION OF LECTURES. 8$
little to do with the department in question. Thus Lenz, the Professor of Mineralogy, announced, for his private course, mineralogy and geognosy ; but, for his pubHc course, and that, too, only hora commoda^ — Ger- man Antiquities ! Some of the professors give a third course, which is announced as privatissime and must be paid for at a still higher rate than the simply private. Thus, the Professor of Anatomy offers to explain Cel- sus, and the Professor of Medicine to give lectures on animal magnetism, privatissime^ — certainly the only way in which animal magnetism should be taught by any man who does not wish the cheat to be disco- vered.*
* This delusion, after bavinj^ been argued and scoffed out of the world, half a century ago, is regaining favour in Germany. It is a remarkable thing that a people so plodding, and so given to mat- ter of fact, as we commonly suppose the Germans to be, should be so easily captivated by the most fanciful deluions. From Van Helmont down to Gall and Spurzheim, they have been the dupes of a thousand physical and physiological dreams ; craniology and animal magnetism have equally led them astray. Devotion to the former of these occult sciences seems to have been handed over to ourselves, for the sect is much more powerfnl, and better or- ganized, in Edinburgh than in Vienna ; and, if its doctrines do not lead to materialism, phrenology is, at least, an innocent dream. Animal magnetism^, however, though a deceit of a much more serious complexion, is not only reckoned worthy, as is stated in the text, of being the subject of prelections by a grave medical professor in an university of reputation, but the same gentleman is one of the conductors of a journal devoted to explain the prin- ciples, and commemorate the triumphs, of this sensual romaijce. It has led, however, to certain scenes of domestic misery and dis- honour, which will be much more effectual in restraining its pro- gress, than periods of invective, or volumes of argument. A very melancholy instance occurred in Berlin in 18'20, one which was still the great topic of conversation when 1 was shortly afterwards in that capital, for it had been kept alive by a judicial investiga- tion on a criminal charge preferred against Dr. W , the actor
in the affair, the great apostle of the doctrine in Prussia, and, moreover, a professor in the university. The unfortunate victim was a young lady of very respectable family. She had been led, by curiosity, to visit the apartments in which the Doctor performs the magnetical process on a number of patients, in presence of
84 JENA.
No better proof of their love of fees, and, what is much better, of their proverbial industry, can be found
each other ; and it is at once a very decisive, and a very intelli- gible fact, in the science, that females are found to be much apter subjects for the influences of this black art than the other sex. In the course of the judicial examinations, rendered necessary by the unhappy issue of the affair, the mysteries of these magnetizing- rooms were partly brought to light; and though there was nothing in them positively scandalous or indecent, there was a great deal that was ridiculous and Paphian, and of a most improper tendency. According to the testimony of the young lady, when she first visit- ed the rooms, accompanied by a female friend, the wizard receiv- ed them in a spacious and elegant apartment. Voluptuous odours breathed from every corner, and, united with the moderate tem- perature, produced an effect which the fair one described, with great naivete^ as being " like a May evening among roses." She and her companion were requested not to utter a S3dlable, lest the solemn work might be disturbed. The patients, all ladies, and ladies of fortune, (for their carriages were in waiting,) were ar- ranged round the room on sofas, sound asleep ; some were sitting, others were reclining quite along a sofn, others had more decor- ously thrown themselves back in the corner. The Doctor bent his head over one of them, and gently lisped, My dear young lady, how long will you still sleep ? To this Hibernian interrogation, the sleeping beauty answered, in a languishing, broken voice St-st- still ha-half-an-hour. — Dr Where are you just now ? — Lady. Under a blooming elder tree. — Dr. What do you see ? — fj. A knight. — Dr. What is he like? — L He's a handsome fellow. — Dr. Are you speaking with him ? — L. Yes.— Dr. What about ? — L. About all sorts of things. — Dr. What are you catching at ? — L. At the rose of Jericho. — Dr. What do you mean by that ? Here the lady's botany had failed her ; for she made no answer, squeezed herself into the corner of the sofa, and slept on in silence. The Doctor, therefore, assured his visitors, that this was no complete crisis, but that he would immediately show them wonders; and truly, if what foUovvs be not a wonder, the age of miracles must be allowed to have finally passed away. He began his conversation with a second sleeping beauty with the same question ; Will you sleep long, my young lady ? — L. Yes ; at least half-an-hour. — Dr. Per- haps you would take something? — L. Yes, Doctor, yes. — Dr. What would you wish to have? — L. A piece of almond cake, and a glass of Malaga. — Dr. Shall I bring it to you ? - /^. Oh no; do you take it <'or me, and that does just as well. The Doctor takes the viands from a cup-board, in which sach cooling medicines seem to have been always kept in read ness, and putting inio his fnouth a bit of the biscuit, and some of the wine, continues, How
DIVISION OF LECTURES. 85
than the numerous subdivisions into which they break down their particular departments, converting each
does it taste ? — " Excellent," answered the lady, mimicking the act of eating and swallowing, " Excellent, the cake has so balsamic an odour ! the Malaga is so sweet and agreeable ! But, dear Doc- tor, eat and drink a great deal ; do you hear? — a great deal ; — and let it be good, right good ; — do you understand me ? By Nardini ! — Yes, by Nardini ! who bakes such excellent trifles? — Do you hear, dear Doctor ? — Trifles ! — ah ! that's what gives one strength ; — do you understand me ?" But the Doctor seemed to think this crisis rather too complete; for, knitting his brows, he said, " lou are sleeping too long, Miss;" made various motions with his hands, which dispelled, in an instant, the magnetical repose, and recalled to herself the slumbering admirer of Nardini's trifles. As it was getting lale, she wished her carriage to be called; but the Doctor thought it proper that she should compose herself, after so violent a crisis. He, therefore, again sawed the air with his fingers, star- ed her right m the face, and, in the twinkling of an eye, she was again fast asleep. He npxt approached a third, on whom he pro- mised to display the highest excellence of his art. He laid his right hand on the pit of her heart, and, with his left, took hold of her right hand. Every motion he now made was repeated by the sleeping patient He yawned, sighed, laughed, coughed; she yawned, sighed, laughed, and coughed along with him. All mo- tions with his lips, arms, and hands, were immediately repeated. He laid a letter on her lap ; she passed her fingers over the lines, and repeated the contents correctly. '' Are you now convinced?" exclaimed the Doctor in triumph.
The lady departed, still m doubt ; but these amusing scenes had so far shaken her original scepticism, that the magician easiiy pre- vailed upon her to arrive at certainty, by having the truth display- ed in her own person. The process was carried on in her father's house. She was placed on a sofa ; the Doctor took a seat oppo- site to her, stared her stedfastly in the face, and her eye^ began to close involuntarily. After an exordium, which ! do not choose to translate, he described waving lines upon the shoulders, arms, and breast, with the points of his perfumed fingers, and an impos- ing solemnity of gesture. The experiments were repeated with triumphant success, sometimes in the presence of the lady-s moth- er and sisters; but. when others were present^ the magnetic infivence was uniformly less vivacious. To the poor girl, conviction and ruin came toofether ; a miscreant could find httle dilhculty in abusing the menial imbecility which must rjlways accon.i[):my such volup- tuous fiinaticism, and the sensual irritation without whicii the visionary science has not even a fact. I cannot enter intc the details of the miserable and disgusting circumstances which ioU
86 JENA.
into the subject-matter of a separate course, and not unfrequently superadding to them prelections which appear to have little connection with their proper business. Every professor, though appointed to teach a particular s(*ience, is left to his own discretion as to the manner in which he shall teach it; and the Pro- testant universities aie accustomed to boast of this liberty as an advantage which they enjoy over their Catholic rivals, with whom the how as well as the what of public teaching, and even the text-books that shall be used, are laid down by positive rule. In the former, the professor is left entirely to the freedom of his own will. In the course of the session, that is, in about five months, he may go through his science, and immediately begin it again for the next ; but, in general, he adopts a plan by which more fees are brougtit in, and the science is perhaps better taught. He breaks down his subject into separate courses, which are carried on simultaneously ; for he either devotes a certain num-
lowed. Excess of villany brought the whole affair before a court of justice, and the Prussian public. It was clear, that what was to become the living witness of their guilt, had met with foul play, and the enraged father preferred against the professor an accusa- tion of a crime which is next to murder, or, rather, which threa- tens a double murder. The judges ordered the recipes of certain medicines which the Doctor had administered to the lady to be submitted to three medical gentlemen for their opinion. The report
of these gentlemen rendered it impossible to convict Dr. W
of having used the drugs directly for his infamous purpose ; but as, in certain circumstances, their indirect operation would lead to the same issue, the professional persons gave it as their opin- ion, that the professor, not only a physician in high practice, but likewise an instructor of youth, was bound to explain, on what grounds he had administered medicines oi a most suspicious class, in circumstances where no prudent medieal man would have pre- scribed thorn. The man did not choose to do himself this justice ; but the court did not think there was sufficient evidence to con- vict him of the direct charge ; and, without a conviction, the go- vernment did not think it right to dismiss him. The censorship, however, does not seem to have presented any obstacle to the publication of the details. Professor W has lost his charac- ter, but retains his chair.
DIVISION OF LECTURES. 87
ber of days in the week to one, and the rest to anoth- er, or lectures two or three hours a-day. Thus every thing is taught more in detail, the professors get more money, and have much harder labour. But they are a race most patient of toil. It has been said of Mi- chaelis, that he was so identified with his profession, that he never was happy but when reading lectures, and that all the days in his calendar were white, ex- cept the holidays. His mantle seems to have descend- ed on the greatest part of his followers between the Vistula and the Rhine. At Jena, Stark, whose pecu- liar department is the obstetric art, was lecturing at one hour on the tl.^^ory, and, at a second, in the Lying- in Hospital, on the practice of midwifery ; at a third, upon surgery ; at a fourth, on the diseases of the eye ; and, at a fifth, was giving clinical lectures in the Infir- mary. Kieser, another celebrated member of the same faculty, was occupying two different hours with two separate courses in medicine ; for a third, he an- nounced animal magnetism; and for a fourth, the ana- tomy and physiology of plants. Of the two properly medical courses, the first was general pathology ; the second, which, if taken at all, must be taken and paid for as a separate course, was a particular part of the general doctrine, inflammations, but treated more in detail.
One of our own professors, who, though receiving four times the, money, impatiently reckons every hour till his five brief months of moderate labour be past, could not hold out for a single year among these gen- tlemen, for they have two sessions In the year, each of about five months. Their only period of relaxation is an interval of a month between one session and the other, which, however, they generally contrive to stretch out to six weeks, by finishing the one course a few days earlier, and commencing the other a few days later, than strict rule allows. The professor who lectured on the Pandects was reading three hours
»a JENA.
a day, two of them successively ; — an enormous task boiii for him and bis pupils. This department being so heavy, tihee gentlemen of the juridical faculty read the Pandects in their turn.
The lawyers have thus hard work, but they are likewise much more amply provided for than their brethren; their salaries, and the fees derived from students, do not constitute one-half of their emolu- ments. The juridical faculty, in every German uni- versity, forms a court of appeal for the whole Confe- deration. In all the states, the losing party in a cause had the right of appealing to an university; this right was confiT lOfid by the Act of Confederation ; and even the native Forum, if it find difficulties which require the assistance of more profound jurisconsults, may send the case for judgment to an university. In all these appeals, the menjbers of the juridical faculty become judges; they receive no salary for this part of their duty, but they are entitled to certain fees paid by the litigants, which, at Jena, I have heard estimated as being at least equal to the professorial salary. To this union of the bench with the chair are undoubted- ly to be ascribed, in some measure, the distinguished lesal talents which have at all times adorned the Ger- man universities, and which, in the present day, are far from belnoj extinct. The theoretical studies of the academician are thus dally brought to the test of prac- tice, and he sees, at every moment, how his logical deductions work in the affairs of ordinary life. The prince, likewise, had thus a direct Interest to fill these chairs with distinguished men; for, the greater the quantity of profitable business, the smaller was the necessity for supplying or increasing salaries at his own expense.
The lawyers of Jena have still a third source of toil and emolument, equal to either of the preceding, be- cause they constitute the Ober'appellatmis-Gericht^ or Supreme Court of Appeal, not only for the grand du-
LAW. »9
chy, but likewise for the other small Saxon Houses, and the two branches of Reuss.^ This pluraiity of offices is not, perhaps, very favourable to tlie indepen- dence of the judges ; for, though not re moveable from tfie bench, yet, in consequence of the decision of the Landtag already referred to, they can be removed from I heir chairs at tlie plsacure of the Grand Duke; and it is perfectly natural, that the fears of the re- moveable professor should influence the conduct of the irremoveable judge. Th^e poverty, however, of these htlle governments, renders such an accumulation of offices indispensable ; for, unless a man were thus al- lowed to insure a competency, the finances could not maintain such a supreme tribunal as would command the public respect, and place its members above the temptation of stooping to unworthy gains. The pro- ceedings in all cases are entirely in writing, and not a human being is admitted to witness them. '"I can show you the room, the table, and the chairs," said a member of the court, "but I can do nothing more for you." It is strange enough, that though, in the con- flict of modern politics, the professors of Jena have been cried down as being leavened with a portion of liberalism approaching to treason, yet the lawyers, with all their talent and political liberality, display a rooted dislike to trial by jury, and the publicity ol ju- dicial proceedings. The labours of Feuerbach, how- ever, on the other side, have not been without effect. The same lawyers who detest juries, are willing to admit publicity in criminal trials; but they cannot
* By the Act of Confederation it is provided, that every state whose population does not amount to three hundred thousand souls, shall unite itself with others sufficiently populous tn make up that numher, for the erection of a common Supreme Court of Appeal. The jurisdiction of that of Jena extends to the territo- ries of Weimar, Gotha, Cohourg, Meinungen, and Hilhurg-hausen ; and to these have been added the petty famdies of Reuss, from the proximity of their territories to the Saxon duchies.
12
96 JENA.
think of it with patience in civil suits; first, becaus^s people would take no interest in them ; second, be- cause, though they did, they would not understand them ; third, because, though they did understand ihem, they have no right to know other people's pri- vate affiirs.
The mode of teaching is almost entirely the same as in the Scottish Universities. The students live where they choose, and how they choose, having no connection with the University, except subjection to its discipline, which they do not much regard, and atten- dance at the appointed hour in the Professor's lecture- room, where nobody knows whetLer they be present or not. The lectures are given in German; and, after a small theatre, like that of Weimar, there are lew surer meap.s of mastering this beautiful, but difficult lanofuaofe, than to atterid the prelections cf a Professor on some popular topic, such as history. There is no particular university-building set apart for the classes; at least, the building which bears the name is not ap- plied to that purpose ; it contains onh^ the library and the jail. Such of the Professors as have small classes assemble them in their own dwelling-houses. Others, who can boast of a more numerous auditory, have larger halls in dilferent parts of the town. There is not a class-room in Jena, which would contain more than two hundred persons ; and, now that its honours have been blighted, that is a greater number than any of its learned men can hope to collect. Till of late years, however, the Professor of History, an extreme- ly able and popular gentleman, used to have a much more numerous auditory. When he occasionally de- livered a publicum, the overflowing audience filled even the court ; the windows were thrown open, and his resounding voice was heard distinctly in every corner.
Nothing can exceed the orderly behaviour of the students; they seem to leave all their oddities at the
MODE OF TEACHING. 91
door. Savage though thcj be esteeaied, a stringer may hospatize, as tliey call it, among them in perlcct safety, even without putting himself under the wing of a Professor. Every man takes his seat quietly, puts his bonnet beneath him, or in his pocket, unfohls his small portfolio, and produces an ink horn, armed below with a sharp iron spike, by which he fixes it firmly in the wooden desk befoi'e him. The teacher has notes and his text-book before him, but the lecture s not properly read ; those, at least, which I heard, were spoken, and the Professor stood. This mode of com- munication is only advisable when a man is thoroughly master of his subject, but is perhaps susceptible of much more eiFect than the reading of a manuscript. Above all, Martin, the Professor of Criminal Law, aiid Luden, the Pi'ofessor of History, harangue with a vi- vacity and vehemence, which render listlessness or inattention impossible.
Thus the hour is spent in listening, and it is left en- tirely to the young men themselves to make w-hat use they may think proper, or no use at all, of what they have heai'd. There is no other superintendence of their studies, than that of the Professor in his pulpit, telling them what he himself knows; there are no ar- rangements to secure, in any degree, either attendance or application. The received maxim is, that it is right to tell them what they ought to do, but it would be neither proper nor useful to take care that they do it, or prevent them from being as idle and ignorant as they choose.
Once outside of the class-room, the Burschen show themselves a much less orderly race ; if they submit to be ruled one hour daily by a professor, they rule him, and every other person, during all the rest of the four and twenty. The duels of the day are generally fought out early in the morning; the spare hours of the forenoon and afternoon are spent in fencing, in renoivning — that is, in doing things which make peop.e
92 JENA*
stare at them, and in providing duels for the morrow. In the evening, the various clans assemble in their commerz-houses, to besot themselves with beer and tobacco ; and it is long after midnight before the last strains of the last songs die awaj upon the streets. Wine is not the staple beverage, for Jena is not a wine country, and the students have learned to place a sort of pride in drinking beer. Yet, with a very natural contradiction, over their pots of beer they vociferate songs in praise of the grape, and owing their jugs with as much o^lee as a Bursche of Heidelberg brandishes his romer of Rhenish. Amid all their multifarious and peculiar strains of jovialty, 1 never heard but one in praise of the less noble liquor :^
Come, brothers, be jovial, while life creeps along" ; Make the walls ring around us with laughter and song. Though wine, it is true, be a rarity here, We'll be jolly as gods with tobacco and beer. Vivallerallerallera.
Corpus Juris, avaunt ! To the door with the Pandects ! Away with Theology's texts, dogmas, and sects ! Foul Medicine, begone ! At the board of our revels, Brother**, Muses like these give a man the blue devils, Vivallerallerallera.
One canH always be studying; a carouse, on occasion, Is a sine qua non in a man's education ; One is hound to get muddy and mad now and then ; But our beer jugj> are empty, so fill them again. Vivallerallerallera.
A band of these young men, thus assembled in an ale-liouse in the evening, presents as strange a contrast as can well be imagined to all correct ideas, not only of studious academical tranquillity, but even of respect- able conduct ; yet, in refraining from the nightly ob-
* It is scarcely necessary lo say, that these rude rhymes are not translated from any idea tlint they possess poetical merit, hut merely to ^: o\v the charncter of the Eurschen strains, and of the academicians, perhaps, who compose and sing theiri.
COMMERZ-HOUSES. 93
servances, they would think themselves guilty of a less pardonable dereliction ol* then- academic character, and a more direct treason against the independence of Ger- many, than if they subscribed to the Austrian Oi)ser- \er, or never attended for a single hour tiie lectures for which they paid. Step Into the pnbhc room of that inn, on the opposite side of the market-place, for it is the most respectable in the town. On opening the door, you must use your ears, not your eyes, for noth- ing is yet visible except a dense mass of smoke, occu- pying space, concealing every thing in it and beyond it, illuminated with a dusky light, you know not how, and sending forth from its bowels all the varied sounds of Diirth and revelry. As the eye gradually accustoms itself to the atmosphere, human visages are seen dim- ly dawning through the lurid cloud; then pewter jugs begin to glimmer faintly in their neighbourhood ; and, as the snioke from the phial gradually shaped itself into the friendly Asmodeus, the man and his jug slow- ly assume a defined and corporeal form. You can now totter along between the two long tables v\ hich have sprung up, as if by enchantment ; by the time you have reached the huge stove at the farther end, you have before you the paradise of German Burschen, destitute only of its Hourls : every man v/ith his bonnet en his head, a pot of beer in his hand, a pipe or segar in his mouth, and a song upon his lips, never doubting but that he and his companions are training themselves to be the regenerators of Europe, that they are the true representatives of the manliness and indcpcnderice of the German character, and the only models of a free, generous, and high-minded youth. They lay their hands upon their jugs, and vow the liberation of Ger- many ; they stop a second pipe, or light a second segar, and swear that the Holy Alliance is an unclean tiling.
The songs of these studious revellers often bear a particular character. They are. Indeed, mostly convi- vial, but many of them contain a peculiar train of feel-
94 JENA.
jng, springing from the peculiar modes of thinking of the Burschen, hazy aspirations after patriotism and li- berty, of neither of which have they any idea, except that every Bursche is bound to adore them, and mys- tical allusions to some unknown chivalry that dwells in a fencing bout, or in the cabalistical ceremony, with which the tournament concludes, of running the wea- pon through a hat. Out of an university town, these effusions would be utterly insipid, just as so many of the native Venetian canzonette lose all their effect, when sung any where but in Venice, or by any other than a Venetian. Thus, their innumerable hymns to the ra- pier, or on the moral, intellectual, and political effects of climbing up poles, and tossing the bar, would be un- intelligible to all w^ho do not know their way of think- ing, and must appear ridiculous to every one who can- not enter Into their belief, that these chivalrous exer- cises constitute the essence of manly honour ; but they themselves chaunt these tournament songs (Tourmer- lieder) with an enthusiastic solemnity whicii, to a third party, is irresistibly ludicrous. The period when they took arms against France was as fertile in songs as in deeds of valour. Many of the former are exc^ellent in their way, though there was scarcely a professional poet in the band, except young Korncr. These, with the more deep and intense strains of Arndt, will al- ways be favourites, because they were the productions of times, and of a public feeling, unique in the history of Germany. Where no reference is made to fencing: tournaments, or warlike recollections, there is never- theless the distinct impress of Burschen feelings.
The following may be taken as a satisfactory exam- ple of the ordinary genus of university minstrelsy. It is, by way of eminence, the Hymn, or Burse hen-Song, of Jena ; it contains all the texts which furnish mate- rials for the amplilications of college rhymsters, and shows better than a tedious description how they view the world.
STUDENT SONGS. 95
Pledge round, brothers ; Jona for ever ! huzza ! The resolve to be free is abroad in the land ; The Philistine* burns to be joined with our band,
For the Burschen are free.
Pledge round, then ; our country for ever ! huzza ! While you stand like your fathers as pure and as true, Forget not the debt to posterity due,
For the Burschen are free.
Pledge round to our Prince, then, ye Burschen ! huzza '. He swore our old honours and rights to maintain, And we vow him our love, while a drop 's in a vain,
For the Burschen are free.
Pledge round to the love of fair woman ! huzza! If there be who the feeling of woman offends, For him is no place among freemen or friends;
But the Burschen are free.
Pledge round to the stout soul of man, too ! huzza! Love, singing, and wine, are the proofs of his might, And who knows not all three is a pitiful wight;
But the Burschen are free.
Pledge round to the free word of freemen ! huzza ! Who knows what the truth is, yet trembles to brave The might that would crush it, is a cowardly slave ;
But the Burschen are free.
Pledge round, then, each bold deed tor ever ! huzza ! Who tremblingi}' ponders how daring may end. Will crouch like a minion, when power bids him bend ;
But the Burschen are free.
Pledge round, then, the Burschen for ever ! huzza ! Till the world goes in rags, when the last day comes o''er
us, Let each Bursche stand faithful, and join in our chorus,
The Burschen are free.
If they ever give vent in song to the democratic and sanguinary resolves which are averred to render them so dangerous, it must he in their more secret conclaves: for, in tlie strains which enhven their ordinary pota-
* That is, the people.
96 JENA.
tions, there is nothiniO^ more definite than in the above prosaic elfusion. There are many vague declamations about freedom and country, but no allusions to particu- lar persons, particular governments, or particular plans. The only change of government I ever knew proposed in their cantilenes, is one to which despotism itself could not object.
Let times to come come as they may,
And empires rise and fall ; Let Fortune rule as Fortune will,
And wheel upon her ball; High upon Bacchus' lordly brow
Our diadem shall shine ; And Joy, we'll crown her for his queen,
Their capital the Rhine.
In Heidelberg's huge tun shall sit
The Council of our State, And on our own Johannisberg
The Senate shall debate. Amid the vines of Burgundy
Our Cabinet shall reign ; Our Lords and faithful Commons House
Assemble in Champaign.
Only the Cabinet of Constantinople could set itself, with any good grace, against such a reform.
But, worse than idly as no small portion of time is spent by the great body of the academic youth in these nightly debauches, this is only one, and by no means the most distinguishing or troublesome, of their pecu- liarities ; it IS the unconquerable spirit of clanship, pre- valent among them, which has given birth to their vio- lence and insubordination ; for it at once cherishes the spirit of opposition to all regular discipline, and consti- tutes an united body to give that opposition effect. The house of Hanover did not find more difficulty in reducing to tranquillity the clans of the Highlands of Scotland, than the Grand Duke of Weimar would en- counter in eradicating the Landsmannschaften from among the four hundred students of Jena, and inducing
LANDSMANNSCHAFTEN. 97
them to conduct themselves like orderlj, well-bred young men. The Landsmannschaften themselves are by no means a modern invention, though it is believed, that the secret organization which they give to the students all over Germany has, of late years, been used to new purposes. The name is entirely descrip- tive of the thing, a Coiintrymanship, an association of persons from the same country, or the same province of a country. They do not arise from the constitution of the university, nor are they acknowledged by it ; on the contrary, they are proscribed both by the laws of the university and the government of the country. They do not exist for any academical purpose, for the young men have no voice in any thing connected with the university ; to be a member of one is an aca- demical misdemeanour, yet there are few students who do not belons: to one or another. Thev are asso- ciations of students belonging to the same province, for the purpose of enabling each, thus backed by all, to carry through his own rude wiH, let it be what it may, and, of late years, it is averred, to propagate wild political reveries, jf not to foment political cabals. They are regularly organized ; each has its president, clerk, and councillors, who form what is called the Convent of the Landsmannschaft. This budv manaores its funds, and has the direction of its affairs, if it have affairs. It likewise enjoys the honour of fighting all duels pro ^a/na, for so they are named when the in- terest or honour not of an individual, but of the whole fraternity, has been attacked. The assembled presi- dents of the different Landsmannschaften in a univer- sity constitute the senior convent. This supreme tri- bunal does not interfere in the private affairs of the particular bodies, but decides in all matters that con- cern the whole mass of Burschen, and watches over the strict observance of the oreneral academic code which they have enacted for themselves. The meet- ings of both tribunals are held frequently and regular- 13
#a JENA.
Iv, but with so much secrecy, that the most vigilant police has been unable to reach them. They have cost many a professor many a sleepless night. The governments scold the senates, as if they trifled with, or even connived at the evil ; the senates lose all pa- tience with the governments, for thinking it so easy a matter to discover what Burschen are resolved to keep concealed. The exertions of both have only sufficed to drive the Landsmannschaften into deeper concealment. From the incessant quarrels and up- roars, and the instantaneous union of all to oppose any measure of general discipline about to be enforced, the whole senate often sees plainly, that these bodies are in activ^e operation, without being able either to ascertain who are their members, or to pounce upon their secret conclaves.
Since open war was thus declared against them by the government, secrecy has become indispensable to their existence, and the Bursche scruples at nothing by which this secrecy may be insured. The most melancholy consequence of this is, that, as every man is bound by the code to esteem the preservation of the Landsmannschaft his first du.y, every principle of honour is often trampled under fc t to maintain it. In some universities it was provided by the code that a student, Avhen called before the senate to be examined about a suspected Landsmannschaft, ceased to be a member, and thus he could safely say that he belonged to no such institution. In others, it was provided, that such an Inquiry should operate as an ipso facto disso- lution of the body Itself, till the investigation should be over; and thus every member could safely swear that no such association was in existence. There are cases where the student, at his admission into the fra- ternity, gives his word of honour to do every thing in his power to spread a belief that no such association exists, and, if he shall be questioned either by X\\^ senate or the police, stedfastly to deny it. Here and
LANDSMANNSCHAFTEN. 99
there the professors fell on the expedient of gradually extirpating them, by taking from every new student, at his matriculation, a solemn promise that he would not join any of these bodies ; but where such princi- ples are abroad, promises are useless, for deceit is reckoned a duty. The more moderate convents left it to the conscience of the party himself to decide, whe- ther he was bound in honour by such a promise ; but the code of Leipzig, as it has been printed, boldly de- clares every promise of this kind void, and those who have exacted it punishable. Moreover, it invests the senior convent, in general terms, with the power of giving any man a dispensation from his word of honour, if it shall see cause, but confines this privilege, in mo- ney matters, to cases where he has been enormously cheated. Thus the code of university Landsmann- schaften, while it prates of nothing but the point of honour, and directs to that centre all its fantastic re- gulations, sets out with a violation of every thing ho- nourable. Such are the tenets of men who chatter unceasingly about liberty and patriotism, and have per- petually in their mouths such phrases as, " the Bur- schen lead a free, honourable, and independent life in the cultivation of every social and patriotic virtue." Thus do moral iniquities become virtues in their eyes, if they forward the ends, or are necessary to the con- tinued existence of a worthless and mischievous associ- ation ; and who can tell how far this process of mea- suring honour by imagined expediency may corrupt the whole moral sense ? Is it wonderful that Sand, taught to consider deceit, prevarication, or breach of promise as virtues, when useful to a. particular cause, should have regarded assassination in the same light, when the shedding of blood was to consecrate doc- trines which he looked upon as holy ?
The students who have not thought proper to join any of these associations are few in number, and, in point of estimation, form a class still more despised
100 . JENA.
and insulted than the Philistines themselves. Every Bursche thinks it dishonourable to have comniunica- tion with them ; they are admitted to no carousal ; they are debarred from all balls and public festivals by which the jouth contrive to make themselves noto- rious and ridiculous. Such privations would not be severely felt, but they are farther exposed to every species of contempt and insult; to abuse them is an acceptable service to Germany ; in the class-room, and on the street, they must be taught that they are "cowardly slaves," and all this, because they will not throw themselves into the fetters of a self-created fraternity. However they may be outraged, thej are entitled neither to redress nor protection ; should any of them resent the maltreatnjent heaped upon him^ he brings down on himself the vengeance of the whole mass of initiated ; for, to draw every man within the- circle is a comrrion object of all the clans; he who joins none is the enemy of all. Blows, which the Burschen have proscribed among themselves, as unworthy of gentlemen, are allowed against the " Wild Ones," — for such is the appellation given to these quiet suffer- ers, from the caution with which they must steal along, trembling at the presence of a Comment Bursche, and exiled, as they are, from the refined intercourse of Commerz-houses to the wilds and deserts of civilized society. Others, unable to hold out against the inso- lence and contempt of the young men among whom they are compelled to live, in an evil hour seek refuge beneath the wing of a Landsmannschaft. These are named Renoncen, or Renouncers. Having renounced the state of nature, they stand, in academical civiliza- tion, a degree above the obstinate " Wild Ones," but yet they do not acquire, by their tardy and com- pelled submission, a full claim to all Burschen-rights. They are merely entitled to the protection of the fra- ternity which they have joined, and 'every member of it will run every man through the body who dares
LANDSMANNSCIIAFTEN. 101
to insult them, in word or deed, otherwise than is pre- scribed by the Burschen code. By abject submission to the will of their imperious protectors, they purchase the right of being abused and stabbed only according to rule, instead of being kicked and knocked down con- trary to all rule.
Associations are commonly formed for purposes of good will and harmony : but the very object of the Landsmannschaften is (juarrelling. So soon as a num- ber of these fraternities exist, (hey become the sworn foes of each other, except when a common danger drives them to make common cause. Each aspires at being the dominant body in the university, and, if not the most respected, at least the most feared in the town. They could be tolerated, if the subject of emu- lation were, which should produce the greatest num- ber of decent scholars; it would even be laudable if they contended which should be victor at cricket or foot-ball. But unfortunately, the ambitious contest of German Burschen is simply, who shall be most suc- cessful at renoivning^ that is, at doing sometliifig, no mat- ter what, which will make people stare at them, and talk about them; or, who shall produce the greatest number oi scandals^ that is, who shall fight the great- est number of duels, or cause them to be fought; or, who will show the quickest invention, and the readiest hand, in resisting all attempts, civil or academical, to interfere with their vagaries. If opportunities of mortifying each other do not occur, they must be made ; the merest trifles are sufficient to give a pre- text for serious quarrels, and the sword is immediately drawn to decide them, the " consummation devoutly to be wished," which is at bottom the grand object of the whole. At Jena the custom has been allowed to grow up of permitting the students to give balls; the Senate has oiily tried to make them decent, by confin- ing them to the Rose, an inn belonging to the Univer- sity, and therefore tinder its controul. If they be
102 JENA.
given anywhere else, the Burschen cannot expect the company of the fashionable ladies of Jena, the wives and daughters of the professors. Now, a Landsinann- schaft which gives a ball. Renowns su|)erbly ; it makes itself distinguished, and it must, therefore, be mortifi- ed. The other Burschen station themselves at the door, or below the windows; they hoot, yell, sing, whistle, and make all sorts of infernal noises, occasion- ally completing the joke by breaking the windows. This necessarily brings up an abundant crop of scan- dals ; and it can easily happen, that as much blood is shed next morning, as there w^as negus drunk the night before. A Landsmannschaft had incautiously announc- ed a ball before engaging the musicians; the others immediately engaged the only band of which Jena could boast for a concert on the same evening. The dancers would have been under the necessity of either sacrificing their fete, or bringing over an orchestra from Weimar; but the quarrel was prevented from coming to extremes by the non-dancers giving up their right over the fiddlers, on condition that the ball should be considered as given by the whole body of Burschen, not by any particular fraternity. A number of students took it into their heads to erect them- selves into an independent duchy, which they named after a village in the neighbourhood of Jena, whither they regularly repaired to drink beer. He who could drink most was elected Duke, and the great officers of his court were appointed in the same way, according to their capacity for liquor. To complete the farce, they paraded the town. Though all this might be extremely good for sots and children, in students it was exquisitely ridiculous; but it attracted notice; it was a piece of successful renowning, and their brethren could not tamely submit to be thrown into the shade. A number of others forthwith erected themselves into a free town of the empire; took their name from another neighbouring village; ellcted their Burgomas-
LANDSMANNSCHAFTEN. ] 05
ter, Syndic, and Councillors, and, habited in the ofTiclal garb of Hamburgh or Fiankfort, made their jjrocesslon on foot, to mark, their contempt of ducal pomp, and. point themselves out as industrious frugal citizens. The two parties now came in contact with each other; and it was daily expected, that their reci[;rocal carica- tures, like angry negotiations, would prove the forerun- ners of an open war between his Serene Highness and the Free Town.
The individual Bursche, in his academical charac- ter, is animated by the sSmc paltry, arrogant, quarrel- some, domineering disposition. When fairly imbued Avith the spiiit of his sect, no rank can command res- pect from him, for he knows no superior to himself and his comrades. A few years ago, the Empress of Russia, when she was at Weimar, visited the Univer- sity Museum of Jena. Among the students who had assembled to see her, one was observed to keep his bonnet on his head, and his pipe in his mouth, as her Imperial Majesty passed. The Prorector called the young man before him, and remonstrated with him on his rudeness. The defence was in tlie genuine spirit of Burschenism : ''I am a free man; what is an Em- press tome?" Full of lofty unintelligible notions of his own importance and high vocation, misled by ludi- crously erroneous ideas of honour, and hurried on by the example of all around him, the true Bursche swag- gers and renowns, choleric, raw, and overbearing. He measures his own honour, because his companions measure it, by the number of scandals he has fouijht, but neither he nor they ever waste a thought on what they have been fought for. To have fought unsuccess- fully is bad ; but, if he wishes to become a respected and influential personage, not to have fought at all is in- finitely worse. He, therefore, docs not fight to lesent insolence, but he insults, or takes oiTence, tliat he mav have a pretext for fi^htmg. The lecture-rooms are but secondary to the^^icing-school : that is his temple,
104 JENA.
the rapier is his god, and the Comment is the gospel by which he swears.
This Comment, as it is called, is the Burschen Pan- dects, the general code to which all the Landsmann- scliaften are subject. However numerous the latter may be in a university, there is but one comment, and this venerable body of law descends from generation to generation, in the special keeping of the senior convent. It is the holy volume, whose minutest regu- lations must neither be questioned nor slighted ; what it allows cannot be wrong, what it prohibits cannot be riofht. " He has no comment in him," used to be a proverbiial expression for a stupid fellow. It regulates the mode of election of the superior officers, fixes the relation of " Wild Ones" and " Renouncers" to the true Burschen, and of the Burschen to each bther; it provides punishments for various offences, and com- monly denounces excommunication against thieves and cheaters at play, especially if the cheating be of any very gross kind. But the point of honour is its soul. The comment is, is reality, a code, arranging the man- ner in which Burschen shall quarrel with each other, and how the quarrel, once begun, shall be terminated. It fixes, with the most pedantic solicitude, a graduated scale of offensive words, and the style and degree of satisfaction that may be demanded for each. The scale rises, or is supposed to rise, in enormity, till it reaches the atrocious expression, Dumraer Junge, (stu- pid youth,) which contains within itself every possible idea of insult, and can be atoned for only with blood. The particular dei^recs of the scale may vary in diffe- rent universities; but the principle of its construction is the same in all, aiid in all " stupid youth" is the boil- ing point. If you are assailed with any epithet which stands below stupid youth in the scale of contumely, you are not bound immediately to challenge ; you may "set yourself in advantage^' — that is, you may retort on the offender with an epilhe4 which stands higher
THE COMMENT. 105
than the one he has applied to you. Then your op- ponent may retort, if you have left him room, in the same way, by rising a degree above you ; and tlms the courteous terms of the comment may^ be bandied be- tween you, till one or the other fmds only the highest step of the ladder unoccupied, and is compelled to pro- nounce the "stupid youth," to which there is no reply but a challenge. I do not say that this is the ordina- ry practice; in general, it comes to a challenge at once ; but such is the theory of the Comment. Who- ever submits to any of ttritee epithets, without either setting himself in advantage, or giving a challenge, is forthwith punished by the convent with Verschiss, or the lesser excommunication ; for there is a temporary and a perpetual Verschiss, something like the lesser and gre^r excommunication in ecclesiastical disci- pline. He may recover his rights and his honour, by fighting, within a given time, with one member of each of the existing Landsmannschaften ; but if he al- lows the fixed time to pass without doing so, the sen- tence becomes irrevocable : no human power can re- store him to his honours and his rights ; he is declared infamous for ever; the same punishment is denounced against all who hold intercourse WMth him ; every mode of insult, real or verbal, is permitted and laudable against him ; he is put to the ban of this academical empire, and stands alone among his companions, the butt of unceasing scorn and contumely.
In the conduct of the duel itself, the comment de- scends to the minutest particulars. The dress, the weapons, the distance, the value of different kinds of thrusts, the length to which the arm shall be bare, and a thousand other minutiae, are all fixed, and have, at least, the merit of preventing every unfair advantage. In some universities the sabre, in others the rapier, is the academical weapon ; pistols nowhere. The wea- pon used at Jena is what tj^y call a Schlager. It is a straight blade, aboutBkre? feet and a half long, and 14 ^^
106 JENA.
three-cornered like a bayonet. The hand is protected by a circular plate of tin, eight or ten inches in diame- ter, which some burlesque poets, who have had the audacity to laugh at Burschenism, have profaned with the appellation of " The Soup Plate of Honour." The handle can be separated from the blade, and the soup plate from both, — all this for purposes of concealment. The handle is put in the pocket, the plate is buttoned under the coat, the blade is sheathed in a walking-stick, and thus the parties proceed unsuspected to the place of combat, as if they wer% going out for a morning stroll. The tapering triangular blade necessarily be- comes roundish towards the point ; therefore, no thrust counts, unless it be so deep that the orifice of the wound is three-cornered ; for, as the Comment has it, " no af- fair is to be decided in a trifling and childish way mere- ly fro formaP Besides the seconds, an umpire and a surgeon must be present ; but the last is always a me- dical student, that he may be under the comment-obli- gation to secrecy. All parties present are bound not to reveal what passes, without distinction of consequen- ces, if it has been fairly done ; the same promise is ex- acted from those who may come accidentally to know any thing of the matter ; to give information or evi- dence against a Bursche, in regard to any thing not contrary to the Comment, is an inexpiable offence. Thus life may easily be lost without the possibility of discovery ; for authority is deprived, as far as possible, of every means by which it might get at the truth. It is perfectly true, that mortal combats are not frequent, partly from the average equality of skill, every man being in the daily practice of his weapon, partly, be- cause there is often no small portion of gasconade in the warlike propensities of these young persons; yet nei- ther are they so rare as many people imagine. It does not often happen, indeed, that either of the parties is killed on the spot, but the wounds often superinduce other mortal ailments, aM s^j^more frequently, laj
#'
LANDSMANNSCHAFTEN. 107
the foundation of diseases which cling to the body through hfe. A professor, wlio perhaps has had bet- ter opportunities of learning the working of the system than any of his colleagues, assured me, that instances are by no means rare, of young men carrying home consumption with them, in consequence of slight inju- ries received in the lungs. On the occasion of the last fatal duel at Jena, the government of Weimar gave this gentleman a commission to inquire into the aifair. He declined it, unless he were authorized, at the same time, to act against the Eandsmannschaften generally. On receiving this power, he seized a number of their Schldger^ and sent to jail a score of those whom he be- lieved to be most active in the confraternities. But the impression of this unwonted rigour was only tem- porary ; they became more secret, but not at all less active.
Y^t, let it only become necessary to oppose the in- roads of discipline, to punish the townsmen, or to do some extravagant thing that will astound the govern- ments, and these bodies, which thus live at daggers- drawing with each other, are inseparable. They take their measures with a secrecy which no vigilance has hitherto been able to penetrate, and an unanimity which has scarcely been tamted by a single treason. The mere townsmen are objects of supreme contempt to the Bursche ; for, from the moment he enters the uni- versity, he looks on himself as belonging to a class set apart for some peculiarly high vocation, and vested with n6 less a privilege than that of acknowledging no law but their own will. The citizens he denominates Philistines, and considers them to exist only to fear, ho- nour, and obey the chosen people of whom he himself is one. The greater part of the inhabitants are de- pendent, in some professional shape or other, on those who attend the university, and must have the fear of the Burschen daily ^^nigjjftly before their eyes. To murmur at the capflj^ oT the Academic Israel, tq
108 JENA.
laugh at their mumeries, or seriously resist and resent their arrogance, would only expose the unhappy Phi- listine to the certainty of having his head and his win- dows broken together; for he has no rights, as against a Bursche, not even that of giving a challenge, unless he be a nobleman or a military officer. When the Burschen are in earnest, no civil police is of any earth- ly use ; they would as little hesitate to attack it as they would fail of putting it to flight. I saw Leipsig thrown into confusion, one night, by the students attempting to make themselves masters of the person of a soldier who, they believed, had insulted one of their brethren in a quarrel on the street about some worthless woman. Although it was late, the offended party had been able speedily to collect a respectable number of academic youth, to attack the guard-house; for a well trained Bursche knows the commerz-houses, where his com- rades nightly congregate to drink, smoke, and sing, as certainly as a well trained police officer knows the haunts of thieves and pick-pockets.
The most imminent danger which the Landsmanns- chaften have hitherto encountered, arose from the stu- dents themselves. The academical youth seemed to have brought back from the campaigns of 1813 and 1814, a spirit of more manly union ; and, perhaps, an earnest contest against French bayonets had taught them to look with less prejudiced eyes on the paltri- ness of their own ridiculous squabbles. A few leading heads at Jena proposed that the Landsmannschaften should be abolished, and the Comment abrogat^^ ; not, however, with the view of crushing all associations, but that the whole body of the students might be united in one general brotherhood, underanev and more rea- sonable constitution. The Landsmannschaften did not yield without a struggle, but the Burschenschaft (for so they baptized the new association, because it compre- hended all Burschen) fin^y triumphed ; renowning
i^y trill
dwindled away, and venerfble^Bt began to settle on
THE BURSCHENSCHAFT. 109
the Comment. It is agreed on all hands, that, during the existence of this body, the manners of the univer- sity improved. In the investigation afterwards insti- tuted by the Diet, the Prufes>ors bore witriess, that greater tranquililly, order, and respect for the laws, had never been manifested in Jena, than under the Burs- chenschaft. There was nothmg compulsory in it ; no constraint was used, no insult or contempt was permit- ted towards those who did not cfioose to join it. So far was it already advaiiced in civilization, in compari- son with the former brotherhoods, that besides p-rohi- biting the introduction of dogs into its solemn assem- blies, it would allow no man either to smoke, or to re- main covered in them. It was even provided, that the orator should turn his face to the Burschen while he was addressing thenj, and take his seat again when he had finished.* This spirit of uniformity, going out from Jena, shook the old institutions in other universities ; till at length, when the students had assembled from every corner of Germany, in I til 7, to celebrate on the Wart burg the anniversary of the Reformation, and the battle of Leipzig, the destruction of the Laiidsmann- schaften was unanimously voted, and the all com[>re- hendlng Burschenschaft was to take their place. But this proved its ruin. It had been resolved, not merely to melt into one organized association the whole body of students in their respective universities, but to form a supreme council of delegates from them all, to direct and give unity to the whole. The fears which ihego- vernmerfls had long entertained, that political objects were concealed beneath the Burschen>chalt, now be- came certainty. The organization of the body, and the regular contributions by which funds were to be crea- ted ; the resolution to wear the sword and plume as
* Seriously, these were all reg-nlalions of the Bnrschenschaft of Jena. We may j'ldore from them pf the decorum which reigns in a Landsmanobchaft meeting'/j^
110 JENA.
the proper ornaments of a chivalrous student, and to adopt a sort of uniform in the singular dress which is still so common among them, were all regarded, if not as indications of dangerous designs, at least as instru- ments which could easily be used for dangerous purposes. The very language in which they announc- ed their objects, so far as any distinct idea could be drawn from its mystical verbosity, covered them with political suspicion."^ The words country, freedom, and independence, were perpetually in their mouths : and people naturally asked, how is this new Germanic Academic Diet to benefit any one of the three? What means this regular array of deputies and committees among persons who have no duty but that of prosecu- ting their studies? To what end this universal Burs- chen Tribunal, which is to extend its decrees from Kiel to Tiibingen, and direct the movements of a combined body from the shores of the Baltic to the foot of the Alps ? These questions were in every body's mouth ; and it is unjust to say that they were merely politic
* I can only assure the reader, that the following declaration in the constitution of the Universal Burschenschaft is as accurately translated as 1 myself could understand it. " The Universal Ger- man Burschenschaft comes into life, by presenting- an ever-improv- ing picture of its countrymen blossoming into freedom and unity ; by maintaining a popular Burschen-life, in the cultivation of every corportal and intellectual power; by preparing its members for a popular life, in a free, equal, and well-ordered community, so that every one may rise to such a degree of self-consciousness, as to re- present, in his pure personality, the brightness of the excellency of a German popular lite." To avoid the charge of wilful misre- presentation, I subjoin the origmal. " Die allgemeine Deutsche Burschenschaft tritt nun ins Leben dadurch, dass Sic sich, je lan- ger je mehr, darstollt als ein Bild ihres m Freyheit und Einheit erblijhendes Volkes, dass Sie ein volksthiimhches Burschenleben. in der Ausbildung einer jeden leihlichen und geistigen Kraft erhalt, und im freyen, gl<=!icijen, und geordneten Gemeinwesen, ihre Glie- der vorbereitet zum Volksleben, so dass jedes derselben zu einer solchen Stufe des Selb&tbewusstf^eyns erhoben werde, dass es in seiner reinen Eigenthiimhchkeit den glanz der Herrlichkeit des, Deutschen Volksleben darstellt." St
ACADEMICAL LIBERTY. Ill
alarms sounded by the minions of suspicious and oppres- sive governments. He must be a credulous man who can beheve, that from eight to ten thousand students, animated by the pohtical ardour which, of late years, has pervaded all the universities of Germany, could be thus organized, without becoming troublesome to the public tranquillity ; and he must be a very imprudent man, who could wish to see the work of political rege- neration, even where it is needed, placed in such hands. Members of the university of Jena itself, who are no lovers of despotism, do not conceal their conviction, that, although the founders of the Burschenschaft were sincere in their desires to abolish the old murderous distinctions, yet they laboured after this union, only with the view of using it as a political instrument. The governments denounced the new associations ; in Jena, they had first breathed, and in Jena they first expired. The Burschenschaft obeyed the order of the Grand Duke for its abolition. The Landsmannschaften im- mediately came forth from their graves; the Com- ment once more became the rule of faith and life ; re- nowning and scandalizing reassumed their ancient ho- nours ; and as formerly, the Burschen still quarrel and fight, and swear loudly to make good their " academ- ical liberty."
It is amusing to listen to the pompousness with which these young men speak of this Akademische Freylieit^ when it is known that it means precisely nothing. To judge from the lofty periods in which they declaim about the blessings it has showered on the country, and the sacred obligations by which they are bound to maintain it, we would conclude tliat it invests them with no ordinary franchises ; while, in truth, it gives them nothing that any other man would wish to have To be dressed, and to look like no other person; to let his beard grow, where every goodChristianshaves; to let his tangled locks crawl down upon his shoulders, where every well-bred ^man wears his hair short ; to clatter along the streets in monstrous jack-boots, loaded
112 JENA.
with spurs, which, from their weight and size, have acquired the descriptive appellation of pound-spurs ; to rub the elbow of his coat against the wall (ill he has made a hole in it,"*^ where ordinary people think it more respectable to wear a coat without holes ; to stroll through the streets singing, when all decent citizens are in bed; to join his pot companions nightly in the ale- house, and besot himself with beer and tobacco; these, and things like these, are the ingredients in the boast- ed academical freedom of a German student. In every thing connected with the university, he has neither voice nor influence ; in this respect, a boy of the Greek or Latin class at Glasgow, when he gives his vole for the Rector Magnificus, is entitled to look down with contempt on the brawling braggars of Gottingen or Jena. Those modes of liberty the Bursche enjoys in common with every silly or clownish fellow in the country ; for they consist merely in being singular, ri- diculous, and ill-bred, where other people, who have the same n^ht, choose to act otherwise. The Lands- mannschaften themselves are tyrannical in their very essence. So far from being his own master, the Burs- che is chained in word and deed; he is tied down by the strict forms of a fantastic code which he did not frame, wliich he cannot altr r, to which he has not even voluntarily submitted himself, and from which its pro- visions deny him the power of withdrawing^. Dread of the contumely that is heaped on a " Wild One," or of the still more lamentable slavery which awaits a " Renouticer,'' forces him into the fraternity ; and, once within the toils, he is not allowed to break loose, however galling they may be to his feelings, or revolt- ing to his judgment. Yet amid the very rattling of their chains, these men have the impudence to prate about liberty as their distinguishing privilege.
* This actually occurred in Jena ; it was Renowning ; it was something to be stared at.
ACADEMICAL LIBERTY. lis
It is itself, however, no slight peculiarity, that all these peculiarities do not last longer than three years. When the student has finished his curriculum^ and leaves the university, he is himself numbered among the Philistines ; the prejudices, the fooleries, and hot- headed forwardness of the Bursche depart from him, as if he were waking from a dream ; he returns to the ordinary modes of thinking and acting in the world ; he probably never wields a rapier again, or quarrels with a mortal, till his dying day ; he falls into his own place in the bustling competition of society, and leads a peaceful industrious life, as his fathers did before him. His political chimeras, too, like all the rest of his oddities, are much less connected with principle than his turbulence would seem to imply; they are modes of speech, which, like the shapeless coats, and daily fencing matches, it has become the fashion of the place to adopt, rather than any steady feeling or solid conviction. The Burschen peculiarities are taken up because they belong to the sort of life to which the person is, for a time, consigned ; but they do not ad- here to the man, or become abiding parts of his cha- racter ; once beyond the walls of the town, and they fall from him with the long hair. Were it otherwise, the consequences would already have been visible. Did these young men carry out into the world the same vague and heated ideas, and the same dangerous rea- diness to act upon them, which are reckoned part of their duties at college, it might furnish good grounds for the political precautions of alarmed governments, but it would likewise render them unavailing; for the great mass of the people would speedily be leavened. These are the very men, who, in many cases, form the army, who instruct the people, who occupy all the lower, and not a few of the higher departments in the provincial governments. There does not seem to be much more reason to fear that a swaggering and unru- ly German Bursche will become a quarrelsome and rio-
j 15
114 JENA.
tons German citizen, than there would be to appre- hend that a boy of Eton would grow up to be a radical leader in ParHament, because at school he had borne a share In a barring out*
The decay of discipline which disfipfures most of the universities, and the manifold forms of licentiousness and insubordination that have necessarily arisen from it, are intimately connected with the jurisdiction of the univer- sity. The senate possessed exclusive jurisdiction in civil causes, as well as in criminal prosecutions ; it wielded likewise all the powers of police over this portion of the community. In capital offences, if any such occurred, the criminal was generally turned over to the regular authorities; but, in all other cases, he was amenable only to the Prorector and Senate of his university. The modes of punishment were fines, expulsion, or impri- sonment; for every German university has a gaol at- tached to it, though the durance is not very severe in itself, and, in the eyes of the Burschen, is attended with no disgrace. They do not think the less of a man be- cause he has been sent to the college prison for some act of insubordination ; it raises his character as a proved, tried Bursche ; it tells for him like a feat of Renowning ; it adds as much to his academic glory as if he had " tweaked a Philistine." He moves to his dun- geon " with military glee," perfectly aware, that, by a little inconvenience, he is purchasing much influence and respectability among his companions.
It is long since doubts began to be entertained of the efficiency of this exclusive jurisdiction vested in the professors. Tliese doubts originated in the laxity with which the jurisdiction has been exercised, and this ru- inous laxity is inherent in the system. Notwithstand- ing all that has been written and said in its defence, it must be manifest to every one who knows the German universities, that, in point of fact, it has done mischief, and may be ranked among the principal causes of the decay of discipline. Where students live in the man-
ACADEMICAL JURISDICTION. 115
ner described, and the maintenance of the public peace, as well as of academical good order, is entrusted to the university itself, the duties of the Prorector and Senate are at once laborious and invidious. The disci- pline of the university depends entirely on the rigour with which these gentlemen discharge their duty ; and this mode of administration is favourable neither to uniformity nor firmness. As the Prorector is changed every half year, all the good which a man of vigi- lance and determination has effected in six months may be undone, as it often has been undone, during the following six, by the carelessness, the laxity, or the connivance of his successor. He has, to be sure, a committee of the Senate, to assist him in the or- dinary business ; but, though this diminishes his respon- sibility, it does not in any way mend the matter ; for it has long been the prevailing spirit of ever^ Ger- man faculty to wink, as much as possible, at the irre- gularities of their pupils, and relax the reins of disci- pline ; — because, to hold them with a firm hand ex- poses them to odium. If it was natural for the students to prefer a kindly, paternal, indulgent jurisdiction of this kind, on whose fears and comforts they could ope- rate in so many ways, to the legal sternness and strict- ness of a police magistrate, it Avas equally natural, that the Professor should choose to be a favourite among the young men, on whom, in some measure, his fame, his fees, and even the quiet of his life de- pended, rather than to be detested by them as a tyran- nical master, or a too rigorous judge. The Burschen speedily saw their advantage. Feeling that weak hands guided the chariot of the sun, tliey got the bit between their teeth, and started off in their unrestrained course, setting all the universities on fire. For the rigorous among their teachers they had hootings and pereats ; for the indulgent they had vivats and serenades. It was nothing uncommon to see a venerable professor descend from among his folios to the filial youths who
116 JENA.
fiddled beneath his window at fall of night, and, with cap in hand, while tears of tenderness diluted the rheum of his aged ejes, humbly thank the covered crowd for the inestimable honour. It is, no doubt, very amiable in these gentlemen to say that the spirit of a young man must not be broken, or his honour severely wounded ; that he is not to be punished as a criminal, but gently reclaimed, like a child who has gone astray, by the pa- ternal hand of his instructors; but the efficiency of pa- ternal authority has its bounds, even where the natural relation gives it more weight than the metaphorical pa- ternity of the university fathers, — and the Burschen have long since been far beyond these bounds. When the question is, whether the professors shall throw off the fnther, and assume the judge, or see the discipline of the university, and the manners of its students, wrecked before their eyes, these amiable common places are the root of all evil. The question had come to this a century ago, and the matter has every year been growing worse. Gottingen had not existed many years before discipline was so miserably neglected, in consequence of this system of truckling, that Munchau- sen appointed a Syndicus, or superior magistrate, who had no connection with the university, to superintend the execution of the laws. It has ended at length, as the abuse of a privilege always does end, in the cur- tailment of this exclusive jurisdiction of which the pro- fessors were so proud and so chary. As the ordinary irregularities of the students have been mixed up, of late years, with political feelings, to which even some of the teachers incautiously lent their countenance, the governments have in general found it prudent to con- join civil assessors with the academical authorities, and to narrow, on the whole, the limits of their exclusive jurisdiction.
I am not even sure that the easy footing on which the professors of Jena seem to live with their students is altogether desirable; for, in such matters, mistaken
ACADEMICAL JURISDICTION. 117
affability can do more mischief than even supercilious- ness. There is no harm in waltzing in Germany, and no harm any where in playing whist or the piano; but a German sage, who has to manage German Burschen, should be the last man to forget the proverb which makes familiarity and contempt mother and daughter. The professors have lately formed a Landsmannschaft, as it were, of their own, to Renown, by giving them- selves and the students an entertaiiunent every Sunday evening in the Rose, the same favoured inn to which they have restricted the Burschen balls. The profes- sors alone are members of the association ; but each of them has the privilege of inviting as many students, or strangers, as he thinks proper. The very intention of the thing was, if not to gratify the young men by a mark of attention for good behaviour, and mortify the disorderly by exclusion, at least to give them some chance of civilization, by submitting them to the polish of well behaved company, and respectable ladies. On alternate evenings there is a regular concert, for few Burschen do not play some instrument, and play it well. On the others, there are tea-tables, and card- tables, a little music, and a little dancing. The ladies sing, play the piano, perhaps waltz for an hour, and, by nine o'clock, all is over, in a decent Christian way, — if either of these epithets can be applied to such a mode of spending Sunday evening. The dethroned Professor of Natural History was waltzing most vigor- ously, while the Professor of Greek hopped vivacious- ly about as arbiter elegantiarum. Who, after this, will talk of Heavysterns and Heavysides as representatives of German erudition ? Who will style German Profes- sors dull book-worms, when they thus flutter like but- terflies? It is perfectly true, that a select number of the young men thus amuse themselves, for a couple of hours, like well bred persons, under the eyes of their academical superiors; but this has a very partial and temporary effect. The teacher and the taught, those
118 JENA.
who should command, and those who should obey, are brought together in a fashion bj no means favourable to rigid dist'ipline. I cannot beheve that the students, accustomed to see their professors tlius occupied, and to be thus occupied along with them, on Sunday even- ing, can regard them as very authoritative personages on Monday morning. Besides, it can only extend to a very limited number ; while thirty or forty of the most respectable joungsters are growing smooth under the hands of academical ladies, the three or four hundred, who stand most in need of reformation, are hatching academical rebellions over jugs of beer.
Jena used to muster about eight hundred students, but within the last five years, the number has diminish- ed to nearly one half, and, as in most other German universities, the large proportion who are supported entirely or partly on charity excites surprise. It has been the bane of these seminaries that the liberality of' the public, and the mistaken piety of individuals, converted them, in some measure, into charity schools. Bursaries and exhibitions, when kept within proper bounds, may do much good ; but. In this country we have no idea of the extravagant length to which they have been carried in the German universities, the Pro- testant as well as the Catholic, and, above all. In the department of Theology. At the Reformation, there was a large demand for preachers in the Protestant market, and it was thought, that part of the ecclesias- tical revenues, thrown open to the state by the down- fall of popery, could not be better employed than in encouraging the manufacture; the production of cler- gymen was cherished by a bounty. In the Catholic countries, again, the public seminaries had always a great deal of the hospitmm in them : theology Is fre- quently taught in the cloister; and to assist the rising Eriesthood is one great end of monastic wealth. A ierarchy, whose constitution provides for the finished priest so many temples of indolence, where he may
BURSAniES. li§
doze away his life, would act inconsistently, if it with- held its liberal hand in [)reparing him for his high des- tiny. The unavoidable consequence of all this mistak- en liberahty was, to allure into the learned professions, and particularly into the church, a great number of men who otherwise would never have thought of quit- ting a more appropriate otcupatiim. Ttje market was speedily glutted, and so it will continue, so long as those premiums exist, which draw crowds into professions, where neither the sins, nor the diseases, nor the law- suits of the people, wicked, sickly, and quarrelsome as the world is, can possibly give them all bread.
Jena is comparatively free from this form of liberal- ity; the princes who founded it have always been too poor to be nursing fathers to the church, in this sense of the words. The only eleemosynary institution is the Freytisch, or Free-Table^ which consists in this, that a certain number of students are provided by the uni- versity with dinner and supper at a public table; they must supply all their other wants as they best can. Even the table is not always entirely gratuitous. The senate are in the habit of exacting, frcm such as can afford it, ^ groschen a-day, not quite a shilling weekly; and nearly one-half of the whole number has been known to pay it. The whole number of places is a hun- dred and fifty; thus charitable provision is made for more than one-fourth of all the students attending the university! The alms have now assumed a different form. The young men themselves naturally shrunk from the inferiority with which they were publicly marked in the eyes of their companions, and, stiil more, from the re- straints which dinners and suppers, under academical inspection, laid upon their academical liberty. Their fellow students would not even condescend to fight with them ; and no Hindoo can feel greater horror at loss of Caste, than a Bursche at being thought unworthy to scandalize. This forbearance of their superiors might sometimes proceed from a more laudable motive. They
ISO JENA*
knew, that if one of these poor fellows were detected in a scandal, he might possibly forfeit his place at the free-table ; perhaps, therefore, to avoid seeking quar- rels with them showed more delicacy than supercilious- ness. But to the Knights of the Free-Table this was the severest of all mortifications ; they would not be spared. At the same time, they were perpetually complaining of their provender, and denouncing to the Prorector, the butcher, the baker, the cook, and the superintendent. All these circumstances induced the senate, four years ago, to abolish the institution, and apply the funds to the use of the same students in a different way. To each is allotted a proportional share of the whole sum, and he is allowed to eat where he chooses. He does not receive the money, otherwise it would instantly dissolve in beer ; he selects his table in one of the numerous eating-houses, and, to the amount of the sum to which he is entitled, the univer- sity is security to the landlord.
The sudden diminution of the number of students originated in the murder of Kotzebue, and the wide spread, but extravagant belief, that the whole body of the youth of Jena were infected with the same principles, would exhibit them in similar frightful deeds, if they could only be worked up to the same pitch of devotedness with Kotzebue's assassin, and that even some of her chairs were prostituted to teach sedition, and indirectly, at least, to palliate assassina- tion. It cannot be denied that there was enough in Jena to teach a man very troublesome, because very vague, though ardent political doctrines ; but there was nothing at all to teach him murder. Sand's form- er companions and instructors uniformly speak of him as a reserved, mystical person, who kept aloof even from the noisy pastimes of his brethren. In fact, the storm had long been gathering over Jena. Jena had arranged the Wartburg festival, which was treated as downright rebellion; Jena had given birth to the Bur-
DR. OKEN. 121
schenschaft, an institution of most problematical ten- dency; anjong the professors of Jena liad appeared the periodical publications wliich disturbed the sleep of all the diplomatists of Frankfort and Vienna. The murder ol' Kotzebue, a man, the manner of whose death did Germany more mischief than all the servile volumes he could have written, furnished, unfortunate- ly, too good a pretext for crushing the' obnoxious uni- versity. Jena was proscribed : some of the states ex- pressly prohibited their youth to study there: in all, it was allowed to be known, that those who did would be looked on with an evil eye.
If it be impossible to acquit some of the Professors of having been misled, by tlieir zeal for political ame- liorations, incautiously to countenance the extravagan- ces of their pupils, the imprudence has brought a severe punishment on all ; — for all have suffered most sensibly from the diminution in the number of students. They have been attacked, too, with suspensions, de- positions, and threats. Fries, the Professor of Me- taphysics, attended the festival on the Wartburg, where the students burned certain slavish books ; he was suspended from his office, and has not yet been restored. The most unfortunate, as the most impru- dent of all, was Dr. Oken, the Professor of Natural History. The scientific world allows him to be a man of most extensive and accurate learning in all the de- partments of his science. His character is entirely made up of placidity and kindliness; in conversation he seems studiously to avoid touching on political topics ; he is apparently, and the voice of his col- leagues declares him to be in reality, among the most tranquil, mild, easy minded men alive. He, too, was at the Wartburg, and, in the contest of opinion which arose in Germany about the establishment of internal liberty. Dr. Oken, like most of his colleagues, took the liberal side. He was editor of the Isis, a periodical publication devoted entirely to natural science : but he 16
122 JENA.
now befi^an to consecrate its pages to political discus- sion. He wrote galling things, and the manner in which he said them was perhaps more provoking than wiiat was said. From his style of learning, ite was probably the very last man in the university that should iiave meddled with politics ; and, unfortunate- ly, he meddled with them in a more irriiaiing way than any other person. Russia, Austria, and, it is said, Prussia, insisted he should be dismis*-ed as the most dangerous of Jacobins, who was organizing a re- volution in the bosom of the university. The Grand Duke, who loves not harshness, long resisted taking so decisive a step against a man so universally beloved for his personal, and respected for his scientific cha- racter ; but all he could gain was, that Dr. Oken should have the choice of giving up his journal, or resigning his chair. The Professor refused to do either, saying very justly, that he knew no law which rendered them incompatible. His doom was fixed. In June 1819 he was dismissed from his office, without any farther in- quiry, or any sentence of a court of justice. The standing commission of the Weimar paiTiament gave its approbation to the measure at the time, and, as has been already mentioned, when the question was after- wards brought before the whole chamber, that body, to the astonishment of all Germany, voted the dismis- sal to be legfal.
Jt IS unnecessary to say, that the fall of the Profes- sor increased the idolatry of the Burschen towards him. On his deposition, they presented to him a silver cup, Avbich he displays on his frugal board with an honest pride, bearing the inscription, Wermuth war Dir gebo- then ; trinke WeinJ^ A person in Weimar, who had cultivated natural history, left behind him, at his death, a valuable collection of foreign and native insects, which his widow wished to sell. No sooner did the
* Wormwood was offered thee; drink wine.
PROFESSOR LUDEN. 123
students learn that Oken was in treaty for It, than they purchased it at their own expense, and presented it to him in the name of the Bursclix^n. The patience and equanimity with which he has borne his misfor- tune have concihated e\cry body. The Isis, reclaim- ed from her political wanderings, has returned to chemistry and natural history, with equal benefit to her master, and to the sciences; and all join in the hope, that Dv. Oken will soon be restored to the chair which he filled so usefully.
Luden, Professor of History, would probably have shared the same fate, had he not read the signs of the times more accurately, and retired seasonably from the contest. In his own department, he has justly the reputation of being one of the best heads in Germany. He possesses great learning ; he is acute, nervous, and eloquent, occasionally intolerably caustic, and some- times over-hasty and fiery in his opinions, or rather in de- fending them. The party that numbers Luden among its champions is sure to be deficient neither in learning, nor logic, nor wit. His class has always been the most numerously attended in the university, for the marrow of his prelections consists, not in narrations of historical facts which any body can read in a book, but m elu- cidations and disquisitions springing out of these facts, which, if not always correct, are always clever. He is an idolater of Sir William Temple, of whom he has written a life. " If 1 know any thing," said he, one day in his lecture, "of the spirit of history, or if I have learned to judge of political institutions and poli- tical conduct, it is to Sir Wjlliam Temple that I owe it all." In the beginning of 1814, when Germany was about to put forth all her power to banish the long endured domination of France, Luden began the pub- lication of his Nemesis. As its name imports, the great object of the journal was to rouse and keep alive the public feeling, and it is said to have been wonderfully successful. After the general peace arose
124 JENA.
internal political irritation. The Nemesis, having noth- ing more to do with France, now became the bulwark of the liberals of Germany. The opposite party dreaded it more than any other, both from the talent which it displayed, and the weight of the editor's character, who was well known to be no visionary, and to be perfectly master of the subjects that were treated in his journal. Neither did it give them the same convenient handle as the imprudent Isis ; for it indulged in nothing personal, or irritating, or disre- spectful. It was no book for the many; it dealt only in sober political disquisitions, and erudite historical il- lustrations, tainted with a good deal of that metaphy- sic which belongs to all German politicians. Perhaps these very qualities rendered a victory over the Nemesis indispensable, and Luden's unfortunate colli- sion with Kotzebue furnished too good an opportunity for at least harassing the editor.
An article in the Nemesis, written by Luden him- self, in which he took a view of the condition and policy of the leading European powers, ccntalned some remarks on the internal admiiilstration and foreign policy of Russia, — not, indeed, in the style of eulogy, but just as little in that of Insult or disrespect. Kot- zebue was finishing his second report to the Emperor of Russia on the occurrences of German literature, "when this tract came under his eye. Already in open war with all universities and all professors, he inserted a very partial and unfavourable notice of it in his bul- letin, suppressing every thing respectful or laudatory that was said ol Russia, setting every thing censorious in the most odious light, and accompanying the whole "with virulent remarks, equally injurious to the public and private character of the author. Kotze hue's re- ports were written in French, and were transcribed by a person m Weimar, before being sent to St. Pe- tersbiirgh. The copyist was no adept in French ; and being doubtful of some passages, he requested his
PROFESSOR LUDEN. 125
neighbour, Dr. L , to read them for lilm. It so
happened that these sentences were among the most virulent against Luden, of whom Dr. L was an in- timate accpiaintance. The lattei-, struck with their cliaracter, prevailed on llie copyist to leave the manu- script with him for a few hours, transcribed all that related to his friend, and sent it oiFto Jena. A new number of the Nemesis was in the press ; Luden sent the extracts from Kotzebue's report to be printed in it, accompanied with a very ample and bitter com- mentary. This journal was printed in Weimar; Kot- zebue learned, it was never discovered how, that a portion of his bulletin, and a portion which he was not at all desirous that Germany should know, was to ap- pear in the next number; and, on his apjjhcation, the Russian Resident demanded that this alleged violation of private property should be prevented. Count Ed- ling, who was at that time foreign minister, immediately ordered Bertuch not to proceed with the printing of that number of the Nemesis. But it so happened, that great part of the impression was already thrown otT; and, as there was no order not to publish^ the printed copies were sent to Jena to be distributed. Kotzebue stormed ; all the numbers of the Nemesis, containing the obnoxious article, were seized and con- demned. The seizure was in vain, for Oken immedi- ately republished it in the Isis. The Isis was seized and condemned, and Wieland immediately reprinted it in his "Friend of the People."* This journal, too, was seized and condemned ; but the matter was by this time over all Germany. Kotzebue, detected in his malevo-
* This was the son of the great Wieland. He had some talent, but was unsteady, llis " Friend of the People" was suppressed ; then he tried to re-establish it under the title of ^' The Friend of Princes," — but various princes would have nothing to do with such friends; then it assumed the name of '^ The Patriot;" but no print- ed Proteus can escape a vigilant Police, and at last Wieland died, just at the proper time, when he had nothing to do.
126 JENA.
lence, thwarted in all his attempts at suppression, and the object of general dislike, v\as exasperated to the utter- most. He railed at the government of Weimar, in good set terms, threatened the grand duchy with the vengeance of the Russian Autocrat, and retired, fum- in<2;', to Manheim. Criminal proceedings were institut- ed against Luden ; the court at Weimar sent the case for judgment to the University of Leipzig, which con- demned the professor to pay a fine, or go to prison for three months ; but, on an appeal to the supreme court at Jena, the centence was reversed. It was now his turn to attac!:. He prosecuted Kotzebue for de- famation ; v.nd the cojrt at Weinaar, which seems to have been dotsrmined to keep clear of the matter altogether, sent the case to the juridical faculty of Wiirzburg. That university ordained Kotzebue to recant what he had written egainst Luden, as being false and injurious, and to pay the costs of suit. The progress, and, still more, the judicial termination of this affair could not be agreeable to the court of St. Petersburgh, v/hose influence, from family connections, must always be powerful at Weimar. Harassed by the troublesome consequences of the quarrel, foresee- ing the progress of the policy, that, in a few months, introduced a censorship, under which he would have disdained to proceed, and apprehending, perhaps, a similar fate to that which so soon overtook Dr. Oken, Professor Luden gave up together the struggle and the Nemesis.
PEASANTRY. * 127
CHAPTER IV.
WEISSENFELS — LEIPZIG — DRESDEN.
Gott segne Sachsenland,
Wo fest die Treue stand
In Sturm und Nacht.
Saxon Kational Hymn.
From Weimar, the territory of the grand duchy still stretches a dozen miles to the northward, along the great commercial road between Frankfort and Leipzig, till it meets the southern frontier of Prussia, on the summit of the Eckartsberg, a woody ridge into which the country gradually rises, and from time im- memorial a chace of the House of Weimar. There is less culture, and less population, than in the southern districts, for the country is cold and hilly. The villa- ges are generally in the hollows, on the bank of some small stream, rural enough in their accompaniments, but frequently betraying in themselves utter penury. One wonders where the people come from wno pay the taxes in this country. Districts have been known to pay in agricultural produce, from inability to raise money. It can only be an incorrigible attachment to old habits, that induces the peasantry still to use so much wood in building their cottages, where stone is abundant, fuel scarce and expensive, and fires frequent and destructive. A watchman, appointed for the spe- cial purpose, (Dcr Feuerwachtcr,) looks out all night from the tower of the old castle in Weimar, to give the alarm if fire appear within his horizon. 1 have seen a village of fortj-eight houses reduced to a heap of aslies in a couple of hours, except the church, which was of stone. From the materials used in building and roofing, and the connection of the houses
128 DR. MULLNER.
with each other, every peasant is exposed, not only to his own mischances, but to those, hkewise, of ail his neighbours ; for, if one house in the village take fire, the probabihty always is, that very few will escape. Yet the peasant will rather run the risk of having his house burned about his ears twice a-year, than be at the expense of insuring it. In the last session of the Landtags a plan was introduced for establishing an in- surance company by public authority, the insurance in which should be compulsory. It no doubt sounds strange to talk of compelling people to do themselves a good turn; but, without some similar intervention of public authority, the want of capital and enter[)rlse is •a sufficient bar to the establishment of such institu- tions.
At Welssenfels, which has its name (the White Rock) from the range of precipices whose foot is washed by the Saal, the stranger regaids with much indiiference, in the vaults of the old castle, the cum- bersome coffins of uninteresting princes, and visits with reverence the apartment in which tlie bleeding body of Gustavus Adolj)hus was deposited after the battle of Lutzen. An inscription, commemorating the events records, among other things, that tlie heart of the hero weighed ten pounds some ounces. Part of the wall of the room had been stained with his blood, and it was long anxiously preserved, till the plaster was cut out, and carried off by Swedish soldiers. The spot itself is still religiously protected against all white- washings, and covered by a sliding pannel, retains its old dlrtv hue.
Dr. Mullncr, the great living dramatist of Germany, honours Welssenfels with his residence. He is a doc- tor of laws, and an advocate, a profession which sup- plies tragedy writei's in more countries than one ; but he gets into so many disputes, with neighbours and booksellers, that he is jocularly said to be his own best client. He certainly lias more of the spirit of poetry
HAUG. 129
in him than any of his living rivals, except Gothe ; but many of his finest passages are lyric, rather than dra- matic. His appearance betokens nothing of the soul which breathes in his tragedies. He was still in bed at mid-day, for he never begins his poetical labours till after midnight. He spends the hours of darkness with the ladies of Parnassus, disturbs the whole neighbour- hood by the vehemence witli which he declaims his newly composed verses, and late in the morning re- tires to bed. He speaks willingly of his own works, and seems to have a very proper sense of their merits. His general humour is extremely dry and sarcastic. Gdthe had sent him over from Weimar a number of Blackwood's Magazine, containing a critique on the Schuld^ with specimens of a translation. He took Blackwood to be the name of the author of the Maga- zine, and a distinguished literary character; nor did he seem to give me his full belief, when I assured him, that that gentleman was just a bookseller and publisher like his friend Brockhaus in Leipzig. He was overjoyed to learn that we have more than one translation of Leonora, for *' the yelpers," he said, were beginning to allege, that Burger had stolen it from an old Scottish ballad. We cannot claim that honour, but some of Dr. Mullner's brethren plunder us without mercy or acknowledgment. A very meritorious piece of poetry was once pointed out to me in the works of Haug, the epigrammatist, as a proof that the simple ballad had not died out with Schiller. It was neither less nor more than a translation of our own delicious " Barbara Allan," whom Haug had converted, so far as I recol- ' lect, into " Julia Klangen."
Haug has written too many epigrams to have writ- ten many good ones ; they want point and delicacy. He has no fewer than an hundred on the Bardolphian nose of an innkeeper who had offended him. One of his best is in the form of an epitaph on a lady of rank and well known gallantry, and the idea is new :
17
ISO LUTZEN.
As Titus thought, so thought the fair deceased, And daily made one happy man, at least.*
It was in the name of the same lady, who spoke much too boldly ol" her contempt for the calumnies of the world, that he afterwards sung, —
" I wrap me in my Tirtue's spotless vest;*' That's what the world calls, going lightly dressed.
The difference between courtship and marriage has been the theme of wits since the first bride was won, and the first epigram turned. Haug does not belie his trade :
She. You men are angels while you woo the maid, But devils when the marriage-vow is said.
He. The change, good wife, is easily forgiven ; We find ourselves in hell, instead of heaven.
A continued plain extends from Weissenfels to Leip- zig. At Lutzen, the road runs through the field on which Gustavus and Wallenstein, each of them as yet unconquered, brought their skill and prowess to the trial against each other for the first, the last, the only time. Close by the road is the spot where Gustavus fell under repeated wounds, buried beneath a heap of dead piled above his corpse in the dreadful conflict which took place for his dead body. A number of unhewn stones, set horizontally in the earth, in the form of a cross, mark the spot. On one of them is rudely carved in German, " Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, fell here for liberty of conscience." A shapeless mass that rises from the centre of the cross, and, since that day, has been called "The Stone of the Swede," bears merely the initials of the monarch's name. Though in a field, and close upon the road*
* Hier schlummert die wie Titus dachte. Und tjiglich einen gliicklich machte.
LEirZIG. 151
neither plough nor wlieel has been allowed to profane the spot. Some pious liand has planted round it a lew poplars, and disposed within the circle some rude ben- ches of turf, where the wanderer may linger, musing on the deeds and the fate of a heroic and chivalrous monarch. This rude memorial, standing on his "death- bed of fame," produces a deeper I'eeling of reality and veneration than many mountains of marble — than " sculptured urn and monumental bust," — so powerful are the associations which locality can call up.
Immediately beyond Lutzen, Royal Saxony begins to " rear her diminished head," — a portion of Germa- ny, which, in the arts and elegancies of life, as well as in industry, acknowledges no superior. Leipzig gives at once full proof of the latter. The banker, the mer- chant, and the bookseller, would assuredly find in it a great deal that is worthy his notice ; but to the tra- veller who has none of those sources of interest, it pre- sents, after Frankfort, little that is new. To any oth- er foreigner, a town like the one or the other is infi- nitely more amusing than to a Briton ; for to the for- mer it is novel and unique, and hence the wonderment with which they speak, and the pride with which they boast of it. The German, the Russian, the Pole, the Austrian, the Italian, the Swiss, and, in an hundred in- stances, the Frenchman, has seen nothing like such a scene of commercial activity, and possibly will see no- thing like it again : — such regiments of bales, such mountains of wool-packs, such firmaments of mirrors, such processions of porters and carters, are to him a new world ; and when the novelty has worn off, he forms his opinion of the place, at last, according as he has been seeking money or amuseuient. But to a Briton, fresh from his own country, the chandler's shop of Europe, and the weaving factory of the universe, a town like Leipzig has not even the charm of novelty in what renders it striking and interesting to most other people. Only individual groupes now and then attract his notice.
ISfi LEIPZIG.
Leipzig does not equal Frankfort in pomp and bus- tle, but it is a much more imposing and better built town. There is an odd mixture of the old and the new, which is far from producing any unpleasant effect. Few towns exhihit so much of the carved masonry which characterized the old German style of building, joined with so much stateliness. The whole wears an air of comfort and substantiality, which accords excel- lently well with the occupations and character of the inhabitants. Many of the shops would make a figure even in London ; but then they are full of English wares, and many of those who frequent them are full of English mannerism. The dandyism of Bond Street lounges at the desks and behind the counters of Leip- zig, in more than its native exaggeration. The more sober inhabitants, well acquainted with our imitation- shawls, denominate these young countiymen of their own, Imitation-Englishmen. But Frankfort has im- measurably the advantage inevery thing outside of the town. The level, well-cultivated, monotonous country round Leipzig, poor in natural beauty, but rich in his- torical recollections, abundantly supplies the wants, without olFering any thing to gratify the taste, of the citizens. The field where Gustavus took vengeance on the ferocious Tilly, for the sack of Magdeburg — ihe field where Gustavus himself fell — the field where, in our own day, united Germany " broke her chains on the oppressor's head," all surround this peaceful mart of commerce. Leipzig has seen more blood shed in its neighbourhood, and more merchandize pouring wealth through its streets, than any other city of Germany.
Many parts of the city still bear distinct traces of the obstinate conflict which took place, when the Al- lies, in the heat of victory, forced their way into the town. The houses in the principal streets of the su- burb through which the infuriated Prussians advanced, are riddled with shot ; and the inhabitants, far from wishing to obliterate these memorials of the Fo'i
THE CITY. 135
schlacht, or Battle of the People, as they term It, have careful!}' imbedded in the walls cannon-balls which had rebounded. The Elster, which runs through part of the suburbs, and occasioned the fujal destruction of the French army, is in reality but a ditch, and neither a deep nor a broad one. Where it washes the garden of Mr. Reichenbach's summer pavihon, it received Po- niatowski, who, already wounded, took his way through the garden, when all was lost, and sunk, with his wound- ed horse, in this apparently innocuous rivulet. A plain stone marks the spot where the body was found; and, in the garden itself, an unadorned cenotaph has been erected by private affection to the memory of the Po- lish chief.
In the cemetery, one of the largest and most homely in Europe, whose most interestuigg'ave is that c»f Gel- lert, the pious father of German literature, I observed an old epitaph, extremely characteristic of the reign- ing spirit of the place, but in much too light a strain to be imitated, though undoubtedly the writer held it, in his day, to be a very ingenious combination of piety and bank business. It is in the form of a bill of ex- change for a certain quantity of salvatiotj, drawn on and accepted by the Messiah, in favour of the mer- chant who is buried below, and payable in heaven, at the day of judgment.
Every citizen of Leipzig boasts of the church of St, Nicholas, and its paintings, as a splendid proof of the good taste of his mercantile city in the arts, and the munificence with which it has cherished them. It has the singular mcrrt of being in the form of a square, a very questionable innovation. The Coiinthian pillars, which separate the j ave from the aisles, are handsome objects in themselves, but the barbarous or fantastic architect has enveloped the capitals in sprawling bun- ches of palm leaves, a deplorable substitute for the acanthus. He seems to have had some idea in his head of making the roof appear to rest on palm trees. In
134 LEIPZIG.
general, it is difficult to judge of architectural beauty in the interior of a Protestant church, provided with all its accommodations ; for the arrangements required, or supposed to be required, bj the Protestant service, are frequently incompatible with architectural effect. The galleries, for example, take all beauty from the pillars which they divide ; and here there is a double tier of them. Santa Maria Maggiore, and San Paolo fuori delle Mura, (while it yet stood,) present the no- blest architectural perspectives in Europe ; but what would become of them, if their pillars were loaded with galleries?
The altar-piece of this church, as well as the host of Scriptural paintings which cover the walls of the choir, are all from the pencil of Oeser, an artist of the last century, who enjoyed, in his day, a reputation which the church of St. Nicholas does not justify. To the uninitiated eye, at least, his productions here are defi- cient in expression, in effect, and variety of grouping, and languish under a we;ik monotonous colouring. The modern German painters have very generally forsaken the department in whic-i the old artists of their country performed such wonders : that palm has passed to Scotland. Labouring to form themselves, as it is styled, after the Italian masters, they degenerate into insipid mannerists, and fill the world with eternal repetitions of Madonnas and Holy Families.
As Frankfort monopolizes the trade in wine, so Leip- zig monopolizes the trade in books. It is here that every German author (and in no country are authors so numerous) wishes to produce the children of his brain, and that, too, only during the Easter fair. He will submit to any dep^ree of exertion, that his work may be ready for publication by that important season, when the whole brotherhood is in labour, from the Rhine to the Vistula. Whatever the period of gestation may be, the time when he shall come to the birth is fixed by the Almanack. If the auspicious moment pass away.
THE BOOK-TRADE. 135
he willingly bears his burden twelve niontiis longer, till the next advent of the Bibllopolical Lucina This periodical littering at Leipzig does not at all arise, as is sometimes supposed, from all or most oi" the books being printed there ; Leipzig has onlv its own propor- tion of printers and publishers. It arises from the manner in which this branch of trade is carried on. in Germany. Every bookseller of any eminence, through- out the Confederation, has an agent or commissioner in Leipzig. If he wishes to procure works which have been published by another, he does not address himself directly to the publisher, but to his own commissioner in Leipzig. The latter, again, whether he be ordered to transmit to another books published by his principal, or to procure for his principal books published by another, instead of dealing directly with the person from whom he is to purchase, or to whom he is to sell, treats only with his Leipzig agent. The order is re- ceived by the publisher, and the books by the purchaser at third hand. The whole book-trade of Germany thus centres in Leipzig. Wherever books may be printed, it is there they must be bought; it is there that the trade is supplied. Such an arrangement, though it employ four persons in every sale instead of two, is plainly an advantageous arrangement for Leip- zig; but the very fact, that it has subsisted two hun- dred years, and still flourishes, seems to prove that it is likewise found to be beneficial to the trade in oreneral. Abuses in public institutions may endure for centuries ; but inconvenient arrangements in trade, which affect the credit side of a man's balance-sheet at the end of the year, are seldom so long-lived, and German book- sellers are not less attentive to profit than any other honest men in an honest business.
Till the middle of the sixteenth century, publishers, in the proper sense of the word, were unknown. John Otto, born at Niirnberg in 1510, is said to be the earliest on record who made bargains for copy-right, without
136 LEIPZIG.
being himself a printer. Some years afterwards, two reWlar dealers in the same department settled m Leip- zig, where the university, already in high fame, had produced a demand for books, from the moment the art of printing wandered up from the Rhine. Before the end of the century, the book-iair was established. It prospered so rapidly, that, in 1600, the Easier cata- looue, which has been annually cjatinued ever since, was printed for the first time. It now presents every year, in a thick octavo voluine, a collection of new books and new editions, to which there is no parallel in Europe. The writing public is out of all proportion too large for the reading public of Germany. At the fair, all the brethren of the trade flock together in Leipzig, not only from every part of Germany, but from every European country where German books are sold, to settle accounts, and examine the harvest of (he year. The number always amounts to several hun- dreds, and they have built an exchange for themselves. Yet a German publisher has less chance of making great profits, and a German author has fewer pros- pects of turning his manuscript to good account, than the same classes of persons in any other country that knows the value of intellectual labour. There is a pest called JVachdruckerei, or Reprinting, which gnaws on the^vitals of the poor author, and paralyzes the most enterprising publisher. Each State of the Confedera- tion has its own law of copy-right, and an author is secured against piracy only in the state where he prints. But he writes for all, for they all speak the same lan- i^uage. If the book be worth any thing, it is imme- diately reprinted in some neighbouring state, and, as the pirate pays notliing for copy-right, he can obviously afford to undersell the original publisher. Wirtemberg, though she can boast of possessing in Cotta one of the most honourable and enterprising publishers of Ger- many, is peculiarly notorious as a nest for these birds of prey. The worst of it is, that authors of reputa-
PIRATICAL PRINTERS. 137
tion are precisely those to whom the system is most fatal. The re printer meddles with nothing except what he already knows will find buyers. The rights of unsaleable books are scrupulously observed ; the honest publisher is never disturbed in his losing specu- lations ; but, when he has been fortunate enough to become master of a work of genius or utility, the pira- tical publisher is instantly in his way. All the states do not deserve to be equally involved in this censure ; Prussia, I believe, has shown herself liberal in protect- ing every German publisher. Some of the utterly in- significant states are among the most troublesome, for reprinting can be carried on in a small just as well as in a great one. The bookseller who published Rein- hardt's Sermons was attacked by a reprint, which was announced as about to appear at Reutlingen, in Wirtem- berg. The pirate demanded fourteen thousand florins, nearly twelve hundred pounds, to give up his design. The publisher thought that so exorbitant a demand justified him in applying to the government, but all he could gain was the limitation of the sum to a thousand pounds.
Such a system almost annihilates the value of litera- ry labour. No publisher can pay a high price for a manuscript, by which, if it turn out ill, he is sure to be a loser, and by which, if it turn out well, it is far from certain that he will be a gainer. From the value, which he might otherwise be inclined to set on the copy-right, he must always deduct the sum which it probably will be necessary to expend in buying off re- printers, or he must calculate that value on the sup- position of a very limited circulation. At what rate would Mr. Murray pay Lord Byron, or Mr. Constable take the manuscript of the Scottish Novels, if the sta- tute protected the one only in the county of Middlesex, and the other only in the county of Edinburgh ? Hence it is that German authors, though the most industrious, are likewise the worst remunerated of the writing tribe.
18
138 LEIPZIG.
I have heard it said, that Gothe has received for some of his works about a louls d'or a sheet, and it is certain that he has made much money by them ; but I have often Hkewise heard the statement questioned as incre- dible. Burger, in his humorous epistle to Gokingk, es- timates poetry at a pound per sheet; law and medi- cine at five shillings.
The unpleasing exterior of ordinary German print- ing, the coarse watery paper, and worn-out types, must be referred, in some measure, to the same cause. The publisher, or the author who publishes on his own ac- count, naturally risks as little capital as possible in the hazardous speculation. Besides, it is his interest to di- minish the temptation to reprint, by making his own edition as cheap as may be. The system has shown its effects, too, in keeping up the frequency of publi- cation by subscription, even among autliors of the most settled and popular reputation. Klopstock, after the Messiah had fixed his fame, published in this way. There has been no more successful publisher thanCot- ta, and no German writer has been so well lepaid as Gothe; yet the last Tiiblngen edition of Gothe himself is adorned with a long list of subscribers. What would we think of Byron, or Campbell, of Scott, or Moore, publishing a new poem by subscription?
Mr, Brockhaus is allowed to be the most efficient publisher in Leipzig, and consequently among the first in Germany. He is a writer, too, for, on miscellane- ous, particularly political topics, he frequently suj)plles his own manuscript. He is supposed to have made a fortune by one w^ork on which he ventured, the Con- versationS' Lexicon^ a very compendious EncyclopEedia. The greatest fault of tlie book is a want of due selec- tion ; personages of eternal name, and topics of immu- table interest, are continclcd or omitted, to make way for men and matters that only enjoy a, local and passing notoriety. Even a Bntannica, u'ith a Supplement, should not waste its pages en short-lived topics, and
MR. BROCKIIAUS. 139
only the qtiinta pars neclaris of human knowledge and biography should be aci'.nitted into an Encyclopaedia of ten octavo volumes. The book, however, has had a very extensive cu'culation, and often forms the whole library of a person ui the middling classes. It would have proved still more lucrative, had the writers, among whoij» are many of the most [)opular names of Germany, shown greater deference to the political creeds of the leading courts. The numerous political articles, not merely on subjects of general discussion, but on receiii events, im[)ortant and unimportant, are all on the liberal side of the question ; moderate, in- deed, argumentative, and respectful, but still pointing at the propriety of political changes. The book was admitted into tiie Russian* dominions only in the form of an cditio cusligata ; from this tree of knowledge were carefully siiaken all the fruits which might enable tlie nations to distins^uish between g^ood and evil before it was allowed to be transplanted beyond the Vistula. Even in this ameliorated state, it began to be regard- ed as, at least, lurid, if not downright poisonous, and ultimately it was prohibited altogether.
Brockliaus is, by way of eminence, the liberal pub- lisher of Germany. He shuns no responsibility, and stands in constant communication with all the popular journalists and pamphleteers. His Zcitgenosse^ or /V ho. Contemporary, was a jomnal entirely devoted to poli- tics. It frequently contained translations of leading political articles from the Edinburgh Review; and these, again, were sometimes reprinted and circulated as pamphlets. The Hermes is of the same general character, a quarterly publication, which apes in form, as well as matter, one of our most celebrated journals. In 1821, his weekly journal. The Conversations-Woch' enblatt^ was prohibited in Berlin, and shortly aiterwards, it was thou>;ht necessary to erect a separate depart- ment of I he Censorship for the sole purpose of exam- ining and licensing Brockha\is's publications. The pre-
140 DRESDEN.
hibition was speedily removed, and I believe (but I had left Berlin before it happened) that likewise the se- parate censorial establishment was of brief duration. Brock haus has brought himself out of all political em- barrassments, with great agility and good fortune, and still rails on at despots and reprinters.
Beyond Leipzig the small river Mulda is crossed by a ferry, and that, too, on the great road which con- nects Leipzig with Dresden, Bohemia, Silesia, and Austria. There is no sufficient excuse for this most inconvenient arrangement. The Mulda is a trifling stream in comparison with the Elbe, and is less exposed to inundations; yet no difficulty has been found in building even stone bridges across the Elbe. It is on a solid, though somewhat clumsy structure of this kind, that you pass the river at Meissen; and, though still a dozen miles from Dresden, you are already in the coun- try, which, by its mixture of romantic nature with the richest possible cultivation, has acquired to Dresden the reputation of being surrounded by more delightful environs than any other European capital. All the way to the city the road follows the Elbe, which pours its majestic stream between banks of very opposite character. The left rises abrupt, rocky, woody, and picturesque ; the right swells more gradually into graceful and verdant eminences, whose slopes towards the river are covered with vineyards. In all these features of natural beauty, the Elbe is inferior to the Rhine, but only to the Rhine, and on the Rhine there is no town where tlie enjoyment always derived from beautiful scenery is so much heightened by the plea- sures of society, and the splendid productions of art. Much as a stranger may have heard of Dresden, the approach to it from this side does not disappoint his expectations. From the rich and picturesque scenery of nature, he enters at once among palaces, passes the Elbe, from the New Town to the Old, on a noble bridge, — a most refreshing sight to a Briton,— -is imme-
DRESDEN. 141
diately stopped by the gorgeous and Imposing pile of the Catholic church, and turns from it to the royal pa- lace. What were once lofty rampaits now bear sj;acious alleys along the river, and in these innumerable laugh- ing groupes are perpetually enjoying the scene, or the shade. The gayely ot the hurrying equipages, the crowd of passengeis, the apparent vivaciiy and hJarily ot the people, give a most favourable first inij)ie&sion of the ''German Florence." It is irue, that such figu- rative terms of comparison are often used very loosely ; but, although a German, be he from tlie north or from the south, is always a very different person frouj an Italian; though the cloudless sky that burns above the Arno be more constant than the sun which shines upon the Elbe; and though the capital of Saxony neither possesses the Medicean Venus, nor has formed schools of painters and sculptors to be the wonders of the world, yet, in its natural beauties, in the character of its inhabitants, in its love of the arts, and what it has done for them, Dresden may be fairly enough said to be to Germany what Florence is to Italy.
The city is divided by the Elbe. Originally it stood entirely on the left bank. That portion is still the largest and most characteristic part of the whole, and, as it contains the palace, is likewise the most fashion- able. The general style of building is simple, austere, and, therefore, when in due dimensions, imposing. It is easily seen, that the Saxon nobles, in building pala- ces, thought chiefly of convenience and duration, not of pillared portals and airy verandas. The houses are lofty, and the streets narrow, as in all old towns in this part of the Continent ; but some of the principal streets are of ample breadth, and lined with very stately, though unadorned buildings. There is not a square, properly so called, in the whole city, except two im- mense market-places, one of which, the Altmarkt, is a fine specimen of the ordinary civil architecture of Ger- many, and does not lose in comparison even with the
143 DRESDEN.
Hofoi Vienna. Here, however, as every where else, ot* late years a love of trivial ornament has been creep- ing in, which assuredly is far inferior to the subst.intial simplicity of former times. People will have pilasters, aye, and pillars, too, and entablatures, and pediments, where there is no space for them; and where, though there were space, they would have no beauty. In our own cities, while public buildings have long been conducted with much good taste in the south, and some aspirations after it seem to be rising in the north, how often do we see a cheese-monger's wares repos- ing in state round the base of — Doric pillars, I suppose they must be called, or flitches of bacon proudly sus- pended from the volutes of the Ionic.
The JYeiistadt, or New Town, on the opposite bank of the Elbe, is more open, for the attachment to nar- row streets was beginning to give way when it was commenced; but it is built in a more trivial style: at least, it has that appearance to the eye; for, as few people of fashion have hitherto emigrated across the Elbe, there is not the same frequent intermixture of stately mansions. The principal street, however, which runs in a right line from the bridge, is the finest in Dresden, Were it better planted, it would more than rival the Linden of Berlin.
The bridge which connects these two parts of the city, striding across the river with eleven noble arches, is the first structure of the kind in Germany. In ar- chitectural symmetry and elegance, it cannot vie with many of the French, or with some of the Italian bridges; but the streaous which these cross are ditches, compared with the magnificent river which pours its waters under the walls of Dresden. There is not a single stone bridge on the Rhine, from where it leaves the Lake of Constance to where it divides itself among the flats of Holland."^" The Danube, at Ratisbonne, is
* I cannot trust to my recollection whether the bridge on the
THE BRIDGE. 143
a much more manageable stream than the Elbe : and, moreover, the bridge at Ratlsboiiue is ugly, unequal, and not even uniform. The good Viennese, so far from attempting to tiirovv a stone bridge across the Danube, Avhere he passes near their capital, extol it as an un- paralleled triumph of art that, a few years age, they built a wooden bi'idge, on stone piers, over a narrow branch of tlie main stream, which washes the walls. The bridges on tlie Oder at Frankfort and Breslau, and that on the Vistula at Cracow, are all of wood. The best proof of the solidity of the bridge of Dresden is, that it has hitherto resisted ice and inundations, both of which are peculiarly destructive on this |;art of the river. The inundations come down from the mountains of Bohemia very rapidly, and, owing to the nature of the country through which the river flows till it approaches the city, with irresistible impetuosity. The northern confines of the Saxon Switzerland arc not more than ten miles above Dresden and the Elbe, till it has quitted this singular district, traverses only deep narrow valleys, or rugged gorges, through which it seems to have opened a passage. There is no breadth of plain, as there is along the Rhine, over which an inundation can spread itself out. The accu- mulated mass of water is hurried down to Dresden with accumulating impetus. I have seen the Elbe rise sixteen feet above its ordinary level within twelve
hours. Such a course in a river is ruinous for brid^res.
- . ~
That of Dresden, which has set the Elbe at defiance, could not resist gunpowder; the French blew uj» the centre arch, to facilitate their retreat to Leipzig. Of course, it was perfectly right to repair it; but why has that barbarous mass of artificial rock, surmounted by an uncouth crucifix, been restored, to disfi^cure the cen-
Rhine at Laiidenbura:, lieJvvpen SchnfTbausen and Raslf, is of wood or s^ione ; but tiiere ibe ri\ or coulil be surmounted bv a briilg^e in- linitely mure eaeii)' than the Elbe at Dresden.
144 DRESDEN.
tre of the brldi^c, after it had fortunately been blown up aiong with ihc arch? It is an incumbrance, and a very ugly one : having been once fairly got rid of, it really did not deserve to be restored. Yet the Em- peror of Russia has thought proper to commemorate, by an iiiscnption, tfiat he restored what disfigures the finest bridge in Germany. The slender iron rail, too, which occupies the place of a balustrade, is altogether trivial. Tiiia is no draw-bridge across a canal.
The prospect from the bridge itself is celebrated all over Germany, and deserves to be so. Whether you look up or down the river, the towers and palaces of the city are pictured in the stream. A lovely plain, groaning beneath population and fertility, retires for a short distance from the further bank, then swells up into an amphitheatre of gentle slopes, laid out in vine- yards, decked with an endless succession of villages and villas, and sliut in, towards the south, by the summits of the Sachsische Schweitz, a branch of the moun- tains of Bohemia.
The royal palace — but who can tell what the royal palace of Dresden is ? — it is composed of so many pieces, running up one street, and down another, and so carefully is every part concealed that might have looked respectable. One sees no order ; the eye traces no connection among the masses of which it is made up, and seeks in vain for a whole. Unfortunate- ly, that portion which, from its situation, could have made some show, — that which fronts the open space at the entrance of the bridge, is the most unseemly of all, and has the air of a prison.
The royal family which inhabits this palace has the best of all testimonies in its favour, that of the peo- ple. Its younger branches, indeed, nephews of the king, are persons of whom scarcely any body thinks of speaking at all ; but the king himself is the object of universal reverence and affect ion. The Saxons, though too sensible to boast of his talents, maintain
THE ROYAL FAMILY. 14^
that he is the most upright prince in Europe ; and all allow him those moral quaHlies which most easily se- cure the affection of a German people, and best de- serve the afFection of any people. Though Napoleon flattered their pride by treating their country with great resj)ect, and even restored, in some measure, the Polish supremacy of the Electorate, by creating for it the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, they are no fonder of France than their brethren; but neither do they con- ceal their grudge against the powers who punished Saxony for Napoleon's kindness, by giving so much of its territory to Prussia. Germans are the very last people with whom partitioning schemes should be tried, for they are the very last that will amalgamate themselves with another. Attachment to his native prince is part of a German's nature ; no man finds so much ditficulty in conquering old atiections and pre- judices.
For a century the Saxons have been accustomed to have a king of a ditferent religion from their own. The electoral crown, which, from the first thesis of Luther, had been the boast and bulwark of the Re- formation, was regained for the church of Rome by the throne of Poland. The difference, however, does not seem to produce any cause of discontent or com- plaint, except that the most important personages about the court are naturally Catholics. The royal family is surrounded by them, and, it is asserted, is studiously kept in the trammels of the priesthood. There is no intolerance, no exclusion of Protestants; but it is not possible for so devout and priest-ridden a Catholic as the king is, to consider the heretical among his courtiers as equally fit companions for the royal presence, and depositaries of the royal confidence, f with the orthodox ; and it is just as little possible, that the Catholic priesthood should not govern ab- solutely so devout a king. Protestantism suffers, too, in another way. Where any portion of the Roman 19
146 DRESDEN.
hierarchy, perhaps of any hierarchy, nestles, the spirit of proselytlsni is immediately aroused. Where it rules a court, and basks in the light of royal favour, it arms itself with much more powerful w^eapons than argu- ment. As the Elector of Saxony was converted by the prospect of a new crown, his subjects may be just as easily converted by the prospect of facilitating their advancement to honours, and offices, and salaries.
In one thing the king and his capital never have agreed, and never will agree ; the king loves quiet and priests, his subjects love mirth and ballet-dancers. This people, abounding in corn and wine, living in a laughing and beautiful country, and infected, in part, by the crowds of strangers, who flock together to ad- mire the riches of their capital, are fond of society and amusement. They are more light-hearted, they have more easy gaiety about them, than the rest of their countrymen ; nor is it soiled by the gross sensu- ality of Vienna. The king has no likmg for aiiy of these things; the passing pleasures of life have no charm for him. This does not arise from his advanc- ed age, for it has always been so ; it is in his charac- ter, and has been greatly fostered by feelings of devo- tion, degenerating almost into the ascetic. The court of Dresden indulges so little in pomp, or even in the ordinary amusements of fashionable society, that one could scarcely discover it to exist, were it not for the royal box in the theatre, and the grenadier guards at the gate of the palace. The Protestant gaiety of the people does not scruple to lay the blame of this se- questered life on the priests. In particular, they al- lege that the ecclesiastics, to insure the continuance of their domination, have educated the princes, not like young men, but like old women; — kept back, no doubt, from much that is bad, but likewise from much more that is good in the world ; allowed to grow up in igno- rance of every thing but what it pleased their bigot- ted and ghostly instructors they should know ; and
THE CHURCHES. 147
thus bent into an unnatural quietude of life, and pas- siveness of characier, which are perhaps not a whit more desirable than a certain degree of irregularity. This is not the social character that will captirate the Saxons. Aiiij^ustus II. was, boih in Poland and Saxony, the most splendid of sovereigns ; under hini, Dresden was "the Masque of Germany." Augustus HI. loved pleasure to extravagance. The present king has hur- ried himself and his court into the other extreme. It was reckoned no small triumph, a few years ago, that the royal countenance was obtained to a mimic tourna- ment, at which the young nobility, armed from the antiquated treasures of the Rustkammer^ tilted valiant- ly, in the arena of the riding-school, at stutied Turks, and fleshed tlieir maiden sabres in pasteboard Sara- cens. If Saxonv has a minister at tlie Sublime Porte, how would he excuse his master, should the Great Turk get into a great passion, as he very reasonably might do, at such amusements being allowed in the court of an ally ?
I observed nothing particularly worthy of notice in the churches of Dresden, either in their architecture or ornaments. Every body toils vou to admire the Frauenkirche^ as being built after the model of St. Peter's ; and it is like St. Peter's in so far as both have cupolas, but no farther. I doubt not but the dome of St. Peter's might be placed, like an extin- guisher, over the whole crowded octangular pile of the Frauenkirche.
The Catholic church, as being devoted to the reli- gion of a very devout royal family, is that on which most splendour has been lavished. It was built, in the earlier part of the last century, on a design of the Italian Chiaveri. The quantity of ornament, and the waved facade, with its interrupted cornices and broken pediments, announce at once the degenerated taste which had appeared in Italy nearly a hundred years before, and erected such piles as the Salute at Venice,
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and the church Delia Sapienza in Rome, which dis- fififures one side of a quadrangle designed by Michel Angelo. The building gains by its situation ; lor it faces the Elbe, just at the entrance of the bridge, un- encumbered by any adjoining edifice, except a black, covered gallery, certainly an unseemly appendage, which, for the convenieiice of the royal family, con- nects it with the })alace. The elevations of the lower part are harmonious, and the eiFect of the whole is gorgeous; but there is a total uant of simplicity and grandeur, and the parapets are bristled round with grim sandstone saints. The more simple and elegant form of thu interior is injured by the galleries lor the accommodation of the c( urt. The royal pew, quite caped in glass, is literall) a hot-house.
It was only here that I observed that decent cus- tom strictly enforced, (which was universal in the ear- lier ages of the church,) of making all females take their places on one side, and all males on the other. During mass, domestics of the royal household, armed with enormous batons, patrole the nave and aisles to enforce the regulation, and remove all pretences as well as opportunities of scandal. The system of sepa- ration was not observed, however, above stairs, among the adherents of the court ; there, the sheep and goats were praying side by side. This decorum, too, has its oriojin in the purity of the royal character, though tru*- ly the citizens of the capital seem to value this most estimable virtue much more lowly than it deserves. His majesty banished from the Temple of Venus at Pilnitz, the [)ortraits of ladies celebrated for their beauty and gallantries, which had given the apartment its name; and he retires every night to his lonely couch in the conviction that Vesta presides over his capital. It is most honourable to himself, that, both by his own example and by police regulations, he has done all in his power to render it a fittir.g abode for the Goddess ; but it is a pity that he should be so ve*
THE CHURCHES. 149
rj much deceived as to the effect of either. At th^ same time, debauchery has not the unblushing notorie- ty of Vienna or Munich.
As all Gern)any praises the music in this church, it must be good, for the Gorn.ans are judges cf music; but, though I heard it in Easter, when the sacred har- mony of Catholics [-uts forih all its powers, I niust con- fess, that little pleasure was derived from the noise of a score of fiddles, which the organ, though built by Silbcrman, could not coi.quer, and the voices of the ciioir, though adorned by that of an Eunuch, could not sweeten. It is not merely the casual associations which may fill the head with reels and country dances, as if it were intended to
Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heaven ;
these are instruments whose tones, to an untutored ear, at least, do not harmonize with feelings of solemnity and devotion; and the crowd of them usually pressed into the service of the church, takes all distinctness and etfect from the vocal music, which in reality be- comes the accompaniment, instead of bcirif^ the princi- pal part of the composition. After hearing Mozart's Kequiem, for example, performed ai Berlin, with the full complement of fiddles, so much did it gain in effect, merely from their absence, that I could scarcely recog- nize the composition when given in Vienna simply by the choir and the organ, exce})t where the trumpet, echoing along the lofty roof of Si. Stephen, seemed to send its notes from the clouds, as it bore up the ac- companiment at.
Tuba nriirum ppRrpfens sonum, Per sepiilchr.i rogicnum, Coget omnes ante tbronum.
Allegri's famed JlJiserere^ as sung in the Sistine chapel at Rome, during Easter, justifies the belief that, for purposes of devotion, the unaided huuian voice is the
150 - DRESDEN.
most impressive of al! instruments. If such a choir as that of his Holiness could always be commanded, the organ itself might be dispensed with. This, however, is no fair sample of the powers of vocal sacred music; and those who are most alive to the '' concord of sweet sounds" forget that, in the mixture of leeling produced bj a scene so imposing as the Sistine chapel presents on such an occasion, it is difficult to attribute to the music only its own share in the overwhelming etfect. The Christian world is in mourning ; the throne of the Pontiff, stripped of all its honours, and uncovered of its royal canopy, is degraded to the simple elbow-chair of an aged priest. The Pontiff himself, and the con- gregated dignitaries of the church, divested of all earthly pomp, kneel before the cross in the unostenta- tious garb of their religious orders. As evening sinks, and the tapers are extinguished one after another, at different stages of the service, the fading light falls ever dimmer and dimmer on the reverend figures. The prophets and saints of Michel Angelo look down from the ceiling on the pious worshippers be- neath; while the living figures of his Last Judgment, in every variety of iniernal suffering and celestial em- joyment, gradually vanish in the gathering shade, as if the scene of horror had closed forever on the one, and the other had quitted the darkness of earth for a brighter world. Is it wonderful that, in such circum- stances, such music as that famed Miserere^ sung by such a choir, should shake the soul even of a Calvin- ist?
Except, perhaps, the Viennese, no people of Ger- many are so fond of being out of doors as the Saxons of Dresden, for none of. its capitals displays so many temptations to allure them; wood and water, moun- tain and plain, precipice and valley, corn and wine, pa- lace and cottage, tossed together in bright confusion, and glowing in a climate which, on this side of the Alps, may well be called genial. The rising ground*
THE SAXON SWITZERLAND. iBi
which form the circle to the south-east, and were the principal scene of the combats and bombardments that terminated in the retreat of the French armj to Leipzig, are the only part of the environs that have any thin^; like tamcness in their character. Where they slope down towards the town, and not much more than a mile from the walls, stands the lonely monument of Moreau, on the spot where he fell. It is merely a square block of granite, surrounded below by large unhewn stones, and bearing on its upper sur- face, a helmet, a sword, and a laurel chaplet. The brief inscription, " The Horo Moreau fell here by the side of Alexander," is worth mentioning, merely to no- tice the audacity with which some ungenerous spirit has dared to violate it. An unknown but deliberate hand has tried to efface the word Hero, and has carv- ed above it, as regularly and as dee pi v as the rest of the inscr;p*'or, the v^uid I'rauui. 80 professionally has it been performed, that it has not been possible to obliterate entirely this degrading exploit of cowardice and malignity. The most partial admirers of that great man may be allowed to wish, that, after so ho- nourable a life, he had fallen on a less questionable field; but the rancour which could desecrate his sim- ple monument, was infinitely more detestable than even the imperial enmity, which honoured with its ha- tred his talents and virtues when alive. A French gentleman, on being asked at Dresden, whether he had yet visited the monument of his countryman, answer- ed with passionate vivacity, " Non ; il n'etoit pas mon compatnote ; car moi, je suis Francais." The French- man who is ashamed of Moreau is a man of whom no- body cari be proud.
The most remarkable part of the neighbourhood, a district that would be remarkable in any country, is the Sachsische Schweitz, or Saxon Switzerland ; and it is visited with astonishment, even after the wonders of the real Switzerland. The latter, indeed, contains
15ft DRESDEN.
infinitely finer and more stupendous things ; for here are no g!aciers, no snowy summits like Mont Blanc or the Jungfrau, no walls of rock lost In the clouds like the Wetterhorner ; but Switzerland contains hoihlng of the same kind. Only Adersbai'h, on the frontier between Silesia anl B jaomia, approaches it, and Aders- bach is still more sinj^ular. The Saxon Switzerland commences about eight miles above Dresden, and fol- lows the course of the Elbe upwards, lying among the mountains which form the boundary between Bohemia and Saxony. A short way above the capital, Pilnltz, a royal residence of historical notoriety, but remarka- ble in no other respect, reflects itself in the waters of the Elbe. About four miles farther up, the valley closes ; the mountains become more lofty and bare ; the majestic river, quitting at length the rugged and mountainous course which has hemmed him in from his birth in the mountains of the Giant, and destined to visitj tl.r- uglioiii tiic rest iji iiis career, only scenes of Industry and fertility, comes forth rejoicing from the gorges which you are about to enter. From this point, up to the frontiers of Bohemia, the rocks in the neighbourhood of the river, principally on the right bank, consisting of a coarse-grained sandstone, are cut in all directions into frightful gorges, as if the chisel had beet] used to hew passages through them. Thsy should rather be called lanes, so narrow are they, so deeply sunk, and so sm)v)thly perpendicular do the gi2:antic walls of rock rise on botii sides. The walls themselves are cut vertically into separate masses, by narrow openings reaching from the summit to the very bottom, as if a cement, w lich once united them, had been washed away. Tliese perpendicular masses, again, are divided and grooved horizontally into layers, or ap-# parent layers, like block^'egularly laid upon each other, to form the wall. The extremities are seldom sharp or angular, but almost always rounded, betraying the conti- nued action of water. They generally terminate in some
%
THE SAXON SWITZERLAND. 15S
singular form. Some have a huge rounded mass re- chning on their summit, which a[)pears scarcely broad enough to poise it ; others have a more regular mass laid upon tliem, hke the astragal of a Doric pillar; others assume the form of inverted pyramids, increasing in breadth as they shoot higher into the air. Occasion- ally they present a still more singular appearance ; for, after tapering in a conical form, to a certain elevation, they begin to dilate again as they rise higher, as if an inverted, truncated cone were placed on a right trun- cated cone, resembling exactly, but on an infinitely greater scale, what often occurs in caverns, where the descending stalactite rests on an ascending stalagmite.
The abyss which lies deep sunk behind the summit called the Bastey, though not so regular as some others, is the most wonderful of all, in the horrid boldness and fantastic forms of its rocks. The Ottor walder Grund is so narrow, and its walls so lofty, that many parts of it can never have felt sunshine. I trode, through the greater part of it, on snow and ice, when all above was warm and cheery, and butterflies were sporting over its frozen bosom. Some small cas- cades were literally hanging frozen in their fall. In one place the walls are not more than four feet asun- der. Some huge blocks, in their course from the summit, have been jammed in between them, and form a natural roof, beneath which you must creep along above the brook on planks, if the brook be small, or wading in water, if it be swollen ; for the rivulet occupies the whole space between the walls in this narrow passage, which goes under the name of *' Hell." When, in one of these lanes, you find an alley striking off on one side, and, having squeezed your body through it, another similar lane, which you soon find crossed by another of the same sort, you might b<;lieve yourself traversing the rude model of some gigantic city, or visiting the ruined abodes of the true 20
154 DRESDEN.
terrae filii,* When, again, from some elevated point, you overlook the whole mass, and see these stiff bare rocks risino: from the earth, manifestin>r, tfiou^h now disjoined, that they once formed one body, you Uii^ht think yourself gazing on the skeleton of a perished world, all the softer parts of which have mouldered away, and left only the naked, indestructible frame- work.
The Bastey^ or Bastion, is the name 2:iven to one of the largest masses which rise close by the river on the right bank. One narrow block, on the \ery sumrni^ projects into the air. Perched on this, not on, but ( e- yond the brink of the precipice, you command a pros- pect w^hich, in its kind, is unique in Europe. Yuu ho- / ver, on the pinnacle, at an elevation of more than eight hundred feet above the Elbe, which sweeps round the bottom of the precipice. Behind, and up along the river on the same bank, rise similar precipitous cliffs, cut and intersected like those already described. From the farther bank, the plain gradually elevates itself into an irregular amphitheatre, terminated by a lofty, but . rounded range of mountains. The striking feature is, that, in the bosom of this amphitheatre, a plain of the most varied beauty, huge columnar hills start up at once from the ground, at great distances from each other, overlooking, in lonely and solemn grandeur, each its own portion of the domain. They are monuments which the Elbe has left standing to commemorate his triumph over their less hardy kindred. The most re- markable among them are the Lilienstein and Konig- 5^e^w, which tower nearly in the centre of the picture, to a height of about twelve hundred feet above the le-
* And once they bad inhabitants. Amon^ the loftiest and most inaccessible of the cliffs which overlook the Elbe, remains of the works of liumah hands are still visible. A band of robbers, by laying blocks across the chasms, had formed bri(!o-es, frail in shiic- ture, and easily removed when security required it ; and, in the iipper floors, as it were, of this natural city, long set regular power at defiance.
THE SAXON SWITZERLAND. 155
vel of the Elbe. They rise perpendicularly from a slop- ing base, formed oi debris, and now covered with natu- ral wood. The access to the summit is so difficult, that an Elector of S.jxony and Kin^ of Poland thought the exj)loit which he performed in scramblmg to the top of the Liliensiein deservmg of being commemorated by arj inscription. Tiie access to the Konigstein is artifi- cial, for it has long been a fortress, bl \ from the strength of its situation, is still a virgin one. Besides these, the giants of the territory, the plain is studded with many other columtiar eminences of the same ge- neral character, though on a smaller scale, and they all bear, from time immemorial, their particular legends — for tiie mountains of Saxony and Bohemia are the na- tive country of tale-telling tradition, the cradle of Gnomes and Kobolds. In the deep rents and gloomy recesses of the Lilienstein, hosts of spirits still watch over concealed treasures. A holy nun, miraculously transported from the irregularities of her convent, to the summit of the JS^onncnsicin, that she might spend her days in prayer and purity in its caverns, is com- memorated in the name of the rock ; and the Jung- Jcrnsprnng, or Leap of the Virgin, perpetuates the me- mory of the Saxon maid, who, when pursued by a bru- tal lustllng, threw herself from the brink of its hideous precipice, to die unpolluted.
CHAPTER V.
DRESDEN'.
% THE AUTS — LITERATURE — CRIMINAL JUSTICE — THE
GOVERNMENT.
Dresden has the advantaa;e of being lively and en- tertaining at all seasons of the year, though the sort of
156 DRESDEN.
persons who produce and enjoy Its pleasures vary most sensibly with the state of the thermometer. The win- ter entertainments of the higher ranks are just what they are elsewhere. Those who find halls, routs, and card-parties dull in other countries, will not find them a whit less so in Saxony. The middle and lower class- es seek their pleasures in the theatre ; for no rank in Germany reckons play-going a sin. Tlie king himself is so extravagantly fond of music, that, besides a regu- lar troop of actors, he supports two operatic compa- nies, one Italian and the other German, and has at the head of his chapel Weber, the first of the living thea- trical composers of Germany, and Morlacchi, who (ills a very respectable rank after the despotic Rossini. Spring comes on, and the native heroes of the w inter disa|)pear, to be replaced by strangers. The great bo- dy of the citizens take their turn in the cycle of amuse- ment, and take it out of doors. On the first of May, as regularly as the year comes round, the royal family removes to Pilnitz. The nobility and gentry, all, in short, who are not too poor, Ay to their country-seats, or the baths of Bohemia ; the superb orangery is brought forth from its winter covering, and set to blos- som round the Zwinger^ in the open air; the picture- gallery is thrown open ; Bottiger commences his pre- lections on ancient statues, in the collection of antiques; foreigners crowd into the city from all parts of Europe ; and Dresden, with its laughing sky, climate, scenery, and people, becomes, for a season, the coffee-house of Germany.
It is to its collection of pictures that Dresden is in- debted for the reputation which it enjoys as the centre of the arts in Germany. Nogallery, on this side of the Alps, deserves, as a whole, to be placed above it. Mu- nich is richer in the choice works of Rembrandt, and, since the acquisition of Nurnberg, likewise in those of Durer ; Brussels can show much finer pictures of Ru- bens ; Potsdam some splendid historical pieces of Van-
THE GALLERY. 15r
dyke ; and Paris, among the straggling glories that still remain to the Louvre, more perfect saiiijjles of one or two of the Itahan masters; but, as a collectiun of ex- cellent pictures, in all styles, none of then) can claim superiority over the royal gallery of Dresden. Tiic Flemish and German schools had been gradually accu- mulating, especially under the magnihcence >vl»lch overwhelmed Saxony fiom the mouicrit her electors mounted the throne of Poland ; but it was poor in the works of the Italian masters, till Augustus 111. raised it at once to its present eminence, by [)urchaslrig, for about L. 180,000, (1,200,000 rix dollars,) the whole ducal gallery of JN'lodena, which contained, among oth- ers, the far-famed Correggios. A good specimen of Raphael was still awanting, and, for something more, it is said, than L. 8,000, (i 7,000 ducats,) a convent at Piacenza was prevailed on to part with his Madonna di San Slsto, which, I suppose, gold could not now pur- chase. While lino^erinoamona: these pfreat productions of a captivating art, it is likewise a pleasing leeling, that they have had the rare fortune to be treated with reverence by e\ery hostile hand. Frederick bombard- ed Dresden, battered down its churches, and laid its streets in ruin, but ordered his cannon and mortars to keep clear of the picture gallery. He entered as a conqueror, levied the taxes, administered the govern- ment, and, with an aiTectation of humility, asked per- mission of the caj)tive Electress to visit the gallery as a stranger. Napoleon's policy, too, led him to treat Saxony with much consideration, and was the ^lardian angel of her picAires. Not one of them made the journey to Paris.
The Outer Gallery,* as it is called, is entirely filled
* The nrran^ement of the building is fonicuhnt peculiar; it is one square within another, as if formed by dividin^^ a very broad gallery running round a square, by buildinfj; within it a partition parallel to the sides of the square. The ho-hts of the outer !=q;i;'.rc are from the street, those of the inner from the court which the
158 DRESDEN.
with the productions of the northern schools, and dis- plays, in an immense number of pictures, all the merits and deficiencies of the masters of Germany, Flanders^ and Holland. The principle of these schools A^as, not to embellish nature, but to imitate her with a'most li- teral precision. Animals, and ol>Jects of still life ; the ingenious effects of artificial, or the chequered play of natural lights and shades ; busy figures, surrounded by household goods, or the implements of a profession ; the grotesque groupes, and gross dissipations of a fair ; the hard-favoured, but expressive countenances, the ale-jugs, and low indelicacies of carousing boors, were transferred to the canvass with an accuracy of imita- tion, and patience of finishing, which have never been rivalled. Such subjects scarcely admitted of embel- lisiiraent ; what existed before the painter's eyes must be copied " severely true ;" no beau ideal sprung into life beneath the pencil of the artist, creating upon the canvas forms which perhaps never existed in nature, but which, nevertheless, are at once recognised to be the perfection of nature. It would be absurd to sup- pose that all the boors of Teniers are portraits, and all his cottage or wedding scenes taken from the life ; so far he must have proceeded on the same principle as if he had been composing a Madonna, and made his boors and vv^eddings what they possibly never Avere, but yet easily might be; but forms of ideal beauty or dignity, and the expression of the higher passions, were not regularly within the sphere, and never constituted the character of the school. Even those masters who
sqnnrc cont«iins. The inner gallery is set apart for the Italian, and the outer is filled with the ultramontane schools — using ultramon- tane in the Italian sense of the term. As the lights come from only one side, care has been taken to place all the good pictures on the opposite side — apparently a very obvious arrangement, yet one, the neglect of which, in many private collections, spoils many excel- lent pictures. The best of all lights is that which comes from above, as partly in the lYibuiie of Florence, and entirely in the upper room at Bologiia^
THE GALLERY. 159
soiiorht immortality in another path, Rubens, for exam- ple, or Kenjbiandt, seldom approach this lofty and captivating ideah Tliey compose their pictures with skill, they seduce the eye by [peculiar charuis of colour- ing, and they may be unrivalled in the artificial manage- ment of light and shade ; yet is the effect produced by their most finished {)ictures not only specifically diffe- rent from what we feel when contemplating the Ma- donna of Raphael, the Saviour or Si. Jerome of Cor- reggio, Fra Bartolomeo's St. Mark, Guido's Aurora, or Titian's Assumption of the Virgin, but is it not one of a more prosaic nature, less imposing to the imagination, less elevating and interesting both to feeling and to taste ?
The pictures of Teniers, Ostade, and Gerard Dow, the northern landscapes of Ruisdael, the vivid groupes of Wouvermann, with his never-failing gvey horse, are all among the most successful and characteristic pro- ductions of these celebrated masters. In Ruisdael's famous Hunt, earth and sky, v^ood and water, speak so feelingly the cold, drizzling haze of a raw autumnal morning in a northern region, that the spectator is happy, on turning from the picture, to find himself in sunshine. Dow and Ostade could not compete with Teniers in effect of grouping and expression of vulgar character, but they are at least his equals in minute- ness of finishing, and surpass him in delicacy and vi- vacity of colouring. There is a beautiful small picture by Gerard Dow, representing a hermit at prayer be- fore a crucifix, at the door of his hut. A book lies open before him, and so industriously is every part finished, that you actually see the letters glimmering through the paper from the opposite page. The most wonderful instance of this finishing and colouring, be- cause it contains the most minute and heterogeneous objects, is an alchyinist's work-shop of Teniers. Ta- bles, stools, chairs, furnaces, alembics of various sorts, dead and dried fishes, stuffed beasts, living mice, boxes
I6i DRESDEN.
of wood and paper, vials of white, and bottles of greey fi^lass; ifi short, a!l kinds of hjniber, utensils, and in- struments, are scattered about in the most grotesque confusion, and every single object is in form and colour- ing the most deceivuig imitation of nature imaginable. His Temptation of St. Anthony, though possessing much of the same excellence, is not equal to those of Hall Breughel.^ The monsters are of the same kind, bat it wants the fantastic richness of Breughel — all the merit, in point of composition, which such a pic- ture can Dossess. Yet Teniers repeated the subject in another picture at Potsdam, and introduced his wife and mother-in-law as devils. With the old lady he kept no measures; but he satyrized his help-mate only by allowing the tip of a tail to peep out from beneath the sweeping train of her gown. Vandyke's portraits of Charles I., of his Queen Henrietta, and their chil- dren, especially the last, are splendid pictures.
There is no very good picture of Rembrandt or Ru- bens. The Judgment of Paris, by the latter, is infe- rior to a hundred of his works even in colouring, and is perhaps tiie very worst of them all in regard to the forms; at least, if there be others in which the forms are absolutely as gross and clumsy as they are here — the Magdalene at Hanover, for example — yet the de- ficiency strikes us in this picture with greater force, because it is a subject from which we expect the most perfect forms of beauty in both sexes. Paris, a heavy, awkward, hard-featured, ploughman-looking fellow, is seated beneath a tree, naked, indeed, but covered with an enormous broad-brimmed hat. He is thus a fitting
* There were two brothers of this name, Hell Breughel^ so call- ed from the delight he took in painting hell and witch scenes, which in general display a grotesque richness of fancy, quite at home in such pictures ; and Velvet Breughel^ who derived his name from the smoothness and softness of his colouring. Their father, too, had a nickname, Peter the Droll^ for he dealt largely in the very broadest comic which even the Dutch school allowed.
THE GALLERY. 161
judge and companion for the three blowsy, fat, flabby wenches, under whom the painter has, it might be im- agined, caricatured the three goddesses. It is no won- der that Paris looks puzzled ; it would require a wiser man to decide which of the three is the Icnst ugly. It is extremely possible tliat many of the trivial pictures which bear the name of this great artist were never touched by his pencil; but, amung i)is undoubted works, there is enough of the same deficiency to convince us, that he shared deeply the general character of the northern schools, a felicitous imitation of nature with- out ennobling her. It was long before he acquired an accuracy in drawing equal to the captivating colouring of which he was master so early. One can scarcely believe the Deposition from the Cross at Antwerp, the Crucifixion of St. Peter at Cologne, or the Ascension of the Virgin, (inferior only to Titian's,) in the gallery at Brussels, to have proceeded from the same pencil which produced so many masses of flesh, flesh, indeed, painted to the life, but in forms more gross and shape- less than even the nymphs of Flemish boors ever were.
Taste is so very flexible a thing, that you may al- most foretell whether an ordinary spectator's inclina- tion will lean to the painters of the south or of the north, according as the one or the other have first taught him to feel and admire the power of the art. Whoever has the treasures of the German and Fle- mish masters opened up to him, only after coming fresh from revelling in the galleries of Italy, to wh se heau- ties memory still returns with the fondness of a first love, is sure to be unjust to the former. In no other way could I account for the superior attractions of the inner gallery of Dresden, which contains the Italian schools, although it can safely rest on its own absolute merits, for there are pictures which Jew and Gentile must be equally loth to quit. Raphael's Madonna di San Sisto " shines inimitable on earth ;" if any picture
21
16£ DRESDEN.
deserves to be placed by its side, it must be his own Transfiguration, or Titian's Assumption of the Virgin in the Academy of Venice, The composition of this wonderful picture is simple in the extreme. The Vir- gin hovers on a cloud, in an upright attitude, with the holy infint in her arms. Tie Pope St. Sixtus, from whom the picture has its name, arrayed in his sacer- dotal robes, kneels upon her right. He looks up to the Virgin in trembling devotion ; every feature breathes pious wonder and self-humiliation ; his clasp- ed hands and withered countenance seem ready to sink beneath the burden of religious awe. St. Barbara kneels on the left; but her youthful and beautiful countenance is lighted up with a mild restrained joy, and is bent towards the earth, as if turning away from the glory that shines round the Madonna In the bot- tom of the picture are seen the heads and breasts of two cherubs, the best, in their kind, which the art has produced. One of them has his little arms folded ; the other is resting his head on one hand. Nature never created, nor could a poet's fancy imagine, more touch- ing forms of infantine innocence and beauty, joined, at the same time, to a tinge of seriousness and awe, which gives them a peculiar character, without being at all unnatural, and falls in delightfully with the whole style of the picture. We feel instantly that these are chil- dren, indeed, but children of a higher order, and em- ployed in a holy service. The Madonna herself, all simplicity and serenity, free from every taint of exag- gerated rapture or affected attitude, floats between the heaven and earth that are mingled in her countenance, clasping her infant to her bosom with the fondness of a mother, and, at the same time, with the dignity of a superior being.
It would be difficult to analyze the impression which the whole composition produces ; in fact, a picture or a statue which can be completely copied in language is seldom worth seeing. Besides the beauty of the
THE GALLERY. 16S
forms, and the vivid and highly diversified expression of countenance, its great enchantment seems to he in the prevaihng tone of mild character, in the heavenly tranquillity that is spread over the whole composition. One always returns with longing from the other famed works of the gallery, to rest on the simple beautv of these matchless lb r ms ; and I almost think it impossi- ble to gaze on this picture without becoming, lor the time, a better man. Like the harp of David, it puts every evil spirit to flight.
After this Madonna are always ranked the ^ve great pictures of Correggio, which formerly adorned the gallery of Modena, and the first place among them is universally assigned to the Night. It re[)resents the holy family at night, illuminated only by the glory which surrounds the infant — and hence its name. The mother and child occupy the centre of the picture, so that the light difluses itself in all directions u[)on the other figures, producing an extremely vivid effect, and giving the personages an incredible degree of relief, by the strong masses of shade against which it is set off*. Only the face and bosom of the mother are illumina- ted, as she bends over the infant on her lap. Three herds form the other groupe. One of them, a girl, starts back in childish astonishment from the superna- tural light ; a coarse herdsman, vv!io contrasts admira- bly with the elegant lorm of the virgin herself, looks in with an almost savage wonder ; the third has his eyes directed to heaven, with a more pleasing expression of admiration and devotion. In the back ground, Joseph fodders the ass ; and, through an opening in the wood- ed landscape, the morning is seen to dawn over the dis- tant country, giving the picture the force of a religious allegory. Artists would probably have some fault to find with every individual figure in the composition ; but the variety of form, and countenance, and charac- ter, all differently lighted up, according to the position in which the personages stand to the infant, work to-
164 DRESIXEN.
gether to form an admirable whole. In fact, the pic- tu 6 has often been set down as Correggio's master- piece ; and certainly, in so far as the effect produced by the artificial management of the light is concerned, he has painted nothing great in the same kind, and no other master has painted any thing equally great. Yet it is doubtlul whether, in the more poetical merits of the art, there are not better pictures of Correggio in Parma. The Madonna di San Girolamo makes an im- pression, not so vivid at first, but much more lasting. Tlje three other great paintings, the St. George, the Si. Francis, and the St. Sebastian, all represent similar groupes, — the virgin and child surrounded by various saints, but all in na^tural lights. St. John, in the second of these, looking out from the picture towards the spec- tator, and pointing to the young Redeemer, is one of the most animated and eloquent of all Correggio's fig- ures. The little picture, the Magdalene reclining on the ground, wrapt up in a blue mantle, and reading a book, is a most simple painting, but inimitable from its very simplicity, its pure beauty of form, and fullness of expression. It derived a greater merit, in the eyes of a certain mason, from the gems with which the frame was thickly set ; he broke into the gallery one night, and stole the picture.
Perhaps it is unfortunate for the effect of these pictures of Correggio, that they are so much alike, and all together. They form, indeed, a series, exemplify- ing the style of the painter in the different stages of its improvement, and this is repeated to you again and again as a great recommendation of the collection : " We have a sample of Correggio in all his styles." But those gradations, which may be extremely dis- cernible and interesting to the artist and connoisseur, are lost on the ordinary spectator, who only asks of a picture that it shall speak to him, and make him feel. If the beauty of the first of them which falls under the eye be properly appreciated, the effect of the others
THE GALLERY. 165
is diminished; for the subjects, the grouping, and the general spirit, are very similar in all of them, and the varieties in the style of colouring are not very strik- ing. The gradations in t!ie style of Correggio are not at all like those of Raphael, one of whose pictures, painted by him while he was under Perrugino, could not easily be recognized as a work of the same master who produced the Transfiguration; they are even much less marked than those of Guido. Moreover, all these pictures, with tne exception of the Magda- lene, represent subjects in which Correggio has less variety than in others. In the Madonna, more than in any other figure, the great painters are easily disco- vered ; for, with all of them, she is more or less pure- ly ideal, and the ideal of a painter of original genius does not readily change. No one, I believe, accustom- ed to the galleries of Rome, Florence, and Bologna, ever found much difficulty in recognizing a Madonna of Raphael, or Guido, or Da Vinci. Correggio is more a copier of himself in the Mother of God than any other artist of equal name. With his Madonnas in your me- mory, look at his portrait of his nn'stress in Potsdam, and you see at once that all the former have been created by ennobling the latter. Raphael occasional- ly made use of his Fornarina to lend a feature for the maiden-mother, but Correggio never forsakes his be- loved ; in all his Virgins of celebrity she is distinctly recognizable ; it is only in the Magdalene that no trace of her is to be found. It would be woeful stupidity to say that Dresden has too much of Corresfio ; thai is impossible; but perhaps it has toornuch of the same subjects; and this, I doubt not, is one reason, why spectators, not artists themselves, are thrown irito much less lively raptures by these pictures than they bad been led to exj)ect. To my own feelings, the Madonna di San Sisto stands at an immeasurable dis- tance above any of them.
Julio Romano's Pan and Satyr is another picture to
166 DRESDEN.
make one wish he had kept to his frescoes, where he seldom failed to be among the foremost. Raphael ne- ver forgot, in his frescoes, the grace and elegance of his oil painting; the scholar, on the other hand, gave himself entirely up to the boldness, and even harsh- ness, so naturally produced by fresco painting, and transferred the same style to canvas, where it is much less in its place. Hence, in so many of his oil paint- ings, there is a roughness ot" execution and colouring, and a want of accurate and finished outline, which are not always redeemed by the boldness of his attitudes and the strength of his shades. A Holy Family, tl ough of somewhat outre composition, representing the in- fant standing in a basin of water, to be washed by his mother, while St. Anne holds a towel to dry him, is a better picture; but still there are hands and feet which would have been allowable only in the War of the Giants, and which Julio's master would not have admitted even in a fresco. There is a copy of the St. Cecilia ascribed to him ; the copy is masterly, but the tradition is uncertain; nor is it easy to believe that a painter so celebrated and so occupied as an original artist as Julio Romano was, can have spent his time on the innumerable copies which are every where current in his name.
The picture which represents a martyr with the fire kindlinp^ p^ ^''^ ferl, and is docribeU lo Michel Angelo, is just such a figure as he would have painted, and pro- bably its very prototype may be found in the Vatican; but it is in oil, a circumstance always injurious to the authenticity of any picture pretending to be from the pencil of an artist who used it so very seldom in oil painting, which he declared to be fit only for women and lazy men. The gallery is weak in the Venetian, and Bolognese, and Florentine schools, though there is one of those voluptuous beauties of Titian, commonly called Venuses, and a very beautiful half figure of St. Cecilia by Carlo Dolce, a favourite subject of copying
THE GALLERY. 167
among the female amateurs. Of Da Vinci, the great father of the Lombard school, there is only a portrait of Sforza, the celebrated usurper of Milan, vvno was too fortunate in having Leonardo to paint him, and Guicciardini to write his history : it is a portrait that belongs to the very firsl class in every respect.
The crowds of copyists which fill the gallery during the summer months, show that the possession of this rich collection Ijas not been altogether favourable to the growth of original genius. A sure and lucrative employment is found in making miniature copies ; ori- ginality of style and composition dies out ; or, when the painter ventures to work after his own taste and imagination, he unconsciously degenerates into manner- ism. Dietrich was a skilful landscape painter, but he possessed a dangerous facility of pencil. Mengs, the first of modern German artists, though by birth a Bo- hemian, is more properly to be given to Italy, where he spent his life. Within these few years, Kiigelchen gained a great name. His pictures are distinguished by great elegance of forms, with much softness and tenderness, a sort of fairy lightness, in the colouring. A murderer cut him off too early. Dresden still con- tains many painters, and a love of the art is widely diffused ; but the painters are copyists, and the love of the art is dilettanteism. During^ summer and au- tumn, the gallery is filled with professional and ama- teur artists, copying the celebrated pictures, or indivi- dual groupes or figures from them, for money or amusement. Many of them, especially of the mere amateurs, are ladies, and here the pride of rank which, in every thing else in Germany, is so unyielding, gives way. The countess pursues her task by the side of her more humble companion, who is copying for her daily bread, under the gaze of every strolling stranger. It is nothing uncommon to find ladies repairing to Dresden from distant capitals, to spend part of the summer in copying pictures.
168 DRESDEN.
One of the most complete collections of copper- plates in Europe, containing every thing that is inter- esting in the history of the art, or valuable for practi- cal excellence, forms a supplement to the pictures. The earliest is of the date of 1466, and is said to be the earliest vet known. What a leap the art takes at once from the uncouth forms of Schonsrauer and Mechlin, to the drawing and finishing of Durer ! it is amusing to observe the minutiae by which the con- noisseur distinguishes an ongmal plate from the copies, often excellent, which have been made of most cele- brated engravings. In a portrait, the graver had slip- ped at a letter in the word Effigies^ so that this letter is accompanied, in the original, by a slight scratch, more diilficult to be observed than the fragment of a hair. The copyist either had not observed the defect, or had thought proper to correct it ; and the absence of this blemish is the only test by which the copy can be distinguished from the original. In an early work of Diirer, which contains a town, the omission of a small chimney, — which is not more than a point,— and, in another, a still slighter variation in the ornaments of a helmet, alone detect the copy. Money is liberal- ly spent in carrying on the series in the works of the modern masters of all countries. Whoever wishes to study the history of this beautiful art, and be initiated into the mysteries of connoisseurship^ can find no bet- ter school than the cabinet of Dresden. It overflows with materials, and is under the direction of a gentle- man, who not only seems to be thoroughly master of his occupation, but has the much rarer merit of being in the highest degree patient, attentive, and communi- cative.
The Saxons, to complete their school of arts, have procured a quantity of ancient sculptures, purchased and begged from different quarters of Italy, and casts in fijypsum of the great works, which could neither be bought nor begged. The latter are from the hand
THE GREEN VAULT. 169
of Mcn^s himself, and, besides perfect accuracy, many parts of the figure, such as the hair, are finished with a much higher degree of industry and precision llian is usually found in this department of the plastic art. Both collections are under the direction of Bottiger, than whom Germany recognizes no greater name in every thing connected with ancient art and classical antiquities. With, perhaps, less taste in the arts themselves, he is allowed to be master of much more extensive and profound erudition concerning them, than VVinckelman, in whom his Contributions to tke History of Ancient Paintings corrected many errors, and supplied many deficiencies. This erudition, which Heyne and Wolif in vain urged him to lay out in some great work, instead of squandering it, by fits and starts, among a hundred different subjects in tracts and re- views, is quite in its place in his lectures, or even in the Abendzeitung^ the polite journal of Dresden, which is often made the vehicle of his lucubrations ; but it is formidable to a listener in ordinary conversation. When Bottiger bends his head, and half shuts his eyes, the hearer may reckon on encountering a flood- tide of erudition and superlatives, which, however, the kindliness and simplicity of the old man render per- fectly tolerable.
It would be unpardonable to pass over in silence the treasures of the Grime Geivolbe, or Green Vault, of which every Saxon is so proud ; and whoever takes pleasure in the glitter of precious stones, in gold and silver wrought, not merely into all sorts of royal orna- ments, but ipto every form, however grotesque, that art can give them, without any aim at either utility or beauty, will stroll with satisfaction through the apart- ments of this gorgeous toy-shop. They are crowded with the crowns, and jewels, and regal attire of a long line of Saxon princes; vases and other utensils seem to have been made merely as a means of expending gold and silver ; the shelves glitter with caricatured: 22
170 DRESDEN.
urchins, whose body is often formed of a huge pear], or an et;r-shell, the (irnbs being added in enamelled gold. The innumerable carvings in ivory are more interesting, as memorials of a diflicult art, which was once so highly esteemed in Germany, and of ti)e minute labour with which German artists could mould the most reluctant materials into difficult forms. One is dazzled by the quantity of gems and precious meta)s that glare around him ; he must even admire the in- genuity which has fashioned them into so many orna- ments and unmeaning nick-nacks; but there is nothing that he forgets more easily, or that deserves less to be remembered.
The Rustkammer, too, (the armoury,) is not merely a museum, containing a few specimens of what sort of things spears and coats of mail were, but is just what a well-stored armoury must have been in the days of yore. Were Europe thrown back, by the word of an enchanter, into the middle ages. Saxony could take the field, with a duly equipped army, sooner than any other power. We cannot easily form any idea of the long practice which must have been necessary to ena- ble a man to wear such habiliments with comfort, much more to wield, at the same time, such arms with agility and dexterity. But the young officers of those days wore armour almost as soon as they could walk, and transmigrated regularly from one iron shell into another, more unwieldy than its predecessor, till they reached the full stature of knighthood, and played at broadsword with the weight of a twelve pounder on their backs, as lightly as a lady bears a chaplet of silken flowers on her head in a quadrille. There is here a complete series of the suits set apart for the princes of Saxony ; the smallest seemed to be for a boy of ten or twelve years old. It would be difficult to find a man who could promenade in the cuirass of Augustus II., which you can hardly raise from the ground, or sport his cap, which incloses an iron hat
LITERATURE. 171
heavier than a tea-kettle ; but Augustus, if you believe the Saxons, was a second Samson. They have in their mouths innumerable histories of his bodily prow- ess ; such as, that he lifted a trumpeter in full armour, and held him aloft on the palm of his hand ; that he tw isted the iron bannister of a stair into a rope, and made love to a coy beauty by presenting in one hand a bag of gold, and breaking, with the other, a horse- shoe.
Among the reliques is the first instrument with which Schwarz tried his newly invented gunpowder. The fire is produced by friction. A small bar of iron, plac- ed parallel to the barrel, is moved rapidly forwards and backwards bv the hand; above it is a flint, whose ^^^^. is pressed firculy against the upper surface of the bar by a spring ; the Iriction of the llint against the bar strikes out the fire, which falls upon the powder in a small pan beneath.
These are some of the treasures and curiosities, the collections of arts and trifles, which have made the Saxons so proud of their capital, and draw to it men of genius and taste, as well as men of mere idleness and dissipation. The general tone of society bears the same impress of lightness and gaiety. Though there are many men of high literary reputation in Dresden, regular literary coteries are not favourite forms of so- cial life; the pedantry and affectation Avhich generally surround them are not for the meridian of Dresden. But it can easily happen that, after sipping your tea amid chit-chat, you arc doomed to hear some one read aloud for a couple of hours. The yawning gentlemen may deserve some commiseration ; but the ladies are not to be pitied, for they are universally the great pa- tronesses of these evening congregations, and knitting goes on just a<^ rapidly as if they were tattling with each other. Tick, a poet of original genius himself, and a worthy co-operator in the labours which liave so successfully transplanted Shakespeare to the soil of
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Germany, is peculiarly celebrated for his elocutionary powers. I have heard him read, at one stretch, the whole of Slmkespeare's Julius Caesar, in Schlegei's translation, to an enraptured tea-auditory, with a diife- rent modification of voice for every character; and re- ally the combined merits of the translation and elocu- tion left little to be desired.
Yet, with all its love of gaiety and novelty, Dresden is, I take it, the only respectable European capital in which no newspaper, properly so called, is published. The JIbendzeitung is intended for tea-tables, and is fil- led with sentimental tales and verses, old anecdotes which interest nobody, and critiques on the periorman- ces in all the great German theatres, which interest every body. There is no political newspaper, owning probably to the vicinity of Leipzig, where people per- haps believe political newspapers can be better man- aged, because political matters are more attended to, and better understood. It cannot be because the cen- sorship is more strict at Dresden than at Leipzig, for all the Leipzig newspapers are admitted, and at the Resource, — a club of gentlemen for reading newspa- pers and eating dinners, — 1 found not only the French journals, but the Morning Chronicle and the Times, along-side of the Courier.
Though French is still the conventional language of courtiers and waiters, English is very generally culti- vated among the well educated ranks. The German which they speak, and fondly speak, has no rival in pu- rity, except the dialect of Hanover ; and the prefer- ence given by grammarians to the latter rests on small points of pronunciation, in which analogy perhaps fa- vours Hanover, but the ear allows her little superiori- ty. So far is the nicety of Hanover from fixing itself in the pure German states as the mark of a well edu- cated man, that I have known Hanoverians, when liv- ing in Saxcny, renounce their native pronunciation, to avoid the charge of being affected. I have sometimes
THE LANGUAGE. 173
hesitated whether German, on the hps of a fair, fro- hcking Saxon, was not just as pleasini^ a languati;e as Itahan in the mouth of a languisl)ing, voluptuous Vene- tian,— though those who judge of the former of these tongues merely from the apocryphal saying of Charles v., that it was a language fit to bespoken only to hor- ses, will, no doubt, think it very ridiculous that any such doubt should ever be erjtertained. I do not mean that the accents, considered merely as the materials of sound, fall so softly on the ear; but German is so much more poetical in the ideas which these accents suggest and reprcbcnt than any other living language, that it possesses a much higher merit, because, in addition to the philosophical regularity of its structure, it {)aints in much more vivid colours. Even the roughness to the ear is by no means so frequent or striking as we are apt to imagine ; while the expressions awake so many feelings and associations, that the merely sensual claims of the ear are, in a great measure, disregarded. A traveller who has heard a postillion grumble about his Trmkgeld^ or a couple of peasants curse and swear at each other in an ale-house, and who, whenever he is in company that is suitable for him, hears and speaks only French, immediately writes down that German is a horrible language which splits the ear, and furnishes merely a coarse medium for saying coarse things. What would we think of Italian were it judged of in the same way? Where are there upon earth more grating and atrocious sounds than the dialects of the Milanese and Bolognese ?
One of thu least pleasing features of this gay and elegant capital is the number of condemned malefac- tors employed in cleaning the streets, fettered by the leg, and kept to their labour by the rod of an over- seer, and the muskets of sentinels. Here, just as in Italy, these miscreants have the impudence to ask cha- rity in the name of heaven from the [)assenger whose pocket they would pick, or whose throat they would
174 DRESDEN.
cut, if the chain were but taken from their ancle. The time not consumed in labour is spent in a miserable and corrupting confinement, in dungeons which are al- ways loathsome, and sometimes subterraneous. Hav- ing heard a professor of Jena rail, in his lecture, at the maladministration of English prisons, in a stjle which 1 suspected no German who looked nearer home was entitled to use, I took occasion to visit one of the pri- sons of Dresden. It was crowded with accused as well as condemned, and seemed to have all the usual de- fects of ill-regulated gaols, both as to the health and moral welfare of its inmates. They were deposited in small dark cells, each of which contained three prison- ers ; a few boards, across which a coarse mat was thrown, supplied the place of a bed, and the cells were overheated. Many of the prisoners were persons whose guilt had not yet been ascertained ; but, possi- ble as their innocence might be, it was to some the sixth, the eighth, even the twelfth month of this de- moralizing confinement. One young man, whom the gaoler allowed to be a respectable person, had been pining for months, without knowing, as he said, why he was there. The allegation might be of very doubtful truth, but the procrastinated suffering, without any de- finite point of termination, was certain. Till the judge shall find time to condemn them to the highway, or dismiss them as innocent, they must languish on in these corrupting triumvirates, in dungeons, compared with which the cell they would be removed to, if condemn- ed to die, is a comfortable abode. 1 could easily be- lieve the assurance of the gaoler, that they uniformly leave the prison worse than they entered it.
Such arrangements, under a system of criminal law like that which prevails all over Germany, are hide- ous ; — because it is a system which sets no determi- nate limit to the duration of this previous confinement. The length of the imprisonment of an accused person depends, not on the law, but on the judge, or those
CRIMINAL LAW. 17^
who are above the judge. The law having once got the man into gaol, does not seem to trouble itself any farther about him. There are instances, and recent ot)es too, of persons being dismissed as innocent after a five years' preparatory imprisonment. People, to be sure, shake their heads at such things, with "aye, it was very hard on the poor man, but the court could not sooner arrive at the certainty of his guilt or inno- cence." No doubt, it is better, as they allege, that a man should be unjustly imprisoned five years, than un- justly hanged at the end of the first; but they cannot see that, if there was no good ground for hanging him at the end of the first, neither could there be any for keeping him in gaol during the other four. They in- sist on the necessity of discovering the truth. Where suspicious circumstances exist, though they acknow- ledge it would be wrong to convict the man, they mamtai!) it would be equally wrong to liberate him, and therefore fairly conclude that he must remain in prison " till the truth comes out." To get at the cer- tain truth is a very excellent thing ; but it is a very terrible thing, that a man must languish in prison dur- ing a period indefinite by law, till his judges discover with certainty whether he should ever have been there or not. The secrecy in which all judicial pro- ceedings are Vv^rapt up, at once diminishes the appa- rent number of such melancholy abuses, and prevents the public mind from being much affected by those which become partially known.
All this leads to another practice, whicJ], however it may be disg-ulsed, is nothing else than the torture. It is a rule, in all capital offences, not to inflict the pu- nishment, however clear the evidence may be, without a confession by the culprit himself. High treason, I believe, is a practical exception; but in all other capi- tal crimes, though there should not be a hook to hanic a doubt upon, yet, if the culprit deny, he is only con- demned to, perhaps, perpetual imprisonment. There
176 DRESDEN.
is no getting rid of the dilemma, that, in the opinion of the man's jiidi^es, his guilt is either clearly proved, or it is not. If it be clearly proved, then the whole pu- nishment, il not, then no punishment at all should be inflicted; oiherxvise suspicions are visited as crimes, and a man is treated as a criminal, because it is doubt- ful whether he be one or not.^ If his judges think that his denial proceeds merely from obstinacy, he is consigned to a dungeon, against whose horrors, to judge from the one I was shown, innocence itself could not long hold out; for death on the scalfold w^ould be a far easier and more immediate liberation, than the mortality which creeps over every limb in such a cell. It is a cold, damp, subterraneous hole; the roof is so low, that the large drops of moisture distilling from above must trickle immediately on the miserable in- mate; its dimensions are so confined, that a man could not stretch out his limbs at full length. Its only furni- ture is wet straw, scantily strewed on the wet ground. There is not the smallest opening or cranny to admit either light or air; a prisoner could not even discern the crust of bread and jug of water allotted to support life in a place where insensibility would be a blessing. I am not describing any relique of antiquated barbari- ty ; the cell is still in most efficient operation. About four years ago, it was inhabited by a woman convicted of murder. As she still denied the crir^e, her judges, who had no pretence for doubt, sent her to this dun- geon, to extort a confession. At the end of a fort-
* The established practice lias been vigorously attacked of late years, especially by Feucrbach, a high name in German jurispru- dence. The query, Whether evidence that would be insufficient to convict without the confession of the culprit, should justify a lower degree of punishment, or free him from all punishment, was the subject of a prize question in 1800. A summary of the controversy may be found in tlie third and fourth volumes of the Archiv des Criminalreclds^ edited by Professors Klein. Kleinschrod, and Konopack.
CRIMINAL LAW. 177
night, her obstinacy gave way ; when she had just strength cnougli lel't to totter to the scalFold, she con- fessed the murder exactly as it had been proved against her.
Such a practice is revolting to all good feeling, even when viewed as a punishment ; when used belore con- demnation, to extort a confession, in what imaginable point does it dilFer from the torture? Really we could almost be tempted to believe, that it is not without some view to future utility, that, in a more roomy apartment adjoining this infamous dungeon, all the re- gular approved instruments of torture, from the wheel to the pincers, are still religiously preserved. A num- ber of iron hooks are fixed in the ceiling; a correspond- ing block of wood runs across the floor, filled with sharp pieces of iron pointing upwards; in a corner were mouldering the ropes by which prisoners used to be suspended by the wrists from the hooks, with their feet resting on the iron points below. The benches and table of the judges still retain their place, as Wf;ll as the old-fashioned iron candlestick, which, even at mid-day, furnished the only light that rendered visible the darkness of this " cell of guilt and misery." For- tunately, the dust has now settled thick upon them, never, let us hope, to be disturbed.
The worst of all is, that this species of torture (for, considering what sort of imprisonment it is, and for what purposes it is inflicted, I can give it no other name) is just of that kind which works most surely on the least corrupted. To the masJer-spirits of villainy, and long tried servants of iniquity, a dark, damp hole, wet straw, and bread and water, are much less appalling than to the novice in their trade, or to the innocent man against whom fortuitous circumstances have directed suspicion. How many men have burdened themselves with crimes which they never committed, to escape from torMire which they never deserved ! What a melancholy cat- alogue might be collected out of the times when the 23
irs DRESDEN.
torture was still inflicted bj the executioner! And, alas! very recent experience robs us of the satisfac- tion of believing thej have disappeared, now that Ger- many has substituted for the rack so excruciating a continement. A lamentable instance happened In Dres- den while 1 was there, (1821.) Kiigelchen, the most celebrated German painter of iiis day, had been mur- dered and robbed in the neighbourhood of the city. A soldier, of the name of Fischer, was apprehended on suspicion. After a long investigation, his judges found reason to be clearly satisfied of his guilt ; but still, as he did not confess, he was sent to the dungeon, to con- quer his obstinacy. He stood it out for some months, but at last acknowledged the murder. He had not yet been broken on the wheel, when circumstances came out which pointed suspicion against another sol- dier, named Kalkofen, as having been at least an ac- complice in the deed. The result of the new inquiry was, the clearest proof of Fischer's total innocence. Kal- kofen voluntarily confessed, not only that he was the murderer of Kiigelchen, but that he had likewise com- mitted a similar crime, which had occurred some months before, and the perpetrator of which had not hitherto been discovered. The miscreant was execu- ted, and the very same judges who had subjected the unhappy Fischer to such a confinement, to extort a con- fession, now liberated him, cleared from every suspi- cion. As the natural consequence of such durance in such an abode, he had to be carried from the prison to the hospital. He said, that he made his false con- fession, merely to be released, even by hastening his execution, from this pining torture which preys equal- ly on the body and the mind. This is the most fright- ful side of their criminal justice. It may be allowed, that there are few Instances of the innocent actually suffering on the scaffold ; such examples are rare in all countries ; though it is clear that, in Germany, the guiltless must often owe his escape to accident, while the law has
THE GOVERNMENT. 179
done every thing In Its power to condemn him. But even of those who have at length been recognized as innocent, and restored to character and society, how miny, hke poor Fischer, have carried with them, from their prison, the seeds of disease, which have ultimate- ly conducted them to the grave as certainly as the gib- bet or the wheel !
The Estates of Saxony were sitting at Dresden, and part of them came to a quarrel with the government; the civic provosts set themselves in downright opposi- tion to tije anointed king, or, at least, to the anoin- ted king's ministers. The Estates have as yet under- gone no change ; they retain their antiquated form, their old tediousness, expensiveness, and inefficiency — a collection of courtly nobles and beneficed clergymen, or laymen enjoying revenues that once belonged to clergymen, called together as old-fashioned Instruments which the royal wishes must condescend to use, but can likewise command. The great mass of the popu- lation, exclusive of the aristocracy, can be said to have a voice only through the few re[)resentatives of the towns, in the mode of whose election, again, there is nothing popular. It was they alone, however, who showed a desire to question the conduct of the higher powers. They complained that their rights had been violated In the Imposition of taxes; they called for the accounts of those branches of the administration for which extraordinary supplies were demanded ; when this was refused, they requested permission to make their proceedings public, as a justification of themselves to the people. This, too, was refused, and they then addressed a remonstrance to the Ritierschaft, or as- sembly of the nobility, requesting that body to join them in making good their reasonable demands. To all inquiries In Dresden how the matter had gone on, and what proceedings the Ritterschaft had adopted, the universal and discouraging answer was, man weiss nicht^ "nobody knows."
180 DRESDEN.
In fact, in a body so constituted, there is always one predominating and irresistible interest, that of the ari- stocracy. In numbers, and still more in inlluence, they form by far the greater part of those who are called to this assembly of indefinite powers, of advisers rather than controllers. This inlluence is, in every case, at the disposal of the crown ; because, from the habits of society, and the want of all political independence where there never has been a public political life, those who ostensibly hold it know no higher reward than the smiles of the crown. You would more easily pre- vail with them to vote away the money or personal se- curity of the people without inquiry, than to run the risk of bein<j excluded from the next court dinner. The defect, therefore, does not lie in the aristocracy pos- sessing a powerful interest ; for every country which pretends to exclude them from it is forcing its political society into unnatural forms, and can scarcely promise it- self a stable or tranquil political existence : it lies in their possessing this influence only in form, while it really belongs to the executive, and still more, in their allow- ing no other class to have any influence at all.
Amid the feudal relations under which this form of government originated, and which alone could give it any justification, the nobility were really almost the only persons (exclusive of the towns that acknowl- edged no sovereign but the empire) who could be trusted, to any useful purpose, with political power. The connection between them and the lower ranks was so unequal, that any influence given to the latter only increased the power of the former. A noble could have used their votes just as arbitrarily in wrest- ing from a neighbour the representation of a county, as he used their swords in wresting from him a pretty daughter, or a score of black cattle. Out of their own body, no class pretended to any rights, because there were none which could be maintained against the brute force that had every where constituted the sword in-
THE GOVERNMENT. 181
terpreter of public law. But this exclusive influence was likewise a very elfective one against the monarch. Those very feudal relations which enabled them to abuse every body else, enabled tjjem likewise to |)re- vent the monarch from abusing any body without tlieir permission. If even the head of the Huly Roman Empire called them around him to punish a disobe- dient count, or an impertinent provost, they took flieir own way, and followed their own likings, m the quar- rel. Tlie army of the empire was half asseml»led, made half a campaign to do nothing at all, and, in the course of centuries, down to the Seven Years' War, when the phantom tor the last time took a bodily lurm, fully jusrified the ridicule attached to the very name of the Reichs-execntions-armee. But it is long since all the relations of society were totally changed in both respects. The exchjded classes have become more proper depositaries of a certain portion of political in- fluence ; still earlier, the excluding classes had become altogether unfit to monopolize an influence intended to check the monarch, because they had degenerated into a body of courtly retainers, dependent on that \ery monarch, commanded by him to ratify his pleasure, re- quested perhaps to advise, and, if they disapproved, destitute of every instrument to make their disappro- bation eflicient. They were powerful men, and, in op- posing the monarch, were on many occasions useful men, so long as they had swords in their hands, and vassals at their backs ; but they are worthless as a le- gislative body, now that their only weapon is the grey goose quill in the hand of their clerk.^ Public opinion
* So accurately do the people judge of the utility of such a hody, that it has become a vulgar, indeed, but yet a true, because a pro- verbial distich :
Das was ein Landtag ist schliesst sich in diesem Reim ; Versammelt euch, schafft geld, und packt euch wieder helm.
The picture of our parliament is in these simple rhymes ; Assemble, give us money, and get home again betimes.
18j& ERFURTH.
could alone give them force j but that is a weapon which thej do not venture to use, for they know that, if once drawn, it would probably attack the forms which make them, though only in name, the exclusive organs of public sentiment on the public administration.
Thus the predominating influence of the aristocracy, though annihilated as to its power of doing good, still exists as to its power of excluding all other classes which have gradually risen to be worthy of a more efficient voice ; the old forms were cut only to oligar- chical shapes, and are still the uniform of the only constitutional legislators. The system is bad in theory, because it is at once exclusive and inefficient ; in prac- tice, it is not productive of real oppression, because, from the personal character of the monarch, he is as anx- ious to promote the happiness of his kingdom as of his own family. But in Saxony, as in every other German state wliich has admitted no modification of the old principle, a king with a less estimable heart, and no better a head, than the present sovereign, could do infinite mischief, and there would be no recognized power in the state which could legally and elfectuallj set itself in the breach.
CHAPTER VI.
THURINGI A — CAS SEX.
Manner versorgten das briillende Vieh, und die Pferd' an den Wagen ;
Wasche trockneten emsig auf alien Hecken die Weiber ;
Und es ergotzten die Kinder sich platschernd im Wasser des Baches.
Go the.
B.ETRACING Thurlngla from Weimar towards the capital of Westphalia, Erfurth, about twelve miles from the former, presents its ramparts and cannon. It is only as a fortress, forming the key between Saxony
LUTHER. 183
and Franconia, that it is now of any Importance ; and the lounging Prussian military are the most frequent objects in its deserted streets. The sixty thousand in- habitants whom its trade and manufactures maintained, down to the end of the sixteenth century, have dimi- nished to less than one third of the number. Erfurth sunk as Leipzig rose. The last scene of splendour that enlivened it, was the congress of so many crown- ed heads round Napoleon in J 807. Bonaparte, though he rarely indulf>;ed in the mere pleasures of royalty, had a troop of French actors with him, and both here and at Weimar, he ordered Voltaire's death of Ca3sar to be given, a strange choice for such a man. During the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, the wife of a north- ern minister refused to cro to the theatre, because " cette piece liberale," William Tell, was to be per- formed.
Ttie Augustine monastery, in which the young Lu- ther first put on the cowl of the hierarchy which he was to shake to its foundations, and strove to lull with his flute the impatient longings of a spirit that was to set Europe in flames, has been converted to the pur- poses of an orphan asylum ; but the cell of the Re- former has been religiously preserved, as the earliest memorial of the greatest man of modern times. The galleiy on which it opens is adorned with a Dance of Death,* and over the door is the inscription,
Celliila, divino magnoque habitata Lulhero,
Salve, vix tanto ceilula digna viro ! Dignus erat qui regnm splendida tecta subiret,
Te dediffuatus non tamen ille fuit.
* The reader probably knows, that such a Dance of Death is a series of painiini^s rej)resenting Denth leading off to the other world all ranks of men, from the monarch to the beggar, and of all professions and characters, priests and coquettes, soldiers and phi- lo'^ophers, musJcians an;l doctors, &sc. &,c. They were generally painted, either in church-yards, as in the cemetery of the Neu- stadtin Dresden, to leach the general doctrine of human mortalityj
184 ERFURTH.
The cell is small and simple, and must have been a freezing study. Beside his portrait is hung a German exposition of the text, " Death is swallowed up in vic- tory," in his own handwriting, and written in the form in which old books often terminate, an inverted pyra- mid. There is a copy of his Bible so full of very good illuminations, that it might be called a Bible with plates. The wooden boards are covered with inge- nious carving and gilding, and studded with pieces of coloured glass, to imitate the precious stones which so frequently adorn the manuscripts of the church. It is said to have been the work of a hermit of the six- teenth century, who thus employed his leisure hours to do honour to Luther; yet Protestant hermits are seldom to be met with.
Wherever monks nestled, nuns were never awant- ing. Though the Prussian government ejected both, when compelled by its necessities to convert church property to the use of the state, a few samples were retained, not out of regard to the religious objects of the institution, but from views of public utility as to education. The Abbess of theUrsuline convent in £r- furth very affably receives the world, though she ne- ver comes into it. The convent machinery is entire. When you knock, a key is sent out by a turning box, and the key itself admits you no farther than the par- lour grate. The grate, however, is no longer the ne plus ultra of the profane sex. A withered dame, whose consecrated charms can bear with perfect impunity the
or in churches and convents, to commemorate the ravages of a pestilence. Of the hitter kind was the celebrated Dance of Death at Bale, painted on the occasion of the plague which raged while the Coun(5il was sitting. It no longer exists, except in engravings. It has commonly been attributed to Holbein, but, of late years, this has been questioned, and attempts have been made to prove, from j)arlicular figures and dresses, that it was painted at least sixty years before Holbein was born, and probably by Glauber, whose name appears on one of the ligures.
CONVENTS. 185
gaze of worldly eyes, admits the visitor to the presence of the Abbess in the parlour, a spacious, but empty, bare, and comfortless room. She appeared to be about sixty, during twenty-two years of which she had never crossed the threshold of her convent. She was ex- tremely active and obliging, without any taint of the ascetic or affectedly demure. She spoke willingly, as was natural, of the happiness and tranquillity of her spiritual family, and, with tears in her eyes, of the late Queen of Prussia, v/ho had saved them. A black gown, like a sack, any thing but fashioned to show the shape, descended from the shoulders to the toes in one unvarying diameter. A thick white bandage wrapped up the neck to the very chin, and was joined below to a broad tippet of the same colour, which entirely co- vered the shoulders and breast. The eyebrows peep- ed forth from beneath another white bandage, which enveloped the brow, covered the hair, and was joined behind to the ample black veil, which the Abbess had politely thrown back. The whole dress consisted of coarse plain black and white, without a tittle of orna- ment either in good or bad tasto.
On the parlour table lay a number of work-bags, pin-cases, pin-cushions, and similar trifles, the manufac- ture of which employs the leisure hours of the brides of heaven. It is expected that the visitor shall make a purchase ; and he does it the more willingly in this case, because the convent, though not at all wealthy, educates gratuitously a number of poor female chil- dren. No better way could have been devised of cm- ploying the time which, in spite of devotion, must hang heavy on the hands of a nun. " Pray without ceasing," is a difficult injunction, even for young ladies. It was this view of public advantage alone which, on the in- tercession of the late queen, saved the convent from abolition. The nun was allowed to separate herself from the world, but only to perform the duties of a mother.
24
186 ERFURTH.
The church, with its images and ornaments, display- ed, as might be expected, a huge profusion of miUine- rj, in the very worst style of satin and gilding. The images, and, above all, those of the Virgin, on whose adornment her virgin devotees had bestowed all their simple skill and pious industry, were horrible.
It is even allowed to visit the cells, the Abbess hav- ing previously taken care to remove the inhabitants. The cell was about ten feet long, by six broad. Though the weather was still extremely cold, there was neither stove nor fire-place ; and the only window looked out upon a small inner court, which, in summer, is a gar- den. In one corner stood a low bed, with coarse, but clean green curtains, so narrow, that even a nun must lie very quiet to lie comfortably, A few religious daubings misadorned the walls ; on a small table lay a few religious books, and beside them stood a glass case containing a waxen figure of a human body in the most revolting state of corruption, covered and girt round by its crawling and loathsome destroyers. This was the furniture of the nun's cell ; every thing simple and serious ; nothing but the light of Heaven to put her in mind of the world she had quitted.
In some particulars, the rigour of the strict monastic rule has been relaxed. The nuns are allowed to converse alone with their friends at the parlour grate ; former- ly it was necessary that two sisters should be present. But the law of absolute seclusion is unrelentingly main- tained ; the nun, having once taken the veil, never again crosses the threshold of the convent. It is right it should be so, if a convent is to exist at all. The moment this rule is relaxed, a nunnery becomes mere- ly a boarding-house, and one of a very questionable kind. At the same time, it is more than doubtful, whether the Prussian government would visit a run- away nun with any punishment, or compel her to re- turn to her religious confinement. The days in which pretty girls were built up in stone walls for preferring a
aOTHA. 187
corporeal to a spiritual bridegroom are over, and the truant damsel would probably be left to the chastise- ment of her own conscience. The noviciate is two years, a? d, during the preceding two years, five young ladies had taken the veil. The permission of the go- vernment is necessary; for, without the royal sanction, no woman dare marry herself to Heaven. The pre- dilection for such matches, however, is rapidly disap- pearing. The number of sisters in this convent is se- venteen. At the accession of the present Abbess they were fifty-six. They had died out, most of them, she said, in a good old age, and candidates had not come forward in sufficient numbers to replace them.
Circumstances prevented me from indulging in more than a hasty glance at Gotha, another small capital of a small state. It has more the air of a town than Weimar, but has not more of the bustle of life, and far less of its pleasures and elegant enjoyments. Gotha has not maintained the literary character which it had begun to acquire under Ernest II. Himself a man of science, he drew men of science to his court, and all public institutions connected with learning flourished beneath his liberality. His successor, the late Duke, who died in 1822, was of retired and eccentric habits, bordering occasionally on the iiypochondriac. Though allowed not to be without talent, and supposed to have even written romances, he sought his enjoyments chief- ly in music. Many people would not reckon the want of a theatre a misfortune in a town ; but, in a small German capital, where the court affects no pa- rade, and patronizes no other mode of amusement, no- thing could be a surer sign of its Trophonian qualities. The Goths occasionally pack themselves into coaches, and make a journey of forty miles, even in the depth of winter, to hear an opera in Weimar.
Eisenach is the most wealthy and populous town in the duchy of Weimar, and sends a whole member to parliament. With a population not exceeding ten thou-
188 ERFURTII.
sand inhabitants, it was reckoned, till within these few years, among the most flourishing of the manufacturing towns so frequent between Leipzig and Frankfort. Seduced bj the protection which the Continental Sys- tem seemed to promise, its capitalists forsook the ma- nufacture of wool for that of cotton. They had just advanced far enough to entertain sanguine hopes of ul- timately succeeding, when the unexpected changes in political relations again opened the German markets to England, and their cotton manufactures were blighted. One of the most ingenious and persevering among their capitalists told me, that, during the former period, he had employed nearly four hundred persons in cotton spinning, — a large scale for an establishment in a small Saxon town. After attempting in vain to struggle on after the peace, he found it necessary to follow the ex- ample of others, dismiss the greater part of his work- men, return with the rest to wool, adhere to the com- mercial congress of Darmstadt, and cry loudly for pro- hibitory duties against England.
The ruins of the Wartburg, an ancient residence of the Electors of Saxony, hang majestically above the town on a wooded eminence, overlooking the most beautiful portion of the Thuringian forest. It was here that the elector did Luther the friendly turn of detaining him ostensibly as a prisoner, to secure him against the hostility of the church, whom his boldness before the diet at Worms had doubly incensed ; and, among the few apartments still maintained in some sort of repair, is that in which the Reformer lightened the tedium of his durance, by completing his translation of the Bible. In the pious vi^ork he was often interrupt- ed by the Devil, who viewed its progress with dismay, but who could not have been treated with greater con- tempt by St. Dunstan himself than by the Reformer. Having appeared in vain, not only in his own infernal personality, but under the more seducing forms of indo- lence, lukewartnness, and love of worldly grandeur, he
LUTHER. 1S9
at length assumed the shape of a large blue fly. But Luther knew Satan in all his disguises, rebuked him manfully, and at length, losing all patience as the con- cealed devil still buzzed round his pen, started up, and exclaiming, Willst du dann nicht ruhig bleiben /* hurled his huge ink bottle at the prince of darkness. The diabolical intruder disappeared, and the ink, scattered on the wall, remains until this day, a visible proof of the great Reformer's invulnerability to all attacks of the evil one. The people, no less superstitious, in their own way, than the devotees of the opposing church, look with horror on the sceptics who find in the story merely the very credible fact, that the ho- nest Reformer, who by no means possessed the placi- dity of uncle Toby, had lost his temper at the buzzing of an importunate fly. Werner, who, notwithstanding the frequent mysticism of his theology, and the irre- gularity of his fancy, has delineated Luther, inUhe Weihe der Kraft, with more force than any other German poet, represents him as so exhausted and abstracted from the world, after intense study, that for a while he does not know his own father and mother.
On entering, from Saxony, the Electorate of Hesse Cassel, both nature and man present a different ap- pearance. There is more of the forest; the country IS a heap of moderately elevated ridges, stretching across each other in every variety of form and direc- tion, and principally covered with beech woods. All the cultivation lies in the narrow vallies which run be- tween them, occasionally climbing the slope a short way, and encroaching on the forest just far enough to show how much may still be gained. From their po- sition and confined extent, the vallies are exposed, in this climate, to excessive moisture, and, to judge from the appearance the fields presented after a day's mo- derate rain, the peasantry follow a very imperfect, or
* Wilt thou not be quiet !
190 HESSE.
a very indolent system of draining. Many fields were under water, and yet rivulets close bj, into which it might easily have heon carried off. Satisfied with having one mode of doing a thing, however imperfect or inconvenient it may be, they never think of looking about for a better.
With capital, and without institutions that depress agriculture, an immense addition might be made to the productiveness of this part of Hesse, both in improv- ing what is already cultivated, and in gaining what the Thuringian forest still retains; for by far the greater part of these ridges might be successfully cultivated to the very summit. A portion of wood must always be retained for fuel. Though coal is by no means rare, the Hessians, like all other Germans, have strong pre- judices against using it. Their coal, they say, has so much sulphur in it, that it produces an intolerably of- fensive smell. The very same objection is made at Dresden to the coal worked in the vicinity of Tharant, and at Vienna to the coals of GEdenburg ; and, every where, the fossil is left to those to whose poverty its cheapness, in comparison with wood, is an important consideration. Nothing but the scarcity and conse- quent rise in the price of wood will force a market for coals. In Saxony this effect is beginning to be felt al- ready.
The Westphalian peasantry, like all their neigh- bours, are chiefly hereditary tenants, and you will find men among them who boast of being able to prove, that they still cultivate the same farms on which their ancestors lived before Charlemagne conquered the de- scendants of Herrman, or, for any thing they know, before Herrman himself, drawing his hordes from these very vallies, annihilated the legions of Varus. They do not retain a single regret for the kingdom of West- phalia, nor have they any reason to do so. It was the unsparing domination of a foreigner ; it was a period of extravagant expenditure for purposes of foreign po«
THE PEASANTRY. 191
licy or private profligacy, and, at every turn, the new forms of the French administration were rubbing against some old affection or rooted habit. Napoleon could not bribe them to any amicable feeling towards him, even by pretending to annihilate any cramping feudal relations which might still exist between them and their landlords. They felt that they were more impoverished than ever, by a power which had no claim to impoverish them at all, and were treated as foreigners in their own country. They could neither endure French insolence, nor reckon in French money; "but now," say they, " we know again where we are."
In body they are a stouter made race of men than the Saxons, with broader visages and more florid com- plexions; but they have likewise a more stolid expres- sion. They retain very generally the old costume, tight pantaloons, a loose short jacket, commonly of blue cloth, and a very low crowned hat with an im- mense breadth of brim, from beneath which they allow their shaggy locks to grow unshorn, not neatly plaited, as among the young men of some of the Swiss Cantons, but seeking their own tangled way over the shoulders and down the back, af er the fashion of the students. The students, again, cite the Westphalian peasantry to prove, that the Germans who fought against Varus undoubtedly wore long hair ; and thence conclude, that a barber's scissars must be as fatal to the spirit of German independence, as Dalilah's were to the strength of Saruoon.
The villages have much more of the Bavarian than of the Saxon character, and display, externally at least, the utmost squalor. The only tolerable dwell- ing is generally that of the postmaster ; the others are wooden hovels, dark, smoky, patched, and ruinous. The -crowds of begging children that surround you at every stage, (an importunacy to which you are seldom exposed in other parts of Germany,) prove that there must be poverty as well as slovenliness. Of the lat-
192 CASSEL.
ter there is abundance in every thing. Even the httle country church, and its simple cemetery, which the poorest peasantry commonly love to keep neat and clear, follow the general rule, that it is enough if a thing barely serve its purpose. At Hoheneichen, the church was a miserable tottering heap of broken walls, where many a man would not willingly lodge his horse; and, in the church-yard, while the tomb-stones glared in all colours of the rainbow, bristled with cherubs like Bologna sausages, and seraphim sinking beneath the load of their own embonpoint, neglected goosberry bushes, heaps of straw, and piles of winter fuel, were mingled with the new made graves.
Cassel stands partly at the bottom, partly on the steep ascent, and partly on the summit of an eminence washed by the Fulda. No two parts of a city can be more distinct in external character than the lower and upper towns. The former is huddled together on the river, at the bottom of the hill ; its streets are nar- row, dark, and confused ; the houses consist mostly of a frame of wood-work, in which the beams cross each other, leaving numerous and irregular interstices; these interstices are then built up with stone or brick. Every floor projects over the inferior one, so that the house is much broader at top than at bottom : and some narrow lanes are thus, in a manner, arched over, to the utter exclusion of light and air. The upper town, again, originally begun by French refugees, who brought their arts and industry to Cassel on the re- vocation of the edict of Nantz, is light, airy, and ele- gant, from its style of building as well as from its site. The electoral palace occupies great part of a street, or rather of a delightful terrace, which runs along the brow of the hill, looking down on the Augarten^ the combined Kensington and Hyde Park of Cassel, and far and wide over the hills and vallies of Thuringia, and the windings of the Fulda. Squares like those of Cassel are rare things in the secondary German capi-
THE CITY. 193
tals. The Museum, a majestic Ionic building, forms nearly one side of the Friderichsplatz, and is its prin- cipal ornament, while its greatest defect is a statue of the Elector Frederick, who built the museum, and gave his name to the square, standing on legs like the bo lies of his own hoa^s. When the Frencli thn^w it down, in furtherance of their plan to remove everj thifig which might recal the memory of the expeiled family, whose crown was given to the pu[)pet Jerome, they had the impudence to make this want of taste in the scul[)tor a pretext for their mischievous violence. The faithful Hessians contrived to preserve the old E'ector, and on their liberation, restored him to the pedestal in his original corj)ulence of calf. The Kd- nigsplatz i^ the tinest square m Germany, if that may be called a square which is oval. It is the point of union between the Lower and Upper towns; and the six streets which run off from it, at equal distances in its circumference, produce a very marked echo. The sounds uttered by a person standing in the centre are distinctly repeated six times. The French erected a statue of Napoleon in the centre ; the Hessians ob- served that their favourite echo immediately became dumb, and will not believe that a statue of their own Elector would have equally injured the reverberation, by displacing the point of utterance from the exact centre. As the Allies advanced, first the nose disap- peared from the French Emperor, then an arm, then he was hurled down altogether, a lamp-post was set up in his place, and the echo again opened its mouth.
Cassel contains only about twenty thousand inhabi- tants, exclusive of the military, who are over-numer- ous, but have been the source, if not of respectability and safety to the country, yet of millions to the elec- toral treasury. The population is said to have been nearly one-half greater under Jerome. This is easily credible, but is just the reverse of any proof of pros- perity. Cassel was then the capital of a much more 25
194 CASSEL.
extensive kingdom than the proper electorate ; a greater number of public functionaries, and a greater military establishment, were maintained. Round the gay, dissolute, and extravagant court of Westphalia, crowded a host of rapacious foreigners and idle hang- ers-on, who were unknown under the homely, nay, the parsimonious administration of the expelled Elector. But these classes only fill the streets of a capital at the expense of the morals and prosperity of the coun- try, and no where were both these consequences more severely felt than in Hesse. Notwithstanding the bustle and splendour which Jerome created amongst them, the Hessians, though as fond of these things as other people, do most cordially detest him and his whole crew of corrupters and squanderers. Jerome perhaps did not wish to do mischief for its own sake; few miscreants do; he would have had no objection that every man and woman in his kingdom should have been as idle, and worthless, and dissolute as himself; but he laboured under such a want of head, such a horror of business, and such a devotion to grovelling pleasures, that it was only by mistake he could stum- ble on any thing good. He was, in fact, a good natur- ed, silly, unprincipled voluptuary, whose only wish was to enjoy the sensual pleasures of royalty, without sub- mitting to its toils, but, at the same time, without any natural inclination to exercise its rigours. His profli- gate expenditure was as pernicious to the country as the war itself; on this score he was doomed to read many a scolding epistle, and some threatening ones, from Napoleon; but, without these enjoyments, Je- rome could not have conceived what royalty was good fur. Tlie man did not even give himself the trouble to learn the language of his kingdom. People feared and cursed his brother, but they openly despised and laughed at him. When, on his flight, he carried off what he could from the public treasury, they were thunderstruck, not at the meanness of the thing, but
THE ELECTOR. 195
at the possibility of King Jerome possessing so much forethought.
The capital was in mourning for the late Elector. The mourning consisted in the theatre being shut, and in people expressing their hopes that the son would now spend like a prince what the father had amassed like a miser. The late Elector went regularly to church, was no habitual drunkard or profane swearer, and left behind him, according to the univ^ersal voice, at least forty illegitimate children, and as many mil- lions of rix-dollars. In comparison with the wants of the Elector of Hesse, he was the wealthiest prince in Europe. The foundation of the treasure had been laid by his father, who hired out his troops to England for the American war, the least honourable of all ways in which a prince can fill his pockets. He him- self added to the inheritance by what his friends call fru2jality, and the great body of the people niggardli- ness. He. turned his accumulating capital to good ac- count with the avidity of a stock-jobber, and was a dost successful money lender. No sort of extrava- gance marked his court or his personal habits. If he gave his mistresses titles, these cost nothing ; if he gave them fortunes, it was always soberly. Such thin<^s, moreover, are too much n)atters of course in Germany to excite either notice or dissatisfaction ; and even in this department, his subjects justly found him moderate, when compared with the royal lustling from France. His favourite, the Countess of H n, en- joys the reputation of having often seduced him irjto acts of liberality towards others, at which, but for her, he otherwise would have shuddered. The young Elector, who has now succeeded, was put upon an al- lowance which would have proved insufficient for a prince much more accustomed to controul his passions ; ne therefore got into debt, and it has happened, it is averred, that the very monev borrowed from the fa- ther at four per cent., has been lent to the son at thir-
196 CASSEL.
ty. The Elector, on the approach of the evil day which drove him from his slates, providentially placed his riches beyond the usurper's reach. During his exile, savings were made even on tfie interest, in his frugal household at Prague. On his restoration, he re- turned to the old course ; no act of liberality diminish- ed the sum of his treasures, and no relaxation of the burdens winch press down this impoverislied country dried up any of the sources of his gain. He imme- diately seized all the domains wliich had been sold un- der Jerome, and refused, till his dying day, to repay the purchasers a sin^ie farthing of the price. "^ I was struck with the freedom of a Hessian clergyman, in a funeral sermon on the Elector's death. Having paint- ed his merits, such as they were, he said : ''But truth forbids me to go larther, and where so much was ex- cellent, one faihng may be conceded, and must not be concealed. One virtue, one most fair and Christian
* The simple f*Tonnd on which he proceeded was this : Je- rome was only an armed robber ; the sales which he made of my domains were null, 'or he had no right to make them ; and you, the purchasers on a bad title, may bring- your action against him for restitution of the price, as you best can. The kingdom of WestphaPa, said the purchasers, was recognized by the treaty of Tilsit. Yes, answered the Elector, by Austria, Russia, and Prus- sia, but not by me. It is only from these powers, argued the pur- chasers, that your Highness again received your estates, and the treaty of Paris expressly provides that, in all restored and ceded countries, the citizens shall retain undisturbed possession of what- ever property they may have acquired under the late govern- ments. Very iiUely, replied ttie Elector, but I was no party to that treaty, and other people had no right to dispose, in any way, of my property. The purchasers applied for justice to the Diet, and their complaint was favourably listened to; Wangenhelm, the envoy of Wirtemberg, was ordered to investigate, and report upon, their claims. In the mean time, the Elector died, and liis succes- sor seemed disposed to be more liberal. At least, as the day ap- pointed for receiving the report approached, the purchasers pray- ed the Diet to delay proceeding, as the cabinet of Cassel had giv- en them assurances which promised an amicable teroiination of the dispute.
THE ELECTOR. 197
virtue, was awanting. Had there but been more ge- nerosity and liberality, every eye in his dominions would have wept on tlie grave of William I." The sermon was not only preached, but likewise printed.
S'lill, though stained with tlie most unprincely of all failings, he must have possessed redeeming quali ies, for his people was attached to him. He was ati'able in the extreme ; the meanest of his subjects might ap- proach him without uneasiness, if his object was not to ask money ; and he was strictly just, in so far as a prmce so fond of prerogative could be just. Above all, his government was to his subjects one of benefi- cence, coming after the public oppression and private degradation of the kingdom of Westphalia; seven years of disgraceful and useless extravagance had taught them to regaid even his parsimony with indul- gence. When he returned, Cassel voluntarily poured out her citizens to welcome him ; thousands crowded from the re notest corners of the land to h il him on the frontiers; the peasants, in the extravagance of their joy, literally led on the cavalcade in somersets, and, on the shoulders of his subjects, the old man was borne in tears into the capital of his fathers.
In Cassel, it is as much a matter of course to visit the Electoral residence, Wilhelmshohe^ as it is in Paris to go to Versailles. It stands on the eastern slope of a wooded eminence, about two miles to the westward of the town. Earlier princes had chosen the site and be- gun the work, l]ut (he late Elector was more indus- trious than theti^ al! ; for, next to making money and getting children, his greatest pleasure was to build pa- laces. The main body of the palace is oval, present- ing a long, lofty, simple front, without a!»y ornament, except an Ionic portico in the centre. The wings are entirely faced with the same order, but the low range of arches which connects them with the principal building offends the eye grievously. The main front itself is too poor; the portico, projecting from the bare
19S CASSEL.
walls, is good in itself, but ought to be in better com- pany. Simplicity is an excellent thins:, but only in its proper place, and Wiliiin proper bounds. It is incon- gruous that the huge pile of the principal building should stand so utterly mean and unfinished-looking, while the attendant wings are loaded with Ionic pillars. Even large masses of surface, generally imposing things in architecture, are not gained, for it is frittered down by the rows of small windows. Who suggested the barbarous idea of emblazoning the name of the build- ing on the frieze of the portico ? Jerome changed it into JYapoleonshohe,
The well wooded hill behind is crowned by a tur- retted building, which takes its name from a colossal statue of Hercules that surmounts it. The hollow iron statue is so capacious, that I know not how many per- sons are said to be able to stand comfortably in his calf, dine in his belly, and take their wine in his head; At his feet begin the waterworks which form the great attraction of Wilhelmshohe, and have rendered it the Versailles of Germany. The streams are collected from the hill within the building itself, commence their artificial course by playing an organ, rush down the hill over a long flight of broad steps, pour themselves into a capacious basin, issue from it again in various chan- nels, and form, still hastening downwards, a number of small cascades. At length they flow along a ruined aqueduct, take all at once a leap of more than a hun- dred feet from its extremity, where it terminates on the brink of a precipice, into a small artificial lake, from whose centre they are finally thrown up to the height of a hundred and thirty feet in a magnificent jet. There is much taste and ingenuity in many of the details ; but, to enjoy the full eflect, one ought to see them only in the moment of their full operation. He ought neither to see the dry channels, the empty aque- ducts, the plastered precipices, the chiselled rocks, and the miniature imitations of columnar basalt, nor wit-
THE ARTS. 199
ness any of the various notes of preparation, the shut- ting of valves, and turning of cocks, for all these things injure the illusion.
Though Jerome inhabited the palace, and even built a theatre, in which his own box, where he could see without being seen, is (iited up with the most useless voluptuousness, and never fails to suggest many degra- ding stories of the effeminate debauchee, the French did a great deal of mischief in the grounds. From mere wanton insolence, they broke down many parts of the stone ledge which ran along the aqueduct inter- nally, as well as the iron railing that guarded it with- out, and displaced from the grottoes various water dei- ties and piles of fishes. The latter, however, do not seem to have deserved any mercy, if we may judge from one in which a base of tortoises and lobsters sup- ports a pyramid of cod-fish, dolphins, and, it may be, whales, coarsely cut in coarse stone.
The [Marble Bath, and other edifices of Landgrave Charles, are in a much more complicated and ostenta- tious style than that which was afterwards introduced in the museum, and transferred to VVilhelmshohe. 1 he Marble Bath, though it really contains a bath, was merely a pretext for spending money and marble. It is filled with statues, and the walls, where they are not coated with party-coloured marbles, are covered with reliefs as large as life. All the sculptures are works of Monnot, a wholesale artist of the earlier part of the last century. He had studied and long worked in Rome, and practice had given him the art of cutting marble into human shapes; but he wanted invention, no less than elevation and purity of taste. His forms have neither dignity nor grace. They cannot be said altogether to want expression; Daphne and Arethnsa, pursued by Apollo and Alpheus, look just like ladies m a great fright, and Calista hangs her head like a girl doing penance ; but the expression is common, not to ► say vulgar. The gross caricature of the Dutch paint-
200 CASSEL.
ers is in its place in an alehouse, but is intolerable in a classical group of sculpture. Yet the fallen Callsta is sculptured in all the grossness of her shame ; one of the attendant nymphs presses her finger firmly on the ocular proof of the fair one's frailty, and looks at Diana with a wao'glsh vulgarity, which the pure and offended goddess would not have tolerated on so delicate an oc- casion.
The electoral gallery of pictures contains many val- uable oaintin^'s ; but I can say nothinof about them, for both times I endeavoured to see them, the Herr In-' spector was engaged at court, although, on the second occasion, he had himself fixed the hour. To be sure, if a man is called to court, he must go ; but it must be a very thoughtless court which allows the visiting of a public gallery to depend on the incidental occupations of a keeper. It ought either to be committed to a person who shall have no other occupation, or, if enough of money cannot be spared from other plea- sures to give such a person a suitable recompense, let, at least, a fixed portion of his time be dedicated to this purpose. Moreover, he is paid in reality by a heavy dcuccur levied on the curious. The Elector, that his museums and galleries, his gardens and waterfalls, might be cheaply kept, intrusted them to persons al- ways numerous, and authorized them to tax the visi- tors. In the north of Germany you often have the satisfaction of seeing the palm of a councillor of state (^Hof-rath) extended for his half guinea. One has not much reason to grumble at this, so long as it does not rise to extortion, though it is meanness when com- pared with the liberality of the Italian capitals, or even of Dresden and Vienna; but it is vexatious that his gratification should be impeded because a public ofHcer is allowed or ordered to attend to something else than his proper duty.
All the pictures in the Catholic church are from the
CASSEL. 201
pencil of TIschbein, (the father,)* who has been for Cassel In painting what Monnot was in sculpture, equally industrious, and still less meritorious. His pictures have no character; the forms are clumsy and incorrect; the expression is devoid of soul and mean- ing; the attitudes are stilf; the colouring is weak and watery. His Christs are in general the most vulgar looking people, and the angel who presents the cup in the Agony is the most familiar looking per- sonage in the history of painting. Although the Italian masters had perhaps no good authority for always making the apostle John a comely youth, with luxuriant hair and a glowing countenance, yet they ■were possibly as much in the right as historians, and assuredly much more in the right as painters than Tischbein, when he made him an old, and what is worse, an ugly man in the Crucifixion. Sacristans are not always good authority ; therefore, I do not believe that Albert Diirer ever put pencil to the eight small paintings in the Sacristy representing the scenes of the Passion. Very old they certainly are, older than Diirer; but Diirer would never have in- dulged in such inaccurate drawing, such gross exag- gerations of a sort of nature which, to please in paint- inir, ouofht rather to be miti^nted. The soldiers at- tending the Crucifixion, and the executioners in the Flagellation, are downright caricatures, with huge lumpish noses, like balls of flesh stuck on the upper lip. Such pictures, however eagerly they may be hunted out, can have no value but as curiosities in the history of the art.
* Tischbein, the son, to whom Gothe has addressed some eulo- gistic sonnets, was a much superior artist. He devoted himself in Italy to the study of the antique. The designs which he sketched for an edition of Homer are full of spirit.
26
^OS GOTTINGEN.
CHAPTER VIL
GOTTINGEN.
Ei ! gruss' euch Gfttt, Collegia I Wie steht ihr in Parade da ! Ihr dumpfen Sale, gross und klein, J«tzt kriegt ihr mich nicht mehr hinein.
• Schwab.
The territory of Hanover approaches nearly to the walls of Cassel., The rich vallies through which the Fulda flows give promises of lieauty and fertih- ty, on which the traveller afterwards thinks with re- gret, when he is toiling through the sands in the northern part of the kingdom. At Miinden, a small, but apparently thriving town, the Fulda and Werra, issuing from opposite dells, unite and form the Weser, which is already covered with the small craft that carries on the trade with Bremen. The loftj summits of the Harz now rise in the distance, and you enter
the U-
Diversity of Goltingen.
Though the youngest of the German universities of reputation, excepting Berlin, Gottingen is by far the most celebrated and flourishing. Munchausen, the ho- nest and able minister of George II., who founded it in 1735, watched over it with the anxiety of a parent. He acted in a spirit of the utmost liberality, which, to the honour of the Hanoverian government, has never been departed from, both by not being niggardly wl.'ere any really useful purpose was to be gained, and by treating the university itself with confidence and indul- gence. He acted, moreover, in that prudent spirit which does not attempt too much at once. How ma- ny splendid schemes have failed, because their parents^
COMPETITION OF PROFESSORS. 20«
expecting to see them start up at once in the vigour of youth, like Minerva ready armed irom the head oT Ju- piter, had not patience in <j^uide them while they tot- tned througn the jears of helpless infancy. Had M jnchauseu foreseen what the expense of the univer- sity would in time amount to, he probably would never have founded it. The original annual expenditure was about tifteen thousand rix-dollars, (L. 2.000,) it now amounts to six times that sum. The library alone con- sumes annually nearly one-half of the whole original expense.
Gottmgen is manned with thirty-six ordinary profes- sors, three theological, seven juridical, eight medical, including botany, chemistry, and natural history ; the remaininge{<yhtecnform the philosophical faculty. Draw- ing is a regular chair in the philosophical faculty, and stands between mineralogy and astronomy. The fenc- ing-master and dancing-master are not so highly ho- noured, but still they are public functionaries, and re- ceive salaries from government. The confusion is in- creased by that peculiarity of the German universities "which allows a professor to give lectures on any topic he pleases, however little it may be connected with the particular department to which he has been ap- pointed. Every professor may interfere, if he chooses, Avith the provinces of his colleagues. The Professor of Natural History must lecture on Natural History, but he mav likewise teach Greek ; the Professor of Latm must teach Latm, but, if he chooses, he may lec- ture on Mathematics. Thus it just becomes a practi- cal question, who is held to be the more able instruc- tor; and, if the mathematical prelections of a Profes sor of Greek be reckoned better than those of the person regularly appointed to teach the science, the latter must be content to lose his scholars and his fees. It is i\\e faculty^ not the science to which a man is ap- pointed, that bounds his flight. This is the theory of tHe thing, and on this are founded the frequent com- plaints that, in the German universities, the principle
\
a04 GOTTINGEN.
of competition has been carried preposterously far. Fortunately, the most important sciences are of such an extent, that a man who makes himself able to teach any one of them well, can scarcely hope to teach any other tolerably ; yet the interference of one teacher with another is by no means so unfrequent as we might imagine ; there are always certain " stars shooting wild- ly from their spheres." It would not be easy to tell, for example, who is Professor of Greek, or Latin, or Oriental Literature ; you will generally find two or three engaged in them all. A Professor of Divinity may be alkrvved to explain the Epistles of St. Paul, for his theobgical intsrprelatiojis must be considered as something quite distinct from the labours of the philo- logist ; but, in the philosophical faculty, where, in re- gar<] to languages, philology alone is the object, I found at Gottingen no few^er than four professors armed with Greek, two with Latin, end two with Oriental Litera- ture. One draws up the Gospel of John, and the Acts of the Apostles ; a second opposes to him the first three Evangelists, the fourth being already enlisted by his adversary ; the third takes them both in flank with the Works and Days of Hesiod ; while the fourth skir- mishes round them in all directions, and cuts ofi^arious stragglers, by practical lucubrations in Greek syntax. Now, if people think that they will learn Greek to bet- ter purpose from Professor Eichhorn's Acts of the Apostles, than from Professor Tyschen's three Gos- pels, the latter must just dispense with his students and rix-dollars ;
When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war.
The former gentleman, again, leads on oriental lite- rature under the banner of the Book of Job ; the lat- ter takes the field undismayed, and opposes to him the Prophecies of Isaiah. But Professor Eichhorn imme- diately unmasks a battery of " Prelections in Arabian ;"
BLUMENBACIL 205
and Professor Tjschen, apparently exhausted of regu- lar troops, throws forward a course of lectures on the "Ars Diplomatlca," to cover his retreat.
In Latin, too, one professor starts the Satires of Per- sius against those of Horace, named by another, and Tully's Offices against the A is Poetica. The one en- deavours to jostle the other by adding Greek ; but they are both Yorkshire, and the other adds Greek too. The juridical faculty of Gottingen contains seven learned professors. Of these no fewer than three were reading on Justinian's Inslitutes in the same ses- sion, two of them, moreover, using the same text-book. Two of them likewise lectured on the form of process in civil cases, both usiiig the same text-book.
Gottingen, though not yet an hundred years old, has already exhibited more celebrated men, and done more for the progress of knowledge in Germany, than any other similar institution in the country. Meyer, Mo- shcim, Michaeiis, and Heyne, are names not easily eclipsed ; and, in the present day, Blumenbach, Gauss, Avhom many esteem second only to La Place, Hugo, Hceren, and Sartorius, fully support the pre-eminence of the Georgia Augusta. Europe has placed Blumen- bach at the head of her physiologists ; but, with all his profound learning, he is in every thing the reverse of the dull, plodding, cumbersome solidity, which we have learned to consider as inseparable from a German 5a- vant^ — a most ignorant and unfounded prejudice. G6the is the greatest poet, WollFthe greatest philologist, and Blumenbach the greatest natural historian of Germa- ny ; yet it Avould be difficult to find three more jocular and entertaining men. Blumenbach has not an atom of academical pedantry or learned obscurity about him ; his conversation is a series of shrewd and mirth- ful remarks on any thing that comes uppermost, and such likewise, I have heard it said, is sometimes his lecture. Were it not for the chaos of skulls, skeletons, mummies, aud othermatcrialsof his art, with which he^
206 GOTTINGEN.
is surrounded, jou would not easily discover, unless jou brought him purposely on the subject, that he had stu- died natural history. He sits among all sorts of odd things, which an ordinary person would call lumber, and which even many of those who drive his own science could not make much of; for it is one of Blu- raenbach's excellencies, that he contrives to make use of every thing, and to find proofs and illustrations where no other person would think of looking for them. By the side of a drawing which represented some Botocuda Indians, with faces like baboons, cud- gelling each other, hung a portrait of the beautiful Agnes of Mansfield. A South American skull, the lowest degree of human conformation, grinned at a Grecian skull, which the professor reckons the perfec- tion of crania. Here stood a whole mummy from the Canary Islands, there half a one from the Brazils, with long strings through its nose, and covered with gaudy feathers, like Papageno in the Magic Flute. Here is stuck a negro's head, there lies a Venus, and yonder reclines, in a corner, a contemplative skeleton with folded hands. Yet It is only necessary to hear the most passing remarks of the professor, as you stumble after him through this apparent confusion, to observe how clearly all that may be learned from it is arranged in his head, in his own scientific combinations. The only thing that presented external order was a very complete collection of skulls, showing the fact, by no means a new one, that there is a gradual pro- gression in the form of the skull, from apes, up to the most generally received models of human beauty. " Do you see these horns?" said he, searching among a heap of oddities, and drawing forth three horns, " they were ftnce worn by a woman. She happened to fall and break her head ; from the wound sprouted this long horn ; it continued to grow for thirty years, arui then she cast it ; it dropped off. In its place came a second one ; but it did not grow so long, and
SCIENTIFIC COLLECTIONS. 20r
dropped off too. Then this third one, all on the same spot; but the poor woman died while the third was growlni(, and I had it cut I'rom the corpse." They were literally three genuine horns. The last two are short, thick, and nearly straight; but the first is about ten inches long, and completely twisted, like the horn of a ram. It is round and rough, of a brownish colour, and fully half an inch in diameter towards the root. All three are hollow, at least at the base. The termi- nation is blunt and rounded. Other instances of the same thing have been known, but always in women; and Blumenbach says it has been ascertained by che- mical analysis, that such horns have a greater affinity, in their composition, with the horns of the rhinoceros, than with those of any other animal.
The pre-eminence of Gottingen is equally founded in the teachers and the taught. A Gottingen chair is the [lighest reward to which a German savant aspires, and to stud} at Gottingen is the great wish of a Ger- man youth. There are good reasons for this, both with the one and the otlier. The professor is more comi'ortable, in a pecuniary point of view, and possesses greater facilities for pushing on his science, than in the other universities; the student finds (l|& more gentle- manly tone of manners than elsewhere, and has within his reach better opportunities of studying to good pur- pose. This arises from the exertions of the govern- ment to render the different helps to study, — the li- brary, the observatory, the collections of physical in- struments, and the hospitals, — not as costly, but as useful as possible. It has never adopted the principle of bribing great men by great salaries, — a principle naturally acted on in those universities which possess no other recommendation than the fame of the teach- ers. It has chosen rather to form and' organize those i means of study w^hich, in the hands of a man of ave- rage talent, (and such are always to be had,) are much more generally and effectively useful, than the prelec- ^
208 ' GOTTINGEN.
tions of a persi)n of more distinguished genius when deprived of this indispensable assistance. The profes- sors themselves do not ascribe the rapidly increasing prosperity of tlie university so much to the reputation of distinguished individuals who have filled so many of i(s chairs, as to the pains which have been taken to render these means of improvement more perfect than they are to be found united in any sister seminary. "Better show-collections," said Professor Heeren, very sensibly, "may be found elsewhere; but the great re- commendation of ours is, that they have been made for use, not for show ; that the student finds in them every thing he would wish to see and handle in his science. This is the true reason why the really stu- dious prefer Gottingen, and this will always secure our pre-eminence, independent of the fame of particular teachers; the latter is a passing and changeable thing, the former is permanent."
Above all, the library is a great attraction both for the teacher and the learner. It is not only the mo^t complete among the universities, but there are very few royal or pufjlic collections in Germany v»^hich can rival it in real utility. It is not rich in manuscripts, and many othec libraries surpass it in typographical rarities, and specimens of typographical luxury; but none contains so great a number of really useful books in any given branch of knowledge. The principle on which they proceed is, to collect the sohd learning and literatui'e of the world, not the curiosities and splen- dours of the printing art. If they have twenty pounds to spend, instead of buying some very costly edition of one book, they very wisely buy ordinary editions of four or five. When Heyne undertook the charge of the library in 1763, it contained sixty thousand vc- A lumes. He established the prudent plan of increase, ^ which has been followed out with so much success, and the number is now nearly two hundred thousand. ^ They complain much of the expense of English books.
THE LIBRAUY. «09
No compulsory measures are taken to fill the shelves, except that the booksellers of Goltingen itself must deliver a copy of every work which tliey publish.
The command of such a library (and the manage- ment is most liberal) is no small recommendation to the studious, whether he be teacher or pupil; but, in this case, it is perhaps of still more importance to the pro- fessors in a pecuniary point of view. The thousand or twelve hundred pounds which government pays every year in booksellers' accounts, cannot be reckon- ed an additional expense. The professors themselves say, that, without this, it would be necessary to lay out as much, if not more, in augmenting their salaries; for, if they had to purchase their own books, they could not afford to labour on salaries varying from a hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds. Meiners calculated, in the beginning of the present century, that the sav- ing thus made on salaries was at least equal to the whole expense of the library. In other universities, I have often heard the professors complain bitterly of the expense of new books, to which they were sub- jected by the poverty of their college library. They have reason to complain, when we think of the num- ber of new books which a public teacher in any de- partment finds it prudent to read, and, to a certain ex- tent, uses, although there may be very few of thoni which he would wish permanently to possess. If the Professor of History, for example, pays thirty rix-dol- lars for Hallam's Middle Ages, or a Lecturer on Anti- quities pays fifty rix-dollars for Belzoni's Egyptian Re- searches, these sums are most important drawbacks on the salary of a German professor, yet these are only single books in a single language. Now, a professor of Halle or Jena must either dispense with the books al- together, or pay for them out of his own pocket. His brother of Gottingen has them at his command with- out laying out a farthing. Hence it is, that professors 27
21© GOTTINGEN.
in other universities always set down the library as one great recommendation of a Gottlngen chair.
Another Is the widows' fund, founded by public au- thority, like that of the Church of Scotland, and still more flourishing. Though the Hanoverian govern- ment has never thought it prudent to procure or re- tain a distinguished man by an invidious excess of salary above his brethren, it would be at once igno- rant and unjust to suppose that it has been in any way niggardly towards the learned persons who till the chairs of Gottingen. The regular salaries are from twelve to fifteen hundred rix-dollars, exclusive of the fees. Taking the salaries in the mass at L. 200 Sler- llng, which is below the average, they are higher than the salaries of any other German university, except- ing, perhaps, one or two at Berlin. The widows' fund, however, is peculiar to Gottingen, and recom- mends its chairs to the learned even more tlian its library and fees, for in no country does the scanty re- compense of a learned man threaten more helpless destitution to a family which he may leave behind him, than in Germany. It is as old as the university itself, and originated with Munchausen. Thp capital was originally only a thousand rix-dollars ; at the end of the last century it amounted to fifty-one thousand, chiefly made up of benefactions from the government and private individuals, but partly, likewise, from the savings of the accumulating interest. The interest of the capital, with the yearly payments made by the professors, forms the fund from which the families of deceased professors are pensioned. The rate of al- lowance fixed at the beginning of the present century was a hundred and fifty-six rix-dollars (L. 24) yearly to the widow, or, if she had predeceased, to the chil- dren. For every five thousand rix-dollars added to the capital, whether by bequests, or by an excess of ordinary revenue, ten are added to the pension of every widow. On the death of the widow, the pen-
HOSPITALS. 211
sion is continued till the youngest child reaches the age of twenty. The burdens have hitherto been so few, that the revenue of the fund has not only been able to discharge them, but a part of it, sometimes two-thirds, has always been added to the capital, Avhich is thus rapidly increasing.
Medical science is the department in which the fame of Gottingen is least certain, not from any want of talent on the part of the teachers, but solely from the want of extensive hospitals, these indispensable requisiica to medical education, which only large towns can furnish. Gottingen, small as it is, contains three ; but they are necessarily on a diminutive scale. One of them is set apart for surgical operations ; another for clinical lectures; the third belongs to a class which, in a German university town, can always reckon on being more regularly supplied than any other; it is a lying-in hospital. There are twelve hundred students in Gottingen, and, on an average, twenty mothers in the hospital. On one side, a Magdalene greets the eyes of the suffering sinner, as if to remind her of what she is; and, on the other, a bad copy of the Madonna della Sediola, as if to comfort her with the idea of what she may become. It would be awkward to in- quire how far the students themselves contribute to the welfare of this establishment, by providing it with patients, — though there is no doubt that they are its best friends, and the greatest enemies of the public morals. It has often happened, that the father has been the first, as an obstetric tyro, to hear the cry of his child ; and it would happen more frequently, were it not that, when he does not long for the honours of ir- regular paternity, the mother, who has sold herself, is easily bribed to buy another father. Where so many young men are assembled, hee from all controul, ex- cept a very imperfect academical controul, and sur- rounded by such creatures as minister in domestic ser- vices in a university town, the consequences to mo-
51fi GOTTINGEN.
rality will always be the same ; and assuredly the principles of German Burschen are the very last that would struggle against the corruption. It would be nothing out of the way of their style of thinking to hear them maintain, that it is a greater enormity to let the lying-in hospital go to ruin for want of patients, than to debauch innocence ; they would defend the ir- regular manufacture of living bodies on precisely the same principles on which their medical brethren, among ourselves, defend the theft of dead ones. Still it is true, that, among the females whom the German Burschen come across in their academic towns, there is little innocence to debauch. The laundi esses, in particular, a set of persons who claimed the severe eye of the praetor much more than any nautae or cau- pones, use the charms of their subaltern Naiads as a regular trap to catch customers ; she who has the prettiest is sure to require the most extensive bleach- ing green. At first, tfie effects of all- this were melan- choly at Gotlingen; for these creatures often contrived to seduce silly Burschen, who were worth angling lor, into marriage; but the government took such severe measures against them, above all, by declaring such marriages null, that they no longer attempt it, and gather their gains in a less ambitious course. Gottin- gen is no worse than its sister universities^ and matters have greatly mended during the last twenty years ; at least they say so themselves. The same mother, how- ever, has been known to appear four different times in the hospital, in four successive years, in honour of four different Burschen ; and even noble equipages have occasionally deposited masked fair ones, for a time, in this house of doubtful reputation.
The number of students has been regularly on the increase since the termination of the war, partly from the increased extent of the kingdom, partly from the abolition of the neip^hbouring university of Helmstadt, (Brunswick and Mecklenburgh having very wisely
LAW. 213
agreed to recognize Gottingen as the university of these duchies,) and partly from the proscri|jliun of Jena which followed the murder of Kotzebue. But the principal reason of the increase is the rising ciia- racter of the univeisity itself, which both attracts foreigners, and prevents llaiiovenans from going to study elsewhere. More than one-half of the whole number are foreigners, that is, not natives of the king- dom of Hanover. The number of foieigners from states not German is naturally small, in comparison with those who belong to other German slates. In 1821, out of nearly seven hundred, who were not ija- tives of the kingdom, not a Imndred were from coun- tries foreign to Germany. Swiss and Gieeks were the most numerous, then Russians and Englishmen. While there were u()wards of a hundred yt>uiig men from Prussia, notwithstanding the well-earned reputa- tion of Berlin, there was only one solitary subject of Austria. The Austrian Eagle is most jealous of her young gazing on other suns than her own. Five Hun- garians, who had come to Gottingen to learn seme- thing, were actually ordered away by an express com- mand from Vienna, and found it necesisary to obey.
The proportion of lawyers among the students is extravantly large ; more than one-half of the whole number were matriculated in the juridical faculty. The reason of this is, that, from the mode of internal arrangement common to all the German states, there is an immense number of small public offices connec- ted with the administration of justice, to which, trilling as the competence they afford may be, numbers of young men look forward as their destination, and which require a legal education, or, at least, what [}asses for a legal education. Under the system of })airimonial jurisdiction, which, though clipped here and there, still remains in its essence as well as in its form, every other landed proprietor must have a judge, or, if his estates be disjoined, two or three judges, to administer
2U GOTTINGEN.
justice, in the first instance, to all who dwell within the limits of his property. The crown, too, requires a host of little praetors of the same kind on its do- mains. It is true, that such a person is badly paid ; but then, to say nothing of his own chicane, there are legal imposts on the litigants, which give him a direct interest In fomenting and protracting suits; and, under so imperfect a system of controul as every where pre- vails, he must be a marvellously stupid or a marvel- lously honest Dorfrichter^ (village-judge,) who cannot rise his gains to a very ample recompense for his talents. The same person is occacionally judge in two different small districts. It sometimes happens that it is necessary for the judge of the one to notify some- thing that has happened, the escape of a thief, for in- stance, to the judge of the other; and instances have actually occurred of the same person in the one ca- pacity, writing a letter to himself in the other, and then answering his own letter, that he might lose none of the fees attached to the oerformance of these du- ties. The consequence is, that in Gottmgen one-half of the students are gaining a sprinkling of law, and out of it, justice and the country are suffering under a locust tribe of Dogberrys.
Gottingen has the reputation of being a dear place, and the more prudent of its preceptors do not wish to propagate any contrary belief; for, like all its sis- ters, it has felt the burden of enticing a host of poor scholars into learned courses. It has two hundred and sixteen freytischstellen^ that is, it has funds which are laid out in feeding so many poor students. The stu- dent selects a traiteur who supplies him with his food at a fixed rate, and is paid by the university. The alms is not always well bestowed ; niggardly interest sometimes gains it in preference to necessity. An in- stance was mentioned to me of a wealthy Mecklen- burgher being so mean as to ask this pittance for his son, and so unfortunate as to obtain it. The young
EXPENDITURE. 215
man himself would not submit to the unnecessary de- gradation, transferred his privilege of eating gratis to a poor comrade, dined himself at the table d'hote of the most fashionable inn, and ran in debt.
The lowest sum I ever heard mentioned as sufficient to bring a young man respectably through at Gottin- gen is three hundred rix-dollars yearly, not quite L. 50, but assuredly this is too low. Mlchaelis, even in the last century, said four hundred; Meincrs, in the beginning of the present, set it down at three hundred; Professor Saalfeld, who has brought down Flutter's work to 1820, fixes on three hundred and iifty. The number of those who spend only the lowest of these sums is mucli smaller than the number of those who spend the highest. Taking the average at three hun- dred and fifty, which certainly does not exceed the truth, the university, with upwards of twelve hundred students, and thirty-six regular teachers, besides the extraordinary professors and the doctores privatim do- centcs^ annually circulates in Gottlngcn, at least, seven- ty thousand pounds. Considerably more than one-half of those who spend this money are foreigners to Han- over; and, as they are generally the more wealthy, they spend a considerably greater share of the whole sum than the part merely proportional to their num- bers. Thus, the university brin^is annually into the town about L. 40,000 from foreign countries. The mere rent of rooms let to the students aniounted, for the winter session 1820-1821, to 21,800 rix-dollars, rather more than L. 3300. The professors exercise a very strict controul over all the inhabitants who follow this occupation. Opposite to each student's name in the university catalogue stands not only the street, but the very house which he inhabits, and if he remove, it must be immediately notified to his academical supe- riors. In the whole town there were a thousand and ninety-six rooms to let, of which six remained empty, though tHfe number of students was twelve hundred
216 GOTTINGEN.
and fifty-five ; for, as it is not to be expected that a man, who is unable to pay for his dinner, can con- veniently be at the expense of a whole bed-chamber, it frequently happens that. two occupy the same room together.
The university has been fortunate in suflfering noth- insf from the pohtical animosities which, of late years, have harassed so many public teachers in Germany, and set most of the universities in so turbulent a hght. It would be too much to say that her students escap- ed the infection which made the silly, hot-headed B irschen set themselves up for political regenerators. Tiey bore their part in the Wart burg festival ; they discarded hair-cutters, and well-made coats : but the spirit evaporated more speedily than elsewhere, and was more (irmly met by the vigour of the senate, and the prudence of the government. The latter, though it has very properly opposed itself, from the very be- giiming, to the irregularities of the students, is in fa- vour both with them and their teachers. While some other states look upon their universities with jealousy and dislike, Hanover has always treated what the Duke of Cambridge called, " the fairest pearl in her crown," with confidence and liberality. It has never pretended to find proofs of an organized revohjtion in the doctrines of the teachers, or the occasional turbu- lence of the scholars. It has borne with the one, and battled against the other, but has never used them as tokens of political crime to justify political harshness. The regulations against the press produced by the C )ngress of Carlsbad, and enacted into a law of the Confederation by the Diet, have introduced here, as in all tfie seminaries, a censorship from which the uni- versities had hitherto been exempted. But in Gottin^ gen the power thus given has not been used ; no cen- sorship, I was assured, had been established. Those professors whose departments necessarily draw them into political discussion, have acted much more sensi-
DISCIPLINE. 217
blj than their brethren of Jena. They have not de- generated into mere newspaper writers, nor suHicd their academical character, by mixing themselves up in the angry pohtics of the day with the fury of partizans. Sartorius, the Professor of Statistics and Pohtical Eco- nomy, sits in the States for the town of Eimbeck.
Gottingen enjoys the reputation, that a more sober and becoming spirit reigns among its students tlian is to be found in any of its rivals, and that, even in their ex- cesses, they show a more gentlemanly spirit : to this merit every Gottinger at least lays claim. In the ex- ternal peculiarities of the sect, they seem to be much on a level with their brethren. I heard as late and as loud singing, or rather vociferation, resounding on the streets and from the windows of Gottingen, as in Halle, Heidelberg, or Jena. They are as much attached to the fencing school and the duel, to the vivat and the pereat ; but they are not so fertile in contriving ridi- culous expedients to make themselves be noticed. The Senate has a body of armed police under its own com- mand, to keep them in order ; but the students have oftener than once driven these academic warriors from the field. Landsmannschaften, too, are said to be root- ed out, and Blumenbach was blessing his stars that it had come to be his turn to be Prorector when these things are no more ; but duels keep their place ; and, considering that these fraternities are as much prohi- bited every where as in Gottingen, and yet do continue to exist elsewhere, it may fairly be presumed that they lurk and act in Hanover under the same secrecy which protects them in Prussia and Saxony. Discipline, like- wise, at least for many years, has been rigorously en- forced. In return for the confidence ^nd liberality with which the government has always treated the professors, it has justly insisted on the firm and uncom- promising discharge of their duty. That spirit of truckling to the young men, so disgusting in some oth- er universities, has disappeared. 28
218 GOTTINGEN.
Any preference which Gottingen may reasonably claim in point of general manners arises principally from the circumstance, that a greater proportion of its stuilents are young men of rank, and of respectable or affluent fortune, than elsewhere. I do not mean, that rank and wealth give these persons purer morals, or a more accommodating spirit of subordination, than be- long to their less fortunate lellows ; but the dissipa- tions of the former are not so gross and raw in their external expressions as similar excesses in the lower ranks of life, and it is only of their external conduct that there is here any question. A licentious peer and a licentious porter are generally very different charac- ters. Where the poorer class of students forms the majority, the manners are always more rude, and the whole tone of society is more vulgar, than where their numbers are comparatively small. To this, I think, it is chiefly owing that Gottingen, without perhaps any well-founded claim to better conduct, or greater aca- demical industry, than some other universities, certain- ly does impress the stranger with the idea of some- thing more orderly and gentlemanly. The very ap- pearance of the town aids this impression, for Gottin- gen is one of the most agreeable and cleanly-looking towns in Germany. The regularity and w^idth of the streets, which possess like>vise the rare merit of being furnished, for the most part, with pavements, and the neat, light, airy appearance of the houses, though they make no pretensions to elegance, is something very dif- ferent from Halle or Jena.
1^
33
219
CHAPTER Vm.
HANOVER.
Ein warnies immer reges Herz,
Bei hellem Licht im Kopfe ; Gesunde Gliecler ohne Schmerz,
Und Heinrich's Huhn im Topfe.
Tlie Bitrschen.
The greater part of the fifty miles between Gottin- gen and Hanover still presents a pleasant, varied, and well cultivated country, consisting of moderate sized plains, bouiided by wooded ridges of moderate eleva- tion. Here, too, as in Hesse, a great quantity of land is in wood, which might easily be converted to agri- cultural purposes, were it not that ihe forest laws pre- vent the proprietor from either clearing it away, or deriving any advantage from the timber. The pea- santry have the right of pasturage in the forest ; if cleared away, it would only become an open common pasture. The scarcity of fuel all over the kingdom argues a deficiency of wood; and it would be a more advisable speculation, regularly to cut and renew the forest, did not the Hutungs-Recht, the right of pastur- age, present a thousand obstacles. The proprietor cannot increase the number of his trees, for he dare not encroach on the extent of the pasturage. That it may not be inconvenient for the cattle, he must plant, if he plant at all, at distances which are ruinous to young wood, by leaving it without shelter. Then, both the cattle and the persons who tend them are sworn enemies of young trees ; the quadrupeds, because they find them to be good eating, and the bipeds, because they imagine, that to destroy them is to advance the public weal of the village, by augmenting the pastur- able surface. To protect them from the wind, they
22e. HANOVER.
are fastened to stakes ; to defend them against cows and cowherds, they are surrounded with thorns ; im- mediately the herdsmen carry off the thorns and stakes as excellent fuel, and the cattle attack the trees as be- ing excellent food. The proprietor very naturally gives up a business which he cannot ply w'ith profit, neglects his forest, and the scarcity and cost of fuel is rapidly increasing. In the Estates a proposal was made, though unsuccessfully, to exempt forest-land from the land-tax, on the ground, that it is a species of pro- perty which, under the existing laws, cannot possibly be productive to the ow^ner.
This has likewise a demoralizing influence, and pro- duces a class of criminals which we scarcely know, wood-poachers. In many districts the price of fuel is so high, that the poor cannot afiford to purchase it ; but they can just as little endure to be frozen, or to eat their meat undressed ; they plunder the forests, and justice is compelled to connive, in some measure, at this crime of necessity. Holz-dieb, or wood-thief, is a term as expressive of daring, recklessness, and revenge, as poachers is with us. The Jagers, and other ser- vants appointed to w^atch the forests, are regarded by them in the same light in which game-keepers are by poachers, and, if they value their personal safety, they must discharge their duty with great lenity or careless- ness. When some notable piece of plundering makes it necessary to bestir themselves, the Jagers of a num- ber of neighbouring forests occasionally assemble as if for a chace ; the dogs are uncoupled, and the horns sound, but wood-thieves are the game, and often sufTer a severe chastisement. They, again, take vengeance in their own way and time ; there have been examples of an obnoxious inspector, or keeper of a wood, falling a sacrifice to the murderous enmity of such men, years after he had brought, or attempted to bring them to punishment. They are exactly our own poachers, on- ly they are produced, not by idleness or a love of
THE POPULATION. 221
amusement, but by the impossibility of dispensing with one of the first necessaries of life.
These pleasant valleys are more thickly peopled than the northern provinces of the kingdom, which con- tain so many large tracts of uncultivated heath and un- inhabited sand. The population of Calenberg, Gottin- gen, and Grubenhagen, commonly included under the name of the southern provinces, exceeds that of the northern by nearly one half, in proportion to their re- spective superficial extent.* Villages and small towns are plentifully scattered ; the former are apparently more substantial and convenient, and the latter more bustling and cheerful than in Hesse. There are al- ways, indeed, many traces of poverty, and much of what we would reckon slovenliness, and want of skill ; but the peasantry look active and comfortable. It is no peculiar praise to Hanover, that its peasantry are no longer adscriptitii ghbae^ bound to live and labour, and die where they were born, however hard the condi- tions might be on which their family had originally ac- quired the hereditary lease, as it may be called, of the lands ; for in what German state has not this been i^ rooted out ? The conditions under which the son is to succeed to his father's farm may be personally oppres- sive, as well as impolitic in regard to agriculture ; but he is no longer bound, as he formerly was, to submit to them. If he dislikes them, or wishes to seek a more indulgent landlord, he is at liberty to pack up his little all, and settle himself where he chooses. It is true that a German peasant will not readily quit the soil
* Before the addition of East Friesland, which was ceded to Ha- nover at the general peace, the northern provinces were reckon- ed at 464 geographical square miles, with a population of 680,000; the three southern provinces at 162 miles, with a population of 343,000, exclusive of the 40,000 poor but industrious inhabitants who people the valleys, work the mines, and carry on the iron manufactories of the Harz. Since the cessions made to Hanover at the peace, the population of the whole kingdom is given in round numbers at 1,320,000,
222 HANOVER.
which his fathers have laboured for ages ; he will sub- mit to a great deal before taking this desperate step, Avhich is to him, though he only remove perhaps into the next parish, as painful a separation as if he were an emigrant leaving his country for a distant corner of the globe. But the knowledge that such a thing can be done, and is done, has necessarily brought the pro- prietors to feel the necessity of avoiding those exac- tions, and mitigating the hard feudal terms of former days, which would be most likely to make it happen.
Hanover depends so much on agriculture, that the towns, numerous as they are, do not contam above a tenth part of the whole population ; yet, in the Es- tates convoked in 1814, they returned nearly one-third of the members. There is nothing popular in the mode of election ; the member is chosen by the magis- trates, and the magistrates are either self-elected, or name J by the Crown. The most popular form I heard of is that of Osnabruck, whose new charter gives the citizens some share in filling up vacancies in the magis- tracy, but in such a round about way, that it may fair- ly be quoted as the beau ideal of indirect election. The magistracy chooses sixteen citizens, " good and true men ;" these sixteen choose four ; two of these four, in conjunction with one member of the surviving ma- gistracy, choose twelve; these twelve choose three; out of these three the magistrates choose one ; this one must be confirmed by the government, and then takes his seat among the civic authorities, the picked man of the three who represent the twelve, who re- present the three, who represent the four, who repre- sent the sixteen, who represent the magistracy, who represent themselves. Aye, this is the House that Jack built ; yet it is no crazy, ruined, old fashioned edi- fice, but a spick and span new house built in the year 1814.^
* Verordnung, die Organisation des Magistrats der Stadt Osna- briick betreffend ; 31st October 1814.
THE CITY. 225
The nearer the capital, the less beauty. On ap- proachino; its walls, you emerge I'rom hill ami dale into that wide, dreary, sandy plain, which spreads itself out from the foot of the Harz, nearly to the shores of the East sea. Hanover makes no show in the distance ; it even looks more dull and gloomy than it really turns out to be. The population does not exceed twenty thousand ; but the appointment of a royal governor has brought back some portion of princely gaiely, and the asseoibling of thu General States, drawing togeth- er many of the nobility from the dilferent provinces, gives its streets and shopkeepers, for a season, addi- tional activity. It is an irregular town, neither old nor new fashioned ; every thing is marked with mediocri- ty. The formerly Electoral palace is a huge, plain, uninhabited building, and that of the Duke of Caai- bridge is merely the best house in the best street. The manners did not seem to me to be at all so much An- glicised as they are sometimes represented. Except the English uniform of the Guards, the Erjglish arms on the public offices, and, In some circles, a later dinner hour than is usual in Germany, nothing reminds one that he is in a capital which has so long been subject to the King of England. It is only within these few years that Hanover has come into contact with Eng- land in such a way, as either to teach, or be taught any thing ; the higher orders alone are exposed to this influ- ence, and any fragments of foreign customs which they may adopt will not easily spread among the great body of the people, or produce any visible change on the national manners. The manners of France penetrated much more deeply into the capitals which she occupied, because Frenchmen were thrust into all the com- manding stations of society : but England has hitherto acted towards Hanover with justice and propriety. The Hanoverians cannot complain that the administra- tion of their government has been diverted to the pro- fit of foreigners. Though there are English officers
224 HANOVER.
about the governor, all the public offices are filled by
natives.
Our language and literature are naturally much culti- vated among them, but scarcely more so than at Dresden or Weimar. The theatre, though a court theatre, is the only one in Germany where I ever found recognized our constitutional privilege of making a noise. The gods of Covent Garden or Drury Lane could not maintain the rights of theatres with greater turbulence, than their brother deities of Hanover ; but, as they assert that they have enjoyed the franchise ever since they had a theatre, we cannot claim the merit of having taught them this imposing expression of public senti- ment. An opera was performed, Greytry's Coeur do Lion ; the singing was mediocre, and the acting de- testable; all the men were awkward, and all the wo- men ugly. Great part of the pit was filled with mili- tary officers. All over Germany, it is reckoned essen- tial to the respectability of the military character, that these gentlemen should be able to frequent the thea- tre ; but, low as the prices are, (the pit at Hanover is only a shilling,) their pay is insufficient to afford this nightly amusement. The government, therefore, keeps back a small portion of their pay, gives them gratis ad- mission to the theatre, and, in some way or other, makes up the difference to the manager. Is it more respectable to go to the theatre on charity, than to stay at home ? If it is supposed that the dignity of the mi- litary character depends, in public estimation, on the apparent ability of the military to spend money, is it elevated by an arrangement which tells every body, that they are less able to spend money than their fel- low-citizens ? Even a strolling party, if there be mili- tary in the place of its temporary abode, generally sets apart a portion of its barn for the Herren Offlciere, either gratuitously, or at half price. It looks like a privilege.
Hanover had put on all the gaiety it can assume, for
AMUSEMENTS. ^225
it was Easter Sunday, and Easter Sunday is a fair. The lower orders, in holiday finery, were swarming through the walks that run along the ramparts, de- cently dressed, decently behaved, and healthy looking people. A large plain, outside of the walls, covered "with booths, E O tables, and other sources of Sunday amusement, was the gathering place. On one side, a great many parties of young men were playing cricket in their own way. They had only one wicket ; the ball was not bowled along the ground, but thrown up in the air, and struck, as it descended, with a short staff, often with admirable precision and dexterity. In another part, the press was thronging round the can- vas booths, where cakes and toys, gin and tobacco, were retailed. Though every body was very merry, and many very noisy, there was neither quarrelling nor intoxication. Many more segars than drams were con- sumed. Next afternoon, the whole city repaired to Herrenhausen^ a royal residence in the suburbs, where the royal water-works were to spout their annual tri- bute to the Easter festivities. The long and ample alley, which runs from the city to the gardens of Her- renhausen, is magnificent ; the gardens themselves are straight walks, lined with trees, and carpeted with turf, but the statues intended to adorn them are execrable. The expectant thousands were lounging patiently round the spacious basin, till the arrival of the governor and his suite should authorize the fountain to play from its centre ; yet, when it did come, they did not seem to think it a very fine sight. It is on a trifling scale. The wind was so strong, that the column of water, in- stead of throwing itself back on all sides in an ample and graceful curve — the great source of beauty in such a fountain — was carried and scattered so far to the lee- ward, as to drench the unsuspecting citizens who had ranged themselves on that side. The wetted part of the crowd fled in consternation; the dry part shouted in malicious triumph at their o>vn windward prudence ; the 29
£26 HANOVER.
fountain played on, and the band struck up " God save the King."
At the entrance of the puhhc walks stands the mon- ument of Leibnitz, a bust of the philosopher, on an elevated pedestal, within a small Ionic temple. Hu^e bundles of his manuscripts, as well as the armed chair in which he died, reading Barclay's Argenis, are still preserved in the library where he studied, or rather lived. The greater part of them are not regularly written out, but are scraps of paper of all sizes, scrawl- ed over with incoherent notes. To keep this chaos in order, Leibnitz made use of a singular common-place book. It is an array of shelves, like a book-case, di- vided by vertical partitions into a great number of small pigeon holes. Under each hole is a label, with the name of the subject to which it was appropriated, frequently with the name of an emperor, or any other person whom the philosopher found useful as making an epoch, or important enough to have a division for himself. When, in the course of his reading, he came upon any thing worth noticing, he jotted it briefly down on any scrap of paper that happened to be at hand, and deposited it m its proper pigeon hole. One of the librarians assured me, with great complacency, that Buonaparte's expedition to Egypt was originally an idea of Leibnitz ; for, among his manuscripts, a memo- rial addressed to Louis XIV. had been discovered, in which the philosopher represents it as a great and good work to deliver from Oriental barbarism the country which had been the mother of all arts and sciences, and the ease with which its liberation might be effected by the Most Christian King.
The library itself is small ; the government justly thinks that it does enough in supporting the library of Gottingen; but there are some interesting typograph- ical rarities. A copy of Tully's Offices, of 1465, very beautifully and regularly printed on vellum, bears tes- timony to the mystery in which the art was at first in-
THE LIBRARY. 227
volved ; for the printer, alter setting down his name, "Fust," (Faust,) and the year, at the end of the book, adds, that it was executed iiec penna^ nee aerea penna, sed quadam arte. That earlj production of ihe graph- ic art, the Biblium Pauperum, is a misnomer; for a is no Bible at all, prrpcrlj speaking, and could be of no use to the poor, except as a picture-book to amu^e their children, for the text is Latin. It is a series of wooden cuts, representing the principal events of the sacred writings. The cuts occu[)y the u[)|jer half of every page ; below is the ex[)lanalion, in rude rhymed Latin verses. In the cut which represents our first parents after their expulsion from Paradise, Adam is busily delving, and Eve sits beside him, spinning, with Httle Cain upon her knee :
When Adam delved, and Eve span, Where was then the gentleman?
The superbly illuminated missal is said to have been a present from Charles V. to our Henry VIII. ; if so, it must have undergone strange vicissitudes. A notilica- tion in English, signed by a Mr. Wade, is affixed to it, which states, that he first saw the manuscript in the possession of a private gentleman in France, about the beginning of the last century. The proprietor show- ed it to him, but would not allow him to touch it; naj, he himself turned over the leaves only with a pair of silver tongs, and, observing Mr. Wade smile, remark- ed, with some warmth, that it was thus his ancestors had so long preserved the matchless manuscript in its present splendour. On the death of this gentleman, Mr. Wade purchased it from his executors ; from him it came mto the possession of our royal family, who de- posited it, along with the silver tongs, in the library of Hanover.
The gardens and villa of the late Count Walmoden are now royal property; but the collection of pictures has been dispersed. Those that remain give no good
2^8 HANOVER.
idea of the artists whose names they hear. The Ma- donna and Child, said to be by Raphael, the Dying Monk, ascribed to Tintoretto, and the Pope adoring the Virg^in, baptized as a Guido, have nothing in them, to be sure, inconsistent with the earher style and more careless efforts of these masters; but neither do they give the slightest idea of what these masters could do, and would not attract notice were it not for the names. Clirist parting from the Disciples at Emmaus is a de- sign of Annibal Caracci, full of the simplicity, dignity, and boldness, in which that painter followed so close on Fra Bartolomeo. Few pictures of Rubens exhibit the provoking inequalities of his genius so strongly as one which represents the Magdalene, backed by a host of Saints. She is kneeling, in tears, before the Virgin and Child. The colouring is in many points in his very highest style; the figures are in his very worst, not only homely, but absolutely vulgar and un- pleasant. The Saints, above all St. Francis, with their hard-favoured countenances, totally devoid of all inter- esting and poetical expression, look like so many jail- birds. The Magdalene is just one of those gross masses of human fl< sh which he has so often painted; it is well that her hands are folded upon her breast, so as partly to cover it; for, from what is visible, if displayed in full volume, it would have been frightful. The Madonna, too, is a homely housewife, beautifully painted ; but the H<jly Infant itself, in form, expression, and colouring, is delicious, — all grace, animation, and softness.
The Hanoverians (if a passing visitor be entitled to form an opinion) are a most sober-minded, plodding, easily contented people. Like all their brethren of the north of Germany, without possessing less kindness of heart, they have much less jovialty, less of the good Jellow^ than the Austrians, and are not so genial and extravagant, even in their amusements, as the Bavari- an or Wirtemburger. Though quite as industrious as
NATIONAL CHARACTER. 229
the Saxons, they are neither so lively, nor so apt. Their neighbours of Cassel and Brunswick have tne reputation of being somewhat choleric; but to this charge the Hanoverian is in no degree hable ; there is more danger of his becoming a drudge, than of his growing impatient. Endowed neither with great acuteness of perception nor quickness of I'eeling, it is long before he can be brought to comprehend the bearings of what is new to him, and it is diHicult to rouse him to ardour in its pursuit. If it become advi- sable that he should set hunself free from old usages, which are, m fact, his strongest atFections, great slow- ness and great patience are necessary to untie the cords with which he is bound. Though every other person should see that they are rotten, arid that the man has only to shake himself to get rid of them, he will not move a limb before every knot has been re- gularly undone. He possesses, in a high degree, the capacity of holding on in any given line of motion, how- ever monotonous and inconvenient, and is the last man in Europe who will start out of his way to chase but- terflies. If this confined inactivity of character renders him, in some respects, a less pleasing com[^anion, it saves him likewise from many vices and many extra- vagances. If he be somewhat dull, he is honest and affectionate: if his views be very limited, his hands are unwearied. He is much too sober minded either to sink into frivolity, or rise to enthusiasm ; he betrays little eagerness for information, for he sees little use to which he could apply it; he trusts his own under- standing with the extremest caution, for he is little accustomed to ratiocination. Gottingen is said t( have had a most beneficial influence on the culture of the nobility, and the higher ranks of the citizens; nor was it to be supposed, that, while the university was scat- tering abroad so much good seed over the other states of Germany, it would find thorny ground only in its native country.
330 HANOVER.
Though a strong feeling of attachment to his here- ditary prince is common to e\ery German, in none is it more deeply rooted than in the Hanoverian. It ts the most inveterate of his habits, from which it would give him infinite pain to tear himself loose. It is not an opinion, for he seldom thinks, and never argues about what monarchs ought to be ; ttiough it may be affected by the personal qualities of the ruler, it exists indepen- dent of them; the most splendid could scarcely rouse him to enthusiasm, and the most degrading must de- scend very low, indeed, in abasement, before they could mislead him into hatred or contempt. Even the long absence of their native princes has, in no degree, diminished their affection towards them; their love of the Guelphs has, in this respect, survived trials which fidelity to a mistress would hardly have withstood. Nor is it undeserved. Among its own people, who are the best judges, and even among the writers of the liberal party, who would not willingly acknowledge it if it were not true, the House of Hanover enjoys the reputation of having always governed with an honest regard to the welfare of its subjects, and the rights of the estates, such as they were. It has neither render- ed itself hateful by niggardliness and private oppress- ion, nor bundensome by extravagance ; the liberality of its conduct has maintained the honour of the country amvmg its neighbours, and, at the Congress of Vienna, Hanover alone fought the battle for the political ame- lioration of Germany. If Napoleon wished to win on the good will of his German provinces, and found his domination on something more respectable and secure than mere brute force, why did he so industriously in- sult their feelings, and irritate their prejudices? In Hanover, above all, the partition of the Electorate, to throw part of it into the kingdom of Westphalia, was a deadly sin against the national pride of the people, for which, in their estimation, no anathemas against aris- tocratic exemptions could atone. The return of their
THE GOVERNMENT. SSI
native sovereign was, to them, the re-creation of their country, which Napoleon had blotted out from among the states of Germany. When I was in Hanover, the report had already spread that his Majesty intended to make that visit to liis German dominions which he soon afterwards executed. The people were mani- festly looking forward to the event, not with the im- patience of a Parisian crowd to see fine sights, for no people could be less at home in such scenes of parade than the Hanoverians, but with the hearty anxiety of one who longs to meet an old friend. In the simplici- ty of their hearts, they had taken it into their heads, that the King was coming to put to rights any little public matters which they had some indistinct notion were not as they ought to be. They were quite sure, they said, that if they sometimes had to pay more money than they could well afford, only the great folks at Hanover were to blame for it; nor had they any sort of doubt, but that his Majesty would look into every thing with his own eyes, and right what required righting with his own hands. This feeling is univer- sal ; the government is popular ; even the liberal pam- phleteers allow that Hanover has no reason to envy any other German state.
The estates of the kingdom were no^ rsspcmbled ; and, even if thrv had beeii sltlliig, they admit no wit- nesses of their deliberations. There is a large dining- room, with three or four rows of chairs arranged am- phitheatrically in front of a throne from which the go- vernor delivers his speeches, and a couple of handsome parlours for the two houses. The apartment of the first chamber is the largest and best adorned, for it was prepared for the whole estates, before their reparation into two houses. When that separation took place, the peers reserved it to themselves, and sent the com- mons up stairs to the drawing-room. It is even sur- roimded with a gallery, fitted up for the spectators in those days of good intentions, but which has never
2S2 HANOVER.
been used. The members have fewer legislative con- veniences than with us. There are* no continuous benches along which a noble lord may do^e over the state of Europe — no gallery where an honourable member may dream a reply to a drowsy oration — no smoking room where he may digest the argument with- out having heard the speeches. The members are ranged behind each other on simple chairs, like the company at a Scotch funeral, and much less luxuriously than in the pit of many an Italian theatre. When the house divides, they repair into an adjoining room, where they find pen and ink, and a number of small square pieces of paper, on which the Aye or No is to be writ- ten ; if the m<irsels be exhausted, there are scissars to cut new ones. The array of scissars is magnificent ; half a dozen pairs, long, sharp, and glittering, adorn the table of each house, instead of a sceptre. One of their re- gulations might be advantageously transferred to va- rious other assemblies, viz., that when a member ap- pears to be wearying oiit the house by speaking at too great length, the president shall put him in mind, dass er sich kurz fasse^ that '' brevity is the soul of wit."
Both chambers are elective, for even the first con- sists only of deputies chosen by the nobility of the dif- ferent provinces, with the exception of a few mem- bers who sit in virtue of their rank as titular dignified clergy, that is, as possessing what was once church property. The chamber of the aristocracy ought ra- ther to be called the chamber of freeholders, for it is, in fact, i\\e representation of the landed interest, as distinguished from the population and manufacttiring in- terest of the towns. Though every person who has a patent of nobilit), and a Rittergut, or estate noble, has a right to vote, the former is not essential to the fran- chise. It iias long been consuetudinary law in Hano- ver, that every proprietor of a Rittergut, that is, every freeholder, though he should not have the honours and privileges of nobility in his person, is Landtagsfahig.
THE GOVERNMENT. 233
entitlefl, that is, to appear pcrconally in the estates, while that form of assembly prevailed, and now to vote in the election ol' the deputies who represent his pro- vince. In some parts of the kingdom, a great quanti- ty of allodial property has sprung up. It is chiefly found on what are called the Marschlanden^ formerly morasses, stretching along the banks of the Weser and the Elbe, where inundations had deposited the rudi- ments of a fertile soil, unclaimed either by the Crown or the feudal nobility while it remained in its original barrenness — drained of its waters, and defended against the stream, by a peasantry that settled among its in- salubrious damps from the same love of security which created the fields of Holland, and founded a city of princes on the waves of the Adriatic — gradually brought, by the industry of centuries, to be the most fertile district of the kingdom, and now swarming with an affluent and independent rustic population. All these proprietors have not only been admitted to the elective franchise, but, instead of being thrown in w^ith the noble proprietors around them, they elect tlieir own members.
The chambers are very doubtful about the extent of their powers. It is certain that they can do nothing without the consent of the executive, in other words, that the veto of the crown is absolute, but it is much less certain whether the crown is bound to yield \\'\\k^,n tlie chambers declare against it. Some proprietors of estates not noble, petitioned the House to be admitted to the representation ; the House surely mistook its duty in voting, that this was not a matter fit for deli- beration before them, but appertained solely to the ex- ecutive. The government, however, is allowed, on all hands, to have acted with a sincere wish to do good. In an edict organizing the militia, it prohibited any serviceable male from fixing his domicile in a fo- rtiigri cojintry, without its permission ; the Comn7ons immediately quarrelled this, as contrary to the liberty
30
254 HANOVER.
of the subject, and the natural right of every man to live where he chooses ; and the ministry yielded the point. If firmly refused to re-establish the nobility in the old exemptions from taxation and military service, which Napoleon had first shaken. The nobility made an obstinate struggle to retain their exemption from the land-tax, but in vain, though the majority in the estates belonged to their own class; for there were many of them to whom the frowns of the court were more formidable than the pressure of a tax. Resist- ing likewise, their claims to monopolize all the lucra- tive and influential offices of the state, the government has employed commoners of talent, wherever it could find them, both in the civil administration and in the army. There is no German court where ability and honesty, to whatever rank they may belong, are allow- ed fairer play.
The most imprudent thing which the Estates have done was wrapping up their proceedings in such impe- netrable secrecy. By a majority of two votes, they excluded the public from being present at their deli- berations. Then, although they ordered an epitome of their journals, containing important reports made by committees, propositions submitted to the Chamber, and its final decision upon them, to be regularly print- ed, this compend was intended only for the members themselves, and was anxiously kept back from indiscri- minate publication. The consequence is, that the great body of the citizens take no interest in proceedings of which they know nothing. The leading men of the ministry, and the Governor himself, are believed to be favourable to publicity ; and the example of Weimar shows, that, even under a much more popular system of representation than is yet established m Hanover, deputies may cling to secrecy, while the government recommends publicity. Professor Luden of Jena, who is himself a Hanoverian by birth, published, in 1817, a history and review of the proceedings of the Estates,
THE PRESS. 235
from their first meeting after the expulsion of the French down to that year.* It is a sensible, and, in no point of view, a reprehensible book: though it some- times questions the propriety of the decisions of the Estates, both they and the government are treated, not only with respect, but with eulogy. Yet it seems to have been proscribed, on no other imaginable ground, than because it discusses the discussions of the Cham- ber. At least, no bookseller in Hanover would say that he had it ; and I procured it only by the polite- ness of a Privy Councillor who allowed me to make use of his name. Thus there seems to be a possibility of suppressiiig, without incurring the odium of prohi- biting.
It has long been a popular belief in England that Hanover is mischievous to us; that it is a trilling patri- monial apjjendage of our monarchs which draws us un- necessarily into expensive continental quarrels. How- ever, to use a common phrase, there is no love lost be- tween us and the Hanoverians. They are in no de- gree flattered by their king wearing the crown of En- gland; if it gives their cabinet political weight, they feel that thev shine in borrowed lio:ht. The well edu- Gated classes laugh at the Englishman who retails the assertion, that Hanover does Britain mischief: "It is we," say they, " who suffer. When the King of Ha- nover is offended, the King of England is not bound to resent his injuries ; but when the King of England gets into a continental quarrel, Hanover with no earthly in- terest in the dispute, is the first victim of the rupture."
* Das Konigreich Hannover, nach seinen offentlichen Verhalt- nissen.
236 THE HARZ,
CHAPTER IX.
BRUNSWICK — MAGDEBURGH — POTSDAM—- BERLIN.
Sprache gab mir einst Ramler, und Stoflf mein Casar ; da nahm Ich Meineii Muud etwas voll, aber ich schweige seitdem.
Schiller. The Spree loquitur.
Scarcely out of the gates of Hanover, and the wheels already drowned in sand up to the axielree ; taedium to the eje, and death to the patience of X\\e traveller, with the additional vexation of paying tolls for permission to follow the most convenient track which his postilion can find among the fir-irees, where no road has ever existed since the flood, which seems to have left these sands behind it. But it is unreason- able to get into a passion at the bad roads in these parts of Hanover and Brunswick ; for what can be ex- pected where the soil is only a deep, arid sand, and not a pound weight of stone is to be procured, except at an expense which the finances can ill bear? Not- withstanding the tolls, few roads in Germany support themselves; xnouey iov Strassenhau^ that is, for mak- ing and upholding roads, is a regular item in the annual budsfet of every state. The roads are thus a conti- nual burden on the public treasury ; and, as poverty is the besetting infirmity, they must share in the imper- fections of all puhlic matters that require money.
While toiling through this German Zara, with what longing the eye turns to the lofty and lengthened rido^e of tfie Harz, which bounds it on the south, once, probably, the mountainous shore of a sea, that gradu- ally receded from these level deserts. There, all is varied and romantic ; the ancient pines seem to frown contemptuously on their stunted brethren which en-
BRUNSWICK. 2^7
cumber the plain; villages and spires start out from their shade ; deep cleits and shattered precipices overlook ihern \n a thousand imposing forms. Above them all rises the Blocksberg, since lime nnniemorial the Pandemonium oi Europe, and the only spot which persecuting incredulity has left to the adepts in the black art, where ail the Avizarda and witches of the ci- vilized world still assemble, on May morning, to com- mune with their horned master, and celebrate, under his guidance, their unholy orgies.
Amid this wilderness, time and money have contriv- ed to surround Brunswick with verdant groves, in which lovers whisper, and nightingales sing, all the night long. The city is both larger than Hanover, and wears a more cheerful external aspect ; but it seemed to have still less bustle and activity, and the peoj»le were impatiently waiting till the niajonty of the young Duke should restore their court. The Gothic cathe- dral, begun in the twelfth century by Henry the Lion, whom the Brunswickers consider the great ornament of their ancient family, is an imposing edliice, but is polluted w^ith an incongruous style of ornament which betravs an eastern origin. The tall pillars of the nave, for example, have small ones twisted round them.
In a valt beneath, lies a long line of the princes of
Brunswick. The plain oaken colHn oj Ferdinand, the
great Captain of the great Frederick, is the simplest of
all. Near him lies the late Duke, who fell at Quatre
Bras. Tw'o small crimson flags, the one an ctiering
from the matrons, and the other from the maidens of
Brunswick, are suspended above his coffin ; and its
gaudy gold and crimson are still mixed with the brown
and withered leaves of the garlands which the love of
-I'll his people scattered on his bier when, at midnight, he
w?is laid among so many of his race, who had fought
and fallen like himself. Every Brunswickcr speaks of
his memory w^ith pride and affection : there was much
£38 THE MUSEUM.
that was heroic and chivalrous in his character, and* raucfi that was interesting in his fortunes. He was full of that warhke spirit which the history of their prin- ces has taught the Brunswickers to consider an inheri- tance of the famiij. No man deserved better to fill a place in this honoured vault which, besides Ferdinand, who won the warrior's fame without finding the war- rior's gravt), and Leopold, who perished in the Oder, attempting to save the peasantry during an inundation, contains no fewer than nine princes of the House of Brunswick, more than one of them heads of the house, who, since the beginning of the last century, have fallen on the field of battle — a testimony of devoted- ness to duty which no other sovereign house of Europe can exhibit, and justifying, by the general character of the family, still more than by the fate of one unfor- tunate prince, the song of him who announced that Germany's
Chnmpion ere he strikes will come,
And whet his sword on Brunswick''s lomb»
The most interestino: thing in the Museum is the Mantuan vase, or Brunswick onyx, an antique gem which has puzzled the learned scarcely less than the Portland vase. The stone is about half a foot long; its form is oblong, but it has been shaped into the fashion of a vase, with a golden rim and handle. The ground colour, a very deep brown, is varied with patches of white, some clouds of a dim yellow, and still few^er of a dark grey. At about two thirds of its depth from the mouth, it is divided by a circular band of gold, and both the upper and lower compartments are filled with figures, cut in low relief, in a style which has made the gem be universally received as Grecian, but which betokens, at the same time, no masterly hand, nor any blooming period of the art. It has commonly been lield to refer to the Eleusynian mysteries ; but Emperius, the director of the museum, said that he
BRUNSWICK. 239
was writing a dissertation to prove that It represents the 1 hesmophorian mysteries which were celebrated in honour of Ceres. He holds it to be a work of Alexandria, executed in the time of the Ptolemies.
Nothing can give a higher idea of Diirer's anxious finisljlng. than a sculpture (and he has not left many of them) which represents the Baptist preaching in ihe wilderness. The figures are partly In relief, partly round ; and though there Is here and there a S[)rmk- h'ng of trivlalness, or an anachroiiism In costume, tl.ey are far from being deficient either in beauty orex-jcs- slon. The Baptist is elevated somewhat above his hearers, and stands behind a fragment of a paling, over which he thumps with orthodox energy. His congre- gation consists, not of Jews, but c^f Germans. From the style of grouping and the smallness of the figures, (the whole stone is not more than a foot s(juare,) some parts of the work must have required consummate dexterity of manipulation. A lady and a knight are standing in the Inner part of the crowd, their faces di- rected to the pi'eacher, and their backs, therefore, turned to the spectator. The figures are entirely round; and no common delicacy of hand was necessary to work out the countenances with so much exactness in so difficult a position. The knight lost his sword during his journey to England, for the more valuable part of the contents of the museum were sent to this country to preserve them from French rapine. De- non lounofed amons; what remained, and selected at his leisure all that seemed worth carrvins: off.
Helmstadt was formerly the university of Bruns- wick ; but the seminary was abolished in 1808, and has not been re-established. The duchy Is too small a territory to require a university, and too poor to support a good one, and Gottingen is as near as it is to Hanover. Immediately beyond the gates of Helm- stadt comes the Prussian frontier. At Magdeburg, the first Prussian town, you find nothing but ramparts,
240 ROADS.
and ditches, and drawbridges, and cannon, following, in fearful array, one range behind another, till you reach the heart of the city. It is a crowded and bustling town; washed by the Elbe, it is the entrepot of all the wares and merchandize that enter or leave Gerniariy by the river. The cathedral has merely the merit of being very spacious, and contains almost as many pohtical and militaiy emblems as religious allusions. The Prussian eagle overshadows with his pinions an old inscription which commemorates the first celebration of the sacrament accordino: to the re- formed ritual ; in front of the pulpit the iron cros^ is elevated on a pillar, with a flag and a pike as support- ers ; and the walls of the choir are covered with public tablets to officers who fell in the Liberation War.
Here there is no barrenness ; the territory of Mag- deburgh, stretching along the banks of the Elbe, over a soil gradually formed by the depositions of his inun- dations, or reclaimed from marshes which they had left behind, is the most fruitful corn land in the noi th of Germany. It used to export a great quantity of grain; but they now complain that our prohibition has seriously injured their market.
This gleam of fertility soon dies away, as the Elbe is left behind, and the dreary sands again return. The road is the great line of communication between this depot of trade and the capital ; there is necessarily a great deal of travelling, as well as of inland carriage upon it ; yet some portions of it are, beyond compa- rison, the worst in Europe. The reason is, the Avant of materials, and the enormous expense of transport- ing from a distance the quantity necessary to construct such a road, and keep it in repair. Much, however, has been done. The whole line is about ninetv Eno;- lish miles ; the twenty miles between Potsdam and Berlin have long been good, because the convenience of the court required it; but, of late years, it has been
POTSDAM. 241
carried a great deal farther, and an excellent chaussee now extends, on the one side, sixty miles from Berlin, and, on the other, seven miles from Maf^cle burgh. The rest of the line, however, is infamous. It is an unceasing pull through loose dry sand, which rises to the very nave of the wheel, frequently encumbered with the remains of languishing iir-woods, and present- ing no single object to relieve the eye : for the scanty crops, which industry and penury have laboured to raise even here, look equally melancholy with every thing around them, as if mourning the impossibility of man overcoming in their favour so reluctant a nature.
The traveller thinks himself entering a paradise when he approaches, at Brandenburgh, the banks of the Havel ; the fresh remembrance of the wilderness- es through which he has just passed, gives to these little green wooded and watered landscapes the en- chantment of fairy land. The Havel seems to have been made expressly for the country. It is not uni- formly confined within a distinctly marked channel, but often spreads itself out into small lakes, through the middle of which it keeps its course, while copse- wood and villages are strewed thickly over their sloping banks, and almost every eminence is crowned with a wind-mill. The most varied and pleasing spot of this kind is in the bend where the river, which has hitherto flowed south, wlieels round to the westward to seek the Elbe, and here Frederick the great built Potsdam. As the king built merely for the sake of making a handsome town, it is full of architectural pa- rade, with splendid streets, in which scarcely a human being is to be seen, except the lounging military ; and magnificent buildings, whose florid ornaments are some- times in ridiculous contrast with the purposes to which the houses are now applied. A superb edifice, a copy of the temple of Nerva in Rome, is now an inn ; but the original itself has become the pontifical custom- house. It is not uncommon to see warlike instruments 31
242 SANS SOUCI.
and mllltaiy trophies crowded over the door and win- dows of a tailor, a whole range of goddesses and nymphs adorning a pork shop, or Cupids, with much greater propriety, sporting above the cornices of a milliner. " The pomp and circumstance of war" is ail the pomp and circumstance of which Potsdam can now boast. Potsdam is, in fact, a splendid garrison.
Sans Souci stands on an eminence close behind the town. It is a long, low building, destitute of architec- tural parade, although adorned with a double circular portico, a beautiful object in itself, but much too mag- nificent for the main building. The prospect is con- fined ; it has, however, as much of what is pleasant as could be found in this country. It takes in a large portion of the Havel, spreading out its lakes among green fields and wooded eminences, and here and there diversified by a passing sail. Were it less pleas- ing than it really is, who would not gaze upon it with interest, when he reflected that Frederick loved to dwell upon its features, and sought in them the only re- pose which he allowed himself to enjoy from the dan- gers of the field and the labours of the cabinet ? Even the bad humour into which a stranger is thrown by the mean and disgraceful, but privileged, extortions of the attendants, gives place to the respectful interest with which he lingers among the scenes that supplied the simple pleasures of, not only a great, but a won- derful man.
The apartments of the king himself are extremely simple. Like the rest of the palace, they are hung with very mediocre French pictures, which, it is to be hoped, for the sake of Frederick's taste, he took no pleasure in looking at. He had more fitting compa- nions in some ancient busts, set up in a long narrow gallery, in which he used to walk, when the weather denied him this exercise out of doors. The library, a small circular room, contains his books as he left them. They are all French, but many of them arc transla-
POTSDAM. 243
tions of the great productions of other countries. Frederick's bell, his inkstand and sandbox, his sofa and little table, still retain their place. Tiie bed has been removed from the chamber where he died, and a writing-desk occupies the place of the old chair in which he breathed his lest — trifling alterations, no doubt, but injurious to the romance of the thing. The portrait of Gustavus Adolphus, the only ornament which Frederick admitted into his bed-room, has been allowed to remain. The apartment which was appro- priated to Voltaire is the most vulgar of all. The walls are covered with flowers and garlands, coarsely carved in wood, and bedaubed with glaring colours. I know not who selected this style of ornament ; but the crowd of wooden parrots, perched among the wooden chaplets, proves either the bad taste of the poet, or the satirical humour of the king. Some other apartments are splendid in their architecture and de- corations ; but there are more splendid things of the same kind in fifty other palaces. We visit Sans Souci, too, not because it is a palace, but because Frederick the Great lived in it.
The grounds are not extensive. In that part of them which lies immediately below the palace, and was the favourite resort of the monarch, all is rich, shady, and tranquil ; you would believe yourself a thousand miles removed from the bustle of men. Even the French horns of the Jager Guards, swelling from the barracks below, instead of disturbing, only sweetened the repose of the scene. Those parts of the grounds, again, which are thrown open indiscrimi- nately to the public are merely shady, sandy prome- nades, commonly terminated by a small building, either an European oriental or a modern antique. Frederick could not give his subjects and visitors much varied scenery, or many picturesque glimpses; but he gave them a profusion of pillars and pediments. He seems to have been fondly tied to every thing which con-
244 POTSDAM.
trlbuted to his pleasures ; and no great monarch's pleasures were ever more simple and innocent. His generals do not appear to have stood higher in his heart than his dogs. A number of the latter are buried in the grounds, and honoured with tomb-stones. Beside them lies the horse which bore him through many a hard fought field in the Seven Years' War.
Though the foundation of a new collection of pic- tures has been laid in Berlin, the proper gallery of Prussia is in Potsdam, and contains many admirable works. It was principally formed by Frederick, and mercilessly treated by the French. If there was some affectation in Frederick, when he entered Dresden as a conqueror, craving permission of the Electress to look at the pictures, yet the feeling of respect which made him approach them as a worshipper, not as a robber, was princely. Napoleon came to Potsdam as a conqueror, took off his hat when he entered what had been Frederick's apartment, and let loose his plunderers upon Frederick's pictures. Prussian bayo- nets have brought them all back, but some of them much injured by French improvements.
The palm of the gallery is disputed between Da Vinci, Raphael, and Titian. There are several pic- tures by these masters, but the three which contend for the prize are, of Da Vinci, Vertumnus, in the dis- guise of an old woman, persuading Pomona to throw off her virgin coyness, and learn to love ; of Raphael, an Ecce Homo ; of Titian, a sleeping Venus. In the first, Pomona is seated in an orchard, beneath a tree, whose fruit she has been gathering. Vertumnus, with a wrinkled, but not a vulgar visage, leaning on a staff, which he scarcely seems to require, bends towards her in an attitude of eager exhortation. There is a cer- tain play about the withered features, which tells that he sees his oration is beginning to work. The bashful beauty hangs her head ; a smile of mingled increduli- ty and approbation lights the under part of her beauti-
THE GALLERY. 245
ful countenance ; her hands are busied about her fruits and flowers in a way which shows that her thoughts are occupied with something else. Besides the excel- lence of the individual figures, the picture derives great effect from the contrast in which they are plac- ed, blushing, blooming youth and simplicity by the side of wrinkled and wily old age. The great merit of Raphael's Ecce Homo lies in its lofty ideal expres- sion ; it is the highest possible degree of mental suf- fering, purified from every thing mean and vulgar, an- nouncing not merely the agony of the soul, but like- wise the fortitude and resignation with which it is borne. Titian's sleeping Venus, without a rag of drapery, reclines, on her right side, on a blue couch, the breast and head being somewhat elevated on a white pillow. The back is turned towards the spec- tator ; the left leg is bent into the picture, thus pre- senting the prettiest sole of the prettiest foot that ever was painted. The arms are folded ui;dcr the head, and the countenance is half turned round. The softness and elegance of the whole figure, the sym- metry of the proportions, and, above all, the truth and delicacy of the colouring, are things which cannot be described, and in which it excels both its competi- tors. In expression, again, it is necessarily far beneath them ; for, although enthusiasts have pretended to guess even what the slumbering beauty is dreaming about, all the soul which such a figure can possess is merely animal life. Frederick paid five thousand guineas for the Pomona, and three thousand for the Ecce Homo. The superintendent of the gallery told me, that when the righteous work of restitution was begun at Paris, the French were so intent on retaining the Pomona, that, for a while, they pretended it had gone a-missing. The acknowledgment, that they could be guilty of the barbarous negligence of allowing such a picture to be lost, was not less disgraceful than the lie itself.
246 POTSDAM.
The waking Venus of Titian is insipid after her sleeping namesake. In the back ground, there once was a landscape, with two persons seated under a tree, and one of the two was a portrait of Titian himself. In Paris, the picture was cleaned^ that is, the landscape disappeared, and, though the figures remain, the por- trait is gone. Titian's Danae has returned entirely ruined ; the picture is spoiled ; colouring, expression, and perspective, are all destroyed. A small Madonna, by Correggio, shows still more clearly how little the original colouring of an artist was able to resist this process of cleaning ; for, when submitted to this re- formation in Paris, a groupe of angels, in the upper right hand corner, which Correggio himself had effac- ed, apparently from feeling that they overloaded this part of the picture, was brought to light.
The walls groan under Rubens. The Israelites, perishing by the fiery serpents in the wilderness, is a powerful picture. Though not so chaste or restrain- ed in the agonizing expression which belonged to the scene as the representation of the same subject by Hannibal Caracci, it has much more force of grouping and colouring. The most powerful figure is that of a man expiring under the influence of the poison; a ser- pent, coiled round his body, is biting into his throat. The wretch is extended on the ground, and never was the death struggle delineated with more horrible truth. Every limb and feature is cramped and convulsed, and the natural colour is already giving way to a dark, livid hue. Another excellent groupe is an old woman, who, with an anxiety that threatens to render the ex- ertion useless, strives to raise in her arms a grown up daughter, that she may turn her eyes to the healing serpent.
Few pictures in Potsdam please more than some splendid specimens of the historical style of Vandyke. If not successful competitors with Rubens, they are dangerous neighbours to him. Vandyke had drawn
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much from the best schools that preceded him ; yet he is any thing but a mannerist or imitator ; his group- ing and expression are entirely his own; and the Dutch and German painters never required to cross the Alps to learn colouring. His St. Matthew is the perfection of placid, dignified meditation. It may have been bad taste, but the simplicity of composition, the truth of expression, and the mild balancing of light and shade in his Isaac blessing Jacob instead of Esau, drew me irresistibly from the gorgeous masses of Rubens by which it is surrounded.
Though it was only May-day when I entered Ber- lin, the heat was more oppressive than that cf Lom- bardy or Romagna during the dog-days. The ther- mometer does not absolutely stand so high ; but, from the action of the sun on the sandy soil which surrounds the Prussian capital, the heat has a sultry and vapoury quality, which renders Berlin a disagreeable residence in summer. Many famihes fly to Dresden to seek less insalubrious dog-days, and the inhabitants of this raw northern climate enjoy the shade under the lime trees which adorn their principal street, as late in the even- ing as Italians on the verandas of Naples, or under the porticoes of Romagna. Even the street musicians ge- nerally come forth to their labours towards midnight; while, in the Linden, the citizens furnish a more pleas- ing serenade, by hanging out nightingales from their windows or on the branches of the trees, where they sing all night long, " most musical, most melancholy."
The entrance to Berlin from the west is by the Bran- denburgh Gate, the most simple and majestic portal in Europe. It is an imitation of the Propylaeum of Athens. Six lofty, fluted, Doric pillars, on each side, support an entablature, without any pediment; a gateway, not arched, passes between each couple of pillars. On tlie entablature stands the bronze figure of Victory, drawn in her chariot by four horses, and bearing the Prussian Eagle in triumph. It is a very spirited work, and was
248 BERLIN.
therefore sent to France, not more on account of its own merits, than to insuU the Prussians. Their good swords have replaced the goddess on their Athenian portal, where she seems to guide her steeds, amid a hundred memorials of Frederick, towards the royal palace. Though the guard-houses which spring out from each extremity of the gate are in the same ge- neral style, they look insignificant, and somewhat en- cumber the imposing forms to which they are attach- ed. Close by is the house of Blucher, the greatest military favourite of the Prussians since their great king. They seldom give him any other name than " Marshal Forward," and love to place him and Gnei- senau in the same relation to each other in which the Romans set Marcellus and Fabius. Between them, they nobly retrieved the ignominy of Jena.
From the portal you enter at once the most splen- did street in Germany. It runs due east and west, for about three quarters of a mile, from the Brandenburgh Gate, which closes the perspective at one extremity, to the royal palace, which terminates it at the other. It is divided, in fact, into five parallel walks, by double rows of lime trees and horse chesnuts, and from the predominance of the former it has its name, Unter den Linden. The central alley, the most spacious and convenient of all, is appropriated to pedestrians ; the four others are common to all the w^orld, but carriages generally confine themselves to the outermost on each side, formed by the last row of trees and the houses. Many of the buildings which line the sides of this mix- ture of town and country, though unambitious in point of ornament, are ample and imposing, the abodes of courtly and diplomatic pomp, of an expensive hotel, or a restaurateur celebrated for his kitchen.
Unter den Linden is the scene of all the bustle of Berlin, but not the bustle of business ; if there be any of that, it is confined to the old, or eastern part of the city ; it is the bustle of idle persons" amusing and en-
THE CITY. 249
joying themselves, and of lovely women seeking admi- ration. During the greater part of the day, especially on Sunday, it is filled with crowds of well dressed, comfortable looking people, streaming meriily along in both directions, or, with an ice in their hands, laughing at the heat, on the benches which are ranged along beneath the shade of the lime trees. Now and then, the kifig comes lounging up the alley, attended, if at- tended at all, by a single servant, in a very sober live- ry, his hands behind his back, and his eyes commonly turned towards the ground, enjoying the shade with as much plain heartiness as the meanest of his subjects. The loungers rise from their benches as he passes ; the gentlemen take olf their hats; the ladies make their best curtsey ; the Sfrassenjungen^ a class for whom Fre- derick enlertained greater respect than for an Austrian army, do all they can to make a bow. The king has a nod or a smile for every body, and passes on in the well grounded assurance, that every one he sees would shed his blood for him to-morrow. Royalty, in Ger- many, from the Emperor of Austria down to the Prince of Nassau, is accustomed to appear among its subjects with much less of majesty and reserve about it than is common among ourselves. What a bustle would be created if our King should take a walk, some forenoon, from Carlton House to the Bank, accompani- ed bv a solitary and panting beef-eater! The Germans would find nothing remarkable in it ; our political clubs would vote, that the Bank was insolvent, and that his Majesty had been attending a meeting of cre- ditors.
Except the Linden, and one or two portions of the city to the north of the Linden, all on the west of the Spree, being abandoned to the fashionable world, is regular and dull. The buildings are not, properly speaking, monotonous; for, though the streets were laid out, the houses were not built, on any regular plan ; but there is no life in these long, straight, stone alleys. 32
250 BEHLIN.
some of them a mile in length, piercing the city, from one ^atc to the other. It is perpetually the same thirjg, with nothing either in the dead or hving objects which can attract attention for an instant. Nothing in pedestrian exercise is so deph)rable as walking the streets in this part of Berlin. You are in no danger, as you are in P. iris and Vienna, ol being ridden over; for each side of every street, either somewhat elevat- ed above the centre, or separated from it by a kennel, is set apart for the humble foot-walker; but these pie- tended pavements are merely the worst of all cause- ways, f.^rmed of so many small, rough, sharp pieces, that walking, with the thermometer at 80^, is exqui- sitely paint ul. The Wilhelmstrasse^ full ol" palaces, and inhabited, at least in that part of it nearest the Linden, only by people of fashion, is the most intolera- bly paved street in the city.
Sand is bad ; but, to get off one of these trottoirspa- Ves into the desert of a square, is a deliverance to\^lllch alone I can ascribe it, that the squares of Berlin have been praised so much above their merits. Some of them are s|)Rcious in extent, and surrounded b^ hand- some buildings; but the want ol" all ornament reduces them to mere vacant areas. They are generally only a dead surface of loose parched sand, without pave- ment, turf, or shrubbery, and the only decoration of which they can ever boast is a row of stunted trees. WUhelmsplatz^ the finest of them all, the abode only of princes and peers, plunges you at once ancle deep in sand. It is the legitimate offspring of the road between Hanover and Brunswick ; you may see royal coachmen urging their steeds across the one with as much anxie- ty as your own postilion encouraged his sorry nags along the other.
The stagnating water is another source of discom- fort, cind is most troublesome precisely in the most fa- shionable parts of the city. Though the Spree tra- verses Berlin, dividing it into two nearly equal parts.
THE CITY. 251
the site, especially on the left bank, where the more modern and gaudy portion of the city stands, is so dead a flat in itself, and is so little ele\alcd above the level of the river, that, even in the Wilhelnistrasse, and on the Wilhelnisplalz, in frorjt of magnificent palaces, the water overflows the ker)nel, and spreads itsell" back over the pavement, under a heat which produces cor- ruption after a few hours stagnation.
Though the older and less fashionable part of the city, standing on the right bank of the Sj>ree, has no such spacious and reojular streets, nor, exccptinof the palace, which is \n its outskirts, many imposing edilices, it presents a more lively and industrious appeal aiice. In no great ca[)ital is a Britain so struck with the ab- sence of those splendid and seductive shops which fix the eye, and undo the purse, in London, Paris, or Vi- enna. The Spree itself, which separates the two parts of the town, bears the only character which a small river can bear in so large a city, that of a broad, deep, muddy ditch. It has some dignity only where it sweeps boldly round the huge pile of the palace. It is inva- luable, however, to the inhabitants, both as a means of cleanliness and a vehicle of commerce. To the east- ward, about fifty miles nearer its source, it communi- cates with the Oder by a canal, and thus brings down to Berlin the minerals of Upper Silesia, and the corn and manufactures of Middle and Lower Silesia. The craft, again, which follow its stream to the westward, are carried by it into the Havel, six miles from Berlin, under the fortifications of Spandau ; the Havel bears them into the Elbe, and, on the Elbe, they descend to Hunburgh. The vessels which crowd the quavs of B'jrlin are long, narrow, flat-bottomed, uncouth-loc king things, but perfectly well suited for this sort of naviga- tion. The minister of a certain northern court threw all the ship-wrights of Berlin into consternation, by making one of them build a pleasure boat with a keel. When he used to go out in it on the river, carrying
25£ BERLIN.
sail, the shores were lined with astonished spectators* A royal prince was one day on board, and became so alarmed at the gentle heeling of the boat, under a mo- derate breeze, that he insisted on being set on shore.
Altogether, the Prussians, though possessing no mean extent of sea-coast, frequently display strange instances of geographical ignorance. A well-known geographer of Berlin, having read that one of our navigators had found an ice island in a considerably more southern la- titude than these frozen masses usually frequent, set it down in his book as the latitude of Iceland. A Berlin newspaper, in an account of thediscoveries which were made during the first of our late voyages to ascertain the existence of a North- West Passage, gave to Mel- ville Island the latitude of Captain Flinders' Melville Island on the coast of New Holland, placing it near the E juator instead of near the Pole. The blunder was no i[ied to the editor, and the next number contained an " Erratum in our last. — Fur Melville Island In such and such a latitude, read Melville Island in this other latitude, (giving the true northern latitude,) ivhich is not to be confounded with JMelville Island in this latitude, (giving the blundered one ;) a line was omitted through the carelessness of the compositor." A much better practical joke was played oif upon their Ignorance by the same minister who insisted on having a boat with a keel. The Linden runs east and west; therefore, in the latitude of Berlin, the houses on the north side of the street are in the sun, and those on the south side in the shade. The palace is to the east of the Linden. But the court-chamberlain, in issuing direc- tions for a funeral, took it into his head, from some in- distinct notion that southern climates are always warm climates, that the sunny side of the Linden must be the south side ; and, in his circular to the elevated per- sons who were to attend, he actually inverted the two S'des of the street. This northern minister, having no wish to attend the ceremony, and having a house on
ARCHITECTURE. 25S
the north sidfe of the Linden, took advantage of the blunder, and went to the country. Next day, th.e sole topic of conversation in tfu; circles of BerHn was, Wliat can be the meanlno- of the absence of the minis- ter? His Excellency, who had foreseen this, immedi- ately sent in a laughing, half-ofFicial sort of note, stat- ing, that he had always " believed his house to be on the north side of the Linden, and tliat, therefore, as tlie palace was to the east of him, when he wished to go to it, he was in the habit of ordering his coachman, on issuing from the gateway, to drive lo the left. But, having learned from the court circular, that his house was on the south side of the street, and that, there- fore, to get to the palace, he must take an opposite di- rection from tliat which he usually took, he had order- ed his coachman, on this occasion, to turn to the right; the consequence of which was, tha , after an hour's driving, instead of finding himself at the palace, he found himself at the gates of Spandau."
Between tfie Brandenburgh gate an(] the palace are crowded togfether nearly all the line edifices of Berlin. The guard, the university, the arsenal, the opera-house, the new theatre, the palace, with its church, are all in the neighbourhood of each otiier. The palace has no- thing to reconmiend it but its huge size, and the splen- dour of its furniture. Except the plain, simple apart- ment of Frederick himself, it is as gorgeous as royalty could make it; but, in general, to describe the inside of a palace, is nothmg better than to describe an up holsterer's sho[). It is not, however, the regular resi- dence of the present king; he lives in a much more modest looking h( use in the Linden. T\)e arsenal, though it has rieither porticoes nor pillars, is the finest building in Berlin ; the extent and sim[;hcity of its fronts are niajestic, and its military tropfiles and em- blematical groupes display a great deal of good work- manship.
254 BERLIN.
In the public architecture of Berlin, there is a tire- some degree of uniformity, arising from a too frequent repetition of the same forms and combinations; it is easily seen that it has sprung up, in a great measure, in the lump, on one wholesale plan. The general style is an Ionic portico, placed before a very plain front. Sometimes three out of the four sides are garnished with this appendac^e, but the pillars never extend along the whole front, or are carried entirely round the build- ing. What may be called the ground floor, generally formed of rustic work, projects, and on this is raised the portico. The elfect is not so pleasing or imposing to the eye, as when the pillars clothe the whole, or nearly the whole front of the building ; and, even if the style possessed more merit than it really does, it looks like poverty of invention to have so much of it, and so little of any thing else. Potsdam and Berlin are full of it ; but the uniformity is more striking in the latter, from the proximity of the buildings. Thus, on the Place des Gens d'^J^rmes, stand the opera-house, the theatre, and two gorgeous churches, all in the same fashion; the university, too, is nearly the same thing.
The new theatre was to eclipse all the other pro- ductions of Prussian architectural taste, and tower above the less gaudy, but much more majestic opera- house of Fred-? lick. The Ionic portico itself is a beau- tiful object ; but it is difficult to conceive how the same architect who reared it, could have crowded into the body of the edifice almost every fault which such a building can possess, did we not know, that it is much easier to follow known rules and fixed proportions in raising pillars, than to combine a graceful and dignifif;d whole. Ah >ve all, the unlucky thought of carrying up the main bodv of the building so far above the pe- diment of the portico, and terminating it, at the same time, with a pediment of its own, has destroyed all grace and symmetry, and offends the eye mortally. Modern extravagance in windows often stands in the
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way of architectural beauty ; but in what edifice can it interfere less than In a theatre? Yet this building is so sht in every drrction by narrow, insignificant win- dows, that the American was quite justifiable, who ex- claimed, on fiist seeing it, " What a huge hot-house the king has got !" Neither the king nor his subjects are satisfied with this monument of native genius; but there it stands, and the money has been spent.
The dramatic troop is much less delective than the building in which they perform. While lifland, the Garrick of Germany, was manager, the Berlin theatre had no rival except that of Weimar. In some depart- ments of comedy, it is now inferior to Vienna, and, in tragedy, is at least not superior. Madame Stich of Berlin counterbalances Madame Schroder and Madame Lowe of Vienna. She is not so overpowering as the former of these ladles in the expression of strong pas- sion— she could not plaj Lady Macbeth so well ; nei- ther does she possess the bame melting power of ten- derness that distingulslies the latter; but she has a truer conception of character, though her acting some- times falls short of her Idea, and a more chaste and sustained style of representation than either of them. Siie is the only actress whom I ever saw give any thing like a good performance of Schiller'b Maid of Orleans. Joanna Is the touchstone of German actresses; they perpetually convert her into an ordinary, ranting, de- clamatory heroine just the reverse of the poet's Joanna, and fail to hit that deep, solemn, supernatural feeling, which separates her from ordinary tragic personages.
Operas are got up, In Berlin, with an extravagant expefidlture on pomp of decoration and splendour of costume. But the taste of the public is not pure ; they have not that natural feeling of the eloquence of " sweet sounds" which distinguishes the Italian and Bohemian, and they have not passed thronorh that train- ing under the hands of great masters which has form- ed the accurate, though somewhat artificial taste, of
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Dresden and Vienna. Their opera is under the di- rection of Spontini, whose operas are, in general, as much for the eye as for the ear. The whoh^ city was on tiptoe expectation lor the production of .his regene- rated Oljmjjia, whicli had forinerlj failed in some othet capitals. Twentj-five thousand rix-doliars (nearly L. ^000) had been ex[)ended on the decorations; five hundred pounds of tlie sum had been laid out in creat- ing an elephant, destined to make a principal figure in the performance. Tnough some left the house, un- able to endure the incessant thundering of the orche- stra, and Professor W declared it to be just as
pleasant as dining on Cayenne pepper, the great body of the audience seemed to be perfectly satisfied at ha- ving their ears so stunned, and their eyes so dazzled. Tiie appearance of the elephant, moved along by a lit- tle boy in each leg, was hailed with a shout which mi^jlit have waKened Frederick in fr;nvnsfrom his grave at Potsdam, at the corrupted taste of his descendants. Every week, two or three concerts are given, under the royal authority, in the music hall of the new thea- tre, an apartment of such fair proportions, with so much elegance, yet chasteness and simplicity in its de- corations, that it would'^leave the eye nothing to desire, were it not for the unseemly pigeon holes which, un^ der the name of boxes for the royal family, disfigure one side of the room, and break the unity of the whole. Every entertainment of this sort consists partly in a mixture of elocution and instrumental music, which is of very questionable merit, and almost peculiar to Ger- many. A favourite ballad, for instance, of Schiller, Biirger, or G »the, is delivered by a reciter, just as any other elocutionist would read it ; but it is accompanied, either in a continued strain, <>r only by fits and starts, as the composer thinks proper, by instrumental music, which is, or pretends to be, characteristic of the senti- ment that pePviades the particular verses, or represen- tative of what they ha|§»n to describe. For example,
MUSIC. 257^
were the elocutionist reading Chevy Chase, at the very outset, " God prosper long our noble king," his voice would probably be drowned in the jubilee of the or- chestra, and would forthwith be heard again, as the in- struments softly bewailed that,
A woeful hunting once there did In Chevy Chace befall;
unless the French horn were made to render him in- audible, for the purpose of suggesting woodland associa- tions, and the idea of a " hunting." Among other things, I heard Schiller's Gang nach dem Etsenhammer, a beautiful ballad, out of which Holbein has manufac- tured a very poor, prosing, tiresome drama, recited in this way, and the enect was not fitted to make one par- tial to this mode of marrying music to immortal verse. The whole system forgets the specific difference be- tween reading and singing. The reader stands in quite a different relation to a musical accompaniment from the opera singer. Though readers speak of musical, melodious, or harmonious elocution, reading is not sing- ing, in any accurate sense of the words. In any given song, there is only one way of reading it well ; but more than one melody may be composed for it, all equally good. A union of ordinary elocution with in- strumental music does not seem to be less incongruous of confused than if one person were to recite a ballad while another simultaneously sung it.
The great men of Prussia have been principally kings and warriors, and she cannot be accused of what is the disgrace of Austria, public ingratitude to their memories. If Frederick laughed at German poets, he entertained a profound respect for German soldiers; his gratitude, and the public spirit roused by the events of late years, have called forth the long line of Prus- sian heroes, in marble or in bronze, on the streets, squares, and bridges of Berlin. A s|i>ited, though somewhat clumsy equestrian sinful of the great Elec- 33
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258 BERLIN.
mr adorns the principal bridi^^e across the Spree ; Prince Henry of Prussia defends the shady garden which borders the river below the brid<res ; the Prince of x\nhalt-Dessau displays his old-fashioned uniform in front of the palace; the Wilhelmsplatz bears the great worthies of the Seven Years' War, Ziethen, Keith, Seidlitz, Schwerin, and Winterfield, and the last moments of three of them who fell in battle are preserved, in the church of the garrison, in glaring and literal pictures. Blucher, Billow, and Gneisenau, the heroes of a war no less honourable to the national feeling and devotedness of Prussia, than that which Frederick waged against the half of Europe, will, by this time, have been publicly added to their worthy predecessors. I saw the two latter, scarcely finished, in Ranch's workshop ; they are both excellent statues — perhaps a little too true, but simple and dignified, and free from all frippery and trifling. Ranch has improved on his predecessors in the drapery of his figures niore than in any thing else. The fidelity with which the heroes of the Seven Years' War are wrapt up in a uniform, with all its multifarious trappings, leaves the sculptor room for no other merit in his dra- pery than that of representing correctly in marble what already existed in cloth and gold lace. The best statue in Berlin is the portrait statue of the late Queen of Prussia, on her tomb in the gardens of Charlotten- burg; it entitles Rauch to rank among the first sculp- tors of Germany.
The Prussian artists did not long retain the ancient models which Frederick procured for them by pur- chasing the collection of Cardinal Polignac. When, in the Seven Years' War, the united hosts of Russia, Austria, and Saxony, ventured to march to Berlin, while the king was facing other enemies in another province, the Saxons, who took possession of Charlot- tenburg, in re¥enge for the bombardment of Dresden, a measure altogether in the ordinary course of war.
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broke the statues in pieces, and continued pounding the very Hmbs into powder, till the terrific intelhgence, that Frederick, with his httic army, was in lull march from Silesia, left Austrians, Russians, and Saxons, no other object of* emulation except who should most readily get out of his way. This was but a bad return for the re- verence with which Frederick had treated the gallery of Dresden. When he saw the barbarity with which they had destroyed his statues, he clenched" liis fist, and stamped the ground in indignation; "The monsters! but how could they know the value of such things! " we must forgive them ;" and he displayed his for- giveness by forthwith plundering an#burning Huberts- burg, the most splendid of the country residences of the Elector of Saxony.
On a sandy hillock, about half a mile beyond the walls, stands the Folks-Denkmal, or Monument of the People. It was erected by the present king, and, with much pomp, dedicated by him to his people, to com- memorate their exertions in the triumphant campaigns Avhich terminated the war. It is a lofty Gothic taber- nacle, or rather a concretion of such tabernacles, pier- ced with niches, and bristled with pinnacles. Four of them are set against each other, and as they are square, each presents three sides. In the twelve sides thus formed are as many niches ; each niche is appropriated to a battle, and contains a statue intended to be em- blematical of the combat, or representing some person who distinguished himself in it. The complement of statues has not yet been made up. That in the niche set apart for Grossbeeren represents a Prussian Layid- loehrmann, or militia-man, because the day w^as won by the good conduct of the militia ; the countenance struck me as being a portrait of the Prince Royal. The niche of the Katzbach is filled with Bliicher, and that of Leipzig, a better kno^^n battle, with a less known warrior. Prince Henry of Prussia. The statues were modelled partly by Ranch, partly by Tieck, and
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the artists have done all that could be expected under so discouraging a similarity of subject. The want of simplicity and dignity, the multiplicity and littleness of parts, are the great objections to the whole ; it has too much of the toyshop, especially as, in the desolate sands which surround it, there is nothing to accord with the Gothic plaything. Why was this popular monu- ment, erected by a king, and dedicated to a nation, to preserve the daily memory of such men and such deeds, thrown outside of the walls, into so dreary a wilder- ness, which nobody Vt^ould ever think of traversing, ex- cept to see the monument itself? When a Roman em- peror wished to record his military exploits in the eyes of the people, he built his triumphal arcij in the neigh- bourhood of the Forum, or raised his sculptured pillar in a public square.
The monument, with its tabernacles and statues, consists entirely of cast-iron, in the manufacture of which the Prussians have arrived at great perfection. The iron is principally obtained from the mines of Tarnowitz, in Upper Silesia; and the expense of trans- porting it is greatly lessened by a canal which, leaving the Oder immediately above Frankfort, connects that river with the Spree, coming down from the Lausitz towards Berlin. The foundery itself is' in Berlin, and supplies cast-iron monuments to all Germany. They even make, in relief, copies of celebrated pictures: I saw the Last Supper of Da Vinci cast in a space of about six inches by four, with a neatness and precision which could not have been expected from such mate- rials, and on so small a scale. Larger busts are ex- cellently well done ; the favourite ones are those of the late Queen and Blucher, for every Prussian will sacrifice a great deal to possess a memorial of either the one or the other. During the war, the church bells of a great number of villages were melted down into cannon; and the king is now melting down iron cannon to give the churches cast-iron bells. The dif-
THE THIERGARTEN. 261
ference, in point of expense, is enormous, and they sound just as well as most oi* our own country bells. The director seemed to entertain little doubt, that, in a few years, the Prussians would leave all Europe, ex- cept ourselves, far behind them in ornamental iron- work. He had been sent over to examine all the great iron establishments of England and Scotland ; and, hanging over an English grate, of hammered iron, which he pronounced to be inimitable, and allowed could not yet be made in Prussia, he spoke of the per- fection which he believed us to have attained in a strain of enthusiastic eulogy altogether professional. It was honest; and this willingness to learn is the first thing to produce the capacity of teaching. A French- man would have found out, either that we knew noth- ing about the matter, or that all we did know which "was worth knowino^ had been derived from his coun- trymen. The directors of the Berlin foundery even ventured to make a steam-engine, for the purpose of blowing: their bellows. Thoug^h thev succeeded in constructing one which works, it cost them, they say, more money than if they had ordered it from this country. Yet they were much more successful than the directors of the iron mines at Tarnowitz, who, having: grot an en2:ine from En<rland, could not put it together so as to make it work. It refused to make a single stroke, till a workman was brought out to cor- rect their blunders. It is said that they displayed a rather forcible desire to retain the Birmingham wan- derer, and that he, at last, made his escape only by stealth.
At first it might excite wonder why so sandy and dreary a soil should have been selected for the capital of Prussia, in preferenee to the more pleasing and fer- tile banks of the Havel ; but it is fortunate that it is so; for the neighbourhood of a capital of nearly 200,000 inhabitants, by creating a thousand wants, and recompensing the industry which supplied them, has
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peopled and cultivated a district which might other- wise have remained nearly useless to the monarchy. Neither labour nor money tias been spared to convert these parched levels even into something which apes park and forest, by planting trees, and making straight walks among them. The citizens of Berlin believe that nothing of this sort can be finer than their Thier- garten, an extensive plantation, in which there are too many firs. It commences outside of the Branden- burg Gate ; here there are no suburbs ; from between the Doric columns of the portal, you at once enter the wood, where carriages and pedestrians toil along in the same deep sand, for the walks are not even gra- velled. A line of small but handsome villas, in which the higher class of citizens seek refuge in summer, from the sultry heat of the city, stretches along its southern boundary ; on the north it is bounded by the Spree, and the portion of it in the neighbourhood of the river is the Vauxhall of Berlin. The bank is lined with coffee-houses; rustic benches and tables are fixed beneath the shade of umbrageous limes and elms ; beer, coffee, and tobacco, are tlie sources of en- joyment ; crowds of pipes, ready to be stopped, are piled up like stands of arms. Numerous itinerant ven- ders wander from room to room, and tree to tree, dis- playing seductive layers of segars, from the genuine Havannah, down to the homely Hanoverian or Bava- rian. As evening comes on, and the boats return up the river, with the parties which have been enjoying Charlottenburg, if the weather does not drive the happy crowd within doors, numerous lamps are hung up among the trees. The clouds of smoke aid the dimness of twilight, and both united render the shady recesses of the wood fit scenes of intrigue and assigna- tion.
The same general character belongs to the grounds of Charlottenburg, a royal residence, about two miles from the city, the palace in which Frederick deposit-
THE QUEEN. 263
ed his treasures of sculpture, and, from associations still more interesting, the favourite residence of the present king. The palace has no other merit than its size. The grounds are better laid out than the Tfiier- garten, and are the great resort of the Sunday strol- lers from Berlin. The adjacent village consists al- most entirely of coffee-houses; and there is a small theatre, to which a detachment from the city troop is marched up on Sunday evening. Advantage has been very skilfully taken of the Spree, which bounds the grounds, to introduce various pieces of water, and call forth a more refreshinsr verdure than is found in the Thicrgarten. Beyond the river, the country is entire- ly open, yet it is more pleasant than the sandy alleys, and stiffly marshalled trees of the grounds themselves; it is monotonous, to be sure, but it is fresh and green. Though an inhabitant of the more favoured countries of the north, to say nothing of the south, would not perhaps give a second look to the view, it is perfectly natural that a young tradesman of Berlin should be- lieve that he is revelling among the richest beauties of nature, when, on a Sunday evening, he strolls with his love through the shades of Charlottenburg, and treats her to the pit of its little theatre.
In a retired corner of the grounds, where no sound can penetrate from the world without to disturb the repose to whicli the spot is consecrated, a small Doric temple is seen lurking beneath the melancholy shade of cypresses and weeping willows. It is the tomb and monument of the late Queen of Prussia, the fairest and most amiable, the most interesting and most un- fortunate princess of her day. The place is so well chosen, and all its accompaniments are so much in uni- son with the sacred purpose to which it has been applied, that even the ignorant stranger feels he is ap- proaching a scene of tender and melancholy recollec- tions. In the interior of the temple, the walls are co- vered, to a certain height, with marble, and the rest is
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painted in imitation of marble. Excepting this, and two magnificent candelabras, formed after antique mo- dels, there is no effort at splendour of decoration. The body lies in a vault beneath; the back part of the floor of the temple, which corresponds to the ceiling of the vault, is elevated above the anterior part ; and on this elevation is a full length statue of Louisa, re- clining: on a sarcouhap-us. It is a work of Ranch. It is a portrait statue, and the likeness is allowed to be perfect ; the king insisted it should be Louisa ; he would not sacrifice a single feature to what the artist might perhaps have reckoned a pardonable embellish- ment ; but Louisa's was a face and a form which few artists could have successfully embellished. The ex- pression is not that of dull, cold death, but of undis- turbed repose. The hands are modestly folded on the breast; the attitude is easy, graceful, and natural ; but the partial crossing of the legs, and the perpendicular erection of boih feet, which start up under the shroud in nearly a triangular form, give some stiffness and harshness to the lower extremity of the figure. The artist had no opportunity of displaying anatomy, in which so many find the perfection of sculpture. Only the countenance, and part of the neck, are bare; the rest of the figure is shrouded in an ample, and ex- tremely well wrought drapery. As the management of drapery is the rock on which modern German sculp- tors, and, in fact, mediocre sculptors of all times, and of all countries, most frequently split, either bundling it up in heavy cumbersome masses, or frittering it down into numerous small parallel grooves. Ranch may be the prouder of having here given his countrymen a very good example how it ought to be done. The great charm of the statue is, the decent, simple, tranquil air which pervades the whole figure ; there is no tinge of that unfortunate striving after effect which disfigures so ma- ny monumental piles. I observed no inscription, no pompous catalogue of her titles, no parading eulogy of
THE QUEEN. £65
her virtues ; the Prussian eagle alone, at the foot of the sarcophagus, announces that she belonged to the house of HohenzoUern, and the withered garlands which still Jiang above her, were the first offering of her children at the grave of their mother. The king still spends many of his hours in this solitary tomb, which, however, breathes nothing of death, except its repose. The key of the vault in which the body is deposited is always in his own possession ; and, annual- ly, on the anniversary of her death, he gathers his chil- dren round him at her grave, and a religious service is performed by the side of her coffin.
The memory of Louisa may safely disregard the foul calumnies of French babblers, who lied and in- vented to gratify their unmanly master; if the charac- ter of a woman and a queen is to be gathered from her husband, her children, and her subjects, few of her rank will fill a more honourable place. She said her- self, shortly before her death, "Posterity will not set down my name among those of celebrated women ; but whoever knows the calamities of these times, will say of me, she suffered much, and she suffered with constancy. May he be able to add, she gave birth to children who deserved better days, who struggled to bring them round, and at length succeeded." She w^as not distinguished for talent, but she was loved and re- vered for her virtues ; she had all the qualifications of an amiable woman, of a queen she had only the feel- ings. Every Prussian regarded her, and still speaks of her with a love approaching to adoration. It was not merely her beauty or female graces, richly as she was endowed with them, that captivated her hus- band's people ; it was her pure, mild, slm[jle, and af- fectionate character. They had sighed beneath the extravagant government of mistresses and favourites, which disgraced the closing years of the reign of the preceding monarch ; and they turned with fondness to the novel spectacle of domestic happiness and proprie- . 34
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ty which adorned the throne of Prussia, ^\\\en his pre- sent majesty mounted it, with the fairest princess of Europe bj his side, and both surrounded by a family, in which alone they continued to seek their pure plea- sures and simple amusements. Courtly extravagance and dissoluteness were banished, for empty pomp and noisy gaiety did not suit their domestic attachments; while they supported the dignity of the crown, they never made themselves the slaves of court etiquette.
From the moment that Prussia awoke, too late, on the brink of the precipice to which an unstable and short-sighted policy had conducted her, the life of this young and beautiful woman was uninterrupted bodily decay, the effect of mental suffering. Her hopes had been high, that the exertions of 1806 might still save the monarchy; she accompanied the king to the army, but retired to a place of safety immediately before the battle of Jena. She and the king parted in tears, and never met again in happiness; the battle was lost, and Prussia was virtually effaced from the number of the nations. She came down to Tilsit, during the ne- gotiations that followed, much, it is said, against her own inclination, but in the view that her presence might be useful in softening the conqueror, who had declared that, in ten years, his own dynasty would be the oldest in Europe. It would probably be going too far to follow, to its whole extent, the enthusiastic execration which the Prussians bestow on Bonaparte for the unfeeling insolence with which they assert him to have treated their idolized queen ; but it was an unmanly exploit, to strive to hurt the feelings of a wo- man. "The object of my journey," said the queen to him, on his first visit after her arrival, " is to prevail on your majesty to grant Prussia an honourable peace." — " How," ansv/ered Napoleon, in a tone of sovereign contempt, " how could you think of going to war with me .^" — "It was allowable," replied the queen, " that the fame of Frederick should lead us to
THE QUEEN. 267
overrate our strength, if we have overrated It." Na- poleon always acted towards Prussia with the viru- lence of a personal enemy, rather than with the pru- dence of an ambitious conqueror; but he is alleged to have hated the queen still more bitterly than the king, whom he affected to despise. He believed it was her iniiuence, and that of Hardenberg, that had brought Prussia into the field; and he knew the queen's insu- perable enmity to him, joined to the love which her subjects lavished on her, to be a principal source of the hatred that burned against him in every corner of the kingdom. While Berlin remained in his posses- sion, tongues and pens were ordered to ridicule and vilify the queen ; nor did the emperor himself always blush at relating the lying calumnies Invented to please him. A distinguished literary character had the bold- ness to say In the very presence-chamber of Napo- leon, "If his majesty wishes to be thought an empe- ror, he must first learn to be more of a knight ; by encouraging these foul slanders against an absent and unfortunate woman, he only makes It doubtful whether he be even a man."
From this moment, the queen visibly sunk; her high spirit could not brook the downfall of her house, and her keen feelings only preyed the more rapidly on her health from the effort with which she concealed them; the unassuming piety and natural dignity of her cha- racter allowed neither repining nor complaint. She lived just long enough to witness the utter degradation of the monarchy, and to exhort her sons to remember that they had but one duty to perform, to avenge Its wrongs, and retrieve Its disgraces, — and they have done it. " My sons," said she to them when she felt, what all were yet unwilling to believe, that the seal of death was upon her, " when your mother is gone, you will weep over her memory, as she herself now weeps over the memory of our Prussia. But you must act. Free your people from the degradation In which they lie ;
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show yourselves worthy to be descendants of Frede- rick. God bless you, my dear boys ! this is my legacy, save your ccuntrj', or die like men."
This salvation was in reserve for Prussia, and the memory of the queen had no small share in producing that burst of national devotedness by which it was wrought out. While sinking beneath the heart-break- ing pressure of the present, she never desponded con- cerning the future; a firm belief that the debasing . yoke could not endure, clung to her to the last, and her letters, especially those to her father, expiess it repeatedly. In one she says, " The power of France cannot stand, for it is founded only on what is bad in man, his vanity and selfishness." Her firm assurance "Was shared by the whole nation; after her death, they still looked forward v/ith confidence to the fulfilment of her hopes. It seemed as if the superstition which Tacitus has recorded of the ancient Germans had re- vived among their posterity, and the spirit of a woman 'fl was held to possess prophetic power. When the hour ^ of fulfilment did come, Louisa was a sort of watch-word to the arming Prussians ; not one of them ever forgave the insults or forgot the misfortunes of his queen. Even amid the triumphs and exultation of the contest which hurled France beyond the Rhine, and her unquiet des- pot from his throne, accents of regret were ever and anon bursting forth, " She has not lived to see it ;" and long after she was gone, the females of Berlin were wont, on the monthly return of the day of her death, to repair, in affectionate pilgrimage, to her tomb at Charlottenburg, and deck her grave with fresh flowers.
The king recovered his honour and his kingdom, but has never regained his cheerfulness and happiness, since he saw his queen expire, f)ressing to her bosom the last letter he had written to her. Every body knows his despairing exclamation to his father-in-law ; " Had she belonged to any other, she would have liv- ed ; but because she belonged to me, she must die."
THE KING. 26J
It is not easy to conceive a monarch borne down by more accumulated suirering than wliat was laid on this unha{)py prince. Stripped of the better part of his territories, and holding the rest by a severe, and yet uncertain peace ; exposed, at every moment, to the ar- rogance of a political su[)erior, who acted towards him, at the same time, with the venom and coarseness of a personal enemy ; knowing that his subjects were im- poverished by an unsuccessful war, and vet com|)clled to increase their burdens to meet the demands of the conqueror ; depressed by the humiliating reflection, that, under him, the glories of his race had passed away, and that. Instead of the powerful monarcliy and dreaded army which he had received from the genius of his predecessors, he had nothing to transmit to his sons but a ruined kingdom, and the history of his de- feats ; struck, at the same time, with the heaviest of all domestic blows, in the loss of her to whom his heart "was more fondly and firmly rivetted than to his crown; — so far is it from being wonderful that the character of Frederick William has become serious and retired, that these very qualities are virtues. The heart which readily forgets all that it suffered in days of adver&ity gives no good promise of steadiness or moderation in more prosperous fortunes.
In the presence and form of the Prussian monarch there is nothing commanding, nothing that might be termed kingly. His features are not vulgar, but they approach the unmeaning ; they do not suggest imbeci- lity, but they speak mental inactivity. He stands much higher with his subjects on the score of heart than of head. Frequently as he appears among them, it is more as a fellow citizen, than in the pomp or terrors of despotic royalty. A review is the only piece of re- gal parade in which he seems to find much enjoyment. Since the days of Frederick, the military manoeuvres, in spring and autumn, have always attracted much at- tention and admiration in the north of Germany ; but.
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except the imposing spectacle of great masses of well disciplined soldiers, in splendid uniforms, to a mere ci- vilian who does not understand the combmations, nor can follow the leading idea which directs the various movements, the bustle, and riding, and shoutini;, is scarcely more animating tlmn that of a fox hunt. Be- tween iifteen and twenty thousand men were said to be in the field ; the manoeuvres, apeing the movements of a regular campaign, were executed in an open tract of country to the westward of the capital, and extended over a space of ten or twelve miles. During the four days that the campaign lasted, the king rode hard and worked hard ; but his eldest son, the Crown Prince, who is allowed to have military talent in him, was by far the most active personage. A few years ago, the manoeuvres tertninated with a feigned attack and de- fence of Berlin. The Crown Prince, who commanded the attacking army, made his way into the town in de- fiance of the king, and, by an unexpected movement, made his father a prisoner in his own palace. When he made this parricidal onset, a park of artillery, sta- tioned at the palace, was discharged against him in such a hurry, that scarcely a pane of glass remained unbroken in the whole edilice.
The interest which the king takes in these armed shows is much more political than military, for he makes no pretensions to any distinguished acquaintance with the art of war. No prudent man will assert, that Prussia, exposed as she is to France, Russia, and Aus* tria, can safely exist, in the present condition of Eu- rope, without maintair)ing as large an army as her re- sources will allow. Her king is not able to lead an army in a campaign; but in every other way, he takes an interest in the state of the military force of his mo- narchy, and there is every reason why he should do so. It would not be wise in the soverei^rn of a coun- try, whose very existence may every moment turn out to depend on its military strength, to manifest any in-
THE CROWN FRINGE. 27i
dliTerence to the state of his army, even though it sliould expose him to the charges of mihtarj ailbcta- tion which have so often been brought against the King of Prussia. It has been tlie fashion, with certain classes of persons, to represent him as merely an imbecile pro- jector of uniforms ; the attention which he pays to his army rests on a far more sohd and politic ground than any silly fondness for military parade.
Though liberal in supporting ilie utility of public mstitutions, and the splendour of public amusemerits, he lavishes nothing on his own personal pleasures. No sovereign could display less attachment to the mere gaudy pomp and lawless gratifications of royalty. A gentleman started one evening, in a mixed company, the hasty proposition, that all the Prussian nionarchs had been distinguished for frugality. Of the earlier ones, little seemed to be known ; for Frederick he had the old story, that he seldom had more than three shirts, and that, when any of them gave way, in the course of campaiji^ning, he used to write to his sister, the Duchess of Brunswick, entreating her, for Chris- tian charity, to make him a new one. The late king Avas P-iven up as irreconcilcable with the truth of the proposition; and being hard pressed to prove, even m the reigning sovereign, any spirit of economy which did not arise from necessity, the defender of Prussian frugality alleged the anecdote, that, on the first visit Avhich the present king paid to tlie Isle of Peacocks, after having had the walks laid with new gravel, the only remark he made was, " What excellent gravel this is ! how it saves one's boots !" A much more serious proof of the same laudable quality lies in the fact, that, during the degradation of the monarchy, he put his royal establishment on a footing which many an English nobleman would have reckoned mean. He frequently would not even allow his sons wine.
The Crown Pi'ince, the heir apparent of the Prus- sian monarchy, has the reputation of being a cleverer
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man than his father, hut does not seem to be so uni- versal a favourite. If public tales "can be in aught believed," his sharpness is accompanied with that un- fortunate disposition which makes many men prefer making an enemy to losing a joke. An old and re- spected member of the government of Pomerania closed a memorial to the ministers, recommending cer- tain improvements in the administration of the pro- vince, with saying, that, if adopted, they would create a second Pomerania. Shortly afterwards, he ap[)ear- ed at the levee of his Royal Highness in Stettin, and the unfashionable Avidth of the lower part of his dress raised a titter among the more courtly attendants. " I am happy to see you, Herr, — " said the prince, "and I doubt not but you have brought the second Pomer- ania in your breeches pocket." For the sake of a bad joke, he chose to ridicule a worthy and deserving man. Prussia owes a large debt to the late Chancellor Har- denberg; yet^ if half the stories in circulation be true,^ the Crown Prince lost no opportunity of expressing his dislike for him, and was sometimes rewarded for his flippancy with confinement to his own house, by order of his father. On some of the annual festivals, it is a customary amusement all over the north of Ger- many, to elect a king of the family circle. His ma-
* If it be jiifst to require ofevery traveller that he shall not indulge in the mere fl'ppant, uninteresting gossippins^ of private scnndai, or abuse the kindness of foreig-ners towards him as a stranger, so as to injure their own comtort, it is equally true, that he cannot be called on to vouch for the certain truth of all anecdotes which may reach his ears. Where they concern persons or things of sufficient importance to justify the mention of them at all, he does enough if he can say that they are current in the mouths of per- sons in grave and well informed society. An anecdote in general circulation, even though not strictly true in point of fact, will com- monly be accordant with the chnracter of the person of whom it is related, and will thus be a correct, though perhaps a fictitious illustration of his mode of acting. Anecdotes, in fact, are just like bank-notes ; few persons can tell which are genuine, and which are not ; but every one lends his aid to keep them in circulation.
THE CROWN PRINCE. srs
jesfy chooses a queen for himself, and the royal pair exercise despotic authority over the domestic realm for the evening, just as in England on Twell'th Night. On an occasion of this kind, the king had gathered his family and some of his personal friends round him. The lot placed the diadem of the evening on the head of the Crown Prince, and his Royal Highness imme- diately placed by his side a young princess of a north- ern court. " Come, my queen, you must first of all take a lesson in the art of governing; you will not find it very puzzling; It goes thus. We find out some sly, crafty fellow, such a person as Hardenberg, for example. We tell him to have money ready for us whenever we want it, and to do as he likes, and you and I sit still and play cards. Don't you think, my love, we shall get on well enough?" — "Can you di- vine, Hardenberg, what Is the first thing I shall do when J am king?" said he once to the Chancellor. " I am confident," replied the latter, it will be some- thing equally honourable to your Royal Highness, and beneficial to the public." — " Right for once. Chancel- lor, for it Avill be to send you to Spandau." It was customary for the princes of the blood, as well as the nobilitj^, to wait on Prince Hardenberg with their con- gratulations, on the anniversary of his bu'th-day. The Crown Prince refused to go, until compelled to it by his father, under the pain of the royal displeasure. I hope, Fritz, "(the domestic abbreviation of Frede- rick,) that you will never have the same reason which I have had, to know what such a man is worth." The Prince drives to the Chancellor, makes the formal congratulation, and adds, " I have done this by the command of my father ; as to the rest, remember. Chancellor, that you and I are where we were," (e5 hleibt heim altenJ) There was neither good sense nor good feeling in such petulant conduct towards a grey- lieaded statesman, to whom the monarchy owed so much.
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CHAPTER X.
BERIIX — THE MANNERS — THE TJNIVERSITY — THE PRESS
THE GOVERNMENT.
Although of a less lively capacity than the Saxons, the upper classes of Prussian society are at least a* thinking and well educated people as the correspond- ing classes in any other German state, and much more so than their brethren of Austria, The veiy poverty which has overtaken so many of them, partly from the events of the war, but still more from the division of property brought about by the government itself, has done thcQi good in this respect. While they have been descending, other ranks of society have been ris- ing, in the possession of what v^as indispensable to the respectability of their aristocratlcal supremacy, supe- rior wealth ; and they have found themselves compel- led to make themselves respectable as men. Above all, the end which Stein and Hardenberg put to their exclusive enjoyment of all public offices has had the good eiTect of driving them to fit themselves for these offices. Nothing teazed or provoked them more than the crowd of novi homines introduced into the different departments of the administration. The letter of the law has thrown every office, civil and military, open to the ambition of every citizen; and the proper spirit which produced the change has acted upon it."* The
* Before the change introduced by Stein shortly after the bat- tle of Jena, almost every officer in the array was of noble birth ; and an unthinking and superhcial party in Germany, which eager- ly hunts out every circumstance that can be turned against the aristocracy, has not scrupled to ascribe to this, though very un- justly, the loss of the battle. In 1817, according to a statement in Benzenherg's Wilhelm Der Drittc^ there were 4140 officers of no- ble birth, and 33&3 commoners.
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prejudices of a once privileged caste, however, still cluDg to them ; they could not easily be taught to sec how their own beneficial superiority was most lastingly secured by the very changes which destroyed their exclusive predominance. Accordingly, they are still the body which throws most obstacles in the way of introducing popular spirit, and the influence of the popular voice, into the forms of government. Their rank necessarily brings them into perpetual contact with the monarch; they are willing that he should re- tain absolute authority, because they believe that the greater share of it will be lodged in themselves, as forming the society in which he lives, and because they regard every measure which tends to elevate their in- feiiors as an aggression on their own rights. M. do Bulow wrote one of the many answers which Benzen- berg's book on Prince Hardenberg's administration called forth. He there says : " In war, dedicated to the defence of the country, and particularly formed for this calling, the nobility are, in peace, the guar- dians of fine manners. To them has hitherto been en- trusted the representation of the country, and they have always proved a powerful bulwark against the arbitrary conduct of public servants." He adds, " The king is the supreme head given by God to the nation, and unites in himself the legislative, judicial, and exe- cutive powers, being responsible, not to the nation, but only to God, and his own conscience." Though it is to be lamented that a man of rank and education should, at this time of day, so openly maintain at once oligarchy and the divine right, yet the gentleman who wrote this is evidently no blockhead; his book con- tains much information, and, on many points, a great deal of good sense.
It is dangerous to form sweeping judgments concern- ing the manners and morality of a people, without a longer residence among them than I enjoyed among the Prussians ; but, from all I learned, as well as from
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the testimony of foreigners who had long had opportu- nities of observing, the higher ranks in Berhn are a more worthy and well-behaved set of people than those of the same class in any other Gorman capital of importance. This honourable change for the better, from what they were thirty years ago, is to be ascrib- ed, in a great degree, to the example set them by his majesty and the late queen; their domestic habits, and pure lives, chased from the court the debaucheries which had polluted it during the last years oi their predecessor. Then came tlie sobering influence of na- tional ruin and private disaster, which at once compel- led them to think, and disabled them from spending. Tlie better moral character which they have gained for them.-eives is, in a g eat measure, deserved, but not, I am afraid, to the full extent to which it has been ascribed to them; at least, among the middling and inferior classes, there is no want of unblushing li- cense, and unprincipled intrigue; and, that the lower ranks should be very dissolute, while their superiors are people of very exemplary conduct, is a phenome- non, the existence of which^ from the very nature of civil society, must always be received with some incre- dulity.
Morality cannot but suffer from the impolitic and indecent facility with which the marriage tie is dissolv- ed, a facility common, though in various degrees, to all the Protestant countries of Germany ; and perhaps no less injurious than the absolute indissolubility of that relation which reigns in Catholic countries. A separa- tion is so easily obtained, even on grounds which ap- proach mere caprice, that marriage ceases to be view- ed in the serious and lasting light which is essential to its well-being, and becomes a temporary connection, to endure only so long as liking or interest may render it advisable. In 1817, 3000 marriages were dissolved in Prussia, among a population of not much more than ten millions.
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Neither are the lower orders of the Prussians at all a noisy people in their amusements; to smoke and drink beer, or wine, if they be rich enouo^h to alFord it, is the highest enjoyment oi the ordinary j)eople. The capital is surrounded with gardens set apart for these solitary enjoyments. A man sets in'msclf down for hours in a room, filled with smoke, if it rains, — or in an arbour, if the weather be fair, dead to every earthly source of interest except the tobacco which regales his palate, and the band of music which is ge- nerally provided to regale his ears. Even the dance, which in Vienna brings joyous crowds together in a hundred scenes of laughter, and humour, and dissolute- ness, is, in Berlin, both less frequent and less perni- cious. Besides walking, the game of nine-pins alone, as a l)odlly exertion, seems to overcome their apathy; scores of parties hurl along their bowls every e veiling, under long wooden sheds. Altogether, they appear to have a strong disposition to mind no person's business but their own, and intermeddle with nothing which does not immediately concern themselves. I saw a thief pursued one day in the streets; a servant-maid of the house from which he had just carried off some silver-spoons, was running after him, raising the hue and cry. He crossed the Linden, which was crowded with idle people, and coursed along the northern divi- sion of the Wilhelmstrasse, one of the busiest parts of the city. Here half a dozen turned their heads to see what was the matter; there half a dozen stood still to witness the race between the thief and the girl ; half a dozen boys joined in the chace ; and the thief, in broad day-light, distanced his pursuers, and made his escape, without any sort of difficulty or interruption. In Britain there would have been a hundred pair of heels after him, and a dozen pair of hands grasping his throat, in the tw inkling of an eye.
Even among the lowest of the people, you seldom witness those scenes of brutal intoxication which sofre-
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quently attend the Idle hours of the same classes in our o\Yn country. They have the farther merit of seldom quarrelling in their cups, and the more questionable one of never coming to blows, when they do quarrel. A German quarrel is almost universally a mere war- fare of words ; the parties belabour each other with the most brutal language, without any object but that of having the last word. A stranger who listens to the abusive terms which they heap upon each other, sees no possibility of the matter coming to any other termi- nation than what is vulgarly called " a set-to," and that, too, a speedy one. JYoch eintnal, " will you say that
aaain ?" seems to be the si£:nal for blows, but no blows
1 II*"
come. If the w^ords be not repeated, the victory is
won, and the combatants separate with mutual growi- imrs ; if they be repeated, then they are answered, not with a blow, but with some still more gross and inde- cent expression of obloquy, and the course of eloquence begins again, to terminate in the same way, till one of the opposing orators has scolded himself out of breath. Such a mode of quarrelling among men annihilates a distinction between the sexes,— which is always a bad thing. Even the German oaths are too tame for a mortal verbal quarrel ; they neither possess the reck- less, execrating energy of our own, nor excite the my- thological reminiscences of the Italian oaths. It is amusing to hear an Italian sw^ear, in one breath, by the Mother of God, and, in the next, by the body of Bac- chus.
The military pride of the Prussians is almost as high as it was under Frederick ; and though the late con- test can perhaps display no particular combat to rival the battles of the Seven Years' War, yet of that na- tional spirit which, when well guided, produces milita- ry invincibility, they have reason to be proud. Histo- ry presents few examples of so universal a devotedness to patriotic duty as that which Prussia exhibited, when the retreat of the French from Russia induced her
THE WAR. 279
rulers to arm. The population of the kingdom did not then exceed six millions ; the fortresses weie in the hands of the enemy ; the treasury was empty; the army was comparatively insignificant and discouraged ; yet the mere love of country in the people, and hatred of an enemy who had opj)ressed, and, what was worse, had insulted them, soon placed in the held an arnjy greater, in proportion to the resources of the monar- chy, than either that of Russia or Austria. From the moment it was known, that the king intended to retire into Silesia, eager reports went abroad among the pub- lic, that their ardour would soon be let loose. In his E reclamation from Breslau, the king gave the signal ; e told his subjects frankly : " I want men ; I liave no money to meet any great outlay ; I must trust to you for both ; you know for what we are figliting." Never was the call of a monarch better answered ; the coun- try rose with an ardour and unanimity, and a fearless- ness of all the dangers and sacrifices of tlie contest, which were more imposing in their moral grandeur, than even in their military power. It is true, that the squadrons which thus sprung, as it were, out of tlie ground, were chiefly raw citizens from the shop, the desk, and the plough, or boys from the class-rooms of the universities ; yet these were the very troops that marched in triumph from the Katzbach to Paris. No age, and no sex, shrunk from the exertions and priva- tions which necessarily accompanied this splendid burst of national enthusiasm. When the Prussians look back on what they then did and suffered, they still find it difiicult to conceive how they could accomplish it; and it was, in fact, possible, only where every inan lelt that he was fighting, not merely a political quarrel of his government, but a personal quarrel of his own, and of his country. The pride with which a Prussian throws out his breast and erects his head, when he speak? of the " Liberation War, the Holy War, the War oi the People," which are its popular appellations, is perfect-
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ly pardonable. If to shrink from no danger, where the liberty and independence of country are at stake, makes a people respectable, no country in Europe is entitled to place itself above Prussia. HowditFerent a picture did France present, when her " sacred soil" was over- run by triumphant invaders, and the pretended idol of her love was about to be driven from his throne ! How little could Napoleon trust to his subjects, compared with Frederick William, at whom he used to laugh, because he could not command an army, or win a bat- tle ! Germans know nothing of French fickleness, and little of Italian misrule ; they will never behead a Louis to-day, to crouch to a Bonaparte to-morrow.
The popular mode, too, in which this popular con- test has been commemorated, keeps its glories always fresh in the minds of the people, and memorials of it always before their eyes. To all who fell in battle, after displaying conduct which, had they survived, would have gained them the Iron Cross, monuments were erected by the state. The encouraging recollec- tion has been still more widely diffused, by setting up, in every parish church, a tablet, bearing the names of the men belonging to the parish who fell in the war, with the simple inscrlj)tlon, " They died for their king and country." On the conclusion of the campaign, a funeral service was performed in every church, in ho- nour of their memory. The pastor read their names to his congregation, to most of whom, of course, they were personally known ; he ran over their " short and simple annals," and pronounced his panegyric on their having proved faithful even unto the death. The or- der of the Iron Cross was instituted solely to reward the deeds done in this war, and superseded, in the meantijne, all other military decorations. It was of iron, to mai'k, as it is expressed In the Act of its Insti- tution, the fortitude with which the people had endur- ed, and the ardour with which they were now rising to shake off the evils " of an iron time." The cross bears
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the initials of the king's name, three oak leaves, and the year. Grand crosses, which were to be given only to a commander who had gained a battle, or success- fully deferjded an important I'ortress or position, were won by BUicher, Bulow, Tauenzien, Yorck, and the King of Sweden. As Bhjcher and Bu!ow are dead, only two of the grand crosses remain in Prussia. Of the two inferior classes which, with the same laudable frugality, were bestowed only on indubitable instances of merit, nearly ten thousand are said to have been distributed. It is, perhaps, the only order in Europe, of which eveiy man who wears it can honestly say, 1 won it fairly amid blood and danger.
The women, too, were not awanting in the contest, and to receive their worthies was instituted the order of Louisa, in memory of her whose name was the signal to vengeance all over the kingdom. One of the first who obtained its honours was the wife of a hosier at Leignitz, in Silesia, who supplied a whole re- giment with gloves at her own expense, and converted her house into an hospital for wounded officers. The ladies sent their jewels and ornaments to the treasury for the public service ; they received in return an iron ring, with the emphatic eulogy, Ich gab Gold um Eisen, " I gave Gold for Iron ;" and a Prussian dame is as proud, and as justly proud, of this coarse decoration, as her husband or her son is of his iron cross. The value of these honours is infitiilely increased by the impossibility of abusing them; both orders are sealed up ; they were instituted only for this national strus^gle, and, with the restoration of the Prussian independnice, were closed forever, or, at least, till a new necessity shall again have called forth a similar display of love of country. But such things seldom happen twice in the history of a peo[)le.
The University of Berlin, though only founded in 1810, is, after Gottingen, the most flourishing and re- putable in Germany. Prussia is principally indebted 36
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for It fo Professor Wolff, the well known Philologist, and who is, hiiuseif, its brio^htest ornament. He tilled a chair in Halle ; when Hi lie was abolished, and tisat portion of the monarchy incor|)orated with the king- dom of Westphalia, the Professor emigrated to Berlin, full of the idea of establishing a new university in the capital. He made the proposal to the king, and found his majesty favourable to it ; but Stein, who was then minister, could not reroncile his ideas of academical tran- quillity with the bustle and pleasures of a large capital, and, with his customary violence, at once pronounced the scheme to be mere madness. Humboldt, however, and Miiller, the historian, enteied fully into the pro- fessor's views ; and it was agreed they should meet at supper at the minister's, and he would liear what they had to say in defence of their plan. Wnlff, wishing to have some conversation with Stein alone, went half an hour sooner than his coadjutors ; not findiirg the minister at home, he was leaving the door, when his carriage drove up ; he no sooner saw Wolff, than, as if his head had been all day full of the subject, he cried out vehemently, while yet on the steps of the carriage, " I am not of your opinion." Wolff was precisely the man to deal with such a character, and answered just as vehemently, "I am not of my own opinion." Un- accustomed to be encountered in his own way, the mi- nister stood astonished, no less at the manner, than the paradoxical import of the re[)ly. "Not of your own opinion ! pray, then, of whose opinion are you ?" — " You are for the ideal, and so would I be ; we cannot reach it, therefore I am for the necessary and practicable, and so must you be. The lightning has struck in amongst us ; we are burned out ; you would leave us without shelter because you cannot build us palaces; I think it would be better to put even huts over our heads." In the meantime they walked up stairs, the minister loudly and vehemently maintaining that it could not succeed. They carried on the argu-
THE UNIVERSITY. 283
ment, if that can be called ars^ument, which was an alternation of hardy, decided assertion and counter- assertion ; It went on, as the profes-or expresses it, Sch/ag auf Sch/ag. '* Good God! Wolli; on!)' think how many bastards von will have every year !" — " Almost as many, I dare say," replied Wollf coolly, "as they have in Leipzio;." — "■ We are too near Frank- fort on the Oder," said the minister : '" We are just fiy\ivteen miles farther from it th n Leipzig is from Wittenberg," answered the professor. 1 he minister had the worst of it ; he was driven from one position after another; more than all, he was delighted at being met in the same determined, unbending, almost contemptuous style, which characterized hinjself. O.ice overcome, he threw himself into the design with the same ardour with which he had opposed it; and Humboldt and Miiller could scarcely trust their ears, when the man, whom they had left in the morn- ing raving against the proposal as a child ol bedlam, greeted tfiem, on their entrance in the evening, with, " It mu^t be ; it is all settled ; we must have a univer- sity here, cost what it may." Still his fears of the dangers to which the young men might be exposed from the crowds of worthless women in the capital haunted him. "Will you not go to Potsdam?" — " With all my heart," said W^olff, " if you promise to send us your libraries, your museums, and, above all, your botanic garden." The university was establish- ed; and, in fact, there was every thing that could pro- mise success. The king was liberal, far beyond the merely necessary, and the capital was already full of the miterials for such an institution, which could not have been collected any where else without much time and a great expenditure. There was a well stored library, a botanical garden, and a museum of natural history, besides anatomical collections. Berlin possessed, like- wise, men (f the first eminence in various departments. Woltr, himself a host, was at tiand for philology ;
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Klaproth was ready to take the chemical chair, to which he did so much honour in the eyes of Europe ; and what name, of late years, has stood higher in botany than that of Wildenovv ? Miiller engaged, if it should be necessary, to make himself useful in history ; and, to aid the young institution, Humboldt himself offered to read lectures. It was, indeed, the first ex- periuient of setting down a crowd of wild German academicians in the midst of a large capital ; but the consequences have fully justified the sagacity of those who recommended it. The students, instead of being more disorderly, are less unruly than elsewhere. Their love of power cannot fight its way through such a population ; they are lost in the crowd, and the out- rageous spirit of domineei'ing dies out from want of food. Apprehensions were entertained, that they Would not live in amity with the military ; and there have been some duels, in which one or two of the Burschen have been shot, the most efficacious of all re- medies to bring the whole body to their senses. Not only the Burschen defenders of academical liberty, but many professors who reckon their own exclusive juris- diction essential to the well-being of a university, have said much against the degree to which Prussia has re- strained this power, and represent it as having lowered the tone, and confined the utility of her seminaries. There is not a word of truth in it ; there is not in Germany a better behaved, or more effective univer- sity than Berlin.
Wolff himself is the best know^n of its members, a most erudite, and friendly, and entertaining person; full of Greek, but still fuller of good humour and jo- cularity, and overflowing with remark and anecdote, the result of a long life spent in constant communica- tion with all the great characters, not merely of Ger- many, but of many foreign countries. Notwithstand- ing his learning and fame, no man can be farther re- moved from pedantry and pride, and, like Blumenbach,
THE UNIVERSITY. 285
he hates nothing so much as erudite dulness. You can- not converse with him half an hour, without finding out that lie is a clever and entertaining man; but you may converse with him for months without finding out that he is, if not the first, assuredly among the first scholars of his day. The first work he pubhshed was a translation of the Fatal Curiosity, to which he pre- fixed a Dissertation on the Drama, written in English. It was published anonj mously, and the German review- ers took it into their heads, that it must be the pro- duction of some English language master who wished lo give a spe^^imen of his acquirements in both tongues. Accordingly, they found the English part of the book to be excellently well written, and declared that the German part betrayed at once the pen of a foreigner, who had but an imperfect acquaintance with the lan- guage ! He once proposed to execute a translation of Homer, in which not only word should be rendered for word, but foot fur foot, and caesura lor caesura. A few specimens of it have been printed in the third vo- lume of his Analecta. He began with the Odyssey, translated about an hundred lines, and finding the labour too great, and the gain too small, freed himself by de- manding eighteen rix-dollars for every verse, a price which he knew well nobody could pay. One verse cost him two weeks. He succeeded best when travel- ling, and boasts of having translated a whole line and a half during a journey to Hamburgh, an effect of motion which he first learned from Klopstock. He is best kno^vn among scholars by the. Prolegomena to his Ho- mer, wliich have placed him at the head of classical sceptics. The doctrines maintained in this celebrated Introduction were far from being altogether new; but Wolff was the first who gave them a connected and systematic form, and propped them with an extent of erudition and an acuteness of remark, which the orthodox believers in the antiquity, purity, and unity of the Ho-
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meric poems will not easily get over.* The doctrines of the new sect, however, have not yet made great pro- gress. " If twenty persons understand them in Germa- ny," says the professor himself, " probably twenty-one understaiid them in En^^land ; but I am quite sure that in less than two hundred years, every body will under- stand them, and believe them, too/' He avers, that the Enii;lish bishops are to blame for the little pro- gress his creed has made in this country, although Wood's Essay was the first important statement of its general tenor. The matter stands thus. Certain Ger- man theologians, adopting principles which, in regard to Homer, Wolff has rendered it difficult to controvert, have applied them to tfie sacred records, (of the Old Testament.) and arrived at the same conclusions. Be- lieving themselves to have j)roved that the art of wri- tino" was unknown at the tmje when many of these books were penned, and that they descended from one generation to another only through the medium of oral tradition, they infei', that such a traditionary preserva- tion is irreconcileable, from its very nature, with the continued authenticity and purity of the text. " Your bishops," says Wolff, " know this ; they are sharp enou2'h to see the consequences which must follow, if the princi[)les be once admitted, and, therefore, they proscribe my prolegomena." Yet the prolegomena have been reprinted in one of the university editions (T fhink th^^ OAfoid) of Ernc&U's Homer! But he is by no iiif^ans the only distinguished and learned person among his countrymen who has strangle notions regard- irio- our condition, and modes of thinking and acting. An erudite professor of Jena believed Scotland to be a Cattiollc country ; and one of the most distinguished of
* The Essai sur la question^ si Homere a connu V Usage de VEcri- ticre^ et si les deux Poemes de VUiade et de POdyssee sont en enfier de lui is an excellent epitome of the whole discussion. It is by M. Fran9e«^on, a French grammarian of Berlin. I have heard Wolff himself speak of it in terms of high approbation.
THE PRESS. 287
the sa£fes of Goftingen, when explaining to his class the term Post Captain^ as used in the British Navy, told them, that it meant, the captain of a Post Ship, a ship that carried the \Jail.
Thouglj B(!rlln is full of scientific and literary merit, the people in getieral are not great readers, and what they do read has previously heen purified in the fur- nace of the censorship. In the depari merit of jour- nals, few things are more dull, stale, and unprofiiahle, than the newspapers ol Berlin; their public politics are necessarily all on one side, and even on that side, thej seldom indulge in original writing, or venture be- yond an extract from the Austrian Observer; but they give most minute details of plays and operas, concerts and levees. Voss's Journal is the best of them even in political matters ; and it has a wide circulation out of Prussia, for its literary and critical articles are fre- quently written with very considerable talent. A few years ago, M. Benzenberg, a Prussian from the Rhine, published a book "On the administration of the Chan- cellor Prince Hardenberg," in a style altogether new among the despotic states of Germany. It examined the various measures of tlie ministry, eulogized the ge- neral spirit of Improvement in which they had pro- ceeded, and especially laboured to sliow how necessa- rily all those preparative changes must lead to the great consummation, the introduction of popular forms of government. It was he who said, that Hardenberg had revolutionized more, and more successfully, in six days, than the French Convention had done in two years. The censor never hesitated to license the book, notwithstanding its evident tendency ; but the aristo- cracy, and some foreign cabinets, were thrown into a panic, that the confidential minister of the Kiiig of rrussla should be represented as capable of doing things which, by any possibility, could be styled revolu- tionizing. Alarms were scattered, remonstrances were made, and the minister found it prudent, at least, to
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disclaim all connection with the author. The book was anonymous, although, in Berlin, it was well known who had written it. Benjamin Constant immediately printed a translation or epitome of it in Pnris, under the title of, " The Triumph of Liberal Opinions in Prussia," and it ascribed to a gentleman who held a subordinate office in one of the departments of the Prussian ministry. This person, in the utmost trepi- dation, immediately inserted in the public papers, a much more anxious disclaimer, than most Germans would do if charged vvitfi sorcery or atheism.
Yet every one who knows the two countries must allow, that the censorship is exercised in Prussia with much more liberality of sentiment than in Austria; and that it must be so, because, in the former, there is much more knowledge. The Prussian government knows that, if its subjects learn and reason, though they may wish for more, they will recognize all the good which has yet been done ; the Austrian governmfmt knows that, if it were possible to bring its subjects to learn and think, they would find it had been going back- wards since the days of Joseph and Leopold. The reign of Frederick the Great accustomed the Prussians to almost unrestrained freedom of writing, above all, if they could write French, and write like Frenchmen. His successor was more strict, for in the conduct of his government there was much which lay open to at- tack. The present king began his reign in an honest and liberal spirit j"^ and, although more recent events,
* There are some signal instances of the willingness with which he saw the journals point out mal-adrainisiration in public ser- vants. A Westphalian newspaper had complained loudly against the administrators of the royal domains, for allowing a certain bridge to remain in a state of decay, which rendered it dangerous. The Domainen-Kammer^ a College entru-ted with the manag-enr;eftt of the domains, complained to the king of this licentious interfe- rence with the affairs of government, and demanded the punish- ment of the transgressor. The king's rescript was in an excellent spirit. " All depends on the circumstance, whether the com-
THE PRESS. 589
and, still more, the inlluencc of other monarchs, have given the censorship a more searching activity than it once displayed under Frederick WiUiam, it would be unjust to deny that the Prussian press is far more in- dulgently treated than that which exists under any other despotic government in Europe. To the finan- cial state and arrangements of the country, the amount of the debt, the means for meeting it, and the amount of the different branches of public expenditure, the ut- most publicity has been given ; and the first compte rendu of this kind which Hardenberg issued, excited no small apprehensions in some other German govern- ments, lest it should turn out to be a bad and infectious example. These financial arrangements, the institu- tions which may still be acting prejudicially on indus- try, the defects in the administration of justice, and how they may be avoided, are all frequent subjects of discussion in pamphlets and periodicals. Although Benzenberg's work on the spirit of the administration excited much hatred and alarm among many powerful persons at home, and some powerful cabinets abroad, nothing was done either against the book or its author. The nobility, instead of suppressing and punishing, were compelled to answer; and, though it be melancholy that one of their number should have answered by preaching very degrading doctrines, it is encoura2:ing that they had to answer with the pen, not with gens
plaints made in the journal are well founded or not. If they are, you ought rather to thank the author, than expose him to inconve- nience ; if they are groundless, then, if you do not choose to cor- rect the erroneous statement, which in every respect would be the better way, you must proceed against him regularly in a court of justice. If a proper degree of publicity were refused, there would remain no means of discovering the negligence or faithless- ness of public servants. This publicity is the best security, both for the government and the public, against the carelessness or wicked designs of the mferior authorities, and deserves to be en- couraged and protected. In the meantime, 1 hope that the dispute will not make you forget the thing itself, viz. the repairing the bridge. Berlin, Feb. 20, 1804"
37
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/^Z"fe d'armes and state-prisons. Wettwe, a Professor of the University, had represented Sand as a martyr in a good cause, or, if misled, as having been guilty of only a very trivial error. Nobody, surely, will find fault with the Prussian government for dismissing from a station which entrusted him with the education of youth, a man who could propagate such a belief about such a deed. The Professor retired to Weimar, and the Weimar Oppositions-Blatt immediately sounded the alarm against Prussian oppression. The affair attrac- ted notice ; bui Hardenberg, instead of attempting to crush the man, or silence the paper, transmitted to the editor a copy of the Professor's letter (to Sand's mo- ther, I believe) which had occasioned his dismissal, with a request that it should be inserted in his journal as soon as possible.
In 1815 and 1816, when the alarms entertained con- cerning the designs of private political societies were at their height, and retarded, or were made the pre- tence for retarding the introduction of pohtical changes, the lively war carried on from the press between the liberals and their opponents was a phenomenon in Ger- many. It was downright licentiousness of the [)ress, compared with what would have been allowed in Aus- tria or Russia; audi alteram partem had a meaning, and a practical effect; the two parties railed, sneered at, and misrepresented each other, as if they had been trained to public polemics from their youth. The go- vernment, to be sure, w^ent wrong at last ; because, in- • stead of allowing the angry opponents to bluster them- selves out, it imposed silence on both, by ordering the censor not to allow another syllable to be printed about the matter on either side. How many furious answers were published to Schmalz's furious book against the private societies, real or imaginary ! Schraalz, indeed, was honoured with the decoration of the order of Civil Merit ; and it would be strange if an absolute sovereign did not bestow his favours on those who de-
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 291
fended, rather than on those who attacked his prero- gative ; but a great deal has been gained, when the censor of such a sovereign allows such books to be printed, and, in putting a stop to the combat, does it by ordering both parties to sheath their weapons, after they have tried their mutual prowess.
The administration of justice, which, when taken in all its bearings, is the most important of all social con- cerns, bears a high character in Prussia. Not only in the monarchy itself, but among well informed men in the other states, it is generally allowed, that, nowhere in the countries of the Confederation, is it more pure and independent. The Professor of Public Law in a neighbouring University, who had himself spent the best part of his life as a judge in Prussia, while he de- nounced its government to me as jealous and illiberal, described its judicial establishments as the most trust- worthy in Germany. The judges of the higher courts are independent of the higher powers. They are more than reputable persons in point of talent, and are sufficiently well paid to place ordinarily moral men above the necessity of polluting their office, to grasp at unworthy gains; nothing can place unprincipled ava- rice beyond the reach of temptation. During the pe- riod of the Prussian radical alarms, many would have been brought to trial besides Jahn ; but the court had shown so refractory a spirit to the arbitrary adminis- tration of the police law, that only acquittals could be looked for. Nobody thinks of denying, that the Prus- sian courts are pure and upright in matters of civil right, even where the crown is opposed to an indivi- dual ; but, in political matters, the benefit which might result from tribunals that are independent where they do judge, is in a great measure nullified, by the power of the government to prevent the tribunals from inter- fering. I never heard of any provision, by which a man imprisoned for sedition, for example, could claim the protection of the courts, and insist upon a final in-
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vestlgation, however certain he might be that these courts would do equal justice; and, if he should be ac- quitted bj the judges, I know nothing to prevent a jealous and dissatisfied ministry from still detaining him in his dungeon. Salus reiptiblicae siiprema lex may be a necessary rule in all forms of government ; but where the definition of the salus reipublicae depends on the views and wishes of the executive alone, even the pur- est institutions are liable every moment to be paralyz- ed, and the integrity of the most independent judges to be rendered nugatory. I once heard a Saxon pro- fessor, when entering on the subject of police law, ad- dress his class thus : " We now come to that precious thing called police law, such as it may be found in a Code de la Gendarmerie. It is best and most briefly defined to be, the absence of all law ; because it de- pends entirely on the arbitrary discretion of a single power acknowledging no guide but its own imagined security, and consists essentially in the privilege of dis- regarding and superseding all law, without being re- sponsible, except to the same arbitrary discretion which creates it."
But the Prussian capital contains an open court of justice, a rarity in Germany. The supreme court of appeal of the Rhenish provinces sits in Berlin; and, as these provinces still retain the Code Napoleon, its pro- ceedings are public : but so small is the interest taken in such matters, that the decent rows of benches in the apartment where the court meets, are left to the undisturbed possession of the dust, except when a crowd is attracted by some case which has set the world by the ears out of doors. It is only a court of review, but its jurisdiction is criminal as well as civil- There is neither pomp nor bustle. In an apartment, up tw^o pair of stairs, seven gentlemen, dressed in black, were seated round a curved table ; the Presi- dent was distinguishable only by sitting in the middle, for, thouffh he wore an order in his button hole, some
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 293
of the other judges had the same decoration. On his right sat Prolessor Sav igny, whom fame styles the first civilian of Germany, with his long, smooth, glossy hair hanging down some what after the student fashion. No wigs, no robes ; no imposing accumulation of curl above, and no ample folds of scarlet, or patches of er- mine below; there sat the supreme judges of the Rhenish provinces, publicly administering justice in their own hair and every-day dresses.* A criminal appeal was heard. The appellant's counsel, he, too, wigless and gownless, in black breeches and white cot- ton stockings, stated his reasons of appeal in a speech of half an hour. He spoke with considerable fluency and energy, but the argument was too much involved in technicalities to be easily understood by a foreigner. The judges were most attentive. The opposing coun- sel, apparently a much more helpless man in this mode of discussion, made his reply in half a minute. He held out towards the judges a huge manuscript, and merely said, " I am not going to say any thing at all ; for you have already had in writing all that I would wish to say, and I doubt not but you have carefully perused it." The Referendary then mounted a pul- pit at one corner of the bench, read, from a manu- script, his own view of the case, and stated his conclu- sions, which were in favour of the appellant. When he had finished, the judges all at once disappeared through a door behind the bench; they returned, after an absence of fifteen minutes, wdiich had been spent in deliberation, and the president, without giving a sylla- ble of observation or explanation, announced the judg- ment of the court, rejecting the appeal, and confirming the sentence of the inferior tribunal. Thus, neither the
* Professor Hornthal, of Friburg-, in the notes to his German translation ofM. Cottu's book on the administration of justice in England, says of German judges, "They are accustomed to go into court in a dress in which they would be ashamed to appear in a drawing-room."
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opinions of any one judge, nor the grounds on which the decision of the court proceeds, are known; the plead- ings and the judgment are pubhc, but the deliberations and opinions of the judges are private. Every body knows, or may know, what the parties have to say for themselves; but nobody can know what the judges have to say for themselves. You know that a man has been hanged, while he argued, and, if he had a clever counsel, argued perhaps to the satisfaction of all except the judges, that he could not legally be hanged; but whether he was in reality legally hanged, is left to that disposition which is the evidence of things not seen.
Thus the citizens of Berlin see justice administered to their fellow subjects of the Rhine provinces with a publicity which has not yet been granted to them- selves. Rhine-Prussia enjoys another superiority in possessing trial by jury in all criminal matters. The institution was introduced among them when they were made part of the French empire, and, on their restoration to the Prussian monarchy, the king consent- ed to the continuance of the new forms of jurispru- dence. But, unless the powers of their Attorney-Ge- nerals be more strictly defined ; unless their jurors be more inviolably preserved against the influence of newspaper writers and pamphleteers, who discuss the question of guilt or innocence, before the man has been brought to trial ; and, above all, unless their rules of evidence be brought to a more strict accord- ance with common justice and common sense, jury trial, in those provinces of the Prussian monarchy, Avill be an instrument of outrageous oppression just as fre- quently as of protection. As illustrative of the inabili- ty of jury trial, when not accompanied by other pre- cautions, to confer social security, it may be worth while to record the case of Mr. Fonk, which was keeping Cologne in an uproar, when I visited that city in 1822. Some disputes had arisen between this gen*
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 29&
tlemari, a most respectable njerchant, and his partner, who resided in the counti'y, relative to the settlement of accounts on the dissolution ot their copartnery. The partner takes it into his head, that a balance so unfavourable to himselt" mav have been brought out by subjecting the books to some undue process, and sends in an accountant to examine them. The neces- sary books, and the original vouchers, are submitted to him; no trace of fraud or falsification is discover- ed ; the partner him-^elf comes to town, and, at a meeting in Mr. Fonk's house, at which the accountant is present, a final arrangement is agreed upon. The accountant and his employer leave Fonk's house about eight o'clock on a Saturday evening in November, re- turn to their inn, and sup with an acquaintai»ce. When this acquaintance goes away, at ten o'clock, the ac- countant accompanies him as far as the market place, there leaves him, returns in the direction of the inn, and is never again seen, till, two months afterwards, the ice upon the Rhine breaks up, and his corpse is floated ashore on a meadow inundated by the river. Some marks upon the body lead to a suspicion that he has been murdered and thrown into the Rhine. The public, taking the murder for granted, and unable to discover that any other person had an 'nterest in taking his life, accuse Mr. Fonk of having perpetrated the crime, to prevent him from disclosing to his em- ployer the falsifications which he had discovered in the books, though no falsification existed, though all that the accountant had to disclose had been already disclosed, and a final settlement of matters had been agreed on. The affair immediately becomes a hot party dispute. Mr. Sand, the Advocate-General, or, as \we would style him, the Attorney-General, applies for a warrant to arrest Mr. Fonk, and put him upon his trial. The Judge of Instruction, who discharges, in some measure, the functions of a grand jury, refuses to take such a step on mere indefinite, unauthorized
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rumour, and, from this moment, the Attorney-General proceeds with the ardour and partiality of a partisan. It may be, that he was convinced of the guilt of the individual ; but the press did not hesitate to ascribe his zeal to very different motives, and it certainly mis- led him into conduct which mere official duty could not suggest, and cannot justify.*
Mr. Fonk had, in his service, a cooper of the name of Hamacher ; and the believers in the guilt of the former, with the law officers at their head, think it probable that this man may have been privy to the murder. He is apprehended, and consigned to the most unhealthy dungeon which the prison can furnish ; no person, except the instruments of the police, is per- mitted to visit him. He is allowed one companion, a condemned robber. This miscreant receives instruc- tions to keep by him day and night, and to allow him no repose till he consent to confess. He executes these orders excellently well ; he prevails on the cooper to write letters to his wife, which he himself engages to find means of conveying to her, and then delivers them to the police, by whom this ingenious device had been suggested. He is allowed, as an in- dulgence, to receive the visits of his wife, but police officers are privately stationed to overhear their con-
* It was long supposed, and is still asserted, that the murder was probably committed in a brothel, where Ciinen (the account- ant) was in the habit of visiting an Italian prostitute, who left the town shortly afterwards, and could not be traced. The evidence on the trial gave no countenance to such a conjecture ; but it was maintained from the press, that the Attorney-General was sacrific- ing Fonk to screen this girl, who, it was alleged, had formerly been his mistress — and it must be matter of surprise to most peo- ple, that the press was allowed to make so free with the first law officer of his Prussian Majesty. Nay, the Attorney-General was called upon the trial, and, after a very serious admonition from the presiding judge, was examined as to the particulars of his connec- tion with that unworthy person, though there was not a particle of evidence to connect her with the fate of the deceased — such is the laxity of their law of evidence !
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versation ; while, at the same time, every mean i» used to irritate him against his master by false repre- sentations that the latter is publicly accusing him of the murder. After he has been subj('Cted for some months to this moral torture, allured by [)romises, and exposed to the a»"ts of a wily police, the courage of the man, as one party calls it, or his obstinacy, as the other party terms it, begins to waver; and so soon as he shows an inclination to yieltl, he is removed to a more comfortable prison. The Attorney-General, who has hitherto acted chiefly behind the curtain, novr comes forward upon the stage. He sends bottles of Rhenish to the prisoner; and this representative of the King of Prussia, in the administration of criminal justice, does not blush to spend evening after evening in the cell of this suspected murderer, drinking wine with him, and arranging the confession over the bottle. After the study of some weeks, forth comes the con- fession, not brought out at once, but gradually put to- gether, revised, jointed, and polished by these two worthies, and emitted, for the first time, before a ma- gistrate, only after they have thus put it into a mar- ketable shape.
Without entering into the details of this precious document, the manner in which it was concocted, and the use to which it was applied, are sufficient for all I have in view in relating this melancholy story. The amount of it was, that, on the Saturday evening on which the accountant disappeared, he returned to Fonk's house, between ten and eleven o'clock — for what purpose not even the cooper and Attorney-Gene- ral ever pretended to conjecture; that Mr. Fonk took him into the spirit-cellar, under pretence of showing him some brandy, there murdered him, with the as- sistance of the cooper, partly by strangling him, partly by striking him on the head with a piece of iron, and packed the body into a cask, in which it remained in the cellar till Monday morning, when a man was pro- ^ 38
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cured with a horse and cart, who conveyed it from the cltj, a few miles down the Rhine; that the coop- er then took it out of the cask, tied a stone round the knees, and threw it into the river. It farther bore, that Fonk had previously proposed the murder to him more than once, but that his honest conscience had in- dignantly rejected the atrocious design ; yet, at last, though, according to his own story, he was only unex- pectedly present, with his honest conscience, at the perpetration of the crime, he bears as stout and will- ing a hand in the deed, as if he had been a hired as- sassin. While the manufacture of the confession was going on, he was heard to say on one occasion, when the Advocate-General had left him, after a long tip- pling conversation, ''We shall soon be ready now; for we have agreed, at last, who Ishall say carried away the dead body."
No sooner is this more than supicious confession made known, than two parties are formed in Cologne, nearly equal in numbers, and entirely so in prejudice and violence. The one party disbelieves the whole story, and expatiates, with much reason, on the inex- plicable, they even venture to say, the criminal manner in which it has been manufactured; while the other maintains that this declaration is worthy of all accep- tation, both against the maker of it, and against his master, and, as a motive for the crime, they still speak darkly of some unintelligible falsification of the books. All at once, they are startled by the decision of the arbiters who had been appointed to examine the books and accounts of the copartnery, and discover those supposed falsifications on which alone the whole theo- ry of Fonk's guilt rested. He himself had named the first merchant of Cologne in character, wealth, and mercantile skill; his adversary had named his most prejudiced and indefatigable enemy, the Advocate- General himself. These gentlemen, however, give an award which does not merely establish the absence of
ADMINISTRATION OF JU STICK. 299
any falsification, but proves, that, instead of Foiik be- ing a fraudulent debtor to his partner, that partner is debtor to him. To complete the confusion of tiie par- ty, the servant, too, retracts Ins confossion, declaring, before a magistrate, that it had been fabricated solely to procure some alleviation of the miseries which he endured in prison, and seduced into it, as he was, by the urgent representations of those placed about him. On this, private interviews again take place between him and the higher powers, and fie again adiieres to his confession; then, when left to himself for a while, he retracts it a second time, and to that retraction he has remained constant till this hour. He is no longer use- ful, and, therefore, no longer deserves mercy. He is brought to trial, and, on the retracted confession, is convicted of having aided in the murder, and comdenin- ed to imprisonment for life; for so craftily was the de- claration put together, that it made him appear only as an accidental, and almost an unwilling assistant in the crime.
Armed with this verdict, the Advocate-General re- turns to the attack, and Mr. Fonk is at last put upon his trial. Now the paper war between the parties rises to fury; pamphlets, and newspaper articles, attacking or defending the accused, and teeming with tl e partial- ity and virulence of faction, are poured forth in Hoods; the most important political question would not excite half the discord and party violence that were spread far and wide by the approaching decision of a matter of life and death, and that, too, among those very n)en from whom the jurors were to be taken. The trial (which took place at Treves) lasted nearly six weeks; in England, it would not have lasted six hours. There was no evidence that the man had been murdered at all. The medical witnesses disputed and quarrelled with each other, three live-long days, before the court and the jury; they read long manuscript essays, and made long medical speeches, in defence of ihcir oppo-
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site opinions, as if they had been pleading the cause. The country doctors were quite certain that the wounds on the head had occasioned death, and had been inflicted before the body was thrown into the water; the Professor of Anatomy in the university of Marburg was just as positive that only a fool or a knave could maintain that such wounds must occasion death, and must have been inflicted on dry land, con-* sidering that the body had been so long tossed about among the loose floating ice on the Rhine. Many other witnesses were called, but, except that they went far to establish an alibi in favour of the prisoner, they proved nothing that was of much moment on either side. The whole question turned upon the cooper's confession, and it actually was received as evi- dence, in spite of tlie resistance of the prisoner's coun- sel. Although it was allowed, that as the person who had made it stood convicted of an infamous crime, he could not be heard to confirm the same story on oath, in presence of the court, yet it was sent to the jury when only written, not made in their presence, not upon oath, and judicially retracted. The man himself was brought forward, and repeated his final retraction to the jury, declaring the whole story to be a fabrica- tion, and entreating the judges, with tears in his eyes, not to receive it. But to the jury it did go; and, as was to be expected from the indecent virulence with which the matter had so long been discussed out of doors, the pride and prejudice of faction had found their way into the jury box. Will it be believed, that on this declaiation of a condemned malefactor, not given before the jury, but taken out of court years before, retracted and contradicted before the court by the very man who made it, procured by arts, and manu- factured by a process of which enough was known to render the whole more than suspicious, a majority, though a narrow majority, of the jury convicted a re- spectable fellow-citizen of a deliberate and utterly
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 301
causeless murder? What sort of justice could any par- ty hope for from such juries in the stru<i:gles of politi- cal factions? Really the despotic Prussian government alone showed any regard to justice in this Icng train of calamity. If it did not inteifere with the strange con- duct of its own law ofiiceis, this arose from a laudable feeling of delicacy. Considering the hostile feeling towards Prussia which exists in the Rhenish provinces, and the rapidity with which this question nad been made a party dispute, any inleiference of government would have been considered an arbitrary disregard of the more liberal forms of Rhenish justice. The government, therefore, allowed the law to take its own course in its own way ; but, so soon as the appeal founded on points of law (lor the verdict is final as to the ques- tion of fact) had been dismissed by the supreme court, orders were sent down frijm Berlin to institute a judicial inquiry into the conduct of the police throughout the whole affair, and a free pardon was granted to both prisoners.
The law of evidence that admits such materials, and the men whom the practice of the law thus teaches to look upon them as legitimate grounds of judgment, are equally enemies to the caution and purity of crim- inal justice. Tribunals accustomed to act in this man- ner cannot expect that iheir decisions will be respect- ed; scarcely was the verdict pronounced, when peti- tions, signed by numbers of the inhabitants of Cologne, were sent otF to Berlin, not praying for a pardon as a grace, but arraigning the verdict, and founded on the total want of evidence. The unavoidable consequence of such scenes is, to weaken the foundations on which this institution stands in a country where it exists more by tolerance than good will, and to retard its introduc- tion into other states where it is esteemed the fore- runner of political anarchy. Nor is it the governments alone that regard jury trial with unfriendly eyes; the mere lawyers, full of professional prejudices, are equal-
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ly irreconciieable enemies, though on different gfrounds. I found a professor of the juridical faculty at Jena por- ing over a folio manuscript, in which he has been col- lecting for years, principally from E^n^lish newspapers, all the cages where a jury seems to him to have given a wrong verdict, and from these he ho|>es to convince Germany that a jury is the worst of ?JI instruments for discovering the truth. To such men, a trial like the above is a stronghold; for they forget that the law which admits such evidence as legitimate is no less in fault than the jurors, whom rashness, prejudice, or popular belief, seduces to act upon it, and they com- mit the very common error of confounding the inci- dental defects with the essence of an institution.
The Prussian government is usually decried amongst us, as one of the most intolerant and illiberal of Ger- many, attentive only to secure the implicit and unthink- ing obedience of its subjects, and, therefore, encourag- ing every thing which may retain them in ignorance and degradation. Every Briton, from what he has heard, must enter Prussia with this feeling; and he must blush for his hastiness, when he runs over the long line of bold reforms and liberal ameliorations which were in- troduced into the whole frame of society and public relations in Prussia, from the time when the late Chancellor Prince Hardenberg was replaced, in 1810, at the head of the government. They began, in fact, with the battle of Jena; that defeat was, in one sense, the salvation of Prussia. The degrada'tion and help- lessness into which it plunged the monarchy, while thev roused all thinking men to see that there must be something wrong in existing relations, brought like- wise the necessity of stupendous effc)rls to make the resources of the diminished kingdom meet both its own expenditure, and the contributions levied on it by the conqueror. A minister was wanted; for domineer- ing France would not allow Hardenberg, the head of the Anti-Gallican party, and listened to only when it was too
THE GOVERNMENT. 303
late, to retain his office, and he retired to Riga. Pre- nez Monsieur Stein^ said Napoleon to tiie king, c^est un homme d* esprit ; and Stein was made minister. In spirit, he was a minister entirely suited to the times, but he wanted caution, and forgot that in politics, even in changing for the better, some consideration must be paid to what for centuries has been bad and universal. He was not merely bold, he was fearless; but he was thoroughly despotic in his character; having a good object once in his eje, he rushed on to it, regardless of the mischief which he might be doing in his haste, and tearing up and throwing down all that stood in his w^ay, with a vehemence which even the utility of his purpose did not always justify.
Stein was too honest a man long to retain the favour of France. An intercept^^letter informed the cabi- net of St.. Cloud, that he was governing for Prussian, not for French purposes ; and the king was requested to dismiss le nom.me Stein. He retired to riague, and amused himself with reading lectures on history to his daughters. His retirement was folioued by a sort of interregnum of ministers, who could contrive nothing except the cession of Silesia to France instead of pay- ing the contributions. From necessity, Hardenberg was recalled ; and whoever will take the trouble of going over the principal acts of his administration will acknowledge, not only that he was the ablest minister Prussia has ever possessed, but likewise, that few statesmen, in the unostentatious path of internal im- provement, have effected, in so brief an interval, so many weighty and benelicial changes — interrupted as he was by a war of unexampled importance, which he began with caution, prc^ecuted with energy, and ter- minated in triumph. He received Prussia stripped of half its extent, its honours blighted, its finances ruined, its resources at once exhausted by foreign contribu- tions, and depressed by ancient relations among the different classes of society, which custom had conse-
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crated, and selfishness was vehement to defend. He has left it to his king, enlarged in extent, and restored to its fame; with a \veli-orde red. system of finance, not more defective or extravagiirit ttian the struggle for the redemption of the kingdom rendered necessary; and, above all, he has left it freed from those restraints which bound up the capaci^AS of its industry, and were the sources at once of ,pers(^al degradation and nation- al poverty. Nor (flight it to be forgotten, that, while Harde/iberg had often to. contend, in the course of these reforms, now with the jealousies of town corpo- rations, and now with the united influence and preju- dices of the aristocracy, he stood in the difficult situa- tion of a foreigner in the kingdom which h^ governed, unsupported by family'descent or hereditary influence. His power rested opl the^ersonal confidcjnce of |he king in his talents ~ and fronesty, and.* the confidence which all of the people, who ever thought on such matters, reposed in the genei'al spirit of his [}olicy.
It was on agriculture that Prussia tiad principally to rely, and the relations between the peasantry who la- boured the soil and the [)roprietors, chiefly of the no- bility, who owned it, were of an extremely depressing nature. The most venturous of all Hardenberg's mea- sures was, that by which he entirely new-modelled the system, and did nothing less than create a new order of independent landed proprietors. The Erbuntertha- nigkeit^ or hereditary subjection of the peasantry to the proprietors of the estates on which they were born, had been already abolished by Stein: Next were removed the absurd restrictions which had so long operated, with accumulating force, to diminish the pro- ductiveness of land, bv fetteijng the propiietor not merely in the disposal, but evfn in the mode of culti- vating his estate. Then came forth, in 1810, a royal edict, effecting, by a single stroke of the pen, a greater and more decisive change than has resulted from any modern legislative act, and one on which a more popu-
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Inr form of government would scarcely have ventured. It enacted, that all the peasantry of the kingdom should in future be free heieditary proprietors of the lands which hitherto they had held only as hereditary tenants, on condition that they gave up to the landlord a fixed proportion of them. The peasantry formed two classes. The first consisted of those who enjoyed what may be termed a hereditary lease, that is, who held lands to which the landlord was bound, on the death of the tenant in possession, to admit his succes- sor, or, at least, some near relation. The right of the landlord was thus greatly inferior to that of unlimited propertj^ he had not his choice of a tenant; the lease was likely to remain in the sanie family as long as the estate in his own; and, in general, he had not the power of increasing t1ie rent, which had been original- ly fixed, centuries, perhaps, before, whether it consist- ed in jjroduce or services. These peasants, on giving up one-third of their farms to the landlord, became un- limited proprietors of the remainder. The second class consisted of peasants whose title endured only for life, or a fixed term of years. In this case, the land- lord was not bound to continue the lease, on its termi- nation, to the former tenant, or any of his descendants; but still he was far from being unlimited proprietor; he was bound to replace the former tenant with a per- son of the same rank; he was prohibited to take the lands into his own possession, or cultivate them with his own capital. His right, however, was clearly more absolute than in the former case, and it is difficult to see what claim the tenant could set up beyond the en* durance of his lease. Though the fact, that such re- strictions rendered the ^ate less valuable to the pro- prietor, may have been a very good reason for aboli^h- ing them entirely, it does not seem to be any reason at all for takinor a portion of the lands from him who had every right to them, to give it to him who had no right whatever, except that of possession under his
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temporary lease. But this class of peasants, too, (and they are supposed to have been by far the more nu- merous,) on i^ivin^ up one-half oi^ their farms, became absohite proprietors of the remainder. The half thus taken from the laridh:)rds appears just to have been a price exacted from them for the more valuable enjoy- ment of the other: — as if the government had said to them, Give up to our disposal a certain portion of your estates, and we shall so sweep away those old restric- tions which render them unproductive to you, that what remains will speedily be as valuable as the whole was before.
It cannot be denied, therefore, that this famous edict, especially in the latter of the two cases, was a very stern interference with the rights of private property; nor is it wonderful that those against whom it was di- rected should have sternly opposed it ; but the minis- ter was sterner still. He found the finances ruined, and the treasury attacked by demands, which required that the treasury should be tilled ; he saw the imperi- ous necessity of rendering agriculture more |)roductive; and thoup-h it may be doubted, whether the same end might not have been gained by new-modelling the re- lations between the parties, as landlord and tenant, in- stead of stripping the former to create a new race of proprietors, there is no doubt at all as to the success of the measure, in increasing the productiveness of the soil. Even those of the aristocracy, who have waged war most bitterly against Hardenberg's refornis, allow that, in regard to agriculture, this law has produced incredible good. " It must be confessed," says one of them, '* that, in ten years, it has carried us "forward a whole century ;" — the best C|| all experimental proofs how injurious the old relations between tlse proprie- tors and the labourers of the soil must have been to the prosperity of the country.
The direct opei^ation of this measure necessarily was to make a great deal of property change hands ; but
THE GOVERNMENT. ^OT
this effect was farther increased by its indirect opera- tion. The law appeared at a moment when the great- er j)art of the estates of the noblhty were burdened with debts, and the proprietors were now deprived of their rentals. They indeed had land thrown back up- on their hands; but this only multiplied their embar- rassments. In the hands of their boors, the soil had been productive to them ; now that it was in their own, tliey had neither skill nor capital to carry on its profit- able cultivation, and new loans only added to the inte- rest whicli already threatened to consume its probable fruits. The consequence of all this was, that, besides the [)ortion of land secured in free property to the peasantry, much of the remainder came into the mar- ket, aiid the purchasers were generally persons who had acquired wealth by trade or manufactures.^ The
* It will scarcely be believed that, np to 1807, it was only bj accident that a person not nohle could find a piece of land which he would be allowed to purchase, whatever number of estates might be in the market. By far the greater portion of the landed pro- perty consisted of estates-noble ; and if the proprietor brought his estate to sale, only a nobleman could purchase it. The rnerchant, the banker, the artist, the manufacturer, every citizen, in short, who had acquired wealth by industry and skill, lay under an abso- lute prohibition against investing it in land, unless he previously purchased a patent of nobility, or stumbled on one of those few spot?, small in number, and seldom in the market, which, in for- mer days, had escaped the hands of a noble proprietor. Even Frederick the Great lent his aid to perpetuate this preposterous system, in the idea that he would best compel the investment of capital in trade and manufactures, by making it impossible to dis- pose of it, when realized, in agricultural pursuits — a plan which led to the depression of agriculture, the staple of the kingdom, as certainly as it was directed in vain to cherisn artificially a manu- facturing activity, on which the country is much less depen<lent. Thi^ could not possibly last; the noble proprietors were regularly becoming poorer, and the same course of events which compelled so many of them to sell, disabled them generally from buying; destitute of capital to cultivate their ovvn estates, it was not among them that the purchasers of the royal domains were to be looked for. In 1807, Stein swept away the whole mass of absurd restric- tions, and every man was made capable of holding every kind of property.
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sale of the royal domains, to supply the necessities of the state, operated powerfully in the same way. These domains alwavs formed a most important item in the revenue of a German prince, and one which was total- ly independeiit of any controul, even ihnt of the im- perfectly constituted estates. In Prussia, they were estimated to yield annually nearly half a million Ster- ling, even in the hands of farmers ; and, under the changes which have so rapidly augmented the value of the soil all over the kingdom, they would soon have become much more profitable. But, while compelled to tax severely tfie property of his subjects, the king refused to spare his own; and, in 1811, an edict was issued, authorizing the sale of the royal domains at twenty-five years' purchase of the estimated rental. Tiiese, loo, passed into the hands of purchasers not connected with the aristocracy ; for the aristocracy, so far from being able to purchase the estates of others, were selling their own estates to pay their debts. The party opposed to Hardenberg has not ceased to lament that the crown should thus have been shorn of its na- tive and independent glories ; ''for it ought to be pow- ful," say they, " by its own revenues and possessions." Our principles of government teach us a diiferent doc- trine.
Beneficial as the economical effects of this division of property may have been, its political results are no less important. It has created a new class of citizens, and these the most valuable of all citizens ; every trace, not merely of subjection, but of restraint, has been removed from the industrious, but poor and de- graded peasants, and they have at once been convert- ed into independent landed proprietors resembling much the small proprietors, created by the French Revolution. In Pomerania, for example, the estates of the nobility were calculated to contain 260 square miles ; those of free proprietors, not noble, only five
THE GOVERNMENT. 509
miles. Of the former, about 100 were Baucrnhofe^ in the hands of the peasantry; and, by the operation of the law, 60 of these would still remain the property of the boors who cultivated them. Thus there is now twelve times as much landed property, in this province, belonging to persons who are not no hie, as tliere was before the appearance of this edict. The race ol* boors is not extinct ; for the provisions of the law are not imperative, if both parties prefer remaining in their old relation ; but this is a preference which, on the part of the peasant, at least, is not to be expected. Care has been taken that no new relations of the same kind shall be formed ; for, in 181 1, an edict appeared, which, while it allows the proprietor to pay his ser- vants in whole or in part with the use of land, limits the duration of such a contract to twelve years. It prohibits him absolutely from giving these familicsland heritably^ on condition of service ; if a single acre is to be given in pro[)erty, it must either be a proper sale, or a fixed rent must be stipulated in money or produce. Hardenberg was resolved that his measure should be complete.
When to the peasants who have thus become land- holders, is added the numerous class of citizens, not no- ble, who have come into the possession of landed pro- perty by the sales of the royal domains, and the ne- cessities of so many of the higher orders, it is not dif- ficult to foresee the political consequences of such a body of citizens, gradually rising in wealth and respect- ability, and dignified by that feeling of self-esteem which usually accompanies the independent possession of property. Unless their progress be impeded by ex- traneous circumstances, they must rise to political in- fluence, because they will gradually become fitting de- positaries of it. It would scarcely be too much to say, that the Prussian government must have contemplated such a change; for its administration, during the last fourteen years, has been directed to produce a state of
310 BERLIN.
society in which pure despotism cannot lonsf exist but by force ; it has been throwing its subjects into those relations which, by the very course of nature, give the people political influence by making them fi( to exer- cise it. Is there any thing in political history that should make us wish to see them in possession of it sooner? Is it not better, that liberty should rise spon- taneously from a soil prepared for its reception, and in which its seeds have gradually been maturing in the natural progress of society, than violently to plant it on stony and thorny ground, where no congenial qualities give strength to its roots, and beauty to its blossoms, where it does not throw wide its perennial shadow un- der which the people may find happiness and refuge, but springs up, like the gourd of Jonah, in the night of* popular tumult, and unnatural and extravagant in- novation, to perish in the morning beneath the heat of reckless faction, or the consuming Are of foreign inter- ference ?
This great, and somewhat violent measure, of crea- ting m the state a new order of citizens possessing in- dependent property, was preceded and followed by a crowd of other reforms, all tending to the same end, to let loose the energies of all classes of the people, and bring them into a more comfortable social relation to each other. While the peasantry were not only set free, but converted into landholders, the aristocracy were sternly deprived of that exemption from taxation which, more than any thing else, renders them odious in every country where it has been allowed to remain. They struggled hard to keep their estates beyond the reach of the land tax, but the king and Hardenberg were inflexible. The wliole linancial system acquired an uniformity and equality of distribution which sim- plified it to all, and diiiiinished the expense of collec- tion, while it increased the revenue. Above all, those cumbersome and complicated arrangements, under which every province had its own budget, and its pe-
THE GOVERNMENT. Sll
Guliar taxes, were destroyed ; and Hardonberg, after much opposition, carried ihrougli one uniform scheme for the whole monarchy. This enabled him to get rid of another monstrous evil. Under the miserable sys- tem of tinancial separation, every province and every town was surrounded with custom houses, taxing and watching the productions of its neighbours, as if they came from foreign countries, and discouraging all inter- nal communication. The whole was swept away. At. the same time, the national expenditure in its various departments, the ways and means, the state of the public debt, and the funds for meeting it, were given forth with a publicity which produced confidence in Prussia, and alarm, as setting a bad example, in some less prudent cabinets. Those amongst ourselves w ho clamour most loudly against the misconduct of the Prus- sian government will allow, that the secularization and sale of the church lands was a liberal and pa- triotic measure; those who more wisely think, that an arbitrary attack on any species of property en- dangers the security of all property, will lament that the {)ul)lic necessities should have rendeied it advi- sable. The servitudes of thirlagc,^ of brewing beer, and distilling spn^tuous liquors, existed in their most oppressive ibrm, discouraging agriculture, and foster- ing the ruinous spirit of monopoly. They were abol- ished with so unsparing a hand, tliat, though indemnifi- cation was not absolutely refused, tlie forms and modes of proof of loss sustained to found a claim to it were of such a nature, as to render it diflicult to be procured, and trifling when made good. This was too unsparing. In the towns there was much less to be done ; it was only necessary to release their arts and manufac- tures from old restraints, and rouse their citizens to an
* Let those who nccnse the Prussian g-overnment of disregfnrding the improvement of its subjects reflect. th;jt it was only in 1799 that the British Parliament lhnnor|it of contriving means to rescue the agriculture of Scotland from this servitude.
$n BERLIN.
interest in the public weal. Hardenberg attempted the first by a measure on which more popular govern- meiils have not jet been bold enough to venture, how- ever stronglv it has been recommended by political economists ; he struck down at one blow all guildries and corporations, — not those larger forms, which in- clude all the citizens of a town, and constitute a bo- roughj but those subordinate forms, which regard par- ticular classes and professions. But, whether it was from views of finance, or that he found himself compel- led, by opposing interests, to yield something to the old principle, that the public is totally unqualified to judge who serves them well, and who serves them badly, but must have some person to make the discovery for them, the Chancellor seems to have lost his way in this mea- sure. He left every man at liberty to follow every profession, free from the fetters of an incorporated body ; but he converted the government into one huge, universal corporation, and allowed no man to pursue any profession without annually procuring and paying for the permission of the state. The Geiverbsteuer^ in- troduced in 1810, is a yearly tax on every man who follows a profession, on account of that profession; it is like our ale and pedlar licences, but it is universal.*
* In 1820, it was estimated at 1,600,000 rix-dollnrs, about L. 225, 000. The sum payable b}'^ individuals varies, according" to the na- ture and extent of their profession, from one dollar to two hundred. A l>rewer, tor example, pays according to the quantity of barley which he uses, or a butcher according- to the number of oxen which he kills. This must produce an unpleasant inquisition into private atfairs. The descriptions, too, are so indefinite, that it must fre- quently be impossible to ascertain to which class a man belongs. Thus, in the iifth class, which varies from 24 to 84 dollars, stand '• the most respectable physicians in the three large towns," (Ber- lin, Breslau, and Konigsberg.) Now, when the doctors differ, as assuredly they will do, who shall decide on the comparative re- spectability of these learned persons ? Again, midwives in these three cities pay more than in the other tovvns of the monarchy ; but why should such a person pay more in Berlin than in Magde- burgh ? Is the place where she practises any proof of the amount of her professional gains ?
THE GOVERNMENT. 313
So far, it is only financial ; but the license by no means follows as a matter of course, and here reappears the incorporation spirit ; every member of those profes- sions, which are held to concern more nearly the pub- lic weal, must produce a certificate of the provincial orovernment, that he is duly qualified to exercise it. Doctors and chimney-sweeps, midwives and ship-build- ers, notaries-public and mill-wrights, booksellers and makers of water-pipes, with a host of other equally ho- mo;:^eneous professional ists, (nust be guaranteed by that department of the orovernment within whose sphere their occupation is most naturally included, as perfect- ly fit to execute their professions. The system is cuiiibersome, but it wants, at least, the exclusive esprit de corps of corporations.
The other and more important object, that of rous- inof the citizens to an active concern in the affairs of their own community, had already been accomplished by Stein in his Stadteornung^ or Constitution for the cities, which was completed and promuli^ated in 1808. He did not oo the leno;th of annual parliaments and universal suifrage, for the magistracy is elected only every third year ; but the elective franchise is so wide- ly distributed among all resident householders, of a cer- tain iiicome or rental, that none are excluded whom it "would be proper to admit. Nay, complaints are some- times heard from persons of the upper ranks, that it compels them to give up pitying any attention to civic affairs, because it places too direct and overwhelming an influence in the hands of the lower orders. There can be no doubt, however, of the good which it has done, were there nothing else than the publicity which it has bestowed on the management and proceedings of public and charitable institutions. The first mer- chant of Breslau, the second city of the monarchy, told me it was impossible to conceive what a change it had effected for the better, and what interest every citizen now took, in the public affairs of the corporation, in 40
314 BERLIN.
hospitals and schools, in roads, and bridges, and pave- ments, and water-pipes. " Nay," added he, " by our example, we have even compelled the Cathohc chari- ties to print accounts of their funds and proceedings ; for, without doing so, they could not have stood against us in public confidence." This is the true view of the mat- ter; nor is there any danger that the democratic prin« ciple will be extravagant in the subordinate communi- ties, while the despotic principle is so strong in the ge- neral government of the country.
Such has been the general spirit of the administra- tion of Prussia, since the battle of Jena; and it would be gross injustice to her government to deny, that in all this it has acted with an honest and effective view to the public welfare, and has betrayed any thing but^ a selfish or prejudiced attachment to old and mischiev- ous relations; that was no part of the character of either Stein or Hardenberg» The government is in its forms a despotic one; it Vi^ields a censorship; it is armed with a strict and stern police ; and, in one sense the property of the subject is at its disposal, in so far as the portion of his goods which he shall con- tribute to the public service depends only on the plea- sure of the government. But let not our just hatred of despotic forms make us blind to substantial good. Under these forms, the government, not more from po- licy than inclination, has been guilty of no oppressions which might place it in dangerous opposition to public feeling or opinion ; while it has crowded its adminis- tration with a rapid succession of ameliorations, which gave new life to all the weightiest interests of the state, and brought all classes of society into a more natural array, and which only ignorance or prejudice can deny to have been equally beneficial to the people, and ho- nourable to the executive. 1 greatly doubt, whether there be any example of a popular government doing so much real good in so short a time, and with bo much continued effect. When a minister roots out abuses
THE GOVERNMENT. 315
which impede individual prosperity, gives free course to the arts and industry of the country, throws open to the degraded the paths of comfort and respectability, and brings down the artificial privileges of the high to that elevation which nature demands in every stable form of political society ; while he thus prepares a peo- ple for a popular goveriiment, while^ at the same time, by this very preparation, he creates the safest and most unfailing means of obtaining it, he stands much higher, as a statesman and philosopher, than the m.iniG- ter who rests satisfied with the easy praise, and the more than doubtful experiment, of giving popular forms to a people which knows neither how to value nor exercise them. The statesmen of this age, more than of any other, ought to have learned the folly of casting the political pearl before swine.
This is no defence of despotism ; it is a statement of the good which the Prussian government has done, arid an elucidation of the general spirit of improvement in which it has acted; but it furnishes no reason for re- taining the despotic forms under which this good has been wrought out, so soon as the public wishes require, and the public mind is, in some measure, capable of using more liberal and manly instruments. On the other hand, it is most unfair (and yet, in relation to Prussia, nothing is more common) to forget what a monarch has done for his subjects, in our hatred of the fact that he has done it without their assistance. The despotism of Prussia stands as far above that of Na- ples, or Austria, or Spain, as our own constitution stands above the mutilated Charter of France. The people are personally attached to their king ; and, in regarJ to his government, they feel and recognize the real good vvliich has been done infinitely more strongly than the want of the unknown good which is yet to be attained, and which alone can secure the continuance of all the rest. They have not enjoyed the political experience and education which would teach them the
2^^ BERLIN.
value of this security ; and even the better informed classes tremble at the thought of exacting it by popu- lar clamour, because they see it must speedily come of itself. From the Elbe to the Oder, 1 found nothing to make me believe in the existence of that oreneral discontent and ripeness for revolt which have been broadly asserted, more than once, to exist in Prussia;* and it would be wonderful to find a people to whom all political thinking is so new, who know nothing of political theories, and suffer no personal oppressions, ready to raise the shout of insurrection. It will never do to judge of the general feeling of a country from the mad tenets of academical youths, (who are despis- ed by none more heartily than by the people them-
* To this it is commonly added, that the general discontent is only forcibly kept down by the large standing army. The more I understood the constitution of the Prussian army, the more diffi- cult I found it to admit this constantly repeated assertion. Not on- ly is every male, of a certain age, a regularly trained soldier, the most difficult of all populations to be crushed by force, when they are once warmed by a pc ular cauie, l»ut bv far the grerter part of this supposed despotic instrument consists of men t;:k*si. ind taken only for a time, fron^i the body of citizens against whom they are to be employed. There is always, indeed, a very hrge army on foot, and the foreign relations of Prussia render the mainten;ince of a large force indispensable ; but it is, in fact, a militia. '^ We have no standing army at all, propei ly speaking," said an officer of the guards to me ; " what may be caJIcd our standing army is, in reality, nothing but a school, in which ail citizens, without excep- tion, between twenty and thirty-two years of age, are trained to be soldiers. Three years are reckoned sufticient for this purpose. A third of our army is annually changed. Those who have served their three years are sent home, form what is called the War Re- serve, and, in case of war, are first called out. Their place is- supplied by a new draught from the young men who have not yet been out; and so it goes on." Surely a military force so consti- tuted is not that to which a despot can well trust for enchaining a struggling people ; if popular feeling were against him, these men would bring it along with them to his very standard. 1 cannot help thinking, that, if it were once come to this between the people and government of Prussia, it would not be in his own ba}^^onets, but in those of Russia and Austria, that Frederick Willinm would have to seek a trust-worthy allv.
THE GOVERNMENT. 317
selves,) or from the still less pardonable excesses of hot-headed teachers. When I was in Berhn, a plot, headed by a schoolmaster, was detected in Stargard, in Pomerania; the object was, to proclaim the Spanish Constitution, and assassinate the ministers and other persons of weight who might naturally be supposed to be hostile to the innovation. This no more proves the Prussian people to be ripe for revolt, than it proves them to be ready to be murderers.
In judging of the political feelings of a country, a Briton is apt to be deceived by liis own political habits still more than by partial observation. The political exercises and education which we enjoy, are riches which we may well wish to see in the possession of others; but they lead us into a thousand fallacies, when they make us conclude, from what our own feelings would be under any given institutions, that an- other people, whose very prejudices go with its go- vernment, must be just as ready to present a claini of right, bring the king to trial, or declare ILe throne to be vacant. P-^i'S'^ia is by no means ihe only country of Gar- mau) where the peo})le know nofhtng of that love of political thinking and information which pervades our- selves. But Piussia is in the true course to arrive at it ; the most useful classes of her society are gradually rising in wealth, respectability, and importance ; and, ere long, her government, in tfie natural course of things, must admit popular elements. If foreign influ- ence, and, above all, that of Russia, wliose leaden weight is said to hang too heavily already on the cabinet of Berlin, do not interfere, I shall be deceived if the change be either demanded with outrageous clamour from below, or refused with unwise and selfish obstinacy from above. No people of the continent better deserves political liberty than the Germans; for none will wait for it more patiently, receive it more thankfully, or use it with greater moderation.
lis SILESIA.
CHAPTER XI.
SIXESIA — CRACOW.
Von Europcn bekriegt, Um mich hat der Gresse gekarapft und gesiegi.
The country between Berlin and Frankfort on the Oder bears the same general character with that which lies to the westward of the capital, and the band of industry has been unable to root out its tire- some firs, or cover the nakedness of its dreary sands. The population seemed to be thinly scattered, and the villages are few ; nor can it be a good sign of a coun- try, that the toll-houses are almost the only good ones to be seen on the road.
Frankfort on the Oder makes a miserable appear- ance after its wealthy and bustling name-sake on the banks of the Main. The town, small and ordinarily built, Vt^ith the principal streets running parallel to the Oder, contains a population of about fifteen thousand inhabitants, and displays few traces of mercantile wealth and activity. Its university., too, is gone ; in 1810, it was united with that of Breslau.
The Oder is here a broad, deep, and majestic river, troubled in its colour, and not rapid in its motion. The bridge is of wood, a very solid, but a very clumsy structure. The parapet consists of large trees, screw- ed down upon the planks which form the pavement, ?nd fortified, at certain distances, by heaps of large stones. All this, cumbersome and clumsy as it looks, has an object. When the river is inundated, it some- times rises above the bridge ; and there is a danger, that the v/ater, hurrying through below, may force up the flooring. To guard asjainst this is the reason of
CEMETERIES. 319
loading it with these enormous blocks ol stone and wood.
The contrivance for protecting the bridge against the fields of ice which come down in S[»ring is inge- nious in its principle. About two hundred yards above the bridge, a wooden shed rises in the centre of the river, considerably elevated above the ordinary level of the water, and presenting an inclined plane to the current. The effect of this is, to break the descend- ing body of ice into two great masses. A hundred yards nearer the bridge, these masses are opposed by three similar ice-breakers, and are thus subdivided into at least six, which again, on approaching the bridge, encounter another array of these opponents, one in front of each pier, in the usual way, and they are thus reduced to pieces so small, that they pass into the water-way without exposing the bridge to much danger.
Beyond Frankfort, on the great road to Breslau, there is almost as little to interest the eye as before ; the Oder is left to the right, and the verdure which clothes its banks is the only beauty that nature wears. A solitary enclosure, on the summit of a small rising ground, turned out to be a Jewish burying place, as lonely in its situation, and as neglected in its appear- ance, as can well be imagined. In so dreary a scene, these habitations of the dead look doubly dreary. The inscriptions were all in Hebrew, and the stones were overgrown with coarse rank grass. The Christ- ian cemeteries, on the contrary, in this part of Ger- many, are kept with great neatness. Every grave is, in general, a flovver-bed. I walked out, one morning, to the great cemetery of Berlin, to visit the tomb of Klaproth, which is aierely a cross, and announces no- thing but his name and age. Close by, an elderly looking w^oman, in decent mourning, was watering the flowers with which she had planted the grave of an only daughter, (as the sexton afterwards told me,)
sm SILESIA.
who had heen Interred the preceding week. The grave formed nearly a square of" about tive feet. It was divided into little beds, all dressed, and kept with the utmost care, and adorned with tiie simplest flowers. Evergreens, interm'n<i;led with daisies, were ranged round the borders; little clumps of violets and forget- me-not were scattered in the interior, aiid, in the centre, a solitary lily hung down its languishing blos- som. The broken hearted mother had just watered it, and tied it to a small stick, to secure it against the wi.'id ; at her side lay the weeds which she had rooted out. Slie w^cnt round the whole spot again and again, anxiously pulling up every little blade of grass — then gazed for a few seconds on the grave — put the weeds into her apron — took up her little watering-pot — walked towards the gate — returned again to see that her iily was secure — and, at last, as the suppressed tear began to start, hurried out of the church-yard. There is something extremely tender and delicate in this simple mode of cherishing the memory of the dead.
At Crossen, a small town on the Oder, thirty miles beyond Frankfort, the traveller scarcely believes his eyes, when he sees regular vineyards laid out on the eminences along the banks of the river; for, though the soil has, by this time, become much better, there is nothing in the general style of the country and climate to make him expect these wanderers from the south. It is one of the most northerly points of Eu- rope at which the vine is cultivated for purposes of commerce. The quantity is not so great as at Griin- berg, eighteen miles farther on, where the vintage forms a principal source of the occupation and sus- tenance of the inhabitants. The crops, in such a cli- mate, are necessarily extremely inconstant; the severi- ty of winter often kills the vine, and such a failure reduces a number of these poor people to misery. They allow that it would be more profitable to use
VINEYARDS. SQl
the ground as corn land ; but the cost of laying out and stocking the vineyards has been incurred, and they are uriwilling to lose all that has been exj)ended. 1 he wine itself is poor and acid. In Berlin it goes by the name of Griinberg vinegar; and vinegar is facetiously called Griinberg wine.
After leaving, at Neustadtel, the great road to Bres- lau, to gain the cross-road which leads to Hirschberg and the mountains, there were still thirty miles of wearisome travelling in deep sand, with its usual ac- com[)animents of tirs, scanty crops, and parclied grass. The face of the country certainly gives no contradic- tion to the hypothesis which has sometimes been start- ed, that the whole of this region was once covered by the East sea. The cottages and peasantry display no marks of the superior comfort which has been sup- posed to prevail throughout all Silesia, in comparison with the rest of the monarchy; in this part of the province, the Silesians have to contend with the same obstacles as the farmers of Pomerania and the Mark. Ale-houses are abundantly scattered, and no postilion drives a stage, without stopping to enjoy a schnapps. Who can resist the temptation, when an ale-house, in- stead of a sign-post, hangs out a board, with the se- ducing salutation, Willkommen mein Frcund — Welcome^ my friend ? Thep^stinp- itself is infamous, not so much after you are on the ro d, as bef( re f'eUmg en it ; you may reckon on waiting at least an hour for horses. At Spottau, after considerably more than an hour had ex- pired, three starved horses tottered up to the carriage, one led by an old woman, another by a little girl, and the third by a lame hostler; and, notwithstanding all th.is, you are pertinaciously attacked for ''expedition-money." It was Sunday morning, and men, women, and chil- dren, were seated or stretched in the sun, before their doors. " Why don't you go to church?" I called to a young, white-headed rogue, who was basking him- self, apparently half asleep, along a stone bench. " 1 41
S2S SILESIA.
have no time," was the reply ; and he turned himself again to his repose.
At length, these dreary deserts disappeared at Bunzlau, a small town, standing on the verge ol that varied district which extends southwards to the moun- tains, and which contains the greatest natural beauties, tis well as the principal part of tlie industry and wealth of the provitice. Like all the small towns of Silesia, it is confused, and somewhat gloomy, except that the vari- ous colours with which the outsides of the houses are painted, give some relief to the predominating dulness. The fronts uniformly terminate above in some out of the way form, sometimes a semieircle, sometimes a parallelogram, sometimes a semicircle on the base of a pyramid as a pedestal ; but most frequently they are cut into a multitude of circular and angular surfaces. The reason is, that ihe houses are generally built with the gable towards the street ; and, as it required no very refined taste to discover that such a succession of triangles offended the eye, the remedy was sought in giving to the gable a more varied, and, as it was thought, a more beautiful form. In all these little towns there is a great want of space; the streets are narrow, but fortunately the buildings are not lofty, seldom exceeding three floors. The market place is every thing to the inhabitants, atid is generally spoil- ed by having the town-house, to \^hich various booths and shops are tacked, placed in its centre. On that of Bunzlau stands the monument erected by the King of Prussia to Marshal Kutusoflf, who died here after having conducted the Russian army so far en its vic- torious march. It is a small obelisk, standing on a pedestal of three steps, and rising from between two crouchinor lions. On its sides the deeds and titles of the Marshal are recorded in German and Russ. The whole is of cast iron, and was executed in the Berlin foundery.
Lowenberg, the next stage, places you fairly within the beautiful country which attracts so many wander-
HIRSCHBERG. 32S
era to Silesia from all parts of Germany. At every mile of the road to Hirschberg, richness of landscape, fertility of soil, and denseness of population rapidly increased : hill and dale, wood and water, followed each other in close succession : the wild rose was blooming in profusion, instead of the long dry grass which had been the onl^ vegetable ornament of the Mark ; and the Bober poured himself alcng beneath overhanging woods. This river, if it deserve the name of a river, though memorable In history, makes no figure in geography ; it is a pleasing, clear, roman- tic siream, neither deep nor broad, except when swollen in consequence of rain; and yet, with its neighbour the Katzbach, it was the ruin of the French army, which Bliicher drove, with utter destruction, first into the one, and then into the other.
The numerous villages of this Prussian Switzerland are often pitched in romantic situations, but in them- selves they do not betoken more comfort than those of the desert sands to the north. Great part of the po- pulation is Catholic, and crucifixes appear among the trees almost as frequently as cottages. The most pleas- ing sight, among the living things, was the crowds of children trudging along to school, each with a book and a slate. The little creatures were the very pic- tures of health, and, especially the girls, they were ve- ry cleanly, though coarsely dressed. As the carriage passed, they made their bows, dropped their cui'tseys, and lisped out their good morning, with the most smil- ing, modest, happy countenances in the world.
From a height, the whole valley of Hirschberg at length lay before the eye. In anj country, it W( uld be a ravishing prospect, and the region of tourists ; in Prussia, where the inhabitants are doomed to a nature which rarely assumes the character of beauty, or re- lieves the eye by variety, it is not wonderful that they should reckon it the perfection of romantic and rural scenery, and proudly set it by the side of the Swfs^
3M SILESIA.
vallles and the Italian lakes. On the east, north, and south, a semicircular range of eminences, extremely various in elevation, form, and covering, inclose a val- ley, whose fertile soil is loaded with every thing which industry can brmg from it, and thickly strewed with populous villages. On the south, it is bounded by the Sudetes, or Riesengcbirge — the Giant-Mountains — and, right in the centre, towers their loftiest summit, the Schneekoppe^ or Snow-Head, rearing its rounded top, crowned with a small chapel, to the height of nearly five thousand feet above the level of the sea. It has the advantage of rising almost at once from the plain, without having its absolute height diminished to the eye by intervening ridges of lower elevation. On the west it is danked by various summits, varying in height from 4000 to 4500 feet ; and on ditierent parts of the long ridge which connects these loftier points, enor- mous masses of bare granite start up into the air. The weak point in the landscape is, the want of water. The B )ber and Zacken, indeed, flow through it, but they are too small to make any figure. Our Benlo- mond yields in height to the Schneekoppe ; but his laVe places him infinitely above the Silesian giant, in wild and romantic beauty.
Hirschberg, the principal town of this part of Sile- sia, and the capital of a circle to which it gives its name, dt'es not contain more than 7000 inhabitants, and by no means proinises to become more flourishing. It owed its eminence to the gauze and linen manufactures, of which it was the centre; but both these manufac- tures, which have been the source of all the pros- perity of Lower Silesia, and on which the greater part of its population still depend, have miserably decayed during the last thirty years. I heard precisely the complaints of Manchester and Glasgow re-echoed at the foot, and in the vallles of the Mountains of the Giant. The Silesian linen found its way into all parts of Europe and South America, from Archangel to Pe^
HIRSCHBERG. 5S5
rtr. The quantities sent into Hunorary and Poland were considerable ; Russia was a still more profitable outlet ; but by far tfie most im[)ortant branch of the trade was the ex|>ortation to Spain, for the |>urpose of supplying the South Ameiicar) markets. In 1792, the linen exported tVon) Silesia amounted to more tfianfive and a half million dollars, (L.8()(l,(:00,) and the manu- facture furnished employ menf to thirtv-tive thousand people. Even at tha? tilne, it was considered to have ' gained its greatest height, and began to feel the suc- cess with which Irish linen was encountering it in fo- reign markets. No very important frilling oii', howev- er, was observed till the beijinning of the present cen- tury. The trade between Silesia and America had passed chiefly through Cadiz, and the Continental Sys- tem gave the death-blow to the prosperity of Silesia. Prussia, humbled at the feet of the ronqtjeror, was compelled to receive his laws, and the [)rohibition against the importation of British wares, put an end to her own lucrative commerce with the f>ew world. On the return of peace, Silesia endeavoured, but in vain, to regain the ground which it had lost ; it found Bri- tain firmly established as a successful rival in the mar- kets of the new world : in Russia and Poland, it wa& opposed by Bohemia ; and the export, I was assured, is not one-third of what it amounted to before this ca- lamitous period. Misery is almost always unjust ; let the Silesian manufacturers therefore be jjardoncd their bitterness against England; for although, while receiv- ing us individually with kindness and respect, they re- vile us as a nation of selfish monopolizers, they hav« shown by deeds, that they know well with whose in- tolerant ambition their evils had oi'iginated. H. w re- gularly does injustice bring its own punishment ! The thousands of thosp honest and industrious people, whom the ambition of Nipoleon had brought to ruin, swelled the hosts which, on the Katzbach, and at Leipzig, fought against him with the eager and obstinate per-
326 SILESIA.
severance of personal antipathy. A young man, the son of a linen- weaver, apparently not more than twen- ty-five years of age, but who had twice marched to Paris, said to me, " Whenever Forward"* ordered us to chars:e, I could not help thinking of the afternoon on which my father came home from Hirschberg; about two months before he died of grief, and told us, that he had brought nothing with him, for he had not been able to sell his web; for the « manufacturer had said, that the English would not allow any body to buy from us, because the French would not allow any bod) to buy from them ; and, do you know. Sir, I thought it made my bayonet sharper." — •' At least, it would make your heart bitterer." — " And doesn't a bitter heart," was his answer, " make a stronjj arm, (macht nicht das eiserne Herz eiserne Hand?'''') It was a most intelligi- ble, although a brief commentary, on the fire-side ef- fects of the Milan and Berlin decrees.
Even when the traveller is rejoicirjg in the enter- prise, the industry, the ingenuity, and prosperity of his own country, he cannot but look with regret on the decay which is creeping over these mountain vallies, and the industrious and kind-hearted population with which they are thronged. In Hirschberg, Schmiede- berg, and Liudshut, the three great manufacturing sta- tions, 1 heard but one voice, that of misery and com- plaint. The linen exported from the department of Reichenbach in 1817 had fallen half a million of dol- lars below that of the preceding year. A great num- ber of manuf scturing houses have abandoned the trade ; and, in the neighb niriuij county of Glatz, it had sunk so low, that, in 18 l8, it was found necessary to provide other employment for a great proportion of the spin- ners and weavers, and even to endeavour to transplant somf* of them to Silesia, where matters were still some- what better.
* Bliicher.
MIRSCHBERG. 3«7
The Silesian weaver labours under the disadvantage of being, in some measure, a speculator. Our cotton- weavers receive from the nianulacturer the materials of their labour; the price to be paid for anj given por- tion of their work is fixed ; however small the pittance may be, from the vicissitudes of trade, it is a certainty, and a gain; and, if the workman strain his weekly toil to the uttermost, he knows that he is adding to his weekly emoluments. But the Silesian manufacturers have always proceeded on a diderent footing; the ar- tisan himself f)urcliases the yarn, weaves the web, and brings it to market as a merchant. Thus he is never certain of gaining a iarthing, for he is e posed to all the vicissitudes of the market. After he has spent days and nights at his loom, scarcely allowing himself time to snatch his njibe»able lueal, he knows not but he may be forced to sell his cloth at a price which will not even cover the expense of the materials wrought up in it. Yet he must sell; the poor man has no ca- pital but his hands; he cannot reserve his work for a more favourable opportunity; he must submit to star- vation to procure the means of purchasing new mate- rials. Thirty years ago, when the decay of the Sile- sian manufactures was only in its commencement, you might see weavers returning from the town to their distant villages, with tears in their eyes, and not a six- pence for the expectant family at home. The evil is now much more general.
Amid this decay of their own prosperity, it is only natui'al that they should manifest considerable irrita- tion at the more forturiate lot of Bt^tish manufactures; and this irritation has just as naturallv displayed itself in the utmost credulity reii^arding all stories about the unfair and rascally expedients by which, according to the less liberal, this preponderance has been attained. So late as 1818, it was printed ii) Silesia, that we were in the habit of sending Silesian linen to foreign mar- kets as our own manufacture ; that our traders forged
3SS SILESIA.
the stamps and marks of the principal Silesian houses, and purcfiased their linens, for the purpose of cutting the.n down to shorter lengths than they ought to be of, and exporting them in this falsified form, to ruin the character of the Silesian manufactures ! Absurd as all this was, it was so widely credited, that the principal dealers sent a notice to be inserted in the newspapers of Bremen and Hamburgh, putting all quarters of the linen-buying globe on their guard against the rascally tricks of English merchants ; and they complained much, that English influence prevented its insertion in the Hamburgh papers. It is gratifying, however, to know, that a Silesian defended us against charges which probably never reached our ears. A gentleman of Hirschberg,. thoroughly acquainted w^th the linen trade in all its branches, wrote a couple of articles in the Provinzial-B latter, exposing at once the falsity and the absui ditv of the thin^^.
The inhabitants of this little town seem to be inor- dinately proud of their rank as inhabitants of the prin- cipal city of the district, and to ascribe to the pleasures of thvAr own society, the crowds of visitors who repair to their neigh b^urhood in summer to visit the moun- tain scenery, or use the warm springs, which lie in their vicinity. A classical Burgomaster took it into bis head, that a low, fir-clad eminence on the north of the town, was very like the Grecian seat of the Muses ; and perhaps he knew, that Ooitz, one of the earliest natural poels of Gf'rm?jny, had been called "the Swan of the B ber." Accordingly, the hillock was baptized Mv-»unt Helicon, and a temple was erected on it, and derjicated, not to the Muse^, but Friederich Dem Ein- Z5GEJV, (Frederick the Unique.) It was gratifying to a ScDtcfiman to find the works, and hear the praises of Sf Walter Scott, even in this retired corner. All over Germany, his name is, to a countryman, almost a letter of introduction.
HIRSCHBERG. 329
The neighbourhood abounds with mineral waters, which, added to the beauty of the scenery, bring into the villages in summer and autumn numbers of visitors, from whom the nihabitants gain some money, and learn some bad customs. There is one spring so impregna- ted with oxygen, that the common people crowd to it on Sundays, to intoxicate themselves chea[)ly. Warm- brunn, howevei', whose sj^rings are hot, is the most cel- ebrated of the Silesian baths, and particulaily famous for its good eifects in gout and rheumatism. The com- pany that frequents it is of a lower class than that which enjoys voluj)tuous idleness at Poplitz and Carls- bad; but they ape all the follies of their betters. The changcableness of the atmosphere, and the inconstancy of the weather in the neighbourhood of the mountains, oppose themselves to the healing influence of tlie wa- ters ; and it is law at Warmbrunn, that all salutations, even to ladies, shall be made, not by uncovering, but by raising the hand to the hat d la militaire,
Althouofh the inhabitants of some of the surrounding •I • I •
villages are supported by makmg and cutting cjass, and
by a number of extensive chemical manufactories, the principal employment of the population is, after agri- culture, the preparation of flax and yarn, and the wea- ving of linen. The soil is not so fertile as in the plains which surround Breslau; ajid the inconstancy of the climate frequently doubles the labour and ex[ienditure of the agriculturist. The whole of the country is ex- posed to two enemies, sudden and violent showers of rain, and destructive thunder storms. The former arc called by the country people fVolkenbriichc, or break- ings of the clouds ; and a peasant ex[)lained thcjr pro- duction, with great simplicity, in the following way. He conceived that the clouds were a sort of thm bags, just strong enough to contain the rain, and that all went on well so long as they floated about freely in the air; but that, when the wind drove them against the sides or summits of the mountains, the bag burst, and the
42
SSO SILESIA.
rain dercended in a deluge. The hypothesis is quite as scientific as Strej^siades's theory of thunder. These rains are never ol long continuance, but they do incal- Cilable dam tge. Froiu the nature of the country, the greater part of the cultivated grounds lie along slopes m.'re or less steep. In spring, after the fields have been sown, a Wolkenbruch often sweeps away soil and seed together. In summer, when the grain is consid- erably above ground, the torrent fiom the clouds, by carrying away the earth, leaves its roots bare, or drow^ns it in mud. Thunder storms are equally fre- quent and destructive. In the end of April and be- ginnmg of M ly, it thundered daily for three weeks to- gether. Ail the houses in the villages are built of wood, and the roofing consists of thin pieces of the same material, nailed upon each other like slates. Even the upper part ol' the church towers, which are most exposed to lightrilng, are ujiiformly of wood. The consequence is, that in this part of Silesia, there is scarcely a village or a church which has not been set on fire by lightning, and many of them have had this misfortune oftener than once. In the towns, as well as in the country, all who can afford the expense arm their houses with conductors, and the frequency of the practice shows the greatness of the danger. So cer- tain is it held, that the lightning will produce a confla- gration somewhere, that, the moment the storm com- mences, the persons w ho have charge of the fire-en- gines must repair to their posts, and be in readmess to act. A Protestant clergyman of Hirschberg was killed in his pulpit. A thunder storm burst over the town, on a Sunday, while he was preaching; the top of the pulpit was suspended from the ceiling of the church by :m iron chain ; the lightning struck the spire, pene- trated the roof, and descended along the chain. The wig of the old man, who was continuing his discourse undisturbed, was seen in a blaze ; he raised his hands 1o his head, fi^ave a convulsive start, and sunk dead in
HIRSCIIBERG. SSI
Ills pulpit. The livid traces of the llghtniiioj are still visible on the stone bannister of the pulpit stau", which it split, in making its way to tlie pavement.
The Ziicken, an impetuous and romantic torrent, which descends from the western part of the moun- tains to join the Buber at Hirschbcrg, sometimes | re- sents a phenomenon, of which the Silesian naturalists have as ^eA given no satisfactory explanation. Its wa- ters suddenly disappear, and always at some distance from its souice ; the channel remains (^yy-, except where irregularities in the bottom detain a portion of the water motionless in pools, or the stream remains tranquil behind mill-dams. The period of the absence of the river varies from one to ibur hours; it is then observed to rise, at first, imperceptibly ; but speedily it regathers its usual strength — (ills its channel — thun- ders down its falls — overilovvs the mill-dams — and hast- ens on to the Bober, as impetuous and noisy as it w^as three hours before. The cause of the phenomenon cannot be at the sources of the river, for on tl»e last occasion on which it was observed, it began only be- yond Petersdorf, a village not more than five miles above Hirschberg ; the mill of Marienthal, which lies much nearer the source of the Zacken, never sto[)ped for a moment, while from Peicrsdorf to the B'.ber, the channel was dry. As it always happens in December or March, the explanation generally given is, that its course is stopped by frost. This is impossible ; frost would act much more vigorously on the shallow marsh- es, high up on the mountains, from which the river springs, than on the large and impetuous stream at a much lower elevation. Besides, on the day the phe- nomenon happened, the thermometer was only — 2° of Reaumur, while, during the two preceding months, it had varied from — 5° to — 12", without any change be- ing observed in the river. Moreover, if frost cculd so suddenly stop a full impetuous torrent, and so suddenly let it loose again, after an hour's interruption, it cer«
3SQ SILESIA.
tainly would not spare the small and shallow brooks which are its humble tributaries ; yet, while the Zack- en is gone, these brooks keep leaping down into his de- serted channel with their customary liveliness. Ano- ther hypothesis is, that, in some narrow part of the channel, a mass of snow falls down into the bed, and dams up the river, till his impetuosity washes it away. But these Silesian avalanches are gratuitous creations. Though the mountains were covered with snow, there was none in tiie vallies, in which alone the phenome- non occurred. Again, such an interruption would have pi'oduced, in a few minutes, an inundation of the river above the pomt at which it happened, or would have forced the river into a new channel; but there was no trace of either. The banks, likewise, of the Zacken, even where his ch^nn* I is most confined, scarcely ren- der such a thing possible. Thoy are either so low, that snow, when it has once fallen, will lie tranquil till it dissolves; or they are so preci[)itous, that no snow can rest upon them at all ; or they are darkened by ancient pines, whose umbrella-like branches receive the feathery shower, without ever allowing it to reach the ground, and throw it off, in silvery dust, at every breath of wind that blows. In the middle of June I walked through the forests which hang over the fall of the Zackerle, and the course of the Zacken, beneath a ca- nopy of snow, resting on the branches above, while vio- lets and wood-hyacinths were blossoming richly below. The latest hypothesis takes it for granted, that when- ever an interruption of the river of this kind takes place, some abyss has opened in some part of its chan- nel ; into this gulf its waters pour themselves, till it is either filled, or the aperture stopped by the blocks of granite which the torrent hurls down along with it ; that it then flows over the aperture which, for a cou- ple of hours, it had flowed into^ and continues its usual course. This is giving much too literal a meaning to ^^ the thirsty earth ;" these subterranean drunkards.
HIRSCHBERG. 333
and unknown throats in the rocky channel, arc altoge- ther gratuitous. It is not here, as in Carniola, where we see them, with our own eyes, swallowing up whole rivers; here we have granite and basalt to deal with, instead of porous calcareous rock. When geologists take "natural convulsions" into their haiids, science is sure to be still more mortally convulsed. A part of the river, called the Schwarze IVog, has even been pouited out as the spot through whose bottom the thirsty spi- rits of the Riesengebirge suck in the waters oi the Zacken. Now, the Schwarze Wog is, no doubt, a very ugly, deep, dark, dismal pool, in which even the river seems to stand still, for a moment, eddying back in hor- ror from the gloomy walls above him ; but there is nothing whatever about it to make any one believe that there is a funnel below ; and why should this fun- nel open only now and then, and open only in winter?* Though the Schneekoppe rises to the height of 4900 feet, the ascent is by no means difficult, except towards the very summit. To climb it from Hirschberg, and return, would be no overpowering day's work ; but, as the natives would esteem it barbarism not to be on the top when the sun rises, the night is commonly spent in a haude^ or hut, very near the summit of the mountain. The scenery round the bottom is wild and romantic in the extreme ; the prospect below, as, at every new ascen', you look back on the vale of Hirschberg, with
* The recorded instances of the disappearance of the Zacken are the following- : —
1703, March 17, from 6 to 9 A. M.
1746, March Wme not observed.
1773, March 19, from 5 to 9 A. M.
1785, Dec. 3, three hours.
1797, March 13, from 4 to 6 A M.
1797, March 19, from 5 to 7 A. M.
1810, Dec. 10, from 6i to Ih A. M. It must not be supposed that these are the only occasions on which the phenomenon has presented itself, or that the first oi" them was the earliest ; but they are the only instances of which any account has been preserved.
334 SILESIA.
its numerous green heights, scattered villages, and laughing fields, is delicious; but still there is a want of imposing masses of* water, though there is no want of rapid and cheerful rivulets. On a scanty and bold pro- jection of the rock stand the ruins of the Kienast, so separated on all sides from the body of the mountain by precipitous dells, except where a narrow ledge on the south connects it with the hill, that the rising of a single draw-bridge must have rendered it utteily mac- cessible. Enough of the outer wall still remains, to preserve the u^emory of the i'air Cunigunda, ecjually celebrated for her charms and her cruelty. She was the daughter and heiress of tlie lord of the Kienast, and the most bloommg of Silesian beauties. Her wealth and charms attracted crowds of knightly wooers to her father's castle ; but the maiden, like another Camilla, was entirely devoted to the boisterous exer- cise of the chace, in which she excelled many of her suitors; she would listen to no tale of love, and dread- ed marriage as she did a prison. At length, to free herself from all importunities, slie made a solemn vow, never to give her hand but to the knight who should ride round the castle on the outer wall. Now, this wall is not only too narrow to furnish a secure or pleas- ing promenade in ar»y circumstances, but, throughout nearly its whole course, it runs alorp the vvvy br^isk of hi'^^^uR peri: ices, and, in one place, hangs over a frightful abyss, which, till this day, bears the name of Hell. The number of the lady's lovers rapidly dimin- ished. The more prudent wisely considered, that the prize was not worth the risk ; the vain proposed them- selves to the trial, in the hope that their presence would mollify Cunigunda's heart, and procure a dispen- sation from the hard condition ; but the mountain-beau- ty was proof against all arts, and, when the moment of danger came, the courage of the suitor generally gave way. History has not recorded the precise number of those who actually made the attempt ; it is only cer-
THE SCHNEEKOPPE. SS5
tain, that every one of them broke his neck, (as he well deserved ;) and the lady lived on in her wild and virgin independence. At length, a young and hand- some knight appeared ctt the castle <<ate, and request- ed to be admitted to the piesmce of its mistress, that he might try his fortune. Cunigunda received him, and her hour was come; his manly beauty, the cour- tesy of his behaviour, and his noble spirit, made her repent, for the first time, of the price which she had set upon her hand. Having received, in [)rescnce of the inmates of the castle, her promise to become his bride, if he should return in safety from the trial, he rode forth to the wall, accompanied by the tears and wishes of the repentant beauty. In a short time, a shout from the menials announced that the adventure had been achieved; and Cunigunda, exulting that she was conquered, hastened into the court, which the tri- umphant knight was just entering, to meet his ardent caresses. But the knight stood aloof, gloomy and se- vere. " I can claim you," said he ; "but I am come, and I have risked my life, not to win your hand, but to humble your pride, and punish your barbarity" — and thereupon he read her a harsh lecture on the cruelty and arrogance of her conduct towards her suitors. The spirit of chivalry weeps at recording, that he finished his oration by giving the astonished beauty a box on the ear, sprung into his saadle, and gallopped forth from the gate. It was the Landgrave Albert of Thu- ringia, already a married man, and who had long train- ed his favourite steed to this perilous exercise. The memory of the ulterior fate of Cunigunda has not sur- vived.
Such traditions, and especially the exploits of the mischievous spirit Number-Nip, \Rubczahl,)* who has
* This perished spirit, so well known from onr nursery tales, has left behind him a very uncertain character. The lejrends still preserved amonp^ the inhabitants of the mountain vallies. some-
336 SILESIA.
disappeared from the Mountains of the Giant since a chapel was built on the Schneekoppe, though his pulpit and garden still remain, commonly while away the hours of night among the twenty or thirty wander- time? represent him as the most good-natnred of spirits, and some- times as tak'ng delia^ht in nothing but doing mi'jrhief. He stood GUI for a short space, after the erection of a chapel on the summit of his mountain, in the end of the seventeenth century, but the first time that mass was performed in it was the signal for his de- parture. Though he never re-appeared himself, his host of tiny subjects, loth to quit their ancient abodes, lingered long behind him, till bad usage, about tifty years ago, drove them away. They employed themselves, in the bowels of the mountain, in manufac- turing all sorts of household utensils, which they readily gave, or lent out, to the neighbouring villagers, on receiving a small meat- offering and drink-offering in return The daughter of a villager was about to be married. Her father went up to " Riibezahl's Habitation," a collection of huge granite blocks tossed together in wild confusion, and requested the spirits to furnish the bride- groom's house, and lend him the necessary dishes and utensils for the wedding festival. His prayer was granted, with the condition that, on the marriage night, he would place a tixed portion of the marriage supper on a rock which was pointed out to him and re- turn the spits, and knives and forks, next day. The spirits kept their word, but the niggardly churl broke his; he ate up the sup- per, and retained the dishes The spirits then finally resolved to de- sert forever so ungrateful a people. In the course of the following' night, these little, kindly creatures, not one of them more than a foot and a half high, were seen marching, in long array, through the standing corn, which, next morning, scarcely seemed to have been touched, and they are supposed to have joined their old master in some region more fnendiy to supernatural spirits, and more grateful for supernatural assistance.
This matter, tritiing as it is, furnishes an amusing instance of the obstinacy with vvhich men who pretend to learning will some- times write downright nonsense, and of the huge interval that separates artificial erudition from straight-forward clearness of in- tellect. A disputed text in Virgil or Homer could not have pro- duced more various readings, than the name of this amusing goblin has done. His name, Rubezahl^ means just, Turnip-number. Our translator of the legends concerninof him was, therefore, perfectly right in calling him Number-Nip, although he inverted the posi- tion of the elements of the original compound, and the first tale in his collection, gives the true, popular, legendary origin of the name, an origin just as authentic as the existence of the spirit him-
THE SCHNEEKOPPE. S37
ers who assemble at evening from different parts of the mountains, in the Hempelshaude, to start, long before the sun, for the rest of the ascent. There are no conveniences for sleeping in the rude chalet^ and even very few for eating and drinking; but com- pany dispels fatigue, and those who have some fore- thought load then' guides with the necessaries of life. On this occasion, a considerable part of the motley assembla£;c consisted of Burschen; they were extreme- ly sociable, and sung tlicir songs all night long, nearly four thousand ieet above the plain, with infinite glee. About two o'clock in the morning, the word was given to move, and twenty minutes easy ascent placed the whole party, not on the summit of the mountain, but on the top of the long ridge, four thousand four hun- dred feet in elevation, on which his sfcep and pyra- midal summit rests as on a base. The most trou- blesome thing in the ascent is, the quantity of thickly tangled knieholz or krummholz^ knee- wood or crooked- wood, which covers the sides of the Rlesengebi rge, as it does so many of the Styrian mountains. It is a spe- cies of fir; but, instead of growing upright, it creeps
self, and in this lies the fictitious fitness of the tradition. But eru- dite Germans, though they allow that the appellation, as it stands, means Turaip-nuraher, insist on referring it to a classical orighi, or finding: in it some disguise of a foreign phrase. One maintains, that Hd/bezafil is a corruption of Riesenzahl, (Giant-num- ber,) and peoples the Schneekoppe with whole legions of Goliaths. A second, adopting the giants, supposes, that the Silesian boors, at a time when they could neither read nor write, called the spirit Giant-number, because they believed him to have piled their mountains upon each other, as the giants did Pelion on Ossa to storm Olympus. Excellent! The third, likewise, is both gigan- tesque and classical. According to him, the name is merely a cor- ruption of Ries Encelad^ the Giant Enceladus Better still ! A fourth runs away to France, to find the origin of the pure German name of a German hobgoblin, and is quite sure that hUbczahl is only a corruption of jRoz dcs Fallecs. Best of all! Somebody or other has very justly remarked, that there are things so close to a man's eyes, that he cannot see th(^m.
43
338 SILESIA.
alono; the s'lound, in which most of its branches fix themselves, and vegetate hke new roots. Some of them, however, grow upwards, but extremely stunted, seldom reaching the height of ten feet. It diminishes in quantity as the elevation increases, and the long ridge of the chain wears, in general, no other covering than scattered fragments or decomposed portions of its own rock. Some of these fragments of granite are of great size ; one of the Dreisteine is a solid mass, fifty feet high. The proper summit itself is equally bare, and much steeper than the lower part of the mountain. It rises, in a somewhat pyramidal form, between five and six hundred feet above its elevated base ; the ascent is fatiguing, for the loose stones, over which you must mount, are perpetually giving way beneath vour feet. The summit is not broad, and the greater part of it is occupied by a small chapeK m which mass is performed thrice a year. As it is never open but on these occasions, it affords no shelter to the traveller amid the drizzling vapours, and passing snow- showers which so frequently visit the Schneekoppe, even in the heat of summer; but it protected us against a bitter north-west wis^l, by receiving us under its leeward side, just as the first faint strokes of light were beginning to glimmer over the far distant Carpa- thians. When, at length, the sun himself came forth, the German wanderers displayed an example of that enthusiastic feeling which distinguishes their country- men. There happened to be an old clergyman in tlje company ; the rising orb had no sooner burst upon us, illuminating first our mountain pinnacle, and then light- ing up the Bohemian summits to the south, " like gems upon the brow of night," than he took off his liat, and saying, " My children, let us praise the god of nature," began to sing one of Luther's psalms. The others joined him with much devotion ; even the Burschen behaved with greater gravity than might have been expected.
ADERSBACH. 339
At such an elevation, and with, on one side, at least, a comparatively open country, the prospect is neces- sarily extensive ; but it is likewise very varied in its character. The rich, the cultivated, and populous scenery* is on the north, towards Silesia ; on the south, towards Bohemia, all is sublime and terrific. In this dii'ection, the side of the mountain yawns at once into an irrei^ular rocky abyss, formed of the Riesengrund and A ipeagrnnd, which presents an almost perpendicu- lar descent of two thousand feet. Behind, the pros- pect is filled up with imposing masses of mountain and precipice; and here and there some of the small Bohe- mian towns are indistinctly seen through the vallies that divide them. To the west, likewise, the view consists principally of mountain; but on the north, the most beautiful and fei'tile part of Silesia, from Hirschberg to the Oder, is spread out like a map. Even Breslau IS said to be sometimes visible ; and it is not its distance that can place it beyond the eye ; for, in a right line, it cannot be more than forty-five miles from the vSchnee- koppe ; but it lies in a low level country, and is con- founded with the plain.
The descent along the eastern slope of the mountain to Schmiedeberg is more easy and gradual than on the op[)osite side. The country still continues equally rich and populous; Schmiedeberg and Landshut are smaller towns than Hirschberg, and are languishing under the same decay of manufactures. Landshut is close upon the Bohemian frontier, and just beyond the confine are the rocks of Adersbach. They are apparently the re- mains of a mountain of sandstone, which has been split in all directions, and much of its matter either decom- posed, or washed away by water, so that you can lite- rally walk through its interior, as if through the streets of a city. It is on a much larger scale than the rocks of the Saxon Switzerland, and its masses do not so uni- formly exhibit traces of the action of water; for, though the edges are sometimes round, they are as
340 SILESIA.
often perfecllj sharp and angular. The alleys which lead through the mountain vary extremely in width ; in some parts they are so narrow that it is difficult to pass throuo;h them ; in others they form spacious walks, or swell out into ample courts. In general, they are open above, the mountain being separated to its very sum- mit; but this is not universally the case, for sometimes the rocky sides gradually approach as they ascend, and meet above in an angle. At one place, a rivulet which flows along the summit rushes down through an aper- ture into the bowels of the mass, and forms, in its inte- rior, a very brisk and noisy cascade. The walls of rock themselves which line these natural streets sel- dom present any extent of unbroken surface ; they are ahvays split by secondary apertures, which are much more numerous below than towards the top, seldom run up through the whole extent of the rock, and com- monly terminate in an acute angle, in the outskirts of the whole are some insulated masses of singular forms. The most remarkable goes under the name of the Zuckerhut, or Sugar-loaf, but it is inverted. It stands alone on the plain, at some distance from the main body of the rocks ; where it springs from the ground, it is very narrow ; but, as it rises, which it does to a height of fifty-five or sixty feet, it regularly in- creases in breadth, presenting precisely the appearance of a huge cone placed on its apex. The pool of water in which it stands was formed by the curiosity of some strangers who dug round its base, to ascertain whether it still continued to diminish under ground, and how deep it was set in the earth. They had not gone far, when they met with the solid sandstone rock below^, of which this mass is merely a projection.
The whole extent of this rocky wilderness is fully four miles in length, but not more than two in breadth. It is, in fact, a branch of the sandstone ridge which runs up into the county of Glatz; and the nearer you approach the main body of the chain, from which this
ABERSBACII. 341
Is, as it were, an oft-shoot, the more compact does the rock becoQie ; one alley terminates after another, and at last there remains only the solid impenetrable mouu- taln, with its dark covering of firs. Few of the houses, if the regular walls which run along these alleys may be so termed, are more than 100 feet high. All the theories which have been started to explain the origin of the phenomenon terminate in this, that water hag gradually washed away the softer parts of the rock. This supposes a very strangely heterogeneous rock ; be- cause that softer substance, whatever It may have been, must have constituted great part of the whole, and must have been dispersed through It In Irregular mass- es ; for all the innumerable triangular apertures In the walls, broad below, and terminating In a point above, not penetrating deep Into the rock, nor splitting It to its very summit, must have been filled with this more yielding substance. There Is no reason to believe that the rock was not entirely homogeneous ; and the soil. In the different passages. Is a deposition of sand, evi- dently from the main body of the mountain. Then comes the difficulty, why certain parts should have been washed away, and others spared ? The sharp, angular edges of the different masses, likewise, are not easily reconciled with the action of the water with which they must have been so long in contact.
Proceeding eastwards from Adersbach to Glatz, the capital of the fertile and beautiful country to which it gives Its name, you still continue, for some miles. In Bo- hemia, and it Is impossible not to remark the great dlf» ference between the population on the Austrian side, and that on the Prussian side of the frontier. Hither- to, so far as you have come In Lower Silesia, all has been industry and activity ; you have scarcely arrived at Adersbach, when Idleness and beggary surround you in a thousand forms. The country is delicious; Brau- nau, the only Bohemian town through vv'hich I passed, lies in a lovely plain, offering every thing to supply the
342 SILESIA.
wants of men, and running up, on all sides, into roman- tic, wooded platforms, which present a great deal to gratify their taste ; but the population seemed to be utterly sunk in poverty, ignorance, and superstition. Mendicity crowds upon you with as much frequency and importunacy as in the States of the Church ; the people sing hymns to the Virgin, and will beg rather than work. The beggary diminishes, but unfortunate- ly the ignorance and superstition still continue, after you have re-entered the Prussian dominions at Wun- schelburg. Under Catholic Austria, every mode of oppression and discouragement was practised against the Silesian Protestants; though in many places they were the more numerous party, it was esteemed a great boon that they were allowed to have six church- es in the whole province. When Protestant Freder- ick conquered it, and made good his possession by seven years of the most wonderful exertions that ever mon- arch put forth, he placed both parties on the same foot- ing ; and, where Catholics were then numerous, they have not diminished. At Alberndorf, a village between Wunschelburg and Glatz, I was assured that, at least, sixty thousand pilgrims repair to it annually to pray in its gaudy, gimcrack church, and meditate up an emi- nence, along the slope of which some fool or another has built a crowd of small chapels, in exact imitation, as these poor people most conscientiously believe, of Mount Calvary. Their roads are unpassable ; but at every half mile a virgin is stuck upon a tree. One was adorned with an inscription which hailed her as " The true Lily of the Holy Trinity, and the Blooming Rose of Celestial Voluptuousness I""^
The long journey from Glatz, through Upper Sile- sia, to Cracow, presents little that fs interesting. The
* Sey ge^rlisset ! Du wahres Lilchea Der heiligen Dreyf«ltigkeit ! Sey gegriisset ! Du bliihende Rose Per himmlischen Wollustbarkeit !
GLATZ. 343
uearer one approaches to the frontiers of Poland, the farther he Vccedes from tlic Industry and intelhgcnce of the pure German portions of tlie |)rovince; instead of Saxon activity and lIvcHness, he encounters Pohsh misery and servihty. Till the middle of the twelfth century, Silesia formed an integral part of Poland, and has received all its arts and industry from German colonists. It is the same tliing In Hungary, Transyl- vania, and tlie Bannat; the most flourishmg spots are uniformly those which, for centuries, have been the abodes of German settlers. Their introduction Into Silesia was a hold experiment. The province had already become an appanage of a younger branch of the sovereign family of Poland ; Bodislaus, one of three sons among whom it was divided on the death of their common father, received Breslau, and the greater part of what now forms Middle Silesia. Know- ing that his relation on the Polish throne entertained designs against Silesia, and believing that, in case of so unequal a struggle, he could not repose confidence in his Silesian subjects, whom time and custom, with all the deep-rooted prejudices which they generate, had tied to the Polish crown, he adopted the expedient of mixing his natural born subjects with foreigners who should gradually acquire the predonnnance, and, hav- ing no natural attachment to the power which he dreaded, would defend with vigour the government that had favoured their settlement, and protected their infant establishments. To the fears of the pious Bodlslaus, in the darkest period of the twelfth cen- tury, Silesia is Indebted for Its culture. These Ger- man colonists brouorlu alono- with them their national industry, and the rudiments of such arts as they them- selves knew. They were governed by German laws ; the flourishing condition to which their communities speedily raised themselves, in comparison with the rest ol' the country, extended at once their Iniluenco and their numbers. Favoured by the fiequent con-
344 CRACOW.
tests wltli the crown of Bohemia, and, still more, by the disputed rights, or rather claims, of Bohemia and Hungary, they gradually made their people and their language triumphant, in the greatest part of this fer- tile and beautiful province.
Cracow neither requires nor deserves any detailed description. The ancient and magnificent capital of the Polish monarchs now consists of palaces without ' inhabitants, and inhabitants without bread ; and only the improbable event of the restoration of Poland will relieve it from the desolation that reigns in its streets, and the misery that pines within its houses. The liberators of Europe, too jealous of each other to allow any one of themselves to retain a city which, as a frontier position, would have been of so much value, performed the farce of erecting it into a free town. ' Cracow, deprived of every outlet to industry, and every source of revenue, was left to bear the ex- penses of a government and an university. Dowried by her high protectors with a few miles of territory, and some hundreds of beggared peasants, she was married to penury and annihilation. The sensible an>ong her citizens are by no means proud of their useless independence; and even the senators break jokes with melancholy bitterness on their mendicant republic. There arc neither arts nor manufactures ; the surrounding country is abundantly fruitful, but the peasantry who cultivate it have no spirit of enterprise, and no stimulus to exertion. No spot in Europe can present a more squalid rural population than that which basks in the sun in tlie public places of Cracow on a market day. Twelve thousand of the inhabi- tants are Jews; thej are sunk still lower than the peasantry in uncleanliness and misery, and appear to be still less sensible to it. The part of the city w hich they inhabit is scarcely approachable; two or three families, men, women, and children, pigs, dogs, and poultry, w^allow together in the mire of some sicken-
THE CATHEDRAL. 345
ing and low-roofed hovel. The Poles complair) of them as one great cause of the rapid dtcaj ol the city ; they say that the Jews have gotten into their hands all the trade that remains to it ; for [)urchasing cheaply by the practice of rascally arts, and liviiig m a manner which scarcely re(juircs expenditure, they undersell their Christian conijjetitois. The palace of the kings ol Poland is itself a picture of the vicissi- tudes of the state. Once iidiabited by the Casmiirs, the Sigismunds, and the Sob.eskis, it is now the abode of tattered paupers, and even these are [Tincipally dependent on casual revenues for the pittance which merely supports life.
Adjoinitig the palace is the catiiedral, in which the Polish monarchs were wont to be crowned and buried. In its general st}le it may be called Gothic, but the subordinate ornaments aim at the architecture of the south. The altars are so cumbered with pillars, and the columns which separate the nave from the aisles are so stuck routjd with monuments and tablets, that the whole has a heavy and confused ap|fearance. Nearly all the ornamcnis, likewise, are formed of a black marble, which is found in abundance in the neighbourhood of Cracow, and has been lavishly c( n- sumed in its churches; its gloomy hue contrasts stiange- ly with the brilliantly gilded saints who are crowded into every corner. The architectural eilect of the long and ample nave is spoiled by the gorgeous tomb and altar of St. Stanislaus, which entirelv divides it, and seems to be the abrupt termination of the church. On the altar lies the body of the saint, contained in a coffin of massive silver, six feet lonsf, which is supj)ort- ed by four female figures, about half the size of the life, fashioned in the same metal. A riumber of tall, silver candelabras are ranged before it, and on high is suspended a large lamp, equally sacred and costly. If the man did not deserve all this for his virtues, he, at least, merited it by his miracles ; for he is one oi the 44
346 CRACOW.
«
few saints in the calendar who have gone the length of raising the dead, (but he did it for the protection of church-property,) and the story is worked in rehef on his silver cotfin. His death was tragical, and the circumstances wliich led to it were, according to the story, somewhat out of the way. St. Stanislaus was bisiiop of Cracow, under B.;leslaus II., towards the end of the eleventh century. B jl^^slaus was a head- strong and qjarrelsome prince, and spent his whole reign in wars with his neighbours. He had kept his army in the field seven years ; and the ladies at home, esteeming this long desertion by their husbands a vir- tual annulling of all matrimonial obligations, selected new companions from ami>ng their very slaves. The authority of the king could not detain his warriors a moment longer ; they hastened home, and exacted a bloody vengeance from the faithless fair ones, as well as from their imprudent mates. Boleslaus followed, breathinor wrath as^ainst the knio^hts who had abandon- ed him in the field, and the ladies who had occasioned their desertion. Ho beheaded or hanged a considera- ble number of both, and condemned the women whom he spared to suckle dogs, as a symbol of the unnatural connection which they had formed with their menials. Tiie good bishop could endure neither the bloodshed, nor this unchristian sort of wet-nursing; he reprimand- ed the monarch for his lawless cruelties, and the re- sistance of the priest only inflamed the rough warrior. The bishop, strong in his apostolical dignity, excora- raunicaied the kins:, and refused him admittance to the mass which he was performing in a small church still called the Stanislaus- Kirche. The infuriated Bo- leslaus burst into the church by force, and, with his own hand, murdered the bishop on the steps of the altar. The thunders of Rome were immediately hurled against him, and, compelled to fly from his kingdom, he shortly afterwards put a period to his life in exile in Hungary. Stanislaus was canonized ; the
THE CATHEDRAL. 347
wooden church In which he was murdered was con- verted, by the generosity of the pious, inlo a ics|(cta- ble stone edifice; and allhou»^h it consisted entnely of wood when St. Stanishius lell, it so haj | cncd that some of his bhiod stained the stone wall which after- wards was built, and is still dcvouilj visited and kissed bj hundreds of belie virjg Poles.
The cathedral is crowded with the monuments of Polish kings. Those of the earlier sovereigns are in the usual form of massy sarco[)haguses, whose sides are covered with rude sculpture, and on whose top is extended the stilF effigy of the defunct, with crown, sceptre, and regal robes. One of the oldest is that of Casimir the Great, the first, and, for centuries, tiie only Polish monarch who succeeded in renicdying son;e of the evils which had rendered the kingdom an inces- sant scene of contention and bloodshed, aiid had re- tarded its progress in the most ordinary institutions of civil life. Of the more modern m« rinments, the most interesting is that of King John 111. Sobieski, the only sovereign, after the crown had become really e!ecJive, who effected any thing great either for the fauie or welfare of the country. A large pedestal of black marble supports a sarco[)hagus ; the sides of the latter are covered with a battle, and military trophies, in re- lief, and two Turkish prisoner's he chained in fr(iit of it. A pyramid rises above, bearing the busts of So- bieski and his wife. Tlie inscription records his ex- ploits, and finishes with the distich,
Tres liictus causae sunt hoc snh marmore rJansae ; Rex, decus Ecclesiao, summu«^ tionor patriae.
Except the busts, the figur'es and trophies are merely of plaster ; Sobieski deserved something better*. The body remained for nearly a century in the old vault, in which a long line of Polish monarchs had been deposit- ed. Stanislaus the last king, fitted up a r^ew vault, near the door of the cathedral. He intended it for
348 CRACOW.
himself and his successors, in the fond hope that with him was to coinmence a new and mure happy race of sovereigns, and the body of Sobieski was the only one which he removed from the old vault. But Stanislaus himself was destined to close the series of Polish kitifijs, and his ashes to be laid in a foreign country. The new vault contains only three bodies, but they are those of men who were all celebrated in European his- tory, Sobieski, Kosciusko, and Poniatowsky. The last of them was deposited in it by order of the Emperor of Russia. The monument of Kosciusko was not yet finished. It will be the simplest of all memorials to the mighty dead, for it is merely a huge, round, taper- ing eminence of earth, artificially brought together. A hermit had already taken up his abode in a hovel on the ascent of it, to give the straggling visitor bene- dictions in return for farthings.
Cracow may be considered the centre of that singu- lar and revolting disease, the WeichselzopJ\ or Plica Polonica. It derives its name from its most prominent symptom, the entangling of tfie haii' into a confused mass. It is generally preceded by violent headaches, and tingling in the ears; it attacks the bones and joints, and even the nails of the toes and fingers, which split longitudinally ; I saw such furrows on the nails of a person twelve years after his complete cure. If so obstinate as to defy treatment, it ends in blindness, deafness, or in the most mehncholy distortions of the limbs, and sometimes in all these miseries together. The most extraordinary part of the disease, however, is its aciinn on the hair. The individual hairs begin to swell at the root, and to exude a fat, slimy substance, frequently mixed with suppurated matter, which is the most noisome feature of the malady. Their growth is, at the same time, more rapid, and their sensibility greater, than in their healthy state ; and, notwithstand- ing the incredulity with which it was long received, it is now no longer doubtful, that, where the disease has
THE WEICHSELZOPF. 349
reached a high degree of niahgnlty, not onlj whole masses of the hair, but even sin<Tle hair«, v>'i!l bleed if cut oiF, and that, too, tliroughout their whole length, as well as at the root. 1 he hairs, giowing rapidly amidst this corrupted moisture, twist themselves toge- ther inextiicabi), and at last are plaited into a confused, clotted, disgusting-looking mass. Very frequently they twist themselves into a number of separate masses like ropes, and there is an instance of such a zo^growing to the length of fourteen feet on a lady's head, before it could be safely cut oif. Sometimes it assumes other forms, which medical writers have distinguished by specific names, such as, the Bird's Nest Plica, the Tur- ban Plica, the Medusa Head Plica, the Long-tailed Plica, the Club-shaped Plica, kc.
The hair, however, while thus suffering itself, seems to do so merely from contributing to the cure of the disease, by being the channel through which the cor- rupted matter is carried off from the body. From the moment that the hair begins to entangle itself, the pre- ceding symptoms always diminish, and frequently dis- appear entirely, and the patient is comparatively well, except that he must submit to the inconvenience of bearing about with him this disgusting head-piece. Accordinsjly, where there is reason to suspect that a WeichselzopJ* is forming itself, medical means are com- monly used to further its outbreaking on the head, as the natural progress, and only true cure of the disease ; and, among the peasants, the same object is pursued by increased filth and carelessness, and even by soak- ing the hair with oil or rancid butter. After the hair has contirmed to grow thus tangled and noisome for a period, which is in no case fixed, it gradually becomes dry; healthy hairs begin to grow u\) under the plica, and, at last, '* push it from its stool." In the process of separation, however, it unites itself so readily with the new hairs, that, if not cut off at this stage, it con- tinues hanging for years, an entirely foreign appendage
350 CRACOW.
to the head. There are many Instances of Poles who, suifering under poignant ailments, which were, in reali- ty, the forerunners of an approaching Weichselzopf^ have in vain sought aid, in other couritries, from fo- reign physicians, and, on their return, have found a speedy, though a very disagreeable cure, In the break- ing out of the phca.
But till the plica has run through all its stages, and has begun of itself to decay, any attempt to cut the hair is attended with the utmost danj^er to the life of the patient ; It not only afiects the body by bringing on convulsions, cramps, distortion of the limbs, and fre- quently death, but the imprudence has often had mad- ness for its result ; and, in fact, during the whole pro- gress of the disease, the mind is, in general, affected no less than the body. Yet, for a long time, to cut off the hair was the first ste[) taken on the approach of the disease. People were naturally anxious to get rid of its must disgusting symptom, and they ascribed the melancholy eiFects that unlformlv lolh>wed, not to the removal of the liair, but merely to the internal mala- dy, on which this removal had no influence ; and medi- cal men had not yet learned that this was the natural outlet of the disease. Even towards the end of the last century, some medical writers of Germany still maintained that the hair should instantly be cut ; but the examples in which blindness, distortion, death, or insanity, has been the imuiediate consequence of the operation, are uiuch too numerous to allow their theo- retical opinion any weight. The only known cure is, to allow the hair to grow, till it begins to rise pure and healthy from the skin, an appearance which indicates that the malady is over*; it is then shaved off, and the cure is generally complete, although there are cases in which the disease has been known to return. The length of time during which the head continues in this state of corruption, depends entirely on the degree of malignity in the disease.
THE WEICHSELZOPF. 351
Two instances of the wonderful disposition of the hairs thus to intertwist themselves with each other were mentioned to me, which [ would not have be- lieved had I not received them Irom an eye-witness, and would not repeat, were not that eye-witness among the most respectable citizens of Cracow m character and rank, the historir^n d' its fa!e, and a liieaiijei of its seij^.ie. Tiie tirst occurred in his own house. A servant was attacked with ihc Weichselzoff ; at length his hair began to rise in a healthy state from the head; it was shaved off, and the man wore a wig. Bi«t the cure had not been complete; the malady speedily re- turned, and the new-springing hairs, already diseased, instead of plaiting themselves with one another, made their way through the lining of the wig, and intertwist- ed themselves so thoroughly with its hairs, that it could not be removed, until the natural hair itself, from whose extremity it depended, had returned to its na- tural state. Tlie other case was that of a youJig lady, whose relations had ignorantly cut off her hair at the commencement of the disease ; the consequences were violent, and threatened to be mortal. Fortunately the lady, with the likinij which e\evy girl has for a head of beautiful hair, had ordered her ravished locks to be carefully preserved, and it was resolved to try an experiment. T'le hair was again bandished on the head; as the new and corrupted hair sprung up, it united itself so firmly with the old, that they formed but one mass; the convulsions and distortions disap- peared, and, in due time, the cure was com[)lete.
The Weichselzopf, at once a painful, a dangerous, and a disgusting disease, is not confined to the human species ; it attacks horses, particularly in the hairs of the mane, dogs, oxen, and even wolves and foxes. Al- though more common among the poorer classes, it is not peculiar to them, for it spares neither rank, nor age, nor sex. Women, however, are said to be less exposed to it than aien, and fair hair less than brown
$52 CRACOW.
or black hair. It Is contagious, and, moreover, may be- come hereditary. In Cracow, there is a I'amily, the father of which had the Weichselzopf, but seemed to be thoroughly cured ; he married shortly afterwards, and his wife was speedily subjected to the same fright- ful visitation: and, of three children whom she bore to him, every one has inheriled the disease. Among professional persons, great diversity of o[)inion pre- vailb regarding its origin and nature. According to ^ome, it is merely the result of filth and bad diet; but, although it certainly is more frequent among the classes who are exposed to these miseries, particularly among the Jews, whose beards it sometimes attacks as well as their locks, it is by no means confined to them ; the most wealthy and cleanly are not exempt from its influence ; of this I saw many instances in Cracow. Others again, allowing that it is much aggravated by uncleanliness and insalubrious food, set it down as epidemic, and seek its origin in some particular qualities of the air or water of the country, just as some have sought the origin of goi- tres; but, though more common in Poland than elsewhere, it is likewise at home in Livonia, and some other parts of Russia, and, above all, in Tartary, from whence, in fact it is supposed to have been first imported during the Tartar invasion in the end of the thirteenth century. A third party has made it a modification of leprosy. The more ignorant classes of the people believe that it is a preservative against all other diseases, and therefore adorn themselves with an inoculated Weichselzopf,
Cracow is washed on the south by the broad and ra- pid Vistula, and so soon as you have crossed the long wooden bridge, you are in the dominions of Austria, part of her shameful gains when
Sarmatia fell unwept, without a crime !
The jealous vigilance of her police is immediately felt ; at every stage, the postmaster insists on examin- ing your passport. The same spirit even accompanies
WIELICZKA. 35i3
the stranger down into the neighbouring salt mines of Wiehczka ; he finds no difficulty in prucunnj^ admit- tance ; but, when he has been admitted, he encounters manj difficuhies in seeing every thing he would wish to see, and learning all that he might wish to learn.
Notwithstandinj; the len<;th of time during; which these mines have been W'orked, and the quantity of salt which has been taken out of them, their treasures ap- pear to be as inexhaustible as ever. They are situat- ed in the outskirts of the Carpathians, a much finer range of hills, to the eye, than the Silesian Mountains of the Giant, although they do not present, in this di- rection, any very elevated summits. The mines des- cend to the depth of about fifteen hundred feet; and, though the miners go down on ladders, through an or- dinary shaft, the visitor has the accommodation of salt stairs, as ample and regular, and convenient, as if they had been constructed for palaces, and, below, the im- mense caverns which have been formed by the remo- val of the salt are, in many instances, connected by pas- sages equally smooth and spacious with the streets of a capital. The finest of them have been named after monarchs, because they have generally been, if not formed, yet widened into their present regularity and extent, on the occason of some imperial or royal visit. Thus you have Francis Street, and Alexander Street; and the great staircase itself was orig^inally hewn out for the accommodation of Augustus III. of Saxony and Poland, in the middle of the last century. In a gold, or silver, or iron mine, luxuries of this sort cost a pro- digious quantity of labour, and the lab'^ur spent in re- moving the stubborn rock brings no other reward than the luxury itself; but in a salt mine, it is both more easily attainable and more profitable; for in widening the passages salt is gained, and it is just as well to pro- cure the fossil in this way as in any other. Another mode of descending is to pass down the perpendicular shaft through which the barrels, filled with salt belovr.
554 WIELICZKA.
are brought above ground. Towards the lower ex- tremity of the rope, a number of cross pieces of wood are firmly secured to it, the groupes being separated from each other bv an interval of seven or eio^ht feet. A couple of strano:ers seat themselves on this frail Qia- chine, clasping the rope m then- arms, with their legs hanging down into the dark and deep abyss. They are then lowered till the next pair of cross sticks is on a level with the mouth of the shaft ; on these a second couple is seated, in the same way, and thus it goes on till the visitors are exhausted, or the rope is sufficient- ly loaded for its strength. The rope and its burden are then alluwed to drop slowly into the earth, the windlass above being stopped, on a given signal, as each party reaches the bottom, to give them time to dis- mount from their wooden horses. At the very end of the rope hang two little boys with liglits, to affu'd the passengers the means of preventing the vibrations of the rope from dashing them against the walls of the shaft. You are landed belong at a depth of three hundred feet, in the first floor, nf^ar St. Anthony's chapel, an early production of the miners. The chapel itself, its pillars, with their capitals and cornices, its altar and its imaj^es, are all hewn out in the salt rock. It is not true, however, as has often been stated, that the outlines of its different forms have retained their original accuracy, and its angles their sharpness. They have all suffered, as was to be ex[)ected, from the long continued action of moisture which is abundantly visible in every part of the chapel. The angles of the walls and capitals of the pillars are entirely rounded away, and even St. Anthony himself, a very tolerable statue, considering the artists and the materials, has been al- most deprived of his nose, the most unseemly of all failings in canonized sanctity. In fact, Wieliczka has been the subject of much exaggeration. It is not true that the miners have their houses and villages beneath ground, that some of them have been born there, and
WIELTCZKA. 355
that still more of them have never been on the earth since they first descended; for, thout^h the labour is carried on without interruption during the four and twenty hours, the workmen here, as in most other mines, are divided into three barjds, each of which works only eight hours, and tiieir houses, and wives, and families, are above ground. It is true, that the horses employed in removing the barrels of salt from different parts of the mine to the mouth of the shaft through which they are to be drawn up, rarely revisit day-light alter they have once descended, and that they have their slables and haylofts below ground ; but it is not true thai they generally become blind, in consequence of livins^ so much in the dark. The often repeated wonder, of a stream of fresh water, flowing through the salt rock, is equally void of foundation ; but neither is it true, that all the fresh water in the mine is brought down artificially fi'om above. There are some springs of fresh water; but there is no rea- son to suppose, that, m then' course, they ever touch the salt rock. The soil wliich lies immediately on the fossil is a black clay, and above it is a stratum of sand abundantly impregnated with water. The upper sur- face of the salt rock, where it comes into contact with these superincumbent matters, is not a regular, but a waved line ; every here and there it sinks dow^n into vallies, as it were, with hills of salt en each side; these vallies are filled with sand and earth, and it is through them that the springs of fiesh water find their way down into the mine. In one of the lowest depths there is a small lake; that is, the water oozing through the rock has filled up a large cavity which had been produced by the removal of the salt ; its bottom and banks are all rock salt; and, accordingly, the little lake is most bitterly salt itself. There are various other small streams which flow out of or through the fossil ; and they are all so saturated with salt, that tlie Austrian directors have been known, in carrying them
33G WIELICZKA.
out of tile mine, to turn their waters info places filled with all species of filth, lest the neighbouring popula- tion should make use of them for the purpose of pro- curing salt by evaporation.
In the upper galleries of the mine the salt does not appear so much m the form of a continuous rock as in that of hu^e insulated masses, inserted into the moun- tain, like enormous pebbles; some of them exceed a hundred feet in diameter, and sometimes they are found not larger than a football. This was the por- tion first wrought, because nearest the earth, and min- ing in those days must have been ruinously rude. These immense masses of salt were removed much too freely ; the irregularly vaulted roofs of the caverns which they had occupied were left without support, and the consequence was, that they frequently fell in. On more occasions than one, the town of Wieliczka, which stands above great part of the mine, has been shaken as if by an earthquake, and some of its houses have sunk into the ground. The miners began to feel the inconvenience of these dangers and interruptions; and, as the neighbourhood abounded, in those days, with wood, which cost nothing but the trouble of cut- ting it down, they filled the cavities with stems of trees laid upon each other. Even this remedy, toilsome as it was, was an imperfect one; for you can still distinct- ly trace where the weight of the superincumbent mass has conquf red the resistance of the wood, and bent and crushed it out of its true position. The materials which they thus used exposed them, likewise, to the dansjer of fire, which actually overtook them in the middle of the seventeenth century, and the mine con- tinued on fire rather more than a year. Perhaps the timber had not been sufficiently long below ground to imbibe salt in such a quantity as would enable it to resist flame; for, if the experience of Austria and Si- lesia be correct, it would not have burned when fully impregnated with salt. In those parts of Silesia and
WIELICZKA. 357
Austria where the houses are roofed with narrow and thin pieces ot" wood, which, in summer, become riearly as drj and inflammable as timber, and, at all times, present a most efficacious instrument for propagating a conflagration, the frequency of destructive fires at- tracted the notice of tfie public authorities. As the result of the chemical investigations to which tfiis led, it has been recommended, even under the sanction of learned societies, that the wood to be used in roofing should previously be saturated with salt. In this state, thej say, it will resist fire as effectually as either slates or tiles w\\\ do. The alteration has hitherto been ve- ry sparingly adopted, partly because it would cost a little money, but much more because it is a change ; and German peasants, in general, are sworn adherents of the Glenburnie creed, not to be *' fashed." \i\ Wie- liczka, the wood \^ now as hard as rock. I was as- sured that even animals which die do not putrify, but merely assume the appearance of stuffVd birds and beasts; and it was added, that when, in 1696, the bo- dies of some workmen, who it was supposed had pe- rished in the great conflagration, were found in a retir- ed and deserted corner of the mine, they were as dry and hard as mummies.
In the deeper galleries, the operations have been carried on with much greater care and regularity. In them the salt assumes more decidedly the character of a continuous stratum, although it is of^en interrupted, both vertically and horizontally, by veins of rock. The salt is cut out in long, narrow blocks, as if from a quar- ry ; it is then broken into smaller pieces, and packed up in barrels. At certain distances, large masses of it are left standing, to act as pillars in suppor ing the roof. Its colour, in the mass, is dark, nor is the reflec- tion of light from its surfaces at all so dazzling as has sometimes been represented. When, indeed, flambeaux are flashing from every point of rock, and the galleries and caverns are illuminated, as they sometimes have been, in honour of royal personages, with numbers of
358 GALLICIA.
gay chandeliers, their crjstaUized walls and ceilings may throw back a magnificent flood of light ; but, in their ordinary state, illuminated only with the small lights, by whose guidance the miners pursue their la- bours, the effect is neither very brilliant nor imposing.
The whole of this part of Gallicia is a beautiful and fertile country. On the south and south-east, it is bounded by the shady and romantic eminences with which the lofty ridge of the Carpathians commences, and from whose western extremity, the young Vistula, as you approach, at Teschen, the frontiers of Moravia, comes hurrying dowm. There is a most observable difference in the appearance both of the towns and the peasantry, from the cha^ac+'^i of 'hose ^vnicli you have jij'^t h.fi In Poland ; there is more activity and seeming comfort ; what the traveller sees would not lead him to think that the inhabitants of Gallicia ought to re- gret their transference from the crown of Poland. In Moravia, the country has more of the plain, and the people gradually display, the nearer you come to the capital, the jovial and social bon-hommie of the Austri- an character. The whole province is in high cultiva- tion, and is so fertile in fruit, that it is usually styled the Orchard of Austria. The population, too, is dense, and the whole road is a succession of clean, bustling small towns, many of them depending principally on the woollen manufacture, w^hich, with the assistance of the raw material from Bohemia and Hungary, has gra- dually risen to what is, for Austria, a very honourable degree of respectability. The manufacturers assert, that they could carry it much farther, if the sheep far- mers would condescend to take some lessons from the Saxons as to the manner of preparing and assorting their wool.
On reaching the brow of the low eminences that border, to the north, the valley through which the Danube takes his course, a magnificent prospect burst at once upon the eye. A wide plain lay below, teem-
MORAVIA. 359
ing with the productions and habitations of industrious men. On the east, towards Hungary, it was boundless, and the eye was obstructed only by the horizon. To the westward rose the fiills which, beginning in orchard and vineyard, and terminating in forest and preci'iice, foriij, in this dneclion, the commencement of tlie Alps; and to the south, the plain was bounded by the loftier suniuiits of the Styrian m(Mjnta(ns. Nearly in the cen- tre of the picture lay Vienna itself, extending on all sides its gigantic arms, and the spire of the cathedral, high above every other object, was proudly present mg its Gothic pinnacle to the evening sun. From this point, the inequality of the ground on which Vienna stands strikes the eye at once, and the cathedral has the advantage of occupying the highest point of the proper city ; for not otjly the spire, but nearly the whole bodv of the edifice, was distinctly seen above all the other buildings of the city.
CHAPTER XII.
VIENNA.
Oben wohnt ein Geist der nicht .
Menschlich ziirnet und schmahlet ; Noch. mit Wolktn ini Gesicht,
Kuss' und Flaschen zahlet; Nein ; Er lachelt mild herab, Weun sich zwischen Wieg' und Grab
Seine Kinder freun.
Langbein.
He condennns not our joys, like our brethren of earth,
The Spirit immortal that goveins above ; Nor, wrapping his brow in the cloud of a frown,
Counts the bottles of mirth, or the kisses of love ; No ; he smiles when the children his hand planted here In transport enjoy from the breast to the bier.
These lines, from a popular German poet and no velist, contain the text on which every one of the three
^m VIENNA.
hundred thousand inhabitants who crowd Vienna and its interaiinable suburbs, seems to reckon it a duty to make his life a commentary. They are more devoted friends of joviality, pleasure, and good living, and more bitter enemies of every thing like care or thinking, a more eating, drinking, good-natured, ill educated, hos- pitable, and laughing people, than any other of Ger- many, or, perhaps, of Europe. Their climate and soil, the corn and wine with which Heaven has blessed them, exempt them from any very anxious degree of thought about their own wants ; and the government, with its spies and police, takes most eifectual care that their gaiety shall not be disturbed by thinking of the public necessities, or studying for the public weal. In regard to themselves, they are distinguished by a love of pleasure; in regard to strangers, by great kindness and hospitality. It is difficult to bring an Austrian to a downright quarrel with you, and it is almost equally difficult to prevent him from injuring your health by good living.
The city itself is a splendid and a bustling one; no other German metropolis comes near it in that crowd- ed activity which distinguishes our own capitals. It does not stand, strictly speaking, on the Danube, which is a mile to the northward, and is separated from it by the largest of all the suburbs, the Leopoldstadt, as well as by the extensive tract of ground on whsch the groves of the Prater have been planted, and its walks laid out. The walls, however, are washed, on this side, by a small arm of the Danube, which rejoins the main stream a short way below the city, and is suffi- ciently large for the purposes of inland navigation. On the south, the proper city is separated from the su- burbs by a still more insignificant stream, which, how- ever, gives its name to the capital, the Vienna. Tin's rivulet, instead of serving effectually even the purposes of cleanliness, brings down the accumulated refuse of other regions of the town ; and its noisome effluvia
^w:.
THE CITY. 361
often render it an effort to pass the bridge across it, one of the most crowded thoroughfares of Vienna.
The proper city is of nearly a circular form, and cannot be more than three miles in circumference, for I have often walked quite round the ramparts in less than an hour. The style of building does not pretend to much ornament, but is massive and imposing ; the streets are generally narrow, and the houses lofty, rising to four or five floors, which are all entered by a common stair. There is much more regularity, and ihere are many more cornices and pillars in Berlin ; in Dresden there is a more frequent mtermixture of showy edifices ; there is more lightness and airiness of effect in the best parts of ^unich ; and in Niirnberg and Augsburgh, there is a greater profusion of the out- ward ornaments of the olden time ; but in none of these towns is there so much of that sober and solid stateli- ness, without gloom, which, after all, is perhaps the most fitting style of building for a large city. Some individual masses of building, in the very heart of the city, are as populous as large villages. The Biirger- Spital, formerly, as its name denotes, an hospital for citizens, but converted ^into dwelling-houses by Joseph II., contains ten large courts, is peopled by more than 1200 inhabitants, and yields a yearly rental of L. 6500. Another, in one of the suburbs, belonging lo Prince Esterhazy, contains 1.50 different dwelling-houses, and lets for from L. 1600 to L. 2000. Mr. Trattener, for- merly a bookseller, and the most fortunate bibliopole that the Austrian capital has yet produced, built on the Graben, the most fashionable part of the city, a huge edifice, which yields to its proprietor L. 2400 a-year ; and Count Strahremberg has another, whose annual rental amounts to L. 4000. Even the ordinary build- ings are generally in the form of a square, surrounding a small court ; but the houses are so high, and the court is of such narrow dimensions, that it frequently
46
362 VIENNA.
has more of the appearance of a well ; and the com- mon stair, which receives its hght from it, is left in darkness. Even on the Graben, it is sometimes neces- sary to have lamps in the stair-cases during the day. Every house, whatever number of families it may contain in its various floors, is under the superintend- ence of a Hausmeister, or house- master, who is a per- sonage of much importance to the convenience of all who inhabit it. He is some mean person, frequently an old woman, appointed by the proprietor to watch over the building and its tenants, in so far as the wel- fare of mason-work and carpenter's work is concerned, to attend to the cleanliness of the common passages, and the safety of the -^stj^et-door. This little despot commonly lurks in some dark hole on the ground floor, or still lower down ; and every evening, as the clock strikes ten, he locks the street-door. After this, there is neither ingress nor egress without his permission, and his favour is to be gained only at the expense of the pocket ; if you come home after ten o'clock, he ex- pects his twopence for hearing the bell, and opening the door. It is true, that he is bound in duty to admit you at any hour, and that you are not bound to give him any thing; but if you have entered in this way once or twice, without properly greeting his itching palm, the consequence is, that on the next, and all sub- sequent occasions, you may ring half an hour before the grumbling Hansmeister deigns to hear, and another before he condescends to answer your thankless sum- mons. It is the same thing even in the inns ; at tea o'clock the outer gate must be shut, whatever revelry may be going on within. It is a police regulation, and the police is watchful. Besides a body of men corres- ponding to our watchmen, but who, instead of calling the hour, strike their bludgeons upon the pavement, the streets are patroled, all night long, by gens d'armes, l^joth mounted and on foot. Street noise, street quar-
THE CITY. 363
rels, and street robberies, are unknown. It is only out- side of the walls, in the more lonely parts of the glacis which separates the city from the suburbs, that noc- turnal depredations are sometimes committed; and, in such cases, robbery is not unfrequently accompanied with nr.irder.
"The Art of walking the streets" in I.ondon is an easy problem, compared with the art of walking them in Vienna. In the former, there is some order and distinction, even in the crowd ; two-legged and four- legged animals have their allotted places, and are com- pelled to keep them ; in the latter, all this is other- wise. It is true, that, in the principal streets, a few feet on each side are pa\^dv with stones somewhat larger than those in the centre, and these side slips are intended for pedestrians ; but the pedestrians have no exclusive right ; the level of the street is uniform ;' there is nothing to prevent hoises and carriages from encroaching on the domain, and, accordingly, they are perpetually trespassing. The streets, even those in which there is the greatest bustle, the Karntherstrasse, for example, are generally narrow ; carriages, hack- ney-coaches, and loaded waggons, observing no order, cross each other in all directions ; and, while they hur- ry past each other, or fill the street by coming from opposite quarters, the pedestrian is e\evy moment in danger of being run up against the wall. A provoking- circumstance is, that frequently a third part, or even a half of the street, is rendered useless by heaps of wood, the fuel of the inhabitants. The wood is brought into the city in large pieces, from three to four feet long. A waggon-load of these logs is laid down on the street, at the door of the purchaser, to be sawed and split into smaller pieces, before being deposited in his cellar. When this occurs, as it often does, at every third or fourth door, the street just loses so much of its breadth. Nothing remains but the centre, and that is constantly swarming with carriages, and carts, and
3,64 VIENNA.
barrows. The pedestrian must either wind himself through among their wheels, or clamber over succes- sive piles of wood, or patiently wait till the centre of the street becomes passable for a few yards. To think of doubling the wooden promontory without this precau- tion is far from being safe. You have scarcely, by a sudden spring, saved your shoulders from the pole of a carnage, when a wheel-barrow makes a similar attack on your legs. You make spring the second, and, in all probability, your head comes in contact with the up- lifted hatchet of a wood-cutter. The wheel-barrows seem to be best off. They fill such a middle rank be- tween bipeds and quadrupeds, that they lay claim to the privileges of both, and hold on their way rejoicing, commanding respect equally from men and horses.
To guide a carriage through these crowded, encum- bered, disorderly, narrow streets, without either occa- sioning or sustaining damage, is, perhaps, the highest achievement of the coach-driving art. Our own knights of the whip, with all their scientific and systematic ex- cellencies, must here yield the palm to the practical superiority of their Austrian brethren. Nothing can equal the dexterity with which a Vienna coachman winds himself, and winds himself rapidly, through every little aperture, and, above all, at the sharp turns of the streets. People on foot, indeed, must look about them; and, from necessity, they have learned to look about them so well, that accidents are wonder- fully rare ; and very seldom, indeed, does it happen that the Jehus do not keep clear of each other's wheels. The hacknev-coachmen form as peculiar a class as they do in London, with as much esprit de corps, but more humour, full of jokes and extortion. It is said that the most skilful coachman from any oth- er country cannot drive in Vienna without a regular education. A few years ago, a Hungarian nobleman brought out a coachman from London; but Tom was iinder the necessity of resigning the box, after a day's
THE CITY. 365
driving pregnant with danger to his master's limbs and carriage.
In Vienna, the distinction between the fashionable and unfashionable parts of the city is less strongly mark- ed than in most other capitals. The courtiers naturally love to be near the palace, which joins the ramparts on the south side of the citj, and the Herrengasse, the nearest street, is full of princely abodes; but there are few parts of the town, and especially on the rainparts, where jou are not struck by the huge piles, gorgeous- ly dressed servants, and glittering equipages of Hunga- rian and Bohemian nobles. Yet there are few partic- ular buildings which could be pointed out as fine edi- fices— for no great metropolis has hitherto made so few pretensions to classical and elegant architecture, although it has the merit of having avoided, in a great measure, those barbarous mixtures, and gewgaw frip- peries, which are the disgrace of some other capitals. More than one of the public buildings which were in- tended to be splendid, are either mediocre, or positively bad; and, even when the maitj conception is good, there is commonly some unpardonable adjimct which mars its beauty, and interrupts its effect. The palace of Prince Lichtenstein is a gorgeous building ; its libra- ry is the handsomest part of it, and the finest single hall in Vienna, and its contents are at once abundant and valuable. Yet the only entrance to the library is by a dark and narrow stair at the back of the house, and leads the visitor past the reeking doors of the prince's stables, which are right below. V^hen this part of the building was raised, it was proposed to in- scribe upon it, Equis et Musis. The Imperial nding- school, a work of Fischer of Erlach, the first architect who introduced some grandeur into the public edifices of Vienna, is in a chaste and severe style, so far as it can be seen; but it is stuck on the irregular pile of the palace, and palace theatre, in such a way that no whole is observable, and it looks like a fras^ment. The pal-
S66 VIENNA.
ace of the House of Ha|jsburgh itself, the residence of a family which, enteripig Gernianj in the person of a Swiss knight unexpectedly chosen to wear the imperi- al crown, has raised itself, in defiance of all the politi- cal storms which have attacked it, to so powerful a rank among the sovereigns of Europe, is almost an emblem of the progress of its proprietors, a collection of dissimilar and ill-assorted masses, added to each oth- er as convenience required, and occasio!> served. Even in the present century, <he court architects have been carrying on their additions, and with much less taste than their predecessors displayed a hundred years ago. The latter formed a regular court, more than three hundred feet long, and surrounded by buildings which, though very different in style — from the antiquated and venerable appearance of the old Burg on the east side, to the florid architecture of the long mass which bounds it on the north — are never positively mean, and always present large and uniform surfaces on eve- ry side: but the former, for the sake of widening a hall, have broken the south front by carrying it out in an impertinent projection which looks much liker a coffee-house than a palace.
Vienna has some very noble public squares, though no people requires them less for purposes of recrea- tion; for, when amusement is their object, they hasten beyond the walls to the coffee-houses of the glacis, or the shades of the Prater, the wine-houses and monks of Kloster-Nouburg, or the gardens of Schonbrunn. The best of these squares happen to be in parts of the city where the fashionable world does not often in- trude; they are not planted, l)ut they are excellently payed; they are not gaudy with palaces, but they are surrounded by the busy shops, and substantial and comfortable dwellings of happy citizens, and are com- monly adorned with some religious emblem, or a pub- lic fountain. Both the temples and the fountains have too much work about them ; there is too much strivinj^
THE CITY. 8^7
after finery of sculpture, a department of art in which the Austrians are still very far behind. The conse- quence is, that there arc crowds of (i<^ures which have no more to do with a basin of water than with a punch bowl. The Graben^ an open space in the most busy part of the town, and entered, at both extremities, by the narrowest and most inconvenient lanes in Vienna, (although, on Sundays and festivals, it is the great thor- oughfare of all classes, from the emj,eror to the servant girl,) is embellished with two fountains. The fountains themselves are simple and unatlected ; but it was neces- sary to have statues. Therefore, at the one well stands Joseph explaining to the Messiah his Hebrew genealogy, and, at the other, St. Leoj)old, holding in his hands a plan of the Monastery of Neuburg! The artist of the fountain in the jYeumarkt^ or New-market, seems to have felt the want of congruity in this union of holy saints with cold water, and he i)laced on the edge of his ba- sin four naked figures, representing the four principal rivers of Austria, pouring their waters into the Danube, whose genii surround the pillar that rises from the centre. But even here corner something Austrian and absurd. The basin is so small, that half a dozen of moderately sized perch would feel themselves confined in it; yet these four emblematical figures are anxiously gazing into the tiny reservoir, and brandishing hugh tridents to harpoon the invisible whales which are sup- posed to be sporting in its waters.
In all these squares, and in all the spots that are the favourite resorts of the people, a Briton, and even a Prussian, feels strongly the want of those |)ublic me- morials which public gratitude ought to raise to men who have adorned or benefitted a state by their ta- lents. A stranger, wandering through the squares and churches of Vienna, would believe that the empire had never possessed a man whom it was worth wnile to record, except Joseph II. — to whom the govern- ment has erected a proud monument, while it has not
568 VIENNA.
only avoided his practical imprudences, but has bigot- ediy proscribed even the good principles on which these imprudences were merely excrescences. It is true, that Austria, of herself, has produced few high names ; and, perhaps, this may be one reason why she has so carefully refrained from presenting to the pub- lic eye any proof of the frequency with which she has been compelled to trust for her safety and fame to the talent which other countries had produced. If Austria does not blush to have made use of foreign talent, why does she blush at recording its services in the eyes of her citizens ? The bitter satire of the words which Loudon's widow inscribed on the monument erected to him by herself in the shades of his country seat, was richly deserved ; Non Patria ; non iMPEHAToti ; Con- jux posuiT. Where are Montecuculi, and Eugene, and Lacy, and Loudon, the only worthy opponent of Fred- erick? Where are Prince Louis of Baden, and John Sobieski of Poland, who saved Leopold, trembling in his palace, and hurled back the Crescent when ready to enter Vienna in triumph over the ruins of the Cross ? Where are Jacquin and Van Swieten? Where are even the Daun and Kaunitz, the Mozart and Haydn of Austria itself? Simple busts of Loudon and Lacy were placed by Joseph in the hall where the Council of War holds its meetings, and were honoured with inscriptions from his own pen : but they were not for the public, and are visible only to high military officers. Daun was commemorated by an uncouth, gaudy, gilded thing ; but even this, ugly as it is, was locked up in a chapel of the Augustine monks. Even the monument of Prince Eugene, to whom Austria owed a heavier debt than perhaps any country ever owed to one man, was the work, not of the public gratitude of Austria, but of the family feeling of a Duke of Savoy. With what pride does a Briton look round St. Paul's and West- minster Abbey, or a Prussian point to the Wilhelm- splatz ? In Vienna, there is not presented to the public
SCULPTURE. ^9
eye the slightest memorial of the greatest men, except- ing Joseph II., to teach the [)eople what no people more easily forgets than the Viennese, that there real- ly is something in the world more respectable than mere eating, and drinking, and waltzing.
Tiie statue of Joseph II. stands on a square which bears his name. Two sides of the sqijaie aie formed by the mijes(ic elevations of the im[)erial library, which would gain by the removal of the two large gilt balls w'nch disfigure its sumniit. The stfctue is a co- lossal and equestrian one, cast in bronze, arid elevated on a lofty pedestal of granite. Tl^.e pedestal and its attendant pilasters are adorned with njedalhons repre- senting, not so much the public reforms, as the diffe- rent journies, of the emperor. The whole work is yery creditable to the sculptor, Zujner ; there is no- thing trivial or trifling about it ; the horse, however, though a very good German horse, is not sufficiently improved for sculpture ; and, allogether, the best parts of the monument are those which de|)art least from that model of all equestrian statues — Mai'cus Aurelius, in the Roman Capitol. This memorial was erected by the present emperor, who thus did honour to his uncle, without having hitherto followed one of his principles. Let the very just inscription, Saluti publicae vixit non Diu, BED TOTi;s, Warn the successors of Joseph II. to take care that they give no room for reversing it in regard to themselves. The errors of Joseph were those of all enthusiasts. He was far advanced before his age in Austria: he believed that the people would as easily see the absurdity of popular {>reiud»ces. as he distinctly perceived them himself; he forced them, rather than managed them. He constrained them for a while; but both he himself, and Leopold, who, with the same excellent sj)irit, had much moie prejudice, disappeared from the scene, before the people had yet had time to learn how far these new changes would do good, and the people willin2;ly returned to what they 47
sro VIENNA.
were not sure was bad, but were perfectly sure was old. Joseph shook to its foundations the civil power of tiie Romish hierarchy, stripped it of its exorbitant wealth, and prosciibed its corrupting idleness. Europe saw the holy head of the church cross the Appenines and the Alps to admonish his unruly son, the King of R )me ; but Joseph forgot, that the iiiiellect of his subjects was under the yoke of the priesthood, not under the i^usd nee of enliorhtened reason ; ^uA that, when he marched on witfi so bold a pace, instead of considering him a liberator, they looked on him as the profane persecutor of all which they had been taught to revere. Francis I. has re-filled empty monasteries, and established nesv orders, with infinitely greater suc- cess, than J.)sej)ii experienced in crushing and curtail- ing them. The selfish interests, likewise, oi' the great mass of the aristocracy, who, till this day, are the least manly in sentiment, and least enliglitened in mind of the German nobles, tfirew a thousand obstacles in his way; and sometimes he raised obstacles hinjsell', by the very speed of his course, just as the hoof of a rapid steed will strike fire from a stone which a more moderate pace vvould have left undisturbed. If Jose[)h had at- tempted less, he would have eiFected much more.
The sc!jl«)ture of Vienna has been more indebted to private affection, ttian to public gratitude or munifi- cence. The church of St. A JSfustine contains the mo- nu nent erected by the lafe D j\e of Sa-chsen-Teschen* to his wife Christina, aii Archduchess of Austria. It is a work of Canova, and is not onlv amonof his most bulky [#*oductions, but ranks among his foremost in simplicity of grouping, contrast of form, and that pro-
* He died in 1822. burdpned with tue infirmities of a very ad- vanced jy, vvhsch even !»n!hing' in wine could not lonq resist. He was a prince of iinmonse wcaltii, consider. n^ Inm as a person who did not vv^Hf a diaiem Fhe irreater part of his fortune descend- ed to a ra ich better known per«ona8fr», the Archduk*^ Charles, of whom all V^ienua baid, tiidt he needed it, and vvould make a good QBe of it.
SCULPTURE. 371
priety in every fio^ure and feature of the diflferont f)er- sonages, on which the ert'ect of such a work, as a whole, always depends so much. Il is hy iar the best ol Ca- nova's nionumeiits. In this d.fhcult dej artment of ihe art, where cornn)on-[)lace combinations on the one hand, and exaggerated allegories oii the other, are the quicksands to be avoided, the great Italian, th( ugh tfse purity of his taste kej)t him far from the latter, sonje- times touched upon the former.* A pyramid of grey- ish marble, twenty-eight Uet high, and c( i.nected f)y two broad steps with a long and solid base, is phiced against the wall of the church. In the centre of the pyramid is an ope»iin^, re[jresenting the entrance of the funeral vault, and two melanciioly groupes are slowly ascending the ste[)S towards it. The hrst C( n- sists of Virtue, bearing the urn which contains the ashes of the deceased, to be deposited in the t<-mb, and by her side are two little giils, carrying torches to illuminate the gloomy sepulchre. Beiind them. Bene- volence ascends the steps, supporting an old man, u ho seems scarcely able to totter ah.ng, so rapidly is he sinking beneath age, infirmity, and grief; while a cliild, folding its little hands, and hanging down its head in infantine sorrow, accompanies hin). On the other side couches a melancholy lion, and beside him reclines a desponding gemus. Over the door of the vault is a medallion ol the Archduchess, held up by Happiness; and, opposite, a genius on the wing preseiUa to her the palm of trium[)h. The last two ligures, as well as the portrait, are only in relief on i\\e body of the pyraniicl ; all the others are round, and all are as large as life.
* A strong proof of this is the monnment \\bich he executed in St. Peter's in Kome, at the request of the King- of Lngland, to com- memorate the liist niembers ol the Stunrt fumily A pyrnmichil mass, representing the door of a vauh, leans ag:iinj-l one of the pillars; above it are medallions of the persons to he recorded, iind 00 each side a gmius hancfs down his torch. Moreover, the figure^, are only in relief. This is trivial.
srs VIENNA.
There is nothing strained or aifected in the allegory ; an air of soft and tranquil melancholy pervades the whole composition; and the spectator, without being very forcibly struck at tirst, feels pensiveiiess and ad- miration gradually growing upon him. The figure of the old man, whom Benevolence supports to the grave of his benefactress, is exquisite ; his limbs actually seem to fotter, and the muscles of his face to quiver with agitation ; yet there is nothing exaggerated in expres- sion or attitude. The composition is a most eloquent one, but pure and chaste throughout. There may be some allegorical meaning in the wings of the Genius who reclines on the lion, being raised; but, at first sight, the spectato!' does not see why the wings should be in motion, when the state of the fij^ure is that of repose. The general design of the moiiument was first composed by Canova for a monum.er.t whicli the V«'netian Seriate iiitended to have erected to Titian, and the orio^inal drawings are still preserved in the Academy of Venice. Amid the misfortunes of the re- public, the plan was given up. The sculptor after- wards substituted the emblems of private virtue and affection for the figures which were to have been sym- bolical of the arts, and the monument was usedtocom- memorate the Archduchess Christina.
Vienna possesses, by the fortune of war, another great groupe ol" Canova, in his Theseus killing the Mi- notaur. The Austrians showed a very laudable atten- tion to tfie safety of the s^roupe in bringing it from Italy ; for, excepting a very brief overland carriag^e in Dalma- t a, it was conveyed endrely by water ; it was shipped (.n the Tiber at Rome, and landed from tlie Danube at Vien- na. BiJt, in selecting a site for it in their own capital, they have displayed a want of taste which, it is to be hoped, no other academy of the fine arts would sanction. The groupe had been originally ordered by Buona- parte, for the purpose of placing it on the Porta del
SCULPTURE. S7S
Sempione, at Milan, which it was intended should be the most magniiicent portal in Italy, and which, 1 sij|>- pose, is stili decaying;, unfinished, beneath its wouden shed. Canova is t-aid to have mride the Athenian hero a portrait of the French Emperor, so far as classical character left it in his power ; and, on his downfall, to have thought it prudent, or pohte, to altei the style of countenance. I saw it in R-mie, when it was yet un- finished, and it had not thesliohtest tinge of Napoleon. On regaining Lombardy, the Emperor cf Austria stop- ped the building of the Porta del Sempione; ar d, as if determined to irgure in every possible way the self- love of his Italian subjects, he delermincd to transfer as a tronhy to Vienna th^^ m^jpstic p,r upe nliicii iiad been destmed for Milan. Apprehensions were very justly entertained thai Carrara marble wc^uld sp'i'edily suffer from being exposed in iheojien air in theclintate of Austria. The Emperor sug^^ested, that it would be best " to gel Canova himself to tell them wliat sort of thing they should put it ir." Car;ova recommended a temple, in strict imitation of the Temple of Theseus at Athens. They had the good sense to follow his advice ; they have built, or, at least, are building the temple; but, to keep it out of sight as much as possi- ble, they have actually buried it in the lowest part of the glacis, close under the rampart where the rampart is highest, and, to make the matter worse, they have excavated the glacis itself to a considerable de|)ih, tlfat the temple may be still more under ground. It isr sunk in the ditch; wliile, above it, on the most com- manding part of the broad bastions, stands the ifashic.n- able coiTee-house of Courtois, whose gay visitors, as they lounge along, look dewn witFi contempt on the Athenian temple, pushed out of the way, at the very gates of Vierma. Prince JVIetternich, who adds to his other multifarious offices that of Curator of the Impe- rial Academy of the Fine Arts, is said to have propos- ed that the coiTee-house should be purchased, and the
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temple built on its site, or, at least, erected on the ramparts. Instead of being sunk below them. This "Would have ^ivon the edifice an infinitely more conspi- cuous and imposing attitude; but perhaps they were not fond of setting the cliaste and severe majesty of the Doric temple in contrast with the gilded frippery of the Church of St. Charles, which would have closed the view at the other extremity, thoyn^h at a consider- able distance. Ii may be, likewise, that chey were not rich enough to buy the couee-hou^f'.*
Besides a number of private chapels, and the meet- in'y-houses of those communions which are only tole- rated bv the Romish hierarchy, Vieima contains fifty- seven churches, twenty in the proper city, and thirty- seven in the suburbs. Few of tliem aspire to the beauties of modern architecture, but neither do thry degenerate into mere toys. Although they contain many reliques of the olden tirne, which would have interest for the historian of Vitrina, there is little ab )Ut them to attract the notice i4' a stranger. St. MlchaeTs has a good deal of pillared pomj), though on a diminutive scale, and it is notorious as a place of as- sicrnations; the church of the Augustir e monastery is the only specimen in Vienna of the more light and airy
* Few build n^- in Vipnna are more valiiable than established coffpe-honses, or apothecar}? «ihoj)s. ' he reason is, that here, as in some other Gorman slates, no person can eng-ag-e in either of these professions without the permission of the Government, a perm.ssion always expensive, an i nner easily obtained. Some- times the privilej^e is m rely personal to the grantee, and expires with his life ; thi** is the course most jrenerally followed at pre- sent; but, in former tim -s, it xvas customary, as matter of special favour, to ;'.ttach il to a p;irticular build'.ng. v\ hich it follo.^"d, mto tha hands of whomsoever the house might come by sale or inhe- ritance, like a freehold quaitication. Houses of this kind, though frequently of no worth in themselves, bear an enormous value. The proprietor of a rioffee-house on the Graben wished to sell it; the purcliaser. in addition to an extravagant price for the house itself, a single flour, and a small one, paid upwards of L. 3000 for the privilege attached to it.
CHURCHES. S7$
species of Gothic, while all that is loftj, imposing, and sublime in that style ol archltectuie is urnlecl in the cathedral, Sf. Siepheirs. i( is the larj^est church of Germany; lis length from the princi[)al gate, wliich is never opened but on \ei'y solemn occasions, to the eastern extremitv, is (liree luindied arid tiftj feet, and its greatest breadth two Hundred and twenty. Thonr^h be^i^nn before the middle ui iLc uveiffh century, by the first Duke of Austria, It cannot be carried farther back, in its present foim, ihan the middle of the thir- teenth, during the earlier half of which it was twice burned down. Even then it was considerably without the city, though it is now in Its very centre, libing, free from other buildings, on tlie highest point of the slop- ing bank, along which Vienna swells up from the Da- nube. At the entrance of the Graben, the most bust- ling part of V^ienna, in rtgnrd to business, and forming part of its most fashionable promenade, there still stands the trunk of a tree, a solitary remnant of the forest which, in these da\s, intervened between the town and the cathedral. Bit, like tfje stockings of Mirtinus Scrlblerus, it» identity is extremely question- able ; tor, so many nails have been driven into It by the idle and the curious, that it is now ^ tree of iron, and gives to an adjacent part of the street the name of Stock-am-eisea Platz, lion Trunk Square.
Majestic as the ejiterior of the cathedral is, it is perhaps too heavy ; every corner is overburtliened with stone, a defect which is not dimlnlslied by the old monufnents stuck round its outer walls; It looks as if the early Austrians had wish(id to commemorate St. Stephen, by Cv)llecting in his church as great a quanti- ty as possible of the material which was the mstru- ment of his snartyrdom. But the intr^rior is noble — ample, sombre, simple, elevated, and overpowering. The wood<in carvin'^ round the sta'ls of the tribune is an interesting memorial of the early excrllrnce of i he Germans in this branch of art. There are une or two
576 VIENNA.
bulky monuments, but, though not ornaments, they do not greatly irjterrupt the fine perspective of the nave and aisles. The church, Indeed, derives its ornament simolv IVoiii its architecture ; the altars are unassum- ins^, and their pictures and statues are mediocre, except ar) Ecce Homo of Correggio, which is scarcely visible. At the western extremity is a gaudy chapel of the princelv family of Lichtenstein, remarkable merely for the privilege bestowed upon it by Pius VI. A long in=!cription records, thai by a grant of nis H')liness, the soul of a Lichtenstein shall be released from j.urgatory ev ry time t!mt mass is celebraied at the aliar of this chapel. Wlien wealth and rank can procure such con- veniencies, they really are something better than mere- ly temporal advantages. The tower of the church Is rivalled in height only by that of Strasburgh, but is not so light and elegant. The heii;hl, from the pavement to the pinnacle, is four hundred and fifty foet. The upper and pyramidal part has most visibly departed from the perperulicular, and inclines to the north. This aberrai;jn is said to have been first produced by the bombard-nent of the Turks in 1683, and to have been increased by the cannonading of the French wlien they marched to Vienna more than once during the late war.
Vienna is no longer a fortified city; promenading is the only purpose to which the fortifications are now applied; and, from their breadth and elevation, they are excellently adapted for it. In one part they look out upon the gradually ascending suburbs; on another the eye wandfrs over intervening vineyards, up to the bare ridge of the Kahlenberg, from which Sobieski made his triumphant attack against the besieging T jrks, traces of whose entrenchments are still visible ; in another it rests on the waters of the Danube, the foliage of the Prater, and the gay crowds who are streaming along to enjoy its shades. The tyvice suc- cessful attacks of French armies having proved the
THE GLACIS. 577
Farn parts, or bastions, as they are universally called, to be useless for the protection of the citizens, trees, benches, and coffee-houses have taken the place of cannon, and rendered them invaluable as sources of recreation to this pleasure-loving people. On Sun- days and holidays, so soon as the last mass has termi- nated, (which it always does about mid-day,) they are crowded to suffocation with people of all ranks. Even on week days, so long as the weather permits it, the coffee-houses, surrounded with awnings, are the fa- vourite resort of persons, chiefly gentlemen, who pre- fer breakfasting in the open air ; and, in the evening, they are the favourite resort of both sexes, especially of the middle classes. An orchestra in the open air furnishes excellent music ; as night comes on, (and the crowd always increases with the dusk,) lamps are hung up among the trees, or suspended from the a\'»nings. Tlie gay unthinking crowed sits to be gazed at, or strolls about from one alley to another to gaze — good and bad, virtuous and lost mingled together, sipping coffee, or keeping an assignation, eating an ice, or making love. Till ten o'clock, when the terrors of the Hans- meister drive them home, the ramparts, and the glacis below, form a collection of little Vauxhalls.
The glacis itself, the low, broad, and level space of ground which stretches out immediately from the foot of the ramparts, and runs entirely round the city, except where the walls are washed by the arm of the Danube, is no longer the naked and cheerless stripe which it used to be. Much of it has been formed into gardens belonging to different branches of the imperial family ; the rest has been gradually planted and laid out into alleys ; and, two years ago, the emperor, in his love for his subjects, allowed a coffee-house to be built among the trees. Beyond the glacis, the ground in general rises; and along these eminences stretch the thirty-four suburbs of Vienna, surrounding the city like the out- works of some huge fortification, and finally surrounded 1«
S7S VIENNA.
themselves by a brick wall, a mere instrument of police, to insure the detection of radicals and contraband goods, by subjecting every thing, and every person, to a strict exam nntjon.
The suburbs cover much more ground than the proper city, bui ihey are neither so well built, nor so densely inhabited. The Leopoldstadt, between the arm of the Danube and the main stream, is the most regular and most populous, and contains 600 houses; the smallest of them contains only eleven houses. The proper city contains little more than one-sixth of the whole number of houses which form the capital, but, from their greater size, it contains a much larger proportion of the whole population, which is gene- rally reckoned at from 280,000 to 300,000. A consi- derable part of the suburbs is occupied with gardens, partly, public, and partly private property. Both Prince Lichtenstein and Prince Esterhazy, besides their houses in the city, have palaces, gardens, and picture- galleries in the suburbs.
Though the suburbs, from the greater regularity of their streets, the smaller height of the buildings, and the general elevation of the site, are in themselves more open and airy than the city, yet, owing to the absence of pavement, and the presence of wind, they can scarcely be said to be more healthy. Vienna, though lying in a sort of kettle, and not at so absolute an elevation as Munich, is more pestered by high winds than any other European capital. In the proper city the streets are paved — and excellently well paved ; but, throughout the immense suburbs, they present only the bare soil. This soil is loose, dry, and sandy; and the wind acting upon it keeps the city and suburbs enveloped in a thick atmosphere, loaded with particles of sand, which medical men do not pretend to deny has a perceptible influence on health. Fronj the summit of the Kahlenberg, an eminence about two miles to fMe west, I have seen Vienna as completely obscured
THE PRATER. ST9
by a thick cloud of dust, as ever London is by a cloud of smoke ; and our smoke is, in reality, the less disa- greeable of the two. Wh'^n the wind is moderate, and allows the dust to settle, rain commonly follows, and the suburbs are converted into a succession of alleys of mud.
The temperature is extremely variable, principally, it is believed, from the neighbourhood of the Styrian mountams, and the free course which the openness of the country, towards Hungary, leaves to the east wind. It not only varies most provokingly in the course of a day, but its changes are often most sensibly felt in merely passing from one part of the city to another. It is to this that the medical men of Vienna almost universally ascribe the prevalence of rheumatic affec- tions, which, with gout and consumption, are the beset- ting infirmities of the Austrian capital. Consumption, they say, is greatly aided, if not frequently produced, by the quantity of dust with which the air is so often loavled all day long, and a considerable portion of which is necessarily inhaled ; while the acidity of the native wines, of which so much is drunk, even by the lower classes, comes forth in the shape of those gouty affec- tions so common in Vienna, not precisely the genuine, old-English, port-wine gout, but arthritic complaints differing from it in little, except in degree. Amid the prevalence of such ailments, the inhabitants are fortu- nate in having the hot springs of B.iden so near them. They are almost specifics in rheumatism. Though they find the gout a more stubborn enemy, they always confine his operations, and not unfrequently succeed in putting him entirely to flight.
The Prater of Vienna is the finest public park in Europe — for it has more rural beauty than Hyde Park, and surelv the more varied and natural arrangement of its woods and waters is preferable to the formal basins and alleys of the garden of the Thuilleries. It occupies the eastern part of that broad and level tract
380 VIENNA.
on the north of the city, which is formed into an island by the main stream of the Danube on the one side, and the smaller arm that washes the walls on the other. They unite at its extremity, and the Prater is thus sur-^ rounded on three sides by water. The principal alley, the proper arive, runs from the entrance, in a long, straight line, for about half a mile. Rows of trees, consisting chiefly of horse-chesnuts, divide it into five alleys. The central one is entirely filled with an un- ceasing succession of glittering carriages, moving slowly along its opposite sides, in opposite directions ; the two on each side are filled with horsemen, gallopping along, to try the capacity of their steeds, or provoking them into impatient curvettings, to try the effect of their own forms and dexterity on the beauties who adorn the open caleches. The two exterior alleys are conse^- crated to pedestrians ; but those of the Viennese who must walk, because not rich enough to hire a hackney coach, are never fond of walking far ; and, forsaking the alleys, scatter themselves over the verdant !awi| which spreads itself out to where the wood becomes more dense and impenetrable. The lawn itself is plentifully strewed with coffee-houses; and the happy hundreds seat themselves under shady awnings, or on the green herbage, beneath a clump of trees, enjoying their ices, coffee, and segars, till twilight calls them to the theatre, with not a thought about to-morrow, and scarcely a reminiscence of yesterday. But though the extremity of this main alley be the boundary of the excursions of the fashionable world, it is only the begin- ning of the more rural and tranquil portion of the Prater. The wood becomes thicker; there are no more straight lines of horse-chesnuts ; the numerous alleys wind their way unconstrained through the forest^ maze, now leading you along, in artificial twilightj be- neath an overarching canopy of foliage, and now ter- minating in some verdant and tranquil spot, like those on which fairies delight to dance ; now bringing you to
SOCIETY. 381
the brink of some pure rivulet, which trickles along unsuspectingly, to be lost in the mighty Danube, and now stopping you on the shady banks of the magnificent river itself.
CHAPTER XIII.
VIENNA.
AMUSEMENTS AND MANNERS IlELIGI ON— GOVERN- MENT.
A STRIKING peculiarity of the Austrian capital lies in the diversity of character which it exhibits. The em- pire is a most heterogeneous one ; the provinces which compose it do not differ more from each other in geo- graphical situation, than they do in language and na- tional character ; and the hi2:her ranks in all of them are perpetually making the cornmcn capital the place either of a temporary sojourn, or of their continued residence. The joyous and happy Austrian, always pleased with himself, and inclined to do all he can to please every body else, looks with much indifference on the proud step, the gallant bearing, and magnificent parade of the haughty Hungarian, who, full of imagin- ed superiority, and, what is stranger still, of imagined superiority in political rights,* makes the streets re-
* The HnngarJan nobles (and every man calls himself noble who is not an absolute slave, a mere adscri piitius gleboe) place their pride in the political constitution of their countr}', which they call a free one, and which I have heard them often set above that of Britain. The Emperor, say they, cannot exact a farthing or a man from us, or impose a single law upon us, without our own permission. This is a most ignorant boast. The constitution of Hungary is, till this day, one of the most oppressive oligarchies that Europe has seen, much more mischievous, because much less enlightened, than the destroyed oligarchy of Venice. It is pev
.38£ VIENNA.
sound with the clattering of his chivalrous spurs, even thouich he should never mount a horse. The Bohe- mian brinj^s along with him both more real feeling and greater mental activity. The Pole, while he mingles among them, shows, even in his pleasures, a degree of solemnity and reserve, and still maniiests the melan- choly feelingof the loss of nationd independence. The Italian subjects of the empire join in the crowd. If business or cariosity has brought them to the capital, they walk among the people, cautious and taciturn, perfectly aware with what jealousy they are regard- ed, and that spies are watching eveiy step, and listen- ing to every word. If they are in place, or are come to seek place, they laud the beneficence, prudence, and patriotism of the Austrian Government of Italy with a
fectly true that the aristocracy can controul the monarch in every thing ; bi]t then, it is equally true, that nobody can controul them, and that all beneath them have only to obey. The king of Hungary is, indeed, only Its first UMgi'^trate ; but its nobiiity are despots, and its people have neither right? nor \ oxe. This is peculiarly true of the rural population, who are still the most dpgraded and maltreat- ed "n Europe, an;^) just in consequence of the boasted Hungarian cons^tution. If Hungary had been W;thout this constitution, Maria Theresa, Joseph, and Leopold, could have done much more good than they actually succeeded in effecting. There have been ma- ny libera! and enlightened despots, but the world has not yet seen a body of enlightened and liberal despots. A learned person of Vienna related to me Ihe foliowmg circumstance, of which he was an eye-witness. He had gone down into Hutigary to spend a few days with one of its most respectable noblemen. Taking a walk with the Count, one afternoon, over part of the grounds, they came upon some peasants who were enjoying their own rustic amuse- ments. The Count imagined that one of them did not notice him, as lie passed, with >Juihcient humility ; he inimediitely sent a boy to his house for some servants, and, so soon as they appeared, or- dered them to se.ze, bmd, and lash the poor man. His orders were instantly executed. W , thunderstruck at the causeless barba- rity, entreated the Count to put an end to such a punishment for so trivial nn offence, if it was one at all. The answer was ; '' What ! do you intercede for such a brute ? He is no nobleman. That these people may not think any bo»!y cnres about them, give' him twenty more, my lads, in honour of W ," and they were ad- ministered,
THE DRAMA. S83
servility which is desj iccible, or exaj^o^erRto the vices of rhoir ovvii country, and speak wiiii a toroetfulness of its true honour a:.J vveliare which is utterly detest- able.
But all these varieties of population join in the uni- versal love of cnjojnient ot the native Viennese, and assist in swelliui^j the stream of dissoluteness and plea- sure which is unceasingly holding its way through the Austrian capital. Vienna, with a po[)u!alion not ex- ceeding three hundred thousand inhabitants, supports five theatres, comparatively a much greater number than is found necessary to minister to the amusement of London. Three of them are in the suburbs, and belong to private proprietors ; the two others, which are both in the city, are imperial property. There is no architectural merit about them externally; inter- nally they are gaudy. Each of the comjjanies has a wnlk of its own. The Barg-Tlieatre, or Court Thea- tre, which forms |>art of the palace, is appropriated entirely to the regular drama ; its boards are trodden only by tragedy and comedv, and someiimes by that mixed species called Schauspiel^ or Spectacle, which is neither the one nor the other, has Irequently some- thing of both, atid, as its name imports, is a banquet for the eyes, rather than an entertainment for fancy or feeling. Broad vulgar farce is not often admitted, but has found refuge, and flourishes luxuriantly, in the su- burbs. The performers are at least on a level with those of Berlif), but their tragicdeclamation is tiresome and monotonous. They ai"e perpetually rnntirig ; the public iaste is not sufficiently pure. Comedy is much better oiT, both in tlie actors, and in what is to be act- ed; for, afier all, with the exception of Schiller, Ger- man tragedy is deficient in true dramatic stuff ; it deals more in situation and image ry than in character and passion. It would be difficult, indeed, to |»r6duce any thiig like a lon^ hst of comedies which coidd stand the test of slrict criticism, but what country can produce
384 VIENNA.
such a list ? There is only one School lor Scandal. People go to a comedy to laugh heartily at the follies of other people ; and if these follies be so represented as that sensible and well bred persons can enjoy the ridicule, the theatre will be filled, in defiance of critics. Now, of such pieces which, though not displaying a great deal of dramatic genius, yield a great deal of amusement, the German stage has a large quantity. To say nothing of the endless Kotzebue, Ifland proddC- ed no fewer than forty-eight pieces, Junger twenty- eight, Madam Weissenthurn, st»l! an actress on the Vi- enna stage, between twenty and thirty, and Schroder about thirty. Ziegler, too, a retired performer, has written much, but not well. His pieces are generally serious and showy, excessively dull, full of rhodomon- tade, and devoid of character. His comedies are mis- erable, and he has v»^ritten an essay to prove that Shakespeare's Hamlet is a badly drawn character.
Civil tragedy, if it be allowable to borrow the Ger- man expression, that is, tragedy founded on the misfor- tunes of persons in prjvate situations, is much more cultivated, and much more popular in Germany than with us. The Gamesters and George Barnwell belong to this class, but the Germans have a host of them. Ifland wrote much in this way, but is often dull and te- dious; his scenes are frequently mere alterations of set rhetorical speeches, which plain and sensible citizens never talk to each other. Vienna possesses an actor, an old man, of the name of Koch, who is inimitable in this branch of the drama. I never knew an actor draw so many tears from an audience as this man does, when he plays the worthy broken-hearted father, borne down by the dissoluteness or the crimes of a son, as in the Verbrechen aus Ehre.
Altogether, however, the prevailing taste is for show and noise ; Schiller's Maid of Orleans will always at- tract a greater audience than his Death of Wallen- stein. So little accurate are they even in this their
THE DRAMA. 385
favourite taste, that the grossest violation of costume and sense are frequently committed without beirii^oven remarked. In the Maid of Orleans, Dunuis takes the place of the king, who stands beside him, for the j)ur- pose of essaying whether Johanna will detect the cheat, and thus prove her divine mission. liitho Bin-g Thea- tre, Dunois seated himself or? the thi'one, uncovered, and in a very ordinary dress ; Charles stood by, in bonnet and plume, and robed in the er mined |:uiple. Johanna must have been very silly indeed to have blundered. More pardonable, but still more laugha- ble, are the absurdities which frequently occur in pie- ces that deal witli foreign customs. In Ziegler's " Par- teiwuth," the scene of which is laid in England durmg the Republic, a jury makes its appearance on the stage in a criminal trial. It consists of six persons; they are robed m the professional unifi^rm of gowns and wigs, and talk most constitutionally of the danger of lobing their places as jurymen, il they give a verdict against the ruling party. The Shernf presides, though Cliief Justice Coke has come down on purpose to hold the commission. His Lordship sits at the table, as crown counsel, and finally charges the jury. The censor knew well, that such a representation of trial by jury could not be infectious.
The finest productions of the German Muse are woefully spoiled, likewise, by tlie scissors of the cen- sor. Not only is every thing omitted winch displeases the bigotry of the priesthood, or the despotism of the government, but alterations are made for wiiich no earthly reason can be assigned, except a very silly sen- sibility and mawkish sentimentalism. To ^^-xchide dan- gerous ideas about liberty and the House of H.ipsbuigh^ William Tell is so miserably mangled, that the play- loses all connection. Schiller, in his Robbers, made Charles Moor and his brother sons of the old irian : in Vienna they are converted into nephews, for want of filial affection, forsooth, is something too horrible to be 49
586 VIENNA.
brought on the stage. With so little consistency is the alteration carried through, that Chailes, af^er he has spoken about his uncle through lour acts, in the tilth calls Heaven and Hell together to avenge the mal- treatment of his father. The monk who comes to the haunt of the banditti, as ambassador to the magistracy, and who makes, to be sure, a ridiculous enough figure, is changed into a lawyer; for, why should tiie cloth be laughed at ? as if ridiculous priests were not at least equally numerous with ridiculous jurisconsults, and as if the danger of leaching people to laugh at law and jus- tice by the one exhibition, were not just as great as the danger of teaching them to laugh at religion by the other. The lying account brought to the old man of the death of Charles, r€[ resents him to have fallen in the battle of Prague (Kolin) in the Seven Years' War. Now, the Austrian^ have so little pleasure in recollecting the Seven Years' War, that, on their stage, the whole action is thrown back to the days of King Matthias, and Charles is made to fall in battle against the Mussulmen.
The very ballets and operas are watched over with the same jealous care. It is very ridiculous to be so thin-skinned, and not at all prudent to show it. The Emperor seems to think so himself. When I was in Vienna, a drama appeared, Der Tagsbrjehl^ founded on the current anecdote of Frederick the Great, in the Seven Years' War, having compelled an officer whom he had detected writing to his wife by candle-light, though a general order had been Issued prohibiting fires or lights after sunset, to add, in a postscript, '* To- morrow I am to be shot for a breach of duty," and having actually put him to death. The piece instant- ly made a great noise, for there were battles in it ; but much more, from the admirable personification which the actor (who was likewise the author) gave of the Prussian monarch. Those who still recollected Fred- erick were hurried away by the illusion. The Empe- ror saw it, and was delighted ; and, on leaving his box.
THE DRAMA. 387
said to one of the noblemen who attended him, "Now, 1 am glad that I have seen it, for, do ^ou hear, ihej will be for prohibiting it immediately" — alluding to its connection with the Seven Years' V\ ar*.
The other court theatre, called, from its situation, the theatre of tlie Carinihian Gate, is properly the opera-fiouse. The representations given in it are ex- clusively operas and ballets. No where are the one or the other got up with greater splendour and expense than here, for it would be dillicult to find in Europe a public so extravagantly fond of theatrical music and theatrical dancing as that of Vienna. The [)ublic taste runs much more in these two channels than in that of the regular diama. Melpomene and Tiialia are even plundered of their hard earned gains to sup- ply the extravagance of then" meretricious sisters. The expenses of the opera and ballet are so enormous, that the income of the theatre, at least under the im- perial direction, has always been deficient, and has swallowed up the gains made on the regular drama. This has at last induced the government to put them into private hands. A lease of the theatie was given to a Neapolitan in 1822. He immediately raised the prices, and made the Viennese sulky; he then produced an Italian company, with Rossini at its head, and their singing made the Viennese enthusiastically frantic.
Of the theatres in the suburbs, that on the Vienna holds almost the same rank with an imperial theatre. It is the property of a Hungarian nobleman, who, equally unfortunate in his management as the court, gave it in lease to the same enterprising Italian who took the opera house. It is the most elegant theatre in Vienna. Its boards admit every thing, the drama, melo-drame, farce, opera, ballet, but itself and its per- formers are fitted only for mere spectacles. That is the path in which it finds no rival, for its machinery- surpasses all others. "You will find," said the propri- etor to me when inviting me to visit it, " you will find
388 flENNA.
as many ropes and pulleys as in one of your ships of war," a woeful recumiiiondation of a theatre. It pos- sessed, till Mtvy lately, a depa^^tment of the ballet which was unique in Europe. The ballet-master had educated nearly two hundred children, boys and girls, into a regular corps de ballet. Even when they were dismissed, (in IU'2'2,) the o^realest number of them did not exceed twelve, many of them not eight years of age. Tije ballets composed for them were extremely appro- priate, being taken chiefly from stories of spirits and enchaniments, in which the young dancers appeared as fairies or hobgoblins. On the commencement of the new management, this seminary of dancing and immo- rality was suppressed, on the urgent recommendation, it was universally said, of the Empress herself.
The theatre in the suburb called the Leopoldstadt, though private properly, is the true national theatre of Austria, the favourite of the middling and lower clas&- es, and not slighted even by the more cultivated. It is devoted entirely to mirth and song, but the jokes and character of the pieces are throughout Austrian. The broadest farce and most extravagant caricature, exaggerated parodies, and the wildest fairy inventions, are all made the vehicle of humour and satire, which would scarcely be understood any where else, for they are generally founded on some local and temporary in- terest, full of allusions to the passing follies of Vienna, and written in the broad and national dialect of the Austrian common people. One must be an Austrian to enjoy them. They are in a great measure lost to a stranger, as well from the local allusions, as from the language. The performers correspond perfectly to the plays. It is their business to o'erstep the modesty of nature; but, in their own way, some of them are mas- ters. Schuster is fully as great a man in Vienna as Matthews is at home. The humour is no doubt broad and extravagant, and frequently indecent : but still it is national and characteristic, and the Austrians are the
THE DRAMA. 389
only people of Germany who possess any thing of the kind. They have even some talent at caricature ma- king, but the two great departments of that satirical art, pubhc men and private scandal, aie shut against them. They are fond of punning, but their language is too rich for il. A celebrated advocate is at present the Coryphaeus both ol" the bar and the punsters.
The Viennese take to themselves the reputation of being the most musical public in Europe; and this is the only part of their character about which they dis- play much jealousy or anxiety. So long as it is grant- ed that they can produce among their citizens a great- er number of decent performers on the violin or piano than any other capital, they have no earthly objection to have it said that they can likewise produce a great- er number of blockheads and debauchees. They are fond of music, and are good [)erformers; but it is more a habit than a natural inclination. Of all the people in Germany, universal as the love of music is among them, the Bohemians appear to draw most directly from nature. Every Bohemian seems to be borr* a musician ; he takes to an instrunjent as naturally as to walking or eating, and it gradually becomes as neces- sary to him as either. In summer and autumn, you cannot walk out ii] the evening, in any part of the country, without hearing concerts performrd even by the peasanti-y with a precision which practice, no doubt, always can give, but likewise with a richness and justness of expression which practice alone caniiot give. Gyrowetz and VVranitzky, the best known among the living native composers of the empire, and deserv- edly admired, above all, for their ballet music, are both Bohemians. All these honours the Viennese place upon their own head. A capital in which amusement is the great object of every body's pursuit, is always the place where a musician, be he composer or per- former, will gain most money. Every man of reputa- tion seeks his fortune in Vienna, and its citizens, run-
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ning over a list of great names, expect you should al- low their city to be the soul of music, and music the soul of their city. They have had within their walls Mozart, Haydn, and Humn:iel ; t!iey have still among them Beethoven and Salieri, Gyrowetz, and Gelinek : but not one of these belongs to Austria. That a man was borrj and reared in Bohemia or Hungary, instead of Austria, does not merely mean that he beloi gs to a particular geographical division of the same empire. In turn of mind, in manners, in language, the Austrian is as diiferent from the Bohemian or Hungarian, as from the Pole or Dalmatian. Vanity is by no means a ge- neral failing of the Austrians, any more than uf the other German tribes; but when they attempt to dis- prove I he Boeotian character which the common coun- try has fixed upon them, they not ui.frequently just give new proofs how well it is deserved. I have seen a " Review of the Literature of Austria" in a respec- table periodical of Vienna, in which the author, to sup- port tne honour of his country against the wits of the north, actually stuck into his nosegay of Austrian weeds all that had blossomed, during the preceding twenty years, from the mouths of the Po to the foot of the Sim pi on.
It *b U'ji 11 be denied, however, that in the general diffusion of dilletanteism, and that, too, accompanied by a degree of practical proficiency which rises far above mediocrity, Vienna has no superior. Wherever cards, those sworn enemies of every thing like amusement or lightness of heart, those unsocial masks of insipidity and taedium, do not intrude upon their private parties or family circle, music is the never failing resource. Con- cert playing is their great delight, as well as their great excellence, and hence that admirable accuracy of ear which is so observable in the Viennese. So soon as a boy has fingers fit for the task, he betakes himself to an in- strument ; — and this, alas ! is frequently the only part of his education that is followed out with much perseve-
MUSIC. 39i
ranee or success. From the moment he is in any degree master of his instrument, he pla^s in concert. A family of sons and daughters who cannot get up a very res|jectable concert, on a moment's notice, are cumberers of the ground on the banks of the Da- nube. This practice necessarily gives a fiigh degree of precision in executiou, and, to a certain extent, even dehcacv of ear ; but still al! this is in thie Vicn- nese only a habit, and a very artificial one. They may become more accurate performers than the citizens and peasantry of the south, but they will never feel the influence of "sweet sounds" with half the ener- gy and voluj>tuousness which they infuse into the I a- lian. The enjoyment of the former is confined to the powers of the instrument, the latter carries the notes within himself into regions of feeling beyond the direct reach of string or voice ; the one would be lost in the singer, the other would forget the singer in the music. Go to an opera in any provincial town of Italy. In the pit you will probably find yourself surrounded, I do not say by tradesinen and shopkeepers, but by vetturinos, porters, and labourers. Yet you will easly discover, that what to the same sort of persons in any other country would be at best tiresome, if not ridiculous, is to them an entertainment of pure feeling. You will mark how eagerly they follow the expression of the melody and harmony; you will hear them criticise the music and the musicians with no less warmth, and with far more judgment, (because it is a thing much more wilhin their reach,) than our pot-house politi- cians debate on the reform of the British Parliament, or the constitution of the Spanish Cortes. Is it not ow- ing to this inherent natural capacity of understanding and speaking the language in which music addresses us, that Italian singers have maintained their pre-emi- nence in Europe since operas were first known? In every capital of the Continent, and even among our- selves, there are native voices as good, impioved by
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as studious industry, managed with as much practical skill, and acconi^)aiiied by as great theoretical knowl- edge, as ever crossed the Alps. Yet they never pro- duce the same eifect in any music that rises above me»- diocrity.
iVIl this has nothing to do with the comparative me- rits of the music of Italy and Germany. Great com- posers, like great poets, are the same every where. They are ail made of the same stutE The musical taste of the Viennese has been formed and saved by the purity of their great composers. In their love of practical excellence, they would have run into the heartless rattling, the capriccios, and bizarrerie of the French school; but the admirably good taste of their masters has always kept them within due bounds. People who reckon it almost a misfortune not to be able to hum Don Giovanni, or the Creation, without book, are in little danger of falling into extravagances.
Beethoven is the most celebrated of the living com- posers in Vienna, and, in certain depariments, the fore- most of his day. Though not an old man, he is lost to society in consequence of his extreme deafness, which has rendered him almost unsocial. The neglect of his person which he exhibits gives him a somewhat wild appearance. His features are strong and promi- nent ; his eye is full of rude energy ; his hair, which neither comb nor scissors seem to have visited for years, overshadows his broad brow in a quantity and confusion to which only the snakes round a Gorgon's head offer a parallel. His general behaviour does not ill accord with the unpromising exterior. Except when he is among his chosen friends, kindliness or affa- bility are not his characteristics. The total loss of hearing has deprived him of all the pleasure which so- ciety can give, and perhaps soured his temper. He used to frequent a particular cellar, where he spent the evening in a corner, beyond the reach of all the chattering and disputation of a public room, drinking
MUSIC. 398
wine and beer, eating cheese and red herrings, and studying the newspapers. One evening a person took a seat near him whose countenance did not please him. He looked hard at the stranger, and spat on the floor as if he had seen a toad ; then glanced at the newspa- per, then again at the intruder, and spat again, his hair brisrliujj gradually into m^re shaggy ferocity, till he closed the alteination of spitting and staring, by fairly exclaiming, "What a scoundrelly phiz!" and rushing out of the room. Even among his oldest friends he must be humoured like a wavward child. He has always a small paper book with him, and what conversation takes place is carried on in writing. In this, too, although it is not lined, he instantly jots down any musical idea which strikes him. These notes would be utterly unintelligible even to another musi- cian, for they have thus no comparative value ; he alone has in his own mind the thread by which he brings out of this labyrinth of dots and circles the rich- est and most astounding harmonies. The moment he is seated at the piano, he is evidently unconscious that there is any thing in existence but himself and his in- strument ; and, considering how very deaf he is, it seems impossible that he should hear all he plays. Accordingly, when playing very piano, he often does not bring out a sinjjle note. He hears it himself in the " mind's ear." While his eye, and the almost im- perceptible motion of his fingers, show that he is fol- lowino; out the strain in his own soul through all its dying gradations, the instrument is actually as dumb as the musician is deaf.
I have heard him play, but to bring him so far re- quired some management, so great is his horror of be- ing any thing like exhibited. Had he been plainly asked to do the company that favour, he would have flatly refused ; he had to be cheated into it. Every person left the room, except Beethoven and the mas- ter of the house, one of his most intimate acquaintari- 50
394 VIEN3MA.
ces. These two carried on a conversation in the pa- per book about bank stock. The gentleman, as if by chance, struck the kejs of the open piano, beside which they were sitting, gradually began to run over one of Beethoven's own compositions, made a thousand errors, and speedily blundered one passage so thorough- ly, that the composer condescended to stretch out his hand and put him right. It w^as enough ; the hand was on the piano; his companion immediately left him, on some pretext, and joined the rest of the company, who, in the next room, from which they could see and hear every thing, were patiently waiting the issue of this tiresome conjuration. Beethoven, left alone, seat- ed himself at the piano. At first he only struck now and then a few hurried and interrupted notes, as if afraid of being detected in a crime ; but gradually he forgot every thing else, and ran on during haif an hour in a phantas' , in a style extremely varied, and marked, above all, by the most abrupt transitions. The ama- teurs were enraptured ; to the uninitiated it was more interesting, to observe how the music of the man's soul passed over his countenance. He seems to feel the bold, the commanding, and the impetuous, more than what is soothing or gentle. The muscles of the face swell, and his vems start out ; the wild eye rolls dou- bly wild; the mouth quivers, and Beethoven looks like a w^izard, overpowered by the demons whom he himself has called up.
There is a musical society in Vienna, consisting of nearly two thousand members, by far the greatest part of whom are merely amateurs. Many of them are ladies; even a princess figures in the catalogue as a singer, for no person is admitted an active member who is not able to take a part, vocal or instrumental, in a concert. They seem to expend more ingenuity in inventing new instruments than in improving the ma- nufacture of known ones. I have heard Beethoven say, that he found no pianos so good as those made in
MUSIC. S9^
London. Every body knows the Harmonica, at least by name ; but what will the reader say to the Phys- harmonica, the Ditanaclasis, the Xanorphica, the Pam- melodicon, the Davidica, the Amphiona? Considering bow far the Austrians are behind in most tilings in which a people ought to be ashamed of being behind, it is a thousand pities that pursuits of higher utility and respectability cannot obtain from them a greater share of the industry and perseverance which so many of them display in the acquisition of this elegant ac- complishment. They have an excellent opera, and that is sufficient to console them for the fact, that in the whole range of German literature, a literature, young as it is, studded with so many bright names, there is not a single great man whom Aiistria can claim as her own. In Vienna, with three hundred thousand inhabitants, there are thirty booksellers, four circulat- ing libraries, sixty-five piano-forte makers, and dancing- halls without number.
Many of these dancing-halls are institutions for infa- mous purposes. They belong to private proprietors, "who are always innkeepers. On the evening of every Sunday, and generally of every great religious festival, "when every body is idle and seeking amusement, these congregations are opened in the suburbs as well as in the city. The balls given in them are less or more merely a pretext for bringing worthless persons toge- ther. The price of admission is extremely low, for the scoundrelly landlord speculates on the consumption of wine and eatables during the evening. In more cases than one, the object is so little concealed, that females are admitted gratis; and the hand-bill, which fixes the price of admission for gentlemen at fourpence or six- pence, adds, with a very appropriate equivoque, Das Frauenzimmer istfrey. It is thus that these institutions, by furnishing opportunity, and inflaming the passions at so cheap a rate, diffuse the poison of licentiousness among the males of the middle and lower orders, Ag
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to the ladies again, those who aspire at being sought, instead of seeking, those who consider themselves as forming the aristocracy of their own community, and the Corinthian capital of prostitution, carefully avoid all such iniercourse with their more vulgar sisters. In this they show a wiser feeling of dignity and reserve than their betters. In external behaviour, however, these lost creatures are perhaps the uiost deceiit in Europe. You run no risk of b<:ing even addressed, much less of being attacked with the gross depravity of Covent-Garden or the Palais Royal.
How do the rest of the ladies, then, behave in Vienna? Really, generally speaking, not much better. There cannot be a more dissolute city — one where female virtue is less prized, and, therefore, less fre- quent. A total want of principle, the love of pleasure, and the love of finery, are so universally diffused, that wives and daughters, in not only what we would call comfortable, but even affluent circumstances, do not shrink from increasing the means of their extravagance by forgetting their duty. They sacrifice themselves, not so much from inclination, as from interest. You will probably find in Naples or Rome as many faithless wives, who are so from a temporary and variable liking, as in Vienna; but you will not find so many who throw away their honour from the love of gain. The advan- tage seems to be on the side of the Italian. Worth- less as both are, even a passing liking is something less degrading than the mere infamous calculation of pounds^ shillings, and pence, without even the excuse of poverty. The girls of the lower classes grow up to licentiousness | the rage for dress and luxury is no less strong among them than among their superiors; and thcugfi it cer^ tainly looks like a harsh judgment, it is not too much to say, as a general truth, that, from the time they are capable of feeling this love of show and easy living, they consider their person as the fund that is to supply the meaiH of its gratification. It is not seduction : it
MANNERS. 397
is just a matter of sale ; nor arc mothers ashamed to be the brokers of their daughters. Tlierc Is no want of purchasers. The most famous, or rather infamous, is Prince Kaunitz.* He is said to possess a gahery of purchased beauties, that might stand by the side of an Eastern seraolio. This was not enough. The infan- tine years of some of his victims produced fngl.tiul ehari^es against him. An inccijsed fal^rjijr, disregarding the daiJi;er of accusirjg a powerful man. cnm[>iained directly to the Emperor. The Emperor instantly ordereu Kaunitz to be imprisoned, and proceeded against criminally. He had been in prison nearly two months when I 'cft Vienna, and the inquiry was not yet finished. The Viennese, however, though a little astounded at the uncommon idea of a high nobleman being actually imprisoned for crimes not political, soon recovered their senses; and every body believed his punishment would be — a prohibition to appear at court, and an order to reside for a while on his estates in the country.
The quantity of licentiousness is commonlj smallest in the middle class of a people. It is not so in Vienna, at least among the men. To hear the nonchalance with which a party of respectable merchants or shopkeepers speak of their amours, you would think them dissolute bachelors; vet they are husbands and fathers, and, provided all circumstances of public scandal be avoided, it never enters their heads that their conduct has any thing improper in it. Every one, male and female, bears most Christianly with every other. All this leads to a strange mixture of society, particularly on public occasions. In a Baden assembly-rocm, it is nothing uncommon to see worthless women elbowmg the Arch-duchesses of Austria. Hf^re walks tKe Em- press, and there a couple of genteel frail ones Irom Vienna. It is perfectly true, that it is a ball-room, and
* Surely there is no indelicncv in mentioning the name of a princely (hbauchee, whose conduct has become the subject €)i investigation m a court of criminal justice.
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the ticket costs only elghteen-pence ; and, as worthy women say, how can we prevent tliem from coming, when they pay their money? But thither virtuous women do go, knowing perfectly well beforehand the sort of society with which they will infaiHb!y be mixed up. The gentlemen do not seem to lay themselves under much restraint. I have seen noblemen, in the presence of the court, flutter for a while round the more distinguished of these creatures, and then return to flutter round the maids of honour. It is in vain that their Iinperial Majesties are spotless in their life and conversation; it does not go beyond themselves; the public mind is vitiated through and through; they are surrounded bv a mass of coiruution, much too dense to be penetrated by the light of any single exam- ple.* A wealthy foreigner, generally resident in Vien- na, the companion of princes and ministers, used to drive his mistress into the Prater before the admiring and envious eyes of all the world. The gir! had what in this country would be called the impudence to invite most of the ministers and corps diplomatique to a ball ; and they had what in this C( untry would be called the forgetfulness of character to go. Prince 'Vletternich being asked by a foreign minister whether he intended to go, archly answered, " Why, T would rather like to see the thing; but, you know, it might hurt one's cha- racter here !" When it was proposed to Joseph II. to build licensed brothels, the Emperor said, *' The walls would cost me noihing, but the expense of roofing would be ruinous, for it would just be necessary to put a roof over the whole city." The hospitals and private
* Munich is, at least, not worse than Vienna, for nothings can be worse ; and from a statement in the Hamburg Correspondent, in May 1*^)2 , it ai)pe:irs that 304 legitimat*^ children were born in Munich, in the first three months of that year, and 307 illegitimate children. If to the acknowledged illegitimate we add those of the ostensibly legitimate who have no other claim to the title than the maxim, pater est quern nuptice deinonstrant^ what a result comes out fis to the morality of these capitals f
MANNERS. 399
sick-rooms of Vienna teem with proofs how mercifullj" Providence acted, when it placed the quicksilver mines of Idria, in a province destined to form part of an empire of which Vienna was to be the capital.
This, with the general want of manly and indepen- dent feeling, of which it is merely a modificatiou, is the worst point in the character of the Viennese ; setting aside this unbounded love of pleasure, and the disincli- nation to rigorous industry, either bodily or intellec- tual, that necessarily accompanies it, they are honest, affectionate, and obliging people. There is some weakness, however, in their fondness for being honour- ed with high sounding f^rms of address. This Jib|.'0- sition may be expected, in isonif dcj^rce or other, in every country where tlie received forms of society and modes of ihiiiking give every tiling to rank, and noth- ing to character ; but no where is it carried to such an extravagant length as in Vienna, producing even sole- cisms in language. Every man who holds any public office, should it be merely that of an under clerk, on a paltry salary of forty pounds a-year, must be gratified by hearing his title, not his name; and, if you have oc- casion to write to such a person, you must address him, not merely as a clerk, but as "Imperial and Boyal Clerk," in such and such an " Imperial and Royal Of- fice." Even absent persons, wlien spoken of, are ge- nerally designated by their official titles, however humble and unmeaning these may be. The ladies are not behind in asserting their claims tu honorary appel- lations. All over Gerinany, a wife insists on taking the official title of her husband, with a fen.inine terr^rma- tion. There is Madaai G«aieraless, Madam Pi«vy- councilloress. Madam Chitf-book-keeperess, and a hun- dred others. In Vienna, a shopkeeper's wife will not be well pleased with any thing under Gnadige Frcu, Gracious Madam. It is equally common, and still more absurd, for both sexes to prefix von (of), the symbol of nobility, to the sirname, as if the latter werf^
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the name of an estate. A dealer in pickles or pipe heads, for instance, whose name inaj happen to be Mr. Charles, must be called, if jou wish to be polite, Mr. of Charles, and his helpmate Mrs. of Charles. Koizebue has ridiculed all this delightfully in his Deutsche Kleinstadte^ the most laughable ol" all farces.
This looseness of morals, so disgraceful to the Austrian capital, if not aided, is, at least, verj little restrained by religion ; that hajjpy self-satisfaction under certain iniquities, which only quickens our pace in the career of guilt, though it may not form any part of the doctrines of the Catholic church, is an almost infallible consequence of the deceptive nature of many parts of lier ritual, and exists as a fact in every country where her hierarchy is dominant, and no ex- traneous circumstances m dify its corrupting influence. Popery is tlie established rehVion in all the provinces of the empire ; but, since JosepJi II. had t\ie manli- ness and justice to forsake the barbarous policy of his mother, who hunted down even the few straggling Protestants that lurked in the mountains of Slyria, every other form of worship has been tolerated. Pro- testants are not very nunjerous in Vienna itself, and they are not so much Austrians by birth, as iaiiiilies from the Protestant states ol Gernjany, and the north of HiingdiVy., who have settled in Vienna. The Luthe- rans have one meeting-house, and the Calvinists anoth- er, placed side by side, and both of them partly form- ed of what, forty years ago, was a Popish convent. The clergymen are excellent preachers, and enjoy a reputation for eloquence and learning w hicb no Catho- lic ecclesiastic surpasses. The congregations, though not imposing in numbers, are more than respectable in character and wealth ; in bad weather, the array of carriages at the Protestant meeting-houses is not equal- led at the doors of any Catholic church. The most numerous class of Christians, not Papists, are the ad- herents of the Greek church: they are said to exceed
RELIGION. 401
four thousand, and they have four chapels. The Jews have a couple of ciiapels. Vienna contain? many Is- raehtes of ^rcat woaUh, and, therefore, of high impor- tance; it contains still more of those who, to gain worldly respectability, have ostensibly become con- verts to Christjanity. Many generations must pass away before the latter will gain all that they contem- plated in submitting to be baptized, or be allowed to feel that their blood has been regenerated : ein haptizirter Jude, a baptized Jew, is always pronounced as a term of contempt. But these persons are rich; and Christian youths, like Vespasian with the produce of his tax, find no unseemly odour in the gold of a Jew- ish bride.
Joseph administered such violent medicines, and Leopold, during his brief reign, was so unwilling to ad- minister restoratives, that the monkish institutions of the empire, reduced to a skeleton, were rapidly ap- proaching their dying hour ; his present majesty, him- self a most devout, and unaffectedly devout man, mount- ed the throne, and they have recovered much of their monastic corpulence. Nay, four years ago, Vienna presented the spectacle of the creation of a new order, at a time when, in every other country of Europe, there was but one voice amongst reasonable men against the increase of such orders, if not for the sup- pression of those which already existed. The new order originated in the expulsion of the Jesuits from Russia, some of whom found protection in Vienna. It Avas thought prudent to avoid the odious name which had already exposed them to destruction in so many corners of Europe, and the new order was erect- ed under the name of Redemptorists. This appella- tion was shortly afterwards abandoned for that of Li- corians, from an Italian St. Licorius, whose principles and rules of life were declared to be those of the or- der. The number of its members has increased ra- pidly, and the Emperor has made them a present of
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one of the churches in the city. The most celebrated amongst them is Father Werner, a Protestant apostak He is a Prussian, and opened his career with f^ sadtic poetry. His productions are chieliy dramatic, ex- tremely irregular, almost universally imbued with mysticism, but full of lire and imaginaiion. The best is, the Weihe der Kraft, w^hich is merely the com- mencement of the Reformation dramatized, and has been represented on the Berlin stage. For a time, he led a very gay life in Paris ; he returned to Prussia, entered the Protestant church, married, and continued to write mystical dramas. Of a sudden he removed to Vienna, changed his religion, and was rewarded with an ecclesiastical appointment. It is doubtful whether he be more fanatic or hypocrite ; public opi- nion, however, among well educated persons, runs most generally for the latter. He has contrived to gain the crowd and the simple, by outward demonstrations of superior sanctity, and by a style of preaching which, though devoid of popular eloquence, wins the multi- tude by its plain vulgarity, and amuses by its eccentri- city,— an eccentricity and vulgarity which the better instructed hold to be mere affectation, for no man, say they, was ever more formed for a courtier, and a ca- balling courtier, too, than Father Werner. The fact is, that his hopes of advancing by the favour of the great seem to have perished, for his motives and de- signs have been penetrated ; and, moreover, the new Archbishop of Vienna is not favourable to the new or- der. He therefore seeks the sources of his influence and reputation among classes which must be pleased by other means, and there he has found them ; the order prospers, and Father Werner, the most impor- tant member of the order, must flourish along with it. I have seen him in a public bath at Baden, whenever a lady approached him in the motley crowd, standing up to the neck in hot water, make the sign of the cross, and turn away, as if with an, Avaunt thee, Sa-
RELIGION. 403
tan; he lounged through the public walks, always reading ; he seated himself to dinner at a Restaura- teur's, and, while he ate, a brother of the order, who attended him as domestic, read to him from a thick quarto.
As the order was not endowed with property, its principal revenues lie in the contributions of the faith- ful, and in drawing within its toils persons of some for- tune. The most mischievous thing is, that it has al- ready succeeded in seducing useful men from active life. Dr. Veith was the first man in Austria, and among the first in Europe, in the vetcriiiary art ; at the head of the Imperial Veterinary Institution, his in- structions and writings were forming a new epoch in this branch of medical science. The cantirig of the Licorians reached him ; he resigned wealth and fame to seek salvation among the new brethren. The Em- peror is said to have personally remonstrated with him, in vain, against a mistaken devotion which has render- ed him equally useless to himself and to society. Nor are these the only men whom prudence or bigotry in Vienna has drawn into political or religious apostacy. Gentz, bought into the service of the cabinet, draws up the declarations of the Holy Alliance as manfully as he once addressed liberal exhortations to the King of Prussia. Frederick Schlegel, too, seems to have laid his genius to rest, since he sat himself down in the German Boeotia, to fatten on the sweets of an Austri- an pension. He has the reputation of being occasion- ally employed to pen political articles for the Austrian Observer. I have heard, indeed, his nearest relations deny it ; and it certainly would be diflicult to find, in that newspaper, any article that required Frederick Schlegel's cleverness; but, nevertheless, it is the pub- lic voice of Vienna, and it is natural that he should continue to take an interest in a journal which he him- self first established.
404 VIENNA.
While such things are going on, it would be rain to expect any dtcav of superstition among tlsose who pre- tend to have any religion at all. Prince Metternich is much too sensible a mftB^and much too jealous of his own omnipotence, to allow the priesthood to controul his imperial master or himself, but he delivers up the subjects to their mercy. The superstition of the peo- ple is even fostered by the government encouraging pompous pilgrimages, for the purpose of obtaining the blessing of heaven by walking fifty miles in hot weath- er. The favoured spot is Mariazell, in Styria, and the pageant is commonly played off in July or August. The imperial authority is interposed by a proclamation af- fixed to the great gate of St. Stephen's, authorizing all pious subjects to perform this mischievous act of holy vagabondizing, that they may implore from the Virgin such personal and domestic boons as they feel them- selves most inclined to, and, at all events, that they may supplicate continued prosperity to the house of Haps- burgh. On the appointed day, the intended pilgrims assemble in St. Stephen's, at four o'clock in the morn- ing ; most of them have been anxiously accumulating many a day's savings, to collect a few florins for the journey, for they generally do not return before the fourth day. Mass is performed, and the long, mot- ley line, consisting of both sexes, and all ages, separat- ed into divisions by religious standards and gaudy cru- cifixes, alternately cheered and sanctified by the trum- pets and kettle-drums which head each division, and the hymns chaunted by the pilgrims who compose it, wends its long, toilsome, and hilly way, into the moun- tains of Styria. The procession which I saw leave Vi- enna consisted of nearly three thousand persons, and they were all of the lower classes. The upper ranks do not choose to go to heaven in vulgar company ; and, if they visit Mariazell at all, they make it a pleasure jaunt, (for the place of pilgrimage lies in a most roman- tic country,) like an excursion to the Lakes of Scotland
RELIGION. 405
or Cumberland, and pray to the Virgin eji passant. Fe- males predominated ; there were many children, and some of them so young, that it seemed preposterous to produce (hem in such a fatiguing exhibition. The young women were numerous, and naturally were the most interesting objecis. Many of them were pretty^ but they were almost all bareT oted, both from econo- my, and for the sake of ease in traveliii: ^ Observant of the pilgrim's costume, they carrier! long statts, head- ed with nosegays, and wore coarse straw-bonnets, with enormous brims, intended to protect their beauties against the scorching sun, — unaware, perhaps, of the more fatally destructive enemy, who, ere this perilous journey is terminated, cuts down, in too many instances, the foundation of that pleasing modesty with which they pace forth to the performance of what they reck- on a holy duty. Joseph II. saw and knew all the mis- chief of the ceremony, and abolished the pilgrimage ; Francis I. restored and fosters it.
But, though the Austrians have no great capacity for thinking, and a very great capacity for immorality and superstition, much of both must be ascribed to that total prostration of intellect which their government in- flicts upon them, a prostration which can never exist long, in the degree in which it exists in Vienna, with- out producing some degradation of the moral princi- ple. The whole political system is directed, with piy- mg and persecuting jealousy, to keep people in igno- rance of all that goes on in the world, except what it suits the cabinet to make known, and to prevent peo- ple from thinking on what is known differently from the way in which the cabinet thinks. All the modes of education are arranged on the same depressing prin- ciple of keeping mind in such a state, that it shall nei- ther feel the temptation, nor possess the ability, to re- sist power. During the Congress of Laybach, the Emperor said to the teachers of a public seminary, "I Want no learned men; I need no learned men; I.
406 VIENNA.
want men who will do what 1 bid them," or some- thlno" to the same purpose, — the most unfortunate words for the honour of his throne, that could be put in the mouth of a monarch. The principle Is fully acted on in Vienna ; over all knowledge, and all thlnk- ino", on every thing public, and on every thing relating to the political events and institutions not only of the empire, but of all other countries, there broods a " darkness which may be felt ;" nowhere will you find a more lamentable ignorance, or a more melancholy horror of being suspected of a desire to be wise above what is written down by the editor of the Austrian Observer. Nothing is known but to official men; and the first official duty is to confine all knowledge within the official circle. Talk to a Viennese about the finan- ces, for example. What is the amount of the public revenue? I don't know. What is done with it? I don't know. How much does your army cost ? I don't know. How much does the civil administration cost ? I don't know. What is the amount of your public debt ? I don't know. In short, do you know any thing at all about the matter, except how much you pay yourself, and that you pay whatever jou are ordered ? Nothing on earth.
The Austrian police, — monstrum horrendum^ ingens ; ' — it cannot be added, cui lumen ademptum^ for it has the eyes of an Argus, though no Mercury has ye\ been found to charm them to sleep, while he rescued manly thought and intellectual exertion from the brute form into which political jealousy has metamorphosed them. The French police under Napoleon was reckoned per- fect ; in efficiency, it could not possibly surpass that of Vienna, which successfully represses every expression of thought, by forcing on all the deadening conviction, that the eyes and ears of spies are every where. The consequences of a denunciation are, secret arrest, se- cret Imprisonment, and an unknown punishment. It can be tolerated in some measure, that spies should bf^
THE POLICE. 407
placed in coffee-houses, in the apartments of Restau- rateurs, or in places of public amusement ; for, on such occasions, every sensible person, to whatever country he may belong, ^vill be on his guard ; but it is sicken- ing when, even in private society, he must open his lips under the conviction that there may be a spy sit- ting at the same table with him. This is the case in Vienna to a very great extent. The efficacy of such a system depends on those who are its instruments be- ing unknown; but, if the Viennese themselves may be believed, not only men, but women, too, and men and women of rank, are in the pay of the secret police. Among those whom you know to be your personal friends, if you indulge in a freedom of opinion on which you would no*t venture in more mixed society, they will draw back with a sort of apprehension, and kind- ly warn you of the danger to which you are exposing both them and yourself. This is true, not merely of what might be considered modes of thinking hostile to the whole frame of government, but it is equally so of individual acts of administration, — if you question, for instance, the propriety of punishing a public peculator,
like T , by dismissing him with a pension, or the
purity of the motives which procured Count A his
provincial government. The government is not even very fond that its measures should be praised ; it is much better pleased that nothing be said about them at all.
This is the general spirit of the thing. Every Eng- lishman who has been much conversant with Vienna, and occasionally forgotten where he was, must have felt it so. Of the practical efficiency of the system of espionage take a single example. A certain Russian nobleman was resident at Vienna in 1821. His politi- cal opinions were known to be somewhat more liberal than was agreeable to the courts of Vienna and Pe- tersburgh ; above all, he was favourable to the Greeks. The burden of the Austrian minister's political ha-
40S VIENNA.
rangues delivered twice a week at his levees was, " You see it is the same thing with ail of tl»em, whe- ther in Spain, or Italy, or Greece ; it is just rebel A, rebel B, rebel C, and so on." This nobleman, himself a pretty regular attender of these levees, thought oth- erwise, and had amused himself with drawing up a dis- course to prove that the Greeks could not be consid- ered and ought not to be treated as rebels. He had communicated it to some of his intimate acquaintances. A few days afterwards the manuscript was not to be found in his desk. He immediately understood the matter, and foresaw the consequences. The next cou- rier but one from St. Petersburgh brought a very friendly expressed notice from the Autocrat, that, until some determinate resolution was adopted regarding Greece, it would be agreeable to his Imperial Majesty
that Prince should choose his residence elsewhere
than in Vienna. The recommendation, of course, was attended to, and the prince retired to a six months' tiresome sojourn in a provincial town.
Foreigners are still more pryingly watched than na- tives, and Englishmen more than any other foreigners, except Italians. An English gentlemian's papers were seized one morning in a domiciliary visit by agents of the police, carried off, examined, and returned. " Mind what you are about," said a foreign minister, who was stating this circumstance next day to another British sojourner, " Mind what you are about ; I know you keep something like a journal ; take care what you put in it, and that nobody shall know what you do put in it."
It is not only always an imprudence, but in general it is a piece of mere foolish affectation, for a stranger in any country to use language or behaviour which ne- cessarily exposes him to the odium of the government, however allowable or laudable they may be at home. Our own countrvmen, unaccustomed to bridle their t#ngues about any thing, and fortunately trained in ha-
THE POLICE. 409
bits whicli give them a strong inclination to speak se- verely on such a state of things as exists in the Aus- trian capital, are pecuMarly liable to fall into this er- I'or, for an error it is, unless some powerful call of hu- manity justify the saciiiice of prudence to feeling. They are too apt to forget the homely saying, that it is folly to live in Rome and quarrel with the Pope. Now it so happens that Rome is the place where an Englishman is allowed to take his own way more free- ly than in any other despotic country of the Continent — at least it was so in the late pontificate, under the administration of Consalvi. Ttie police of Vienna is much more imperative, and in all probability immedi- ately orders such a person to quit the empire. A young Englishman, apparently as harmless and affected a specimen of the dandy as ever emigrated from Bond Street, was ordered to leave the capital on a very brief notice, because, according to his own account, he had been preaching the doctrines of Tom Paine in a cof- fee-house. If it was so, a piece of such egregious fol- ly deserved no better treatment. Of all the exhibi- tions of English growling few are more amusing than that of a sturdy Englishman compelled to undertake a long journey in this unceremonious fashion, because he has forgotten the ditference between the ministers of Francis I., and the ministers of George IV. Having received orders to depart, away he hastens full-mouth- ed to his minister, with v*hom he can use his own lan- guage and his own feelings. He displays his passport, demands protection as a British subject, and perhaps hints something about responsibility to the House of Commons. But no Excellency can prevent the laws of the country, such as they are, from taking their course ; John must go. And now every thing is sour- ed to him. The danseuses of the Karntherthor are ugly and awkward ; the choicest viands of Widman's kitchen are only fit for dogs ; he quarrels with every item in his landlord's bill ; he pays the servants nig- 52
410 ■ VIENNA.
gardlj, or not at all, for " The brutes that submit to such a government do not deserve to possess a half- penny." He gets into his carriage, while the myrmi- dons of the police look on in disguise. The postilion, the horses, and his own servant, come in for their full share of his bad humour ; the only dependent he has is made to feel all the burden of his inferiority ; and John drives across the frontier, swearing that England is the only country fit for a gentleman to live in, and that every man is a fool who puts himself in the power of Alexander, or Francis, or Frederick William. yiry^
While the police hunts out words and deeds, the censorship labours to confine thought. No where in Germany is it exercised with such jealous rigour as here, particularly in regard to public affairs, to history and theology. A great number of what may be called literary journals are published in the capital, but they are either mere vehicles of amusement, full of dull tales and charades, or devoted to the fine arts and theatrical criticisms. The *•' Jabrbiicher der Litera- tur," (Annals of Literature,) the Quarterly Review, so to speak, of Vienna, is more respectable, but it is written according to the censor's rule, just as much as the most trifling weekly sheet. The treatment which a literary article written for this review met with, will better illustrate the spirit of the censorship, than a hundred general statements. The present patriarch of Venice, a Hungarian by birth, and a person of ele- gant acquirements, published an epic poem, the Tuni- siad, of which Charles V. is the hero, and his expedi- tion against Tunis the subject. He has used as ma- chines various sorts of good and evil spirits, the for- mer fighting for the Christians, the latter for the
infidels. C n, who, though not without taste,
happens to be a bigot, a pietist, and a censor of the press, had expressed great dissatisfaction with these spirits, as being irreconcileable with any system of or- thodoxy : and, for this very reason, I believe, he
THE PRESS. 411
refused to review the book, though he had reviewed another production of the patriarch, " Pcrlen der heihgen Vorzeit," a collection of sacred songs, and re- viewed it, the author himself says, con amor e, A lite- rary person, the librarian of a Hungarian prince, wrote a review of the Tunisiad. Whatever he might think of the poetical worth of the spirits as machines, he defended them at least in regard to orthodoxy, and w^ould by no means grant that a poet was to be tried like a writer of homilies. The manuscript of this
article fell into the hands of C n, as censor. After
some time he returned it to the author, having not on- ly erased every thing that it contained in defence of the profane machines, but having ins'^.rted sentiments of quite an opposite tendency. Wha; was worse, the passages cited by the reviewer were distorted by the censor. The sense was altered; and even the verses, which are very flowing, well built hexameters, were, in many instances, new cast, and converted into lines which bade defiance to the rules of all prosodies, an- cient or mcdern. The reviewer naturally was very angry, sat as censor on the censor, erased ail that the impertinence and bigotry of the latter had interlarded, and it was only in this mutilated form that the article was allowed to be printed.
The population of the Austrian empire, including Hungary and the Italian States, is commonly stated at about twenty-three millions; the number of newspa- pers printed in it does not amount to thirty ! In Vien- na itself there are only two proper newspapers ; three others, one of which is printed in Hungarian, another in Servian, and the third in modern Greek, for the use of these nations, are merely transcripts. These two are the Austrian Observer and the Vienna Gazette. The Observer is the proper political paper; the Gazette, though it gives political intelligence, is the mercantile and advertising paper. It has existed, under different forms, since 1703. It has a monopoly of all advertise-
4U VIENNA.
ments, and all notifications from the public offices, and pays for this privilege a yearly sum of nearly L. 2000 to government. The Observer, which is pubhshed daily, even on Sunday, (it costs L. 1,16s. yearly,) is sufficiently well known ail over Europe. It is the offi- cial political paper, and there is no other; it is the faithful reflection of the Austrian policy, the speaking trumpet through which the Austrian cabinet makes known to the empire whatever it thinks proper should be known, or wishes to be believed. Tlie in- telligence which it extracts from foreign journals has always the same tendency : no syllable of" opinion, and no fact which might lead a rational Austrian to think otherwise than ihe minister wishes he should think, can be admitted. The leading articles are said even to pass occasionally under the review of the minister himself. The editor is a M. Pilate, ever ready, like his pagan namesake, to become a passive instrument, whenever the cabinet calls out against a fact or an opinion, "Crucify it, crucify it."
The foreign journals which are admitted are narrow- ly watched. They are examined before being deliver- ed, and, if they contain articles which are thought un- safe for the reading public of Vienna, the numbers are kept back, except from persons whose rank commands respect, or whose principles are known to be immove- ably fixed by interest. One who had no access to English papers would never have learned in Vienna, that the declaration issued by the Allied Sovereigns at Laybach had produced such strong denunciations of its principles in the British Parliament, or thiaf Lord Cas- tlereagh's circular had been written. " You English- men," said an old merchant to me, "you Englishmen certainly are the best subjects in Europe; your news- papers are always pleased with the government, and prajslrjg it." I was naturally startled at the assertion, and asked his reasons for it. " Why," said he, "don't I read all the extracts from your journals in our news-
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY. 413
papers, and they are always in praise of the measures of government."
Our dishke to the arbitrary principles and illiberal policy of the Austrian government has led us to be un- just to the members of the Austrian family. It has become common to rail at them as stupid people. There is no ground for this. There is not a stupid man amongst them, unless it be the Crown Prince, whose countenance does betray something like imbe- cility and whose character is alleged to possess a great deal of it. The Archdukes, the Emperor's brothers, are all well informed men, and perfectly qualified to command respect any where. The Archduke John blundered, indeed, in the battle of Asperne ; the fault, however, did not lie with him, who never pretended to be a soldier, but with those who made him a soldier, instead of allowing him to follow his own pursuits of gathering plants, breaking mineralogical specimens, and shooting chamois in the mountains of Styria. His ex- ample and exertions, aided by ttie establishment of the Johanneum at Gratz, have done much for the practi- cal improvement, at least, of natural history in Austria.
The Aivhduke Charles is very popular. The Aus- trians are apt to exagfiferate his military genius; but to have coped with Moreau, as he did cope with him, is no mean renown to a military man. In all his habits he is entirely domestic and unaffected. He takes his walk along the streets, or on the ramj>arts, with a child in each hand, as simply dressed, and as simply af- fectionate, as any father in Vienna.
The Emjjerc.r himself, though without any reach of political talent, is very far indeed from bcmg a stupid man; no one who knows him ever thinks of calling him so. He is about fif^y-six years of age, but appears much older. His countenance belokei.s strongly that simplicity of character, and (^ood nature, which are the most prominent features of his disposition, but it does not announce even that quantity of penetration which
414 VIENNA.
*
he is allowed on all hands to possess. His manners are simple and popular in the extreme ; he is the enemy of all parade. Except on particular occasions, he comes abroad in an ordinary coloured dress, without decorations of any kind ; and not unfrequently you may light upon him in a black or brown coat which hun- dreds of his subjects would disdain to wear. In some part of the long line of light and splendid equipages which move down to the Prater, in the evening, the Emperor may often be discovered driving the Empress in an unostentatious caleche, with a pair of small, quiet horses, that will neither prance nor run away. Here, however, driving is easy ; once into the line, there is no getting out of it.
There are few more popular monarchs in Europe than the Emperor Francis, excepting always among his Italian subjects. There is but one ardent feeling of dislike of' the Austrian yoke from the Laguna of Ve- nice to the Lago Maggiore ; but his German subjects are affectionately attached to him. I do not mean that they feel the enthusiasm which may be excited by distinguished qualities, or by great services he has done them ; on the contrary, his reign brought heavier ca- lamities upon them than Austria had felt since the Thirty Years' War. But they have forgotten all these hardships in their strong and true attachment to his personal character. They like his good natured plain- ness, for it is entirely in their own way ; even the cor- rupt German wlilch he speaks pleases them, for it is theirs. Twice a week, and at an early hour in the morning, he gives audiences, to which all classes are not only admitted, but which are expressly interjded for the middling and lower ranks, that they may tell him what they want, and who has injured them. Not one of his subjects is afraid of presenting himself be- fore Franzel, the affectionate diminutive by which they love to speak of him. He listens patiently to their petitions and complaints : he gives relief, and good na-
THE EMPEROR. 415
tured, fatherly advice, and promises of justice ; and all the world allows him the determination to do justice so far as he can see it. The results of this must not be sought in the foreign policy or general administra- tion of his empire ; on these he holds the opinions which his house has held, and his people has admitted, for centuries ; these are irrevocably in the hands of his ministers. But complaints of individual oppression or injustice always find in him an open and honest ear, and the venal authorities have often trembled before the plain sense and downrioht love of justice of the empe- ror. Any personal efficacy, however, of this sort in the monarch of an extensive empire can never go far ; the very interference is a proof oif bad government, — of a government in which no private rights are recog- nized, or, as most frequently happens, in which there are no public institutions operating impartially to secure these rights. Wherever a monarch must interfere personally to do justice, it is a proof either that the laws are at variance with justice, or that those who .administer them are scoundrels.
The emperor came to his throne a young man, and found himself called on to cope with the French Re- volution, a task which would have proved too great a trial for a prince of much greater experience and grasp of intellect. He was compelled to throw himself into the arms of ministers, and the events of the protracted struggle, always increasing in importance to Europe and Austria, have kept him in this official embrace, till it has become too late to unlock it. At the head of the ministry stands despotic the Chancellor of State, Prince Metternich, the most powerful individual in Eu- rope who does not wear a crown. A private noble- man from the banks of the Rhine, whose most cele- brated vineyard has been bestowed on him by the grateful monarchs for whom he laboured, he has rais- ed himself to be absolute master of the empire, firmly rooted in the confidence of his master, unwilling
416 VIENNA.
to bear a rival near the throne, but neither liked nor admired by the people. When I first saw him in the ball-room at Baden, he was sitting by the court, hut yet alone. He was dressed in a plain suit of black, for it was the mourning for the late queen of England. His eyes were fixed on the floor, as if in deep thought, ex- cept when they glanced up to follow the fair Countess
A , who was flying round the hall in the waltz.
His appearance has nothing striking or commanding. He is of middling stature, rather meagre than other- wise, but altogether a handsome man. His counte- nance is pale ; his large, broad brow is marked with what seem to be the wrinkles of cunning, rather than the furrows of thought ; his smile appears to be so ha- bitual, that it has scarcely any character, except when it is satirical. His manners are polite and conciliating, for he is through and through a man of the world. He possesses in a high degree the power of concealing his own sentiments, and a coolness which keeps him clear of all embarrassment.
It is in vain to deny that Prince Metternich pos- sesses talent, because we dislike his politics. What he has made himself is an irrefragable proof that he must be a clever man. It would be equally unjust to judge of him from the extravagant eulogiums of those who flutter round him at his levees, and worship no other idol than their political maker. In the country which he governs, among men who have heads to judge, and no temptation to judge partially, you will never hear ascribed to him any comprehensive political view, or any commanding quality of intellect; their praise sel- dom rises above " II est tres adroit" — shrewdness in detecting means, and patience and tact in using them, are his excellences. They usually quote the success with which he blinded Napoleon, and his mmisters and marshals, at Dresden, regarding the designs of Austria, as the chef d'oeuvre of his political skill, and add, " In what does political skill of this sort consist, but in the
PRINCE METTERNICH. 417
art of telling lies with a good grace ?" His activity in the multifarious matters which are laid upon his shoul- ders is Inexhaustible ; though very far from being in- sensible to pleasure, he never allows it to interfere with busmess.
However hostile we may be to the general spirit of Prince Metternich's administration, the steadiness with which he pursues his object is a most valuable politic il quality. If he be the most implacable enemy among European ministers to liberal alterations in the Euro- pean governments, this arises partly from ambition, and partly from what may almost be called a sense of duty. Enjoying su(;h extensive power, a representative body is the last rival his ambition could endure, because it would be the most dangerous. His imperial master considers all such innovations as rebellious encroach- ments on his divine prerogative, and conscientiously be- lieves them to be pregnant with misery to the world; and the minister of such a prince holds himself bound to rule on these principles. His object is to keep the empire safe from this supposed infection ; he attacks it, therefore, wherever it appears, and is within his reach. He garrisons Naples with Austrian troops, and sends the Carbonari of Lombardy and Romagna to Laybach or the Spielberg. Where they are beyond the reach of his artillery and judges, as in Spain and Portugal, then, besides the more serious engines of po- litical intrigue, he takes care that, in Vienna, at least, they shall be hated or despised. His dispatches sup- ply him with an Infinity of anecdotes, whether true or false, of all the leading liberals of Europe, from Sir Francis Burdett down to Benjamin Constant. Every Wednesday and Sunday evening he holds a sort of po- litical conversazione, and the political sermons which he delivers on these occasions to the admiring and be- lieving circle are thickly interlarded with such anec- dotes, all tending to make the apostles of liberalism odious or ridiculous. "Probably, my Lord," said he 53
4lg VIENNA.
one evening to an English nobleman, " you have had no opportunity of learning the spirit of the German universities. Do you know, that, among the gymnas- tic exercises of a public teacher in Berhn, one consist- ed in throwing a dagger with so much dexterity as to hit a given point at a considerable distance. Yet this man had not for three months given a single lecture on any subject on which it was his duty to have instructed his pupils."
Besides ambition, the Premier is said to have two other strong passions, money and beauty ; the former, however, much less certain than the latter. If the uni- versal voice of Vienna speak truth, it may be justly in- scribed on his tomb, " Lightly from fair to fair lie flew." In a country, or, at least, in a capital, where female virtue is so little prized, and the slavish spirit w^hich knows no good but the favour of power pros- pers so richly from the very nature of the government, the wealth and influence of an absolute minister, who is, besides, a perfectly agreeable and well-bred man, can seldom meet with very stubborn fair ones. To indulge in such stories would be the mere prating of private scandal ; but they are more justifiable when they throw hght on the public organization of a coun- try, and the way of getting on in it. During one of those congresses which, of late years, have been so frequent- ly held, to establish, if possible, one uniform system of despotism all over Europe, the beauty of the young
Countess attracted the favourable regards of a
minister high in authority at the Austrian Court. No sooner did he discover the charms of the wife, than they opened his eyes to the talents of the husband ; he now saw, what he was ashamed not to have seen be- fore, that the public good required that these talents should be transplanted to Vienna : the husband was to be made an Aulic counsellor. Husband and wife come to the capital ; the husband visits among the great^ dangles about at levees, and, while he is thus engaged.
PRINCE METTERNICH. 419
that well known carriage standing daily at his door tells all the worid who, in the mean time, is visiting his wife. Months pass away, and the place and salary are not forthcoming. The husband grows impatient and urgent, and the lover must make an effort to keep his word. The difficuhy is, that the whole story is by this time so well known, that no veil can possibly be thrown over the transaction, and it undoubtedly has reached the ears of the Emperor. The minister to whose department the affair belongs (but, it was said, with great reluctance) at length proposes to the Em- peror the nomination of Count as an Aulic coun- sellor, and enlarges on the polite attentions which he had shown to so many crowned heads. The Empe- ror hears him out patiently, claps him on the shoul- der, and, looking as archly as he can look, plainly an- swers, Ick weiss alles schon^ Herr Graf, es kann nicht gehen, es kann nicht gehen, — " Count, 1 know every thing about it; it won't do, it won't do;" — and it did not do, and the disappointed couple returned to their Carnio- lian obscurity. But justice must be done to the gene- rosity of the lover. The attack was some time after- wards renewed in another form; and, shortly before I
left Vienna, Count had actually been appointed to
the government of a populous, and beautiful, and fer- tile region of Upper Austria.
When blockheads can thus climb to offices of power and trust by such means, what honest man can hope to win them by the fair exercise of his talents and integ- rity? If even clever men gain them by such means, what must the state of society be which renders such means necessary or practicable, and, in public opinion, scarcely dishonourable ? It is thus that despotism pro* duces at once moral and intellectual degradation. Pow- er and influence, or the favour of those who possess power and influence, are made the leading objects in the eyes of all the citizens. The means by which they are to be acquired, base and immoral as they may
420 VIENNA.
be, become mere laudable and prudential sacrificeSa Respectability is made to consist in standing well with those who have power, or with those who stand well with those who have power. The Austrian aristoc- racy, though far from being the least respectable of Germany in point of wealth, is the least respectable in education, conduct, and manliness of spirit. J once heard some Hungarian officers express great doubts of the credibility of an English officer, when he told them, that it was quite possible and customary to hold a com- mission in the British array or navy, and yet vote against ministers in Parliament. They could not con- ceive how such a state of things could exist in any well regulated government. A body of nobility, elevated above the great mass of the people by rank and wealth, and having no other public duties to discharge than im- plicitly to obey the commands, and fawningly court the smiles of a monarch, must be ignorant and unprinci- pled ; for knowledge would be incompatible with the unthirsking submission to which they are bound by habit, as well as by authority; and moral rectitude cannot exist with their systematic idleness, which seeks only pleasures. The aristocracy of Britain is not only unique in the world, but is almost a political and moral phenomenon. It is not to be ascribed, however, to any peculiar temperament of feeling, or any peculiarly well balanced constitution of mind. It is principally the result of the form of our government, which, ne- cessarily recognizing a higher class, (which nmst exist in all states, however it may be disguised in name,) and investing its members with high privileges, loads them, at the same time, with high public duties, which these privileges only enable them the more effi3ctually to perform, gives them, in the respect and honest favour of the people, a much surer pillar of prosperity than the smiles of a monarch to a worthless flatterer, and leaves the public eye to watch strictly how their im- portant vocation is fulfilled. Shut the doors of the
yUBLIC OPINION. 421
House of Lords ; exclude its members from lieutenan- cies of counties, grand juries, and commissions of the peace ; leave them, in short, no other space to lill in the public eye but what maj be occupied by the reck- lessness of their expenditure, or the magnificence of their equipages, by their rank in the army and navy, or by provincial employments which they seek dk rely from views of gain, and the high-minded and well-in- formed peerage of Britain will speedily become as ig- norant, as dissolute, and as useless, as the servile and corrupted aristocracy of Vienna.
Judging from what we ourselves would feel under such a state of things, we would be apt to infer that a spirit of discontent must be widely diffused throughout the empire, and that there must be eager longings for a more equal, and manly, and liberal system. Nothing, however, would be farther from the truth than such an assertion ; the Austrian people is the most anti- revolutionary of Europe, and few princes have so little to apprehend as its monarch. Excepting Italy, where, again, the public feeling of dislike is directed against Austria as being di foreign yoke, none of the provinces which compose the empire contains any general practi- cal wish for a popular constitution, or any conviction that it is theoretically desirable. It has been said, though in a very harsh spirit of exaggeration, that it is only by chance that an Austrian ever thinks at all ; it is certain that it is only by chance that he ever thinks on political matters. The paper money of Austria led to as complete, though not so formal a bankruptcy, as the assignats of revolutionary France. The paper money forced into circulation at its nommal value, as equal to that of the imperial florin m specie, never maintained its ground. Its rapid fluctuations brought ruin to thousands; and the government at last ordained that the paper currency should pass for only two-filths of the nominal value at which the govern- ment itself had issued it. These Schuldscheine^ these
49S. VIENNA.
government notes, are still the general currency of Vienna ; and while a note for a florin bears on the face of it, in German, Polish, Hungarian, and Bohemian, that it is equal to a florin Convenzions-Munze, (the metallic currency of the defunct German empire,) its real value is only two-fifths of a florin. When a peo- ple has passed tranquilly through such a process, it is not likely to indulge in the reasonings, or to feel the truths, of theoretical politics. In politics, as in most other departments of intellectual exertion, Austria is the least advanced country of Germany ; the subjects are as contentedly obedient as the government is jealous and arbitrary. The priesthood lends its aid to fetter thought, and perpetuate superstition ; the censor prevents them from learning, and, if they think, the spies of the police prevent them from speaking ; and the Austrian lives on, wishing, indeed, sometimes, that the government \vould take less money from him, but never troubled with the idea that he ought to have some influence himself on the modes in which revenue is raised, and the purposes to which it is applied. It seldom happens that the mere forms of a despotic government become the objects of popular hatred, so long as its actual administration is not felt to be per- sonally oppressive. With the great body of a people, revolutions are the result of feeling rather than of judgment ; they do not so much seek to gain what political reasoning tells them is right, as to escape from what they feel to be individual privations. "That which is best administered is best," however faulty as a principle in the theory of government — because it forgets the question, by what forms that best adminis- tration is most likely to be secured — is perfectly true in regard to the opinions of the great mass of a nation ; with them it always becomes at last a question of personal enjoyment or insult, except where the habitual exercise of pjolitifal rights has linked them to their atfections as a personal possession. The Saxons, who
PUBLIC OPINION. 429
are among the most enliglitened of Germans, submit to an arbitrary government as peaceably as tiie Aus- trlans, whom they reckon the most stohd. So long as the subjects of the Emperor Francis have enough to cat and di'ink, his throne is the most secure in Europe ; so soon as the subjects of George IV. are starving, no constitution is exposed to greater danger from popular coaimotion than that of Eno^land. Home mi^ht never have discovered the charms of a republic, had not Tarquin'sson been inflamed by the beauty of Lucretia; and it was liunger and imprisonment that drove the Roman populace to the Sacred Mount. The cantons witich founded the liberty of Switzerland might have remained till this day appendages of the house of flapsburgli, had not imperial oificers wounded the pride of alpine shepherds, and outraged the modesty of alpine dames. Liberty, like virtue, may be its own reward ; but how difficult is it to induce the bulk of mankind to love the one or the other* only for iis own sake !
CHAPTER XIV.
STYRIA. — CARNIOLA.
Wo der Steirer Risen bricht.
Fourteen miles to the south of Vienna, the little town of B 'den, created and supported by the celebri- ty of its mineral waters, lies amid vineyards, on the footstool of the Styrian Alps, overflowing, in summer and autumn, with idleness and disease from the capital. Some persons of the higher ranks have houses of their own, in which they spend a couple of months, not lor the purposes of health, but to enjoy the delicious scene-
424 BADEN.
rj in tlie neighbourhood. Excepting, however, wheiQ the Imperial Family makes Baden its summer resi- dence, fashionable people confine their visits to driv- ing down on Saturday afternoon, going to the ball on Sunday evening, and returning to Vienna on Mondaj morning.
The warm springs, loaded with sulphur, and strong- ly impregnated with carbonic acid gas, issue from be- neath a low eminence of limestone, which a few years" ago was only bare rock, but is now clothed with artifi- cial groves, and hewn out into romantic walks. Some of the sources belong to the town, others are the pro- perty of private individuals. In certain cutaneous dis- eases, the waters are specific ; but persons who labour under such ailments are very properly compelled to bathe by themselves. The rest of the crowd, consist- ing principally of cripples from swellings, or from con- tractions of the limbs, rheumatic and gouty patients, and not a few who, though in perfect health, take a strange pleasure in being in such a crowd, use the bath together, males and females mixed promiscuously, and sit, or move slowly about, for an hour or two, up to the neck in the steaming water. The ladies enter and depart by one side, and the gentlemen by another; but in the bath itself there is no separation ; nay, po- liteness re(juires, that a gentleman, when he sees a la- dy moving, or attempting to move, alone, shall offer himself as her support during the aquatic promenade. There is no silence or dulness ; every thing is talk and joke. There is a gallery above, for the convenience of those "who choose to be only spectators of the mot- ley crowd, but it is impossible to hold out long against the heat. The vapours, which are scarcely felt when the whole body is immersed in the water, are intoler- able when the body is out of it, and the sulphurous fumes immediately attack the metallic parts of the dress. A very fair and fashionable lady entered the bath one morning. The gentleman who expected her
ST. HELENA. 425
had scarcely taken Iicr hand to lead her round, when her face and neck were observed to grow black and livid. A cry was raised that the lady was suffocating; some of her own sex immediately carried her out to the dressing room, and speedily returned with a mali- cious triumph. The lady had painted, and the sulphur had unmasked her. Yet, though there is much idle- ness and listlessness in Baden, there is much less disso- luteness than in most German watering-places of equal celebrity. The reason is, the vicinity of Vienna. Ac- quaintances may be made in Baden, but the prosecu- tion of them is reserved to be the occupation of the following winter in the capital.
Every evening, both the sick and the healthy re- pair to the lovely valley of St. Helena, at whose mouth Baden is situated. It is a dell, rather than a valley. At its entrance, there is scarcely room for more than the ample mountain stream which waters and enlivens it throughout its whole extent. The lofty rocks which, on each side, guard its moutli, still bear the sombre ruins of tw^o ancient fortresses frowning at each other across the vallev, like warders posted on hostile tow- ers. Neither horse nor carriage can possibly enter, and the hisfhest in the land must minixle on foot with the lowest. When the Imperial family is in Baden, this scanty path, and the little glades . into which it sometimes opens out, present samples of all the nations of the empire, from Transylvania to Milan, and of all the various classes of its society. The emperor him- self, the most plainly dressed man in the valley, was soberly plodding along, with the empress on his arm, and his eldest son, the Crown Prince, stalking by his side. The empress had burdened his majesty with her parasol, and his majesty was very irreverently con- verting it into a staff, and polluted it in various little puddles which some heavy rain in the forenoon had formed here and there in the grass. The empress seemed to lose patience, snatched it from him, and 54
426 ST. HELENA.
shook it at him, as if in a good-natured threat to casti- gate her imperial husband, and jou might hear dis- tinctly from the passing vulgar the kindly exclamation, Die guten Leute ! To the left, a groupe of homely citi- zens were enjoying their coiifee, (for, of course, there are colfee-tents,) and, close bye, the Archduchess Charles was resting herself on a rude bench ; at her feet, young Napoleon, with much more of the Austrian family, than of his father, in his countenance, was tum- bling about in the grass with his little cousins.^ As she returned the obeisance of Prince Metternich, who was strolling past with the French ambassador, one of the girls cried, " There's papa," and the Archduke himself, his coat pulled off, and thrown over his shoul- der, on account of the heat, came scrambling down the rocks on the opposite side of the river, with one of his boys on each hand, rhere is a great deal of affec- tionate plainness in the way in which the members of the Imperial Family move about among their subjects, and it has much more strength in knitting them toge- ther, than political theories will readily have in sepa- rating them.
From the head of the valley of St. Helena, a ro- mantic path runs through the woods, and joins the great road from Vienna to the mountainous district of Upper Styria at the Cistercian monastery of Holyrood, (^Heiligen-Kreutz^) about thirty miles from the Styrian frontier. The monastery is an ancient and comfortable building, and the monks neither display in their per- sons any marks of mortifying the flesh, nor, in their conversation, any predilection for serious and holy- topics. They are ruddy, jocular, well conditioned people, and, though there were ladies in the party, the monks cheerfully admitted them to the penetralia of
* The Duke of Reichstadt, it is said, is to be imprisoned in the church ; a bigot, therefore, has been given him as his governor, the same gentleman who, as already mentioned, acted so despoti- cally with the revievr of Pjrker's Tunisiad.
HEILIGEN-KREUTZ. 427
their cells. One part of monastic discipline has been entirely reversed. The door of every cell is pierced with a small circular hole, covered by a slidino pannel. The pannel used to be on the outside, and the intention of the whole arranojement was, to enable the Abbot to peep into the cells whenever he chose. But the monks have got the system changed, and tlie sliding pannel is now on the inside. The inmates are not all entirely idle, for the monastery is a sort of theological seminary ; about foity young men, who have passed through the usual preparatory courses in a university or Lyceum, are supported, and instructed in divinity, and are then transferred, as occasion allows, to fatten on the banquets of the wealthy monasteries of Lilien- feld and Kloster-Neuburg. Yet the pious brethr-en must have a great deal of unoccupied time on tlicir hands ; and, therefore, it is disgraceful to them that their garden is in such utter disorder. It was, in every respect, the garden of the sluggard ; straggling roses were rising among luxuriant nettles. One of the monks told me, that, during the war, their treasury and altars had been despoiled of upwards of thirty tor)s of silver, to meet the necessities of the state; but, till they be- come industrious themselves, they do not deserve to have their plundered r'iches restoi-ed.
From this point, the traveller who is moving west- ward to the Styrian frontier is always getting deeper into the vallies of that mountarnous ridge which runs up through the territory of Salzburg, and then joins the Alps of the Tyrol. The road is a i^ood one, for it is the line by which the salt and iron of Upper Sty- ria are conveyed to Vienna. There are as yeA no cloud-capped mountains, or terrific precipices, but the whole face of the country is picturesque. It is a suc- cession of hollows, rather than oi' vallies, inclosed by eminences which, though not lofty, ar-e abrupt and varied in their forms, and uniformly clothed with their original forests. There is no want of population;
426 STYRIA.
small market towns are numerous, and, to supply their wants, the bottom of these romantic dells has been in- dustriously cultivated. It was only the beginning of^ August, yet the crops were all cut down, and spread out on the field to dry, before being made up into stacks. Much 'of the land belongs to abbeys, which are thickly strewed, and the princely monastery of JLilienfeld, the wealthiest abode, in Austria, of the fol- lowers of St. Bernard, is the most prosperous, and the most ancient of them all. The series of the portraits of its abbots commences in the year 1206, and comes down to 18 i5 In an uninterrupted succession, excepting that there is a gap fro?n 1786 to 1790, the period dur- ing which Josei.h disturbed the repose of all the monks in his empire. The inscription on the portrait of Ab- bot Ignatius, elected in 1790, lecords the restoration of the abbey by the grace of Leopold II. Numerous as these abbeys are, and great as the extent of their territorial possessions frequently is, it is wrong to accuse the princes, or the pious individuals who endowed them, of having been imprudently liberal to the church. Thousands of acres were given ; but they were acres of wood and water, utterly unproductive to the public, and which would probably have remained for centuries in the same wild state, if they had been the property of a quarrelsome baron, instead of be- longing to the peaceful sons of the church. The monks, though idle themselves, were not encouragers of idleness in their subjects. Their leisure allowed them to instruct, and their love of gain led them to aid their vassals in agricultural science, rude as it was, while, at the* same time, the sacred character which they enjoyed placed their peasantry beyond the reach of the oppressions practised by feudal nobles. It has long been a current proverb in Germany, Man lebt gut unter dem Krummstdt^^t is true that one is apt to feel provoked when^^^s told that these fruitful val- fies, and the pasture hills which rise along their sides^
PILGRIMS. 429
belong to a congrogatiorf of idle monks; but monks were the very men who made the vallles fruitful and 4he hills useful. They received them covered with trees and rocks — no very liberal boon — and il was they who planted them with corn, and stored them with sheep. The flourishirjg monastery ol Lilicnfeld still maintains a symbol of its ancient hospitality. The members of the long procession of pilgrims which annually walks from Vienna to Mariazell, are refresh- ed within its walls with a long benediction, and a small plate of thin soup.
The whole road, as far as Mariazell, the first Sty- rian town, and the lioly abode of an ugly picture of the Virgin, is much more thickly strewed with em- blems of believing piety, and conveniences for devout worshippers, than with the marks of civic industry and comfort, — for it is the line of the great pilgrimage from Vienna. Every valley which the pilgrims have to traverse is crowded with Saints and Virgins, and every hill across which they toil is surmounted with a chapel or a Saviour. But even pilgrims cannot dis^ pense with temporal restoratives, and brandy- booths refresh the votaries of the iVlndonna as frrquently as her own image. The Annaberg, or Mountain ol" St. Anne, is at once the steepest ascent which they have to climb, and the most romantic spot in this part of Styria. The rocks press together so closely, and the wood entangles itself so thickly round the mountain path, that, at every turn, it seems impossible to emerge from the dell in which you have been caught; but, on reaching the apparently extreme point of your progress, the road turns sharply round sOme angle of the mountain, and leads you, amid sparkling streams and overhanging rocks, into another dell of the same sort, till the summit of the hill itself appears, crowned with its ancient cloister. The pilgrims always ascend this eminence chaunting hymns ; the young women allow their hair to hang down loose over their shoul-
4S0 STYRIA.
ders, dropping, not with myrrh, but with perspiration; and the more laboriously pious add to the sum of their good works, by dragging after them a cumbersome cross. At the foot of tlie hill there is a chapel in which they may pray, and, opposite to it, a brandy- shop to quicken the body. Their devotions are re- newed in another chapel on the summit, but the spring which it contains supplies only water. It is the most profanely grotesque of all fountains. It is formed by a rude image of the dying Messiah lying on the lap of his mother; an iron pipe is inserted into the wound in his side, and the pure stream issues from it.
The nearer you approach to the holy city itself, the greater is the number of drinking booths and beggars; for the pilgrimage is often made a pretext for mendi- city, and people who would not stoop to ask alms on other occasions, reckon it no disgrace to seek the aid of charity in observing the rites of their superstition. The first object that met the eye on passing the boun- dary from Austria into Styria, was a board, announcing an express prohibition against beg2^ing ; and right under it sat an old woman begging. When asked if she did not see what was above her, she answered, "Yes; but, dear Sir, I can't read." It is still more melan- choly that poor and industrious people should waste their scanty means in travelling from remote corners of the empire to pay this tribute to superstition. While I was resting at the fountain, on the summit of the Josephiberg^ a middle-aged man, accompanied by a woman and a youth, ascended the hill from the oppo- site side ; they were father, mother, and son. The father was blind ; as he paced ^wly along, s^uided bj his wife, both sinking under the burden of ill health and fatigue, he told the beads of a rosnry which hung from his neck, while she repeated the Aves and Pater- nosters. The son was a few steps before them, and carried on his shoulders the bundle which contained"
PILGRIMS. 431
their little stock of travelling conveniences. On reach- ing the summit, they seated themselves by tlie sjjimg; thuy spoke Bohemian; but an accidental circumstance brought out, that German was nearly as much their native language. Ti e latlscr was a lliien-weaver, from the northern exiremity of Bohemia. Three years before, he ijad lost \\\6 eye-sight through disease; he had visited in vain ail tlie numerous shrines of Bohe- mia, and tlie southern corners of Silesia ; as a last hope, he had 'repaired to the wonder-working .Virgin of Mariazell, had performed his devotions during three days, and was now on his return to his distant home. What could be saved from the scanty earnings of his v^^ife, the son who accompanied them, and a grown up daughter, who had been left at home with the younger children, had been hoarded up during nearly a year, to enable the husband and father to undertake this long and dreary pilgrimage, as the last earthly mean of re- covering his lost sight. Bread and water had been their sole sustenance, except that, during the three days spent in Mariazell itself, they had indulged in boiled vegeta- bles, and such soup as is there to be had, " not to look poorer than we are," said the good woman ; " for," added she, as if to give a high idea of the comforts which they had enjoyed in their Bohemian valley, " at home, while Johann could work, we never had less." Their piety had as yet brought no reward ; the hope of an immediate miracle had passed away ; but the unfortunate. man seemed to be in some measure con- soled under his grievous privation by having used all the means pointed out by his church, and he spoke of this toilsome, ^nd, to his squalid family, expensive jour- ney, as a duty which he owed to his religion no less than lo himself. He was happy in not being able to observe the tears which started into the eyes of his wife as he expressed his doubts that he had not even yet found acceptance before the Virgin ; but the boy- observed them, glanced his eye from the one to the
432 STYRIA.
other, pulled the straps of his little knapsack tighter round his shoulders, and put his parents in mind that they must proceed on their journey. They all took a parting draught from the pure spring; the blind father again seized his rosary, and, as tliey descended the hill, the wife again began the low monotonous chaunt. It is melancholy that a government, instead of endea- vouring to wean its people from extravagances which render poverty doubly oppressive, should encourage among those of its subjects, whose lot is penury and ignorance, superstitions that interfere so substantially with the comforts they might otherwise enjoy. If there be anv member of the Catholic church who will really maintain, that it is better for the community that the hard-earned gains of these poor people should be consumed in a distant pilgrimage, which, moreover, is often accompanied with much immorality, than that they should be expended in adding to their domestic comforts, he is as far beyond the reach of argument, as the observances of his church are, in this instance, beyond the reach of respect.
Manazell would not be worth visiting, were it not for the celebrity which it has acquired as a place of pilgrimage, and the residence of a lioly influence, which, till this day, is working more frequent, and astonishing, and undeniable miracles, than even Prince Hohenlohe. The town is small and mean looking ; it consists, in fact, principally of inns and alehouses, to accommodate the perpetual influx of visitors, which never ceases, all the year round, except when snow has rendered the mountains impassable. The immense size of the beds in these hostelries shows at once to how many incon- veniences the pious are willing to submit. The pil- grims, however, who can pretend to the luxury of a bed, are few in number ; above all, during the time that the annual procession from Vienna is on the spot, it is not possible that the greater part of the crowd can be able to find lodgings ; and, though there were
MARIAZELL. 433
accommodation, no small portion of them are too poor to pay lor it. These, fron) necessity, and aiany others from less jusl!ria[)ie motives, spend the niglkt in the neighbouring woods ; both sexes are intermingled ; and, till morning dawns, they continue drinking, and singing songs, which are any thing but hymns of devotion. Fighting used to be the ordei* of the night, so long as the procession from Gratz (which, likewise, is always a numerous one) performed its pilgrimage at the same time with that from Vienna. The women of Gratz are celebrated for their beauty all over the empire, and the young females of Vienna have their full share of personal attractions. When the two companies met m Mariazell, the men were uniformly engaged, at last, in determining by blows the charms of their respective fair ones, or deciding who was best entitled to enjoy their smiles. It was found necessary to put a stop to this public scandal, by ordering the pilgrimages to, take place at different times.
The church, which is the centre of all this devotion and irregularity, has n^>thing to recommend it except its antiquity, and the picture to which it owes its fame. The latter is just one of those modern Greek paintings which are so common in Italy, and wiiich are there ascribed, by the believing multitude, to the pencil of the apostle Luke. The maiden-motlier holds the holy infant in her arms, but both are so covered with silver, that only the heads are allowed to be seen. An irrup- tion of the Tartars had driven a Styrian priest to save himself by flight, and he carried along with him this Madonna, the only ornament of his rude church. As he wandered for safety through this mountainous re- gion, a light suddenly burst from heaven, and the Madonna herself, descendinsf on the clouds with her mfant son, in the very same attitude in which she was represented in the picture, ordered him to hang it up on a tree which she pointed out, and sent him forth to proclaim to the world, that, through it, her ear bb
434 STYRIA.
would ever be open. On the spot where the tree stood, the church was afterwards built ; as tlie fame of the miracles soon spread over all Germany, and as they were frequently performed in behalf of princes, the altars of Mariazeil have been crowded for more than eight hundred years, and its treasury continued to overflow with gold, and silver, and precious stones, till Joseph removed part of its riches into the imperial exchequer. Maria Theresa had hung up as a votive offering figures in silver of herself and all her family ; the unnatural son melted down his mother, and brothers, and sisters, and carried his profanity so far as to sub- ject to a similar process the four angels, of the same costly metal, who guarded the high altar. The trea- sury of Mariazeil used to be reckoned the richest in Europe, after that of Loretto, and, as in the latter, the renewed devotion of the faithful is again restoring its lost splendour.
In the centre of the gloomy church stands a small and dark chapel, dimly lighted up by a single lamp, whose ray is elipsed by the glare of precious stones and metals that are profusely scattered within. A sil- ver railing guards the entrance, and around this costly fence kneel the crowded worshippers, supplicating their various boons from the holy picture within, which they can scarcely see. Behind the chapel rises an in- sulated pillar, surmounted by a stone image of the Vir- gin. It was surrounded by a double circle of pilgrims. The inner circle consisted of females ; they were all on their knees, in silent adoration. The outer circle contained only men ; they had not so much devotion either in their looks or attitude, and stood bye, care- lessly leaning on their staffs. The sun was just going down behind the bare precipices of the neighbouring mountains, ana the company was thus arranged to await the signal for chauntino- the Ave Maria. The aisle in which they were assembled was cold and som- bre ; the weak rays of light, passing through the stain-
MARIAZELL. 435
ed fiflass of a large Gothic window, covered them with a hundred soft aiivl varied tint?, and not a whisper dis- turbed tiie solemn silence, except the indistinct mur- mur of prayer from the holy chapel. At lenjjth the sun disappeared, and the bell gave the signal for the evening service. The young women in the inner part of the circle immediately began to move slowly round the pillar on their knees, singing, with voices in which there was much natural harmony, a hymn to the Vir- gin, nearly in the following strain, while the men stood motionless, taking up the burden at the end of every stanza, and bending to the earth before the sacred imaoe.
Fading, still fading^, the last beam is shining ; Ave Maria ! day is declining. Safety and innocence iiy with the light, Temptation and danger walk forth with the night; From the fail of the shade, till the matin shall chime, Shield us from danger, and save us from crime. Ave Maria ! audi nos.
Ave Maria ! hear when we call, Mother of Him who is brother of all : Feeble and failing, we trust in thy might ; In doubting and darkness, thy love be our light ; Let us sleep on thy breast while the night taper burns, And wake in thine arms when the morning returns. Ave Maria ! audi nos.
From Mariazell, a very good road, considering the alpine nature of the country, leads southw'ard through the mountains, passing the romantic little towm of See- wiesen, and, at Bruck on the Mur, rejoins the great line of communication between Vienna and Trieste. The Mur is a large and rapid stream, but, unfortunate- ly, the inequalities in its channel render it unservicea- ble for navigation. It is used only to (loat down wood from Upper Styrla. The trees are formed into a raft, and, besides the men entrusted with its management, some venturous passengers occasionally trust themselves
436 STYRIA.
on this bulky, and yet frail bark, to the rapids of the river. The voyage has often terminated fatally, by the raft, at some sharp turn of the river, being dashed to pieces against the rocks on the opposite side. One dreaded spot of this kind occurs in the river near Leo- ben, about nine miles above Bruck, and yet the difficul- ty might be removed at a trifling expense. The ri- ver, which is flowing east, suddenly turns to the north, and runs in this direction a few hundred yards, till an opposing precipice, from whose face its waters boil back in furious agitation, forces it again to run east ; then it flows south, and finally continues its easterly course, thus forming, by these windings of its channel, nearly three sides of a square. It is at the turn, where its northerly course is suddenly checked by impending rocks, that the most fatal accidents on the Mur have happened. A few years ago, forty passengers went to the bottom in this dangerous passage, and the marin- ers, so soon as they approach it, have recourse to Pa- ternosters, and the favour of the Virgin of Mariazell. Now, the space of ground included between the first winding of the river in which it flows north, and the last in which returns just as far south, did not seem to me to exceed half a mile ; and it is a low, level plain. Neither much labour nor expense would be required to carry a canal through it from the upper to the low- er part of the river, and the navigation, avoiding these perilous rapids, would proceed in a straight line.
Bruck, like all the other little towns in Upper Sty- ria, is dull and inactive, for the manufactures of this part of the province are farther to the north, round the iron mines of Eisenerz, which are supposed to have furnished the Romans with the JYoricns chalybs, and the copper mines of Kahlwang. The population, both in the towns and the country, is devoutly Catholic, and far more regular in their observances than the Austri- ans. A few small confifreo^ations of Protestants still linger in the recesses of the mountains. Styria took
BRUCK. 4S7
up the cause of" the Reformation early and successful- ly ; but Ferdinand II., who had ah'eady hghted up the war which brought Gustavus Adolphus in triumph from the Bakic to the Danube, brought back the province to the true faith with fire and sword. A few strag- ghng Protestants, escaping observation by the remote- ness of their alpine abodes, perpetuated their doctrines during a century and a half, without pastors, or church- es, or public worship, handing down their religion as a tradition from o^eneration to generation. Maria The- resa, herself rescued from destruction by a Protestant monarch, sent forth missionaries to hunt out the stray sheep, and bring them back to the fold by argument and remonstrance. This was to be tolerated ; but it is scarcely to be credited, that those who should ob- stinately adhere to their faith were doomed to exile. If they refused to enter the imperial road to salvation, they were to be shown the road to Transylvania, and actually planted as colonists by the side of their bro- ther heretics, the Turks. Joseph II. mounted the throne, and this stupid and barbarous policy disappear- ed. Instead of curing the heretics of Styria by threats of banishment, he built them churches, and gave them pastors.
Gratz, the capital of Styria, is a handsome, bustling, and prosperous town, seated on the Mur, which has already been augmented by the waters of the rapid Merz, and surrounded by a plain which is an orchard. After Vienna and Prague, it is the most populous city in the hereditary dominions of Austria, and contains thirty-five thousand inhabitants. Besides its own ma- nufactures in woollen and cotton stutFs, it is the entre- pot of all the trade between the capital and Trieste. The character of its inhabitants is marked by the same love of pleasure which distinguishes the Viennese, but is accompanied with more archness and vivacity. Its females are celebrated at once for their beauty, and their softness of heart — but there are many places in
43S STYRIA.
Europe which can equal it in both respects. The Gratzer belle is, in sjeneral, buxorn and blonde, rather low in stature, of a full voluptuous growth, a roundish face, and a remarkably clear couiplexion. The eyes are universally the most eloquent part of her form, and, in disposition, she is a romp. No capita! is richer in female beauty than Vienna, however poor it may be in far more valuable female quaitiies, and its affluence is derived, in a great measure, from the diversity of bodily form, as well as mental constitution, among the different provinces which compose the empire. The peculiarity of Vieiioa, in this respect, lies in the diffe- rent styles of beauty which are collected in it; for, in all the provinces, the Pracht-exemplare — the show-edi- tions— of the other sex generally find their way to the capital, either seeking or accompanying a husband.
Gratz was the capital of the vStyrian dukes, so often as the province was not under one head Avith Austria; and even when the provinces were thus united, it fre- quently was enlivened by the residence of the common sovereign. Ferdinand II. built for himself a pompous mausoleum, in which his own remains, and those of his mother, are still exhibited. Ferdinand no doubt be- lieved that he was discharging a duty in persecuting Protestantism ; but there seems to have been some- thing ominously prophetic in the text which he caused to be inscribed on his sepulchre, "The seed of the just shall inherit the earth."
Lower Styria, which'intervenes between Gratz and the frontiers of Carniola, is very different from the northern part of the province, both in its external ap- pearance, and in its productions. It is a varied and fertile plain, watered by the Mur and the Drave, both of which are now large rivers; and instead of the mi- neral riches which constitute the wealth of Upper Styria, it supplies to Austria w'nc and corn, honey and capons. The vines are principally raised along the banks of the Drave, and on the rich plains Avhich ex-
THE WINDEN. 469
tend, in the eastern portion of the district, to the fron- tiers of Hungary. Tlie wines are acid, like those of Austria, but suuje sorts have so much tire that they are never drunk without being mixed with a more harmless variety. Tiiose of Radkersburg and Lutten- berg are the most intoxicating. Mahi buig, a thriving town, on a commandir)g eminence above the rapid Drave, is the centre of the trade. Beyond tliis point, the language, and even tfie character of the popula- tion, suddenly ch.anges — for the country between the Drave and Carniola is inhabited by a race who, till this day, have preserved their own ruder dialect, and less comfortable habits, against the influence of the German tribes, who gradually occupied all the other parts of the provmce. Tliey are descendants of the Winden, a noithern horde, who, in conjunction with other barbarians, possessed themselves of Styria, after the falling fortunes of Rome had recalled her legions from Noricum and Pannonia. Expelled, in their turn, by Charlemagne from the whole of Upper, and the northern part of Lower Styria, they found a settled abode in its soiNfhern exti'emity, only by submitting to the domination of the conqueror, and have maintained themselves, in a great measure, pure from German in- novations. Even at Zilly, the Roman Celleia, the great mass of the people no longer understands the language of Styria, arid, instead of the substantial dwellings in the other parts of the province, nothing can exceed the miserable hovels of the peasantry. They are formed entirely of trees, hewn, on two sides, into a flat surface, and laid horizc ntally above each other, those which form the two ends being notched into those of which the front and back of the house are composed. Sometimes, but not at all universally, the crevices are filled with a sort of oakum. There is no outlet for the smoke except the door; and the small apertuie which serves as a window is frequently Hot more than a foot square.
440 CARNIOLA.
Another mountainous ridge, though of very mode- rate elevation, and scarcely interesting when compared with the Carinthian Alps which rise to the westward, must be crossed before the traveller descends to the valley of the Save, and enters Carniola. In the north- ern part of this singular province all is beauty and fertility; in the southern, all is barren, naked rock. JLaybach, the capital, is likewise the first town of any importance which presents itself. It was founded, according to the civic fradition, by Jason, when on his return from Colchis with the Golden Fleece. From the Black Sea, he came up the Danube to Belgrade where it is joined by the Save ; he then struggled against the current of the Save as far as where Laybach now stands ; he and his companions having here founded a city, and recruited their strength, took their coracles on their shoulders, and crossed the Carniolian Alps to Trieste, where they embarked for Greece. Modern notoriety, however, threatens to eraze ancient tradi- tion, and Jason is about to be eclipsed by the Holy Allies. The Congress is the only thing which gives Laybach historical interest, and its inhabitants, proud that their city should have been selected as the ren- dezvous of so many princes and statesmen, have as- sumed an affected tone of superiority which sometimes breaks out in very ridiculous forms. A steep eminence ori the opposite bank of the Laybach, the river on which the city stands, and from which it takes its name, is crowned with the fortress, the melancholy abode of Italian liberals. Lubiana is as terrific a word to a Lombard as the Bastile ever was to a Frenchman.
At Upper Laybach, the stage beyond Laybach it- self, I quitted the great road for that which runs west- ward into the mountains to Idria, It was about four in the afternoon when I entered it, assured that there was not more than three hours driving to Idria ; but here, as elsewhere, the notions of the country people,
IDRIA. 441
in regard to distance, are extremely indefinite. Dwring half an hour, tlie road ran through a narrow plain ; it then began to ascend rapidly aniong dark woods of fir running along the edge of deep hollows, and we were still in the woods, and still ascending, when even the uncertain light of evening disappeared, and a dreary, rainy, and pitch-dark night rendered it as dangerous to proceed, as the loneliness of the country rendered it impossible to find refuge from the storm. Moreover, Giacomo, the coachman, had drunk more plentifully than was prudent, and neither he nor his cattle had ever made the journey before. His supplications to the Virgin, and, by the time he was fairly drenched with rain, to Bacchus, threw in our way some of the carters employed to convey wood and charcoal to Idria from the more distant recesses of the mountains ; but they seemed to deserve the same reputation for rude- ness and ierocity which distinguishes them in so many other places. According to them, we were still as far from Idria as we had been four hours before. Giaco- mo's broken Croatian soon informed them that he was a stranger ; and all his inquiries about inns and ale- houses were only answered by a horse laugh. His pa- tience being already exhausted, he could not bear to have vulgar insult added to misfortune, and let loose upon them his whole stock of Italian oaths, (and it was not a small one,) concluding with assuring me, for our mutual consolation, that they undoubtedly were " Sio-- nori della Kruhitza.'"^ However, satisfied with laugh- ing at our troubles, and increasing them by more than doubling the road we had yet to drive, they neither attempted to assault nor rob us.
* The Kruhitza is the name of a mountain pass, practicable on- ly on foot or horseback, leading through the forests directly from Idria to Gorizia. It has the reputation of being infested by ban- ditti. Probably this danger is exaggerated, as it is every where ; but about Gorizia it is a proverbial saying, " Chi vuol rubar' se ne vad' alia Kruhitza."
56
442 CARNIOLA.
We continued to creep on up the mountain, now plunging into the pine forests, where we learned that we were getting oif the road only by the horses run- ning their heads against the trees, and now emerging upon a barren, hilly heath, where the closest attention only showed that, to avoid being precipitated into a deep dell, it was much safer to trust to the animals than to their conductor. On arriving at a small village where there was a sort of inn, nothing could prevail on Giacomo to move a foot farther till day-light. I was little inclined to pay any regard to the statements of the landlord, that it was positively dangerous to drive on to Idria in the dark, without a person who knew every inch of the road ; because I took it for granted that he merely speculated on the advantage of having a guest. I did him foul wrong. On making the rest of the journey next morning, I was compelled to ac- knowledge the accuracy of liis representations, and to be perfectly sa-jsfied with the obstinacy of Giacomo. The accommodations of the little hostelry were much more comfortable than any man has a right to expect in such a part of such a country. In these houses, the landlord, commonly his wife, and always the female who acts as waiter and chambermaid, speak German. In fact, the language is taught in all the country schools; but this has hitherto had little effect in mak- ing it general among the peasantry ; for the great point always is, not what a child learns in a school, but what it speaks and hears out of the school. It learns Ger- man words during the short time it is in the presence of the master ; out of his reach, it speaks and hears only its native Croatian dialect. Small tracts for the use of the peasantry have even been printed in Croa- tian, and some attempts have been made towards com- piling a dictionary.
Next morning, we proceeded, during an hour, over the same barren country. Of a sudden the road seems t© disappear right before the eyes of the traveller, and
IDRIA. 443
he finds himself on the brink of a huge hollow in the mountains. The eii'ect is singular and striking. He looks down into the whole of this kettle, surrounded on every side by irregular towering crags, which arc here and there tufted with patches of fir, but, in ge- neral, exhibit only the naked and dreary rock. The picture was entirely changed by the mist in which every thing was enveloped. The morning was not sufficiently advanced ; the sun, though bright and warm above, had not yet penetrated into the gulf, which was filled to the brim with white fleecy va- pour, into which the road seemed to descend, as if into mere air. All around, the rugged cliffs rose above its surface, like the rocky shores of a mountain lake, and imagination could assign no depth to the abyss over which its hght and hoveling mantle was spread. As the sun came nearer the meridian, the vapour be- gan to rise slowly, but without dividing itself into those distinct, and rapidly ascending columns, which often produce such fantastic appearances, in the higher pas- sages of the Swiss Alps. In a short time the whole kettle was visible, terminating below in a narrow, irre- gular valley. The Idria, issuing at once from the mountains on the south, rushed along in the bottom. On the crags which, circling round, seem to shut out this spot from all communication with the world, not a cottage was to be seen, for they are too precipitous ; and only here and there a few scanty patches of culti- vation, for they are too barren. In the centre of the valley, and about seven hundred feet below the brink, the eye rested on the little town of Idria, and the huts scattered round the base of the mountain which con- tains the entrance to the niines.^
* The discovery of these mercurial mines, like that of so many other mines, is attributed to accident. A Carniolian peasant, who drove a small trade in wooden vessels, was in the habit of groping his way into this recess, at that time entirely covered with wood, to procure materials for his tubs and pails, which he sometime?
444 CARNIOLA.
The entrance to the mine is a little to the south- ward of the town, in the side of a small hillock which rises in front of the mountainous wall that surrounds the dell. The visitor puts on a miner's dress. It is not only necessary to leave behind watches, rings, snuff- boxes, and similar articles which would infalliby be af-
finished on the spot. He had placed some pails over night in a small pool in a rivulet which issued from the mountain, for the purpose of "• seasoning" them, as we ivould express it. To keep them under water, he put into them a quantity of sand taken frrm the bed of the stream. In the morning, he found all his strength scarcely sufficient to lift one of them out of the water. He could ascribe this only to the weight of the sand which he had thrown in by handfuls the evening before ; sand so heavy was to him a phenomenon, and he carried some of it to the paster of his village. The latter, suspecting what might be the reason, sent it to the Im- perial Director of M-nes, and, on examination, it was found to con- tain above half its weight of quicksilver. The whole of what now constitutes the department of idrla was immediately declared a do- main of the crown, but the mines were first ^.vorked by private ad- venturers on leases, and the miners have still preserved various traditions of the ruin which some, and the difficulties which all of these speculators had to encounter. The shafts were driven deep in the solid rock, but no quicksilver appeared. One after another, the speculators drew back from the undertaking, and it centered at last in one who was more sanguine and persevering. But he, too, hoped and laboured in vain ; and the destitution into which he had plunged his family by the unsuccessful adventure brought him to his grave. His widow was compelled to give up the operations ; but the workmen declared they would still make an attempt for the family of him who had so long given them bread, and continue the search fourteen days longer, without w;iges. The fourteenth of these days arrived, but no quicksilver appeared. Towards the afternoon, as the workmen, who had been annoyed all day long by sulphureous vapours and a more uncomfortable atmosphere than usual, were about to give up their task for ever in despondency, and prepare to celebrate above ground the festival of their patron saint, of which this happened to be the eve, a shout from the low- est part of the shaft announced that the deep concealed vein had at length been dragged from its lurking place. The saint was post- poned, and the mercury pursued. It was soon ascertained that the labours and expense of years would be amply repaid. The reviv- ed widow prudently sold her remaining right to the government, and, since that period, during more than four hundred years, Idria has not ceased to pour its thousands into the imperial treasury.
IDRIA. 445
fected by the quicksilver; but, for the same reason, the accompanying miner insists on your dispensing with all coats and waistcoats which have metal buttons. In every case a miner's dress is at once more convenient, and more independent of" the moisture and rubbings, "which may be encountered below ground, although, in this beautiful mine, there is httle to be apprehended from either. The miners have not yet ceased their jokes on two ladies who went down with some fash- ionable company during the Congress in the neighbour- ing Laybach, and returned, the one with her gold Avatch converted into a tin trinket by the quicksilver, and the fair cheeks and neck of the other bedaubed with the blackness of falsehood by the sulphur.
The descent can be made to the very bottom of the mine in less than five minutes, in one of the large buckets in which the ore is brought above ground. This mode, though the less fatiguing, is not therelbre the better ; for, in desC'Ljndmg the shaft on foot, one can observe much better the care and regularity with which all the operations have been carried on, parti- cularly in later times. From the first step, day-light is excluded, for the passage, hewn in the rock, descends at a very acute angle ; were it a smooth surface, it would be impracticable. Excepting the steepness, it has no other inconvenience. Instead of clambering down a wet, slippery, wooden ladder, as in Freyberg, you descend on successive flights of steps, as regular as if they had been constructed for a private dwelling. Here and there are landing places, where galleries branch olf throu2:h which veins have been followed, or the shaft descends in a new direction. This is the regular mode in which the mining is carried on, from the surface of the earth to the lowest part of the mine, forming a subterraneous staircase, descending about seven hundred feet, for the mine as yet is no deeper, owing to the superabundance and richness of the ore. All is pierced in the hard limestone rock. A still
446 CARNIOLA.
more useful des^ree of care has been bestowed on the Avails and ceiling. Instead of leaving the bare rugged rock, as is still frequently done elsewhere, or support- ing the roof with wo )d, as was in former times the universal practice, this passage into the earth is lined with a strong wall of hewn stone, arched above ; so that the descent is in reality through a commodious vaulted passage about four feet wide, and, in average height, rather more than six. The walling with stone is preferable, both in security and duration, to the old custom of lining and supporting the shafts with wood; the increasirjg scarcity aiid value of wood have like- wise made it the cheaper mode. Neither is the labour so great as, at first sight, might be imagined. The stones used are those cut out in carrymg the shaft itself downwards. All the trouble of transporting them along a gaDery to the bottom of the perpendicular shaft by which the ore and rubbish are conveyed above ground, is thus saved. No mine could be more fortunate in regard to the absence of water. A slight degree of moisture on the walls and ceiling is all that can be occasionally traced. The atmosphere is per- fectly dry and comfortable, except in the neighbour- hood of rich veins.
The spot where the original adventurers found the first vein of mercury is pointed out rather more than two hundred feet below ground, that is, at one-third of the depth to which the mine has been carried during the four hundred years that have since elapsed, a striking proof how^ abundant and productive the veins must have proved. The original one, however, does not seem to have been followed, for the first gallery is considerably lower. The deeper you go, the more thickly do the veins come upon each other. Their direction, in general, is nearly horizontal, but it is not at all uncommon to find them ascending; in this case, they are not followed. Even where they retain the horizontal direction, or rise at a yerj trifling angle.
IDRIA. 447
they are not pursued to exhaustion, unless they be uncommonly productive ; and this extraordinary rich- ness never continues long. Instead of exhausting the vein, a new one is sought deeper down.
The oies vary considerably in point of richness. What are reckoned good ores contain from sixty-five to seventy-five per cent, of pure quicksilver, and these are common enough. They often go as high as eighty-five per cent. The mercury is seldom found in its pure state, nor, when it does appear, is it always in the neighbourhood of the richest veins. I observed some globules glittering on the walls of one of the galleries which was somewhat damp, as if it had been brought out by the pressure of moisture.
The only unpleasant accompaniment of the ore is the sulphur which almost universally attends it ; its fumes were strongest m the lowest galleries. The miners have learned to consider it as a prognostic of good ore ; for it is universally observed that the richer the vein is, the greater is the quantity of sulphur; they have never pure air and good ore together. But neither the action of the sulphur nor of the mer- cury on the health and appearance of the workmen is at all so striking as it has sometimes been represented. That the mercury brings on a periodical salivation is merely a joke. Its effects are most observable on the teeth, which are generally deficient and discoloured.
The preparatory processes through which the ore must pass before being finally carried to the roasting ovens are performed on the other side of the town, on the banks of the Idria. But it is only with the inferior ores that such processes are necessary ; all that are held to contain sixty-five per cent, of quicksilver, or upwards, are put immediately into the oven. This may be represented as a square building divided by brick floors into five or six compartments. These floors are not contmuous, but are pierced with a num- ber of holes, that the flame and smoke may ascend
448 CARNIOLA.
from the one to the other. The ore is spread out upon them, the apertures being left uncovered. The fire is kindled between the lowest floor and the ground, and every outlet and crevice in the whole fabric is then carefully shut. Tlie action of the fire, gradually ex- tending itself from one layer to another through the openings in the floors, separates the quicksilver from its accom^janyin^ fossils; it rises sublimated, along with the smoke, to the top, from whence it has no passage but by flues which are led through the walls in a wind- ing direction, that it may ool by continued circulation. As it cools, the pure quicksilver is precipitated, and descends, by internal communications between the flues, to the lower part of the wall. The (ire is kept up, till it is ascertained by the disappearance of vapours, that all the mercury has been disengaged ; nor are the outlets opened till the whole is so cool that all the quicksilver must have been deposited. The metal is found deposited in hollows at the bottom of the walls, made on purpose to receive it, and communicating with the flues. The sulphur is gained at the same time. The quicksilver is then tied up in sheep or goat skins, prepared with alum, these having been found to be the cheapest and most convenient of the materials which will contain mercury without being injured.
At stated seasons, twice or thrice a year, it is neces- sary to sweep out the dust which gathers in the flues, adheres to the walls, and settles on the corners in the interior of the ovens. This labour is found to be so unhealthy, that it is not laid upon the workmen as a regular part of their duty ; additional wages are paid to those who volunteer to perform it. The whole face is carefully wrapped up; but no precautions can secure them etfectually agjainst the prejudicial influ- ence of this dust, loaded with so many noxious parti- cles. It produces trembling fits, and frequently con- vulsions, which, for a time, disable the workmen for labour.
IDRIA. 449
Close by are the buildings for the manufacture of Zinnober, the led sublimate of mercury. For a long time there has been notliing done in them, because the stock on hand far exceeds any probable demand for it. A great deal of caution was aUvays observed in allow- ing strangers to visit it, owing to a wish to keep secret some particular processes of the manufacture.
The mine is wrought at the expense and for the ac- count of the Austrian government. The sales and re- venues are under the direction of an office in Vienna called the Bergwerks-productiori'Vcrschliess-Dircction^ a compound which, notwithstanding its formidable length, means just, Commissioners of Mines. Among its active members there is always a number of mineralogists and practical miners. The great profit of the mine lies, not so much in the quantity, as in the quality of the ore, and the small expense at which the metal is pro- duced. When the good ores are once above ground^ the only further expense of any consequence is the wood used in the roasting ovens. Even with the infe- rior ores, although the beating them into dust by ma- chinery, and then washing them repeatedly to separate the particles which contain mercury from the lighter sand which contains none, be a somewhat tedious pro- cess, yei it is not at all an expensive one. The profits have always been reckoned at fifty per cent, on the wholesale price at which the metal is consigned to the mine-directory in Vienna. The people on the spot either did not know, or would not tell the price ; but, according to Sartori, about sixteen years ago, the prime cost to the Direction was 110 florins (L. 11) per cwt. To other purchasers it was charged at 150 florins, (L. IT),) except to Spain, who received it at prime cost. This was in consequence of a convention between Joseph II. and Spain, by which the latter, on receiving the mineral at that price, bound itself to take annually ten thousand cwt. of quicksilver, and upwards of one thousand cwt. of red sublimate. The quicksilver was 57
450 CARNIOLA.
principally for the purposes of amalgamation in the mines of South Aaierica, and the eiionnous consump- tion betrays a faiilty mode of manipulation in Peru; for at FreybLM-g 1 was assured, that the loss of mercu- ry in amalgamation in the Saxon mines does not exceed an ounce in the hundred weight. Idria, therefore, under these circusnstances, was no unimportant item in the civil list revenue of Austria, since, exclusive of all other modes of consumption, the contract with Spain alone must have yielded an annual profit of more than L. 50,000. From the commencement of the contest between Spain and her colonies, this great outlet gra- dually became more and more confined, and is now en- tirely cut off. Idria at present does not, on an ave- rage, produce annually more than three thousand hun- dred weight of quicksilver. Even on this narrowed scale, the profits, I was assured, amount annually to above 200,000 florins, more than L. 20,000 Sterling. The Direction takes care that the supply shall exceed the demand as little as possible. Every two years a statement is sent down to Idria of the quantity which it is thought will be sufficient for each of the two fol- lowing, and on this depends the number of workmen and the regularity of their employment.
This immoderate decline in the consumption, amount- ing to more than one-fourth of the whole, besides tak- ing money out of the emperor's pocket, has necessari- ly diminished the population of Idria. In its flourish- ing state, the mine gave bread to between 1100 and 1200 men, of whom 300 were employed merely in fell- ing wood in the neighbouring mountains, and conveying it to Idria. The persons employed at present do not amount to a third of that number. The diminution, moreover, was the more sensibly felt, because it came at a time when the most active prosperity would have been required to repair the injurious consequences of a conflagration which had rendered the mine useless during nearly three years. It was never ascertained
IDRIA. 451
how the fire originated. The galleries were in many places still lined and roofed with wood, and in these the fire is supposed to have be^un. In 180J, on the night between the I.Oth and 16th oi iVlurcfi, the work- men observed a thick smoke issuing from some of the lower galleries. It ascended and spread itself through the higher. No lire was seen, no sound of tlanies was h ard ; but it was too evident that the mine was on fire below. Some of the workmen, with great intre- pidity, endeavoured to reach the scene of the confla- gration. It was in vain; they were Ibrced to retreat from one gallery to another, flying before an enemy "whom they could not discover, for the smoke, which continued to make its way upwards to the opet) air, was not merely so dense and suffocating, but so loaded with noxious fumes and particles let loose from the fossils among which the flames were raging in the bow- els of the earth, that no living thing could safely meet it, much less penetrate it. They were fortunate enough to save themselves above ground, and the idea was adopted of extinguishing the fire by excluding the air. All the passages were closed as near to the supposed scene of the conflagration as they could be reached. The two shafts which lead immediately above ground were stopped up outside, and plastered over with clay. Five weeks the mine remained thus sealed up, but without eifect. Twice, during this period, the cover- ings above were removed ; each time the enemy was found more furious than before. The flames were heard raging below with a sound at which the miner still trembles when he relates it ; the smoke, burden- ed with mercurial and sulphureous exhalations, rolled forth from the mouth of the pit, like steam^ f cm the jaws of Acheron, striking down every one that came withiD its reach. It was apprehended that the fire had attacked the upper works, and was thus threaten- ing the final destruction of the mine. As a last re- source, the Director resolved to hazard the experi-
45a CARNIOLA.
ment of laying the mine under water. A stream was turned into the perpendicular shaft, and allowed to flow two days and rhree nights. During the first day it produced no effect. In the course of the second day, whether it was that steam, generated by the meet- ing of the fire and the water, was struggling for escape, or that an inflammable air had been produced and kin- dled by the glowing fossils, of a sudden a subterrane- ous explosion shook the mountain with the noise and violence of an earthquake. The huts of the miners situated near the entrance were rent ; houses farther off, but standing on the slope or near the skirts of the hill, started from their foundations; and the panic- struck inhabitants w^ere flying in dismay from the ruin that seemed to threaten their valley. The whole thing must have been splendid; accidental as it was, art could go no farther in imitating nature. In the mine itself, as was afterwards found, the explosion had rent the galleries, thrown down the arched roofs, and torn up the stairs. But the victory was gained ; the vapours began to diminish, and at the end of some weeks it was possible to venture into the mine. It cost two years to prepare an apparatus and pump out the water. It was carried off into the Idria, and was found to contain only a small quantity of mercury, but a large proportion of vitriolic acid, and so much iron, that the bed and banks of the river were incrusted with iron ochre throughout its whole course, from Idria to where it falls into the Lisonzo. At the same time, every fish disappeared from the stream, except the eel, which seems to bid defiance to every thing ex- cept actual broiling or roasting.
Even when the galleries had been cleared of the water, it was impossible to work in them, partly from the heat which they still retained, but still more from the fumes of sublimated mercury, which produced in the miners a violent salivation, accompanied with con- vulsions, and trembling of the limbs. To produce an
THE PEASANTRY. 453
almost inhuman zeal, high wages were offered to such as would venture into places reckoned the most dan- gerous to explore the consequences of the disaster, and collect the quicksilver which had been deposited in large quantities in the galleries. Many purchased this additional pittance with their lives ; and altogether, the atmosphere, which continued for months to infest the mine, was so baneful, that it was difficult to muster a sufficient number of healthy men for the ordinary operations.
The town of Tdria, originating from, and depending on the mines, has felt, of course, the fluctuations of their prosperity. The wages which the mmers earn, even when in full employment, are so trivial, that they never can rise above a stale of destitution. Of the in- habitants who are not occupied in the mines, some of the men manufacture a coarse linen which others car- ry about the country, and even into Lower Austria for gale. The women manufacture equally coarse lace, which is not intended, indeed, for the luxurious market of the capital, but finds purchasers in the peasantry, and in the populace of the small towns, not only of Carniola itself, but likewise of Upper Styria, and down throughout Croatia to the frontiers of Tuikey. The aoil of the Idrian is much too unkindly to yield him the materials of his manufacture ; he buys his flax in Bohemia. With him the riches of the earth are con- cealed in her bosom ; skill and industry would be equally wasted on the stubborn rocks that surround his dell. Yet, even on the steep sides of this mountain kettle, he has done every thmg that labour can accom- plish. Wherever a corner could be found that pre- sented somethmg like an evenly and sheltered surface, with a perseverance deserving of a more liberal re- ward he has brought earth from a distance, formed an artificial soil on the barren rock, and planted his scanty crop of rye. The produce of this cultivation is, of course, far from equalling the toil it has cost. Not
454 CARNIOLA.
only this more naked part of the country, but the whole province of Carniola, like the greater part of the adjoining Croatia, bj no means produces what its own consumption requires. The deficiency is made up by importations from Hungary, that inexhaustible re- pository of corn and wine, but the importations are extremely Imiited, for Carniola has no money, and pro- duces little that Hungary requires.
To the Carniolian, as in general to the peasantry of the empire, w beaten bread or animal food is a luxury. Black broth, thick with vegetables, still blacker bread, and sometimes a scanty platter of small, rank, watery potatoes, are his customary food. Even this penury he gains only by incessant toil. He binds on his sliould- ers his few webs of coarse linen or lace, tied up in a white sheet ; thus burdened, dressed in ti long, vvhite, woollen coat, and low-crovvncd, broad-brimmrd, rough woollen hat, and armed with a long statf, forth he strolls into the world to seek a market for his wares. There is not a province of the Austrian empire, unless it be Transylvania or the Buckowina, where he is not to be found, hundreds of miles from his home, retail- ing the produce of the industry of his wife and daugh- ters. On the approach of winter he returns to the expectant hut with the profits of his little adventure, and materials for continuing his little manufacture. During his peregrination he is remarkable for frugality; he indulges in no luxury ; in a great degree he sets even the allurements of intoxication at defiance, and considers every penny as a sacred deposit for which he must religiously account to his family in the mountains of Carniola. Even amid the bustle and glitter of Vi- enna, his tall gauni figure, and swarthy countenance, are seen plo Iding through the crowd, while he calls aloud his " linens and laces," without a look for the host of passing gaieties. The varieties of people with whom he deals, and the caution that always springs from the habit of driving bargains, sharpen his wit, and
PLANINA. 455
make some amends for the total want of education. He even boasts of sotne knowledge of the world. In other respects, he is just as igj.orant as the Hungarian peasant ; he is doomed to a hie of much harder toil, and more biting j^cniny; but he is neither so brutal, nor so proud, so dull, nor so lazy.
The great road is regained at Loitsch, and enters the little, romantic valley ol" Planina. Though not desti- tute of picturesque beauty, it is remarkable only for the ample streauj, the Laybach, by which it is water- ed, and which, like so many others in this strange coun- try, issues at once, a full and ready-made river, from the mountain that terminates the valley on the south. For about a quarter of a mile we followed the course of the stream upwards through the narrow dell, bound- ed on both sides b^ bold rocks, and luited with luxu- riant underwood. A long array of corn and saw mills succeeded. Above the last of them, the dell is ter- minated by a semicircle of bold and lofty precipices, in the middle of which an enormous archway, aW : .,c as regularly formed as if hewn out by the hand of art, opens a way into the entrails of the mountain. Tii rough this majestic portal, the whole nver pours itself forth at once from the bosom oi the earth, and spreads out its waters to the diy in an anVi'le basin, which extends on both sides to the wall^ of rock that bound the dell. The stem of a huge lir, hollowed out like a canoe, fur- nishes the oni^ means of reaching the entrance; for the waters of the basin not only wash the precipices, but, as was ev'dent from the hollow sound of the waves, have undermined them. A miller's man guid- ed this frail bark with a wooden shovel ; the whole passage to the opening does not exceed a hundred feet, and, if one sits quietly, danger is out of the question.
This natural gateway is about twenty feet wide, and twice as high. It is regularly curved. A few steps forward, and it enlarges itself into a cavern of mag- hificent dimensions and wonderful regularity of form.
4i5Q CARNIOLA.
There are not many traces of stalactite ornament ; the gigantic walls and vaulted roof stand in their natural grandeur, unadorned and overpowering. Nothing seems to support the enormous weight of mountain above ; it rises from the earth gradually and regular- ly, bending itself into a majestic natural cupola. The effect is aided by the circumstance that, owing to the spaciousness of the entrance, no part of the dome re- mains in darkness; the eye takes in the whole at once.
The river, except when it is inundated, does not entirely cover the floor of the cavern, the bottom of which slopes down from the one side to the other. The upper part was now deserted, in consequence of the long continuance of dry weather, and consisted en- tirely of sand, a deposition from the stream which, when swollen, occupies the whole width of the portal. The course of the river cannot be followed far into the bowels of the mountain. The cavern, at its extremity, suddenly turns to the left ; it is no longer a vault, but a narrow passage ; the roof sinks down, light disap- pears, and the sound of the water announces that it is flowing over an uneven and interrupted channel. From the moment it enters the cavern its course is slow and tran^iuil, and it pours itself without noise into the deep-sunk mountain-basin, which, embedded among precipices, varies in depth from twelve to twenty-five feet.
But its troubles are not yet past. Flowing from the basin over the artificial embankment erected to raise its waters to the necessary elevation for the mills, it continues its course northwards through the valley. Scarcely, however, has it reached the northern extre- mity, when the earth again gapes for it, and swallows it up, not through a bold aperture like that which it has quitted, but through numerous, small, insidious rents and crevices. It is lost for nearly nine miles, pursuing its course under ground. It finally bursts
PLANINA. 457
forth again at Upper Laybach, where the hilly coun- try sinks down into the wide plain which surrounds Laybach itself; and, in the neighbourhood of the latter, it takes refuge from all its subterranean foes by joining its waters to those of the more formidable Save.
The origin of this subterraneous river which, during the thaws in the beginning of summer, and the rains of autumn, pours forth from the jaws of the cavern at Planina a mass of water so much superior to the capa- city of the apertures which drink it up at the northern extremity, that the wiiole valley, bounded as it is on both sides by rocky eminences, is converted into a ro- mantic lake, has not yet been satisfactorily ascertained. The more general opinion holds it to be the Poick, a river which throws itself into the mountain at Adels- berg, about nine miles south of Planina, and at a con- siderably higher elevation. This is likewise the more probable hypothesis. The body of water in both, at the time I saw^ them, was alike, and its somewhat muddy colour was the same. The course of the Poick, where it disappears in the mountain at Adelsberg, is to the north; Planina lies in the same direction, and much lower. According to the other hypothesis, which has been started of late years, the Poick, in- stead of reappearing through the portal of Planina, and sending its waters by the Save and the Danube to the Black Sea, turns to the westward beneath ground, reappears, after a subterraneous course of twenty miles, in the sources of the Wippach on the western confines of Carniola, pours itself, under this name, into the Lisonzo, and is thus finally lost in the Adriatic. The Poick being thus disposed of, the river of Planina is declared to be a subterraneous outlet of the neigh- bouring lake of Zirknitz. The hypothesis is entirely gratuitous. The Wippach, it is true, has a similar origin ; but so have the Idria, the Jersero, and various 58
458 CARNIOLA.
other streams in every corner of these calcareous bills. •It is said, that pieces of wood, and other light bodies, which have been thrown into the Poick at Adelsberg, have reappeared in the Wippach; but such on dits are always of doubtful credibility. It is said, for in- stance, that a travelling cooper who had suffered ship- Avreck in the Striidel, or whirlpool, of the Danube, above Vienna, afterwards found part of his equipage floating on the lake of Neusiedel in Hungary, and the people of the country still believe that a subterraneous communication exists between the river and the lake. If the cavern of Planina be an outlet of the lake of Zirknitz, its waters ought to dlsaj)pear when the lake is dry; but the waters of the Lay bach never fail en- tirely. It would be desirable to know whether the Poick and the Laybach swell at the same time ; only few observations, however, have been made, and even these are in general too indefinite to be taken as cer- tain data.
The lake of Zirknitz itself lies in a higher ridge of eminences, about eight miles to the eastward of Pla- nina. It is not remarkable either for its size or beau- ty ; when full, it is just like any other large piece of water, and the rocks which surround it are too bare and uniform to be picturesque. Its celebrity is due solely to the periodical flux and reflux of its waters from and into the bowels of the mountain. It is scarcely worth visiting, except when the departure of its waters has left uncovered the orifices of the con- duits from which they issue, and through which they disappear; for it is only then that any idea can be formed of the natural machinery by which its pheno- mena are produced. It is about six English miles long, and three broad ; it is embedded among ridges of lime- stone, the predominating fossil in the mountains of this part of Carniola. On the approach of midsummer, in ordinarily dry seasons, when the snow has disappeared from th© neighbouring mountains, its waters begin to
LAKE OF ZIRKNITZ. 459
decrease. If the weather continues dry, the diminu- tion proceeds rapidly, and in a few Aveeks the whole mass is drained off. A rank vegetation springs up from the mud which remains behind; the peasants, if the summer promises well, sow grass, or perhaps rye, on the exterior part of the abandoned bed. In a couple of months they are mowing grass where the dark waters of the lake were formerly spread out, and the sportsman shoots game where, but a short time before, he was fishing pike. When the lake is entirely gone, the caverns through which it has fled become visible, sinking into the mountain, some on the side, and others on the bottom of its bed. They all lie towards the northern bank; they vary in size; though some of them can be entered, they are not practicable to any extent ; water, or the narrowness and lowness of the passage, uniformly arrests your progress. So far as they have been traced, they all descend.
On the southern side, the bottom and bank of the lake yawn into a similar set of apertures, through which, as the rains set in towards the end of autuam, w^ater begins to rise. It continues increasing in quan- tity, and gradually fills the deeper hollows of the de- serted bed. Even some of the openings on the northern side which had assisted to drain the lake, now send forth their stores from beneath to fill it. As the rains con- tinue, the waters issue from these apertures with such impetuosity, that pike are said to have been frequently taken, wounded and disfigured in a manner which could only be explained on the supposition, that the violence of the subterraneous stream had dashed them to and fro against the rocks of the hidden passage, through which it hurries them up from deeper reservoirs before they emeroje into the lake. So soon as the waters begin to appear, the birds which had nestled \n the long grass seek another refuge; the peasant removes in haste what of his hazardous crop may still remain
46© CARNIOLA.
within the margin of the basin ; and, within as short a time as that in which it had retired, the lake is again there in all its former extent, and stocked with its former inhabitants.
The length of time during which it remains dry depends entirely on the comparative dryness of the season. The waters ran off in the summer of 1821, returned tov/ard the end of November, and ran oif a second time in the end of February 1822,^ot, indeed, an ordinary occurrence, but perfectly natural, because no rain had fallen from the beginning of January, and the snow on the higher mountains still continued to be frozen. Sometimes, again, when the summer is deci- dedly what may be called a wet one, the lake does not retire at all ; all proofs that the sources of its waters are not subterranean, although the channels which conduct them into this basin are subterranean.
The phenomena of this lake, therefore, do not seem either to be of very difficult explanation, or to deserve the astonishment with which many travellers, and some naturalists, have regarded them. The whole ridge of mountains consists of a very porous calcareous rock through which the rain and melted snow easily pene- trate. It is traversed, likewise', internally by innume- rable suites of caverns and galleries in which the waters unite themselves into streams, and pursue their subterraneous course till they issue from the mountain into some lower open hollow, as in the valley of Pla- nina, or here in the lake of Zirknitz. The quantity and ize of the fish, which retire vvith the lake into the caverns beneath, and return with the returning stream, prove that there must be capacious reservoirs within the bosom of the mountain in which they can exist and prosper.
Where the outlets of the lake finally discharge their waters cannot, of course, be easily traced, because their subterraneous channels cannot be followed ; but the whole countrv from the northern limits of Carniola to
THE PROTEUS ANGUINUS. 461
the shores of the Adriatic, from the cavern of Planina to the sources of the Tiinavus, is se) full of streams, whose first appearance above ground clearly implies a previous subterranean course, thait there is no difficulty in accounting for the disappearance of the lake. The Jersero issuing from the cave of St. Cantian, the Idria bursting from the mountain not far from the mines, the Wippach rising in the same manner farther to the westward, are, in all likelihood, outlets of the Zirknitz ; and what is there improbable in the supposition, that even the Timavus itself draws part of its stores from this alternating reservoir ?
Some of these subterranean waters in this part of Carniola are, so far as I know, the only European abodes of that anomalous little creature, the Proteus anguinus. Some living specimens, which I saw in the possession of a peasant in Adelsberg, were about eight inches long ; but they have been found of twice that length. The body varies in diameter from half an inch to an inch, according to the length of the animal : it resembles almost entirelv that of the eel ; it is whitish below, and above of a delicate flesh colour. The upper part of the head is more flattened than in the eel, and approaches nearer to that of a pigmy alligator. The gills protrude entirely from the head, and sometimes rise above it : their colour is a pale red; but, when the animal is irritated, they become of so brilliant a scarlet hue, and branch out into so many minute yet distinct ramifications, that the creature has exactly the same appearance as if a tuft of young coral were growing from each side of its head. It has no fins, and the members which occupy their place consti- tute the most singular part of its conformation. Instead of pectoral fins, it is furnished with two arms, or fore legs, of a pale coloured membranaceous substance, and about two inches long. Nearly in the middle, they arc divided by a joint, which corresponds exactly to the elbow or knee, and the outer division terminates in
462 CARNIOLA.
three distinct fingers or toes. The place of the ven- tral fins is occupied bj another pair of limbs perfectly similar to the former, excepting that they are some- what shorter, and terminate in two toes, instead of three. From these appendages, the animal is called, in the Croatian dialect of the country, Zlovishka riba, or. Human-fish ; it uses them in the water as fins, with great agility, and at the bottom, or on dry land, it uses them as feet.
The powers of vision of the Proteus are still as doubtful as those of the mole long were. Some have altogether denied that it possesses eyes; others take for eyes, two points which are just observable towards the crown of the head. The decided aversion which the creature shows against light, and the impatience and agitation with which it keeps itself in incessant motion, when brought out from the shade, seem to imply that it possesses organs susceptible of the action of light. The moment it is exposed to the sun, it becomes restless and unhappy; its natural abode is in thp waters of these subterranean caverns, and it tiever issues voluntarily from the impenetrable darkness in w^hich alone it finds itself comfortable. They appear most frequently in certain small streams which issue from the mountain at Si?tich, in the neighbourhood of Laybach, being hurried forth from the caverns within by the force of the stream, when the internal reser- voirs have been swollen by heavy rains, or a long con- tinued thaw. Those which I saw had been taken in the small subterranean lake which terminates the Magdalene grotto, not far from that of Adelsberg.
In regard, at least, to their mode of life, it may be dojibted how far the Protei have been justly set down as amphibious. It is seldom that the creature leaves the water voluntarily; and, even when he does go astray, it is only to make a brief and difficult prome- nade, in the darkness of night, a few feet from the edge of the stream. This excursion, short as it is. is
ADELSBERG. 463
generally fatal to him. His \vliolc body is covered, like that of tiie ee!, with a viscid slime, 'o which con- stant moisture is essential; when he lea es the water, this substance speedily dries up, glues him to the spot, and he expires. From all I could learn, I saw no rea- son to believe that the Proteus possesses the faculty of living and moving, out of the wafer, in a higher degree than the common eel, or the flying fish.
From Planina, till you reach, after traversing forty miles, the brink of the magnificent barrier which over- hangs Trieste, and surrounds the head of the Adriatic, you are in general getting deeper and deeper into the bare, barren, calcareous mountains. To Adelsberg it is a dreary ascent, with little for the eye except the naked rock. Few spots are cultivated, for the soil does not admit of cultivation, and the woods, its natu- ral covering, have been in a great measure cleared, away. The population is *hin, poor, and ignorant ; the villages ugly and squalid uut lull of wine-houses; for, besides the wines of Lower »Styria, this beverage is procured, both stronger and cheaper, from the south- western districts o? their own countrv. • The village of Adelsberg stands at the bottom of an inconsiderable rocky eminence. At the western ex- tremity of the eminence, the rock gapes into two large apertures. The one reaches nearly from its summit to the level of the plain, and lias aii irregular, jagged, cleft-like shape ; the other is rather more to the east- ward, about fifty feet higher in the rock, and in a much more regular, vaulted foim. The river Poick comes winding along the valley from the south, flows under the eminence, reaches its western extremity, throws its whole body into the lower of the two openings, which it entirely fills, and disappears. The higher opening runs a short way into the mountain, forming a regular and spacious gallery. The partition of rock that separates it from the lower one, through which the river holds its course, is broken through in several
464 CARNIOLA.
places, and furnishes, here and there, a glimpse of the dark waters fretting along in their subterranean chan- nel. But as you advance, their murmurin^s and the distant gleams of day-light die away together, and the silence and darkness of ancient night reign all around. The guides now lighted their lamps, and, in a short time, the distant sound of water was again heard ; it became louder and louder ; the passage seemed to widen, and at length opened out into an immense ca- vern which the eye could not measure, for the lights were altogether insufiicient to penetrate to any dis- tance the darkness that was above, and around, and below ; they were just sufficient to show where we stood. It was a ledge of rock, which, running across the cavern like a natural partition, but not rising to the roof, divides it into two caverns. From that on the left of the partition, on whose summit we stood, rose amid the darkness the furious dashing of the river, Avhich has thus far found its way through the moun- tain, and, announcing by its noise the obstacles it en- counters, seems to throw itself in despair against the opposing partition, which threatens to prevent its course into the more ample division of the cavern on the right. On this latter side, the rocky partition sinks down absolutely precipitous; the cavern, likew^ise, is much deeper than that on the left, and impenetrable darkness broods over it. Leaning over the precipice, the ear, after it has become accustomed to the raging of the stream on the other side, hears that its waters far below have pierced the partition, and made their way into the deeper and more ample hall of the ca- vern. It is, in fact, a natural bridge. The impression, however, on this side is much more striking; for the river is heard eddying along with that dull, heavy, and indistinct sound which, particularly in such circum- stances, among subterranean precipices, and in subter- ranean darkness, always gives the idea of great depth. The guides lighted a few bundles of straw, and threw
ADELSBERG. 465
them into the abyss. They gleamed faintly, as they descended, on the projecting points of the rock ; bla- zed for a lew seconds on the surface of the water, showing its slow heavy motion; and illummatlng, througli a small circle, the darkness of the cavern, lelt its gloom, by tiieir extinction, more oppressive and imj)e- nefrable.
" From this spot," says Sartori, '* it is not allowed to the boldest of mortals to proceed farther ;" and he said so, because, towards the greater division of the cavern into which the river has thus forced its way, the partition is too precipitous to admit of descent. But mortals not at all bold now go a great deal farther. Towards the smaller division, the partition is not so precipitous, and the cavern itself is not so deep. A ilight of steps was cut out on this side, down to the bot- tom. The partition itself was then pierced in the di- rection of the greater cavern. When the workmen had got through it, they found themselves still conside- rably above the bottom of the greater, but the rocky wall was now more sloping, and, by hcAvlng in it a flight of steps, the bottom was reached in safety. The great object was to know what became of the river. We had not advanced many yards along the rocky floor, which owes much of its comparative smoothness to art, when the river was again heard in front, and the lights of the guides glimmered on its waters. It flows right across the cavern ; it has lost its noise and rapidity ; it eddies slowly along, in a well defined bed, and ha- ving reached the opposite wall of this immense vault, the solid mountain itself, it again dives into the bowels of the earth, its course can be followed no farther, and it is still doubtful whether, or where, it again ap- pears on earth.
This, imposing as it is, is but the vestibule to the most magnificent of all the temples which nature has built for herself in the regions of night. A slight wooden l)ridge leads across the river, and after advancing a
r)9
466 CARNIOLA.
little way the terminating wall of the cavern opposes you. This was always held to be the 7ie plus ultra. Bill, about five years ago, some young fellow took it into his head to try, with the help of his companions, how far he could clamber up the wall by means of the projecting points of rock. When he had mounted about forty feet, he found that the wall terminated, and a spacious opening intervened between its top, and* the roof of the cavern which was still far above. A flight of steps was immediately hewn in the rock, and the aperture being explored, vyas found to be the en- trance to a long succession of the most gigantic stalac- tite caverns that imagination can conceive.
From a large rugged, and unequal grotto, they branch off in two suites. That to the left is the more extensive, and ample, and majestic; that to the right, though smaller, is ricfier in varied and fantastic forms. Neither the one nor the other ccuisists merely of a sin- gle cavern, but a succession of them, all different in size, and form, and ornament, connected by passages v/hich are sometimes low and bare, sometimes spacious and lofty, supported by pillars and fretted with corni- ces of the purest stalactite. I( would be in vain to at- tempt to describe the magnificence and variety of this natural architecture. The columns are sometimes uni- form in their mass, and singularly placed ; sometimes they are so regularly arranged, and consist of smaller pillars so nicely clustered togetlier, that one believes he is walkiiig up the nave of a Gothic cathedral. Ma- ny of these columns, which are entirely insulated, have a diameter of three, four, and even five feet. Fre- quently the pillar is interrupted as it were in the mid- dle, losing its columnar form, and twisting, dividing, or spreading itself out into innumerable shapes. Some- times it dilates into a broad thin plate, almost transpa- rent in the light of a lamp ; sometimes this plate curves itself round in a circular form ; sometimes the descend- ing part tapers to a point, which rests on the broad
ADELSBERGr. 467
surface of the ascending stalagmlfe. The walls are entirely coated with the same substance, and, in the smaller grottoes, it is so pure, that travellers have co- vered it with names written in pencil, some of which have already resisted the moisture five or six years. The other division is more spacious, and extends much farther. The caverns which compose it are wider and loftier, but not so beautifully adorned as in the other. The enormous clustered columns of stalactite that seem to support the everlasting roof from which they have only originated, often tower to such a height, that the lights do not enable you to discover their summit ; but, though infinitely majestic, they are rougher, darker, and more shapeless than in the smaller suite. The farther you advance, the elevations become bolder, the columns more massive, and the forms more diversified, till, after running about six miles into the earth, this scene of wonderment terminates with the element with which it began, water. A small subterraneous lake, deep, clear, cold, and dead-still, prevents all farther progress. It has not been passed ; it would therefore be too much to say that nothing lies beyond.
Throughout these caverns not a sound is heard, ex- cept the occasional plashmg of the dew drop from a half formed pillar. No living thing, no trace of vege- tation enlivens the cold rock, or the pale freezing sta- lactites. A solitary bat, fast asleep on a brittle white pinnacle, was the only inhabitant of this gorgeous pa-^ lace. When I took him from his resting place, he ut- tered a chirping, plaintive sound, as if murmuring that our lights had disturbed his repose, or that human feet should intrude into the dark and silent sanctuary of his race. When replaced on his pinnacle, he folded up his wings, ceased to chirp and murmur, and, in a mo- ment, was as sound asleep as ever.
Yet these abodes are not always so still and desert- ed. About the middle of the more extensive of the two ranges, the passage which, though not low, hasfoar
468 CARNIOLA.
a while been rough and confined, opens info one of the most spacious and regular of all the caverns. It is oval, about sixty feet long, and forty broad ; the walls rise in a more regularly vaulted form than in any of the others ; the roof was beyond the eye. The walls are coated with stalactite ; but, excepting this, nature has been very sparing of her ornaments. The floor has been made perfectly smooth. In addition to the stone seats which the rock itself supplies, wooden benches have been disposed round the circumference, as well as a few rustic chandeliers, formed of a wooden cross, fixed horizontally on the top of a pole. Once a-year, on the festival of their patron saint, the pea- santry of Adelsberg and the neighbourhood assemble in this cavern to a ball. Here, many hundred feet be- neath the surface of the earth, and a mile from the light of day, the rude music of the Carniolian resounds through more magnificent halls than were ever built for monarchs. The flame of the uncouth chandeliers is reflected from the stalactite walls in a blaze of ever- changing light, and, amid its dancing refulgence, the village swains, and village beauties, wheel round in the waltz, as if the dreams of the Rosicrucians had at length found their fulfilment, and Gnomes and Kobolds really lived and revelled in the bowels of our globe.
At Prewald, the next stage, the road winds up a very steep ascent, from the summit of which the coun- try stretches southward, at nearly one uniform eleva- tion, for twenty miles, till it sinks down almost precipi- tously on Trieste and the Adriatic. This broad plat- form, called the Karst, presents nothing but a desolate extent of rock and stones. The main surface of the mountain is not only covered with innumerable frag- ments of its own mass, but is itself scooped out into round hollows, or rather holes, resembling exactly rocks which have been long washed and worn by the sea. Towards its southern extremity, a more kindly soil gradually re-appears, and vegetation again puts
THE KARST. 469
forth her powers, and the abrupt slope, which it final- ly presents to the sea, is covered with gardens, and studded with villas. Trieste lies below, backed by the mountains of l5tria, and, in front, the Adriatic stretches out its boundless expanse. Trieste is a very hand- somely built town, and the best paved town on the Continent. The population and language are extreme- ly mixed ; German, Italian, and Modern Greek, are heard every where. In general, however, a traveller does not find much in Trieste to detain him, and he hastens to the steam-boat, which bears him across the Adriatic during the night, and presents to him, in the morning, the magnificent spectacle of the towers and palaces of Venice, gradually emerging from the misty sea, as the sun slowly rises over the mountainous ridges of Dalmatia. ' ^ ^,W
THE END.
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