THE FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW. VOL. XXXII. OCT. LMDCCCXLIII-JAN. VDCCCXLIV.

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THE

FOREIGN

aUAETERLY REVIEW.

VOL. xxxn. ^M-^'..^.

PUBLISHED IN

OCTOBER, M. DCCC. XLm.,

AND

JANUARY, M.DCCO.XLIV.

LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186, STRAND;

1844.

C. WHTTCCO, BEAUVOBT HOUSE, 8TBAND.

CONTENTS

or

No. LXIII.

PAOB

AsT. L Jean Jacques Rousseau #..••.•••.•.•••••..•• 1

IL Arndt's Sketches of Swedish History 34

m. Louis Blanc's History of Ten Tears 61

IV. Death and Dying in France .••••..•.••• 76

y. The English on the Continent 90

YI. Venetian Embassies to France in the 16th Century.. 107

VII. The H6tel de Rambouillet 135

yni. Augustus William Schlegel 160

IX. Recollections of Grdthe, by Dr. Cams • 182

X. Capefigue's Diplomatic Recollections 190

XI. Crerman Plays and Actors.*... 197

Xn. French Romancers]on England... •••226

XIIL Espartero 247

Short Reyiews of Recent Publications ••... • 263

Mbcellaneous literary Notices •••• •••••• • •••• 274

i

CONTENTS

or

No. LXIV.

PAGE

Art. I. The Poets of America • 291

II. Buchez and Daunou on the Science of History 325

HI. The Congress of Vienna 847

IV. Calendars and Ahnanacs 371

y. Mignet's Historical Memoirs < 387

VI. PaUme's Travels in Kordofan 402

VII. The Ethnological Societies of London and Paris 424

Vni. The Finances of Austria 436

IX. Memoirs of Maret, Duke of Bassano 4(53

X. New Accounts of Paris 470

XI. Sinde, its Amirs and its People • 491

Shobt Reviews : — ^Waagen's Art in Germany— -Administrative
System of France— Vogt's Im Gebirg, &c. — Annual Reports
of the Society Asiatique — Vetch on a Ship- Canal across the
Isthmus of Suez — Die Arthur- Sage, by San Marte —
Vollmer's !Nibelungen-N6t — Bjbmstjema's Theogony, &c.
of the Hindoos 525 — 541

Miscellaneous Intelligence 542

List of New Books .••• 557

The present Number of The Foreign Quarterly Review

is the first of a new Direction.

THE

FOREIGN

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

Aet. I. — Les Confessions de J. J, Rousseau, nouvelle Edition, pre-
ced^e (Tune Notice par George Sand. (New Edition of Rous-
seau's Confessions, preceded by a Notice by G. Sand.) Paris:
Charpentier. 1841.

In France, in the middle of the last century, when the artificial
in society was at its height — when bienseance was the professed
substitute for virtue — when there was no belief in a higher mo-
raUty than that which could be deduced from mere selfishness —
when the admission of a cold materialism was considered the
perfection of civilization — there arose a man who declared that he
was dissatisfied with all this. He could not repose on a material-
ism which seemed to rob man of his dignity; he could not bear
to find all high emotions reduced to the love of self; he fancied
that there was an inner worth of man more valuable than obedi-
ence to the external forms of politeness ; he even considered that
there might be a higher sphere of action than the petits soupers
over which some witty lady presided, and that excellent as was
the glance of approval from feminine eyes, there was no such
great nobility in flippant explanations of physical science to
femmes savarites.

The man was not a learned man, but he had read his Plutarch;
and when he contemplated the pictures of antique greatness, he
discovered the possibility of a different sort of people from the
courtiers, and the wits, and the poetasters, and the musicians, and
the philosophes of Louis XV. He had read liis Tacitus ; and he
liad found therein reflections on a corrupt age, which, without
any gi-eat exertion, he could apply to his o^vn. It was explained
to him that these ancient pictures were but so many exaggera-
tions; that the virtues of self-denial and patriotism, wmch were so
prominent among the Greeks and Romans, were in themselves
impossible; and the demonstration founded on a knowledge of the
world was by no means difficult. Yet was the strange man not

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIII. B

2 Jean Jacques Rousseau.

convinced, but answered, ' True, I see that from the men of this
day, you cannot construct a patriot or a legislator of the antique
school; but how am I sure that the ancient man was not the true
man, and that these are not the mere creatures of degeneracy.'
And he set to work, and he tore down, and he abstracted, and he
sifted, and he declaimed : and the result of his doctrines was that
artificial convention was not all, but that man was a real some-
thing beneath it. He would not admit that when the periwiff,
and the snuff-box, and the smart saying, and the flippant gal-
lantry, and taste, and * philosophy,' were taken away, nothing was
left; but declared that there was still man — a natural man, capa-
ble of joy and sorrow — ^aye, capable of great achievements —
OTcater, mayhap, than were often dreamed of in the select parties.
The little word * man,' in the mouth of this innovating thinker,
began to acquire a new significance, and the jfrequenters of the
'petits soupers were startled at the phenomenon. Tlie strange per-
sonage who had thought so oddly, and who uttered such startling
doctrines, and so terribly scared poor convention, was Jean
Jacques Rousseau, citizen of Geneva.

But this same Rousseau did not stop at the declaration, that
man was something beyond a mere empty substratum^ existing to
sustain the decorations of civilization, but he went further, and
declared that these so-called decorations were only disfigure-
ments,— so many negative quantities, each of which taken away,
would cause man to rise in the scale of being. The fine arts, he
thought, were miserable things, for they took up time that might
be better employed; science he detested, seemg in it nothing
more than a laborious occupation with trifles; the advantages of
machinery he scorned, for he believed that the use of these wheels
and levers had deprived man of confidence in his own arms and
legs: all that renders humanity honourable in the eyes of modem
Europe he abhorred, and the value of mental qualifications he
settled in one sentence, * The man who meditates is a depraved
animal.' Therefore to him was a Chippewa Indian infinitely
more respectable than an astronomer, or a poet, or a philosopher.
And thus did our Rousseau, instead of bemg a teacher of sound
doctrines, which he might have been had he reconciled the idea
of humanity with the idea of progress, become an utterer of much
that was useless; and, being a fi*ee man, advocated a reign of
darkness, and a bigotry. He could not see in his age an imper-
fect stage of progress to a better state of things; he could not
take the good with the bad, and therefore he hated all together.
The additions made to man since he had left the savage state were
all deformed eccentricities, which, if they were not cut away,
were only to be left and lamented over, because they had taken

Discrepancies in Character. 3

BO deep a root. No intolerant admirer of feudal government or
priestly influence ever preached against enlightenment with more
warmdi than the Genevese Republican.

And what sort of man was he that spoke the strong word?
He was, as Mr. CarMe says in his lectures on ' Hero-worship/
not a strong man. Great was the speech that was uttered, smalt
was the speaker. The age was vain; it was distinguished by an
empty love of praise from small people; yet none were vainer,
none had a more girUsh fondness for laudation, than Jean Jacques
Rousseau. The age liked, as we have said, to deduce virtue from
selfishness, and Rousseau hated that deduction: yet where was
creature more morbidly selfish? li egotism was the ignis fatuus
that misled his contemporaries, with mm it was more : it was the
disease that fed upon his vitals, that forbad him to have one
healthy feeling. Nay, striking as were the truths which he ut-
tered amid a maze of fallacy, so much does he exhibit of that
egotism, that vanity, that love of notoriety, that we can hardly
t3l where the real thinker begins, and the lover of self-dia-
play leaves off. He is a difficult person to unravel, this Jean
Jacques Rousseau. He has left us a book of Confessions, which
seems to surpass in candour aU the books that were ever pubUshed,
and in which, he seems most liberal in the proclamation of his
transgressions, decent and indecent; and yet we have a kind of
uneasy notion that we have not quite got at the truth, and that
we know a deal more about many people who have not been half
so frank, than we do about that confessing Genevese. He teUs
us at the very commencement, " Let the trumpet of the last judg-
ment sound when it will, I will present myself before the sovereign
Judge, with this book in my hand, and I will say aloud, ' Here
is what I did, what I thought, and what I was.'" This soimds
imposing : we ought to be awe-struck, but we confess that we
are not all-believing: no, not even when Madame Dudevant tells
us that he is a father of the church to come. We cannot help
tliinlnng of an Ugly old maxim of Rochfaucauld, to the efiect,
that we prefer talking of our faults to not talking of ourselves at
all; and when we look at these faults of Rousseau — wretched,
disagreeable &ults as they are — in short, just those sort of faults
that, above all others, we should keep to ourselves — we feel that
they are somehow very dexterously tinselled over, and that if
the enormity be great, there is a good measure of accounting
cause and interesting repentance to overbalance its effect. We
set aside all the statements let loose by the professed enemies of
Rousseau, all the hostile histories; we take him as he shows
himself, and we consent to disbelieve every other authority; but
still we say, he is the most puzzling creature. What can we be-

2 B

4 Jean Jacques Rousseau.

lieve him to be? Shall we suppose him sincere? A host of
little meamiesses, and vanities, and timidities, a strange mixture
of braggadocio and flinching, are at hand to shake our faith.
Shall we believe him a mere vain man, whose only desire was
for notoriety, who snarled at the world to make it frown upon
him, and who ran away from it simply because he hoped it would
follow him? If we turn to certain hostile anecdotes, we shall
find reason for such belief: but then the earnestness, the truth-
ftdness of ' Emile' rise in a sort of majesty before us, and will
not allow us to think that all was a trick. Shall we believe, to
account for his eccentricities, that he received some imlucky hurt
in his infancy, which affected his brain? If we would foster
such belief, there are accounts to support us: but there is abund-
ance of quiet, calm, unenthusiastic sense to refute us : there is the

* ContrS,t Sociale,' which, unpleasant as its doctrines may be to
some, is a fine specimen of logical deduction from assumed premises.
Nay, in his entire works there is a sort of consistency, as if the
thinker never changed, though the man might occasionally waver:
and yet — and yet there come the signs of weakness, of the being

* not strong,* that make us hesitate. Perhaps after all it is we
ourselves who are unjust to this Genevese, in wishing to pin him
to some well-defined category. Perhaps it is on account of the
great quantity of accurate information concerning him, that we
think we know so little. Maybe we know too much. The ar-
tistical biographer may remove this deformity, and heighten that
perfection, and we shall have a very conceivable sort of personage.
But when the very man is revealed, may he not always seem m-
explicable, and may we not ascribe to ms want of candour, what
is our own dimness of perception? May not all present the same
want of harmony between theory and practice, between thoughts
and actions, as poor Jean Jacques? — Reader, if thou be a writer
also, think withm thyself if this is not possible.

To the new edition of Rousseau's ' Confessions,' which forms
the head of this article, Madame Dudevant (George Sand) has
written a very pleasant and ingenious preface, with only the fault
of soaring a httle too far into the regions of mysterious significa-
tion. Tnus, having settled that Jean Jacques is to be a saint of
the future, she bids us observe how completely the work more
immediately before us, is one of primitive Christianity — namely,
the publication of a confession. A truly agreeable and good-
natured turn to give to an act in whicn disappointment, and
vanity, and egotism had so large a share ! George Sand is willing
to admit the many faults of the Saint, but he may take his place
by the * publican Matthew' and the ' persecutor Paul !' Nay, the
time is not far distant when ' Saint Rousseau' shall be no more

The ^forts' and the ' grands J 5

tried at the bar of opinion than Saint Augustin. All this is
meant to sound wonderfully fine, but nevertheless, the words
* Saint Rousseau' will not ring musically in our ears.
- To assign to Jean Jacques a place more definite than that of
mere saintship, Madame Dudevant with much acuteness divides
the eminent men of an age into two classes, the * strong men'
{les hommes forts) and the * great men' {les hommes grands). The
former men are those who belong to the present, and who act in
the present. Their feet are set firmly on stable ground, and they
can strike out with vigour. They include the great warriors, the
great statesmen, even the great manufacturers, men who do bril-
Eant deeds, and have brilliant successes. Voltaire, Diderot, and
the rvegaiive philosophers of the last century, with whom Rous-
seau could never amalgamate, but whom he approached only to
fly off again, leaving a feeling of contempt on one side, and loath-
ing on the other, belong to the class of * hommes forts.' They
sapped the foundations of established things, they shook creeds,
they disorganized society, but they had no view of the far distant.
It was because they were of the present, that they could attack it
so vigorously. These 'hommes forts' are, according to George
Sand, the sappers and miners of the moving phalanx of humanity;
they clear the road, they break down rocks, they penetrate forests.
The ' hommes grands,' on the other hand, are not versed in the
science of present facts; they find themselves in a strange region —
too strange to allow of their acting, and they thereiore occupy
their minds with uneasy meditations. A pure ideal is before
them, with which nothing that surrounds them will accord.
Hating the present, they may seek their ideal in the past or the
future; they may look forward to the time when man shall have
reached his perfection, or they may sigh over a golden age.
Rousseau, who belongs to this category of ' liommes grands,' not
having faith in the future, was one of the sighers over the past;
though, nevertheless, he had an instinctive feeling of progress, as
he showed by writing ' Emile ' and the * Contr^t Sociale.' These
two classes of the ' forts' and the * grands' are perpetually at war
with each other, although they are more really allied than they
think, and are both equally necessary to the advancement of man-
kind. The ' forts' working by corrupt means in a corrupt region,
become necessarily corrupted, and hence they do not satisfjr the

Eurity of the ' grands.' The latter, contemplating their ideal,
ave too exalted notions to admit of their acting with force on
the bad men of their age. They are therefore despised by the
* forts' as mere dreamers— empty theorists, who have no genius
for practice, but who pass a life completely useless to themselves
and others. Nevertheless, these ' grands' are the ' creators,' the

6 Jean Jacques Rousseau.

originators of all actions, although they seem but mere dreamers
in their lifetime. For the meditators of one age strike out
thoughts which are realized by the ' forts' in the next, these
thoughts having now become a solid basis for practice. The cir-
cumstance that the ' grands' can only create without acting, while
the ' forts' can only act without creating, of itself explains their
mutual utility and their mutual dislike. When a better age than
the present shall come, the distinction between the ' forts' and
the ' grands' will vanish : as, mankind having become purer, there
will be no longer any need of a semi-vicious agent to carry out
good thoughts, but tne * grands' will see their plans accepted by
society, and the * forts,' not bein^ so completely involved in a
fierce struggle, will have room for meditation. Till then the
* homme grand' must consent to be a sort of martyr.

Such is George Sand's classification of the ' hommes grands*
and the ' hommes forts.' There is a great deal of truth in this
division, considered in the abstract; but whether it is quite right
to place Jean Jacques in the category of the ' grands,' as distin-
guished firom the ' forts,' is another matter. He had indeed that
restless dislike of the present, the longing after something distant —
he scarcely knew what, and therefore placed it in primitive America
— which are the marks of the ' grands;' but certainly he acted im-
mediately, both in and on the present, and therefore though not
a strong man in an English sense of the word, he was most as-
suredly a ' homme fort' in the Dudevant phraseology. Let us
turn over the whole works of Voltaire, with all their scoffs and
wicked pleasantries, and we doubt whether we shall find a harder
hit at existing creeds than the ' Profession of faith of the Vicaire
of Savoy,' though the latter is written by Rousseau with all the
show of diffidence, and a pretended veneration for every descrip-
tion of church. True, our Genevese did not take his mace in his
hand, and thunder away at all institutions like the Robber Moor:
true, he rather whined than bawled his sentiments : but he was an
eminently practical man in his way notwithstanding.

Let us look at him a httle closer. Jean Jacques is more al-
luded to in general terms than surveyed minutely now-a-days,
and it will be not altogether lost time to follow (briefly, of
course) the career of a man who made so great a noise in his
epoch, and whose influence is likely to be more permanent than
most of his contemporaries. Rousseau had a positive side ; he had
a constructive as well as a destructive theory; and therefore does
he rightly belong to the Dudevant category of ' grand,' as an
originator, although we would not, on that account, exclude him
from the predicament of ' fort.*

Childhood. 7

Jean Jacques Rousseau, citizen of Geneva, bom in the year 1712,
was in his youth one of those persons, whom godfathers and god-
mothers do not highly esteem. He was a shuffling, unsatisfactory
sort of a boy, who seemed destined not to thrive. Bind him to
one trade, and he would fancy another, with a still greater predi-
lection for doing nothing at all : these amiable propensities being
accompanied by a most unlucky taste for petty larceny. Money,
it is true, he did not love to steal, there was something too com-
mercial and business-like in having to lay it out. He Uked im-
mediate enjoyment. Spartan in contrivance, epicurean in luxury,
the ripe fruit, the glittering bauble, were for him the tempting
baits. He had every ' sneaking* vice, with Uttle of ill-nature or
maUce : and these characteristics of his juvenile years, however
he might afterwards affect the bearish misanthrope, seem to have
cleaved to him pretty firmly during nearly the whole of his life.
His mother died at his birth : he was the idol of his father, a Geneva
clockmaker, and of the neighbours, who looked upon him as an in-
fant prodigy. With reading of all sorts, ecclesiastical history, Plu-
tarch, La Bruyere, and the old ponderous romances, did the youth-
ful republican store his mind, and his parent gazed on him with
admirmg horror when he saw him put his hand over a chaffing-
dish to imitate Mutius ScsBvola.

Happy were the first years of Jean Jacques Rousseau, when all
caressed, and none opposed, and when the dreams of futurity, nur-
tured by a warm imagination, only gave an additional zest to the
enjoyment of the present. He tells us himself, he was * idolized*
by ail around, yet never * spoiled.' — ^Is not this a distinction with-
out a difference, Jean Jacques? And were you not in infancy
nurtured in all that love of having your own way, in all that
waywardness, in all that effeminate sensitiveness, which were so
conspicuous in your future career, and which, perhaps, were the
origin of all your — ^greatness? Well, — thus did childhood pass
pleasantly; but directfy it was gone, and there was a necessity for
the youth adopting some means of getting a living, then came the
disagreeables of lile. This business would not suit, and that mas-
ter was too cross; and, one night, stopping out beyond the walla
after the gate was shut, and dreading harsh treatment from the
engraver to whom he was apprentice, he ran away altogether.
His father, having got into a scrape, had been obliged to leave
Geneva long before, and poor Jean Jacques, at the age of sixteen,
set out on a long walk fi:om his native town, without any visible
means of finding a place of rest. Fortunately there is no evil in
the world without a corresponding portion of good, and reUgious
dissensions, which have been the greatest scourges ever known to
the world, proved of great utility to Jean Jacques. There were

8 Jean Jacques Rousseau,

catholics, hovering about in the vicinity, anxious to draw Swiss
heretics into the pale of the church; and the young vagabond from
Geneva, willing to go to any place — excepting only his home —
or to do any thmg whatever, provided a comfortable meal was the
result, was a bonne bouche not to be obtained every day. He had
been brought up in the tenets of old wicked John Calvin, and the
members of the only true church hoped to turn the wants of his
body to the benefit of his soul. He was soon secured by a cure of
Savoy, who transmitted him to Madame de Warens : a widow
and a new convert, afterwards a very important personage in the
life of our hero, who transmitted him in her turn to an institution
at Turin, formed for the purpose of giving instruction in the
Koman faith.

Far be it from our purpose to stop with Jean Jacques any length
of time at the filthy sojourn at Tunn. The ' hospice,' according
to his account, was the scene of the most bestial vice, and he was
but too fortunate in escaping the contagion. Turning catholic for
the sole purpose of promoting his wordly interests, — when his con-
version was complete, he had the mortification of seeing himself
outside the doors of the * hospice,' without a single prospect of
a livelihood. He managed to enjoy himself a short time at Turin,
and after spending the little money he had in such dainties as
suited his palate, — for he was a great epicure in all delicacies, in
which milk or cream formed a component, and which are included
in French imder the general name of * laitage,' — ^and solacing
himself with one of those Platonic amours, which he describes so
dehghtfully, he was at last obliged to accept the situation of valet
in the house of the Countess de Vercelhs. The poor lady died
shortly afterwards, and it was amid the confusion which followed
her decease, that the boy Rousseau committed one of those frightful
acts which no penitence can atone for in the eyes of mankind,
and which leave a deeper stain than we suspect the ' confessing '
Genevese ever thought. We allude to his celebrated theft of a
ribbon, and his base accusation of a young girl, his fellow-servant,
when he was discovered. In vain does he tell his reader how, even
at the time he writes his ' Confessions,' his soul is torn by re-
morse,— in vain he tells him how the desire to get rid of the
burning secret chiefly induced him to write that book, — in vain
he attempts to comfort himself by saying that poor Marion has
had avengers enough, in those who persecutea him, when he
was innocent, during forty years, — the reader cannot feel satisfied.
What is even worse, the act is not quite isolated, but the motives
that led to it still seem strong in after life.

Both he and the object of his accusation were sent out of the
house together, and the youth again saw the world open before

The * Hierd's Fountain J 9

him. However, liis acquaintance with a Savoyard Abb^, named
Graime, whom he had met at the house of Madame Vercellis, and
whom he afterwards immortalized as the * Vicaire of Savoy,' led to
an introduction to the house of the Count de Gouvon, who en-
gaged him as a servant. In this respectable family fortune seemed
to dawn upon him ; his superiority to the station which he held
was at once discerned, and he was treated accordingly; the Abb6
de Gouvon, a younger son of the family, who had a great taste for
literature, giving lum instructions in the Latin and Italian lan-
guages. But it was impossible for Jean Jacques to pursue a
career steadily; sometimes ill-fortune seemed to assist his own
wrong-headedness in working his ruin, but on this occasion his
do-no-good disposition operated quite alone. He took a violent
iancy to a lubberly fellow named B^cle, who just had coarse wit
enoueh to amuse him, and who -was about to set off for Geneva.
Nothing would suit him but to accompany this Bade, and he had
the ingratitude to quarrel with his benefactors on purpose to get
out of the house. The project he had for obtaining a comfortable
living, both for himself and his friend, was a beautiful specimen
of the art of building castles in the air. The Abb^ Gouvon had
given him one of those hydraulic toys called ' Hiero's fountains,*
and it was by showing this to the inhabitants of the villages through
which they would pass that the two wiseacres hoped to live in
luxury. At every inn they could exhibit the hydraulic wonder,
and of course no mnkeeper who saw it in full action could think
of charging for food and lodging. Their anticipations as to the
interest their fountain would create were in some measure realized,
but not their hopes of profit. The hosts and hostesses were amused
enough, but they never failed to make a regular charge. The
unlucky fountain at lastwas broken, and the two adventurers, tired
of carrying it, were heartily delighted at the misfortune. This
trait of levity at the downfal of the air-built castle^ is delicious.

Rousseau's only resource now was to return to the house of
Madame de Warens, at Annecy, trusting in the kindness which
he believed she entertained for him, and feeling for her something
of the fondness of a child, and the passion of a lover. He was well
received, was lodged in her house, and was afterwards placed by
her with the music master of the cathedral, that he might study
under him. This professor having involved himself in a quarrel
with his chapter fled to France, and Rousseau was deputed to ac-
company him. They had proceeded as far as Lyons, when the
poor master fell down in a fit, a crowd collected, and Rousseau
— left the helpless musician, and scampered back to Annecy, which,
he found to his horror, Madame de Warens had left.

It is painfvd to go through such a number of meannesses com-

10 Jean Jacquei Rousseau.

xnitted by a man so distinguished. In all that regards character
he seems to have been the very reverse of great. Excitable in the
most morbid degree from his very childhood, he did not know what
self-denial was. No matter how trifling the temptation, how fri-
volous the whim, that stirred him for Sie moment, there was no
duty so sacred, no obUgation so binding, that he would not break
them through, without the slightest compunction. That he had
no dehberate malice in his composition, that he would not have
done any act deUberately wicked, may readily be admitted, but at
the same time, there was no deed so base that it might not have
resulted from his weakness. With a feverish anxiety for present
enjoyment, with the most cowardly dread of present ill, he had
constantly two weighty reasons for committing any crime what-
ever. The detestable act of false accusation, his ingratitude to the
Gouvon family, this miserable desertion of the old musician, all
proceeded from the want of determined character. Strange is the
anomaly when the hero is no hero, when the battle is fought by
the weak and pusillanimous.

The vagabond life recommenced after Rousseau''s desertion of
the professor: and to the interesting characteristics which had al-
ready distinguished him, he began to add those of a charlatan. At
Lausanne, making an anagram of his name, and calling himself
* Vaussore' instead of ' Rousseau,' he set up for a singing master,
though he scarcely knew any thing about music, having profited
little under the auspices of his late preceptor. But the master-
piece of impudence was his composing a cantata for a frill orchestra,
when he could not note down the most trifling vaudeville. He
copied out the different parts, he distributed them with the utmost
assurance to the musicians who were to play at the private concert
of a Lausanne amateur: indeed, that nothing might be wanted to
complete the ' swindle,' the concluding piece was a tune commonly
sung about the streets, which he boldly proclaimed to be his own.
The concert must have been a brilliant scene. The ' composer*
attended and was most erudite in explaining the style and character
of his piece. Grravely did he beat time with a fine roll of paper.
A pause, and the grand crash began. ' Never,' says Jean Jacques
himself, * was such a charivari heard.' Then, when the noble work
had been played to the end, came the ironical compliments, the
assurances of a lasting immortality. The boldest impostor that ever
lived or was ever imagined — the august Don Raphael himself could
not exceed the cool effrontery of our modest friend in this in-
stance. Years afterwards Jean Jacques looked back and marvelled
at his own audacity. He can only account for it as a temporary
delirium. Shall we accept tiiis explanation? It will be charitable
at any rate.

Liaison with Madame de Warens. 11

The notable acliievement rendered Lausanne too hot to hold.
Rousseau was glad enough to go elsewhere. He taught music at
Neufch&tel, and learned while teaching: visited Pans, where he
was disgusted at the aspect of the city, from the circumstance of
entering it at the wrong end, — ^just as a stranger to England
might be displeased on entering London by Wnitechapel : and
after enduring great privations, returned once more to Madame
Warens, who was at Chamberi and invited him to join her.

Hitherto his connexion with Madame Warens had been purely
of an innocent character, and the lady and her protege conducted
themselves in perfect conformity to the names they gave each
other of Maman and Petit. When first he saw her on the way
to Turin, she was twenty-eight years of age, and he describes her
as having a tender air, a soft glance, an angelic smile, a mouth the
measure of his own, and beautifiil hair. Sne was short in stature
and thickset, though without detriment to her figure. A more
beautifiil head, more beautiful hands, more beautiful arms, than
those of Madame de Warens, were not to be imagined. About
six years had now elapsed since the time of that first interview,
but the only change, at least in the eyes of Jean Jacques, was
that her figure had become rounder. Otherwise the charms
which had at first made such an impression on him, and which
had constantly flowed before his mind as a beautifiil object at an
tmapproachable distance, were the same as ever, and above all, the
voice, the * silverjr voice of youth,' was imaltered.

Madame de W arens was mentally the chastest person in the
world; the * icicle on Diana's temple' was not more cold; yet,
Strang to say, she allowed herself aberrations, from which a lady
with less of the Vestal disposition would have shrunk. In her
youth she had been seduced by her mcdtre de philosophies and
from that time she always seems to have had a liaison of some
sort or other. During ner widowhood she had her favourite resi-
dent with her, as constantly as an old empress of Russia. When
Rousseau first knew her, Claude Anet, her servant, was the happy
man; and on this last visit, Rousseau himself was raised to the
ezahed position, — simply to keep him out of mischief. He was
not the successor of Claude: both were retained together. The
worthj Claude, far from feeling any petty jealousy, looked upon
his mistress and her younger lover with the indulgence he would
have bestowed on two children; for though he was not older than
Madame de Warens, there was something grave and steady about
him. A highly respectable man was 3iis Claude Anet! The
lady herself riveted the firiendship of her two lovers. Ofl«n with

tears did she make them embrace, saying that both were neces-
saiy to the happiness of her life. Literestmg confession I

^^(

12 Jean Jacques Rousseau,

We thus find our hero, who was in some instances almost a
puritan in his notions, and in some a sensualist of the lowest kind,
simk into the deepest state of degradation. The Ufe with Ma-
dame de Warens, though Rousseau has shown himself an artist in
describing it, colouring it so as to make it almost beautiful,
reveals itself, on a moment's reflection, as one of the most detest-
able states of existence that can be conceived. Jean Jacques
may exhaust his stores of eloquence to make us think that
Madame de Warens was a Lucretia in soul, — ^alas! we cannot
consider the lady, who was always keeping some young man
out of mischief, and who, when Claude was dead and Rousseau
was absent, instantly supplied the place of the latter with a third,
otherwise than as a Messalina on a small scale, whose only virtue
was a sort of muddling good-nature. As for the two fa-
vourites, Claude Anet and himself, he may heighten the re-
spectability of the former, and render his own peculiar person as
interesting as he will, he still leaves us the question unanswered :
' If one of two lovers kept simultaneously by a lady of small for-
tune (for we give all the circimistances) is not in a degraded
position, who is?' Rather should we have been pleased with
him, had he boldly taken up the question, and thundered forth a
justification. But this glossing over the disgusting, this forcing
forward the amiable, this pretended deference for old world mora-
lity, with a real worship of the lowest vice, this is the worst part
of the affair. Call good good, and evil evil, or evil good, and
good evil, or give events just as they were, and we shall know
what you mean, Jean Jacques : but this morality, which raises its
voice so high, and yet allows the gratification of every possible
desire, generates nothing but false positions. Mr. Carlyle has
well said, that in these books of Rousseau there is ' not white
sunlight: something operatic, a kind of rose pink, artificial be-
dizenment.'

Those who censure Rousseau are very indignant at the selfish
feeling he displayed after the death of the respectable Claude.
The first thing that struck him was, that he inherited the clothes
of the deceased, particularly a fine black suit. He himself calls
the thought vile and unworthy, but to us it is the honestest
thought connected with the affair: the one scintillation of truth,
which reveals the rottenness of the foundation on which the whole
edifice stood. Amid the mass of falsity, the one truth has been
found offensive. When the shutter of the ball-room in which rouged
beauties have been dancing all night is thrown open, it is the
sunbeam that is blamed, and not the dissipation and the red paint.
The friendship that Jean Jacques felt for Claude must have been
" e hollowest thing imaginable: nothing could be more natural

Fit of Hypochondria. 13

than that he should see him die without a pang. The loss of a
rival, and the gain of the fine black suit: the exchange was not
so ve^ grievous. People have begun at the wrong end in blaming
Jean Jacques, he having set them the example.

Madame de Warens, who with all her frailties was a good-
natured soul, was constantly getting into difficulties through the
unbusiness-like character of her mind, and her great easiness to
all sorts of charlatans. Poor Claude therefore was a valuable
person in the menage; he had habits of economy, and was a
steady man of business; qualities which were by no means con-
spicuous in the young Genevese. The latter continued to lead a
sauntering sort of life, half studious, half lazy, and quite unsatis-
fectory, imder the protection of his ' mamma :' sometmies improv-
ing his knowledge of music, sometimes learning Latin, and occa-
sionally dabbling in astronomy. Among other fancies, the youth
had a short fit of uneasiness as to his fate in a future life; and he
resolved the weightiest of all questions, by a method which is not
recognised by any church, but the principle of which many a su-
perstitious clerk or apprentice applies in divining matters relating
to his worldly prosperity. Jean Jacques placed himself opposite
a tree, and takmg up a stone, said: ' If I nit — sign of salvation;
if I miss — sign of damnation.' And he did hit, for he had chosen
a tree which was very large and very near. From that time,
quoth Rousseau at an advanced period of his life, I never had a
doubt of my salvation. Happy Rousseau, so soon to solve all
doubts ! Strange mixture of seriousness and frivohty, which ap-
pears at every step of this interesting biography. There is a con-
sistency of inconsistency in all that relates to this remarkable man.

The most unwholesome study in the world is that of medical
books by one who does not adopt medicine as a profession.
What nervous man, who has turned over the leaves of his Buchan
with trembling hand, has not felt by turns the symptoms of every
disease? What mind more likely than that of Rousseau to imbibe
poison at such a source? Yet he must study a little anatomy: and
the result was, that he fancied he had a polypus in his heart.
Another whim, to waft fi:om the place of quiet the most restless
creature that ever skimmed the earth. The whim of taking a
fancy to that which did not belong to him, — ^the whim of friend-
ship,— had already blown him about : we now find him under the
influence of the whim of hypochondria. Poor * mamma' is ob-
liged to le£ ' petit' go to Montpellier, the only place in the world
where his extraordinary disease can be cured. An amour with a
Madame Lamage, whom he met on the road, drove his uneasiness
out of his head, and when he arrived at Montpellier, though he
found the fidgets return, he found no physicians wiUing to believe

I

14 Jean Jacques Rouiseau.

in his complaint. So l^ack again he went to Giamberi and
^ mamma/ with half a mind to desert this first love and go to
the residence of Madame Lamage. When he arrived at the house
of Madame de Warens, lo ! he found he had a successor: a fair,
flat-faced, well-made, lubberly sort of personage, by profession a
barber, was the presiding gemus of the establiaoment. He could
not have believed the looting on which the intruder stood had
not the ever-candid ' mamma explained the delicate little affair
with her own lips, at the same time making him imderstand, that
his own position was by no means compromised. This he could not
tolerate, and in his ' Confessions' he makes an immense merit of his
delicacy on the occasion. The liaison with ' mamma' was thus
readily broken off, and with it terminates what Jean Jacques terms
the period of his youth: a period by no means reputable, but on
the whole tolerably happy: a period, by no means indicative of
any distiQguished futurity, but nevertheless one the effects of which
may clearly be traced in his after life. This first period is the most
interesting in the biography of the man. Afterwards we are more
concerned with the progress of the toriter.

Madame de Warens was still willing to protect him, but the
new lover made her residence impleasant, and moreover her for-
tune was getting worse and worse. Accordingly he set off for
Paris, where he arrived in the autumn of 1741, with sanguine
hopes of making his fortune. We have seen him when almost a boy,

Eossessed of a ' Hiero's fountain,' believing that in that toy he
ad the means of travelling all over Europe free of expense.
The hopes that he now entertained of making a certain fortune
at Paris were not a whit less extravagant, although he had nearly
attained the age of thirty. He had discovered a new system of
musical notation : which was to effect an entire revolution, and
to strike the whole world with surprise and wonder. Never
did an inventor's vanity so much induce him to overrate the work
invented. There is some ingenuity in liis scheme, and it presents
some advantages; but as it is accompanied by corresponding dis-
advantages, it nas never been adopted. The principle is the substi-
tution of a row of figures, for the dots and Enes employed in the
received system of notation. The key-note is always signified by
number one; and the other figiires, as high as seven, readily ex-
press the different intervals; wnile a dot, over or under the figure,
marks an octave above or below. The advantage of the plan,
independently of its saving the expense of musical engraving,
and allowing music to be prmted in mere common type— an advan-
tage urged by Rousseau — ^is that it saves all trouble in transposition.
The singer or player has only to vary the signification of number
one, and aU the other figures will adapt themselves to the new key

System of Mtmcal Notatioru 15

without the expenditure of a thought. The great disadvantage
is, that the figures being written in a straight hne, the notion of
ascending and descending passages is not conveyed at once to the
eye, as by the received system. Hence, although it might be
employed in slow or verv simple melodies, its use in a series of
rapid passages would be foimd exceedingly embarrassing. Even
if the plan had been free from this fatal objection, there was
no sucn great wonder in the invention, nothing which might not
be hit on by anj clever young man, who dabbled in a subject, and
liad a taste for mnovation. He succeeded in obtaining a hearing
by the Academy ; and three savans, who knew (says Rousseau) every
thing but music, were appointed to examine the hew sjstem.
The result of their report to the Academy was a certificate directed
to Bousseau to the effect that his plan was neither new nor use-
fid. The charge of want of novelty was owing to a discovery
that a monk named Souhaitti had years before conceived a gamut
written in figures. Rousseau vows that he never heard of this
monk or his discovery; and as his system is so easy of invention
that a thousand people might have conceived it without com-
munication, there is no reason to doubt the truth either of the
charge or the defence. The celebrated Rameau with whom he had
an interview made the really soUd objection to the use of figures,
and that was the objection we have already named.

The visit to Paris did not answer the purpose for which it was
intended, but at any rate it procured him some influential friends,
through whose exertions he became secretary to M. Montaigu,
the French ambassador at Venice. The services he rendered
while in this situation to the French monarchy, he represents, in
his ' Confessions,' as being of the most important kind, and he
regards the conduct of the ambassador as one continuous effort to
keep his merits in the background. There are accounts which
are un&vourable to the belief of Rousseau's importance in his
atuation at Venice, but whatever his exaggerations may have
been, this much is certain, that there is a healthiness in the part
of his memoirs relating to this short period of his life, which we
do not find elsewhere. Occupation seems to have suited him;
he seems in active hfe to have attained a degree of happiness
which he did not know at any other period; he met with a
wholesome interruption to his habits of indulglhg in feverish
hopes, or still more morbid dependency. However, as every si-
tuation which promised comfort and steady occupation to Jean
Jacques was destined to endure but a short time, tnis was lost by
a quarrel with M. Montaigu, and Rousseau was once more in
Paris. Then he made acquaintance with Diderot and Grimm,
and became almost one of the clique of the philosophes. About

16 Jean Jacques Rousseau.

the same time lie formed a liaison with the well-known Therese
Levasseur, whom he met in the capacity of servant to a kind of
tavern, who lived with him as his mistress till, when quite an old
man, he married her, and who bore him the children whom, im-
mediately after birth, he despatched to the foundling hospital.
Like the imlucky story of the ribbon, this foundling affair is one
of those indelible blots on the character of Jean «Iacques which
no sentimentality can erase, and which no sophistry can justify.
Arduous as was the battle in which he afterwards engaged, there
he stands constantly before us, as one who had not the least har-
dihood in conquering a propensity, or in enduring even an incon-
venience. Having put five successive children in an asylum,
which prevented even recognition, he has the still greater mean-
ness of endeavouring to excuse himself, by the plea that he thus
placed them in the road to become honest artisans, rather than
adventurers and miserable literati, Plato, with his sheep-pens for
new-bom infants, erected in his imaginary rep^blic for the pur-

{)ose of preventing the recognition of children by parents, is at
east tolerable, however disagreeable his doctrine; but Jean
Jacques, the great champion of natural affection, the asserter of
the extreme doctrine that none but a parent ought to superin-
tend the education of a child, becomes absolutely disgusting,
when he attempts to apologize for his miserable act. Would that
we could find an excuse by beUeving that the desertion having
preceded his vigorous advocacy of natural affection, he had at the
time of that advocacy become an altered man. Alas! when
years afterwards Madame de Luxembourg endeavoured to find
his children, he was not sorry at the ill success of the attempt : so
much would he have been annoyed if any child had been brouglit
home, by the suspicion that after all it might be another's. A
touch of delicacy — a well-turned sentiment — any thing, that he
might but escape from the appUcation of his own broad principles.
The influence that Therese Levasseur had over his mind must
have been most remarkable. She is more striking from what he
does not say of her, than from what he communicates. Through-
out the remainder of his life does she appear as a kind of adjunct
to his existence, and yet she never appears as a heroine of the
story. Sometimes we forget her altogether: we see him con-
sumed by a paftion for another, and the image of Therese fades
from our mind. But the object of adoration passes away-r— the
feeUng of devotion was but transient — and the eternal gouver-
nante — as Therese aptly enough was called — is again before us.
He tells us that he never loved her; he says she was so stupid he
never could hammer a notion into her head; her mother who
preyed upon him, and whom he believed to be involved in the

Discourse on the Arts and Sciences. 17

* conspiracy' agamst Hm, he perfectly detested; yet was that
Th^rese ever with him; no where could he go, without her as a
companion. The fickle, wayward Rousseau, who was always dis-
satimed with what he possessed, and thirsting for what he had
not, was ruled by that same stupid woman, as mistress and wife,
to the day of his death: shortly after which, herself being old,
she naamed a stable-boy.

There are few literary men who have made their debut in that
character so late in life as Rousseau. If we except his papers on
the new system of notation, it was not till he was about thirty-
eight years of age, that he appeared before the pubhc as an
author. The Academy of Dijon had offered a prize for the best
discourse in answer to the question—* Has the progress of arts and
sciences contributed to the corruption or to the purification of
morals? Rousseau's discourse, written on account of this offer, and
deciding that the arts and sciences had had a corrupting effect,
gained the prize, and had a most important effect on the career of
its author. Looking at it now, one is astonished at the noise it oc-
casioned at its time. It is clever certainly, but the cleverness is pre-
cisely that of a smart youth in his teens, who aptly brings forward
his reasons in support of a thesis he has chosen, and uses for his pur-
pose the little learning he has at his command. Nothing, it would
seem now, could be more easy than to take up a Cato-the-Censor
sort of position; to declaim in high-sounding terms about ab-
stract virtue; and to protest against literature and science, as ef-
feminating the mind and occupying the time which might be
more properly devoted to the service of the republic. There were
the early Romans, with their barbarous victories, to be exalted;
there was the good word in honour of Lycurgus and the old
Spartans; and a due share of reproach against the Athenians.
Inere was also reflection on the dangers of philosophy in shaking
the credence in existing institutions. This was a trick eminently
Rousseau-ish : whenever the Genevese begun his work of destruc-
tion, he always threw out a hook or two, in the hope of catching
one or two of what we may call the * conservative' party. And
at the end of the essay there was a trick even more Rousseau-ish.
After proving, in his fashion, that mankind had necessarily de-
teriorated as the arts advanced, the author argues that the mis-
chief being once done, the arts are to be encouraged to fill up
the time of the corrupt beings who inhabit the earth, and pre-
vent them from doing further mischief. The meaning of this is,
that Rousseau wanted to look like a Iloman of the earliest ages,
and, at the same time, to write his operas for the French public.
All his virtuous orations, his tirades against corruption and ef-
feminacy, were to be set down to his own account; his deviations

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIII. C

^

18 Jean Jacques Rousseau.

from his own path were to be ascribed to the perverseness of the
age. A doctrine more convenient — more adfinirably calculated
to let a man do what he pleased, with a dazzling appearance of
austerity — could not have been devised. His contemporaries saw
cleariy enough through the stratagem, and he did not forgive
them.

Lightly as we may think of the discourse now, the sensation it
made at the time was enormous. Rousseau, like Lord Byron,
woke and found himself famous. Great men and little men felt
themselves called upon to defend the cause of civiUzation against
the daring aggressor. Answers poured in on all sides : the in-
vader was to be repelled, to be bullied, complimented, flattered
out of his position. Many of these answers to the essay are not
to be met with, nor are they worth the trouble of seeking; but
the answer of Stanislas, king of Poland, being easily accessible,
and bound up in the complete editions of Rousseau's works, we
advise every reader to peruse. Nothing can be more smart, more
civil, more redolent of the eighteenth century, than the worthy
monarch's contribution to the cause of civilization. The very
j&rst reason he advances is really beautiful. He observes that the
tone of the discourse proves that the author is a man of the most
virtuous sentiments, and that the allusions prove him a man of eru-
dition. Ergo, virtue and learning are compatible. Probatum est,
and the philosopher of Gteneva has got a compliment into the
bargain. Unluckily, the enlightened monarch was not satisfied
with defending erudition in general, but he must try to exhibit
his own in particular, and therefore, in answer to a remark of
Rousseau's, that Socrates had despised science, he profoundly de-
clared, with a slight oblivion of chronology, that the objections
of Socrates could oidy apply to the philosophers of his time — such,
for instance, as the Epicureans and the Stoics. The Genevese,
repubHcan as he was, was mightily pleased at this very civil attack
from a crowned head. He answered the king, and he answered
him exceedingly well : having been flattered as a virtuous and
erudite personage, he, in return, put in his compliment to the
enlightened sovereign. With respect to the point about Socrates,
Rousseau candidly confessed that he did not exactly see how the
son of Sophroniscus could exactly have had in view the Stoics and
the Ej)icureans, seeing that these same Stoics and Epicureans did
not exist till after he nad quaffed the hemlock.

The effect which this first literary essay produced on the con-
temporaries of Rousseau — on persons whose names are now re-
collected only in connexion with his own — ^is comparatively of
small importance: much more so is the effect which the work,
and the victory which it gained, had on its author — a man whose

Assumption of Misanthropy. 19

name is certainly imperishable. It has been said that it was
merely in accordance with the advice of Diderot, who thought a
paradox would be gtriking, that he took the side he did. The
hypothesis, we are aware, is more than doubtful ; but in the prin-
ciple of the hypothesis, although it may be historically false, we
can see a great appearance of truth. It is highly questionable
whether, when the prize was proposed, Rousseau had any decided
ideas on the subject; whether he did not take his peculiar ground
as being that on which he would meet the fewest competitors. But
the discourse once written, and the prize once awarded, he foimd
himself in a new position, and one oy no means dissonant to his
feelings. The utter annihilation of the hopes he had fostered on
entering Paris; the small impression he had made on the Academy
as a musical genius; had a natural tendency to give a misan<*
thropical turn to his mind, and especially to imbitter him against
the men of learning. The brilliant effect of his discourse
tendered him notorious as an enemy to the decorative quali-
ties of civilized mankind; and this character he willingly sup-
pcni^ed through life. Thus was this work— indifferent as it was
— the first appearance of that powerful advocacy of the natural
man against the man of society, which has rendered immortal
the name of the citoyen. The seed was perhaps scattered at ran-
dom, but it fell on soil remarkably fertile.

He now became a professed despiser of all the elegances of
life. He reformed his dress; clapped a peculiarly unfashionable wig
on his head; ceased to wear a watch; and — thought that he looked
wise, a noble image of consistency. The fine ladies of his ac-
quaintance petted him in his eccentricities, and called him their

* bear.' He looked very fierce, no doubt, but there was not much
ferocity in the heart of Jean Jacques Rousseau. He was a bear
like the one in * She stoops to conquer,' which danced to the gen-
teelest of tunes. At the same time, to be independent of all per-
sons, he resolved to have a mechanical occupation by which he
might obtain a subsistence, and became a copier of music. As
might have been expected, the rule was more stem than the
conduct of the eccentric genius was consistent. A former opera,

* Les Muses galantes ' had failed, but he soon composed ' Le Devin
de Village.' This was played with great success before Louis XV.
and Madame Pompadour, at Fontamebleau, but he never derived
any benefit 6x>m. it: being deterred by a sort of mauvaise horde
firom appealing before the long, notwithstanding Louis had ex-
pressed nis wish to see him. A juvenile comedy called * Narciese *
was produced at the Fran^ais and damned. These theatrical
labours caused the wits of the day to laugh aloud at Rousseau, —
the declaimer against the arts : but as we nave already seen, he had

C2

20 Jean Jacques Rousseau,

left himself a loopliole to creep out of, and with respect to his

* Narcisse* he had a particular excuse. Having experienced the
situation of his mind in literary success, — he tells us in the pre-
face to that comedy, — ^it was necessary for him to feel the sensation
of a failure, in order to complete nis course of self-knowledge.
The force of vanity and conscious perversion of the truth, could
no further go.

Another offer of a prize by the academy of Dijon, the subject
on this occasion (1753) being the * Origin of inequality among
men,' caused Rousseau to pursue still further in another discourse
the career he had begun in declaiming against the arts and
sciences. The purport of the essay is mucn the same as the
former one, though the principle of opposition to civilization is
carried out with greater violence. The life of the savage, the
happy indolence of one who merely has to provide for the neces-
sities of life without a thought inspired by ambition or avarice,
are advantageously contrasted with man as he appears in polished
society; and the first person who invented the 'meum' and

* tuum ' is proclaimed the first grand enemy of his species. This
work, which did not get the prize, is more impressive than its pre-
decessor, but it is foimded on similar fallacies : the author unwarrant-
ably exalting the supposed virtues of savage life, and keeping its
barbarities in obscurity, while he exhibits in its worst light the
effect of modem civihzation. As a French writer has neatly
remarked, he made the romance of nature, and the satire of so-
ciety. The dedication of this essay, which is to the republic of
Geneva, is a monstrous specimen of national flattery. The ma-
gistrates, the pastors, the women, all come in for their share of
extravagant eulogy, and the manner in which he exalts them in
succession, reminds of a series of speeches after a public dinner.
The best of the joke was, that the republic, which Rousseau had
been so anxious to flatter, received the essay rather coolly. He
paid a visit to his native city, formally abjured Catholicism, and
received the title of citoyen^ but he was soon glad to return once
more to France.

The acquaintance with the two well-known ladies, Madame
d'Epinay and her sister-in-law the Countess d'Houdetot, which he
had formed some time before, now began to have an influence on
his life. The former built on purpose for him, on her estate at
Montmorenci, the small house so celebrated under the name of the

* Hermitage.' Here he took his two gouvemantes, that is
to say, Therese and her mother; here he might copy music,
meditate, and write tirades against society : in short do what he
pleased, without being annoyed by the bustle of Paris, and with-
out— an important consideration — ^being lost sight of by that

* Conspiracy/ against Rousseau, 21

metropolis. Here was a delightful country, an abode that he had
longed for when he had no immediate prospect of obtaining it,
and if happiness was to be found on earth, here it seemed
might Jean Jacques have been happy precisely in his own way.
But contentment and Rousseau were destined never to be constant
companions. The history he has given to us of his life at the Her-
mitage is the darkest, gloomiest spot in his whole biography, and
at the same time most imsatisfactory and almost umntelhgible.
Falling violently in love with Madame d'Houdetot, he contrived
to displease Madame d'Epinay and M. Lambert, who, although
Madame d'Houdetot was a married woman, was her professed
amant, in accordance with the usage of that virtuous period.
Consumed by this passion, the most ardent that ever fired his
ardent temperament, and annoyed by its consequences, Rousseau
now looked upon almost every living creature as a secret enemy,
and raised around him a perfect atmosphere of hostiUty. Madame
d'Epinay, the Baron d'Holbach, Grimm, Diderot, of whom the
last two had been his most intimate acquaintance — all, in liis
beUef, were engaged in a conspiracy to make mischief out of his
innocent love for Madame d'Houdetot ; to damage his reputation ;
to hold him up to public scorn ; and the mother of Th^rese was
the spy in their service. Rousseau, with his enemies grinning at
him from every side, reminds us of one of the heroes of Hofiinan,
scared by a door-post and insulted by a knocker, with this dif-
ference, that the horrors of Hofiinan are always entertaining,
while the horrors at the Hermitage are weary and tiresome to the
last degree. Why the coterie Holhachique should take all the trouble,
which is represented, to demolish the reputation and disturb the
peace of one poor man, expending an equal amount of labour to
that required for a state conspiracy, we never learn from the
* Confessions.' Rousseau had some kind of notion that he, the
solitary lover of truth, and hater of faction, existing apart from
the corruption of the world, was a sort of living reproach to the
fashionable men of letters who ruled the day, and shone in the
eyes of all Paris. To account for the natural antipathy between
the * hommes grands' and the * hommes forts,' set forth by Madame
Dudevant, this surmise would seem well enough; indeed, by re-
ducing it to an abstract form, she probably obtained her theory.
But a serious beUef that this antipathy would manifest itself in
such a very practical manner; would give rise to such an un-
wearying system of persecution as that to which Rousseau be-
lieved himself exposed ; denotes a mind in a state, we woidd al-
most say, of voluntary unhealthiness. There is no occasion to
read the justifications written on the other side. The cloudy
charge which Rousseau brings against his foes, carries with it its

22 Jean Jacques JRoicsseau.

own refutation. The wounded vanity of a man who was not re-
vered quite so much as he hoped — a kind of necessity of appear-
ing fretful, in accordance with the character of misanmrope which
he had assumed — and also a love of being persecuted, like Maw-
worm's — were the real originators of the conspiracy that existed in
—the mind of the citoym.

But if the residence at the ' Hermitage' gives us the most re-
pulsive part of Rousseau's biography, we are indebted to it for
two of his most celebrated works. The worshippers of Jean
Jacques will doubtless think that we have not treated their idol
with sufficient respect, that we have shown too little charity in
questioning his motives, too little leniency in dwelling on the
K>ibles which he himself made public. Let us endeavour to make
peace with these by an acknowledgment that whatever was the
organ, the thought itself, when spoken, was a wholesome one.
Probably a caprice had given it birth in the essay on the arts and
sciences, a desire to remain consistent with that caprice had nur-
tured it through the discourse on inequality. The reasons that
supported his views were, as we have said, fallacious; and that to
a degree that any person with the most moderate knowledge of the
world could detect the weak points; but still the views were well-
timed. It was good that in an age, when all was artifice ; when
the monstrosities of fashion had destroyed the external form of
nature, when the soft poison of hienseance had lulled to rest the
internal voice of nature ; that a man should come forward and as-
sert the cause of the natural man. The principle was carried too
far — it is the very nature of reaction to go too far — the man's
words might have been dictated by mere vanity : but still, what-
ever might have been the originating cause, it was good that the
word was spoken. False, we know, was the exclusive praise of
the Chippewa Indian, with his bow, and his dog, and his simple
life ; but it was good that the powdered savant was taught to gaze
on him, and was told that he also was a man, and not merely
a heathen man to exalt at the expense of Christianity — for many
of the philosophes would have been glad to praise a savage so
far — ^but a man who was happy without learning, science, or
doubt: chiefly happy because he was not a philosopher.

One great work that Rousseau planned in tiiis solitude he in-
tended to cairy to considerable length, under the title of ' Poli-
tical Institutions.' As a whole it never appeared, but it furnished
the materials to a book that afterwards became almost the bible
of modem republicans: the 'Social Contract.' In his earlier
essays the author had taken a position, but he had taken it like
a schoolboy; he had shown acuteness, but it was the acuteness of
plausible argumentation, not that which displays itself in com-

The ' Social ConJtract' 23

pletely scientific deduction. But whatever be the politics of the
man who for the first time takes up the * Contrdt Sociale/ how-
ever he may detest the application of the principles there laid
down, he cannot, if he will consent for a moment to forget his
prejudices, refuse to acknowledge that It is a wonderfiil emanation
of intellect. The autiior is no more the clever declaimer, who
seeks for commonplaces in his Plutarch ; he is no fretful misan-
thrope that raUs; but he is a severe and consistent reasoner, who,
casting all passion aside, lays down his premises, and carefiillv
and steadily follows out their consequences. Historically his work
may be valueless; the * Social Contract' by which people ori'-
ginally living in a nomadic state agreed to become citizens may
be cmmerical: we will go further and say that we believe it
is chimerical. But Rousseau keeps his adversaries at bay, when
he defies them to show any other legitimate source of go-
vernment than tiiat of the common consent of the governed.
Let not the jurists talk to him about the right of conquest, he
knows of no such right, the words are to nim an unmeaning
jargon. Conquest was the possession of a superior force by a
certain party at a certain time : but If the other party, the con-
quered, sh£ul in tiieir turn acquire the force and vanquish their
rulers, the former conquerors, who shall say their title is not
as good as the first? Historically the contract may never have
existed, — ^but is it not at the foundation of every ideal go-
vernment, which is conceived in modem times? When we talk
of a nation throwing off a despotism, and adopting a ' con-
stitutional' form of government, do we mean any thmg more than
an approximation towards the making the consent of the citizens
the basis of government, however imperfect that approximation
may be, and however limited the number of those we choose to
admit as citizens? Let us admit, with George Sand, that it was
the tendency of Rousseau's mind to see his ideal in the past,
lather than in the future. He thought he saw the origin of
fioclety in his ' contract :' he was wrong — ^he looked the wrong
way : had he looked towards the idea of modem civilization, he
would have been right. CaUIng, as he does, the entire body of
citizens the 'sovereign,' the manner in which he points out the
fimctions of that sovereign, tiie relations of the individual citizen
towards the corporate body, the creation of the executive power,
the adjustment of different political powers to produce a proper
equilibrium — ^thls is really beautiful. As a specmien of scientific
exposition, the work cannot be surpassed. If we bear in mind
the desultory education of the author — an education not merely
imperfect, but tending to turn the mind Into the most perverse
direction ; if we recoflect his perpetual weaknesses and vanities;

24 Jean Jacques Rousseau,

his utter incapability of pursuing any one steady path ; it is with
something more than astonishment tnat we behold an edifice so
well-proportioned, so perfect in all its parts, so unbedizened with
extraneous frippery, rise from elements that seemed so unpro-
mising. Many will attack the premises of the ' ContrAt Sociale;*
but let these be once conceded, and the construction must com-
mand universal admiration.

The other work, which we owe to the solitude at the ' Hermi-
tage,' is one that has far more readers than the ' Contr^t Sociale' :
being no other than the famous ' JuUe*, or, as it is generally called,
the ' Nouvelle Helo'ise.* It was Rousseau's amusement to forget for
a while the actual world, and to transport himself into the society
of two charming imaginary creatures, who were to him the per-
fection of the female character. One was dark, the other fair; one
was lively, the other gentle ; one prudent, the other weak : but the
weakness was so touching that virtue seemed to gain by it. He
gave to one of these a lover, of whom the other was the tender
iriend, even something more: but he did not allow of any jealous
quarrels, because it was an effort for him to imagine a painful sen-
timent, and he did not wish to sully so agreeable a picture by any
thing that seemed to degrade nature. This is the description al-
most in his o^vn words of his two ideal friends, who when they
ceased to have their sole dwelling in a brain industriously indolent,
and acquired an existence on paper, became the Julie and Claire
of the ' Nouvelle Heloise.' Doubtless, while these beautiful crea-
tures gained in reflection, they lost much of that witching charm
which they possessed when they merely floated in the dreams of
their creator. Sometimes they burst out in their full radiance, but
oftentimes they sink not only into mere essayists but into mere
essays : the headings of the letters ' De Juhe' and * De Madame
d'Orbe' simply distinguishing moral discourses of Jean Jacques him-
self, to which he might as well have given a title having leference
to the subject. The creation of a character — an objective charac-
ter— was not Rousseau's forte. He loved to be carried along the
tide of his own dreams, to work out his own thoughts : he could
indulge in a sentiment, he could reflect soundly on a theory, but
he could not get out of himself. Indeed it is remai;kable that he
possessed in so strong a degree the two peculiarities that he had:
the peculiarity of being always influenced by the prospect of im-
mediate enjoyment, and that of being able to discuss a subject
with the calmest reason, and to examine it in all its bearings. The
* Nouvelle Heloise' is a strange specimen of the strength and of
the weakness (in two senses) of Rousseau. Sometimes he strikes
by the sound sense, by the real manly practical wisdom which he
displays in his reflections, and anon he astounds by the most turgid

The * Nauvelle Helmse: SiSj

declamation, and the most absurd refinements. Many of the letters
will induce the reader of the present day to agree with Sir Walter
Scott, that the lovers St. Preux and Julie are two of the dullest
pedants it was ever his misfortune to meet: many of the pages in-
tended to draw the tear wiU, we fear, occasionally elicit a smile.
In the first part, which relates to the seduction of Julie by St.
Preux, or rather of St. Preux by Julie, the impassioned tone of
the letters, the hurried sentiment, the violence of emotion, are
evidences of the author's great power, when he gave himself up to
the torrent of his feelings. There we see the temperament, that
never allowed duty to prevail over desire; that made him fly with
such inconsiderate ardour to everything which became the object of
a wish, whether it were a lady or a spangled ribbon that had
smitten his heart. There we see that weakness of character which
was strength in the performance of small acts, and rendered great
acts impossible. Turning to some of the best letters in the latter
part of the book, we find the acute observer, the same dispas-
sionate reflector, who wrote the * Contrdt Sociale.' As the depicter
of the passion which knows no bounds, which has no laws but its
own, which tears down inconsiderately every impediment, Rous-
seau is strong, though he owes that strength to his weakness as a
man. As the man of cool understanding Rousseau is strong. But
it is when he is embarrassed with the two sides of his own cha-
racter, when he would fain make us beUeve that there is some
kind of harmony between an act caused by mere passion and a
dictate of pure reason, or at any rate that there is no such great
contradiction, that he becomes feeble as a writer. It is to this
feebleness that we owe the hair-spUtting distinctions, the gloss over
the vicious, the * operatic light,' which so often annoy us in the
* Heloise' and the ' Confessions.* Rousseau the man of passion,
fiousseau the man of reason, is welcome, but Rousseau the apolo-
gist is tiresome.

The object of the * Heloise,' as a moral work, was to carry on
— ^though in a milder form — the attack against metropolitan
civilization, which he had commenced by his * Essay on the Arts,'
and followed up by the ' Discourse on InequaUty.' Then the
comparison was between ancient and modem life, or the savage
and the man of refinement ; now it is between the country and
the town; and, of course, the view that he takes is tinctured
with the fallacy, that the former is the scene of exclusive virtue,
the latter of unmingled vice: a fallacy that has caused more
twaddle in prose and verse to be written than any that ever ex-
isted. Let him have, however, the full credit of being the un-
compromising enemy of that adultery which was the disgrace of
poHshed society in the time of Louis XV. : when every married

26 Jean Jacques Rousseau,

ladj of fashion had her amant as a matter of course, and the more
sentimental considered a breach of faith with that happy person-
age as a crime, while the infidelity to the husband was nothing
at all. To the time of marriage, the girls were mere puppets,
the most innocent fireedom was denied them : but the marriage
ceremony was the proclamation of fiiU licence, and that once per-
formed, restraint was broken, and the most extreme liberty began.
This state of things, which so completely destroyed all domestic
life, was viewed with just abhorrence by Rousseau. In his
* Helo'ise,' he attempted to demonstrate a principle the reverse
of that which regulated society, and to show that a breach of
chastity before marriage was no such OTeat crime, but that con-
jugal mfidelity was atrocious. His 'Julie,' who is seduced by
her tutor, becomes a perfect model of a wife, when she afterwards
marries a respectable old gentleman. The problem to be worked
was a simple one: but Rousseau carrying on his book without a
complicated story — of which he boasts — ias recourse to a need-
less compHcation of sentiments: and this it is which leads him
into his besetting sins of over-colouring, distortion, and moral
sophistry. Not only does his erring fair one recover her chastity;
but her old husband, who knows of her transgression, insists on
the former lover residing in their house, and takes a kind of phi-
* losophical pleasure in watching the emotions of that gentleman
and his wife. By overstraimng his sentiment, the author has
destroyed its effect, and presented us, with a number of shadowy
caricatures, instead of real individuals. It is always his fe.ult
that he cannot be quite true.

The disagreeable life he led at the ' Hermitage' caused him to
leave that retreat, and take up his abode at the chateau of the
Marechale de Luxembourg, who had kindly offered him a resi-
dence. His * Heloise' had at this time raised him to the zenith of
his popularity : the ladies were all delighted with it. If he had
attacked the principles on which their empire was founded, he had
done so in a way to fascinate them ; his artificial picture of the
natural was admirably adapted to artificial readers; the 'ope-
ratic Ight* thrown on the scene rendered it more acceptable
than if it had been illumined by a bold glaring sunlight. Im-
passioned as were some of the letters, soimd as were some of the
reflections, it had nevertheless some aflSlnity to the pastoral life
of a ballet. It must have been a pleasant occupation to Jean
Jacques to read aloud his ^Heloise' to Madame la Marechale.
He tells us she talked of nothing but him — ^her head was full of
nothing but him — she uttered douceurs all day long, and was
constantly embracing him. Great lords wished to sit by her at
table — ^but no ! — she told them that was the place destmed for

The Attack on Theatres. 27

Rousseau, and made them at elsewliere. With great ncuvete
Jean Jacques exclaims, after the enumeration of these delights,
*It is easy to judge of the impression which these charming
manners made upon me, whom the least marks of affection sub-
due/ He was for awhile in an atmosphere of positive enjoy-
ment; he was admired as he liked to be admired; he had de-
sired his ^ Heloise^ to be the pet of the ladies, and he had suc-
ceeded. The little warning in the preface, that any unmarried
woman who read one page would be unavoidably ruined, is a
charming instance of the puff indirect.

It was at Montmorenci that he wrote his well-known letter to
lyAlembert on the subject of theatres. In the article ' Geneva'
in the * Encyclopedic,' D^Alembert had proposed the erection
of a theatre m that city, and Rousseau in his letter, consistently
with his former attack on the arts and sciences, violently op-
posed the proposition. The vulgar prejudices against the pro-
fession of an actor he fostered with great ardour: indeed it was
his constant tendency to repose upon popular prejudices, when
they suited his purpose: he made use of the ordinary common-
places against theatres generally, and he brought forward se-
veral financial and other considerations to oppose the erection
of a Genevese theatre in particular. The inhabitants of Geneva
were poor, and being hard-worked, they had but little spare
lime on their hands, and therefore theatres, which might serve
to keep an idle population like that of Paris out of mischief,
could only exist among them as an expensive hinderance to busi-
ness. The theatre too, he thought, might interfere with sun-
dry little pleasant parties called cercles, where the male citizens
of Geneva were wont to congregate together, to drink hard, to
smoke, and to indulge in jokes, not of the most savoury character.
These merry reunions, where the liquor passed freely, and the
coarse jest caused a roar, found a vehement champion in Jean
Jacques. The whole moraUty of Geneva seemed to rest on this
basb, and a revolution that would have converted the Genevese
fix)m low sots into the spectators of Moliere's comedies, was con-
templated with positive horror by their fellow-citizen. Still advo-
cating the rude at the expense of the polished, Rousseau while
censuring theatres, now stood up the professed defender of the
pipe and pot. It appears that the battle he fought was hardly
worth the trouble it cost. Voltaire, who by his theatre in the
vicinity of the city had attracted many of the residents, had
hoped to foimd one in the city itself, and D'Alembert's article in
the * Encyclopedic, written imder his dictation, had been intended
as a * feeler.' Rousseau's letter operated so far that it destroyed
these hopes, and involved him in a quarrel with the philosophe

28 Jean Jacqttes Bausseau,

of Femey; but when afterwards theatricals were actually intro-
duced in Geneva, it was found that the citizens had so little
taste for them, that a permanent existence could not be secured.
Thus Rousseau in his letter was fighting against a supposed evil,
which left to itself would have perished naturally.

Whether it was from a feehng of patriotism, or whether it was
from feeling himself not a strong man, Rousseau always tried
to have a numerous party on his side : it had been his constant
aim to flatter the republic of Geneva. The adulation was dealt
out in a most liberal measure in the dedication of the * Discourse
on Inequality,* — ^the moral worth of the Genevese was valued at a
high rate, when he expressed such dread at their corruption by the
introduction of a theatre, — he puffed the pipe of peace with his
compatriots while eulogising the cerdes, — and if he did go so far
as to admit that the Genevese women, when assembled in a knot
together, talked scandal about their own husbands, he added that
it was much better to do so, than to indulge in the same vein
when any of the male sex were in the room. Pastors, citizens,
ladies, pipe, pot, and scandal, all was virtuous at Geneva. Nay,
more virtuous was it to get drunk, and talk ribaldry at Geneva,
then to keep sober, and study mathematics at Paris. Unfortu-
nately, this love for his country (let us believe it really was love)
was not returned in a spirit of kindness; and the little amiable
prejudices which he had been at such pains to exalt, re-acted
against their defender in a frightful manner. In the present
times, the anniversary of Rousseau'^s birthday is a great occasion
at Geneva; but it was a very different matter when he was alive.
We all know how the seven cities, through which the living
Homer begged his bread, contended, after his decease, for the
honour of his birth. Rousseau's case was still harder, for he was
obliged to endure a severe persecution: no longer a shadowy,
unreal persecution, invented by himself in his morbid moments,
but a substantial storm, which beat him about from point to point
most relentlessly. By the pubhcation of his ' Emile,' this storm
was occasioned.

* Emile ' is imquestionably the greatest of all Rousseau's works.
The thoughts which lie scattered elsewhere, the opinions which
he has previously uttered in a crude form, are here carefully di-
gested, and arranged into a systematic work. For the weaknesses
and vanities of Rousseau, we must turn to his early essays, to
his ' Confessions,' to his ' Heloise:' but for his theoretic views, for
those utterances that have weight in themselves, and are not
merely curious, as expositions of a character, we must go to the
*Contr^t Sociale' and ''Emile.' The former contains the
theory of the citizen — the rights belonging to the free member

* Emile: 29

of a free state, subject to nought but that universal will of the
state, in which he himself has a share : the rights which are in-
herent in him because he is a man, and which he has himself
limited by becoming a party to a social compact. The latter con-
tains the theory of tne man — the natural man, apart from his con-
nexion with any state whatever. Rousseau gives himself an ima-
ginary pupil, whom he calls * Emile,' and educates him from the
moment of his birth to the time when he is married and may be
supposed to acquire a political existence. The savage life which
Rousseau eulogized at the expense even of the most perfect re-
public, finds its representative in the young Emile: only it is
much softened down since first it was so violently advocated.
Then the inhabitant of the woods and moimtains, bom under no
government, having no property, and conscious of no law, was
the object of admiration: now it is to the man, bom under a
modem government, but at the period of his life when he also
has no property, and is conscious of no law, that Rousseau directs
his attention. The book * Emile' is a system of education: but
what is that system? It is the system of letting nature perform
the greatest part of the work, and as the savage is instructed by
her voice, so causing the child to be instructed also. Only the
plan is modified to a certain extent, because Emile is to be edu-
cated into compHcations which the savage can never know, and
hence, though his path is originally that of nature, he has — such
is the world — ^to be led to civilization as a goal: a civiUzation,
which, be it understood, does not make him so completely blend
with his fellows as to lose his identity, but allows him still to re-
tain a substance of his own which can exist apart from society.
It is by feeling wants, that the savage learns the use of his several
faculties, but his wants are few and simple: it is by surrounding
Emile with wants of a more artificial kind, that his training is ac-
complished. The preceptor'^s entire occupation is to watch over
Ais Emile ; his influence is unfelt by his pupil, as he teaches him
no precept, sets him no task; but he is constantly preparing such
an atmosphere, that the pupil must infalHbly guide himself to the
desired point. So far is the education natural, that the pupil
is merely led on by the desire of supplying his own wants ; so far
is it artificial, that these wants are artificially awakened. What
is called learning is deferred to an age comparatively mature, when
the boy can be made to feel uneasy at the want of it ; but all crowd-
ing of a child's mind with words, the notions attached to which
he cannot possibly understand, are expressly prohibited. Preco-
cious displays of erudition, such as the knowledge of geography
and history, long recitations of poetiy by children, Rousseau
treats with the most utter contempt; mbles, in which beasts and

30 Jean Jacques Rousseau.

birds hold converse, he opposes strenuously as means of convejdng
instruction in childhood, protesting that they only serve to give false
impressions, and that La Fontaine, in his time the favourite author
for children, is neither adapted to them by his language, nor by
his moral. Our own Cowper, in a fit of small wit, chose to ridi-'
cule this notion of Rousseau's, and wrote a miserable fable himself
to show his contempt for the doctrine, but he simply showed that
he did not understand the man whom he condemned. As it was
Rousseau's principle of education to inspire a series of wants, and to
commimicate nothing that the child himself did not desire, it was
necessary that words corresponding to no notions at all should be
prohibited : and more necessary to exclude those to which wrong
notions were attached. A word in a child's mouth should only,
in this system, serve to mention something he cared about; and
therefore he could have no use for words, &e meanings of which
were out of his mental reach, nor for figurative expressions, which
could only tend to confuse his view of the relation between names
aiid things. ' Emile * is a well-weighed, carefully written book;
the remarks on the disposition of children are founded on the
acutest obseFvation;-and he who heedlessly attacks an isolated
part, is likely to find he has chosen an adversary, his superior in
strength.* The plan of hindering Emile from learning when a
child, and confining his earliest years to bodily exercises, and a
few Ade notions of the laws of property, is not, however, merely
adapted to prevent him from bemg a precocious savant. He is
not to be a savant at any period ofhis ufe, for Rousseau, still ad-
hering to the side he took years before, continues to hold that
character in contempt. In due time the pupil learns something
of the classics, and of modem languages, but he is to consider
these as mere trivial accomplishments, and is early taught to think
that the mechanic who pursues an usefid calling is higher than a
philosopher or a poet. Though supposed to be rich, he is never-
theless to be independent of the freaks of fortune; and he learns
the trade of a jomer, is regularly bound apm-entice, that in
all circumstances he may obtam a hvelihood. Thus he becomes
Rousseau's ideal of a man : a man depending on no society, but
capable of mixing in any: the man beheved in at the time of
the Revolution, which Rousseau foresaw, and which so shortly
followed : and whatever we may think of the means adopted to
cultivate this ideal, certainly the thought itself was a great one.
By the side of * Emile,' the ideal man, strong of limb, firm in
his independence, stamped with all the nobility of nature, is placed

* From these commendations we except, as a separate work, the * F!rofessions
of the Vicaire of Saroy.'

* Vicaire of Savoy J 31

the * ideal woman/ whom Rousseau calls Sophie. In treating of
her, he appears as the strenuous opponent of the ' rights-of-woman*
sort of thmkers, who consider women capable of performing all the
political offices of a man, and as imjustly kept in a state of subjec-
tion. He objects even to the influence which ladies had already
obtained in the fashionable circles of Paris; he objects to their
presiding over sodety; to their giving opinions on matters of
philosophy and literature : teaching that domestic life is the pro-
per sphere of woman, and that the secondary position assigned to
ner, is the result not of prejudice, but of the natural order of
things. When Rousseau tninks calmly, there is nothing of what
may be called the ' socialist ' in his composition. PolIticaUy he is
an ultra-revolutionist, but with regard to social laws he is strictly
conservative.

The cause of the storm that was created on the publication of
*Eimle' was the ^Profession of Faith of the Vicaire of Savoy*
which appears as a mere episode of the work. This insidious
* profession^ is remarkable for its display of natural piety^ The
declarations of faith in a supreme Being, and in the immortality
of the soul, are made with the greatest appearance of devout-
ness; but while the doctrine of a future state is ^ proved^ by ar^-
ments singularly unconvincing, the ground work of every positive
religion is assailed with remarkable tact and acuteness. The
eviaence by miracles, — in short any sort of evidence that would
make of Christianity any thing but a mere system of morality, — ^Is
assiduously controverted; and though the doctrines of Rousseau
are such as in the present time might obtain him no severer name
than that of a *■ rationalist,' he was in his day a complete infldel
as &r as regarded any established creed. The catholics of course
did not like him: the Calvinistlc Genevese, whom he had vainly
tried to flatter by a few compliments in this very ' profession,'
joined in the abhorrence : and lastly the material philosophes, dis-
gusted at his advocacy of a ftiture state, loved him no better than
me orthodox. The tempest broke out in more places than one,
the parliament of Paris threatened him with imprisonment, the
council of Greneva caused his book to be burned by the hands of the
executioner. From Montmorenci he was obliged to fly, and he
vainly sought shelter in several places In Switzerland. His ' Letters
fix)m the Mountain,' which he wrote as a sort of defence to the objec-
tionable part of his * Emile,' only served to increase the violence of
his enemies. Great polemic talent is exhibited in these ' letters.'
If he cannot refute the danger against himself, he shows the
nicest skill in placing his adversanes in a false position. With
dexterity availing himself of an argument long m vogue among
the catholics, he dares his Genevese opponents, who as protestants

39 Jean Jacques Rousseau.

found their faith on the right of private judgment, consistently
to prevent his interpreting the scriptures his own way. Then
leaving the abstract theological around, he attacks on constitu-
tional principles the acts of the Genevese council, which was the
executive power, and was composed of the aristocratic portion of
the repubhc. In revenge for his persecution, he shows how that
council has exceeded the limits prescribed by the constitution, how
it has encroached on other members of the state : and to the argu-
ments which he used on this occasion are to be ascribed the revo-
lutions in favour of a more popular form of government, which
afterwards happened in Geneva. At the time, the position he took
drew upon him litde else than persecution, and it he occasionally
foimd an asylum, he was soon obliged to leave it to avoid personal
risk. The ignorant populace, excited by their pastors, believed
him to be Anti-Christ; and he with that perverse love of noto-
riety which ever distinguished him, chose to walk out in an
Armenian costume, and thus in a measure to support the opinion
of the bigoted Svriss, that he was at any rate something not quite
right. From this persecution, which he says put him in peril of
being stoned to death, but which some ^believe he greatly exag-
gerated, he took refuge by his journey to England, in com-
pany with David Hume. With his departure from Switzerland
on this occasion, ends the book of ' Confessions.'

Over the rest of his life, in which we have no longer his own
voice to guide us, we may pass very briefly. England did not
suit him : there was no chance in this island of a shout of * Anti-«
Christ,' nor of his windows being demolished with brickbats: but
what was worse, people did not seem to care much about him.
His life was in perfect safety, but he found himself an object of
ridicule. He quarrelled with his friend Hume, and with this
country altogether; and returned once more to France, where his
fame having become estabUshed, he was received in the most flat-
tering manner. At Paris his eccentricities took the form of mad-
ness; he Hved a prey to the most frightful mental anguish; he
even seemed to luxuriate in his own horrors, and loved to repeat
a stanza of Tasso* which reminded him of his own situation.
His face was so distorted by convulsions, that those who had been

* " Vivro fra i mei tormenti, e fra le cure,
Mie giiiste furie, forsennato errante.
Paventero V ombre solinghe e scure,
Che 1 primo error mi recheranno ayante;
E del sol che scopri le mie sventure,
A schivo ed in orrore avro il sembiante:
Temero me medesmo, e da me stesso
Sempre fuggendo, avro me sempre oppresso."

Gems, lib. xii

Character, 33

familiaT with his countenance could reconcile it no more. On
the 3rd of July, 1778, he died suddenly, at the chateau of a
friend at Ermonville, — ^not without suspicion of suicide.

There is something sublimely tragic in this last madness of
Rousseau. The man could not at last find any thing really to love in
this world : it was a something to him mysterious and imholy, and
he peopled it with awM phantoms. He uttered his imprecations
against it: but he was not a strong man, he could not weather the
storm, and the curses, ' like young chickens, returned home to
roost.' Probably he at first assumed misanthropy in a kind of
morbid freak, and declared himself the enemy of civilization for
the sake of supporting a paradox : but he nurtured this position
till it became more and more a real thing — ^to himself terribly
real. To separate the acted from the true is, as we have said,
difficult to me reader of the ' Confessions;' but we must have
feith in the sincerity of that maniac misanthropy of which we
hear so little, and which came after the period we have at-
tentively examined.

In spite of the weakness of the Man, the strength of the Word
was felt. The young, the enthusiastic, the dreamers of the last
century, followed the dictates of Rousseau, and his words became
the gospel of revolutionists. If his nature was not quite natural,
it was natural enough to move those who had only gazed at the
mere artificial. Truly it is a great sight to see this Rousseau,
this creature of feeble purpose, constructing what he believed to
be the natural man out of such strange materials as society pre-
sented him, and out of such a weak self. The man of his imagi-
nation grew to maturity in the * Emile,' and there is no doubt he
was as dear a companion to his preceptor as if he had been a
reality. He would have marred his idol by a projected work,
called ' Emile and Sophie :' a work of which only a few chapters
were written, and which promised to be one of immense power :
but the ideal man was to have risen triumphant from his imagi-
nary misfortunes. Pygmalion — and Jean Jacques wrote a
PygmaHon — created an ideal, saw it realized, and was blessed :
Eousseau erected likewise an ideal, but he saw the impossibility
of its realization in the world, he gnashed his teeth at actualities,
and sunk into despair and madness.

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIU.

( 34 ;

Art. II. — Schwedische Geschichfen unter Gustav dent Dritten^
vorzuglich aher unter Gustav dem vierten Adolf. (Sketches
of Swedish History under Gustavus III. and Grustavus IV.,
Adolphus.) Von E. M. Abndt. Vol. I. 8vo. Leipzig. 1839.

The history of Sweden from the beginning of the sixteenth cen-
tury downwards is a remarkable proof how brilliant a thing
it is, and how dangerous, for a country to be governed by a race
of kings in whose blood genius, and to it closely allied madness, is
hereditary. Men of business proverbially have an instinctive dis-
trust of genius : Jove's thunder, they say, is a thing always more
sublime than safe, useful indeed, nay necessary at certain critical
seasons for shaking and purifying the morbid overladen atmosphere,
but on common occasions dispensable. Not that genius is a thing
essentially bad in itself ; the men of business are not so uncha-
ritable as to say that ; it is a thing essentially good, but good
for the most part in excess or in disproportion to the occasion.
There Ues the evil. It overshoots the mark. Like old Acestes
in the JEneid, it does not shoot the pigeon,, but the clouds ; and
the clouds bum and blaze, and stars shoot across the sky, and all
men cry a miracle ; but with all this the proper mark of the
archer was the pigeon, and not the doud.

There is, indeed, a sort of calm, mild, well-toned, contemplative
genius, which is perfectly safe. In the world of books there are
many such, a Sophocles, a Jeremy Taylor, a Goethe; but wisdom
with a sword in her hand is rare. The genius of soldiership is
dangerous on a throne. A conqueror who knows how to stop con-
quering, like Frederick of Prussia when he had finished the Silesian
business, is one out of a hundred. Charles XII. did not know
where to stop ; Napoleon did not know where to stop. A king
ought to sit upon his throne ; but military geniuses like Napoleon
and the Swede, are not to be made to sit anywhere. They must
spur and drive on with or without a rational aim. Did not Charles,
when at Bender, ride three strong horses weary every day ?
Could he have existed otherwise ? To move about the world,
and drive down all opposition, with a leathern belt about his
loins, and a sharp sword in his hand, booted and spurred, and
gloved, — was it not the very life, and breath, and being of the
man ? Was it not the very life, and breath, and being of Na-
poleon also ? Could he have existed otherwise ? Could the Cor-
sican or the Swede, being as they were the most fulminant of
soldiers, be for the coimtries which they respectively governed
any thing but bad kings ? The reign of the one was to France,
after the necessary good of self-preservation had been obtained,

Great Rulers. 35

altogether a brilliant blunder ; and though the other was cut
short in his career, the extraordinary obstinacy of his character —
a feature equally remarkable in Napoleon — leaves little ground
for hoping that he would have been able to secure more favour-
able terms of peace than those which his successors were contented
to receive two years after his death, at the fatal peace of Nystadt
(1721) which opened the Baltic to Russia. Thus all the gain of
Narva and of Charles the Twelfth's miUtaiy genius to Sweden
was a splendid loss.

But let us not look exclusively at one side of the picture. The
men of business are quite right when they do not pray Heaven
to send men of genius to keep their daily ledgers and to collect
their yearly rents; but kings nave sometimes extraordinary work
to do ; and then a genius will do great things. When we take a
survey of the long fine of intellectually gifted Swedish sovereigns,
(concerning whom Amdt justly remarks, that in such close suc-
cession no European country nas any thing parallel) — Gustavus
Wasa, Charles IX., Gustavus Adolphus, Christina, Charles X.
Gustavus, Charles XI., Charles XII., and Gustavus HI. — we shall
find that though the country over which these men reigned may
have some reason to blame them for having forced it by violent
and premature efforts to assume a position which it had no innate
strength to maintain, yet, on the whole, by the combined might
of genius, and outward chances (to which all are subject), it still
takes among European powers a place not below what naturally
seems to belong to it; a place higher, perhaps, than amid the
storms and changes of three centuries mere safe mediocrity might
have secured; and then there is, in addition to this, that glorious
bequeathment of genius to a nation — ^the memory of noble deeds
and high enterprizes. For what man that is not a mere Econo-
mist will say that the fives of Gustavus Wasa, Gustavus Adol-
phus, and Charles XII. (to name no more), are not worth to
Sweden a whole Hiad and an Odyssey, and something more ?

There are some persons who wiU say that Sweden has not ac-
compfished its destiny among European nations, because the Czar
Peter was not hindered from setting down Petersburg at the head
of the Gulf of Finland in 1703, and Barclay de Tolly was al-
lowed to march over the Baltic ice from Wasa to Umea in 1809 ?
But would our Russophobia have been any thing more moderate,
if Petersburg had then or a few years afterwards been planted on
the Black Sea or the Sea of Azof, as near Constantinople as it
now is to Stockholm? For a sea-metropofis it is manifest Russia
must have had, either on the Black Sea or the Baltic, if it
was to be a civifized and a European power at all. As for
Sweden, who can doubt for a moment (looking only to results)

d2

Ik

36 Amd£s Sketches of Swedish History.

that its present union with Norway, in that snug Scandinavian
peninsula, is a much more natural and happy thing, both geo-
graphically and physiologically (for the Norwegians and the Swedes
are brother Goths), than either that old clumsy-soldered union of
Calmar, or that yet older one — as old as the thirteenth century —
with Finland? Let us hope that Bemadotte will neither resign,
nor be deposed, nor be assassinated, as had become almost the
general rule with his predecessors ; and that Sweden with Nor-
way, after so many violent plunges and careerings, will learn at
last to steady itself: to grow quietly, Uke the grass, into the man-
hood of a free constitution as England has done before it; and
not be heard of in Europe, either by external wars or by internal
revolutions, for a century at least.

The history of Sweden from the time of Gustavus Wasa is
more interesting than any history of modem times, chiefly for
this reason, that it is the history not of great measures merely,
but also and principally of great men; of men of decided genius;
of kings great and energetic, always valiant, often wise in the
difficult art of reigning. They have all done something, the men
that held the Scandinavian sceptre. It was not a mere bauble in
their hands, but the original tricrjirrpov : a staff not to lean on, but to
strike with : and how they did strike ! — The first Gustavus, the
clergy; the third, the nobiUty ! — In all their Titanic doings, from
the overthrow of the papacy at the council of Westeraas, in 1527,
to Narva, and the humbling of the mutinous aristocracy by
Gustavus m. during the Russian war of 1789, what perseverance,
what energy, what vigour, did not they display ! Thor's ham-
mer seems to have been left as a poHtical legacy to these men.
One great penalty, indeed, the Swedes paid for so much
genius: a penalty beyond that which we already mentioned as
inherent in the very nature of genius. After so much exertion.
Nature, notwithstanding the beneficial influence of frequent cross-
ing, seemingly weary of creating great men, produced an extra-
ordinary thing still, a thing gigantically abnormal, a creature of
high notions and contracted views, genius altogether without
sense, dignity altogether without grandeur, obstinacy always most
eager about small things — ^practically a FOOL. This fool sat on-
the throne of Gustavus Wasa, the last of his line, and only not
overturned it: Gustavus IV. Adolphus. But this man also had
character; he was no empty dangling fool; no king, such as we
have seen, to make a mere clerk-registrar of, and sign all sorts of
papers that he had never read: he was a most energetic, active
fool; and did one great thing at least, to prove the Wasa stuff in
him, and help to atone for his many offences. When only a boy
of 17, in the year 1796, he outwitted the wisest woman in

The Historian. 37

Europe, the Czarina Catherine of Russia, and so enraged her that
the very paint turned pale upon her face with chagiin. The
descendant of Goistavus vVasa would not marry a daughter of the
house of Romanoff, because she would not sacrifice her Greek
religion to her Lutheran love. The bride was there, dressed and
decorated for the joyful occasion. The Muscovite queen looked
on, eager to pounce upon the fulfilment of her long-delayed hopes.
She had already crossed the Baltic in fancy, years before Barclay
de Tolly actually accomplished it — the Muscovite priest was also
ready — but the Swedish bridegroom was not found. He would
not sign the marriage contract before he had spelt and studied
every word of it. He suspected some foul play about one of the
clauses : the clause about the Greek priest and the Greek chapel
in Stockl^olm. He laid down the pen, and walked away; shut
himself up in his chamber, and did not appear at his own wed-
ding; leaving his blooming bride — ^whom he really loved — to her-
self and to hysterics. Truly a most deliberate and conscientious
fool!

With such fine dramatic elements to work on, the history of
Sweden, if it be not one of the most interesting or striking in the
world, must want this character by the fault of the writer, or by
the want of materials, not by the barrenness of the theme. It is
not our present business here to say how Geijer has succeeded :
not Mr. Laing's report alone speaks favourably: in the meanwhile
we have ^ccidentally encoimtered not a historian of Sweden in the
grand stjde, not a Livy, not a Michelet to his country; but a vi-
gorous sketcher, a man with a bold brush and a glowing pencil;
an eye-witness with an eye in his head, and a heart in his breast,
and a considerable faculty of speculation too ; a stout Pomeranian
yeoman of the old plain-speaking school; a muscular fiery-hearted
man ' das starke heisse Amdfs Blut,^ proverbial in Rugen; one
that if Marshal Bliicher or the Baron von Stein had been King
of Prussia before the battle of Jena, would have been prime mi-
nister to either worthily, and prevented many catastrophes ; no
nice carver and gilder in whom the delicate Clio of the Berlin
censorship may delight, but a man with a club. This man, to
whom we have abeady given public thanks for his contribu-
tions to the memorable history of the year 1813,* has fur-
nished European history with another original source of informa-
tion on a theme more remote perhaps from general sympathy,
but not less interesting to the reflective mind, or less important
to the philosophic historian : we mean the strange drama of the
Swedish history during the reign of Gustavus IV. Adolphus,

* F, Q. i?., No. LXL, p. 169.

38 Amdts Sketches of Swedish History.

which ended in the deposition of that unfortunate incapable, and
the elevation of a French soldier of second rate value to the
throne of the Wasas: a sort of poUtical by-play only to the great
drama which was being performed in Europe at that time, not a
little amusing, amid so much matter of more serious urgency, to
some of the spectators, but an earnest enough affair to those im-
mediately concerned, and pregnant, it may be, with earnest issues
to our children's children, when Bernadotte and Oscar, and Oscar-
son to come, shall have played out their difficult parts as God
shall order.

Our readers who are acquainted with Amdt's cast of mind, as
exhibited in his other works — his ' Spirit of the A^e,'* his ' Re-
miniscences,' his patriotic ' Songs,* &c., will not be disposed to ask
any questions as to his inward vocation to write sketches of Swe-
dish history, or indeed of any other history into which he chooses
to throw the whole vigour of his ardent mind. His outward vo-
cation to write on Sweden, and on the late Swedish revolution
especially, may be stated shortly as follows. Bom in the green
isle of Rugen, in the famous biographical year 1769, of Grerman
stock, but, by virtue of the sword of Gustavus Adolphus and the
diplomacy oi Oxenstiem, under Swedish rule, he was both a Swede
and a German (v fiwoftei (potentially) as Aristotle says : eventually
(inclination and circumstance so ordering), he came forth a German
and a Prussian, not however without strong Swedish sympathies
and some considerable Swedish experience. The son of a thriving
Pomeranian yeoman, what nobler ambition could he be expected
to have than to be a minister of the Lutheran Church? To Greifs-
wald accordingly, and then to Jena, he betook himself to study
theology; but it was an age of theological lukewarmness (so him-
self says) ; and perhaps the political pamphleteer was imping its
young wings secretiy already in the back-chambers of the preacher's
brain. He was destined to preach not to a parish in Riigen against
brandy, and other small Swedish sins, but to the people of Europe
against Napoleon Buonaparte and the great French Revolution.
He threw away the Pomeranian black gown therefore (though
there was a sleeve in it with 3,000 dollars a-year) very cavalierly,
and went roving about the world through Germany, Hungary,
Italy, France, me Netiierlands, for no particular purpose visible
then, but merely from what we may call a sort of Ulyssean instinct,
to see the cities and to know the minds of men —

^^noXXodv S* avBpcm'dv idcv acrrca kcu voov €yvm»

* Speaking of this work when at Prague, in 1811, Stein said, " Since Burke,
nothing of such genuine political eloquence has appeared, nothing of such urgent
truth."

Shetchof the Historian, 39

Coining back to Griefswald, and being now about twenty years
of age, lie had the good fortune to fe.ll in love with the daughter
of one of the professors there; this connexion soon helped him to
an actual professorship ; and in this capacity he remained ten years
(from 1799 to 1809), partly resident there and lecturing on his-
tory, partly in Sweden and Stockholm. He made two visits to
Sweden; one in 1803-4, merely out of curiosity to know the
country, another more important one in 1806, a fugitive from the
unfortunate catastrophe of Jena : on which occasion he had not
been in Stockholm two weeks before he was employed by the
eovemment to assist in a revision of the Pomeranian laws
uiat was then going forward. Thus employed, and mingling
also a little in the unhappy political busmess with Russia ana
England in 1808-9, he remamed in Stockholm between three
and four years at the head quarters of political information, and
seeing with his own eyes the most remarkable of the members of the
aristocratic confederacy to which the present king owed his re-
markable elevation. He then, seeing affairs in Stockholm hope-
less, returned to Germany ; to BerHn, to Breslau, to Prague ; and
from thence, as we mentioned formerly,* to Petersburg: there
to form that connexion with the Baron von Stein, which renders
his reminiscences such a valuable contribution to the history of
the year of liberation in Germany. His future career as a pro-
fessor in the Prussian university of Bonn is more generally known,
and has already been briefly commented on in our brief notice
of the ' Reminiscences.'

The * Sketches of Swedish History,' as the biographicaliio-
tice we have just given indicates, boasts the entire value of an
original authority, only for the short period of five years — 1803,
1806-7-8, and 9. But the writer's early connexion with Sweden,
and his natural genius for history, stamp a peculiar value on what-
e7er he says relative to that most interesting country; and in par-
ticular his account of the remarkable reign of Gustavus III., and
the brilliant character of that monarch, bemg derived from personal
intercourse with some of the most distinguished characters of that
age, possesses a worth scarcely inferior to the testimony of the best,
fc superior to that of a common eye-witness. He has preserved
not a little in the shape of anecdote and tradition, from the year
1780 downwards, that might otherwise perhaps have been alto-
gether lost. Not less gratefiil are we to him for the short but
v^orous sketch of the great sovereigns of Sweden from Gustavus
Wasa downwards, with which he mtroduces the reigns of the
two last of the race. And we have been equally pleased and in-

* In our 61st Number*

40 Amdfs Sketches of Swedish History.

structed with some prefatory remarks on the character of the
Swedish people, and the pecuUarities of their political constitution,
conceived in a large ana catholic spirit of historical philosophy,
but marked also by that vigorous, decided, and imsparmg tone of
moral censure (when required) which characterizes the author no
less than his ready and glowing sympathy with every thing in
history that is truly great. Ea^er as we are to present our readers
with some of the masterly poUtical portraits witn which this book
abounds, we cannot refrain from giving some slight notion here
of Amdt^s views of the social and. political state of Sweden, dif-
ferent as that is radically in so many respects from what we are
familiar with on this side the German ocean. In the following
extract we ^e the grand radical weakness of Sweden clearly laid
bare.

^' What Sweden wants is a population, a people. There should be
seven millions at least cultivating that ground which now scarcely sup-
ports three. The country is not sufficiently subdued. It is m toe
state of a colony ; half-peopled, and, in many respects, only half-civi-
lized. Public life in Sweden is too scattered to be strong. It wants
mass, it wants weight, it wants the frequent action of body on body,
hostile collision of part with part, working out friendly equipoise. Is
Sweden a nation f In one sense it is ; but in the proper and perfect
sense it is not. The materials are not there of which a nation in the
highest sense is composed. The different classes of which society is
made up are not there sufficiently developed, do not rub sufficiently against
one another, have not found their proper position, their natural level.
The Swedes may possess a political constitution more favourable to
freedom than that of Germany, or even of Hungary and France, but
they are not therefore a nation in the same sense that the Germans,
the Hungarians, and the French are ; and this for the plain reason that
we have just stated — the spiritual and physical powers of the masses in
their restless reciprocity of action and counter-action are wanting. That
which the English call public spirit is wanting ; and must be want-
ing for some time too, I fear. But why this ? you vnll say. Why
this ? Simply because there are too few of you. What ? you will say
again, do mere numbers make a state ? Was the historical importance
of Sparta, of Athens, of Syracuse, of Florence, of Venice, of Grenoa,
rated by mere arithmetic ? Listen to me, and I will explain my mean-
ing. I do not say absolutely you are too few to make a nation, but
relatively — ^relatively to the land over which you are spread. If you
could collect the disjecta membra of what might be a nation from the
North Cape to Ystadt, and concentrate them in the six provinces north,
south, and west of Stockholm as a nucleus, then — Oh then! — but this is
just the thing that cannot be done ; and so you must even be content
to wait. As soon as you have a people witn an active commimication
and interchange of living social influences constantly at work, so soon
you will have a public spirit and become in the ripe and frdl sense of

Aristocrcuy and Yeomanry. 41

the ward a nation. Till then you cannot count yourself safe, and must
be constantly on your guard against the old personal and private spirit
of aristocratic cliques and cabsds, which has been your bane hitherto.
Instead of a steady breeze and fair sailing you will nave ever and anon,
as you have hitherto had, gusts and hurricanes. Nations are not made
in a year, any more than constitutions can be cut out on a piece of
parchment. You must be content to grow. Happy if you have a wise
gardener who knows where to cut and prune, and where to uproot also,
here and there, when necessary !"

We have riven in some parts of this quotation more the sub-
stance than tne exact words of our author, from a desire to spare
space. We may be found to do the same again, as our author's
style, however vigorous and racy, possesses very little of that terse-
ness and condensation which is the prime requisite of the classical in
writing. Popularity rather than classicality is his element. He
who addresses masses of men must never blush to say the same
thing twice over.

Our next extract refers to a matter no less peculiarly Swedish
• — ^the relation between the aristocracy and the yeomanry. To
establish this relation on a natural and just footing has been the
great problem of modem society. Poland, in attempting, or
rather in neglecting to solve it, became the prey of foreign des-
potism; Prussia, in the hour of urgent need, cut, rather than
untied the knot, and did with the once famous all-engrossing
nobility what Tarquin did with the poppies — ^lopped off their
heads by an Agrarian law. Sweden has this problem yet to
solve. Her aristocracy have as many sins to answer for, and
more perhaps than the Prussian. Let them keep their eyes and
their hearts open (this last is a main matter) and act wisely. If
on calm reflection they should find that they require pruning, let
them not be slow or sparing with the knife. He cuts most
safely who pares his own nails. But let us hear Amdt.

** The Swedes have been accused of vanity. I do not think they are
a vain people naturally ; but a bad constitution and a perverse educa-
tion, and other unfavourable circumstances, have given them a strong
tincture of this, as of some other foreign follies. Northern coun-
tries are not capable of so much show and glitter as the south ; of so
much external beauty and luxuriousness of existence : and with these
limits, which Nature has put to their capacities, they ought to be con-
tent. But no ! — they must ape foreign fineries — they must polish and
fbrbish themselves into something that Natiu*e never meant : and so
tiiey become altogether artifilcial, and deck themselves out with many
vanities. This corruption of a people, by the excessive imitation of
what is foreign, generally commences with the aristocracy, and through
them it is apt to spread through the people. Such a denationalizing

42 Amd£s Sketches of Swedish History.

system has long been at work in Sweden, is so to a great extent still,
and is the bane of public life there, however comely constitutional forms
may be, or may be made. By a constitution in which the different
classes of society are represented in a manner altogether dispropor-
tionate to their natural relations ; by a perverse Frenchified education of
the higher classes destined to lead, to judge, and to advance the people ;
all that vanity has become rank, which developes itself so readily in
the eager imitation of what is foreign : and more than in any other
coimtiy is it observable in Sweden, that as soon as a man gets above
the position of a plain yeoman, so soon is he carried away by the insa-
tiable Tantalic striving after an aristocracy of mere show and glitter.
Yes ! had the pith of the people here not been so substantially good,
had their laws and customs, the remains of the old rude times, not been
so essentially manful, we might long ago have seen in Sweden what we
see in Poland and in Bussia. For let civilization and refinement
(so called) advance at what rate it will, this land was intended by
nature to be inhabited by a race of free and happy peasants. Let me
not be misunderstood ; I also wish an aristocracy ; I do not wish to
have a coimtry of mere peasants ; but I wish decidedly, and before every
thing else, that in this rude northern climate, every man should be
in earnest and work, that every man in this country, even the lite-
rary man, and the lord, should have something of the character and
spirit of the native yeoman in his composition. I do not wish mere
peasants, but I wish every thing for peasants : a free manly education,
a taste cultivated for the practical and substantial rather than for the
showy, a will marching directly up to its deed, no exotic play with
those arts and and refinements of lire which belong in their vigour only
to more southern climates. I wish democrcLcy : not democracy in con-
stitutional forms merely or mainly, but in that earnestness and severity
of manners, in that determined girding of the soid to the combat with an
external nature not given in that latitude overmuch to sport. For
Sweden is a land like Scotland, Norway, Tyrol, and Switzerland, where
man becomes utterly ruined if he may not energetically speak out the
defiance and the pnde of his heart in word and deed, and if he is taught
to look for salvation in refinement rather than in valiantness, in play
rather than in work."

There is a profound ethnographic philosophy, a high moral tone,
and, with reference to present social relations and constitutional
questions, a great practical truth and significancy in these remarks,
which we much fear many fine ffentlemen with sounding titles in
the demoralized capital of Sweden may not have sense enough to
understand. An undue preponderance of the aristocratic ele-
ment over the yeomanry, who are the pith and marrow morally as
as well as physically of Sweden, together with not a little ad-
mixture of the pragmatical Prussian system of over-governing, is
the great defect of the Swedish constitution and administration.
Ernest Maurice Amdt, though a man of the people like Martin

Warnings. 43

Luther, in every pulse of his heart and in every vein of his body,
is no vulgar theorizer and constitution maker. He saw through
the French folly from the beginning as clearly as Burke did. He
is a practical man, and speaks of aristocracy and democracy
with a direct eye as well to the growth of centuries as to the ne-
cessities of the moment. To the Swedish aristocracy, looking at
their past history and at their present condition, he says, — The
pillars which God and nature meant for the siipport of your social
edifice, are and must be of the Doric order. Your capital, that is
to say your aristocracy, must be of the Doric order also, or had
better not be at all. But lo ! you have overladen the shaft with a
Corinthian topping both disproportionate in bulk, and idly pranked
out of all keeping, with tier upon tier of fooUsh French flosculo-
sities. This is not an age for aristocratic trifling. Aristocracy is
good so long as the members which compose it are true to their de-
signation : so long as they are substantially the BEST of a people.
But if they are not so, De Tocqueville tells us — and it is but too
evident — that democracy, or the monarchy of the middle classes,
for good or for evil, is on the march, and will not back : therefore
BEWABE ! In God*s name have your eyes open, and do not play
the French or the Prussian fool over again, when your complex
quadriform parhament comes together in 1845. Wisdom, which
was not necessary to concoct a peace of WestphaHa in 1648, will
be necessary then.

But we revert to our author. After filling seventy most agreeable
pages of introduction with miscellanous remarks on the character of
the Swedes, and the anomaUes of their political constitution, M.
Amdt proceeds to the proper historical part of his wbrk. He
first casts a glance on the three past centuries, and with a few vi-
gorous lines gives the reader decided and distinctive portraits of
Gustavus Wasa and his passionate son, the romantic wooer of our
virgin Queen; Charles IX. " the stem and iron man;" Gustavus
Adolphus, the heroic champion of Protestantism ; the intellectual
and eccentric Christina ; the valiant and fortunate Charles Gustavus ;
Charles XI., energetic, steadfast, and firm ; Charles XH., the Nor-
thern Achilles. So far a warm sympathizer with royalty, and real
kings, who acted by themselves andyor the people, proceeds with
pleasure. Such a royalist Amdt is, decidedly and thoroughly, in
nis views of Swedish history. Perhaps he has a bias this way,*
of which the critical reader will of course beware ; but it is in
viewing Swedish history certainly a much more safe bias than that
opposite constitutional bias (if we may so call it), which we English
are apt to carry along with us in judging of the internal political

* In his Beminiscences (p. 82), he says — " Ich glaube Ich bin vonjeher ein iiber'
tntbener Rotfolitt gewesenJ"

44 Amdts Sketches of Swedish History,

relations of the contmental states. Let us never forget Poland. In
certain necessary stages of social development a strong monarchy
is the only bulwark of national independence against aggression
from without, the only protection of the impoverishea masses
against oppression from within. These are tnte truths, but not
the less necessary to be continually repeated as a check against
our strong Britim prejudice, that popular constitutional forms are
the only safeguard of popular liberties. An absolute sovereign,
reignine energetically as the great princes of the house of Wasa
did, is the natural protector of the people properly so called; their
only efficient protector when they are not yet strong enough to
protect themselves. He who doubts this truth may study the
history of Sweden from the death of Charles XII., in 1719, to the
revolution of 1772; and he may possibly find something there to
enlighten him. That was the era of aristocratic omnipotence and
royal impotence in Sweden ; the era also of internal division and
cabal, of external failure and decline. But this epoch our
stalwart royalist-democrat passes with regardless step and indig-
nant kick. In the famous contentions of the Hats and Caps, dur-
ing the heat of which Kussia (at the peace of Ado in 1743)
planted her first foot — ^how ominously ! — in Finland, he finds no-
thing great either in the internal or external history of Sweden to
detam a single glance; but with the apparition of Gustavus IH.,
and the resumption of the old kingly authority by the bold stroke
of 1772, he resumes his inspiration.

His accoimt of this reign (occupying as it does only fifty
ges) is written in a grand spirit of sympathy, and with a
le perception both of the morally great and dramatically
effective in history. We have no space here to enter into
any detailed analysis of the brilliant character of Gustavus ; we
do not think it is possible to clear this monarch, as Amdt
attempts to do, from the charge of dupUcity generally brought
against him, arising out of the circumstances connected with
his elevation to the throne; but bating this point, we think
Amdt has succeeded in sketching a portrait of this king-cavalier
at once far more favourable and far more characteristically true,
than what has often been presented to the European public. The
same political position in fact tended to misrepresent this man's
character that afterwards operated so powerfully in exaggerating
the peculiarities of his son. He was at war with his nobility;
and in a poor, remote, and thinly-peopled coimtry like Sweden,
the numerous and influential aristocracy were naturally enough
looked upon by foreigners as identical with the people. Hence if
they chose to baptize any rigorous monarch a despot and a tyrant,
simply because he spurned to be their slave and to govern prin-

Armfelt 45

cipally for their affgrandizement, the designation was apt to pass
current through tne whole of Europe without question.* From
the influence of such general prejudices and prepossessions Amdt
by his position, no less than by his character, is the proper man to
set the historical student free. Our space forbids us to insert here
his masterly and detailed characteristic of Gustavus III. ; but we
shall make amends as far as we can, by giving at full length the
portrait of one of his most famous favourites — the celebrated
Armfelt.

'^ Baron Gustavus Mauiice Armfelt was a native Fin, bom about
the year 1760. The manly beauty of his person, and the sparkling
riches of his mind, conspired to bring him early into notice with Gus-
tavus III., whose friendship and confidence he for many years enjoyed.
In the first Finnish war (1789) he distinguished himself by the most
brilliant heroism and determined courage, and returned home covered
with honour and wounds. With Gustavus his fortunes fell ; his schemes
against the regency of 1792-6 could scarcely be said to be bom before
they were strangled, and Armfelt v\ras forcea to fight his way alone for
several years through dangers and difficulties from every side. Gustavus
Adolphus treated him as he did all the friends and companions of his
&ther who had been in disgrace during the regency — ^he recalled him to
his country and to court favour. But between two such men as Arm-
felt and Gustavus Adolphus, nature had planted a gulf that suffered no
intimate connexion to grow up between them. For hot and cold, stiff
formality and vrild freedom, large-hearted openness and a narrow self-
containment, are natural enemies. This innate repulsion between his
own character and the king*s, Armfelt often felt severely ; nevertheless,
he always remained true to the son of his early friend ; no man to the
last hour served Gustavus more faithfully than he. Armfelt is a man
who bore on his brow the stamp that nature meant him for something
great. Had his rare qualities been mingled with a little less levity,
had a sphere of noble and enterprising activity been opened up to him
after the first irregular fervour of youth was over, unquestionably he
would have asserted his place among the very first names of European
celebrity. His body displayed, from the head to the knee, a wonderful
combination of beauty and strength ; only in the lower part of the leg,
about the ankles and the feet, something uncertain and unsteady
appeared ; an outward index perhaps of the weak part of his in-
ternal character. His head, clustered round like Apollo's with rich
floating golden ringlets, was one of the most beautiful you might

♦ This remark applies, with particular force, to Charles XL, who, in his hold
resumption of the crown lands, apphed the surgical knife to the Swedish in as
merciless a way as Stein did to the Prussian nohility after the hattle of Jena. His
memory accordingly was long retained in the families of the aristocrax;y as a
syncmym for tyrant; but in Arndt he finds an eloquent vindicator, as, indc^ he
had long ago found an intelligent one among ourselves in Archdeacon Coxe.
' Travds in Poland, Sweden,' &c.; bk. 7, c 2.

I

46 Amdfs Sketches of Swedish History,

see; a forehead broad, and pregnant with ideas; blue eyes, spirit-speak-
ing, and sparkling with intellect ; a kingly nose ; a £m\. mouth, around
which feeling, irony and voluptuousness sported in rivalry ; a finely-
rounded manly chin; combined to make this head almost an ideaL
Armfelt is a genius, and unites all the virtues and the vices which are
wont to mark the higher kinds of genius. Eich in thoughts, in wit,
and in life, he overflows wildly, and wildly overleaps himself. He
speaks and writes admirably ; pens the most beautiful verses ; sends
forth, as often as he opens nis mouth, unwearied lightnings of intellect
and wit ; understands the art of Hving with all sorts of men, and making
himself agreeable to all ; and — what is the highest quality of all — in
whatever he does, great or small, good or bad, the man, the open-
hearted kindly man, breaks freely out This it is wherein his great cap-
tivating power lies ; this it is that secures him his ascendancy over other
men. For amid this northern frost, and near this arctic circle, to stand
on high ground, intellectually and socially, as Armfelt did, and preserve at
the same time the warm, free-pulsing man, demands a large heart. Arm-
felt is enterprising and quick to seize; eager to attain but not obstinate
to retain; light-hearted, not without levity; at one moment both labor-
ious and dexterous at his labour, at another careless and thoughtless ;
always more fruitful to project than patient to execute. On Cupid's
many-twinkling million-coloiured arena of flowers this man was a terrible
conqueror, a northern Don Juan, a thousand times more fiery than the
Spaniard, a Caesar, the son of Ventis Genitrix, who could write Veni,
viDi, vici, as a blazon on his shield, and ride through the lists of Love
unchallenged. His adventures with women of all nations are fa-
mous, as are also his collections of the most lovely children, who could
boast mostly princesses for their mothers, and whom he all educated
gallantly as his own. In such matters of course one mentions no names.
But this man, whose faults lie so open before all men, and whom any
dry pedant may blame, possesses also a truthfulness of nature and a
strength that are capable of rising up into the noblest flames of a high
enthusiasm. A man of feeling may almost weep when he reflects, how
men of this character, fitted by nature manifestly for the most heroic
career, and for the most humanizing deeds, often fulfil only half their
destiny, and with all their fulminating and coruscating qualities, often
serve me rude multitude — which judges always by the issue and the result
—only for a laugh. Armfelt, if Gustavus III. had lived longer, — Armfelt,
bom an Englishman or a Frenchman, instead of a Fin, — ^would have stood
before the eyes of Europe as a star of a very different magnitude. He
is one of those men whom it is impossible to see, and not to follow. In
a free state, imder a high-hearted king, in the van of a revolutionized
people, he would have been a glorious citizen and a famous captain.
But Armfelt, surrounded by confined and mechanical heads, puUing ai
one rope with lukewarm and narrow-chested men, will often appear a
worse man than the worst : he will run at one time too quick, at another
time two slow, now too hot, and now too cold. For never yet was
genius gifted with the instinct of mediocrity, with the happy delusion to

Dtihe of Stidermania. 47

mistake a half for the whole, and patchwork for the woren weh. For
this reason also genius always commits ahsurdities and extravagances,
wherever it is not allowed freely to work its own schemes and to shape its
own course."*

Of such powerful portrait-painting Herr Amdt's book is full,
and In this respect the most uncritical reader cannot but see how
superior it is to much that passes current with the respectable
name of history, both in* this country and more especially in Ger-
many, where a jealous state-supervisorship of the press puts a gag
upon all bold personal utterances with regard to public men, ana
forces the pen of the modem historian to deal in measures only
which are mere results, and not in men in whom the causes and
the philosophy and the living colours of measures lie. We should
like to see the man who at JBonn, or anywhere else in Germany,
would dare to write such free personal sketches of the men of
Berlin or Vienna, as Amdt has here done of the men of Stock-
holm.

The fourth chapter of the work gives a hasty sketch of the re-
gency of the Duke of Sudermania, which occupied the interval be-
tween the assassination of Gnstavus HI. in 1792, and the ascen-
don of Grustavus IV. Adolphus, in 1796. The duke, as well in his
then appearance on the stage of public life, as in the part he after-
wards played under the title of Charles XIH., after the deposition
of his nephew, Amdt describes as a good easy man, capable of
doing little harm on the throne, and less good. That he was am-
bitious, or had any thing to do, as is so often asserted, either with
the assassination of his brother, or the deposition of his nephew,
Amdt considers as destitute of proof, and inconsistent witn the
easy and indifferent character of the man. But, without discuss-
ing secondary matters of this kind, we hasten on to that which is
the main matter in Amdt's book, and for which it is indebted to
its character as an important original contribution to European his-
tory: the reign of Gustavus IV. Adolphus. And in noticing
shortly the bearing of our author's testimony on what we already
know, we shall, omitting matters of internal government, and the
unimportant operations in Germany in 1805 and 1807, confine
ourselves to the two grand points of most general interest, and
greatest European sigmficancy. The first of these points is the
strange abnormal character of the king; the second, the apparently
(though not really) equally strange and peculiar character of the
revolution (so caUed) of 1809.

With regard to me very singular character of the king, three

* This 18 taken mainly from the characteristic of Armfelt, p. 268-271. But
(xmiparealaotibeskietchof his character at p. 171. ^^

48 Amd£s Sketches of Swedish History,

shades of erroneous opinion seems principally deserving of notice.
The first is that maintained by the chief actors in his deposition,
the accusers at once and the judges of the royal culprit: viz.,
that he W2is a compound of incapacity, impracticabiHty, pedantry,
obstinacy, folly, ambition, insolence, tyranny, Quixotism and cow-
ardice, such as never was seen upon a reasonable throne, and such as
no free people was called upon to tolerate in any public capacity,
much less m the situation of absolute master and lord. This is
the view set forth in the well-known book — ^well-known, at least
in our circulating libraries some thirty years ago — ^the manifesto
of the revolutionary or French party in 1809, whose title is
given below.* The Edinburgh whigs trumpeted this book
vaUantly as soon as it was published; and as the sources of infor-
mation on this subject open to the British pubKc were very scant,
we are inclined to think it may have had considerable influence
in forming the political opinion of this country, so far as there
was any, with regard both to the merits of the revolution, and
the demerits of the deposed king. It was not to be expected
however that the anti-Gallican spirit, which was the ruling one
in this country, would quietly allow the most chivalrous and
consistent champion of legitimacy on the continent, to be
pubUcly stigmatized as a heartless despot and an impracticable
fool. There were, indeed, not a few strange traits of character,
startling facts, and what in parliamentary phrase we call ' scenes/
publicly reported of this royal Swede, the truth of which our own
captains and diplomatic men were the first to testify ; but on the
other hand there were public proclamations, letters to George III.
and other productions of the royal pen, equally patent to Europe,
which breathed a spirit of high principle, worthy of a king, and
carried with them a certain air of grandeur and decision that
seemed to maintain the old character of the Wasa family worthily.
Those writers therefore in this coimtry, who wished to set forth
the character of the knight errant royal of the Bourbons in the
most favourable Hght, were strongly tempted to usher him upon
the stage as a most magnanimous and mgh-minded, just and
generous monarch : a Httle obstinate, perhaps, and headstrong in
his temper, but whose main misfortune was that he was ill-sup-
ported by his neighbours, and that before he could bring his chi-
valrous drama to a conclusion, he became subject to fits, or even
a permanent malady, not merely of monomania, but literally, and
in the medical sense of the word, madness.

♦ An Historical Sketch of the last Years of the Reign of Gustavus IV. Adol-
phns, late King of Sweden, including a Narrative of the Causes, Progress, and Ter-
mination of the late Berolution; translated from the Swedish. Londoa 1812. ^

k.

Gtistavns IV. Adolphus. 49

This is the view taken by Mr. Crichton* and by Mr. Alison.f
These two views are natural enough as coming from two opposite
parties, whose views they were separately calculated to support ;
but now at the eleventh hour Mr. LaingJ has come forth, a sturdy
Scotch radical, as the decided champion and vindicator of the
calumniated memory of the great champion of the Bourbons.
This gentleman indeed allows that his royal client was '' ob-
durate, foolish, narrow-minded, arbitrary, perhaps crazy as we say
in private life ; but there was reason in his madness. It was folly
in so weak a potentate to think of coping with Napoleon; but so it
was in Gustavus Wasa (in 1520) to think of coping with the King
of Denmark. He was, moreover, sincere, consistent, steady, and,
in the midst of a dissolute court, the only man of pure moral
character and sincere religious impressions." For this and for other
reasons Mr. Laing thinks that Gustavus Adolphus has not been
fidrly dealt with by his contemporaries. Mr. Laing in^hort gives
the opinions not of the Scottish whigs or the * Edinburgh Review'
of 1812, but of the Swedish liberals of 1838. This view is the
natural product of a reaction ; the Swedes have now weighed the
men of 1809 in the balance, and found them wanting. Instead
of high-minded patriots, they are now found to have been only a
factious conspiracy : * a faction who sold Finland to Russia, who sold
his crown to his uncle Charles XIII., and the reversion of it to the
present dynasty.' Oh, poor humanity, wilt thou never learn to sit
steady on that unsanctified steed of thine ! This reaction also
overshoots the mark, as a man of Mr. Laing's caUbre might have
known ; but it sounds so much more manful, and carries the reader
away so sublimely, to deal in sweeping denunciations. We are
like to get a much more thorough and impartial characteristic from
M. Amdt than from any of these gentlemen. Here it is : some-
thing like the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,
as a man with half an eye may guess. We ought to have mentioned
by the way before, that this as well as the other historical sketches
we translate, were originally written in the years 1809-10, and
liave been kept so long in retentis from obvious motives of private
feeling in the highest degree honourable to M. Amdt. Writers
of books in these days are not generally so scrupulous.

" Gustavus Adolphus was a man of a slender straight figure, in every
limb regularly moulded, somewhat above the middle stature, his head
rather long, his forehead open and rising with an almost too steep
ascent, his eyes blue, his hair light, his nose straight and noble, his
mouth full and close shut, his chin round and manly, in short an Olden-

♦ * Scandinavia,' vol ii., c. 5. f * History of Europe,' vol. viii., c. 65.

X * Tour in Sweden,' p. 216.
VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIII. E

50 Arndfs Sketclies of Swedish History,

burg-Holstein family face, such as Charles XII. also had from his
Oldenburg mother. One might say altogether his head and his whole
figure had a cast of Charles XII., when we conceive this king in a
state of rest ; but the calm dignified earnestness, the dark-glowing eye^
the grand energy and nobility that his contemporaries admired as some«
thing magical in this heroic person, are entirely wanting in his de-
scendant, yfiih his elegant agile body, Gustavus treads the ground
more formally solemn than manfully energetic. In this peculiarity, and
in some others, there was a great deal of the Spanish Bourbon in him.
In his otherwise regular features, wluch had they been lighted up by the
play of intellect, might even have been termed beautiful, and which in
moments of gracious condescension could assume an extremely pleasing
expression, there remained nevertheless, after he had passed the term of
youth, a certain air of unreadiness, unripeness, almost boyishness: that
defect which is often noticeable in the faces of old feumlies feist waning
to decay, that something of an inherited ghostly reminiscence of the
past that lies like a painful burden on the present, the clog of all &ee
action and the poisoner of all healthy enjoyment of existence.

^^ The king's ^ bearing was uniformly firm and Swedish, always
coloured with a seriousness and solemnity, which seldom relaxed into
a smile. Charles XII., tradition tells, was hardly ever seen to laugh,
but the hero never grumbled, and was never fretful. Those who knew
the king well knew also that this seriousness and solenmity was
nothing affected or assmned — it was his nature. He had a sad want
of warmth and docility ; he was as stiff and stark as northern ice and
iron ; and whatever appeared obstinate, dogged, and crotchety, in his
peculiar habits of thinMng, of believing, or of acting, was merely the
reiterated manifestation of this inherent stiffness and inflexibility of his
nature.

^' But with all this unbending siiffaess of disposition, this man was
far from being incapable of tndning and culture. He had on the con-
trary enjoyed an excellent education, and made good use of his oppor-
tunities : so much so that in his early years his talents excited consider-
able attention, and seemed to afford fair groimds of bright hopes for the
future. He was not one of the race of ignorant kings ; but had studied
the history and the constitutional law of his country thoroughly, and
was pretty weU versed besides in the general and special history of
Europe, so as to be able to quote example and precedent aptly when
occasion required. He was a good and subtle thinker and speaker,
and was always ready to enter into any discussion in conversation with
intelligent strangers, from whom he might hope to derive usefrd infor-
mation. Few kings are able to do this. He was also no mean master
of the pen, expressing himself with ease and elegance in French and in
his native Swedish alike. Many of his state-papers were written by
himself — the body and substance of them at least, so that his minister
had only to tag a head or a tail to them for the sake of form. He had
moreover generally a very just judgment of the foreign relations of his
timeS; and the mutual dependencies of the European states. I have seen

Gustaviis IV. Adolphus. 51

letters from him to the Msg of England, at the time of the Spanish
rising in 1808 — letters fresh from his own heart and hand — ^in which
he pointed out clearly to his allies the character of the Spanish people,
the peculiar shape that warfare in that country must assmne, and pre-
dicted confidenUy that, by persevering efforts of English soldiership,
there most surely Napoleon could be undermined. Strange ! in specu-
lation so subtle, so agile, and so exact, this same man was in action
all gnarledness and perversity ! Who shall measure the contradictions of
faaman nature?

^' King Gustavus Adolphus sat quietly amid the surging flood of the
nineteenth century^ which with its impetuous current swept away ice-
bergs and iron-stone rocks, like so much straw and dust : there on his
throne sat he, while all was changing around him, immoveable. With a
high feeling of kingly power and dignity, with a deep sense of his
vocation to rule and to be the champion of right and honour among his
people, there he sat in his own mind like a mountain, sublime, steady,
as if he was a second Thor, or even a Christian God the Father, and
calmly allowed the rush of waters to swell and roar around him,
opposing still stoutly to all opposition his good conscience and his faith
in the divine justice, and his pious maxim arligt varar Idngst — Ho-
nesty liASTS LOKGEST.

" All this would have been very beautifrd and noble in a man who
was really a king, and one capable of kingly deeds ; but Gustavus's
measure of tl^ngs was a very ordinaiyone, and he over measured him-
self with his fine sentiments fairly. Was he presumptuous then ? Not
exactly : but in applying his maxim, he did not discern the difference
between the divine government of things, and mere human manage-
ment,— between what a king might do, and what a private man should^
do. Moreover he carried about with him constantly a consciousness of
something dark and gloomy ; but this element, which in others so often
takes the shape of a floating cloudiness, was in him, like everything else,
stark and obstinate. He was accordingly in religion a sort of dry mystic
{eine art trockener Fanta^i) ; he was apt to mistake a thing, merely
strange and grotesque, for a wonder and a miracle : for this reason he
took it into his head to interpret the revelation, by help of Jung Stil*
ling ; he must needs see ghosts by daylight, and insisted on recognizing
the great signature of God in the epnemeral trace of the moment ; he
Tmderstood not the divine measurement of time, which is not time but
eternity, and in which centuries are seconds. Therefore also he stood
waiting in an attitude^of dogged faith and hope, while the moment was
slipping through his fingers that Grod had given him to do something ;
and stood, at the end of the drama, in gaping astonishment that God
should have allowed the wild billowy energies of the age to sweep away
the royal throne from beneath the feet of faithful and conscientious ma-
jesW. No doubt his constant feeling of the sacredness of principles,
and the inviolability of obligations, was honourable, and worthy of a
king ; but as little as he understood the comprehensive calculations of
the divine government, so little did he understand the true position of

£ 2

4

62 Amdts Sketches of Swedish History.

a king on a throne. Kings are gods ; and they have the same pro-
blem to perform as gods. It is impossible for a king to apply the
same inflexible rules that are sufficient for the narrow sphere of private
life, to that wide-working world of the most conflicting elements which
it is his peculiar vocation to comprehend, to lead, and to controL A
master of a family may do nothing but lead, and do well ; but a king
must understand the difficult art, while he leads upon the whole and
controls the final result, to allow himself to be led in many details and
to yield minor points. Of all this Gustavus Adolphus was the very
reverse. He trusted in God that he would help him to stem the flood-
ing deluge of the age with his hand, and to catch its waters in a bucket.
^^ As this prince was high minded and honourable in his public cha-
racter, so in his private relations he was excellent : severe and sober in
manners, a faithful husband, a tender father, an exemplary master of a
feunily. He was a vir tixorius ; one to whom female society was more
necessary than to most men ; insomuch that his courtiers and attend-
ants were wont to say, that though at no time distinguished by an en-
gaging and pleasing manner, he was thrice as morose and humorsome
when he had been long absent from his wife. Both as a prince and
as a king he did not want fair temptations ; Stockholm is not a place
to want such ; but against all seductions of this kind he remained cased
in victorious mail: like his great ancestor, and favourite pattern, Charles
XII., he lived a chaste man."

Let not the student of European history imagine that the
minute and philosophical analysis of the character of Gustavus
IV. Adolphus, is a matter of secondary importance to him. As a
mere matter of biographical curiosity indeed, as a study if nothing
"better for a new historical novel by Mr. James, it has its worth.
But as the only true key to a series of events, with which the
main history of the revolutionary war has more than an episodical
connexion, It is invaluable. What then are the results? The king
of Sweden was every thing good that his eulogists have made of
him, coupled however with an innate want of sense which turned
the sublime of his chivalry always into the ridiculous: he was
every thing bad that his enemies have made of him, except that
he was not a tyrant, that he was not a coward,* and that he was

* This charge, several times repeated in the * Historical Sketch,' is expressly
denied by Amdt, on personal knowledge, p. 874. We give the passage:
" When on the Fimiish coast, in 1808, the king, one evening, with an inconceivable
indifference to danger, caused himself to be landed on a small promontory of
land, and walked about on the strand and in the woods two full hours with his com-
panions. It was a lovely autumn evening— one of those evenings that work so
magically on the human heart, as if there lay in them a real vernal power be-
longing to some calmer and more subdued world. The waves plashed gently on
the sand, the air was still, the moon shone with dear and friendly light through
the trees. The king was uncommonly cheerful, and spoke only of the lovely
weather, of the stars, and of the beauty of nature, for wMch he had always pos-
sessed a deep feeling. But the silence of the gentle evening was deceitM; the

J)ethronement . 53

not mad. He was only impracticable, obstinate, passionate on
occasions : one that taking him all in all might have played a most
reputable part in private life and in common times, but in these
days and on a throne, with all his noble sentiments and magnani-
mous declarations, he proved practically what we call a fool. Let
us now see what his folly led to. What sort of thing was the fa-
mous revolution of 1809, and what was the cause of it? We shall
introduce this subject by a quotation from Mr. AUson.

** We abjure by this present act all the fidelity and obedience which
we owe to our king Gustavus IV. Adolphus, hitherto king of Sweden,
and we declare both him and his heirs bom or to be bom, now and for
e?er dethroned from the throne and government of Sweden."

So Mr. Alison quotes the words of the abjuration of allegi-
ance made by the Swedish states at the Diet of May 1, 1809. He
then proceeds to comment.

" This is the most open and undisguised dethronement of a monarch
by the states of a kmgdom which is perhaps recorded in histor}*^ ; and
it is not a little remarkable that it not only was accomplished without
the death of the reigning monarch, but without the spilling of a single
drop of blood on the part of his subjects. The Swedish historians may
well take pride in the dignity, unanimity, and humanity of this great
national movement, which offers so marked and pleasing a contrast to

Bosfiiaiis lay encamped hard by — ^no man knew exactly where. The royal party
was alone, without weapons or protection of any kind. A few Jagers in the
copse, or one or two stragglmg Cossacks, might have shot, or made prisoners, the
whole party. Happily, however, they escapied without harm; and the king sailed
the next day to Ahmd. There is a peculiarity here to be noted in the character
of the king — as, indeed, he was full of peculiarities. His enemies have accused
him of cowardice. Nothing can be more unjust. When in the autumn of 1804,
he was making preparations for the abortive sea-voyage between Stralsund and
Tstadt, every one was astonished at the coolness with which he looked each dan-
ger in the face; at the patience with which he encountered every obstacle. No
one seemed more resolute and more hardy than the king. This summer also
(1808), he sailed several times between the Swedish and the Russian gun-boats
with as much coolness and indifference as if the cannon-balls, which were sending
sphnters of planks round about him, had been peas. The same spirit was dis-
idayed in the evening walk just mentioned. What did the king mean by this
strange conduct? ibid why, when he knew so little what fear meant, did he not
at once place himself at the head of his army, as his great ancestor of the same
name had done before him? He meant nothing: the exposing of himself to
danger on these occasions was, with him, a matter neither of boasting nor of
My; he only did not know how to use his courage: and there were not wanting
also men about him whose interest it seemed to he that he should never come to
a true understanding of his own position, and his own vocation. Men who work
so upon kings are never wanting.'' Let this one example among many show
how difficult it is to deal with a tMng so anomalous as this king's character. A
little reflection, indeed,will soon reveal the intimate connexion that existed, in the
original constitution of the man, between all his peculiarities. But how few are
there that, b^ore ti^ey judge of character, calmly and conscientiously reflect?
One thing is plain — ^whatever virtues or talents Gustavus had, he did not under-
stand when or how to apply them; and this, practically, was often worse in its
results than if be had been an absolute natural.

54 Amdfs Sketches of Swedish History.

the dreadful conyulsions which alike in England and France followed the
dethronement of the reigning monarch, and the hideous royal murders
by which they were both consummated. See Bignon, viii. 164.
Montgaillard, vi. 397, 398."*

Now this is one of the most shallow pieces of magniloquent
commonplace that an historian of Europe ever penned. Be it
Alison, or be it Bignon, or Montgaillard, the only excuse for them
is, that looking upon Sweden altogether as a secondary matter in
the history of the French revolutionary wars, they did not think
it worth their while to be over curious in their investigations.
And yet a chapter containing an account of an eventfiil change of
dynasty in one of the most famous states of Europe, and also of a
war which ended^by the cession of Finland substantially in making
Russia queen of the Baltic Sea, ought to have been seriously pon-
dered by 'a historian of Mr. Alison's pretence before it was penned.
The error which the learned writer has here made is a very simple
but a very serious one. The deposition of the king of Sweden
was not a national movement in any sense, much less a great na-
tional movement. What was it then? It was the mere bold
stroke of a party : — '' der GewaUstreich einer Parthei^^ says Amdt :
a mere aristocratic " nothing out of which no great something was
likely to proceed." How and why was it this? Do we depend
merely upon M. Amdt's authority or Mr. Laing's? Let him
who doubts it in the first place take any most concise view of
Swedish history that he can lay his hands on, and considering the
course of pubhc affairs and the state of public parties, say how it
could be otherwise? To talk of a great national movement in
Sweden in the same sense that the phrase might be applied to the
religious revolution of England, or the poutical revolution of
France, is merely to talk: for as M. Amdt puts it in the passage
which we first quoted, where was the people, where was the na-
tion ? There is no history in modem Europe so fiill of deposi-
tions, resignations, and revolutions, as the Swedish, and many of
these, as if by frequent practice they had become expert, the par-
ties seem to nave managed in a most peaceful and proper style
comparatively. But were these changes of dynasty and re-
volutions the less an evil for their being so frequent? and
because they were often bloodless, a matter therefore on which
Professor Geijer and other Swedish historians have reason to
look back with peculiar satisfaction? Shallow! — They were
so frequent because there was an utter want of stability, mass,
and gravitating power in the nation: because, in the perfect
sense of the word, it was not yet a nation at all: and they

* Alison's * History of Europe,* vol viii., c. 65.

Swedish ' Revolutions,^ 55

were so bloodless, because they were not a public struggle be-
tween the government and the people, but a mere matter of
political sword-play between the king and the aristocracy. Gus-
tavus in. in 1772, firom the ade of the throne, effected a blood-
less revolution as nimbly, and as much to the admiration of
Europe, as Adlerkreutz in 1809 on the part of the aristocracy.
There was also another " revolution," though not so great a one,
efiFected by the same monarch in 1789, on that notable occasion
commonly called the league of Anjala, when the Swedish nobi-
lity Tsince 1772 nursing celestial wrath in their bosoms) took
occasion to lay down their arms in the very critical moment of
the Finnish war, and cooly refiised to fight ? These revolutions,
indeed, were things quite understood in Sweden, and practised
as a regular game by either party, so often as opportunity was
or seemed to be fevourable. All that was required was strength,
decision, and a little violence on the one side, with weakness,
wavering, and conftision on the other; and then the " revolution,*'
or, more properly speaking, the conspiracy, was sure to succeed.
Blood was merely an accident ; not at all necessary. One bold
stroke with or without blood, as the case might be, did the business.
The king or the nobility came off victorious and held the reins
tightly a little longer than an EngUsh ministry, and then were
dnven out in their turn by a new revolution. Meanwhile the
people, that is to say, not the people of Sweden (for the far-scat-
tered colonies of peasants that stood for that designation could
not see what was going on), but the population of Stockholm —
stood passively by and applauded as a mob will when they see
a gallant fight. They were indeed interested in the matter
always more or less ; but they had no means of making their
interest be felt ; and the main feeling with them generally was
(as it often is with English electors), that a change might pro-
bably do them some good, at least could not possibly do them
much harm. They therefore cried Hurrah! to the victorious
party; took their dinner in the afternoon, and went to the theatre
in the evening of '* a revolution;" quietly, as if nothing had
taken place.

So much for the character of Swedish revolutions generally.
As to the political merits of this particular one, allowmg it to
have been, not in any sense a national, but altogether an aristo-
cratic movement, was it a good and praiseworthy movement on
the whole, or was it a bad and shameful one ? Are we, with Mr.
Alison, to say that " the Swedish malecontents acted the part of
good patriots" in deposing their king ; or shall we take up Mr.
Laing's note, and talk of the " faction who sold Finland to Russia,
who sold his crown to his uncle Charles XIU., and the reversion

56 Amdt's Sketches of Swedish History,

of it to the present dynasty. Money or safety for themselves
might be the price; still it was a foul transaction. Sweden lost
Finland and ^omerania during Gustavus*s reign : but was the loss
from misgovernmcnt on the part of the king, or from the most
unblushing perfidy of Swedish nobles, who sold the fortresses
and frontiers intrusted to them, without even the pretext of prin-
ciple, for money ? Was it possible to govern well with servants
so corrupt ? Was not the loss of these provinces similar to the
loss, without any treachery in his servants, of the United States
of North America, by our George III. ? Did ever man dream
that George III. and nis dynasty ought to be deposed for the loss
of America ?" — Strange ! — ^here agam the English Conservative
identifies himself with the revolutionary party in Sweden, ap-
plauding them as *' good patriots;" while the Scotch Radical be-
comes a sort of Swedish Jacobite and Royahst, to plead valiantly
for the ancient Wasa dynasty on the throne ! The causes of this
change of sides, so to speak, and reverted position of literary par-
ties, are to be found in the doings of Bernadotte, after his dynasty
was identified with the revolutionary party in Sweden ; in the
ratification of these doings by the congress of Vienna; and in
the state of parties in Sweden when Mr. Laing wrote his book.
As to the real merits of the question, the causes of th^ deposition
of Gustavus were something more powerful than mere faction,
and less pure than good patriotism. Arndt (p. 252) states three :
the impracticable character of the king ; the worthlessness and in-
capacity of his ministers ; the entire want of sympathy between
him and his people. These are the true causes : not one of them
only, but all the three : and by the first one alone, so far as the
king liimself and not his race was concerned, those who study
the history of the times carefully, will admit that the deposition
was fully justified. On the one hand, however, Mr. Alison
shows a want of historical perception when he talks only generally
of "good patriots" in a country so long subject to aristocratic
clique and cabal as Sweden : while, on the other hand, Mr. Laing
fulminates wholesale anathemas like a mere partisan, and from his
hatred to the men who govern Sweden now, does not hesitate to
identify the whole body to which they belong with the base deed
of Cronstadt, in surrendering Sweaborg, ** the Gibraltar of the
north," and with it South Finland, to the Russians in 1808.

It is a pity that substantial men like Mr. Laing, trusting perhaps
to the ignorance of the British reader in points of continental his-
tory (for unfortunately history is not taught in our universities^,
should pollute their valuable pages with wholesale calumnies of this
kind. How unprincipled and how malicious to talk of the
Swedish aristocracy having sold Finland to the Russians, because

Loss of Finland, 57

one man was found among them who did a base thing ! How
Kttle they had to do with the loss of Finland, the name of Ad-
lerkreutz alone can testify. Finland was lost because Alexander
of Russia was ambitious of territory, and could not resist a tempt-
ing opportunity to aggrandize himself at the expense of an an-
cient nval ; because Gustavus IV. Adolphus was all his hfetime
more ambitious of provoking a new than careful to suspect an old
enemy, and generally also was deficient in military and poHtical
talent ; because his ministers were scarcely more capable than him-
self, and wanted his principle; and, lastly, because the people in
Stockholm generally, and the aristocracy m particular, were, from
the beginning, opposed to a war that arose originally out of a
Quixotic hostility to Napoleon, and were moreover French in
their sympathies and neutral in their political principles. With
regard to the German war of 1805-7 there cannot be the sUghtest
doubt that the Swedish people were in the right. The French
showed no wish to quarrel with them ; and they ought, at least,
to have remained neutral. The king who had not sense to sacri-
fice his own private feelings to this plain national interest, did not
know the first duty of a ruler. With regard to Finland again,
if the Swedish people in Stockholm did not support the sove-
reign, when once involved in a Russian war, *'with moumftj
resolution," as Alison says; but if (as Amdt plainly proves)
they despaired from the very beginning, and did every thing that
they could by their vain French talk to dispirit the soldiery, and
weaken the hands of the government; then let them share the
blame of the loss of Finland justly with the impracticabiUty of
the monarch and the incapacity of nis ministers. That Finland
might have been saved, for tnat chance at least, had its brave
native soldiers been duly supported, the general character of the
people, as well as their admirable conduct on that occasion, ren-
ders undoubted. If Mr. Alison will reconsider the matter, he will
find that he is quite wrong in the assertion he makes that the
contest was hopeless from the beginning.

We have already said that by the obstinate and impracticable
character of the kmg alone, we think the revolution was fully
justified. From whatever cause, in the spring of 1809, things
had actually been brought to such a pass — ^that with Barclay de
Tolly and nis Russian legions almost at their gates without, uni-
versal weakness, confusion and mistrust, prevailed within the walls
of Stockholm. While the naked and starved miHtiamen were
dying by thousands in the streets, the king shut himself up mo-
rosely in his palace, giving minute orders about the button-holes
of their collaxs, " shutting his eyes that he might not see the
storm," and to all questions answered only — ^wab. But war was.

58 Amdfs Sketches of Swedish History.

under such a captain, in the circumstances of the case, ruin. The
king, however, as he always did, remained immoveable. Having
durmg his short reign of ten years shown a singular capacity to
provoke new enemies, to insult his aUies, to talk the greatest
things and to do the smallest — shaving lost one of the fairest pro-
vinces of his kingdom, and being in the fair way to lose another —
being moreover since the constitutional changes of 1789 almost
absolute, and not so manageable on a throne as an English George
or William — ^his deposition seemed to offer, if not the only, at least
the most obvious method of extricating affairs. To the aristocracy
moreover he had just given mortal offence by dismissing them,
in a moment of hasty and headstrong displeasure, from the honor-
able service of his body guard. They were eager to seize an oc-
casion for resuming the power of which Grustavus lH. had deprived
them, and finding the humour of the people indifferent or rather
inclined to favour their views, clubbed together in their old familiar
ways, and arranged matters, not for an assassination this time, but for
a plain deposition. A suitable occasion was easily found. A division
of the western army was induced to leave the Norwegian frontier,
and advance towards the city with sounding proclamations full of
the misery of the times, and the dominant necessity of rightingthe
wrong by a recurrence to the old principles of " Swedish liberty."
An alarm was raised ; the king at first did not know what to do;
and then, to show his incapacity for meeting such an occasion, pro-
poied to leave the city. To this of course the nobihty objected.
They came together and besieged the antechamber of the monarch.
They entered. Baron Adlerkreutz laid violent hands on majesty
from before, and Baron Silversparre from behind. With this, and
with a single word — Your majesty will be pleased to deliver
up jour sword — the bloodless revolution of March, 1809, was
achieved.

The chief actor in this memorable scene, in this clever and
politic '' stroke of a party," was Major-General Charles Adlerkreutz,
who hadjustretumed, crowned with laurels, from the Finnish war,*

• Mr. Alison, in his acconnt of this war, talks of "the hrave Klingspor."
A general historian, who may not have minutely mastered the personal det^ of
every major and marshal that comes in his way, should avoid epithets of this
kind, unless he is quite sure of their applicability. M. Amdt, who was in
Stockholm at the time, and who knew the parties and the public opinion, says
that this Elmgspor, though nominally at the head of the Einnish army which did
(Buch marvels in driving back the Bussians, in fact never had been any thing of a
soldier, and " always kept at a respectable distance from powder and shot" Eo no-
torious was this at Stockhohn, that, when the deposition had been effected, and
the names of the conspirators were publicly known, the city wits passed their
ready joke upon the whole affair thus: " It could have been no very dangerous
achievement, otherwise Klingspor would have had nothing to do with it.'* P. 447.

Adlerkreutz, 59

and whose patriotism, in the right sense of the word, no one could
suspect. Amdt says he had nothing to do with the plot or con-
spiracy itself ; he was merely chosen as the hand to put it into
execution; and a bold hand certainly was required to take a royal
son of Wasa in his own den by the beard. A man was required
who could look at steel ; the long was not a man to yield without
a blow ; in fiict he did draw his sword, and but for the interven-
vention of Silversparre, might have used it to some purpose. The
bold aggressor and Hng-deposer is thus drawn at full length by
our brave Rubens.

^^ Adlerkreutz is nothing but a soldier ; but this he is thoroughly.
For long intrigues and intricate conspiracies, he has no talent and no
patience. Courage, carelessness, and cheerfukiess, are painted in his
ereiy act and gesture. Unquestionably he has ambition — altogether
without ambition no public man can be what he is — ^but Adlerkreutz feels
ihe freedom and the dignity of the man too much, to suffer the mastery
of that terriUe passion which creeps now like the snake, smiles now
like the fox, and now consumes like the Furies. He bears with him the
air of a man that can take what the day brings and make the best of it ;
bat with all his light-heartedness, he preserves a collectedness, — with all
his forgetfulness, a presence of mind, — ^that is ever ready to collect any
scattered energy, and arm itself in instantaneous mail for the deed of
danger. Adlerkreutz is the image of the most ready power of concen-
tration. He is of a middle stature, and close set ; uniting strength
of body with agility of movement. His broad and cheerful brow de-
picts the dauntless and the fortunate soldier; his clear merry eye
beams forth prudence and cunning. Bound his sharply chiselled mouth
and his manly chin there plays at times an expression of voluptuousness ;
hat he that understands to read the features of the human face, soon
discerns that coolness and collectedness are the guides and goddesses
of his life, who stand as his faithful guards and sentinels, even on those
occasions when he allows himself to noat carelessly with laughter-loving
fools upon the bickering tide of the moment. Adlerkreutz may be out-
manoeuvred and deceived on occasion by paltry tricks which he neither
knows nor needs, but he will nevertheless always do what he has willed
to do : nay, the out-manoeuvrers and the deceivers themselves he will
force in the end to do his will, and not theirs."

Those who admit the expediency of the Swedish Revolution
generally, and consider the deposition of the reigning monarch
as a thing that in the circumstances could not well be avoided, are
apt to object to the sweeping style in which it was executed — to
the wholesale abandonment and outcasting of an ancient famous
and well-deserving race which it involved. It is hard to see wh^
the conspirators might not have adopted the same course that their
party had done in the case of the assassination of Gustavus III. :

60 Amdts Sketches of Swedish History.

appointed a regency, and waited for the majority of the son of the
deposed monarch. This would have been both more gentle
towards the monarch, who was unfortunate rather than culpable, and
more " patriotic " towards the nation, whose sounder heart would
beat in more loyal sympathy to a descendant of Grustavus Wasa,
than to any foreign, Danish or French, prince adoptive. But the
necessity of the moment urged; and besides the personal safety of
the chief actors, a matter which they could not easily disregard,
the nobiUty had an old hereditary enmity with all princes of the
Wasa stock; and while the Muscovite czar was knocking at their
door, salvation was looked for nowhere, by the foreign-fangled
" French of the north," but in French alliance, and in the patron-
age of the Europe-feared "hero of all centuries :" for so Adlersparre,
the leader of the western army, in his proclamation above men-
tioned, published to the stupid people die expected countenance
of Napoleon. But the dynasty of Bemadotte is what the French
politicians call " an accomplished fact ;" and we shall act more
wisely than Mr. Laing in letting it alone. The king himself is
now eighty years of age, and cannot live in the common course of
nature to do much more harm or good by the large exercise of
his royal veto against the quinquenmal army of bills by which he
is besieged. The crown-prmce has one plain duty: to reign heart
and hand as a true Swede, as Gustavus Wasa did of yore, the
brother of the brave Dalecarlian yeomen rather than the servant
of the nobility in Stockholm. If he does this — and he may be
assured there is no other way of making a new dynasty strong in
any coimtry, much less in Sweden — he has no cause to vex him-
self with apprehensions about Russia, whatever some persons may
speculate. That extraordinary power had played out its game of
aggrandizement on the Baltic at the peace of Frederickshamm,
17th of September, 1809. Those who wish to observe the fur-
ther motions, must look to the Black Sea, and the banks of the
Danube.

( «1 )

Aj3iT.lIl.—rHistoirede Dix Am, 1830-1840. ParM.LouiS
Blanc. Tomes I., II., HI. Paris. 1843.

This is a remarkable work. So' strong is the sensation it has
created in Germany, as well as in France, that we must intro-
duce it to the notice of our readers, in spite of its incomplete
state. Three volumes of the promised five have already appeared.
Three editions were demanded of the first volume before the
second was published, although the publicatioij takes place by
weekly livraisons. Tbe second and third volumes have already
had two large editions, the demand increasing.

And this success is explained by the talent of the author no less
than by the absorbing interest of the theme. The ten years,
1830-1840, were troubled, stirring, and important times to every
European nation : to none so much as France. The revolution of
July — ^those Glorious Three Days; the revolutions of Poland and
Belgium; the siege of Antwerp; the insurrections at Lyons and
Grenoble, with the countless conspiracies and insurrections at
Paris; the cholera morbus, with its eighteen thousand victims in
Paris alone ; the Duchesse de Berri and La Chouanerie ; the tak-
ing of Algiers; five attempts at regicide; St. Simonism; Re-
publicanism, and innumerable other * isms :' these are briUiant sub-
jects, brilliantly treated by M. Louis Blanc. * L'Histoire de Dix
Ans' is one of those works so often libelled by being called ' as
iateresting as a novel:' were novels a tithe as interesting, they
would be what they pretend. It has all that we require in a novel,
and much more. It is a narrative of events real, striking, absorb-
ing: the subjects of immense interest to all readers, and the style
unusually excellent. As a narrative we know of few to compare
with it, even in French History. Eloquent, earnest, rapid, brief
yet full of detail; it has the vividness of Carlyle or Michelet, with-
out transgressing the rules of classic taste. The style, though not
free firom an occasional inelegance, is remarkable for concinnity
and picturesqueness, altematmg between rhetoric and epigram.
The spirit of the work is avowedly republican. The author never
disguises his S3rmpathies or convictions; yet at the same time is
fully alive to all the errors of his party, and reveals the true causes
of their ill success. Impartial he is not: no man with strong con-
victions can be so. You cannot hold one idea to be sacred, and
regard its opponents as priests; you cannot believe one course of
policy tyrannous and destructive, yet look upon its ministers as
enKghtened patriots. All that impartiality can do is to make al-
lowance for difference of opinion, and not deny the sincerity of aii
opponent : to anathematize the doctrine not the man. M, Louis
Blanc is, in this sense, tolerably impartial.

62 Louis Blanc's History of Ten Years.

* L'Histoire de dix Ans' is not conspicuous for any profound
views; its philosophy is often but philosophic rhetoric. But it is
not without excellent apergus, and acute penetration of motives.
There is a great deal of the Journalist visible in the work. M.
Blanc is a young man still, edits ' La Revue du JFVoffris,* and is
more famihar with Journalism than with social science. His work
manifests both the advantages and disadvantages of such a condi-
tion. If the JoumaKst is incapable of that calm review of things,
and those laborious generalizations, which the social philosopher
elaborates from his abstract point of view : yet is he the more con-
versant with the concrete special instances, more familiar with
the motives and passions of political parties, more ready to un-
derstand every coup d'etat. M. Blanc shows a thorough penetra-
tion into the spirit of each party, and sees the germs of strength or
of disease. He has lived amongst conspirators ; dined with legiti-
matists; been familiar with Bonapartists. Above all he imder-
stands the national spirit : its reckless daring, insotigiance, gaiety,
love of excitement, of military glory, idolatry of symbols, and m-
cility of being led away by a sonorous word, or pompous formula.
One of the people himself, he rightly understands the people's
nature. We may illustrate this power of penetration by the cita-
tion of two of the numerous epigrams with which his booK abounds.
Speaking of the incompetence of the Legitimatists to shake the
Orleans dynasty he says, ' Les revolutions se font avec des haines
fortes et de violents desirs : les legitimistes n'avaient guhre que des
haines?* The second is really a profoimd mot: of the Buonapartist

rrty he says: ' il avait un drapeau plutdt quHun principe, C'etait
Tmvincible cause de son impuissance.'f

An excellence not to be overlooked in his book is the por-
traiture of remarkable men. Louis Philippe, Lafayette, Lantte,
Casimir Perier, Guizot, Thiers, Odillon Barrot, Mauguin, Ar-
mand Carrel, and Dupont (de TEure), with many others, are
brought out in strong relief. But M. Louis Blanc describes a
character mostly by epigrams. This has the advantage of ef-
fect, and of producing a lasting impression; with the disad-
vantage of all epigrams, in sacrificing a portion of the truth to
effect. Nothing can be happier than the way he hits off the
restlessness of Thiers: * plus d'inqui^tude que d'activit^, plus de
turbulence que d'audace.' But it is surely too much to talk of
Mettemich as ' im homme d'etat sans initiative et sans port^e.'

The portrait of Lafayette may be quoted as a fair specimen of
the author's judgment of men.

* Revolutions are eflfected by means of strong hatreds and violent desires: the
legitimatists had scarcely any thing but hatreds.

t It had a Banner rather than a Principle. Therein lay the invincible cause
of its impotence.

Charojcter of Lafayette. 63

^' As to M. de Lafayette, at that time he could have done every
thing and he decided on nothing. His yirtue was brilliant yet fatal In
creating for him an influence superior to his capacity, it only served to
annul in his hands a power, which, in stronger hands^ would have
altered the destinies of France. Nevertheless Lafayette had many qua-
lities ess^itial to a commander. His language as well as his manners
presented a rare mixture oi finesse and bonhommie, of grace and auste-
rity, of dignity with haughtiness, and of familiarity without coarseness.
To the one class he would always have remained a grand seigneur,
although mixed up with the mob ; to the others he was bom one of the
people, in spite of his illustrious origin. Happy privilege of preserving
all the advantages of high birth, and of making them be pardoned !
Add moreover that M. de Lafayette possessed at the same time the
penetration of a sceptical and the warmth of a believing soul ; that is
to say, the double power of fascinating and containing his audience. Li
the carbonari meetings he spoke with fiery energy. At la chambre he
was a witty and charming orator. What then did he want ? Genius —
and more than that, will. M. de Lafayette willed nothing hardily, be-
cause, unable to direct events, he would have been pained at seeing them
directed by another. In this sense he was afraid of every one, but
more than all of himself. Power enchanted, but frighten^ him ; he
would have braved its perils, but he dreaded its embarrassments. Full
of courage, he was entirely deficient in audacity. Capable of nobly
suffering violence, he was incapable of employing it with profit. The
only head that he could have delivered to the executioner, without
trembling, was his own.

" As long as he had to preside over a provisionary government, he
was competent, he was enchanted. Surrounded by a little court, at the
Hdtel de Ville, he enjoyed the boisterous veneration which was paid to
lus age and celebrity, enjoyed it with an almost infantile naivete. In
that cabinet, where they governed by signatures, there was considerable
fiiss about very little action. This was a situation admirably adapted
to small intellects, because amidst these sterile agitations, they deluded
themselves respecting the terror which they felt for all decisive acts."

M. Louis Blanc, in several cases, shows the fatal effects to the
republican party of Lafayette's want of audacity. It is certain
that this quality, which served Danton instead of genius, is indis-
pensable in revolutions : as M. Blanc admirably says : ' In times
of struggle audacity is prudence; for in a revolution confidence
has all the advantages of chance.'

* L'Histoire de Dix Ans' opens with a preliminary sketch of
the state of parties from the return of the Bourbons and banish-
ment of Napoleon to Elba, down to the commencement of the re-
volution of 1830. This is one of the best portions of the book. The
author vividly shows how completely the Restoration was the
work of the bourgeoisie. Napoleon fell because he wished to make
Fiance military, and the tendencies of the nation at large were

64 Loms Blanc's History of Ten Years.

commercial. Rome and Carthage have been and will ever be too
adverse in principle to be imited; one or the other must succumb.
Napoleon did not see this, and he fell. M. Louis Blanc takes
great pains to exhibit the cruel egotism of the bourgeoisie through-
out the calamities which have befallen France. He points with
withering sneers to every testimony of it, without seeing that
egotism is the vice of the middle classes. They are exclusively
bent upon the bien etre — ^the ' main chance.' They have neither
the refinement and the large ambition of the upper classes, nor
the heroism and poetry of tne lower. Their object in life is not
to enjoy, but to collect the means of enjoyment. They are bent
only on making fortunes. The rich think more of spending their
money; the poor have no hope of fortune. Heroism, and its
nurse ambition; self-sacrifice, generosity, and humanity; these
are virtues of the higher and lower classes. Of the higher, be-
cause men need outlets for their activity, and because ambition is
a stimulant powerful as the ' main chance' of the bourgeois ; of the
lower, because want feels for want, misery for misery, and gene-
rosity is the constant virtue of those who need it in return. W ith
this conviction that egotism is the bourgeois vice, it is somewhat dis-
couraging to trace the rapid increasing development which that class
is taking in European histoiy. It impresses us the more strongly
with the necessity for doing all to coimteract the narrow-minded
utilitarianism, which is usurping such a throne in men's souls;
and endeavour to make people fully imderstand Gothe's profound
sajdng: 'That the beautiful needs every encouragement, for all
need it and few produce it ; the useful encourages itself.'

Having brought his preliminary sketch down to the opening of
the revolution of July, M. Louis Blanc then commences his his-
tory of the ten years, 1830-1840. The first volume is devoted
to a spirited and detailed narrative of the * Glorious Three Days,'
with the imparalleled examples of mob heroism, and touching
episodes of civil war. The second and third volumes continue
the history down to the siege of Antwerp. The accoimts given
of the St. Simonians, of the cholera morbus, of the various in-
surrections and abortive conspiracies, of carbonarism, and of
foreign policy, will be read with universal interest. M. Louis
Blanc has not only preceding histories, pamphlets, and news-
papers, from which to gain his information ; it is apparent
throughout that he has had access to impublished documents, and
to the communications of various living actors in the scenes de-
scribed. Some of these obligations he names; others he leaves
the reader to infer. Nevertheless the grave student of history
will often demur. He will see conversations reported at length
which it is highly improbable, if not impossible, should ever have

\

Historic Doubts, 65

been authenticated; he will see motives purely inferential ascribed
as unquestionable; he will see accounts of ministerial intrigues
and royal falsehoods, reported as if the author had been present
all the while. Moreover M. Louis Blanc is a yoimg man; he is
a journalist; he is a partisan; yet the knowledge he displays, or
assumes, implies not only greater age and experience than he can
possess, but also astoimding imiversality of personal relations
with opposite parties. We mention this as a caution to the
reader. We by no means accuse M. Blanc of falsehood, or of
misrepresentation; but when we find him reporting at length im-
portant conversations held between two people, neither of whom
ne could possibly have known — neither of whom would for their
own sakes have repeated these conversations, when we find this we
confess our critical susmcions are aroused, and we ask, how came
these things known? We must again declare that M. Louis Blanc
appears to us a perfectly earnest honest man, and incapable, we be-
heve, of inventing these things. But whence did he get them?
Why are not distinct references given? Why are not authorities
rifted? These are questions every one is justified in asking. No
man can read history with confidence who has not such authen-
ticity before his eyes as prevents the suspicion of hasty statement
or party misrepresentation.

Let us observe, however, that this suspicion of M. Blanc's ac-
curacy refers only to minor and individual points. There is no
error possible respecting the staple of this history, except such as
may result firom party views. The facts are known to all. The
debates are registered. The actors are mostly living, and the
Mends of the deceased survive. It is the history of our own
times; the youngest of us remember its events. Error therefore
on the great events is barely possible; and it is only these that
have a lasting interest for men.

It is difficult to select passages from a history of sufficient in-
terest by themselves for quotation. The episodes are too long for
extract, and any particular event would demand too much pre-
liminary explanation. We shall condense, therefore, the episode
of the death of the Prince de Conde as much as possible. The
suspicions which attach themselves to persons high in the state,
owmg to the unfortunate transactions which preceded and suc-
ceeded the event; and indeed the mysteriousness of the whole
incident; give this episode a strong and special interest.

Our readers wiU probably recollect the name of La Baronne de
Feuch^res, which recently went the round of the papers. This
celebrated woman died, and left an immense heritage to be dis-
puted, and an infamous reputation to be commented on. She
was by birth an Englishwoman, one Sophy Dawes; she appeare<^H

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIII. • P ^^

66 Lovis Blanc' s History of Ten Years.

at Covent Garden Theatre, which she quitted to become the mis-
tress of an opulent foreigner, with whom she lived at Tumham
Green. Le ^aron de Feucheres subsequently married her, and
his name served for some time to cover the scandal of her adul-
terous amours with the Due de Bourbon, last of the Cond^
Her power over the duke was omnipotent. He loved and dreaded
her. Gifted with rare beauty and grace, fascinating and im-
perious, tender and haughty by turns, sne had considerable clever-
ness and no principle. The duke had settled on her the domains
of St. Leu and Boissy, and about a million of francs (4000^) in
money. She desired more, and was presented with the revenue
of the forest D'Enghien. But a secret xmeasiness followed her:
she dreaded lest the prince's heirs ndght provoke an action, and
she lose all that she nad so dexterously gained. She conceived
tlie bold plan of making the duke adopt tne Due d'Aumale, son
of Louis Fhilippe, as his heir. The proof of this is in the fol-
lowing letter m>m the Duchess of Orleans to the Baroness de
Feucheres.

"I am very much touched, madame, by your solicitude in endeavour-
ing to bring about this result, which you regard as fulfilling the desires
of M. Le due de Bourbon ; and be assured that if I have the happiness
of seeing my son become 1^ adopted child, you will find in us at all
times and in all circumstances, botn for you and yours, that protection
which you demand, and of which a mother's gratitude will be your
guarantee."

It must have cost the pious rigid duchess some pangs thus to
associate her maternal hopes with such very equivocal advocacy.
The Due d'Orleans, on the second of May 1829, learnt from Ma-
dame de Feucheres that she had in an urgent and passionate
letter proposed to her lover to adopt the Due d'Aumale; on this
information he addressed himself direcdy to the Due de Bourlxni.
He gave him to understand how sensible he was of the kind soli-
citude of Madame de Feucheres, and how proud he should be to
see one of his sons bearing the glorious name of Cond^. At this
imexpected blow the Due de Bourbon was overwhelmed with
anxiety. He had never liked the Due d'Orleans. He had stood

fodiather to the Due d'Aumale, but never thought of him as hia
eir. Yet how could he without insult now refuse that which
they assumed him to be so anxious to bestow? Above all, how re-
sist the violence and the caresses of Madame de Feucheres? Ha-
rassed and terrified, the Due de Bourbon consented to an interview
with the Due d'Orleans. Nothing positive was concluded, but
the Due d'Orleans believed his hopes so well founded, that he
ordered M. Dupin to prepare a will in favour of the Due d'Au-
male.

fFUl of the Due de Bourbon. 67

The baroness became more and more urgent. The prince al-
lowed his an^er to escape in bitter reproaches. He had had no
rest since this fatal plan had been proposed to him; he could not
sleep at night. Violent quarrels embittered the day. More than
(Hice indiscreet confidences betrayed the agitation of his mind.
* My death is all they have in view,' he exclaimed one day in a
fit of despair. Another time he so far forgot himself as to tell
M. Surval, * Once let them obtain what they desire, and my days
are numbered.' At last in a desperate attempt to escape from
Madame de Feuch^res, he invoked the generosity of the Due
d'Orleans himself. ^ The affair which now occupies us,' he wrote
oa the 20th August, 1829, ^ commenced unknown to me, and
somewhat lightly by Madame de Feucheres, is infinitely painful
to me as you may nave observed;' and he entreated the due to
interfere and cause Madame to relin(|ui8h her projects, promising
at the same time a certain public testunony of his affection for the
Due d'Aumale. The Due d'Orleans went to Madame, and in pre-
sence of a witness whom he had taken care to have called, he
b^ged her to discontinue her project. She was inflexible. So
that without at all compromising the prospect of his son, the Due
d'Odeans had all the credit of an honorable and disinterested at-
tempt.

Ijiis situation was too violent not to explode in some terrible
manner. On the 29th August, 1829, the Due de Bourbon was
at Paris ; and in the billiard room of the palace, M. de Surval, who
was in ihe passage, heard loud cries for help; he rushed in and
bdield the prince in a frightful passion. ^ Only see in what a
paadon monseigneur puts himself,' said Madame de Feuch^res,
•and without cause! Try to calm him.* 'Yes, Madame,' ex-
daimed the prince, ' it is norrible, atrocious thus to place a knife
to my throat, in order to make me consent to a deed you know I
have so much repugnance for : and seizing her hand, he added
with a significant gesture : ' well then, plimge the knife here at
once — ^plunge it.' The next day the prince signed the deed
which made the Due d^Aumale his heir, and assured the baroness
a l^acy of ten milUons of francs (40,000/.) !

Tne revolution of July burst forth; the Due d'Orleans became
Louis Philippe. The prmce de Conde grew more and more me-
lancholy; his manners to Madame de Feuch^res were altered; her
name pronounced before him sometimes darkened his countenance ;
Us tenderness for her, though always prodigal and anticipating
her smallest wishes, yet seemed mixed with terror. He made M.
de Chourlot, and Manoury his valet, the confidants of a project
rf a long voyage: of which the strictest secrecy was to be pre-
served, especaaUy with regard to la baronne: at the same time

F 2

68 Louis jBlanc^s History of Ten Years,

dark rumours circukted about the chateau. On the morning of
the lltb of August they found the prince with his eye bleed-
ing. He hastened to explain it to Manoury, aa having been
caused by the table. Manoury replied that that was scarcely
possible : the table was not high enough : the prince was silent,
embarrassed. ' I am not a good storyteller,' said he shortly
after, ' I said that I hurt myself while sleeping : the fact is that
in opening the door, I fell down and struck my temple against the
comer.' It is worthy of remark that the prince afterwards wished
Manoury to sleep by the door of his bedchamber; and that
Manoury having observed that this would look strange, and that
it was more natural for Lecomte, his ' valet de chambre de service,'
to do this, the prince replied, ' Oh no, leave him alone.' Lecomt6
was introduced into the chateau by Madame de Feucheres.

The preparations for the voyage were nearly completed. For
three days the prince had resumed his usual pleasures. After a
gay dinner, at which M. de Cossd-Brissac was present, they played
at whist. The princeplayed with the baroness, M. Lavillegontier,
and M. de Prejean. The prince was gayer than ordinary; lost some
money and abstained from paying it; saying, * to-morrow.' He rose
and crossed the room to proceed to his bedchamber; in passing he
made a friendly gesture to his attendants which seemed like an
iadieu. Was this one of those adieus in which the thought of
approaching death shows itself ? Or was it the indication of his
project of voyage, of exile?

He ordered that they should call him at eight o'clock next
morning ; and they left him for the night. It is necessary dis-
tinctly to imderstand the situation of the prince's chamber. It was
joined by a small passage to a sahn d'attente. This salon opened
on the one side into a cabinet de toilette^ touching the grand cor-
ridor ; on the other it opened upon a back staircase, ending at the
landing-place where were the apartments of Madame de Feucheres,
and of Madame de Flassans her niece. The back staircase led
from this landing-place to the vestibule ; and by a higher landing
it communicated with a second corridor in which were the
chambers of I'abbe Briant, of Lachassine, the femme de chambre
of the baroness,- and of the Dupres, husband and wife, attached
to her service. The room of the latter was immediately under
that of the prince, so that they could hear when there was talking
above their heads.

This night the gardes-chaise went their accustomed rounds.
Lecomte had closed the door of the cabinet de toilette and taken
away the key. Why was this precaution taken? The prince
constantly left the door of his room unbolted. Madame de
Flassans sat up till two in the morning, occupied with writing.

Death of the Ihic de Bourbon. 69

No noise disturbed her. The Dupr^s heard nothing. All the
night a profound calm reigned throughout the chateau. At eight
the next morning Lecomte knocked at the prince's door. It was
bolted; the prince made no reply. Lecomte retired and returned
afterwards with M. Bonnie : both knocked without receiving a
ireply. Alarmed, they descended to Madame de Feucheres. ' I will
come at once/ she said, * when he hears my voice he will an-
pwer.^ Half-dressed she rushed from her room, and reaching
that of the prince, knocked, and exclaimed, ' Open ! open ! mon-
aeigneur, it is I.' No answer. The alarm spread. Manoury,
L^erc, Tabbe Briant, Mery-Lafontaine, ran thither. The room
was burst open. The shutters were shut, and the room dark.
A single wax light was burning on the mantel-piece, but behind
a screen which sent the light upwards towards the ceiling. By
this feeble light the head of the prince was seen, close to the
shutter of the north window. It seemed like a man steadfasdy
listening. The east window being opened by Manoury shed
light upon the horrible spectacle. The due de Bourbon was
handed, or rather hooked, on to the fastening of the window sash !
Madame de Feucheres sank groaning and shuddering on a fau-
teuil in the cabinet de toilette, and the cry, ' Monseigneur is dead,'
resounded throughout the chateau.

The due was attached to the fastening by means of two hand-
kerchiefs, passed one within the other. The one which pressed his
neck was not tied with a slip-knot : moreover it did not press upon
the trachial artery — ^it left the nape of the neck uncovered — and
was foimd so loose, that several of the assistants passed their
fingers betwixt it and the neck. Circumstances suspicious.
Further, the head drooped upon the breast, the face was pale;
the tongue was not thrust out of the mouth, it only pushed up
the lips; the hands were closed; the knees bent; and at their
extremities the feet touched the carpet. So that in the acute
sufferings which accompany the last efforts of hfe, the prince
would only have had to stand upright upon his feet to have es-
caped death ! This disposition of the body, together with the
appearances which the body itself presented, powerfully combated
the idea of suicide. Most of the assistants were surprised by them.

The authorities arrived ; the state and disposition of the
corpse were noted down; an inquest was held in which it was
concluded that the due had strangled himself. Indeed, the
loom, bolted from within, seemed to render assassination impos-
sible. In spite of many contradictions, it was believed that the
due had committed suicide. Nevertheless this belief became
weaker and weaker. It was proved that the bolt was very easily

70 Lords Blanc^s History of Ten Years,

moved backwards and forwards from outside. The age of
the prince, his want of energy, his well-known religious senti-
ments, the horror he had always testified at death, his known
opinion of suicide as cowardly, me serenity of his latter days, and
his project of flight: these all tended to throw a doubt on his
suicide. His watch was foimd upon the mantelpiece, wound
up as usual; and a handkerchief, with a knot in it; his custom
when he wished to remind himself of any thing on the morrow.
Besides, the body was not in a state of sui^ension. The valet
de pied, Romanzo, who had travelled in Turkey and Egypt,
and his companion, Fife, an Irishman, had both seen many
people hanged. They declared that the faces of the hanged were
blackish, and not oi a dull white; that their eyes were open
and bloodshot; and the tongue lolling from the mouth. These
signs were all contradicted by the appearance of the prince.
When they detached the body, Romanzo undid the knot of the
handkerchief fastened to the window sash; and he succeeded
only after the greatest difficulty; it was so cleverly made, and
tightened with such force. Now, amongst the servants of the
prmce, no one was ignorant of his extreme maladresse. He could
not even tie the strings of his shoes. He made, indeed, the bow
of his cravat for himself, but never without his valet bringing
both ends round in front for him. Moreover, he had received a
sabre cut in the right hand, and had his left clavicle broken: so
that he could not lift his left hand above his head, and he could
only moimt the stairs with the double assistance of his cane and
the banisters.

Certain other suspicious circumstances began to be commented
on. The slippers which the prince rarely used, were always at
the foot of the chair in which he was undressed: was it by his
hand that they were that night ranged at the foot of the bed? the
ordinary place for slippers, but not tor his. The prince could only
get out of bed in tummg as it were upon himself ; and he was so
accustomed to lean on the side of the bed in sleeping, that they
were obliged to double the covering four times to prevent his
falling out. How was it that they found the middle of the bed
pressed down, and the sides on the contrary raised up? It was
the custom of those who made the bed to push it to the bottom
of the alcove; their custom had not been departed from on the
26th. Who then had moved the bed a foot and a half beyond
its usual place? There were two wax-lights extinguished but not
consumed. By whom could they have been extinguished? By
the prince? To make such complicated preparations for his own
deatn, had he voluntarily placed himself in darkness?

Stispicwns. 71

* Madame de Feucheies supported the idea of suicide. She pre-
tended that the accident of the 11th of August was but an abor-
tive attempt She trembled when they spoke of the due's projects
of voyage, and hearing Manoury talking fireely of them, she in-
terrupted him: ^Take care! such language may seriously com*
promise you with the kin^.' But it seemed strange to all the
attendants of the prince, t^at upon the point of accomplishing so
awful a deed, he had left no written indication of his design, no
mark of affection for those to whom he had always been so kind,
and whose zeal he had always recognised and recompensed. This
was a moral suicide, less explicable than the other. A discovery
earowned these uncertainties.

Towards the erening of the 27th, M. GxdUaume, secretary to
the king, rerceived in passing by the chimney some ftagmente
of paper which lay scattered on the dark ground of the grate;
He took up some of them &om imdemeath the cinders of some
burnt paper, and read the words Roi . . . Vincennes . . • infortune
fili. The procureur-gen^ral, M. Bernard, having arrived at St.
Leu, these fragments, together with all that could be found, were
banded to him. * Truth is there,' he exclaimed, and succeeded
b recomposing the order of sense (according to the size of the
pieces) of two different letters, of which the following remained.

^ Saint Leu i^partient aa roi

FU%ie
ne piU^ ni ne braids
le chitean ni le village,
ne fidte de mal k personne
ni ^ mes amis, ni k mes
fens. On yous a dgards
our mon compte, je n'aL

urir en aiant
coeur le peuple
et I'espoir du
bonheur de ma patrie.

Saint Lea et ses depend
imardennent ^ votre roi
nuHppe ; ne pill6s ni ne brul^

k le village

ne mal H personne

ni es amis, ni k mes gens.

On voos a dgar^ sor mon compte, je n'ai que mourir en soubaitant
bonheor et prosp^td au peuple fran9ais et k ma patrie. Adieu, pour

tou|our8.

L. H. J. DE BouBBON, Prince de Condd.
P.S. Je demande a ^tre enterrd a Vincennes, pres de mon infortund
fOf.

72 Louis Blanc^s History of Ten Years.

In these strange recommendatioiis many thought they saw a proof
of suicide. Others more suspicious, could not conceive that these
were the adieus of a prince about to quit life. The fear of a pil-
lage of St. Leu seemed incompatible with that disgust for all
thmgs which precedes suicide. It was moreover little likely that
the prince should have experienced such a fear on the night of
the 26th, the night after the fete of St. Louis, wherein he had re-
ceived suqJi flattering testimonies of affection. It was also inex-
plicable how the prince could attiibute St. Leu to Louis Philippe,
to whom he knew it did not belong. There was great surprise,
that having seized the pen in the midst of preparations for a sui-
cide, he had said nothing respecting his design, and thus saved his
faithful servants from a frightful suspicion. The very mode, in
which the papers were discovered, was inconceivable. How
came it that iliese papers^ so easily perceived on the evening of the
27th, escaped the diligent search of Romanzo, Chouht, and Ma-'
noury, and all those who that day visited every comer of the room^
chimney inclvdedf Was it not very likely that they were thrown
there by some hand interested in the belief of suicide? These
things led some to conjecture that the document was of some an-
terior date, and that it was no more than a proclamation of th6
prince during the first days of the month of August, when the
revolutionary storm was still muttering. This hypothesis was
strengthened by some who remembered that the prince had in-
deed conceived the idea of a proclamation. For our own parts,
we incline to look upon it as a forgery. It could hardly have
been a proclamation, from the very form of it; and the same ob-
jection before advanced of the prince's attributing St. Leu to the
king, when in reality it belonged to the prince, applies also to
this. Besides, a critical inspection of the words remaining, and of
their arrangement, leads to a suspicion of forgery : they are too
consecutive for a burned letter.

Two parties formed opposite opinions, and maintained them
with equal warmth. Those who believed in his suicide, alleged
in favour of their opinion the inquest; the melancholy of the
prince since 1830; his royalist terrors; the act of charity which
ne had confided on the 26th to the care of Manoury for fear of
not being able to accomplish it himself ; his mute adieu to his at-
tendants; the state of the body, which presented no traces of vio-
lence except some excoriations quite compatible with suicide ; the
condition of his clothes, on which no soil had been observed; the
bolt closed from within ; the material difficulties of the assassina-
tion; and the impossibility of laying the finger on the assassin.

Against these presumptions, the defenders of his memory re-
plied by words and acts of powerful effect. One of them, -M.

Madame de Feuclihes, 73

Meiy Lafontaine, suspended himself at the fatal window-sash in
precisely the same condition as that in which they found the
prince : and this was perfectly harmless ! Another endeavoured,
by means of a small nbbon, to move the bolt from outside: and
this with complete success. It was said that Lecomte, when in
the chapel where the body was exposed, vanquished by his emo-
tion exclaimed, * I have a weight upon my heart.' M. Bonnie,
contradicting the formal assertions of Lecomte, affirmed that on
the morning of the 27th, the bolt of the back staircase was not
closed; and that in order to hide this fatal circumstance, Madame
de Feucheres, instead of taking the shorter route when hurrying
to the chamber of the prince, took the route of the grand steir-
case!

On the 4th of September, the heart of the prince was carried
to Chantilly. L'Abb^ Pelier, almoner to the prince, directed
the fimeral service. He appeared, bearing the heart of the victim
in a silver box, and ready to pronounce the last adieu. A sombre
silence reigned throughout; every one was in suspense. The im-
pression was profound, immense, when the orator with a solemn
voice let fall these words, ' The prince is innocent of his death
before God !' Thus ended the great race of Cond^.

Madame de Feucheres precipitately quitted St. Leu, and went
to the Palais Bourbon. For a fortnight she made Tabbe
Briant sleep in her library, and Madame Flassans in her room,
as if dreading to be alone. Soon mastering her emotion, she
showed herseU confident and resolute. She resumed her specu-
lations at La Bourse ; gained considerable sums, and laughed at
her enemies. But she could not stifle the murmurs which arose
on aU sides. The Prince de Rohan made every preparation both
for a civil and a criminal proces. At Chantilly and St. Leu there
were few who beUeved in the suicide ; at Paris the boldest con-
jectures found vent; the highest names in the kingdom were not
spared. The name of an illustrious person was coupled with that
of Madame de Feucheres, and furnished political enemies with
a weapon they were not scrupulous in using. With a savage saga-
city they remarked that, from the 27th, the court had taken pos-
session of the theatre of the transaction; that the almoner oi the
prince, although on the spot, was not invited to co-operate in
the proceS'Verbaux ; and that the physician of the prince, M . Geu-
lin, was not called in to the examination of the body : the latter
being confided to three physicians, two of whom, MM. Marc
and Pasquier, were on the most intimate relations with the court.
With the affected astonishment of raillery, they demanded why
the Due de Broglie had prevented the insertion, in the *Moniteur,'
of the oration of M. Peher at Chantilly. To stifle these rumours,

74 Louis Blanc's History of Ten Years.

{ke scandal of which reached even the throne, a decifiLve and
honourable means was in the power of the king. To repudiate
a succession so clouded with mystery would have silenced his
enemies and done honour to himself. But the head of the Orleans
&mily had early shown that indifference to money wasnot the virtue
he aspired to. On the eve of passing to a throne he hastily
consigned his personal property to his children, in order that he
mifi^ht not umte it with the state property, after the antique
iJ of monarchy. Instead d^erefoS orainqmshing his si's
claim to the heritage of the Prince de Conde, he invited Madame
de Feucheres to court, where she was gallantly received. Paris
was in a stupor. The violence of public opinion rendered an
iiiquiry inevitable ; but no stone was left unturned to stifle the
amor. The conseilleur-rapporteur, M. de la Huproie, showing
himself resolved to get at the truth, was suddenly shifted else-
where, and the place of judge which he had long desired for his
son-in-law was at once accorded him.

At length, however, the action brought by the family of the
Rohans, to invahdate die testament of the Due de Bourbon in fa-
vour of the Due d'Aimiale, was tried. Few trials excited more
interest. The veil which covered the details of the event was
half drawn aside. M. Hennequin, in a speech full of striking
&ct8 and inferences, presented a picture of the violences and arti<^
fices by which the old Due de Bourbon was hurried into consent
to the will. In the well known sentiments of the prince, M.
Hennequin saw the proof that the testament was not his real wish,
but had been forced from him ; and in the impossibility of suicide,
he saw the proof of assassination. The younger M. Dupin replied
with great dexterity. But it was remarked and comment^ on
at the time, that he repHed to precise &cts and formal accusations
with vague recriminations and tortuous explanations. He pre-
tended that this action was nothing but a plot laid by the legiti-
mistes; an attempt at vengeance ; which he called upon aU &iends
of the revolution of 1830 to resent. The interest of the legiti-
mistes in the affidr was evident; but to combat an imposing mass
of testimony sometiiing more tiian a vehement appeal to the recol-
lections of July was necessary. The Rohans lost their cause be-
fore the jury : but, right or wrong, do not seem altogether to have
lost it before the tribunal of pubhc opinion.

The court soon ceased to feel any uneasiness respecting the
noise which the affair still kept up. Nevertiieless one thing was
extremely tormenting in it. There was, and had been for some
time in the house of Conde, a secret of which two persons were
always the depositaries. This secret had been confided by the
Due de Bourbon, at the time of his stay in London, to Sir Wil-

Louis Philippe, 75

liam Gordon, equerry to tlie Prince Regent, and to the Due de
Gh&tre. After their deaths M. de Chourlot received the confi-
dence of the prince, and having been thrown &om his horse and
being considered in danger, admitted Manour j also into his con-
fidence. No one ever knew what this secret was, except that it
was most important and most redoubtable.

Whatever may be the conclusion arrived at by the reader re-
qpecting this mysterious afi^, there can be but one sentiment re-
qpectingpartof the conductof Louis Philippe. Decency would have
that such a woman as the Baronne de Feuch^res should
notl>e welcomed at court, especially when such terrible suspiciaQS
were hanging over her. Decency would have suggested that the
public should have fiill and ample conviction of the sincerity with
which the causes of the prince's death where investigated. It does
not seem to us that Louis Philippe acted with his usual tact in this
case. For tact he has, and wonderM ability, in spite of the
sneers of M. Louis Blanc. A man cannot rule France without
courage, devemess, and tact. Louis Philippe has abundantly shown
to what a great extent he possesses all three. He uses his minis-
ters and finends as tools, it is true; but it is no ordinary task to
use such men as instruments for your own ends.

M. Louis Blanc, in common with most Frenchmen, is very bitter
against the king; and the episode we have selected from his work
must be read cumgrano^ as it is obviously dwelt upon for the purpose
of inspiring his raiders with his own animosity. True, the spirit of
the wnole work is biographical, anecdotical, personal; neverthe-
less we remark that M. Bknc selects with pleasure all the facts or
anecdotes which tell against the king. He dwells with evident
satiflfiu^tion on the vivid picture whicn he draws of the irresolu-
tion, the want of audacity, which Louis Philippe displayed when
the throne was first ofiered to him; and very strongly depicts the
utter want of participation which the Due d'Orleans had in the
Revolution. He neimer conspired nor combated. His name was
never mentioned, his person never thought of, till the Revolution
was finished: and then, wanting a ruler, they elected him. It is
with quiet sarcasm that M. Blanc points to the fiict of Louis
Philippe, the day after every emeute^ always appearing in public
withms family, especially on the theatre of the transaction, as if
to associate in the people's minds the ideas of order and peace with
the Orleans family.

But we must here quit for the present the work of M. Louis
Blanc: anxiously awaiting the appearance of the concluding
volumes, and conscientiously recommending it to our readers as
one of the most vivid, interesting, and important works that have
recently issued firom the French press.

C 76 )

Art. IV. — De TAgorde et de la Mort dans Routes les Classes de
la iSociete, sous Is Rapport Humanitaire, Physioloaique, et Re-
liffieux, (Agony and Death in all Classes of Society : huma-
nitarily, physiologically, and religiously considered.) Par H.
Lauvergne. Paris. 1842.

In reading this book one is reminded of the practice of the
French law-courts, where a good case is often disfigured by the
advocate's oratorical redundancy and looseness of assertion. M.
Lauvergne's ' Treatise on Death and Dying ' contains a great
deal of exceedingly curious and interesting matter; but his philo-
sophic remarks are weakened by the looseness of his style; his
narratives have a theatrical manner, which makes the reader
sceptical in spite of himself; nor is our belief in his statements or
his sense strengthened much, by proofs continually exhibited in
his work of a credulity rather extraordinary in one of his nation
and profession. A devout Roman CathoHc, he has numberless
little miracles to relate, and deals in stories of spiritual gifts and
visions vouchsafed to the faithful. Such naive confessions of
faith would bring a sneer to the Ups of Bichat or Broussais.
We confess, for our parts, a great incredulity as to our author's
supernatural flights; and in aclmowledging, doubtless, the honesty,
must frequently question the reasonableness, of his piety.

His reUgion, too, is a strange jumble of divinity and physic:
he attempts to account for the mysteries of the one, by discoveries
in the other; he speaks ominously on the sexes of souls ; he says
that the sublimest aspiration of the mind is ' its aspiration
towards a feminine being, ' and that * aU religions which endure,
cannot arrive at the supreme and incomprehensible ideal, but by
the intermediary of this feminine being, whom they have per-
sonified in the sjrmbol of a virgin pure and immaculate.* As for
the Protestant religion, it, says M. Lauvergne, ' admits the doc^
trines of Christianity vnth some variations^ and there is nothing
active in it, but good works, &c. Hence, from the absence of the
aspiration after the feminine being, the Protestant adept is inca-
pable of the higher delights of reHgion.* It is evident that our
author has not studied much the Protestant's creed, and that he
would be astonished to find it word for word in his own prayer-
book.

With regard to dying proper, and the physiological portion of
his subject, M. Lauvergne carries his reader no farther than
Bichat did forty years ago: except perhaps that he lays some
considerable stress upon phrenology, which was not recognised
imtil lately as a part of physiological science. But though it is

Deathbed Visions. 77

How pretty well proved that certain conformations of the brain
will determine certain * qualities' of the subject, we are in truth
no nearer the first principles than before ; we are but in posses-
sion of one little link in the chain of effects, the cause of which
lies hidden in eternity ; and we come to no more than this, that a
man with this or that conformation of brain will die probably in
this or that manner. And no wonder : for conscious death is only
the last act of living, in which, as in any other, the individual
will act according to his nature.

To recur to the rehgious point of view, our author seems dis-
posed to hint that to certain souls, more or less favourably dis-
posed, and immediately before dissolution, a prescience is given
of their condition in a future state, a celestial revelation, and a
power of prophecy : aU of which he exemplifies by various tales
m support of his theory, and in all of which tales we confess to
believe as little as possible. Because an hysterical nun on het
deathbed sees her heavenly bridegroom descending to her; be-
cause an agonized sinner, in a delirious fever of remorse and
cowardice, beholds a devil at his piUow who is about to drag him
fix)m it into the fiery pit; we are not called upon to respect their
hallucinations at their last moments more than at any other time.
We should otherwise be prepared to receive equally the revelations
of persons, who have so-called spiritual gifts, and yet do not die : of
Lord Shrewsbury's ecstatic virgin ; of Kemer's saint and heaven*
fieer of Prevorst; of the howlers of the unknown tongue in New-
man-street; of the heroines of American revivals, foaming at the
mouth, and shouting ** Glory, glory;" of Corybantes, and Maenads,
and Pythonesses; of aU sects of illuminati m all countries. The
Obi-woman works herself into a fit of real excitement, as she
makes her fetish ready ; the howling dervish is doubtless not an
impostor; any man who has seen the Egyptian magicians knows
that they are perfectly in earnest ; and the preternatural visions
of every one ot these are quite as worthy of credit as are the gifts
of M. Lauvergne's saints of the Roman Catholic community.
The Virgin Mary will not appear to a Protestant pietist, any more
than Bacchus will to a French or Spanish nun, who never heard
of him. The latter lives surrounded perpetually by images of
martyrs and saints. She kneels in chapel, her patroness is before
her with a gilded glory roimd her head, with flowers at her altar,
from which she looks down smiling friendly; the nun wakes at
night, there is the picture of the Virgin above her lamp, the gilt
glory round her head still, the dagger displayed in the mystic
heart. What wonder that a woman so bred should see in the
confiision or exaltation of death the figures on which her mind
has dwelt a whole life through? Such apparitions are not ne^^^^

«

78 Death and Dying in France,

images presented to the brain, but a repetition or combination of
old ideas formed there. One does not mvent, one only repeats in
dreams ; (the story in Mr. Dickens's America of the deaf, dumb,
and blind girl, who spoke with her fingers^ as the phrase is, in her
sleep, is a very curious verification of this); and every case of
vision that we have read has a similar earthy, nay individual
origin. Saint Barbara or Saint Scolastica will never appear to a
Bramin woman, we may depend on it; any more than Vishnu
will manifest himself in a dream to a mm.

But there is little need to enter into these disquisitionfl in
our Protesting countiy. The Seherin of Prevorst may have
made her converts in Germany, but Lord Shrewsbury haa not
obtained for his Virgin many disciples here : and if we might
be permitted to judge. Dr. Lauvergne has perhaps produced his
marvellous stories not with a very profound credence to than
himself, but firom the desire that his book should have as mys-
terious an air as possible, and contain discoveries of some sort.

As this occasional supernatural illumination of the mind at
the period of dissolution, is almost the only new point, with re-
gard to the phenomenon of death, on which our author appears
to insist, we may say that with respect to death in France ot
elsewhere, physiologically, humanitarily, or religiously, he has
given us very little satismctory information. But about dying,
in other words living in France, his book is very curious and in-
structive, and must interest every person who approaches it
We get here a 'good moral picture of individuals of numerous
classes in the neighbouring country. We have priests and nuns,
soldiers and husbandmen, gentle and simple; and the English-
man will note many curious differences between their manner
of being and his own. A late ingenious traveller in Ireland,
Mr. Thackeray (whose pleasant Sketch-Book we recommend to
all who would know Ireland well and judge her kindly),
notes a French grave in the cemetery at Cork, with its or-
naments and carvings and artificial flowers — " a wig," says
he, " and a pot of rouge for the French soul to appear m
at her last rising." The iUustration is not a just one. The
artificial flowers do not signify a ' wig and pot of rouge' — ft
mere love, that is, of the false and artificial pursued even into
religion: these ornaments argue rather a love of what is real
than of what is artificial. The custom of the Frenchman's
religion unites this world with the next by means not merely of
the soul, but of the body too. A human creature passes ^om
earth to heaven or to purgatonr almost as he does from London
to Calais, carrying his individuality as completely with him in
die one journey as in the other. Money is paid here towards

Boman CaihoHc BeUefo. 79

bettering the condition of the departed being in the other
world; prayers are said here, which the priests negociate, and
carry over to the account and benefit of the soid in limbo; in-
terest is made for him without, and offerings of masses brought
by his relatives, as petitions and littie gifts of money or presents
are brought by his firiends to a man in prison. In every way,
the Roman Catholic's religion is put objectively before his eyes.
Hie saints whom he worships have all been men like himself,
are now men still witii certain ei^tra faculties and privileges;
th^ images are the eadiest shapes which he looks at firom his
mother's knee; his worship of tnem is to the full as much sen-
sual as spiritual, and majr rather be called extreme love and
wander than abstract devotion.

That service which is paid to the Virgin in Roman Catholic
oountries is almost as personal as the devotion which a knight of
old offered to his mistress. Tke prayers to her in the Catholic
prayer-books abound in expressions almost passionate, and in terms
of regard and love such as an individual may feel for another who
exhibited the extreme of purity, tenderness, and beauty. Heaven
is only the dwelling-place of this adored and beautifiil person,
whom one day the believer will bodily meet there. The saints
live there in the body as here: there kneels Saint Francis and
exhibits his wounds; there, listening to each individual supplica-
tion of the &ithfid below, is the blessed Virgin, who intercedes
for her servants with her Son; not one of the holy personages of
tbe scripture or the legend but exists personally in neaven as he
did on earth, according to the received articles of a theology with
which painting and poetry have had so much to do.

Ana hence, as we nave before said, and in regard of the visions
and prophecies witii wiiich some of M. Lauvergne's dying subjects
»e &youred, we must ascribe them not to supernatural but to
hysterical influences; which have wrought wonders at every
period, and amongst all religionists of the world. But let us allow
some of the doctor's illununati to speak for themselves; they are
members of a class about whom we are not much in the habit of
hearing in England, and rife in the provinces of France. Here is
an account, not of a dying but a living wonder, who will no doubt
cause Lord Shrewsbury to set off to the department of the Var, in
order to match her with the otiier heaven-inspired virgins whom
his lordship has discovered.

^^ At this moment there exists in a village of the department of the
Var, <^ which Brignoles is the chief town, a woman possessed by divine
love. She has to the exfcremest extent the development of the organ
of veneratiim, or pure love. She is simple, good, charitable, nnostenta-
tiously pious, and of a convene extremely agreeable. Since her earliest

80 Death and Dying in France,

infancy this woman professes the most ardent love for the Saviour;
the Passion has heen always her fixed idea> the object of her aspirations
and thoughts, her phanta^may as the ancient Greeks would call it. Her
life is entirely a metaphysical one ; she meditates and prays, and, per-
haps, in her moments of ecstasy may have confided some of her thoughts
and visions to some of her friends. Of these, however, none as yet
have spoken. But that which she can hide from none, that which all
eyes can see, and the vastest intelligences may comprehend, is the fol-
lowing : — be it at a church, or at the bedside of a dying person, when
her prayer is at its height, a circle or crown is seen to surround her fore-
head and the rest of her head, which looks as if it were opened by a re-
gular tattooing, from each point in which a pure blood issues; the palms
of her hands and the soles of her feet open spontaneously at the places
where the nails of the punishment were inserted, her side offers the
bleeding mark of a lance-thrust, and finally a true cross of blood appears
on her chest. Cotton-doths, applied to these places, absorb die red
mark with a touch purely artistic. And what is more extraordinary
still, this appearance manifests itself spontaneously every Good Friday
at some minutes past three o^ clock. It is extraordinary, but it is true,
and the fact can be vouched for by hundreds in the country both of the
wise and the poor of spirit."

The Good Friday part of the story is certainly not a little
strange, and a miracle which ought surely to give such a saint a
place in the calendar. The next instance is that of a dying nun,
not so wonderful, but more natural and pathetic.

" Mademoiselle embraced the life of the cloister at an early age.

She was sixteen ; of a melancholy and dreamy temperament. She was
very handsome, but was never known to entertain thoughts of frivolity;
ana when her companions would give themselves up to the innocent gaieties
of their age, she would retire into soHtude, from which she would be
seen to issue with a countenance bearing the traces of tears. On taking
the veil she received the merited name of Soeur des Anges. During the
first six months of her recluse life, it was observed that in good looks
and health she quickly fell away. She complained of pain in her breast,
which was found to be cancer, of which it was necessary to free her by
an operation. She submitted to it, and while a surgeon was dissecting
the tumour, all that she did was to utter, from time to time, the sweet
and gentle name of the Virgin Mary, for whom she had always pro-
fessed a particular devotion. After the operation she confessed that she
had suffered very Httle, and that the good mother had received her in her
arms. Soon after this, consumptive symptoms declared themselves, and
she spoke to a friend of the favour of heaven, and prayed to die soon in
her state of innocence and purity.

There was also in the convent a young nun with whom she lived in a
touching state of intimacy ; and, during the night, when silence was in
all the cells around, she would awake her companion, whose bed was
next to hers, and talk to her friend of her visions, and of her hopes of

S(xur des Anges. 81

death. It was not long in coming. Her beautiful face never beamed
with brighter radiance than on that day ; the disease had covered her
cheeks with roses, and softened with a pearly whiteness her azure blue
eyes. At nine o'clock in the momine: every thine: was ready for the
tiiumph of the virgin ; her modest chlunbe/^as adorned as^if for a
fl^te day ; she had ah*eady confessed, and communicated in presence of
all her Mends. The young girl whom she loved so tenderly was her-
self iu a desperate conoition, and had obtained permission to have her
bed placed at the side of the dying nun's. It is from the former
that we have received the foUowing account. Before receiving the
Eucharist the canticle is customarily sung. At this moment, Soeur des
Anges, lifting her arms to heaven, and with a seraphic voice, purer than
that which she had been known to possess, sung a couplet.

" After the ceremony all that remained for Soeur des Anges was to
die. Her ideas remained perfectly lucid to the end, and with them was
mingled a sort of infantine joy at the heaven opening for her. When,
for example, two nuns held her hands, and endeavoured to support her
with words of kindness, she cast a furtive look on her neighbour who
lay herself a prey to fever, and laid one finger on her lip. (This signi-
mti that she had but one hour to remain.) Then she raised the finger
to heaven, as if to prophesy her good fortune. Then changing her ges-
ture, she asked her friend how many hours she too was to linger before
enjoying the blessing of death ? But remembering that by these move-
ments she had committed the sin of pride, she called for her director and
confessed herself with inexpressible candour.

"Towards mid-day her nead appeared to sink in her pillow: she re-
mained two or three hours in a state of torpor, from which she issued,
asking one of the nuns watching by her, if she had slept ? ' I never,' she
said, ^ believed myself so completely dead. I saw in my sleep all the
beauties of heaven, and believed myself already there.* Thus saying,
she raised herself slowly from her bed, and stretched her arms as if to
embrace a shadow at the foot of her couch ; her inspired and open eyes
wished to follow and speak to it ; two nuns held her up ; and it was thus,
in the position of a ^rl starting forward to embrace her father, that she
breathed her last. Her eyes remained open, and preserved for a con-
siderable time all their brilliancy.

" After her death, Soeur des Anges was dressed in her religious habit^
and exposed, until the day of her funeral, on a bed of state."

And so poor Soeur des Anges is laid out on a lit de parade^ for
weeping sisters to wonder at, and almost to worship. She be-
comes a saint in the history of her house ; her sickly visions take a
celestial authority; ere long other hysterical sisters will vouch for
having seen tHe D^venly bridegroom, into whose arms the enrap-
tured nun flimg her soul. The old nuns, M. Lauvergne says, die,
generally speaking, by no means so willingly. They try all the
remedies oi the apothecary, they make all sorts of vows to their
favourite saints, and hold on to life with all their might. They

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIII. G

82 Death and Dying in France.

die hard, as the phrase is. They are a£raid of purgatory, the
doctor says, and would give any thing to buy off ce maudit temps
d^ expiation. Could not our physician have found, in his phydolo-
gical sciences, some other cause for this difference between the
young women and the old ? Li a Protestant cotmtry, Soeur des
Anges, the young and beautiful, would in all likelihood have had
a husband to love and children to bring up; and her affections
would have sought for no preternatural issue. The glories of celibacy
would never have been preached to her, or the sin and stain of
marriage and maternity: ideas of duty would never have called
upon her to perform this slow suicide : and she would have had
other attendants at her death-bed than those visionary ones with
which the poor distracted creature peopled her celL As for admir-
ing such an end, or beheving that it was attended by any heavenly
spirits or ministers, one might as well admire the death of the poor
lady at the lunatic asylum the other day, who leaped out of win-
dow because she said the Lord called her.

From the story of the nun we may as well turn to that of a
religious person who met with a very different end— a perjured
and repentant priest, who died with demons round about him, as
there were angels roimd the couch of poor innocent Soeur des
Anges.

" A terrible example of the effects of fanaticism and jealousy is the
following. A young man of an ascetic character had taken orders.
Unhappily for hmi he subsequentiy made acquaintance in the world with
one of those heartiess coquettes, who have a score of eternal passions in
the course of their lives, and whose joy it is to torment those who have
been captivated by their fatal charms. Of such a creature our poor
young priest was the victim ; she drew him into her toils, and so com-
pletely fascinated and overcame him, tiiat she became as much the
mistress of his will, as the mesmeriser is of that of the magnetised. The
history of this passion is a dreadful one: the wretched woman seemed
resolved to possess her victim body and soul, and actually made him
abjure his faith, and invented a service in which she took tiie place of
the Virgin, and made the vnretched priest adore her on his knees, witii
all the ceremonial of religious worship. It was her pleasure to make
him walk the streets publicly in a trivial disguise ; to take him to mask-
balls, dressed as a devil ; she made him wear her portrait as clergymen
do the image of the saints, and sign a compact denying his faith in
reli^on. As may be supposed, he had a rival : on venturing to remon-
strate regarding him, the unhappy wretch was turned from his mistress's
door, and at home opened a vein, and wrote in his own blood a recanta-
tion of his suspicions.

'^ But the woman's caprice was now satisfied, and she sent the rival
to the unhappy priest to forbid him henceforth her door. To convince
him there was no hope the rival produced a letter; in which the woman

Beauties of Celibacy and La Trappism. 83

said, * I never loved the poor devil in the least : my fanc^ was to see
if I eonld dispute a heart with heaven, and damn an Abbe/

** The aspect of hell in a dream does not awaken the sleeper more
suddenly than this letter aroused our seminarist He was brought back
to hate the cause of his error, as a man who recovers from an attempt
at suidde by poison, instinctively hates ever after any thing which recalls
his crime to mind. But cured of his love, his remorse now pursued him
terribly ; he flung himself in his bed, where he lay writhing like a
serpent; he replied sobbing to invisible interlocutors, and saw monks in
fnghtfol red passing before him, and calling his name, coupled with inti-
mations of damnation and execution. He mncied his bed was floating in
a sea of flames, and that two demons were holding him by the head
and heels, and about to fling him into the yawning gulf of hdL

^* With the daylidit reason returned, but with it thoughts of suicide.
He knelt and prayed wildly before a crucifix, and then took poison . •
The corrosive nature of the poison he took caused him frightfol agonies ;
he lay for some time writhing with pain, and clawing and biting at his
eoverlids : and in dying he seized the cross with one hand and the conse-
crated taper with the other, exclaiming with Job, ^ Cur misero lux data
estV

This tale has a theatrical air : l^ut the author alludes to it more
ihan once in the course of his volumes, and we must remember
that the actors in the story are French people, whose passions and
fimcy axe very much more violent than our own. Audit forms
anotner comment upon the beauties of celibacy, which certain
Protestants (we beg pardon, not Protestants, oiUy priests of the
English Protestant church) are lauding just now.

Ne^ we have a brief account of a man who escaped from the
authority of his spiritual masters — ^that authority wnich the same
personages proclami to be so awful and so wholesome.

<< One nighty as an attendant of the infirmary was sitting by the bed-
ride of a patient in a fever, the former was seen reading in a book which
tamed out to be a Latin work by one of the first fathers of the church.

He had been a poor self-starving Trappbt — ^pledged

to obey blindly his superior, — a crossed and unbred abbot, who was free
to quit his monastery, and enjoy himself wherever his indination led him.
One day while the monk was lust in the act of raising his spoon &om
the platter to his mouth, the abbot accused him of gluttony because he
raised it too fast, and bade him as a pimishment to keep his hand
nplifiied in that position until the superior gave him leave to put it
down. ISja companions looked on gravely, without laughing, and with
an air of contrition ; and during the punishment the monk determined
to quit the convent. He cast away his monk's frock — but wishing still
to bear the cross of expiation in this world, he determined to become an
hospital attendant, anid discharge the duties of this painful and dis-
agreeal^ calling."

Although our author has made, as we have seen, some dia-

a2

^

g4 Death and Dying in France.

tinction between Christianity and Protestantism, he speaks with
great respect of the Protestants on their deathbeds : he gives in-
stances of an English manufacturer whom he attended in his
d3ring moments, and of one or two Protestant clergymen in
similar circumstances, who, if they did not depart in a rapture,
died at least in a noble, calm, and pious resignation, such as perhaps
may be preferred to the most wondrous of visions, and at least
cannot be questioned on the score of unreason.

Mihtary men of course call for the attention of a Prench
writer, and in spealdng of their deaths M. Lauvergne does not
fail to indulge his appetite of wonder, and narrate the presenti-
ment that many of tnem have had of their approaching demise in
battle. It seems indeed to be pretty clear that many officers of
rank have uttered prophecies regarding their fate, wliich have
been subsequently fulfilled. But if we were to get the number of
false presentiments of this nature, we suspect that these would
amount to a vast catalogue, while the realized prophecies would
fill a very small list. Every gambler who lays down his money
on the red or the black has presentiments of this kind, and is
in the habit of respecting them. In the days of lotteries men had
ceaseless presentiments, and got the thirty-thousand pounds prize
too in consequence of them : but there were twenty-thousand
false prophets most likely in the lottery, as well as one successful seer,
and we have quite as much right to consider their failure as his suc-
cess. Could the chances be calculated, these wonders would perhaps
be found to be by no means so wonderful. Suppose, that is to say,
twenty men were to draw lots which should be shot : some would
have a presentiment that they would draw the fatal lot, some
would be quite sure they would escape, and the lot would still fall
on the individual according to the law of twenty to one, and the
prophecy would be fulfilled or otherwise according to the law of
twenty to one too. When Dessaix returned from Egypt to fight
the batde of Marengo, our author says he remarked to his aide-
de-camp, ' Somethmg will happen, the bullets don't know me in
Europe,' and the general was accordingly shot. Now is it to be
presumed from this, that in his former campaigns the bullets did
really know Dessaix, and went out of their way in order to avoid that
officer? Either that is to be believed, or the whole story is worth
nothing; and amounts simply to this, that in a battle a man has a
chance of being killed, that he speculates upon this chance which
so nearly concerns him, and utters his hopes or doubts in the shape
of prophecies, which are and are not fulfilled. But there is no
use in arguing on the subject. We consider these stories as among
the clap-traps with which the author has chosen to emphasize his
case, and which sur le rapport reliffieux render his book exceed-
ingly worthless.

Military Deaths. 85

Nor, we take it, is his system of generalizing upon particular
cases at all a safe one. He describes a protestant dying, a usurer,
a galley-slave, a bishop djdng : it is very well : but it is absurd to
talk about the protestant, the bishop, the galley-slave, &c., dying,
as if the race were all alike. Mr. Newman will die, for instance,
in all probability in a very different way from Mr. Sydney
Smith ; and as of protestants, so of bishops, usurers, convicts and
the rest ; their deaths will be as different as their lives, as different
as their faces, their temperaments, their histories. All which
too is pretty evident, and need not be argued at great length.

To return to the military men, we will give one instance of the
death of a soldier, remarkable not for its heroism, but for its con-
trast and moral.

" M. — y a retired superior officer, came out of the old imperial guard,
which the enemies of France have called with reason * the iron rampart.
He was married, had two children, and worked in his farm with extreme
zeal. His mania, for every man has one, consisted in multiplying tulips
and rose-trees. He was always among his trees, or in his kitchen-
garden, and never more happy than when called upon to show them to
some benevolent visitor. . , . He became daily more anxious to avoid
the world, and the sight of a stranger became odious to him. His sen-
sibility grew to be extreme : the recital of a good action would bring
tears to his eyes : and soon nothing recalled in him the courageous war-
rior of old times. Strange to say, he feared death very much, and was
only happy in receiving the visits of his clergyman or his physician.
He fell ill several times, and his timidity was such that on eacn occa-
sion we found it more difficult to raise and restore his moral condition,
than to cure him of his bodily malady. Restored to health, diet be-
came his great object. He dressed himself according to the weather,
and his cook never prepared a dinner without consulting him as to the
state of his stomach for the day.

^' One day he was suddenly seized with an attack of apoplexy. His
terrors now became incessant ; he passed like a child &om the hands of
his physician to those of his confessor; and on the day of his death, as
m the midst of his terror he was about to receive the last communion, it
was lamentable to look at liis quailing eyes and to hear the moans he
made, as if he were asking quarter of death.

^^ Some days after his decease an inventory was made of his papers, and
in the comer of his desk was found an old rumpled scrap of paper that
we had the curiosity to read: it was to the following tenor. * We, the
tmdersigned, officers, grenadiers, soldiers, and drummers, hereby declare

that the grenadier ^has, during this campaign, been the bravest

amongst the brave of our demi-brigade.'

"A little below, in sharp, almost illegible letters, scrawled as it seeined
on the bronze of a cannon, was written — * The grenadier who, according
to the testimony of the bravest in the army, has honoured the soldier's
epaulettes, is worthy to have those of an officer. I appoint the grena-

86 Death and Dying in France*

dier— — flub-lieutenant in the first company of the demi-brigade. Signed,
Bonaparte, General in duef of the army of Italy.' "

Another soldier M. Lauvergne instances, as illustrating the
ruling passion of avarice. He was in Spain, where he contracted
a complaint, for the cure of which a very expensive medicine was
ordered. He had no money, he said, to purchase the medicine,
on which his companions dubbed their small means together, and
helped him to this costly means of health. The cure was not
completed, and the regiment was ordered home. Deprived of his
medicine the patient grew worse: a surgical operation became
necessary, to which he submitted, and from the consequences of
which he died. On examining his trunks after death, several
rouleaux of gold were concealed in them, which might have saved
his life had he had the courage to spend them in time.

Next follows an instance of superb courage on the part of the
medical ojficer of a ship.

" The philosophic spirit of the eighteenth century fortified by that of
the reTolutioQ, has occasioned a number of singular and remarkable
dying scenes.

^ I had a friend endowed with the noblest £Etculties of the heart and
bead. Brought up from his cradle with ideas of liberty and equality,
he bore the name and afterwards showed the character of one of tne
Gracchi. BGs learning was considerable, his taste led him to the study
of Greek and Roman antiquities, and he had arrived at last at the
profound conviction that the imiverse was the production of a general
nameless first cause, and that after death came annihilation.

" At twenty years of age, in the quality of a surgeon, he followed our
armies across the Rhine, and contracted the dreamy habits of the Ger-
man philosophic school. In 1816 he might be considered a dan-
gerous and conta^ous materialist. His speech was grave and persua-
sive, his morals and conduct would not have been disavowed by a stoic*
He had dissected all the great characters of the Revolution, and in re-
gard of convictions and principles found few of them complete. The
true statesman, he used to say, never flinches from what he believes to
be good : the scaffold does not terrify him. The biography of a man
IS his death.

" He would often repeat that ' Anatomy was the Coran of the uni-
verse : the Alpha and Omega of aU truths which men have femcied they
discovered. The human body is the compendium of all the exact
sciences. • . .' One of his favourite ideas was this, ' The life of animals
is a sort of germination, various in form, but equal in fitct. A man ia
planted as a tree is : a male and female flower produce an egg from
which comes the plant called man, which grows, is nourished, flou-
rishes, droops, and has an end. As regards the individual the end is
eternal : the species is of incalculable duration. Reason and evidence
admit no other philosophy.'

''In 1817 this gentleman was in the Antillas, surgeon-in-chief of a

Heroic Sense of Duty. 87

coTvettey amongst the crew of which the yellow fever was making
frightful ravages. Our stoic, during the course of the malady, dis-
played that firmness which alone stamps the great man. He was the
Froyidenoe of the ship.

'^ At that time the question of the origin of this scourge of our colonies

was much dehated among our medical men. M thought the cause

of the evil lay in the matter vomited by the patient. He made a trial
of it upon himself, the result of which did not tend to convince him.
Towards the end of the epidemic he died, though the cause of his death
was unknown. Here is the last extraordinary page of his clinical
joumaL

" M. de Lansmatre, a naval officer, had reached the third day of the
complaint, and M— had been writing down hourly the progress of the
fever, and the aggravation of the symptoms. It ended with this page:
^ 24th June, 1 o*clock, black vomit, diarrhcea, burning thirst, pulse quick
and feeble ; 2 o'clock, the same symptoms, with delirium, extreme agita-
tion, fixed eyes, and dwindling pulse ; 3 o*clock, the same, death im-
minent, the patient undergoes the empire of his recLson, he mentions
his father and his native place ; 4 o'clock, decubitus on the back, hag-
gard eyes, skin cold, pulse fleeting, rattle, and death. He was a loyal
man or war. Suaviter in modo, Jfortiter in reJ

" Up to this there seems nothing extraordinary in this entry of the
journal : but what would be inconceivable but that we knew our friend's
own resolution, is the fact that he was, at the very time, himself attacked
by the yellow fever ; that his mind however still remained invulnerable;
and that, all but dead, his intelligence yet lived strong enough within
him to enable him to attend to thirty patients, and to note down every
observation that occurred to him with respect to the cases of any of them !

^* At four o'clock Monsieur Lansmatre died, and at five, an hour

afterwards, M had ceased to exist, without any trace of malady,

except that his whole person was yellow. It might have been supposed
that some sudden attack, as of apoplexy, had carried him off; but he had
written in the margin of his note-book, ' I also am taken with the fever,
but repose myself in my moral and physical temperament. Fortitudo
anmi di^lex,' This stoicism in the face of inevitable death, this calmness
of thought while poison was in the heart; the sentiment of duty, and of
its sacred accomplishment, up to life's last breath; have no comparison
in modem times, and antiquity makes us acquainted with nothing more
sublime."

If M. Lauvergne will read Laird's Travels up the Niger, or the
account of the last ill-fated expedition to the same river, he will
find a score of sucli instances of heroic sense of duty, of men in
the midst of their hopeless agony commanding and obeying to the
last, and only quittmg their duty with their life. No tales of
heroic deaths are so noble as these, nor is their sublimity a whit
lessened, because there is no d3ring speech to record it.

Here we have the story of a man who has personal courage
without moral courage :

88 Death and Dying in France,

" N. , a person of mediocre inteUigence, and strongly infatuated

by materialism, was likewise surgeon on board a ship visited by yellow
fever. He continued his attentions to the crew up to the moment when
he himself was infected with the malady. The first symptom of the
fever is generally a horrible headach, to alleviate which the patient

naturally will bind something round his temples. N. seized on a

sudden with the fatal headach, says gaily before the officers and men
of the ship, * It's my marriage day, lads; yellow Mary has flung me the
handkerchief,' and so saying, binds a handkerchief round his head and
descends to his cabin, saying jocularly to his friends, * Good night, I'm
going down stairs to paint myself.' He bolted his door in order that his
sleep should not be disturbed ; beset out his cleanest sheets; and after
carefully shaving, washing, and perfiiming himself, stretched himself out
in his cot as commodiously as possible, and so listened to himself dying."

But perhaps the most curious instance of indifference to death
is that which M. Lauvergne records of another naval surgeon,
who, his ship being on a rock and expected to sink, while the crew
and officers were aghast in terror on deck, went down to his cabin,
and — went to sleep. They woke him in an hour to say the ship was
just sinking; he grumbled at being awakened, turned round and
went to sleep agam ; and so was foimd two hours afterwards, on a
third summons, not to die but to dine. The ship had got off* the
rock during the repose of this most resolute of sleepers.

Now we come to a character curious for its entire insensibility.

" We have already cited several examples of men of instinct only :
one remarkable one is that of a sailor, whom we studied for a long time,
and who went, on board the vessel in which we knew him, by the name
of Sans-Plume. The skull and face of this man reminded every one of
a calf. He was, in a moral sense, entirely stupid and brutal. He was
quite indifferent as to his dress (hence his nick-name), spent all he got
without ever thinking of clothes, and was as insensible to heat as to cold.
AVhen sent on shore to tend the small live stock of the ship, he would
go to sleep in a field quite regardless of the bom*, and the correction
which awaited him onboard. Once, we remember, in the islands of the
Archipelago, an intelligent goat which he had let out to feed, came down
to the shore, and bleating loudly warned the sailors on watch on board ship
to come to its aid and that of the goatherd, who was asleep in a wet ditch.

" Saus-Plume was all appetite: he would have crammed himself every
day to indigestion with meat and wine, but that the rations were fixed :
he took them in the company of the sheep or the sailors, it mattered not
to him which : for as he thought of nothing and listened to nothing, he
had in consequence nothing to say. And yet with such animals as were to
be found on board he liked to commune, and seemed to have an instinctive
penetration into their natures. I have watched him repeatedly on deck
of a night when he was on duty, sitting in a comer with a cat or a dog
between his legs, and talking to them about eating and drinking, or any
subject of mere instinct. He had ways of pinching them too, so as to
make them cry out in a manner somewhat resembling speech : and 1^
for my part, can vouch for having heard him so talking with a cat,

Physical Insensibility. 89

of whom he asked in an angry voice, * Who has eaten my chop ?' and the
cat mewed out in a piteous tone, and in the proven^al language, es iou 1 1

" Sans-Plume was also called Misere. He suffered, without complain-
ing, all sorts of torments ; he was kicked and heaten, and hore all with
the patience of a donkey ; his only care was to look to his sheep and hen-
roosts. One day, when he was asleep, the sailors covered his face with
a mixture of soot and honey, and then stuck feathers into it : Sans-
Plume woke, end laughed with the rest- Another time they cut down
his hammock, and he fell on deck : he got up quite patient, and set him-
self to mend his bed without a murmur.

" Sans-Plume was of a physical insensibility which I never saw
equalled. He would have endured a cruel operation for the sake of a
la^e ration of meat ; his bodily strength was like that of a bull, and
the power of his blow prodigious.

'^ He had been at school, but did not know his letters ; he had, he
said, made his first communion, but he did not know with what hand he
should begin to cross himself.

" After the cruise I lost sight of Sans Plume for some time, but found
Inm once more on shore, employed at the slaughter-house (abattoir) of
the town. Going one day afterwards to visit a farm in the neighbour-
hood, I found him there in the character of stable-man. He was afflicted
with chronic diarrhoea, couched among the cattle, and in a state perfectly
desperate. A priest came to him several times to speak to him of his
Chnstian duties, but the clergyman said he had never m the coiu*se of his
ministry met with a soul so brutalized, with a being so hard to move in
respect of conscience and religion. I was present by chance at one of
these conferences. Sans Plume, almost dying, his eyes shut, appeared
to listen to the priest ; but when the latter asked him if he wished to see
him again, he answeved with a careless tone, ^ Leave me alone or get
me something to eat.' . . . One night he disappeared, and was
found dead in a cave in a hill. He had near him an empty bottle, a
saosage three parts eaten, and a large loaf which he had scarcely begun.
As long as I knew Sans-Plume I never thought of him as an intellect
but as a stomach. I remember when on board ship he was attacked
with frequent indigestions ; on these occasions when nis comrades spoke
to him he would not reply ; bi^t if any one told him that an ox was going
to be killed the flesh-eater would revive again, and tucking up his shirt
sleeves he would come and offer his services to fell and cut up the
animal."

The writer brings us still lower in his description of death-bed
scenes, not in the scale of intellect but of crime. But of these
dismal pictures our readers must by this have had enough, or the
more ament must be referred to the work itself. The last chapter
especially may be noted as the bouquet^ or masterpiece of the whole :
Wonderful in its cadaverous variety, and not to be read but with
a discomfort which is a high compliment toM. Lauvergne's descrip-
tive powers.

(90)

«

Abt. V. — 1. The Mountains tmd Valleys of Switzerland. By

Mrs. Beat. 3 vols. London. 1841.
2. A Summer in Western France. By J. A. Tbollope, Esq.,

B.A. 2 vols. London. 1841.

An English party, devouring sandwiches and drinking bottled
stout amidst tne broken walls of the Amphitheatre, might sit for
the portraits of a large class of our travelling countrymen. The
ruins of antiquity go for something; but they would be of no
accoiint without the debris of the luncheon. Eating is the grand
business of a weighty majority of the EngHsh out of England.
It arises partly &om a certain uneasy apprehension that they
cannot get any thing fit to eat anywhere else ; and this very
fear of not finding any thing they can eat, probably tempts them
to eat every thing they can find. It is a common occurrence at
a continental table d^hote to hear an EngHshman declare, after
having run the gauntlet of twenty or thirty plates, that he hasn't
had a morsel to eat.

A great deal of this feeling may be traced to the sudden con-
flict 6f habits and antipathies, brought face to face at that moment
in the day when a man is least inclined to compromise his
desires; but making all due allowances on that score, there is no
doubt that the English carry a mighty stomach with them every
where : the voracity of the shark, the digestion of the ostrich.
Their physical sensations are in advance of their intellectual and
mental cravings — even of their curiosity. The first inquiry at
an hotel is — at what o'clock do you dine? They cannot stir
another step without something to eat. If the climate is hot,
it exhausts them, and they must recruit; if cold, they get himgry
mth astonishing celerity, the air is so keen and bracing. Change
of air, change of scene, change of diet, the excitement of moving
from place to place, the clatter of a new language — every thing
contributes to this one end: as if the sole aim and busmess of
travelling was to get up an appetite.

The French make a deHcate, but important distinction between
the gourmand and the gourmet; and they include us, wholesale,
imder the former designation. We try to get rid of the imputa-
tion by sneering at the elaborate labours of their cuisine^ just as
if we never made any fuss about eating and drinking ouraelves;
but they take their revenge, and ample it is, upon our grosser
vice of excess. It must be granted that no people in the civilized
world sit so long at table as the English. In France, the pre-
paration of a dinner is a grave piece of science; in England, the

Mistakes in National Character. 91

work of gravity begins when dinn^ is served up. And it is the
apparition of 1^ uncongenial seriousness which procures us such
a reputation abroad as great feeders ; and which, by the naked
force of contrast, makes the people around us appear so frivolous
in our eyes. We can as Kttle understand their exuberant gaiety,
as they can reconcile themselves to our animal stupor. They
nickn£ume us Roast-Beef, by way of showing that the paramount
idea in the mind of an EngUshman is that of substantial good
Kving; and we resent it by calling them Soup-maigre, a sort of
ignominious hint of vital animation at starvation point. There
is no justice at either side. The French eat as much as the Eng-
lish, but they do not set about it so doggedly.

Great mistakes in national character, beginning in prejudices
on the surface, and at last sinking into traditions and by-words,
have their origin generally in the absurd process of applying the
same test to dissimilar things; of trying opposite manners and
different circumstances by the same moral or social standard.
But of all nations, we have the least right to complain of any in-
justice of this kind, because, of all people, we are the most sullen
and intractable, and have the least flexibility, the least power of
adaptation, the least faciHty in going out of ourselves and falling
into the habitual commonplaces of others. We cannot compre-
hend the reasonableness of usages that differ from our own. We
are at once for setting them down as so much bigotry or tom-
foolery. We cannot change sides for a moment, and, by the help
of a utile imagination, endeavour to see things from a different
point of sight from that to which we have been all our lives ac-
costomed. We allow nothing for varieties of temperament, for
constitutional antagonisms. We are solidly inert and impenetra-
ble, and oppose ourselves bodily, bone and muscle, to all strange
tastes and mshions.

This is the real character of the Englishman, and the true reason
why he is so uncomfortable abroad, and why he makes every body
80 uncomfortable about him. Out of England, he is out of his
element. He misses the immistakeable cookery, the rugs and
carpetSy the bright steps and windows, the order, decorum, the
wealth and its material sturdiness. He comes out of his fogs and
the sulphurous atmosphere of his sea-coal fires, into an open laugh-
ing climate. His ears are stunned with songs and music &om
morning till night; every face he meets is Ughted up with enjoy-
ment; he cannot even put his head out of the window without
seeing the sun. What wonder the poor man should be miserable,
and wish himself at home again ! He has no notion of pleasure
tmassociated with care. He must enter on pleasure as a matter of
business, or it is no pleasure for him. There must be an alloy t

^

92 The EngUdi oh the

preserve the tone of liis mind, for he has a motto, that there is no
happiness without alloy; and so, where there is none, he makes
it. He has always a ^e resource in his own morbid fancy, and
has only to fall l^ick upon himself to escape effectually from any
surrounding influences that happen to tlurow too strong a glare
upon his moroseness, or to affront his egotism by showing that
other people can be happier than himself.

The Amdamental error of the travelling English consists in
bringing their English feeling and modes with them, instead of
leaving them behind to be taken care of with their pictures and
furniture. You can detect an Englishman abroad by that repul-
sion of manner which covers him over like fix)st-work, and within
the TODge of which nobody can enter without being bitten with
cold. His sense of superiority freezes the very air about him;
you would think he was a statue of ice, or a block dropped from
a glacier of the loftiest Alps. It would be as easy for the sun to
thaw the eternal peak of the snowy Jungfrau, as for any ordinary
warmth of society to melt that wintry man into any of the cordial
courtesies of intercourse. Why is this? Why is it that the
English alone treat all foreign countries through which they pass
with such topping humours and contempt — ^looking down upon
them as if they belonged to an inferior clay, as if they alone were
the genuine porcelain, as if arts and civilization, knowledge and
power, grace and beauty, intelligence, strength, and the god-
neraldry of goodness and wisdom, were one vast monopoly within
the girth of Great Britain? Why is this? Why, simply because
the corruptioii of gold has eaten into their hearts; because they
are the purse-holders of the world; because money is power,
and they have only to put their hands into their pockets if they
would make the earth pant on its axis. The English are
not exempt from the frailties of universal nature; and pride and
vainglory, and lustrous pomp, with its eyes amongst the
stars, follow in the train of gold as surely as the lengthening
shadows track the decline of light. It was so with all the gorgeous
republics of antiquity, with Tyre and Athens, and with imperial
Venice, when, crowned like another mistress of the world, she
married the Adriatic, and thought herself immortal !

The insular position of the English, and a protracted war,
which shut them up for half a generation in their workshops and
their prejudices, contributed largely to foster this hard and obstinate
character, this egotistic and selfish intolerance. The peculia-
rities of other nations, like colours in the prism, dissolve into each
other at their frontier lines; but the EngUsh are water-locked;
they enjoy none of the advantages of that miscellaneous expe-
rience, that free expanse of observation and intercourse, which

Immobility of the English. 93

elsewhere have the effect of enlarging the capacity of pleasure, of
fiimishing materials for reflection, of strengthening, elevating,
and diffiising human knowledge and sympathy. The sea has been
compared to the confines of eternity; and the English may be
said to have been looking out upon eternity while other races
have been engaged in active commerce with their fellow men.

All this sounds very oddly in reference to a people who have
amassed such enormous wealth, who have been the great navi-
gators and colonizers of the world, who exercise sovereignty in
every quarter of the globe, and upon whose possessions the sun
never sets ! Yet it is true, nevertheless. All this work of colo-
nization and extension of empire is transacted at a writing-desk.
The counting-house in a twilight alley, in the murky depths of
the city, is the laboratory where the portable gases are generated,
which are thus carried off and distributed over the remotest
legions. Half-a-dozen dismal men meet round a table, scratch
their signatures to a paper, and a new empire starts up in the
Southern Pacific; they part in silence, and go home to dinner,
with as much apathetic regularity as if notmng had happened
out of the way; and for the rest of the evening nurse their iamily
phlegm as they had done any time all their Uves long. In a
single morning, the basis of a teeming trade of centuries hence is
laid down; but it brings no change in the inner life of the indivi-
dual. The handg move outwards, but the works of the clock still
keep their dark routine. It is one thing to ship off our super-
fluous population to distant lands, to plant the Union Jack on
some savage rock, and crack a bottle with a huzza! to the
health of Old England ; and another to maintain intimate rela-
tions and constant interchange with nations as civilized as our-
selves, to rub off the rust of isolation and drudgery, to lift our-
selves out of the one idea of money-getting, and to draw in
humanity and good-humour from our neighbours. In the large
and philosophical sense of the word, we have never acted upon
the true principle of colonization : we never conciliate the races
we subdue — we conquer every thing but their affections. Our
setdements are camps in a hostile country, as completely apart
from the native population as swans* nests m a stream. In India,
we are hedged in on all sides by jealousy and distrust ; the war of
races in Canada is as bitter at this moment as it was in 1760; and
the animosities of the pale still flourish as rankly as ever in Ireland,
in spite of free trade, two rebellions, the Union, CathoHc Eman-
cipation, and Reform. This comes of our immobihty — of our
elemental resistance %o fusion.

The same thing that happens upon a great scale in politica|^^^
afiairs, is illustrated in a minor way in the intercourse of ^tt^^^

94 The English on the Continent.

veiling. Our social tariff amounts almost to a prolnbition. Ex*
change of ideas takes place only at the extreme point of neces-
atj. We are as reluctant to open our mouths or our ears as our
ports, and have as profound a horror of foreign vivacity and com-
mimicativeness as of foreign com. Habit goes a long waj with
us. People are so used to cry out ' The farmers are ruined/ that
they must keep u^ war prices after a peace of nearly thirty years.
We have a sinular difficulty in relaxing our manners. The
bulk of our continental travellers enter an hotel with as much
severity and suspicion in their looks as if we were fighting the
battles of legitimacy over again, and were doomed to fight them
for ever.

By staying so much at home, and being kept so much at home
by the pressure of external circumstances, our ideas and feelings
become introverted. We turn eternally upon ourselves. We
accumulate immensely, but imdergo little or no sensible modifi*
cations of character. We advance in the direction of utilitv, but
are stiU pretty much the same people we were a couple oi hun-
dred years ago. The only marked difference is that we are less
hearty, less firank and joyous. We drop our old customs, our
games and festivals, one by one, and grow more and more plod-
ding and selfish. 'Merry England smvives only in ballads.
Robin Hood and Little John are gone to the workhouse.

When a Frendmian, or an Italian, comes to England, he
brings his sunshine with him. When an Enghshman goes to
France or Italy, he cannot leave his fogs behind him. He is like
a rolling mass of darkness, absorbing all the encircling light, but
emitting none. There is this remarkable point of contrast too,
that the former becomes at once a citizen of the coxmtry he visits,
and the latter never ceases to be the petty lord of the manor, the
common council man, the great gun of the village or the county.
The imiverse is only Big Little Pedlington to Hopkins.

But it is surprising how a Utde knocking about in steamboats,
and railways, and diligences, and schnell-posts and voitures of all
sorts, and hotels with every variety of perfumes, shakes a man
out of his sluggish thoughts and opake humours. It is the best
of all constitutional remedies for mind and body, although it acts
but slowly on the whipcord nerves of the English. It is good
for the brains and the stomach. It invigorates the imagination,
loosens the blood and makes it leap through the veins, dispels the
nebulous mass of the stay-at-home animal, and, liberating the
spirit firom its drowsy weight of^ prejudices, sends it rebounding
back, lighter and brighter than ever, i^-ith the firesh morning
beams throbbing in its pulses. There is nothing in this levelling
world of ours which so effectually annihilates conventional re-

Benefits of TrtweJUng. 95

epectability as travelling. It tumbles down with a single blow
the whole wire and gauze puppet, reducing its empty length and
breadtk to mere finery and sawdust. All our staid, solemn pro-
piieties, that beset and check us at every land's turn like inau-
goration mysteries, as if we were entering upon some esoteric
novitiate every day of our lives — all our &mi]y pride and class
insdnctfi— our local importance and stately caution — ^paddocks
and lawns — liveries, revenues and ceremonials — all go for nothing
in the swirl and roar of the living tide. A great landed gentle-
man cannot bring his ten-feet walls, his deer-park, or his parish-
church with its time-honoured slabs and monuments, in the palm
of his hand to the continent; he cannot stick the vicar and the
overseer and the bench of justices in his hatband; he cannot in-
scribe the terrors of the tread-mill on his travelling-bag; he cannot
impress every body abroad as he can at home with me awful majesty
of his gate-house, and the lump of plush that slumbers in the padd^
ann-cnair ; he has passed out of the artificial medium by which he
has hitherto been so egregiously magnified, and he is forced, for
once in his life, to depend solely on nimself, docked of his lictors,
for whatever amount of respect, or even attention, he can attract.
This is a wholesome and healthy ordeal; very good for the moral
as well as the biliary ducts. It sets a new and unexpected
value upon whatever little sense or self-reliance one may really
possess, and makes a man understand his manhood better in a
month than he could have done in twenty years through the
milage of a fiJse position.

Ajid no man abandons himself so utterly to the intoxication of
this ne«r and raptuious exist^ce as an ffnglishman, once lie al-
lows himself to give way to it. He rushes at once to the oppo-
site extreme. He chuckles and screams, like a boy out of school,
like a hound just released from the thong, boimding over fields
and ditches, and taking every thing at a leap, as if Beelzebub were
dancing mad at his heels. If he is only sure that he is not ob-
served, that nobody sees him — ^for this craven consciousness, and
fear of ridicule, haunt him day and night — there is nothing too
puerile, nothing too gay or riotous for him. He is no longer forty
or fifty, but rampant nineteen. The sudden enchantment sets
Um b^de himself ; he is under the influence of a speU; no longer
ttaiched and trammeUed in frigid responsibilities, fiis joints begin
to move with fireedom and elasticity; he is all eyes, legs, ears.
With what curiosity he peers into shop-windows and bazaars;
irith what vivacity, wondering secretly all the while at his mira-
culous accession of gusto, he criticises picture-galleries and mu-
seums; how vigorously he himts through royal parks and palaces
to collect gossip for the table-d'hdte; how he climbs lofty steepl^_^

96 The English on the Continent,

and boasts of Ms lungs; wliat mountains of ice he devours in the
heat of the day; what torrents of lemonade gazeuse or Seltzer
water he swallows; what a dinner he makes amidst a bewildering
chaos of provocations; and how zealously he nourishes his emanci-
pated enmusiasm with hock and claret, m the exquisite agony of a
profound contempt for gout and indigestion. Verily there is no-
thing under heaven so thoroughly English, as those things which
are m the very grain of their nature the most thoroughly un-
EngUsh : so unnatural isthe slavery of our habitual self-suppression,
so natural our disfranchisement : and of these extremes are we
pieced. O ye who fold yourselves up in the coil of sour melan-
choly, ' like the fat weed that rots on Lethe's stream,' take heed
at that critical turn of life when the green leaf is beginning to get
yeUow and sickly, and be assured there is nothing Uke a plunge
mto new worlds of human faces for the recovery of youth, with
all its giddy joys and airy fallacies.

But the difficulty is to get an Englishman to make this plunge
in downright earnest. Instead of running wild amongst the
people of the continent, and giving free vent to whatever youthful
mirth has not been quite trampled out of him, he usually runs a
muck at them. Instead of gambolling with them, he butts and
horns them. He takes umbrage at every thing. It is impossible
to please him. He is resolved not to be pleased, come what may.
Shine or rain, it is all the same ; he quarrels with every thing,
simply because it is not English. It might be supposed he went
on an expedition in search of England, he is so discontented at
not finding England at every turn of the road. It never occurs
to him how much enjoyment and instruction he loses by not trying
to discover the points of mutual agreement : his whole labour is to
dig out the points of difference. He has not the least ghmmer of a
conception how much the former overbalance the latter; how much
more there is to admire and imitate, than to censure and avoid; and
how much soimd feeling and morality, practical virtue, and social
goodness, there may be in common between people who scowl at
each other ' Hke frowning cliffs apart' upon questions of cookery
and ventilation. He delights in picking up vexations and cross-
purposes, and incidents that ' hint dislike ;' and he snarls at them
as a dog does at a bone, which, all unprofitable as it is, he takes a
sort of surly pleasure in growling over. Every step he makes fur-
nishes fresh excuses for grumbling and getting out of humour;
and the only wonder is why he ever left home, and why he does not
go back again without delay. There is nothing to eat (this is
universal) ; the wines are vinegar ; the lower classes wallow in
dirt and superstition ; the churches are hung all over with thea-
trical gewgaws; the people are eaten up by the priests; the stench

England to a Foreigner. 97

of the towns is past endurance; the women are pert and affected,
the men all folly and grimace ; the few educated people are desti-
tute of the di^iity and reserve essential to the mamtenance of
rank and order ; there is no distinction of persons ; and one can-
not go into a public company without havmg one's Teutonic de-
licacy offended by the levity and grossness of the conversation.
It has been well said of the Englisn, that their forte is the dis-
^reeable and repulsive.

Is there nothing in England to provoke the acerbity of a fo-
reigner, who shoiud take pleasure in cataloguing annoyances and
tantalizing himself with pamful truths? Are we quite sure that we
are exempt from public nuisances and social evils? Take a stranger
into our manufacturing districts, our mines and collieries, our great
towns. Is there nothing there to move his compassion, to fill him
with amazement and horror? No wrong-doing, no oppression, no
vice? On every side he is smitten to the heart by the cruelties of
our system ; by the hideous contrast of wealth and want, plethora
and &mine ; a special class smothered up in luxuries, and a dense
population struggling wolfishly for the bare means of subsistence.
Out of all this, drunkenness — ^unknown in his own midsummer
cUme — glares upon him at every step. He hears the cry of despair,
the bitter imprecation, the blasphemous oath, as he passes through
the packed and steaming streets. True, we have fine shops and
aristocratic houses, and macadamized roads, and paved causeways
and footpaths ; but these things, and the tone of comfort they in-
i|nre, and the ease and prosperity they imply, only make the real
misery, the corroding depravity, all the more palpable and harrow-
ing. As to priests — ^what becomes of our Church in the compa-
lison? To be sure our priests never walk about the streets — they
nde in their carriages: a symptom which is only an aggravation
(£the disease. Nor are we so free firom superstition as we would
have the world beHeve. It is not very long since Sir William
Gourtenay preached in East Kent; the followers of Johanna
Southcote form a very thriving little sect ; and witches are still
accredited in the north. For credulity we might be matched
against any contemporary country — witness our police reports,
oar ioint-stock bubbles, our emigration schemes, and our patent
medicines. Are we more enlightened as a nation than our neigh-
bours? Do we treat men of letters with more regard? Is our po-
pulation better instructed? Do you find anywhere in England, asyou
do in France and Germany, the poor way-side man acquainted with
his local traditions, and proud of his great names in literature and
history? All this sort of refinement is wanted : our population is
hied up in material necessities, and has neither leisure nor inclina-
tion for intellectual culture. The workman knows nothing beyond^^

TOL. XXXII. NO. LXIII. H ^^^

98 The English on the Cantinevit.

his work, and even locks up his faculties in it, from an instinctive
and hereditary dread of scattering and weakening them. He has
been brought up in the notion that a Jack of all trades is master c^
none, and so he sticks to his last, and is obstinately ignorant of
every thing else. This description of training makes capital me-
chanics ; but you must not look for any power of combination, any
reasoning faculty, any capacity of comparison or generalization,
where the mind has been flattened down and beaten into a single
track. It is this which, in a great degree, communicates that air
of gloom and reserve to the English peasantry which strikes fo-
reigners so forcibly on their first coming amongst us. Nor is the
matter much mended in the higher circles of society. An Englisix
converzatume is like the ^ Dead March' in ' SauL' Eveiy body
seems to have got into a sort of funereal atmosphere ; the deq)est
solemnity sits in every face ; and the whole affair looks as if it were
got up for any imagmable purpose but that of social intezcouiae
and enjoyment. No wonder a stranger, accustomed to incessant
variety, and bringing, by the force of habit, his entire stock o£
spirits to bear upon the occasion, should be chilled and petrified at
a scene which presents such a perplexity to his imagination. He
may put up, as gracefully as he can, with being cheated and orer-
charged and turned into ridicule for his blunders at hotek and
lodgmg houses ; these are vulvar and sordid vices. But he looks
for compensation and sympathy to the upper classes. Is he dis-
appointed? He is too much a man of the world, too intent upon
making the best of every thing, too enjoue, and too ready to i^
preciate and acknowledge whatever is really praiseworthy and
agreeable, to annoy anybody with his impressions. The contrast s
marked— the inference irresistible.

We are so apt to think every thing wrong which does not happen
to square with our own usages, that we rarely make allowances for
the difference of habits and modes of life. But it ought to be re-
membered that some national traits may jar with our customs, and
y^et harmonize perfectly with the general characteristics and neces-
sities of others ; and that many of the very traits we desiderate in
them would be totally irreconcilable with the whole plan of their
society — ^perhaps even with their climate, which frequently exer-
cises an influence that cannot be averted over society itself. One
of the things, for example, which most frets and chafes an English-
man of the common stamp is the eternal flutter of the contment
He cannot make out how the people contrive to carry on the
business of life, since they appear to be always engrossed in its
pleasures. He is not content to ' take the goods the Gods pro-
vide,* but must needs know whether they are honestly come by.
To him^ the people seem to be perpetually flying from place to

The Salh a Manger. 99

Elace, on the winff for fresh delights. It never occurs to him that
e is making holiday himself; he only thinks it extraordinary
that they should be doing the same thing. Yet a moment's re-
flection ought to show him that they must labour for their pleasure
as we do ; although they do not take their pleasxure, as we do, with
an air of labour. Pleasure is cheaper on the continent, as every
thing else is, where people are not bowed down by an Old Man at
their backs in the shape of a glorious National Debt.

This lightness of the heart, joined to the lightness of the
atmosphere, produces that open-air festivity and commimity of
enjoyment which makes the heavy hypochondriacal man stare.
Ue IS used to think of taxes and easterly winds, and cannot
miderstand how such crowds of people can go out of doors to
enjoy themselves. He wonders they are so improvident of money
and rheumatism. Little does he suspect how slight their
acquaintance is with either, and how much satisfaction they have
in their cap and bells and their blue skies notwithstanding ! He
goes to an hotel, and petulantly orders dinner in a private
room, his sense of exclusiveness taking imibrage at the indis-
criminate crush of the salh a manger below. Here again he
is at fiiult. The salle a manger is the absolute fashion of the
place* It is the universal custom of Europe. The Englishman
alone cannot reconcile himseK to it. He sees a salon set out
on a scale of such magnificence, that he immediately begins
to calculate the expenditure, and jumps to a conclusion — always
estimating things by his own standard — ^that the speculation must
be a dead loss. To be sure, that is no business of his, but he cannot
help the instinct. Enter a salon of this description, and observe
witn what regal splendour it is appointed; brilliantly lighted up,
painted, gilt, draperied with oriental pomp; a long table rims
down the centre, perhaps two or three, laid out for dinner with
excellent taste. You wonder by what magic the numerous com-
pany is to be brought together for which such an extensive
accommodation is provided; presently a bell rings; it is followed,
after an interval, by a second and a third peal; liien the guests
in noiselessly, and in a few moments every chair is occupied,
ip refuge agamst ennui^ against the evil misgivings of solitude,
the wear and tear of conventional hindrances to the free course of
the animal spirits ! Here are to be found every class, from the lord
to the nigociant; noblemen and commoners of the highest rank and
their fiunilies ; military, and civiHans of all professions ; and some of
the resident iUte of the locality, who occasionally prefer this
mode of living to the dreary details and lonely pomp of a small
household. From this usage, which we deprecate so much
because it impinges upon our dignity and sullenness, a manifest

h2

100 The English on the Continent

advantage is gained in the practical education of men for any
intercourse with general society to wluch they may be called.
Nor is it of less value in conferring upon them that ease and self-
possession and versatile command of topics, for which the people
of the continent are so much more distinguished than our coun-
trymen.

An implicit and somewhat audacious reUance upon the virtues
of money in carr3ang a traveller through every difficulty, is
one of the foibles by which we are pre-eminently noted all over
the world. Nor are we content merely to depend upon the
weight of our purses, but we must brandish them ostentatiously
in the faces of innkeepers and postilions, till we make them con-
scious of our superiority, with the insulting suggestion in addition^
that we think them poor and venal enough to be ready to do
any thing for hire. Of course we must pay for our vanity and
insolence; and accordingly resentment in Hnd takes swinging
toll out of us wherever we go. Milor Anglais is the sure
mark for pillage and overcharge and mendacious servility; all of
which he may thank himself for having called into existence. We
remember falling in with an old gentleman at Liege several years
ago who had travelled all over Belgium and up the Rhine into
Nassau, without knowing one word of any language except
his own native English. His explanation of this curious dumb
process to a group of his coimtrymen tickled the whole party
amazingly. He thought you could travel anywhere, without
knowing any language, if you had only plenty of money : he
did not know what he had paid at Weisbaden, or anywhere else:
his plan was to thrust his hand into his pocket, take it out again
filled with sovereigns, and let them help themselves : he never
could make out their bills, they were written in such a d—
hieroglyphical hand: what of that? Rhino will carry you any-
where ! (an exclamation enforced by a thundering slap on ms
breeches pocket); he didn't care about being cheated; he had
money enough, and more where that came from ; he supposed they
cheated him, but he could affi)rd it; that was all he looked to;
and much more to the same purpose. We would ask any reason-
able man of any country whether an avowed system of this kind,
which puts an open premium upon knavery, is not calculated to
draw upon those who practise it a just measure of obloquy and
derision.

The determination not to see things as they are, but to con-
demn them wholesale for not being something else, is another of
our salient characteristics. And this determination generally
shows itself most violently in reference to things which, for the
most part, can neither be remedied nor altered. The phy-

Efiglish and Continental Towns, 101

#
siognomy of the country upsets all our previous theories of com-
pact living and picturesque scenery : tall, crazy chateaux — dreary
rows of trees — ^interminable roads— dull stretches of beet-root anii
mangel-wurzel — ^no hedge-rows — no busy hum of machinery —
and such towns ! The towns are the especial aversion of an En-
glishman. He compiles in his own mind a flattering ideal from
uie best general features of an English town, and immediately
sets about a comparison with the straggling discordant mass of
houses before him. The result is false both ways, making the
English town better than it is, and the continental town a thou-
sand times worse. This procedure is obviously fallacious, to say
nothing about the prejudice that lurks at the bottom. We carry
away with us only a few vague pictorial images, rejecting all the
disagreeable detils : Engush neatness, Enghsh order, white-
wash, green verandahs, windows buried in roses and honey-
suckles, gardens boxed round with faultless precision — ^and a
serene air of contentment over the whole, as if it were a nook in
Paradise. We drop out all the harsh features : the crushed spirit
of the inmates of these pretty houses, who find it so hard to live
in their aromatic cottages; the haggard, speechless things that
hang round the door-ways and road-sides; the brusque maimers;
the masked misery; the heartless indifference. We not only
forget all such items on the one hand, but the historical and local
circumstanoes on the other, which might help to reconcile us to
the un&vourable side of the comparison. Continental towns are
generally-of great antiquity, having a remote origin in forts and
castles, and becoming gradually enlarged to meet new necessities.
They are, consequently, built without much method, piled up
of all orders and ages : narrow streets, paved all over with sharp
stones — ^fimtastic and irregular fa9ades — all sorts of roofs and
angles — every colour in the rainbow— dark entries — ^latticed win-
dows— gulKes of water running through the streets like rivulets
— and crowds of men, women, children, and horses tramping up
and down all day long, as if they were holding a fair. A com-
parison of one of these towns with an English town is as much
out of the nature of things, as a comparison between the old
Egyptian religion, all grandeur and filth, with a well-swept con-
venticle.

The English who settle on the continent — people who emigrate
for good reasons of their own, but chiefly for one which they are
not always willing' to avow — are hardly less inaccessible to reason
and generosity, xou always find them grumbling and as murky
as thunder-clouds. They never give way to pleasant influences :
they are sensitive only to hard knocks. The crust of prejudice
never melts: it can only be chipped off by repeated blows. And

102 The EngUsh on the Continent.

■♦

the worst of it is that the location they are driven to select, for its
superior convenience on the score of neighbourhood and economy,
pitches them amongst a people the very reverse of themselves.
The sullen pride of the English and the explosive vanity of
the French make a compound fit for a witch caldron. Thev
are felicitously illustrated by a story too good to be true. A
Frenchman is boasting to an Englismnan oi the battle of Water-
loo, a sore subject on both sides, and arrogmtly claiming the
victory. ** How can that be," exclaims the Englishman, " since
you left us in possession of the field?" *' Mon DieuF^ replies the
Frenchman, " we won the battle, but you were so obstinate you
wouldn't be beaten, and we left the field in disgust !" French-
men have the best of such disputes by turning even their &ilures
into pleasantries.

English residents in France are drawn thither by the grand
motive of cheap living, cheap education for their children. A
6.mily^ could not exist in England, without undergoing severe
privations and severer humiliation, upon the small sum which will
enable them to live well in France. This is the magnet which
attracts so many people on narrow incomes to the French shores.
At the litde town of Dinan, on the Ranee, there are nearly
300 English residents; at Tours, on the Loire, there are 2000,
and there were formerly three times that number, until certain
unpleasantnesses broke up and dispersed the community; Av-
ranches, St. Malo, St. Servan, swarm with English; there are
6000 at Boulogne; and they congregate at Rouen, Caen, Havre,
and other places in proportion. People do not exile themselves
for mere caprice to a strange land, where a strange language is
spoken, where they are surrounded by strange customs, and
separated from familiar faces and old ties and associations; they
must have a strong motive for making so many painftil sacrifices
of habit, of friendship within call if not within reach of f easy in-
tercourse; and that motive must be more powerful than the
claims and considerations it overrules. At nome they are ex-
posed to a thousand distresses; they cannot sustain the position
to which their connexions or their tastes invite them ; and then
there are children to be cared for, to be educated, and put out in
the world. How is all this to be accomplished upon means so
limited as to keep them in a state of hopeless warfere with
appearances? The alternative is to settle in a country where the
necessaries of life are cheap, where education is cheap, where
they can escape the eyes of Argus, and do as they like : a sort of
genteel emigration. Who is the wiser whether they do this on
lOOZ. or lOOOZ. a year, if they can do it independentlv? They
are out of the realms of spite and tattle. Let noboay wonder

English Mesidents in France. 103

then at the numbeis of English who settle in France and other
cheap countries; the real wonder is that there are not more of
them. But let nobody, either out of false delicacy or falser pride,
mistake the causes of their settling there. It is not from cnoice
but nficessitj. The question comes home quite as forcibly to the
English gentleman of 300Z. per annimi, who rents a house at
Avranches or Granville, as to the practical &rmer who, before he
is ground into a pauper by high rents at home, turns his little
^perty into capital, and transports himself and his family to
Van Eoemen's Land. The only important difference between
the two cases is, that the one can return when he pleases, and the
other, having embarked his whole substance in a single venture,
must abide the issue.

The Einglish readent in France is not satisfied, however, with
his new mode of life after all, and must let off a little ill-
kumcmr upon the people. He exclaims, " Oh ! yes, you get ne-
cessaries cheap enough; but there the advantage ends. There
is no such thing as society in such places, and you must make up
your mind to a mere state of vegetation. The best you can make
of it is banidiment with plenty to eat and drink." We should
like to afik this desolate, but well-fed gentleman, what sort of
society he was able to keep at home, or rather whether he was
aUe to keep any society at all? If so, why did he condemn him-
self to this miserable banishment? Why, he knew very well,
that the mere cost of putting himself en regie to make and receive
visits, supposing it possible to keep aloof from the consequent
expenseB of seeing company, would have swallowed up his whole
income.

But the assertion is not true that such places are destitute of
good society; and in not a few instances the best society is too
mtellectual for the common run of economists, consisting as it does
of the families of men of science and letters connected with the
public institutions of the locality. In this reject France is es-
soidally dijQferent &om England, and it is desirable to note the
di&rence carefiilly. WhHe the system of centralization renders
Paris the culminating point of the political movements of the
country, and consequenuy draws into its focus much of the wealth,
and all the &shions of the Idngdom ; literature and science, difiusive
in their results, but retired and silent in tiieir operations, linger
lovingly in sequestered retreats, in provincial towns and villages.
Almost every town has its college, or at aU events its museum,
and its public schools, and upon these foundations several profes-
sors are established. These are frequently men of a very high
order of talent — antiquaries, good scholars, and ardent lovers of
literature. It is scarcely necessary to observe that excellent society
might be formed out of such materials; but this is unfortunatej|g|^

104 The English on the Continent

not always the sort of society the English resident cares to cultivate.
The want, however, Hes in him, not in the elements around him.
The French provinces are, in fact, full of a class of readers and
writers imknown in England. Every department has its own
capital, towards which all its lines of interest converge, forming a
mmor system of centraUzation in every thing that concerns its
local history, arts, science, and antiquities. It must not be sup-
posed that all distinguished men of letters in France run up
to Paris, as in England they run up to London. Men of for-
tune do, leaving their chateaux to go to ruin, while they riot in
the salons of the metropoHs; fashionable novelists, dramatists and
dreamers in blank verse and philosophy, fly to Paris as the only
place where they can obtain encouragement and remuneration;
but historians and antiquaries, a very large class, are content with
the humbler reward of discharging a useful duty to their country
in the most useful way, by staying behind to dignify with their
presence the scene of their birth and their labours. Thus, while
Victor Hugo, Scribe, and Sue, must of necessity engross aU eyes
in Paris, such men as Bodin and Mahe are content to publish the
fruits of their learned researches in the midst of the regions to
which they refer. Indeed, so completely is this principle acted
upon, that if you want to procure a particular history, or an ac-
count of the antiquities of any particular place, your best chance
is to inquire for it in the place itself. It frequently happens that
such works never find their way into Paris througn the ordinary
channels of trade.

The gradual effect of an English settlement in a French town
is to spoil it. In course of time, it becomes a French town an-

gUcized, neither French nor EngHsh, but a bad miscture of both,
ke a bifteck Anglais with a heavy sweat of garlic in it. The
EngHsh mode of settling is sometmngin its nature utterly averse
to the whole theory of French life. The English are for setthng
in the most Hteral sense — for collecting roimd them all the con-
veniences and fixtures and comforts of home — ^for sitting down
with a strict view to the future — for shutting out the weather and
the eyes of their neighbours — ^for keeping themselves snug and
reserved and select (select above all things !) — for quiet dmners
and tea in the evening — for in-door as diametrically opposed to
out-of-door enjoyments, carpets, bUnds, screens, and pokers — and
for nursing themselves up in habits contradictory to the spirit of
the people, the climate, the traditions, the usages of the country.
The French are exactly the antipodes of all this. They hate stay-
ing in one spot — they are all flutter, open doors, open windows,
and open mouths — they cannot keep in the house — they abhor
quiet dinners — ^and fixtures, conveniences, cupboards, and com-
forts, are so many agonies in detail to them. They are in a per^

English Settlements Abroad. 105

petual wliirl, sleep about five hours out of the four and twenty,
and shoot out of bed, like quicksilver, the moment they awaken,
ready for the same round again. Repose is essential to an Eng-
lishman : it is physically and mentally impossible to a French-
man. The latter makes the most of the present moment : the
former is always laying up for his children. In fact, the French-
man lives for to-day — the Englishman for posterity.

The French, to do them justice, would be wiUing enough,
fix>m an habitual preference for the lesser horn of a dilemma, to
form a social union with their guests; but the constitutional fri-
gidity of the EneHsh forbids the bans. In this respect the Eng-
ish, when they shape themselves into a commimity, keep up all
their old notions to the letter, even towards each other. There
seems to be no exception to this rule; they are the same in all
jJaces. There is not a solitary instance of an EngHsh settlement
m which, as far as possible, the entire habits, root and branch, of
the mother country have not been transplanted bodily, without
the slightest reference to the interests or prejudices of the sur-
rounding population. The English are the only people in the
world who do this — the only people who could do it. The Ger-
mans, who resemble the Engush more than any other nation in
every thing else, differ from them widely in this. Wherever they
go, they adapt themselves to the country, and are uniformly dis-
dnguisned by the simplicity and economy of their style, their
noiselessness and bonhommie. In America they are beloved for
these qualities, and for keeping clear of wounding the self-resj>ect
and national pride of the people. The English glory in running
counter to the prejudices of the world, and throwing out the
angular points of their character with the irritabiUty of the
hedgehog.

In the midst of all this purse-proud display, there is "a real
meanness, a small huckstering spirit that constantly betrays itself.
In these very cheap places they are always complaimng of the great
expense of living, and the frauds that are practised on them. It
is a common accusation to bring against the French, that they
have two charges — an English charge and a French charge; but
the evil must be set down, along with other petty antagonisms,
to the responsibility of those who make the market. When the
English shall have learned to live like the French, they may hope
to be let in imder the French tariff. It is not surprising, all cir-
cumstances considered, that the French should regard our Cheapside
countrymen with a little distrust and no very great good will. One
cogent reason for it is, that they know, as sure as the swallow brings
summer, the English bring high prices. Wherever they cluster
together, they raise the markets ; partly by increased demand, and
pardy by that mammon swagger, which is one of the vices of th

k.

106 The English tm the Continent.

national character. Formerly an inhabitatit of a small town in a
cheap district, might live comfortably on 1200 francs per annum
and keep his servant; but the English no sooner set up a hive
there, than he is obliged to dispense with his domestic, and forego
a variety of enjoyments in which he used to indulge. He for-
merly led a life of insouciance; now he leads what may be called
a hard life. He is borne down by the market prices, which, al-
though cheap to the English, are ruinously dear to him. How
could it be expected that he should like the people who have
brought all this upon him, and who boast all iiie time of the be-
nefits they are conferring on the country by spending their money
in it ?

The situation of a handM of English settlers is not less curious
in reference to their relations with each other. The struggling
pride, personal vanities, and class prejudices of the old country,
are here to be seen as efflorescent upon the decayed ofishoot as
upon the original stock. Five hundred a year performs the rdk
of aristocracy. They are in the last degree suspicious of each
other. No one knows why his neighbour, just arrived, has set up
his tent in this cheap district ; but malice is fertile in suggestions.
There are other reasons besides small means for going abroad, and
it sometimes happens that a visit to the continent is merely a
liberal extension of the rules of the Bench. Of course, if there be
mystery in the case, people are not over-charitable in their con-
structions. Religion often forms a subject of contention for lack
of something better to do. Unbeneficed clergymen occasionally
q)eculate on these little communities, and the small profit to be
gained by administering spiritual respectability to them is every
now and then scrambled fcr like a beadleship. A conflict of this
kind took place recently at Avranches, where the rival candidates
carried their hostilities so far that they almost went to fisticufib in
the church !

When we commenced this article, it was our intention to have
pursued the inquiry through a variety of details, with an eq>ecial
view to the recorded opinions of English travellers ; but we have
already occupied all the space that can be spared from demands of
a more pressmg nature. JPerhaps we may return to the subject,
for we are confident that a searching examination into the preju-
dices by which it has been hitherto tabooed will not be unpro-
ductive of some utility.

But it may be asked why we undertake to expose these national
weaknesses? We answer, because we would rather do it ourselves
than leave it to be done by others, and because we are not unwil-
ling to show the world that our integrity and courage are superior
to our vanity.

(107)

AsT. VL — Relations des AmbcLssadeurs Venetiens sur les affaires
de JFrance au Seizieme Stick (Correfflpondence of the Venetian
Ambassadors on the affairs of France in the Sixteenth Century),
recueOUes et traduxtes par Tommaseo. 2 vols. 4to. Paris.

When Monsieur Chiizot was Minister of PubKc Instruction, the
idea and the proposition being his own, the sum of 150,000 fiancs
was voted for the collection and pubUcation of documents relating
to FreiMsh history. A similar payment has since been made
yearly: the ministiy disposing of the funds under the direction
of a committee composed of fifty members of the several acade-
mies, themselves named by royal ' ordonnance,' and with power
to ezBmine and decide on the works proposed for their approval
Among the most remarkable volumes which have yet appeared,
aro these containing the correspondence of the Venetian am-
baasadors.

The editor is the Signor Tommaseo; himself author of the
translation which accompanies the text, and of a French and
Italian pre&xse, ably written. Obliged to make selection from a
large mass of material, he has consigned into untranslated notes,
in company with long geographical descriptions amusinff only
as they show the ignorance of those addressed, other details per-
haps mought beneath the attention of an historian. Thinking
better of th^n, we have been at the trouble to make some trans-
lations for our readers. Their very minuteness paints, much
better than dignified dissertation, the character of a people and
the manners 01 a time. We may mention, before we proceed
fiirther, that the correspondence occupies a part of the reign of
Francis I. ; that of his son, Henry II. ; and, passing over the brief
rule of his grandson Francis, a portion of those of Charles IX. and
Henry III. Always held to be of great importance, they were
eopied, and some few printed. Navagero, Suriano, and Tiepolo,
were thus published before, but incorrectly and imperfectly.

Venice was placed high enough to see well. Her envoys, if we
make allowance for religious intolerance and national preju-
dice, had commonly judged with feimess botii France and the
passing events of her history. Themselves actors in some of the
most remarkable of those events, in company with them we push
aside the gilded panels, and pass behind the scenes. We dis-
cover the small machinery which wrought great effects, and can
sound every depth and shallow of that sefish and narrow am-
bition which ruled the Hfe of Catiierine of Medicis, and laid her
crowned sons bound before her, her earliest victims.

108 Venetian Embassies to France in the 16th Century.

The first of these ambassadors, Navagero, presents us only
with the notes of his journey through Spain and France. He
was succeeded by Marino Griustiniano, the date of whose mission
is 1535. These early French times have been recently the sub-
ject of an article in this review, and on the present occasion we
shall abstain from detailed historical explanations. Our sole object
is to present from an important work, very ponderous and not
very accessible, a series ol extracts of striking mterest in them-
selves, and imbodying much curious portraiture of persons and of
manners. The reader not generally acquainted with the times,
will find a sufficient guide to them in any common French history
at hand : the reader already versed in them, will thank us for a
most remarkable addition to his historical store.

According to Marino Giustiniano's estimate, the riches of Paris
did not, in this early half of the sixteenth century, equal those of
Venice. The population was not so large, though more was seen
of it : since men, women, and children, masters and servants, were
always at their doors or in the streets. The circumference of the
town was not greater, for it was easy to walk slowly round it in
three hours. The parUament, composed of one hundred and
twenty counsellors divided in various classes, judged definitively
such as appealed to its verdict from those of the provincial parlia-
ment.

'^ To be a counsellor a man must bear the title of doctor, which does
not mean he must be learned, since all these posts are for sale, the king
giving them to his servitors, who make traffic of them in turns."

It would appear that the Venetian ambassadors were ill paid;
and it is to their honour that from these embassies they mostfy re-
turned impoverished. By all, the complaint is made : recurring in
terms more or less comic. We give as a curious specimen the
dose of Giustiniano's discourse, in his o^vn words.

" A short time after my arrival in Paris, the king departed for Mar-
seilles; we traversed through excessive heat the Lyonnais, Auvergne,
and Languedoc, till we arrived in Provence. The interview vrith the
pope was so deferred, that every one thinking it would take place in
summer, we waited tiU November. The ambassadors, who had carried
with them only summer garments, were constrained to purchase others.
Returned to Paris and arrived in the hotel of my honourable prede-
cessors, a stable caught fire, and eleven hprses with their harness were
burned. I saved my mule only, and my loss was of four hundred crowns.
A second mishap occun-ed to me the same year. The king being on the
point of departm*e, I was forced to purchase ten horses more, at a time
when their price was raised extraordinarily, and having waited in vain
for remittances from your serene highness, I was obliged to sell a part
of my plate. During the five and forty months my embassy lasted, the

Paris three hundred Years ago. 109

court never remained in the same place ten days following. All these
removals caused heavy expenses, and not only I, who am as every one
knows a poor gentleman, but the richest lords would have suffered from
it: wherefore I make end by commending myself humbly to your serene
highness, invoking with respect a token of your goodness which may
prove to me that the state has held my services acceptable. On quitting
Venice, I left two daughters, since one was born eight months after my
departure. The other, whom I parted with a child, I find grown so tall
that she might pass for my sister. She appeared to me one night in a
dream, complaining that I did not love and had forgotten her, and not
only that I had done nothing to better her fortunes, but sought to render
h^r more and more poor, and it seemed to me that I answered, ^ My
daughter, such sums as I expend L do but deposit in the treasury of a
kind and liberal master,' and I pointed to your serene highness. I added
that your generosity and piety had often remunerated the zeal of your
servants, and that you promised reward to those who were devoted to
youy and this appeared to calm my daughters agitation."

The next in order, Francesco Giustiniano, remained but a brief
time ambassador. He also was in straitened circumstances : with
a £miilj to bring up, and a revenue of three hundred ducats only.
We pass himself and Tiepolo, though neither is without in-
terest, to come to Marino Cavalli, ambassador in 1546, a year
before the death of Francis. To bear out his assertion that
nothing is so useful to those who govern as a close inquiry into
the institutions of other countries, he gives with even more detail
ihan his predecessors, information geographical and commercial,
and a history of France commencing witn Pharamond. When
he arrives in Paris we pause by his side.

It numbered at this period 500,000 inhabitants, and was superior
to all the cities of Europe. The work of its fortifications well
commenced, was continued only in times when their necessity
seemed specially apparent, and it was the ambassador's opinion it
would never become a place of strength. The university con-
tained about 20,000 students, and he judged the instruction given
to be solid and carefully administered. The salary paid to the
professors was low and their duties irksome ; still those posts were
greatly sought for, since the title of Master in Sorbonne was so
nonourable that they gained in repute what they might not earn
in money. The Mattres en Sorbonne were invested with au-
thority to judge heretics, .whom, says the writer, 'they punish
by roasting alive.' His opinion of the state of the law, and the
mode of conducting civil processes in France, was far from
&vourable, and his advice is curious.

" They are," he says, " never ending, so that the rich only can go to
law, ana even they get ill out of the scrape. A suit involving oag^

««^^^

110 Venetian Embassies to France in the \6th Century,

thousand crowns, swallows, in law expenses, two thousand more, and
lasts ten years. This, which would elsewhere seem intolerable, has had
one happy consequence. The government paying ^e judges for their
attendance during a limited number of hours, if each of the parties in-
terested in the cause next to be heard will pay an additional crown, the
judges remain an hour longer, and thus nd themselves of much busi-
ness to tibe great content c? all. / think our forty might do likewise.
Hie cost to those who plead would be but of two ducats per hour, and
they would be spared divers consultations, useless journeys, and outlay
at places of entertainment ; so that to them it would be an econcMi^,
while it delivered your serene highness and the republic from many
tiresome cares and the prolongation of hatred and scandal."

Our next extracts bring ns within the precincts of the court,
and more closely acquainted with its m^nbers than either the free
speech of Brant6me or the patience of L'Etoile have done, with
those to whom they more immediately refer. At the date of
1546, the eldest son of Francis had died with some suspicion of
poison, but in reality of a disease caused by youthfiil imprudence.
The Duchess of Etampes was all-powerfiu with the king, Diana
of Poitiers with the diauphin. Catherine de Medids, accepted
for the latter's wife when there seemed no chance of his wearing
the^ crown, neglected alike as a princess and a woman, at this time
effectually concealed her hatred of the fevourites, quietly accepted
the nulhty of the part [allotted her, and won a character for
timidity and want of ambition ! She was cherishing the secret
motto, ' I bide my time.'

We quote the portraits of Francis and Hemy; it would be
difficult to decide whether Cavalli's judgment of Diana of Poitiers
is given frankly or as a courtier.

^' The king, Francis, is now fifty-four years of age, of aspect so royal
that merely glancing at him one would say ^ this is the king.' He eats
and drinks largely; he sleeps even better; he loves some degree of
luxury in his dress, which is embroidered and enriched with precious
stones. His doublets are even worked and woven in gold. Like all
other monarchs of France, he has received from Heaven the singpilar
gift of curing the evil. Even Spaniards flock hither to profit by this
miraculous property. The ceremony takes place some solemn day, like
Easter or Christmas, or the festivals of the Vir^ : the king first con-
fesses and receives the sacrament, then makes the sisn of the cross oft
the sick, saying, ^ The king touches, may Grod cure tnee/ If ^e side
were not restored they would^ doubtless, not flock hither from so fiiur;
and since the number augments always, we must believe that Grod
takes this method to deliver the infirm, and to increase at the same
time the dignity of the crown of France. The Prince Hemy, who
is now the dauphin, is a source of infinite hope to the French, who
console themsems for present ill by the thought of good to come.

Frandi the First. Ill

He is twenty-eight years old, of strong ccmstitution, but of humour
iomewhat sad; not an apt speaker, but absolute in his replies, and
fixed in his (pinion. He is of ordinary intelligence, rather slow
than prompt. He would fain have a footing in Italy, never having ap-
piovd of the ceding Piedmont : therefore entertains well such Italians
as are discontented with the present state of their country. He carea
Iktle §oit women, contenting himself with his wife, and the intimacy
and conversadon of the Seneschale de Normandie, a lady <^ eight and
kgtj jtta9. Many believe that this love, great as it is, is yet pure, as
may oe that between son and 'mother:' the said lady having taken
Vfon her to instruct and admonish him, leading to thoughts and acticms
worthy a prince: and she has succeeded admiraUy, for, having beeii
vain and a mocker, Icmng his wife little, and having other iaxlia of
youth, he has hecome another man.**

Francis was at this time discontented with the pope, Paul IH.,
who was fevourably disposed towards the Emperor. Amity
with the Turk continned, but on unsure foundation. The Ger-
man states were soothed to hold them apart from Spain; Scot-
land was firiendhr but powerless; peace with Engird seemed
doubtful ; and Portugal had become a foe. The revenue, £rom
Taiious sources of extortion, and chiefly firom use and sale of
matters connected with the church, had increased to four nulliona
of golden crowns, but nowhere were the &nds administered loyally.

M In the infantry oslj/* says Cavalli, ** the pay of sdidiers never
brought out is made away with by hundreds and thousands ; the trea-
surers consent, having iheir share of the sums stolen. If all the guilty
were hanged there would remain no treasurer in France, so deep-rooted
18 tl^ eviL**

This is strong language, and we find further on a stiH deeper
imputation. Irancis had discontented the republic by coims-
catmg two Venetian vessels. An indemnity wss at last promised,
and was to consist, curiously enough, in ecclesiastical benefices.

^I would not," says the ambassador, ^^ wound this ancient and noUe
nation, which has deserved well of your serene highness and the Chris-
tian republic, but I think it my duty to speak Uie whole truth as it
presents itself from the evidence of fillets, in order that when you have
public or private dealings with France, you may secure yourself as
others have done, by better guarantees than lie in written acts or pro-
mises: reducing matters within such boundanr, that either the pledges
yon may hold, or necessity, or utility to tnemselves and obvious to
than, shall force them to ke^ their words."

Giovanni Gappello, ambassador in 1554, introduces us to Heniy
n. as king; to L&therine de Medicis; and to the children she had
borne the King after being childless ten years.

"I have spoken to you of the grandeur of the kingdom and the good

^

112 Venetian Embassies to France in the I6tk Century,

qualities of the present kin^. The employment of his time cannot he
more wise, more useful and honourahle. In summer he rises at dawn;
in winter, hy candlelight ; commencing the day hy praying in his
closet, whence he g^es to the secret council ; wherein the Conn6tahle^
Messieurs de Guise, de Vendome, and others, enter also. The adyiser
the king most values is the Conn^tahle, as well from his age as his hay-
ing ever heen zealous and devoted. He goes thence to mass, assisting
there devoutly, since he knows that all good comes from God, and
that prayer obtains for us a happy close to our undertakings: thus by
his example exciting his subjects to piety, and rendering himself worthy
the title of most Christian King. After mass he dines, but with smaU
appetite, seeming more occupied with his thoughts than his necessities*
After dinner, there is held another council, but of less secret nature, the
king rarely present, but spending this time in the study of letters, know-
ing^ that these bring with them profit and ornament to princes. He also
rides much as well to give gaiety to his temper as health to his body*
He is afiBeible and courteous, deigning to converse even with the hum-
blest ; he is thirty-six yeai's old, tall and well formed, and of fine face,
though dark complexion. The Queen Catherine is of laudable modesty,
btU one cannot praise her beauty. She resembles Leo X. her great
uncle ; her lips are thick^ her eyes prominent. Her love for the king
is great as can be imagined ; she dresses simply and gravely ; and
when the king is away at the wars, goes into mourning with all her
court, exhorting to prayer for his majesty. They have three sons ;
the Dauphin,* who is ten years old, handsome and well-made and well-
mannered, but of feeble nature, and having but little love for letters,
which is displeasing to his majesty. There have been placed about
him excellent preceptors, who mosUy train him to granting graciously
whatever is demanded of him, so that with time and habit he may
learn a royal liberality ; but with all this he profits ill enough. The
Queen of Scotland has been given him for a wife. She is very
beautiful, and of manners aiud high qualities which awake marvel in
all who consider them. The Dauphin is fond of her, and happy in
her converse and presence. The second son is Duke of Orleans ;'|' he
has an agreeable countenance and a generous temper. He is fond of
study ; our century may expect from him all that can be hoped for
frx)m any prince. The third boy,} bom shortly before my arrival, is a
pretty cnild, but has some impediment in his speech, whioi injures his
pronunciation."

The narration of Giovanni Michele was indited after his em-
bassy in 1561. Francis 11. had died victim to disease; the power
of his favourite, the Cardinal Lorraine, had vanished with him;
and the star of Catherine de Medicis was now at last burning
forth, bright and baneful. We quote a description of the court
of Charles IK,

* ErancU IL f Charles IX t Henry m.

Charles the Ninth. 113

^' I will strive to be brief and precise in what concerns the govem-
ment. It would be here the place to say something of the two kings,
Henry IL and Francis II., with whom I was concerned dining my
emba^. But as it has pleased Heaven to call them both imto himseli,
it is unnecessary, since their memory exercises little or no influence on
the present state of affairs. I will say only that inasmuch as King
Henry *8 death was £Ektal and a presage of misfortune, so that of Francis
was opportune and fortunate, I might say happy, but for the pity every
one bore him — seeing him perish so miserably, not having accomplished
ei^teen years. It may, I sal)r, be called fortunate, not so much be-
cause this prince, though of good imderstanding, showed little courage,
as firom the anxiety of every one to see another mode of government
from the hatred borne the Guises. Forbearing then to speak of
Aese two dead kings, we turn to the present, named Charles IX.
Child as he is, yet scarce eleven years old, our judgment must be
f(Hined almost at hazard, yet it is likely to prove accurate, since his
disposition is remarked to be admirable, and promising all which
can be sought in princes: talent, vivacity, gentleness, liberality, and
courage. He is handsome, and has fine eyes like his father's ; graceful
in all his movements, but of delicate constitution, and eats very
sparingly ; and it will be necessaiy to restrain him in all bodily exer-
cise, for he is over fond of fencing, riding, and playing at tennis: which,
though exercises fitted to his rank, are too violent, and after slight
&tigue he needs long repose from shortness and difficulty of respira-
tion. He is averse to study, and though he learns, as it is his mother's
vill, he does so against his own, and it will bear no fruit. He seems
to have warlike inclinations, and there is no discourse he hears so
dadly as those which turn on such topics, and none he caresses as he
Goes captains and soldiers. When he was yet Duke of Orleans, and
the duchy of Milan was mentioned to him as his own in flattery or
otherwise, he listened joyously, and drawing aside those with whom
he was familiar, he prayed their promise to follow him thither for its
recovery ; and since he became king, I know that one of his ministers,
a liClanese by birth, being about to take leave, — he who introduced him
into the presence sapng to the king that he should receive him well
nnce he was one who could do him great service in his states of Milan,
the child replied promptly that he knew it, but that now, being king, he
must no longer speak so openly. In order that nothing be wanting to
confirm him in these thoughts, his governor, Monsieur de Sissierre, speaks
to him of conquests and hostile expeditions as the only themes worthy a
monarch. Since the death of Henry II., it is towards him that all eyes
have turned, and it is he, rather than his brothers, whom France would
have chosen for sovereign. He has two brothers: the eldest was Duke
of Anjou, but the king conferred on him the title of Duke of Orleans*
to increase his importance and dignity, for they were brought up toge-
ther, and he loves nim dearly. Likewise, when the insignia of the order

* Henry IIL; the queen afterwards changed their names.
VOL. XXXII. NO. LXUI. I

114 Venetian Embassies to France in the \Qth Century,

was given to himself as its grand master, he took it from his neck to be-
stow it on his brother. The duke's name is Edward^ af^r his godfather,
the King of England. He is nine years old ; of an amiable temper ;
graver man the king ; more robust m health ; of fresh and clear com-
plexion; but tormented by an ulcer between the nose and right eye, which
no remedies have yet cured, but as it continues to diminish, the physicians
hope it may wholly disappear. The other brother is called Hercules,
being godson of the late Duke of Ferrara, and retains his title of Duke
of Alen^on, as fourth of the brothers. He is five years old ; seems well
made, aiid stronger than either the king or his brother Edward ; but I
hear the poor prince is in danger of losing the sight of an eye, and this
reminds me of a prognostic* current throughout the kingdom, and made by
the famous astrologer Nostradamus, wluch menaces the Uves of these
four princes, saying their mother will see all crowned. The sister's name
is Margaret,! from that of her godmother, the Duchess of Savoy. She
is seven years old, and if she improve in the grace and beauty I already
left her mistress oi^ she will become a rare princess, far surpassing her
sisters, Isabella, Queen of Spain, and Claude, Duchess of Lorraine. Even
during her feither's life she was affianced to the Prince of Beam, who is
of her own age. The king's minority will continue till his fourteenth
year, the power remaining till then in the hands of the queen, the King
of Navarre, j: and ten of the chief nobles of the kingdom. The queen,
Catherine de Medicis, is now forty -three, esteemed for her goodness, (!)
gentleness, (!!) modesty, (!!!) and imderstanding : capable of rule, which
is a quality common to her house. As mother to the king she keeps him
under her own eye, herself alone sleeping in his chamber, and never
quitting him. She obtained the rank of Regent as an unwonted favour
and the reward of her great dexterity with all, but most with the nobles:
for she is a foreigner, and not come of nigh blood, since her father, Lorenzo
de Medicis, was merely a noble citizen of Florence, even though nephew of
Leo X., and bearing the title of Duke of Urbino. As Regent, she
governs absolutely, naming to all places and benefices, granting pardons
and keeping the royal seal. Formerly thought timid, as having under-
taken nothing of importance, she is yet possessed of great courage, as
she showed at her husband's death : for notwithstanding that she loved
him singularly, and he loved her and esteemed her above all, as soon as
she saw him past hope she restrained her sorrow, and then seeming to
forget it, went forth the following day perfectly calm, to dine inpubUc
and grant audience to aUwho sought it, and at once seize on the royal
authority. She reconciled, at least apparently, the King of Navarre and
the Guises to prevent discords fatal to the kingdom and young monarch ;

♦ The prediction of Nostradamus might have been prompted by the health of
the princes, each of the four being afflicted by some disease. Francis IL had an
abcess in the head; Charles IX. a difficulty of breathing; Heniy m. the nicer
above mentioned; and the Due d'Alen9on was threatened with bliadness. It was
a safe prediction.

t Afterwards first wife of Henry IV.

X Antoine de Bourbon: chosen for lieutenant-general of the kingdom, as the
prince of the blood most near the crown.

Catherine de Medicis. \\&

and I know from persons who have known her long and intimatelj^ that
die is profound in her designs, not allowing them to be penetrated or
guessed at. Like Leo X. and other of the Medici, she loiows how to
&ign, as in the detention of the Prince of Cond6 \* not only showing no
eyil disposition towards him, but deceiving his partisans also ; saying that
if he came he should be well received and better treated, and then acting
as your serene highness knows : treating him not merely in a manner
imsuited to a prince of the blood, but the poorest gentleman in the land.
She tikes the comforts of life welly and is immodercUe in her enjoyment
of them; she eats and drinks largely, but aflterwards seeks a remedy in
violent exercise, walking, riding, being ever in motion. Strangest of all
she hunts, and last year, never leaving the king, she folUnced the stag
along vnth him, riding through wood and brushwood, from tiieir trunks
and branches dangerous to any one not an able horsewoman. Not*
withstanding all, her complexion is always livid or olive, her size enoT"
mous, and her physicians do not judge her state of hesdth favourably.
The King of Navarre (Antoine de Bourbonf) is forty-four or forty-five
years old, his beard already gray, tall and strong. Renowned for his
ooorage ; rather good soldier thsui able leader. He is affable, not pom-
pous ; his manners truly French, free and open. By his ease of access
and generosity he has gained over every body. As to words he discourses
weD, but is reputed in his actions vain, inconsiderate, inconstant. Till
this present time he has been accused not only of x^arelessness in reli^ous
matters, but of impiety, having foregone mass, and accepted tiie Genoese
lite : rather, it is beHeved by ail, in the hope of causing divisions in the
kingdom, and placing himself at the head of a faction, than through zeal
or ^owledge : being looked on as a hypocrite even by the Protestants,
and as acconunodating himself to all roads, provided they lead to his ad-
vantage. TTi« brothers are the Prince of Cond6 and Cardinal of Bourbon ;
very various in religious opinions ; the latter being a zealous Catiiolic, the
former deeply infected wim the Protestant contagion, and favouring all who
are corrupted likewise : but he also hatii a view to create a party against
the Guises. He was author of disturbances which had religion for pre-
text, but were raised in reality to murder tiiem. Had the late king lived
his designs might have ended unhappily, as well for himself as the
Connetable also, whose life might have been in danger, since all tiie Prince
of Cond6 had done or meditated in this conspiracy the Connetable not
only knew but counselled. He holds (next the queen) the first post of
dignity and authority; that which the Connetable filled near Henry, and
the Cardinal of Lorraine} near Francis II. The Connetable counts
among the Bourbon's partisans since King Henry's death, when the
Gmses declared tiiemselves as his opponents ; before this event he and
the Ejng of Navarre had been on no amicable terms, but tiie offence of-
fered at the same time to both united them as Mends. The Connetable

* After the conspiracy of Amboise.

t Husband to Jeanne d'Albret, father to Hemy IV. of France.
% Unde to the Caidinal and Duke de Guise, murdered at Blois by order of
HouvIIL

I2

116 Venetian Embassies to France in the \&th CenMry.

is robust as ever, notwithstanding his age, which is past sixty, and he
has preserved the yigour of his mind as well as that of his body. But as
to his conduct and his nature they remain unchanged. He daily ob-
tains more influence, wherefore it is believed that he is reconciled to the
queen, who hated him till now — ^not only because during King Henry's
life he had been on friendly terms with the Duchess of Valentinois, be-
loved by herself and by the king, but also because after some discussion
with his majesty he had mentioned her vnth slight, and called her a
merchant's daughter."

This Constable of France was the sjime venal and cruel Anne
de Montmorency, who rose so high in the favour of Francis I.,
and showed to his royal sister, Margaret of Angouleme, such
deep ingratitude. Disgraced by Francis at last, he was restored
to power on Henry's accession to the throne despite the dying in-
junction of his father. The Guises at this time were isolated and
apart, and we get some curious details respecting them : for the .
V enetian envoys had been of service to them during the reign of
Francis H., and at the time of the troubles of Amboise. Michele
praises their piety; their family concord; their beauty of person;
Lt when, wear/of generaUziig, he arrives atindiviclual descrip-
tion, we find no unfair estimate of character; nor one which either
differs greatly from that paper of the time which called them the
' Affam^e famille,' or leaves us much to wonder at their achieve-
ments of duplicity and murder in the wars with the Huguenots,
and the massacre of St. Bartholomew.

" The cardinal, reputed the chief of his house, would be esteemed by
universal consent, but for the imperfection for which he is noted and I
will by-and-by detail, the most fitting instrument to be employed in
the government of a state : with few, perhaps none of his age equal to
him, for he has not yet completed ms thirty-seventh year. Besides
that he possesses such promptitude of intelligence that, a speaker's
mouth barely opened, he comprehends the tenour of the sentence which
is to follow; he has also a happy memory, and a wondrous eloquence on
all subjects, and aU this set off by a grave and noble presence. He
has cuItivatQjl letters, he is deeply versed in science. His life, at least
to outward ilppearance, is pure, and suited to his high dignity: which
cannot be ssuil of other cardinals and prelates, whose habits are licen-
tious to a scandal. But his great fault is not the mere avarice which is
natural and proper to his nation^ but a sordid greediness and rapacity
which is said to avail itself of criminal means. I speak all this openly
as I have done other things, since they remain consigned in secrecy
here. He is also of great duplicity, which suffers him to speak trutn
but very seldom : resembling the rest of the French nation in this also :
and worse than all, he takes offence vrith light cause, and is revengeful,
and being envious is slow to grant a benefit. While he was in posses-
sion of authority, Jie showed such inclination to injure as excited uni-
versal hatred ; it would be too long to enter into details, but his vio-

The Guise FamUy, 117

lence was such, that, throughout the kingdom, only his death was
desired. As to Monseigneur de Guise, the eldest of these six hrothers,
we speak of him as a great captain and good soldier.* No one in
France has fought more battles or braved greater dangers. Every one
praises his courage, his presence of mind, ms coolness : a rare quality hi
« Frenchman. He is not choleric ; he has not an overweening opinion
of himself ; his faults are avarice as regards the soldiery, and that,
always promising largely, even when it is his intention to keep these
promises he is overslow in their execution. But we must never depend
too much on the assurances of princes, less on those of the French than
any. Their object is their interest always, and, yielding their affections
by this rule, they are from hour to hour friends or enemies. If the
alliance with your serene highness should ever prove an obstacle to a
French design, it would be at once broken off without regard to its
ancient date or to any other consideration."

The correspondence of Michele Suriano, who succeeded in
1561, is less cramped and more pleasing in its style: tliougli
written with an intolerance only equalled by that of the writer
who followed him, Marc Antonio Barbaro. Passing as usual
over his abridgment of French history and a geographical
treatise, we find a detailed view of tjie privileges of the nobles
and the oppression of the people, and a long discourse on the
heresy which was advancing with rapid strides. The Tiers Etat
was now obtaining more importance, from the necessities of the
higher grade.

" It comprehends," says Suriano, " men of letters who are called
de tongue robe, merchants, citizens, artisans, and peasants. He of the
long robe who is president or counsellor, is elevated by such office, and
treated as a noble. The merchants, as masters of the money, are
petted and caressed, but may hold no dignity, since every kind of traffic
is considered derogatory. They therefore belong to the third estate,
and pay taxes like the non-noble and the peasant. The last is hardly
treated' as well by the king as the privileged. The Emperor Maxi^
milian said, of the French monarch that he was king of the asses, since
Iiis people carried peaceably, and without any complaint, any weight
laid upon them."

Suriano states that the profession of arms had remained a pri-
vilege of the nobles from various reasons, and among the rest,
that the plebeians if armed might rise up against their masters
and take revenge for the oppression they had suffered. Still
the third estate supplied some holders of important offices : either
because they were disdained by the nobility, or in obedience to
dndent custom : the chancellor of France, the secretaries of state.

Assassinated by Foltrot in 1563.

118 Venetian Embassies to France in the \&th Century.

presidents, judges, receveurs-g^n^raux, and treasurers, were all
men of the long robe.

" Therefore," adds Suriano, " every noble sends one of his family
to the schools, whence the number of students id Paris is greater than
elsewhere. Latterly even princes have done so with younger sons ; not
to qualify them to hold these places, but designing them for the church;
wherein the ignorant no longer obtain ecclesiastical honours with the
same facility."

The droit (Tatnesse kept up the grandeur and power of the
noble. But the remark of St. Bernard was remembered, that
princes only should inherit by right of primogeniture, that citi-
zens should divide equally, and that the peasantry should possess
every thing in common f And Suriano describes the spread of
^he Huguenot heresy.

''It is about twenty years, or a little more, since this contagion of
heresy spread over France. It was mere pleasantry first ; papers called
placards, being pasted at the comers of the streets, denouncing the so-
lemnities of the mass. But the progress of the evil was determined by
bringing the French people in contact with others ; notably with the
Germans and Swiss, who came in 1536 to defend France against the
invasion of Charles V. The freedom they affected in their lives, speech,
and belief, infected the kingdom ; not only the soldiery, but entire towns.
The king sought a remedy to the disorder in severe measures, putting
many to death, and confiscating the property of more who could not be
taken, laying waste whole districts, and turning their inhabitants forth
to wander. Terror maintained tranquillity till the time of Henry 11.
The king, occupied by a war, given up to pleasure, and a man of little
talent, neg^lected the disease, and failed to employ the caution and dili-
gence of his father to purge his kingdom of the poison. He perceived
its ravages too late, and when he had concluded a disadvantageous
peace with the most catholic monarch, in order that he might find time
to arrest them, he died."

Francis II. had formed the project to assassinate the principal
leaders. He was naturally harsh and severe, according to Suriano;
but it being difficult to accomplish this design, — ^under the direction,
of the Cardinal of Lorraine, who was unmatched for dissimiilation,
he threw them off their guard, arrested the Prince of Conde, and
tranquillized the country through its fear. ' Had he lived he might
have extinguished the flames which devoured France,* adds Su-
riano ! who deplores that Charles IX. should be too young, and
the queen mother too little confident in herself ; and who cer-
tainly would have heartily applauded, had he foreseen, St. Bar-
tholomew ! He goes on to specify the mistakes committed by
the administration as regarded this ^ plague.'

" There was first published an edict, pardoning all inculpated in mat-

Theodore de JBize, 119

ters of religion, and this should never have been done ; it was with a
view to recall French fugitives; but for one who had gone there came
back ten. And as if those of the country did not suffice to corrupt it,
they arrived firom Elngland, Flanders, Switzerland, and many from Italy;
ana each went about preaching here and there, all over the kingdom ;
and though they were mostly ignorant men, and preached mere folly,
every one had his suite of hearers."

He praises the queen mother for having prevented the Admiral
Coligny from becoming governor to Charles IX. ; judging her to
be a woman ' of sense and merit,' from whom great things might
have been expected had she possessed more experience and a
' firmer character.' But she was at this time, m truth, only
wavering as to the rule which would best secure her own. As
to her feeling on subjects of religion, it would seem that opinions
were divided. She was accused of giving too much authority to
Marshal Strozzi, who had neither faith nor creed. It was known
that many of die women nearest her person were tainted vrith
heresy, and that the chancellor was enemy to the pope and church
of Rome; yet Suriano affirms that if she did not manifest her
displeasure by her actions, it was not from want of faith, but lack
of authority. He adds a few touches to the portrait already drawn
of Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre : who, he says, wore rings
and earrings; despite his white beard was ruled by his wife (who
had inherited the high qualities of Margaret of Angouleme and
Henri d'Albret) ; and, mconstant and irresolute, beheved impli-
citly in his fe,vourites, who assured him he was adored by France,
feared by Spain, honoured by Germany !

The next of these writers, Marc Antonio Barbaro, ambassador
in 1563, is as intolerant in his views, and sanguinary in the cure
he proposes to the woes of France, as his predecessor Suriano.

" Would to God," he exclaimed, " that the remedy of Francis I. — that
of burning the heretics — had been continued ! It was good and suitable,
but not administered with fitting constancy!"

We quote his complimentary and most curious portrait of The-
odore de Beze.

<< I most remind your serene highness that he was bom in Picardy,
which was Calvin's birthplace also, and is now aged fifty. He is of
low birth ; his father a good catholic, who would fain see this perfidious
son dead. He is of handsome appearance, but of hideous soul, being, be-
sides a heretic, stained with vices and villanies, which, for brevity's sake, I
win not mention singly. He is apt and acute, but wants judgment and
prudence. He appears eloquent because he has fair ana spontaneous
phrases, and a subtle method of deceiving; but he is superficial and de-
void of science. He professes to be a scholar, but he has rather collected
laborio«isly, than made a wise and judicious choice. He pretends to a^^
knowledge of theology, but his perverse ofonions and the false authoritiie^^V

120 Venetian Embassies to France in the I6th Century.

he quotes prove how small it is. This villain enjoys the protection of
the Prince of Cond^, and others preaching the false doctrine; and has
done so much with his tongue, that not only has he persuaded an in-
finite numher, principally of the high placed and nohle, hut he is adored
by half the kingdom, who keep his portrait in their chambers. He urges
to arm against the catholics, and pillage and profane the churches, and
to other injuries and seditions ; all this in his sermons. The king, the
queen mother, the King of Navarre and others, who take part in the go-
vernment, heard his horrible blasphemies at Poissy; and these confer-
ences, which have done so much evil, and added to the reputation of
B^ze and the sectarians, were permitted and provoked by the King of
Navarre, the Prince of Cond§, the chancellor, the admiral, and others.**

It would appear, from all these memoirs, that Charles IX. of
bloody memory was the best and mildest of the four princes
brought up by Catherine. H e was fourteen years old when described
by Barbaro ; gentle and clever, fond of violent exercise, but also of
the arts of pamting and sculpture, and having no will in oppo-
sition to his mother; who, though still ruling in apparent concert
with the King of Navarre, personally conducted all the affairs of
the kingdom, held secret correspondences with the Duke of
Guise, and was well pleased to show her authority as main-
spring of all. And this ' all ' is summed up by the ambassador as
lawless administration, -sdolated justice, mortal enmities; passion and
caprice urging the powerful; self interests of princes ruling their
actions; confusion in religion ; disobedience and turbulence in the
people ; revolt and impiety among the nobles.

Giovanni Correro, ambassador to France in 1569, foimd the
state of public affairs still aggravated, the bonds of blood and
affection broken, and each wit£ his ear anxiously turned to guess
whence the next echo of disturbance should proceed. The Hu-
guenots assembled nightly in private houses; the signal which
brought them together, being not the ringing of befls, but the
firing of their arquebuses ; the queen alarmed, no longer showed
them suspicion but apparent favour; the catholics seemed cast
down. It was now that the conspiracy of Meaux took place. Its
extent and secrecy were surprising, many thousands being con-
cerned therein, but not a syllable having transpired till all was ready
for execution.

" It would be difficult," observes Correro, " to paint by words the
flight and the fear of Meaux ; the irresolution which prevailed among
them at Monceaux — for in remaining there was no safety, and to depart
was not less perilous ; the danger incurred in going to Paris, and the
confusion which reigned in that town : it may suffice to say that a thou-
sand horse proved enow to lay siege before the largest city in Europe."*

* «I waa present at the memorable day of Meaux, as afterwards in the city*
when all there was disorder; and in obedience to the commands of his migesl/y

Catherine in he?* Decline. 121

By no means leaning to the Huguenot persuasion, we find
Correro at least wiser and more humane than his predecessor^, ad-
vocating another policy and viewing parties with less passion. Two
hundred thousand persons had alrea^ perished on this theme, he
wrote to the senate : and the bell of St. Germain P Auxerrois had
not yet rang in the festival of St. Bartholomew. According to
him, bishoprics and abbeys had become merchandize in France,
as were pepper and cinnamon in Venice ; and he began to think
it would be well to name for pastors men competent to teach the
doctrine, and whose lives might efface the evu impression made
by priests and monks heretofore, since steel and fire would without
this change be unavailing. His sketch of Catherine de Medicis
seems drawn with more than common care.

" She is still in robust health, though adhering to her habit of eating
so immoderately as often to bring on maladies which lay her at death's
door. She is mild and amiable, and makes it her business to content all
those who apply to her, at least in words, of which she is not parsimo-
nious. She is most assiduous to business, not the smallest thing being
done without her knowledge; interrupting therefore her meals and
sleep ; following the army without care for her health or life, doing all
which men might be bound to do ; and yet loved by nobody. The
Huguenots accuse her of deceiving them, the catholics of allowing these
first named to go too far. I do not say she is infallible, sometimes she
relies on her own opinion too entirely ; but I have pitied more than I
blamed her. I said this to herself one day, and she often reminded me
of it since, when speaking of the misfortimes of France and her own
difiiculties. I know more than once she has been found weeping in her
doset, and then suddenly would wipe her eyes and show herself with a
gay countenance, not to alarm those who might judge of the march of
affairs from its expression. She sometimes will follow one counsel, some-
times another. Every one fears her. The king, who is now nineteen,
is tall and stoops much, and &om this and his pallidness, one would not
judge him to be strong. Public affairs do not interest him, he hears
their details patiently sometimes during three or four hours in the coim-
dL In all decisions he rests on his mother, whom he honours with a
respect most admirable. There are few sons so obedient; few mothers
80 fortunate. But this filial respect, which might be called fear, de-
tracts fix>m his reputation in as much as it augments hers : otherwise he
is mild and affable to every one."

The Duke of Anjou (Henry HI.) is again described. He had
some years been cured of the fistula near his eye; he was of

and fonowing the example of other ambassadors, priests, and monks, who all
doffed the gown and took up arms, I myself armed the persons of my suite.^ I
had water always ready in the street, since there was fear of being burned alive.
I had s^itinels on foot during the night, and I acquired the habit of waking at
Hie slightest noise or signal." — Behzione di Francesco Giustiniano*

122 Venetian Embassies to France in the 16th Century.

better complexion and more agreeable countenance than his bro-
ther; and his authority was great, since he had always been
Catherine's favourite. It is known that he aided her in urging
Charles IX. to sanction the night of St. Bartholomew.

The embassy of Correro took place in 1569. The next cor-
respondence is dated 1575. Purposely or otherwise the massacre
of St. Bartholomew, which took place in 1572, is passed over
in silence. Giovanni Michele was named in 1575 with Andrea
Badoaro, ambassadors to France to felicitate the king on his coro-
nation and marriage. The prophecy of Nostradamus seemed
likely to attain fiilfilrnent. Henry III. had ascended the throne,
whence Charles IX. had sunk down into his grave, a victim to
grief and remorse in his twenty-foxurth year.

The close of our task, comprehending the narrations of Michele
and Lippomano, is perhaps the most interesting part of it. Com-
mencing his reports to the doge, Michele applauds himself for
the dignified manner in which his mission had been graced and
attended by the company of twelve gentlemen, noble m conduct
and origin, with a suite of eighty horses and twelve baggage
mules : nothing spared in the beauty of their steeds, dress, and
liveries. The unsafe state of the country necessitated an escort
from Lyons, but they arrived without accident: having been
received with due honours on their way, deputations coming
forth to meet them and offer flasks of wine, a present made in
France to princes only. At the gates of Paris three noble-
men in the king's service waited with the royal carriages:
bringing for him, Michele, one aU over gold, used by his ma-
jesty himself, and followed by a suite of six himdred horses.
They were thus accompanied to the palace of Monsieur de
Guise, chosen as one of the most splendid of the city. Michele
numbers the rooms which composed his apartments, and describes
them hung with cloth of gold and silver, and his bed rich with
gold and embroidery. His table was served with splendour and
profusion. They had five courses of five dishes each ; and besides
game and poultry, little wild pigs called * marcassins,' and some
K-t birds fit)m Flanders, whose names are unknown to him; and
on maigre days there were always pikes, much esteemed in
France, and sometimes costing each fifteen gplden crowns. Such
were the details thought right to be set down for the doge.
Michele also self-satisfactorily tells how he received with other
visiters the provost of Paris, who came with his ojficers to proffer
his services in the name of the city, and to present flamb^ux of
white wax and boxes of sweetmeats, gifts the town make only to
royalty. He was at last presented at court, and well received by
Henry HI., who remembered him. They had met in Venice,

Growth of the Tiers JEtat. 123

when he was Duke of Anjou, and saw the young Queen Louisa
of Lorraine, and EKzabeth of Austria, the youthful widow of
Charles. The following sentence gives a specimen of the manner
of the court.

" I saw," he says, " as we were about to enter the queen's apart-
ments, a woman, wno had been, we were told, the king's nurse. As
soon as she perceived us, she came to meet me, and said joyously, ^ Oh
Monsieur I'Ambassadeiu*, you are welcome ! You who ^ated so well
and showed so much honour and friendship to the king my son and
n^ master !' I must also inform your serene highness that a song AiU
of the praises of our excellent senate has been composed on the recep-
tion of the king, and simg publicly."

Another and most memorable passage will prove the growing
importance of the Tiers Etat: judging from its tone, it might
have borne another date.

'^ In the same mode that in the beginning the war had broken out
in the interest of religion of those called Huguenots, so at present
religion is little spoken of, and the general denomination is no longer
Huguenot, but Malcontent. The number of these is great : composed
of some of the nobility, and of the citizens, and men of all conditions,
whether Huguenots or Catholics : the combat no longer engaged in
the name of religion but of the ptihlic good. The malcontents have
shown forth their claims in a writing, published after Monsieur the Duke
of Alen9on had quitted the court. They demand full and complete
reform in the head and members ; in all which concerns religion,
justice, policy, the army and the government of the state. They protest
against the alienation of royal property always forbidden heretofore ;
against the numerous and intolerable charges wmch weigh down the king-
dom; against other taxes invented hj foreigners. They insist on
the examinations of the accoimts of those who have managed public
espenses and royal revenues. They would have inquiry made into
the afiOaurs of such ministers and officers as have enriched themselves
during their period of office firom Henry IL*s time down to ours ; such
as the Connetable, and the Cardinal de Lorraine ; and would have the heirs
of those lords pursued. They hate the Guises, as being of foreign and
almost German house ; they murmmr against the queen mother, not
on account of her possessions, but because she interferes in the govern-
ment and administration. To end all these disorders the malcontents
demand the convocation of the states general^ and, in order that the
sectarians may be included in the benefits obtained, the free exercise
cf the new religion till the holding of a council general composed q£
natives, and not ci foreigners."

The ambassadors seem to have thoroughly followed, as r^arded
Venice, Charles V.'s advice to his son — ' Try to know the hu-
mours and characters of the principal ministers of the king of
France, that you may make the knowledge useful in case of neces-
sity !' Here is a remarkable despatch :^

124 Venetian Embasdu to France in the \6tJi Century.

** tdimwun de Guuse find dril war thdr interest, since they hold the
inont mnmmt plAXset on his majesty's part ; on the other hand, Monsieur
d'Afivillo M Hold to 8pwn. As to the long, he is little changed since
you Kttw liini ; but that little is in his favour ; his complexion is not livid
IMI foriuctrly, it has grown white and animated, and he is even a little
filtt<ir. It ii believed by every one in France he cannot live long,
Imvingi it is said, several hidden and severe maladies, among the rest a
ooutiuuid indigestion, and for this he has been advised to drink wine,
which ho had given up from his early youth. He possesses intelligence
und judgment) for they are apparent in his conversation ; and those
who know liim well si^y he does not want ambition ; but he is of a
ui^tun' iucUiw^ to quiet and repose, truly far removed from the liveli-
)M<« \xf «iurit conunoii i^ his years, which are twenty-four, and the
imiw^tih^tv which 4^m$ peculiar to the youth of France ; averse to all
Wt^MiAMUC exewsMSk j^uch as hunting or horsemanship, he has no love for
till or txH^nmiueuU The knowledge of his feeble nature, and the belief
Iki^l KU K(^ will be brief, weaken his authority, while they augment his
br\^h^r'« iurtiiciicek and the hardihood of the opposing faction : neither
luim^'e IHV nibble finding esteem in France, if wanting in warlike pro-
ivdMUtit^ At hi^ accession he caused displeasure by certain manners,
»lniiU{t^ whI unwonted, particularly to the nobility. They, as every
\M^e kiH^w«» lite in great familiarity with the king ; and he, not content
with their ustisting at his dinner with their head bare, conformably to
|\V\H^*^y ^^^ ^^ custom of other monarchs, surrounded his table with
II (iMtier to prevent any from speaking to him, as was easy to do in all
liberty before* But, as he perceived, and was even made aware, that
thi« t^ittvmded deeply, he returned to the old habits of those who pro-
filed him.* The choice of the young queen, his wife, pleased no one;
luiivgiiig neither gain nor honour ; and it was feared that the crowning
11 princess of Lorraine would add to the already overweening authority
of the Guises, so envied and hated. The king wished this marriage,
•inco she was a beautiful woman, but it is a curious fact, and told me
by Ik great personage, that it would not have taken place if the Car-
dinal of Lorrainef had lived. The queen mother did all in her power
to prevent it, fearing the cardinal's credit might lower and supplant her
own. His death calmed all doubts : since she esteemed the other princes
of his house too little to dread them, and she hastened to accomplish
the king's desire. I might here speak at length of Catherine de Me-

* " Henry nL. the present king of France and Poland, is now twenty-eight years
old, bom Sept. 19, 1551. At the font he was named Alexander Edward; but his
mother, in memory of the dead king, called him Henry. He is tall, rather than
of middle size ; thin, rather than well-proportioned. His face is oval, his lower
lips and chin pendant like those of his mother; his eyes handsome and soft, his
forehead broad, his carriage graceful; and he delights in being superbly dressed,
and loaded with jewels and perfUmes; he has almost always his beard shaven,
and wears rings, bracelets, and earrings. Bodily exercise does not amuse him,
though he succeeds in managing a horse and in fencing. If he take exercise, it is
rather to dance and play at tennis than hunting. Thus he is thought more in-
clined to peace than war.*' — Lippomano's Rehzione.

t Died in 1574.

^

Charles the Ninth's Court. 125

dicis, who governs alone and absolutely. She is accused as cause of all the
misery which desolates the country. A foreigner and an Italian, she was
never loved and is now detested; since eveir one knows that to main-
tsm herself in her authority she fomented division and discord, making
use of one and the other party by turns according as it fell in with hex
own private passion; and holding her sons, grown to manhood, aloof from
serious affairs or thoughts, that they, being weak and inexperienced,
might turn for aid to her. Her power over the king is so great that
he dares contradict her no more than the rest ; she cares neither for
hate nor accusation ; and, knowing that books against her are sold in
the shops almost publicly^ nothing disconcerts her. Hardy and in-
trepid, she braves fatigue and danger, undertaking long joumies, and
occupied more than ever with the state of the kingdom, since both
country and king are indeed in imminent danger. It is affirmed by those
who see most closely and best, that these troubles, should they last much
longer, will divide the kingdom irreparably between those who head
them : it is feared Monsieur and the Prince of Cond^. Predictions having
been made on the brevity of the king's life and his death without heirs,
the queen mother,* who puts faith in them, is seriously alarmed for
herself; for she knows that monsieur, who would succeed, does not love
her, as having been most illtreated of the brothers. Now, therefore, she
strives to conciliate his goodwill, and draw him more near the king ; she
promises him riches and power, and her own large inheritance ; and calls
to her aid the cunning peculiar to her ; trying to separate him £rom his
partisans, and, as she knows his hatred to the chancellor and others,
promising that the king shall on his return disgrace and exile them from
court, even though they be her own creatures. To show you the ex-
tent of her calculations — as the astrologers announce to monsieur also a
life short and childless, and as the crown would thus revert to the King
of Navarre (Henry IV.), she makes use of her daughter Margaret, who
is his wife, to win him over to her, and says she has succeeded already.
Wiik the same view to conciliate she attaches to herself his uncle, the
Cardinal of Bourbon, a man wholly inoffensive ; and also to the Duke of
Montpensier, being nearly related to the King of Navarre. All this in
the hope of remaining mistress and in possession of the regal power,
even when her son-in-law shall come to the throne! as if she believed
that she would never die, though being now fifty-nine years old. Mon-
sieur (the Duke of Anjou, formerly Duke of Alengon), is two years
younger than the king, being, as your serene highness knows, in his
twenty-second year ; he is short of stature but well made, and strong
and squarely built, and, unlike the king, fitted to bear corporeal fatigue
and violent exercise. Those who know him best say he is not of evil
nature, but has some fine qualities : being liberal, considering his means.

♦ Her credulity is well known. In one of her letters, lately published, she
speaks of a conspirator who had fabricated a waxen figure, to the head of which
he gave many blows. She says he intends it for the king, and desires, if he has
done aught to injure his majesty's health, he may be made to revoke his enchant-
ments.

126 Venetian Embassies to France in the \&th Century.

a man of his word and gentle with every one, and as yet nncorrupted
in his religion. But he never was on terms with his hrothers ; least of
all with this one, now king ; neither with his mother. The fanlt is hers,
£rom the difference she made hetween them ; lowering monsieur and ele-
vating the other, whom she held dear as her eyesight. Hence their
hatred is deadly : and it is said that heneath the widls of La Rochelle,
having commenced by outrages, they had well nigh come to blows. The
dislike deepened most when monsieur became apprised of the ill offices
his brother rendered him at the time of his own departure for Poland,
when he entreated the late king Charles not to bestow on their younger
brother the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom, which himself left
vacant, adding evil reports of the duke which induced Charles IX. also
to detest him. On the subject of monsieur's escape from court, which
took place in the September of this same year, I will only say that if he
had not prevented it by departure he would have been flung into per-
petual prison. His mother had averted this before, but it was again in
deliberation, and would have been accomplished had he delayed a day.
And although where he is now he seems free and honoured, he may say
and do only what is prescribed to him. He is more bound and captive
than ever ; and as to his trusting himself at court and with the king,
no one believes he will do so, having the admiral's* example before lus
eyes. It remains to me to give you some account of the King of Na-
varre.f This prince and monsieur are about the same ag^ ; he is well
made, but not tall ; his hair is black, and he has yet no beard. He is
brave and full of vivacity like his mother ; most pleasing and amiable,
familiar in his manner, and very liberal ; loving the chase well, and at-
tending little to aught beside. He is of enterprising spirit, and asserts,
perhaps too openly, that he will one day recover his provinces held by
Ids most catholic majesty. He is now free and goes where he will : on
the word of Monsieur de Guise J pledged secretly for him, that he will
not leave the court without the king's permission.'*

We take our leave of Michele here, passing over with but a
few words the long complaints which, in common with the rest
of these writers, close his recital. Tte dangers and fiitigues of
his mission, which lasted five months; his journeys through the

♦ Coligny: murdered at St. Bartholomew.

t He is mentioned but once before in the narrations of the ambassadors, as
being a fine youth, careftilly brought up by his mother, and in the reformed re-
ligion. Jeanne d'Albret died a few days before her son's marriage and the
massacre.

X " The duke Henry de Guise is of the same age with the king of Navarre,
taller, better made, having great majesty of countenance, bright eyes, and curled
light hair ; and a beard not thick, and fair ; also with a scar of the face, which he
received gloriously from a traitor soldier who fired his arquebuse, as the prince,
seeing him at his feet, called to him to yield. In all exercises, he is admirable
from ease and grace. In swordsmanship none can resist him. He is poor, spend-
ing more than his revenues; not quite content with the march of aflfairs, since he
also is of the catholic race which maintains the true religion of France." — Li/yo-
Tnami'a Melazione.

The Mayor and the Ambassador, 127

heat of summer and the cold of winter; accelerated, he says, the
death of his companion Badoaro. His expenses were heavy, since
he was obliged to light many and continual fires, and the journey
from Paris to Vemce, through Burgundy, occupied fifty days,
without reckoning those lost through accidents to horses, or the
ackness of any of ms suite. The king sent him indeed, after his last
audience, the twenty pieces of gilded silver which he himself in
turn presented to his serene highness as being by right his own.
But meir value did not even attain that of ordinary presents made
in other times to Venetian ambassadors. And if the liberality of
his serene highness and the most gallant lords would accord this
gift to him to pay his expenses in part, they might feel it given
to the republic itself, since its ambassador would be ever ready to
expend it in its service. Poor Michele !

Girolamo Lippomano was ambassador to France in the year
1577. The narrative before us, riven with all possible detail, is
by his secretary's hand, and entitled, * Viaggio del Signer Lippo-
mano.' The French roads were at this date far from safe, and the
ambassador dreaded alike to fall into the hands of highwaymen,
or those of soldiers of the disbanded army which had just besieged
and taken La Charete. We quote an amusing and characteristic
adventure which occurred to him at Dijon.

^ The first magistrate of the city of Dijon (I do not speak of those of
tbe pariiament) is called mayor, as in all the other towns of Bm^gundy,
and of several provinces of France. He is elected annually either from
the class of nobles or of citizens ; he has a guard of halberdiers, and his
authority is of some importance. I went to him as I am accustomed to
do elsewhere^ and politely requested, beside the usual bills of health, a
passport for all Burgundy, that the ambassador's progress might suffer
no obstacle. The good man commenced by doubting that I was really
an ambassador, saying I might be a private personage who had taken
the title. I showed him vainly the letters patent of his serene highness,
of the governor of Milan, the Duke of Savoy, the governor of Lyons.
At last he said, ^ How is it possible that this can be a Venetian ambas^
sador, since last year at Venice all the inhabitants died of plague T (1!) I
replied this vras not exact ; that the frdlest extent of the loss had been
of between forty and fifty thousand persons. ' Well,' said he, ^ am I not
right then? there can be none or very few remaimng?' I was forced to
say that the death of thousands in Venice left less vacuum than would
that often in ZHjon^ and so left him adding, I cared little for his pass-
port, and that the king should know of it. So he hastened to deliver
me one in good and due form I^

The ambassador and his train passed on not without fear and peril.
The * lieutenant du roi ' of the province, being of higher authority
than the mayor, gave an escort of foot and mounted men. At
Chatillon sur Seine, they had stayed to see the town and sleep

128 Venetian Embassies to France in the I6th Century,

at the Lion d*Or, and it would seem they dined here in a pubKc
apartment. The account of this narrow escape on the road, is
highly dramatic.

*' While we were at table arrived a traveller on foot, who hearing some
of us speak Itahan, came up to say ' If you are as I believe Venetians, I
will tell you what it concerns you to hear. To-day passing forth from
Aissez le Due, near the Fontaines Amoureuses, there rode up to me four
horsemen, asMng if I had seen five mules bearing the red housings of a
Venetian ambassador, and when I rephed, I had not, I heard them say
among themselves, * Certamly we have missed them on the road, but we
will come up with them at Mussy TEv^que,' and leaving me they ga-
loped into a road near.' Shortly after arrived in the same Inn of the
Lion d'Or, another person, a lackey of the Grand Ecuyer on his way to
Dijon, came to say that a league and a half beyond Chatillon he had
seen a troop of horsemen ^ about twenty-five in number, ford the Seine ;
that one of them, well mounted and armed, detached himself from the
rest, and rode up to ask whether he had met various mules covered with
red clothing ; and that this man appeared to him a spy of robbers — that
species of poor gentleman, who hold the highways, plunder the travel-
lers, and then take refuge in their neighbouring houses and castles."

But notwithstanding the demoralized and impoverished country,
they arrived with their horse and arquebuse-men in safety at
Barleduc. At Mussy I'Eveque, indeed, they excited fear them-
selves : for the inhabitants closed their ^tes, mistaking the ambas-
sador and his suite for the banditti ! They were besides in peril
from their own escort, who said openly that the ambassador carried
with him a sum of 800,000 francs, lent by Venice to the king, and
at last so bitterly assailed the Venetians in Nagent on this ground,
that had it been in a less considerable town, their escape from
thorough fleecing would have been impossible. The court was at
this time in Touraine, and Lippomano remained but a day or two
in Paris ere he departed for Amboise : passing four leagues from
Orleans through the village of Clery, where he found the ruins of
the church raised by Louis XL, whose devotion to our lady of
Clery is well known, and in the centre of which stood the mira-
culous waxen torch, too heavy to be moved by ten men, but which
shook with a heavy sound whenever, in shipwreck or other dan-
ger, a vow was made to this virgin. The day, hour, and minute
of the shock noted, were always found to accord with the vow !
Presented to his majesty, Lippomano accompanied him to Tours
and Poitiers, the state of the roads preventing their travelling
more than four leagues a day.

The queen mother was now desirous of peace; the King of Na-
varre and Prince of Cond^ had severally retired to Perigord and
La Rochelle. The worst plague of this time arose from the un-

Troubles. 129

discipliiied state of either army. It was impossible to ride two
leagues beyond Poitiers without the risk of meeting this uncurbed
soldieiy, who pillaged friend and foe, sacking each village in
turn, and following the shores of the river to seize on horses
and on the grooms who brought them thither to water. Peace
was at last concluded, though the public exercise of the reformed
religion was forbidden at court, and within a circle of two leagues,
as well as in Paris, and ten leagues round. The memory of Co-
ligny, and other victims of St. Bartholomew, was rehabilitated,
and their heirs exempted from taxes during six years; while
Heniy HI. in his edict called the massacre * the disorders and ex-
cesses of the 24th August and following days, which took place to
our great displeasure and regret.' The winter had passed tranquilly
in ffites and tournaments, in which the king himself joined. But
there took place quarrels between the king's * mignons,' and a no-
bleman high in tne Duke of Anjou's favour; the Bussy d'Am-
boise, so often named in the memoirs of the time. Eighteen or
twenty of the former attacked Bussy unawares; two of his suite
were wounded, and one died. Hereupon the duke made furious
by this event, and by the king's backwardness to avenge it, threat-
ened to retire to his own estates, in spite of the prayers of Queen
Louisa of France and the queen mother.

" The king," says the recital, " went himself to Monsieur at the mo-
ment he drew on Ids boots, and repeated the same arguments. But a9
the duke would not renounce his determination, the king rose up in
anger and said, ' since you are resolved to depart, go then if you can.'
He called a captain of his archers, and ordered him to guard the duke
in his chamber. He arrested at the same time various favourites of hi^
highness, and ordered the arrest of Bussy, who was hid in Monsieur's
palace and in his own closet, where he had remained all the preced-
mg days, though it was said he had left the city. He was found be-
tween the wool and straw mattress of the bed, and brought before the
king ; trembling at the idea of instant death, for it was believed he had
urged Monsieur's departure. He talked like one out of his senses, ask-
mg the king if he chose to take his head, or that he should ask pardon
of Monsieur de Caylus. The king replied by a reprimand paternal
rather than severe ; reminding him now often he had offended the royal
dignitr? and adding, that he had not yet decided on his own course, but
that the faults should be exceeded by the clemency, and that he should
have a chamber for prison. Monsieur's attendants were all greatly
alarmed, and hid or disguised themselves as if the storm had been desr
lined to crush them : and as the house of the Venetian ambassador was
their only asylum, they all crowded there. Some extreme measure was
expected: when the Queen of Navarre went to visit Monsieur about
noon, advising him to yield to circumstances, and since he was resolved
to go, to dissimulate and wait a favourable opportunity which could not^^^

TOL. XXXII. NO. LXIII. K ^^

130 Venetian Embassies to France in the 16th Century.

CeuI him. The duke accepted her advice, asked to see his majesfy, ex-
cused himself promised to he henceforth a true hrother and seryitor, and
to do nothing which could trouble the kingdom. The king and queen
mother embraced him tenderly ; Bussy and Mondeur de Caylus were
reconciled."

But Monsieur in reality placed small confidence in the king,
and made his escape a rew days after; his thoughts turned to
Flanders, which he determined to deliver from Spanish oppres-
sion; while at the same time Spain protested against France, and
threatened invasion with an army if she did not interfere to
calm the Fl^ush rebdlion. The auke having gone to Flanders,
the queen mother, disregarding her own age and infirmities, con-
iiucted her daughter Maigaret to her liusband, Henry of Na-
varre, occupying herself on her way with the re-establisnment of
the catholic lite wheresoever she tarried: * so that,' says the am-
bassador, * it was she wlio raised once more the almost-crushed
religion.' ^

Tlie project of a marriage between the Queen of England (Eli-
zabeth) and the Duke of Aiengon was now negotiated more warmlv
than heretofore : precious gifts, and even portraits were exchanged,
so that its accomplishment seemed sure. Lippomano's scribe urns
gives an account of the duke's expedition to England :

* Monsieur crossed ihe sea, arrived in London, and lodged the first
day with the ambassador of France, and afterwards in the royal palace, at
tibe queen's expense, who saw him the second day, two miles without
the town. It is sud that, relating to the maniage, there were rather
vague words spoken than any likely to lead to a conclusion, thoi^;ii
presents were exchanged. It is said abo that every morning the
gueen carried him a cup of broth with her own hand, and that the duke
ihowed himself to her in a doublet of flesh-coloured silh to prove he was
not humpbacked as had been told her. But from all we heard l}iey
negotiated any affisiirs rather than those of the maniage ; or to express
inyself with more propriety, the sage queen held out this bait to keep
Monsieur in check, and strengthen him in his hatred to Spain. It was
believed that the Queen of England^ the Duke of Alen^on, lite King of
Navarre, the Prince Casimir, and the Prince of Orange, were all agreed
to cany the war into Spain. But this report was unfounded, lihough
the king himself communicated it to the foreign ambassadors, excusing
himself by declaring he had not been in the secret of the enteiprise, axid
was sorry for it: whence we may see the precipitancy or rather the levily
of the French, who at times give wind to projects ere lihey execute,
then at others execute without previous reflection."

During the duke's absence, the king fell ill of a dangerous
malady, and the French court feared lest Queen Elizabeth, in the
event of his death, should keep Monsieur as hostage till die deli-
"rering to England of Boulogne and Calais, whidi she claimed

Death of BiLssy d^Amboise. 131

still. The queen mother was absent also, employed in soothing,
if she could not put a stop to, the disturbances in the south of
France. We must here insert a recital of the tragic end of Bussy
d' Amboise. It is amusing to find the whole indignation of the
writer concentrated on the injured husband, and to observe his
exquisite allusions to some lady beloved by himself. This wild
mode of obtaining justice was not uncommon in other offences
of the age,* though extraordinary at a time and court whose
licence was unbounded.

^^ About this time Bossy d'Amboise was killed. He was the first
gentleman and the ^ayounte of Monsieur, and the Iovot of a fair lady
whom he saw very oflten. Her husband, though ' homme de robe, ' yet
held a post of importance in Brittany. He became apprized of her con-
duct, axid told her she could save her own life but in one manner, which
was to summon the Seigneur de Bussy to her house at the hour he
flliould command and without previous warning. The lady (if indeed
ghe deserve the name), either in fear for herself or love for another, wrote
to Bussy that she was g^ing to the country, and would expect him the
following day, and that he should come in all confidence, smce her hus-
band could not arrive to molest them. Bussy d'Amboise came fearlessly
witib but two gentlemen. As soon as he was in the court, and the gates
closed and barred as was the order, he was assailed by twenty arque-
base men, who shot himself and his comrades. The woman who mus
caused her lover's murder, was lefb with the perpetual stain of an impurity
snd a cruelty unexampled. She might have warned her friend and
warded off tins misfortune ; and if she were, as was affirmed, forced with
a dagger to her throat to write this letter, she should have chosen a
tliousand deaths rather than such treason. Not thus would have acted
fny most glorious lady the Signora N — , whose soul is generous as her
blood is noble, and as decided in her divine actions as unhappy in being
in the poioer of a husband so unworthy of her. But this crime served
diis poor husband nothing : it was a weak and dishonourable venge-
ance. For a faulty of which the blame was not hisy and which few
people knew, is now published to the world. Little noise was, however,
made about it, and although Bussy was a great personage, the assassin
went unpunished. It appears that in France, in these affairs of honour,
every man is permitted to right himself as did Monsieur Villequier of
Poitiers. Aflber a long absence from court, returning to his wife he
£nmd her about to give birth to an infant ; he therefore killed her in-
stanity, and with her two female attendants, who rushed forward in her
defence, one of these being pregnant also ! Thus, among his murders,
murdering two innocent creatures who had not seen the hght ; and yet
he is unmolested, and pursues lus career as if nothing had happened, or
as if he had hilled ^ve animals hunting,**

But for considerations of space, we might be justified in quoting
* SeeBraotome, with whom the writer seems to have some sympathies.

k2

182 Venetian Embassies to France in the 16th Century.

another description of the court, as it had become in Lippomano's
time. There is a mournful interest cast over the person of the
beautiful young queen, Louisa of Lorraine: perfectly without in-
fluence (since Catherine would have borne with no power in a
daughter-in-law); adoring herimworthy and effeminate husband,
serving him herself on all solemn occasions; and sitting * with her
eye turned on him ever, as on one beloved, of which he takes no
note;* pious and charitable in church and hospital; while his time
was occupied in his private apartments, sometimes indeed with
alchemists and with mechanics, oftener still with the dogs, birds,
and dwarfs, kept there for his disengaged hours. The queen mo-
ther, grown old, still preserved a certain freshness, and ^owed no
wrinUe. She always wore her mourning habits, and a black veil
which fell on her shoulders but not her forehead, and when she
went out, a woollen bonnet over it. As in the former time, with
a view to keep power in her own hands, and render herself al*
ways necessary, sne fomented troubles and kept private hatreds
ahve, so now, it was Lippomano's belief, she tried to pacify all par-
ties. Since the king dishked public concerns, and left them to ner,
she had henceforth no motive for irritation, and she preferred that
her dexterity and prudence should now only be made evident. We
transcribe a portrait, not elsewhere drawn, of Margaret of Navaire,
and a curious anecdote of Henry IV. her husband.

'^ The queen is not tall, of figure well formed and rather full, and
though her features are less delicate than those of the reigning queen
(Louisa), she is yet esteemed beautiful from her vivacity of countenance^
and her hair bright as gold ; though she also, like her brothers, fails in
the defective shape of the lower Up, which is pendant ; but some esteem
this an additional grace, and that it makes the throat and neck appear
to more advantage. Of a masculiue spirit like her mother, she is clever
in negotiation, and during the time she staid at the baths of Spa, un-
dertook and nigh concluded the treaty between monsieur and the Flemish
lords ; and this without waking suspicion in Don Juan of Austria, with
whom she dined daily at Namur. It does not appear that she has the
sainted disposition of her sister-in-law, since she delights in things which
usually please women, such as dressing superbly, and appearing beauti-
ful, and all which follows. Her husband, Henry of Navarre, is thought
to believe in nothing, and it is said he makes sport of his own Huguenot
preachers even while they are in the pulpit. Once, he being eating
cherries while one of these villains preached, he continued shooting with
his finger and thumb the cherry-stones in his face, till he wellnigh put
out his eye."

Prejudice against France seems strong in Lippomano, as in
others of these writers. And from the corruption of court and
city, we can well believe his criticisms to be for the most part

Dress and Manners* 133

just The prodlgaKty of the king to his unworthy favourites,
with the disorders of the administration, had ruined the kingdom.
The court was always in a state of privation. The army wanted
pay and supplies, and pillaged the villages. In Paris the prisons
were numerous, and filled; while every day, in some part of the
town, malefactors were seen in the hands of justice, * the greater
part being hanged.' His remarks on dress and manners are
richly worth extracting.

" From the salubrity of the climate, the natives would live long, if
they did not ruin their stomachs with over-eating, spending on food
and habiliments without rule or measure. Male dress so various in
form, that to describe it were impossible. A hat whose broad brim falls
on the shoulders, or a * beret' which hardly covers the top of the head ;
a doak which descends to the ankle, or barely reaches the loins ; the
manner of wearing these habits not less curious than the habits them-
selves. One sleeve buttoned, the other open, and the cloak pendant
from one shoulder ; and the change of costume usual among men, ne-
cessitating an extraordinary expense in woollen stuff and cloths of silk
and gold ; since no man is esteemed rich if he has not twenty or thirty
suits of different kinds, so that he may change daily* The women have
a mode of dress more modest and less variable. Tne noble lady wears
a hood of black velvet, or a coiffe, wrought in ribbons of silk or gold,
or in jewels, and has a mask on her face. The citizen's wife wears a
cloth hood, the mask and silken head -gear being denied to her rank.
All wear gowns and cotillons as they please. Noblewomen distinguished
by the size of the sleeves and variety of colours, while other females
wear black only. Widows have veils, and the clothing high to the
throaty and over all a spenser. In mourning for parent or husband,
they have also robes trimmed with hair or swan's down. Men wear
mourning only on the day of burial. It is easy to recognise unmarried
women in the street ; they follow closely their mothers' footsteps, and
the domestics male or female ag^in come after. Frenchwomen have
generally the waist slightly formed, and using as they do hoops and
other artifices to increase the circumference below, their appearance be-
comes more elegant still. The cotillon is of great value. As to the
gown which is worn over all, it is usually of coarse serge or ordinary
8tu£^ since the women at church kneel down anywhere and sit upon the
ground. The bosom and shoulders are slightly veiled with gauze. The
head, neck, and arms, are ornamented with jewels ; the headdress differs
widely fi^m that of Italy, as on the top of the head are ornaments and
tufts of hair which apparently increase the breadth of the forehead. They
commonly wear black hair, since it sets off the paleness of the cheeks,
and this paleness when not occasioned by malady is looked on as a charm.
The French females are seemingly full of devotion, but in fact very fi^ee.
Each chooses to be treated as worthy esteem, and tliere is none, whatever
her conduct^ who does not find something to say against that of her neigh-
bours. They are very insolent, and the cause is their husbands' over confi-

134 Venetian Emhassies to France in the \6th Century,

dence, and allowing them to govern not only tbeir households hut them-
selves. They converse puhlidy with those they meet in the streets, and
also go alone to church and market, remaining absent three or four hours
without their husbands' asking whether they are gone. Very agreeable in
their manners, they have perhaps but one fiault^ avarice ; it is said that
gold is omnipotent with all the women in the world, but with French
women silver suffices. A gentleman asserted, not without reason, that
three things are proper to the nation — * never to do what they promise ;
not to write as they speak ; and, to remember neither benefit nor in-
jury.' In trade and business the Frenchman is of £aitMess nature, will-
ing to promise largely when anxious to obtain any thing, but having ob-
tained, at once repenting. A nd thus he either will refuse payment or defer
it as much as possible. The ceremonies of the holy week resemble
ours, and if more care were given to the church, or rather if all bene-
fices were not bestowed on women, children, or incapable men,
it might recover its splendour. We followed their example in eat-
ing meat the four or nve Saturdays which follow Christmas, since we
should otherwise have passed for Huguenots. They aver that
during these weeks the Holy Virgin having lately lain in did not
fast. The French priest is not much addicted to debauch ; he has no
vice but that of gluttony ; which is common to him, with the remainder of
that people. It would thus be less difficult to ameliorate this clergy
than that of other nations where excesses are more extreme. They
have good and clever preachers, capable of preaching three and four
hours in successi(m ai^ they do on Good Friday, not resting a moment^

and hardly ever spitting : a thing incomprehensible It was then," he

says, a little farther on, << that the ambassador, my master, took leave of
their majesties, to whom he was singularly dear, since sumamed by all
il deletto Amhasciatore, At his departure, the king created him knight
of his own order ; and besides this, gave him a very fine diamond set in
gold, of the size of a nut, and a beautiful Turkisn dog, which was his
delight ; but the little dog jumping back on the king, the king took,
him in his arms, kissed him, and offered him to the ambassador, saying,
* Accept him for my sake.' The 26th of November, 1579, we quitted
Paris to return to Italy."

We believe it not necessary to excuse the length of our article^
or the number of our extracts. Since the taste for * literary cu-
riosities ' began, there have appeared no volumes whose contents
so well deserve the name. They are precious to the historian,
for their sketches of character and policy were so studied as to
guide and enllffhten a subtle and cautious state. They are amusing
to the lover of lighter literature, for the closeness of their personal
details. And they are important to the philosophical observer,
who studies their dissertations on national habits and failings, and
contemplates how these have been much or little modified by other
governments and the lapse of three hundred years.

( 135 )

Abt. VII. — 1. Memoires touchant la Vie et les JEcrits de Marie de
Jtabutiri'Chantal, Dame de Bourbilly, Marquise de Sevigne^
durant laBSgence et la Fronde. Par M. le Baron Walck-
ENAEB. — Deuxihne Partie durant le Mlnistire du Cardinal Ma-
zarin et la Jeunesse de Louis XIV. Paris: Firmin Didot. 1843.

2. Les Historiettes de TaUemant des Reaux. Seconde Edition. Pre-
cedee d^une Notice^ 8fc. Par M. Monmebqu^. Paris: Delloye.
1840.

In the memoirs by the Baron de Walckenaer we observe the in-
fiuence of the historical novel upon the writing of history. The
events selected are vivified by local colouring; scenery and cos-
tume are painted with fidelity; and the principal personage of the
book, the celebrated Madame de Sevign^, is a heroine worthy of
the pen of novelist or historian. Nor is a half wicked hero
wantuig. We see her path beset by the Lovelace of the age, her
own cousin, Bussy-Rabutin, against whose seductive wiles her
high animal spirits, gay laugh, unrestrained speech, and pure
heart, are more potent defences than were the graver graces of the
ksB fortunate Clarissa. And these are but the central figures of a
series of groups who represent the private history and public events
rf a remarkable period. The connexion, certainly, is often of
the slightest. We understand the relation of Madame de S6-
Tigne to the history of the H6tel de Eambouillet, but we do not
leadily discern the pretext her name should afford for a lengthened
episode, embracing in all their complex details the intrigues and
combats of the Fronde. But M. de Walckenaer is not writing
a formal life of Madame de Sevigne. He is filling a broad canvass
with figures; the heroine only occupies, as of rignt, the first place
in the for^roimd; and as he has much to do before his work is
farought to a termination, we shall perhaps act most fairly if we
lefiram from passing judgment upon his plan until we find
ourselves in a position to estimate its entire effect. One of his
episodes will suffice for our present purpose; and we select it
because to us it seems the most curious and interesting, and gene-
rally is the least known. We take the Hotel de Rambouillet.

Madame de Rambouillet was of Italian extraction. Her father,
the Marquis of Pisani, represented Henry the Third at the court
of Rome under the pontificate of Sextus the Fifth. During his
embassy the queen mother, Catherine de Medicis, lost a favourite
Italian lady ; and, to afford her consolation, it was commumcated
to the French ambassador that he must espouse, and bring to
court, one of the family of the Strozzi to which the late favourite
beloi^ed ! The queen named a charming young widow of the

136 The Hdtel de Rambouillet

noble Roman family of the Savelli, nearly related to the Strozzi,
and although the Marquis of Pisani was sixty-three jrears of age,
he had so distinguished himself in war and in pohtics, and re-
tained yet so much manly grace, that the marriage, promptly
agreed upon, was solemnized within three days from the first in-
terview, and the accomplished Italian borne away to the court of
France. Subsequently the Marquis attached himself to Henri
Quatre, and of his conduct and character the famous De Thou
has left the brief, but expressive memorial, that he did not know
of a life more worthy to be written.

Madame de Rambouillet was the only child of this marriage.
From her mother, a woman of talent, she received an excellent
education, having learned from her to speak the Italian and French
languages with equal faciUty. The daughter, like her mother,
was married to a man much older than herself, and that at the
age of twelve years. Her elderly husband appears to have re*
garded her with passionate fondness, which she returned with
reverential respect, such as is due rather from a child to a
parent than from a beloved wife to a tender companion. The
early years of her married Ufe were passed at the court of Henri
Quatre, at whose death she was twenty-two years old, and of whom
she seems to have received and retained a most unfavourable im-

Eression. Her friend, TaUemant des Reaux, who has left even in
is laconic * Historiettes' the fullest details of her habits, tells us that
from the period of her twentieth year she used to shut herself in her
room, and feign indisposition, that she might so avoid appearing
at the assemblies of the Louvre: * strange conduct,' he adds,
* for a young lady, handsome and of quahty !' That she had been
accustomed to special marks of favour is certain ; for at the corona-
tion of the queen she was * une des belles qui devoiente Stre de
la ceremonieJ Nor did repugnance to the court arise, as it
will occur to us to show, from any indifference to pleasure, or
disregard of elegant splendours and tasteful magnificence. But
she preferred sofitude and the study, as we learn, of the classic
authors of antiquity, to sports too rude for a mind whose refine-
ment was in advance of the court society of that day. Her
health, indeed, giving way before such hardy studies, obKged her,
a little later, to content herself with the easier conquest of Spanish.
Yet was she not a prude nor a pedant ; not stiff, harsh, or un-
amiable ; though she did disrelish the joyous Henri Quatre.

That monardi, with his many excellent qualities, was no doubt
better fitted for popular love, than to win the homage of the Mar-
quise de RambouiUet. The wars of the League, amidst which
he passed so many of his early years, experiencing reverses in
-every shape, among evils more prominently recogmsed had the

Henri Quatre. 137

^eci of arresting civilization. Intercourse of that nature which
supposes the easy undisturbed and unalarmed presence of elegant
women, was stopped. The men ever in the camp or in the field,
fell into rude camp manners; and the women left to themselves
and subjected to the agitations of the times, had but little leisure or
inclination for refined pursuits. To the absence of the cultivation
which can alone command respect, was also added a sotux^ of
positive degradation in the example of Catherine de Medicis. It
IS not the least of the crimes whicn lie upon the memory of that
queen, that she filled her court with corrupt women, themselves
tike devoted instruments of her treacherous policy. Wherever she
travelled a body-guard of sirens accompanied her, and many
were the fatal secrets won in moments of lulled suspicion. These
causes combined may serve to explain the character of Henri
Quatre's female associates, and of Madame de Rambouillet's re-
pugnance not only for such acquaintances, but for the monarch
whose notions of woman were derived from such a school. Henry
the Fourth was amiable, but, like many very amiable men, shared
amply the vices of the society by whom he was surrounded.
The most partial of his biographers, Perifexe, unconsciously
paints him in manners as but a jovial, boisterous boon companion,
who loved his bottle, his mistress, and his ban mot, and took part
with vigour and address in all manly sports and diversions. He
was fond of dancing, * but to tell the truth,' adds the good old
bishop, ' he danced with more gaiety than grace.' True it is
that no man ever sat upon a throne possessed of more endearing
qualities. In qualities of mind and neart, and in his estimation
of solid virtues, he had few equals in his age. But to such a
woman as the Marchioness of Rambouillet no amount of good
disposition vrill atone for gross manners.

If Henri Quatre sinned upon the side of joUity, Louis the
Thirteenth fell into the opposite extreme. He was a moody an-
chorite, from whose court gaiety and grace were banished. Kuled
by the inflexible Richelieu, he was forced to exile his own mother,
and to resign himself submissively into the hands of the minister
master, who denied him friend or favourite from among that tur-
bulent nobility which he had determined to bend to the throne.
Mazarin, more pliant, and making up by address and sub-
tlety what he wanted in will, never lost sight of his prede-
cessor's principle : his sense of the importance of whicn was
quickened by the wars of the Fronde, and was left by him
as a legagr of council to his royal pupil, Louis the Fourteenth.
Between Henri Quatre corrupted by the League, and Louis the
Fourteenth taught by the Fronde, lies an interval, which in re-
spect of all that is elegant, accomplished, and refined in society,

138 The H6tel de RambouiUet

would have presented a dreaij waste but for tlie H6tel de Ram-
bouiUet, and the several literary reunions created by its example;
As the absence of refinement caused by the first civil war sug-
gested the necesfflty of a school for whidi the court afforded no
{dace, so the second civil war was in a large degree fatal to the
work which it had found accomplished. Throughout the
troubles of the Fronde the chief characters were distinguished
women. I£ their conduct was not in all respects irreproachable,
it must be allowed that the talents displayed and the more than
womanly courage exhibited by the Longuevilles and the Montr

Ensiers, proved an extraordinary advance in the course of but
If a century. Its origin may be plainly traced to the H6tel de
RambouiUet, to whose accomplished mistress it is time we should
return.

Madame de RambouiUet was only thirty-five years of age when
she was attacked with a peculiar malady, the nature of which the
medical science of the day could not determine, nor its skiU aUe^
viate. She dared not approach the fire, even on the coldest day
of winter, without immediate suffering, nor could she in summer
etir abroad unless the weather happened to be cooL Thus she
was, for the most part of the year, a prisoner in her own house ;
and in winter obliged, for sake of warmth, to keep her bed even
when in good general health. But the infirmities of Madame
de RambouiUet tended to her celebrity. Among her many
tastes of presumable Italian origin, she had a talent for archi-
tecture which she brought to aid in this necessity ; for she
to whom her house was an unchanging scene, resolved to
beautify this prison ; and even her bed, instead of sustaining
a soUtary invaUd, was by ingenious contrivance made a portion
of the salon furniture, and so picturesquely as to be des-
tined to general imitation and consequent fame. Not to be de-
barred the pleasure of society, Madame de RambouiUet borrowed
£:om the Spaniards the idea of an alcove, where was placed this
bed: occasionaUy concealed firom the salon by means of a simple
screen. Here, with le^ wrapped up in warm furs, she received
by turns her intimate friends: or, the screen being withdrawn, en-
joyed the general conversation.^ When the H6tel de RambouiUet
became the vogue, fashion imitated infirmity. An alcove and a
nceZfe, for so the space between the bed and the waU was caUed,
became essential to the happiness of the fashionable beUe.
Ladies attired in the most coquettish morning costumes, reclining
upon piUows of satin jBinged with deep lace, gave audience to
their fnends singly or by two's. Here were whispered the anec-
dotes of the day, and people repeated stories of the rueUes as
they now do of the salons or the dubs. The H6tel itself was pro-

Reading of a Troffedy ly ComeiUe, 139

noimced such a model of good taste, that Mary de Medids ordered
the architect of the Luxemburg to follow its designs.

Having said thus much of the famous H6tel, we will take a
■view of tiae interior upon one of those occasions when the best
sociely of the day were there assembled. M. de Walckenaer draws
aside the curtain. The time stated is the autumn of the year
1644, and the object for which the society meets is to hear a
tiagedy read by the great ComeiUe. There are present the eUte
o£ the town and of the court ; the Princess of Gond^ and her
daughter, afterwards the &mous Duchess de LongueviUe, and a
host of names then brilliant but since forgotten which wepass
for those whom &me has deemed worthy of preserving. There
were the Duchess of Chevreuse, one of that three (we have
already named a second) whom Mazarin declared capable of sav-
ing or overthrowing a kingdom; Mademoiselle de Scudery,
then in the zenith of ner fame; and Mademoiselle de la Vergne,
destined under the name of Lafayette to eclipse her. There were
also present Madame de Bambouillet's three daughters: the cele-
brated Julie, destined to continue the literary glory of the house
of RambouiUet, and her two sisters, both religieuses yet seeing
no pro&nily in a play. At the feet of the noble dames re-
clined young seigneurs, their rich mantles of silk and gold and
diver spread loosely upon the floor, while to give more grace and
vivacity to their action and emphasis to their discourse, they
waved firom time to time their little hats surcharged with plumes.
And there, in more modest attire, were the men of letters : Balzac,
Menage, Scudery, Chapelain, Costart (the most gallant of pedants
and pedantic of gallants), and Conrart, and la Mesnardiere, and
Bossuet, then the Abb^ Bossuet, and others of less note. By a stroke
of politeness worthy of preservation, Madame de RambouiUet has
framed her invitation in such wise that all her guests shall have
airived a good half-hour before the poet: so that he may not be
interrupted while reading, by a door opening, and a head bobbing
in, andTall eyes turning that way, and a dozen signs to take a
{dace here or there, and. moving up and moving down, and then
an awkward trip, and a whispered apology, the attention of all
suspended, the illusion broken, and the poor poet chilled !

The audience is tolerably punctual. AU are arrived but one,
and who is he that shows so much indifference to the feelings of
such a hostess? Why who should he be, but an eccentric, whim-
acal, impracticable, spoiled pet of a poet: who but Monsieur Voi-
ture, the life, the soul, the charm of all? He at last comes, and
ComeiUe may enter. But a tragic poet moves slowly; ComeiUe
himself has not arrived; and a gay French company cannot endure
the ennui of waiting. Time must pass agreeably; something must

140 The H6tel de BambouilleL

be set in motion; and what that is to be, is suddenly settled by
the Marquis de Vardes, who proposes to bind the eyes of Ma*
dame de S^vime for a game of Colin Maillard, Anglici blind
man's buff. Madame de Kambouillet implores: but the game is
8o tempting, the prospect of fun so exhilarating, that she herself
is drawn into the vortex of animal spirits, and yields assent. The
ribbon intended for Madame de S^vign^ is by the latter placed
upon the eyes of the fair young de Vergne, then only twelve years
of age; and she is alone in the midst of the salon, her pretty arms
outstretched, her feet cautiously advancing — ^when the brothers
Thomas and Pierre ComeiUe enter conducted by Benserade, a
poet also and one of extensive reputation. Now without abating
one tittle of our reverence for the great Pierre Comeille, we
can sjrmpathize with those light hearts whose game with the
then young Madame de S^vigne and her younger friend, was
interrupted for a graver though more elevating entertainment.
ComeiUe, like many other poets, was a bad reader of his own
productions ; fortimately for him, upon this occasion the young
Abb^ Bossuet was called upon to repeat some of the most
striking passages of the play, entitled ' Theodore Vierge et
Martyre,' a Christian tragedy, which he did with that declama-
tory power for which he was afterwards so remarkable. Then, of
that distinguished company, the most aUve to the charms of poe-
tical expression had each, as a matter of course, some verse to re-
peat; and repeated it with the just emphasis of the feeling it had
awakened, and with which it harmonized, and thus offered by the
simple tone of the voice the best homage to genius. And so
the morning ended with triimiph for the bard, and to the per-
fect gratification of his auditors.

Monsieur de Walckenaer, having opened so agreeable a view of
the H6tel de Rambouillet, closes the picture and darts aw^ with
some degree of abruptness into the entangled history of the Fronde.
Perhaps, as his memoirs propose to have relation to Madame de
S^vigne and her writings, a more ample development of the lite-
rary society of the time might with advantage have engaged the
author's attention. Upon the mind of that celebrated woman the
Hotel de Rambouillet appears to have exercised sufficient influence,
to have warranted somewhat more than a description of a game
of Colin Maillard or even the reading of a tragedy by Comeille-
With the events of the Fronde she was hardly in any way connected,
and yet the history of that struggle between the Cardinal Mazarin
and the nobles who affected to side with the duped and despised
parliament, fills the neater part of the first volume. From this
time forward M. de Walckenaer affords us but little assistance, and
we cannot but regret the absence of so able and accurate a guide.

Jvlie and Voiture. 141

But we turn to the sarcastic Tallemant des Reaux, whose ten
tomes of Historlettes, each a portrait, tell a story to the initiated
as expresavely as one of Hogarth's series.

And first for some members of the family of the excellent old
lady herself: such as her daughter Julie, and her suitor the Duo
de Montausier: next for Voiture the poet, MadUe. Paulet sur-
named the lioness, and one or two others chosen for their origin-
ality of feature : we will then glance at some of the more re-
markable persons of the time, who were the most in connexion
with this famous Hotel.

Julie had so imbibed the high-flown notions inculcated in the
Writings of Madlle. de Scudery that she became, alas ! a votary of
Platonic love : to the cost of the devoted Montausier whom she
led a devious chase of a dozen long years. She had arrived at the
ripe age of thirty-two, before she was satisfied that the term of
probation had been sufficiently protracted. His manner of wooing
was characteristic. Having taxed his invention for an offering
worthy of his mistress, he decided upon a poetical rift; and there-
upon opened what at the present day would be called an Album,
bearing the title of ' La Guirlande de Julie.* The garland was
to be composed of flowers of fancy culled fix)m the imagina-
tion of his numerous poetical friends. When the bouquet was
sufficiently large, or to drop a metaphor which we did not ori-
ginate, when all the odes, sonnets, madrigals, and lines, had left
no more to be said in the lady's praise, they were handed over to
a celebrated pensman of the time : and so worthy was the calli-
graphy of the poetry, and the flourishes of the similes, and the
illuminations in the margin so rivalled the glories of the compo-
sition, that Julie could no longer resist that phalanx of poets
inarching over that field of the cloth of gold, and the Garland
being placed upon her brow, she yielded her hand.*

Voiture, of whom the Due de Montausier had been weak enough
to feel jealous, was what was then considered of very humble origin,
being the son of a wine-merchant attached to the court. A friend
. whom he made at college introduced him to Madame Saintot,
the wife of the Grand Treasurer; and the mode of the introduc-
tion was so characteristic of the time as to be worthy of men-
tion. Paris was at that time a fortified city with narrow streets,
and without those fine shops which make so much of the adorn-
ment of modem large cities. Traffic was carried on principaUy in
immense market-places, called Foires; and these were so showy

* This curious production, having been put up for sale in the year 1784, waa
bought by an English gentleman, who bid up so high a sum as 14,510 francs, or
5801 It however found its way back into the family of Lavallidre, who were
4e8oeiida]itB of the Montausiers.

142 The H6td de Ramhouillet

and attractive as to fonn the chief places of rendezvous. The
Foires were not only bazaars for trade, but afforded means of
pleasure: having booths laid out in the most seductive way.
The habit of wearing masks was universal: the sermons of
the day are filled with denunciations of a practice which covered
much vice. Men went abroad masked and even habited as
women, and women not imfrequently assumed the male attire.
Now Madame Saintot had a passion for gaming, and to gratify
it went disguised as a man to the Foires. At a gaming-tab£e
she met Voiture, led there by his college friend, and being a
woman of wit was so struck with his sallies, that she at once
sought his acquaintance. Shordy after she received from the poet
a copy of Ariosto, with a letter so well conodved according to the
xeignmff ideas of taste, that she showed it to M. de Chaudebonne,
one of JSladame de Rambouillet's particular friends, who by exhi-
biting it produced such a sensation that Voiture himself was s^it
&r, and soon rose to the highest place in our Httle aristocratic
republic of letters.

VVe are tempted by tihie fame of this Epistle, to offerafew of its
high-flown passages. The writer begms by telling Madame
Samtot that the present is the finest ofall Roland's previous ad-
ventures. That even when alone he defended the crown of
Charlemagne, and when he tore sceptres from the hands of kings,
he never did any thing so glorious for himself, as at ihat hour
when he had tne honour to kiss hers (the hands of Madame
Saintot) ! And then the lady is told that Roland will now forget

the beauty q£ Angelique but perhaps we had better cease

description and offer a brief quotation.

** This beantj, against which no armour is proof, which cannot meet the efe^
widiont woimding the heart, and which bums with loFe as many parts of the
world as are lighted by the snn — all that was but a badly^lrawn portrait of the
wonders to be admired in you. All known colours, aided by poetry, could not
paint you so fine as you are — the imagination of poets has never yet soared to
such a hdght. Chambers of crystal and palaces <£ diamonds are easily enough
imagined ; and all the enchantments of Amadis, which appear to surpass behef^
are after all no more than yours. To fix, at first sight, the most resolute souls
and the least bom to servitude; to cause a certain sort of love, known to tlie
reason, without desire and without hope ; to crown with pleasure and glory those
minds whom you deprive of liberty, and to render those perfectly satisfied to
whom you nothing grant ; these are stranger effects, and more removed from ap-
pearance of troth, than Hix^griffe and flying chariots, or all the marvels le-
ooonted by our romancers."

When M. de Chaudebonne read this letter, he exclaimed,
^ Monsieur Voiture is too gallant a man to be allowed to lemain
in the b&urgeode^ and ihe letter was turned into a patent of
literary nobility ! No wonder Mademoiselle Julie, with ideas of
love transc^odentally Platonic, should at the moment have per-
suaded herself she had found at last her ideal of a loYe-lauzeaty

The lAoness. 243

m lum who was able to comprehend that * certain sort of love
known to the reason/ and to the reason only. And so poor
M. Montausier, condemned to wait and linger over the per-
fiune of the gay garland woven for the &ding beauties of his
JuHe (the femme de irente ans of her day, who had her Balzao
too— but not the Balzac, who loves to gild with delicate hand
iSbR first slight pressure of the solid thirtieth year), was piqued
at iiie notice bestowed upon the poet. But the poet soon
undid his &vour by a practical heresy against his own doctrine^
for he, one day — oh ! tell it not in the Hotel de RambouiUet— «
niaed Julie's hand to his Eps, and was dismissed on the instant to
the herd of vulgar lovers. Voiture, under the mask of his high-
flown stjle, concealed a malicious wit, and avenged his disgrace
by turning it against Mademoiselle Paulet.

She was a fine tall young woman, with a profiision of pale yellow
hair, and vivid eyes, which gave her head some fancied resem^
blance to a lioness. Hence her sobriquet, la lionne, Voiture
himself was very small, and neat in his appearance, but his face
was inexpresave almost to silKness. Perhaps l3ie contrast between
his own figure and that of the grand Paulet, suggested the idea
that he of all others, should set himself to torment the haughty
prude. Accordingly, he left no artifice untried; and is described
to have gone to the uttermost extent in his outrage of her notions
oi convenance, hj deliberately drawing off his boots and warming
his feet at the me ! * If he were one of m*,* said a proud noble
one day, as he saw him at these tricks, * he would be intolerable.*
Yet if V oiture had been called upon, according to custom, to as-
sert these whims with his sword, he would not have shrunk from it:
f<» he was brave, and had fought four duels after die most ro-
mantic fiishion of a poet; one by moonUght, and another by the
light of four torches. And whatever the prouder nobles thought
or said, such was the interest felt for this hveljr, capricious, eccen-
tric creature, ihat when he travelled in Belgium his letters were
looked for with unexampled avidity, and read with tihe deepest
interest. One of his sonnets excited so much admiration, that
Benserade published a rival sonnet; and this appeal to the lite-
niiy world, comprising as we have learned from. Chaudebonne's
exclamation the ^lite of fiishionable society, was answered by
the formation of two parties, headed, the one by the Duchess
of Longuevifle, in the zenith of her &me, the other by her
brother the Prince de Conti; and with such heat was the batde
contested that its leaders lost temper, and the brother and sister
quanelled over the respective merits of these two poets: who,
Btiange to say, were at that time held in equal estimation witb
CkMneille hixnself !

144 The Hotel de RamhouiUet.

Were we called upon to test the acumen of court critics before
the appearance of Boileau, by the enthusiastic encomiums passed
upon these sonnets, we should be obliged to pronounce it very low
indeed. An attempt at readable translation would fail, because of
the utter feebleness of the original of either one or the other.
We must content ourselves with merely general description.
Voiture's sonnet is addressed to Uranie, in love of whom he must
end his days, because neither time nor absence can cure him.
Still, when he thinks of the charms for which he is to perish, be
blesses his martyrdom and is ready to die. Reason comes to his
aid, but after a vain struggle, declares Uranie so amiable and beau*
tiful as to confirm his attachment.

Elle dit qn*Uraiiie est seule aimaUe et belle,
£t m*y rengage plus, que ne fout tous mes sens.

Benserade's sonnet was entitled Job, and may be more briefly
described. He draws a picture of Job's suffermgs and patience,
for the purpose of adding that there are worse torments than even
Job endured, for Job could speak and complain, while the lover
must hold his tongue.

Job souffiit des maux incroyables:
H s'en plalgnit — il en parla :
J'en connais de plus miserables.

The contest at last grew to a poetical civil war, and the par*
tisans at each side, like Guelphs and Ghibelines, took the respective
names of Uranistes and Jobelins. Votes were canvassed, and
each name, as it was declared, hailed as a victory. The field of
battle was at last cleared by a stupidity which answered the pur-
pose of a ban-mot y for it set all laughing; and when people laugh
reconciliation is at hand. A maid of honour, less poetical than
pretty, was canvassed by the Jobelins with success, and when,
amidst the silence of the anxious combatants, her opinion was
called for, said — ' Well, I declare for Tobie.' This happy stroke
of naive ignorance proved more effective than the fiat of the beau-
tiful Longueville.

Madame de Rambouillet was not herself affected with the pe-
dantry and affectation, which sprung up thus like tares in the
field where she had sown good seed. Learned and wise she
was, but also most amiable. With none but a thoroughly good-
humoured and little exacting woman could such liberties as those
of Voiture be practised, according to the anecdotes told by
Tallemant. ' Having found two bear-leaders one day in the
street, with their bears muzzled, he induced them to steal gently
after him into the chamber where Madame de Rambouillet was
reading, with her back as usual to a large screen, up which cUmb

Affitations of the Fronde. 145

the bears, and when she turned her head, lo ! there were two grave
figures peering into her book.' Was it not enough, asks Talle-
mant, to cure her of a fever? We know not the effect of the
esnperiment in that respect; but we know that she laughed at its
fiHty author and forgave him. Tallemant's subsequent account of
the love amounting to adoration felt for her by her domestics,
paints a happy home. After her death a friend of hers hap-
pened to dine with her son-in-law, when an old servant, recog-
nising him, threw himself at his feet, exclaiming, * Monsieur, I
adore you! Since you were one of the friends of la arande
Marquise, no one shall, this evening, serve you but myself.

In the year 1644, when Comeille was received, as we have seen,
in the Hotel de Rambouillet, it was in the zenith of its influence.
During the lifetime of Louis the Thirteenth there was no attrac-
tion at the court, and Madame de Rambouillet reigned supreme in
the world of taste and letters. The first civil war of the Fronde
broke out in 1649, six years after the king's death, and on its
renewal was protracted to the year 1654. The agitations of this
period were fatal to the ascendancy held by literary reunions ; but
they were remarkable for having developed an extraordinary
amount of female courage, of womanly devotedness, and in some
instances of womanly heroism ; and it must not be forgotten that
the women who took the most^ distinguished part in these troubles
had graduated, if we may so speak, in the college of Rambouillet.
Thus we find the high-flown sentiments, which at a later period
fell like rank weeds before the scythe of the autlior of the ' Pre-
cieuses Ridicules,' translating themselves here into bold and chi-
valrous conduct. In the adventures of Madame Deshouillieres,
for example, we see a characteristic specimen of the Rambouillet
days.

Her husband was a lieutenant-colonel of the Prince de Conde's
iufantry, and firom gratitude to his patron took part in his rebel-
lion, and passed with him into Flanders, leaving Madame Des-
houillieres with her parents. Educated and accomplished accord-
ing to the existing standard of female teaching; for she was
acquainted with Latin, Spanish, and Italian, and rode and danced
with grace; she, a young woman of nineteen years, resolved to
combat the pain of separation by the study of Descartes and
Grassendi, whose works had a little time before begun to attract
attention. The Prince de Cond^ having taken Rocroi, the 29th
September 1653, in the name of the King of Spain, gave the
command of the place to Colonel Deshouillieres ; and he having at
length a fixed position, sent for his wife. She remained here
two years, and afterwards went to reside at Brussels. At this
time the capital of the low countries was crowded with young

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIII. L

4

k

146 The Hotel de Rambouillet.

Spanish and Italian nobles, desirous of studying the art of
war under the great captain then in league with Cond^
against his native country. The assemblies held in the hotels
of the nobihty were of the most brilliant kind, and Madame
DeshouiUieres, by her beauty and surpassing accompHshments,
won universal homage. The Prince de Conde avowed himself
an ardent admirer, but her discouragement became so marked,
that he withdrew his soUcitations. Then, for some reason of
which we have no satisfactory account, Madame DeshouiUieres
during her husband's absence on duty was arrested, and con-
ductea a state prisoner to the Chateau of Vilvorde, at two leagues
distance from Brussels. It was said that the pretext for her im-
prisonment was her too urgent demand for payment of the
arrears due to her husband, rendered indispensable by the expenses
to which their mode of life had subjected them. Thus the Spa-
nish government would deter its numerous creditors from fiirtner
importunity ; and Madame Deshomllieres was selected, not as the
most troublesome but as the most conspicuous victim, from her
position calculated to serve as a warning to the rest. Her hus-
band appealed to the Prince de Cond^, who declined inter-
ference. Stimg by this injustice, he determined to return to
the service of his country from which gratitude to the Prince
had seduced him. In the mean time, in order to lull suspi-
cion, he performed his mihtary duties with exactitude. Having
matured in his own mind a plan for his wife's deliverance, a favour-
able opportunity for carrying it into execution after some time
presented itself With a forged order from the Prince de Cond^
for admittance into the Chateau of Vilvorde, he succeeded in
entering at the head of a few faithful soldiers, by whose assistance
he carried off his wife and brought her safely into France. Had
he failed in his enterprise, husband and wife would infaUibly
have been put to death. In the course of their escape the lady's
courage was tried in a less dignified, but yet very enectual way.
A chateau in which she slept, was said to be visited every night
by a troubled spirit, who, in strict conformity with all ghostly
practices, displayed a preference for one particular chamber; but
in that very chamber, Madame DeshouiUieres, notwithstanding
her advanced state of pregnancy, resolved to pass the night. Soon
after the awftd hour oi twelve, the door opened — die spoke,
but the ^ectre answered not — a table was overthrown, and the
curtains drawn aside, and the phantom was close to her.
Stretching forth her hands undauntedly, she caughfc two long
silky ears, or what so seemed to her touch, and these she reso-
lutely held until the dawn revealed a large quiet house-dog, who
preferred a bedchamber to a cold courtyard.

Madame DeshouiUieres. 147

Hie leception whicli Colonel and Madame Deshouillieres met
witli at the Court of France was most dlstmguished. Cardinal
Mazaiin was cliarmed with so valuable a defection &om the ranks
of his chief enemy. Madame DeshouilKeres became once more
the centre of the accomplished world; and the universal mark for
compliment, in the elaborate form which literary compliment then
assumed, and to revive which, imder the name of portraits, some
futile attempts have been lately made in the Faubourg St. Germain.
But at lengm Deshouillieres and his wife were fated once more
to separate, and from the same cause — ^poverty. They were
obliged to give up every vestige of property. He rejomed the
army, and by his remarkable sBll as an engineer rose to distinc-
tion; while she, for solace, devoted herself to the cultivation of
poetry. Their last days were spent in comparative comfort, and
thCT lived together to a good old age.

This short notice of Madame Deshouillieres vrill introduce the
observation we have to oflfer upon the style of writing of the timq.
Between the maimers of society and the slyle in vogue, there is of
course a plainly perceptible analogy. Both delighted in masque-
rade : but highly artincial as manners were, they could not so press
down the natural tendencies of the heart, ihatupon adequate occa-
sion it should not throw off its trammels, — ^and so with the style of
the time, which, artificial as it was, could not quite exclude minds
of the higher order from a sound, strong, and healthy mode of
expression. The traditional notion formed of Madame Deshouil-
lieres is that of an elegantly attired lady shepherdess, wear-
ing high-heeled shoes, a robe looped up with ribbons and
flowers, a very small hat perched lightly upon the right side of her
head, a langmd feather looping tnerefrom, with rouge and those
coquettish little black marks called mouches upon her cheeks, a
crook in her hand, and by her side a lamb lookm^ up to her face,
as if it mistook her for its mother. Yet in turmng over the ne-
glected pages of this high-minded, courageous, and accomplished
woman, we find, apart from those fulsome displays into which she
was seduced by misjudging fashion, lively satires against the false
taste with which her own writings are supposed to be identified,
and pictures of manners of evident truth, which furnish illuistra-
tions of general as well as private history.

Her epistle to Pere la Chaise, the King's Confessor, dated
1692, exposes with admirable sarcasm tihe hypocrisy made
fashionable by the example of Madame de Maintenon, then in
complete ascendancy over the king. The epistle is in the form of
a dialogue. She asks by what hitherto uriknown merit can she,
the victim of so many wrongs, re-acquire estimation in the
eyes of the world? on which her supposed companion, recaUmOMpn

148 The Hotel de Rambouillet

to mind tlie fifty years of unfruitful services of her husband and
family, invokes her in order to procure compensation to turn
devotee. The advice is indignantly rejected for the following
reasons.

■ Devotion ! No ! Hypocrisy is made
By beggared debauchees their safest trade ;
By women from whom Time hath stoVn aU charm,
Or scandal on their name breathed fatal harm :
Let these alone bereft of merit, try
To put on Bigotry's deceitful eye:
All is forgotten— «11 is yamish'd o'er —
And taint, or crime, or folly, seen no more.
Oh, that I could some deep dark colours find
To paint the blackness of the treacherous mind !
How I, who hate all falsehood, e'en the streak
Of simulated red rouged o'er the cheek,
Must more detest the gloss o'er manners thrown.
And hate all forms that are not Nature's own !

In a poem of an earlier date, Madame Deshouillieres had

painted the torments to which a literary lion is exposed.

Ah ! think, my friend, how onerous is fame !

You call to pay a visit — at your name

The whole assembly changes tone and looks :

*Here comes an author,' now they cry;

* Let language take a lofty range :'

And in a manner, stiff and strange.

Their precious syllables they try.
They bore you all the while about new books,

Ask your opinion, too, about your own,
And beg the favour of a recitation :

When, if you give the first in simple tone.
Or speak the other with shy hesitation.

The whisper will run round — * A hel esprit f
Why she talks like another — ^you or me!

Calls herself an author, and none grander,

While any one with ears can understand her I'

The reader has remarked the word precious in the preceding
extract. It is an epithet of signification so important, as to call
for a word of explanation. Precieuse impliea originally distin-
guished^ in the most elegant and elevated sense of the word. —
Madame de Rambouillet was herself a Precieuse^ meaning thereby
a woman of accompUshments and distinction. But by degrees the
epithet, or to speak more properly, the title Precieuse, was attach-
ed exclusively to Beaux Esprits^ until at last it came to be syno-
nimous with pedantic. To Mademoiselle de Scudery, the friend of
Madame de Rambouillet, may be specially traced the origin of the
delectable style of speaking alluded to by Madame Deshouillieres,
and to which Mohfere gave the blow of which it lingered and
died. This once celebrated woman, when she wrote the first and
second of her interminable romances, either through timidity, or
to please a half-witted tyrannical brother who fancied himself an
author, published them under her brother's name. But the feme

. Mademoiselle de Scudery. 149

the works acquired drew too much attention iipon their reputed
author to admit of liis strutting long in borrowed plumage. Made-
moiselle de Scudery once known as the real author, her popularity
became imbounded. She opened her own salon, and upon the
Saturdays received the H6tel de Rambouillet. Nor did the rivalry
excite jealousy, for the ladies were friendly to the last.

The romances of Mademoiselle de Scudery are long-spun
disquisitions upon love, in which the passion is sublimated
to an essence as pure and as cold as the highest region of the
atmosphere. The characters introduced for the purpose of saying,
not doing, are real ; that is to say, they represent some of the most
remarkable of then living persons. Hiese are introduced under
names composed of the letters of their own, from under which
thin mask they talk like gods and goddesses. Thus Madame
de Rambouillet was the Arthenice, and her daughter the
Duchess of Montausier, the Parthenie of the novel of Clelie.
The language of the books, out of compliment to the authoress,
soon became the language of the salon, and taking the course of
all artificial things, by growing every day more artificial, swelled
at last into insupportable bathos. Many of her originals, too, felt
called upon to sustain the ideal that Scudery drew of them, and
hence restraint and affectation. So, as each person of the novel was
known to be drawn from a life original, it came to be esteemed the
highest honour to be allowed to sit for this literary Lawrence.
And as Scudery (or Sappho as she was dubbed by general con-
sent) possessed all tlie refined delicacy of sentiment she loved to
paint, every artifice was needed to mduce her to accept presents
lor her portraits. The Duchess of Longueville, while in exile,
sent her a portrait of herself in a circle of diamonds. Those who
desired to convey more useful tokens, had them left by an un-
known hand at an early hour in the morning. And we have before
us a proof of her delicacy of sentiment which does so much honour
to all parties concerned in it, that we cannot refrain from detailing
the circumstance.

When the extravagant but magnificent Fouquet, in whose
hands was the direction of the finances of the kingdom, was
thrown into the Bastille as a public defaulter, his fall was accom-
^nied by the desertion of many who had lived upon his bounty.
The exceptions were women, and illustrious women : Scudery, S^-
vigne, and Lafayette: and so true did they remain to the fallen
man, that he has left it upon record as the testimony of his expe-
rience * that a woman is an imfailing friend.' Of his male friends
and dependants one poor rhymester named Loret, whose poetical
chronicle of the court balls and masques is now a valuable pic-
ture of the past, composed a lay in praise of his patron for which

150 The H6tel de RcmAouiUet

he was deprived of his pension from the Court. Poor Loret had
also held a pension from Fouquet, who was a generous friend of
literary men and artists. Fouquet was so touched with the poeti-
cal chronicler's devotion, that he determined, ruined as he was,
to continue the pension from the fragment of his fortune. To
this Loret, equally deprived of all, would by no means con-
sent. Fouquet sent for Madlle. de Scudery, placed the money
in her hands, and induced her to imdertake the delicate task of
having it conveyed. She in order the more completely to
blindmld Loret, engaged a female friend, of whose object no
suspicion could be entertained; and the latter, after a long
conversation with the poet purposely protracted, contrived du-
ring a happy moment, while his back was turned, to place the
money in a comer where it afterwards met his eye. Fouquet,
after a confinement of many years, died in the Bastille, his fate
as much the result of Loms AlV.'s vengeance as of his sense
of justice: for Fouquet had had the audacity to rival his royal
master in the good graces of La ValH^re. Not to wander nir-
ther from our subject, we shall just observe that in the second
volume of these memoirs of M. de Walckenaer, there is an ample
accoimt of this extraordinary affair of Fouquet's, which is well
worthy of perusal.

Madlle. de Scudery, though not handsome, for she was tall
and lank with something Quixotic in her appearance, made the
conquest of two distingmshed literary men, Pelesson and Conrart.
But the impracticable tests she had invented fox sounding the
truth, depth and sincerity of the tender passion, were by her-
self appUed to her own case, and she died an old maid at the ad-
vanced age of ninety-four: an instance of the happy effects of an
innocent mdulgence of the imagination, without the alloy of vio-
lent sensations, upon the duration of life. Her map of the land of
love, or, as she quaintly called it, her Carte de Tendre was consi-
dered a masterpiece of esprit and skill. It was a Lover's Pil-
's Progress as ingenious as John Bunyan's. From the vil-

e of Petits soins she leads you to the hamlet of Billets doux.
But before you arrive even at the outpost o{ Propos-galants^ there
remain to be crossed the three broad nvers of Tendre-sur-Estime^
Tendre-sur-inclination, and Tendre-siir-reconnaissance^ and these
can only be reached by Complaisance and Sensibilite. Then
there were the dangerous quagmires of Tiedeur (lukewarmness)^
and Oubli (forffetfulness), and that slough of Despond, the lake of
Indifference. Gallant and stout-hearted must be the knight, who
threaded his wajr securely through this enchanted coimtry. Nor
did Sappho's disciples confine their studies to ideal geography
grsubjects were proposed for discussion of which love and men(l-

La Rochefoucauld, 151

ship formed the theme. Even the severe Richelieu, puerile in
hexameters as he was grand in policy, was so smitten with the

})revailing taste, that he wrote with his own hand various themes
or the salon of his niece the Duchess d* Aiguillon. But to sum up a
whole question in a sparkling antithesis was esteemed the triimiph
of philosophical ingenuity. And to efforts of this kind we owe
certainly the femous ' Maxims' of La Rochefoucauld, while to the
fashion of making descriptive portraits we are equally indebted
for a work of no less celebrity, the ' Characters of La Bruy^re.'

The mention of the former name takes us to the romances of
Madame de Lafayette, of whose house, long after the intrigues of
the Fronde in wnich he was so reduced had ceased, La Roche-
foucaidd became the charm. He it was who throughout these
troubles had acted brilliant Mephistopheles to the gay, giddy and
eccentric Duchess of Longuevule. His real passion for her, met
by its object with her accustomed fickleness and inconstancy,
perhaps mrst gave his writings their tone of bitterness. But such
a man must have been also strongly disgusted with the selfishness
of the leaders engaged in that petty but ruinous civil war, which
spread desolation over the whole coimtiy. Originally, he was
of ardent rather than sarcastic temper, and in conversation is said
to have been overwhelmingly brilliant. And it is certain that
his intimacy with Madame de Lafayette and her friend Ma-
dame de Sevign^, much tended on the whole to alleviate his
dissatisfaction with the rest of human nature. The former boasted
with allowable pride that she had improved his heart, as much
as he had improved her head.

We have already seen that when Mademoiselle de Scudery as-
sisted at the reading of ComeiUe's tragedy, she being at that time
in the full blaze of her reputation, Madame Lafayette, then
Mademoiselle de la Vergne, was a Httle girl of twelve years of age.
That little girl, with the red silk bandage over her eyes for a game
of blind man's buff, was destined to echpse the renowned Sappho.
Her father, who directed her education himself, had her instructed
in French and Latin, in both which languages she made remark-
able progress. Her first romance, like those of her predecessor, ap-
peared under the name of a male fiiend. Their success was
immediate : and for this reason, if we may trust Voltaire, that they
formed the first attempt at painting manners as they were, and of
describing natural events with grace. Let us take a specimen
from the best of her romances, flie ' Princess of Cleves,' of what
the philosopher who could not relish Shakspeare looked up to as
natural wnting. The author describes the court of Francis I.,
meaning in reality that of Louis XIV.

" Nerer did any court possess so many beautiful women, and men admta^lMjj^^

152 The Hotel de RambouiUet

well formed ; it seemed as if nature took pleasure in showering her choicest gifts
upon the greatest princesses and princes.'*

This was indeed a step in admiration of nature, enough to
satisfy the high-bred predilections of Voltaire himself. Her hero,
the Due de Nemours, is thus introduced :

" This prince was a masterpiece of nature : the least admirable part of his
good qualities was to be of all the world the finest and best made man. That
which placed him above all others was his incomparable worth, the vivacity of
his mind, of his countenance and manners, such as never appeared before in any
but himsel£ His gaiety was alike pleasing to men and to women. His address
in all manly exercises was extraordinary. His manner of dressing was followed
by the whole world, but never could be imitated. His air, in fine, was such that
he absorbed all attention wherever he appeared. There was not a lady in the
court who would not have esteemed it a glory to see him attached to her. Few
of those to whom he was attached could have boasted of having resisted him; and
even many to whom he paid no attention, could not refrain from feeling a passion
for him. He had so much gentleness and such a disposition to gallantry, that he
was unable to refuse some little attentions to those who sought to please him.
Thus he had several mistresses, but it was difficult to guess which of them it
was he truly loved."

When we say that such writing as this was popular, we must
be imderstood to mean that it formed the delight of the high-bom
and court circles for whom alone novels were written. Madame
de Lafayette would have shrunk with horror from the idea, that
a citizen's thumb turned over one of her pages. So, when the
aristocracy forsook Sappho for the more * natural ' Lafayette, it was
because they reUshed ner more direct flattery of their rank, and
descended with more ease of comprehension from epic heroes in

?rose to the positive dressing ana dandyism of the new school.
?he style of such descriptions was so general, that it fitted all
alike. There was no fixing of peculiar features; no graphic turns
of expression applicable to some one individual and to that in-
dividual only; all were great, grand, fine, beautifid, noble. In
what proportions these qualities were blended, or what their de-
grees in different individuals, the author was never troubled to
think of. Madame de Lafayette's success, in short, lay in the
wideness of the contrast between her ideas of an accomplished man,
and those of her predecessor. A heroine of Scudery would have
shrunk from a bold eye, or the profanation of a rude touch: no
woman could resist Lafayette's Duke of Nemours. The same aris-
tocratic spirit ascended the pulpit with the clergy, the highestposts
in the church being now filled by scions of noble famiUes. When
Flechier preached the funeral sermon of the Duchess of Mon-
tausier, our before-named Julie, in presence of her two sisters,
the religieuses of whom we have previously made mention, he
addresses them not as mes soeurs but mesdames^ and pronounces an
eidogium upon the deceased and her mother, Madame de Ram-
bouiUet, imder their romantic appellations of Parthenie and
Arthenice! Li reading the funem orations of the time, one

Louis Quatorze, 153

would suppose that heaven was complimented by heing allowed
to receive the most high puissant and noble Cond^s and Turennes,
and that the earth upon which they condescended not to live any
longer, was eclipsed by the passing of their spirits between it and
the sun.

The H6tel de Rambouillet declines with Louis Quatorze. The
troubles of the Fronde taught Louis to distrust alike, the parlia-
ment, the nobles, and distinguished women. With the first he
made short work. His appearance in his hunting-dress, booted and
spurred, and whip in hand, with his contemptuous order to mingle
no more in state affairs, is too well known to need more than a
passing allusion. So, by alluring the once turbulent nobles to a
voluptuous court, and there plunging them into extravagant
expenditure, of which he set the example, he reduced them to
such a state of dependancy for distinction upon his own favour,
that we find the great Conde soliciting as an honour, permission
to wear a hunting-dress in all respects made after the fashion of
the king's. As for women of talent, they were utterly discouraged.
Frivolity became the order of the day; court masques the ruling
passion. Invention was taxed for suitable decorations, and the
king himself took the chief role as actor, and even as dancer in
this sort of entertainment.

Benserade was the fashionable writer of those court masques, in
which figured Louis le Grand. Never was Poet Laureat more
honoured by royal notice, even by royal friendship; and cer-
tainly Poet Laureat before or since was never so well paid. He
was very different in character from his rival, the thoughtless and
eccentric Voiture. Benserade had studied the weaknesses of men,
which he learned to turn skilfully to his own advantage. With
the most unscrupulous flattery in constant service, he made it a
principle not to offer homage to less than royal blood, with the
one exception of a prime minister. He set value upon eulogies,
made a regular market of them, and blamed Voiture for showing
subserviency in his necessities when he might have commanded
assistance. Louis' intrigue with La Valhfere raised the fortune of
the poet to its supreme height. He contrived to win the confi-
dence of both. Poor La VaUi^re not being a Precietise, blushed
at the rustic turn of her naturally formed periods, and secretly
engaged Benserade to deck her phraseology m a court suit. Louis,
who nad not vet acquired sufficient self-confidence to emanci-
pate himself from the yoke of his mother (Anne of Austria)
called in the services of Benserade to express his secret passion.
Parts were composed for the king, and speeches put into his mouth,
of such ingenious contrivance that while the queen saw not their
hidden meaning. La Vallike, standing by her side, should under-

154 The Hdtel de Rambmillet.

stand it. A ballet upon * Impatience/ in which that feeling is
illustrated in a variety of forms, was chief part of one of his enter-
tainments. Lawyers (fispute over a lawsuit, their unfortunate clients
regarding them with looks haggard with impatience. Then the
scene changes, and we have a troop of Muscovite savages taking
lessons from a French dancing-master, who foams with impatience
at their grotesque efforts to acquire Parisian graces. At last enters
the king imder the form of Jupiter, and Olympus is shaken with his
impatient anger, that he cannot pursue his amours undisturbed :
but, a god being fertile jn resources, Jove metamorphoses him-
self into the figure of Diana, and CalHsto is deceived. The court
were of course enraptured at the deUcacy of these allusions, and
encouraged the king's resolution by unanimous plaudits.

In another masque the king as rluto disregards the absence of
day, because of the secret flame which ever cheers his dweUing —
that flame imderstood by La VaUifere, seated in the queen's box.
And Benserade displayed his ingenuity in other ways. Not only
were all secondary characters tamed down for the purpose of
giving exclusive prominence to that sustained by the king — ^but
they were made to criticise their own defects, and contrast them
with the all-perfection of his majesty. Even this was not enough
for so capacious a swallow. The king himself utters such extra-
vagant self-praise, that it is startling to think how great must have
been the hardihood of the man who could have dared to ask a
mortal possessed of common sense to speak it. Greater still the
wonder at the self-complacency of the stage monarch, acted by a
real king. In one'speech he is made to draw a parallel between
himself and Alexander the Great, very much to tne disadvantage
of Alexander. Whatever question might arise as to their respec-
tive political and military capacities, there could be no doubt at
all as to which was the handsomer man. Who, asks the royal
mime, would for a moment attempt to compare us both in what
relates to beauty, air, and bodily graces.

£t toute chose ^gale, entre ces grandes amcs,
Alexandre eut perdu devant toutes les dames.

Thus, having in these masques personated Jupiter, Pluto, Mars,
and Apollo, with sundry lovelorn shepherds — the king crowned
the climax by bursting out upon the stage as the Sim ! and like the
Sun had his worshippers. Happy were the courtiers allowed to
Eve in his rays. There were those to whom a frown would have
been death, as his smile was Hfe ; who hung about his path in the
hope of being handed his cane or cloak; and to whom it was
supreme happmess to throw crumbs of bread to the gold-fish
in the basins of the park of Versailles, and thus have to
boast they contributed to the king's amusement. Louis appro-

The * JPrecieuses Ridicules.* 155

priately rewarded the liigh priest of his worship by bestowing
upon him the moiety of a bishop's revenue. Benserade was a
clever fellow I He contrived to insinuate himself into the fevour
of the stem Eicheheu; he hoodwinked the wily Mazarin; he
steered through the Fronde without offending either party; and
he won the personal friendship of the vain and fickle Louis. Yet
he was said to have been generous at heart, and to have solicited
more fitvours for his friends than for himself. Madame de S^vigne,
in one of her letters, mentions her having met him at a dinner
party of which he was the grand attraction, and calls him a de-
lightful fellow. Moli^re disturbed his happiness, and affected his
renown.

The king, whose Hterary taste, at least in early life, may be
judged by the Masques, in which he himself cut so strange a
figure, showed always a marked dislike for female authorship.
There is strong reason to conclude that when MoH^re, in 1659,
wrote his ' Precieuses Ridicules' he was as much incited to his
attack upon literary ladies by a desire to please the monarch, as by
the palpable pedantryinto which the disciples of the RambouiUet
school had decUned. This little farce told fatally against bas hlemsm.
Menage, the tutor of Madame de Sevigne, has recorded his testi-
mony of the effect produced by its first representation. All the
H6tel de Rambotiillet were present, and at the close of the piece
Menage acknowledges that he thus addressed his firiiends: ' We
may now say as St. Remus said to Clovis — we must burn the
idols we adored, and adore those we would have burned:' then de-
scending from his own pedantic tone, he adds quaintly, ' This
satire knocked down galimatias and the forced style of writing.'
The weakest point presented to the attack of the inimitable sati-
rist, was of course the extravagant affectation of language.

Having sketched thus briefly and rapidly the history of the
H6tel de Rambouillet, from its foundation by the noble, frank,
generous, or as her faithful servant better termed her, la grande
Marquise^ to the period of its decline, we arrive at the immediate
object of M. de Walckenaer's book, the celebrated Madame de
Sevign^.

Menage, whose name we have last introduced as her tutor,
was so fascinated by his pupil that he fell in love with her. Poor
old pedant ! he must have had some excellent quaHties, for he had
many enemies : provoked more by the incautious exhibition of his
self-love than of his enmity, for his nature appears to have been
amiable. We are drifting into a digression we cannot avoid — ^but
this tutor meeting us at the threshold, we must have a word with
him, or about him, before we claim brief interview with his

156 The Hotel de Rarnbouillet

cLarming pupil. The latter amused herself with a passion, which
it is needless to say could have only been made matter for di-
version. But this Menage could not understand. He wondered
that Madame de Sevigne showed no fear of him — a gallant of
such attraction. One day, she quietly desired him to take the
place in her carriage vacant by the absence of her dame de com-
pagnie. He opened his eyes, astonished at such a mark of con-
tempt for public opinion, and at such a challenging of personal
danger. ' Come, come,* said she quickly, * and sit beside me :
and if you do not well behave yourself, I shall visit you at your
own house.' To his bewilderment she kept her word. Menage
was not so fortunate as to meet in every friend a Madame de
S^vign^. Never did unhappy author excite such a host of
enemies. Fleeting however would have been the effect of
enmity or friendship on his name, had it not become linked with
the attachment of a Sevigne and the enmity of a Moliere. The

duced imder the name of Vadius), and gave the coup de grace to
pedantry and philosophical jargon.

In looking over the collection of reflections, criticisms, and anec-
dotes which this author left under the title of * Menagiana,* we are
inclined to think he was dealt with hardly. Under the surface of
his learned display there runs a current of wholesome thought and
good feeling. We find him lamenting, as authors have in all
ages of civilization lamented, that his own age was not poetical,
and learnedly accoimting for the more poetical character of the
ancients by the poetical form of their religious worship. Of
Mademoiselle de Scudery he is a fervent admirer, for the cha-
racteristic reason that he finds in her romances an analogy with
the Epic poem : which, giving but one event of a hero's life,
would, he assures us, be wanting in impressiveness were it not
ingeniously lengthened by well-contrived digressions. He wrote
most of lus poetical pieces in the ancient languages, and says
it was not until he began to write in his own that he was made
the victim of so much enmity and jealousy. It is indeed true,
that however men may consent to superiority in one branch of
art they rebel against assumed versatility. It will be fair to add,
that an anecdote told by Manage of himself justifies the discrimi-
natinff friendship of his clever pupil, even against Moliere. He
says that the attacks of his enemies became at last insupportable,
and he determined to abandon the city, and to pass the re-
mainder of his days in soUtude. In the rural retreat which he
selected, he amused himself with rearing pigeons. One day a

Sevigjits Letters, 157

favourite was shot, and Menage grieved bitteriy over his lost bird,
but * Alas !' he suddenly exclaimed, ' I find that no human
lesidence is free from troubles. Let me then have only those to
encoimter which confer in the contest some degree of mgnity' —
and he returned to Paris.

Since we first saw Madame de Sevigne binding the eyes of
Mademoiselle de la Vergne for a game of Colin Maillard, we have
only from time to time caught glances of her. Although the
aumor of these memoirs links to her name a history of the trou-
bles of the Fronde, she was in no way mixed up with them ; nor
do they appear to have directly affected either her genius or
character imtil her daughter had grown up, and she felt it her
duty to forward her prospects in Hie. Madame de S^vign^ did
not abandon her solitude in Brittany. When she did appear at
court, then deemed a sublunary paradise reserved for the elite of
mortals only, her stay was not long nor continuous: her for-
tune not being equal to the expenses attendant upon such costly
favour. With the removal of her daughter to her husband s
chateau on the Rhine, comes the first of that inimitable collection
of letters, which have made her name immortal.

What freshness do they breathe — what boundless animal spirits —
what exquisite truth and heart — what sound sense — ^what mild and
gracious msinuations, rather than inculcations, of wise maxims —
what pictures of rural happiness — what delicious rustic repasts !
Her books too — ^history, poetry, philosophy — ^Pascal and Nicolle
— all the sound food of a healthy mind. Then the vivid pictures of
passing events, caught in her visits to court, or reflected from the
pens of such correspondents as Madame de Lafayette, or Bussy de '
Babutin. And all the offering of an overflowing tenderness to a
well-beloved daughter ! Who does not think and speak of Ma-
dame de Sevigne, indeed, as almost a beloved friend that he
has known. Even M. de Walckenaer, calm historian as he
is, introduces her in this referential, take-for-granted way : * This
complexion of such rare freshness, this rich fair hair, these
brilliant and animated eyes, this irregular but expressive physiog-
nomy, this elegant figure, were so many gifts from nature. And
then her ' sweet voice, cultivated to the highest degree, according
to the musical science of the time, and her briUiant danse which
drew out with iclat the livehness and habitual gracefulness of her
movements.' We have all that general description wliich is as the
recalling to mind of a friend whom every body has seen, and all ap-
preciated, and upon whose traits we love to dwell. It has been
charged by some that affection for her daughter was too promi-
nently put forward, as if in abandoning Hterary pedantry she had

158 The H6tel de JRambauaiet

fiillen into an affectation of another kind, not less obnoxious.
But no ! In solitude when at home, surrounded by a highly arti-
ficial society abroad, she needed an object for the currents of her
warm impulses to overflow upon, and towards that object they
rushed with giddy delight, and painful and even foolish fondness.
With our present imerring and rapid means of commimication,
and our general penny post, we have but a feeble idea of the
elixir of happiness whicn in old times could be enveloped in a
sheet of paper. Poor Madame de Sevign^ cannot contain her
deHght at the post-office improvement of her time, according to
which a horse courier was despatched from Paris once a week !
She tells us of the pleasure the faces of these couriers, whenever
she met them upon the high-road, used to afford her — and no
wonder, for at that time me journey of a courier was one of
peril and adventure. Of pleasant excitement too ! How the smack
of his whip, and the soimd of his horse's hoof, must have brought
every face to the windows of a coimtry chateau. With what
honours he must have been received. An ambassador, even he
of Siam, deHvering his credentials at Versailles, would have cut
but a poor figure beside the bearer of a packet of letters from
Madame de S^vigne. He was * a mercury alighting upon a
heaven kissing hill' — a god! What prayers must have accom-
panied his departure — ^what blessings hailed his arrival. How
his horse must have been patted and fed, and the best bed given
to him — and then picture the family circle aroimd the adven-
turous letters, and, provided there were no very special family
secrets therein, fancy the kind friends and neighbours invited
to partake of that family joy and the family repast.

It is probable that serious secrets were seldom thus conveyed
because of the danger of the times. When Mazarin was obliged
during the Fronde to yield to the clamours of his enemies, and
to wiflidraw into voluntary exile, he and Anne of Austria cor-
responded by word of mouth, through confidential couriers who
carried their despatches in their heads. A serious family affair
would, even at a later period, demand a journey from one of its
heads. But a letter then filled many of the objects now suppHed
by a newspaper, and hence we read in Madame de Sevigne's letters
descriptions of pubUc events, to convey which a friend would at
present have no more to do than write an address at a newspaper
office. See for example her accoimt of the death of Turenne, and
the particulars given of the funeral procession to Saint Denis:
an event which at the present day (we talk not of style) would
be done for all the world at a penny a line. At the same time
the circimistances in which they were written give these charming

Madame de SevignL 159

compositions a serious historical importance, and hence those re-
searches, in relation to them, which have conferred upon the names
of Monmerqu6 and Walckenaer so much honour.

Madame de Sevigne was religious, and in the best sense of the
word, for she was charitable, forgiving, and tolerant. * Have
no enemies,' is one of her most energetically e^roressed coimcils
to her daughter, to which she adds, ' and plenty of friends.' Such
was the maxim of her mature years, but in her youth she prac-
tised it from feeling. We know of nothing more touching than
her conduct upon arrival in town after the death of her hus-
band, who fell m a duel that had originated in dispute about a
mistress. To that mistress, Madame Godoran, the young be-
reaved wife sent to beg a lock of the hair of her husband, whose
sins against herself she forgave, as she prayed Heaven to forgive
them. Her pardon of the outrage agamst herself committed by
her cousin Bussy Rabutin (he introduced her portrait in an in-
decent book), was in a similar spirit. She reserved it until he
was abandoned by all the world, a ruined man: and then she
visited him, affording him the consolation of her matchless con-
versation, with all the aid he stood in need of.

Thus lively, hearty, and wise, reUgious and tolerant, instructive
and unaffected, natural and loving, with a reflecting mind, an
expansive heart, accomplished manners, and boimdless animal
spirits, Marie de Rabutm-Chantal Marchioness de S^vign^ was
the most perfect woman of whom we have an unconscious self-
record. Moli^re did good, but from mixed motives. His fine
common sense revolted, no doubt, against the affectation which
his satire demolished — but he acted, too, in obedience to the will
of a monarch whose disdain was all egotistical. Madame de
Sevigne did better : she instructed by presenting a model which
won all hearts, in the contemplation of which people rather forgot
than hated, and insensibly abandoned the tawdry idols to which
they had before paid homage. For this reason, teaching by ex-
ample is the best teaching ; and sight of the good far better than
exposure of the bad. Let those however who are dull, or sad, or
oppressed, or disappointed, or dissatisfied with the world, have
recourse to either one or the other. If MoUfere or Sevigne
cannot administer reUef, the case is all but hopeless.

With Madame de S^vign^ closes that briUiant train of intel-
lectual women of whom Madame de Rambouillet was the first.

( 160 )

Aet. Vni. — 1. Esscds Littiraires et Historiques, (Literaiy and
Historical Essays.) Par A. W. de Schlegel. Bonn. 1842.

2. Vorlesungen uber dramatische Kunst und Liter atar, (Lectures
on Dramatic Art and Literature.) By A. W. Schlegel.
1809-11.

3. A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, By
A. W. Schlegel. Translated from the German by John
Black. Second Edition. 1840.

The reputation of A. W. Schlegel is not imdeservedly Euro'>
pean. He has * done the state some service ;* he has stimidated
the minds of many thinking men, directing their attention to

Eoints of Uterary mstory which had before been overlooked ; and
e has been useful to the science of criticism, by his paradoxes
which have roused discussion, no less than by his principles which
have received assent. His works are distinguished amongst their
class by a splendour of diction, a feUcity of illustration, and attrac-
tiveness of exposition rarely equalled ; nor has their popularity
been injured by the afiectation of philosophic depth of which
they are guilty. Although more Rhetorician than Critic, his
writings contain some valuable principles luminously expressed,
much ingenuity and acuteness, and are, in spite of all their draw-
backs, worthy of serious attention. But in merits und in faults he
is essentially a popular writer, and stands, with us, in the very
false position of an oracle. As a popular writer he is efficient,
and merits all the applause he has received ; but as an oracle — as a
rational, serious, philosophic critic — ^he is one of the most dangerous
guides the student can consult. Freely admitting that his influ-
ence in England has not been on the whole without good result,
we are firmly convinced that it has been in many things perni-
cious. And while we are constantly deploring the evils he has
caused, we as constantly see him held up to our admiration and
respect as the highest authority on Dramatic Art.* Whatever
benefit it was in his power to confer has been already reaped ; and
now it is important that his errors should be exposed. VVe beg
the reader therefore to imderstand this article as polemicS
rather than critical: not as an estimate of Schlegers work, but
as a protest against liis method, and examination of his leading
principles.

In the preface to his recently collected volume of Essays he com-

* Ex uno disce omnes. ** We consider the Dramatic Lectures every way worthy
of that individual whom Grermany venerates as the second, and whom Europe has
classed among the most illustrious of her characters." — Quarterly Review.

Coleridge, 161

4

plains that Kis countrymen have forgotten him ; but rejoices in the
conviction that in other lands his name is mentioned with respect.
This is true. In Germany he has no long^ any influence because
he can no longer teach : the new generations have left him far be-
hind, and all his best ideas have become commonplaces. Gossip,
not Fame, is busy with him ; his coxcombry is sometimes men-
tioned, to be laughed at; his writings have not even the honour of
detraction. Yet must he always occupy an honourable place in the
literary annals of his country, both on account of what he has done
and tne men he has been connected with. As the translator of
Shakspeare and Calderon he will deserve the gratitude of his
oountnrmen. Nor can literary history forget that he was one of
the chiefs of the Romanticists, whose wit and eloquence came to
celebrate the victory that Lessing, Herder, and Winckelman had
won; that he was the &iend of the hectic Novalis, that strange,
mystic, unhealthy soul ; of Tieck, whose light and sunny spirit
takes such glorious revenge of his misshapen form; of Wack-
enroder, who died in his promise; of Schleiermacher, whose im-
cea^g activity was ennobled by so lofty and so generous a pur-
pose; and of Madame de Stael, who terrified Napoleon, — and
talked.

He will also long be honourably mentioned amongst us as one of
the first who taught us to regard Shakspeare as the reverse of a
* wild, irregular genius.' The precedence we know is claimed
by Coleridge, and many of his admirers admit the claim ; while
others wonder at the ' singular coincidences.' As a point of
literary history this is worth settling. Every one is aware of the
dispute respecting the originaHty of certain ideas promulgated by
Coleridge, but no one we believe has sifted the evidence on which
the matter rests. The facts are these. Schlegel lectured in Vienna
in 1808 ; five years afterwards, in 1813, Coleridge lectured on the
same subject m London. On examining the printed lectures we
find the most singular resemblances : not, be it observed, mere
general resemblances, such as two writers might very easily ex-
hibit— not mere coincidences of thought, but also of expression ;
the doctrines are precisely the same, the expression so similar as to
be a translation of one language into the other, the citations are
the same, the illustrations are the same, and the blunders are the
same. On so large a topic as that of the Greek Drama, coinci-
dence of opinion is extremely probable ; but coincidence of expres-
sion is in the highest degree improbable ; and if we add thereto
coincidence of illustration, citation, and blunders in point of fact,
the conclusion is irresistible that one of the writers has plagiarised
firom the other. We would beg attention to the following examples :

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIII. M

162

Augustus William Schlegeh

Whatever is most intoxicating in the
odour of a southern spring, languishing
in the song of the nightingale, or vo-
kiptuous on the first opemng of the rose,
is breathed into this x)oem.

ScHLEGEL — on *Romeo and Juliet.'

' The Pantheon is not more different
from Westminster Abbey, or St. Ste-
phen's at Vienna, than the structure of
a tragedy of Sophocles from a drama of
Shakspeare.

SCHLEGEL.

In the Old CJomedy the form was
sportive, and was characterized by an
apparent whim and caprice. The whole
production was one entire jest, on a
£u^ scale, comprehending within itself
a world of separate jests, and each oc-
cupied its own place without appearing
to have any concern with the rest.

SCHLEGEL.

The subdued seriousness of the New
Comedy, on the other hand, remains
always within the circle of experience.
The place of Fate is supplied by Acci-
dent.

SCHLEOEL.

With Juliet love was all that is ten-
der and melancholy in the nightingale,
all that is voluptuous in the rose, with
whatever is sweet in the freshness of

sprmg.

Coleridge.

And as the Pantheon is to York Min-
ster or Westminster Abbey, so is So-
phocles compared with Shakspeare.

Coleridge.

In the Old Comedy the very form
itself is whimsical; the whole work is
one great jest, comprehending a world
of jests within it, among which each
maintains its own place, without seem-
ing to concern itself as to the relation
in which it may stand to the rest.

Coleridge.

The Entertainment or New Comedy,
on the other hand, remained within the
circle of experience. Instead of the
tragic Destiny, it introduced the power
of Chance.

Coleridge.

Not to tire the reader, let these examples suflSce, although we
could cite twenty others equally striking. Most of what is said in
the ' Remains* of Coleridge on the subject of the Greek Drama
and respecting Shakspeare (pages 12 to 83 of the second volume),
is to be found in the ' Lectures' of Schlegel. This passes the
possibiKty of casual coincidence. Yet Coleridge, accused of pla-
giarism, boldly declared that " there is not a single principle in
Schlegel's work {which is not an admitted drawback from its
merits) that was not estabUshed and appUed in detail by me."

Unfortunately Coleridge, with all those great and admirable
powers which we are far from wishing to depreciate, was noto-
riously a plagiarist, and not a very honest one. He did not
simply appropriate the ideas of others, but always endeavoured
to prove that he was but recovering his own property. It is
worthy here to be remarked that many of the opinions and happy
illustrations of certain topics, to which Coleridge gave currengr,
and for which he daily receives the credit, are plagiarisms. His
famous sayinff that all men are bom either Aristotelians or Pla-
tonists is in Frederick Schlegel. His still more femous saying
respecting Plato, is what Socrates uttered of HeracKtus. The
philosophy in his ' Biographia Literaria,* is translated, often ver-
batim, from ScheUing. If, therefore, with this knowledge of his

Plagiarism. 163

Kterary honesty we examine the present question of plagiarism,
we shall find httle difficulty in detecting the culprit.

Coleridge lectured in 1813, five years after Schlegel ; and by
this time the German's ideas were pretty well known over Europe,
for Madame de Stael had then published her * De T Allemagne.'
On the other hand Coleridge, by an artful assertion, throws a
difficulty in the way. He says that his rival did not lecture till
two years after he did ; referring to the lectures at the Surrey
Institution in 1806. We call it an artful assertion, and the arti-
fice is this: the fact that he lectured in 1806 is brought forward
as a proof of his originaUty, imvlying that in those lectures of
1806 he delivered the same opimons as in those of 1813. His
feiends have taken the implication as if it were a necessary con-
sequence of his having lectured. But it is by no means a neces-
sary consequence: indeed we have his own express testimony
against it : for he says that he always made a point of so altering
the matter of his discourses that two on the same subject differed
as much as if they had been by two different individuals. These
lectures of 1806 have perished; no trace of them remains to sup-
port his assertion; the only remains are of those of 1813; and,
until it can be proved that the ' resemblances' were in those of
1806, he must be accused of the theft by all impartial judges.
For (and the case is remarkable as a specimen of boldness) in
one place Coleridge calls Sir George Beaumont, Sir Humphrey
Davy, and Hazlitt to witness that he delivered his views upon

* Hamlet' two years before Schlegel. The fact is indubitable;
but he forgot, m the anxiety for his ' moral reputation,* to add
this other feet— that in his criticism on Hamlet there are no re-
semblances to the criticism of Schlegel. Let the reader compare

* Remains,' vol. ii., pp. 204—234, with * Dramatic Lectures' ii.,
pp. 199 — 204, and he will appreciate the importance of Coleridge's
witnesses.

We here quit this topic, to confine ourselves to the * Dramatic
Lectures.' Schlegel's method we regard as the most injurious
portion of his work; the more so as it dignifies itself with lofty
names, and wishes to pass off easy theorizing for philosophic
judgment. We owe the jargon of modem criticism, which styles
itself 'philosophic,' principally to Schlegel; for the Solgers, Rots-
chers, Hegels, &c., are but uttle read. Every body knows that
the criticism of the last century was bad, but at any rate it was
positive; it was intelligible; it treated of the matter in hand, and
measured it according to standards which were appreciable, if
limited. Bad as it was, it was more satisfactory, more instructive
than much of what passes as philosophic in the present day.
Ridiculous though it oe to talk of the ' elegance and sublimity'

m2

164 Augustus William Schlegel.

of Homer, or the ' irregularity' of Shakspeare, we prefer it to
the rhapsodies of Schlegel on Calderon, wherein he defends the
glittering nonsense of nis favourite upon the ground that it is
' a sense of the mutual attraction of created things to one ano-
ther on account of their common origin, and this is a refulgence
of the eternal love which embraces the universe/ If there is
better criticism in the present day than in the last century, it is
because knowledge of art is greater and taste more cathofic; not
because ' analysis has given place to ' synthesis,' as many people
maintain.

In the eloquent introduction to the last edition of the transla-
tion of the ' Lectures,' Mr. Home deems it worthy of especial
and enthusiastic praise that Schlegel eschewed ' analysis.' Mr.
Home has an angry contempt for analysis; deems truth and ap-
preciation solely on the side of synthesis; will see no danger m
wholesale judgment. In this respect we may take his introduc-
tion as the expression of an opimon prevalent with a large class.
Opposed to this class is another which sneers with imlimited con-
tempt at ' philosophic criticism' as vague, dreamy, and fantastic.
Both parties are right in what they mean by these terms; but
neither of them affix the right meaning. One scorns analysis,
meaning incomplete analysis. Another scorns philosophy, mean-
ing bad philosophy.

Though ranging imder neither banner, we confess our inclina-
tions lean towards analysis. Bad analytical criticism is better
than mediocre philosophy. A review of a poem, which consists
in quoting a few passages, may not be satisfactory, but it at least
selects something whereby the reader may form an opinion. A
dissertation on the philosophic or artistic import of that poem
must be excellent to be endurable ; and at the best it is an essay,
not a judgment. Mr. Home thinks analysis * akin to the taking
an inventory of furniture in an edifice as a means of calculating
the abstract spirit of its master:' as we said, he means incomplete
analysis. He has also described his favourite method thus :

" It is the synthetic principle to work with nature and art, and not
against them ; collaterally and not in the assumed superiority of the
contemplative and investigating power over the productive power and
the things it produces."

In other words, the synthetic critic is an advocate, and not
a judge: an accurate description of Schlegel himself.

The greatest of modern critics, Lessing and Winckelman, were
men of great analytic power, and it is to them that we owe the
best appreciation of works of art. They were not declaimers.
They studied patiently, and reasoned profoundly. One aspect,

Classification of Works of Art 165

one limb, did not to them represent tlie whole. They strove to
evolve the meaning from each work, and not to force some a
priori meaning on the work. They were judges and not advo-
cates. It will be the scope of our remarks to show that Schle-
gel's 'synthesis' is rash, and not founded on a due * analysis:'
that he is an advocate and not a judge.

The first principle of classification is to trace constant uni-
formities amidst varieties: apphed therefore to works of art, it
consists in ranging under one head all such various specimens
produced by various nations as have some principle in common;
so that the diversities of language, customs, and tastes, are set
aside, and the real generic resemblance made the ground of clas-
sification. This would be the scientific method; but Schlegel in
Lis celebrated classification of art into classic and romantic has
acted in direct opposition to it. He has grounded his classifica-
tion on a single diversity instead of a constant imiformity. Ex-
cept for historical purposes, the division of art into ancient and
modem is fatal : it is assuming that the spirit of art is entirely
religious, whereas we hope to prove that it is national The
ground of classification must be ethnic not chronological: it is a
question of races not of periods.

Struck with the revolution operated by Christianity in men's
opinions, Schlegel and others have jumped to the conclusion,
that it also operated a revolution in the spirit of art. This is
tantamount to saying that a change of belief brings with it a
change of nature and of organic tendencies. Great as must
always be the influence of religion upon art, it can never entirely
change its spirit. Let us be understood. By the spirit of art
we do not mean opinions. As a distinction is made, and justly,
between the mind and its beliefs, so we would distinguish
between the spirit of art, and the ideas therein expressed. There
is in every nation an organic character, which no changes of opi-
nion can efface; this sets its impress upon all its works, so that
we never confound them with the works of another. This im-
press is the sign of what we call the spirit or the national tend-
encies of art. It cannot therefore be true that the spirit of Art
is dependant on religion ; the more so as religion itself is modified
by the national character. We do not here allude to sectarian
distinctions, or to varieties of interpretation; we point to the fact,
that Christianity becomes a subjective religion with a northern
race, while with a southern race it becomes oljective ; as we en-
deavoured to illustrate in the article on the Spanish drama in our
last Number.

But while we deny that any form of religious belief can be
taken as the ground of classification of works of art, we are im-

166 Augustus William Schlegel.

pressed with the conviction of its influence on the national tone
of thought, and consequently on the forms into which art moulds
itself. What we contend for is, that the division into pagan and
Christian, classic and romantic, is imwarrantable; that the real
distinction is national and not rehgious. The national distinctions
aie very broad. We beHeve they may be ranged under two
general classes of objective and subjective, or of southern and
northern; each class is of course to be subdivided, but the above
two we regard as the most general. Let us for a moment examine
the characteristics of two nations, the Itahans and Germans, which
may be taken as types of the two classes.

1r the Italian character, feeling predominates over thought ; in the
Gferman, thought predominates over feeling. ** The stem nature
of the north," Scnlegel has well said, " drives man back within
himself; and what is withdrawn from the free development of
the senses must in noble dispositions be added to their earnestness
of mind." We use the word in no ill sense, when we call the
Italian nature sensuous ; neither do we imply any superiority when
we call the German reflective. As far as single words can express
such complex things, we beHeve these two express the distinctive
characteristics of the nations; or we might call the former plastio
and definite ; the latter dreamy and vague. Every thing in ItaUan
art is definite; in its plastic hands all things assume distinct form;
Itahan poetry has no reverie. Nothing like reverie is to be seen
in the southern character; neither poetry nor music, though both
so fitted to express this pecuHar mental state, have been used by
the southerns to express it. German art deUghts in it. But then
the sensuous passionate nature of the Itahan is averse to that
dallying with thought which constitutes a reverie, while in the
German it is the source of exquisite dehght. The thoughts of the
ItaUan grow quickly into passions; in the German, passions when
not highly excited, have an irresistible tendency to weave them-
selves mto thoughts: so that while in the one all ideas stimulate
to action, his tendency being to throw everything out of him; in
ihe other, actions stimulate thoughts, his tendency being to connect
all outward things with his inward hfe.

" Is an Itahan cold? he runs into the sunshine. Does he seek
distraction? he resorts to spectacles and society. The Enghshman
must stir his fire, and fall back upon himself" So pithily remarks
the late Stewart Rose ; and whoever looks carefully into this ob-
servation will find it pregnant with meaning. The influence of
dimate upon character is far greater than has generally been sus-
pected. The ItaUan derives much of his preference for ' the
outward,' much of his objectivity, from the out-of-door Ufe he
leads. He is on friendly terms with nature. Look at the laz-

Influence of Climates. 167

2arone basking in the sun during the day; and at night sleeping
on the marble steps of some palazzo, still warm from the noonday
sun; watch those children dabbling their feet in the water, and
casting pebbles into it for hours together; walk into the innume-
rable cafes, loud with gesticulating idlers, or pass into the opera
where ladies are " at home" to their society; everywhere you see
the same love of sensuous enjoyment, the same preference for the
world without. How diflferent is the life of a German ! His cli-
mate admits of no such friendly intercourse with the external
wc»rld: its sudden changes, its cold, and vapoury gloom drive him
in upon himself, and force him to regard nature as an enemy to
be conquered, not a friend to be lived with. It is no wonder
that the Italian delights in form, his perceptions of it are so
keen, and so habitual; the clearness of ms atmosphere bestows a
deamess of outline upon all objects; he sees every thing defined.
The northern looks constantly through a mist; in the brightest
days the outlines of distant objects are wavering or confused. To
state our notion in a few words, we should say that the southern
climate generates a sensuous activity, a love of continuity and of
definite form; and that the northern generates a reflective activity,
and a love of variety and rapid transitions.

To the proof. What are the essential characteristics of Italian
music? Continuity, simplicity, melody. It is full of ' linked
sweetness latig drawn out^ The melody alone is considered of im*
portance: the harmonies are mere accompaniments, having no
nirther meaning. In all the productions of Palestrina, Pergolesi,
CSaldara, Scarlatti, Porpora, PaisieUo, Cimarosa, Rossini, Bellini,
and the hundred lovely names that throng upon the memory, we
may observe, amidst all the varieties, certain characteristics : and
these are an uniform simplicity in the structure, which consists of
a few large outlines, and the sensuous or passionate expression.
If we then compare the works of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, or
Spohr, we shall at once perceive the opposite characteristics of
complexity in structure, rapidity of transitions^ and the greater
importance of the harmonies; moreover the harmonies in German
music have a meaning of their own. If an Italian air be played
and the accompaniment omitted, the expression of the feeling will
nevertheless be preserved ; but to omit the harmonies of a German
air is to destroy it altogether.

Italian music is the expression of feeling; German of both feel-
ing and thought. There is emotion in lie one, but in the other
imagination and reverie have equal share. The effect of each
corresponds with this description. The Italian excites a sensuous
musical delight, and often a touching emotion. The German,
deficient perhaps in that sensuous beauty, compensates by its

168 AtLffmtus William Schlegeh

reverie. Beethoven's music, though trembling with feeling, and
piercing the heart with plaints of melody more tender and mtense
than ever burst from any other muse, has yet a constant presence
of Titanic thought which lifts the spirit upwards on the soaring
wings of imagination. It does more : it lights up the dim recesses
of the mind, and recalls those indefinite, intense half-feelinffs and
half-ideas (if we may use the words), which are garnered m the
storehouse of imaginative experience. We have all a vast amount
of emotions and ideas, to wnich we can give no definite form;
Jinks that connect us with former states; half-remembrances of
joyful aud painful emotions, which have so far Med in memory
as to become indistinguishably shadowed into a thousand others.
These, music of the highest class excites in us, by mingling with
the recondite springs of imagination and awakening long dormant
feelings.

We have selected music as the fittest illustration of oux views,
but we could examine the other arts with the same result. This
result we must repeat is, — that southern nations are sensuous,
passionate, and plastic, in a word objective; and northerns re-
flective, dreamy, vague, in a word subjective.

It is obvious that the distinction here stated must, if correct, be
of aU the most fundamental, and consequently the one on which
to ground a classification. We must range the various races
iinder these two classes, and speak not of classic and romantic, but
of objective and subjective: for althou^ the latter terms are am-
biguous, the former are meaningless. The Greeks, ItaUans, and
Spaniards differ amongst themselves, but one spirit reigns above
all differences; they belong to one genus and differ only in
varieties; while from the Teutonic races they are separated by a
distinction of genus.

The foregoinff remarks, if they have not established our classifi-
cation, have at least shown the incompatibility of Schlegel's. Let
us add also that Schlegel who uses the words ' romantic spirit'
as if they contained the key to all the problems of modem art,
utterly fails in applying his classification. To call the Greeks
classic was easy enough, but the Italians puzzled him : he felt
that they belonged to the same class, and felt also that in spite of
Christianity they were not romantic. In one place he reproaches
the Italian drama " with a total absence of the romantic spirit;"
but he does not say that Italy was not Christian; how then, if
Christianity is the source of the ' romantic spirit,' are Christian

B>ets not romantic? This dilemma he seems never to have felt,
ilemmas and contradictions never trouble his ' synthetic mind/
Yet would a true philosopher have seen, in this case, either that
the notion of Christianity being the cause of the ' romantic spirit'

Classic and Romantic, 169

was erroneous; or else he would have investigated the causes of
the apparent contradiction.

What is this * romantic spirit?' has doubtless often been
asked. We have triied to understand what Schlegel means by it;
but in vain. We hear that certain things are in * accordance
^th the romantic spirit/ and that others are not; what this is
we iare left to conjecture; all he gives us is rhetoric. In one
passage, however (page 102, of the English translation), we find
niin descending for a moment into the positive. " The antique
art and poetry," he says, ** separate in a strict manner things which
are dissimilar; the romantic delight in indissoluble mixtures: all
contrarieties, nature and art, poetry and prose, seriousness and
mi^h, recollection and anticipation, spirituality and sensuality,
terrestial and celestial, life and death, are blended together by
them in the most intimate manner." This at the best is simply a
j^ct, and not a principle ; unfortunately it is by no means a fact.
Never was a grosser prejudice than that current about the rigid
ideality of Greek art. Is there no mixture of * things dissimilar'
in Homer? Do not Achilles and Thersites jostle each other?
Have we not cbmbats and dinners? intrigues, celestial and terres-
trial? Does not that poem of the Iliad reflect almost every aspect of
human life? Then me Greek drama, so often cited as an illustra-
tion of this prejudice, how will it bear examination? The mix-
ture of the divine and human— of heroic persons in gigantic masfa,
buskin and cothurnus, with the dancing chorus dressed like ordi-
niary men — is striking enough ; and in the action of the drama
other incongruities occur. Glissa in ' JEschylus' is as comic and
prosaic a clmtacter as the nurse in • Romeo and Juliet ;' and the
furies are as grotesque as any thing in Shakspeare. The fact there-
fore is not as Schlegel states it, and the pnnciple for which it is
meant to stand, falls with it. We would beg the reader's atten-
"tion, however, to the very characteristic passage which follows.
Having attempted to state in intelligible terms the distinction be-
tween classic and romantic, his rhetorical nature soon reasserts
itself, and enlarges the statement thus :

** The whole of the ancient poetry and art is as it were a rhythmical
nomos (law), an harmonious promulgation of the permanently esttt"
hUshed legislation of a world submitted to a beautiful order, and
reflecting in itself the eternal images of things. The romantic poetry
again is the expression of the secret attraction to a chaos which is
conce€ded beneath the regulated creation even in its very bosom, and
irliich is perpetually striving after new and wonderftd births ; the ani"
mating spirit of original love hovers here anew over the waters^

This is the staple of what passes as * philosophic criticism,' to
which in reality it bears the same relation as fine writing does to

170 Augustus William SchlegeL

science. Schlegel is fiill of it; in his followers it becomes gali-
matias. Every penny-a-liner knows it is easier to spin plirases
than to convey ideas; yet this, certain critics tell ns, is the only
way of writing about art. O thrice welcome, bad analysis, to
any such torrent of verbiage !

A very strong example of the rashness of SchlegePs 'sjmthesis,'
and its defiance of due analysis is what he says of the Greeks:
*' The whole of their art and poetry is expressive of the con-
Bciousness of the harmony of all their faculties. They have
invented the poetry of gladness,*^ We are subsequently told
that the great distinction between ancient and modem art,
arising from the opposite tendencies of polytheism and Christi-
anity, consists in the one being the poetry of enjoyment while the
other is that of desire : the former has its foundation in the scene
which is the present, while the latter hovers betwixt recollection
and hope. This is an antithesis fit to captivate a stronger head
than Schlegers; yet it is an antithesis and no more; facts are di-
rectly opposed to it. To talk of the Grreeks having invented the
poetry of gladness, is downright absurdity. Almost all poetry
18 the expression of a regret or a desire: enjoyiiient finds very
little place in the poetry of any nation, and in that of the Greelss
. less perhaps than any. It was, as Lucretius finely says, in the
pathless woods, among the lonely dwellings of shepherds that
the sweet laments were sounded on the pipe.

Inde minutatim dulceis didicere querelas,
Tibia quajs fundit digitis pulsata canentum,
Ayia per nemora ac sylras saltusque reperta
Per loca pastomm deserta atque otia dia.

Where is this gladness which the Greeks invented? Nowhere
but in the Anacreontica : and they are but a collection of songs
composed for festivals. It is not in the elegies of Tyrtaeus. The
patnotism of Mimnermus is mingled with regrets and ceaseless
melancholy, caused by the subjection of his coimtry to the Lydian
yoke. Simonides is celebrated for his pathos, and Sappno for
ner tenderness. What place has gladness amidst the fierce carnage
and perpetual quarrels of the Diad r or in the wanderings of that noXv
tkucpvTos avrip — ^Ulysses ' for ever roaming with a hungry heart?'
What place has it amidst the intense bitterness and horror of
jEschylus, the pathos of Sophocles, the crime and rhetoric of
Euripides? Where is the gladness in Pindar? Where is the
enjoyment in the Labdaddan tale? There is wit and fun in
Aiistophanes; but where is the ' consciousness of the har-
mony of his faculties?' Schlegel's idea is founded upon an
a priori view of the consequences of such a religion as polytheism,
not upon an examination of the facts. He thinks the Greeks were

^

Destiny in the Greek Drama. 171

conscioiLS of no wants, and aspired at no higher perfection than
that which they could actually attain by the exercise of their fa-
culties. "We, however, are taught by a superior wisdom that man
through a high offence forfeited the place for which he was origi-
nally destined: consequently that the Christian is more dissatis-
fied with this life, than the paean is, and hence the poetry of
defflre. We reject this reasonmg. It seems to us that if religion
had the effect on art which he asserts, then would polytheism
more than Christianity be the religion of sadness. The Christian
dies but to be bom into a higher life. This hope compensates him
for much of this life's ills; and makes him look on death as a sub*
ject of rejoicing, not of grief. The polytheist has not such a hope.
Achilles — ^the haughty AchiUes, declares that he would rather be
a tiller of the earth, man a king in the regions of Erebus. The
Christian weeping o'er the vanity of earthly wishes, has a conso-
lation in the life to come. The polytheist can only weep. Thus is
Schlegel's notion contradicted by the facts ; and we believe unsup*
porteSbjhisreaflomng;^

The part played by Destiny in the Greek drama, is another in-
stance of that rash synthesis to which unphilosophic minds resort.
"Inward liberty and outward necessity," he says, " are the two
poles of the tragic world." The success of this formula is owing
to its want of precision : it will stretch wide enough to admit the
most contradictory opinions. For instance, one might accept it aa
meai^g that th^ fL soul of man in a znajes^struggl^_ with

outward circumstances, affords a tragic spectacle, yet this is by no
means what Schlegel intends to express; indeed he subsequently
says that the '* necessity ought to be no natural necessity, but to
lie beyond the world of sense in the abyss of infinitude; and it
must consequently be represented as the mvincible power of Fate;
(^faigUch stelU sie sick als die unergrundUche Macht des Schicksals
dary^ This is plain enough; let us now confront it with the

The part actually played by Destiny, in the Greek drama, is
extremdiy small. It is to be seen there, of course, as the doctrine
of immortality is ia our drama; but in both cases this is only as
a portion of the national creed, not as an artistic principle ; it
was not there the poet sought the elements of tragedy. Shak-
n)eare is a Christian poet, and his works are addressed to Chris-
tian audiences; yet would it be a very absurd criticism which
asserted that moral responsibility and a future state formed the
groundwork of the tragedy of ' Lear,' or ' OtheUo.' Such, how-
ever, is the reasoning of Schlegel. He finds the Grreeks believed
in an irresistible Destiny, and forthwith declares Destiny to
be the ground of tragedy. Bad as this logic is, it is not the

172 Augustus William SchlegeL

weakest portion of bis famous formula. Let any one examine
the nature of the several Greek dramas extant, and he will find
that, in scarcely a dozen of them, can Destiny be said to have
any prominence; and that in the rest it has no place. It is to be
observed that Schlegel lays down principles in his introductory
lectures which he never afterwards applies; and having stated
Destiny to be the ground of tragedy, he never, subsequently,
points out the use made of it by the poets. What could ne have
said to the ' Philoctetes?' This most tragic play has not a glimpse
of the struggle of man with Destiny; the pathos arises from the
accumulation of woes upon the suffering solitary Philoctetes; and
this play alone is sufficient to overturn the notion about Destiny.
But we may more completely expose the error by looking at
the dramas of ^schylus, who is universally regarded as the most
religious of the three great tragedians. He has left seven plays.
The * Persians' is more an elegy than a drama. It opens with a
chorus of Persians, who express their fears lest the army of Xerxes
should be vanquished by that of the Greeks. Atossa, the widow
of Darius, appears and relates an ominous dream. The spirit of
Darius is evoked. He recognises in the destruction of Persia the
* too speedy fulfilment of oracles,' which might have been de-
layed but for the arrogance of Xerxes ; ' but when man of his
own accord hurries to his ruin, the deity seconds his efforts.'
Xerxes appears as a wretched fugitive, and the piece ends with
the exhibition of his despair. It cannot be maintained that in
this piece inward liberty and outward necessity are the two poles
of the tragic world. Still less can it be said of the ' Suppliants.'
In this play Danaus and his daughters have fled to Argos to
escape the violence of their suitors, the sons of JEgjrptus. They
sit as suppliants at the public altars. The king convenes an as-
sembly to deliberate respecting the reception of these suppliants,
which the assembly decrees. The sons of iEgyptus arrive, and
the heralds attempt to carry off the maidens as rightful property.
The king interferes, and threatens war. The play concludes with
prayers to the gods against forced marriages. Of the * Orestia/
we shall speak anon. Meanwhile, we may examine the ' Pro-
metheus,' because Schlegel says that " the other poems are
tragedies, but this is tragedy itself: its purest spirit is revealed
with all the annihilating and overpowering influence of its first
unmitigated austerity." The subject of the ' Prometheus' is too
generafly familiar to need any account of it here. The struggle
IS between Zeus and Prometheus. The chained Titan glories
in his deed — exov tKoi^ tjfiaprov, ovk dpvrja-ofiai. — he knows that Zeus
himself must one day lose the sovereign power, and therefore he
suffers proudly. 2eus is here a Tyrant, not the symbol of

The Cheek Chorus. 173

Destiny, since lie himself is subject to it. The tragic ground is,
therefore, the same as if the struggle were between a king and a
subject, instead of between a Titan and a god, and in nowise the
struggle of man's soul with Defttiny, The more we meditate on
tihis piece, the more we diall feel convinced that SchlegeFs notion
is trmbunded. The strongest application of his notion is not in
the * Prometheus,' but in the ' CEdipus.* Here, indeed, we see
a great mind * struggling in vain with ruthless Destiny ;' yet
most men would have suspected * (Edipus' to be tragic on the
same principle as * Lear' or * Othello,' and would have' referred
the cause to some eternal facts of human nature, rather than to
any religious dogma.
" It has been forgotten by most writers on the subject that much
of what looks Ufce the operation of Destiny is in truth only
* poetical justice' shaping the legend. Crime leads to crime and
to punishment. Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter, and is sacri-
jBced by his wife. Orestes avenges his father's murder by a ma-
tricide, and this matricide in turn is avenged by the Eumenides.
** From the feast of Atreus and Thyestes," says Gruppe, " nay, even
from Pelops and Tantalus, descends an unbroken chain of suffer-
ing and crime, till it ends with the death of Agamemnon and
Clytemnestra."*

Schlegel's view of the Chorus next deserves our attention, as
another mstance of his vicious method. " The modem critics
have never known what to make of it," he observes, and endea-
vours to explain it philosophically for their instruction. Scholars
generally have spoken but little on the subject that rational men
can accept. We have met with none who had endeavoured to
estimate the influence of aU the facts. One set of facts has gene-
rally been taken as typical of the whole, and the rest set aside.
So bonvinced is the excellent Bode of the insufficiency of what
has been done towards explaining the matter that he says, " Upon
the character of the Chorus in general, Httle that is satisfactory can
be said, inasmuch as each separate drama has its peculiar chorus,
which must be gathered from a consideration of the piece itselff
Any one who looks at the Greek Drama with ordinary attention
will be struck with the fact, that the Chorus has a different posi-
tion in each of the three tragedians ; and, as Bode observes, a
somewhat different character in each different play. Many remarks,
true of what we find in ^schylus, are false if applied to Euripides,
and necessarily so : in the rapid strides of an advancing art, m the

• * Ariadne, oder die tragische Eunst der Griechen,' p. 712.
t Bode : * Gesch der HeUenischen Dichtkunst/ iii 189.

174 Augustus William Schlegel.

progress of development from a religious hymn to a tragedy,
many and material changes must occur.

Schlegel, in his usual * synthetic' manner, pronounces the
" Chorus a personification of opinion on the action which is going
on". . . '* it represented first the national spirit, and then the
general participation of mankind. In a word, the Chorus is the
ideal spectator^ Confronted with facts, this explanation is in-
competent. What had the personification of opinion to do with
the singing and dancing? Yet singing and dancing formed such
important elements in the Chorus, that Schlegel himself, in ob-
jecting to Schiller's employment of it in ^ Die Braut von Messina/
says " modem poets have often attempted to introduce the chorus
in their pieces, but for the most part without a correct, and al-
ways without a vivid idea of its destination. We have no suitable
singing or dancing: and it will hardly ever succeed therefore in
becoming naturalized with us." We may further ask : what

* general participation of mankind' is there in a Chorus which
becomes the approving confidant of treacherous designs, and which
in one place is maltreated and knocked down? (Vide Euripides :
we forget the precise play.) We would ask, How can the Chorus
be at one and the same time both ' ideal spectator' and actor in
the drama? For an actor in the Drama it assuredly was, according
to the evidence of the plays, and the express authority of Aristotle.
It is true that Schlegel holds Aristotle cheap ; true he says in one
place that " Aristotle has entirely failed in seizing the real genius
and spirit of the Greek tragedy;"* true that he pays Uttle regard
to facts ; and yet we find it difficult to conceive how he coidd for
an instant reconcile his view of the Chorus with any single spe-
cimen. If ever the * personification of opinion' be indeed pre-
sent, it surely only forms one element and not the whole ? We
cannot however believe that it is ever present. Moral reflections,
plaints of woe, exultations of joy, long narratives, and brilliant
imagery, are there; and these may perhaps be construed into the

♦ general participation of mankm^ bjr tL cunning artifices of

• synthetic criticism,' as Dante's ' Beatrice' has been construed into
Theology, or as Shakspeare's plays have been construed into con-
crete expressions of Germanpnilosophy. But we openly avow our
hostility to such jugglery. We can neither receive such an explana-
tion as true of the Greek Chorus, nor as in accordance with the
Greek spirit. In Euripides there are at least twenty choruses
devoted to accounts of the Greek armies which sailed for Tray,
and of the destruction of that city. When not thus historical, tne

• * Comparaison entre les deux Ph^dres;' Essais, p. 90. Pretty modest this I Yet
how could the synthetical mind of a Schlegel approve of the analytical Greek?

Excellence of the Cheek Lectures. 175

Chorus is mostly employed in receiving the confidences of the
actors, and, even when projects are infamous, binding themselves
by oath not to reveal them: are these the offices of an ideal spec-
tator? And with respect to the moral sentences and expressions
of sympathy with the actors, which ^ve a colour of probability to
Scmegers notion, we shall find similar features in our modem
opera. Our Chorus also expresses sympathy, utters trite maxims,
and is an actor as the ancient chorus was; yet no one ever ima-
gined the retainers, peasants, warriors, or priests who throng the
modem stage, were personifications of the * ideal spectator/
We repeat the chorus was an actor in the drama ; and if it was also
an ^ ideal spectator,' we ask, in how far was it actor and how far
spectator? Where begun the line of demarcation? The question
is not answerable.

We close here our examination of the lectures devoted to the
Greek Drama, satisfied with having so far exposed the vicious
method which guided the author; but we cannot close without
expressing our hearty admiration of their very unusual merit, in
spite of drawbacks. Our object in this paper being polemical,
we have not noticed all the admirable passages and fehcitous illus-
trations which compensate for the errors we attacked; others be-
fore us have praised him, and praised him justly; we must content
ourselves wim a general recognition of his merits. There is no
popular accoimt of the Greek Drama at all comparable to his for
spirit and completeness; and his various criticisms on separate
plays are animated and interesting. We are the more anxious to
place a word of admiration here, because on leaving this portion
of his work we leave almost all that we think admirable in it.
We have hitherto dealt with him as a man of rash generalization;
WQ have now to speak of him as au advocate.

In his first lecture he has given a description of what a true
critic should aspire to; and this passage is worthy of being tran-
scribed in letters of gold. " No man can be a true critic who
does not possess a umversality of mind, who does not possess a
flexibilily which, throwing aside all personal predilections and
blind habits, ensCbles him to transport himself into the peculiarities
of other ages and nations, and to feel them as it were from their
central pomt." Every one has admitted the truth of this, but
few have guided themselves by its Ught. It seems impertinent to
thrust forward the truism that the foreign poet wrote to his nation
and for his time, and not at all for ours — that we might as well
strip him of his language as of his national pecuHarities; yet this
truism is perpetually being neglected; the work of the foreign
poet is always judged according to our tastes and our standards.
There is scarcely a critic unaware of the fact that a tragedy of

176 Aufftistus William Schlegel.

the Greeks was a totally different thing from the drama of the
modems; different in purpose, spirit, and execution. Neverthe-
less there is scarcely a critic who, judging of a Greek play, does
not test it by the Shakspearian standard: talking of plot, situa-
tion, character, and passion as if the work were addressed to a
modem pit of after-dinner auditors. So also the critics speak of
Racine, as if he were ridiculous for not being an Enghshman.
Yet the man who refuses to discard his national prejudices and
standards, who refuses to regard the French poet with, as far as

Eossible, the eyes of a Frenchman, had better for the sake of
onesty and criticism relinquish the task altogether; otherwise he
will only be illustrating Coleridge's amusing simile of the critic,
filling his three-ounce phial at Niagara, and determining positively
the greatness of the cataract to be neither more nor less than his
three-ounce phial has been able to receive.

We have iuU right to test Schlegel by his own standard ; and
according to that we say he has shown himself to be no * true
critic,' for he has failed m placing himself at the * central point
of view.' "We will not stop to point out the errors of his very
slovenly and inaccurate lectures on the Roman and Italian dramas;
but his treatment of Alfieri cannot be passed over in silence.

Alfieri, the greatest of the Italian dramatists, is dismissed in
five pages, which contain almost as many blunders as paragraphs.
He is here an advocate against the poet, and very sophistical are
the arguments he brings forward. " From the tragedy of the
Greeks," he says, " with which Alfieri first became acquainted
towards the end of his career, he was separated by a wide chasm."
K this be meant as expressing that the form and purpose of the
dramas of Alfieri differed from those of the ancients, it is a
truism ; if that the artistic spirit (such as we before defined it) is
different, it is an absurdity. No nation so closely resembles the
Greeks, in artistic spirit, as the Italians; no dramatist so closely
resembles -Sschylus as Alfieri. " I cannot consider his pieces,"
continues our critic, "as improvements on the French tragedy:"
why should he? Let us for an instant grant that Alfieri is the
reverse of the Greeks, and no improvement on the French, what
then? Does not the matter resolve itself into this; that being an
ItaKan, and addressing Itahans, Alfieri is to be judged without
reference to Greece or France? His nationality is a quality, not
a fault. Yet we are told '* his pieces bear no comparison with
the better French tragedies in pleasing and brilliant eloquence:'*
how should they when it was his express deabre to avoid declam-
atory tirades, which he considered undramatic? Gothe has well
said that there is a negative criticism which consists in applying
a different standard from that chosen by the author, and in this

Abuse of Racine. 177

way you are sure to find him wanting. This Schlegel perpetually
uses. Alfieri hated the French, and never thought of imitating
them.

It is in his account of the French drama that Schlegel most
unblushingly assumes the advocate's robe. His object is evidently
not to place himself at the 'central point,* but to make the
French drama ridiculous. He endeavours to dwarf it by most
irrelevant contrasts with the Greek and Shakspearian drama, and
only succeeds in displaying his critical incompetence. Let it be
remembered however m extenuation, that SchlegePs object was
not without its use in his day, though worse than useless now.
French taste had for years usurped tne German stage. Gottlob
Lessing struck the usurper down. By dint of rare acuteness,
imtiring wit, and his impetuous zeal, he won the battle for ever.
Sclilegel rode gracefully over the battle-field and counted the
slain ; then, retiring to the metropolis, pubUshed his bulletin.
Beside the masculine intellect of a Lessing, clear as crystal and as
solid too, Schlegel is a foppish petit maitre. But. he addressed
petits mattres. The battle nad been won in open field, with sweat
of brow and strength of hand; but it had to be recounted in
drawing-rooms, and for this the hardy warrior, covered with dust
and gore, was not so fitted as the perfumed Schlegel, master of
small talk and gifted with rhetorical abimdance. The warrior
and the coxcomb each did his work. Nevertheless, had Lessing
and others never lived, Schlegel perhaps would eloquently have
(expatiated on the beauties of Kacme; but when once the breach
was made in the citadel, it was so pleasant to ride in, gracefully
triumphant !

It IS most true that Racine was not a Greek; true that he
did not write upon romantic principles; but what then? Was
he not a Frenchman, a poet of the higher order, worthy even to
be placed beside the illustrious few? Because a Deer is neither
Horse nor Elephant, is it nothing? It is a strange synthesis that
concludes so; yet, metaphor apart, such is the conclusion of our
critic. He admits that we " shall be compelled to allow the ex-
ecution of the French drama is masterly, perhaps not to be sur-
passed; but the great question is, how far it is in spirit and
inward essence related to the Greek, and whether it deserves to
be considered an improvement on it." Not so at all: it is a ques-
tion every way superfluous, a standard utterly fallacious. The
antique drama grew up out of the spirit and artistic feeling of the
Ghreeks, under a set of conditions which can never be again. So
also did the French drama grow up out of the national spirit, of
which it was the expression. It borrowed a learned air because
it addressed a pedantic age; and even in its imitation of the

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIII. N

178 Augustus William Schlegeh

ancients it expressed one characteristic of its own time. So also
it was tinctured with gallantry, as our own drama was with con-
cetti, because this was the fashion of the day.

The whole of Schlegel's arguments proceed from a wrong start-
ing-point. He insists on the following conditions as indispensable
to the poet selecting a mythological subject, viz., that he should
enter and enable the spectators to enter into the spirit of antiquity ;
that he should preserve the simple manners of the heroic ages;
that his persons should bear that near resemblance to the gods,
which, from their descent and frequency of their immediate inter-
course with them, the ancients believed them to possess. It is easy
to say this; it is easy to state abstract principles like these, and
then condemn the poets who have never realized them. But sup-
pose no poet has realized them, what then are we to say? We
assert that the above conditions are not possible; that if possible
they are absurd; and that no modem poet has fulfilled them. As
Gothe truly says, " for the poet no person is historical. He is to
represent the moral world, and for this end bestows on certain
persons in history the honour of borrowing their names." The
question lies in a nutshell. Had Racine preserved with historical
fidelity Greek feelings and ideas, they would have been repugnant
to a French audience; his object being to interest and move
Frenchmen, he represented Frenchmen, and this because he was
a poet, not an archaeologist. Schlegel is shocked that ' Bajazet
makes love wholly in the European manner;' but no word escapes
him respecting Calderon's classical monstrosities ; no hint is given
that, had Racme represented Bajazet making love in the Turkish
manner, the audience must either have shouted with laughter or
hissed with disgust. To show how far he carries this carping
spirit — upon what minute points he will lay stress — we may quote
lus discovery, that in the tragical speeches of the French poets,
* we shall generally discover somethmg in them which betrays a
reference more or less perceptible to the spectator:* as if this was
not true of every dramatist ! as if it was not the inseparable condi-
tion of the art !

We are quite weary of looking at tiiis lecture : its ignorance is
the least of its faults. We can hardly hope to see many of our
countrjonen very hearty in their admiration of the exquisite Ea-
cine, so many obstacles are interposed; but that the feeble ridicule
and ungenerous arguments of Schlegel should form another bar-
rier to that end, is truly irritating. People talk of admiring or
not admiring Racine, as if it were a matter of taste; but it is in
truth a matter of knowledge. He has survived two centuries of
criticism, and in spite of every change of taste; the admiration
of Europe for two centuries is a pedestal whereon none but the

OnMoBre. 179

highest can repose; those, therefore, who refiise theur tribute to
Kacine are convicted of incompetence to judge him ; convicted of
want of sufficient knowledge of the language, or want of critical
appreciation. Let every opponent reflect on the serious opinions
once entertamed by eminent Frenchmen with regard to Shaks-
peare. 'Oh! that was ignorance P — Granted; but does it not
teach us suspicion of ourselves in judging of the French? When
we hear a Frenchman disparage Shakspeare, we invariably suspect
his critical power, or his knowledge of our language. Does it
never occur to Englishmen that perhaps their contempt of the
French is founded on similar causes? We have met with at
least five himdred Englishmen declaring themselves * to have been
mistaken for Frenchmen,' so pure and fluent was their discourse ; but
we doubt whether more than five of them could perceive the dif-
ference between a verse of Racine and one of Qulnatilt, or between
a page of George Sand and one of De Balzac; who could feel the
impropriety of the celebrated ' vieittard stupide* in ' Hemani,' or
nnderstand why the common Italian epithet acerbo would be in-
admissible in French poetry. Here then is an obstacle to be
overcome by long study alone. Beyond this there is a critical
bigotry prevalent, which regards faith in Shakspeare as the only
true, and denounces all others as heresies. Yet surely there is
room In the palace of art for more than one niche ; surely w© may
worship Shakspeare as the sun, and yet beheve Alfieri and Racine
to be no inconsiderable planets?

Schlegel's Lecture on Moliere is also very bad: it wants
heartiness, sympathy, appreciation, and above all, truth. It is
full of imfair remarks, and some distinguished blimders. We have
no space to follow him much Into detail, but will select two spe-
dmens wherein he accuses MoHere of Ignorance of human nature.
The * Misanthrope,* he says, contains the gross mistake of Alceste
choosing Philinte for a friend, although a man whose principles are
the exact reverse of his own. He asks also how Alceste comes to
be enamoured of a coquette who has nothing amiable in her cha-
lacter, and who entertains us merely by her scandal? Now we need
scarcely insist on the very great truth of this selection both of
fiiend and mistress : a selection which though It would have been
misplaced in tragedy, because contradicting our ideal nature, is
the perfection of comic characterization, because foimded on the
contradictions of our real nature. The critic also says of ' L' Avare :*
" Harpagon starves his coachhorses : but why has he any ? This
applies only to a man who with a disproportionately small Income
wishes to keep up the appearance." Critics, accusmg great poets
of ignorance of human nature, should be very certain of their own
knowledge. Not only is Harpagon true to nature, but it is wor-

n2

180 Augustus William Schlegeh

thy of remark that this very peculiarity to which Schlegel ob-
jects is one] for which Boileau ridicules *le lieutenant criminel
Tardieu/ a notorious miser of the day:

Chez lui deux bons chevaux, de pareille encolure
Trouvaient dans I'^curie ixne pleine pature,
Et, dufoin que letar houche au r atelier laissait
De surcroit une mvle encor se nourrissait*

The Lecture on Shakspeare has met with more approbation than
.any other portion of the work. We beHeve it has been vastly
overrated; we believe that eloquence has been mistaken for criti-
cism, and varied ingenious illustration for profoimd insight. The
author has, we are willing to admit, ' said many excellent things
about Shakspeare;^ but that he has worthily treated this great
subject, that he has at all pierced to the core of it, that he has
given to the student any important light, we cannot believe. It
IS a panegyric, not a criticism: a masterly panegyric, which
many years ago was of beneficial influence. Had reason — ^had
analysis formed the staple, and eloquence only the ornament of
this Lecture, it would have been as useful now as then; but
Schleffel is a rhetorician by nature, and as such we should have
left him in peace had not his admirers declared him to be a
philosophic critic.

It is not, however, on the score of unlimited admiration that
we think Schlegers lecture so faulty; it Is because he has used
pompous phrases, which are empty sounds with him. He talks
of Snakspeare'*s ' profound art,' yet he gives no example of it.
Shakspeare was 3. profound artist; he would not otherwise have
been the greatest poet that the world has seen; but how has
Schlegel exhibited specimens of it? He spins phrases; he says
fine tmngs about Shakspeare; and too much ' about,' not enough
to the purpose. Let any one compare his brief and meager
notices of the separate plays with the nighflown panegyric which
precedes them : it will then be seen how barren is this verbiage of
philosophy, how useless are these bursts of rhetoric when face to
face with details. We must repeat there is no style of criticism
so easy as this of ' synthetical appreciation.* Observe the licence
of imagination in such passages as these: " ' Shylock' possesses a
very determinate and original individuality; and yet we perceive
A light touch of Judaism in every thing which he says or does.
We imagine we hear a sprinkling of the Jewish pronunciation in
the mere written words!^ Surely, if critics are allowed to ' imagine'
in this way, sane men will shut their ears. If criticism is to be-
come a province of conjecture and imagination, not a science, the

♦ Sat. X.

On Shakspeare. 181

sooner it be abolished the better. To conjecture is easy, to know
is difficult; therefore, unless we curb the vagabond licence of the
former, the latter will grow into rusty disuse. That Schlegel has
little knowledge, and abundant conjecture, we beheve has been
established during the course of this article. We will now select
two specimens of his science, sufficient we trust to lead every one
to suspect its solidity in other places.

Of the plays absurdly attributed to Shakspeare, Schlegel selects-
* Thomas Lord Cromwell,' ' Sir John Oldcastle,' and * a York-
shire tragedy,' observing that they ** are not only unquestionably
Shakspeare 's, but, in my opinion^ they deserve to he classed amongst
his best and maturest works T This judgment implies a great deal ;
and after considering it, the reader will perhaps estimate the value
of that profoimd and penetrating appreciation of Shakspeare's art,
for which our critic is celebrated, it is quite of a piece with his
rhapsodies on Calderon, and fully accounts for his seeing little in
Racine. The second specimen is in its way equal to it. bpeaking
of Marlowe, he says, " His verses are flowing but toithout energy ;
how Ben Jonson could use the expression ' Marlowe's mighty
line ' is more than I can conceive." Now one of two things :
either Schlegel had never read Marlowe, in which case it is rather
impudent of him thus to contradict Ben Jonson ; or else he was
utterly ignorant of the rhythm and structure of English verse,
Marlowe's characteristics being, as every EngUsh reader knows, a
wonderfiil energy aud want of fluency.

With these samples of Schlegel's critical knowledge, we conclude '
our polemical essay; his lecture on the Spanish drama having been
treated in our last number. We felt it a duty to protest against
his being regarded as an authority; and especially to protest against
the pseudo-philosophical method, which we have throughout fol-
lowed his disciples in calling * synthetical.' The candid reader
will not misunderstand our preference of the science over the me-
taphysics of criticism.

^

(182)

Art IX. — Gothe. Von C. B. Cabus. 1843. Leipzig: Welchardt.

Another book on Gbthe in addition to the many we liave
already, and yet not one too many. Whoever can say something
new of that old man of Weimar; whoever can throw new light
on that wonderful organization; whoever can find for ns one more
stray letter, or can repeat to us one spoken sentence hitherto un-
recorded: he shall be welcome. Nay, even if we do not learn
any thing so very new, it is a healthM act to contemplate Gtethe.
The serene coimtenance which shines not only through his own
pages, but through those of all who write about him, is a fine
panacea against every morbid sensation. We can fully under-
stand his beneficial influence on all whom he allowed to come in
contact with him : the aspiring Schiller, the humbly worshipping
Eckermann, the pietistical Jimg, and the earnest Dr. Cams.
We can comprehend his magical hold on those who knew him,
saw him, spoke with him, for we can almost feel the magic at
second hand.

Dr. Cams has a point of view quite his own. He is eminent as
a physiologist, as a writer on comparative anatomy, and he cond-
ders Gothe physiologically. Being a Gothianer of the most or-
thodox class, a real thorough-going adorer, he feels that he is
bound to make use of those talents which he has exercised in the
consideration of vertebrated animals and zoophytes, to explain the
great human phenomenon that made its appearance in 1749, and
ruled all Germany for three-fourths of a century. Such a book
could scarcely have been written by any Briton on a British author.
However our literary enthusiasts may be disposed to read, and to
buy, and to quote, and to quarrel over a bottle for the honour of
their favourite poets, a disposition to regard them in their relation
to the universe, to study them almost as divine emanations, and
piously to trace the peculiar circumstances imder -^jjuch the earth
was blessed by such sacred visitants, this is unknown to them, or
if known, would be kept as secret as possible. There is a pan-
theism in German criticism which allows an idol to be much more
an idol than in this country. Had the book of Dr. Cams been
written hj an Englishman, we should have thought the author
was mystified himself, or was trying to mystify his co-patriots.
Being by a German we are not in the least surprised at the tone
of adoration ; we do not elevate our eyebrows the eighth of an
inch ; we merely see a natural act of devotion.

The acquaintance of Dr. Cams with Gothe was during the last
years of the great poet's life, and therefore we have from him, as
from Eckermann, a picture of fine healthy old age. Gothe never

Personal Interview, 183

deteriorated ; like the setting sun, when his course was over he
departed in full majesty. A delightful picture is that given by
Dr. Cams of his own personal experience of the greatest genius of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The venerable poet and
the young physiologist were brought into contact by the passion
which the former felt for all theories connected with comparative
anatomy. Dr. Cams had published a work on the subject of his
studies, and though personally unknown to Gothe deemed it right
to send him a copy. A letter of thanks was received almost im-
mediately, and tnis led to a correspondence. Gothe warmed at
once to Dr. Cams. He found a man from whom he could learn
something, to whom he could write pleasant communications on
darling topics — a man whose ' hobby' was the same as his own :
and therefore to him he exhibited naught of that repelling quality
at which so many were offended. The letters which Dr. Cams
has published in the little work are not such as we can quote.
Relating to the subjects under the consideration of Gothe and
himself, they would require a more minute account of the cir-
cumstances in which they were written than would accord
with an article not intended to be scientific. We must be con-
tented with remarking that the tone that pervades these letters is
beautiful. It is most impressive to see the fine old man, who had
never pursued science as a profession, who had energized in so
many different spheres of action, actuated, even when his years
numbered considerably more than threescore years and ten, bv the
pure thirst of knowledge, inquiring and conjecturing and rejoicing
m a discovery or a theory with all the healthy ardour of youtL The
soundness of that ' theory of colours* which occupied so much of
his time, may readily be doubted ; but there can be no doubt of
the sound state of the mind which took so much interest in its
investigation.

If we cannot give a letter from Dr. Carus's collection, we can at
any rate give the visit paid by him to Gothe at Weimar, in July
1821. We are sure our readers will like to be in his presence,
however often they may have seen him before :

^^ At the very entrance of the house, the broad and somewhat slant-
ing steps, the decoration of the landing-place with Diana s dog and the
young Faun of Belvedere, indicated the owner. The group of the
Dioscuri, which was placed above, had an agreeable effect ; and an in-
viting * salve/ blue and inlaid in the floor, received the visiter. The
anteroom was richly adorned with engravings and busts. Behind, a
second hall of busts led through a door, pleasantly entwined with
foliage, to the balcony and the garden steps. Entering a second room,
I found myself again surrounded with specimens of art and antiquity.
At last the sound of an active step announced the venerable man him-

184 Cams on Gothe,

self. Simply dressed in a blue surtout, in boots, with short powdered
hair, and with those well-known features which were so admirably
caught by Ranch — his bearing firm and upright, he approached me^
and led me to the sofa. Years had made but little impression on GOthe;
the arcus senilis in the corner of both eyes was indeed beginning to
form itself, but the fire of the eye was by no means weakened. Alto-
gether his eye was particularly expressive. I could at once see in it the
whole tenderness of the poetical mind, which his otherwise somewhat
forbidding demeanour appeared to have restrained with trouble, thus
preserving it from the intrusion and annoyance of the world. Occa-
sionally, as he warmedanto conversation^ the whole fire of the gifted
seer would flame forth. Now was I close to him ! The form of a man,
who had so much influence on my own cultivation, was suddenly brought
before me, and hence did I exert myself the more to comprehend and
to contemplate the phenomenon. The ordinary introductions to con-
versation were soon got over. I spoke to him of my new labours about
the skeleton, and told him how his previous conjecture of the existence
of six vertebral bones in the head* was confirmed. To explain myself
more readily, I asked for pencil and paper. We went into another
room ; and as I drew the type of a fish*s head, with all its proper cha-
racteristics, he often interrupted me with exclamations of approval, and
joyous nods of the head. * Yes, yes,' said he; * the matter is in good
hands. S. and B. have touched darkly upon it. Ay, ay!* The
servant brought a collation and some wine, of which we partoofe. Gothe
spoke of my pictures ; told me how the Brockenhaus had puzzled him
for a long time ; and how these things would be held in honour. Then
he had his portfolio of comparative anatomy brought, and showed me
his earlier labours. We came to the importance of the form of rocks
and mountains, in determining of what stone they consisted — as well as
its importance in determining the figure of the entire surface of the
earth. For this branch of investigation, he had already collected ma-
terials, as was proved by a map, with drawings of rocks in the Harz
and other places. For a short time, I remained alone in the room ; and
it was exceedingly interesting to me to observe the things by which
Gothe was immediately siurounded. Besides a high stand, with large
portfolios illustrating the history of art, there was a cabinet with drawers
(probably a collection of coins) which arrested my attention. On the
top of it was a large quantity of little mythological figures. Fauns, &c.^
and among them a little golden Napoleon, set in a barometer tube,
closed bell-fashion. All indicated the various directions taken \fy the
mind of the possessor. When Gothe re-entered, the conversation turned
upon entoptic colours. He ordered Karlsbad drinking-glasses, with
yellow transparent paintings, to be brought in, and showed the almost
miraculous cnanges of yellow into blue, red, and green, according to
the side on which the light was received. He could not suppress a re-
mark or two as to the unfavourable reception of so many of his scientific
works ; and every pause in the conversation was animated with a goodr

♦ Kopf wirbeL

Gothe's Father. 185

humoured * Yes, yes,' or *Ay, ay." I could not leave before I had
finished a bottle of wine with him, and partaken of some fine white
bread. Obliged to quit at one o'clock, I left in every respect delighted
and exhilarated."

The neatness which characterized Gothe's room extended itself
to every action. Dr. Carus, after describing a little apparatus
made by him to illustrate his theory of colours, says,

^' I must remark that in G5the*s constant habit of observing a certain
neatness and accuracy in the arrangement of these trifles, one could
almost recognise the father, who coidd not bear the drawings of his
son in their different tmequal shapes, but nicely cut them all with
scissors into a certain regular form. Of all the things I received from
GOthe, such as books, small remittances for engravers, &c., I do not
remember one that was not packed in the neatest manner ; and thus was
this little box, which had been made to illustrate the origin of colour,
simple indeed, but most regularly and neatly packed and arranged.
No less had I observed how in his rooms and portfoHos, a strict order
and cleanliness almost bordering on pedantry prevailed ; and, far re-
moved from those disorderly characteristics which are supposed to be-
long to genius, the order and neatness of all that surrounded him gave
a wholesome symbol of the delicate order and polished beauty of his
spiritual life.*'

There is something very kindly in this allusion of Dr. Carus to
the formality of Gothe's father, and its descent to the great poet.
In the autobiography, called ' Dichtung and Wahrheit,' it is al»
most painful to observe the tone of disrespect in which Gothe
constantly speaks of his father; while it is impossible not to per-
ceive how much he was indebted to the old Gothe's eccentric
tastes for all that he himself achieved in the fields of literature and
art. Dr. Carus afterwards considers the obligation of Gothe to
both his parents, showing how much the healthiness that pervades
his works, is to be ascribed to the healthy stock of which he comes*
The pedantic, but always dignified nature of the father, the truly
feminine nature of the momer, vivacious and animated to a late
period of her life, were the foundation of the poet's character, and
therefore, says Dr. Carus, he may fittingly be called a ' wohlge-
bomer ' (well-bom) — an appellation whicn is so often given firom
mere ceremony.

The interview with Gothe, of which we have extracted the dcr
scription, was the only one that Dr. Carus had; the acquaintance
being kept up by letters, and not by personal meetings. All that
belongs to this relation to Gothe, Dr. Carus has given in the first
portion of the work; the rest, which consists of four additional
sections, being devoted to a consideration of Gothe, apart from his
own personal experience. These sections severally treat of ' Gothe's

186 Cams on Gotlie.

individuality ' — * his relation to nature and natural science ' — * his
relation to men and to mankind ' — and ' the use of imderstanding
Gothe's individuality in imderstanding his works.'

In considering Gbthe's individuauty, Dr. Cams points out
the exact circumstances which worked together, and the exact
nature which was worked upon, to produce such a result as the
great poet of Germany. Already we have seen. Dr. Cams ob-
serves, this hero come into the world, a healthy man: the foun-
dation is healthy. But yet, the mind is not purely healthy —
otherwise, how should we have the ' Sorrows of vVerther?' Our

^ dologist solves the difficulty, by observing that the mind of
rbthe had on some occasions a ' healthy sickness' (gesunde Kjank-
heit). Some bodily illnesses there are which steadily proceed to
their crisis, and then dying at it were a natural death, leave the
constitution stronger than before. So was it with Gothe. We
have his own ' Dichtung and Wahrheit ' to show how in his youth
he contemplated suicide ; how he tried the effect of a sharp knife
against his breast, and found it unpleasant; and how accordingly
he wrote a book, in which he flung off his own morbidity to the
world, and thus made himself a sound man. They say, some un-
lucky youths took it it into their heads to kill themselves after
reading ' Werther.' But who, says Dr. Cams, shall blame Gothe
on that account. It was not his fault that other people had not
so strong a mental constitution as his own, and broke down where
he could proceed with safety. Shall we blame the man, who,
rick of a fever, infects the air by getting rid of the morbid matter?
Gothe has his mental fever ; gets rid of it the only way he can;
and as for the two or three miserahles^ who made away with them-
selves, they are to be blamed for not taking proper precautions.
Let us not pity them, but rejoice ta see the chosen one of the gods
escape unscathed, and philosophize quietly on the event with Dr.
Cams.

The egoism of Gothe — that complete living for himself which
has caused so many expressions of disHke, is well defended by his
admirer; who calls upon us to observe how entirely the poet was
occupied in a career of self-cultivation, how he could adopt nothing
till he had made it a part of himself, how expedient it was for
him to sh\m hostile influences, if he would not be interrupted in
that great art which he pursued imremittingly during the whole
of his earthly existence — ^the art of life. -^ that was foreign to
his nature he shunned. Polemics he hated; if objections were
made to his utterings, he left them imanswered; a contest would
have occupied him too much. To the same cause is to be attri-
buted his repelling manners towards those with whom he felt he
had nothing in common. His own path was clearly defined; he

Egoism of Gothe. 187

might turn neither to the right nor the left; he could not afford
to encourage a number of useless acquaintance; they would have
impeded him in his great occupation. The assistance he save to
poor Jung Stilling, his conduct to Eckermann, will show that his
nature was a kindly one. Only he did not like to waste himself
by a collision with improfitable people, who could merely irritate.
Who shall blame him? The system worked admirably, as is proved
by the picture of the septuagenarian, with facilities not m the
least impaired, still calmly pursuing his course, still devoted to
art and science, still thirsting after new materials of cultivation.
Dr. Cams tells us that many who disliked Gothe from report, felt
boimd to honour him, when they saw the representation of his
venerable coimtenance.

Sis relations to the fair sex, which obtained him such a repu-
tation for utter heardessness. Dr. Cams would accoimt for much
on the same principle as his repulsion of unwelcome acquaintance.
Gothe constantly pursuing his career of self -study, must know so
much of love as to gain an experience; but he must not allow
himself to be carried away by the torrent of passion as to lose all
control over his own being. Between the apathetic stoic, and
the man of ardent temperament who is the slave of every impulse,
he must form the happy medium. He must just know how far
his feelings wiU carry Ura without peril, and manage accordingly.
Hence we find this all-fascinating man give small return for the
love he awakened ; and many a little heart must be made to
ache, that we may have such beautiful feminine sketches as
ihe Clarchens and the Gretchens. Although Dr. Cams here as
dsewhere is the zealous apologist of Gothe, he evidently does not

3uite like his cx)nduct to the ladies. Besides using nis general
iieory, he glady takes refuge in the supposition that Gothe did
not fiind a woman that was r^lly worthy of him.

The side on which Dr. Cams principally knew Gothe, was
that which was least famiUar even to most of his ardent admirers :
namely, the interest he took in natural science. Those who loved
him as a poet, oft;en uttered the regret that he did not follow
poetry alone, and favour the world with a few more dramas and
songs in the place of his scientific treatises. The parties who
regretted the scientific tendency were not generally such as even
professed to imderstand what he had done in this direction, and
therefore the testimony of so eminent a physiologist as Dr. Cams
to his scientific merits, is highly valuable. He attributes to him
the discovery that the skull is in fact a continuation of the vertebrae,
the honour of which is generally given to Oken. The principle
of his theory of the metamorphosis of plants, which at first could
not even make its way into the press, is now so universally acknow-

18S Coras on Gdt/ie.

ledged, that Dr. Cams says no scientific botanist can deny his
obligations to the fundamental idea of Gothe. Nevertheless he
womd rather regard him as the poetical connoisseur of nature,
than the patient investigator of her details. It is a worship of
the beautiful imiverse and its pervading spirit, which lies at the
foundation of his science. The singular story which G(5the tells
in his * Dichtung and Wahrheit' — ^how when a boy he erected
an altar to the " God who stood in immediate connexion with
nature," heaping together all sorts of natural curiosities for the
act of devotion — this story reveals at once the secret of that
scientific tendency, which the admirers of the mere poet have
found so unaccountable.

We have not pursued this little book into its minutias, but we
think we have said enough to show the principle on which Dr.
Cams has acted; and we would add that the principle, with
respect to Gothe, is unquestionably a right one. Gdthe is not
merely an author whose works are to be read, but he is a charac-
ter to be studied. We may say the character is even of more
importance than the works themselves, and that it is from their
being so fully illustrative of their author's mind, that they derive
their chief value. So remarkable a person is Gothe — the man
unremittingly pursuing his one course of self-instruction — so un-
like is he to any other whom we are able to approach, that no
study can be more fascinating than that of his mental development.
Fortunately, too, the means of pursuing that study are abundant.
With the great poets of an early date, if we are lucky enough
to obtain some mformation respecting their external existence,
all attempts to penetrate the inmost recesses of the mind are
vain indeed. Grothe stands revealed to all who wiU take the
trouble to contemplate him; his works are his ' confessions;' not
indeed under that name, but * confessions' of a deeper truth than
those of the morbid Swiss, Rousseau. What a difference in the
egoism of these two men ! Tlie man of Geneva whining and
going mad because he can find nothing in the world to correspond
to his one-sided idea; the man of Weimar looking around upon all
the litdeness of his age, and still seeing a foundation on which he
might stand, and live for his own thoughts. He did not wish to
be something that he could not be, but made himself that which
he wished. The"contrast between the two egoists is as great, as
that between a child crying for the moon, and a Jupiter calmly
smiling at the world below him.

We cannot conclude better than with some excellent remarks
of Dr. Cams on the egoism of Gothe, and his intimate relation to
his works.

** There are works on reading which it never occurs to us to inquire

His own Relation to his Works. 189

after the indiyidualit j of him to whom we owe them ; the matter is
every thing. A dictionary, a carefully descriptiye treatise on the works
of nature and art and the like, leaves us quite unconcerned as to the inner
individuality of the author; while on the other hand, with a high plu-
losophical contemplation, with a grand poem, with a profound histo-
rical investigation, an interest is essentially awakened for the indivi-
duality of the mind, from which these works proceeded. They are, we
may say, transparent works; the spirit from which they flow shines
througn them, as the light of festive tapers through the windows of a
palace; and we are concerned, not so much on account of that which is
immediately presented to us, hut hecause the individuality of the author,
his peculiarly grand disposition, his clear far-seeing mind, his poetically
creative power are completely palpahle: ay even penetrate us, and as
it were, magnetically advance us, and develop us within. Thus do
these works operate more powerfully, the more powerful the mind from
which they proceed. Gome's works helong to this class in the fullest
sense of the word, and it was because he felt this himself, that almost
unconsciously, and quite regardless whether or not it was reckoned the
worst species of egoism, he represented himself y his own essence, his egoy
more and more clearly and perfectly in those works, and reflected him-
self in them. To receive nothing that was foreign to himself, decisively
to repel contradictions, to avoid all reply to opposition, was for him
absolutely necessary, that he might not be disturbed in his course of
development. Whoever dislikes him for this trait^ and wishes his life
had been free from it, is far from having approached the real under-
standing of his nature.

*****

" How many do we see spoiling, or imperfectly carrying out, the
work of life, because they are imable to distinguish that which suits
them from that which does not. Now irom an erroneous notion that
they wiU gain some advantage, now with the fallacious view of being
especially useful to others by becoming unfaithful to their own proper
b^g, they leave what GOthe very prettily calls the fortification-
lines of our existence, and thus so far mar their own progress in culti-
vation, that it becomes impossible for them to become for others in
fiiture that which they might have been, had their own development
attained its natural goal. I have often reflected on the old naive
work of Giotto at Assisi, which shows the pure soul, dwelling in a
sort of fortress, holding commimion with none but the angels that float
around, while the corrupt soul is lured out of its castle by demons into
the abyss of hell. This gives much room for thought, especially with
reference to the self-purification of the soul ; but even the fort which
guards the more beautiful soul is not without significance. Its repre-
sents symbolically that which Gothe calls the fortification-lines of our
existence, and thus partly self-restraint, partly a decisive repulsion of
that which is not suited to us but which would impair our real essence,
is distinctly portrayed."

( 190 )

Aet. X. — 1. Diphmates Europeens. (European Diplomatists.)
1. Prince Mettermch, 2. Pozzo di Borgo, 3. Prince Talley-
rand, 4i, Baron Pasquier. 5. The Duke of Wellington. 6. TTie
Due de Richelieu, 7. Prince Hardenberg. 8. Count Nessel-
rode, ^,L(yrdCasdereagh. Par M. Capepigue. Paris. 1843.

2. Fites et Souvenirs du Congres de Vienne, 1814, 1815.
Par le Comte A. de la Garde. Paris. 1843.

Monsieur Capefigue is the Froissart of diplomacy. A battle
of protocols is, in Hs eyes, the finest of battles. An engagement
evaded, an antagonist overreached, an adversary tricked, is more
worthy of recorii than a well-contested combat or a victory won.
He observes the whirlwind of wordy warfare with passionless im-
partiality: his sympathies lean only to the most skilful, even
though the game snould be in the hands of the enemy of his
coimtry. Thus while he lauds to the skies the Due de Richelieu,
whose lot it was to bind up the woimds of France occupied by
the allies, he reveres Wellington, and almost adores Lord Casde-
reagh. And as the chronicler of the times of chivalry loved
to record the deeds of knighthood, collected from the lips of the
actors therein engaged, so has M. Capefigue drawn much of his
information fi-om his own heroes personaUy. Mettemich, Pozzo
di Borgo, and Talleyrand have ' posed' for him ; and we presmne
it to be gratitude to Baron Pasquier for some familiar whisper-
ings about an intended post obit payment of impartial truth to
posterity in the shape of twenty volumes of posthumous memoirs,
that has impelled the author to hang up the chancellor's portrait
in his galleiy of European diplomatists !

M. Capefigue has selected nine, of whom we have akeady
named seven; the two remaining are Count Nesselrode, and
a name less present to the memory, but deserving of honour,
that of the Prince Hardenberg of Prussia. Why there should
have been nine, neither more nor less, we cannot divine. Per-
haps the nimiber of the muses inspired some mystical analogy;
for, cold and colourless as is the painting of the bard of diplomacy,
he is not free firom the modem French cant about symbols, and
ideas, and systems. " It is not at hazard," declares he, " that I have
chosen the historical names of these statesmen; they all represent
an idea, a system of policy." For example, " the Duke of Wel-
lington is tiie armed active England of the times:" and Tal-
leyrand, even the Talleyrand of me republic, the consulate, the
empire, the restoration, and of the revolution of 1830, is a fixed
idea to M. Capefigue ! Of the Duke of Wellington, be it here
remarked that he is the last man in the world on whom such an

Defence of Talleyrand. 191

historian should have laid his hands. He tells the French that
the duke, speaking of his military character, although admirable in
defence, never knew when or how to attack. We thought that
Napier, in his imequalled history of the Peninsular war, had
settled for ever such twaddle as that. What was the battle of
Salamanca, of which Capefigue speaks, but an attack made at the
right moment? and what the three days' battle of the Pyrenees
but a series of attacks? What in fine swept the French firom the
Peninsula!

But if M. Capefigue be not another Homer of battles, he is the
very Ossian of the"cloud-capt land of diplomacy. Prince Metter-
nich is his ideal. The author is speaking of the period when
Austria hesitated about joining the coalition against Napoleon,
hoping that she might command back by an armed neutrahty,
and without the necessity of again taking the field, those posses-
sions of which she had been stripped.

" It was then," says Capefigue, ** that to justify this delicate situation
M. de Mettemich commenced that elegant school of noble diplomatic lan-
guage, of which M. de Gentz became the most distinguished organ. . . •
In those notes M. de Mettemich was seen to develop his principles upon
the European equilibrium, which tended to contract the immense power
of Napoleon for the benefit of the Allied States. I know nothing more
remarkably written than these notes, a little vague in their details, but
so well measured in their expressions, that they never either engaged
the Cabinet nor the many

There is indeed throughout this book a strange moral insensi-
bility ! PoUcy covers sin, nay, knows not what sm means. Faults
are its only crimes. Let us take for instance the memoir of
Talleyrand, and see what excuse is offered for his many tergiver-
sations, of which each was a perjury.

*' M. de Talleyrand never held himself tied down to a Government or
a doctrine ; he did not betray Napoleon in the absolute sense of the word,
he only quitted him at the nght time ; he did not betray the restauration,
he abandoned it when it had abandoned itself. There is much egotism
without doubt in this mind, whose first thought turned to its own posi-
tion and prospects, and then in the second place to the Grovemment it
served '; but in fine, we ought not always require from a superior mind
that self-denial which constitutes a blind devotion to a cause or a man."

Such is Capefigue's apology for Talleyrand, and the doctrine
is carried out m the book to similar exaltation of diplomatists and
liars of all countries. We have nowhere met so sickening a
portrait. From the moment Talleyrand appears upon the stage as
Bishop of Autun, officiating at mass which he profanes by a side
grimace to Mirabeau, to his deathbed firom which he essays^ to
rise in order that his royal visiter, Louis PhiHppe, may receive
his due of ceremonial, — ^n:om first to last, through his private g

192 Capejfigue^s Diplomatists.

blinds and public betrayals, — ^we think he nowhere stands in so bad
a point of view as that in which he is placed by this apologetic
laureat of diplomatists. In one place there is an insinuation of so
dark a character, that it ought only to have been introduced iipou
the condition of settling it once and for ever. It is explained in
the following passage :

*' To the period of the arrival of Louis XVIII. M. de Talleyrand was
at the head of the Provisional Govemment. The whole responsibility
weighed upon him, and it was then that he had to reproach himself with
being hurried into the commission of acts which belonged to the spirit
of the time. There are indeed times when the human head is without
control ; it is hurried along by the torrent of prevailing ideas ; it is im-
pressed with the spirit of reaction. The mission of M. de Maubreilhas
never been perfectly cleared up. What was its object ? It is pretended
that his sole commission related to the stopping of the crown jewels.
Other reports say that he was charged with a more dreadful mission
against Napoleon, resembling that which struch the last of the Condes.
I can avow that Maubreil never had any direct or personal interview with
Talleyrand. In these deplorable circumstances the latter kept always
out of view. Here is what passed. One of the secretaries of Talleyrand,
then in his confidence, told Maubreil with a careless air, * This is what the
prince requires you to do ; annexed is your commission and money, and
in proof of the truth of what I say, and of the prince's assent, wait in his
salon to-day, he will pass and will give you an approving nod of his head.'
The sign was given and Maubreil believed himself authorized to fulfil his
mission. What was the nature of that mission ? Historical times are
not yet come, when all may be told and cleared up. I do not judge any
conduct. There are periods, I repeat, when on ne s^appartientpas.^

Whatever may have been Talleyrand's crimes, we are not satis-
fied to adopt this charge of his having nodded a commission to
assassinate Napoleon. We cannot believe such a story probable,
upon the imsatisfactory assumption that this incarnation of im-
passability was hurried away by a torrent of fashionable ideas, of
some very bad description. This Monsieur Capefigue is, with all
his indifference, a credulous man. We find in his memoir of
Castlereagh, for example, a charge brought against Canning of
the foulest character. vVe give it in his own words.

"Castlereagh, in his capacity of minister of war, made immense
preparations for the Walcheren expedition. Must it be told ? Here
begins the treason of Canning in relation to his country ; in relation to
his colleague, it is incontestable that Canning furnished information to
Fouche of Castlereagh*s plans."

But Capefigue, philosophic moralist ! has always palliation ready,
proportioned to the amount of the crime. Listen to the profundity
of the following aphorism : * When jealousy reaches the heart it
Ustens to nothing,' — ^and so he proceeds with his history.

Charge against Canning. 193

*

** Canning engaged Lord Portland to disembarrass himself of Lord
Castlereagh, whose obstinate head, he represented, was as incapable of
conducting the war department as of directing or sustaining a debate
in parliament. Canning wanted to rule the Tory party, and Castle-
reagh was an obstacle to his ambitious designs."

This story is, of course, a piece of stupid absurdity, not worth
a moment's consideration : he who would, with a grave face, un-
dertake its refutation seriously, would be laughed at as a sim-
pleton. Capefiffue hates Canning for no other reason that we
can discover, man that Canning was a brilliant orator. Our
historian has no bowels for such a monster in diplomacy as an
eloquent statesman. He bimdles such a bein^ off in the same
category with poets. Vagueness, as he tells us, is the great beauty
of diplomatic writing : admit eloquence and warmth, with con-
viction and sincerity, and what would become of the noble di-
plomatic art?

Of the nine memoirs before us, there is none — ^not even the
romantic Corsican subtlety and hatred of Pozzo di Boreo, per-
severingly pursuing Napoleon like his evil genius, imtil, as he
figuratively declared, ' he threw the last clay upon his head' —
that so interests us as that of Prince Hardenberg, and this not
upon his own accoimt, but for the glorious young Prussians of
the Universities: those boys who conspired without a word
passed, and whose combination, effected imder the nose of their
French oppressors, was imsuspected imtil the magnificent explo-
sion awoke at once and overwhelmed them. The Prussian mi-
nister did his duty at the right moment; and then, says Ca-
pefigue, with warmth not usuaJ^

** Then were seen the universities rising, and their professors them-
selves leading their young pupils to these battles of giants. The bat-
tles of Lutzen and Bautzen have never yet been examined under the
point of view which would give them a melancholy interest. These
glorious generations meet in presence. The conscripts of the empire
nom ^ghteen to twenty-one ; the students of the imiversities, who
bore the funeral flag of the Queen Louisa, and the oldest of whom was
not perhaps twenty-two. In the midst of this noble young blood
thundered 1500 pieces of cannon, tearing this rosy flesh, and maiming
these limbs ; and yet not one of these youths flinched, for they com-
bated for their mother-country."

Terrible this may be, but after the cold-blooded, tortuous,
hollow hypocrisy with which M. Capefigue commonly afllicts us,
it at least healthily stirs the blood. Never had a country been so
trampled upon, plundered, and degraded as was Prussia by France,
after the battle of Jena. The contributions levied upon the pea-
santry threatened to convert the fields into a waste. The wanton-
ness of the conqueror was exhibited in outrages the most revolting-^H

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIII. O ^^

194 Capefigue^s Diplomatists,

The indignity offered by Napoleon to the beautiful, clever, and
heartbroken queen, was imitated in ffrossness of a worse descrip-
tion. It is a fact known to many living officers that, at the occu-
pation of Paris, Blucher held an order issued by the military
governor of Berlin, to provide the French officers with female
companions under a menace that may be imagined.

Why do we dwell on this here? Because M. Capefigue en-
deavours to confound English with Russians, as urged by one
common desire to oppress and humiliate France after the victory
of Waterloo. He does so for the purpose of exalting the clemency
of the Emperor Alexander. The truth of the matter is, that it
was the Duke of Wellington who saved the monuments of the
French capital from the destruction to which they were doomed
by Blucher; the authority of Alexander was interposed with the
eame object, but at the instigation of the duke. Capefigue is an
avowed advocate for an alliance between France and Russia,
and it is in accordance with this view, that treating of this bitter
period of the occupation of Paris, he endeavours to conciliate his
countrymen towards Russia by representing Alexander and his
Russians as mediators and saviours against the wrath and cupidity
of English and Prussians.

What credit is due to M. Capefigue as an historian may there-
fore be easily determined. The vagueness which in diplomatic
writing is with him the perfection of skill, he himself carries
into the appreciation of what is or ought to be positive. He
can seldom get beyond a hint or an assertion, unless with some
special feeling to gratify. No one is more positive or bold, when
he would accuse Canning of an act as unknown as assassination
to the British character; or when, depreciating Wellington, he
would exalt the clemency of Alexander as the star of a Russo-
Gallic alliance.

We turn to the Comte de la Garde. Pleasant as diplomacy is, and
gay and brilliant as must have been the aspect of Vienna in 1814,
and the early part of 1815, we suspect that beneath the endless
succession oi fetes prepared for the many crowned heads, wearing
at length their crowns with some feeling of security, there
lurked a dissatisfied feeling: something hke that which af-
fects ourselves in the perusal of the Comte de la Garde's gaudy
book. While we are stunned with the music of monster concerts,
and confounded with a tumult of military fetes, varied with gro-
tesque revivals of the customs of the middle age, — while trou-
badours, paladins and their dames, falconers and tableaux vivans,
glitter past us, — while all is glare, noise, dancing, feeding, gam-
bling, and enjoyment, — we cannot but bear in mind, that the
map of Europe is spread out itself like a banquet, for each royal

De la Gardens Congress of Vienna. 195

^est to take Ms share according to liis might. At ifds feast theris
18 no harmony; each eyes the other with distrust and suspicion;
and while Alexander is laying his heavy hand upon Poland, and
the whisper of partition of France is going roimd, Tallejnund and
the Enghsh minister are signing a secret treaty with Austria, with
the object of raising a barrier against the dajigerous rise of jRus-
sian power.

The Comte de la Garde saw only the banquet and the salons;
he was not admitted behind the scenes, and accordingly has no
aecrets to reveal He saw kings in dominoes, and empresses in
masks, and was warned not to mistake a queen for Siorisette, He
heard some dissertations, but they were upon the fine arts and
conversations at the dinner-table of Lord S — ; they turned upon
Shakspeare and Comeille, the gobelin tapestry, and Sevres porce-
lain; in which discussion the Frenchman of course came oft with
flying colours. We doubt not that in the circiunstances there
was a polite agreement to allow French vanity the consolation of
calling Shakspeare rude and uncultivated, and of exalting Racine
above Milton. Any thing might be said, so that diplomacy was
not called upon to make premature revelations. We are told that
the sovereigns themselves only talked politics one hour during the
twenty-four; and that the dullest, for it was the hour before dinner;
and even then the subject was quickly despatched, for contem-
plation of the innocent slaughter of a battue.

Were we in fact to give the headings only of the chapters in
the first volume, the reader might suppose he was reading a pro-
gramme of a performance at Astley's Amphitheatre. But while
Sie Neros were fiddling, Europe was parcelling out; and we can
hardly repress a feeling of satisfiiction when the arrival of Napoleon
in France scatters for a moment the pageant to the winds. The
sensation produced by that event is the only portion of the book
of which we will attempt a translation.

** The news Koslowski told me was brought by a courier, despatched
from Florence by Lord Borghese. The English consul at Livoume had
sent it to the latter. Lord Stewart, the first to be informed, imme-
diately communicated the intelligence to Prince Mettemich and the
sovereigns. The ministers of the great powers, too, were told the news.
No one had heard what route Napoleon had taken. Is he in France ?
Has he fled to the United States? — all are lost in conjecture. . . .

" Whether it was that the secret was well kept, or that the intoxica-
tion of pleasure still prevailed, Vienna wore its accustomed aspect. The
ramparts of Leopoldstadt, leading to the Prater, were filled with peo-
ple promenading as usual. Nothing announced that the thunderbolt
had fiedlen: everywhere amusement and pleasure ! . . .

** In the evening a company of amateur performers were to play at

o2

196 De la Gardens Congress of Vienna.

the palace the ' Barber of Seville ;' to be followed by a vaudeville, then
mucii in vogue, called ^ La danse interrompue.' Having received an
invitation, I resolved to go and study the appearance of the illustrious
assembly. It was as numerous, and not less brilliant than usual. But
it was no longer the easy indifference of the day ; brows were slightly
clouded. Groups, formed here and there, discussed with eagerness the
probabilities of tbe departure from Elba

^* The Empress of Austria g^ve the order for raising the curtun.
* We shall see,' said I, * how the illustrious assembly enjoy the comedy.'
On which the Prince Koslowski observed, ^ Be not deceived ; it woiud
require the enemies' cannon at the gates of Vienna, to break this ob-
stinate sliunber.' This morning the news reached Talleyrand in bed.
Madame de Perigord was conversing gaily with him when a letter was
brought in from Mettemich. The beautiful countess mechanically
opened the despatch, and cast her eyes on the mighty intelligence.
She had been engaged to assist in the course of the day at a rehearsal
of ' Le Sourd ou V Auberge pleine,' and thinking only of her probable
disappointment, exclaimed, ^ Buonaparte has quitted, uncle : and what,
uncle, becomes of the rehearsal T

'' ^ The rehearsal shall go on, madame,' tranquiUy replied the diplo-
matist. And the rehearstd took place. . • .

*^ It was at the ball given by Prince Mettemich, that the landing at
Cannes and the first successes of Napoleon were heard. The announce-
ment operated like the stroke of an enchanter's wand, chan^ng at once
into a desert the garden of Almida. The thousands of wax-lights
seemed at once to be extinguished. The waltz is interrupted — ^in vain
the music continues — all stop, all look at each other — he is in France!

** The Emperor Alexander advances towards Prince Talleyrand: * I
told you it would not last long.'

" The French Plenipotentiary bows without replying. The King
of Prussia makes a sign to the Duke of Wellington: wey leave the
ball-room together. Alexander, the Emperor of Austria, and Me tte
nich follow them. The greater number of the guests disappear. There
remains only some groups of frightened talkers."

A hon mot — supplied by the title of the vaudeville ' La danse
interrompue' crowns the whole — and the fifites are at an end.

(197)

Abt- XI.— 1. F. L. Z. Werner's SdmmtKche Werke. (Wer-
ner's Collective Works.) 12 vols. Berlin. 1840.

2. Fbanz Grillparzer: Dieterich Christian Grabbe:
Dramatische Werhe. Frankfort and Vienna. 1820, 1840.

3. Immbbmann^S Dramatische Werhe. Merlin: Das Trauerspiel
in Tyrol (The Tragedy in the Tyrol): Alexis. Die Opfer
der Schweigens, (The Victims of Silence.) Hamburg. Hoff-
man andCampe. 1837, 1841.

4. E. Raupach's Dramatische Werhe: Emster Gathirig — Dra-
matische Werke: Komischer Gattung, Hambiu-g: Homnan and
Campe. 1829, 1842.

5. Original-Beitrage zur deutschen Schaubuhne, (Original Contri-
butions to the German Theatre. By the Princess Amelia of
Saxe.) Dresden. Arnold. 1836, 1842.

6.. Griseldis. (Griselda.) Der Adept (The Alchymist.) Camoens,
(The Death of Camoens.) Ein milder UrtheiL (A Mild Judg-
ment.) Imilda Lambertazzi. Konig und Bauer, (King and
Peasant.) Der Sohn der WUdness, (The Son of the Desert.)
Plays by Friedrich Halm. Vienna: G^rold. 1836,1843.

7. Ferdinand Raimund's SdmmtUche Schriften. 4 vols. Vienna:
Rohimann's. 1837.

A review of the Modem German Stage is not an easy, and
very fiur from an agreeable task. Since the silence or death of
Lessing, Schiller, and Gothe — that is to say, for the last forty or
fifty years — ^no branch of German literature and art has fallen
into such undeniable decay. Most others have made admitted
progress: the drama alone, the youngest and the most feeble shoot
of German genius, has been stunted and discouraged. Perhaps
some of the causes lie upon the surface.

There is no central public in Germany : a want which has been
of evil influence to many of the national interests, but to none
more decidedly than to the proper cultivation and development of
a national dramatic genius. ITie numerous German capitals — every
one of them strongly indoctrinated with peculiar and distinguish-
able tastes; each in some sort playing rival to the other; all exist-
ing by their own special laws, manners, and customs; Vienna
praising what they are laughing at in Berlin, Weimar not know-
mg what they admire in Frankfort — ^have offered little of that
settled public guidance to the dramatic poet, without which the
Kghest order of stage success can rarely be achieved. To this are
to be added the operation of censorships, more especially fatal to
the health of comedy, and the luckless influence of the German
governments in every other point wherein they have meddled

198 German Plays and Actors.

"With the theatre. It was they who cumbered it with its absurdly
restrictive kws; who disabled it of its few chances of control by
poptdar influence ; who effected that unhappy metamorphosis of
the gay, lively, self-supporting actor, into the compelled servant of
a manager, or the Ufe-hired menial of a prince; and finally, when
some daring dramatist had even bravea these dangers, and with
them the certainties of mutilation that awaited his work from
public censor, from prince-fed actor, from ignorant critic, it was
the wisdom of these governments which so ordered the system of
his remimeration, as to starve him back, with as little delay as
might be, into pursuits he had unwisely abandoned. * Our pe-
dantry is so great,' said Lessing, when he satirically deplored* uiis
condition of things, * that we consider boys as the only proper
fabricators of theatrical wares. Men have more serious and wormy
employments in the State and in the Church. What men write
should beseem the gravity of men : a compendium of law or phi-
losophy; an erudite chronicle of this or that imperial city; an
edifying sermon, and such like.'.

But Lessing did not content himself with lamenting or with
satirizing; he applied a remedy. When, by his vigorous criti-
cism, he had demoUshed the slavish following of Sie French
school, and fixed the attention of his coimtr5rmen on the great
dramatic poet of England, he may be said to have created the
German stage. Gothe's influence was less favourable. His
* Goetz von Berlichingen ' announced his early inclination to tiie
theatre : but of the pieces he afterwards constructed in that form,
' Egmont' and * Clavigo' alone continue to be acted; while the
greater works of 'Tasso,' Iphigenia,' and the incomparable
' raust,V introduced that dangerous distinction between acted and
imacted drama, which was fated to mislead so many in their
approaches to the stage. The third is the greatest name in the
history of the German theatre. Schiller's influence, its character,
and its enduring effects, are known to all : we have lately enlarged
upon them.

Once estabHshed, and its native claims allowed, a schism broke
out in the dramatic literature of Germany, and two * schools ' set
themselves in marked opposition: the 'romantic,' and what we
should call the domestic. The last named had its founder in Les-
sing, who set it up in rivalry to the French classical maimer; and
whose ' Sara Sampson,' ' Emilia Galotti ' and other plays of the
same kind, turned even Gothe and Schiller in that direction: the
one in his ' Clavigo,' the other in his ' Cabal and Love' (Kabale
und Liebe\ and in such episodes of his greater works as uie Max

— ■

* Dramatnrgie, 1st April, 1768.

The Tkck and SchlegeV School: 199

and Thekla of ' Wallenstein.' But while this example strength-
ened the more direct followers of Lessing in the domestic school
(the Ifflands and the Kotzebues), the same writers, particularly
Gothe, were responsible for influences that tended strongly to
what we have c^ed the romantic school, of which the leaders
were Tieck, the brothers Schlegel, Novalis, and Amim. There is
no very exact meaning in the term romanticy but it was the word
in vogue.

The effects of this style of writing, in criticism perhaps more
than in dramatic production, were adverse to the progress of the
German theatre. The dramas of Tieck and Amim were impos-
sibilities. The tiiin, fantastic, cloudy world of elves and feiries,
of spectres and of dreams, which had found itself so effective in
the tale, the novel, or the song, showed pale and utterly out of
place in the compact form of the drama. Tieck's * Genoveva'
and * Blue Beard* were poems of imagination and a sharp
original fancy, but their dramatic form was accidental: not
bestowed upon them by qualities of tiieir own, but by the volun-
tary afterthought of the poet. The same is to be said of Arnim's
drsunas, a new edition of which has been lately published by
Wilheim Grimm. The only one of this school, mdeed, who
actually found his way to the stage, was Henrich von Kleist (not
to be confounded wim the elder poet of the same name, Chris-
tian Eweld von Kleist), whose dramas of ' Kate from Heilbronn*
adapted for representation by Holbein, and *The Prince of
Hesse-Homburg' are acted now and then even to tiais day, attract-
ing such as have a touch of their own mysticism, but in them-
selves as weak and sickly as the poor poet had been, who in
1811 took to drowning out of melancholy and despair. But the
critics of the school were a more formidable party than the dra-
matic producers. Friedrich and August Wilheim von Schlegel,
Tieck nimself, Franz Horn, and others in connexion with them,
brought all their talents to bear against tiie existing German
theatre, and proved a formidable impediment to its growth.
Yoimg and feeble as it was, they proposed nothing but me very
strongest drink for its nurture. Shakspeare and Calderon : these
were the only models they would offer for imitation; nothing
short of these could be the salvation of the drama. And straight-
way on this Procrustes bed of criticism, modest and quiet German
poets stretched themselves out, to the terrible injury of what limbs
they had, and to no earthly production of any they had not. All
this wrought but one result : tiie imnatural excess of effort intro-
duced into the drama a deplorable affectation, a frenetic convul-
sive style, a kind of intoxication of the pathetic, which have to
this day depressed and retarded it. And it is worthy of remark

200 German Plays and Actors.

iSobX at this very time, in opposition to the violent demands of
Tieck, the Schiegels, and their followers, it was reserved for a
writer of a more moderate genius and less exaggerated claims to
prove with what far more useful results the foreign model might
have been brought in aid of the native effort, if a modest, prac-
tical spirit had only guided and controlled its introduction.
Schreijvogel's* pleasmg translations from the Spanish drama are
still acted. He was a man, we may add, of very great merit,
though little known out of Germany. He was bom in 1768,
and was properly the creator of the first German theatre, the
* Burg-theater' at Vienna. He died in 1832 : one of the first
victims to the cholera. His best and most successful translations
are ' Donna Diana,' from the Spanish of Aretino Mureto ; * Don
Gutierre/ after Calderon ; and ' Life a Dream' also after Calde-
ron.

Meanwhile Iffland and Kotzebue had steadily and persever-
ingly cultivated what we have called the domestic school, the
bourgeois drama {d^is burgerliche Sckauspiel), Both these writers
are widely known; both are popular to this day with German
audiences. Overflooding with his ' com^die larmoyante' every
little theatre in the country, Kotzebue was too profuse and immo-
derate in production to care at any time for progress or elevatioii.
Iffland, himself the best existing actor, and the head of a
dramatic school some members of which are yet living at Berlin,
had a practical knowledge of the stage superior to any of his coji-
temporaries: his motives were well-marked and effective; his
characters strongly individuaUzed : but his plots were in every
instance from commonplace life, and that in its most prosaic form.
A bankruptcy, a gambling loss, a theft if possible: these were the
catastrophies of the plays of Iffland. A generous husband, who
forgives his femme perdue; an illegitimate son, who reconciles his
mother to his father; an uncle, who arrives in the nick of time
from the Indies, West or East: these were the favourite heroes
of Kotzebue, whom our German friends have the most loudly
applauded for upwards of thirty years. Not * clasacaV tragedy
this, it must be confessed; no need of the cothurnus here, to mount
up the actor to the poet's requirements; here are heroes much
within standard height of the ftussian soldier, and passions othet
than those whereat Germany miffht have wept with Shakspeare,
or shuddered with Calderon. It may be frirther admitted that
•there is often in these writers more sterility than simplicity, less
clearness than insipidity in their intentions, and of the humble
much less than of the vxdgar in their general scope and aim. But

^1 ■ III. .11 , ■ I I ., , — -

* He wrote under the name of West.

The Fate-Drama. 201

there was some reality to go upon; something that made appeal
to the honest German playgoer on the score of what he nad
felt himself ; and all the idealisms on abstractions in the world
went for nothing against it. The * romantic' school was worsted;
and the highest order of genius then existing in Germany was with-
drawn from the service of the stage, and unluckily devoted to the
misdirection of other talents on their way to it. Success vitiated
the bourgeois style, of course : but, though its fortunes were not
without vicissitude, and other modified styles, influenced by the cri-
tical sway which the * romanticists' maintained, became grafted on
it, we must admit that it has on the whole kept the victory it won.
When we arrive at the most recent date — ^in the detailed review
to which we now proceed — it will be seen that the plays of the
two most successful stage writers of the day, the Princess Amelia
of Saxe, and the Baron Miinch-Bellinghausen* are but the revival,
with modem additions, of the principles of Lessing and Iffland.

What the Germans call das Schicksalsdrama^ the drama foimded
on the idea of fete {ScMcksal), comes first in our review. It was
a strange product of the conflicting theories and tendencies of the
time: a sort of wild clashing together of the most inflated ro-
mantic pretensions, and the most ordinary domestic interests.
Here was Calderon with a vengeance, his Christian inspiration,
his wild Catholicism, wedded to the old remorseless Fate of the
Greeks : here was all-sufficient sjonpathy for the wonderful and
mysterious in nature and in man, to please even the most exact*
ing romantidsts: and could Shakspeare have been fairly repre-
seated by supernatural passions and imearthly fancies, here was a
laudable efibirt to imitate Shakspeare. Superstition, mysticism,
or murder, had constant possession of the scene; &ight and
shudder were the fashion; pity was dethroned by terror, and this
despot ruled alone. Conceptions so wild and irregular must have
a special language too; and the passionate rhythm of the trochaic
verse, modelled on Calderon, supplanted the steady flow of the
iambic. The representatives of this extraordinary dramatic style—
which after all would never have taken hold of the audiences as it
did, but for its points of human interest studied in the school of
Le^in^ — ^were Werner, Miillner, and Houwald: three men of
very different talents, and the first by far the most remarkable.
But for him, indeed, there had been little interest for us in das
Schicksalsdrama. ' A gifted spirit,' as Mr. Carlyle has well de-
scribed liim,t ' struggling earnestly amid the new, complex, tu*^

* Frederick Halm is his adopted name.

f In Carljle's Miscellanies a paper will be be found on the Life of Werner.

202 German Flays and Actors,

multuous influences of his time and country, but without force to
body himself forth &om amongst them ; a keen, adventurous
swimmer, aiming towards high and distant landmarks, but too
weakly in so rough a sea; for the currents drive him fiir astray,
and he sinks at last in the waves, attaining little for himself, and
leaving little, save the memory of his failure, to others.'

Zacharias Werner was bom at Konigsberg in Prussia, in 1768,
and died at Vienna in 1823. Impassioned and ill-regulated in
his life and in his poetry; without a solid foundation in character
or in knowledge; three times married, and three times divorced;
now selecting for his dramatic hero the great author of the Refor-
mation, and then announcing himself a zealous convert to the
Boman Catholic religion; at Berlin the ruling dramatic author,
and at Vienna a preaching, proselytising, fantastic priest: Werner,
wandering on this earth like a restless shadow, proved, by so manj^
changeful contrasts and vicissitudes, that the wild, irregular spirit
in his poetical productions, was at least no affectation, but a Ixuly
felt, remediless, sickness of his soul.

His first dramatic work* was * The Sons of the Valley,' and
notwithstanding its vague, impracticable, rhapsodical character,
it contained more of the chaotic nature and genius of the man
than any of his later writings. It is in two parts : the first, ' The
Templ^ in C3rprus' {Die Templer auf Cypern) ; and the second,
* The Bretiiren of the Cross' {Die Krevzesbruder), Each of these
mrts is itself a play of six acts, and the two fill two thick volumes.
The subject is tne persecution and destruction of the Order of the
Templars: a rich and tragic subject as it stands in history, and
presenting a worthy hero in the person of Jaques Molay. But
mere history had no charms for W emer. It was the history en-
tirely within himself to which he had resolved to give utterance,
and a mightily strange business he made of it. He happened at
this time to be a brother, and an exalted one, of tiie order of Free-
masons; and so, behind the full and warlike form of the Tempkis,
to which in the first part of his poem (where their condition before

• We subjoin a list of the whole. Die Sdhne des Tholes (The Sons of the Val-
ley): 2 vols. Berlin, 1803. Der Vier-und-Zwanzigste Februar (The Twenty-fourth
of February^: Leipsic, 1815. Das Kreuz an der Ostsee CThe Croes on the Baltic
Sea): 2 vols. Berlui, 1806, and Vienna, 1820. Martin Luther; oder^ die Weikt
der Kraft (Martin Luther, or the Consecration of Strength) : Berlin, 1807. Auih:
Berlin, 1808. Wanda (Queen of Sarmatia) : Tiibingen, 1810. Kunigunde (St.
Cunigunde) : Leipsic, 1815. Die Mutter der Makkabder (The Mother of the
Maccabees): Vienna, 1815. The complete edition of his works was published in
1840, by his friends Grimma, and contains, in addition to the dramas, the lyric
poems and the sermons preached at Vienna. His friend and companion, Hitzig,
published his biography at Berlin, in 182S.

%

Werner. 203

their fidl is pictured) lie now and then does striking dramatic
justice, he places the shadowy power and control of a myotic
institution: a new, never heard-oi, rival Order, called The Sons
of the Valley, half-spiritual, half-real, omnipotent, ubiquitous,
and fiill of extraordinary schemes for the perfecting and regene-
rating of the soul of man. Amazing are the plans and structure
of this society; but more amazing the expression it affords to the
wild, immanageable thoughts that made up the fever-fit we call
Werner's life. It has projected a perfectly novel religion : a syn-
cretistic, universal faith, combining Moses, Christ, and Mahomet,
and uniting with Christian devotion the paganism of the ancient
times, the mysteries of the oriental countries, and the worship of
IrisandofFlorus. And how connect it with the Templars? Why,
by correcting history. It is not by the King of France, it is not
by the Pope, that the Templars are destroyed: neither Cle-
ment nor ^Philippe le Beau had any thing to do with it, for the
great work was transacted by these Sons of the Valley, and even
me good Jaques Molay himself becomes persuaded that the sacri-
fice is necessary, and is inaugurated into their secrets before
he dies.

Such is the strange conception of a poem, which, it would be
most unjust not to add, is rich in many characteristic beauties.
Besides its gorgeous theatrical effects and show, it contains cha-
racters and figures in whose outline there is no lack of either
strength or manliness; but the solid foundation in truth is absent,
it is without organic connexion, and is wholly deficient in pro-
gressive interest: matters somewhat needfiil to a drama. In
*. Martin Luther,' Werner again indulged his unfathomable notions,
metaphysical and religious. The lesson proposed to be worked
out was that the Strength (of human behef) received its highest
consecration fixjm Love ; wherefore ought both to be, as man and
wife, inseparable. Not at all clear in itself, this idea is plimged into
the obscurest depths of a mystic plot, in which, notwithstanding
some passages of exquisite beauty, the noble and manly figure of the
great reformer is certainly seen to disadvantagje. Better, decidedly,
18 the tragedy of ' Wanda, Queen of Sarmatia,' adopted daughter
to Libussa, uie celebrated mjrthic heroine of Bohemian tradition,
Wanda and Rudiger (Prince of Rugen) had been in love, and
pledged to each omer, before she was called to the throne of Sar-
matia. Since then, she has vowed herself solemnly to her people,
when suddenly Rudiger, whom she thought dead, appears and
daims her hand. The dilemma is cut through by a battle between
Rudiger and the Samaritans, the latter defending Wanda: he
loses the battle, and is himself slain by Wanda, wno afterwards
drowns herself in the Vistula. The two chief characters are here

204 German Plays and Acton.

d^wn with some strengtii and substance of reality; the collisions
of Jove and duty, and the situations of mutual despair, are painted
with masterly success; and there is a xmity about the work, want-
ing to the other dramas of Werner— even to the * Cross on the
Baltic Sea,' which Iffland, struck with the genius there was in it,
in vain endeavoured to adapt for his theatre at Berlin. But from
these we must pass at once to the work which sent the name of
Werner like wildfire through Germany.

' This, the most significant for him and for the ' school* it set up,
was *The Twenty-fourth of February,' which found at once
incredible success and numberless imitations. It was the first of
that long list of dramas, compoimded of the mean and the terrible,
which excited and degraded the taste of German playgoers. The
plot and catastrophe of this piece, Werner took occasion to de-
clare, were merely fictitious. He might, with the exercise of a
little more candour, have recollected to add that for both he
was greatly indebted to the 'Fatal Curiosity' of our English
Lillo. Not that we would not gladly, but for the fact's sake, hand
over to Germany the whole credit of the invention, for assuredly
the whole is a most horrible and im wholesome nightmare. Briefly,
thus the story runs. Kuntz Kuruth, once a soldier now a peasant,
lives with his wife, Trude Kuruth, in a solitary valley of Switzer-
land. Well off in former days, they are grown poor and miser-
able. Many misfortunes have overtaken them, and now the
cottage is to be sold, and prison stares them in the face. Such is
the state of things, when Kuntz comes home in the stormy and
dark night of the 24th of February, if the cold and empty room
in which his wretched wife awaits him can be called a home.
You then find by their talk that, apart from even their worst mis-
fortunes, some terrible cloud is over them. Past and present
times are alike dreadful to both, the future more dreadiul stilL
The man thinks of killing himself; the wife proposes a theft;
when a sudden knock at the door disturbs these domestic confi-
dences. A foreigner is there, who has lost his way, and seeks
a refiige in the storm of the night. He has the appearance
of wealth; he has brought wine and food; he entreats the
starved inmates to partake with him. At table, conversation
begins : and such is the interest manifested by the rich stranger
for these occupants of a hovel, that Kimtz is moved to tell his
story. It runs to this effect. His father, choleric, passionate, and
unjust, had never approved his marriage with Trude; and one
miserable day — ^the 24th of February — the old man having grossly
insulted and ill-treated his daughter-in-law, Kimtz in ungo-
vernable rage and fiiry flung a knife at him. He had not hit his
&ther, but the latter, to Kuntz's horror and remorse, died almost

Twenttf'Fourth of February. 205

on the instant, choked with the fright and anger. His last words
were,

* Much Euch und Enrer brat!
Auf sie und Euch comme Eurer vaters Uut!
Z)er Morders Morder seid — ^wie Ihr mich morden thut!'*

Years passed; Trude had borne two children, a boy and a mrl; and
it was the anniversary of the day of the old man's death. The boy
was playing with the girl, and as he had seen, some hours before, a
bird killed, it occurred to him by way of a childish game
to kill his little sister. The father exiles and execrates the child,
who went abroad and perished. The 24th of February never
returned after this without some cruel misfortune. Every thing
that lowered them in their lives, had come upon that day ; on
that ^tal day fell the last year's avalanches which made them utter
beggars. And now, adds the wretched Kuruth, as he finishes
Hm TrigMul story, this day is come again.

. But it will bring better fortune at last, the stranger hopes.
The reader need be hardly told the sequel, or that this day
a^ain brings back its crime. The wealthy foreigner is the son,
whom his parents had supposed slain in the French revolution :
he has come back from &,r beyond the seas, full of the man's
repentance for the child's crime ; full of anxious desire to be
pardoned by his father ; with means to make his age happy at
last, and the strong sense that he shall succeed in what he pur-
poses. Persuaded of this, and fearful of increasing to danger the
excitement of his father's narrative, he defers his disclosure till the
morning. But somewhat oddly, he has taken occasion to say
meanwhile — ^to establish a sort of fellow-feeling with Kuruth, at
supper — * I too am a murderer !' He falls asleep. Upon this,
Kuntz, excited by the wine and irritated by the turn the conver-
sation has taken, thinks of doing justice at once upon this unknown
murderer, but his wife dissuades him. At last he resolves to leave
him life, but to take his money while he sleeps. While thus en-
jed however, Kurt, the son, awakes and cries out ; when the
ler, on the sudden impulse, stabs him with his knife. Dying,
the son says who he is, and pardons his father, who rushes from the
scene to deliver himself up to justice I And so ends the ' Twenty-
fourth of February,' which, with all its faults and its absurdities
(for Werner continually walks on the narrow and dangerous line
"wrhich is said to reach the verge of sublimity), has a deep tragic
p^on in it, worthy of a better theme.

^ Adolf MUUner, the first of the two chief followers of Werner
to whom we shall here advert, was born in 1774, at WeissCTfela

♦ Cursed be you and your race ! Upon you and upon them your father*s blood I
TiMsy shall bie murderers of the murderer — as you murder me.

206 German Play* and Actors.

near Leipsic, and died in 1829. He was more of a critic than a
dramatist, and became chiefly notorious in Germany by his end-
less and savage polemics with all the poets ^d all the booksellers
of his age, who paid him back with a nickname that stuck to him,

* The wild beast of Weissenfels/ He had no fancy or imagination
of his own; inspiration was a thing altogether unknown to him;
but he constructed his scenes very well, and had, on emergency,
a tolerably available stock of common sense. He had no special
vocation to the drama: but when he took to it, he common-
placed Werner, and so succeeded wonderfully. He had pro-
bably never taken to it at all, but for the Amateur Theatre he
had established in Weissenfels, a very small and dull place where
it was no very vast merit to have turned out the best actor.
His first play was, *The Twenty-mTi/A of February:' a copy,
and a very bad one, of Werner's play. But he improved as
he went on, and got out a piece at last which forced its way into
all the German theatres. This was * The Guilt' {^Die Schuld), acted
for the first time at Vienna, in 1816; and perhaps, since Schiller's
time, no single drama had found a theatrical success at all equal to

* The Guilt.' Its simple, pleasing, moral idea, is that of a murder
expiated by a suicide; but its horrors were very cleverly put to-
gether, and there was no higher aim beneath them, no metaphy-
sical wanderings indulged, nothing that plain sensible lovers of
the horrible could not with comfort understand. After this fol-
lowed *King Yngurd' {Konig Yngurd)^ and * The Maid of Alba-
nia' (Die ATbancscrin) : superior to the ' Schuld' in a kind of poeti-
cal value, certainly — ^this Milliner himself thought — ^but on that
account we suppose, not comparable to it in success. Upon which,
in high dudgeon, Miilhier left the theatre, and from 1820 occu-
pied himself with the pleasing style of criticism before named.
He became the terror of German writers and artists, and at his
death a common breath of ease and comfort was drawn. His
works were published at Brunswick, in 1828, in seven volimies,
with supplements. A biography, by Schiitz, appeared at Meissen
in 1830.

Of a sofl;er complexion, veiy mild and very sentimental in his
way, was Ernst Baron von Houwald : in his poetry, indeed, a
true son of his country, the Lusace (Lausitz), where he was
bom in 1778. He tried a still closer combination than Wer-
ner of the Schichsalsdrama with the bourgeois^ and gently in-
fusing Kotzebue into Werner, found many friends and enthu-
siastic applauders. The most successful of his dramas were, *The
going ELome' (Die Hiemkehr), Leipsic, 1821; 'The Pharos* (Der
JLeuchtthurm), * Curse and Blessing' (Fluch und Segen), ' The
Portrait' (^Das Bild), But all of them vanished from the German

[^

Frtmz Grillparzer. 207

stage after a few gears' triumpli, and became but the occasional
resource of strolling companies, or the recreation of the family
circle.

We now come to a poet, nearly connected with the Schick^
Mokdrama by his first essay, but in aim and genius much
superior to all that we have yet named; known too well by his
fiist effort, and unknown for what he did later and better;
isolated in his literary position, and almost forgotten by the
critics; without contraidiction the most original and the most
powerftd of living German dramatists, though neither the most
successful nor the most productive; Franz Grillparzer, bom in
1790, and stiU living at Vienna. He took possession of the theatre
in 1816, by his first work ' The Woman Ancestor' {Die Ahnfrau)
— a phantom which wandered over every stage in Germany, to the
smallest and most remote. GriUparzer, a young man then, visibly
formed on the models of Werner and MiiUner, and excited by
their success, took up the notion of fate in a more ghostly as well
as ghastly sense than theirs, and gave the added horror of dreams
and spectres to those of murder and physical suffering wherein
the vulgar taste rejoiced. But this could not conceal a lan-
guage of genuine poetry, and a faculty for the dramatic art
such as no German had shown to a like extent since the death of
Schiller. Hideous, therefore, as the invention was, this * Ahn-
firau' became a general favourite. The critics, indeed, protested
enerffeticaUy. Tieck, in his caustic way, called it a tragedy for
the Uarribbees; and great, for a time, were the sufferings of select
taste. But alas ! the greatest sufferer by his success was GriU-
parzer himself. He was self-degraded by it to a level, from which,
lie more he attempted to rise, the more his own example served to
strike him down. Thus the better and worthier the work he
afterwards produced, the more his reputation declined.

* Sappho' (acted in 18 18) was a somewhat strange combination of
antique tragedy and modem intrigue; but the chief character, re-

Esented by Sophia Schroder, was drawn with exquisite beauty,
e main defect was in the relation of young Phaon to the elderly
Sappho; while the loves of her daugnter Melitta and of Phaon
toudhed the very verge of the ridiculous. His next work was
a greater advance. * The Golden Fleece' {Das goldene VUess\ a
classic trilogy, containing in ten acts the murder of Phrixus,
Jason's expoiition, his affair with Medea, the rape of the fleece,
the flight and the return of the two lovers, their misfortime,
and Medea's infanticide, is perhaps, as to general dramatic con-
ception, and a sustained force of composition, the masterpiece
01^ Grrillparzer's writings. ' Ottakar' (1825) was an historic
drama, treating the rebellion and the unhappy end of Ottakar,

208 German Plays and Actors.

King of Bohemia, and the victory of the Gennan Emperor, Bu*
dolf von Hapsburg. . These two persons — ^the man of force and
the man of right; the ambitious vassal and the great sovereign-*-
were here discriminated with wonderful success; but the minor
points of inveintion, the details of the plot, were done less
napplv, and some of the inferior and mere sketchy ^upings of
the. piece disturb the great impression of its leading roatores*
The later plays of Grillparzer — ' A True Servant of his Master'
(Ein treuer Diener seiner Herreri)^ a tragedy; ' Woe to the liar'
yfVehe dem der Lufft\ a serious comedy, full of satiric touch, but
designedly unsuited to a great pubHc ; * Dream a Life' {JOer Traitm
ein Leben)^ a most tender and graceful play, in which the lyric
element predominates; 'The Waves of oea and of Love' {Des
Meeres und der Liebe Wellen) — all composed fix)m 1830 to 1840,
did not answer the emectations of German audiences, for no
better reason than that they were greatly in advance of their means
and powers of appreciation. Discouraged by this experience; op-
pressed by the intolerable obstructions and annoyances of the
theatres of the day; the poet has at last given up his imthankfiil
task, and retires into the solitary cell of the Austrian archives, of
which the government made him a director. Germany loses in
Grillparzer her greatest living talent for dramatic poetry. Future
times will be judges between Grillparzer, Immermann, and
Grabbe, the rejected of the German Theatre, and such as Raupach,
Madame Birch-Pfeiffer, and the miserable translators of French
vaudevilles, who have been so long its idols.

Our next group, in this rapid survey, are of no special school or
class: being now romantic, now historic or domestic in their
tastes, and imitators in turns of French, Spanish, English, and
Italian models: but as they kept up in Germany the type of
Schiller's form, they may be considered properly as followers and
disciples of him in respect at least to the exterior shape of the
drama. Komer (1791 — 1813) is the foremost example of this
school, too well known to be more than mentioned here. His
heroic dramas, * Zriny,' ' Rosamunde,' &c., mere exercises in
Schiller's style, made sensation for a time, less by their merit
than by the personal position of the author, and his heroic death.
Zschokke (bom in 1771), the fiimous novelist of Switzerland,
produced with some success, * AbaUino,' a sort of bandit tragedy.
Vjotthilf August von Maltitz (1794 — 1837), an earnest, excited
writer, but without art or study, was author of two successftd
plays, ' The Old Student' {Dir alte Student)^ and ' Hans Kohlhas,'
after the excellent novel of Heinrich von Kleist Uhland (bom in
1787, and still living at Tubingen) was too essentially a lyric poet
to win success upon the stage, though his patriotic play * Ernst von

Popular Pieces, 209

Schwaben/ -wbs not without merit. Edward von Schenck (bom
in 1788, and who died at Mnnich in 1841 in the post of minister
to the King of Bavaria) became popular by his tragedy of

* Belisarius/ But ' The Crown of Cyprus' {^Die Ktime von Cypern),
and * Albrecht Diirer in Venedig,* were not equal to this first
sucoeas. Auffenberg (bom in 1796, and still hving at Carlsruhe)
wrote sev^ul plays historical and romantic, and among them
adapted one of the romances of Walter Scott under the title of

* The lion of Curdistan' (JDer Lowe von CurdistanX * Pizarro,*

* Xerxes,' ' The Night of St Bartholomew' {Die JSartholomatis-
nacht\ * Themistocles,' * Ludwig XI.,' and others, followed.

* Alhambra' is perhaps the best of his dramatic poems, but by its
form (it is pubhshed m three volumes) unactable. Uchtritz (bom
in 1800, and still living at Dusseldorf), began by a clever effort,

* Alexander and Darius :' but, somewhat misled by Immermann, he
wrote impracticable plays, which could hardly hope to pass beyond
the closet. The best of tibem is ' Die Babylonier in Jerusalem,' a
piece of some dignity and elevation of manner. OehlenschlSger,
a Dane (bom in 1779, and still living at Copenhagen), wrote his
best dramatic works in German, and gave, by ' Correggio,' the
first model of a special kind of drama, das Kunstlerdrama, so
called because it celebrates the characters and fortune of great
artists or poets. Schenck, in * Albrecht Durer' ; Deinhardstein,
in ' Hans Sachs;' Raupach and Zedlitz, with each a ' Tasso;'
Halm, with ' Camoens;' Gntzkow, with ' Richard Savage;' after-
wards cultivated this model with more or less success. Zedlitz, just
named, wrote several dramas, comic and serious: the best of which
are ' The Star of Seville' (Der Stem von Sevilla), after Calderon;
and ' Prison and Crown' {Kerher und Krone), treating the death
of Tasso.

This is a long list, but with little salt or savour. Not one
of the authors eniunerated, though all of them in their day
very popular with German audiences, produced other than the mo-
mentary and false effect of the day. The only one who, with not
the least title to original dramatic genius, with less power indeed
than the mob we have just named, yet managed by a close and
skilful imitation of Schiller, and by the nicest mechanical applica-
tion of that style to all kinds and varieties of subjects, to keep
an almost despotic possession of the stage firom 1826 to 1836, is
Ernst Raupach : not the least notable person in modem German
literature.

This writer was bom in 1784. He lived a few years in Russia,
as professor at the college of St. Petersburg, and since his return,
with the interval of some travels through Germany and Italy, has
resided at Berlin. His prolific faculty since Kotzebue and Lope

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIII. P

210 German Plays and Actors.

de Vega, is quite without example. In 1836 the number of his plays
had abready mounted to sixty; and notwithstanding constant and
most energetic critical pretestings, Raupach kept aosolute posses-
sion of every German theatre for upwards of ten years. Let
those who talk of the common peopts of Germany as nothii^
less than a nation of critics and tninkers, explam how it is
that the first German author who merely by the produce of his
pen has made a considerable fortune, has become master of large
estates in Silesia and a palace in Berlin, is our worthy Elrnst
Raupach. Alas for the real critics and thinkers ! One by one, in
an unflagging succession of reviews, have they assured tms exod-
lent German public most positively, that Raupach is not in the
least a poet, out simply manufactures his plays as the cutler or
other trsmcker his wares. The good public found him good enough
for them. Fine were the decorations of his scene, startling ms
effects, particularly plain and intelligible the language in which
he echoed Schiller's sentiment and pathos, and undoubted the en-
thusiasm of every audience in Germany for this their favourite
Raupach. His first extraordinary • hit' was, as we have said, in
1826, when he produced * Isidor and Olga.* The old notion of
two brothers in love with one girl, was here renewed ; the
scene, Russia, the author thoroughly knew; but it was the serfilom
on which it turned that gave particular interest to the play — one
character of which, Ossip, an old bond-slave, with oppressed re-
vengeful sold, became a parade-horse for all the most celebrated
actors. After this brilliant success, Raupach at once, and with
incredible activity, established ujiiversal empire over tragedy and
comedy. To mention even the names of the pieces with which in
a few years he inundated the theatres, would be here impossible.

Perhaps his most important work is a continued series of
historic dramas (filling some eight or so of mortal volumes!)
on the subject of the Hohenstaufen. A great subject, taken
from the heroic age of Germany: a kind of colossal idea for
prudent Raupach to have laid hold of. But Schlegel in his
dramatic lectures had pointed out its dramatic excellence. We
do not aOTee with him. Friedrich Barbarosa, Conradin, Enzio,
and Manfred, are probably not bad heroes for the action of an epic,
but certainly they axe not good ones for the action of a drama.
The historical play, even the utmost licence of the dramatic chro-
nicle, must have a certain continuity, if not concentration of pur-
pose. In the works of our own great master in this art, by the
special circumstance of the time, often by the mere position of the
scene, a continuous solid background to the action is unfidlingly
supplied. And the very character of French history saves a world
of trouble in this respect. Even her old ch&teaux; her Versailles,

Ernest Baupaclu 211

her Fontainebleau, her castle of Peau; Eu, of old esteem and
£resh with recent honour; the mere places which saw the tragedies
or comedies of the French monarchy, supply at once to the dramatic
author a scene for his persons, and a kmd of solid centre for the
interest of his work. In the chronicles of the Hohenstaufen there
is nothing of this; every thing is unsteady, dilacerate, torn a thou-
sand ways. Their princes and heroes are now in Italy, now in
Palestine, now in Germany: they fight with rebellious vassals,
with proud citizens, with arrogant priests: a great perturbed
struggle is their hves, but made up of mere gallant ventures, single
and detached: most picturesque it is true, and many ways inviting
both pencil and pen, but in no respect harmonious, never with
SoHd agreement in its interest, or with separate lines of action con-
verging to a ^eat catastrophe. Xor need we add that as good
Baupach found these things he left them. Raumer's historical
WOTK had already arranged the materials (another reason that
he should take the subject), and neatly cleansed them from
the dust of the archives. All the popular dramatist had to do,
was to arrange the number of his scenes, and put the facts into
eaey dialogue. We open the second part of Frederick I. {Frie-
dricKt abscheidy ^ Frederick's farewell') and find its argument
to be simply the various motives and preparations towards his de-
parture for the east. But then Baupach had a splendid decoration
m reserve; and who, when the ship of the emperor with full
sails set, hove in view as the curtain fell, could possibly feel the
want of any other earthly catastrophe!

This is easy work, and in this, Baupach by long and skilful
practice became so &r a master, that five acts of a new play
(prologue included^ were commonly written much faster than the
actors could commit it to memory. The rapid dramatic growth
fcund all encouragement in Baupach's connexion with the Berlin
loyal theatre. Utterly inaccessible to the young and unknown
writer, it was always open to him; who had made indeed a regular
bargain that every one of his plays should be received, put into
rehearsal, and paid by acts as they were handed in. It was an
agreement not without advantages to both, the theatre thriving
upon it as well as Baupach. Due is it, however, as well as to this
particular theatre as to ihe rest of Germany to add, that here only
did Baupach's Hohenstaufen ever grow really popular; inhabit-
ants, and not mere ^ests. In the south of Germany, where
altogether perhaps his name and talents are less recognised, his
Hohenstauten chiefe made but a very short stay, now hardly to be
traced ; and even firom Berlin itself they have of late nearly vanished
with the death of the famous actor Lemm, for whom Baupach
was wont to take as careful measure as a first-rate tailor for a coat.

p2

212 German Flays and Actors.

Among RaupacH's other tragedies, * The School of Life' {Die
Schule des Lebens)y * Tasso/ ' Corona von Saluzzo/ are the niost
notable; and these are all full of fine phrases, faultless sentiments,
and good effect; nay, they have even some happy characters, and
here and there an invention worthy of the scene: but to speak of
the best portions of them as approaching, by any happy chance,
within a thousand leagues of the dramatic elevation of Schiller,
or of the calm and solid grandeur of Gothe, would be ridicu-
lous folly. Certainly a field much better adapted to the second-
rate order of his talents, is one he has tried occasionally with
better success: a kind of mixed sentimental play, of ordinary life
and conventional manners. He wrote several of this kind which
we think the best of his works. ' A Hundred Years Ago' ( Vor
hundert lahren), dramatizing an anecdote from the life of the
general so popular in Germany, * old Dessauer ' (Frederick the
Great's Duke of Dessau), was admirably acted, and exceedingly
well received at Berlin, city of barracks and epaulettes. Of
the same class were * Brother and Sister' {Die Geschwister)^ in
which a fire-insurance-office supplied the catastrophe; and * The
Secrets' {Die Geheimnisse) ; both of which poor Kaupach, being
at that time especially plagued by the criticism wmch dashed
even his success with bitterness, published under the assumed
name of Leutner. It was discovered, and increased the critical
storm. But the public came again to the rescue, and when a
new comedy with Raupach's name was announced, it received
enthusiastic welcome. Comedy*, tragedy, history, pastoral: no-
thing could come amiss from Kaupach. He could be heavy as
Seneca, light as Plautus.

Of his comedies, we mention the best. * The Smugglers*
( Schleichhandler); * Criticism and Anti-Criticism' {Kritik und
Anti-Kritik); 'The Fillip' {Der Nasenstuber); * The Genius of
our Age' (Der Zeitgeist); * The Hostile Brothers, or Homoopa-
thy and Allopathy' {Die feindlichen Briider). These have been
wonderfully popular, but, truth to say, their wit is of the driest
— ' the remamder biscuit' of wit. A kind of hard, ironical satire
seems peculiar to the north of Germany, and Raupach's comic
muse betrays his birthplace. The gay, goodhumoured smile, the
hearty laugh, never illuminate her visage. His favourite comic
characters are two : the dupe and the quiz : barber Schelle, fool
and poltroon, and Till the mocker, dealer in what is meant ■ for
quintessence of persiflage. One would have thought that tender
memories of the honest old Jack Pudding whom learned Pro-
fessor Gottsched had ruthlessly banished, would have interfeijed
with the relish of the one; and that, possibly, some shadow of die
great Mephistophiles might have served to obscure the other. But

Gfabht. 213

no. Raupach was fortune'*s favourite, and his fiiends, Gem and
RiitUing, two excellent comic actors of Berlin, made golden har-
vest for him and for themselves out of the wit of Till and Schelle.
But the sun of even a Raupach popularity does not always shine ;
within the last ten or twelve years it has had many dml days;
and it has been a part of the man's really clever intellect, and
always wonderful tact, to have been, during these years, by al-
most imperceptible degrees withdrawing himself from the stage.

Before we speak of those to whom his mantle descended, the
present most popular possessors of the German stage, two names
occur to us of writers too bitterly neglected by their countrymen
to be passed in silence here. Both were men of indisputable
talents; neither of them could be claimed by any of the coteries
or schools, who have done their best to make a faction-fight of
both life and literature; with both the stage was a passion, though
an unprofitable and unsuccessful one; and in the midst of a hard
struggle, both died young.

Dietrich Christian Grabbe was bom in 1801 and died in 1836,
at a small place— of course ' a residence ' — near Hanover called
Detmold. His Kfe had one unvarying colour, and ended as it
b^an. His parents were miserably poor, and what education he
Bad was self seized, by fierce gulps and snatches, from the midst
of sordid employments. The natural faculty he possessed was
early shown, and with some assistance would have worked to a
good result: there was genius in him, a wild ambition, and a
youthful glowing strength, which with moderate encouragement
might have made a really great man, and saved us the pain of
speaking of the caricature of one. For alas ! he became Httle
more. The German Philister is a word, and a man, as untrans-
latable as the French Spicier ; but including a cowardice as faint-
hearted, and as mean and gross a tyranny. Grabbe could never
master the squalid wretchedness in which he first saw life ; at
Berlin and Leipsic he tried to get footing in the law, and was
driven back; at almost every theatre in the country he presented
himself with a dramatic composition, and had the door slammed
in his fece. His ' Duke of Gothland ' (Der Herzog von Gothland)^
b^un when he was nineteen, is in itself, wild, irregular, and fan-
tastic as it is, ample evidence of the wealth and abundance of his
powers. ' You patronize foreigners,' he cried : * why not do
something for me? You idolize and talk nonsense about your
Shakspeares; try to make a Shakspeare of me!' There was no no-
tice taken; and he launched forth a treatise against the mania —
noticed just as little, though full of Uvely and admirable writing.
{liber die Shakspearomanie*) Labour as he would, none would

♦ Frankfort, 1827.

214 German Plays and Actors,

listen. The mere names of his heroes and subjects show what a
profitless exaggeration of ambition then possessed the man. Even
Hannibal, Hermann (Arminius, liberator of Germany), and Napo-
leon, show pale before his design of setting forth, in one character,
Don Juan and Faust combined ! Impracticability grew upon him
with years and neglect, till poetic beauty as well as scenic possibili^
were alike disregarded in his plans. Every thing must be ex-
aggerated; everything gigantic, enormous, desperate; if a batde,
all its details; if virtue, or vice, both in their most violent form;
if history, a whole people, a whole period^ a whole land, must be
dragged within the circle of the poem ; and since others wrote
fluent verse, he must affect a dry, hard, stony inveteracy of

Ehrase. If the man's life had been less sad, we might affora to
lugh at the ludicrous violence which was also assumed in his
complaints of this latter period. * What a to-do about this
Faust !' he cries in one of his letters. * All miserable ! GrvE MB
three thousand thaler a year, and in three years Til write you a
Faust that shall strike you all like a pestilence ! ' He died at thirty-
five, as we have said; the last few years spent in low scenes of
drunkenness (his mother had been a notorious drunkard), and
in quarrels with an unhappy wife that he had married. Ifis rea-
son fled before his life. !roor luckless Grabbe ! He is not known
out of Germany, but even the poor translation of which his
rude strength admits, would deeply interest the English reader.
Ex ungue leonem. The claws, unhappily, are what he chiefly
shows. Had proper culture clipped tnem, we might have had
more of the mane and of the majesty.

The name we mention with his, is a worthier and more ho-
nourable, and that of one who, though never popular while
he lived, and by death removed suddenfy from the scene of his
exertions, yet aid not sink in the struggle as Grabbe did, but
mastered much before he died, and kept to the last a proud and
noble puijpose, a clear and broad understanding. Karl Lnmer-
mann — of whose extraordinary romance of * Munchhausen* we
recently spoke in this review — ^was bom at Magdeburg in 1796,
and died m 1841 at Diisseldorf. His taste turned to the stage
with almost his first effort: at sixteen he had written a * Prome-
theus.* His passion received fresh impulse with his university
career; for, being a student at Halle, he saw the last days of the
golden age of Weimar, where the theatre flourished imder GSthe-
The impression it made upon him reappeared in after life, when
— ^having served in the war of liberation, practised as a lawyer,
and received some small appointments — ^he found himself in
1827 counsellor of the provmcial court at Diisseldorf, and, with
high sanction, resolved to form a national theatre for the

Immermann, 215

performance of the classic drama. He assumed its direction,
m which he dlsplajred the most consummate talent. He called
to his side Uchtritz and Grabbe, to the latter of whom,
if his great scheme had succeeded, he would have opened
what had so long and bitterly been shut upon him. Nor
were any legitimate means of success left unattempted. No
other would Immermann have tried, and might be justified
in tJiinking these most likely to meet reward in a town which
boasted to be a metropolis of German art, and which was crowded
with artists: the colony of painters Schadow, Bendemann, and
Lessing. He began his task by introducing to his public Shaks-
peare, with splendid scenic decorations and all fittmg costume ;
Calderon, Lessing, Gothe, and Schiller followed; his energy was
unremitting; and he displayed, in every department of his noble
task, the most masterly skill. But one year, and the dream was
dreamt. Immermann awoke and never again thought of
taking the management of a theatre. What he says himself
of this period of his life is very striking and full of in-
structive matter ; but so indeed is the whole of his ' Me-
morabilien.** Though he gave up the career of manager,
however, he did not wholly abandon the stage. He continued,
without making any strong or lasting impression, to write for it.
It was in truth, though he loved it most and thought it most loved
him, not the strongest side of his genius: whidli did not fully
assert itself till it burst forth in two of the most extraordinary
prose fictions of modem German literature. We described his
* Merlin* on a former occasion : we shall now simply add the
names of his best tragic productions. ' The Tragedy of the
Tjrror {Das Trauerspiel in Tyrol), the hero of which is Andreas
Hofer ; ' Alexis,' an episode taken from the history of Peter the
(Jreat ; and ' The Victims of Silence' {Die Opferder Schweigens\
his last tragedy.

The exciting year of 1830 carried off* the rising talent of
the country into an opposite direction to the drama, and the In-
terval between that and the five following years is perhaps the
most flat and hopeless in the whole range of even the G-erman
stage. Mean and poor translations of not very elevated or wise
originals, taken wholly from the theatres of France and England,
were its meager fare. Its brightest effort was the popular vulgar
' efifect piece,* wherein the Charlotte BIrch-Pfeiffers reigned
supreme. But there was afterwards a reaction, and within the
last seven years original dramatic productivity has been again Im-

* Hamburg: Hoffinann and Campe. 1841-1842. 2 yoIs., one of which was a
pOBthnmooi publication. .

216 German Plays and Actors,

mense. We shall speak of it as briefly as possible, ia its chronolo-
gical order: since none of it can fairly claim a very marked pre-
eminence.

The quiet domestic bourgeois style was cultivated with extra-
ordinary success by the Princess Amelia of Saxony, sister of the
king, who under the name of Ameha Heiter (Amelia Serene),
tried her own Dresden Theatre in 1829 with a piece of the fan-
tastic school, and in 1833 began her successful series of plays
and dramas modelled on the style of Ifl^d. Bom in 1794,
while her uncle sat upon the throne, she passed her early years
in extreme seclusion — ' her foot not suffered to touch the ground'
— and it was said of her, or of one of her sisters, that her first re-
quest when she had outgrown her childhood, was to be allowed to
cross on foot the beautiful bridge over the Elbe, on which she had
looked daily for all the years of her young life. The reaction of
the French Revolution first came with a crash on this seclusion;
and many were the royal feet that then touched the ground —
trudging over bridges, ascending scaffolds ! The princess shared
of course, between her twelfth and twenty-third year, all her
family's vicissitudes. She saw her uncle-king twice exiled, and
twice restored: a prisoner, and again upon his throne. She re-
turned to the palace of her ancestors amidst the triumphs of 1815,
and having refused the hand of Ferdinand VII., was imknown
save by her quiet attention to the duties, accomplishments, and
pleasures of her high station, when her dramatic career began.

We have mentioned IfflUnd as her model. Her characters are
all taken from common life. With one exception, she avoids the
incidents of courts and palaces. Tlie dwelling of the farmer, the
counting-house of the merchant, the parlour of the physician, are
her scenes. Simplicity and sentiment, which never ascend to

!)assion; gentle and somewhat feeble characters ; a plain and art-
ess plot; the manners of good society, and a sound but common-
place moral; are the leading features of her dramatic muse. Her
best points are a certain nicety of humour, some pathos, a strong
sympathy in the common emotions of life, and an excellent heart.
Her faults are on the negative side : her dramas want variety and
relief, and are constructed too much on Mr. Puff's drop-your-dagger
style, some one important secret supplying the beef-eater's func-
tion. Iflfcnd she is, but en beau : Iffland in the sphere of Ger-
man tea-parties, and innocent well-bred modem life. We men-
tion a few of her best productions, and may refer the English
reader to specimens lately translated by Mrs. Jameson. Her
first was ' Falsehood and Truth' {Luge und Wahrheit\ and the
most celebrated four that followed were ' The Uncle' {Der Oheim)y

FriedrichHalm. 217

* The Bride from the Residence' {Die Braut am der Residenz),

* The Farmer' {Der Landmrth), and ' The Pupir (Der Zogling).

The .princess found a successor of equal rank and birth in the
Duke of Mecklenburg, Karl Friednch August: a * full-blood
Mecklenburg', and one of the fiercest opponents of German
culture and modem progress, who died in 1837 in Berlin. At the
dose of his life, and under the name of Weisshaupt {White-
head)^ he wrote a play called * The Isolated Ones* {Die Isolirten),
which has some excellent points of dialogue. Other authors
hastily followed, as a matter of course, in the same direction.
Edward Devrient, an actor of Berlin, produced * The Favour
of the Moment' {Die Gunst des Auffenilickes), * Aberrations'
( Verirrunffen), ' True Love* ( Treue Liebe) ; and, after a novel
of Emile Souvestre, * The Manufacturer' {Der Fabrikani).
Johannah von Weissenthum, formerly actress in Vienna, achieved
similar success by many plays and comedies. Robert, in one of
the most famous dramas of this modem period, * The Power
of Conditions' (Die Macht der VerhdltnisseY and Giitzkow in

* Werner' or * Heart and World,' in ' The School of the Rich'
{Die Schuh der Iteichen)^ and ' A White Page' {Ein weisses
Blatt\ also wrought with some effect on the same popular model.

Then came forth, in 1836, with a success quite enormous,
something between the romantic, the sentimental, and the hour"
gems tragedy — another darling change for the playgoer — ' Gri-
seldis,* by Friedrich Halm (so the Baron Munch-Bellinghausen^
privy-councillor to the Austrian government, and nephew of
the president of the German diet in Frankfort, chooses to desig-
nate himself). The part of the heroine in this piece became on
the instant as great a favourite with the German actresses, as
Raupach's Ossip had been with the actors ; and the performance of
clever Madame Rettich of Vienna, was ardently studied by all.
No inconsiderable element in a vast popularity. It has been pub-
lished in numberless editions; translated into the French, Dutch,
and Swedish languages; is on the eve of appearance, we believe,
in an English dress; and will speedily mate acquaintance, we
are told with the TheS.tre Fran9ais and Mile. Rachel. It is im-
gracious to make detailed objections to the reasonableness of a
success of this kind, and the task has been in some sort made
needless by an able and well-informed contemporary joumaL*
We shall therefore be brief. The story is of course that of
Patient Grissel, with some striking change. Griseldis is wife to
Percival, knight of king Arthur. The tortures and temptations
are inflicted by her husband for a wager with Queen Ginevra;
— - ~' ■

* * The Athenaeum.'

218 German Plays and Actors.

and her moral victory and virtue, contrasted with the pride and
selfishness of Perdval^ is the bright and glowing theme of a
series of pathetic scenes, constructed with immense effect, though
in language more flowing and effeminate than powerful. She
sacrifices her child, delivering the boy to the king's heralds; she

foes into poverty and exile, repudiated by her husband; she saves
is life, seeing him in danger, at her own and her father's risk;
but, all these tortures borne, and the secret of them at last
discovered, she does not, as in the old romance, consummate
the lesson of patience and duty by returning to her husband,
but (and there is a truth in this too !) utterly wretched, broken-
hearted, incapable of further joy, and almost of life itself, she
elects to return with her father to the poor cottage of her youth.
And Percival? He remains upon the stage, covering his face
with his hands, and as his gracious sovereign Arthur reads him
a moral sermon, the curtain falls.

Since MiiUner's Schuldj no such torrents of tears had been shed
as these which bore witness to the pathos of Griseldis. It was a
success, like that we formerly noted in Grillparzer, which could
hardly have its fellow; and though, as his friend and counlacy-
man Gillparzer did. Halm has written better since^ he has not kept
pace with that first success. Particular scenes in all his plays have
notwithstanding had surprising effect on his audiences. His exube-
rant flow of verse is at least extraordinary; and no one can cover a
poor invention, even a cruel and uinnatural catastrophe, with the
perfume of such tender feelings, or beneath the flowers of such soft
speech. Since ' Grriseldis,' lie has produced ' The Alchymist*
(Der Adept); * The Death of Camoens;' * A mild Judgment (JEin
Milder Urtheit); ' Imelda Lambertazzi' (this is a pale and faded
copy of * Romeo and Juliet'); * The King and Peasant' {Konig tmd
Baner: a beautiful design after Lope de Vega); and, the latest
and greatest favourite after * Griiselms,' ' The Son of the Desert'
{Der Sohn der Wildness). This latter piece is a kind of inverted
picture to that of ' Griseldis,' and turns on the civilization of In-
gomar, chief of a wild horde of barbaric Gauls, by the Grreek
maid Parthenia, daughter of an old blacksmith at Massilia. It is
the old story of the lion tamed by love, it being a kind of ' Gri-
seldis' who figures in the bear's skin.

Simultaneously with these successes, the historic drama found a
feeble representative in Julius Mosen, bom in 1803, and still
living at Dresden. A collection of his plays appeared in 1842,
containing: ' Otto HI.' (the German emperor, poisoned at Rome);
* Cola Rienzi' (Bulwer's hero, and at this time also hero of a
grand opera by Richard Wagner at Dresden); *the Bride of
Florence' (£fe Brdute von Florenz\ a piece of action from the

Gntzkaw. 219

time of the Gnelfs and Ghibellines; and ' Wendelin and Helene'
(taken firom the history of the peasant-war in Germany). But
beside these Mosen has written: * The Son of the King' (Der
Sohn der fasten) founded on the history of Fredenck the
Grreat while he was prince hereditary under the strict power
of his father, and imbodjring his fnend Katte's tragic sacri-
fice for him. This was represented only a few weeks ago at
Dresden. *Bemhard von Sachsen-Weunar,' Ghistavus Adol-
phtts's great successor, is also another of his heroes: in choice
of whom, it will be seen, Mosen shows great intentions. But
he wants power and originality. More original is Karl Gutz-
kow, bom in 1811, and now living at Frankfort; but his
great strength has not lain in the drama. One of the leaders of
young Germany, with all the faults of his school as we recently
showed, but wim more than its ordinary merit; a man of energy,
a sharp critic, and with a certain degree of power in all he writes;
for a dramatist he is too cold, too much of a reasoner. In three
years he produced the following plays, which excited attention,
and indeed raised hopes that have not been fulfilled: ' Bichard
Savage,' on the tragic history of the English poet; * Werner,*
'Ke Schule der Reichen,' and * Ein Weisses Blatt' (to which
last we have already referred as bourgeois-dramas); and finally,
his masterpiece we think, * Patkul,' a sort of pohtical tragedy;
a work which dared to offer Kberal thoughts and oj^inions on the
stage; a tragedy of actual modem feeling, modem m the highest
sense of the word because inculcating important truths of fireedom
and nationality. Gutzkow writes all his dramas in prose, after
Lessing's manner; and his style is brief, strong, and of epigramma-
tic force, but seldom of high elevation, and not always unaffected.
His friend and associate Heinrich Laube, now living at Leipsic,
has also ventured on the stage. He made a lucky hit with ^ Mon-
aldeschi,' produced at Stuttgart in 1841 ; and followed it with
a very imlucky one, in the comedy of * Rococo.'

It was not an exception to the ordina^ fate of all German
attempts at comedy. Save in the case of Kaupach, it has hardly
occurred to us in the survey which is now coming to a close,
to name a comic effort. It is the barren side of even the classic
names of their theatre. But in accordance with the plan of our
notice, which not only does homage to the famous, but attends to
the neglected and remembers the forgotten, we will single out
some names. Perhaps the easiest and most *• gracious ' dialogue
with any regular pretence to comedy, as well as the hapi)iest ob-
servation of commonplace every-day life, is in the writing of
Edward von Bauemfeld, bom in 1804 and still living in Vienna.
We specify him ; and, at Vienna also, Deinhardstein and Castelli ; at

220 German Plays and Actors.

Hamburg, TcJpfer and Lebriin; and at Berlin, Albini, Cosmar,
Blum, and Angely — ^without the least fear that our readers will
dream of comparing them with Aristophanes, Groldoni, Gozsd,
Vega, Moli^re, Congreve, Sheridan, or even Monsieur Scribe.
Germany will probably have to wait for her comedy, till ahe gets
in the nation social unity, and in the poets literary liberty and
personal courage.

Meanwhile sne has had, at least in Vienna, a very merry making
and much-loved substitute : what she calls her ' Volkslustspiel,
Zanberposse^ Localst'uck^ Wtenersfuck,* popular comedy, magic
drollery, local farce, Vienna piece ! How shall we describe it?
Sense and nonsense, the false and true, the moral and the fim-
ciful; a world of fairies, demons and devils, mixed in endless
practical joke with a world of honest workmen and -fitupid ser-
vants; over all, a dazzling blaze of fireworks and scenic metamor-
phose and grand pantomime trickery; — ^how shall we describe
what, to the ftm-loving childish population of Vienna, more fond
of shows and spectacle than any other of the Germans, has always
been the source of inexpressible pleasure and delight? Hence
came the famous * Nymph of the Danube' (^Donauweibchen);
hence ' Caspar Larifan' with his rude plain joke, happier follower
than *Tille' of honest old Jack pudmng; hence ' llie Magic
Windmill on the Hill' ; and all that for fifty years and more has
charmed in-dwellers of the merry * Kaiserstadt.'

But hence, above all, for it is mainly this that has severed it in
our thoughts from association with the low and vulgar tastes it
has too often subserved — ^hence came one of the most original and
poetical figures, small as it is, that ever Germany possessed : poor
jB'erdinand Raimund, who was bom at Vienna in IfW^ and killed
himself in 1836, in a sad and sudden access of melancholy and
madness. Before him the author-triad, Gleich, Meizt^ and
Bduerle (the last, creator of the famous comic ' Staberl'), had
hovered as a steady constellation over the theatres in the
Leopoldstadt, and other feubourgs of Vienna; when Raimund
came and darkened it by his magic brightness. He was from
1825 to 1836 not only the favourite of his countrymen, but even,
sharp and peculiar as was this local school, of all other au-
diences in Germany. Raimund was himself a most excellent
actor, and the brief mention of one of his delightful little works
will illustrate at once his genius and his heart. We take * The
King of the Alps and the Misanthrope.' Its argument runs thus.
The Demon of the Alps hears of a rich man, who is unhappy,
and makes others so, by his selfish misanthropy. He determine
to cure him, and with this view takes his figure, his face, his
dress, his sickness, his miserable faults, and appearing to him thus,

Ferdinand Raimund. 221

sliames him to a sense of his wickedness and folly. By the side
of this there is another picture — ^the contrast of a poor digger in the
mines, who with his family lives in the greatest external wretch-
edness, but in all peace and happiness within. The effect upon
the rich man's lot is most charmingly wrought. And such is the
moral of nearly all Raimund's plays; the lesson, most prettily and
quaintly enforced, that human happiness does not consist in riches
and splendour, but in innocence, peace, and love. He was in the
best sense of the word a popular poet; plain and intelligible,
simple and fanciful; and his couplets are to this day re-echoed, as
for years and years they are sure to be, in the streets and
inns and all jovial places of German towns. With the faith
and truth of a child's pure and unmisgiving fancy, his poetry
mingled the world of dreams, of wonders, and of spirits, with an
earnest reah'ty ; and through all his works, the instructive contrasts
and mutual lessons of youth and old age, of love and envy, of
peace and dispute, move in charming and simple allegories.

After poor Raimimd's unhappy death, his imitators did their
best to degrade his memory; and the style he made so fascinating
is now represented at Vienna by a senes of vukar, mean, gross
farces, in which Nestroy has the honour to excel. In the north
indeed, Karl von Holtei made an attempt to supply his loss
by something analogous to the French vaudeville : little pieces
with songs {liederspiel)^ in which * Leonore,' after Burger's ballad,
became tolerably popular : — while in Berlin the lowest and most
abject descent was made by introduction of what were called
ihe JEckensteher fVitze, the jokes and farces of carriers and
porters, the humour and enjoyment of thieves and drunkards.
Beckmann, actor at the minor theatre, who made it his special
study to copy such men after nature, was the first who brought
them on the stage. His * Nante' has been pubUshed in upwards
of twenty editions, and has had numberless imitators, ouch is
the direction taken nowadays in Grermany by dramatic * poets for
the people r It has brought us as low as we can require or
care to come ; and with a few words upon the living actors, we
shall bid the subject adieu.

The various interests of the stage are for the most part closely
connected. Let the poet, the actor, or the pubUc, feil of what
the drama^s full support exacts from each, and the failure is
adverse to all. Some causes of the decline we have touched upon;
but in proceeding to speak of the low condition of the mere
scenic departments of the stage, the injustice from which authors
suffer cannot be too strongly premised. The brighter side of the

222 German Plays and Actors.

Listoiy of the German theatre, proves that only by active assist-
ance and direction irommen of letters, has success been at any time
attained. Hambui^ under Lessing and Schroder, Weunar
under Schiller and Gothe, Berlin under Iffland, Vienna under
Schrejrvogel, Dresden imder Tieck: these were the golden times.
Their successors have, for the most part, been crown-dignitaoes,
counts, knights, generals, equerries, marshals. Men whose kngvr-
ledge of the scenic or dra^natic art has been confined to stu-
dies of the ballet made at the couKsses^ have since had ex-
clusive sway over establishments of national art and culture.
Hence, among other results directly levelled against the pro-
per influence of the higher order of literary men, the ridiculously
low sums to which rates of payment for dramatic authorship
have been almost universally reduced. Even English writers
may shudder at them, what would the French do? There are
some fifty managements in aU. Suppose a lucky dramatist, by
some astonishing good fortune, to have mastered his approach to
half of them, the other half are pretty sure to remain inaccesdble;
and his remuneration must depend on a small fee paid by each
of these twenty-five theatres, or so many as consent to patronize
him, amounting for a full five-act play to em average of six or
eight louis d'or, which, once paid, gives the right of performance
for an unlimited time 1 Sudi is the system even in the royal
theatres of Munich, Stuttgard, Carlsruhe, and other distinguished
* residences.' The exceptions are the royal theatres of Vienna and
Berlin, where, for the former, a hundred .ducats will purchase a
play, and, for the latter, twenty louis d'or. A play so purchased
(we except of course such special engagements as those of Rau-
pach), popular to an unexampled extent, and received at every
uieatre m the country, would hardly bring more than a thousand
florins, and could not, in any juncture of circumstances, double
that amount. Nor has the author any resource or hdp from
publication. The German law is as di^raceful in this respect as
the English was, some years a^o. A drama conmiitted to the
press, is at once the property of every theatre that may think it
worth the acting. Some slight modifications have been lately
attempted, but almost universally this is still the law.

As authors have declined, and with them theatres, it was not
to be expected that actors should improve. Their great time, as
a mere matter of course, was from 1780 to 1820. Long ago had
such names as those of Eckhof (Lessing's firiend), Iffland, Schro-
der, and Beil, vanished from the scene : within even the last ten
years the losses have been grievous, and in no case supplanted
by younger men. Berlin has lost, by death, Ludwig Devrient,

Old Actors. 223

by fer tlie greatest genius of his axt; Gothe's pupil, P. A. Wolff;
Lemrn, a survivor of IfBand's time; more recently, the careful
and learned artist, laborious and painstaking Seydelmann;* and,
by madness, Krliger, whom Gothe was fond of calling the German
Orestes. Vienna has within the same time lost Sophia Miiller,
the beet actress of high comedy; and Raimund, Schuster, and
Madame Krones, the three great supports of its popular drama.
So Munich has lost Vespermann, Urban, Esslair (tne last great
JFaUenstein); Dresden has lost Paerli; and Weimar is desolate, as
well as Hamburg, since the death of Schmidt. Nor, as we say,
does youth supply their places. Still, in Berlin, in Vienna,
in Prankfort, in I>resden, tne old generation is yet ihe only good
one: though alas! lovers are stricKcn in years; heroes have lost
their teeth; and intriguants are so deaf that they hear no one,
not even the prompter. Is this a reasonable prospect for a stage?
Sophia Schroder has a daughter, the noble singer Madame
Schroder Devrient; and if the daughter is quite old enough for
her performances, what should the mother be for characters
younger still ! Madame Crelinger of Berlin has in like manner,
though often not out of her teens on the stage, presented the
stage widi two fiill-blown acting daughters. So with the two
£rst of (xerman lovers. The one is a happy grandfather; and the
other old customer of many years' standmg to the best of Paris
wig-makeis. Kom, the best comic actor m Vienna, is similarly
circumstanced. And Madame Lindner in Frankfort, once the
most lovely Gretchen in ' Faust,' is grown now so dreadfully
&t, that she requires a larger entrance at the wing than is com-
monly used.

And as these stars set, we repeat, no new one rises. We pointed
at the opening of our paper to one of the causes that leave the stage
to be chiefly recruited now firom young men that have nothing
better to do, and young ladies who cannot get reasonably married.
To such the art presents peculiar attractions, being distinguished
£rom all other arts by advantageous absence of apprenticeship.
People laugh at the notion of a school, or academy, or college for
ecemc studies. Saphir, one of the leading journalists of Vienna,
and Edward Devnent, the dramatist and actor of Berlin, have
made propositions for some such establishment more than once,
but without the least success. It is thought much better and more
natural that as Minerva comes, full grown and appointed out of
*—— ■■ I III ■■ I

* Bi» best dbramatic pictures, all elaborated with infinite care and finish, were
JjomB XL : Cromwell: Shylock: Ossip: Marinelli (in Lessing's * JEknilia (jalotti'):
Carlos (in Gothe's 'Clayigo'): and Mephistophiles.

224 German Plays and Actors.

Jupiter's head, the actor should come, finished and full-sized out
of nis own.

But it is time to close our sketch. We will take the theatres
in succession, and mention, briefly and rapidly as we may, their
chief histrionic ornaments. And first for tne Imperial Theatre of
Vienna. Its present conductor, Franz von Holbein, called lately
from Hanover to assume the ppst, is certainly the best existing
theatrical manager. He has around him the first talent of Ger-
many, and has already, in the face of all the disadvantages of the
modem system, given promise of an apparently zealous wish to
recall the days of Schreyvoffel and Deinhardstein. His best gen-
tleman-actoria comedy is f om, who has never had a rival uTthe
Iffland characters, and has lately increased his repute by a mas-
terly performance of Bolingbroke in the translation of Scribe's
* Verre d'Eau.' Next may be named a celebrated stage lover, M.
Fichtner; his wife, as famous a stage coquette; and with these,
Louisa Newmann, an excellent natural actress. In tragedy, Ma-
dame Rettich, the pupil of Tieck, is not only first in Vienna, but
has admitted tragic supremacy through the whole of Germany.
Her first performance was Gretchen in Gbthe's 'Faust.' Her
great successes since have been Iphigenia, Mary Stuart, Joan of
Arc, Juliet (Shakspeare's), and of late years more especially,
Halm's Griseldis and Parthenia. She has a majestic figure and
an admirable voice, and is a woman of unquestionable genius. In
the serious sentimental parts Madame Peche (whom A. W.
Schlegel found at Bonn on the Rhine in the caravan of a juggler,
disguised as a wild girl and showing boa-constrictors) is now
the best actress, and may occupy the step immediately beneath
Madame Rettich. Of the tragic actors the first to be named is
Ludwig Lowe, member of the famous family of artists who have
made that name eminent in the history of the German theatre ;
himself son and brother of great actors, husband of a great
actress, father to a most promismg actress, and cousin to one of
the most celebrated of BerUn singers. Lowe is, beyond question,
the most versatile of all the living artists. He began his career
with comic performances at Prague ; at Cassel he played lovers
and heroes; and since 1826 has taken first rank at Vienna. His
most eminent performances here have been Hamlet, Romeo, the
Fool in ' Lear,' Percival in ' Griseldis,' Ottokar (Grillparzir's), and
Roderick in Calderon's ' Life a Dream.' He is supported by
Anschiitz, a pupil of Iffland, Wolff, and Esslair ; in the old times
himself a Lear and a Wallenstein whom Tieck pronounced incom-
parable ; but now, on score of great age, exclusively devoted to the
performance of heroic fathers, and parts of venerable age. "With

^

Modem Actors. 225

this name we have summed up the strength of the Imperial The-
atre. The lower houses are chiefly strong in Carl their director, in
Nestroy their writer, and in Scholz their comic person. It is
at least impossible to see them, and keep your countenance !

The recent loss of Seydelmann to Berlin, is but feebly suppUed
by the enormous voice and amazing physical force of Rott.
^nce this death and those of Wolff, Lemm, and Devrient, the
onky support of the classic drama in Berlin has been Madame
Crwmger. She is the Maid of Orleans; the Emilia Galotti;
the Tnekla of ' Wallenstein;' the Juliet and Ophelia. She
IB Mary Stuart; Sappho; Countess Terzka in ' Wallenstein;'
and Olga. Lastly, she is the Lady Macbeth; the Lady Mil-
ford of Schiller's ' Kabale und Liebe;' and the Lady Maccles-
field of Ghitskow's ' Richard Savage.* Of the Berlin comedians,
it seems only necessary to single out Charlotte Von Hagn : a
Dejazet without the coarseness.

' After Vienna and Berlin, for the merit of their actors, come
the theatres of Dresden, Stuttgart, Munich, Carlsruhe, and
Frankfort. In Dresden, Emil Devrient, the nephew of Louis,
is the best sentimental actor; and Miss Bauer is supreme in
comedy. In Stuttgard, Doring is one of the few who are masters
of a genial and natural force of humour. He excels in characters
of common life, and his Jews, in particular, have gone with a
wonderful reputation throughout the whole of Germany. Here,
too, is the excellent stage-manager, Moritz. Munich has a very
feix imitator of Seydelmann. In Carlsruhe, Madame Haitzinger
Neumann, wife of the celebrated tenor; in Frankfort, Miss
Lindner, and Auguste Friihauf with her pretty French man-
ner; have great merit. And with the deserving name of JuKus
Weidner, also at the latter theatre, we close this rapid survey,
the most complete that has yet been given to an EngHsh reader,
of the actual condition of the modem German stage.

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIII.

( 226 )

Akt. Xn. — Le Bananier, par FnkDimc SouLife. Paris. 1843.

It is liard to follow the progress of French novelists nowadajrs.
Their fecundity is so prodigious, that it is almost impossible to take
any coimt of the number of their progeny; and a review which
professes to keep its readers au courant of French light literature,
should be published, not once a quarter, but more than once a
day. The parliamentary debates with us are s^d to be a great
and growing evil ; and a man during the session, and with pri-
vate business of his own, has no small diflBlculty in keeping up
with his age, and in reading his newspaper from end to end.
PubUc speakers in France are not so verbose generally; or, at any
late, French parUamentary reporters are not so desperately ac-
curate. But, on the other hand, the French reader must imderso
a course of study infinitely more various, and more severe too m
the end, though in the easy department of fiction. Thus with
us, when you are once at the conclusion of the debates in the
' Times,' you are not called upon to peruse the same orations in
the * Post' or the ' Advertiser:' which each luckily contains pre-
cisely the same matter. But since the invention of the Feuilleton
in France, every journal has its six columns of particular and es-
pecial report. M. Eugene Sue is still guillotining and murder-
ing and mtriguing in the ' D^bats' (for the ' Mysteres de Paris,'
of which we noticed five volumes six months since, have swollen
into ten by this time); M. Dumas has his tale in the ' SiMe;'
Madame Giay is pouring out her eloquence daily in the * Presse;'
M. Reybaud is endeavouring, with the adventures of Jean Mou-
ton in the * National,' to equal the popularity which he obtained
with * Jerome Paturot :' m a word, every newspaper has its
different tale, and besides, the libraries do not seem more slack
than usual with their private ventures. M. de Balzac has hap-
pily subsided for the moment, and is at St. Petersburg; Madame
Sand is, however, at her twelfth volume of ' Consuelo ;' and the
•indefatigable M. Soulie is everywhere. He publishes circulating
libraries at once.

A part of this astonishing luxury of composition on the part of
the famous authors, is accounted for, however, in the following
way. The public demand upon them is so immense, that the
authors, great as their talents may be, are not able to supply it,
and are compelled to take other less famous writers into their
pay. And as the famous wine merchants at Frankfort who pur-
chased the Johannisberg vintage of 1811, have been selling it
ever since, by simply mixing a very little of the wine of tnat
famous year with an immense quantity of more modem liquor; so

Themes for a Man of Genius. 227

do these great writers employ smaller scribes, whose works they
amend and prepare for press. Souli^ and Dumas can thus give
the Soulie or Dumas flavour to any article of tolerable strength
in itself; and so prepared, it is sent mto the world with the Soulie
or Dumas seal and signature, and eagerly bought and swallowed
by the public as genmne. Tlie retauers are quite aware of the
mixture, of which indeed the authors make no secret; but if the
public must have Johannisberg of 1811 and no other, of course
the dealers wiU supply it, and hence the vast quantity of the
article in the market. Have we not seen in the same way how,
to meet the demands of devotion, the relics of the saints have
multiplied themselves; how Shakspeare's mulberry-tree has been
cut down in whole forests, and planed and carved by regiments
of turners and upholsterers; and how, in the plains of Waterloo,
crosses, eagles, and grapeshot are still endlessly growing?

We are not sufficient connoisseurs in Soulie to say whether
the novel before us is of the real original produce, or whether it
has simply been flavoured, like the Johannisberger achtzehnhun-
dertelfer before mentioned. ' The Bananier' may be entirely
original; or, like many of Rubens's originals, a work of a pupil
wim a few touches of the master. The story is cleverly put to-
gethd:, the style is very like the real Soim^; and seeing the
author's signature, of course we are bound to credit. The tale
has been manufactured, we take it, not merely for a literary, but
also for a political purpose. There is a colonial-slavery party in
France; and the book before us is written to show the beautiea
of slavery in the French colonies, and the infernal intrigues of the
Engliah there and in the Spanish islands, in order to overthrow
the present excellent state of things. The subjects are two fine
themes for a romantic writer. To paint negro slavery as a happy
condition of being; to invent fictions for the purpose of inculcat-
ing hatred and iU-will; are noble tasks for the man of genius. We
heartily compliment Monsieur Soulie upon his appearance as a
writer of pohtical fictions.

The amiable plot of the piece is briefly this. A young French-
maiiy with the most absurd romantic ideas of abolition and the
horrors of slavery, goes to GKiadaloupe, to see his father's corres-

Sndent, a planter there, and perhaps to marry his daughter.
le planter nas an English nephew who aspires to the hand of
the lady, and likewise has a special mission firom his government to
procure abolition. For this end he has instruction to hesitate at no
means. He has orders to poison the negroes, to bum the planters'
houses, to murder the planters, and to foment a general msurreo-
tion and massacre. Let us not sav a word of the author of re-
pute who would condescend to wnte such a pretty fiction as this;

q2

228 French Romancers on England.

but rather wonder at the admirable impartiality and good taste of
a people to whom such a tale could be supposed to be written.
Unfortunately, the fictions of the romancers are not greater than
the fictions of the grave politicians of the French public press.
What a noble characteristic of a nation, is this savage credulity
and hatred! What a calm sense of magnanimous superiority
does this mad envy indicate ! What a keen, creditable apprecia-
tion of character is this, which persists in seeing guile in the
noblest actions, and cannot understand generosity but as a cover
for some monstrous and base design ! Well, well, we must hope
that years wiU dissipate this little amiable and charitable error of
the most civilized, and therefore the most humane and just, people
of the world. It is in their compassionate interest for the entire
human race, whom they were formed by nature to protect, that
they dread us perfidious shopkeepers of England : an error of
people whose love makes them only too perspicacious, soUciti
plena timaris amor — an error of the heart, and on the right side.
Someday or other the great nation will perhap relent. She will
say, * I am the guardian of humanity, as all the world knows
perfectly well. All the oppressed are looking up to me : night
and day they have their eyes turned towards me, and are invok-
ing, as that of a Providence, the sacred name of La France ! I
am the Good Principle of the Earth : you are the EviL I say so.
Victor Hugo says so. M. de Lamartine, and all the French
newspapers, say so. I may have been wrong for once : it is just
possible, and I give you the benefit of the doubt. You did not
emancipate your negroes out of hatred to the French colonies.
It was not in order to set Giiadaloupe and Bourbon by the ears
that you spent twenty millions — cinq cents millions de francs!
You are a nation of shopkeepers, and know the value of money
better. Go. You are forgiven this time. I am the Providence
of the World !' Let us look forward in calm hope to that day of
rehabilitation; and meanwhile, leaving the general question, re-
turn to Monsieur Souhe and his novel.

Our author lands his hero in Gnadaloupe, and the day after
his arrival he proceeds, in a kind of incogmto, to visit his corres-

fondent, the rich planter. On his journey to that gentleman's
ouse (his faithful servant Jean accompanymg him), tney meet a
negro, who, in an argument with Jean, shows the latter that the
negro slave is a thousand times happier than a firee Norman ser-
vant, who, after all, is only firee to chose what master he likes.
They proceed to the coffee-bounds and M. Sanson's estate, and
there they find the negroes in such a state of absurd happiness,
indolence, and plenty, that Jean is determined he will black and
sell himself at once, and resign the privileges of an illusory and

Dinner- Canversaiion. 229

most uncomfortable freedom. Luckily, tHs manly argument for
slavery lias been debated and settled in Europe some five hundred
years, and it is not probable that M. Soulie would have his coun-
trymen turn slaves again ; but he means, we take it, to establish
the point, that our compassion is greatly thrown away upon a set
of idle good-for-nothing blacks, who are quite unfit for liberty,
and, in fact, greatly happier than they deserve to be.

M. Cl^menceau, the young Frenchman, will not believe in
these signs of prosperity ; he will have it that the blacks are
wretched, that uiey are only ordered to be happy for that day
under pain of flogging, and that there is some tremendous plot
against him. He is, in fact, extremely peevish, and absurdly sus-
picious; and because he cannot, or will not, understand them,
ready to calumniate all the world. Is it possible that a young
French philanthropist should ever be in such a state? and if
one, is it possible that a whole nation should have such preju-
dices ? Perhaps. But we are getting again on t?ie general ques-
tion. The Frenchman is installed in the planter's house, where,
received with kindness, he is ready to mistrust and to bully every
body (one cannot, do what one will, but think of the general
question), and here at length we have him in presence of the
Englishman. The scene is a dinner party, and the two rivals
begm quarreling ' as to the manner bom.'

'^ ' And what Parisian novelties have you brought us,' said Madame
de Cambasse.

" * My father has begged me to offer some little presents on his part
to Mademoiselle Sanson, and as soon as my baggage is brought on
shore, I hope M. Sanson will permit me to present them to Made-
moiselle.'

" ' I accept for her with a great deal of pleasure,' said Monsieur
Sanson.

" ' And I am sure that these presents will be in the best possible
taste,' said Monsieur Welmoth, * if Monsieur C16menceau has selected
them.'

" The sneer was evident, but Ernest did not choose to take personal
notice of it, and replied,

** * There is no great merit in choosing in our country : for elegance,
grace, and good taste, as Monsieur says, are to be found in every thing
which is done there.'

" * It is certain that you are the kings of the mode,' said Welmoth,
still sneering.

" * As you are the kings of commerce,' replied Ernest, with the most
impertinent politeness.

" Jean at this made a grimace. He thought his master was not
holding his own, as the phrase is. Mr. Welmoth was of the same opi-
nion, for he continued in a pompous tone,

230 French Romancers on Enghmd.

u

^ The kings of commerce ! No frivolous empire that^ I think.*
< Certainly not ; but it is an empire of circmnstance which a thousand
events may destroy; whereas that which is inherent in the talent, the
tact, the good taste of a nation, to use your expression sir, rranains
etemaL You may continue for a long time yet to be kings of the coal-
mine and the rail-road : but we shall be always kings of the fine arts,
of literature, of every thing which elevates the soul and aggrandizes the
digni^ of humanity.'

" ^ You speak of literature, Monsieur Cl^menceau : you have never
read Sir Walter Scott.'

*^ * I know him by heart, sir. However iraorant Frenchmen may
be, they have not that narrow spirit of nadonauty which prevents them
firom seeing the merit of their rivals. Almost aU of you know French,
gentlemen ; but you don't know a word of our literature. In fact you
have the same spirit in every thing,— -you know the mechanism, but you
know not the work.'

* And are they worth reading, yotur French books?' said WehnotL
^ You will be able to judge when you have read them.'

'* Ernest pronounces these words in such a calm tone of digdai" that
Monsieur Welmoth blushed red, and Madame de Cambasse turning to
Clemenceau said, ^ Have you brought many new books ?'

" * A whole cargo,' said Clemenceau, laughing.

** At this moment Jean in waiting upon Clara committed some little
awkwardness.

" ^ He !* said Edward with an arrogant air. ^ Monsieur le domes-
tique Fran^ais, mademoiselle has her own people to wait upon her.'

*' ^ Pardon me, mademoiselle,' said Ernest, ^ but the French domes-
tics are like their masters, and are in the habit of being polite to every
one.'

'* The two young men looked each other in the feuse, the two grooms
exchanged hostile glances — war was declared, and the positions already
taken up."

This little bit of comedy is curious and laughable, not on ac-
count of the two illustrious antagonists and their ' grooms,' whom
M. Soulie has brought to wait at table, but on accoimt of the
worthy author himself, who exhibits here no unfair specimen of
the scribes of his nation. From the ' National,' upwards or down-
wards, the animus is the same ; in great public journals, and here
as we see in humble little novels, directly L' Angleterre is brought
into question La France begins to bristle up and look big, and
prepare to ^eraser the enemy. They will have us enemies, for all
we can do. Apropos of a public matter, a treaty of commerce, or
a visit to dinner, war is dec^red. Honest Monsieur Souli6 cannot
in a novel brinff a Frenchman and his servant in presence of an
Englishman ana his groom (the latter, by the way, is described as
being dressed in a livery oi yellow and crimson^ an extremely neat
and becoming costume), but as soon as the two couples are toge-

How to make an Impression. 231

ther they beffin to hate each other. Jean, the French servant,
dresses himself in his laostjlcele manner, in order to conipete with
his antagonist in the crimson and yellow ; and similarly recom-
mends his master to put on his best clothes, so as to overcome his
British adversary. * When Clemenceau was left alone,' our author
says, * he comprehended that the ffras hon sens of John had advised
him better than all his own personal reflections, and he took par-
ticular care a faire ressortir tons les avantages de sa personnel
The imagination can supply the particulars of that important
toilet. Is it not a noble and magnanimous precaution? — a proof
of conscious dignity and easy self-respect? The hero to be sure is an
imaginary one: but who but a Frenchman would have thought of
preparing a hero to overcome an enemy by the splendour of his
domes, the tightness of his waist, the manner in which his hair
was curled, and the glossy varnish of his boots? Our author calls
this imea^ vanity ^o^ bon sens. Thus, before he has an interview
with the Europeans, Quashimaboo's wives recommend him to put
another ring in his nose, and another touch of ochre over his cheeks,
in order that the chief may appear more majestic in the eyes of
the white men. There is something simple, almost touching, in
the nature of the precautions, and in the naivete which speaks of
them as gros bon sens.

When our author brings his personages together, the simple
artifices with which he excites our respect or hatred for them are
not less curious. He takes care even that the politeness of the
* ^oom' should be contrasted. Crimson and yellow remains be-
hmd his master's chair after the feshion of his insolent country,
while the Frenchman is made to be polite to every body as Frencn-
men always are. What a touch that is of ' Hel Monsieur le do-
mestique Franqais, Mademoiselle has her own people to wait upon
her.' How like in all respects to the conduct of an English gen-
tleman in a strange house, to attack other people's ' grooms for
bad behaviour at table, and to call them Messieurs les domestiques.
The servants might make what mistakes they chose ; the whole
table might be upset ; the sauce-boat might burst in shivers upon
the lap of the Bnton; and in a strange house: and such is the in-
domiteble pride of those islanders, that impavidum ferient ruince.

As English reviewers we are not going to take a side with
Mr. Welworth against M. Clemenceau and the author, but would
only point out humbly and good-naturedly such errors as we con-
ceive the latter commits. Thus the speech put into the mouth
of M. Clemenceau, that though Englishmen are almost all ac-
quainted with the French language, they do not know a word
about its literature; and the hint that the French, though they do
not know our language, rfo know our literature, having no narrow

232 French Romaiwers on England.

gpirit of nationality which prevents them from seeing the merit of
their rivals — ^this speech may be considered as a general obeerva-
tion, appUcable to the two countries, rather than to the story; and
might nave taken a place in the ' Memoirs of the Devil/ or in the
* Four Sisters,' or in the ' General Confession,' or in the * Ch^Ueaa
des Pyren^,' or in any work of M. SouKe. It is a proposition
that may be asserted apropos of any thing.

But IS it a fair one and altogether unopen to cavil? It stands
thus. The English do know French, but don't know French
literature. The French don't know English, but do know En-

flish literature. We are the mechanicians, we know the wheels
ut not the work : they are the great spirits, which know the work,
but do not care for the petty details of the wheels. Victor Hum)
has enunciated in his booK upon the Rhine an opinion exactly
similar to that of SouKe: viz., that France is the great intellect
and light of the world, and that, in fact, all the nations in Europe
would be fools without her.

Let us concede that pre-eminence. A nation which can tmder-
stand a language without knowing it, has advantages that oth^
European people do not possess. She is the intellectual queen
of Europe, and deserves to be placed at its head. There is no
coming up to her : we don't start with the same chances of winning.
But surely it should not be argued that our knowing the Frendi
language operates against us as an actual disadvantage in becoming
acquainted with French literature. We have no other way of

fetting at it. We are not master-spirits: we can no more read
ooks without knowing the words, than make houses without
setting up the bricks. Do not turn us away and discourage us in
our study of the words. Some day or other we may get to com-
prehend the literature of this brilliant France, and read the ' Me-
moirs of the Devil.'

This is all we humbly pray for. The superiority of France we take
for granted. But if in an English book we were to come across such
an argument and dialogue as the above to a Frenchman, ' We in
England do not know your language, but can perfectly appreciate
your literature ; whereas, though I admit you are acquainted with
English, yet your natives are much too great fools to understand
it' — we should say that the English author was a bigotted, vain
coxcomb, and would expose as in duty bound, his dimness, mon-
strous arrogance, ignorance, and folly.

After giving the above satisfactory specimen of the elegance,
the grdce, and the bon-gout of his country, M. Soulie pre-
pares to cure his hero of liis generous error regarding slavery:
and if the romancer's epilogues have any moral to them, as
no doubt they are intended to have, we should argue ftom

Slave'Abolition. 233

Ids story, not only that slavery is not an evil, but actually a
blessing and a laudable institution. We will not say that
this is the opinion in France, but we will say that in that senti-
mental and civiUzed country the slave-question has been always
treated with the most marked indifference, the slave sufferings
have been heard with scepticism. Is it that the French are not
far enough advanced and educated to the feeUngs of freedom yet,
to see the shame and the crime of slavery? or, rather, that they
are inspired by such an insane jealousy of this country, as
to hate every measure in which it takes the lead? When the
younger Dupin said in the chamber that the abolition of slavery
by England was ' an immense mystification,' — and spoke what was
not unacceptable to the pubKc, too— he satirized his own country
fer more severely than the nation he wished to abuse. A man
who sees his neighbour generous, and instantly attributes a base
motive to his generosity, exposes his own manners more than his
neighbour's. A people Uvmg by the side of ours, who can take
no count of the spirit of Christian feeling in England, of the manly
love of liberty which is part of our private and public morals,
shows itself to be very ignorant and very mean, too, and as poorly
endowed with the spirit of Christianity, as with that of freedom.
There was not a meeting-house in England where sober, quiet,
and humble folk congregated, but the shame and crime of slavery
was soberly felt and passionately denounced. It was not only the
statesmen and the powerful that Wilberforce and Clarkson won
over; but the women and children took a part, and a very great
and noble one, too, in the abolition of that odious crime from our
legislation. It was the noblest and greatest movement that ever a
people made — the purest, and the least selfish : and if we speak
about it here, and upon such an occasion as this trumpery novel
gives us, it is because this periodical, from its character, is likely
to fall into some French and many foreign hands; and because,
such is the persevering rage of falsenood with which this calumny
is still advocated by a major part of the French press, that an En-
glish writer, however humble, should never allow the lie to pass
without marking his castigation of it, and without exposing it
wherever he meets it.

Our novelist, with the ardent imagination of those of his trade,
goes however to prove a great deal more than is required of him : and
gives such a dehghtful picture of the happiness of French negroes,
that poor Jacques Bonhomme might cry out to be made a slave at
once, if, by sacrificing his rights at present, he could be inducted
into such a charming state of dependence. The hero of the story
finds that the slaves only work six hours in a week, for which they
are well fed and clothed; they have the rest of their time to them-

234 French Rcnumcers on England.

Belves; they earn as much money as to satisfy their utmost avarice
for indolence, their love of dress, or of liquor. They would not
be firee if they could; and one meritonous dave, who is introduced
especially, a new importation from Africa, exhibits the greatest
alarm lest he should be sent back to his native coimtry. It was
because led by such as writers these, that in the impeiial times, the
French &ncied their domination was received as a welcome gift
over Europe. The ' Moniteur' contains a hundred such state*
ments regarding Spsdn. As for the German Rhineland, we have
seen how the French believe to this moment it is theirs in heart
apd soul. But let us give the secret of the English abolition as
it is laid down here for French instruction. mT Souli^ has the
whole thread of the intrigue, and it was probably frimished to
him by the statesman who ordered him to popularize their doc-
trines by means of this tale.

The nero makes the acquaintance of an Irish superintendent of
the plantations, who by means of des relations qiiil a conservees en
Angleterre has the secret unveiled to him. ' I am,' says Mr.
Owen, ^ an Englishman, if, that is to say, an Irishman has a right
to that title — if, bom in a part of Great Britain which is subject
to the most insolent, the most ferocious, and the most contemp-
tuous tyranny, I can recognise as my countrymen those who tr^
my compatriots with more rigour and more disdain than the
most insolent master uses towards his black slaves. And yet, in
spite of my just grie& against the English, I have some hesita-
tion in accusing them before you.*

This is only a French novel to be sure, but it lies, as much as
the gravest newspaper in the anti-English interest. The only
point one would remark in the above statement is the hint that
some slave-masters do treat their slaves insolently and tyrannically
— ^the admission takes off from the beauty of the picture of that
paradise, a French colony. And now Mr. Owen unveils the
secret of secrets.

^^ ' You know, sir, at what price England purchased the emancipatum
of her colonies?'

'' Ernest was about to break out into enthusiastic praises of this sublime
act of philanthropy, but he had not the time, for Monsieur Owen con-
tinued as follows:

'^ ^ You are too well aware of the real interests of France not to be
aware that England did not begin by completing with her own hands
the imminent ruin of her colonies, except that she might arrive
through these at the ruin of the French and Spanish colonies, the pro-
sperity of which is injurious to her.

'' ^ You are not, I suppose, about to g^ve credit to the regular organ-
izers of famines in IndiiBi for such a magnificent love of the black race,

The Secret. 235

as to induce tihem out of mere humanity to establish the abolition and
i^prenticeship system in Jamaica. They, know better than we, and
experience has proved the correctness of their calculations, that the
abolition of slavery was the instant destruction of all prosperity and
fortune.

"^What was their calculation? it was no doubt to the following
effect : The first blow at the colonies was the slave-trade abolition — the
last will be the abolition of slavery. We no doubt shall lose some pos*
sessions by it, but France and Spain will lose more than we; in fact
they will lose every colony they possess, while the loss of a few islands
-will hardly count among us whose possessions are so vast.

'^ ^ France and Spain will no longer have means of supplying them-
selves, and India will still remain ours : the only granary m>m which
the world will be obliged to furnish itself with produce, wtdch has now
become as necessary to Europe as its own indigenous produce.'

" ' This argument might be correct,' said Ernest, *if, as you say, ruin
is the certain consequence of abolition.'

" * Can you doubt it ?' said Mr. Owen, with the air of a man quite
astonished that such a question could be put to him. 5 1 was at Jamaica
at the conmiencement of this organized catastrophe, and never did ruin
march with such rapidity.

^'^But this question, for the present at leasts is not necessary to
prove to you by facts. The plans of the society, of which Mr. Welmoth
is here the secret agent, will prove to you up to what point the abolition
is considered by the English a means of infallible ruin. His first orders,
received from a society patronized by the East India Company^ and
perhaps by the English government itself y are to become at the cheap-
est price possible the proprietor of the most considerable estates in the
country.

" * This done, Mr. Welmoth and others who, as you will see, will
succeed Inm, will establish themselves at Guadaloupe ; and once pro-
prietors they will begin to labour according to the turns of their mis-
sion, and successively emancipate their slaves. In the name of philan-
thropy they will spread through the plantations ideas of revolt and
enfranchisement.

" * Five hundred, six hundred, twelve hundred slaves so liberated by
them, will thus form a centre of mauvais sujets^ round which the
disaffected of the other plantations may rally. It will be a fomentation
of discord, a commencement of disorganization, which may be the cause
of new massacres. These dark enemies will be overcome no doubt ; but
it is to be feared that this spirit of insubordination will appear to the
French chambers a symptom of the maturity of the slave for liberty,
and that, hence, they will formally vote the abolition of slavery.

" * Let this result be far off or near at hand^ England will march
with indefatigable perseverance, by means the most perfidious and the
most obscure, as by the most splendid demonstrations of philanthropy.
She will make every appeal to sentiments tlie most worthy as to those

236 French Romancers aii England,

die most generous ; but she has one single aun to be attained by one
in£sdlible means, the ruin of the French colonies by means of the aboli-
tion of the slave trade.

^' ' This I know. This I am sure of. This Monsieur Sanson does not
suspect from the frankness and loyalty of his nature.* "

He may well have ' some hesitation' in telling a story so damn-
ing to his country. But the secret is out now : and the perfidy of
Albion unveiled. It is the East India Company, the rogues ' who
organize periodical famines in India,' who have set the incendiaries
to work in the French and Spanish colonies. Sir Welmoth has a
mission from the Court of Directors (in the month of April, 1838),
and in truth executes it with more than national pemdiousness.
As he has a sincere love for his cousin, the daughter of the
planter whose happy negroes have been described; and as
the young lady is heiress to the paternal property of which her
fizture husband may look one day to have possession; Sir Wel-
moth, in pursuit of his infernal schemes, begins by lending the
father money so as to harass the property, and by poisoning the
negroes on the estate. One may ask why the young patriot, if
bent upon executing this scheme of ' the East India Company,'
did not begin by poisoning somebody else^s negroes: but tnis, it
will be remarked, is of a piece with the poUcy of the country at
large. Before ruininff the French colonies, we begun by ruining
our own. But surely there is some break in the cham of argument
here, and the author has here the subject for at least another
chapter : for though a thief in a crowd, in order to avert suspicion,
will often say he has been robbed, he will not really fling away
his own purse containing twice as much as his victim's, for the
purpose of securing the latter.

This then we take to be a sUght fault in the construction of the
romance; though to do the author justice, the plot for the most
part is carried on with very considerable art. It is in pursuance
of the instructions of the East India Company that Sir VTelmoth
is ordered to poison his uncle's slaves, but the Court of Directors
by no means wish that their agent should be discovered — so what
does he do? He manages to lay the blame upon the poor young
French' gentleman, whose negrophily is well known; to bromUer
him with his worthy correspondent; and finally, as his presence
may be Hkeljr to ghier the plans of the Honourable East India
Company, Sir Welmoth has him assassinated under the banyan-
tree : whence the title of the novel.

The assassin wounds, but not kills his victim, who recovers
as we need not say, to expose the infernal conspiracies of the
atrocious emissary from Leadenhall-street. And the discovery
is brought about by a novel and ingenious method. Jean, the

Jean and John, 237

Frenchman's ffroora, has remarked that Sir Wehnoth and his
man John are m the habit of riding out of a night, no doubt to
meet the negroes in conclave ; and through the means of this John,
Jean determines to overcome the perfidious son of Albion. He
watches John with intense accuracy for many days, and learns to
mimic him a s^y meprendre. He purchases a scarlet and yellow
livery, for all the world like John's, intoxicates that individual,
and follows his master. But we must allow Jean to tell his
own tale.

" So I set myself to gallop after the Englishman, aad we went a
quarter of a league across country. Then we came to a wood where we
had not gone four steps when Monsieur Welmoth turned suddenly to
the right, so suddenly that I who was not used to the thing was gallop-
ing by him, when he stopped and turned round and said to me in a
most furious passion . . . What the rascal said to me I don't know, as I
don't happen to understand his lingo — ^but I could make out that he
accused me of being drunk, and thought it not a bad hint to act on,
and so kept a dead silence and acted my part to a wonder.

" Monsieur Welmoth tied his horse to a tree : then he said sdme-
ihing which seemed to me like a question. So I said, yes, sir : and then
he took out a whistle and blew. Another whistle answered it, as soft as
the pipe of a frog on a rainy night, and that you may hear miles round.
Then he said * John, my pistols.' I knew what he meant, and as I was
netting the pistols from the holsters gave the horse a kick which made
him plunge a bit, so that I had the time to take the caps off the
locks .... He went on and I followed him : not so silently, but that
the bits of dry stick would crackle under my feet now and then : when
Monsieur Welmoth would stop, and you may be sure I would stop and
hold my breath too. Presently we saw a red light glaring under the
trees, and heard such a sound of voices as drowned the noise of his steps
and mine too.

" At last, and by the light of their candles, I saw some thirty of
the niggers, and amongst them that rascal Theodore, and that other ras-
cal Idomen^e. As for Monsieur Welmoth, if I had not been sure it was
he, I never should have known him ; for he was dressed in a green face
and red eyes, and had on a great red cloak, just as in a play. Tt was
not only to disguise himself but to frighten the negroes that he was
dressed so ; . for as soon as they saw him, the poor black devils tumbled
down on their knees ; but I tnink they were less frightened than they
pretended to be, for there was not one of them but when Monsieur
Welmoth came up to him, he held out his hand bravely for a gold
piece which the other gave him.

" After this, grace was said all round ; the man in the mask began to
speak in a hollow voice ; and then it was that, without the slightest
besitatioQ, he proposed to the niggers to set fire to the house of
Madame de Cambasse. He said, saving your presence ma'am, that
you were a monster, that you had killed thousands of slaves at Ja-

238 French Romancers on England.

xnalca, and had whole scores of them in prison here, ironed down with
chains that had spikes inside 'em.

^^ Idomen^e replied that master's orders should be obeyed : on
which Welmoth said that if they did as he told them they snould all
be made free the next day, and pass their lives doing nothmg for ever
after. This touched them, and so did the rum which was handed
round in plenty ; during which time the mask and Idomenee beg^
talking together in private, and precious rascality it was they talked,
too, as you shall hear.

'^ ' Vou understand that when the fire breaks out, and Monsieur
Sanson sees it, in spite of his coolness with Madame de Cambasse [the
planter was to have married this widow, but for the arts of the Eng&sh-
man who had managed to make a quarrel between them] he will be
sure to come to her aid. I too, must, of course, accompany him ; but
when we are near Madame de Cambasse's house, I will fire off my
pistols, and you will take that as a signal for you and your people to
withdraw.' And with this he gave Idomen6e a taste of some particular
rum he kept in a bottle about him, and so this worthy couple parted."

The attack is made, the black villains are overpowered. The
mulatto and his principal accompKces, cut down, seized, and in
custody. As he expected, the perfidious EngHshman is called
upon to make his appearance in company with the rescuers of
Madame de Cambasse, and the following is the concluding scene
of this strange story.

^^ I have no reason to say that Monsieur Sanson, though he wished
to go, stopped. What man in love would not, when hoping to hear a
justification of her conduct frt>m the woman to whom he was attached?
Welmoth looked attentively at all the objects and countenances round
about him ; he saw traces of blood on the ground; and judging then that
a struggle had taken place, determined to use the utmost prudence, ad
some of his accomplices were perhaps prisoners. He was, however,
only personally known to Idomenee, and had nothing to fear if the
latter was not captured.

^^^This fire,' said Madame de Cambasse, 'which has brought you
hither to my rescue, is not an accident as you suppose. It is tibe com-
mencement of a plan which devotes this colony to ruin, and it is by the
hands of the slaves that it is to be brought about.'

'^ ' I don't know whom you accuse,' said Monsieur Sanson : ' not me,
certainly : the ruin of the colony would be my ruin, and the prefect
therefore can only be attributea to persons who are strangers to the
country, and who, excited by absurd philanthropy, or influenced by
darker and more odious views, have vowed its destruction.'

<^ ' Sir!' said Cl^menceau.

<< < These words of Monsieur Sanson,' continued Madame de Cam-
basse, ' apply no more to you than mine do to M. Welmoth, but I beg
you to listen without interrupting me. This plot exists ; and li^ M*
Sanson, I have been the first apparent victim of it, believe me that you

Agreeable Scene. 239

have already suffered from it, although you were ignorant that your
losses were but the commencement of the execution of the conspiracy.
You have suffered by poison, as I was to suffer by fire; and with me
the conspirators knew it was necessary to act quickly, as I had my sus-
picions, of which they were aware/

^^ ' But,' said M. Sanson, ^ pardon me for saying that I can see no
reason why you should suspect a conspiracy/

^' ^ One 01 the conspirators has been seized in my house,' said Madame
de Cambasse, and in spite of all his firmness, Welmoth's countenance
showed signs of alarm and emotion. ^ This incendiary,' continued Ma-
dame de Cambasse (without appearing to remark the Englishman's
concern), * is one of your slaves — Theodore — ^who commenced in your
own plantation by poisoning your best workmen.'

^^ ' Bring him before me,' said Monsieur Sanson ; ^ let us question
him at once.'

** * Presently. But before he comes, let me tell you what we have
aheady gathered from him. You will then judge whether his second
replies will correspond with his first. This man has sworn that he was
present to-night in the wood of Balisiers, at a meeting of blacks, where
the burning oi my house was proposed to hun by an individual in a
green mask with red circles round his eyes. He says he should not be
able to recognise this man from his voice or his figure, which were
both disguised ; but that the mulatto Idomenee knows him.'

^^ ^ During Monsieur Cl^menceau's illness, Idomenee was always
making inquiries at his house. No doubt Monsieur Cl^menceau is well
acquainted with him, and could give us some information on this sub-
ject,* said Welmoth.

^^ Cl^menceau was so astoimded by this audacity of Welmoth's, that
he was at a loss for a moment to find a word in reply : but Madame
de Cambasse, who saw through Welmoth's project fi>r shifting the
accusation on another, said quietly, ^ I don't Imow what Monsieur
Cl^menceau's relations with the mulatto may be, but with regard to
the man in the mask. Monsieur Ernest can give us no information — ^he
was here at the time of the meeting.'

" * You seem to be very certain of the hoiu' of this meeting,' said
Welmoth, who could not help speaking as if he were accused.

^^ ^ Sure of the hour, and of every circumstance belonging to it.
This man in the mask, then, told Idomenee (and I beg you, my dear
Monsieur Sanson, to attend to this) that the fire could be seen from
the house which &e mask inhabited ; that he would very probably be
ompelled, therefore, to come to my aid ; but, in («der to warn the
incoDkdiaiies of his i^proach, he would fire off his pistols at a short
^stance from the house !'

^ This last drcumstance threw a terrible light upon Monneur San-
son. ^ Fire his pistols V cried he, looking Sir Inward in the £»». ^ You
attempted to fire yours at a short distance from this house.'

^ ^ Sir!' said Welmoth, ^ after such a suspicion I cannot—-'

" * You could not fire your pistols,' said a man in full livery, who

240 French Romancers on England,

barred the passage, and spoke in a burlesque French, ' You could not
fire the pistols, because I had taken the caps away.'

<< ^ Who's this ?' said Sir Edward, starting back at the caricature of
John before him.

^^ ' I mean to say,' continued Jean, still mimicking John, ^ that I
made the Goddam drunk, Monsieur Sanson, and that I mounted his
pony and followed the other Goddam to the negro-meeting, where I
heard and saw every thing.'

" * The French are great comedians, I have always heard,' said Wel-
moth, ^ but I never knew they were such accompHsned mountebanks as
this.'

*' ^ They wear no masks, sir,' said Ernest, ^ and as you do, let me help
you to one.* And he was about to strike Welmoth in the face, but
Monsieur Sanson held him back, while the Englishman, in the height of
fury, aimed his pistol at Clemenceau*s breast.

" 'It can't go off,' said John, laughing ; *I prevented,' And Welmoth,
in a rage, dashed the weapons to the ground.

'^ ' It is not with pistols this affair must be settled,' said Ernest ; ' it
is a matter for the judge and the jur}'.'

" ^ What?' cried Welmoth — * on the accusation of a slave who owns
he does not know me — on the accusation of a man's servant whom I
publicly challenged, and who had the cowardice to refuse — ^you believe
me guilty ! Uncle, have a care : this farce may turn to your shame.'

*' ' We have other witnesses,' said Madame de Cambasse : ^ bring in
the prisoner.' At the sight of Idomenee Welmoth's countenance fell.'

" * You know Monsieur Welmoth T said Monsieur Sanson.

« <• No.'

" * He was not in the Wood des Balisiers to-night ?'

" ^ Nobody was in the Wood des Balisiers to-night.'

" * What ! cried Jean, * you were not in the wood, and you did not
talk with him, and, hearing me move, you did not fling a knife towards
the bush where I was, and wound me here in the thigh?

" * These are all lies,' said Idomenee.

" * Bring in Theodore,* said Monsieur Sanson.

" ^Theodore is dead,' answered Idomenee.

^' ^ But at any rate the mask and mantle can't have disappeared,'
cried John, ' and must be among this gentleman's effects.'

" ' Of course,' cried Welmoth, now quite himself, * those who told
the lie could easily have put a cloak and a mask in my baggage.'

'^ Monsieur Sanson held down his head and said, arter a moment's si-
lence, * Pardon me, Edward, for having believed you guilty, but this
comedy has been so cleverly arranged that I was deceived for a moment.
As, however, it was one of my slaves who injured the property of
Madame de Cambasse, and as I have no desire she should be injured
by me or mine, I am quite ready to pay her an indemnity.'

" * I wish for nothing but wnat the law awards,' said the lady. * My
only wish was to expose to you the infamous machinations of a villam.'

An JEtifflish Hero. 241

^* She then sat down to write, while Edward preserved a perfectly im-
moved countenance. Her note finished — ' Mr. Owen,' said she, * have
the goodness to carry this immediately to the Frocureur du Roi ; if the
principal criminal escape, here is one at any rate whom nothing can save.
This mulatto forced an entry into my house with arms in his handd.
He wounded me with his knife — this at least is no comedy.'

'^ Idomenee, in spite of himself, could not help giving a look at Sir
Edward. He was perfectly unmoved.

" * Let those who hired this villain save themselves as they can ;' con-
tinued Madame de Camhasse. Welmoth showed not the least concern
at this insinuation. ^ Had we not better leave Madame to her part of
Grand Justiciary,' said he to M. Sanson, laughing.

'^ ^ I am at your orders, and was sure, Edward, you never could have
lent yourself to this in^Eunous conspiracy,' said M. Sanson. ^ As for
this unhappy man, the only chance remaining for him is to name his
accomplices.'

'^ ' It is what he had best do,' said Welmoth, calmly ; ' and I advise him
to do so. But it is to his judges, and not to us that he must confess.'
As he spoke thus, Welmoth looked with some agitation towards Ido-
menee. Monsieur Sanson seemed quite confounded by the latter's
silence.

" * Come,' cried Welmoth anxiously, ^ let us go ;' and Sanson moved
forward, as if to leave the room.

^^ At this moment the mulatto staggered, and uttered a loud, horrible
cry. ' Stop !' screamed he, ' stop. Monsieur Sanson ;' and these words
caused every one to pause.

'^ ^ I remember, now,' said the mulatto, groaning and writhing in
jpain ; * it was the rum he gave me in the wood. It was — it was — '

" * What? ' cried every one.

" * It was poisoned — oh ! poisoned ! I was to go when I heard his
pistol, and to die like a dog in the wood. That's the villain who made me
fire upon M. Cl^menceau.'

" * I knew it !' cried Jean.

" * That's — that's he who' — the wretch could say no more, he staggered
and fell — but as he fell he made a boimd towards Sir Edward as if he would
have killed him, and fell dead at his feet. The Englishman looked at
his victim in silence, and with a ferocious joy.

^' ' Monster !' cried Monsieur Sanson at length, and after a pause of
horror, * and will you still deny ?*

" * What ! do you join them too ?' said Sir Edward. * Is this the
way in which you pay me back the gold guineas I lent you ?*

" * The money is ready, sir ; and the cause of my interview with
Madame de Camhasse, whose fair fame you have calumniated, was to
arrange the payment of this very sum, and to rescue^ Monsieur Sanson
from the ruin you had prepared for him.'

" * Enough !* cried Sir Edward. ' I will answer no more questions
of lackeys, knaves, and strumpets, and their silly dupes.'

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIII. R

242 French Romancers ofii England,

^^ ^ Monsiear I'Anglais !' said Jean, ^ shall I make you a present be-
fore you go ? Here it is — the caps for your pistols ; they'll serve you
to blow your brains out with.'

^' ^ I take them,' said Sir Edward, grinding his teeth, in order to
send into your master's head the bullet I owe him.'

^^ He was about to put them on, but ere he could do so, Jean rushed
at him and felled him to the ground : those present rushed forward to
rescue Sir Edward, thinking Jean was strangling him.

'^ * Stop, stop, ' shouted the domestic, ^ I want to see this gentleman's
flannel-waistcoat. John told me when I made him drunk, that his
master carried some curious papers there. Ah ! here they are !' As
he spoke, John seized the papers, and springing up gave them to Mon«
sieur Sanson.

'^ But Sanson had scarcely began to read them, when Welmoth was
up too ; he had taken the pistols from the ground where he flung them,
and had armed them with the caps, which he still held in his hand.

*' ' Now it's my turn,' said he, turning on the astonished and un-
armed group who were gathered round the papers ; ' listen to me.
Monsieur Sanson, I caused Clemenceau to' be shot, because he inter-
fered with the projects of which I am pursuing the execution, and which
shall ruin you one day. France must lose her colonies. England has
decided it, and our decision is like that of Heaven, implacable and .
inevitable. I own it all ; I was sent to ruin you — ^to ruin this woman's
deputation ; I organized the fire this night. There, you have my
confession, and the proofs of my mission in the papers in your hand.
What will be my fate ?'

" ^ The scaffold, wretch !' said Monsiciur Sanson.

" * Well then, if I die for one crime or for ten what matters ? And
now hark you : I have two more to commit, which two victims shall
I choose here ?'

" * Monster !' cried Monsieur Sanson.

" ^ No, I will not hurt you ; but this woman here, and this young
dandy who would marry your daughter* — Madame de Cambasse turned
pale, and Jean flung hiinself before her.

" * Not a movement,' said Welmoth, * or she is dead ! But I make
one bargain with you. There is a candle near you, M. Sanson ; bum in
it, one after anotner, the papers you have been reading, and I with-
draw.'

" * Never — never ;' said M. Sanson.

^' ' Be it as you will,' said Welmoth ; and aimed at Madame de Cam-
basse, who fell on her knees ahnost dead with terror.

** * Yield, in the name of heaven,' said Clemenceau.

** * You are afraid for yourself,' said Welmoth ; on which C16menceaa
was about to rash forward, but John held him back, saying, * Staod
back, sir, the rascal will do what he says, else.'

'^ ' Enough, enough ;' said M. Sanson ; and put the papers^ to the
flame. Welmoth saw him bum them, one after another ; and when tho
last was consumed, he walked to the window, fired his two pistols in the

National Hatreds, 243

air, and said, ^ The honour of England is saved ; now, gentlemen, I am
at your disposition.'

'^ ' This act of ferocious heroism struck Clemenceau and M. Sanson
with a strange admiration. ' Go,' said the latter ; ^ the day is hefore

" * Thank you,' said Sir Edward ; and left the room."

It is strange that the writer of the tale, a good man of bu-
siness no doubt, as the present literary system in France will
cause most writers to be, has not turned the above invention to
still further profit, and adapted it for stage representation. The
perfidious Englishman is a character drawn as if expressly for
the actor of the villains of the Porte St. Martin Theatre, and the
imitations of Jean the Frenchman as John the Goddam would
eonvulse audiences with laughter. Nor is it necessary, in order
to amuse these merry folks, Qiat the imitations should be like; it
is only requisite that the imitation should be like what they are
accustomed to hear; and were a real Englishman to be produced
on the stage they would give the palm to the sham one. They
have an Englishman for their politics as well as for their theatre;
an Englishman of their own dressing up, a monstrous compound
of ridicule and crime, grotesque, vulgar, selfish, wicked; and
they will allow their pohtical writers to submit to them no other.
There is no better proof of the intense hatred with which the
nation regards us : of the rankling htimiliation which for ever and
ever seems to keep possession of a clever, gallant, vain, domineer-
ing, defeated people.

The contrast to this spirit in England is quite curious. Say to
the English — the Frendi hate you ; night and day they hate you;
the government that should find a pretext of war with you would
be hailed with such shouts of exultation from one end of the
country to the other, as never were heard since the days when the
Patrie was in danger; till they can meet you in war they pur-
sue you with untiring calumny — say this, and an Englishman,
yawning, answers, ' It is impossible,' and declares that the person
who so speaks is actuated by a very bad spirit, and wishes to set
the two countries quarrelling. If an English newspaper were to
take the pains to collect and publish the lies against England
which appeared in the Paris journals of any given month (the
month of her Majesty's visit to France would hardly be a fair
criterion, it was an extraordinary event, and afforded therefore
aoope for extraordinaiy lying) — there would be such a catalogue
as would astonish readers here. Abuse of England is the daily
bread of the French journalist. He writes to supply his market.
If his customers were tired of the article, would he give it to
them? No; he would abuse the Turks, or praise the

244 French JRomancers on England.

abuse or praise the Russians, or write in praise or abuse of any
other country or subject, that his readers might have a fancy
to admire or hate. All other fashions, however, seem to have
their day in France but this, and this is of all days. They never
tire of abusing this country. The Carlist turns on the govern-
ment-man, and says, ^ You truckle to the English.' The govern-
ment-man retorts, * Who ever truckled to the English so much as
you did, who came into power with his bayonet, and thanked him,
under God, for your restoration?' The republican reviles them
both with all his might, and says that one courts the foreigner as
much as the other.

If we speak in this manner, apropos of a mere novel of a few
hundred pages, it is because we believe that Monsieur Souh6
had his brief riven to him, and was instructed to write in a par-
ticular vein. His facts, such as they are, have been supplied to
him; for there are evidences that the writer has some sort of infor-
mation upon the subjects on which he writes, and there are proofs
of wilful perversions from some quarter or other. Take, for in-
stance, the description of a treadmill. ' This pimishment of the
treadmill consists in hanging slaves by the wrists, in such a man-
ner that their feet are placed upon liie wings of a wheel. The
wheel always yields under their feet, and thus obliges the patient
to seek a footing upon the upper wing. The wheel serves like-
wise to grind the prisoners' com. An executioner (bourreau)
armed with a hammer (martinet) — ^the whip appeared too mild to
these worthy protectors of the negro race — an executioner, I
say, placed by the side of the mill, is employed to excite the in-
dolence of those who do not move quick enough on the wheel:
and a physician from time to time feels the pulse of the person
under punishmeniy in order to see how long lie can bear the torture.^
Now this is written with evident bad faith, very Ukely not on the
writer's part, but on the part of some one who has seen this in-
strument of torture, a treadmill, and whose interest it is to main-
tain the slave trade in the French colonies, and who knows that,
in order to enlist the mother-coimtry in his favour, he has no
surer means than to excite its prejudices by stories of the cruel-
ties and conspiracies of England. Statements are proved in dif-
ferent modes, arguments are conducted in all sorts of ways; and
this novel is an argument for the slave trade, proved by pure
lying. Its proofs are lies, and its conclusion is a lie. It stands
thus: 'The English have fomented a demoniacal conspiracy
against the slave trade in the French colonies. The English are
our wicked, false, dastardly, natural enemies, and we are boimd
to hate them. Therefore slavery is a praiseworthy institution
and ought to be maintained in the French colonies.' It is to this

The Grand Conspiracy, 245

argument tliat Monsieur SouHe has devoted three volumes which
are signed by his celebrated name.

A romancer is not called upon to be very careful in his logic, it
is true ; fiction is his calling ; but surely not fictions of this na-
ture. Let this sort of argumentation be left to the writers of the
leading articles; it has an ill look in the feuilleton, which ought to
be neutral ground, and where peaceable readers are in the habit
of taking refuge froiji national quarrels and abuse; from the envy,
hatred, and imcharitableness, that inflame the patriots of the
Premier Paris, All the villains whom the romancer is called upon to
slay, are those whom he has created first, and over whom he may
exercise the utmost severities of his imagination. Let the count go
mad, or the heroine swallow poison, or Don Alphonso run ms
rival through the body, or the French ship or army at the end of
the tale blow up the English and obtain its victory ; these harmless
cruelties and ultimate triumphs, are the undoubted property of
the novelist, and we receive them as perfectly fair warfare. But
let him not deal in specific calumnies, and inculcate, by means of
lies, hatred of actual breathing flesh and blood. This task should
be left to what are called hommes graves in France, the sages of
the war newspapers.

As to these latter, which are daily exposing the deep-laid schemes
andhypermachiavellian craft of England, we wonder they have not
noticed as yet another sordid and monstrous conspiracy of which
this country is undoubtedly the centre. If this audacious plot be
allowed to succeed, the nationalities of Europe will gradually, but
certainly disappear; the glorious recollections of feats of arms,
and the noble emulation to which they give rise, will be effaced
by a gross merchant despotism ; the spint of patriotism will in-
fallibly die away, and, to meet the aggressions of the enemy, the
frontier shall be lined with warriors, and the tribune resound with
oratory no more. The public press, the guardian of liberty, the
fether of manly thought, shall be as it were dumb : the * Si^cle' may
cry woe to perfidious Albion, and the public, stricken with a fatal
indifference, shall be too stupid to tremble ; the * National' may shout
murder and treason against England, and a degenerate nation only
yawn in reply. ' A conspiracy tending to produce this state of
things,' we can imagine one of those patriotic journals to say,
** exists, spreads daily, its progress may be calculated foot by foot all
over Europe. The villains engaged in it are leagued against some
of the most precious and ancient institutions of the world. What
can be more patriotic than to protect a national industry? their
aim is to abolish trade-protection, and to sweep custom-houses
from the face of the earth. What can be more. noble than love
of country and national spirit? these conspiritors would strike at

246 French Romancers on England,

the root of the civic virtues. What can be more heroic than the
ardour which inspires our armies, and fills our youth with the ge^-
nerous desire of distinction in war? these conspirators, if they have
their way, will not have an army standing; they will make a
mockery and falsehood of glory, the noble aim of gallant spirits;
they will smother with the bales of their coarse commerce, the
laurels of our former achievements; the swords of Marengo and
Austerlitz will be left to rust on the walls of our children ; and they
will clap corks upon the bayonets with which we drove Europe
before us.* The Railroad, we need not say, is the infernal EngUsh
conspiracy to which we suppose the French prophet to allude. It
has been carried over to France by Englishmen. It has crept
from Rouen to the gates of Paris; from Kouen it is striding to-
wards the sea at Southampton; from Paris it is rushing to the
Belgian frontier and the channel. It is an English present. Timete
Danaos : there is danger in the gift.

For when the frontier is in a manner destroyed, how will the
French youth be able to rush to it? Once have railroads all over
Europe, and there is no more use for valour than for post-chaises
now on the north road. Both will be exploded institutions. The
one expires, because nobody will ride ; the other dies, because no^
body will fight; it is cheaper, easier, quicker, more comfortable to
take the new method of travelling. And as a post-chaise keeper is
ruined by a railroad, and as a smuggler is ruined by free trade ; those
concerned in the maintenance of numberless other ancient usages,
interests, prejudices, must look to suffer by coming changes. Have
London at twelve hours' journey from Paris, and even Frenchmen
will begin to travel. The readers of the ' National' and the ' Com-
merce' will have an opportunity of judging for themselves of that
monstrous artful island, which their newspapers describe to them
as so odious. They will begin to see that hatred of the French
nation is not the sole object of the EngUshman's thoughts, as their
present instructor would have them believe ; that the grocer of
Bond-street has no more wish to assassinate his neighbour of the
Rue St. Honor^, than the latter has to murder his rival of the Rue
St. Denis; that the ironmonger is not thinking about humiliating
France, but only of the best means of seUinff his kettles and fenders.
Seeing which peaceful andharmless disposition onourpart,the wrath
of Frenchmen will melt and give way: or rather let us say, as our
island is but a small place, and France a great one — as we are but
dull shopkeepers without ideas, and France the spring from which
all the Light and Truth of the world issues — that wlien we are drawn
so near to it, we shall sink into it and mingle with it as natu-
rally as a drop of rain into the ocean (or into a pail), and at once
and for ever be absorbed in the flood of French Civilization.

( 247 )

Aet. Xm. — Biographie des Cotemporains : Espartero. Paris.
1843.

T£[£ military and political events which terminated in the in-
dependence of the United States, may be criticised as dilatory,
as fortuitous, and as not marked by the stamp of human genius.
That revolution produced more good than ^eat men. K the
same may be said of the civil wars of Spain, and its parlia-
mentary struggles after freedom, it should be more a subject of con-
gratulation than of reproach. The greatness of revolutionary
heroes may imply the smallness of the many; and, all things duly
weighed, the supremacy of a Cromwell or a Napoleon is more a
dur upon national capabilities than an honour to them. Let us
then begin by setting aside the principal accusation of his French
foes agamst General Espartero, that he is of mediocre talent
and eminence. The same might have been alleged against
Washington.

Moreover, there is no people so little inclined to allow, to form,
or to idolize superiority, as the Spaniards. They have the jea-
lous sentiment of universal equdity, implanted into them as
deeply as it is into the French. But to counteract it, the French
have a national vanity, which is for ever comparing their own
country with others. And hence every character of eminence is
dear to them; for though an infringement on individual equality,
it exalts them above other nations. The Spaniard, on the con-
trary, does not deign to enter into the minutice of comparison.
His country was, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the
first in Europe ; its nobles the most wealthy, the most magnificent,
the most punctilious, the most truly aristocratic; its citizens the
most advanced in arts and manufactures, and comfort and mu-
nicipal freedom ; its soldiers were allowed the first rank, the
sailors the same. The Spaniards taught the existence of this,
their universal superiority, to their sons; and these again to their
offspring, down to the present day. And the Spaniards impli-
citly believe the tradition of their forefathers, not merely as ap-
plied to the past, but as a judgment of the present. They believe
themselves to be precisely what their fathers were three hundred
years ago. They take not the least count of all that has happened
mthat period: the revolutions, the changes, the forward strides
of other nations, the backward ones of their own. A great man,
more or less, is consequently to them of littie importance. They
are too proud to be vain.

This part of the Spanish character explains not a few of the po-
litical events of tiie countries inhabited by the race. In all those

248 Espartero.

countries, individual eminence is a thing not to be tolerated. It
constitutes in itself a crime, and the least pretension to it remains
impardoned. Even Bolivar, notwithstandmg his immense claims,
and notwithstanding the general admission that nothing but
a strong hand could keep the unadhesive materials of Spanish
American republics together,-— even he was the object of such
hatred, suspicion, jealousy, and mistrust, that his life was a mar-
tyrdom to himself, and his salutary influence a tjrranny to those
whom he had liberated.

There did exist in Spain, up to the commencement of the pre-
sent century, a grand exception to this imiversal love of equauty,
which is a characteristic of the Latin races. And that was tne
veneration for royalty, which partook of the oriental and fabulous
extreme of respect. Nowhere is this more manifest than in the
popular drama of the coimtry: in which the Spanish monarch
precisely resembles the Sultan of the Arabian Nights, as the vice-
gerant of Providence, the imiversal righter of wrongs, endowed
with ubiquity, omnipotence, and all-wisdom. Two centuries' suc-
cession of the most imbecile monarchs greatly impaired, if not
effiiced, this sentiment. The conduct of Ferdinand to the men
and the classes engaged in the war of independence, disgusted
all that was spirited and enlightened in the nation. A few re-
mote provinces and gentry thought, indeed, that the principle of
legitimacy and loyalty was strong as ever, and they rose to invoke
it in favour of Don Carlos. Their failure has taught them and
all Spain, that loyalty, in its old, and extreme, and chevaher
sense, is extinct ; and that in the peninsula, as in other western
countries, it has ceased to be fanaticism, and survives merely as a
rational feeling.

Royalty is however the only superiority that the Spaniards
will admit ; and their jealousy of any other power which apes,
or affects, or replaces royalty, is irrepressible. A president of a
Spanish republic would not be tolerated for a month, nor would
a regent. The great and impardonable fault of Espartero was,
that he bore this name.

Another Spanish characteristic, arising from the same principle
or making part of it, is the utter want of any influence on the side
of the aristocracy. For a Spanish aristocracy does survive : an aris-
tocracy of historic name, great antiquity, monied wealth, and ter-
ritorial possession. The Dukedoms of Infantado, Ossune, Montilles,
&c., are not extinct ; neither are the wearers of these titles exiled
or proscribed; nor have their estates been confiscated or curtailed.
But they have no influence ; they have taken no part in political
events; and are scarcely coimted even as pawns on the chess-

The Peers and The Juntas. 249

board of Spanish politics. The Spaniards respect superiority of
birth, but their respect is empty. It is rather the respect oi an
antiquary for what is curious, than the worldly and sensible
respect for whatever is truly valuable. The greatest efforts have
been made by almost all Spanish legislators and politicians, to
make use of the aristocracy as a weight in the pohtical balance,
and as a support of throne and constitution. But as Lord Eldon
compared certain British peers to the pillars of the East London
Theatre, which hung from the roof instead of supporting it, such
has been the condition of all Spanish peers or proceres in any
and every constitution. They supported the government of the
time being; were infallibly of the opinions diametrically opposite
to those of the deputies; and increased the odium of the nunistry,
whether moderado or exaltado, without giving it the least support.
The rendering the upper chamber elective, as was done by the
constitution of 1837, has not remedied this. When Christina
fell, the upper chamber was to a man in her favour; so did the
whole upper chamber support Espartero, when he fell. In short, the
attachment of the peers in Spain is ominous; it betokens downfal.

The crown and the clergy, in fact, had laboured in unison to de-
stroy and humble the power of the aristocracy, as well as of the mid-
dle classes. They succeeded but too well; and in succeeding, they
also strengthened that democratic principle of equality which is a
monkish principle. But the crown, and the monasteries, and the
aristocracy, have all gone down together, whilst the middle classes
survive, and have become regenerated with a second youth. It is
only they who have any force in Spain. It is the cities, which
take the initiative in all changes and all revolutions. For any
government to incur their displeasure, is at once to fall; none has
been able to struggle against them. These jimtas raised the war
of independence, and performed the Spanish part of their self-
liberation. They again it was who enabled Christina to estabUsh at
once her daughter's rights and the name of a constitution. They
afterwards compelled her to give the reality, as well as the name.
And it was they, too, who drove Don Carlos out of the country, in
despite of the tenacity and courage bf his rustic supporters. He
was driven from before Bilboa, and from every town of more
respectability than a village. He was welcomed by the pea-
sants and tneir lords, but every collection of citizens rejected
him, and he and absolutism were obliged to fly the coimtry.

There is one class, which at the close of revolutions is apt to
turn them to its own profit, and become arbiter of all that sur-
vives in men and things. This is the army. In nations how-
ever which liave no external wars, it is extremely difficult for the

%

250 Espartero.

Bxmj or its chiefs to win and preserve that mastery over public opi*
nions, which is needed to ensure acquiescence m mihtary usur-

Stlons. The French revolution, as we all know, turned to a war^
:e struggle between France and Europe; in which France was
represented by her generals and armies, and in which these but too
naturally took the place of civilian statesmen and representative
assembhes. In the more isolated countries of England and Spain,
the activity and the glory of the military terminated with the
civil war. The career of arms was closed; the officers lost tiieir
prestige; and Cromwell, though tolerated as a. de facto ruler, was
never looked iip to, eitiier as the founder of a military monarchy,
or of a new dynasty. A Cromwell would have met with more
resistance in Spain; civilian jealousy is there as strong as in Eng-
land; and Cromwell there was none. The Duke of Victory's
worst enemies could not seriously accuse him of such ambi-
tion*

Baldomero Espartero was bom in tiie year 1792, at Granatula,
a village of La Mancha, not far from the towns of Almagro and
Ciudad Real. In his last rapid retreat from Albacete to Seville,
the regent could not have passed far from the place of his na-
tivity. His father is said to have been a respectable artisan, a
wheelwright, and a maker of carts and agricultural implements.

This artisan's elder brother, Manuel, was a monk in one of the
Franciscan convents of Cuidad Real, capital of the province of
La Mancha. It is one of the advantages amongst the many disad-
vantages of monasticity, that it facilitates the education and the
rise of such of the lower classes as give signs of superior intet
ligence. The friar Manuel took his young nephew, Baldomero,
and had him educated in his convent. Had Spain remained in
its state of wonted peace, the young disciple of the convent
would in good time have become, in all probability, the eccle-
jdastic and tiie monk. But about the time when Espartero at-
tained the age of sixteen, the armies of Napoleon poured over the
Pyrenees, and menaced Spanish indepenaence. It was no time
for monkery. So at least tiiought all the young ecclesiastical stu-
dents; for these throiighout every college m the peninsula almost
unanimously threw off the black frock, girded on the sabre, and
flung the musket over their shoulder. Tne battalions which they
formed were called sacred. Nor was such volimteering confined
to the young. The grizzle-bearded monk himself went forth,
and, used to privation, made an excellent ffuerilla. The history
of the Spanish wars of independence and of freedom tells fre-
quently of monkish generals, the ijisignia of whose command
were the cord and sandals of St Francis.

Young Espartero took part in most of the first battles and

His Youth. 251

skirmishes in tlie south of Spain, and made part of the Spanish
force, we believe, which was shut up and besieged by the French
in Cadiz. He here, through the mterest of his uncle, was re-
ceived into the military school of the Isla de Leon, where he
was able to engraft a useful military education on his former ec-
clesiastical acquirements : for to be a soldier was his vocation, and
his wish was not to be an ignorant one. The war of independ-
ence was drawing to a close when E^artero had completed his
mihtary studies, and could claim the grade of officer in a re-
gular army. But at this same time, the royal government re-
solved on sending an experienced general witii a corps of picked
troops to the Spanish mam, to endeavour to re-establish the autho-
rity of the mother-country. Morillo was the general chosen. Espar
tero was presented to him, appointed Heutenant, and soon after the
sailing of the expedition was placed on the staff of the general.

The provinces of the Spanish main were then the scene of
awful warfare. It is needless to inquire on which side cruelty
began ; the custom of both was almost invariably to sacrifice the
lives, not only of captured foes, but of their relatives, young and
aged. The war, too, seemed interminable. A rapid march of a
general often subdued and apparently reduced a province in a few
oays, the defeated party flymg over sea to the islands or to the
other settlements: but a week would bring them back, and the
victors in their turn thought fit to fly, often without a struggle.
Even an engagement was not decisive. A great deal of Indian
force was employed, and, in many respects, the Spaniards or
Spanish-bom came to resemble them in fighting. The chief feat
of the action was one brilliant charge, which, if successful or
imsuccessful, decided the day. For, once put to the rout, the
floldiers never rallied, at least on that day, but fled beyond the
range of immediate pursuit, and often with so little loss that the
ftigitives of yesterday formed an army as numerous and formi-
dable as before their defeat. How long such a civil war would
have lasted is impossible to say, had not foreigners enlisted in
the cause, and formed legions which not only stood the brunt
t)f a first onset, but retreated or advanced regularly and de-
terminedly. The foreign legion was the Macedonian Phalanx
among the Columbians. Owing to it the Spaniards lost the
&tal battle of Carabobo, and thenceforward made few effectual
struggles against the independents, except in the high country
t)f Peru.

Espartero had his share of most of these actions. As major he
fought in 1817 at Lupachin, where the insurgent chief. La
Madrid, was routed. Next year he defeated the insurgents on
the plains of Majocaigo, and in 1819 Espartero and Seoane re-

J252 Espartero.

duced the province of Cochalamba. Soon after, the revolution
that had for result the establishment of the constitution broke
out in Spain; and the political parties to which it gave rise began
to agitate the Spanish army in JPeru. Then the viceroy, who held
out for the absolute power of Ferdinand, was deposed; and the
other generals, La Sema, Valdez, and Canterac, declared for
liberty abroad as well as at home, though they still fought for pre-
serving the links that bound the South American colonies to the
mother country. Espartero was of this liberal military party,
^d served as colonel in the division which under Canterac and
Valdez defeated the Peruvian independents at Torrata and Ma-

auega, in January 1823 : actions which led to the evacuation of
le Peruvian capital by the congress. The Peruvians then sum-
moned Bolivar and the Columbians to their aid, whilst the two
parties in the Spanish army, royalist and independent, divided
and began to war with each other, on the news arriving of the
restoration of Ferdinand. This afforded great advantage to Boli-
var, and that chief pushed them with so much vigour, that the
contending royalist parties ceased their strife, and united to over-
whelm, as they thought, the Columbians imder Paez, the lieute-
nant of Bolivar.

Tlie Colimibians had, however, learned to stand in action, and
their cavaby even to return to the charge after being routed.
Their obstinacy in this respect, here displayed for the first time,
routed the old Spanish cavalry, hitherto thought so superior; and
won the battle of Ayacucho, which dismissed to Spain all up-
holders of Spanish supremacy. The officers and generals sent
home imder this capitulation have been since known imder the
epithet of Ayacuchos, Among them were Canterac, Valdez,
Eodil, Seoane, Maroto, Narvaez, Carrabate, Alaix, Araoz, Villa:
lobos. Espartero had been previously sent home with colours and
the accoimt of success in Peru; success so soon reversed.

When these generals returned, there were of course many pre-
judices against them. They had taken no part in the liberal
movement at home, which had nevertheless begun in the ranks of
the army. Their having taken previous part m the war of inde-
jndence ought to have pleaded for them ; but most of them had
jen too young to have been then distinguished. Riego and
Quiroga were the military heroes of the day. The soldiers of the
constitution made indeed but a poor stand against the French in-
vading army ; still their efforts were not destined to be altoge-
ther vain, and the country preserved its gratitude towards them.
On the other hand Ferdinand and his ministers showed no incli-
nation to favour or employ the Ayacuchos ; the royalist volunteers
and the monks were the only mifitants that the old court trusted;

Wiar against Carlos, 253

and thus the largest body of officers of experience were inclined
to range themselves under the constitutional banner, whenever it
should again be hoisted.

The years from 1825 to 1830 were spent by Espartero, as
colonel of the reriment of Soria, which was quartered the most
part of that time m the island of Majorca. Previous to going
there he commanded the dep6t of Logrono on the Ebro, where
he became acquainted with his present duchess, Senora Jacinta de
Santa Cruz. Her father, an old officer, brother of the late cap-
tain-general in the south of Spain, was one of the wealthiest pro-
prietors of the banks of the Ebro, and Senora Jacinta was his
only child. The father was not willing to give her to the soldier,
however high his rank. But the marriage took place, as such
marriages do, the determination of the young overcoming the
scruples of the old. The present Duchess of Victory was re-
nowned for her beauty and conjugal attachment.

The death of Ferdinand opened a new era for Spain. His wiU
conferred the succession upon his daughter, and the regency upon
her mother. As the only hope of preserving the crown to
Isabella, and influence to herself, Christina summoned to her
counsels the liberals. They were of many shades; she chose the
most monarchical; but was gradually obliged to accept the councils
and aid of those who franldy meditated a liberal constitution.
The ousted prince, Carlos, appealed to the farmers and the
priesthood of the northern provinces; the absolutist powers of
the east supplied him with funds; and the war began.

With very few exceptions all the miUtary men embraced the
ride of the queen and constitution. The army felt no inclination
to imdergo once more the yoke of the priesthood. And even old
royalist generals, such as Quesada and Sarsfield, turned their arms
willingly against the CarUsts. The Ayacuchos^ or officers who had
served m America, showed equal alacrity; especially those who,
like Espartero, had even on the other side of the Atlantic been
&vourable to a constitution. Maroto was the only one of them,
who, at a later period, took command under Don Carlos.

The first constitutional general, Sarsfield, was successful. He
delivered Bilboa, the first seat of the insurrection and ever after-
wards the key of the war, from the insurgents. Espartero was
appointed captain-general of the province. But the apparition
of Don Carlos in person, the funds he commanded, and the pro-
mises he made, gave fresh importance and duration to the war.

The greatest and most effectual mihtary achievements are often
those least talked about or noticed. The general who can or-
ganize an army fitly, often does more than he who wins a battle;
wough indeea it is the organization that leads to the winning of

254 Espartero.

the battle. The organization of the British army was the first and the
greatest achievement of the Duke of Wellington ; and it was for
trie Carlists the great act and merit of Zumalacarreguy, Espartero
did the same for the Spanish constitutional army, and thereby
enabled it to overcome, by degrees and in partial encounters, the
formidable and spirited bands opposed to it. Valdez, who com-
manded after Quesada, and who nad been the old commander in
Peru, committed the great blunder of fighting a general action
against mountaineers: whom if he beat he did not destroy,
wnereas their repulsing him was his ruin. Rodil, more cautious,
ran about the hills to catch Carlos. Mina, with a regular army,
waged a war of partisans with peasants, who were far better partisans
than his troops. Cordova, who succeeded, kept his army together;
and handled the Carlists so roughly in one action that they
shrunk from attacking him. But he conceived the same fears;-
declared that the war could only be carried on by blockading the
insurgent provinces; and finaUy resigned.

Espartero had till then distinguished himself more as a brilliant
cavalry officer, and a spirited general of division, than as a mili-
tary leader of first-rate merit : but his honest, firank character,
his abstinence from the heat of political party, and the opinion
that he wanted political genius and ambition, led to his appoiQt-
ment by the more liberal government which then took the helm.
The first .care of the new commander was to restore discipline, by
a severity till then unknown in the constitutional army. His
execution of the Chapelgorris for plundering a church, is well re-
membered. His efforts to keep the army paid, often compromised
his own private fortune; and placed him in many quarrels with
Mendizabal and the finance ministers of the time. He certainly
ffained no pitched battles : but from Bilboa round to Pampeluna
he kept the Carlists closely confined to their mountain region,
punished them severely when they ventured forth, and never
allowed himself to be beaten.

Nothing could be more advantageous than Zumalacarreguy's
position; mtrenched like a spider in an inaccessible and cen-
tral spot, from whence he could run forth with all his force
upon the enemy. Then, by threatening Bilboa, the Caxlist
general could at any time force the Chnstino general to take
a most perilous march to its relief. Twice, indeed three times,
were the Christinos forced to make this perilous march — ^the se-
cond time the most critical, for then Bilboa certainly could not
have been saved but for the energy and aid of the British officers.
To Lapidge, Wylde, and others, was due the deliverance of Bilboa,
Espartero was then suffering under a cruel illness. No sooner
however was the Luchana nver crossed by British boats, than

Duke of Victory, 255

he sprang on horseback, forgot bodily pain in martial excitement,
and led his troops through the Carlist cantonments and entrench-
ments, once more to the gates of Bilboa.

In despair, the Carlists then tried another mode of warfare.
They left the northern provinces, and undertook expeditions
throuffh all the rest of Spain, to gain recruits and provisions if
possible, and to jSnd another Biscay m the mountainous south. The
mdifFerence of the population caused this to fail, and Don Carlos
returned to the north. The aim of his general was then turned
to the possession of Bilboa and Santander, strong places, which if
mastered, the CarHst insurrection might repose there and act on
the defensive. To secure these points, more formidable intrench-
ments were raised on the heights leading to these towns, Don
Carlos hoped to form a Torres Vedras on the hills of Ramales
and Gruardanimi. The great exploit of Espartero was his series of
successful attacks upon these entrenchments in May, 1839. He
drove the CarUsts from all of them with very great loss; and from
that moment the war drew to an end. The spirit of insurrection
was broken, and justice allotted to Espartero the title of Duke op
Victory.

The miKtary struggle over, and the open rebellion put down,
the parUamentary but scarcely more peaceftil struggle between the
two parties calling themselves constitutional, became prominent.
When the emigration of the Spanish patriots took place in 1815
and 1823, in consequence of the absolutist reaction of Ferdinand,
some of the emigrants betook themselves to England, some to
France. Though paid Httle attention to by the governments of
either country, the Spanish emigrants were cordially received by
the liberal opposition in both countries ; and each came to admire and
adopt the ideas and principles with which he was placed in contact.
If Arguelles admired the frank school of English liberty, which
allows popular opinion its ftdl expression; Toreno and Martinez de
la Rosa adopted the more cautious tenets of the French doctri-
naires, or moderate liberals, who were for giving freedom but by
handfrils, and who maintained that domination and influence
should be confined to the enUghtened few, and sparingly commu-
nicated to the ignorant many. One can conceive the existence
of such a conservative party as this in England, where such influ-
ence exists, and where the aristocratic and well-informed classes
do possess this influence. But the necessity of creating and
laismg these classes, as was the case in Spain, and the impossibi-
lity of getting churchmen and old aristocrats to act moderate
toryism when they had been steeped and bred in absolutism, ren*
dered the policy of the moderados a vain dream. They had no

256 Espctrtero.

upper classes, no clergy, no throne beliind them: for that of Isa^
bella required, rather than gave support.

Conscious of this weakness, and seeing nothing Spanish around
them on which they could lean, the moderados placed their re-
liance on France, and trusted to that alliance to keep peace in
Spain, and win recognition from Europe. Louis PhiHppe had been
enabled to do in France, something like what they laboured to
effect in Spain : although he had been obliged to abandon an here*
ditary peerage, and to base his conservatism on the fears and pre*
judices of the upper class of citizens and commercial men. Spain
wanted this cla^ yet Coimt Toreno and his friends endeavoiued,
with less materials, to effect in Spain more than had been done
in France.

In the conflict between moderado and exaltado, Espartero had
remained completely neutral. His sole anxiety durmg the wax
was to have his army well supplied. He saw that the exaltado
minister did not do this with due effect, and as his army ap-
proached the capital in pursuit of the pretender, he allowed it to
remonstrate. This very imwarrantable act overthrew the exalta-
tados, and brought back the moderados to power. It was ^enerallj
believed, however, to have been the result of an intrigue ofthe staff,
who imposed upon the easy nature of the general. Espartero was
known, notwithstanding his anxiety to improve the supply of his
army, to have regretted the imconstitutionality of the step which

i)roauced this ministerial revolution. The circumstance shows, at
east, how little inclined was Espartero to pay court to the ultra*
liberals, or to aim at assiunptions of power through their in-
fluence.

After the convention of Bergara, which pacified the north,
the war still continued in Aragon, and the army was kept actively
employed under Espartero in that province and in Catalonia.
There was no doubt, however, as to the issue. The moderados,
in power, and delivered from the fear of Carlos and absolutism,
entered at once on the fulfilment of their priQciples, and the esta-
blishment of more conservative bases of administration, than those
which existed. For this purpose they took the most imprudent
step that could have been devised. Had they attacked the press,
and restrained its licence ; had they checked flie turbulence of the
lower classes, even by laws against association; had they passed the
most severe penalties against conspiracy — the Spaniards would
have borne all: but the moderados mought fit to attack the insti-
tution which is most truly Spanish, and that in which all classes of
citizens, upper and lower, are most deeply interested. The modera-
dos attempted to change the municipal institutions of the countiy^
and to introduce a new and centralizing system in imitation of the

Resists the Moderados, 257

French, and in Keu of the old Spanish system of ayuntamientos.
Their elected municipal body and magistrates were certainly the
key of the parliamentary elections, of the formation of the national
guard, of local taxation, and in factof all power. But toattack them
was the more dangerous; and the first mention of theplan raised
a flame firom one end of the peninsula to the other. The French
court pressed the queen regent to persevere, saying that no sove-
reign power could exist in imison with the present state of local
and municipal independence : the queen regent did persevere, and
obtained a vote of me cortes.

The Duke of Victory had at that time peculiar opportunities
for judging of the sentiments of the great towns of Aragon and
Cataloiua and Valencia : his army was quartered amongst them,
and his supphes were drawn in a great measure from them. All
these towns had made great sacrifices during the war, and their
indignation was great at finding that the first result of that war
should be a deprivation of their liberties. The Duke of Victory, how
much soever he had hitherto kept aloof firom politics, now wrote
to the queen regent, and remonstrated with the ministry on the
danger of persisting in the contemplated measures. His coimsels
were received with secret derision; but as the towns could not be
repressed without the aid of the armv, the general was told that
no important resolution should be taken without his concurrence.
He in consequence quieted the apprehensions and agitation of the
townsmen.

The ministry persisted not the less in canying out the law: but
fearing the resistance or neutraUty of Espartero, they begged the
queen regent to go in person to Catalonia, under pretence of sea-
bathing, in order to exercise her influence over what was con-
siderea the weak mind of the Duke of Victory. The French
envoy, indeed, opposed this journey; and predicted with much
truth, that if once the queen regent trusted herself to the army, and
to the population of the great and liberal towns of Saragossa,
Barcelona, or Valencia, she would be forced to withdraw the
obnoxious law.

Christina and her ministers both persisted. Both knew Espar-
tero's devotion to the queens, and they reckoned on his chival-
rous nature to fly in the face of danger, rather than shrink in
prudence from it. She set forth, and the Duke of Victory has-
tened to meet her at Igualada. Christina recapitulated all the
theoretic and doctrinaire reasons of her ministers for humbling
the pride and independence of the great Spanish towns; the
Duke of Victory replied that perhaps she was right, though it
seemed ungrateful thus to repay the towns for their late sacrifices
and devotion to the constitutional cause. But right or wrong,

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIII. S

258 Espariero,

another consideration dominated: and this was the impossifaUity
of enforcing the kw without produdbcg an insurrection of the

or the orderer of such measures. But he was ready to resign.'

The queen and ministers knew however, that the resignation
of Espartero then would have led to a military insurrection; for
the soldiers and officers had already suspected that they were about
to be dismissed, and without compensation. The end of the inter-
view was, that the Duke of Victory must keep the command at all
events; and that Christina would consult her ministry, and at least
not promulgate the law with the royal sanction till after further
consultation and agreement with the commander-in-chief Chris-
tina hastened to Barcelona, met two of her ministers, and forgot
in their exhortation the advice of the general and her promises to
him. The consequence was the double insurrection, first of Bar-
celona and then of Valencia, which compelled her to abdicate.

Such were the events that produced the interre^um, and left
the regency to be filled by the cortes. It was evident firom the
first that no one could fill that post to the exclusion of the Duke
of Victory; and yet it must be owned there was great repug-
nance to elect him on the part of a great number of deputies.
The honest patriots dreaded to see a soloier at the head of a con-
stitutional government, and demanded that one or two civilians
should be associated with him in a triple regency; but the greater
number were of course the interested, the place andpower-himteis;
these saw in a triple regency many more chances of rising by isr
vour, and obtaining office, than imder a single regent, a military man,
accustomed to order his aide-de-camp about, and utterly unskilled
in appreciating address in intri^e and skill in courtier^p ; they,
therefore, also demanded the triple regency, and at first there was
a decided majority for this decision. It was then that the Duke
of Victory declared, that the triple regency might be the best
mode of rule during the minority of the queen, but that forhim-
self he was determined to make no part of it. It would, hesaid,
be a divided, a squabbling, and a powerless triumvirate. Thetrue
patriots then saw the danger of setting aside the general and the
army, the instant after both had saved the municipal liberties of
the country; they saw the probable result of setting up three not
very eminent persons to perform together the all-important office;
and waving their objections to Espartero, they agreed to vote him
sole regent.

Thus was the Duke of Victory appointed, and he ever after
showed his gratitude to the thorough Uberal and patriotic party,

Regent, 259

who trusted him on this occasion. To them he delivered up the
ministry : to them he promised never to interfere with the ff ovem-
ment, but to live as a constitutional ruler, above the strife and
struggles of parties. In this the Duke of Victory was wrong : he
fihomdhave opened his palace, lived in the throng, listened to the
plaints, the desires, the feelings of aU parties, and made him-
self adherents amongst alL The Spaniaros tender eminence only
on the condition of its being affable, and look upon kings, as we
8^d before, with a kind of Arabic sentiment, as summary righters
of wrongs, and controllers of aU that is iniquitously done by their
servants administering power. Espartero thought he acted the
sovereign most fully by shutting himself in a smaU palace, by doing
bufflness regularly, and bv eschewing all the pleasurable and re-
presentative part of his nmctions. He understood little of the
minutiae of politics, and cared not to talk of theuL He gave no
dinners, no balls, no tertulliaSf no card-tables. In short, his salary
was dean lost to the courtiers and placemen, and would-be place-
men. The women declared him to be a very dull Regent, and
thdr condemnation was fatal.

The most inveterate enemies of the Regent were, however, the
new and bastard portion of the Liberals — ^those whom the French
ministerial papers called Young Spain: men jealous of the old
Liberals of 1809 and 1821, who looked upon Arguelles and Cala-
trava as out of date, and who considered themselves represent-
atives of a new and practical school of Uberalism, superior to any yet
discovered. Caballero and Olozaga were the chidfs of the party:
but these gendemen, however able as orators and writers, had never
succeeded in attaching to them more than an insignificant number
of followers. Timid, tortuous, and time-serving, they were of that
class of poHticians which can harass a ministry, but are incapable
themselves of forming an administration. The Regent was sorely
puzzled how to deal with them. Their speeches in the Cortes
were backed at times by a large number of votes; but when
he summoned them to his presence, and bade them form a
ministry, they always declined. They had a majority for oppo-
sition, they said, but not for power. This might have puzzled a
more experienced constitutional sovereign than Espartero. Soldier-
like, he bade them go about their business. He was wrong. He
ought on the contrary, like Louis Philippe in similar circimi-
stances, to have &cihtated their formation of a ministry; he
ought to have smiled upon them; he ought to have lent them a
helping hand; and then, after they had been fuUy discredited
by a SIX months' hold of power, he might easily have turned
them adrift, as the king of the French did M. Thiers.

Secure in the affection and support of the old stanch liber^^^

260 jEtpartero.

Darty, the Regent never dreamed that these could be overcome
by men affectingto be more liberal than they. But Spain was not
left to itself. The French court became exceedingly jealous at
this time of the Regent's intentions respecting the marriage of the
yoimg queen. They sent an envoy, who was called a fiunity
ambassador, and who as such pretended to immediate and uncon-
trolled access to the young queen. The Regent resisted, the
envoy left, France was more irritated, and then determined on
the Regent's downM. Thirty journals were almost simultane-
ously established in Madrid and different parts of the peninsula,
all of which set up the same cry of the Regent's being sold to
England, and of Spain being about to be sacrificed in a trea^ of
commerce. Barcelona, most likely to be affected by this bugMar
treaty, was of course the centre of opposition; and there, imder the
instigation and with the pay of French agents, open resistance was
organized, and insurrection broke forth. The subsequent events
are known: the bombardment, the reduction, the lenity of the
Regent, the impunity of the Barcelonese, and their perseverance
even after defeat in braving authority.

The army was then tampered with : at least some regiments.
The Spanish officer though brave is unfortunately a gambler and
an idler, with little prospect of making way in his profession by
talent or by promotion in war ; all chances of the latter are at pre-
sent cut off; promotion is now to be had only by revolutions, since,
if these are successful, the military abettors nse a step. Then there
are court ways of rising in the armv: a handsome fellow attract-
ing the attention of the queen or of a lady in whom king or mi-
nister is interested : and all these chances were precluded by the
dull, moral regency of Es^artero, to whose self and family and
ministers, such ways and intrigues were utterly imknown. The
young officers longed for the reign of the queens, yoimg or old, and
'down with Espartero' was first their wish, and then their cnr.

Indeed from the first the Spanish officers were disinclinea to
Espartero as general, and much preferred Cordova, a diplomatist
and a courtier ; but the soldiers on the other hand preferred the
Regent. With this class, then, especially with the non-commissioned
officers, the efforts of the conspirators were chiefly made. Calum-
nies were circulated, promises lavished, the soldiers attached to the
service were promised grades, the rest were promised dismissal to
their homes: in fine, the army was debauched, and when the
Regent wanted to make use of it as a weapon of defence, it broke
in his hands and pierced him.

The condemnation on which Espartero's enemies, the French,
lay most stress, is his want of skill in maintaining himself in
power. Success with them covers every virtue. The want of it

His Fall. 261;

exaggerates every defect. There was a discussion at Prince Tal-
leyrand's one evening, as to who was the greatest French states-
man in modem times. Each named his political hero. Talley-
rand decided that Villele was the greatest man, on the ground
that in a constitutional country he kept the longest hold of power :
adding, that the best rope-dancer was he who kept longest on the
cord. The great proof of political genius, according to Talley-
rand, was to stick longest in place. The rule is a wretched 6nd,
and yet Espartero womd not lose by being even in that way judged :
for no Spaniard has kept such prolonged command and influence,
none have attained more brilliant ends. The Treaty of Bergaxa,
and the Regency, are two successes that might well content a life.
And after all Espartero was long enough regent to allow Spain
to enjoy tranquillity under his rule, and to afford every one a
taste and a prospect of what Spain might yet become, under a
free, a peaceable, and a regular government.

A greater and more rare example offered to Spain by the Re-
gent's government, was the honesty of its political and financial
measures. There was no court nor court treasurer to absorb one-
third or one-half of every loan and every anticipation, nor could
the leasers or farmers of the public revenue obtain easy bargains
by means of a bribe. Such things were disposed of by pubhc
competition; and Calatrava in this respect left behind him an
example, which will render a recurrence to the old habit of pro-
ceeding too scandalous and intolerable.

So, morality and simplicity of life, though a cause of dislike with
courtiers, with place and money-hunters, was on the contrary, a
rare and highly-appreciated merit in the eyes of the citizens. No
one cause occasioned more disgusts and revolts in Madrid than
the scandals of the court of Madrid. Its removal was a great
bond of peace, whatever people may say of the salutary influence
of royalty!

The party attached to the regency of the Duke of Victory as
the best symbol and guard of the constitution, lay chiefly in the
well-informed and industrious class of citizens, such as exist in
great majority in Madrid, Saragossa, Cadiz. In Catalonia the
manufacturers and their workmen were against him, from a
belief that he wished to admit English cotton. SeviUe is an old
archiepiscopal seat, where the clerOT have great influence ; and the
clergy there, as well as rivalry of Cadiz, occasioned its resistance.
There is, one may say, no rustic population in the south. All the
poor congregate in towns, or belong to them, and form a mass of
Ignorant, excitable, changeable opimon, that is not to be depended
upon for twenty-four hours. There is throughout a strong vein
01 republicanism, and a contempt for all things and persons

262 Espartero.

north of the Sierra Morena : so that nothing is more easy than to
get up an dborato against the goyemment of the time being. The
north of Spain, on the contrary, depends upon its rural popula-
tion ; and is slower to move, but much more formidable and steady
when once made to embrace or declare an opinion. Throughout
the north, neither citizens nor servants declared against the
regent. It was merely the garrisonp and troops of the line.
Such being the force and support of the different parties, one is
surprised to find that Espartero so easily succumbed, and we can-
not but expect that his recall, either as regent or general, is sooner
or later inevitable.

The career of the Duke of Victory beinff thus fer from closed,
it woidd be premature to carve out his full-length statue: to be
too minute in personal anecdote, too severe or too laudatory in
judging him. Our materials too are but meager; though the
' Galene des Cotemporains' which heads our article is a populmr
and meritorious little work. Our present task is, however, suf-
ficiently discharged. Senor Flores promises at Madrid a Ufe of
Espartero in three volumes; and the Duke of Victoria and Spain
are subjects that we shall have ample occasion and necessity to
recur to.

*i

( 263 )

SHORT REVIEWS

OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

Det JendteSy par MM. Mighelet et Quiket. Paris. 1843.

HxcHEUBT the historian, and Quinet the eloquent lecturer upon the
literature of the South, have suspended their ordinary^ labours to ring
an alarum upon the revival of the Jesuits in France. Let us

fiance at the cause of their provocation. For some time past the clergy
ave complained of the exclusive control exercised by the University
over the education of the rising generation, the heads of which they ac-
cuse of corrupting the minds of youth by tiie dissemination of infidel
principles. This char^ pushed through all its consequences (and they
are readily conceivable), is, as our readers vnll acknowledge, very grave,
and such as the government itself, the direct patron and supporter of
the university, could not allow to remain unanswered. M. Villemain,
the minister of public instruction, himself a professor formerly, was the
earliest to take the field : in the £u?st instance verbally in his place in the
Chamber of Peers, and then as the author of an elaborate report, offi-
dally prepared upon the state of education in France, in which he not
only demonstrated the immense spread <^ education tiurough tiie care of
the university, but asserted its strict attention to tiie provision of reli-

S'ous instruction. M. Villemain's defence of the umversity rendered
m perhaps the most popular of tiie present ministers : ms vindica-
tion, complete as it was considered to be, limiting itself to tiie strict
line of defence. Had it been more, it might have detracted from
its own completeness as well as from the temperate dignity of a high
government officer. But the university professors were not trammelled
oy considerations of etiquette and position ; and they, attacked directiy as
corrupt teachers, have not felt bound to forego the exquisite pleasure of
retaliation. Infidels as they were accused of being, tiiey knew that
there was a name more hateful still, the name of Jesuity and this they
have loudly shouted through the length and breadth of the land.

It was in tiie early part of the summer that M. Mchelet turned, in a
seemingly abrupt manner, from an historical course he was pursuing, to
deal with the mechanical, material, lifeless, soulless form which he con-
sidered the literature of tiie present day to be taking : the same sys-
tem which he conceived to have been once adopted by the enemies
of all true knowledge. ' The Jesuits in the 16th century affected
to be lovers of learning, and consented to feed tiie intellect with
the husks and shells, the mere mechanical forms, that they might the
more easily deprive the soul of its true food.' But in Michelet's
dealing with the subject of Jesuitism, there is more of the poet
than dF the keen controversialist. * The machinery employed by

264 On the Jesuits,

the Jesuits/ he exclaims, ' has been active and powerful: but its pro*
ductions have nothing of life : there has been wanting that which ib
in all society the most striking sign of life, a great man — not one
man in three hundred years.' Even their skill as teachers, looked
upon generally as their redeeming merit, he treats with contempt as
merely mechanical, as rendering the pupils automatons, regulating the
external conduct but leaving the heart untouched by any good influ-
ence. Michelet, in fine, writes as if he took for granted that mankind
had so learned by heart the atrocities of Jesuitism, that no more was
wanted than an organ for the fuU expression of the general indig^tion4
Quinet, on the other hand, is more methodical in his attack, and does
not assume any charge to be proved and known. He states his case
with the clearness and conviction of proof of a skilled advocate, and waits
until the reason be convinced before he fires the passions. We suppose
it must be taken as a tribute to the eminence of the poet-historian, that
the fragments of his lectures are printed first in order : they ought to
have been the last : to feel their nill force, M. Quinet^s complete his*.
tory should be first perused. Let us extract from the fifth lecture of
the latter the foUowing passage, for its unmistakable application
to existing circumstances :

''*' Wherever a dynasty fklls, I see stancling erect behind, like an evil genius, as
if it rose from the earth, one of those sombre Jesuit confessors, who leads it ta
death with a gentleness that might be called paternal : Father Nithaid beside the
last heir of the Austrian dynasty in Spain — ^Father Auger beside the last of the
Yalois— Father Peters beside the last of the Stuarts. I might speak of a mBdi
nearer period, one in fact within your own experience. (The professor aUudes
to Charles X.) Let us go back, however, to Louis XTV., and regard the face of
Father Le Tellier, as depicted in the Memoirs of Saint Simon. What a lugnbd*
ous air, what a presentiment of death, that face casts over all society. An ex-
change of character seems as it were to take place between the monarch and his
confessor, and I know nothing more appalling than such a contemplation : the
king giving up day by day some jwrtion of his moral existence, and receiving in
return a portion of bitter leaven; the sustained ardour of intrigue invading and
seizing as fast as conscience ^ves way ; the triumph by degrees of all that is petty
over all that was grand ; until the soul of Father Tellier seems to take the place
of that of Louis XIV., and to rule the conscience of the nation, no longer able to
recognise its old king, whose death at last relieves it from the double loaid of abso-
lute power and of political religion. What a warning! notwithstanding a dif^
ence of time, it ought never to be forgotten."

This passage may sufiBce to show that religious controversy is not what
is prominent in the mind of the speaker. Religion is indeed treated
reverently throughout. A protest is raised in the name of the church
itself against these modern templars — ^not half soldier, half priest, but
worse still* half monk half police : and that in the worse sense of a con-
tinental gendarmerie : for the system is one of espioruige upon the ex-
ercise of thought, so subtle and so treacherous that all are agents
therein, and as much acted upon as actors.

Is it possible, let us ask, that such a revival is taking place, and in
such a country as France ? But when we see bastilles surrounding Paris,
we may cease to wonder that chains are weaving within for the sub-
jugation of the mind. The hint has not been lost, that those who
helped to nuse the one may easily submit to the other. The conclusioii

Quarrels of Dumas and Janin. 265

is logical. But Jesuitism is an evil to be apprehended equally by ruler
and people. Look only at the history of its banishments, from Venice
in 1606, from Bohemia in 1618, from Naples in 1622, and from the
Low Countries in the same year; fr^m Lidia in the year following,
from Russia in 1676, from Portugal in 1752, from Spain in 1767, from
France in 1764, and at last from Rome herself in 1773! With
such history before us, can it be possible that this society, in thirteen
years afi;er the fall and in the country of its last royal -victim,
threatens to nestle within the barbarous Gothic walls of the most civi-
lised of continental nations? M. Michelet says yes. He declares, upon
credible authority, that there are twice the number of Jesuits now that
tibere were at the moment of the revolution of July. The number then
was 423, it is now 960. The Jesuits, then confined to some houses,
are now in every diocese. Be the apprehension exaggerated, however, or
be it weU founded, it has drawn forth some brilliant evidence of the spirit
ready to meet any attempt upon the freedom of thought, enough to warn
the most hardy of the order against persistance in so vast an enterprise.

Les Demoiselles de Saint Cyr» (Comedy in Five Acts, followed by a
Letter to Jules Janin.) By Alexander Dumas. Paris. 1843.

It is the critics* custom in France, to write their names on the trench-
ant blade with which they operate upon all subjects, good or bad.
The custom is attended with mconvenience. The author rejects the
critics' lessons, and retorts upon the man personally : the critic is apt to
forget the autlior and his work, and to set up on his own account. M.
Janin, for instance, who has drawn upon his head the anger of Alexan-
der Dumas for his criticism of * Les Demoiselles de Saint Cyr,* very
seldom gives himself much trouble in the way of analysis. The play,
with him, is not the thing. It is only the mx>tif for an interminable
bravura^ brilliant and rattling : the reader thinking all the time only
of M. Janin, and M. Janin inking only of himself. He writes vritn
some such thought as this everlastingly in his head. ' You think that
comedy amusing? Fools! I will show you something that is amusing.'
And straightway he throws you a somerset, makes you a succession of
grimaces, stands on his head, puts his toe in his mouth, and having
tickled and confoimded you with the untiring capers and etourderie
of boundless animal spirits, ends by a challenge to the now forgotten
author, to match such exploits if he can.

But Janin is not without method in his madness. With all his tom-
foolery he is no fool. He knows that in a city where every body goes
to the play, none will be prevented going by any thing he can say.
He therefore must maintain his critical supremacy by amusing ; and
much of the jealousy and dislike with which he is viewed by comic
writers arises from the fact, that at their expense he makes his criticisms
more amusing than their plays. ' Les Demoiselles de Saint Cyr,' for
instance, are as uninteresting a pair of demoiselles as, to use Lord
Byron's expressive, but not ovemice phrase, ^ ever smelled of bread and
butter.' The plot is so improbable as to be utterly absurd. A Count

266 DumcLs^ Unsuccessful Comedy,

Saint Harem enters by a fSdse key into the celebrated estabHdunent
founded by Madame de Maintenon* His design is upon Miss Char-
lotte ; but a knowing little friend, Miss Louisa, interposes, asking the
gentleman the nature of his intentions* The latter finds tiiat, to
succeed with the one, he must get the other provided with an ad-
mirer ; so putting his head out of the window, he calls to a friend who
happens to be passing. This Mend, although engaged to be married
within two hours^ agrees to give up one hour of the time, and while his
bride is waiting to be conducted to the church, makes love to Miss
Louisa, and is accepted. But at the moment the two gentlemen are about
to take leave, they are arrested, carried off to the bastille, and obliged
to marry the young ladies, lest the character of the establishment should
be compromised. The h^ro and his friend depart for Madrid, and the
wives, abandoned at the altar, follow them in disguise, and according to
an easily foreseen termination, in a rather clumsy way irin back tneir
affections.

Well, nobody could laugh at such stuff as this, so Janin, taking pity
upon the public, gave them at the break&st-table what they ought to
have had for their money at the Theatre Frangais. Now had Jamn
declaimed from behind the mysterious 'we,* Monsieur Dumas would
have felt bound, if in the vein ror remonstrating, to have eschewed per-
sonalities, and to have defended his play on its own merits. And
this brings us to the question we touched upon at starting. It b
argued that the signature of criticisms by authors would put an end to
personality as against authors; but would the personal pronoun singu-
lar be equally efficacious in protecting critics f The letter of M. Dumas
is in some sort an answer. Instead of entering^ upon the merits of his
play, he attacks Janin, reminds him of a time when he lived in a ganet»
accuses him of havmg attempted to write a play, in which attempt he

in's writing for bad spelling of Italian words ; and

&iled ; rummages Janin's writing

deals in insinuations of which it is presumed M. Janin's friends must feel
the force. The end of the matter was, they say, that after challenges
sent, and politely declined, the critic and the dramatist were seen, on
the occasion of the sixteenth performance of the Demoiselles^ amicably
seated together in the same box of the Th^4tre Fran9ais.

y
Mistoire Philosophique et Litteraire du Theatre Frangais depuis son
Originejusgu^a nos Jours. (Philosophical and literary Hist(»y of
the French Theatre, from its Origin to our own Time.) Par M.
Hyfpolite Lucas. Paris: GosseHn. 1843.

M. Lucas treats the early part of the history of the French stage as
Robertson did the first portion of the history of Scotland, that is to say,
he hardly deems it worthy of treatment at all. The thirty-fourth page
of a volume extending to nearly four hundred, brings the reader to Cor-
neille, who is treated as the founder of the French drama. High too
as is the author^s admiration for the works of this truly great writer, he

Htstory of the French JTieatre. 267

18 obliged to acknowledge that the school he created does not bear the
impress of originality -much marks the productions of the English stage.

^l%e En^h stage (he says at p. 298) possesses a truly original value.
Thanlcs to Shakspeare, it blossoms upon a richer soil, one more stirred up and
more frnitfbl than our own« Old Inland, with reform working in her bosom*
and agitated hy intestine wars, gare birth to more stronglj-marl^ features; and
while, at the same time, her national character became more distinctly traced, the
dtizen had grown, and stood out better from the canvass. . • But when Comeille,
and Molidre, and Badne wrote, instead of those hardy and vigorous characters
which served as models for Shakspeare, there existed mere courtiers, whose sen-
timents took the taoe from those of their masters, as their watch was set by the
Chateau dock.**

But fortunately for the character of the French stage, it began to
feel the influence of the English drama even before the death of Vol-
taire ; and in proportion as wat influence infused itself into its languid
veinSy did it advance towards power and poetry. M. Lucas declares
OTenly for the ^ Bomantic School :' being indeed an avowed disciple of
victor Hngo. Romanticism he thus defends:

*' Bidicule in France very quickly attaches itself to words, but does not long
retain its hold; in their course ci circulation it is soon rubbed off, and they no
knger pass current. It is thus that we now hardly dare to use the word roman"
UquCj once so famous; and yet in this word there is a just idea, an idea of progress
as yet incomplete; few persons have ccwiprehended its true acceptation. In the
^yes of many it still represents some young enthusiasts, with long hair upon their
dbkoulders and pointed beards, or certain literary eccentridties opposed to common
sense; but those who have reflected upon works of art, know well that the mask
must not be taken for the face, and that allowance should be made fbr tiie ez-
aggeraticns which necessarily accompany innovation. What is the meaning of
that rcsnantic adiool, whose place can no longer be disunited? Taking it in the
leiious sense given to it by the critic, romantic signifies simply that which, spring-
ing from the poetic flancy, is opposed to mere convention. Greek literature was
in this sense romantic; Boman hterature, on the contrary, was classic for the
reason tiiat it was a constant imitation. The Spaniards, tiie Eng^h, the Ger-
mans have been romantic; we cannot too often repeat it, their literature has
qnrong from tiieir soil; while French literature firam its very birth was imitative
^-impregnated with the spirit of antiquity.''

It was at the period of the Bestoration that French poets showed

themselves sick of Mars and Cupid. But, remarks M. Lucas>

" By a reaction against the worn out form of which they felt the absurdity,
they at first adopted the language of Catholicism, making a display of religious
9Da even monardhical sentiments, with which they were a little touched. Old ca*
thedrals and old ch&teaux, revived by the taste for the middle age, gave to ^e
new poets a colour of royalty and of devotion, which quickly disappeared. Such
were the ideas whidi troubled Victor Hugo when he presented *Hemani;' he
gave battle to the stationary party, who di£^uted the ground inch by inch. M*
Victor Hugo called to his aid the young, the ardent, tiie impetuous hke himself;
iSl who spumed conventional forms, pr^udices, and abuses ; all who demanded the
liberty (h art Then flocked from the painters' atdiers, firom the workshops, from
the Hbrsries, from the lecture-rooms, all this vigorous and bearded race, original
and cavalier— this army, which it must be allowed sometimes demeaned itsdf a
little tooarrogantiy — ^and which M. Hugo is blamedfbir having called together, as if
he had opened a pandemonium.'*

We need not follow M. Lucas through Ins critical analysis of the
dramas of Victor Hugo, and of those other writers of the Bomantie
School who have with more or less distinction followed in his wake.

268 History of the French Theatre,

Tlie reading public have already formed tb^ opinions upon them. It
is sufficient to say that M. Lucas has not a word of censure to o£Per
against any writer, from Comeille to himself, except M. de Balza<^
against whom he seems to entertain as much prejudice as a siugulady
kindly nature will allow. And even against him he does not discharge
any acrid humour. It is a squeeze of a lemon, only disagreeable because
fimited to that one spot. We confess we could not only pardon, but
relish a stronger infusion, mixed with a little more art. All the praise
may be deserved, no doubt ; but so much of it leaves a dull langu^l
sweetness upon the palate, as if the author had dipped his pen in treade
-—as Balzac says he is apt to do.

In his concluding chapter the author asks what ought to be the
comedy of our time, and gives the following ingenious answer :

•* M. cte Talleyrand, according to the idea entertained of his character, might be
regarded as the modd of this comedy. It consists chiefly in an hypocrisy of
words transparent enough for men of sense to pierce through. Fools akme are
deceived. Life with these amiahle forms, which pretend to show regard, and feair
to disohlige, wears a more agreeable aspect. It is not falsehood — ^but politeness:
we like to be lulled with the sound of its eulogistic music. We pass the cSaaor from
one to the other with grace and discretion. AH being dissimulatioD, few marked
features appear. The art of comedy consists now, perhaps, in the difference be-
tween thought and language, between life as it is, and the opinion that we wi^
others to entertain of us. It conceals itself in the train of little fiedsehoods thatform
the foundation of the greater part of the characters of the day. fVom the dash-
ing of diverse interests and of wounded vanities, let truth be} elicited: you Trill
have the comedy of the age."

This History of the French Theatre has, in a certain sort, supplied a
desideratum in French literature. But we must protest against the
high-sounding title of ^ Historic Philosophique,' &c., it is the Dip the
wig in the Atlantic of Sterne's Barber. Philosophy is a great word,
raising great expectations. Whereas, those who sit down to read M.
Lucas with great expectations, will certainly be disappointed. They
will have a pleasant resume of the plays which graced the Thiatre
Frangais and the Odeon from their foundation, with notices of the
most remarkable actors. And voUa tout. But even that is a great
deal, for those who are not unwisely led to look for more.

Nizza und die Meeralpen, geschUdert von einem Schweizer. (Nice
and the Maritime Alps, described by a Swiss.) Zurich : Meyer and
Zeller.

Nice, now chiefly celebrated for its concourse of consumptive English-
men, sent there under an erroneous notion of its fitness to cure puhno*'
nary complaints, has been an important city in the history of Europe,
and has come in for its ftdr share of all the broils that have agitated
Italy, from the wars of the ancient Romans to the invasions of republican
Frenchmen. The first eruption of barbarians was followed by the da^
struction of Nice ; it was burned by the Lombards in 577; it was de*
molished by the Saracens in the time of Charlemagne. Most frequent
has been its change of masters. Attached, together with Provence, t6.
France by Charles Martel, it followed Provence when the kingdom of

Account of Nice. 269

Aries was formed. A few years of republican independence were allowed
it in the twelfth century, hy the indolence of its lulers ; and during this
short peiiod, a constitution arose, the outlines of which exist at the present
day. But it soon passed over into the house of Arragon, by honoimtUe
treaty, when Alphonso I. inherited the countship of Provence. A defi-
leienoy of male heirs caused a transfer of Firovence and Nice to the house
of Anjou, in consequence of a marriage, in 1246, of the Arragoniaa
beiress with Charles, brother of the King of France. Then the new ac-
quiffltions of its Angerin monarch rendered Nice an appurtenance of the
crown of Naples; and when the unfortunate Queen Giovanna fled,
in consequence of the murder of her husband, about which there is so
much di^rence of opinion, it was in this city she found the kindest
reception. In the contentions for the succession, which followed the
deatli of Giovanna, Nice declared for the house of Burazzo ; but it now
found that it had a sovereign who was unable to assist it against the
daims of the rival pretender, and was forced to seek a protector in the
person of Amadeus II., Count of Savoy. The choice of this protector
was made with the consent of Ladislaus of Sicily; and it was understood
that the rights of the latter were in no manner compromised. This
imcertain position of protector was, however, soon changed for a more
substantial title ; and in 1419, Nice formally passed from the house of
Anjou to that of Savoy. The Counts of Savoy became dukes in 1416,
and Ejngs of Sardinia at the beginning of last century; and therefore
to the kingdom of Sardinia, the city of Nice is now attached.

The anonymous ' Swiss' who has written the account of Nice, has
made a very small book, but a very complete one. In little more than
a pamphlet, he has given a description of the city and the surrounding
country; he has set forth the natiure of its constitution; he has pointed
out the moral peculiarities of the people ; he has criticised the climate,
pronouncing the belief that it is benencial to consmnptive subjects to be
quite fallacious ; he has shown the life which foreigners may expect to
lead when they visit Nice; he has drawn up a succinct history of the town,
from the time of the Romans to the present day; and he has exhibited
the peculiarities of the provincial language in a chapter, whidi it would
not be too much to call a grammar. This is, indeed, and in the best
sense, multum inparvof

We select for extract the chapter which is devoted to the ^ foreigners
at Nice.'

** The foreigners who come annually to Nice to pass the winter there form
a distinct part of the population. They are mostly English, and their number
is estimated at from 5000 to 6000, in addition to the French, Germans, Rus-
sians, Poles, &c. For their reception is the new quarter of Nice prepared ;
for them is the large suburb, Croix de Marbre, erected ; for them are designed
the beautiful villas which adorn the environs of the city, and the number of
wliich is said to amount to 1000. Hence there is no want of lodgings for
large or small families, or single individuals. Tliese residences are completely
furnished. The rent varies according to the situation and quality from 300
to 1000 francs for the winter half year. There are lodgings for the highest
and genteelest class, as well as for persons of the middle rank. In the sum-
mer montlis the rent is much lower. The proprietors consider winter as the

270 Foreigners at Nice,

only tinift when they can derive any profit from thdr houses, and therefore
they make a point of then paying themselves for the whole year.

'* Provisions are not dear at Nice. Throughout the winter there are peas
and other pulse, cauliflowers, spinach, and artichokes, as well as apples and
potatoes. The sea affords many kincb of fish. Meat, poultry, and hutter
oorae from Piedmont. The wine, which is grown in the country, is cheap, but
seldom unmixed. Red wine is commonly drunk ; the white is scarcer and
deuer, and generally sweet, in consequence of the materials with which
it is mixed. The water, without being bad, is not remarkably good, as it is
senerally drawn from cisterns. The milk too is not excellent, since there
IS a want of meadows, and the few cows that are kept do not find proper
nourishment. Fruits of all sorts are in abundance, especially pomegranates,
which are exceedingly cheap. Ripe figs are seen after April, cherries and
strawberries appear in May, grapes are to be procured in July. Wood and
charcoal, which are chiefly used in cooking, are dear. A visiter can either
keep his own establbhment, or dine at a redawratew^t. There are also
numerous hotels wadpensitnu which will provide a dinner at home.

** The mode of life adopted by foreigners at Nice is as it generally is
with such places as are visited by some &r the sake of pleasure, and otneis
for the sake of health or laborious indolence.

" The beauties of nature, the warm sun, the blue sky, invite to excuisions
which are made sometimes on foot, sometimes in carriages, and sometimes
on horseback, or on asses, which is here just as common. The environs of
Nice are io^diaustible in affording new and pleasant walks ; and the dty
itself, the mound with its extensive prospect, the corso, with its shady trees
and bustle of life, and the terrace by the seaside, offer mudi that is at-
tractive.

** Those who seek the pleasures of social life and of the world, will be sa-
tisfied at Nice. Besides a theatre, at which there are performances in French
and Italian, there is a society called the ' Philharmonic Circle,' to whidi
foreigners may have admittance. In the well-ordered part of the city there
are social reunions, balls, and concerts, and there is also a library, and a se-
lection of the journals and periodical publications which are allowed in
the country. Of these, indeed, there is no great number, and a zealous poli-
tician and reader of newspapers here and through the whole of Sardmia,
must imbibe a spirit of content, and be satisfied with tolerably bare and mo-
notonous diet. Periodical literature is confined within very narrow bounds,
and very few foreign journals are allowed to penetrate into the celestial king-
dom of Sardinia. The legitimist journals of France, the 'Gazette oe
France,'^ and its less important relations, the * Grazette du Midi,' &c., enjoy
the highest degree of favour. Journals of another complexion, even though
moderate, as the * Journal des D^bats' are excluded. Of German papeis,
the * Wiener Zeitung,' and the * Oesterreichische Beobachter,' and others of
a similar character are admitted. The ' Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung,*
which is read all over the world, even in Austria, and especially at Milan, is
among the prohibited wares, and, like other journals in the same condition,
can only be procured by &voured persons with the especial permission of the
minister for foreign affairs, which it is most difficult to obtain. Of Swiss
papers, the * Tessinerzeitung,' and the * Constitutionel Neuchatelois,* are
alone tolerated. In Sardinia itself, there is only one paper, the ' Gazette
Piemontese,' and this contains extracts from the foreign journals which are
not admitted.

# # # # *

** Other branches of literature share the same fate as the periodical, when

■ — — ■-_ — -,

* Since prohibited.

Character of ScheUing, 27 X

rdipioD and politics are concerned. Nothing is allowed that is not in ac*
cor&nce with the spirit of the whole, with the idea of a patriarchal and
priestly goyernment. If a person takes with him but a few books, excessive
rigour is not used ; but if^ contemplating a long star, he wishes to bring a
wlection of fitvourite works, or to order them from home, that he may take
his necessary intellectual food, and guard off the insipidity consequent on a
dolcefar mente, he will find his project attended witn many difficulties. If
the books, by observance of the necessary forms, happily cross the frontier,
they will not pass the custom-house at Nice, without the consent both of
the spiritual and temporal authorities. This is only given after a careful in*
vestigation : to further which, the owner must give a threefold list, containing
the exact titles of the books in question. If, unfortunately, any religious
works, and above all, any of an anti-catholic or political character are found,
the consent is very difficult to obtain, and then it is granted only under cer-
tain conditions. New difficulties arise when a person wishes to quit the
oountrv, and to proceed further with his books. For then they are ex-
amined anew at the first custom-house ; a threefold list must agam be pre-
pared ; and in spite of all entreaties, diey are kept back, sealed with lead,
and sent by a special conveyance to the frontier, where the owner, if he is in
luck, will nnd them on payment of the carriage expenses^

^ Under such circumstances, it is expedient to content oneself with
sudi literature as the place affords ; which, is not of a very important
character. There are to be seen at Nice several booksellers and reading-
zooms, but these afford little to satisfy the higher demands of the mind, and
the stock consists merely of English, French, and Italian beUe» lettret and ro*
mances. Other more important necessities, namely, those of a religious
kind, part at least of the foreign residents, find a difficulty in satisfying. The
English indeed, consistently with their estimable mode of thought, have
erected a place of worship even in Nice ; but this is only of service to those
who know the English language. A French clergyman who settled at Nice
some time ago, and delivered very editing discourses in his own language,
was not tolerated by the bishop, and left tne country to the regret of every
one.**

We think the above will show that Nice is not a place that will suit
an Englishman for a length of time, especially vdien it is proved that
it has wrongly obtained that character for curing pulmonary complaints,
which has hitherto formed its chief attraction.

^wsiAXRQ : von Karl Rosmkranz, Danzig. Gerhard, 1843.

If we g^ve but a very brief notice of this highly interesting course of
lectures, it is not because we have lightly slammed over them, but be-
cause we shall probably, on some future occasion, give a general review
of the Sehelling and Hegel controversy, in which event they would form
one of our text-books. In the meanwhile, having carefully read them
through, we state our opinion that M. Rosenkranz, who is a well known
Hegelian, has succeeded in putting Sehelling in the worst possible posi-
tion, by means the fairest that could be devised. The lectures are not
essentially polemic : Rosenkranz scarcely in any instance opens a direct
attack : but he gives an account of the whole of Schelling's philosophical
career, taking him book by book, in the chronological order of publica-
tion, to the time of his accepting the professorship at Berlin. Then he
leaves him : for Sehelling m& been cautious enough to print nothing since

272 SchelKng,

he took the chair he at present holds, and if any one else speaks for him
he is ready at a moment's warning to declare that he has heen mismi-
derstood. 'V\^thout intrenching on the lines of his new fortification, M^
Bosenkranz has ample opportunity to lower the estimation in which
Schelling may he h^d, hy directing his attention solely to works that
bear Sc&lfings name, and pointing out the phases of his career. And a
pretty figure does poor Schelling cut, when all the treatises that he wrote
from about 1790 to 1834 are marshalled before him! We find a man
spoiled by over-success in his youth ; committing a series of the most
glaring inconsistencies ; and stiU professing that he has but one system.
We find him making promises of further developments that he never
performed ; we find mm wantonly chan^ng his phraseology at every
step ; we find him recklessly picking up idl sorts of discoveries in science
and archeology, endeavouring to fit them to his own system, and then
obliged to ' make a forget of it ;' we find him loosely drawing large
conclusions firom the most insufficient premises ; we find him mistaking
fancy for reason ; we find him imgenerous to his early friend Heedi: — ^in
a word, if we would give a picture of a truly unphilosophical cnaract^
we would say ^ look at Schelling!' In his early days he had a gx«at
thought. He broke through the one-sided subjectivity of Fichte, and
proclaimed an ' absolute' that should be indifferent to subject and
object, and from which both should be developed. He gave the hint of
the first truly logical beg^ning, but he never constructed a complete
philosophical system, and he never will.

Ueber den Frieden unter der Kirche und der StcuUen, (On Peace
between the Church and the States.) By the Ardibishop of Co-
logne. Munster. Theissing. 1843.

A BOOK belonging to the controversy between the Prussian government
and the Roman church. The archbishop endeavours to demie the trae.
position of ecclesiastical establishments: asserting the right they^have
not only to existence, but to efficient means for exten<&ng their in-
fluence, and contending that a friU maintenance of all their privileges
must operate beneficially as well to the state as to the church, even
though the governor of the state be a Protestant. Whether the treat-
ise will convince any one, who is on the opposite side of the question,
we cannot say; but we can bear witness that the aged bishop defends
his position with singular force and acumen.

Handhuch der Wasserbaukunst (Manual of Hydraulic Architecture.)
Fow G. Hagen. KOnigsberg : Borntrager. 1841.

The titie of this book sufficiently explains its object, the execution of
which is admirable. The first part, the only one already published,
treats of the management of small bodies of water, or springs; and
we are promised a second and third, respectively devoted to rivers and
seas. The work is of the most elaborate description, and is accom
panied by a large atlas of plates.

History of Rome, 8fc. 273

Geschickte Bams. (History of Rome.) Von W. Dkumann. KOnigsberg:
' Bomtrager. 184 1 .

The merits and peculiarities of Professor Drumann's history of Rome
in the time of its transition from the republic to the empire, are too
well known to need a particular description. The reader who takes
interest in such subjects, will recollect that this Roman history is
treated quite on a new plan, being divided into the histories of the
several great families. The fifth volume, which was published in 1841,
is devoted to the Pomponii, the Porcii, and the Tullii.

Lehrbuch der Ungarischer Sprache. (Compendium of the Hungarian

Language.) Von J. N. RjsMiuB. Vienna: Tendler and Schaefer.

1843.
Analyse Ungarischer Classiker, (Analysis of Hungarian Classics.)

Von J. N. REMiLE. 1842.
Ungarischer Creschdftsstylin Beispielen, (Hungarian Commercial style,

in examples.) Von J. N. REMiLE. 1843.

Wnx the English readers, who have just sipped Magyar poetry from Dr.
Bowring's translation, feel an inclination to plunge deeper into the lite-
rature, now such very inviting books as those of Professor Remele are
before them? We fear not : though indeed the plan upon which his
* Lehrbuch' is constructed, is such as to render them extremely tempt-
ing. He does not begin with long tedious rules, but at once introduces
the reader to the Hungarian tongue by abundant examples, both of
words and sentences, conveying such grammatical information as is not
contained in the paradigms by means of notes at the bottom of the page.
The * Analyas,* which was published before the * Lehrbuch,' is not
exactly on the same plan; as it is introduced by grammatical rules
shortly stated. The substance of the work consists of selections from
Magyar authors, with an interlinear translation.

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIII.

( 274 ;

MISCELLAMOFS LITERAET NOTICES.

AUSTRIA.

Last year Dr. Jeitteles made a journey in Italy with the intention of pub-
lishing his observations on various objects of art and antiquity; but unfortu-
nately his sudden death frustrated that design.

Literature has sustained a loss by the death of Caroline Pichler, who has
long maintained a distinguished rank among the novelists and poetesses of
Germany. She was bom on the 7th September, 1769. Her motner was one
of the Empress Maria Tlieresa's ladies of the bedchamber, and Caroline Pichler
held an appointment in the service of the court of Austria, where her hus-
band was a counsellor of state. She died at Vienna the 9th of July, after an
illness of considerable severity and duration. To the last, in conversation
with her friends, she manifested a lively interest in literary subjects.

BELGIUM.

M. Fetis, the well-known musical historian and critic, has recently made
some discoveries in the Royal Library at Brussels, which promise to furnish
valuable contributions to the history of music. Among the books of plain
chant in the library, he has found a volume of masses and motets by cele-
brated composers who lived about the end of the fourteenth and beginning of
the fifteenth centuries. The most important pieces of this volume are three
masses each for three voices by Guillaume Dufay ; two masses for four voices
by the same composer ; a mass for three voices by Binchois ; the mass * Om-
nipotens Pater' for three voices, by a composer named Jean Plourmel ; and
the mass ' Deus creator omnium,' by an English composer named Rignardt
(Richard) Cox. All these masters wrote during the interval between 1980
and 1420. These masses are followed by the motet * Orbis terrarum' for four
voices, by Busnois ; a * Magnificat' for three voices ; the famous Christmas
chant for four ; another * Magnificat* for four ; the motets * Ad ccenam ogni

i)rovidi* for three ; * Anima mea liquifacta est* for three ; * Victimae paschali
audes,* for four ; ' Regina coeli Isetare,' for four ; another motet for four on
the same text ; a mass for three voices, * Sine nomine.' All these compositions
are by Busnois. The volume closes with a mass * Ave Regina,' for three
voices, by Le Roy, commonly known by the name of Regis. By these com-
positions, a considerable chasm in the history of the musical art is filled up.
Another discovery made by M. Fetis, thougn less valuable than that just de-
scribed, is nevertneless very important. It consists of a superb manuscript,
written on fine vellum, presenting a beautiful specimen of calligraphy, and
adorned with curious arabesques, amidst which is traceable the portrait of the
court fool of Maria of Burgundy. This manuscript belonged to a volume
formerly kept among the Belgian archives, but which was cut up and
destroyed.

Miscellaneous Literary Notices. 275

In another volume, which has heen mutilated by cutting out the minia^
tores and arabesques, M. Fetis found the following compositions unin-
jured :

1. An admirable mass, by Josquin de Pr^s, for six voices, ' ad fugam in dia-
tessaron super totam missam.* This composition differs from that published in
the third book of the same au thorns masses, by Petrucci di Fassombrone. The
whole mass forms a triple canon in fourths, each part for two voices.

2. The mass ' De A^umptione Beatae Marias Virginis,' for six voices, com-
posed by Henry Isaak, Chapel Master to the Emperor Maximilian I., about
the vear 1450. Before the discovery made by M. Fetis, this composition
was known only by name.

3. The mass of ' Sancta Cruce,* for five voices, by Pierre de la Rue, Chapel
Master at Antwerp, about the close of the fifteenth century. This last com-
position is also found in another manuscript in the Royal Library of BruS"
sels. M. Fetis has already scored the masses of Josquin de Pr^s and Isaak ;
and he is now engaged in scoring the compositions contained in the other
volume.

During the last few years Belgium has rendered a just tribute of honour to
several of her illustrious sons, by erecting public monuments to their me-
mory. Some time ago a statue of Gretry was erected in front of the Univer-
sity of Liege ; and a statue of Van Eyke (better known by the name of John
of Bruges), the inventor of oil-painting, was placed in one of the squares of
Ins native city. The recently finished monument to Rubens has been erected
on the Place Verte, at Antwerp. It consists of a finely-executed bronze
statue, larger than life, raised on a marble pedestal. The model from which
the statue was cast is the work of Geefe, the sculptor. The statue and all its
accessories were completed on the Idth of August, on which day its inaugu-
lation was celebrated by public rejoicings. The great master of the Flemish
school of painting is represented standing, and his shoulders are draped by
^e ample folds of a long mantle. He wears a sword, and round his neck is
a chain, from which a medallion is suspended. On one side of the figure is
a stool, on which a palette is lying. The expression of the head is very fine,
and the resemblance is striking.

EGYPT.

We have already made our readers acquainted with some important com-
munications from the expedition sent by the King of Prussia to examine the
architectural monument and other remains of art in Egypt. We have now
to call attention to the most important of the labours of the expedition, viz.,
the exploration of the Labyrinth of Moeris. We give the account of this great
discovery from extracts of the learned professor's own letters, published under
the authority of the Prussian government, the same authentic source whence
our preceding articles relating to the expedition were derived.

** On the Rvins of the Labyrinth, June 20, 1843.

* For some weeks past we have had our camp pitched on the ruins of the
Labyrinth. I write to Cairo, for the purpose of communicating to you by the
packet which sails from Alexandria on the 27th, the first intelligence of the
definitive discovery and examination of the real labyrinth of the Moeris Pyra-
mid. It was impossible, even on the first superficial inspection, to doubt that
we had the Labyrinth before us and beneath our feet, though early travellers
have scarcely mentioned these structural remains. We at once discerned
some hundreds of chambers rendered plainly perceptible by their walls. When
you shall have an opportunity of seeing the plan drawn by Herr Erbkam, the
architect, who has devoted great labour to his task, you will be astonished to

T 2

276 Miscellaneous Literary Notices,

perceive how much still remains of these remarkable edifices. Former descrip-
tions, even those of Jomard and Courtelle, do not correspond with the locali*
ties as we found them on the spot ; and my confidence in the representations
of Perring, Colonel Vyse's able architect, is greatly diminished on account of
his sketches of these ruins. All that is in best preservation, the part lying to
the west of the chasm Bahr Sherki^. is omitted ; neither has Mr. Perring given
the original circumference of the whole. The chasm Bahr Sherki^ seems to
have been the principal stumblingblock to previous travellers ; but we easily
passed it by placing across it two poles, and so forming a sort of bridge.

" The principal results of our exploration is the monumental evidence of
the name Moeris — the confirmation of the actual construction of the labyrinth
for a palace, and of the Pyramid for a tomb. We have here also the con-
. firmation of the account of Manethon, who placed Moeris in the 12th dynasty,
and not the 17th, as has been supposed. With this letter I send you a * Trea-
tise on the Structure of the Pyramids,' which I wrote at Cairo, when recover-
ing from a severe attack of illness. I am also forming a collection of the
stones found in the Labyrinth. They will interest you on account of the pre-
valence of black minerals, as you doubt the existence of basalts of the proper
olive kind. I have likewise collected some specimens of the innumerable
kinds of pottery, fragments of which have been employed in covering and
dicing the chambers of the Labyrinth. The same sort of facing with shell or
thin pieces of stone or tile, — or what may be called ostracious stnicture,— we
had previously observed in the ruins of Memphis. Our drawing of the ruins
of Memphis, also the work of Erbkam, exhibits the ground plan of that splen-
did structure. We live altogether here in the greatest harmony, enjoying
excellent health. We submit to the various unavoidable plagues indigenous
to this land of Egypt, and of which we have already had no slight experience,
but we have passed through them with spirits undepressed, and tempers un-
ruffled.'*

In another letter from Professor Lepsius, of the same date as the above,
he writes as follows :

" Since the 23d of May, our camp has been pitched near the southern
foot of the Pyramid of Moeris. This said Moeris reigned from 2194 to 2151
before our era, and was the last king of the Egyptian empire before the con-
quest of the Hyksos. The Labyrinth, and more especially the Lake Moeris,
are testimonies of his power, of his love of grandeur, and of his proneness
to great undertakings for the general benefit of the country. Contempora-
neous with our arrival at Fayoum, M. Linant, the Frencli architect in the
service of the pasha, who devotes himself chiefly to hydraulic works, made
the highly interesting discovery (which he has described in a special trea-
tise), that the ancient Lake Moeris, which has hitherto been an object of
anxious research with the learned, no longer exists; the water having nearly
all been carried off by some channel, whilst there remains only a portion of
the gigantic dam by which it was kept back. Throughout the whole pro-
vince no lake is to be found except Birket-el-Kerun, which lies to the
north-west ; therefore it would be a remarkable instance of injudicious cri-
ticism to refer to it the descriptions of the ancients ; since it has neither
been the work of human hands, nor did it ever water the principal town
Crocodilopolis and the Labyrinth. Neither is the existence of its fishery
proved by the fact of the saline property of its waters. Besides, it does not
lie in the specified direction, nor does it encircle two pyramids, and the great
object which fame has recorded, could not have been adequately accomplished
by it. That object was to intercept the water during the overflowing of the
Nile, and to let it out again in the season of drought ; thus supplying due
moisture for the plains of Memphis and the adjoining provinces of the

Miscellaneous Literary Notices^ 277

Delta. The dry lake discovered by Linant is bounded by dams of 160 feet
in breadth, and is equal in extent and depth to the Berket-el-Kerun Lake.
It perfectly fulfils all the required conditions, and this would be recognised
by any impartial eye, for the ground which yet embraces the whole of that
part of the province is apparently soil from the bed of the lake. We daily
look out from the Labyrinth, not across the water as Herodotus looked, but
over the black bottom of Lake Moeris towards the minarets of Fayoum, the
present capital of the province of the same name, built partly on the ruins
of the ancient Crocodilopolis. However if it was difficult to find the an-
cient Lake of Mceris in Birket-el-Kerun, it certainly was not more easy to
overlook the Labyrinth, the ruins of which correspond with the descriptions
of the ancients in all respects. The agreement as to distances is generally
exact, as also are the relative positions of the real lake Crocodilopolis.
The pyramid in which Moeris was interred lies to the south of the great
plain of ruins, and to the south is the village mentioned by Strabo now
only ruins, and separated from the site of the Labyrinth by a later
eruption of water. With respect to the ruins themselves, present ob-
servers must not rely entirely on their own eyes, whether in surveying the
portions now existmg, or comparing them with the accounts of more early
travellers. Where those travellers saw only formless lieaps of rubbish and
a few walls, we found, even on the first rapid inspection, several hundreds
of chambers and corridors, of different sizes, some with roofs, floors, and par-
titions ; with pedestals for pillars and stone facings. In two of these struc-
tures, which had four flats, one above the other, we observed none of those
hole-like windings described in early accounts. Though all the walls have
their directions in conformity with the celestial rhumbs, yet we found so
much irregularity in their structure, and so much variety in the forms of the
rooms, that at first we could not thread our way through the mass of build-
ings without the help of a guide. Three thousand rooms below and above
ground are mentioned by Herodotus, and from the remains which we have
before us, this number seems by no means excessive. The forms of the more
important parts of the palace are not now discernible. According to He-
rodotus, they consisted of twelve aulae, that is to say, open courts^ sur-
rounded by covered colonnades. The site of the palace, which was sur-
rounded on three of its sides with the mass of labyrinthine chambers, is now
a krge deep square, spotted here and there with low hillocks of rubbish,
and intersected by an oblique canal or ravine. In this hollow our colony is
now encamped : and a number of little huts, built with the bricks of the
pyramids, almost picture to the mind's eye the ancient village described by
Strabo, which stood on the same level with the Labyrinth. Around us, on
every side, lie scattered immense blocks, some of granite, others of a white
and very hard kind of calcareous stone, resembling marble. Fragments of
the ancient columns and architraves of the aulse are likewise visible. These
remains have acquired much interest by our expedition ; for we have found
in different fragments the name of the founder of the Labyrinth, Moeris, and
of his sister who succeeded him. On the summit of the pyramid of Mceris,
commanding a view of every thing to a great distance, we have planted the
Prussian eagle, as a symbolical evidence that northern science has had the
gratifying task of describing these remains of antiquity so remote. We
daily employ 100 labourers on the ruins, making excavations to facilitate
the examination of the foundations of the structures and their ground-
floors ; cleaning out the apartments, and laying open the proper entrance
to the pyramid. We are now on the north side, crowded into a large
ehamber formed in the rock, the floor of which is in part covered with thin
plates, and the walls faced with other lamina. This chamber was entirely

278 MisceUaneous Literanf Notices. '

filled with rubbish, beneath which we found the often described and figured
stones, having the name of Moeris and of his royal sister inscribed on them.
It is, however, still not quite evident that this was the sepulchral vault,
which might indeed be expected to be found more in the centre of the
pyramid. At any rate, the determination of the historical question of the
founder is, by the discovery of the hieroglyphic names, the most important
result that we could have been expected to reach ; and we shall therefore
leave this memorable place with more satisfaction than, from the descriptions
of preceding travellers, we had reason to anticipate. This will be clearly
seen as soon as our zealous and indefatigable architect, Erbkam, shall have
finished his special plan of the Labyrinth, which will assuredly make one of
the most remarkable plates of our collection. He will accompany me on a
tour for the inspection of other interesting objects in this province. We
shall then have completed our course over the first pyramid station or
stadium. We shall probably pass rapidly through central tgypt, to take for
ourselves in Thebes a proper position, before we commence our journey to
Meroe. Tliat journey we must be obliged to postpone until April in the
ensuing year, in order that we may be inured to the ungenial climate which
may then have spent its whole force upon us."

The above is all that has yet appeared of the last letters received in Beriin.
To the official publication of the extracts by the Prussian government, the
following note is added :

" From the introduction to the Treatise ' On the Construction of the Py*
ramids,* which Professor Lepsius has sent to the Academy, we perceive that
in the expedition to the Pyramids of Giseh 106 tombs were explored, of which
drawings of only three or four have been given by previous traveUers. They
are all exceedingly copious in hieroglyphic representations and* inscriptions,
which are of immense importance in throwing light on chronology and his-
tory, arts and manners, and for the explanation of the Egyptian character and
language. We have already in deposit in Cairo a collection of original docu-
ments and memorials, which relate to twenty great monuments, and which
would load more than thirty camels. There are already five hundred sheets
of impressions on paper of the most interesting inscriptions, and we have above
three hundred drawings in great folio. Nearly all the sepulchres are of the
fourth and fifth Manethonian dynasties, or 3000 and 2500 years before our
era. The Camera lucida has been of good service to us in making these
copies and drawings. Our topographic plans embrace the whole coast of the
desert as far as it is covered with pyramids. These monuments succeed each
other along a margin of four and a half geographical miles (eighteen English)
in a row almost entirely uninterrupted from Abu Roash, three leagues north
of the Giseh Pyramids to near Dahshar. Thence in a series towards the
south are the pyramidal groups of Lisht, Meidom, and Fayoum, to the extent
of about ten geographical miles (a German geographical mile is equal to four
English). Dr. Lepsius is of opinion that the pyramids of Sakhara are of more
modem creation than those of Giseh. The two large stone pyramids of Dah-
shar, which are attributed to the third Manethonian dynasty, are, in the opi-
nion of Lepsius, the most ancient of any. Numerous drawings accompany
the treatise, whereby it appears that the pyramids are of various construction.
The greater number of them have a small one internally, as a nucleus. This
may be seen in the stone pyramid of Sakhara and in those of Meidom,
Abusir, and Illahun, which, mantle-like encompassing the nucleus, are of ne«
cessity gradually elevated and enlarged.**

Miscellaneous Literary Notices, 279

FRANCE.

Ruggi's statue of Lapeyrouse, which has lately been exhibited at the
Louvre, is to be erected in Alby, the native town of the celebrated navi-
gator. The exhibition of the statue at the Louvre has excited a considerable
share of public interest, whilst at the same time it has revived a painful recol-
lection of the unfortunate fate of two great men, viz., Lapeyrouse and
Dumont-Durville, Jean Francois Garaup de Lapeyrouse was born in 1741.
On the 1st of August, 1 785, he sailed from Brest, with the two frigates, La
Boussole and T Astrolabe, for the purpose of following up the discoveries of
Captain Cook, in conformity with a series of geographical instructions drawn
up by the hand of Louis X VL For upwards of forty years, his fate and that
of his companions was enveloped in mystery, in spite of the most active en-
deavours to discover traces of them. The last letters received from him were
dated from Botany Bay, in the month of March, 1788. At length, in the year
1827, the English Captain Dillon discovered what was presumed to be the
place of the shipwreck of Lapeyrouse. It was a reef of rocks, near one of the
Vanikoro islands, northward of New Hebrides. In the following year, Fe-
bruary 1828, Captain Dumont-Durville visited the little archipelago, ascer-
tained the melancholy truth, and drew up from the bottom of the sea many
portions of the wrecked vessels, together with guns, cannon-balls, anchors,
and various other things which were conveyed to Paris, and deposited in the
Mus^e de la Marine. Captain Dumont-Durville erected on the shore a little
monument, with the following inscription : ^ A la memoire de Lapeyrotise^ el
deses companions, 14 Mars, 1828.'*

Professor Rauke has been in Paris actively engaged in his historical labours.
He spends the greater part of every day in the Biblioth^que Royale, where he
employs himself in exploring the archives. His company was eagerly sought
for in the literary circles of the French capital.

The * New York Courier* has reprinted thirty thousand of Eugene Sue's
* Mystferes de Paris.* The feuilleton of the * Journal des Debats' has been
almost as widely circulated in America as in France.

M. Gourdet, a French military oflScer, who has been for several years in
Africa, has recently returned home, bringing with him several objects of cu-
riosity which he collected during his stay in that part of the world. Among
these curiosities is a Koran in Arabic manuscript. It is bound in morocco,
ODce red, and in every respect presents the appearance of great antiquity. It
is not divided into surates or chapters, which proves it to be one of the two
primitive editions produced at Medina. It is written on thick silk paper,
and is adorned witn coloured capitals. This Koran belonged to a Marabout
of the tribe of Ben-Menasser, and was found in the habitation of the chief of
that tribe, by M. Gourdet, after a battle which his battalion fought in that
mountainous district of Africa.

Dr. Hahnemann, the celebrated founder of the Homoeopathetic system of
medicine, died in Paris, on the 2d of July, in the eighty-eighth year of his
age. Hahnemann was born at Meissen, in Saxony. He took his degree of
Doctor in Medicine at Heidelberg, in the year 1781, and in 1790 he made
some chemical discoveries which created a great sensation throughout Ger-
many. Whilst engaged in translating the great Dr. Cullen*s work (* First
Lines of the Practice of Physic'), he was struck with the numerous hypo-
theses suggested respecting the febrifugal action of the Peruvian bark. Hah-
nemann resolved to try its effect upon himself, and for several days he took
large doses of that medicine. He soon found himself in a state of intermit-
tiog fever, resembling that which the bark is employed to counteract. This
was the starting-point of the medical system to which Hahnemann has at-

280 .Miscellaneous Literary Notices.

tached his name, and which is summed up in the principle, nrmRa nimUbut
curantur.

The Paris journals have recently announced the decease of the celebrated
sibyl, Mdlle. Lenormand, who died possessed of a large fortune. She had a
splendid funeral, and the sale of her effects excited great interest, especially
among the ladies of Paris. One of the most valuable articles disposed of at
the sale, was a miniature of the Empress Josephine, painted by Isabey, and
set in a beautiful medallion encircled by pearls. This miniature, which was
a present from the empress to the fortune-teller, was sold for 4750 francs.
Among Mdlle. Lenormand*s papers were a multitude of autograph letters,
written by persons of rank and celebrity ; but by her will she directed that all
her correspondence should be burned, to avoid the risk of compromising the
feelings ot any one. This direction has been literally obeyed.

M. de Lamartine is said to be busily employed on a work for virhich he has
been during many years collecting material. It is a ' History of the most
Bemarkable Periods of the French Revolution.'

M. de Castellane has at length succeeded in carrying into effect his long-
cherished scheme of founding in Paris a female * Academic Fran9aise,'
Among the objects proposed by the institution are — The distribution of me-
dals to the authoresses of remarkable works ; the encouragement of yoimg
females in their first literary essays, and the defrayal of the expenses of print-
ing their works; affording pecuniary aid to literary women in straitened
circumstances, and providing for the children of those who die in poverty.
Among the ladies who are already chosen members of the new academy are,
Mmes Georges Sand, Emile de Girardin, de Bawr, Virginie Ancelot, Anna
des Essarts, Clemence Robert, Charles Reybaud, Princesse de Craon, Eu-
genie Foa, M^Ianie Waldor, AnaYs Sdgalas, d*Helf, Comtesse Merlin, and seve-
ral distinguished female painters and musicians.

GERMANY.

Strangers who visit Weimar have often been much annoyed at not being
able to find the house in which Schiller resided ; and to obviate this disap-
pointment, it has sometimes been suggested, tliat the street in which this
great man lived should bear the name of * Schillerstrasse.' But though the
street has not yet been honoured with that appellation, yet the present owner
of the house, Fran Weiss, has with good taste distinguished Schiller's abode
by placing over the street-door, the simple inscription — * Hier wohnte
SchUler' (Here Schiller dwelt).

Baron von Rumohr, a distinguished connoisseur of art, died lately at Dres-
den, he was a well-known contributor to several of the German periodicals,
especially the * Morgen Blatte.'

The plan of transferring the University of Leipsic to Dresden, which has
often been suggested, seems now to be seriously entertained.

The Herculean labour of removing the books belonging to the Court and
State Library of Bavaria to the new building erected for their reception in
the Ludwig Etrasse at Munich, was completed on the 25th of July. The re-
moval occupied upwards of four months. The collection of books, exceeding
800,000 volumes, all closely heaped together in the five stories of the old
library have been cleaned and arranged in admirable order in the two stories
of the new building. In spite of the unfavourable circumstances, and very
bad weather which attended the removal of this valuable collection, yet not
one of the books or manuscripts has been lost or injured.

Dr. Strauss, the celebrated author of the * Leben Jesu,* and other philoso-
phic works which have excited great interest in the learned circles of Kurope,

Miscellaneous Literary Notices. 281

is said to be at present engaged in the composition of an opera. Strauss
some time ago married a public singer, and this union appears to have ani-
mated the learned doctor with inspirations of a less serious character than
those which heretofore prompted his labours.

' Gotlie's Studentenjahre' (Gothe's Student Years), is the title of a novel
recently published at Leipsic, where it has excited a considerable deal of in-
terest. The author, who is understood to be a man of rank, has drawn an
admirable portrait of Gothe during the years of his college life ; and has in-
troduced into the romance some hitherto unpublished correspondence be-
tween the great poet, and other literary characters of his time.

The university of Heidelberg is likely to sustain a great loss by the re-
moval of Bischoff, the professor of Physiology, who has been called to
Giessen, where the government proposes to found a physiological institute.
Bischoff is a pupil of Johann Miiller ; and his lectures, in which deep learn-
ing and research are combined with clearness of explanation, have long been
the pride of the university of Heidelberg.

Friedrich Kind, a novel-writer and dramatist of considerable reputation
in Germany, and the author of the libretto of Weber's * Freischutz,' died at
Dresden^ on the evening of the 25th of June. It is mentioned as somewhat
curious, that the ' Freischiitz' was performed at the Dresden theatre, on the
night when its author breathed his last. In the year 1817, Kind founded
the * Abendzetung,' conjointly with Theodore Hell. He was born at Leipsic,
on the 4th of March, 1786.

A letter from Munich mentions that the superb frescoes which adorned the
royal residence of that capital, have been scratched by some sharp pointed
instrument in such a manner as to be totally destroyed. The active ex-
ertions of the police have not yet succeeded in discovering the perpetrator of
this atrocious act, which has deprived Munich of a series of chefs-d'osuvres by
Cornelius, Lessing, Overbeck, and other celebrated masters.

ITALY.

The letters of Dante, discovered by the German philologist, Theodore
Heyse, and which have been described and commented on by professor
Karl Witte, of Halle, have recently been published at Verona. The editor,
Alessandro Torri, accompanies each letter with notes of his own, and with
the commentaries of Witte and Fraticelli. At the close of the volume, the
editor lias inserted a dissertation on earth and water, written by Dante at
Verona, in 1320, the year preceding his death. This remarkable treatise
was first printed at Venice, in 1508, and reprinted at Naples, in 1576, but
it had become so scarce, that a copy existing in the library of the Marquess
Trevulzio, at Milan, was considered as precious as a manuscript. From
that copy the reprint has been made.

Barsani, whose writings once made a considerable sensation in Italy, died
in June last, at his retreat on the banks of the Lago di Garda. He ren-
dered himself famous by his furious attacks upon Napoleon. At Malta, he
published, under the protection of England, a periodical, entitled 'The
Carthagenian,' which oftener than once disturbed the repose of the French
emperor. At that time Barsani was on a footing of close friendship and
daily intimacy with the Duke of Orleans, now King of the French. Of
•that intimacy his writings betray obvious traces.

The King of Naples has appointed the celebrated composer Mercadante,
director-general of all the theatres of that capital.

Some manuscripts of Galileo which were presumed to have been lost, or
burned by order of the Inquisition, have been found among some old ar-

282 MisceUcmjeous Literary Notices.

chives in the Palazzi Pitti. This discovery has created a wonderful degree
of interest in Florence. It proves that the Inquisition, which was accused,
may be calumniated ; a feet of which many persons entertained considerable
doubt. Be that as it may, the manuscripts, besides being objects of curiosity,
are likely to be useful to astronomical science, inasmuch as they contam
information respecting the eclipses of former times, a course of the satellites
of Jupiter, subjects to which Galileo directed great attention.

Amari's historical work, the suppression of which by the Neapolitan

fovemment, excited so much interest [see ' Foreign Quarterly Review,' No.
iXL, p. 299], is about to be published in Paris, with considerable additions
by the author. Amari has taken up his abode temporarily in Paris, where
he enjoys the society of a few of his literary countrymen, who like himself
have been driven by despotism to seek refuge in foreign lands.

Several splendid works on art, with illustrative copper-plate engravings,
have recently been undertaken at Rome, at the expense of the papal govern-
ment. No sooner were the plates of the Etruscan Museum complet^, than
the publication of the Egyptian Museum, the second gigantic creation of the
reigning pope, was resolved upon. Cardinal Tosti has agreed to pay 8000
scudi for the execution of the plates, to Troiani, the eminent architectural
engraver. The learned antiquarian. Father Ungarelli, has undertaken to
write the text for this important work. Father Secchi has finished his elabo-
rate treatise on the Mosaics found in the Thermae of Caracalla. In the pre-
face he expresses a hope that his Holiness will assign the Palace of St. Gio-
vanni as a depositary for these valuable mosaics.

PRUSSIA.

On the 7th of August the ' Medea* of Euripides was performed in the
theatre attached to the Palace of Potsdam, in the presence of the king, the
royal family, and the court. This is the second essay made by the King of
Prussia for the dramatic representation of ancient Greek tragedy. The * An-
tigone' of Sophocles was performed about a year ago, and the choruses of
that piece were set to music by Mendelssohn. But the structure of the cho-
ruses of ' Medea* appeared to Mendelssohn, as well as to Meyerbeer, less
£3ivourably adapted to musical composition than the choruses of ' Antigone/
This opinion induced both those eminent composers to decline the task of
arranging them, the more especially as their talents are employed on other
musical subjects, in which the king takes a deep interest His Majes^
therefore gave the commission to the Music Director, Taubert, by whom it
has been executed in a highly satisfactory style. Donner's translation of the
tragedy was selected for the performance.

The Opera House at Berlin, which was destroyed by fire on the 18th of
August, was built by Frederick the Great, who himself drew the plan for it
whilst he was Prince Royal. The theatre was opened on the 7th of Decem-
ber, 1742, with Graun's opera of ' Caesar and Cleopatra.' It was capable of
containing 4000 spectators. This fire has destroyed property amounting in
value to 500.000 thalers. The collection of music, which was fortunately
saved, is supposed to be worth 60,000 thalers.

His Majesty the King of Prussia, animated by a desire that the musical
portion of the church service in his dominions should share the improvement
consequent on the advancement of art, last year commissioned Mendels-
sohn Bartholdy to reform the music of the Lutheran church. A few weeks
ago service was performed in the Cathedral of Berlin, in celebration of
the anniversary of the Treaty of Verdun. The king and the royal family
were present, and then, in the performance of protestant worship, an

Miscellaneous Literary Notices. 283

application was for the first time made of the grand music of the modem
school.

In the composition of the hymns and psalms, Mendelssohn Bartholdy has
employed all the resources of art to impart to them a due solemnity and
grandeur of character. These new compositions consisted of recitatives, solos,
choruses, and concerted pieces for four, six and eight voices, with accompani-
ments for an orchestra and two organs. They were executed hy six hundred
performers, partly professors and partly amateurs, under the direction of
Mendelssohn. The effect was magnificent, and at the conclusion of the ser-
vice, the king summoned the composer to the royal pew, and expressed his
satisfaction in the most flattering terms.

A letter has recently been received from the celebrated Prussian missionary
Gatzloff, who is at present in China. It contains the following curious obser-
vations : — " I have obtained uncontradictable evidence that the art of con-
structing buildings of cast iron was practised several centuries ago in the ce-
lestial empire. I found on the summit of a hill near the town of Tsing-
Kiang-Foo, in the province of Kiang-Nan, a pagoda entirely formed of cast
iron, and covered with bas-reliefs and inscriptions. The dates and the form
of the characters belong to the period of the dynasty of the Tsangs, who
occupied the throne as early as the fifth or sixth century of the Christian era.
This monument, which may be presumed to be twelve hundred years old, is
seven stories high, and each story contains curious historical pictures, llie
structure is singularly elegant, in its form, and surpasses every thing of the
kind I have hitherto seen.**

In a lecture recently delivered by von Raumer at the University of Berlin,
the learned professor made some just remarks on the absurd custom of intro-
ducing foreign words and phrases into the German language. '^ Our rich,
pure, racy, flexible, and vastly comprehensive language," he observed, '* is
corruptea, not merely in the journals, but in literary and scientific writings,
and even in the draughts for public laws. The German language is clothed
in a motley garment of foreign words and phrases, which would have dis-
graced the worst period of the seventeenth century. In a late number of the
' State Gazette,' which is almost entirely filled with the reports of legislative
acts, the following foreign words appear." (Here the lecturer quoted no less
than 112 foreign terms, for which it would have been easy to have found
German synonymes.) " Thus,** continued Herr von Raumer, "we work the
destruction of our noblest inheritance, our medium of thought and expression.
We have among us too much of that arrogant conceit, which discards with
contempt the rules of the vernacular tongue; too much of the indolence
which will not be troubled to gather up the treasures that lie scattered around ;
—too much of the frivolity which loves to bedeck itself in foreign tinsel ; —
and too much of the affectation which lays claim to superior cultivation.
In this respect, at least, the French have the advantage of us. They would
never tolerate such a disfigurement of their comparatively poor language."

(284)

LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL NEW WORKS

PUBLISHED ON THE CONTINENT.
Fboh July to September^ 1843, inclusive.

THEOLOGY AND ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

Beck, J. T., Umriss der biblisdien Seelenlehre. StHttg. 3s.

Bellarmini, R, Disputationes de controversiis Christianse fidei Cur. F. B. Saiisen.

Tom. n. de Christo libri lY. posteriores. — ^De romano pontifice liber L

8yo. Moguntiae, 6s. 6d.
Benedict! XI v. de synodo dioecesana libri XTTT. Editio IL MechHniensisad

fidem optimarum editionum italicarum denuo aucta et castigatalYTomi,

12mo. Mogunt 21s.
Biblia sacra Vulgatae editionis, Sexti V. Pontificis Max. jtissu recognita et de-
mentis VlU. Auctoritate edita. Svo. Moguntiae, 12s. 6d.
Bodemann, F. W., Evangelishes Concordienbuch, oder die symbolischen Biicher

der evangel-luther. Kirche. Hannover, 78.
Buse, A., De nominibus Spiritus Sancti aetemis tractatus dogmat. 8yo. Mo-

guntiae. 2s.
Ehrlich, Das Christenthum und die Eeligion des Morgenlandes. Svo. Wien, 38.
, Lebre Yon der Bestinmiung des Menschen als rationale Teleologie I*

Analytiscber Th. 8vo. Wien. 4s.
Epipbanii monachi et presbyter! edita et inedita, cura A. Dressel. Svo. Parisiis

et Lips, 5s.
Feuerbacn, L., Das Wesen des Christentbums. 2e Auf. Svo. Leipzig, 14s.
Guerike, H. G. F., Handbucb der Kirchengescbichte. 5e Anfl. m 12 Heften.

8yo. Halle. 20s.
HaYcmick, H. A. Cbr., Commentar iiber den Propbeten Ezecbiel. 8to. £r-

langen, 19s. 6d.
Katboliken, die, des Aargau's und der Bationalismus. 8yo. Schaffhausen,

4s. 6d.
Kortiim, Fr.,I>ie Entstebungsgeschicbte des Jesuiten-Ordens,nebst einem Scbluss-

wort iiber die neuen Jesuiten. Svo. Mannheim. 3s.
Marbeineke, Ph., Der Erzbischof Clemens August, als Friedensstifter zwischen

Staat und Kirche. Svo. Berlin. Is.
Meyer, H. A. W., Kritiscb. exegetischer Kommentar iiber das Neue Testament

Se. Abtb. der Brief an d. Epbeser. Svo. Gdttingen. 4s. 6d.
Boskovliny, Aug. de, de Matrimoniis mixtis inter Catholicos et ProtestanteS'

Tom. I. n. Wien. 26s. 6d.
Tholuck, A., Drei Predigten. Svo. Hamburg. Is. 6d.
Ulfilas. Herausg. v. C. v. d. Gabelentz. u. J. Loebe. 2 Bd. 1 Abtb. 4to.

Leipzig. 22s. 6d. Fine paper, 27s.

List of New Works. 286

Heseler, K., Chronologische Synopse der vier Evangelien. Ein Beitrag zur
Apologie der Evangelien u. Evang. Geschichte vom Standpnnkte der Vor-

aiifisetziinirslosiflrkmt. fivo. Hamhurn. ISs.

aussetzungslosigkeit. 8yo. Hamburg, 18s.

STATISTICS AND POLITICAL ECONOMY.

jidressen-Siemens, J., Deutschlands Seegeltung. In der HandeLsmarine, elne

Kriegsmarine zu erziehen, &c. 8vo. Hamburg. Is. 6d.
'aUat^, J., Einleitung in die Wissenschaft der Statistik. 8yo. Tubingen. 6s.
'eUer, F. G., Archiv der Staatspapiere, enth. den Ursprung, die Einrichtung und

den jetzigen Zustand der Staats-Anleiten. 3e Aufl. 12mo. Leipzigt 68.
Yankenstein, C. v., Allg. Staatistisch-Topographischer u. technischer Eabriks-

Bilder- Atlas d. Oesterreich. Monarchie. Jahr 1843 in 12 Lief. 4to. Gratz.

33s. 6d.
)e8terreich und dessen Zokunft 3te Anfl. Hamburg. 4a. 6d.
lestreicli, Stadte, Liuider, Fersonen u. Zustande. Hamburg. 1842. 7s.
itaats-Lexicon yon y. Botteck u. Welcker. 14 Bd. 4 lief. 8yo. Altona,

2s. 6d.

LAW AND JURISPRUDENCE.

Somemami, W., Systematiscbe Darstellting des Preuss. Civilrechts, &c. 3er Bd.

2 yerm. Anfl. 8yo. Berlin. 10s.
Siristiansen, J., Ihstitutionen des Bomischen Bechts, oder erste Einleitung in das

Studium des Bomischen Priyatrechts. 8yo. AUtma. 16s.
Danz, H. A. A., Lehrbuch der Geschiebte des Bomischen Bechts. 2 Thl. 1 lief.

8yo. Leipzig. 28. 6d.
GScbhom. K F., Deutsche Staats u. Bechts-geschichte. 5 Ausg. 1 Th. 8yo.

Gutting. 17s. 6d.

PHILOSOPHY.

Cartesii et Spinosae praecipua opera philosophica, recogn. notitias historico-

philosophicas adjecit Dr. Carol Biedel. Vol L and IL 16mo. Lips.

Each 38. 6d.
CSialybaus, H. M., Historische Entwickelung der speculatiyen Phibsophie von

Kant bis HegeL 8yo. Dresden. 10s. 6d.
Daiib*8, C, Philosophische und theoL Yorlesungen, herausg. von Marheineke und

Dittenberger. 5 Bd. 2 Abth. System der theologischen Moral. 8yo.

Berlin. 10s.
Deatinger, Pr. M., Grundlinien einer positiyen Philosophic, 1 Th.: ^e Propa-

deutik. 8yo. JRegensburg. 2s. 6d.
Dmowski, J. A, Institutiones philosophicae. HL Tomi. 8vo. MogunHae. 168.
Ddderlein, L., Aristologie fur den Yortrag der Poetik und BhetoriL 4to. £r-

langen. Is.

Afinutias Sophocleas. 4to. Erlangen. Is.

Erdmann, J. E., Grun(h:iss der Logik und Metaphysik. 8yo. HaUe. 4s. 6d.
Herbart's, J. F., Eleinere philosophischen Schriften u. Abhandlungen, herausg.

V. G. Hartenstein. 3 Bd. 8vo. Leipzig. 15s.
Kranse, K. C. F., HandschriftL Nachlass. herausg. y. H. K yon LeonhardL 8yo.

G9ttingen.— l Abth. 2 Beihe: synthetische Philosophic. — 4 Abth. yer-

mischte Schriften. 1/. 2s. 6d.
heoDhaidi^ H. K. y., Vorbericht zu K. Fr. Krunse's Yorlesungen iiber die rdne

Philosophie der Geschichte. 8yo. Gottingen. 28. 6d.

286 List of New Works

Lessing, C. F^ Vollst. Beweis, L dass wir bis jetzt noch kein TerstancL System
der Fhilosophie gehabt luiben, und 2. die modemen Fhilosopbien yon Kant
bis Hegel Phantasien, nicht aber Wissenschaften sind. 2nd vol. Breslau.
4s. 6d.

Paulus, H. E. G., Die endlich oflfenbar gewordene positive Philosophic der Offen-
barung, oder Entstehungsgeschichte, WbrtUcher Text, Beurtheilung und
Berichtigung der von Schellingschen Entdeckungen iiber Philoeophie iiber-
haupt, Mythologie n. Ofifenbarung des dogmat. Christenthums im Berliner
Winterkurs von 1841-2. 8vo. Darmstadt 208.

Pranti, C, Symbolae criticae in Aristotelis physicas auscidtationes. Svo. Bero'
lini. 2s.

MEDICINE, PHYSIOLOGY, CHEMISTRY.

Banmgartner, K. H., Eranken-Physionomik. 2te Anfl. 15 u. 16 liet 8to*

Carlsruhe, 7 s. 6d.
Berzelius, J. J., Lehrbuch der Chimie, 5. umgearb. original Anfl. 1 Bd. 4 a.

5 Liet Svo. Dresden, 7s.
Biedermann, Ueber Catarrh der Eespirations-organe, als Inangoral-Bissertatbn.

8vo. Pra^, 58.

Charpentier, T., De Orthoptera, descripta et depicta. Fasc. VU — ^IX. 4to.

Lips. Each 7s. 6d.
Downie, A. M., A Practical Treatise on the Efficacy of Mineral Waters in the

Cpre of Chronic Disease. 12mo. Frankfort a M, 8s. 6d.
Eisner, L., Die galvanische Yergoldung, sowie die Verkiipferung, ftcmetsllner

Gegenstande. 12mo. Benin, 4s. 6d.
Falke, J. E. L., Universal-Lexicon der Thierarzneikrmde. 2 Bd. K — Z. 8to.

Weimar, 9 s.
Frank, J., Praxeosmedicaenniversaepraecepta. Partis IIL VoL IL Sect XL

fasc. I., cont. doctrinam de niorbis systematis hepatid et pancreatis. 8m

Lips, 10s. 6d.
Frank, M., Klinische Taschen-Encyclop. 2te Anfl. 16mo. Stuttgart lis.
Heussi, J., Die Experimental-Physik, methodisch dargestellt. 1 Cursus. Kennt-

niss der Phanomene. 3e Anfl. 8vo. Berlin. 2s. 6d.
Hetterschy, Jac. Joan., De irritatione spinali in genere, atque Plethora abdomi-

nali. Svo. UUrajecti ad Rh, 2s. 6d.
Himly, K, Die Krankheiten und Missbildungen des menschL Auges. 7e Iie£

4to. Berlin, 4s. 6d.
Lessing, M. B., Chirurgische Diagnostik. In 2 AbthL Svo. BerUn. 138. 6d.
Link, H. F., Jahresbericht iiber die Arbeiten fiir Physiolog. Botanik im J. 1841.

Svo. Berlin. 4s. 6d.
Lobeck, C. A., Pathologiae sermonis Gracci prolegomena. Svo. Lipsiae, 13s. 6d.
Meyer, F. G., Die Lehre von den Fracturen. Svo. Wien. 7s. 6d.
Mitscherlich, C. G., Lehrbuch der Arzneimittellehre. Vol. U., Part L Medica-

menta excitantia. Svo. Berlin, lis.
Miiller, Joh., Handbuch der Physiologic des Menschen. 4th Ed. VoL L, Parttt

Svo. 4s. 6d.
Nolte, F. W., Atlas der Haut Krankheiten. Mit erlautemdem Text 2te AbthL

Folio. Leyden, 55s.
Noordenbos, U. J., Specimen medicum inaugurale de variis hysteriae formis.

Svo. Groningae, 2s. 6d.
Oesterlen, Fr., Beitrage zur Physiologic des gesunden und kranken OrganismuS'

Svo. Jeria, 7s. 6d.
Osann, E., Physikalish-medicinische Darstellung der bekannten Heilquellen der

vorziiglichsten Lander Europa*s. Bearb. von Fr. Zabd. > 3 ThL 2 AbthL 8vo.

Berlin, 15s.
Osann, G. W., Neue Beitrage zur Chemie und Physik. 1 Beitrag. 1 lief. 8ro.

Wiirzburg, 2s.

published on the Continent, 287

cherrer, J. K., Ckmunentatio opthalamia, g(»ioiThoica. 8yo. FreHntrg, 1842. 2s.
inogowitz, EL S., Die Greistesstomngeii in ihren organischen Beziehnngen als

G^enstand der Heilkmide betrachtet. 8vo. BerUn, 10s. 6d.
•lalling, B., Ueber die Textur uQd Function der Medulla oblongata. 4ta Nebst

Atias. 15s.
fTalpeis, G. G., Bepertorinm botanices systonaticae. Tom. IL Fasc. IIL 8Ya

Leipzig, 5s.

NATURAL HISTORY, ASTRONOMY, &c

(eck, H. C, Der Deutsche Weinbau. 8yo. Leipzig. 28. 6d.

knrespondance mathematique et physique de quelques c^bres g^ometres du

18 siecle, preced^e d'une notice sur les trayaux de L. £uler, public par

P. H. Fuss. 2 Tols. 8yo. SL P^tersbattra, dOs.
kmp d'oeil historique sur le dernier quart-de-siede de I'existence de Tacad. imp.

des sciences de St. Petersbourg. St PeterAourg, 5s.
)ofppler, C, Versuch einer Erweiterung der analjtischen Geometrie und Gmnd-

lage eines neu einzufuhrenden Algorithmus. 4to. Prc^. 17s.
irichsen, W. F., Bericht iiber die wissenschaftlichen Leistungen im Gebiete der

Entomologie wahr. d. J. 1841. 8Ya BerUn, 58.
jlflcher von BSslerstamm, J. £., Abbildungen zur Schmetterlingskunde. Mit

Text, 20 Hft. 4to. L&pzig, 7s. 6d.
lora von Deutschland, herausg. von D. F. L. von Schlechtendal u. Schlenk.

4 Bd. 7 & 8 lief, jede mit 10 color. Kupfertafdn. 8vo. Jena. Each 2s.

SrieslKich, A., Spicilegium Florae Bumelicae et Bithynicae, ezhibens sjmopsin

• plantarum quas aest. 1839 legit auctor. Fasc L 8Ya Brawuchweig. 7s.

Coch, G. D. J., Synopsis Florae Germanicae et Helveticae. Ed. IL FarsL

8va Francofurti ad M, 12s.
Coiithy S. C, Enumeratio plantarum omnium hucusque cognitarum, secundum

familias naturalesdisposita, etc Tom. lY. 8yo. Stuttgart 17s.
ieoohard, G., Handworterbuch der topographischen Minerabgie. Svo. Heidel-
berg. 138. 6d.
ifjBrtini und Chemnitz, Systematiaches Conchylien-Oabinet, neu herausg. von

H. C. Kuster. 40 lAef, 4to. Niimherg. 10s.
Ilartius, C. Fr. Ph., De Systema Materiae Medicae vegetabihs Brasiliensis. 8vo.

Leipzig, 4s. 6d.

Sfees ab Esenbeck, J. F. L., Grenera plantarum florae Grermanicae. Fasc. XXil.

8to. Bonn. 5s.
Sinhn, A., Handbuch der Chirurg. Anatomic. 2 ThL 1 lief. 8vo. Dfonn-

hevn, 8s.
Petzholdt, A., Beitrage zur Geognosie von TyroL 8vo. Leipzig, 13s.
Bochenbach, L., Icones florae Germanicae Cent. VL, Decas 7, 8. 4to. Lips,

Plain, 8s. Color. 15s.
Etumkei*, C, Bfittlere Oerter von 12,000 Fix-Stemen, f. den An&ng v. 1836, ab-

geleitet aus den Beobachtungen auf den Hamburger Stemwarte. 4to.

Hamburg. 15s.
Sdlwld, Ph. Fr. de. Flora Japonica, Sect L Plantae omamaito vel usni inser-

Tientes digessit J. G. ZuccarinL YoL IL £nsc 1 — 3. FoL Lugduni Bat

1842. Eadi fasc. schwarz. lis. 6d. Color. 238.

mSTORY, BIOGRAPHY, GEOGRAPHY, VOYAGES, &c.

Aba Zakariya Yahya El-Nawa^, The biographical Dictionary of illustrioas Men,
chiefly at the beginning of Islamism. Now first edited by F. Wustenfeld.
Part in. 8yo. Gdttm. 78.

288 List of Neu) Works

Bannasch, G. W., Der Stand der Nautik zu Zeiten des Columbus, im Yergleich

mit unserer heutigen SchifSahrtskunde. Svo. K&nigsberg. 28.
Bayem, Das Konigreich, in seinen alterthiimlichen, geschichtlichen, und maler-

ischen Schonheiten. 19 und 20 Heft. Svo. Mitnch, 38. 6d.
Beauyais, L. A., Etudes hlstoriques. Tom. 11. Histoire du moyen age. 12ma 7s.
Beitzke, EL, Die Alpen. Ein geographisch-histor. BUd. 6-10 Liefl (Schluss.)

Svo. 7s. 6d.
Ebel, J. G., Anleitung auf die niitzlichste und genussvoUste Art die Schweiz zu

bereisen; von Escher. mit Panoramen und Garten. Svo. Zurich. lOs.
Pontes rerum Grermanicarum. Herausg. yon J. F. Boehmer. 1 Bd: Job. Vic-

toriensis u. andere Gesehicbtsquellen Deutscblands im 14 Jabrh. Svo. Stutt'

gart 16s.
Gieb, K., Handbucb f. Eeisende durch das MoseUand yon Trier bis Coblentz.

8yo. Trier, 7s.
Hermann, C, Beitrage zur Gescbicbte des russischen Beicbs. 8yo. Leipzig, 7s.
Hottinger, J. J., Aristocratie und Democratie in der alten Zeit. Eirche und

Staat in der neuen. 8yo. Zurich, 2s.
JokeU, J. B., Gescbicbte Ferdinand L 2 vols. Wien, 7s. 6d.
Kopf^ J., Falastina, oder topograpbiscbe Darstellung des bibliscben Scbauplatzes

verbunden mit einer Kurzen Welt-und Beligions-geschichte. Syo. Kempten,

58.

Kottenkampf, F., Gescbicbte Russlands seit 1830, mit besond. Riicksicht auf

dem Erieg im Caucasus. 12mo. Stuttgart 2s. 6d.
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Einfdbnmg der CbristUcben Religion in den Eaiserlicben Buss. OstseeGk)-

yemments. Mit Abbildungen, &c. Leipzig, Plain, 50s. Color, mit 3

Blatt neuen Tracbten. 85s. Obne diese Tracbten. 75s.
Lossau, y., Cbarakteristik der EJriege Napoleons. 1 Heft. 8yo. Freiburg, 7s. 6d.
Meynert, H., Gescbicbte Oesterreichs, seiner Volker u. Lander. 1—4 laefl 8yo.

Pesth, Erscbeint in 36 Liefl 42s.
Mickiewicz, A., Vorlesungen iiber slawiscbe Idteratur u. Zustande. 2r. Tbl. le.

Abtb. 12mo. Leipzig, 6s.
Miiller's, C. Ottfr., Archaolog. Mittbeilungen aus Griecbenland. Nacb dessen

binterlass. Papieren berausg yon A. Scboll. L Atbens Antiken — Sanmi-

lung. 1 Heft, mit 6 Tafeln. 4to. Frank, a M, 12s.
Possart, F., Die Buss. Ostsee-Proyinzen. 1 Tb: das gouyemment Kurland. 8yo.

Stuttgart 88.

CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY AND LITERATURE, ORIENTAL

LANGUAGES, MYTHOLOGY.

Alii Ispabanensis liber cantilenarum magnus ed. Kosegarten. 4 Lief. 4ta

GreifswakL 8s. 6d.
Allioli, J, Fr., Handbucb der bibL Altertbumskunde. 8 Lief. 8yo. Landshut

2s.
Annales regum Mauritaniae, ed. Tomberg. Tom. L textimi arabicum et scrip-

turae yarietatem cont fksc 1. 4to. Upsaliae, Fasc. L U. 278.
Baumbauer, M. M. y., Hcpt ttjs Ev\6yov e^ayaryrls, Veterum Pbilosopborom

praecipae Stoicorum doctrina de morte yoluntaria. 8yo. Ultrajecti ad JRh,

lis. 6d.
Curtius, E., Anecdota Delpbica. 4to. Berolini, 10s.
Freytag, G. W., Arabum proyerbia sententiaeque proyerbiales quae yocalibus in-

struxit, latine yertit et sumptibus suis edidit Tom. HL et ult. 8yo . Bofo,

Subs. pr. 37s.
GeUii, AuU, quae ad jus pertinent. Becogn. comment, instruxit D. Iwan de

Gloeden. Series L 8yo. Rostock, Is. 6d.
Gerlacb, F. D., Tiberius und Cajus Graccbus. Em histor. Vortrag. 8yo. JBasd, 2s.

published mi the Continent. 289

Graflf^s Althochdeutsher Sprachschatz, 27 Lief. (Schluss) 4to. Berlin. 6s.
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Bertheau. 8vo. Gottingae, 4s.
Heusde, Andr. C. van, Disquisitio historico-juridica de lege Poetelia Papiria. 8yo.

Ultrajecti ad R. 1842. 4s. 6d.
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Mit einer Abhandlung von Zumpt: uber das Leben des Horaz, &c. 8vo.

Leipzig, 13s. 6d.
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2s. 6d.
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8vo. Leipzig. 4s.
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Bautzen. 2s. 6d.
Meisterwerke dramatischer Poesie. Herausg. u. mit asthet. Abhandluhgen

ausgestattet v. Osw. Marbach. 1 Bandchen. Konig Oedipus v. Sopbocles.

Leipzig. 2 s. 6d.
MiUler, G., Ajistoteles und die Zukunft der Philosophic. 8vo. Schleussingen. Is.
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3s. 6d.
Persii Flacoi, Auli. Satirarum liber. Cum Scholiis antiquis edid. O. Jahn. 8vo.

Leipzig. 13s. 6d.
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typa. 16mo. Lips. 3s.
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Scholiorum Theocritonim pars inedita, edidit J. Adert. 8vo. Turici. 2s. 6d.
Schroer, T. G., Archiiologia Graecorum et Romanorum. 8vo. Posonii. 2s. 6d,
Terentii Afri, Publii Comoediae sex. Ed. Rheinhold. Pars 1. Enuchus, 2 vols.

8vo. Pasewalk, 9s.
Thesaurus Graeci linguae ab Henrico Stephano constr., edid. C. H. B. Hase, Giul.

et Lud. Dindorf. Vol. V. Fasc. 3. Kl. FoL Paris. 19s.
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Halle. Each 2s. 6d.
Wachsmuth, W., Hellenische Alterthumskunde. 2e Ausg. 3 Liefl 8vo. HaUe.

2s. 6d.
Weise, der, und der Thor. Aus dem Tibetischen iibersetzt u. mit d. Original-

texte herausg. von J. G. Schmidt. 2 Theile. 4to. Petersburg. 25s.
Wenrich, J. G., De poeseos Hebraicae atque Arabacae origine, indole, mutuoque

consensu atque discrimine. 8vo. Lips. lOs.
Wette, W. M. L. de, Lehrbuch der hebraisch-jiidischen Arcliaologie, nebst einem

Grundriss der hebraisch-jiidischen Greschichte. 3te Aufl. 8vo. Leipzig. 9s.

BELLES LETTRES.

Aus der Residenz. Schicksale eines Fiirstensohns. 2 vols., 8vo. Breslau.

12s.
Danzel, W., Ueber Gothe's Spinozismug. Ein Beitrag zur tieferen Wiirdigung

des Dichters und Forschers. 8vo. Hamburg. 4s. 6d.
Derschau, F., Finland und die Finlander, aus dem Russischen. 8vo. Leipzig.

2s. 3d.
Dies Buch gehort dem Konig. 2 vols. 8vo. Berlin. 20s.
Faber, G., Politische Predigten. Gehalten im J. 1843 auf verschiedenen Dachem

der Haupstadt ♦ * * 8vo. Leipzig. 15s.
Floris, Ernst., Sagen und Lieder vom Rhein und von der Mosel. 12mo. Coblentz.

3s. Mit 11 Stahlstichen. 6s.
Flugi, A. v., Volk sagen aus Graubiindcn. 12mo. CJiur. 2s. 6d.

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIII. IT

290 List of Neic Works.

Frick, Ida, Sybrecht WUlms. Ein Roman. 2r ThL 8vo. Dresden, 10s.
Uoltei, K. von. Die beschuhte Katze. Ein Mahrclien in drei Acten. 12ma

Berlin. 2s. 6d.
In der Heimath. Briefe eines Halbjahres, vom Blaf^erknospen bis zum Bliitter-

fallen von der Verfass. d. Schloss Goezin. 8vo. Breslau. 9s.
Kurtz, H., Schiller's Heimathjahre. VaterlandLsche Boman. 2 ThL 8vo.

Stuttgart 278.
Leibrock, A., Graf Gerhard Ton Schwarzburg. Historisch-romant. Gemalde

aus der Zeit der Belagening Braunschweigs im J. 1492. 2 ThL Leipzig.

lis. 6d.
Leibrock, G. A^ Die Sagen des Harzes und seiner nachsten Umgebung. 2er. Th.

Nordhausen. 4s. 6(L
Miiller, Wilh., Dramatishe Friihlingsgabe. 8va Berlin, 4s. 6d.
Mundt, Th., De Kunst der deutschen Prosa, Aesthetisch, literargeschichtlich,

gesellsciiaftlich. 8vo. Berlin. 8s. 6d.
Polil, P., Martin von Dunin, Erzbischof von Gnesen u. Posen. Eine biographische

und Kirchenliistorische Skizze. 8vo. Marienburg. 2s. 6d.
Russa, D., Der riithselhafte Fremde, oder der Scheintod. Novelle. 8vo. Leip-
zig. 6s.
Schilling, G., Musikalische Dynamik, oder die Lehre vom Vortrage in d. Musik.

8vo. Cassel. 8s.
Steglich, G. T. C, Praktische Vorstudien zur Fuge. 4to. Nebst Commentar.

8vo. Grimma. 3s. 6d.
Stemau. C. O., Kaleidoskop von Dresden. Skizzen, Berichte und Phantasien.

16mo. Magdeburg. 28.
Vierteljahrsschrift, Deutsche. Juli — Sept, 1843. 8vo. Stuttgart. 9s,

FINE ARTS, ARCHITECTURE, ETC.

Anfertigung, die, der Lichtbilder nach den neuesten Versuchen u. Erfahmngen

theoretisch u. praktisch dargestellt. Berlin. Is.
Denkmale der Baukunst des Mittelatters in Sachsen bearbeitet und h^rauisg: von

L. Puttrich unter Mitw. v. G. M. Geyser d. Jung. 2 Abth. (Preuss Prov.

Saclisen). 13 u. 14 Lief. Kl. FoL Leipzig. Subs. pr. 78. 6d. Indian

paper, 12 s.
Eberhard, H. W., Typen pitoresk-plastisch-architeckton. Omamente aus der

Vaterland. Flora. 3 and 4*Heft. 4to. Leipzig. Ss. 6d.
Holz, F. W., Sammlung arkitekton. Entwurfe von Stadtischen Gebaude An-

sichten. ^ foL Berlin. 10s.
Ideen Magazin fur Architecten, Kiinstler und Handwerker. Herausg. von J. G.

Grohmann, neue verm. Aufl. 5 Bd. 4 Heft. 4to. Leipzig. 2s.
Rathgeber, G., Annalen der Niederlandischen Malerei, Formschneide und Kup-

ferstecherkunst. 2 Th. FoL Gotha. 13s. 6d,
Strenune, C. C, Die Architektur und ihr Verhaltniss zur Cultur und zum Volke.

8vo. Dorpat Is.

C. WHITING, BKAUFOUT HoUSK, STIUND.

THE

FOREIGN

QUARTERLY REVIEW

Akt. I.— 1. TTie Poets and Poetryof America ; vnth an Histori'
cal Introduction, By RuFUS W . Griswold. Pliiladelphia.
1842.

2. Voices of the Nighty and other Poems, By Henry Wads-
WORTH Longfellow. London. 1843.

3. Poems, By William Cullen Bryant. London. 1842.

4. Tecumseh; or^ The West Thirty Years Since : a Poem.
By George H. Colton. New York. 1842.

6. Washington: a National Poem, Part L Boston. 1843.

* American Poetry' always reminds us of the advertisements in
tihe newspapers, headed ' The best Substitute for Silver:' — if it be
not the genuine thing, it ' looks just as handsome, and is miles out
of sight cheaper.'

We are far from regarding it as a lust ground of reproach to
the Americans, that their poetry is uttle better than a far-off
echo of the father-land; but we think it w a reproach to them
that they should be eternally thrusting their pretensions to the
poetical character in the face of educated nations. In this particu-
lar, as in most others, what they want in the integrity of their
assumption, they make up in swagger and impudence. To believe
themselves, they are the finest poets in the whole world: before
we close this article we hope to satisfy the reader that, with two or
three exceptions, there is not a poet of mark in the whole Union.

The circumstances of America, from the commencement of her
history to the present time, have been peculiarly imfavourable to
the development of poetry, and if the people were wise they
Would be content to take credit for the things they have done,
without challenging criticism upon the things they have failed in ^
attempting. They have felled forests, dramed marshes, cleared
>rildemes8es, built cities, cut canals, laid down railroads (too
Diucli of this too with other people's money), and worked out a
great practical exemplification, in an amazingly short space of
time, of the political immoralities and social vices of which a
democracy may be rendered capable. This ought to be enough

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIV. X

k

292 American Poetry.

for their present ambition. They ought to wait patiently, and
with a befitting modesty, for the time to come when all this
frightful crush and conflict of wild energies shall in some measure
have subsided, to afford repose for the fine arts to take root in
their soil and ' ripen in the sun/ It is not enough that there
are individuals in the tossing multitude aflSicted with babbling
desires for ease, and solitude, and books, and green places;
such dreamers are only in the way, and more likely to be
trampled down in the blind commotion, than, like Orpheus, to
still the crowd and get audience for their delicate music. There
must be a national neart, and national sympathies, and an intel-
lectual atmosphere for poetry. There must be the material to
work upon as well as to work with. The ground must be pre-
pared before the seed is cast into it, and tended and well-ordered,
or it will become choked with weeds, as American literature^
such as it is, is now choked in every one of its multifarious mani-
festations. As yet the American is horn-handed and pig-headed,
hard, persevering, unscrupulous, carnivorous, ready for all wea-
thers, with an incredible genius for lying, a vanity elastic beyond
comprehension, the hide of a buffalo, and the shriek of a steam-
engine; 'a real nine-foot breast of a fellow, steel twisted, and
made of horse-shoe nails, the rest of him being cast iron with
steel springs.* If any body can imagine that literature could be
nourished in a frame like this, we would refer him for final satis-
faction to Dr. Channing, whose testimony is indisputable where
the honour of his coimtiy is concerned. ' Do we possess,' he in-
quires, ' what may be caUed a national literature? Have we pro-
duced eminent writers in the various departments of intellectual
effort? Are our chief sources of instruction and literary enjoy-
ment furnished from ourselves? We regret that the reply to
these questions is so obvious. He few standard works which
we have produced, and which promise to live, can hardly, by
any courtesy, be denominated a national literature.'

How can it be otherwise? All the * quickening influences' are
wanted. Peopled originally by adventurers of all classes and
casts, America has been consistently replenished ever since by the
dregs and outcasts of all other countries. Spaniards, Portuguese,
Trench, and English, Irish, Welsh, and Scotch, have fix)m time
to time poured upon her coasts like wolves in search of the
means of life, living from hand to mouth, and struggling out-
ward upon the primitive haimts of the free Indians whom they
hunted, cheated, demoralized, and extirpated in the sheer fuiy of
hunger and fraudulent aggrandizement. Catholics, Unitarians,
Calvmists, and Infidels, were indiscriminately mixed up in this
work of violent seizure and riotous colonization, settbng down
at last into sectional democracies boimd together by a common

Charactei' of the Population. 293

interest and a common distrust, and evolving an ultimate form of
self-ffovemment and federal centralization to keep the whole in
check. This brigand confederation grew larger and larger every
day, with a rapidity unexampled in the history of mankind,*
by continual accessions from all parts of the habitable world.
All it required to strengthen itself was human muscles; it lacked
nothing but workmen, craftsmen, blood, bones, and sinews.
Brains were little or nothing to the purpose — character, morality,
Btill less. ^ A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether,' was
the one thing needful. Every new hand was a help, no matter
■what brand was upon its palm. The needy and dissolute, tempted
by the prospect of gain — ^the debased, glad to escape from the old
society which had flung them off — the criminal, n3dng from the
laws vaej had outraged — all flocked to America as an open haven of
refuge ror the Pariahs of the wide earth. Thus her population
was augmented and is daily augmenting; thus her republics are
armed; thus her polite assemblies and sdect circles are constantly
enlivened by fresh draughts of kindred spirits and foreign cele-
brities— ^the Sheriff Parkinses, the General Holts, the town-trea-
surer Flinns, the chartist secretary Campbells, and the numerous
worthies who, having successfully swindled their own country-
men, seek an elegant retirement in the free states of the Union to
enjoy the fruits of their plunder. The best blood Aoaerica boasts
of was injected into her at the time of the Irish rebellion, and she
looks up with a justifiable pride, taking into consideration the
peculiar quahty of her other family and heraldic honours, to such
names as those of Emmet and M'Nevin.

Can poetry spring out of an amalgam so monstrous and revolt-
ing? Can its pure spirit breathe in an air so fetid and stifling?
You might as reasonably expect the vegetation of the tropics on
the wintry heights of Lapland. The whole state of American so-
ciety, from first to last, presents insuperable obstacles to the cul-
tivation of letters, the expansion of intellect, the formation of
great and original minds. There is an instinctive tendency in it
to keep down the spiritual to the level of the material. The pro-
gress IS not upwards but onwards. There must be no ' vulgar
great' in America, lifted on wings of intellectual power above the
level of the community. American greatness is only greater than
all the rest of the world; at home, aU individual d&stmctions are
absorbed in the mass; and every thing that is Hkely to interfere
with that concrete idea, by exercising a disturbing mental influence

* Although the progress of population in America has not quite borne out Mr.
Halthus's theory (which is presumed to have been based upon it), it has adyanced
at an alarming ratio, doubling itself within thirty years, conunencing with the first
oensiui of Congress in 1790.

x2

294 American Poetry.

on the surface, is cut down at once by a tyranny as certain in its
stroke as the guillotine. The result is that whenever men of more
than ordinary capacity have arisen in America, they have adapted
themselves, forewarned of their fate, to the ovemiung exigencies
in which they found themselves placed. Instead of venturing
upon the dangerous experiment of endeavouring to elevate their
countrymen to their own height, they have sunk into the arms of
the mob. Hence America has never produced statesmen, but
teems with politicians. Hence the judges on the bench constantly
give way to popular clamour, and law itself is abrogated by the
law-makers, and openly violated by its ftinctionaries. Hence the
total abnegation of all dignity, earnestness, truth, consistency, and
courage, in the administration of public affairs. Hence the as-
cendency of Lynch-law over state-law; hence assassination in the
daylight in the thronged streets; hence impunity to crime,
backed by popular fury; hence the wild justice of revenge beard-
ing the justice of the judicature in its own courts; hence the
savage bowie-knife ghttering in the hand of the murderer on the
floor of Congress, where if decency, or self-respect, the subjugation
of passion, or a deliberate sense of any sort of responsibility, ex-
isted anywhere in the coimtry, we might hope to discover it; and
hence that intimidation from without which makes legislation
itself a farce, and which, tramoUng upon all known principles
of human rights, has prohibited the discussion of slavery in the
chambers, where discussion, to be of any value at all, ought to be
free and above suspicion, exhibiting in the most comprehensive
spirit a fearless representation of all classes, all interests, and all
opinions. Tlie ablest men in America have bowed down before
these demoralizing necessities. They have preserved their own
equivocal and insecure position by a servile obedience to the masses.
No man in America stands clear of this rotten despotism. No
man dare assert his own independence, apart from the aggregate
independence of the people. He has no liberty but theirs, and the
instant he asserts the right of private judgment he is disfiranchised
of every other. So thoroughly and universally is this acknow*
ledged, so implicitly is it submitted to, that it has long ceased to
excite observation. It is one of the fui^damental conditions of
society ; a matter of tacit usage, universal and unavoidable. It
ranges with equal force throughout all orders, from the highestto
the lowest. It even governs questions of taste, as it coerces questions
of policy. The orator is compelled to address himself to the low
standard of the populace : he must strew his speech with flowers
of Billingsgate, with hyperbolical expletives, and a garnish of
falsehoods, to make it effective, and rescue it from the chance of
being serious or refined. The preacher must preach downto-liie

State of Society. . 2^i

fashion of his congregation, or look elsewhere for bread and de-
votion. The newspaper editor must make his journal infamous
and obscene if he would have it popular; for let it never be sup-
posed that the degradation of the American press is the work of
the writers in it, but of the frightful eagerness of the public ap-
petite for grossness and indecency — as one of these very poets, of
whom we are about to speak, says,

Not theirs the blame who furnish forth the treat ;
But ours, who throng the board and grossly eat.

We shall not be suspected of even a misgiving about the prac-
tical benefits of public liberty. But the case of America is no
longer a safe example of the working of republican institutions, or
of the experiment of universal franchise; something more is re-
quired in one direction, and a great deal less in another, to con-
stitute her that which she claims to be, the * model republic' of
the world; and he who best appreciates the value of true liberty,
will be the very last to applaud the condition of social anarchy into
which America has fallen out of the very lap, as it were, of
freedom. We must be careful to distinguish between use and abuse,
the true and the counterfeit, the genuine and the spurious. The
whole question is— what is liberty? A great authority, whose
dictum will not be disputed at the other side of the water, tells us
that liberty consists in the obedience of a people to laws of their
own makinff. America presents the very converse of this pro-
position, and seems to have literally mistaken outrage and disorder
and naked licentiousness for the assertion of personal and poUtical
rights. Her joumaUsts, echoing back in frantic exultation this
universal dnmkenness of the people, openly glory in their pro-
&nities and perjuries, and in their naving cast off every semblance
of order, control, and moral responsibility. This is the crowning
evidence of that depravity whidb rots Ukc a c«.nker at the core of
American society. ' Every element of thought,' says the * lead-
ing journal' of New York, in a passage we recently quoted from
its scandalous columns, ' society, religion, politics, morals, litera-
ture, trade, currency, and philosophy, is in a state of agitation,
transition, and change. Every thing is in a state of effervescence !
50,000 persons have taken the benefit of the act, and wiped out
debts to the amount of 60,000,000 of dollars. In religion we have
dozens of creeds, and fresh revelations starting every year, or oftener.
In morals we have all sorts of ideas : and in literature every thing in
eo9ifusion. Sceptical philosophy and materialism seem, however, to
he gaining ground and popularity at every step.'

This is a portrait of American society, drawn by one who faiows
it well, and who is of all men the best qualified to describe it
accurately. The literature that comes of it, and that is expressly
addressea to it, must inevitably partake, more or less, of all

296 American Poetry.

characteristics. It is essential to a national literature that it
should have some standard of appeal in the settled tastes and
habits of the people. But where is this to be found in the state
of convulsion so faithfully delineated above? That there are
educated and highly intelligent men in America, who look with
sorrow upon the condition of their country, we are glad to ac-
knowledge ; but they form no class, and are not even numerous
enough to produce any sensible effect upon the tone of the com-
munity. They are scattered over the face of the land, are power-
less for good by segregation and dispersion, and, giving them full
credit for a grave desire to resist the malignant circumstances of
their destiny, — are finally sucked into the whirlpool that surges and
roars around them. A national literature craves the fosterage
and protection of thoughtful minds, of cultivated leisure, of
scholarship resident somewhere amongst the people, and con-
stantly moulding and refining their usages, and raising gradually
out of the mass an intellectual order of men to give a dignified
and distinctive stamp to the national character. That such a
result may yet be educed from the tangled and hideous de-
mocracy of America, we will not attempt to deny; although
its accomplishment seems too remote for any useful speculation.
But it is obvious that no such means exist in the United States
for the production and sustentation of literature at present, and
least of all for those forms of literature which make a direct ap-
peal to the imagination. The one thing that goes down most
successfully in America is money. This is the Real which has
so effectually strangled the Ideal in its iron gripe. A bag of
dollars is a surer introduction to the * best society* in America
than the highest literary reputation. A famous author will be
stared at, and jostled about, and asked questions, and have his
privacy scared and broken in upon by impertinent curiosity ; but
a rich man moves in an atmosphere of awe and serviHty, and
commands every thing that is to be had in the way of precedence,
and pomp, and circle-worship. As there must be an aristocracy
everywhere of some sort, of blood, or talent, or titles, so America
has made her election, and set up her aristocracy of dollars — ^the
basest of all. It would be the greatest of calamities were it not
also the greatest of burlesques; and there is hope that its essential
absurdity may at length bring it into general contempt. Peo^e
are sometimes laughed out of their vices, who cannot by any
means be induced to reason upon them ; and so it will happefit
doubtless, in the fulness of time, with the aristocracy of America.
It cannot be endured for ever. A sense of the ridiculous must
one day set in, and the whole fabric must be smelted, and such
proportion of ore as it may really contain will be separated frcwn
the dross with which it is now mixed up. Generals and oolondb

The American Anthology, 297

keeping wliiskey stores and boarding-houses — ^titles of honour
borrowed from the old world, and labelled upon the meanest of
callings in the new, suggest such an irresistibly ludicrous asso-
ciation of ideas, that the Americans themselves, once they begin
to see things in that aspect, must be glad to be relieved from a
motley fooFs costume which only excites the derision of other
countries, making itself felt in shouts of laughter that may be said
to come pealing upon them over the broad waters of the Atlantic.
But in the meanwhile it interferes fatally with the culture of
letters. The aforesaid bag of dollars, no matter how acquired
— utter indifference to the honesty of the means of acquisition
giving additional impetus to the naked passion for gain — is worth
a dozen poets in America. The poets are keenly alive to their
condition, and sometimes, in sheer self-defence, embrace the idol
they despise, and through whose brazen ascendancy they are
themselves despised. They adopt the creed and practice of the
money-changers in the temple, and are ready at a moment's
notice to t^e part in the sacrilege, to fall foul of the priests
themselves, and slay them on their own altax.

We have collected all the publications containing American
poetry we could procure. The titles of only a few of the most
prominent will be found in the heading; for we have not thought
it necessary to encumber the reader with an enumeration of books
and ephemera which could not possibly interest him, and of which
lie is i;iot very likely ever to hear again. Through this mass we
have laboured with diligence. We do not think a single versifier
has escaped us; certainly not one who enjoys the least celebrity.
We have drawn our materials from a variety of sources, occasionally
from complete editions when such could be had, and, in lack of
other means, from a huge anthology collected by a Mr. Gris-
wold — ^the most conspicuous act of martyrdom yet committed in
the service of the transatlantic muses.

The anthology is ' got up' in a style creditable to the American
{iress. But we are loth to pay a compliment to the printers at
the expense of the poets. The plan is something similar to the
collections of Enghsh poetry by Southey, Campbell, and others.
All the poetasters who could be scrambled together are crammed
into the volume, which is very large, double-columned, and con-
tains nearly five hundred pages. There is an ' historical introduc-
tion,' ( !) and a biographical notice prefixed to each name, and the
i^cimens are, of course, the best that could be selected. By dint
<rf hunting up all manner of periodicals and newspapers, and
seizing upon every name that could be foimd attached to a scrap
of verse in the obscurest holes and comers, Mr. Griswold h&s
mustered upwards of a hundred * poets.' The great bulk of these

H9S American Poetry.

we laave no doubt were never heard of before by the mnltifa-
rious public of the Union, and many of them must have been
thrown into hysterics on awaking in their beds and finding them-
selves suddenly famous. The book is curious in this respect,
that it not only assists us to a complete coup cTceil of American

Eoetry, but also to a running flavour of American criticism. But
it us ' suspend our admiration for a while.'
The whole batch is spread over a period of about eighty years.
Within the same penod England has given birth to Bums,
Bloomfield, Byron, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth,
Southey, Moore, Crabbe, Wilson, Campbell, Rogers, Scott, Mont-
gomery, Barry Cornwall, Leigh Hunt, Joanne Baillie, Tennyson,
Talfourd, Knowles, Ingoldsby, and others who will live in the world's
memory, and who were oppressed by a difficulty from which
America as a nation, with manners and inspirations of her own,
was exempt — that of having been preceded by an illustrious race of
poets, who had abeady occupied so large a space, as to render it a
work of genius in itself to strike into ' fresh fields and pastures
new.' We do not refer to these names by way of instituting, or
even suggesting, a comparison. On the contrary, we mention
them to put them out of court altogether, for it would be too
much of a good thing to place them side by side with the Trum-
bulls, Frisbies, Alsops, Clasons. Cranches, Leggetts, Pikes, and
the rest of the eupnonious brood of American jinglers. But
suppose some enthusiastic Griswold on this side of the water were
to scrape up out of magazines aiid annuals a book, or books, (for
he might easily manufacture fifty such volumes,) of English verse,
belonging to that class which, for convenience, is called minor
poetry, embracing specimens of Mrs. Cornwall Baron Wilson,
Major Calder Campbell, Lord Gardner, Miss EUza Cook, Miss
Camilla Toulmin, Miss Skelton, Lady E. S. Wortley, the false
Montgomery, the Hon. Julia Augusta Maynard, Swain, Bowles,
Watts, Hervey, and a score or two more; — ^we can honestly assure
the reader that, hopeless as such a collection would be, it would
immeasurably transcend in freshness and intellectual vigour this
royal octavo from the United States. The Delphic Oracle of
old did not more cruelly beguile its questioners, than brother
Jonathan is beguiled by the poetry of the Philadelphic press.

One grand element 13 wanted for the nurture of the poetical
character in America: — she has no traditions. She started al
once^ into life, rude, rugged, savage, self-confident She hw
nothing to fell back upon in her history — no age of gold — ^no
fabulous antiquity— no feiry-land. If she had carved a National
Poetry out of her peculiar circumstances, she would have salved
sf philosophical 4oubt which can never again be tested by an ex-

The want of a Pdetical Name. 299

periment so vast and perfect in Its kind. By a National Poetiy
■we mean a poetry moulded and modified by the national mind,
reflecting the character and life of the people, and reposing upon a
universal faith. This does not seem to be a thing to be grown in a
season like maize or carrots, or to be knocked up on a sudden like
a log-house. Yet it is in this way the Americans seek to supply
the want. Having no national poetry of their own, they import
the national poetry of England, and try to adapt it to their own
use ; but it is an indigenous product, and cannot be transplanted
without degeneracy. The lack of a poetical machinery is felt so
forcibly that the poets are obHged to borrow foreign agencies, and
work at second-hand. But how the poor fairies and hamadryads
lose themselves in the American woods! — How the elves and
sprites mope about in the dismal solitudes ! Their enforced pre-
sence only reminds us the more painfully of the prosaic desolation
of the land, which is so miserably destitute of all poetical appliances.
America has not even a poetical name to ring the changes upon,
and, in the last extremity of distress, the poets sometimes call her
the Western Star ! One of them, in a sort of despair, expresses
serious doubts whether she has properly any distinctive desig-
nation whatever; and, considering that America is the name of
the whole continent; that Columbia, never actually adopted, is
now ' repudiated;' that North America includes Canada, Green-
land, Meaico, Texas; that the term United States applies equally
to the Southern Confederation; and that there is nothing
left, native to the soil, except the ludicrous New England title of
Yankee, it does seem as if the founders of the Republic forgot to
give it a name.

The poetry of all other countries is distinguished by particular
characteristics — ^by its forms, colouring, temperament. There is
nothing of this kind in American poetry. It takes all forms and
colours. It is national only in one sense — it never fails, opportunity
serving, to hjonn the praises of

The smartest nation
In all creation.

Upon this point, all the poets are unanimous. The want of
historical elements is supplied by the intensity of the glorification.
The two great subjects are Liberty and the Indians. Upon these
two subjects, the poetical genius of the country runs not, from
Nova Scotia to New Orkans, from the AUeganies to the sea, with
ftmdiy significant exceptions in the south and west. Two more
unfortunate topics could not have been hit upon. All men are
bom equal, says the declaration of independence; we are the
fieest of the free, says the poet; and so the slave-owner illustrates
the proposition by traffickmg in his own sons and daughters, and

300 American Poetry.

enlarging his seraglio to increase his live stock. He is his own
lusty breeder of equal-bom men. A curious instance of American
liberty is cited by a traveller, who informs us that he knows a
lady residing near Washington who is in the habit of letting out
her own natural brother ! As to the Indians, nothing can exceed
the interest these writers take in their picturesque heads, and
flowing limbs — except the interest they take in their lands. No-
body could ever suspect, while reading these fine efiusions upon
the dignity and beauty of the Indians, that they were written by
people through whose cupidity, falsehood, a.nd cruelty the Indians
nave been stripped of their possessions, and left to starve and rot;
that while they were thus evincing the tenderest regard for ihe
Indian nations in octo-syllabic verse. Congress was engaged,
through its servants, in suborning Indian chiefs, and making them
drunk to entrap them into deeds of sale of their hunting-grounds;
and, as if these and similar atrocities were not enough to mark
the difference between the poetry and the policy of the States,
importing blood-hoimds from Cuba to hunt the Indians of Florida I
It is quite impossible to account for the incredible folly which
tempts them to indulge in such themes, unless we refer it to the
eame infatuation which makes them boast of their morality in the
face of their filthy newspaper press, and of their honesty in the
teeth of pocket-picking i^ennsylvania.

It might be anticipated that the scenery of America would
produce some corresponding effect upon her poetry, and that, if
there were nothing else to stamp it with nationality, there would
at least be found something like a reflection of the surrounding
grandeur. But here the reader will be grievously disappointed.
A spirit of dreary immensity settles down upon the descriptive
verse, as if the mountains were too huge, the cataracts too awfiil,
the forests too stupendous to be dealt with in the ordinary way;
as if the senses were stunned rather than inspired by their mag-
nitude. The result is that three-piled hyperbole which gives
you exaggeration without distinctness, the turgidity and the
vagueness of the false sublime. This is merely want of imagina-
tion. But aggravated bombast is not the only evil arising firom
the want of imagination ; it sometimes falls down on the other side.
We could bear to have Niagara tumbling double its depth into
bathos, and the springs of Saratoga splashmg the stars; but it is
not so endurable to have grand natural objects stript of aU their
poetical associations, and examined with the naked eye of utilita-
rian calculation. Lakes, rivers, prairies are viewed sometimes in
reference to their capabilities, a3 if they were merely auxiliaries to
the great business of draining, clearing, and building. Coloni-
sation, or settling down, occupies an important phase in Amed-

Early Specimens — Settlers^ Poetry. 301

can life. It is the remote alternative to which every man looks in
the event of being driven to extremity — ^it is the ready resource
of a people who exist in a state of perpetual fluctuation, who are
never sure of to-morrow, who are smicted with an irresistible
love of change and movement, and who are accustomed to con-
template without emotion the vicissitudes of a semi-barbarous
mode of society. The novelty and strangeness of the settler's
position are abundantly suggestive ; but the American poet takes
the matter as it is, literally, and has no conception of any thing
beyond the most common and trivial circumstances. He goes to
work like a back woodsman, and hews away imtil the thunders of
the axe drive out every image from the mind except that of
struggling toil and its precarious tenement. All this may answer
well enough in the United States, where wood and water are
r^arded chiefly as sources of profit and convenience ; but it is
nothing better than daily labour put into verse. Such subjects
are not necessarily unpoetical, but penury and baldness of treat-
ment sink them lielow^ticism.

The earUest specimens of American poetry are of this class.
The art seems to have struck its roots amidst the drudgery of the
woods and fields. The very first poet treats us to a succinct view
of the life of the settler, recounts the severities of the winter and
the calamities of the spring ; how the worms destroy much of the
com before it is grown, how the birds and squirrels pluck it as it
grows, and the racoons finally annihilate it in full ear; how, in
kck of warm clothing, they are forced to put ' clout upon clout;*
how they are obUged to substitute pumpkins and parsnips for
puddings and custards; and how, there being no malt, they are
oompeUed

to sweeten their lips
With pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips ;

with a sly fling at some who were not over-satisfied with this
style of Kving, and inviting others to supply their place:

Now while some are going let others be coming,
For while liquor's boiling it must have a scumming ;

and winding up with this commodious advice to the new-
comers—

To bring both a quiet and contented mind.
And all needfiil blessings you surely will find.

By way of extenuation for a heap of doggrel of this kind, Mr.
Griswold reminds his readers that the early age of American colo-
nization was not poetical — a piece of information he might have
qiared himself the trouble of communicating. * Our fathers,' he
mjBj ^ were like the labourers of an architect; they planted deep

302 American Poetry.

and strong in religious virtue and useful science, the foundations
of an edifice, not dreaming how great and magnificent it was ten
be. They did well their part; it was not meet for them to fashioA
the capitals and adorn the arches of the temple.' If they ' planted
deep and strong/ they did something which was not warranted
by English grammar; but, setting aside their manner of planting
temples, this little passage, although the writer is very mnocent
of such an intention, puts the poetical claims of America comr
pletely at rest. By fashioning capitals and adorning arches Mr-
Griswold means the cultivation of poetry— or, as he expresses it
a little higher up, ' the poet's glowing utterance.* It was not
meet for ' our fathers* to trouble themselves with the graces of
literature; they were too busy laying the foundations of the
republic, and they left poetry and * such small deer* for those
wno came after them. Now this is exactly the experiment
that has been tried in America, and in America alone. iTiqf be-
gan at t1i£ wrong end. They put the cart before the horse, and
expect the whole world to wonder at the marvellous progress thejr
have made. In all other countries poetry appeared first and uti^
lit^ afterwards, the slow fruit of necessity and experience. Mr»
Griswold admits that in America utility was all in all at the begin-
ning, and poetry nothing; but in the stupidity of his candour
cannot see how latally, by that simple admission, he compromises
the whole question at issue.

It is not pretended that there was any thing approaching to
poetry in America imtil after she had achieved her independence.
' The poetry of the colonies,' says Mr. Griswold, in large type,
meant to make a profound impression, * was without originality,
energy, feeling, or correctness of diction.' This is meant to con-
vey a severe sarcasm upon England, Mr. Griswold being again
unconscious that he is aU the time cutting the ground firom under
his own countrymen. The criticism, however, unfortunately for
the argument it is meant to insinuate, applies with too much
accuracy to nearly all the poetry that has been produced in
America ever since. The independent manufacture is scarcely a
shade better than the colonial article.

The earliest poet admitted into the recognised literature of the
States, is one Philip Freneau. He died in 1832. We have no
need to travel very far back for the Augustan age of America.
The life and works of Freneau were as varied as those of his
ail-but namesake, Freney, the Irish rapparee. Failing in an
attempt to get up a paper in New York, he was appointed
to a place in one of the public offices; but this was too sedentary
* for a man of his ardent temperament,' and he threw it up to con-
duct a journal of Philadelphia. The journal failed, and he went

Popular Sonffs, 303

to sea in command of a merchant vessel; qualification being as
Kttle required in commanding American vessels as in writing
American poetry. Like too many great men of antiquity, no-
thing more is mown of Freneau, except that he lived in Phila-
delphia in 1810, and had a house bumea in New Jersey in 1815;
but whether in the ardour of his temperament he burned it him-
self, or somebody burned it for him, does not appear. He wrote
satires, songs, pohtics, and naval ballads, and even contemplated
an epic; but some of these pieces, Mr. Griswold sajrs, were ' de-
serving of little praise for their chasteness.' They enjoyed un-
bounded popularity for all that, and his songs were sung every-
where with enthusiasm — a practical commentary on the ' re-
ligious virtue* in which the great edifice was planted. We will
not trouble the reader with any specimens of this patriarchal
poet, whose principal merit conasts in having been bom before
those who came after him.

The declaration of independence threw all the small wits into a
state of effervescence. The crudest talent for tagging verses and
scribbling songs ad captandum was hailed as a miracle; and some
estimate may be formed of the taste of the people by a glance at
one or two of the ballads which stirred their blood to battle, and

* like a trumpet made their spirits dance.' The two emphatically
national songs of America are those entitled * Hail, Columbia,' and

* The Star-spangled Banner.' These songs are still as popular as
ever. Mr. Griswold assures us that they are *as well known
throughout the United States as the Rhine Song in Germany, or
&e Marseilles [?] Hjrmn in France.* The former was written
by no less a person than the * late excellent Judge Hopkinson,'
and opens like a cannonade.

Hail, Columbia^! happy land !
Hail, ye heroes ! heaven-bom band !

Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause,
And when the storm of war was gone,
Enjoyed the peace your valour won.

The poet has no sooner given them credit for their good sense
in enjoying the blessings of peace when the war was over, than
he recommends them to raise an altar to the ^kies, and rally round
their liberty; and in the opening of th^ ne?ct stanza he calls upon
them^ rather unexpectedly, to go to war again:

Immortal patriots ! rise once moi^ ;
Defend your rights, defend your shore.

This standing invitation to go to war, although there be no foe to
fight withal, hits off with felicity the empty bluster of the nal-
tiorial character. The call upon the * iinmoirtal patriots* to 'rise

304 American Poetry.

once more' is sung at all hours in every comer of the Union by
men, women, and children; and it is very likdy that every day
the ' heaven-bom band' get up out of their beds fliey believe they
are actually rising once more to defend their rights and their
chore. Tms is the key to the popularity of ' Hail, Columbia.'
It flatters the heroic quaUties of the people, without making any
fiirther requisition upon their valour than that they shall imph-
citly believe in it themselves. ' The Star-spangled Banner' is
constructed on the same principle, and blows the * heaven-bom'
bubble with equal enthusiasm; dosing with the vivacity of a
cock that knows when to crow on the smnmit of its odonferous
hiU.

Oh ! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved home and the war's desolation;

Blessed with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

These are genuine samples of the cock-a-doodle-doo style of war-
like ballads. But the most remarkable writer of this class was
Robert Paine, a heaven-bom genius, who is said to have ruined
himself by his love of the * wine-cup' — ^which is American for
mint-julep and gin-sling. He was so depraved in his tastes, and
80 insensible to the elegant aspirations of his &mily as to marry
an actress ! It is amusing and mstructive to learn from the Ame-
rican editor that this monstrous union between two professors of
two kindred arts was regarded with such genteel horror in the
repubHcan circles as to lead to poor Paine's * excludon from
fashionable society, and to a disagreement with his father, which
lasted tiU his death !' The false nature of all this is as striking as
itspseitdo fine breeding; and it shows how much bigotry and in-
tolerance may be packed under the surface of a large pretension
to liberality and social justice. Certainly there is nothing so
vulgar and base as American refinement — nothing so coarse as
American delicacy — ^nothing so tyrannical as American freedom.
The worthy woman in the comedy who cries out at every turn,
* What wiU Mrs. Grundy say?' is the exact type of the fashion-
able society of America. It lives in constant terror of its dignity,
and is as much afraid of catching any contagion in its polite man-
ners as honest people would be of incurring a public shame. A
marriage with an actress is punished by a sentence of ostracism;
as if the actress might not be, and out of the very joyousness and
spirituality of her me had not a fair chance of being, a himdred
tunes more intellectual and loveable in mind and heart than the
whole mob of her persecutors. In England, where we have a
legitimate frame-work of society, and something at stake in the

Robert Paine. 305

intermixture of orders, marriages of this kind, in spite of a little
begging of the question between aristocracy and art, are frequent
enough for the vindication of poor humanity. Ameiix^an exclu-
siveness would be abominably snocked at an enumeration of the
people who have married from the stage into high, life, and done
honour to it in the end. Lady Herbert married Beard, the
anger; Lady Bertie married Gallini, the dancer; Lady Susan
Strangeways conferred her lustre on O'Brien, the comedian; Mrs.
Robinson became Lady Peterborough; Lavinia Fenton became
Duchess of Bolton; Miss Bolton was married to Lord Thurlow;
Miss Bnmton to the Earl Craven ; Miss Farren to the Earl of
Derby; Harriet Mellon to the Duke of St. Albans ; Miss O'Neill
to Sir Wrixon Beecher ; a catalogue which might be advan-
tageously enlarged by tiie introduction of the names of Miss
Tree, Miss Searle, and twenty others. It is not worth while to
ask why the actress, who may thus ascend to rank and prosperity
in England, is not permitted by the Americans to pass 'between
the wmd and their gentility!

But to return to Robert Paine. Notwithstanding his evil re-
putation, he was the most popular of all the poets. Perhaps, if
the truth were known, his bad character helped him on by sti-
mulating the morbid curiosity of those who affected in public to
abhor his practices, while they read his verses with avidity in
private. Certain it is that his poems had an enormous sale, since
he was paid no less than fifteen nundred dollars for a single poem;
which was at the rate of upwards of one pound English per line.
For a song of half a dozen stanzas, called ' Adams and Liberty,'
he received seven hundred and fifty dollars, equal to 150/. of our
money. This song is regarded as his chef-d^c^uvre, and the fol-
lowing stanza is pronounced to be the best it contains. K pay-
ment and popularity go for any thing, it ought to be the best in
the whole range of the American Helicon.

Should the tempest of war overshadow our land.

Its bolts coula ne'er rend Freedom's temple asunder;
For, immoved, at its portal would Washington stand.

And reptdsBy with his breast^ the assaults of the thunder!

His sword, from the sleep
Of its scabbard would leap,
And conduct, with its point, every flash to the deep !

If he had made Franklin turn his sword into a conductor, it would
have been more to the purpose; although that prudent philosopher
would, scarcely have attempted the feat with the thimder, "vmat-
ever experiments he might have tried with the lightning. The
American editor observes that * the absurd estimate of this gen-
tleman's abilities shows the wretched condition of taste and cri-

3j06 American Poetry.

ticLsm in his lime/ This is £eank at all events; but what ahuUlhe
said for the taste and criticism of the present lame, when the still
more deploiable trash of Judge Hopkinson is r^;arddd as an
;article oi faith? Paine, with au his faults, had a certain £mti^
tical wildness in his verse not ill calculated to £iscinate the igno;^
rant; but he married an actress, and was not to be foiffiven^
Decency demanded that he should be offered up as a victim to
the outraged decorum of ' fashionable society.'

AscendSng firom the popular ballad-makers who, in America,
occupy the lowest rank, let us turn to the poems of James Grates
Percival. This gentleman is a very voluminous writer, and enjoys
great credit in the States. K he have not the ' inspiration' he has
at least the ' melancholy madness' of poetry, for he is said to take
no delight in any society but that of his books or the fields. His
critics describe mm as being possessed in an eminent degree of the
*• creative faculty' and a ' versatile genius;' which is true in this
sense — ^he writes a great deal, on a variety of subjects ; a description
which seems to include his whole merit. He aims at reaHzinfftiie

greatest possible quantity of words with the fewest possible numh^
of ideas; and sometimes without any ideas at alL He speaks of
the ' poetic feeling' as sitting at a banquet with ' celestial forms' as
lovely as ever haunted wooa and wave when earth was peopled:

"^th nymph and naiad — ^mighty as the gods
Whose palace was Oljnnpus, and the clouds
That hung, in gold and flame, around its brow ;
Who bore, upon their features, all that grand
And awful dignity of front, which hows
The eye that gazes on the marble Jove, &c. •

This is a &ir specimen. If it be asked which is ' mighty as the
gods' — the * poetic feeling,' the ' celestial foraas,' or the ' nymj^
and naiad'? — ^whether the ' palace' is Oljrmpus and the clouds, or
Olympus only? — ^which bore that awful grandeur on their features,
the ' gods' or the * clouds' — and what is meant by bowing the eye,
unless it be gouging? we cannot answer. We have no notion
what it all means; and we are in the same dilemma with the bulk
of Mr. Percival's poetry. It is only fiur, however, to mention
that he candidly avows his opinion that poeti]^ ought to ^ foam up
with the spirit of life, and glow with the rainbows of a glad in-
spiration.' Under such circumstances perhaps his verse is aa good
as can be expected.

John Pierpont, a barrister of reputation, is celebrated as the
author of a work called the * Airs of Palestine,' in which the in-
fluence of music is traced through a variety of illustrations. He
has also produced numerous short pieces in a variety of metres,
impressea for the most part with an earnest piety and cheerliil

Pierpont — Sprdgne — Dana — Drake, 30Y.

benevolence, -vrhicli entitle liim to the full respect of his readers.
A poet of this description rarely commits himself to absurdities,
ana he is accordingly tolerably free from the usual excesses of
isaaigeTy and expression ; but little more can be said for him. The
gram of his poetry is irretrievably commonplace. Like ^U the
rest, he has nis songs of triumph and congratulation on the vic-
tories of the revolution. In one of these, having dismissed the
subject of war, he makes a stirring apostrophe to the * Ood of
Peace.*

Now the storm is o'er —

Oh, let freemen be our sons,

And let future Washingtons

Rise, to lead their valiant ones
Till there's war no more.

It is a curious tendency in the American mind to be thus eter-
nally invoking the Gk)d of Peace to lead them on to battle. Mr.
Pierpoint v^ill not be satisfied without another revolution and in-
numerable Washingtons, to establish on a lasting basis the belli-
gei^ent tranquillity of America.

Amongst the didactic poets, Charles Sprague occupies a high
position. He is cashier of the Globe Bank in Massachusetts,
mixes very little in society, and never was thirty miles from his
native city. The effect of this life-long monotony is palpable in
his verse, which is evolved from a study of books with little fancy
and less originalitjr. His principal poem, ' Curioaty,; is a sample
of what the American critics call an * elegant mediocrity' ; but the
elegance is by. no means so apparent as the mediocrity. The best
passages are mechanically constructed on the model of Pope, and
not always with success. The failure is most conspicuous where
he attempts to imitate the polished irony of the English satirist;
tiius speaking of the corruption and dishonesty of the newspaper
press:

As turn the party coppers, heads or tails,

And now this {acdon and now that prevails, &c.

Pope would hardly have made even Ned Ward toss coppers to de-
termine which side of a question he should take. But the compa-
rison has obviously a peculiar force and fitness in its application
to the American writers; and if we were to select a satire m which
the low state of the public taste and intelligence is fairly, fearlessly,
and most appropriately depicted, we should certainly choose tma
poem of * Curiosity.* It is honest, at all events, and bespeaks a
just, although a very inferior mind.

Dana, the author of the * Buccaneer,' and Drake, who has
written a pretty little poem called the * Culprit Fay,' may be
dismissed as agreeable versifiers. Neither of them rises above the^^

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIV. Y j^^

i

308 American Poetry.

display of neat dexterity, and neither possesses any sustaining power.
The ^ Buccaneer' is a hobgoblin pirate story, not unskimuly re-
lated, but terminating witn an abruptness iatal to its final im-
pression. With the single exception of the ' Culprit Fay,* Drake has
produced nothing worth remembering. Sometimes he wrote so
ill that, in the ena, he had the good sense to wish to be forgotten.
In one of his odes, for instance, he fevours us with the following
comical account, intended to be highly poetical, of the origin <m
the stripes and stars in the American flag :

When Freedom firom her mountain height

Unfurrd her standard to the air,
She tore the azore robe of night,

And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes

The imlky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure celestial white
With streakings of the morning light!

This word * baldric' is in great request. The Americans make
heavy demands on the vocabulary of chivalry, at the manifest risk
of the most ludicrous association of ideas.

One of the most formidable metrical productions of the union is
the narrative romance of ' Tecumseh.' It occupies a whole volume
to itself, and is intended as a record of the western tribes, now ra-
pidly passing into oblivion. The measure is fitful and irregular,
after the manner of Scott; but miserably deficient in that variety
of melody which can alone carry the attention over so extended a
surface. It is not easy to understand why Mr. Colton did not pre-
fer prose as the medium of his Indian story. He writes very sen-
idble prose and execrable verse. But teaching cannot make poets,
and it would be idle to enter into details. In the same category
may be included the author of a poem of tremendous pretensions,
called * Washington,' expressly oesigned by the author to be the
National Epic. Dr. Channing's remarks on the deficiencies of
the national literature made a deep impression on him, and he re-
solved to do something to relieve his country from the disgraceful
imputation. ^ I determined,' he exclaims, ^ to write a national
poem.' But he found he coidd not write ihe poem and carry on
nis business at the same time; what was he to do in such an awful
' fix?' Why, like a prudent man, carry on his business first and
write his poem after, to be sure. ' I made it a matter of con-
science,' he says, ^ not to spoil a good man of business in order
to make a bad poet.' So he worked at his trade till he made
money, then retired upon his imagination to make a poem. We
believe the case is qmte new in me history of epics. But then
so is the epic itself. The subject is boldly announcedi how

The Epic Fbets. 300

kingly recklessness had then 'gun rear
To trample the folks' rights.

the folks were not to be reared or trampled upon. No-
ad a soul above kings. Their course was clear,

Live upright.
Or die down-stricken; but to crawl or cringe
We cannot. No; that king mistook us much, &c.

ihington advises them to strike the iron while it is hot, and
akes, on l^s part, to raise the people in a single night.

Now while the iron is hot
Strike it ; for me, as from this chair I rise^
So surely will I undertake this night
To raise the people.

3omes home in the evening, and finds his wife at tea —

There by her glistening board, ready to pour
Forth the refreshment of her Chinese cups.

it is no time for tea-drinking — he begs to be excused —

Nay, dearest wife,
My time is not my own ; and what I came
It was but to assure thee, &c.

} is quite enough for a taste of an American epic. The au-
^ he is gathering the effect of its publication from ' the
le of retreat.* We hope it is a ' retreat* provided for him

friends ; in which, case, we advise them to stop up the
Lole,' as commimication with the outer world, in his pre*
ftte, can only increase his excitement.

poem of ' Washington' appears to have been composed
an impression that America had not hitherto produced a
>f heroic dimensions. This is a mistake. She boasts of no
m two previous epics : the ' Conquest of Canaan,' by Dwight,
en books — a dismal load of very blank verse ; and the ' Co-
d,' by Barlow, a work of twenty years' gestation, which we
leved from noiticing by Mr. Gnswold, who declares that it
Lther unity, strength, nor passion, that it is sometimes incor-
id often ineWant, yet that it has ' many bursts of eloquence
irwtUm: He does not inform us how i^nj bursts g^to an
)em. If we may judge by the nimiber of candidates for ad-
Di, the ' retreats' of the poets ought to be capacious. Mr.
|ber ought to be provided for, who apostrophizes the west in
yk —

Land of the west! — green forest land!
Clime of the fair and the immense!

Fell, who says that he loves to dream of ' shadowy hair

310 American Poetry,

and half-shut eyes/ and describes the head of a poet with large

eyes,

Brimful of water and lights
A profusion of hair
Flashing out on the air,
And a forehead alarmingly brighty

betrays dangerous symptoms.

We find a pleasant relief from these distressing hallucinations
in the poems of Alfred B. Street. He is a descnptive poet, and
at the head of his class. His pictures of American scenery are full
o£ gusto and freshness; sometimes too wild and diffuse, but always
true and healthful. The opening of a piece called the ' Settler,*
is very striking.

His echoing axe the settler swung

Amid the sea-like soHtude,
And rushing, thundering down were flung

The Titans of the wood ;
Loud shrieked the eagle, as he dashed
From out his mossy nest, which crashed

With its supporting bough.
And the first sunlight ^ leaping , flashed

On the wolf^s haunt below.

His poems are very unequal, and none of them can be cited as
being complete in its kind. He runs into a false luxuriance in
the ardour of his love of nature, and in the wastefulness of a Kvely,
but not large imagination ; and like Browne, the author of the
* Pastorals,' he continually sacrifices general truth to particular
details, making mi-hkenesses by the crowding and closeness of his
touches. Yet with all his faults his poems cannot be read without
pleasure.

There are several female poets in America; but only one who
deserves to be especially distinguished — ^Mrs. Brooks, formeriy
known as Maria del Occidente, The poem of * Zophiel,' originally
published in London, is a work of singular merit; fantastic and
passionate to a height, rarely, if ever before, reached by the geniud
of a woman. The conception is no less remarkable than the almost
masculine vigour with which the author wrestles against the dif-
ficulties of the obstructive stanza she^has infelicitously choien.
But nobody reads ' Zophiel.' The tasteless splendour of the dic-
tion wearies the ear; the passion is too fervid, the style too strained
for enjojnnent. She writes like a prodigal, and squande!rs her
brilliant powers as if they were so much loose cash. The only
wonder is, that she does not exhaust herself as well as her readers.
Leisurely criticism alone will ever bestow patience enough on
' ZophieV to extricate its spiritual beauty fnom the mass of ^tter-

Emerson. 311

ing phrases under wHch it is buried. The feeble verbosity of
Mrs. Sigoumey — who is usually advertised, as if it were some-
thing to boast of, as the American Hemans — ^is familiar to all
readers of Annuals. For the lady-like inanity of her lines, we
can imagine many excuses; but none for her habit of putting
words to the torture — such as super'fices for su'perfices — caus'then-
ics for calisthen'ics, &c. Verse-making has latitude enough with-
out taking liberties with language. Mrs. Osgood, who published
a book here some years ago, aims at writing tragedies, but suc-
ceeds best in stringing verses for children. Her juvenile rhjmes are
juvenile as they ought to be; the worst of it is, her tragedies are
juvenile also. In the first eight lines of her dedicatory verses,
she flings her book on the stream of time, in the same manner,
she informs us, as the maiden * in the Orient,' trims her lamp, and
gives her * fairy bark' to the ' doubtful waves.* There is no say-
ing what may have happened to the bark, but it is certain tne
book has long since gone to the bottom.

Of the score, or so, of poets we have now run through — the pre-
vious picking of the multitude — it will be seen that we have not yet
found one who rises above the level of the ' elegant mediocrity'
already referred to. Mr. Grriswold himself admits that there are
very few who have written for posterity. We are happy at last
to be in a fair way of coming to these few, having cleared the
audience of the rabble. That the select circle of these choice spirits
should be so small, is to us matter of great and sincere regret.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, although he has written very little in
this way, comes accredited to us by unmistakable mamfestations
of an original and poetical mind. He is the author of a volume
of profoimd Essays, recently re-published in England, under the
editorship of Mr. Carlyle, who discovered in him a spiritual
fkculty congenial to his own. Mr. Emerson was formerly a
Unitarian minister, but he embraced the Quaker interpretation of
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and threw iip his church.
He is now the editor of a quarterly magazine in Boston. The
same thoughtful spirit which pervaaes his prose writings is visible
in his poetry, bathed in the * purple light' of a rich fancy. Un-
fortunately ne has written too little to ensure him a great reputa-
tion; but what he has written is quaint and peculiar, and native
to his own genius. From a little poem addressed ' To the Humble
Bee,' which, without being in the slightest degree an imitation,
constantly reminds us of the georgeous beauty of ' 1' Allegro,' we
extract two or three passages.

Fine humble-bee ! fine humble-bee !
Where thou art is clime for me.

812 American Poetry.

Let them sail far Porto ^que,
Far-off heats through seas to seek—
I will follow thee alone,
Thou animated torrid'zone !

« « «

When the south-wind, in May days,
With a net of shining haze,
Silvers the honzon waU,
And with softness touching all.
Tints the human coxmtenance
With a colour of romance.
And infusing suhtle heats
Turns the sod to violets —
Thou in sunny solitudes,
Rover of the underwoods.
The green silence dost displace
With thy mellow hreezy bass.
« « »

Aught unsavory or unclean
Hath my insect never seen,
But violets, and bilberry bells.
Maple sap, and daffodels,
Clover, catchfly, adders-tongue,
And brier-roses dwelt among.
AU beside tixu unknown waste^
AU wa^ picture as he past

This is not merely beautiful, though ' beauty is its own excuse
for being.' There is pleasant wisdom hived in the bag of the

* yellow breeched philosopher/ who sees only what is fair and
sips only what is sweet. Mr. Emerson evidently cares little
about any reputation to be gained by writing verses; his intellect
seeks other vents, where it is untrammelled by forms and condi*
tions. But he cannot help his inspiration. He is a poet in his
prose.

Fitz-greene Halleck has acquired a wider celebrity, and won it
welL He is the author, amongst other things, of a noble lyric,

* Marco Bozzaxis.' Had he wntten nothing more he must nave
earned a high popularity; but he has written much more
equally distinguished by a refined taste and cultivated judgment
But the *' Marco Bozzaris,' containing not more than a himdred
lines, or thereabouts, is his master-piece. It is consecrated to
the Greek chief of that name who fell in an attack on the
Turkish camp at Laspi, and is, as a whole, one of the most per-
fect specimens of versification we are acquainted with in Ameri-
can literature. We will not detract from its intrinsic claims by
inquiring to what extent Mr. Halleck is indebted to the study of

^

Halleck. 313

well-known models; for, although in this piece we catch that
' stepping in music ' of the rhythm which constitutes the secret
charm of the ' Hohenlinden,' we are glad to recognise in all his
productions, apart from incidental resemblances of this kind, a
knowledge as complete, as it is rare amongst his contemporaries,
of the musical mysteries of his art. It is in this Mr. Halleck
excels, and it is for this melodiousness of structure that his lines
are admired even where their real merit is least imderstood. We
are too much pressed in space to afford room for the whole of this
poem, and are unwilling to injure its effect by an isolated pas-
sage. The chrysolite must not be broken. But here is an ex-
tract from a poem called * Red Jacket,' which will abundantly
exhibit the freedom and airiness of Mr. HaUeck's versification.
Red Jacket was a famous Indian chief.

Is strength a monarch's merit ? (like a whaler's)

Thou art as tall, as sinewy, and as strong
As earth's first kings — ^the Argo's gallant sailors.

Heroes in history, and gods in song.

Is eloquence ? Her spell is thine that reaches
The heart, and makes the wisest head its sport ;

And there's one rare, strange virtue in thy speeches,
The secret of their mastery — ^they are short.

Is beauty ? Thine has with thy youth departed,
But the love-legends of thy manhood's years,

And she who perished, young and broken-hearted.
Are — ^but I rhyme for smiles and not tears.

The monarch mind — the mystery of conmianding,

The god-like power, the art Napoleon,
Of winning, fettering, moulding, wielding, banding

The hearts of millions till they move as one ;

Thou hast it. At thy bidding men leave crowded

The road to death as to a festival ;
And minstrel minds, without a blush, have shrouded

With banner-folds of glory their dark pall.

* • * * •

And underneath that face like summer^s oceans.

Its Hp as moveless and its dbeek as clear,
Slumb^ a whirlwind of the heart's emotions.

Love, hatred, pride, hope, sorrow — all, save fear.

Love — ^for thy land, as if she were thy daughter.

Her pipes m peace, her tomahawk in wars ;
Hatredr— for missionaries and cold water ;

IVide— oin thy rifle-trophies and thy scan ;

314 American Poetry.

Hope — iiiat thy wrongs will be by the Great Spirit
Remembered and revenged when thou art gone ;

Sorrow — that none are left thee to inherit

Thy name, thy fame, thy passions, and thy throne.

The author of these stanzas, strange to say, is superintendent
of the affairs of Mr. Astor, the capitahst, who built the great hotel
in New York.

We have been all along looking out for a purely American
poet, who should be strictly national in the comprehensive sense
of the term. The only man who approaches that character is
William Cullen Bryant; but if Bryant were not a sound poet
in all other aspects, his nationality woidd avail him nothing.
Nature made him a poet, and the accident of birth has placed
him amongst the forests of America. Out of this national in-
spiration he draws universal sympathies — not the less universal
because their springs are ever close at hand, ever in view,
and ever turned to with renewed affection. He does not thrust
the American flag in our faces, and threaten the world with the
terrors of a gory peace ; he exults in the issues of freedom for nobler
ends and larger interests. He is the only one of the American
poets who ascends to ' the height of this great argument,* and lifts
his theme above the earthy taint of bigotry and prejudice. In
him, by virtue of the poetry that is in his heart, such themes
grow up into dignity. His genius makes all men participators in
them, seeking and developing the universality that lies at their
core. The woods, prairies, mountains, tempests, the seasons, the
life and destiny of man, are the subjects in which he delights.
He treats them with religious solemnity, and brings to the con-
templation of nature, in her grandest revelations, a pure and
serious spirit. His poetry is reflective, but not sad; grave in its
depths, but brightened in its flow by the sunshine of the ima-
gination. His poems addressed to rivers, woods, and winds, all
of which he has separately apostrophized, have the solemn gran-
deur of anthems, voicing remote and trackless solitudes. Their
beauty is affecting, because it is true and fiiU of reverence.
Faithful to his inspiration, he never interrupts the profound ideal
that has entered in^ his spirit to propitiate Xhegenitis loci : — he
is no middleman standii^ between his vernal glories and the en-
joyment of the rest of mankind. He is wholly exempt from ver-
bd prettiness, from flaunting imagery and New World conceits;
he never paints opt gauze; lie is always in earnest, and always
poetical His manner is everywhere graceful and unaffected.

Two collections of Mr. Bryant's poems have been published in
London^ and the reader may be presumed to be already acquainted

Brycmt. 316

rith nearly all lie has written. The following passage, descriptive
f the train of thoughts suggested by the shutting m of evening,
B& appeared only in the American editions :

The summer day has closed — ^the sun is set:

Well have they done their office, those bright hours

The latest of whose train goes softly out

In the red west. The g^een blade of the ground

Has risen, and herds have cropped it ; the young twig

Has spread its plaited tissues to the sun ;

Flowers of the garden and the waste have blown,

And withered ; seeds have fallen upon the soil

From bursting cells, and in theh- graves await

Their resurr^tion. Insects from the pools

Have filled the air awhile with humming wings.

That now are still for ever ; painted moths

Have wandered the blue sky, and died again ;

The mother-bird hath broken for her brood

Their prison-sheUs, or shoved them from the nest,

Plumed for their earliest flight. In bright alcoves,

In woodland cottages with earthy walls,

In noisome cells of the tumultuous town.

Mothers have clasped with joy the new-bom babe.

Graves, by the lonely forest, by the shore

Of rivers and of ocean, by the ways

Of the thronged city, have been hollowed out.

And filled, and closed. This day hath parted Mends,

That ne'er before were parted ; it hath knit

New £riendships ; it hath seen the maiden plight

Her faith, and trust her peace to him who long

Hath wooed ; and it hath heard, from lips which late

Were eloquent of love^ the first harsh word.

That told the wedded one her peace was flown.

Farewell to the sweet sunshine! one glad day

Is added now to childhood*s merry days,

And one calm day to those of quiet age,

Still the fleet hours run on ; and as I lean

Amid the thickening darkness, lamps are lit

By those who watch the dead, and those who twine

Flowers for the bride. Tlie mother from the eyes

Of her sick in£ant shades the painful light.

And sadly listens to his quick-drawn brealb.

hen America shall have given birth to a few such poets aa
yant, she may begin to build up a national literature, to the
cognition of which all the world will subscribe.
Only one name now remains, that of the most accomplished of
- hrotherhood, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. But we have

316 American Poetry,

some doubts whether he can be faurly considered an indigenous
specimen. His mind was educated in Europe. At eighteen years
of age he left America, and spent four years in travelhng through
Europe, lingering to study for a part of the time at Gottingen.
On his return he was appointed professor of modem languages in
Bowdoin College; but at the end of a few years he went into
Sweden and Denmark, to acquire a knowledge of the literature
and languages of the Northern nations. When he again returned,
he accepted the professorship of the Fyench and Spanish languages
in Haward College, Cambri<%e, which he now holds. We must not
be surprised to find his poetry deeply coloured by these experi-
ences, and cidtivated by a height of refinement far above the taste
of his countrymen. But America claims him, and is entitled to
him; and has much reason to be proud of this ripe and elegant
scholar. He is unquestionably the first of her poets, the most
thoughtful and chaste; the most elaborate and fimshed. Taking
leave of the others, with a just appreciation of the last mentioned
two or three, and coming suddenly upon Longfellow's lyrics, is
uke passmg out of a ragged country into a nch Eastern -garden,
with the music of birds and falling waters singing in our ears
at every step. His poems are distinguished by severe intellectual
beauty, by didcet sweetness of expression, a wise and hopeful
spirit, and complete command over every variety of rhythm. They
are neither numerous nor long ; but of that compact texture which
will last for posterity. His translations from the continental lan-

giages are admirable; and in one of them, from the Swedish of
ishop Tegner, he has successfully rendered into English, the ' in-
exorable hexameters* of the original.

We believe nearly all Mr. Longfellow's poems have been re-
printed in England; and we hope they may be extensively dif-
fused, and received with the honourable welcome they deserve.
From the * Prelude to the Voices of the Night.' we take a few
stanzas of exquisite grace and tenderness.

Beneath some patriarchal tree

I lay upon the ground ;
His hoary arms aplined he.
And all uie broad leaxes over me
Clapped their little haads in glee,

WiUi one continuoiis sound:

A slumberous sound — a sound that brings

The feelings of a dream —
As of innumerable wings,
As, when a bell no longer swings,
Faint the hollow murmur rings

O'er meadow, lake, and stream.

Lmgfellow. S17

And dreams of that which cannot die,

Bright visions came to me,
As lapped in thought I used to lie,
And gaze into the summer sky,
When the sailing clouds went hy,

Like ships upon the sea ;

Dreams that the soul of youth engage

Ere Fancy has heen quelled ;
Old legends of the monkish page,
Traditions of the saint and sage,
Tales that have the rime of age,

And chronicles of Eld«

And loving still these quaint old themes.

Even in the city's throng
I feel the freshness of the streams,
That, crossed hy shades and sunny gleams,
Water the green land of dreams.

The holy land of song.

Therefore, at Pentecost, which brings

The spring, clothed &ke a bird.
When nestling buds unfold their wings,
And bishop's-caps have golden rings,
Musing upon many things,

I sought the woodlands wide.

The green trees whispered low and mild ;

It was a sound of joy!
They were my pla3nnate8 when a child.
And rocked me in their arms so wild !
Still they looked at me and smiled.

As if I were a boy ;

And ever whispered mild and low,

" Come, be a child once more!**
And waved their long arms to and fro.
And beckoned solemnly and slow ;
Oh, I could not choose but go

Into the woodlands hoar.

Into the blithe and breaihing air,

Into tiie solemn wood.
Solemn and silent everywhere I
Nature widi folded hands seemed there,
Kneeling at her evening prayer !

Like one in prayer I stood.

he artful modulation of these lines is not less worthy of critioal
ce than ihe pathos of the emotion yrhich liteiall j gushes like
i ihxough them.

318 American Poetry.

Having arrived at this point — ^beyond which there is nothing
but the Future, and a very Chaos of a Future it seems — we leave
the evidence on the whole case to the dispassionate judgment of
others. Our survey has been necessarily rapid and desultory; but
it is sufficient as a sort of outline map of general characteristics. We
might have submitted the subject to a severer analysis, and ac-
cumulated a larger variety of illustrations; but it could have
served no other end than that of showing still more elaborately
the paucity of exceptions to the rule. We have made the excep-
tions clear, which is the chief thinff. For the rest, we have no
compunctious visitings. We are well aware that amidst such a
heap of craving and unequal pretensions, individual vanities must
be woimded — above all by total omission. But our business lay
with the spirit, forms, and influence of the whole body of Ameri-
can poetry, which we have endeavoured to trace through the te^
presentatives of classes, as far as such a method was practicable
with materials so crude and unmanageable. We have nothing to
do with respective merits, which must be adjusted at home by the
native scale : a scale so peculiar, that we should despair of being
able to accommodate ourselves to its demands. In the obscurest
recesses of the Union there are men of such renown, that it would
be idle to talk of Socrates or Bacon in their neighbourhoods. Of
what avail would it be to apply to these illustrious persons any
standard of criticism, except that which they have themselves set
up and pronounced final? You must take American fame
at its word, or have nothing to do with it. Yet this American
fame is not very easy to understand after all, since one hardlj
knows what relative value to place on it : and relative value it
must have, if it have any; since, although all men are bom equal,
all men are not born to equal fame, even in America. When we
are informed, for instance, that Mr. Willis is enjoying the laurels
of a European reputation, ' at his beautiful estate on the Susque-
hanna,' we are sorely perplexed, and cast into a maze of wonder
to know what it can possibly mean.

We observed at starting, that American poetry was little better
than a far-off echo of the Father-land. It is necessary to enter a
little into this point, for the sake of exhibiting the nature, as wdl
as the extent of the echo.

All poetry is imitative. True poetry imitates nature: that
which imitates poetry ought to have some other name. Of this
latter sort — the Spurious — there are several kinds; inasmuch as
there are several kinds of models, good models and bad, old models
and new. The old models are better than the new, because they
are nearer to the source, and fresher, and are less artificial, and
less conventional. The tendency of America is strenuously towards

Its commonplace Phraseology, ^19

the new. She is new herself, and being afficted with perpetual
restlessness and curiosity, she is always looking round ner, and
forward ; but she never looks back. The past is, to her,*oblivion«
There are no modes in it to be revived: no grand-mother's hoops,
no voluminous wigs, no buckles, no ruffs, ohe is always on the
watch for the last fashion, with the eagerness of a citizen's
wife, who thinks the world at an end if she does not dress in the
taste of the day. Even in this, America is imfbrtimate, for by the
time the fashions reach her, they are pretty well cast off in the old
countries. Her newest shapes are out of date. Stepping out of
the literature of England into that of America, is like going back
twenty years into a sort of high-life-belowH3tairs resuscitation of
the style of that period.

We find constantly-recurring examples of this fade spirit scat-
tered through their poetir; which is everywhere patched up with
phrases long since worn threadbare — such as ' realms yet unborn,'
' a magic and a marvel in the name,' the eagle's ' quenchless eye,*
* the beautiful and brave,' * the land of the storm,* &c. All this
looks trifling enough separated from the context, but pettiness and
trashiness are the crying sins of this description of verse. If there
were nothing to complain of but that drowsy familiarity of tour-
nure, which sends vague fragments of reminiscences flitting through
one's memory, it would be hardly worth noting; but unfortunately
this petty larceny forms a prominent and ostentatious feature in
these productions. , It is almost the first peculiarity you detect in
an American poem. It is common to nearly all the poets. The
majority of tnem are distinctly modelled upon some particular
audior, whose manner and subject they strive to copy with the ex-
actitude of a fiic-simile. These models are all selected from our
modem writers. The old ones are never imitated. The Spen-
serian stanza is occasionally attempted — but the original kept in
view, is not the * Fairy Queen,' but the * Castle of Indolence,'
itself an avowed imitation.

Mrs. Sigoumey alone seems to be proud of her position as the
shadow of a poet. But there are others who are not less entitled
to that distinction. Sprague, whom we have already spoken of
as a close follower of Pope, is glad to follow any one else when
it helps out his purpose. Thus, in an ode on Shakspeare, he has
no objection to avail himself of Collins, with a distant line bur-
lesqued from Shakspeare himself :

Madness, with his frightful scream,

Vengeanoe, leaniDg on his lance,
Avarice, with his blade and beam,

Hatred, blasting with a glance ; ^tfJH

320 American Poetry.

Remorse that weeps, and rage that roars,

And jealousy that dotes, yet doams, and murders, yet adores*

This is nothing to the description of Shakspeare:

Across the tremhling strings
Ss daring hand he flings.

Having undertaken to write about Shakspeare, who had depicted
all the passions, Mr. Sprague naturally had recourse to Oollins,
who wrote an ode on them. In another poem he gives us a glimpse
of * the bower she planted,' speaking oi a departed firiend:

TMs little ring thv finger bound.
This lock of hair thy forehead shaded.
This silken chain by thee was braidedr—
This book was thine, &c.

It would be a pity not to treat the reader to a saupgon of this
gentleman's feucitous manner of taking the plums out of Pope's
tragedy and putting them into his own comedy.

In the pleased infant see the power expand,
When first the coral fills his htde hand —
Next it assails him in his top's strange hum,
Breathes in his whistle, echoes in his drum I

Mr. Wilcox has written two poems called * The Age of Bene-
volence ' and * The Religion of Taste,' in which Thomson is
imitated, at incredible length, with a perseverance quite unexam-

Eled. Not content with dogging the poet through the Seasons,
e hunts him into the Castle of Indolence, and gets up a rival
establishment which he calls the Castle of Imagination. Mr.
Trumbull, in like manner, has devoted himself to the service of
* Hudibras,' of which he obliges us with an elaborate imitation,
entitled 'MTin^U' The Tnmibull-Hudibras is by no means
the worst of the large family of the Hudibrases, notwithstanding
that we occasionally stumble upon suc^ lines as the following:

Whence Gage extols, from general hearsay.
The great activity of LoreUPercy.

Timothy Dwight makes an experiment on the * Rape of the
Lock ' in a poem called * Greenfield Hill.' The attempt to adapt
its fine sarcastic spirit to the habits of Ajnerican society is emi-
nently ludicrous, and not much mended by rhymes of this kind —

To inhale from proud Nanking a sip of tea.
And wave a courtesy trim and flirt away.

We are in entire ignorance of the nature of the operation de-
scribed by waving a courtesy trim. The * sip of tay ' from ' proud
Nanking ^ seems to fall within the same system of orthoepy which
celebrated the activity of Lord Peersay,

Its imitative Ctioracter. 321

Paine is esteemed by his countijmen as a ccmier of Dryden's;
but he copies him so badly that we are inclined to let him off as
a worse original. He resembles Dryden in nothing but his turgid
bombast (the vice chiefly of Dryden's plays), and here he out-
does him.

Pierpoint, of whom we have already spoken, is crowded with
coincidences^ which look very Yikid plagtarisms. Take one:

By the patriot's hallow'd rest,
By the warrior's gory breast,—
Never let our graves be press'd

By a despot's throne :
By the pilgrims' toUs, <&c.

And so on to the end. Burns is frequently complimented in this
way. Poe is a capital artist after the manner of Tennyson; and
approaches the spirit of his original more closely than any of
them. His life has been as wild and Tennysonian as his verse. He
was adopted in infancy by a rich old gentleman, who helped him
to a good education and a visit to England for improvement, and
intended to make him his heir; but incurring some debts of
honour, which the old gentleman very properfy refused to dis-
charge, Poe discharged his patron in a fit of poetry, and went
off to join the Ghreeks. Stopping by the way at St. Petersburg,
he got into debt again. From this trouble he was extricated by
the consul; and upon his return to America he found the old gen-
tleman married to a young wife. The lady was looked upon as an
interloper, and Poe quarrelled with her, for which the old gentle-
man, very properly again, quarrelled with him, and so they
parted, Poe to get mamed on his own accoimt, and the old gen-
tleman to go to heaven, leaving an infant son behind to inherit
his wealth. All this has a strong Tennysonian tinge — we mean
of course poetically; for there is none of this unhinging and re-
beUion in the blood or actions of the true Tennyson. Here is a
specimen of the metrical imitation :

In the greenest of cor valleys

By good angels tenanted.
Once a fair and stately palace

(Snow-white palace) rear'd its head.

Again —

And aU with pearl and ruby glowing

Was the rair palace-door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,

And sparkling evermore,
A troop of echoes—

In another place an * opiate vapour' —

322 American Poetry.

Steals drowBil J and musically
Into the nniyersal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the graye.
The lily lolls upon the wave.

And tMs is even still more like — a strain under an ' open lat-
tice*—

The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,

Flit through thy chamber in and out,

And wave the curtain-canopy

So fitfully, so fearfiiUy,

Above the closed and frin^d lid

'Neath which thy slumbermg soul lies hid.

That o'er the floor and down the wall,

like ghosts, the shadows rise and £gJL

These passages have a spirituality in them, usually denied to imi-
tators; wno rarely possess the property recently discovered in the
mockinff-birds — a solitary note of their own. A Mr. Hill toils
hopelessly after the bounoing lyrics of Barry Cornwall: ex. gr.

A glorious tree is the old gray oak :
He has stood for a thousand years,

Has stood and frowned

On the trees around,
like a king among his peers, &c. ^

Barry Cornwall is not very likely to be imitated with success;
although the freedom and beauty of his style are pectdiarly cal-
culated to fascinate imitators. Picked word& and a dancing mea-
sure are not enough; there must be a luxuriant imagination, ear-
nestness, and high enthusiasm. With such qualifications, how-
ever, a man might set up for himself.

A Mr. Fairfield has a song, or ode, the first stanza of which
opens with —

Ave Maria! 'tis the midnight hour —

The second with,

Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of love —
The third,

Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of prayer —

And thus to the close — ^the body of the verse being constructed
on the same honest principle. Another writer has a song,

I think of thee when morning springs,

and * I think of thee' in every verse, refrain, and all stolen,
gipsy-fashion, and disguised. But these are venial offences. It is
reserved for Charles Fenno Hoffman to distance all plagiarists of
ancient and modem times in the enormity and openness of his

General Summary. 323

lefts. " No American," says Mr. Griswold, " ig. comparable to
m as a song-writer." We are not surprised at the fact, con?
lering the magnitude of his obligations to Moora Hoflftnan is
!oore hocused for the American market. Hi& aoz^s are rifacia"
mtm. The turns of die melody, the flooding of the images,
e scintillating conceits — are all Moore. Sometimes he steab
8 very words. One song begins, * Blame not the bowP — a hint
ken from ^ Blame not the baxd:' another * One bumper yet,
Jlants, at parting.' Hoffinan is like a hand^prgan — a single
uch sets him off— he wants only the key note, and he plays away
lonff as his wind lasts. The resemblance, when it runs into
hole lines and verses, is more like a parody than a simple pla-
arism. One specimen will be ample,

'Tis in moments like this, when each bosom

With its highest-toned feeling is warm,
Like the music that's said from the ocean

To rise in the gathering storm,
That her image around us should hover,

Whose name, though our lips ne'et reveal,
We may breathe through the foam of a biunper.

As we drink to the myrtle and steeL

He had Moore's measure ringing in his ear, and demanding
amile in the middle of the first quatrain — Whence the music from
e ocean. The third and fourth lines are an echo of a sound
ilhout the smallest particle of meaning or application in them.
My constitute the means, nevertheless, by which Hoffman ho-
ses the Americans. Drop them out altogether, and, so far as
e sense is concerned, the song would be materially improved,
at enough, and more than enough, of these monkeyana.
The result upop the whole examination may be thus briefly
mmed up: — ^that American poetry is deficient in originality;
at it is not even based upon the best examples; that it is want-
g in strength of thought, in grace and refinement ; and errs
fgely on the side of false taste and frothy exuberance. The
wsical acquirements of the American poets are loudly insisted
K)n by their critics ; but no such influence is visible in their
orks — ^Longfellow and three or four more excepted. It might
4er be predicated that they are utterly ignorant of the princi-
es of art, or that they hold all principles in contempt. The
lalifications of the poet are lowered in them to the meanest and
antiest elements. They are on a level with the versifiers who
1 up the comers of our provincial journals, into which all sorts
; platitudes are admitted by the indiscriminate courtesy of the
"Uiter. Their poetry is emphatically provincial^ even to its

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIV. Z

324 American Poetry.

diction, which often stands in as much need of a glossary as one of
our dialects. They not only employ words obsolete long ago in
England, but use current words in new senses, frequently
converting substantives into verbs, adjectives into adverbs, and
shuffling and cutting all the parts of speech to suit their purposes.
You ever and anon meet such phrases as ' unshadow,' ' tiidess,'
* environment,' *flushful,' * fadeless,' 'unway,' * unbrokenly,' 'med-
lied,' * incessancy,' * delightless.' Rapidity of execution is another
pecuharity by which these writers are distinguished. Numerous
anecdotes are related, even by themselves, of their velocity in
composition. We can readily believe them. But they will find
out m the long run, that the go-ahead system is as fallacious in
literature as they have already, to their cost, found it to be in
more substantial affairs.

We repeat, however, that it is matter of regret, and not of cen-
sure, that America shoidd be destitute of a national literature.
The circumstances through which she has hitherto struggled, and
to which she continues to be exposed,, are fatal to its cultivation.
With the Hterature of England pouring in upon her, relieved of
the charges of copyright and taxation, it is impossible there can be
any effectual encouragement for native talent. Literature is, con-
sequently, the least tempting of all conceivable pursuits ; and men
must float with the stream, and live as they can with the society
in which they have been educated. Even were the moral mate-
rials by which this vast deposit of human dregs is supplied, other
than they are — purer, wiser, and more refined, — ^still America
could not originate or support a literature of her own, so long as
English productions can be imported free of cost, and circulated
through the Union at a cheaper rate than the best productions of
the country. The remedy for this is obvious, and its necessity
has long been felt on both sides of the water, — a law for the pro-
tection of international copyright. Such a law would be valuable
to us, simply in a commercial point of view — ^but to America its
advantages would be of incalculably greater importance. It would
lay the foundation of a comprehensive intellectual movement
which never can be accompUshed without ita help ; and by which
alone, she can ever hope to consolidate and dignify her institu-
tions. We trust the day is not far distant when the unanimous
demand of the enlightened of both countries wiU achieve a con-
summation so devoutly to be vrished for.

( 325 )

Art. II. — Introduction a la Science de THistoire^ ou Science du De-
veloppement de VHumanitL Par P. J. B. Buchez. Second
Edition. 2 vols. Paris. 1843.

Cours d Etudes Historiques. Par P. C. F. Daunou. 3 vols.
Paris. 1842.

The endeavour to reduce the facts of history to a science is in
England pretty generally regarded as chimerical; while in Ger-
many and France there is scarcely a doubt of its possibility : the
only difference there being as to how it is to be accomplished.
Although we cannot altogether share the continental enthusiasm,
neither can we regard the English scepticism as philosophic.
The science of history seems to us more enlarged, complicated,
and difficult than our neighbours generally beKeve; and more
definite, poative, and possible, than our own countrymen gene-
rally admit.

To the latter we may put a few brief questions. You doubt
whether it be possible to create a science of history; and on
what grounds do you doubt this? Its difficulty? That is no
reason. You are boimd to show that there is something inherent
in the very nature of the subject which defies scientific appre-
ciation. The difficidty of a science of history is a reason why it
should be slow in bein^ formed, not why it should not be formed
at all. The impossibihty of a science of Ontology lies not in its
difficulty, but in the fact of the subject itself being beyond the
means and limits of human appreciation. Does the subject of
History lie beyond these limits? Clearly not. History is the
record of human actions, and the evolution of humanity. These
actions, these transformations were produced in conformity with
certain laws: these laws are appreciable by human inteUigence;
and what is science but the co-ordination of various laws?

We ask again upon what is scepticism on this matter founded?
Surely no thinking man in this nineteenth century can believe
that the events of history were fortuitous. The apple does not
fell by chance; by chance no single phenomenon, no single act
can he produced. Chance is but a word to express our igno-
rance; and it is less and less employed as we become more and
more instructed. Chance is an imascertained law. If the smallest
event is the consequence of some determinating cause, it re-
quires no great logical force to see that great events must also
have their causes. To detect these causes is difficult ; but we
have not heard that any of the sciences were formed with ease;
and we have yet to learn on what groimds the detection of the
causes of historical events is impossible. Let us be understood.

z2

326 BucJiez and Daunou on the Science of History.

We by no means aver with many French authors that the great
evolutions of humanity are to be readily appreciated. Far
from it. Yet once for all we contend that difficulty is no ground
of scepticism.

History must be a science before it becomes an art; it must
be understood before it can be narrated. This is a truism; yet,
like many truisms, overlooked by those who contend that the
historian should be a mere narrator. Granted, he should be a
narrator; but how can he truly narrate that which he does not
understand? and how is he to understand the past, which differs
so minutely from the present? Not by reading chronicles; not
by reading former historians; this is only a quarter of his task.
He must address himself to the philosopher, and from him re-
ceive solutions of the various problems presented by difference of
race, state of ideas at the time, condition of humamty, connexion
of the period with its predecessor and successor, with many other
circumstances. All these problems belong to the science of his-
tory; and all of them are at present without complete solutions.
To narrate without having solved them is to draw up a more or
less instructive catalogue, fully justifying D*Alembert*s idea of
history being ' a conventional necessity, and one of the ordinary
resources of conversation.'*

The question which next presents itself is : how are the causes,
the laws of history to be discovered? We answer: there is but
one method by which science is possible: observation, classifi-
cation, and induction. This Baconian method as it is called, is as
necessary in history as in chemistry, and wiU lead to similar cer-
titude. There have been various attempts to construct sciences,
but this one alone has been found successful. It is one demanding
gi^eat patience ai^d great fortitude of mind; but its rewards are
sure and lasting. Let historical students courageously accept it,
and they may win immortal honour ; without it they can vnn but
transitory praise. It may not be at all clear at present how the
laws of numan evolution are to be discovered ; but only conceive
the labours of our predecessors in the physical sciences to have
been fruitless, and then try to imagine now the laws of chemistry
could have been discovered, and then imagine the difficulty of
their discovery ! To hope greatly, to believe slowly, and to la-
bour patiently, are the quaKties of the philosophic mind.

The two works placed at the commencement of this paper may
be regarded as the types of two opposing schools. M. Buchez is
one of those to whom we alluded as bdfieving the philosophy of
history to be a very easy matter. We should call his book the
metaphysics of history. M. Daunou on the other hand, believes

* D^Alembert, * B^flezionfl sur I'Histoire.'

Les Humanitaires, 327

in a science of history; tut unfortunately seems to think a science
is the knowledge of facts, whereas it is the knowledge of laws.
We should call his book the criticism of history. Its merits are
great and solid ; its faults are more negative than positive : as
far as he goes M. Daunou is a valuable guide, but he leaves you
halfway.

it arriving at the dignity of a second edition.

He is to us an insupportable writer; and one we believe whose
works throw more discredit on the continental belief in the pos-
sibility of a science of history, than all the attacks of sceptics.
We are not denying M. Buchez's talent, which is not inconsider-
able ; it is his method that we reprobate. He deals with science as
if it were a subject for rhetoric. His pompous formulas as often
turn out to be old truisms as new falsisms. He talks a great
deal about ' humanity being the function of the universe,' more
about faith, progression, and mathematique sociale; not a little
about egoism, eating the heart of society and * formulas of life.'
M. Buchez is one of the fatiguing class called humanitaires, of
whom it has been said, that in Pans they * beset you on all sides.'
They have novelists, feuilletonistes, critics, and artists, perpetually
occupied in illustration of the grand dogma of ThumanitL Their
modes oipropagande are various, energetic, and effective. They
do not content themselves with the slow process of conviction;
they range under their banner young and old, philosophers and
poets, artists and lovely women. Boys of twenty swell the ranks
and demand of you your formula of life. In vain you reply that
a formula of life and of the universal Kfe is not so ready an at-
tainment, and that for your part you have still to seek it. They
wonder at you, declare that every man must necessarily have such
a formula, and present you with their own. We can believe that
people read such works as this of M. Buchez with considerable
pleasure ; but we are certain, without profit. There is something
attractive in the facility with which the vital problems of our ex-
istence are to be solved; there is something which carries away
the reader's imagination in this confident talk about so vast a
subject, rendering it so simple. But for the most part, it is
as barren as the east wind. There is no conviction to be
gained from such a book; scarcely a hint as to where one may
be obtained. He has begun his science at the wrong end. Had
he even begun legitimately, had he really elaborated for him-
self some scientific notions, they would have been lost to the reader
by his abstract method of presenting them. It is the vice ^^ ^^^JllMjlJ^
physical writers not only to deal with generalities but to H^^^^^

328 Buchez and Daunou on the Science of History.

special illustrations. This while it prevents criticism renders in-
struction impossible. Of what use is it to go on stringing prin-
ciples to principles, axioms to axioms, formulas to formulas, when
the reader is in doubt as to your meaning, and without the power
of confronting you with facts? If a man has discovered one of
the laws of human evolution, let him by all means give it its ab-
stract definition, and then proceed to explain with it the series of
facts subordinate thereto. So httle does M. Buchez attempt this
that we are still dubious as to his meaning on almost every point.
A meaning can generally be affixed to what he writes, since he
does not write positive galimatias ; but we are never sure that the
meaning we affix is the meaning he wishes us to accept. For ex-
ample he defines humanity to be the ' function of the universe.'
It IS a somewhat pompous definition; vague and extremely un-
scientific; still one sees a meaning in it; viz., that the whole mii-
verse is subordinate to man, as the theatre of his development.
Now, when a writer aspiring to a scientific character proposes a
definition, the reader has a right to expect this definition will be
subsequently adhered to. M. Buchez on the contrary has no
settled use of the word humanity ; nay, in one place he says that
during the time of Arianism, ' Thumanite fut sauvee par le Pape,
evfique de Rome, et par la France.' How the pope with the aid
of France could have saved ' the function of the universe' we
cannot yet conceive.

Another vice in this ' Introduction k la Science de THistoire,'
is the prevalence of rhetoric ; which, though an excellent quahty
when well-timed, is otherwise extremely tiresome, and in a work
of science it must generally be out of place. It is a fatal gift, that
of rhetoric, to those whose philosophic habits are not sufficiendy
strong to regulate its use. And by rhetoric we do not here desig-
nate declamation ; we mean that tendency to persuade rather than
convince^ to rouse the feelings rather than satisfy the reason, to
reason by metaphors and logical deductions from petitiones prin*
cipiorum^ instead of deductions from authenticated facts and ascer-
tained laws. The greater portion of M. Buchez's work is written
in that style. We will select one instance. Deploring the pre-
sent condition of both men and women, he proceeds to investigate
the causes of the evil. Women he finds divided into two classes,
those who have a dowry, and those who have none. Having ex-
pressed his contempt for the mercenary spirit presiding over the
marriages de convenance, he asks why those women who have for-
tunes, and could live in freedom and idleness, should seek for
husbands, and consent to be bought and sold as they now are?
The reason, he says, is because they are incapable of self-guidance,
taught as they are to fiU only one vocation, that of maternity;

Rhetorical Tendencies of Buchez. 329

because, beyond marriage and maternity they have been taught
nothing good and useful; because woman is nothing, or fit only
for a cloister life, without friendship, without joys, without con-
solation. We will occupy no reader's time with a refutation of
8uch absurdity as this ; we quoted it as an example of the author's
vicious rhetoric not as a dangerous error to be refuted. Never-
theless, although the book has many serious faults, it is not without
its merits. It is difficult and wearisome reading, yet contains
some views which will doubtless be new to many of our readers,
and some hints which may perhaps fructify in a meditative mind.
He has distinctly seen the necessity of founding the philosophy of
history upon the ascertained laws of human physiology; a con-
ception due we beheve to Auguste Comte, and which seems so ob-
vious that it is almost incredible any one should have overlooked
it. The following observations are not unworthy of attention.

The aim of scientific investigation is to discover the order of
succession of phenomena, and to ascertain their reciprocal rela-
tions of dependence, so that on any phenomenal state being
given, one could calculate the phenomenal states which preceded
and succeeded it. It is evident that we are determined on such
researches only in as far as we admit the existence of a constant,*
or invariable principle in the order of production of the pheno-
mena; it is also evident that we must admit certain variations^
otherwise there would be no possibility of prevision, since there
would not be many phenomena, but one only and of an indefi-
nite duration. Thus, therefore, every attempt at the discovery of
causes supposes the admission of two simultaneous conditions : a
constcmt or invariable principle of order in the production of
phenomena, and a certam variation in the manifestation.

The existence of certain constants in the life of humanity (la
vie de rhumanite), has been generally admitted; nay, more, most
authors have seen but this one fact, and have ordy differed in
their designation of it; some believing it to be owing to indi-
vidual organization; others placing it in human reason; others in
the religious feelings; others in the necessities of commerce; and
others in climate, &c.

On regarding the conditions of existence of the individual or
of nations in an abstract point, we cannot perceive the vari-
ations; but on descending to the concrete, it is no longer thus.
We then find this constant, this abstract principle never resolves
itself in absolutely the same manner, and that it is susceptible of

* We are forced to use the author's own nomenclature, though with great re-
faictance. The word is as great a barbarism in French as in English, but it is in-
teUigiUe.

330 Buchez and Daunou on the Science ofHutory.

a great variety of realizations. This is the origin of the vari-
ations which constitute the progressive movement of humanity.

Thus the aptitudes of men are always similar in number.
Zoologists will prove that the addition of a single faculty would
change himian nature. But in the long series of generations
the aptitudes themselves have varied, inasmuch as they have be-
come more powerful and more extensive. The medium in which
these aptitudes exercise themselves is of two sorts — ^human, and
foreign to man. Now, as to the human world, the wants of
social life have always been the strongest of all interests. But
social life offers a multitude of possibihties or different practices,
and consequently affords a multitude of experiences : it is a series
of essays to find the best regime. Hence a continual incitation
to change, in the hope of finding something better. The inani-
mate world also, though remaining the same with respect to its
aptitudes, changes with respect to relative intensity. Our facul-
ties have always acted on the inanimate world, and been in turn
reacted on by them : that is the * constant.' But, inasmuch as
our faculties have increased in energy, and the inanimate world
has been more and more modified thereby, there has resulted a
series of regular variations. The origin of the * constants' is in
human spontaneity, and all the active elements subordinate to it.
The variations are the expression of all the difficulties of reaUza-
tion, that is to say, of the diverse struggles which man has had
to contend with, either against the inanimate world or against
mankind itself.*

To discover then the laws of humanity, we must take the
various ' constantes sociales' with which history makes us ac-
quainted; make each of these a speciality; and underneath each
special head range in their order of historical succession all the
variations which belong to them. What is a * constante sociale?
It is one of the problems of which the solution is one of the
constitutive elements of society, one of its conditions of existence,
such as the definitions of good and evil, the aim of activity, the
system of social functions, the system of politics and morals.

Wliat are the variations ? JNothing but the various solutions
offered of the fundamental problems of social existence; they are
the results of pro^essive impulsions which change imperfect in-
stitutions, or which modify the formulas that imperfectly repre-
sent the popular wants.

♦ This is but a diffuse form of the fundamental position of Michelet's * Intro-
duction a THistoire Universelle.* " With the world began a struggle that wiB end
only with the world — ^that of man against nature, mind against matter, liberty
against fatality. History is nothing but the narrative of this interminable
struggle."

Characteristics of Daunou. 33 1

In spite of the metapKysical mode of exposition, there is a
notion in the foregoing paragraphs which is not without its
value. We may say the same of nis subsequent attempts to lay
down the basis of a * physiologie sociale.' But the reader will
have abeady seen enough of M. Buchez's method to judge of its
futility; he must read for himself to appreciate its wearisomeness.
On the whole we can by no means recommend the work to any
but a believer in * Les Humanitaires/ and in Pierre Leroux.

The * Cours d'Etudes Historiques' of Mi Daimou, is a book as
iwrise as that of M. Buchez is absurd. It is a book eminently calcu-
lated for English students ; indeed for all students. While many will
with us regret that the author did not see that his subject was a hun-
dred-fold as great as he believed it; every one must, we think, pay
tribute to the sober but solid talent and acquirements which it dis-
plays. It is never metaphysical, pompous, vague, aspiring, or flip-
pant : dull indeed, sometimes ; but with a sort of academic dulness,
on the whole respectable. One passes over a few pages of rather
obvious remark, and others of measured commonplace, not be-
cause these are merits, but because they seem suited as it were
to the occasion* A professor expounding the moral of history
to his yoimg audience, may fitly deal with commonplaces,
provided he do not at other times ornament his discourse with
the tinsel of rhetoric and sentiment. A lecturer whose aim is to
be usefiil rather than brilliant, must necessarily sometimes be
duU.

As with the book, so with the man. M. Daunou was greater
than his reputation, because his talents wanted brilliancy. Few
Frenchmen with so much solid worth have had less eclat. He is
known as one of those men of patient industry and prodigious
erudition, who sufficiently refiite the popular notion in England
respecting the frivolity of the French. He is also known as one
of those upright citizens who for lialf a century have sustained
unblemished reputations, whilst others aroimd them have been
bought and sold, have wavered and fallen, unable to withstand
the temptations of ambition. Ihere is something peculiarly at-
tractive in the contemplation of a Hfe like that of M. Daunou,
affording as it does such a lesson to the politician and the man of
letters.

PiBBBE Claude Fban§ois Daunou was bom on the 18th
of August, 1761, at Boulogne-sur-mer. His father was a surgeon,
and destined him for the same profession; but he manifested an
invincible repugnance to it, and wished to follow the law. The
means of his family not permitting this, he became monk of the
order of Les Oratoriens. The customs and manners of this learned
and peaceful order well suited his inclinations. To rise witk

332 Bucliez and Daunou on the Science of History.

dawn, to have his life comfortably regulated, to learn much, to
live more with ideas than with men, exactly fitted the young soH-
taiy, who spent thus fifteen years of pleasant labour. He became
professor, and successively taught Latin in the College des Ora-
toriens at Troyes, logic at Soissons, philosophy at Boulo^e, and
theology in the celebrated house of Montmorency. During this
period he was ordained priest, in 1787. The love of letters only
increased with years. The academy of Nismes having in 1785
proposed a prize for the best * Eloge de Boileau,' M. Daunou suc-
ceeued in obtaining it. He subsequently showed by his learned
edition of that poet that he fully appreciated the astonishing good
sense and refined taste which reign throughout his works.

The revolution burst forth. M. Daunou loudly applauded it;
and the taking of the bastile called from him a solemn yet
triumphant discourse on the approach of Uberty and its connexion
with Christianity. His writmgs produced strong efiect. The
church was divided: its leading members refused to obey the new
laws, which, however, obtained numerous adherents. Several of
the elected bishops sought the co-operation of M. Daunou, whose
reputation was now considerable. He consented at first to become
diocesan vicar of the Bishop of Arras, and afterwards metropo-
litan vicar of the bishop of Paris who confided to his care the
direction of the seminary of St. Magloire.

After the 10th of August he was called to take a more direct
part in the events of the day. The citizens of his native town
addressed this letter to him : * Daimou, free men know every-
where how to recognise the generous defenders of hberty and
equaUty. You have long had the esteem of your fellow-citizens:
they have now found means of proving their confidence in you
which you will never betray, in unanimously naming you Deputy
of the National Convention for the district of Boulogne.' Daunou
accepted the offer, and quitted the church for ever.

During the storms which agitated the Convention, M. Daunou
preserved his firmness and his wisdom. He sat among the Griron-
dists and displayed great courage %in resisting the mssionate elo-
quence which demanded the death of the king. He was not to
be terrified into voting for that of which his soul so loudly dis-
approved. He fought against terrible enemies. Robespierre with
his inflexible principles, St. Just with his fanaticism, the sneers
and suspicions which assailed him on all sides could not shake
his mild but courageous spirit. In vain the struggle. The king
ascended the scaffold, and the king's defenders became *sus-
pectes.' The Girondists fell. On the 31st of May the founders
of the repubHc were all proscribed. Daunou, in concert with
seventy-two colleagues, protested against such a violation of na-

Daunou and Bonaparte. 333

tlonal representation. The result may be foreseen. The repub-
licans demanded that a hundred and thirty-five of the most illus-
trious members of the Convention should be arrested. M. Dau-
nou was one of the number. Placed in La Force, and successively
dragged through five prisons, where he had often no bed to sleep
on, not even a bundle of straw, his courage did not fail him. In
study he found a refuge ; in Cicero and Tacitus he found conso-
lation. Thus passed the year.

He was released from prison some months after, and re-entered
the Convention where he played a considerable part. By turns
secretary and president of the assembly, member of the ' Comit6
de rinstruction Publique,' and of the ' Comite de Salut Public/
he exercised extensive authority. He also assisted in the import-
ant endeavour to give the Republic a constitution. His labours
both in this department, in the establishment of the Institut, and
in the plan of national education, have been well appreciated by
M. Mignet in his * Memoires Historiques,' from which we have
drawn this sketch.

Without participating in the revolution of the 18th Brumaire,
which his fnends effected in concert with General Bonaparte, M,
Daunou assisted in the establishment of the consulate of the year
Vin. Named member of the commission charged with preparing
the basis of this consulate, he had little influence on that constitu-
tion which was conceived by the metaphysical Siey^s, and shaped
by the ambition of Bonaparte, who out of a theory managed to
erect a government.

M. Daunou had once before been opposed to Bonaparte. In
1792 the monk of TOratoire, who was to become one of the legis-
lators of France, and the artillery officer who was to become its
master for fourteen years, disputed the prize offered by the Aca-
demy of Lyons on a moral subject. M. Daimou conquered as a
writer, but was more easily conquered in the political arena. He
endeavoured to introduce some of the ancient public guarantees
into the new constitution, but Napoleon had his own way. Ne-
vertheless, when the constitution was established. Napoleon is
said to have entertained the idea of associating Daunou with him
as Third Consul, and on renouncing the plan, he offered him the

S)lace of Conseiller d'fetat; this was refused. Daunou preferred
brming one of the Tribunate, of which he was chosen President.
He here defended the liberty which he saw menaced. Opposed
to the tendencies of the consular government, he combated most
of its projects with great ability. Liberty was so dear to him that
he constantly found himself in opposition to Napoleon, who was
endeavouring to destroy it. The First Consul feared him, invited
him to dinner at the Tuileries, and again offered him the place o£

334 Buchez and Daunou on the Science of History.

Conseiller d'fetat, which was a second time refused. Napoleon
then eagerly pressed him to become Director-general of PubUc
Instruction, but with no better success. Piqued at these refusals,
unaccustomed as he was to have his imperious will resisted, Napo-
leon grew angry, and after a sharp quarrel they separated in mu-
tual defiance.

Towards the commencement of 1802, the senate wanting to
replace one of its members, designated M. Daunou. Tlie First
Consul angrily declared that he should consider such a choice as a
personal insult. The senate therefore named one of his generals.
A few days afterwards, Napoleon commanded the elimination of
twenty of the members of the tribunate who were opposed to his
projects. M. Daunou was of the nimiber, together with his friends
Chenier, Gingu^n^, Benjamin Constant.

Napoleon did not approve of contradiction, but he was too great
himself not to honour the talents of others; and accordingly the
place of Director of the Archives becoming vacant, he offered it
himself to Daunou, who accepted a place which, without alarm-
ing his scruples, left him his independence. At the restoration
this was taken from him, in spite of his moderation and learn-
ing; but in 1819 his countrymen again sent him to the Chambre
des Deputes, and a third time in 1827. There, as throughout
his political career, he fulfilled his duties with honesty and abihty,
though without 6clat. In 1839 he was made a peer ; having a
little while before been chosen secretary to the Academic des
Inscriptions in the place of M. de Sacy. And thiLS in 1840, in
the eightieth year of his age, he closed his long, eventful, and
honourable career. He was not a brilUant politician. He was
neither an original tliinker nor a powerful orator; he brought for-
ward few new ideas ; he had no rhetorical talent for popularising
the ideas of others. He was an eminently useful man. A man of
large and varied knowledge ; of sane and temperate views ; neither
given to paradox or quibbling, nor to rash but effective improvi-
sation. A clear, strong, active consistency distinguished him
through life. Slow to adopt principles, he had a rare courage
in sustaining them. He was certainly not a great man, yet as
certainly was he a rare one.

The same characteristics distinguish his literary career. To
the patient labour of one of the Benedictine monks he joined an
elegant and somewhat fastidious taste. His works are far too
numerous to mention ; and all of them highly esteemed. Author
of nearly two hundred literary and biographical notices, some of
which are works, he was also the historian of St. Bernard, Philippe
Auguste, of St. Louis, of Albert the Great, of Alexander de Hales,
of Vincent de Beauvais, of St. Thomas Aquinas, and of Eoger

His laborious Studies. 335

Bacon. He wrote for the * Biographie Unlverselle.' He edited
Boileau, Rulhiere, and La Harpe. He wrote pamplilets with-
out number ; and left inedited a history of Greek literature,
assays on Latin literature, and a vast ' Bibliographie Gen^rale,'
in which he passes in review an encyclopedia of ideas a propos
of books. * Fascinated, by the disinterested pleasure of labour,'
says M. Mignet, * M. Daunou loved production more than pubi*
lication, loved learning more than applause.' This is rare praise.
He seems to have realized his own charming description of certain
men who * seek in solitude repose, and take more sweet deUght
in observing than in being observed; circumspect and enUght-
ened spirits, always measuring their own denciencies, and not
their superiority over others. They teach as little as possible ;
they are always learning.** M. Mignet says of him with as much
pith as justice, ' He carried with mm into the world the habits
of a solitary, and the opinions of a philosopher. At once timid and
inflexible, courageous in grave conjunctures, embarrassed in his
ordinary relations, obstinately attached to his ideas, stranger to all
Ambition, he preferred the rights of men to commerce with them,
and he sought more to enlighten than to lead them.'

Any work from such a man is worthy of attention ; peculiarly
so a work on history. He who had joined a practical experience
of several conditions of society to a vast knowledge of the past, is
above all to be listened to with respect. He had been a monk, a
priest, a professor, a poUtician, a prisoner, a senator, a peer, and a
literary man; he had survived two revolutions and two restor-
ations ; he had been actively, laboriously employed in every phasis
of his career, and he, if any one, had a right to pronounce on his-
torical subjects.

Li truth the ' Cours d'Etudes Historiques ' will amply repay
attention. They are the lectures which for twelve years he de-
livered at the college of France, and he himself prepared for the
press. Three more solid sensible volumes we have not often met
with. The style Is extremely elegant, though deficient in vigour
and animation; the matter peculiarly acceptable to all historical
students. To this matter we now address ourselves.

At the outset let us state, that the * Cours d'Etudes' is a work
which will be equally valuable to students whichever side they
take on the great question of the science of history; whether they
espouse the wildest flights of the metaphysical school, or the timid
scepticism of the English. M. Daunou teaches us how to study and
how to write history ; not what history is to prove. His book is a^
critical introduction to the study; and may be placed on the shelf
beside the admirable ' Lectures on Modem History,' by the late

• (

Cours d'Etudes Historiques/ 1. ii., p. 57.

i

336 Buchez and Daunou on the Science of History,

Dr. Arnold, to which indeed it bears many points of dose resem-
blance. It is a review of the various sources of historical testi-
mony, with the canons of criticism to which they are to be sub-
jected. It is divided into three parts. The first is entitled, ' Ex-
amination and choice of Facts, which is subdivided into two
books : the first is * Historical Criticism ;' the second is the ' Uses
of History.' The second part of the course is the * Classification
of Facts,' embracing geography and chronology. The third part
is the * Exposition of Facts,' m which the art of writing history
is treated. From this brief outline of its object the reader will
observe that the work is what its title proclaims, a course of his-
torical study, and not three volumes of speculation.

The greatest fault we have to find with the book is the want of
a just conception of the means, conditions, and aim of science ;
the notion M. Daunou has of a science, is that of a man solely
occupied with Kterature : he fancies that nothing more than au-
thenticated facts is necessary; and that if the facts of history can
be ascertained with the same certitude as those of astronomy or
chemistry, the science of history will be complete. ' Historical
science,' he says, * has no other source than mat of testimonies,
and no other instrument than that of criticism applied to the re-
cognition of the authenticity, the precise sense, and the truth of
these testimonies ;' and further on — ' Thus the first question
which we have to treat is to see whether there are certain histo-
rical facts so well estabUshed by positive testimony that their false-
hood is impossible.' And so, throughout the work, facts, and
the criticism of the testimony on wmch those facts repose, are
the only conditions deemed necessary. Yet it requires little
reflection to perceive that there may be facts in abund-
ance, and authenticated beyond a doubt, without one step
being made towards a science. The observations of the Chal-
deans did not sujSSce for astronomy; gases combined incessantly
before our eyes, without our detecting their laws, without a
science of chemistry; the fall of stones irom the sky was authen-
ticated, but pronounced supernatural; the facts of botany and
physiology were all satisfactorily established before these sciences
were formed. Science is not the knowledge oi facts but of hues;
not a catalogue of phenomena but the explanation of them. M.
Daimou's error consists in overlooking this point.

At the moment we are writing uiis, the ' Courrier Franfais-
pubUshes the result of a conversation between an academicifln
and a statesman, which is very characteristic of the imscientific
nature of the historical opinions now generally entertained. It is
observed that some great social crisis has occurred in Europe in
the middle of each century for the last 500 years. In 1440 it

False Notions of Science, 837

was the invention of printing which created a revolution. In
1550 it was Luther who shook the foundation of Catholicism. In
1650 it was Bacon and Des Cartes who demoUshed the infalli-
bility of Aristotle. In 1750 it was philosophy which triumphed,
and prepared the revolution of 1789. We approach the year
1850, and it is evident society is preparing to undergo a fiinda-
mental revolution. This is the academician's philosophy. Now
without caviUing at the ve^ questionable nature of the facts,
amongst which the Novum Organum is ranked as a ' great social
crisis/ let us only insist on the astonishing misconception of the
nature of science which the prediction for 1850 implies. Sup-
pose the facts true and important, they would only prove a coin-
cidence of date, not a law of evolution. To be able to say that
because some centuries have seen a social crisis, therefore will
ours see one, it must be shown that all centuries have manifested
this phenomenon; and if this could be shown, it would only make
the recurrence a probability, not a certainty; to make it a cer-
tainty the speculator must show that it is in strict conformity
with certain ascertained laws of human nature, whereby, in every
hundred years, all the elements of social life are worn out and
need renewal. Without this there can be no accurate prevision.

But leaving this high groimd of science, and descending into
the useful sphere to which M. Daunou has restricted himself, we
cannot but applaud his general views. It was pecuharl^ im-
portant that he should have established, as he has, the certitude
of historical knowledge. Coming after the reckless and exagge-
rated Pyrrhonism of the eighteenth century, which occupied itself
with endeavouring to prove all historical testimony doubtful, it
was imperative on him to refute this error, by separating that
which was certain from that which was questionable and that
which was obviously false. This he has successfully done. He
attacks the notion of D'Alembert respecting the three degrees of
certitude, mathematical, physical, and historical or moral, as alto-
gether erroneous. Certitude, he well says, is the impossibility of
doubting, and it exists entire or not at all. That which is ex-
tremely probable admits of more or less incertitude; and it is too
lax a mode of expression to. call that certain which may turn out
to be false. Certitude begins at the point at which there is no
chance of error; but at that point it is already perfect. The ex-
istence of Paris, Naples, or Madrid, is neither mathematically nor
physically demonstrated to those who have never seen those
cities; nevertheless all well-informed men are incapable of doubt-
ing it; because the testimonies are so numerous, so various, and
80 irreproachable that it would be madness to doubt their affirm-

^

338 Buchez and Daurum on the Science of History.

fltion. The truths of geometry are otherwise certain, but not
more so.

The error M. Daunou combats arose from the sceptics seeing
that much of what historians believed was obviously false, and
much only probable, and thence concluding that none was certain.
It is his especial merit to have carefully and sagely distinguished
these, and to have afibrded the student canons of criticism, to
which every testimony must be subjected. The whole of his first
volume is occupied thus, and forms by far the most valuable por-
tion of the work. That there is much recorded in history which
is indubitably certain, can now no more be questioned, tnan that
there is much only probable, and much altogether false. The his-
torian's duty is to distinguish these. Many a fact is indubitable,
and yet surroimded with error. The assassination of Caesar is un-
questionable; the motives which led to it, the means whereby it
was accomplished, are not so. The testimony of contemporaries
is unanimous as to the fact; various as to the circumstances, Si^
milar problems are perpetually presenting themselves to the writer
of history. He must be as cautious in accepting the truth of some
relations, as in rejecting those of others. He must remember
also that there is Uttle which can be altogether rejected. If an
event be surrounded by improbable or impossible circumstances,
he must not, in rejecting them as actual occurrences, forget that
they are very important as indications of the spirit of the times.
It may not be true that * direftil portents,' dreams, and auguries
foretold the death of Caesar; but it is very true that the people
believed in such portents; and this fact is of more importance to
the historian than even Caesar's death. M. Daunou has well said,
that the very fables of antiquity should be preserved, ' because the
belief which they obtained and the influence they exercised, are
facts it is not allowable to omit.' Clearly not; they are among
the most important facts in the history of the human race; they
are facts concerning mankind, not merely concerning individuals.
Of what importance is it to the present generation whether Cad-
mus or Theseus existed— of how much importance that the belief
in these men existed, for many years ! The one is a question of
an individual, the other of the state of humanity. W ithout un-
derstanding the errors, prejudices, superstitions, and creeds of*
various nations, we should not only be unable rightly to under-
stand their history, but also our own intellectual physiology. A
comparative mythology might be written, rich in instruction.
Indeed it must be written, before the first letters of the great his-
torical problem can be deciphered. It will form one of the grand
specialities of universal history, to which the biographic^

k

CredibUity of Historical Facts. 339

portion will necessarily be vastly inferior, both in interest and
precision. Indeed the biography of history must always be
the least important portion, if only because the least . suscep-
tible of precision, llie testimonies of contemporaries may give
us the outward and visible acts of a man's Hfe; no one can give
us the inward motive. All biography can be but M)proximative.
It may be interesting ; it never can be precise. Tne other por-
tion of history which concerns the progress of mankind in general
is otherwise important, otherwise accurate; it may indeed be re-
duced to extreme accuracy when once undertaken on the proper
scientific method. There can be no doubt of its facts. It needs
no recondite information. The materials are abundant, sufficing.
Hence the futiUty of ^ secret anecdotes' on which so much stress
is laid. Nothing but what is common can have affected or inter-
ested mankind; nothing that affected them can have remained
secret. We gain a closer insight into the condition of humanity
by the appreciation of certain common facts than by whole ar-
chives of secret anecdotes. The Greeks, with all their magnificent
and unrivalled architecture, had no bridge; the Italians, who could
boast of a Benvenuto CeUini, had not a decent lock. From sim-
ple facts like these what deductions to be made !

M. Daimou has combated the opinions of Laplace and others
respecting tradition, but has not, we believe, seen the source of
the fallacy. It was certainly very characteristic of mathematicians
to apply their calculations to human affairs as if men were ab-
stract constant quantities. John Craig, an Englishman, was one
of the first to attempt this. In his ' Theologise Christianas Prin-
cipia Mathematica* (1699) he declares that as moral and political
&cts are by nature subject to modification during transmission
from generation to generation, their credibility of course declines
in the same ratio; he fancies that certain events which occurred
in the beginning of our era will cease to be credible in the year
3153; and this year will therefore be the end of the world. La-
place in his * Essai Philosophique sur les Probabilites,' in de-
claring Craig's analysis bizarre^ nevertheless accords great influence
to the action of time on the probabiHty of facts transmitted from
one generation to another by a chain of tradition. ' It is clear,'
he says, ' that this probability must diminish in proportion as the
chain is prolonged.' M. Daunou opposes various reasons to this
mathematical fallacy; but he has not seen that the origin of it
lurks in mistaking the metaphor of a * chain of tradition' for a
fact. Tradition is not a chain, as above implied. Some traditions
are indeed transmitted from generation to generation with no other
testimony than that of constant transmission : such are the stories
of the Greek heroes; of Romulus and others. But this onlj
plies to oral tradition; the written has no such decre

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIV. 2 A

340 Buchez and Daunou on the Science of History.

babilitv: its certitude is as perfect to us as it was to our ancestors.
The various testimonies which made our forefathers credit the m-
vasion of Rome by barbarians have the same force now as then;
the belief of our ancestors has little to do with our behet, and no
way affects the certitude of the facts; we have the same testi-
monies to judge by, and we beheve; so also wiU our children
believe. Tliat Caaar lived and conquered Britain will be facts no
time can throw a doubt upon.

Wc must quote M. Daunou's excellent observations rcspectmg
the multiplicity of witnesses being no sort of proof on certain
points Somebody satiricaUy said that people were never so much
to be doubted as when relating what they had heard or seen: the
following remarks are a good commentary on the sarcasm.

« "When an entire nation testifies to the truth of some extraordinary
feet, does tiie probability increase in proportion to die number of wit-
nesses ? I beUeve it will generally be m inverse ratio ; for there are fecte,
which, from their nature, could have been seen but by few persons ; the
ereat^ die number of those who dedaie tiiemselves to have be^ present
St scenes which must have been secret, and to have heard words which
must have been uttered in confidence, the ess woidd be my confidence.
S^n with respect to public event^ I should not be convm<^ by tije
x^veii w r ^f witnesses ; to be present does not suffice, it is

mere "^^g'T^^^^. It has never been found difficult to persuade
necessary to o ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ j^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ whicb none of them

an assembly o J^ j^^ g^^ a case, every one fears lest he should pass
had looked a* cio^j^ clearsighted than another, and would rather see
for less attentov^ ^^^^ .^ ^^^ j^ repeated, and very man;^ add a Kttle
more than see ^^ ^^^ seems a testimony is but the reception and pro-
of their o^ ; ^^^^on. [No one acquainted with crimmal trials can
EagationOT ^^^^^^ this in the testimonies of witnesses, who have no
^ ave £*"^ Receive, but are so preoccupied with the prisoner's guilt,
inteniwo ^^ ,jp from their own imaginations the little connecting
that *j^| their racts are wanting in, or are persuaded they saw symp-
Hd^ ^^i Aey never did see.] I would rather trust in the testimony
to«^_ or fi^® astronomers who had witnessed the circumstances at-
f*5^ on * comet or an eclipse, than that of the voice of the whole
*J^0 who had only regarded the celestial bodies, terrified by absurd
22flnjtitions. Beyond the necessary number to guarantee the exacti-
f^le^and fidelity of the depositions, the multitude of witnesses generally
«P0g nothing but multiply the chances of deception. Let us add, that
f^ general this crowd of witnesses only confirms the recital by a tadt
ijoosent easily obtained or supposed, or else by vague rumours which
^ve no constant result. Imposture often invokes the testimony of a
joation, which replies only by silence ; or else claims the rumours which
it has taken care to circulate."

There is a great deal of this wholesome scepticism in the work.
Indeed, all that is true in the attacks of the philosophers of the
ijiditeenth century, against the credibility of history, will be foynd

Historical gvjessing condemned, 341

in these pa^es, together with many points they did not see, and
above all with the truths they denied. A more healthy course of
historical scepticism than this * Cours d'Etudes ' we do not know;
especially as the principles of belief are placed beside those of
doubt. Every source of testimony is exammed, and rules for its
criticism laid down. "We shall give these rules presently; mean-
while the following passage is worth citing as a lesson to the
daring scholars of modem times.

*' For nearly four centuries, engraving and printing have multiplied
the means of representing with precision all the forms of our public in-
stitutions, the productions of our industry, the customs of our private
Hfe. There is now hardly the least information of this kind which can-
Hot immediately be obtained from our dictionaries, manuals, statistics,
newspapers, ahnanacs, the narratives of our travellers, and our immense
collection of prints. J£ all tlus lumber, or at least a large portion of
these collections, descends, as it appears to me it must do, to our most
distant posterity, it will not be in their power to be ignorant of any of our
customs, of the proceedings of our industry, of the detiuls of our civil
and domestic usages. But if they possessed only our books of poetry,
speeches, novels, histories, treatises on philosophy ; if slight remains of
our edifices and furniture alone remained, they would need in turn
learned men, sufficiently expert to discover in Boileau, Voltaire, and '
Montesquieu, the materials, forms, and varieties of our habitations, our
clothes, and utensils. Such is very nearly our position with regard to
the Latins and Greeks. On the one nand, a few ancient passages, — on the
other, a few material remains of antiquity, — ^these are the groimds on
which we must base a knowledge of the customs of the Romans and
Athenians. These grounds are small, but art is boundless. Monuments
are rare^ misshapen, defective ; what does that matter : before they are
hardly dug up, they are described, restored, and so much is done to
them that they are explained. Passages are obscure, mutilated, of
double meaning ; they are commented on, corrected, re-established, or,
to employ the artistic word, restored; until at last information, whe-
ther desirable or not, respecting the least details, not of customs, but
of the uses and utensils of antiquity, is obtained from thenu It is true
that to obtain a knowledge like tiiis, a peculiar logic is required, more ex-
peditious and less inconvenient than that of geometricians and timid
philosophers : for if before concluding it was always requisite to com-
plete the enumerations, appreciate the value, and determine the mean-
mg of proofs, to be assured of the constant signification of words, and
the identity of those which are admitted as middle terms in reasoning, it
would be difficult to carry archaslogical science so far. But by exacting
a result from every passage ; by deducing from several compared pas-
sages, what neither of them expresses in part or as a whole ; by imagin-
ing analogies and allusions ; by collecting homonyms and synonyms ;
by coining etymologies ; by always taking the possible for the probable
and the probable for certainty, one may compose a thousand ' "* —
on ihe history of inscriptions, on numismatics, on paleography,,
ihography, &c., and science will increase daily ; and if, by

2 ^1

342 Buchez and Daunou on the Science of History,

throws some raj of light on certain points of the civil annals, this acci*
dental good fortune will he used as authority to recommend a less useful
erudition ; yiz., that which introduces into historical studies, method9
little useful in directing the human mind to real knowledge. By this
all history will appear transformed into a conjectural art degenerating
into divination ; and so many hypotheses, horn of the pretension of
ignoring nothing, of the hahit of douhting nothing, will end hy spread-
ing apparent uncertainty and unjust discredit on the results with which
they have been mixed up."

We are led to notice one very general error alluded to in the
foregoing passage; viz., that literature, being the expression of the
spirit of the times, we can best understand those times by study-
ing their literature. It is true, that without a knowledge of its
literature, we can never perfectly understand an epoch ; it is also
true, that the knowledge of its literature alone will never enable
us to understand it. Suppose we had notliing but Greek lite-
rature whereby to understand Greek history, what should we be
able to make of Homer, the dramatists, Pindar, Anacreon, Theo-
critus, or the orators? These now puissant aids would then be
almost useless. They express the age, but they give it an idealized
expression ; when we can confront this ideal state with the reality,
we are enabled to draw therefrom valuable instruction : we can
separate, as it were, the matter from its form ; we can learn some
of^ the various processes of art. The history of art is one im-
portant branch of the history of mankind ; and in this sense lite-
rature must always be a rich source of historical instruction ; but
the student must not confound a part with the whole, must not
fancy that the past can be understood by merely understanding
its literature.

One good result of the modem conception of history is the con-
viction that not only are politics and biography, archaeology and
chronology, necessary to its existence, but that it is a vast science
intimately connected with every other science, and with every
thing interesting to man. Instead of being a detail of diplomatic
intrigues or military exploits, it is the remmt of all the ele-
ments of social life. Every thing is capable of throwing light
upon it, since every thing must have had influence on the pro-
gress of mankind. Men like Mr. Kemble, profoundly imbued
with the historical feeling, (if the expression may be allowed), wiD
in the course of an hour s ramble demonstrate the importance of
apparently trivial facts; showing how a certain law will imply
a certain commercial condition, and how the simplest geogra-
phical position will have influenced the destinies of nations, so
that living on one or the other side of a river is a matter of cKMMe-
quence; how a man building a wall or a ditch in a certain place
may have been of more service to his nation than a warlike

Vastness of the Science. 343

chief. So far from the intrigues of diplomatists, the ambitions of
favoimtes, or the lives and exploits of sovereigns being the im-
portant subjects, as formerly imagined, they form but the meanest,
smallest parts. Tlie modem conception of history requires for it^
fulfilment that these special subsidiary histories should be com-
pleted:

1. A History of Religion and Morals ; including Mytholo-
gies and Superstitions. 2. A History of Law : judicial and
administrative. 3. A History of Art. 4. A History of
Commerce. 5. A History of Agriculture. 6. A History of
Philosophy. 7. A History of Manners, Customs, Sports, &c.
8. A History of the Fusion of Races. 9. A History of Do-
mestic Relations : parental and conjugal, with tliose of master and
filave, employer and workmen, &c. 10. A Comparative His-
tory of Language.

These ten special histories, many of them founded on special
sciences, together with the sciences of Physiology and Ethology,
are all indispensable to a perfect Universal History. From the
^bove enumeration, it wiU be seen that we have no such enthusiastic
hopes as to the speedy completion of the science, as many French
and German writers entertain. Our conviction, however, is, that
the progress towards completion wiU be certain, though slow. We
may point indeed to the fact of the very great progress which has
already been made. Whoever is acquainted with the chroniclers
and early writers, down to the Humes and Gibbons, and from
them to the Gnizots, Thierrys, Michelets, Niebuhrs, and Rankes,
will admit the very great progress in the criticism of testimonies
and in largeness of conception. The ' Pictorial History of
JJngland* hias many and serious faults; but it has one prodigious
merit: that of maldng people imderstand the historical signifi-
cance of literature, art, law, religion, customs and manners, and
commerce. As such, it is a work worthy of national encouragement :
written as it is, in general, in a popular and engaging manner.

To return to M. Daunou, we shall best give an exact idea of
his principles of criticism, by reducing them here to their abstract
expression, referring to his pages for special illustrations, of which
there are many and excellent. The first volume contains the
exposition of these rules.

I. Every fact, not derived firom revelation, which is irreconcile-
able with the constant laws of nature, is to be rejected as fabulous:
it woidd be superfluous to weigh testimonies in its favour. It is
necessarily erroneous or fictitious.

• n. Nevertheless, before rejecting any fact as supernatural or
chimerical, we must examine whether tne narrator may not have
attributed that character to it firom having been deceived by ap-

S44 Buchez and Daunou on the Science of History.

pearances ; whether he may not have mistaken for a prodigy that
which was but the effect of some ill-known law. In this case it
would suffice, to render the narrative credible, to remove all the
circumstances with which it is surcharged, and the miraculous
colour which credulity has given to it.

ni. Reason also refuses confidence in narratives which disagree
with those that precede and those that follow, or which present a
tissue of romantic adventures Uttle compatible with the ordinary
course of things. Such are possible, but their improbability ex-
cludes them from history, which admits only the probable and
the certain.

IV. The only case wliich warr^its the admission of a fact im-
probable in itself, is when the testimonies on which it reposes
are at once so numerous, positive, imiform, and grave, that their
falsehood would be more strange than the fact itself.

V. If an historical tradition, which on the above prindples
would be inadmissible, has obtained belief for a long period, and
has exercised an influence over the people, it will merit a placd
in history, but the writer should carefully distinguish it as fabulous.

VI. Any tradition which is of a miraculous character is to be
rejected.

VII. Traditions are admissible only when they are in them*
Belves extremely probable; and in this case, which is rare, they
can only have tne attribute of probability bestowed on them.

VIII. A traditional narrative should only be considered certain
when, besides being intrinsically probable, it has been handed down
through many centuries, and always received implicit credence.

IX. Before drawing any conclusion from an historical monu-
ment, the first care should be to ascertain whether it be authentic;
that is, whether it belongs to the time, place, and persons to
whom it is ascribed.

X. The loss of a monument is only in part recompensed by
the detailed descriptions of it which may exist ; and these de-
scriptions must have been made by attentive and veridical
authors who had seen it themselves and closely examined it.

XI. No historical consequence can be drawn firom enigma-
tical monuments; and we must consider those enigmatical wnjch
are not immediately intelligible, the object and sense of whiA
can only be explained by conjectures, dissertations, and analogies.

Xn. Medals and inscriptions, when clear and authentic, fur*
nish names and dates generally worthy of confidence.

XIII. But medals and inscriptions do not alone suffice to esta-
blish facts or memorable actions : because aduktion and policy intro-
duce errors and falsehoods. In a bulletin a small victory is always
exaggerated, a defeat attenuated. But such authorities serve ^

Canons of Historical Criticism, 345

confirm narratives wliicli may be found related elsewhere in simi-
lar terms.

XIV. Many charts {chartes) which assume to be anterior to the
year 1000 are false; up to that period this sort of testimony is
to be employed with extreme caution.

XV. From the year 1000, and above all from that of 1200,
there exist certain means of proving the authenticity of archives
which become in consequence the most fruitful source of histo-
rical instruction.

XVI. Trials, reports, bulletins, &c., when drawn up in pre*
sence of the facts, generally present the names, dates, and ma-
terial circumstances with exactitude.

XVn. They have sometimes been altered by political interests;
and they must, therefore, when possible, be confronted with particu-
lar narratives pubKshed at the same time, and on the same matters.

XVm. The most faithful reports of trials never give a perfect
knowledge of the moral and political character of the events or
persons.

XIX. The confidence due to private memoirs written day by
day is proportionate to that which the honesty and intelligence of
the writer inspire.

XX. From the commencement of the seventeenth century, pub-
lic journals and gazettes furnish with tolerable exactitude the dates
and material circimistances of pubHc events.

XXI. Such details as are recorded equally in various periodi-
cals edited with freedom, and published in different interests and
opinions, are to be credited.

XXII. Thejoumalsexpresslyavowedbygovemmentsareingene-
kJ exact in what concerns external circumstances and visible results.

XXni. No sort of confidence is due to gazettes which a
government directs without avowal; and the recitals they con-
tain are to be held as worthless unless confirmed by those written
with perfect freedom.

XXIV. The memoirs of a man respecting his own actions and
afi&irs merit attention as those of one who knows his subject;
but they merit scepticism as those of an interested i)arty.

XXV. The memoirs of writers of every century upon the
events which occurred during their Kfetime, ox a few years be-
fore their birth, compose one of the principal sources of history.
The first care of the nistorian should be to ascertain whether these
memoirs be authentic both as to time and person. The real au-
thor having been ascertained, it is then necessary to learn what
Talue is to be attached to his testimony.

XXVI. His testimony would be valueless if it was discovered
that he did not possess the means of verifying the &cts he xeteUWi_

346 Buchez and Daunou on the Science of History.

XXVII. Of little value if it was found that his narrative was
dictated by personal interests ; or to flatter his patrons and party.

XXVIII. It is prudent to examine, not reject, the accounts of
one who manifests a disposition towards satire.

XXIX. Such authors as accumulate miraculous recitals, and
find in most facts some extraordinary circumstances, are to be
ranked amongst romancers.

XXX. In suspecting the veracity of him who shows devotion
to his sect or party, the other extreme must be avoided ; nor
must any more confidence be reposed in those chroniclers who en-
register with apathetic indifference the enterprises and revolutions
which they pretend to have witnessed.

XXXI. W hen there is a contradiction or diversity between ori-
ginal narratives, criticism must decide between them by the con-
fronting of testimonies ; but in this case the result can hardly ever
be pronounced certain : it has only more or less probability.

XXXII. A negative argument is that founded on the silence of a
contemporary, and it acquires great force when the author who re-
mains silent is intelligent, judicious, and exact, and when he could
not have been ignorant of the fact nor interested in concealing it.

XXXIII. In default of contemporary narratives, those written
one or two centuries afterwards must be accepted ; but subject
to all the preceding criticism; and in general diey can only fur-
nish probable results.

Such are the principal rules laid down and illustrated in the
course of the first volume, where the reader will find any further
fuller information he may desire, as well as the answers to any
objections which the abstract statement of these rules may excite.
The second volume is, f)erhaps, less interesting. The several chap-
ters on the usages of history were very needful for his audience;
perhaps to juvenile students entertaining; but those who read for
something mor6 than reading sake we would advise to skim
gently over these chapters, alighting only upon such passages as
attract them. The second half of the volume is of importance;
it is a review of all the geographical notions which from the
earliest to the latest times have been entertained by writers ^
travellers. It may be called the liistory of geography. The third
volume treats of chronology, and the art of writmg history: the
latter the author illustrates with abundant examples from the
ancient writers.

In taking our leave of this excellent work we must agata
egress our opinion that it has few rivals: temperate and enW^
ramer than novel or profound; not so mudi ofering new ideas <»f
new methods as classifying what before was known; written with
elegance and gravity rather than with animation and ^clat, it re^
mams, after ^ deductions, an admirable course of historical study*

(347)

Art. III. — Fetes et Souvenirs du Congres de Vienne ; Tahhaux
des Salons, Scenes, Anecdotiques, et Portraits; 1814, 1815.
(Festivities, &c., of the Congress of Vienna.) Par le Comte
A. DE LA Garde. Paris : A. Appert Libraire Editeur. 2
Tomes. 1843.

There were previous to the present year three Histories of the
Congress of Vienna. 1st, the book of De Pradt; 2d, the His-
tory of M. de Flassan ; and 3d, the Journal of a Nobleman at
the Congress of Vienna, pubUshed anonymously in London.
The book of the Abbe, and former Bishop of MechUn, is lively,
startling, and showy. In order to prove his honesty and origin-
ality— like our own Cobbett — he makes it a point vnth himself
to differ from all the rest of the world, and it is therefore no
marvel that he discovers that there is, after all, nothing so very
wrong in the partitioning of Poland; that the aggrandizement of
Prussia is necessary to the general equilibriima of Europe ; and
that the annexation of Belgium to Holland is the very perfection
of wisdom.

The book of M. de Flassan, entitled ' Histoire du Congres de
Vienne,' and which first saw the hght in 1829, is still more volu-
minous, though infinitely less readable, than the production of
his apostoUc and diplomatic predecessor. M. de Flassan had no
doubt the most favourable opportunities of writing a correct and
authentic work. He had long previously been employed at the
Ministire des Affaires Etrangtres, He had been advantageously
known as the author of a larger work in six vols., commenced in
1809, and finished in 1811, the ' Histoire Generale et Raisonnee
de la Diplomatic Fran§aise,' so that his previous studies and re-
searches had eminently qualified him for the task which his go-
vernment had imposed. But although he was clothed in an official
caqpacity, enjoyed the confidence of the actors in this great drama
01 the Congress of the Nations, and had moreover access to
all the protocols and archives, there is not perhaps a more arid
aad colourless production in modem French literature than the
* Histoire du Congres de Vienne/ Somewhat of this is owing, no
doubt, to the dry, dogmatic, and formal style of the pubUcation,
a little perhaps to the nature of the subject, but most of all to the
diplomatic drill which it was necessary the author's opinions should
undergo before they were permitted to be given to the reading
world of Europe and America* We have been told on good au-
j^iority that m, de Flassan was forced to strike out all the really
curious and interesting portions of his MS. The work as printed
18 but a dull and unanimated record of facts; an enforced and la-

348 The Cangrtu of Vienna.

boured panegyric on the five powers and their plenipotentiaries,
whom the author complacently and complimentarily describes as
* si superieures aux jugemens humains ' !*

The * Journal of a Nobleman at the Congress of Vienna' may
or may not be apocryphal ; but in any event it is a work whicn
could have been written by any valet or gentleman's gentleman;
by the lacquey of Prince Mettemich, or the page of the late
Emily Marchioness of Londonderry.

The Congress of Vienna, like every other congress in modem
times, presents two distinct aspects. The one public and patent
to all the world — the other latent and unrevealed, tmless to the
kings and cabinets initiated. The secret letters and confidential
communications of Lord Castlerea^h to the Prince Regent, and to
Lord Bathurst, from the beginmng of October, 1814, to the
commencement of January, 1815, and of the Duke of Welling-
ton, who supplied the place of his bzother plenipotentiary and
friend at the congress, fr^ February, 1815, to the moment of its
close, would, no doubt, afibrd some of the rarest materials for
anecdote, history, and memoirs; but it is not likely that any of
these familiar and confidential letters will ever be made public;
certainly not in our own day. There was yet another hand fix)m
which much might have been expected. It is well known that
during the congress the most imreserved communication existed
between Louis X VHI. and his adroit apd pliant plenipotentiary.
A scholar, a man of taste and erudition, Louis X VHI. was not
only possessed with the mania and weakness of corresponding on
all subjects, literary, political, and sdentific, but his most
Christian majesty was also desirous of learning, like all the
branches of the elder Bourbons, the littie tittle-tattle, the small
gossip, and the secret scandal, of the rout of kings and rabble of
ministers assembled in the capital of the soi-disant descendant of
all the Caesars.

Talleyrand was too good a courtier not to gratify this royal
yet paltry propensity. There was not an intriguing adventure,
not a royal and imperial amour, not a masked ball, not a dinna?
or supper, or Tcunz Musique at the Redovten Saal, which the ex-
bishop did not most imctuously describe for the pleasure and
instruction of his royal master. If Alexander, in a fit of
half-religious mysticism, or something still more mundane,
flimg kunself at the feet of Madame de Krudener; — ^if Met-
termch dallied till the dawn of day in a secluded aloofe
with some pretty grqfinn; — ^if Casdereagh danced with imper-
turbable and relentless energy all night long, disclosing hi

* Congi^s de Yienne, par De Hassan, tome i, p. 219.

The Dresses of the Great Folks, 349

thin and shapeless calves in tight pantaloons; — if Maximilian
of Bavaria cracked a coarse joke; — or that Daniel Lambert of
kings, the Colossus of Wurtembe^g, surfeited himself with a
Brobdignagian allowance of sturgeon and sauer kraut ; — if the
dy and insinuating Duchess of Oldenburg flirted in the guise
of a grisette, for some politic and fraudulent purpose ; or the exu-
berant humour of his Majesty of Denmark exuded in lively
quips and cranks, savouring more of the cabaret than the cabinet;
— if the brisk and insatiable vanity of Lord Stewart, his inevitable
want of tact, and unmistakable want of temper, led him into scrape
after scrape — all were noted down by the imperturbable and inex-
orable ex-bishop withpoint and precision. Nor did the other sex
escape unscathed. The fan of this princess, the sable pelisse of
that, the diamond stomacher of this duchess, the beautiful brace-
let of that other, were all described and chronicled with the special
science of a Storr and Mortimer; or, better still, with the glowing
eloquence of a Laure (of the house of Maradan Carson); or, to
speak synchronously, of a real Bourbonite bodice-maker and leri-
Ke Wliner, such as Victorine herself. It was after haviSff
received one of these pleasant missives, in which the dresses and
€X)stumes of emperors and empresses, archdukes and archduchesses,
ma^ates and starosts, were graphically described, that the gouty
and caustic monarch is reported to have exclaimed, * M. de Tal-
leyrand n'a oublie qu'ime seule chose, c'est de nous feire savoir
quel 6tait son costume a lui, car il en a de rechange.'

But where, it may be asked, are all these confidential letters
now? This alone is certain, that they are not among the archives
of the affaires itrangires; for one fine morning, a quarter of a cen-
tury ago, the Prince of Beneventum took the slight and super-
fluous precaution of removing the secret and anecdotical portion
of the letters to his private hotel in the Rue St. Florentin. There
remain, then, in the archives of France but the political and oflSi-
cial correspondence, which is in every sense public property. The
author of this portion of these materials for future history is the
worthy and excellent M. La Bemardiere, previously to the first
revolution a member of the congregation of the Oratoire, but who
sabsequenlly, on the suppression of his order, embraced the career
ofpohtics, and was ultimately employed as Chefde Division in the
affaires itrangires. It is curious as well as instructive, at this dis-
luice of time, to reflect how many ecclesiastics were flung into the
Sk>imy career of ^litics by the revolution. Talleyrand, Minister
for foreign Aflairs, Baron Louis, Minister of Finance, Fouch6|
Minister of Police, De Pradt, Ambassador to Warsaw, Sieyes,
of Pigeon House memory, immortalized by the greatest of os^toia
and the first of philosophic statesmen (Burke), and La

350 The Congress of Vtetma.

Chef de Division, cum multis aliis. The only instance of such a
si£rnal deyiation from an oriscinal vocation that occurs to us under
government preceding L revolution, was that in every way
most remarkable one, of Xl. Turgot.*

To return to the matter more immediately in hand. If the
publication of the private papers of Castlereagh and Wellington
be dim and distant, we fear that there is still less chance of the
correspondence of Talleyrand being disclosed to a wondering and
expectant public, in all the permanency of pica and lonff primer.
What then are we to do? There is a morbid craving, a * Morning
Poet' anxiety for minute and petty details, and private anecdote;
and if the primary evidence be wanting — ^if the original deed be
lost or destroyed, we must have recourse to secondary evidence.
Li this emergency of the reading public, forth comes the Count
A. de la Garde, professing to give his recollections and portraits
of ^the dinners, dresses, and dances, of the balls and masquerades,
the masks and musical festivals, the punning pic-nickery and
paUardise of the congress and its complement; and though there
be great parvity in the idea, and albeit it plainly discloses
a wonderful littleness of mind, still we are boimd to confess
that the Count has executed his self-appointed task with all
the zeal of a literary Introducteur des Ambassadturs, and all
the gaudy pride of a provincial posture-master. What man-
ner of man is this however, and where does he come from,
who so obligingly ushers us into the best of company? The Count
A. de la Garde was we believe (though he does not tell us so)
bom in France, somewhere about the year 1782 or '83, and must
now therefore be in the 60th or 61st year of his age. His father
(if we are not misinformed, for on this point also he is silent) was
employed in the Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres. During the
progress of the French revolution he had constantly refused to
/emigrate. Proscribed because of his attachment to his legitimate
' king, he saved his head from the scaffold by secreting himself in
the house of a friend. When the first paroxysms of the fever of
blood were over, the old Count thought he might again show him-
self in a country which he had never abandoned. But his name
was still written in ensanguined letters on the fatal list, and pro-
scribed anew after the 18th Fructidor (4th September, 1797),
he was obliged to emigrate to escape a more lingering death
in the pestilential deserts of Sinnamary. He fled to Ham-
burg. His son, the author of the work at present under review,
was his only companion. They experienced all the miseries of an
involuntary and sudden banishment. Invited by the Count de

; * See ' M^moiies de TAbbl Morellet,' tome L, p. 12.

Prince Royal of Sweden and Princess of Augiistenburg. 351

Fersen to repair to Sweden, they left Hamburg, and travelling the
arid and sandy plains of Holstein, gained Copenhagen on foot.
They were received with the greatest kindness by the Count de
Lowendall, whom the elder La Grarde had formerly known in
Paris. By this worthy man, father and son were presented to the

Erince royal, at whose grotesque dress the young emigrant had
eartily laughed the day previously in the park of Copenhagen.
The poor young man when presented would have sunk down
from mingled emotions of fear and shame when he found who
had really been the subject of his mirth, had he not been encou-
raged by the angelic countenance of a yoimg woman by the
piSxce's side. This was his charming sister the Princess of Au-
gustenburg, who, with an imploring look, besought her brother
to read the petition of the forlorn exile.

The prince read the document attentively, questioned the
unfortunate young man more at length, and having learned the
history of his miserable pilmmage, exclaimed to his sister, *' Alas !
another victim of the revolution."

*' But surely you know German?" said the prince.
" Not a word," said the young De la Garde.
*' Poor boy!" said the princess, " so young, and withal so much
of suffering. How sad and wearisome, indeed, must your journey
have appeared over these dreary sands of ours; an exile in a
strange land." And the tears started into her beautiful eyes, and
coursed each other down her cheeks.

But succour was at hand. An order on the royal treasury was
soon given and paid, and the passage of the young exile was
taken on board a merchant ship for Stockholm, somewhere in the
month of March, 1801 ; but the vessel being detained by baffling
winds, he was present at the passage of the Sound by Parker and
Nelson on the night of the 2d of April, 1801, and did good ser-
vice to the prince, by whose boimty he had profited a few days
before.

At length, however, after the signature of the armistiGe which
destroyed the armed neutraUty of the Northern Powers, he sets sail
for Stockholm, and from thence proceeds to Amsterdam to join
his father. In that city he remains till Napoleon has completely
triumphed over all the opponents of a consulate for life. The
First Consul, strong enough at this juncture — ^we suppose the 6th
iloreal (26th April, 1802), for no dates are given — ^to be clement,
interposes no obstacle to the return of those unfortunate emi-
grants who had fled to escape the scaffold. The old Count de la
Garde, having at this moment urgent need of those pecuniaiy
resources without which it is impossible to live in a land of exile,
despatched his son to Paris under the care of a M. Clement. T^

352 The Congress of Vienna.

take up their quarters at the H6tel de Calais, Rue Coquilli^re.
But M. Clement is instantly called off on a family business to
Dijon, and recommending yoxmg De la Garde to M. Chaudeau, a
pastrycook and master of the notel, the stripling is forthwith
installed in a modest bedroom on the fifth story at the moderate
rent of twelve francs a month. The repasts of the young emigrant
are proportioned to the exiguity of his purse. Cold and famine
soon stare him in the face, but he nevertheless feels all the ine-
briating transport of a return to his native land, and like a ship-
wrecked mariner, seems to clutch the soil on which ne is cast. Tlie
poor serving girl at the hotel tells him of a handsome yoimg man,
the tenant of the bedroom before his occupancy, who had been
turned half-naked into the streets in an inclement night by his
unfeeling landlord, because he was in arrear of rent. He dreams
of this remorseless tapster. He sees the horrid spectre with an
unpaid bill in one hand, and a padlock in the other to seal the
door for ever against him. Now he no longer sleeps for dread of
dims; hardly does he eat. The canker in his mind is corroding
away his feeble body. He cannot remain still an instant. Out
he goes into the heart of that busy, bustling, stinking, sensual
Pans. It is to him a cold yet crowded wilderness. He passes
the blood-bespotted Boulevards, traverses the Rue Grange Bata-
liere, and thinks to come right on the H6tel Choiseul, which had
anciently been the happy home of his family. Alas ! the hotel
exists no longer. It is transformed into an auction-room. The
venerable house-porter, too, is gone, and nothing remains of the
past but the old house-dog Castor, who seems to recognise the
child who had so often pmled both ears and tail in the days of
other years and other dynasties.

Whilst our hero was yet a child living at the H6tel Choiseul,
another family inhabited a portion of the house. There was a
young daughter of this femily, the playmate of De la Grarde's
infantiae years, who subsequently became the reigning beauty of
the day, and afterwards the wife of one of the richest bankers of
Paris, M. Recamier. As the pockets of the unfortunate young
man collapsed from mere emptmess, as he could not even raise a
trifle on the portrait of Louis XVI., presented by the unfortunate
monarch to his father, he bethought him of this early friend of
his youth. But Madame Recamier is Uving at Clichy. To
Clichy he hies him, dressed out in a three-cornered chapeau, which
his father had never permitted him to change for a roimd hat,
the one being in the old man's estimate the type of noblesse, the
other of sans-culottism. His coat was the identical upper-vestment,
and a motley one it was, which he had worn on the day of his
first communion. It was a black cloth, striped with silk of the

Madame Recamiery Countess Potocka. 353

same colour. His trousers of nankeen, were buckled at the knees
with pre- Adamite buckles, his doublet was lapelled and embroider-
ed with flowers, while his laced buskins disclosed to the eye in all
their radiant colours a pair of gaudy silk stockings which had be-
longed to Gustavus in. of Sweden, and of which the monarch's
valet de chambre had made the young emigrant a present at
Stockholm. * Will she receive me, will she recognise me?'
thought he as he approached the porter's lodge at Chchy. He
sent in his name, and was met with the freezing answer, ' Ma-
dame regrets she cannot receive you to-day. Not having the
honour of being personally acquainted with you, she begs that you
will be so good as to inform her in writinff of the object of your
visit.' Years had certainly rolled by, yet it was hard to be thus
forgotten. The exile was about to wander silently and sadly
away, when he bethought him of the name of * Lolo,' the very
sobriquet of his infancy, and by which he had often been called
by the owner of the ch&teau of CUchy; when, presto ! the magic
of that little word opens to him the house and table of Madame
Recamier, by whom he is received with hospitality and succoured
in the manner most grateful to his wants and his feelings.

But it will not do to spunge for ever on the bounty of any
one, much less of a noble-hearted woman, and the young La
Grarde a^in travels back to Sweden, from whence, at the invita-
tion of Count Felix Potocki, so well known by his colossal for-
tune, his immense popularity, and the important part he took in
the affairs of his country, he proceeds to Poland. At Tidczim,
the chateau of the count, and where hospitality was practised on
a scale absolutely regal, we conjecture (for nothing is positively
stated) De la Garde remained some years. This must have been
one of the happiest periods of his hfe. The house was always
filled with company. Sometimes visits were made of three years*
length. A gay and gorgeous hospitaUty was the order of the
day. Horses, equipages, and servants, were at the disposal of the
visiter. There were plays, and hunting-parties, and operas, and
the Polish poet Trembecky, then in the zenith of his fame, was
an inmate of the castle, whose fair mistress, the Countess Po-
tocka, was one of the most fascinating and accomplished women
in Europe. The history of this lady, bom a Greek of the Fanal,
is in itself a romance. It was for her that the garden of So-
phiowka, one of the rarest in Europe, was created, on the site of
that spot famed as the place -v^here Ovid was exiled. There, in
the midst of the Steppes of Yedissen, was created a garden rival-
ing that far-famed garden of Armida. From Poland young De
la Grarde proceeds to Russia. Many of the best years of his life
are spent between Petersburg and Moscow. He visits

354 The Congress of Vienna.

Crimea too, and Kioff. From his intimacy with Tettenborn,
De Witt, Ouvaroff, and others of the Russian army, we incline
to think he must have entered the military service of the Czar;
but it is plain that if he had ever worn a Russian epaulette, he
had cast it off before the autumn of 1814.

He arrived in Vienna in the last days of September, 1814.
The ffetes had already commenced. There were, ne says, nearly
100,000 strangers already arrived. But surely here must be some

fross mistake. Even in 1839 Vienna contained only 8200
ouses, and a quarter of a century previous the number could not
have exceeded 7000. The population of Vienna in 1814 did not
amount to 300,000, and any one who knows any thing of the
city, containing as it does only 127 streets, or its Ktubourgs (Hke
the P.S, to a lady's letter), more important and considerable than
the city itself, will at once presume that it was quite impossible
that accommodation could have been found for an adaitional
third, suddenly and uno flatu added to the ordinary population.
It has been our good or ill fortune to have three times visited this
celebrated capital, and we never on any occasion heard the num-
ber of strangers estimated at above 5000. Nor did they amount
to any thing like that number, as we happen to know, in theyear
1831, the period of the marriage of the present Emperor. There
is evidently, therefore, great exaggeration in this estimate. We
are as little disposed to credit that Lord Castlereagh paid for his
apartment, during his sejour in that capital, 500/. a month, or at
the rate of 6000/. a year, as even now, thirty years later, when
prices and population have greatly increased, one of the finest
hotels in the city might be obtained at a rent of 200/. a month, or
2400/. a year. One of the first visits of De la Garde was to the
renowned and witty Prince de Ligne, then in his 80th year. As
fully one-third of these volumes is filled with the sayings and
doings of the prince, we may be pardoned for giving a shght
sketch of a man but little known to the present generation, and
of whom no biography is attempted in these columns.

Charles Joseph Prince de Ligne, bom in 1735, was descended
from one of the most illustrious families of Belgium, of which the
House of d'Aremberff is but a younger branch. He was the son
and grandson of field-marshals, a dignity which he himself at-
tained late in life. There was no man of his day who attained
greater perfection in what the French call the ' art de vivre' than
the Prince de Ligne. The tone and polish of his manners, the
charm and grace of his conversation, the readiness and piquancy
of his wit, always subservient to good taste and good feeling,
were not less remarkable than the manly beauty of his person.
He entered the Austrian service in 1751. His advancement was

Lord St. Htlens^ Segur^ JPotemkin, 355

and deserved, for ereiy step was the price of some glorious
iring deed of valour. During the seven years' war and the
igns of the Austrian and Russians against the Turks, he
uarly distinguished himself. But his literary, civil, and social
)hs were equally remarkable. The twenty-nine volumes

Sublished works are but little known in England. Four-^
umes of these are devoted to military affidrs, and though

half a century has elapsed since they were published, it is
dbLe even in our day to read them without being struck by
ofoundness, originality, and angular power of minute ob-
xm disclosed in the * Fantaisies et Pr^juges Militaires,' a copy
.eh, printed at what he called his ' refuge' at Leopoldberg
Vienna, we have now before us. It is, however, on his let-
lemoirs, and detached thoughts, that ihe fame of De Ligne,
luthor, must chiefly rest. We find in these depth without
aion, originality without egotism, and that indescribable

aller manner, that ' beau desordre,' that negligent grace
beyond the reach of the most practised art. We can well
ve in reading the playful and agreeable letters of the old
al, models of a * style parle,' how he must have amused
npress Catherine in that famous journey into the Crimea
17, when the Semiramis of the north was accompanied by
ayful historian of the journey, by Potemkin, M. de Segur,
or own agreeable Fitzherbert, sdfterward Lord St. Helens.
)f the remarkable things we shall ever remember, was a
3tion more than twenty years ago of that same journey by
)ld English diplomatist, who once observing his pretty
ss gazing at the silver glory of the moon on a fine sum-
vening, gracefully and gallantly exclaimed, * Ne la regar-
18 trop, ma chfere, car je ne puis pas vous la donner.'*
ier the wings of this Nestor the favourite of Catherine, of

Antoinette, and Joseph II., was De la Garde introduced to
y scenes of that gormandizing capital, whose inhabitants think
nan was destined by a superior and superintending power
much and long.

Oben wohnt ein Geist der nicht
Menschlich ziimt und schmalet,
Noch mit Wolkem im Gresicht
Kiiss und Flaschen zahlet:
Nein; Er lachelt mild herab,
Wenn sich zwischen Wieg und Grab
Seine Kinder freuen.

Du are come In the nick of time,' said the old warrior, aa

♦ * Memoirs de MannonteL'
a. XXXII. NO. LXIV. 2 B

356 The Canffress of Vienna,

De la Garde entered his antechamber. * All Europe is at Vienna.
But the web of poUtics is embroidered wiihjetes. The Congress
does not march, but it dances, Heaven, knows enough. There is
a rabble of kings here, and you cannot turn the comer of a street
without joetlinff a majesty. But dine with me to-morrow at four,
and we will alterwaids go to the Bedouten balL** And to the
ball they did go. There the old marshal does the honours to his
young mend, and points out all the remarkable characters. That
graceml, martial-looking man is ihe Emperor Alexander. He
gives his arm to Prince Eugene Beauhamais, for whom he has a
real liking. When Eugene first arrived here with the T^ng of
Bavaria, his £Either-in-law, the court of Austria long hesitated as
to the rank that he should have, but the Emperor of Russia gave
' so decided an opinion that he is now treated with the honouis
due to his station.'

That grave-looking person dancing with the handsome Nea-
poUtan with the graceful^ rounded arms, and the elegant figuie,
IS the King of Prussia. The open countenanced, honest-looidng
fellow opposite, is the King of Bavaria, and the pale person near
him with the aquiline nose, and the white hairs, the King of Den-
mark. The lively humour and happy repartees of the Dane have
made him the delight of the royal and imperial circles. He is
called here ' le laustic de la Brigade Souxeraxne^ That 'tun
of a man' is the Kingof Wurtemberg; near him is his son, who is
in love with the Duchess of Oldenburg. And now having
pointed out the principal figures, the old man allowed his protegi
to shift for himself. There he saw in wandering round the room,
Zibin, whom he had known at Moscow in 1812, and with whom
he had visited the Crimea, the Ukraine, and Turkey, and Achille,
Bouen, and Bulgari, and Cariati, and Tettenbom, and many otheis
quos nunc perscribere longum est

The next day there was a grand militMy festival, at which all
the sovereigns, to use a French phrase, assisted, and at which they
took their places (to avoid all quarrels about precedence) accord-
ing to age, the King of Wurtemberg, as the oldest king, being al-
lowed the pa^. The arrangement was found so convenient that
it was not afterwards departed firom. The sovereigns next ex-
changed orders, crosses, and decorations, and then gave each other
regiments in their different armies. No sooner was this done than
all the ten digits of all the thousands of tailors in Vienna were jut
into motion, that his majesty the Emperor of Austria might in-
stantly appear in the uniform of the Imperial Guards of his majesty
the Emperor of all the Russias. Malvolio's going croes-garterea
was a faint type of this huge and heinous piece of Lnpeiial and

The Countess de Fuchs — TTke Duchess de Dino. 357

Royal tomfoolery. Then there was such a lavish giving of pre-
sents. The Cafinuc-visaged Czar presented a fur dressing-gown
to his elderly brother of Austria, while the starch and stiff King
of Prussia, not to be outdone, offered to the Kaiser Franz a silver
basin and ewer, that he might be enabled to keep a clean pair of
hands if not a clear conscience. Nor were these the only civilities.
One day Franz was driving in the Prater, and wishing to get out and
walk, he tried to catch the eye of some of his lacqueys ; but in vain.
Alexander, who is on horseback quick as lightning, divines his
intention, jumps from his steed, and with all the agdity of a run-
ning footman, and all the cunning of a Cossack, offers his arm to
his less nimble brother. At this spectacle of apt gradousness,
says simple Count La Garde, the welkin rang with acclamations.

Meanwhile the deUberations of the Great Coimcil were enveloped
in mystery, but a thousand conjectures were hazarded at the salons
of the Countess de Fuchs, then one of the most fashionable of the
Viennese ladies. The coimtess was ten years later, as we know
firom experience, one of the most agreeable women in the high
society of Vienna, but at the epoch of the Congress she must have
been m the zenith of her fame. Her circle was, in 1815, com-
posed of the Countess of Pletemberg, of the Duchesses of Sagan
and Exerenza, and their sister Madame Edmund de Perigord
(better known in London as Madame de Dino), niece by marriage
of Talleyrand, and bom Duchess of Courlande, of the Chanoinesse
Kinski, the Duke of Dalberg, Marshal Walmoden, the three Counts
Pahlen, the Prince Phihp of Hesse Homburg, the Prince Paul
Esterhazy, afterwards ambassador in England; the Prince Eugene
Beauhamais, the Russian General De Witt, M . de Gentz, General
Nostitz, Vamhagen, the poet Carpani, and Ompteda, ex-minister of
Westphalia, only ex-minister, because there was no longer a king-
dom of WestphaUa to serve; and last, though not least, George
Sinclair, lately MJP. for Perthshire, or Caithness, we foiget which,
and son of old mangel-wurzel Sir John. Madame Fuchs had
retained the old Viennese habit of eating supper, and at her hotel
La Garde became a regular habitui.

On the third day of his arrival, our young friend (for he was
young thirty years ago)^paid a visit to Talleyrand, whom he had
not seen since 1806, and received an invitation to dinner. Few
persons had been invited. There were present, of course, the diffe-
rent members of the French embassy, and Madame Edmund de
Perigord, but beside these the only guests were Count Razo-
mowski, Pozzo di Borgo, the Duke de Richelieu, and De la
Oarde, who had now seen Pozzo di Borgo for the first time.
Pozzo appeared to have all the Corsican finesse^ vivacity, a«^

2b2

358 The Congress of Vienna.

imagination. * La France/ said he, ' est une marmite bouillante ;
il faut y rejeter tout ce qui en sort.' But though the conversa-
tion of the Corsican was piquant and pointed, yet it was easy to
see, says De la Garde, that the scholarship of which he made a
parade was neither ripe nor profound. He had a perfect mania
lor quotation, but his citations wanted variety. In an after-din-
ner argument he supported his opinion by a passage from Dante, a
phrase of Tacitus, and some shreds and patches from English ora-
tors. La Bemardiere, who sat next to De la Garde, told him he
had heard the very same quotations two days before at a dinner at
Prince Hardenberg's. But this conversational legerdemain is
practised not only by the gay tirailleurs of the dinner-table, but
by the heavy humdrum brigade of the house of commons; and
demagogues resort to the trick as well as diplomatists. An even-
ing party followed, of which the Countess Perigord did the
honours with enchanting grace. Our author is delighted with
his dinner and his host. Though there was something cold and
indifferent in the demeanour and manners of Talleyrand, yet
when he desired to please, every word, every look, every gesture
told. Flexible, graceful, easy, and profound, he was equally
at home in a congress as in a drawing-room, mastering the most
knotty and important questions in the one, by the elevated com-
prehensiveness of a mind devoid of prejudice and passion, and
charming the domestic circle in the other, by happy sallies, or
that sly and quiet humour, that sure and exquisite tact, in which
he was so wonderful a proficient. Happy the man, says our au-
thor, who is placed in the morning next the Prince de Ligne,
and in the evening next Prince Talleyrand.

The next visit which La Garde made in company with the
Prince de Ligne, was to Isabey, the painter. ' A congress is
about to be held at Vienna, go there,' said Talleyrand, and
straightway Isabey went. * I have come to Vienna, M. le ^lare-
chal,' said the painter, ' in the hope of reproducing the features
of all the remarkable persons, and I ought undoubtedly to com-
mence with you, my good prince.'

' Assur^ment en ma quality de doyen d'age,' was the old man's
reply. Every one has seen either the original or engravings of
of Isabey's celebrated chef-d^oeuvre of tlie Congress of Vienna.
The picture is supposed to represent the congress at the moment
when Prince Mettemich introduces the Duke of Wellinfffcon.
Lord Castlereagh is in the middle of the mass of ministers. Near
him is Talleyrand, distinguished by his immovable imperturbabi-
lity, whilst round him are grouped Nessebode, Humboldt, Har-
denherg, Stakelberg, and the other plenipotentiaries. It was not

Humboldt — Koslowski, 359

originally intended that the Duke of Wellington should figure in
the picture, for he did not come to Vienna till the month of Fe-
bruary, when the design had been already sketched, but his arri-
val, even thus late, necessitated the introduction of so important
a personage ; and Isabey, to whom but a corner of canvass re-
mained, with the quick felicity of a man of real genius made a
merit of what to an ordinary artist would have been a misadven-
ture, and by a happy hit, brought forward the Great Duke as being
introduced by Mettemich when the Congress was in full sitting.
Thus were the exigencies of chronology, and the exiguity of the
canvass by a happy combination at once reconciled.

For a long while Humboldt refused to sit for his portrait, ex-
cusing himself on the ground that he would not on principle pay
for so plain a face. At length he consented, unnecessarily stipu-
lating, that he should not pay a doit. The portrait, when hnished,
was a striking likeness. ' Ah ! ah !' said the great naturalist, ' I
have, indeed, paid nothing for my portrait, but Isabey has had his
revenge.' TTie face is a perfect resemblance of the original.

The next day our author was. present at the fSte of the people,
and on the following day he rode to the Prater. There was Lord
Stewart driving his four-in-hand, and the Emperor Alexander in a
curricle, with his sister the Duchess of Oldenburg. — On one side
of the vehicle rode Prince Eugene Beauhainais ; on the other, the
Prince Royal of Wurtemberg. Further on in the drive, our
hero fell in with Alexander ipsilanti, son of the Hospodar of
Wallachia, his old acquaintance at Petersburg, that jabbering
sinuous Sclavonian Koslowski, minister of Russia at the court of
Turin, and spruce young Luccheseni (El muchacho tiene talento)^
who was what the Spaniards call JPrivado, and plenipotentiary to
the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, better known as the profuse and
profligate Eliza Bacciochi, the eldest sister of Napoleon Bona-
parte. The four friends adjourned to the Kaiser iim. von (Ester-
reichy where they enjoyed an excellent dinner, seasoned with some
of the over coarse stories of Koslowski, who romanced with more
than the usual readiness and recklessness of a Russian.

Thence they adjourned to the little theatre of Leopoldstadt,
where they saw Caroline, the pretty check-taker of the Diana
baths, transformed into a great lady sitting in her private box.

The fancy of the king of had caused this metamorphosis, and

when the business of the Congress was over, and this faded Covent
Garden flower palled on the taste of her princely paramour, he
directed the great Israelite banker of Vienna, to count out yearly
12,000 florins to his abandoned Ariadne.

Each nation had her especial queen of the drawing-room, during

360 The Congress of Vienna.

the season of the congress. France was represented by Madame
Edmund de Perigord, Prussia by the Princess of Tour and Taxis,
Denmark by the Countess Bemstorff, England by Lady Cas-
tlereagh, afterwards Emily Marchioness of Londonderry, and
Russia by the Princess Bagration. The Princess Bagration was
then in all the lustre of her beauty. Young, fair as alabaster, with
the slightest tinge of rose, with small, delicately chiselled features,
a soft and expressive countenance, fidl of sensibility, an uncertain
and timid air, a figure petite, yet perfectly proportioned; she
imited the Oriental languor to the Andalusian grace. It is not,
therefore, to be wondered that her salons where thronged. Rus-
sians, of course, were there in crowds, including the Emperor,
Nessebode, di Borgo, Razumowski, VolkonsH, and Nariskin, the
inevitable Koslowski, and the Count and Countess Tolstoy, but
there too were all the sovereigns, and their ambassadors, the
beautiful Princess of Tour and laxis, sister to the still more beau-
tiful and unfortunate Queen of Prussia, and the chronicler of the
assembly, our unerring informant, De la Garde. It was at a
lottery drawn at this hotel on the evening in question, that the
monster in inhuman shape, (for he had neither the look, form,
nor gait of humanity,) tne Grand Duke Constantino, gained a
pair of beautiful porcelain vases, which had been sent for from the
manufactory at Berlin, by the King of Prussia. He at once pre-
sented them to the charming hostess. Honest old Max of Bavaria
won a box of mosaic, which he gave to Mary Esterhazy, and
Capo d'Istria, a steel ornament, which he gallantly transferred to
Katherine Volkonski. Alexander gained two bronze candlesticks,
which he did not leave tmth the hostess^ but carried oflF, like a crafty
Cossack as he was, to a Mademoiselle L , with whom he occu-
pied his leisure hours. An avaricious autocrat was this same Alex-
ander RomanzofF, pitifully parsimonious as one of those cann^
children pf the Cannongate, who come to penny-a-line away their
thrifty genius in London smoke, living on the luxury of a haporth
of wheaten bread, until in the fulness of time and of fasting they
became editors and proprietors of journals. East India directors,
sergeants-at-law and queen's counsel, or peradventure attorneys-
general or lords chancellors of England or Ireland. AH the linen
which the emperor wore, says La Garde, was confectionne — (the
word is sublimely transcendental, and imtranslateable)— co«/i?c>
tionne mark you, by the pretty hands of Mademoiselle Nariskin.
He might have accepted the work, saith our moralising cicerone;
nothing more simple than that, but then he should have paid
like a gentleman for Coulson's best Belfast linen, or Hor-
rocks's superior long cloth. But no; Nariskin's fingers were

YpsUanti — Capo Uhiria. 361

worked to the stumps. She was worse treated than Moses' or
leer's women. They receive 6rf a shirt, saith our tender-hearted
* Times/ and find their own thread and rushlight; but the sewing
woman of this cruel Czar, found her own Hghts and linen, the
stuff and stitching were all her own, too, and she had but her
labour for her pains. No wonder that Nariskin told the tale of
shabbiness to aU the little great who would listen to it in town
and suburb— -on the Bastei, in the Graben, or the more crowded
£ohl Markt.

Early the following morning there was a breakfast at a coun-
try-box of the Prince de Ligne, at the Kahlenberg, and after that
a rendezvous at Ypsilanti's Hotel. Behold, says the Greek, to
the wondering, yet believing Gaul, the six billets doux I have
received since yesterday, and in different languages too, in Italian,
in French, ay, even in Greek.

A billet-doux written in Greek,

The thought puts me quite in passion ;

Could Longinus teach GrSLfinns to speak
Soft nonsense to Hospodars of fashion.

There, however, the billets lay in black and white, each of
these amorous missives proposing an assignation at a different
parish church. But instead of going to any of the churches, the
nimgry young Hospodar galloped off to the Princess Helene Sowa-
roff 's to a dgeuner a lafourchette, where it may be that he swat
lowed cudets of Archangel salmon, some slices of raw ham, a pot
of anchovies, and a dish of fresh caviar, washed down with either a
bottle of Beaune, or a quart of quass, or a full measure of Crimean
champagne, or an honest bottle of Barclay's brown stout, all of
which we have seen produced at breakfast tempo fa both at Mos-
cow and Petersburg. At this breakfast Ypsilanti is insidiously-
encouraged by the hostess to labour in the regeneration of his
coxmtry, Greece; not that any Russian under the sim cared then,
or cares now, a rush for the independence of Greece; but that
in the confusion and scramble and mJeUe^ the Muscovite always
cherishes the latent hope, that his kith, kin, or country may profit.
Too well did the young Hospodar learn the lessgoi taught him by
female lips; and, after placing himself at the Head of a fruitless
and bootless insurrection, he was in the hour of his adversity
abandoned and disowned by Russia. Capo dTstria, who, for
his own selfish and sinister purposes, had urged the young man
to take the fatal step, was the urst to counsel his dismissal from
the Russian service. Arrested by the Austrian authorities, he
xemained seven long years a prisoner, and died at Vienna on
the 31st of January, 1828, in the thirty-sixth year of his age.

362 Tlie Congress of Vienna.

His death arose from disease superinduced by his long imprison-
ment.

We cannot follow our author to a heron shooting-party, but
we must give him rendezvous after the interval of a day at the
Prince de Ligne's country-box, where he met old Nowosiltzoff,
in his youth a page of Catherine, then a councillor of state of the
Emperor Alexander. Nowosiltzoff, whom we remember as
afterwards the terror and scourge of Warsaw in 1828 and 1829,
but who was nevertheless known to us as an agreeable and well-in-
formed man in private life, was then engaged in the preparation of
the constitution for Poland. There was a long discussion between
the Prince and the Russian councillor on the subject of Polish
independence; but although De Lime took the popular and
generous view, still we are bound fairly to admit, with
Nowosiltzoff, that without frontiers and without fortresses, Po-
land must either be an armed camp in the heart of peacefiil
Europe, presenting living ramparts in the shape of her own war-
like pospolite, or she must become the appendage of some first-
rate power possessing those natural frontiers or fortresses wanting
to unhappy Sarmatia. That evening there was a grand carnival,
followed by romances sung by the Jrrincess Paul Esterhazy, the
Countess ^ichy , and the Duchess of Sagan. But it would require
another Ariosto to go over this ground. Intrigues of all kmds,
however, lie hidden under these f^tes. It is an imbroglio^ said
De Ligne where the Almavivas and the Figaros are plentiful as
blackberries. As to the Basils, they are thick enough strown
everywhere: but heaven forbid that we may not at the end be
tempted to exclaim with the gay barber —

" Mais enfin qui trompe t'on ici."

Now thejr are arrived at the porte cochhre of the Prince's hotel
On the door was engraved his motto :

Quo res cumque cadunt semper stat Liaea recta.

On the other side of the mansion, facing the Danube, were these
lines:

Sans remords, sans regrets, sans crainte, sans envie.

Pleasure must at length give way to sleep, and to sleep they
go at last. Next day there is a comedy at court; the Peres
Nobles fall to the lot of elderly princes; an empress may be
seen doing the grandes utilitSs, and an Imperial Duke barbers,

fardeners, and tutti quanti. We cannot rim down such small
eer as this, nor stop to witness the first tableau, even though
it be Louis XIV. aux pieds de Madame de la Valliere. In one

Prince Leopold — Baron Thierry — De Gentz. 363

of the tableaux there was a Jupiter wanting. The part fell for-
tuitously, like the crown of Belgium fifteen years afterwards, to
Leopold of Saxe Coburg, then a remarkably handsome man, in the
prime of hfe. When the Apollo came to dress for his part he was
found to have a fierce pair of moustaches. These were sacrificed
to the inexorable scissors, and the full-grown fools of quality were
in ecstasies as the stubble was shaved away. Venus was repre-
sented by Sir Sidney Smith's daughter, the old blue jacket hav-
ing come to the Congress to incense the kings against far honester
and heartier fellows, the Barbary pirates. But m the end gallant
Sir Sidney took nothing by his motion, either in reference to the
pirates or to the legitimate descendant of inflexible old TSte de Fer,
the Colonel Gustafson, for whose divine-right pretensions the
admiral stickled with impetuous pertinacity. During the repre-
sentation of the last tableau. Baron Thierry, a young Frenchman
attached to the legation of Portugal, executed with great taste a
solo on the harp. An imperial lady fell in love with him, but
it was a manage manque after all, and Thiernr has since in re-
venge set up for himself in the kingly or imperial line, at some im-
pronounceable isle in the Pacific ocean. Lord Stewart is all this
while running about with noisy mobility, chattering * chough's
language.' He is all fine feathers and fustian, and therefore goes
by the nickname of Paon DorL

What a different man, however, is that pale-faced biped in
the comer from this thing manufactured of gold lace and pipe
clay. That quiet, modest person is De Gentz, to whom all
the state secrets of Europe are open, and from whom nothing
is hid. He it is that oils the springs of the state machine which
Mettemich moves with such seeming ease. He holds the pen
of a ready writer, and his gray goose quill is really the Austrian
government, Aulic Counsel and all. His are the leading articles
of the ' Wiener Beobachter,' his the manifestos, his the procla-
mations and paper pellets, which play as much havoc with the
gray-coated man of Destiny as the snows of Russia. But he is
neinously avaricious. He wants not gew-gaws and orders and
decorations, but solid gold, true Conventions Mwnz^ and not mere
V/iener Wahnmg* And the sovereigns wisely gratify his stanchless
avarice and put heaps of money into both his pockets. He is fond
of solid animal pleasures too as honest Jack, and has sometimes
but a haporth of bread like the fat knight to a gallon of sack.
Wise, long-headed Gentz, peace to thy manes, for thou art gone

• Conventions Munz maybe rendered as gold of full tale, and Wiener Wahrung
as a depreciated paper currency.

1

364 The Conffress of Vienna.

to thy account, and must at length answer for thy crapulousness,
and hot carousings, and ahnost pardonable passion for Fanny
EUsler.

Now are evoked the glories of the tournaments of the middle
;es. There is another imperial carrousel at the palace of the
aiser, with twenty-four paladins and their lofty dames. De-
cidedly this f6te has been plagiarised without acknowledgment
by Lord Eglintoun, at Eglmgtoun Castle, with the help of the
jHion darij erst Stewart, now Londonderry of Wynyard. After
the carrousel there is a supper diversified by the red stockings of
Cardinal Gonsalvi, the turban of the Pacha of Widin, the caftan
of Maurogeny and the calpack of Prince Manuf bey of Mirza.
* Modey 's your only wear' indeed. Lady Casdereagh is at this
supper, and displays round her forehead her husband's order of the
Garter. The venom of the Frenchman and the hyper-venom
of the French emigrant break out at this piece of awkwardness.
The story may or may not be true, but true or false we dare be
sworn there was not a finer looking pair at the imperial supper
of that gay ni^t, nor a more lofty and dignified in air, gait, and
manner, than Kobert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, and the fiiir
and full-blown Emily, one of the finest specimens of an English
gentlewoman.

The sovereigns feed in public on the following day. They eat
right royally, but so monstrous is the King of W urtemberg about
the midriff, that cabinetmakers are previously called in to scoop
and hollow out a place in the table to suit tlie amplitude of his
vast abdomen.

Dulness and dyspepsia are now beginning to seize on these
diners-out of the first magnitude, when Alexander, in order to
give a fillip to the follies of the hour, determines on having a ball
at his ambassador's. Count Razumowski's, to celebrate his sister's
birthday. The ball is given, but the palace which had been
twenty years in course of building and decorating, and which
contained the rarest and most precious works of art, suddenly
takes fire, and is burnt to the ground. The conflagration pro-
duced a startling sensation on all, but excited mournful re-
membrances in the old Prince de Ligne. There wants but one
thing more to * cap the climax' of the congress, said he, * and
that is the funeral of an old field-marshal — but the potentates
shall not be gratified — I am not sufficient of a courtisan to die to
please them.'

A day or two afterwards the old man was seized with a violent
erysipelas, which after a few days of great pain and sufferings
put a period to his existence.

Royalty without a ducat. 365

His djdng bed was surrounded with his family and friends, and
the Emperor of Austria came on foot and alone to bid a last
adieu to the oldest of his servants. His eyes were closed by his
daughter, the Princess Palfi, on the 13th of December, 1814. His
fimeral was after all one of the spectacles of the congress. Alas !
what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue. Here is his
epitaph, by Bonnay, at which he was the first to laugh,

Ci git le Prince de Ligne :
H est tout de son long couche :
Jadis il a beaucoup peche ;
Mais ce n'etait pas £ la ligne.

For a while De la Garde is inconsolable, but one. Julius Grif-
fiths, an Enghshman — (quaere Welsh), one of the most accom-
plished men m Europe, a scholar, a great traveller, and a philo-
sopher,— tells him that as nature resigns herself to these calamities,
80 ought the heart of man to learn resignation too. Alas ! my
dear Julius, says the Gaul, flinging himself into the arms of
the Cambrian, when one loses such a friend as this, one mourns
him lonff — one regrets him for evermore. " Evermore" was the
scriptural word used, not sempitemally, which is more sounding,
though less Saxon.

The old year of 1814 had now rung out its knell too, and by
the first day of 1815, De la Garde had taken of Griffith consola-
tion. He commenced the memorable 1815 in attending the pic-
nic of Sir Sidney Smith in the Augarten. The price of this
dinner was fixed at three Dutch ducats a-head, the produce to
be applied to the release of the Christians in captivity in Barbary.
Every crowned head, every minister of the congress was present.
They all ate enormously. Some of them drank deep, and became
saving your presence, right royal, which means in other words
(though you do not know it), Uke Davy's sow. But eating and
diinkmg have their limits, and there must be a carte payante at
last.

Now comes the reckoniDg, and the banquet o'er —
The dreadful reckoning — and men smile no more.

The waiter handed the plate to Alexander. Romanzoff paid
his way like a man. What he gave to the serving man is not stated.
Then came the Dane, and he was down with his ducats too.
The Kellner intrepidly marches on to excellent Max of Bavaria.
Max fumbles in one pocket of his waistcoat — and in the other- —
then tries his coat — finally his fob — then the waistcoat again,
and the coat and the fob in turn; but his majesty is decidedly
not worth a doit. He looks wistfully down the table to his

366 The Congress of Vienna.

chamberlain, a man of taste and letters, and an author, too; but
the chamberlain is talking of a book of his own writing (we know
with the fondness of a parent how he may be excused), to Hum-
boldt, and does not catch the monarch's eye. Max then looks
demurely and imploringly into the face of the waiter; but there
stands iann*s head man, with white waistcoat and new pumps,
worn for the first time, determined not to be bilked by any
beer-bibbing Bavarian king whatever. A tapster's arithmetic, as
we practically know, is stronger than a stone wall, and will not be
beaten down unless by a charge of what Frederick of Prussia
called ' Yellow Dragoons.' Discountenanced and abashed, the old
monarch rolls his eye round the room, in a floating and furtive
fashion, when the guests, aware of the circumstances, explode
into loud laughter. But the imperturbable waiter stands stock
still; and at length Alexander and Eugene Beauharnais rush
to the rescue, and pay the scot of their Bavarian brother. It is
well this scene did not occur at any Mansion-house dinner, for
had Sir Peter Laurie been present, he had doubtless, on the
view, committed Max as a rogue and a vagabond. How well
do we know that every man in London is a, rogue and a vaga-
bond who has not a ducat in his doublet. This is not merely
justice's justice; it Is the inevitable inference of the money-making
public, of the harsh and hard-hearted and muddy-headed aristo-
cracy of the breeches-pocket.

Aquien falta el dinero
Credito falta ;
Y sobre el sonrjo
No la esperanza.

There were some droll fellows at this congress as well as diplo-
matists. There was imprimis Aide, the Greek of Smyrna, in an
oriental costume, wishing to pass himself off as the Prince of
Llban. This cosmopohtan adventurer was a good deal patrcHiiwd
by Castlereagh. His mania was to be presented to all the nota-
biHties of Europe. The Prince de Ligne had presented him to
scores of diplomatists and attaches. He came to the charge a six-
and-twentleth time, as some big-wig entered the room, with his
eternal ' do me the favour, Prmcc, to present me.' The quick-
witted old man, a little nettled, accorded his request, exclaiming,
' Je vous presente M. Aide, un honmae tres present^, et tres feu
presentable.' The fete of Aid6 was curious. He married a rich
wife at Cheltenham and took her to Paris. At a ball at Mr.
Hope's the Marquis de Bourbel (of Boffle v. Lawson unenviable
notoriety) was waltzing round the room, when he accidentally
trod on Aide's toe. ' Je vous demande mille fols pardon, Mon-

Mr, ReiUy the Blackleg. 367

sieur,' said Bourbel, who could be very plausible and gentleman-
like when he pleased. — ' Monsieur,' said Aide rudely, ' quand on
est si maladroit, on ne doit pas valzer, du moins en public.' — ' AlorSj
Monsieur/ rejoined Bourbel, ' je retracte mcs excuses.' This was
the ostensible cause of quarrel, but bad blood, mixed up with
some jealousy, had previously rankled between the parties. A
cartel on the part of Aide was the consequence. De Boui'bel,
whose aim was imerring, came up to the mark, and shot the
Greek through the heart at break of day on the following
mominff. Apropos of De Bourbel, we could wish he would take
to his old tricks again of imitating the ' Billets Circulaires.' We
had a pleasant trip enough and a heavy * honorarium' in that same
affair, and should like a repetition of both doses in the coming
spring — the one as good for our health, the other for our pocket.

Another of the English originals was Fonneron, formerly a
banker at Leghorn, a humped back man with a humped back
wife, as rich as Croesus, and whose only ambition was the harmless
one of giving good dinners. We regret to think that the breed
of Fonnerons is nearly extinct. We say it with mournful con-
sciousness of the melancholy truth, there are few men who give
ijood dinners now, and those few are humble, honest-hearted fel-
ows like ourselves. It is literally the poor feeding the poor — the
hungry giving to the famishing. Not one of the many nch rogues
we have so often asked, has ever given us a basin of Spartan
broth in return. As gentleman Jack Palmer said in the play,
whose title we at present forget, ' There is, however, another, and
a better world' where it is to be hoped that we shall be looked
after, and these varlets shall go ' Impransi.'

The only Englishman who contested the Amphytrionic palm
with Fonneron, was one Roily, We suppose that our friend De
la Garde means Reilly, or O'Reilly. *' The first time I ever saw
him," says Cambrian Griffiths (scholar, traveller, and philosopher),
" was at Lord Comwalhs's table in Calcutta. I afterwards met him
at Hamburg, in Sweden, in Moscow, and in Paris after the peace
of Amiens, when he told me he had just arrived from Madrid."
' Rarement,' as has been often said to our wandering selves,

Rarement h. courir le monde
On devient plus homme de bien.

There is something mysterious and sinralar about this man Raily,
He rivals Caghostro, and the Count of St. Germain, who lived like
princes, without having any revenues or honest means of making a
livelihood. Here, in Vienna,he outdoes the most opulent.^ He lives
in the magnificent hotel of the Count of Rosenberg; his dinners

S^ The Ctmyrtss of Vienna.

lupe vxf the most exquisite* his irines of the most reckercM, his fiir-
luture aud equipages of the first style of finish, his servants are in
the vichi\it HveriesSL — But then he is a vulgar-minded fellow at
bottv^iu, for he talks too much of all these thmgs, and like all low
people^ has eteruaUv a Duke or a Marquis's name oozing out at the
coruer oi* his \i^1y mouth. De la Garde is dying to see this fellow.
Thev j^> and call on him. He pours on them the slaver of his
fulsv>me flatter\\ and lets flow t& duices of his vukarity. He
pravs the t\ml>rian and the Ciaul — Griffiths — Jutius Griffiths, and
A. de la Oarvle* to do him the honour to dine that very day. The
notivv is shcart — ^wonderfiillv short — but thare they will meet his
verv good friends, the hereditiury princes of Bavaria—the Grand
Duke ol* Baden, Admiral Sir Sidney Smith. K.CJB. K..H, K.T.S.,
&e. &c., several ambassadors and charges dttdfmrts^ and other per-
sons of distinction of their acquaintance. JuEus, the philosopner,
and Adolphus, the epicurean, accept with alacai^: the repast is
sumptuous, the wines exquisite, the coffee pezfedfy aromatic; but
then, immediately after the liqueurs, whist and eearik are introduced,
and the guests crowd round a dry-looking mummy of an old man,
tall and straight as a poplar, with a lively, firaudulent, beg^ my
neighbour sort of eye. This is Misther O'Beam^ (q[QSEre, O'Beime)
the most ancient and inveterate gambler in Emx^, who tells them
many queer stories of play , but not a man among them all is pigeoned
or plucked, though Keilly and O'Beime are plainly confederated
for plunder. Reilly is, in i^ct, a regular leg, a Bath bom knight
of the green cloth, who has shaken the dice box, and chicken-
hazarded his way through every nook and cranny of this wicked
world, where there was a shilling to stake, or a siiroence to gain.
We have ourselves met a fellow of the name at Pans, as ignorant,
as vain, and as vulgar, and who was under the strange hallucina-
tion that he could speak and write English. We thought him a
leg or a spy. It may have been the same man. His vicissitudes
were indeed strange. Three years after this, in 1821, he was
in the capital of France, a beggar and an outcast — ^His money,
diamonds, carriages — ^horses — all are gone. He calls on De la
Garde. ' I have exhausted every thing,' said he, * but this brace-
let; which contains my poor wife's nair. The bracelet would
have followed every thing else to the pawnbroker's shop, if I
could have raised a five-franc piece on it, but I cannot.' — * Good
Mr. Reilly,' exclaims De la Garde, ' why not address those
illustrious persons you regaled so magnificently at Vienna.'—
* I have addressed them,' rejoins the gambler, ' but have received
no reply.' Such, alas ! is human life. Three years later, Reilly
died of hunger in the public streets !

Talleyranid! s Toilette. 369

What axe tKe Great ones of the Eariih, * who play for the
higher stakes of empires and kingdoms/ doing all this while —

;niey eat, they drink, they sleep—what then ?
Why drink, and sleep, and eat again.

The imperial table costs 50,000 florins a day, and the ordinary
expenses amount to forty millions of francs. No wonder that
Austria was obliged to tamper with her currency. There are 700
envoyes, from aU parts of the world, now at Vienna, and they
consume so much daily that the price of wood and provisions is
raised, and there is an extra allowance given to the employ^, who,
like the jolly Irishman, had been spending half-a-crown out of.
their sixpence a day !

Our author's last interview with Talleyrand is at a breakfast on
his birth-day. De la Garde arrives before the prince is up. At
length the man of many changes emerges through the thick and
dosely-drawn bed-curtains. Enveloped in a muslin peignoir he
submits his long head of hair to two coiffeurs^ who succeed in
giving it that flowing curl which we all remember, and which hia
well-known English imitator emulated in vain. Next comes the
barber, who gallantly shaves away like smooth-chinned France of the
olden time, and unlike hirsute stubble-bearded France of the pre-
sent day, then comes the powder puff*, then the washing of the
hands and nails. Finally, there is the ablution of the feet, infinitely
less agreeable to the olfactory nerves, as the lame leg of the prince
requires to be dashed over with Bareges water, ana that specific
stinks in the nostrils of all human kind, being a distinctly com-
pounded recognisable stench of burnt sulphur and rotten eggs. Per-
iumed and washed, the prince's cravat must now be tied; the first
valet de chambre advances and arranges a most graceful knot.
The remaining adjustment of habiliment is soon finished, and
behold the halting diplomatist at his ease, with the modish air of
a grand seigneur, and that perfect d phmb and iLsage^ the result
partly of early education, and chiefly of that long commerce with
the celebrated men of all countries which he enjoyed alike from
his birth, his social position, his talents, and the nigh offices which
he filled in all the varying mutations of dynasties and governments.

Meanwhile, the man of destiny with the gray frock-coat had
been showing some signs of life. The congress were about to
remove him from Elba to St. Helena, when all of a sudden he
appeared at Cannes. From Cannes he hastens to Paris. His
progress is an ovation. But Talleyrand is unabashed as imdis-
ntiayed. On the 13th of March he caused the adoption of the
declaration, in virtue of which the great disturber of the peace of

370 The Congress of Vienna.

nations was put under the ban of Europe. On tlie 25th of March
the allianc5e against France was renewed. The sittings of the con-
gress lasted till the 10th of June, but the idle, the frivolous, and
lashionable crowd hastened quickly away. The balls and con-
certs are now over — the bona robas are taking French leave —
the fiddles are packed in their cases — the cogged dice are stowed
carefully away — the casseroles and stewpans are laid up in ordi-
nary— ^the maitres d*h6tel are in movement, and the cooks secure
their places in the Eilwagen, lest the broth at home should be
spoiled. At such a season De la (Jarde's occupation is gone. He
is the historian of dinners and dances and plays, not of treaties and
protocols, but there is a time for all things and Horace tells him— »

Edisti satis, lusisti, atque bibisti ;
Tempus tibi abire est.

We have said the subject is a trifling, perhaps an ignoble, one;
it IS after all but whipped cream; but if there needs must be a
chronicler of the trivialities of the congress, commend us to M. De
la Garde, in whose volumes there may be found some amusement
if not much instruction.

It may be asked, do we rise from the perusal of these volumes
impressed with the wisdom, gravity, and ability of the statesmen
and ministers. Not a bit of it. With the exception of Tafley-
rand, Metternich, Castlercagh, Wellington, Humboldt, Harden-
bcrg, and Gentz, there was not one among the crowd congre-
gated at Vienna who could have made lOOOZ. a year at the bar (a
sum we have never earned ourselves, though duller fellows triple
the money), or 300/. a year in scribbling for newspapers or re-
views. But then it may be asked if their social position and
manner of life was not abundantly enviable and enjoyable? To
this inquiry we briefly reply, in the words of an old French
author, when speaking of the life of courts and congresses —

" Manger toujours fort tard, changer la nuit en jour,
N'avoir pas un ami bien que chacun on baise,
Etre toujours debout et jamais ^ son aise,
Fait voir en abreg6 comma on vit k la cour."

There is a compensating truth in the couplets which atones for
their ruggedness, and as the grapes are sour to us — as we are nei-
ther ambassador (not even ambassador at Madrid, though we at
once possess and lack the Spanish), nor envoy, nor charg^ aaffiures,
nor simple attache, we will hold to the comfortable and indepen-
dent doctrine, that it is better to be our own master than any man s
slave.

(371 )

Art. IV. — 1. Dr,C.G. SteinbecKs Aufrichtiger Kalendermann^ neu
bearheitet und vermehrt von Carl Friedrich Hempel. In
drei Theilen. Leipzig. 8vo.

2. VolkS'Kalender der Deiitschen^ herausgegeben von F. W. Gu-
BITZ. Berlin. 8vo.

3. Annucdre Historique pour F Annie 1843, public par la Soci&tc
de VHistoire de France, Paris. 18mo.

4. Medii j^vi Kalendarium; or^ Dates, Charters, and Customs of
the Middle Ages, with Calendars from the Tenth to the Fifteenth
Centuries ; and an alphabetical Digest of obsolete Names of Days,

forming a Glossary of the Dates of the Middle Ages, with Tables
and other aids for ascertaining Dates. By R. T. Hampson. 2
vols. London. 8vo.

* Waste not time, it is the stuff of which life is made,' was
the saying of a great philosopher who has concentrated the wis-
dom of volumes in these few brief but most expressive words.

All ages, all nations, have felt the truth of this definition of
time; and as if with a presentiment of this all- wise injunction, not
to waste the precious stuff of which life is made, have ever busied
themselves with an endeavour to discover the best method of
accurately measuring it.

. It forms no part of our present intention to record these dif-
ferent attempts; to trace the various changes and corrections which
increasing knowledge has introduced into the Calendar; or to
show wherein consisted the superior accuracy of the Julian over
the Alban or Latin Calendar; or how Gregory XIII., upon finding
that by the introduction of the Bissextile days a difference of ten
days had arisen between the Calendar and the actual time, caused
them to be abated in the year 1582, by having the 11th of
March called the 21st, thereby making it for that year to consist
of twenty-one days only. As little need we dwell upon the fact
that this new, or Gregorian style, as it was called out of respect to
the Pope by whom it was introduced, was immediately adopted by
all those countries of Europe which recognised the papal autho-
rity; while, on the other hand, those who then held the opinion,
so prevalent even in our own days, that no good thing could come
out of Rome, agreed in rejecting it — so that it was only recog-
nised by the Protestants of Germany in the year 1700, and by
our own country in 1752.

Sir Harris Nicolas, in that most useful little book, his * Chrono-
logy of History,' has pointed out the fact, which is verjr little
known, that an effort was made to reform the Calendar in this
country as early as the reign of Queen Elizabeth — ^by the intrOj

VOL. XXXII. KO. LXIV. 2 0

372 Calendars and Abnanacs.

duction of a bill, entitled — * An act,- giving Her Majesty autho-
rity to alter and new make a Calendar, according to the Calendar
used in other countries,' which was read a first time in the House
of Lords, on the 16th of March, (27 Eliz.) 1584-5. Thia measure
having however failed, for reasons whicui do not appear, Lord
Chesterfield is entitled to the credit of having overcome, in this
matter, John Bull's deep-rooted prejudice against novelty, and
the following passage from one of his letters furnishes a very
characteristic picture of the difficulties he had to contend withi
and of the manner in which he surmounted them.

After stating why he had determined to attempt the reforma-
tion of the Calendar, he proceeds, " I consulted the best lawyers,
and the most skilful astronomers, and we cooked up a bill for that
purpose. But then my difficulty began : I was to bring in this
bill, which was necessarily composed of law jargon and astrono*
mical calculations, to both which I am an utter stranger. How-
ever, it was absolutely necessary to make the House of Lords think
that I knew something of the matter; and also to make them b^
lieve that they knew something of it themselves, which they do
not. For my own part I could just as soon have talked Celtic or
Sclavonian to them as astronomy, and they would have imder-
stood me full as well, so I resolved to do better than speak to the
purpose, and to please instead of informing them. I gave them,
therefore, only an historical accoimt of Calendars, from the Egyp-
tian down to the Gregorian, amusing them now and then with
little episodes; but I was particularly attentive to the choice of my
words, to the harmony and roimdness of my periods, to my elocu-
tion, to my action. This succeeded, and ever will succeed; they
thought I informed, because I pleased them, and many of them
said I had made the whole very clear to them, when Goa knows I
had not even attempted it. Lord Macclesfield, who had the
greatest share in forming the bill, and who is one of the greatest
mathematicians and astronomers in Europe, spoke afterwards with
infinite knowledge, and all the clearness that so intricate a matter
would admit of; but as his words, his periods, and his utterance,
were not near «o good as mine, the preference was unanimously,
though most unjustly, given to me. This will ever be the case;
every numerous assembly is a moby let the individuals who compose
it be what they will. Mere reason and good sense is never to be
talked to a mob : their passions, their sentiments, their senses, and
their seeming interests, are alone to be applied to. Understandn^
they have collectively none; but they nave ears and eyes, which
must be flattered and seduced; and this can only be done by elo-
quence, tuneful periods, gracefid action, and all the various parts
of oratory."

Refotined Almanacs. 373

As the noble reformer could bring these * various parts of ora-
tory' to bear upon the mob within the house, he succeeded in
carrying his measure; but as these persuarive means had no in-
fluence beyond the walls of parliament, the mob without cla-
moured acainst the change, *and the ' ears polite ' of my Lord
Chesterfield were not unirequently assailed with cries of ' (Kve
us back the ten days you have robbed us of!'

Absurd and disgraceful as was this opposition to an alteration
in the Calendar, called for as much by a regard for public conve-
nience as the dictates of commoii sense, it was, if possible, ex-
ceeded by that which attended the attempt made by Frederick
the Great to reform the Almanac publishea in Prussia: and here,
lest any of our readers should labour under the same error as the
* moral-mouthed PecksniflF,' who, speaking of the Calender in
the ' Arabian Nights ' as a ' one-eyed almanac,' justified him-
self in doing so because an almanac and a calendar are much
flie same, let us point out the distinction between them, — ^namely,
that a calendar is a perpetual almanac, and an almanac an an-
nual calendar.

But to return. Frederick being disgusted, as doubtless he had
good cause to be, with the absurdities, with which the almanac
most in vogue amongst his subjects was filled, directed the Royal
Academy of Sciences of Berlin to prepare a new one, with the
omission of the astrological and other objectionable passages, the
place of which was to be supplied by matter calculated to in-
struct, amuse, and, at the same time, increase the real knowledge
of his people. This was accordingly done, and a reformed alma-
nac was published in 1779, to the great satisfaction of the king
and some few of the well-educated classes of his subjects; but to
Ihe generality of the nation its appearance gave the greatest
offence. It was looked upon as an attempt to rob them of their
ancient faith, and introduce a new refigion: one woman in
Berlin was nearly beaten to death by her husband for having
dared to bring a copy of it into his house ; in short, so great was
lie opposition made to this reform, that Frederick thought it ad-
visable to permit the almanac of the following year, 1780, to
appear after its ancient and approved fashion.

We know not precisely wnich was the almanac which thus
imequivocaUy established its character as a popular favourite.
Possibly it was the one entitled ' Bauem Practica,' and which,
despite of the inarch of intellect and the labours of the school-
master, is, we believe, still printed, purchased, and read in Ger-
many, as the * Vox Stellarum ' of Francis Moore, physician, with
its awful hieroglyphic, and * chiaro-oscuro ' explanations of it,
is with us. Goerres, in his ' Teutschen Volksbiicher,' speaka

2c2

J"

374 Calendars and Abnanacs.

the * Bauem Practica ' as copied from a much older book, ami*
lar in title and contents, which appeared at Frankfort-on-thc*
Maine as early as 1570, when it haa probably had many prede^
cessors. That Goerres is right in this conjecture we can testify J
for an edition of it, bearing date in 1567, is now before us.

If the author of this extraordinary production cannot claim th^
credit awarded to the respected father of the well-known Caleb
Quotem, who is declared to have had

A happy knack

At cooking up an Almanac,

he has at all events availed himself, to the fullest, of the Privileges
conferred upon the members of his profession, by the ^Penhm&
Parliament of threadbare Poets,^ who, among other enactmenls
(well worth the reading, in the Percy Society's reprint of this
satirical tract), declared it 'lawful for almanac-makers to teS
more hes than true tales ;' and he has consequently succeeded ii
producing a volume which, however worthless with reference l!p
the especial object for which he compiled it, is invaluable for
the striking and extraordinary pictures which it exhibits of th6
age in which it originated. Its little wood-cut representations of
the emplojrments peculiar to each of the months and seasons art
admirable illustrations of German life in the latter half of the
sixteenth century, while its numerous rhyming rules and astro-
logical and medical jingles, are equally descriptive of what were
then the popular feelings and beliefs. The author of the * Bauern
Practica may indeed be regarded as the ' Murphy * of the age
in which he lived. His book is essentially a weather almanac;
for though it contains many medical directions, numerous rhjin-
ing calculations for finding the days on which the feasts of the
church would fall, it is principally occupied with rules by which
the husbandman and the vine-dresser might calculate the nature
of the seasons, and signs of changes of weather.

How ancient many of these rules are; how long many of these
signs have been observed, is shown in the rebuke which the
Pharisees and Sadducees received when they desired to be shoirii
a sign from Heaven. * AVhen it is evening, ye say it will be fc
weather for the sky is red : and in the morning it will be fotil
weather to-day, for the sky is red and louring. O ye hypocrites,
ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the
sign of the times.'

Coming nearer to our times, we find the manuscripts of the
Anglo-Saxons, abounding in tables of prognostications of the
weather, and of the good and bad influence of the lunar and solar
changes. A manuscript in the Cottonian Library, in the British
Museum, may be cited as an instance: since it contains among

Prognostications of the Weather* 375

numerous tracts of a purely theological cliaracter, a great variety of
short treatises, some containing rules for judging of meteorological
changes, others showing the influence of the planets upon the
healm and fortunes of individuals, and others again treating of
the interpretation of dreams. Thus we find a prognostication of
the seasons of the year, drawn from a consideration of the day on
which the kalends of January may chance to fall : Gif bith KL
Januarius on dcBg drihtenlicum, winter god bid and toinsum and
loearm, ' If the kalends of January fall on the Lord's day, the
winter is good, pleasant, and warm'. While another tells us : ' Kl,
Jamtariits gif he bith on monan dceg^ thonne bidgrimme andgemenced
winter und god lencten, i. e. ' If the kalends of January fall on a
Monday, the winter will be severe and stormy, and the spring
eood.' We have also considerations as to what is foretold by
thunder — one tract treating of it with regard to the time of the day
or night when it is heard, another according to the day of the week.
These, and several similar treatises on the interpretation of dreams,
fortimate and unlucky days, predictions connected with the hour
and time of birth, form altogether a body of materials sufficient
for the stock in trade of any Philomath, William Lilly, or Par-
tridge of those days, and who might well apply to its compiler
,the words of Gay :

— We learnt to read the skies,
To know when hail wiU fall, or winds arise.
He taught us erst the Heifer's tail to view,
When stuck aloft, that showers would straight ensue.
He 6rst that useful secret did explain.
Why pricking corns foretold the gathering rain;
When Swallows fleet soar high, and sport in air,
He told us that the Welkin would be clear.

The weather- wisdom of our ancestors, like every other species
of knowledge they possessed, was handed down from generation
to generation in short proverbial sentences, whose antiquity is
shown by their rhythmical, or alliterative construction, even when
they do not, as is generally the case, consist of rhyming couplets.
In many of these popular rhymes, we have doubtless the result of
years of observation and experience, a fact which accounts not
only for the general accuracy of some of the predictions contained
in them, but also for their coexistence in so many languages.

We have made one allusion to the belief embodied in the En-
glish Proverb,

The evening red and morning g^y
Are certain signs of a fine day.
The evening gray, the morning red,
Make the shepherd hang his head.

376 Calendars and Abndnacr,

The Germans have a similar saying,

Abend roth gut Wetter bot;
Morgan roth mit Regen droht.

Evening red and weather fine;
Morning red, of rain's a sign.

In England we saj,

Februarj fill dike, be it black or be it white;
But if it be white, its (he better to like.

The Norman peasant expresses a like wish for snow in February,
but in terser language,

F^vrier qui donne neige,
Bel et^ nous plege.

When Febiiiary gives snows^
It fine summer foreshows.

The intense cold which generally prevails about Candlemas-day,
is the subject both of French and (xerman sayings. * Lichtmiss,
Winter gewiss.' * A la Chandeleur, La grande douleur;' and
Sir Thomas Browne, in his Vulgar Errors, tells us, ' Tliere is a
general tradition in most parts of Europe, that inferreth the cold-
nesse of succeeding winter from the shining of the sun on Candle-
mas Day,' according to the proverbial distich,

, Si Sol splendescat Mari4 purificante,
Major erit glacies post fesitum quam fiiit ante :

which is Englished in the proverbial saying.

If Candlemas day be fair and bright,
Winter will have another flight:

while the old saw that tells us.

As the day lengthens
The cold streng^ens,

is repeated in the German,

Wenn die Tage beginnen zu langen
Dann komm erst der Winter gegangen.

A cold May and a windy.
Makes a fat bam and a findy,

eays the EngUsh proverb. The German tells us,

Trockner Mftrz, nasser April, kuhler Mai,
Fullt Scheimen, Keller, bringt viel Hen.

A dry March, wet April, and a cool May,
Fill cellars and bams, and give plenty of Hay.

Again,

3Iaimonat kuhl und Brachmonat nass,
Fulle beide Boden und Fass.

Proverbial Weather-wisdom. 377

May cool and June wet.
Fill both floor and yat.

The peasant of Normandy, again, uses this saying, but, as the
Heralds say, ' with a diflFerence.'

Froid Mai, chaud Juin,
Donnent pain et vin.

Cold May, June fine,
Give both bread and -wine.

The importance of a dry spring is declared by the English
proverb — * A bushel of March dust is y^orth a king's ransom,'
while the Germans, in like manner, declare ' Marzstaub ist dem
Golde gleich,' March dust is like gold.

These examples, which might be multiplied to an extraordinaiy
extent, will suffice to convince the reader how great is the um-
formity which exists in the popular belief among natives of totally
different countries, as to the probability of coming seasons coin-
ciding yrith the prognostications embodied in these semi-prophet-
ical proverbs : several of which, it may here be remarked, nave
been tested by modem observers who nave borne evidence as to
their general accuracy. A collection of the weather adages of
different countries would be extremely ctirious,%ven as mere illus-
trations of national peculiarities, observances, and in some cases
perhaps of national superstitions — ^but they would moreover be of
considerable value, as affording materials to the philosopher for
iavestigating the changes whicn are believed to have taken place
in the climates of such countries, since the very remote period in
which the majority of these sayings had their origin.

But while our ancestors calciuated the nature of the coming
year in the manner already referred to, they, like the naturalists of
our own days, drew many important prognostications of atmo-
spheric changes irom the peculiarities evinced by various natural
objects — plants, insects, birds, and animals — on me approach of a
coming storm, or other change of weather or temperature. In-
stead, however, of citing instances of these, or seeking to prove the
general accuracy of calculations founded upon such data, we ynll
substitute the following remarkable historical anecdote, which bears
very strongly upon this point, but which, we believe, has never
before been brought imder the notice of the English reader. The
spiders which cheered King Robert the Bruce, and encouraged
tun to resist the English monarch, have scarcely a higher claim
to be numbered among the trifling causes, which have led to
mighty conquests, than those which figure in the following na-
lative.
. Quatremer Disjonval, a Frenchman by birth, was adjutant-ge«

Calttulars and Alaumaeg.

,. *. . .1. Jl' IL.i.'.. i^hil louk rax iictive tort ::; iLe siae of the Dutch
|...ii.. :.• '»:.. .. i'.:k\ :\\.1:.u .".jainai ziv. S:-i:iio*'.-:-r. On the ar-
,.\.:. . : :: . :'• ..rr.:... -: . • -uLr :lio Duic ■:: Bruniwick, he was

• >••

btr:!! s:.:n.i:iniied to twenty-
v ^ - •^---r^ir.-t! la i •iim^eon at Utrecht,

ji^ ±-_'":utiiLLT tiio s«:>le com-

• : ••

:r'V

•■.....^? -^ T»i.Ji -.Lii'Mi. were almost the

' ^, : :.l -..v :: \:e r7i?i:c. ot Utrecht

.- :;.:: v. ': " .- :.:? -ii'f, ind partlv tiom

. : - 1 .- :...'w":.I liijc.rv. ho be^an to

..;..*'■ ..-: 1 j:nu5or.;ciit, in watching

. ..- . ? •■•. 'li-^'^'-pr: doners. He soon

- . :x ?[:it.Ler? were intimately con-

... L,^^ ill the wcatlier. A violent

, . \h:c:i ho wa5 subject at such times,

.-. :o the connexion between such

^v . ^ i.'vt.ments among the spiders. For in-

. :".50 <p:ilers which spun a laige web in

.- ■.>.;.- '.virhJrew from hif cell when he had

. .!'...: rliose two signs, namely, the pain in

•o.-iiLiice of the spiders, were as invariably

c wciither. So often as his headach at-

V v.r.d the spiders disappear, and then rain

.... . /:< ••;c\ailed for several days. As the spiders

.. ., .\ .•'.>v -yes a^ain in their webs, and display their

. ^ ■ ■• !i'< pains gradually leave him until he got

V "a- 'A v'urlxT returned.

.'-.v.viK-ou'S confinned him in bcheving these spideis
X * .;'»c^: dop\x^ sensitive of approaclung chanorea in
■v .r. .itul taa: their retirement and reappearance, their
./. ;vi\o-.v.l habits, were so intimately connected with
.'v- ncatlioi, — that he concluded they were of all things
• • ;'\c aoouraro intimation when severe weather mig£t
III .<hort. D:>ionval pursued tliese inquiries and ob-
!:o !iu;v-h industry and intelligence, that by remark-
Ti., ■» ''i'*-'."^ v»l* lii< i^pivlers. he was at length enabled to" prognos-
,^.,.v -U' i»»;Mvav'U v>t' severe weather, from ten to fourteen days
,^;'vv* • At in. which is proved by the following fact, which led

\\ 'km \\w tixH^fv" of the French republic overran Holland in the

^i;:x 1 v'l' 17 i> L iiiul kept pusliing forward over the ice, n sudden

^l vvnv»\iHvtv\l thaw in the early part of the month of December

lijuMuu»v*a tl\o di'st ruction of the whole army unless it was instantly

*^^^\\n. The Fivnch generals were thinking seriously of ac-

Bemarlud)k AnedMeJ: ^ 379

ceptinga sum offered by the DutcH, and withdrawing their troopsf,
when Disjonval, who hoped that the success of th^ republicati
anny might lead to his release, i^sed every exertion and at length
succeeded in getting a letter conveyed to the French general in
January, 1795, in which he pledged himself, from the peculiar
actions of the spiders, of whose movements he was now enabled
to judge with perfect accuracy, that within fourteen days there
would commence a most severe frost, which would make the
French masters of all the rivers, and afford them sufficient time to ,
complete and make sure of the conquest they had commenced,
before it should be followed by a thaw.

The commander of the French forces believed his prognostica-
tion and persevered. The cold weather, which Disjonval had
announced, made its appearance in twelve days, and with
Buch intensity that the ice over the rivers and canals became ca-
pable of bearing the heaviest artillery. On the 28th January,
1795, the French army entered Utrecht in triumph; and Quatre-
mer Disjonval, who had watched the habits of his spiders with so
much intelligence and success, was, as a reward for his ingenuity,
released from prison.

And now, before we conclude these desultory remarks upon
Calendars and Almanacs, and the alterations and reformations
which they have from time to time undergone, we cannot omit
all mention of one proposed change which was advanced with so
much reason and common sense as ought to have secured its uni-
versal adoption. We allude to the endeavour made by the Em-
peror Charlemagne, to substitute for the Roman names of the
months, of which the signification must have been unintelligible to
a great proportion of his subjects, the far more expressive names
of German origin; in which case we might in this country have
retained the apt and significant designations used by our Anglo-
Saxon forefathers; which, to our mind, are as suggestive and pic-
turesque as the miniated illuminations, rich in gold and purple,
which ornament our very early Calendars, and afford us a far better
insight into the manners and customs of the olden times, than we
can obtain from jhe annals of the historian or the disquisition of
the antiquary.

At the present moment, when grcater'attention to the history
and literature of the Anglo-Saxons is manifesting itself among
US,* a few illustrations of the manner in which the year was di-

* As «hown not only by the publications of individuals — as Mr. Thorp6*s
Angfe-^axon' Version c^ the New Testament,' and Mr. Kemble*s ftdmirftble edi-
tion of . * Beowulf^' but by others -which have emanated from societies and
associations. Among these must be named Mr. Thorpe's masterly editions
C»dnum/ and the * Codex Ezoniensis/ published by the Anglo-Saxon ' "

380 (hlendars and Alaumaes.

vided, in the days of Bede, Al&ed, and ifSlfeic, marj, pedaapSi
be read with some little interest

The year, which was divided into two partSi ocmunenoed witb
the SO called moder or medre niht — (mother night), witjh the
night which gave birth to the year; the second division com-
mencing with the summer solstice on wid mmor niht These divi.
sions were a^in equally subdivided by the Vernal and Autumnal
equinox. Ijirougnout all the Teutonic nations the wint^ tod
summer solstice were seasons of festivity and rejoicing. By lie
Anglo-Saxons the winter festival was called Creol or Oehol^ the
season of rejoicing — a name which is still preserved in Yule — the
common designation of Christmas in the north of England. The
summer festival on the other hand was called Lidy or the feast of
drinking, and some of the names of the months were pctrdy de*
rived jfrom these festivals. Thus December, the month which coii»
eluded the year, and preceded the feast of Creole was called Arm
Geoloj or before Yule ; while January, which followed it, was called
Aftera Geola, or after Yule. June and July were in like man-
ner deagnat^ Arra Ltda and Aftera Lid, with reference to
their preceding and following the great summer festival.

But these were not the only designations for these months;
the twelve months of the Anglo-Saxons being distinguished by
the following characteristic epithets.

January, as we have already observed, was entitled Afteru
Geola, from its falling after Yule or Christinas.

February was called Sol monad^ or soil month, because at du
season the tiller of the soil began to busy himself with the kbouBi
of the field, over which, as we see by illuminations in the oldMSS^
lie now laid * of dimg (or soil^ fuU many a fodder.' This name,
we learn from Mr. Akerman's mteresting little * Glossary of Wilt-
shire Words/ was long preserved in that county in a saying com-
memorative of the proverbial coolness of February. * Sowl^rove
fiil lew,' February is seldom warm.

March was designated Hlyd monad (loud mcmth), and Brd
monad (rough month), from the boisterous winds which then

mittee of the Society of Antiquariesi : Mr. Kemble's yaluable ooQectioii d
* Anglo-Saxon Charters/ published bjr the English Historical Society: Mr.
Wright's interesting Tolnme, illnstratiTe of Anglo-Saxon Biography and lite-
rature, undertaken at the expense of the Koy al Society of Literature ; and lasHy
tiie exertions of the newly-established ^^IfHc Society for the lUustration a
Anglo-Saxon and Early English History and Philology, which is extensiT^
patronised by the most distinguished indiyiduals in the cuuntiy, and has oom*
menced its labours by publishing the * Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church,'
imder the editorship of Mr. Thorpe; and which Society deserves to be still more
extensively supported, for its proposed publication of ' The Complete Worbi of
King Alfred,' the editorship of which is to be intrusted to Mr. Eemhle.

Anglo'Saxmi Names of the Months, 381

{Hrevailed ; and we again learn from Mr. Akerman that March con*
tmued to be called Lide in Wiltshire, as late as the time of Au-
btey, who has preserved the following proverbial rhyme in which
ddfi name occurs :

Eat leeks in lide, and Ramsms in Hay,
And all the year after physicians may play.

, .Apnl was entitled EcLster monad (Easter month), and May
Thry Mylke (three milk month), from the abimdsmce of that
essential article of food to the Anglo-Saxons, at this season, when,
ojidn^ to the richness of the pasture, they were enabled to milk
tbeir kine and ^oats three times a day.

■. June, in addition to its name of Arra Lid (before Lide), was
also called Sear monads or dry month, because at this time the
wood required for use during the following winter was hewn and
djied.

Jtdy, which, as we have already observed, was called Aftera
JJde (after Lide) was also known by the name of McBd monad
(xnead or meadow month), because now the hay harvest being
concluded, the cattle were turned to feed in the meadows.

August was called fFeod monad (weed or grass month), because
ta soon as the grain was cut and carried, the shepherds went into
the fields to collect the weeds and grass growing among the stubble
a» fodder for their cattle.

September was called Harvest monad, because in it the harvest
was brought to an end, and the harvest feast celebrated. This,
which had in the times of Paganism been regarded as a sacred fes-
tival, gave rise to a second name by which this month was dis-
tii^uished, namely, Haleg monad, or holy month.

October was called Wynter fyUed (winter filleth or be^nneth),
because the full moon in this month was the commencement of
winter among the Saxons; and November was cslSleA.Blotmxmad^
hk)od month, or the month of slaughter or sacrifice, because before
tibeir conversion to Christianity, the Saxons were at this season
accustomed to celebrate their great festival in honour of Wuodan,
when many of the animals, which they then killed as provisions
far the winter, were oflFered as sacrifices to that Deity.

December, called Arra Geola, (before Yule) and Midiointer
mtmad (midwinter month), concludes the list; in which we have
not inserted the names Wolf monad, Sproutkele, and others cited
by Verstegan, because although in use among the Saxons of
toe continent, they do not appear to have been introduced into
this country, or adopted by our more immediate ancestors.

But it is now time to direct the attention of our readers to the

382 Calendars and Abnanaes.

valuable work bjr Mr. Hampson; the explanatory tifle of tdricli
we liave transcnbed in full at the commencement 6£ this article.
The original intention of that gentleman, when he commenced the
work before us, was to have cast, into the form of a glo^ary, ds
many of the terms employed in mediaeval chronology as he could
meet with in the course of his researches, or of which hfe could satis-
factorily determine the signification. But, as ih the pttiiSecution of
this plan, it became obvious that the utility of 6tich a glo^ary would
be greatly increased, by determining, as far as possibfe, the age
of such terms, while the attempt to effect this olgect ^iecessaifly
introduced a multitude of questions connected with leg^ and
ecclesiastical antiquities, not mcluded in the original desigh, Mr.
Hampson determined to embody these, as fcr as prdctiijableriii a
separate department. The wort is therdfblre' divided into four
books.

The first, which is devoted to the subject of * Charters and Dates,'
contains a succinct sketch of the confusion in mediaeval chronology,
and much curious illustrative information on the subject of Cnar-
ters, their forms, ages, dates, and genuineness, with general and
particular rules for testing their authenticity.

The second book is divided into five sections, one introductory,
and the remaining four appropriated to historical and critical
notices of the various remarkable days and popular observances
which occur in the Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn quarters,
respectively. Unhke the majority of modem writers, who, when
treating upon the subject of the year, and its history, and the va-
rious branches of popular antiquities, so intimately interwoven
with that widely extended topic, are content to furnish thdr
readers with a riffacciamento, borrowed from the materials collected
by Brande, Ellis, &c., Mr. Hampson has given fresh interest to
this oft-told tale, by the industry with which he has collected new
facts and illustrations from the writings of many foreign antiqua-
ries, more particularly those of France ; and from various works,
which being illustrative of local customs, or provincial districts,
are but little known to fhe general reader; while from the
manner in which these various materials are combined and nar-
rated, this portion of the volume becomes as full of pleasant read-
ing as of valuable information. As an instance of this, we will
quote Mr. Hampson's observations on a popular superstition con-
nected vrith Christmas Eve.

" The * Eve or Yigil of the Nativity,' December 24, which closed tbe
whole year, was long marked by a superstition, of which the memory)
preserved by the fiavourite dramatist of England, will Hre when all the

Hampsoris McBdii ,^^Svi KaUndarium. 383

otiiep* jpopular rites, oeremonies, aad opinions of thkperiod shall be buried
in oblivion. Shakspeare, Mr, Hunt beautifully remarks, * has touched
upon Christmas. Eve with a reverential tenderness, sweet as if he had
gfH>kenithushingly,^

' Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes,
Wherein, our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
TThe bird of dawning singeth all night long :
And then, they say, no sprite dares stb abroad ;
The nights are wholesome ; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm ;
^ So hallowed and so gracious is the time.'

f Prudentius, early in the fourth century, noticed the terror with
which the voice of the cock inspired the wandering spirits of the night :

^ Ferunt vagantes daemonas
Lsetos tenebris noctium
Gallo canente, exterritos
Sparsim timere et credere.'

^^ It has been supposed that the song of the cock is heai-d on Christmas
Eve in celebration of the divine ascent from hell, which the Christians in
the time of Prudentius believed to have taken place during the tran-
quillity of the night, when no sound was heard but that of the rejoicing
bird;

* Quod omnes credimus,

nio quietis tempore,

Quo gallus exsultans canit,

Christum rediisse ex inferis.'

' " The Ghost of Helgi Hundingsbana (the slayer of Hunding), in the
Scandinavian Edda, coUected in the eleventh century, assigns the crow-
ing of the cock as the reason for his return to the hall of Odin, or the
km:

* 'Tis time now to ride
^ To the reddening road,

To let my pale steed

Tread the air path.

O'er the bridges of heaven,

The sky must I reach

Ere the cock of the hall

Wake the heroes up.'

** And Bnrgier's demon horseman, in correspondeneie wilJh this notion,
a|^ropriately finds that he and his infernal steed^ must, like ' the buried
majesty of Denmark,' speedily depart because the coclc is heard to crow :

..f Bapp'l Rapp'l Mu^ dunkt der Hahn schon rufft.
Bsdd wird der Sand verrinnen.'

" Thi^ Widely-spread superstition is in all probability, 'iimmmderstood
tradition of some Sabeean fable. The cock, which seems by its early

384 Ccdendars and Almanacs.

voice to call forth the sun, was esteemed a sacred solar bird ; hence it
was also sacred to Mercury, one of the personificaticms of the sun. Neigdl,
the idol of the Cuthites, considered by Selden to be a symbcd of the
sun, was worshipped under the form of a cock. The anecdote of SoeratiQ^
which the elder Racine has so well explained, has rendered it suffidentlj
notorious that the cock was sacred to Esculapius, whom we haye shown
to be a solar incarnation ; and the story of the metamorphosis of Alec-
tryon, by Lucian, equally proves its intunate connexion wiw this luminaiy
in mythology."

In a futvire edition Mr. Hampson may point out to his readers^
that the author of the well-known bdlad of * Sweet WilHam'p
Ghost,' printed in 'Percy's Reliques,' has, in the following
stanza, anticipated Burger in availing himself for the pinpoaos of
poetry of that article of popular belief, which attributes to the
voice of ' the bird of dawning ' the miraculous and salutary power
of dispelling evil spirits :

Then up and crew the red red cock,

And up then crew the gray :
'Tis time, 'tis time, my dear Margret,
That I were gane away.

And, it might be added, that the demonolorists of the middle
ages supposed the cock to have been endowed with this power,
from the moment when its voice was lifted up to rebuke St
Peter for his denial of his Master.

And here also we would observe, that in the foregoinff verses
from the ' Icelandic,' which our author quotes from Mr. Keight-
ley (and the manner in which Mr. Hampson cites his authontiiM
forms a striking contrast to the practice now so prevalent among
writers of concealing the sources from which tney derive their
information), there is no allusion to this supernatural influence
attributed to the crowing of the cock. For tbough the ghost of
Helgi vanishes before daybreak, it is not from any power to re-
cal wandering spirits being attributed by the songs of the Edda
to the bird oi morning. He is Gullinkambi (gold combed), one of
the three cocks mentioned in the Icelandic songs; and his duty is
merely to awake the gods, whidi is clearly shown by the follow-
ing stanza from the ' Vaulu-spa' (as it is entitled by EttmuUer,
whose edition we quote):

(jr61 lun Ausom Gullinkambi
Sa vekr haulda at Heria&udrs.

There sings by Aser Gullinkambi.
He waketh the heroes at HeriaiGEidir.

We had proposed extracting Mr. Hampson's remarks on the
fimeral entertainments given m the northern countries, entitled

HampiOfris MtBdii ^vi Kalendarium. 385

* Arvil,' or, more correctly, * Arval Suppers,* together with his
corrections of the erroneous etymological interpretation of the
name furnished by Whittaker and the editor of the * Encyclo-
pasdia Perthensis.' We must, however, content ourselves with
acknowledging the general correctness of his interpretation, that
the name is derived from Arfol, the feast, which, among the
northern nations, was given by the heir at the fimeral on his
succeeding to the paternal possession, and with referring Mr.
Hampson for much corroborative evidence, both of his facts and
his etymology of the name, to the chapter on 'Inheritance,* in
Dr. Jacob Grimm's profoimdly learned work, * Deutsche Rechts-
rfterthiimer/

Mr. Hampson's observations on Whitsun Ales — Church Ales,
and all other ' Festivals and Holy Ales,' confirmatory as they are
of the observations of that excellent antiquary, the late Francis
Douce, deserve also to be extracted, but we must devote the space
such extract would occupy to a notice of the remaining portion of
these volumes.

The third book, which concludes the first volume, is devoted to
the subject of ancient calendars — and contains a reprint of no less
than six of them ; which, as they range from the middle of the
tenth to the end of the fourteenth century, may reasonably be sup-
posed to contain all the information which can be expected from
works of their description. One of them is believed to have
been the property of King Athelstan, and although perhaps
the matter which it contains may not have entitled it to me dis«
tinction of being reprinted, it well deserves attention as a literary
curiosity.

The fourth book, which occupies the whole of the second volume,
Is devoted to a glossary of all the terms or dates now obsolete,
but formerly employed in mediaeval chronology, and constitutes,
if not the most amusing, certainly by far the most useful portion
of Mr. Hampson's work. It is diflSicult to give a specimen, on
account of the length to which some of the most interesting of his
explanations extend: but we will extract the concluding passage
of his notice of the term * Undem,' a Chaucerian word, which has
not only worried the commentators, but, as Tom Heame tells us,
given nse to great discussions among kings and nobles.

*^ Yerstegan and the old glossiographers of Chaucer seem to be at a
total loss to explain this word, which they take to be afternoon, as
noticed by Somner, whose authorily, however, mentions it onhr as one
of the three times a day proper for drinking-^imdem, mid&y, and
noon. The following passage, confirmatory of Heame and the anti-
quaries in the reign of Edward lY. will set all controversy at rest.
'On thsm thrym dagmn (viz. gang dagum) christene men eceolan

386 Calendars and Almanacs.

aketan heora woroldlican weorck on tba thriddan dit dages, tfaaet is On
undem, and forAgongan mid thane haligra reliqnium oth tha nigethan
tid, and is thonne non. — (Cott. MS# Julius A. X.) That is — On these
three days, g^ang days, Chnstian men shall leave their worldly labour on
the third hour of the day, which is * undem,' and go in procession with
the holy relics till the ninth hour, which is ndfie or noon.^

Mr. Tyrwhitt, in his Notes upon Chaucer, has prpbably stated
the facts which account for the diJQSiculty there Ms been in Jaet-

tling the exact meaning of this word. jBte tedls.us that^ jai^ixne

whitt not being aware that * uijdoni,' dinner timp, m ,vniyef9^y
used at the present day in Jutland Funen and Swemsh No^iWf
it did not occur to him that when the hour of dininjg advanqe^ to
noon, that hour came to be designated by a name formerly given
to the third hour of the day, because such na^ne bad come to, sig-
nify not so much the precise hour of the day, as the precise hour
of dinner.

The following short account of St. Urban's day affords a good
specimen of this glossary.

^* Urban, Pope and Martyr, May 25. The 'suLteenth Bishop of Borne,
who, haviog converted many persons, was put to death under Al^Lander.
He sate from 229 to 230, and was martyred on this day, which is caUed
a ^ Dies Criticus,' or critical day, because its serenity portends abundance.
Rain on this day equally threatens. In Alsace, which is fertile in vines,
if the sky be serene on this day, they lead the wooden imag^ of Urban
with great pomp through the streets and villages ; but if it should rain,
they exhibit their indignation at the negligent saint by dragg^g Km
through the mire. Molanus Pontificus (* de Picturis') very bitterly re-
probates this irreverent custom."

With the following appropriate observations on this day — ^from
the Earl of Northampton's ' Defensative against the Poison of Sup-
posed Prophecies,' we take our leave of Mr. Hampson's interesting
volumes, and trust we have shown how fully they deserve at-
tention, and how useful they must be to the divine, the lawyer,
the antiquary, and the historian.

" The countrymen are wont to give a likely guesse about the dayes of
St. Urban and Medard how the vines will beare and thrive that year :
not because the day gives any vertue to the grape, nor the saints (whose
lives and constant stSering for Christ are solemnly recorded and solem-
nized upon this day) give life and influence to vines above the rest, bat
because the very tune and season is a marke and measure of their for-
wardness."

(• 38r 1

Abt. V, — Notices et Memoirts ISstoriques. Par M. Mignet,
2vok Paris. 1843.

Is it a symptom of intellectual dearth that at present so few new
books are written by men of ability, and so many old ones repro-
duced? Thesce seems to be 'a rage' for republication, almost
^ nvaDing that for * illustrated' editions. Carlyle, Col. Thompson,
"/Macaulay, Sidney Smith, and Jeffrey amongst ourselves; and in
* Trance every boOT who has written enough to make a volume,
'^Irom Mignet to dhaudes-Aigues, reproduce their scattered effu-
'^flions. V ery many of these efiUsions had better have remained
^tiridisturbed; things written for the day and imworthy of the
'^TOOrrow. Tills censure is however little applicable to the present
' xepubKcatioB of M. Mignet's essays, which, though fragmentary in
forin, have the unity of purpose requisite for an enduring work. We
remark, however, that each volume has a purpose of its own, to
which all the separate essays are subordinate. The first volimie
is devoted to biographical sketches of MM. Sieves, Boederer,
"Livingston, Tallejrrand, Broussais, Merlin, Tracy, Daunou, Ray-
nouard and Frayssinous, all actors in the Revolution of '89. In
"narrating these lives M. Mignet has passed in review the Revo-
lution and its crises, the Empire and its establishments, the Re-
atoration and its struggles, by connecting public events with bio-
graphical particulars, and by showing the general movement ot
ideas exhibited in the works of these men in the various branches
of politics, science, metaphysics, and belles lettres. This volume
may be said to partly supply one great deficiency of Mignet*s
* BUstory of the Kevolution :' it introduces us to the men of the
epoch, as well as to its ideas and events. The second volume has
a more historical character. It is composed of four essays on very
different subjects, but all, as it were, leading into each other, and
forming a series. The first, and best, is entitled ' Germany during
the Eighth and Ninth Centuries; its Conversion to Chnstianity
and its Introduction into the Civilization of Europe.' The second,
also very interesting, is an ' Essay on the Territorial and Political
Formation of France from the End of the Eleventh to the End of
the Fifteenth Century.' The third, weak and below the subject,
is, * Establishment of Religious Reformation and the Constitution
of Calvinism at Geneva.' The fourth is ' An Introduction to the
History of the Succession in Spain, and Picture of the Negotia-
tions relative to that Succession during the Reign of Louis AlV.'
Without perhaps positively lessemng M. Mignet's reputation,
we doubt whether this book will increase it. The merits of his
history were very striking — ^its deficiencies no less so ; its succe^

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIV. 2 D ""

%

388 Mipiefs Historical Essays,

immense. In the present work he has exhibited a greater range
of knowledge than we had given him the credit of ; but he has
brought no evidence of greater talent, philosophical or artistic.
The only improvement we have to record is in the absence of
that ^taUst philosophy which was so obtruded in the history.
His style retams its stiffiiess and want of coloriB?. It is as sob-
tentious and antithetical as usual ; but seldom striking or descrip-
tive. In his biographies we see no biograj^cal talent. He isak
in bringing the person distinctly before the eye ; because desciib-
ing them ui general terms, and unable to seize upon the pecuHan-
ties which stamp the individuaL Broussais he has best sooceeded
in delineating, because Broussais was (me who ' wore his heart
upon his sleeve;' his peculiajrities were thrown into ^long relief
by the vehemence of his disposition. Talleyrand is a ocHnjdete
mlure. It is perhaps the worst portrait ever drawn of a c^brated
man by one of ability. The same want of sympathy with men,
the same want of artistic conception and pictorial power, is
manifested in his essay on the reformation of Greneva: a moie
stirring, passionate, dramatic theme than any in his volumes, yet
by him treated in the same heavy, Ufeless, sententious manner, ^y
M. Mignet and his followers men are sacrificed to ideas, huma-
nity to its events. Men are not regarded as bein^ compounded
of m^estic hopes and groveUin^ desires, of heroic instmcts, of
prejumces, of interests, of enthusiasm, and of complex passions ;
but as abstract quantities, as £dmple numerals in the CTeat sum of
destiny. What is the consequence? Whenever he is placed be-
fore a man, he fiuls to imderstand him; whenever he is placed be-
fore an epoch, he is sure to misinterpret it, for men are not
simple numerals to be reckoned on slate; they are meuj and epochs
are their work.

In spite of this censure, the book does partly supply the de-
ficiency we mentioned in his history: it introduces us to the men
and their acts, if it does not make us familiar with them. So that
with all its drawbacks we think the publication worthy of at-
tention. The men were all more or less interesting; and he has
brought forward some novel information about them. We will
select three of them, the three philosophers, for the reader's
amusement. Sieves, Broussais, and Destutt de Tracy, are of
themselves sufficiently celebrated to rouse curiosity as to thdr
memoirs; and by selecting them we shall best typify the phi-
losophy of that epoch as manifested in poHtics, medicine, and
ideology. It will be imderstood that we avail oorselves here of
M. Mignet's notices, which we do little more than modify and
abridge.,

EiL^NUEL Joseph Siey:^ was bom at Fr^jus, the 3d of May,

Memoir of Sieyh. 389

.1748. He was destined for the cliurdi, finished his studies in the
University of Paris, and took his licence in the Sorbonne. like
most of his contemporaries he became possessed with the spint of
analysis and scepticism, which then was the creator of such new
and daring schemes of social reform. He was enchanted with
Locke and Condillac, and studied them deeply* He soon became
Attracted by the speculations of political economy. Appointed by
the Bishop of Chartres to the plaice of chanoine and then of vicaire-
g^erale and chancelier* of his church, he \2A made himself so
respected that the clergy of Brittany elected him their depute.
The diocese of Chartres subsequently appointed him consdlier-
conunissaire at the Chambre Superieure of the Clergy of France.
He here learned the practical part of politics, to which his meta-
]diyaical talents had mtroduced him. His studies continued; his
name acquired more respect The revolution was rapidly ad-
vancing. The reforms so passionately demanded by the people, so
obstinately refused by the government, were daily become more
urgent, more inevitable. The disordered state of the finances,
which had already necessitated two assemblies of the Notables
without success, now became so dangerous that government was
forced to appeal to the 6tats-generaux.

But how were these etats-generaux to be convoked ? Were
they to be assembled as in 1614, by making them vote in classes,
or were they to vote by individuals? If each individual was to
vote, were the deputies of the tiers-etat to be doubled, or were the
ancient number only to be named? In a word, was the law of
the majority to be substituted for the suffrages of classes, public
welfare to private interest; such were the questions put by the
government itself.

Siey^ replied. He had never before appeared as an author.
Hitherto his life had been passed in studymg both theoretically
and practically the great questions of philosophy and politics. He
had had no time to write. His first appearance as an author was
crowned with a success so brilliant that it must have startled him-
self. He replied to government in three pampJblets, which he
published one immediately after the other. These were, 1st.
* Essai sur les Privileges;' 2d. his world-famous ' Qu'est-ce que le
Tiers-etat?' 3d. * Moyens d'Execution dont les Representants de
la France pourront disposer en 1789.' The prodigious success
which that on the * Tiers-etat' obtained can only be understood
by reflecting how completely it expressed the state of popular
opinion; it was the distmct utterance of what the nation had been
stammering so long; it was the political consequence of all the

* We preserye the French names, as translations always, more or less, couti
falfle notioos. Nothing can he more imlike ahhe than our ahhot.

2d2

conTCg^

390 Miffnefs Historical Essays,

prevalent philosophical dogmas, and it received instantaneous ac-
ceptance and applause. It may be resumed in three questions and
their answers.

What is the tiers-^tat ? — ^The nation.

What has it been till now in the political world ? — ^Nothing.

What does it demand ? — ^Political recognition. Zt wishes to
be something. M. Siey^ attempted to show that the tiers-etat
was the entire nation, and that it could very well dispense widi
the two other classes, which could not dispense with it. * If
nobiUty comes from conquest, the tiers-^tat will become noble by
conquering in its turn.' He contended that the tiers-^tat, com-

Sosed of 25,000,000, ought to have at least an equal nuniber of
eputies with the other two classes, which were composed (rf
80,000 clergy, and 100,000 nobles; that it ought to choose its
deputies from its own class, and not, as heretofore, fiom the clergy
or miUtary.

He called upon the tiers-etat, which was not a class but the
nation, to constitute itself a national assembly : in this shape it
could dehberate for the entire nation. Bold as these ideas were,
they met with universal assent. What he advised was acc(mi-
plished; his hardy speculations became hardy acts. The ^tats-
generaux were convoked. Siey^ was elected one of the deputies
for Paris; and when the privileged orders refused during a whole
month to unite with the tiers-etat and verify their powers in
common, he boldly decreed the verification with or without the
presence of the privileged deputies. He forced the commons to
constitute themselves a national assembly. This assembly having
been deprived of its place of meeting, reimited at the Jeu de
Paume, where Siey^s drew irp the decisive and celebrated oath
sworn by all the members, * Never to separate, to assemble every-
where that circumstances required, imtil the constitution was
fixed.*

He had made a national assembly ; he had boimd each indi-
vidual member by his honour to stand by him. In the solemn
meeting of the 23d of June, when the king, having revoked all
their previous orders, and commanded the members to disperse
themselves, after the hall had vibrated with the tremendous and
impetuous eloquence of Mirabeatl, Sieyes rose. He felt that
every thing in the shape of rhetoric would fall tamely after what
had just been uttered, but his own speech was no less subhme in
a difierent way, * Nous sommes aujourd'hui ce que nous ^ons
hier. DeliberonsT They did dehberate: and the revolution was
the result.

Sieyes was also the author of the plan subsequently realised of
destroying the ancient provinces, and forming them into their

Memoir of Sieyes. 391

present departments. He continued to assist in the deliberations
of the assembly, but as soon as he encountered opposition from
those whom he had been accustomed to govern, his ardour cooled.
Impetuous and imperious in his theories, he was incapable of sup-
porting contradiction. The discussion with respect to the wealth
of the clergy first occasioned this coolness. He regarded tithes as
unjust and pernicious ; he desired, therefore, that they should be
abolished. But, inasmuch as they represented a revenue of
70,000,000 francs, he contended tnat this was not a present to
mkke to the landed proprietors; that they ought to purchase it;
that the purchase money should go towards defraying the public
debt, and thus diminish the duties. His opinion not being listened
to, and tithes being suppressed, he uttered his famous epigram,

* ils veulent 6tre libres et ne savent pas etres justes.*

. Attacked on account of this epigram, he got angry and main-
tained an obstinate silence at the assembly. In vain Mirabeau
endeavoured to excite his ambition ; Sieyes continued silent. He
refused to be named bishop of Paris. Elected member of the
departementale administration, he gave up the Assemblee Consti-
tuante and retired into the country. He thus took no part in the
second epoch of the revolution. One of his friends subsequently
asked him ' What he had done during the reign of terror r'

* What have I done ?' he replied, * I have lived,^ He had in
feet solved the most difficult problem of the epoch, that of not
perishing. After the 9th Thermidor he became one of the chiefs
of the legal moderate party of the convention, where he proposed
and obtained the re-entrance of his friends the proscribed Giron-
dists. Nominated president of the convention and member of the
new * Comite du salut public,' he co-operated in those measures
which were then adopted, and in the negotiations of France
with the other European states. He went himself to Holland to
conclude a treaty of aUiance. He took a large part in the treaties
of Basle. He exerted himself to the utmost to estabUsh peace
and the grandeur of his coimtry. Called upon to prepare the
constitution of the Directory in the year VIII. he refused his assist-
ance. Named one of the live directors, he declined the danger-
ous honour, and. retired into inactivity.

It was at this period that the Abbe Poulle presented himself in
Sieyes' room and fired a pistol at him at arm's length. One ball
shattered his hand; the other grazed his chest. Sieyes conducted
himself with astonishing coolness. Called upon to give his tes-
timony, and observing that the judges incUned towards the
assassin, he returned home, and said to his concierge, 'If M.
Poulle should return, you will tell him I am not at home.'

Some time afterwards the occasion presenting itself for conso-

392 Mignefs Historical Essays.

lidating his plans of peace at which he had laboured during the
convention, Siey&s, who had refused to become a director, accepted
the office of plenipotentiary at Berlin. He was not successfiu in
forming an alliance with jPrussia, but he saw at once that state
was bent on preserving neutrality, and he announced this to the
directory. (5n his return to Paris he found affairs discouradng:
the directory drew near its end. * H me faut une ep6e' said he,
and in Joubert he hoped to have found it. But Joubert was
killed shortly after at Novi. Napoleon returned from Egypt.

From Provence to Paris Greneral Bonaparte saw himself the
object of universal curiosity and expectation. The glorious con-
queror in so many fields filled the imaginations of the susceptible
and warlike nation. But without Siey^s the general could do
little; without the general Siey^s could not act. These two extra-
ordinary men, types of speculation and action, were equally neces-
sary to each other. But the glory of the abb^ was soon to be
swallowed up in that of the soldier. Siey^ somewhat feared
Bonaparte, and not without reason. They were, however, brought
together, and concerted in the accomphshment of the 18th Bru-
maire. There is something singularly interesting in contem-
plating this celebrated meeting, whicn, properly speaking, ter-
minated the historical career of the abb^. With nis keen penetra-
tion Siey^s at once saw that he had met his master. He preserved,
however, greater coolness and resolution than Bonaparte; but he
said the next day * We have our master: he knows every thing,
he wills every thing : he can do every thing.' Theory had given
up the reins to Action; convinced that his province was to
counsel not to guide, Sieyes resigned to more vigorous hands the
rudder of the state. He would not consent to be second consuL
With him the reign of theories passed away.

Bonaparte, however, knew the value of the abbe's ideas and in
a great measure accepted them. Indeed from 1800 to 1814 all
the constitutions were modelled on the plans of Siey&s, whose
philosophy thus furnished the revolution with its fundamental
ideas, and the empire with its legislative forms. For himself he
refiised participation in power. Nevertheless the senate chose him
as their president, and the emperor made him a count. But he
resigned the presidency and took no share either in the counsels
or acts of the empire. He lived retired amongst a few friends who
shared his ideas. The empire had overturned his plans, the re-
storation troubled his existence. He was exiled for fifteen years.
He returned in 1830, and saw the revolution of Three Days com-
plete that of '89. And in the eighty-eighth year of his age he
expired in tranquillity and obscurity.

Siey^ was a remarkable man, Dut of limited capacity. He

Character of Sieyes. 393

had prodigioTis influence upon his times. He furnished the for-
muks of most of the pohtical doctrines then current. He saw
many of his ideas become institutions. But this led him to sup-
pose that ideas alone were of importance. He beUeved that every-
thing which could be admitted m philosophy could also be trans-
lated into act. Hence his imperious dogmatism, which made him
in every emer^ncy insist on his views teing accepted, or else prof-
fering his resignation. Like most of his contemporaries he ex-
aggerated the power of ideas; and would accept of no other
means than those furnished by his own philosophy. Although
unquestionably the greatest political thinker of nis day, he has
written nothing that will descend to posterity.

The subject of our next memoir is a type of some of the best
phases of French character. His career was full of incident and
interest ; the influence he exercised in his profession scarcely
less beneficial in its degree than that by Siey^s; and his character
more loveable. *

Fran§ois Joseph Victor Broussais was bom at St. Malo,
17th of December, 1772. His father was a physician of repute,
whose occupations allowed him little time to devote to the edu-
cation of his son. To the care of an amiable and enlightened
mother whom he tenderly loved, and the feeble instructions of hid
curate, Broussais was alone indebted for the education of his first
twelve years. But it is a mistake to suppose that time is lost,
when instruction is retarded. It may be so, perhaps, with- in-
ferior organizations; but men of superior abilities are the better
for becoming late learners; while the intellect is apparently imcul-
tivated, the character is being formed. Hence the youth of men
of genius has usually been unpromising.

Youn^ Broussais was left to grow hke a wild colt. He learnt
many things not to be taught in schools. Above all he learnt
fearlessness. His father often sent him during the night across
the country to carry medicines to his patients. Many a time he
was ignorant of the route, and let his horse carry him to the cot-
tage where his father had been during the day. The intrepid boy
thus traversed without hesitation, without fear, the dark lanes
and deserted fields, and many ill-famed roads, hardening himself
against the vague fears of the night, by accustoming mmself to
fiice real dangers. Even in his infancy he gave abundant proofs
of that energetic audacity which signahzed his manhood.

At the age of twelve, he was sent to the college of Dinan.
He there went through the classical studies with success. The
idle neglected boy showed when he set himself to work that his
inteUigence was more imcultivated than weak; and its vigour

394 Mignefs Historical Essays.

soon cnableid it to sui'pass in cultivation those men who had always
been learning. He had not only a more tenacious memory, but
a more precocious reflection.

He had not quite finished his studies when the Tevolutkai
burst out. His family embraced the cause of liberty. His ardent
and impetuous imagination was inflamed by it. The time arrived
for participation, the Prussians, in 1792, had advanced to Ver-
dun, and the alarm had roused the patriotism of all France.
Broussais, then twenty years of age, enrolled himself in a com-
pany of volunteers, of which he was named sergeant. In one of
the frequent encounters with les Chouans he signalized his force,
his generosity, and his courage. The company of voltmteers had
been surprised and beaten. In retreating, one of his comrades was
shot, and fell at his side. The war was without quarter, and^ the
enemy were but a few paces in arrear. Yet Broussais, at the peril
of being taken himself, stopped, lifted his wounded companion
upon his shoulders, and continued his retreat, his pace some-
what slackened by the burden. Les Chouans fired upon him.
One ball passed through his hat. But he escaped. Arrived at a
place of safety, he deposed his comrade on the ground ; and to
nis horror found him dead. He had run that risk to save a corpse !

He could not long animate the company with his example.
Seriously ill, he was obUged to return to his family ; and on his
recovery he embraced the paternal profession. His progress in
study was rapid ; and having attended the hospitals of St. Malo
and Brest, he was appointed surgeon to the frigate La JRenommee.
On the eve of departure he received a letter from the mayor
of St. Malo, which commenced in these terrible words : * TremUe
in receiving this letter !*.... It announced that the house of his
aged parents had been attacked by les Chouans, who had mur-
dered them both and mutilated their bodies. The grief and in-
dignation felt by Broussais cannot be described. Forty years
afterwards, 5ays Mignet, he became pale as he spoke of it.

Broussais served in the war against England, in the frigate?
L^Hirondelle and Le Bougainville. But he could not always re-
main a mere naval surgeon, and resolved on completing his medi-
cal studies in Paris and taking the doctor's degree. He arrived
there in 1799. He there became the friend of the illustrious
Bichat, whose works subsequently influenced his own theories.
After vainly endeavouring to secure a practice, Broussais turned
his views towards the army, and was appointed Medicin aide'
rncnor. In 1805, he joined the camp, and followed the army to
Uhn, Austerlitz, and through its victorious course over Europe.
He was eminently fitted for an army physician ; robust, indefii-
tigable, brave, decided, and sympathising : he was prodigal of his

Memoir of Broussais. 395

attention to the soldiers in spite of the most imminent perils; and
carried his spirit of observation into every caiflp. Transported
now to Holland, now to Austria, now to Italy; passing from the
mists and fogs of the north to the warmth of thie souSi, he had
many opportunities of observing the various effects of climate on
men of various constitutions; and thus guided, he followed the
history of each malady from its commencement to its end, de-
scribing the symptoms and variations with their causes. Con-
sumption especially attracted his attention. He collected and
compared the results of many observations ; and in 1808, having
obtained conge, returned to Paris and published his ' Histoire des
Phlegmasies^' In this work he declared that the majority of
chronic maladies were the results of an acute inflammation ill cured.
Inflammation was the starting point, he said, of disease. He de-
scribed the march of this excessive stimulation, which drew the
blood in too great quantities to the inflamed organs, changing
there the condition of life, and after introducing disorder in the
fimctions, disorganized the tissue, and produced death. His re-
searches on inflammation of the lungs were very remarkable ;
but were eclipsed by those on inflammation of the intestinal
canal. He drew attention to the fact, that this was the seat of
various diseases hitherto supposed to have their origin elsewhere.

His work did not at the time obtain the success it merited.
Books at that epoch made little noise. The sound of Napoleon's
exploits drowned every other. Nevertheless, Broussais was flat-
tered by the appreciation of several eminent men, among them
Pinel and Chaussier. Appointed principal physician to a regi-
ment of* the army in Spain, he set off gaily on foot for the
Peninsula, filled with the conviction of his power, and determined
on producing a complete and striking system.

After the peace of 1814, appointed second professor at the
military hospital of Val-de -Grace, he commenced his long con-
templated reform, by the promulgation of his doctrine of phy-
siological medicine, towards the formation of which a personal
accident had contributed. The anecdote is characteristic. Seized
with a violent fever at Nimfegue, Broussais was attended by two
of his friends, who each prescribed opposite remedies. Embar-
rassed by such contradictory opinions he would follow neither.
Believing himself in danger, he got out of bed in the midst
of this raging fever, and, almost naked, sat down to his escru-
toire and arranged his papers. This was in the month of
January, and the streets were covered with snow. While he
was thus arranging his affairs, the fever abated, and a sensa-
tion of freshness and comfort suffused itself throughout hia
fi»me. Struck with this imforeseen result, Broussais, to whom

396 Mignets Hist&ricdl Essays.

every thing was an object of reflection, converted Ms improdence
into an experience. Becoming bold by observation, he opened
the window, and inspired for some time the cold air fiom without
Finding himself better, he concluded that a cool drink woidd be
as refreshing to his stomach as the cold air had been to his body.
He drank quantities of lemonade, and in less than forty-eight
hours was cured.

Broussais' doctrine was briefly this : Haller had discovered the
irritability and contractility of the muscular fibre; but this dis-
covery had hitherto been sterile. Broussais made it his point of
departure. It was according to him the fimdamental phenomenfxi
of all the organic functions. He said there was a vital force
which presided at the formation of the tissues. Once fc^rmed,
these tissues were kept alive by a living chemistry (*chimie
vivante'). This acted by means of the. irritability which was
induced by air, light, caloric, aliments, &c., and provoked the
organs to the ftilfilment of their functions. Everywhere the same
in nature, but imequally distributed among the diverse animal
tissues, this irritability consisted in a contractale movement, which
called all the fluids towards the point excited, where nutriticm
and the fimctions of the organ were effected. So long as the
regular distribution and exercise were preserved, the vital phe-
nomena were performed with the requisite harmony. But when
the stimulating action of the natural agents became excessive or
deficient; when the lungs were too excited by the air, the sto-
mach by aliment, the br^ by impressions and its own impulsions;
when the quantity of caloric necessary for the body was exceeded,
or not obtained, or was badly distributed, the afBux of fluids was
superabundant towards the excited organs, their tissues became
choked and inflamed, their nutrition was imperfectly effected, their
fonctions were troubled, and disease succeeded. This excitation
differs from the regular and healthy excitation only in quantity,
and by no means in quality. It was either excessive or deficiait.
The excess and duration of the irritation produced a progressive
alteration in the tissue of the organ, and, by a prolonged alteration
death. Every disease arising in one organ would sympathetically
affect every other organ. When this sympathy aflected the heart
and multiplied its contractions, it accelerated the circulation of the
blood, and produced fever, which was not the cause but the eflfect
of a disease. The organ the most exposed by nature to numerous
and serious disorders was the intestinal canal, which Broussais
considered the principal seat of irritations.

According to this system disease being either the want or the
excess of irritability in an organ, the method of cure consisted in
diminishing this irritability where it was too greats and increaong

Memoir ofBroussais. . 397

it *wlien too feeble. Debilltants and stimulants were the sole means.
Such was the doctrine; and although subsequent writers and ex-
perience have shown that it was only a rash hypothesis which mis-
took the part for the whole, yet with all its faults it is impossible
not to be struck with its eminently philosophical nature; the
hypothesis may have been rash, but it was a happy rashness: one
of those magnanimous errors by which science is propelled: an
error leading to the truth. Broussais first ej^osed his system in
the lecture-room of the Rue du Foin, which Bichat had made il-
lustrious. A numerous crowd attended him; his system made a
noise; his reputation grew daily. The doctrine he taught was
new and easy of comprehension; he taught it with an eloquence
as rare as it was fascinating. The room became too small for the
audience. He went to the larger theatre in the Rue des Gr^s, and
was soon enabled to lecture in the Hospital of Val de Grace. He
revived the marvellous success of the professors duriag the mid-
dle ages. The powerful eloquence of the master drew along with
it the exaltation of disciples. The doctrine of irritation became
an article of medical faitn, having its fanatics, and, if needed, its
martyrs. Most characteristic is it of the French youth that this
doctrine firequently provoked duels amongst the students.

Broussais did not content himself with oral exposition. He
published his celebrated * Examen des Doctrines Medicales :* a
code of rules dogmatically stated, and a critical history of the
various systems from Hippocrates to Pinel. The success of this
work completed the struffffles of its author, and procured him the
undisputed throne of medical science.

But practice is the touchstone of theories; above all in medi-
cine. It is not enough for a theory to satisfy the intelligence, it
must also cure diseases. The system of Broussais wanted this last
proof to consoKdate its success. Unhappily people continued to
die as often as before. The system excited suspicion; opposition
contrived its overthrow. It was contended that irritation was not
the oriffin of all organic troubles; the diseased state had other
causes man the phenomena of a healthy state, differing not alone in
quantity but in quality. Broussais nad been too exclusive, too
rash in generalizing. Nevertheless his merits were great, in-
contest&ble. He had discovered inflammation to be one great
general cause of disease; he had followed the course of its pro-
gress in the various tissues; he had shown that chronic maladies
were the results of acute ones ill cured; and had pointed out the
organs which were their seat. His localization oi disease was the
Hiost eminently scientific part of his theory; it enabled the phy-
acian to practise a more regular treatment, and to obtain a more

398 Migneis Historical Essays.

certain diagnosis. Moreover he called attention to the intestinal
canal as the seat of many disorders, hitherto unsuspected.

The next step in his career was marked by his work, * De
rirritation et de la Fohe/ his object in which was to make psy-
chology dependant upon physiology. The idea had before been
worked out by Cabanas. Broussais brought his new medical
doctrines to bear upon it. He pushed the materialism of the day
to its extremes. He recognised nothing in man but organization
and its functions. Man feels by his nerves ; in the viscera are formed
his instincts and passions; in the brain his thoughts; in his entire
organization resides his personality. The development of the
brain, and the different degrees of its excitation, cause the dif-
ferences of intellectual phenomena. The weakest produce instincts,
which are the debuts of intelligence. The strongest produce
genius, which is the maximimi of normal excitement. If this
umit be passed, deliriiun ensues; if the excess cx)ntinues, madness is
the consequence. Imbecility is nothing more than the want of
cerebral action ; madness is the diseased state of excitation in the
organ. We have only to notice the effect of stimulants or sopori-
fics on the brain to perceive the truth of this theory. The vigour
of manhood and the decline of old age is equally convincing.
Men of genius have always been men of excitable nerves; their
genius indeed has been nothing but this excitability. A cup of
coffee or a glass of wine will change the languid, perhaps ex-
hausted, orator or student, into an animated speaker or thinker,
with full command over his intelligence. How so? Simply be-
cause the coffee and wine are stimulants : they send the blood in
increased quantities to the brain, there provoking increased irri-
tation, and consequently increased functional action.

' L'Irritation et la Folie' excited a fierce war amongst the op-
posite schools of physiologists and psychologists: its great^
adversaries were the msciples of the school then forming firom the
Scotch and German doctriaes amalgamated into a pompous and
empty system of eclecticism: perhaps the most unscientific sys-
tem ever promulgated.

Broussais, who had been hitherto adverse to phrenology,'wa3
now led by his own theories to espouse its cause. It had two
very considerable attractions for him : it was new and it was con-
tested; these exactly suited one of his ardent, inquiring, and po-
lemical disposition. He taught it with his accustomed energy,
recklessness, and dogmatism.

But his end was now approaching. He had been long subject
to a slow and cruel disease. He was aware of his danger, and
followed the progress of the malady with the same scrutinizing
coolness that he would have observed with another. He kept a

Memoir ofDestutt de Tracy. 399

journal in which he registered every symptom, every pain, all ac-
cidents and their influence, all operations, and all the consequences
which he foretold. Thus did the philosopher rise above the man.
The last three days of his life he passed in the country. • In spite
of his extreme weakness and his approaching end he <ud not cease
working. He dictated an essay a few hours before expiring.
Shortly afterwards he was seized with the violent agonies oi
death. An organization so powerful could not easily be dis-
solved; death was difficult. At length he suddenly raised him-
self in his bed, uttered a piercing shriek, sank back again, and with
. an almost lifeless hand closed the lids upon his eyes, and breathed
his last.

The philosopher we are next to write the memoir of, though
not so great a man as Broussais, has perhaps a more European
reputation. Destutt de Tracy did not bring new and valuable
discoveries to advance the science he taught; but he systematized
the discoveries of his predecessors, and his writings may be re-
garded as the logical development of Condillac and the eighteenth
century.

Antoine Louis Claude Destutt de Teacy was bom the
20th of July, 1754. He was descended from an ancient Scotch
family of the De Stutt clan, who fought in the Scotch guard of
Charles VII. and Louis XI. His ancestors continued to follow a
military life. His father commanded the king's gendarmerie at
the battle of Minden, and was left for dead on the field. He was
discovered almost buried beneath a heap of bodies by one of his
followers, who carried him away upon his back. He lingered for
two years, but finally expired of his woimds. Just before his
death he addressed his son, then only eight years old, in the fol-
lowing martial manner : * Antoine, this does not frighten you,
eh? this will not disgust you with your father's profession?' The
child cried, and promised to be worthy of his race.

This promise he fulfilled. The young de Tracy became an ac-
complished cavalier. Few could compete with him <i Vescrime^
or in the manige ; few swam so well, or danced more gracefully.
The future ideologist, indeed, once invented a quadrille which
retains to this day his name. He was enrolled among the mous-
quetaires du roi; was soon provided with a regiment of the
Dauphin's cavalry; and at two-and-twenty became colonel in the
second regiment of the royal cavalry. He was not, however,
what is significantly called a sabreur, his accomplishments were
not purely military. The philosophy of the epoch had fascinated
him as well as so many of his contemporaries. He paid Voltaire
a visit at Femey.

400 Migne£s Historical Essays,

In 1776 he became Comte de Tracy by the death of his grand-
father, from whom he inherited a large fortune. He bo<mi after
married Madlle. de Dufort-Civrac, a near relative of the Due de
Penthievre, who gave him the command pf his own regiment.
De Tracy was five-and-thirty when the revolution commenced.
Attached to the interests of his province, devoted to the pdlitical
principles which animated France, he took an active share in the
provincial affairs, and was named by the Bourbonnais nobilitjr
one of tiie three deputies to the ^tats-gen^raux, in 1789. Bound
by his position, De Tracy coidd not jom the commons till the 28th
of June, when he did so with the majority of the nobiUty. As
soon as he was enabled to follow his convictions, he sat in the
Assembl^e Constituante, on the same side as tiie Due de Roche-
focauld and Greneral Lafayette.

After having assisted in accomplishing the revolution it was ne-
cessary to defend it. De Tracy was named mar^chal du camp by
M. de Narbonne tiien minister of war ; and commanded all 1&
cavalry of the army of the nortii under Lafayette.

Disgusted with the course the revolution had pursued, De
Tracy resigned his commission and retired to Auteuil, where he
found a cnoice society : Gondorcet, Cabanis, Maine de Biiau,
Madame Helvetius, and others. It was in this studious retreat
that his philosophical career began. Unsettled in his object, he
successively studied chemistry, physics, and psychology : at the
last he stopped, convinced that it was the most important and
the most ntting his disposition. He was snatched from these
studies by the miscreants of la terreur. The 2d November, 1793,
his house was surrounded, searched, and himself arrested and
conducted to Paris, where he was imprisoned in L'Abbaye. Be-
moved to the prison Des Cannes, he there spent the silent dreaiy
hours in meditation ; and laid the groimdwork of his philosophy.
He patiently studied all the writings of Condillac, and!^ afterwards
Locke. Finding them incomplete, he determined on a more
exact analysis of thought. During this study he was daily ex-
pecting to hear his own name pronounced in tiie corridor, aad
to see the door of his cell open, and to be led forth to execu-
tion. The day on which he was to be tried (and to be tried was to
be condemned) was fixed for the 11th Thermidor. The eventful
9th saved him by immolating in tiieir turn those who had sacri-
ficed so many. Li the peaceftd retreat of Auteuil, De Tracy
elaborated the system which he had conceived in jwison. This
system was an ideological reduction of all tiiought to sensation.
JPenser €?est sentir. Perception, memory, judgment, and will, are
but the sensations of objects, sensations of recollections, sensa-
tions of relations, and sensations of desires.

Memoir of Destutt de Tracy. 401

This rests upon a quibble which we need not expose, but it
met with great' success.

Elected member of and secretary to the * Comite de I'lnstruc-
tion Publique,' he zealously assisted in the reorganization of
national education. After tne 18th Brumaire he was appointed
one of the first thirty senators. A year afterwards he married
his eldest daughter to the son of his old friend Lafayette. With
his friends at Auteuil he maintained the well-known opposition
to Napoleon, who in return covered the ideologues with emres-
sions of contempt. In his commentary on the * Esprit des .Lois/
M. de Tracy put forth all his political opinions, which met
with general approval. It remains to this day his most admired
work.

While thus in the vigour of his age, and with a reputation
daily increasing, his philosophical career was suddenly cut short.
In the year 1808 he lost his wife, and Cabanis his dearest friend.
These blows were too much for him. He ceased from that time
forward to study or to write: he lived only in his recollections.
This silence continued for thirty years.

The Academic Fran5aise, wiping to pay de Tracy a delicate
compliment, chose him as the successor to his friend Cabanis. He
wa,s a long time before he could summon the necessary courage to

S renounce the customary eloge of his deceased friend. When he
id appear it was with evident signs of affliction. ^Do not be
astonished,' he said, * at the grief which is here mingled with
my gratitude. The choice you have made to replace Cabanis is
one of the most honourable and flattering circumstances of my
life; the most flattering distinction I ever received. But I have
not the less experienced a terrible sorrow in this distinction,
which is owing to the deplorable loss I have sustained in the
friend I best loved.'

In becoming old he grew melancholy. Almost all his old
fidends had died, and most of his opimons }^ been combated
and replaced by newer ones. To crown all he had lost his eye-
sight. The only solace he enjoyed was in having Voltaire read
aloud to him. This first preceptor of his youth was now the
only author he could delight in. And thus, surrounded by his
children, he expired in the eighty-second year of his age.

With him perished the last systematic teacher of the mate-
rialism of the eighteenth century. The merits and errors of this
philosophy have been too often discussed for us to trouble the
reader with any disquisitions in the present place; suffice it that
the works of de Tracy were but the logical developments of its
principles.

( 402 )

Art. .Yl.^-^Be9ehreibuMg wm Kordqfim und ebdffen taiffr&menden
Zdndem. ■. (DescriptioB of Kordo&n and of some of Ae- idj(mi-
ing Counties ; with a Ronew of ihe Commesee/ HaMt8|' and
Manners of the Inhabitimlai and of the Slave HimtcsttfriSed on
under Mehemet All's GoTermnent.) Von Igna^ PAl!jLla£.
1843. ' •'

It has seldom been the fortune of anj man holdu^r# pqniiflfliast
position in the world's eye, to be painted in such Hfopomtfi Cflloiitt
Vcontempotaiy writers^ <4 has b^e pie««it d^StaZ^mm
of Egypt, and of almost all the rarious i^Qns wslUnnQdf.by.tte
Nile. The aristocratic traveUeXy delighted with the oompamlrfe
security with which he has been able to traverse the DmEStt^Ht
visit the Pyramids, and pleased, if not flattered, .I^y tjbe pmoml
civilities of the viceroy and his principal officers^ hisk zaeefyi^dkd
to return to Europe full of enthusiasm for the Egyptian vfjoniier.
The military traveller has been equally disposed to eulogy, by tke
appearance of a tolerably disciplined army, and, an iniposinff mi-
rme, while, at the same time, many Eiiropeans appointed to faifln-
tive offices under the viceroy's government, and naturally indiiied
to look favourably on one from whom they have th^ooaelviM re-
ceived favours, have not failed, through the medium of the pressi
in England as well as on the continent, to avail themselves of erezy
opportimity to sing the praises of their patron.

How different has been the character drawn of Mehemcft M
by travellers of a less elevated rank ! The foreign merchants resident
in Egypt have, with few exceptions, joined in unreserved coih
demnation of his government, as one characterized throughout by
hideous tyranny, the vices of which cannot be said to be redeemed
by an improved system of police, by a more courteous treatmeat
of strangers, or by the adoption of military discipline, and the
maintenance of a powerful navy, not reqidred for the protection
either of distant colonies or a foreign trade. The hostility of the
mercantile classes, however, Mehemet Ali has drawn upon himself,
not so much, by any political crime, as hj what the witty French
diplomatist declared to be worse than a cnme, — namely, a blunder.
By monopolizing all the most profitable branches of commerce,
he has made the foreign merchants one and all his enemies, and it
is to them, we believe, that the anonymous attacks upon him, that
so frequently find their way into the European newspapers, may,
with perfect confidence, be attributed.

The travellers, however, whose narratives are calculated to do
most injury to the viceroy's fame, are those who, like the author
of the work before us, have mingled frequently with the humbler

Tyranny of Mehemet AH. 403

classes of the people, and liave witnessed the workings of the r^
formed system of gOTemment on. the agnci:^ral population. In
noticuiig liie a{)pearanQe of ^ Russegg^'s TrBTelfl/*a few numbers
back^ we descrioed, in general teraw, the sweeping changes made
bj the viceroy fii the law regulating the tenure of land. Under
tne Mamelukea, the fellah or peasant of Egypt was generally the
owner of the land he tilled. He was often pillaged by his masters,
often treated by them with cruelty and caprice, still his land re-
mained to him, and as long as he felt Inmself the owner of the
8oil he dwcH 6% he might nope, from its teeming abimdance, to
lepkoe the* losses infBcted on him by occasional rapine. Under
Mehehit^ AH the Egyptian fellah stands not in fear of being plun-
dered, for he has too Uttle of his own left to tempt the cupidity of
ihe DppreBsor. The viceroy has appropriated to himself the whole
landed property of Egypt ; agriculture is conducted, perhaps, on
a better system than before, under the superintendence of inspec-
tonr appointed by the ffovemment ; but the former owners have
been reduced to mere labourers, often scantily remunerated for
their toil, and hopeless of ever raising themselves to their former
condition of landed proprietors.

If such is the picture drawn by Russegger of the peasantry, even
in the heart of the viceroy's dominions, m the country around the
great capital of Cairo, we need not be surprised to find the subor-
dinate authorities, in the remote provinces of the interior,indulging
in the most extravagant caprices of despotism. Of one of tnese
remote provinces we have an interesting picture in the book before
us. In no page do we find an expression of severity applied to
Mehemet -Aii. A plain and unpretending tale is told of what the
author saw during a nineteen months* residence in a country, in
which no fbrmer traveller had spent as many days, and this simple
tale, which carries with it the evidence of its own truth, lets us
into the details of a provincial administration replete with horrors,
the existence of which cannot be unknown to the viceroy, since
more than once he has had an account of them laid before him by
European travellers, and more than once he has solemnly promised
to provide a remedy for the evils complained of.

The province of Kordofan, the most southerly , and consequently
the most remote, of all Mehemet Ali's dominions, was conquered
by one of his sons-in-law in the year 1821, but continued for a
long time unknown to Europeans. Even on maps of a very re-
cent date, our readers will look in vain for the country, and in
some of the latest and best reputed geographical works we have
not been able to meet with any information respecting it. The

* See * Foreign Quarterly Review/ No. LIX.
VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIV. 2 E

404 Pallme's Travels in Kordofan.

few Europeans who of late years have visited Kordofan have
seldom prolonged their stay beyond a few days, in a eaunttT> the
climate of which is deadly even to the Egyptians. Our autliLor is
the first who has braved this fatal climate, without &lling a victun
to its influence, and his description of Kordoian may be eonsidered
the first authentic account that has ever been oflferea to a Buropean
public.

Ignaz Pallme is a ]^oun^ Bohemian, who went early in life to
Alexandria, where a sitiiation had been jHTOcured for him as cl^
in a mercantile house. The partners of the house in queaticm, be^
lieving that a profitable commerce might be established with the
interior of Africa, determined to send one of their clerks aq far «
j>ossible up the country, with a view to the coUectioH of kforma*
tion. Pallme was thought particularly well qualified for tfaas
mission. He had already been sent on several expeditions iialo
the interior, had made himself acquainted with the numners of
the people, and had acquired a perfect knowledge of the Arabic
language. He accepted the ofier with alacrity, though fully awaie
of most of the dangers and hardships to whidi he was about to be
exposed. He traversed the country in every direction, attend
by one servant, and sometimes entirely alone; was obe day the
guest of a Turkish governor, and the next perhaps shared the
frugal meal of a camel driver in the desert, mingling now in the
busy throng of a bazaar, and lying down on the morrow tmd^a
straw shed, to struggle with a fever from which neither he nor his
kind Moorish nurses ever expected him to recover. He did,
however, recover, and returned to Alexandria, where he soon
became a sort of lion, a man to be visited by all travellers about to
penetrate into the interior. Several detached papers, written b?
him in Egypt, even found their way to England, and were read
before some of our scientific societies. It was the French travelkr
Abbadie, however, who eventually induced Pallme to put the re-
sults of his experience in Kordofan upon paper in a complete fima,
and in compliance with the urgent advice of Abbadie the volume
now before us makes its appearance, about three years after the
young Bohemian's return from the scenes which he describes ia a
style graphic, lively, and entertaining.

Kordofan, as we have already remarked, is laid down only in a
few of the maps of Africa. It lies between Sennaar and Dwfour,
between the 12th and 15th degrees of N. latitude, and its aqpi-
tal, Lobeid, which is situated nearly in the centre of the country,
is crossed by the 30th degree of eastern longitude. To the north
the province is bounded by the desert of Dongola; to the west
by Darfour, a country that still maintains its mdependence, in
defiance of Mehemet Ali's power; to the south the limits are

Brutal Tyranny of a Turlmh Gwernor. 405

undefined, varying almost eveij year, aocording as a greater or
leas nuoaber of nomadic tribes can be induced to pay tribute, and
xecognise tbe authjprity of the Egyptian viceroy. The Bahr-el*
Abiad» or White Nile, cuts off a part of Eastern Kordo&n; but
ia point of &ct the pasture grounds on the banks of that river
are occupied by the flocks and herds of Semiaar, and the people
of Kordofan make no attempt to establish a claim to those nch
ineadows. With the exception, however, of the White Nile,
£!ordo&n has neither river nor brook in its whole extent. The
eoontacy^ in. fact, is a duster of oases covered with a vegetation of
inconceivable luxuriance during the rainy season, but presenting
^a appearance of parched-im desolation during eight months of
lieat and drought, when the thermometer, in the shade, often
lises to 40 degrees of Reaumur, and neither man nor beast dares
■ramose himself to the scorching rays of the midday sun.

l)uring the rainy season the chmate is pernicious, not merely
to strangers, but even to the natives, for not a house is then free
Sram fever. As the dry season sets in, the fevers vanish, but the
extreme heat of the day, and the coldness of the night, are often
the cause of severe colds, and these are frequently followed by
almost immediate death.

Pallme gives uis a brief history of ICordofan during the last
nxty or seventy years. It is simcient to say that the country
waa first tributary to Sennaar, was afterwards conquered by the
Sultan of Darfour, and that under both these foreign domina^
tions the people appear to have been prosperous and happy, car-
rying on a profitable trade with their neighbours, and enjoying a
tolerable share of freedom, their foreign masters seldom interfering
with them, if the stipulated tribute was punctually paid. Since
the Egyptian conquest, however, all the outward signs of prospe-
nty have disappeared, and entire towns and villages have been
left untenanted, in consequence of the flight of their inhabitants
over the borders of Darfour.

The first governor of Kordofan, after the conquest, was the
Deftaidar, the son-in-law of Mehemet Ali. * I would have treated
the accounts I heard of the atrocities of this man,' says Pallme,
* as mere fables, had not the tales that were told me by the natives
been confirmed by respectable witnesses in Sennaar, and even by
Turkish officers whom I questioned on the subject in Egypt,
many of whom had been present at the scenes they described.*
He then proceeds to relate a few anecdotes of this ruthless tyrant;
but as the Defterdar was eventually deposed, on the ground of
his oppressive government, Mehemet Ali can only be held par-
tially responsible for this man's crimes. Yet a few specimens of
his adijainistration of criminal justice may not be misplaced here.

2£ 2

406 Pallme^s Travels in Kordofan,

A peasant who complained of having been robbed of a sheep by
a soldier was blown from the mouth of a cannon for tiouoling
the Defterdar with so insignificant a complaint ; a servant who
had stolen a pinch out of the Defterdar's snuff-boix was flogged to
death ; a man who had boxed his neighbour's ear was pumsbed
by having the flesh cut away firom the palm of his hands; and a
negro, who having bought some milk refused to pay for it, and
denied having drunk it, had his stomach ripped open, to ascertain
whether the accusation was well founded. In nis garden the
Defterdar had a tame Uon generally confined in a cage, but
sometimes allowed to follow his master about in his walks. Thu
animal had been taught to fly with the utmost apparent ferocity
at every stranger who appeared, and the favourite amusement
of the Defterdar was to look on and enjoy the terror of his
visiters when suddenly attacked by the lion. On one occasioa
eighteen of his domestic servants, in paying their customaiy
compliments on the festival of the Baeram, intimated that they
were all sadly in want of shoes. He told them their wants should
be supphed, and on the following day actually ordered eighteen
pair of iron horseshoes to be nailed to the feet of his poor de-
pendants, who, in this condition, were ordered to repair to their
several avocations. Mortification ensued almost immediately
with nine of them, who died amid frightful tortures, and then
only did the ruflSan allow the survivors to be unshod, and con-
signed to the care of a surgeon.

" Several volumes," says Pallme, " would be fiUed if I were to tdlall
the well-authenticated acts of atrocity committed by this human tiger
in Kordofan and Sennaar. Not a day passed on which some poor
wretch or other did not fall a victim to the tyrant's thirst for Uood.
He was quite a genius in the invention of new tortures, and seldom
failed to impart a character of novelty to each succeeding execution.
I myself saw many whose noses, ears, and tongues had been cut off by
his orders, or whose eyes had been torn out, and who wandered about
as living evidences of the cruelty of their oppressor. To be known to be
possessed of wealth was certain death, for a pretext was never wanting
for accusing the unhappy owner of some imaginary crime. By pro-
ceedings such as these the Defterdar was supposed to have amassed
immense treasures, when Mehemet All, wearied at length by the inces-
sant complaints raised against his son-in-law, found means to depose
him from his governorship by causing to be administered to him a dose
of poison. Since then the government has become somewhat milder,
and some check has been placed on the arbitrary conduct of the public
officers ; still, their distance from the seat of government makes itimpos'
sible for the inhabitants to compMn of the numberless acts of oppres-
sion to which they continue to be subjected.^

Extortions of the Military, 407

One of M^hemet AliVnegroinfantry regiments is generally sta-
taoned in Kordofan, and in the colonel of the regiment is now vested
the civil and military government of the province. The colonel
does not, however, exercise an independent command, being liable
to receive orders from the Pasha of Khartoom, whose authority
extends over the whole of Belled Soodan and Dongola, and who,
in all questions of importance, must confirm the decisions of the in-
ferior officer. This, however, our author assures us is little more
than ^ matter of form.

■* When we are told that the government has become milder since
the removal of the Defterdar, we suppose we are merely to under-
stand that it has become less sanguinary, for the governors who
have succeeded him, appear to have all been equally anxious to
enrich themselves by the plunder of the natives. Nor is this all.
Ite province is divided into five circles, and over each circle, the
colonel appoints one of the officers of his regiment to act as
Kasheff, or chief magistrate. Now each Kasheff thinks that he owes
itto himself and his femily, to make as much as he can by his civil
appointment, and they have constant opportunities to annoy those
villages that have not been prudent enough to conciliate the good
will of their Kasheff by a well-timed gift. Each Kasheff has a
corporal or two with him, and these also must be kept in con-
stant good humour by the heads of the villages. Nay, the very
Copt who acts as clerk to the Kasheff, expects to share in the
plunder. All other public appointments are sold by the governor
to the best bidder, and the purchaser looks to recover his capi-
tal with abundant interest in two or three years, for beyond that
time he must not expect to hold office, as his place will be wanted
for some other speculator willing to pay a high price for the pre-
vilege of oppressing and plundering his countrymen. Now and
then some nagrant act of rapacity draws down upon its author the
v^geance of the viceroy, and the offender is either put to death
or removed to some other province, after the whole of his ill-
gotten wealth has been confiscated; not, however, for the benefit
of. those who have been plundered, but to enrich the viceregal
treasury at Cairo.

An eastern proverb says, * Where a Turk sets his foot the grass
withers,* and withering mdeed seems to have been the influence
of Turkish authority upon the ill-starred province of Kordofan,
where penury and apathy have succeeded to industry and abund-
ance, tall a general insurrection seems to be the only event from
which relief can be anticipated. Such an event Pallme looks
upon as likely to occur at no very remote period, and if the at-
tempt should be attended by success, it is not probable that the

408 PaUme*8 Travels in JSCardqfan.

country will be reconquered. At the time of tKe first conquest,
the people of Kordolan were totally unacquainted with the use of
fire-arms. They are now better imormed on this subject, and in
case of a sudden rising, they would find in the government
arsenals the means of arming a large force for the defence of the
country.

The government taxes are levied upon each village in ready
money, and the stipulated sum must be paid, even should the
year's harvest have been utterly destroyed by the locusts. If no
money is forthcoming, the cattle of a village is seized, and if this
should not suffice to make up the amount, a number of the in-
habitants are taken, and either enrolled in a re^ment or sold as
slaves for the account of government. Mehemet Ali has very
complacently received the congratulations of English phiknthro-
pists for the abolition of the slave trade in his southern dominions,
but we believe with Pallme, that the crafty old fellow has never
ceased for a moment to be the greatest slave merchant, and the
most extensive kidnapper throughout the whole of his dominions,
and probably in the whole world. The great slave hunts which
are annually made from Kordofan into the mountainous countries
inhabited by the independent neffroes, are a regular source of
revenue to the viceroy, and furnish him with recruits for his
army, and funds for the pajrment of his troops on the Upper
Nile.

While these detestable means are had recourse to for the collec-
tion of a revenue, — and it is only a few of the abuses enumenied
by Pallme, of which we have made mention, — ^we need not be sur-
prised to learn that the great natural resources of the country «e
entirely neglected.

" The sugar-cane," says Pallme, " grows wild, and is even then of a
superior quality ; for indigo the soil is, m many places, admirably suited,
and various other valuable articles of commerce might be grown irith
ease. No less than 20,000 head of cattle might with ease be sent to
Egypt every year, but their conveyance must be entrusted to more za-
lional drivers than has been the case hitherto with die cattle seized in the
country. No attempt has yet been made to derive any profit from the
great gum forests of Nuba, from which alone a revenue nuig^t be drawn)
far greater than is derived horn the atrocious slave hunts. From tea to
twenty thousand cantari of gum might be collected eveiy year io the
Nuba mountains, and two cautari of gum would be worth more than a
slave, though they would be obtained with &r less cost and trouble*
When Mehemet Ali was travelling to Fazoklo, and acddentaUy met a
column of slaves, he ordered them all to be set at liberty. Why wai
this? Because there were several Europeans in his suite. In Koraofiui)
at the very same time, the delivery of the stipulated number of 5000 m«n
was rigorously enforced. I was the only European in KordofEtn at

Structure of the Houses, 409

time, and the governor condescended to request that I would not for-
ward to Europe an account of what I saw."

Those who wish to read in all their frightful details the horrors
of Mehemet Ali's slave hunts, will find a full account of them in
the ' British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Reporter' for January,
1841. The article was written by Pallme, at the request of Dr.
Madden, and was communicated by the doctor to the periodical in
question. It is reprinted by the author in the present work.
Enough, however, for the present, of the administrative abuses
of a distant province, blessed by being subjected to the sway of
80 exemplary a political reformer. Let us turn a little to the do-
mestic life of the people themselves.

^^ The houses, called tukholi in Kordofan, are of an extremely simple
construction. They are generally from ten to twelve feet in diameter,
and of a circular form. Each has a single aperture, that serves at once
as door, window, and chimney, and is just large enough to admit a man,
provided he incline his body sufficiently. All the houses of a village are
as like each other as so many eggs, and neither in the material nor in
the system of architecture lias there probably been any change durin? a
long series of centuries. A number of wooden poles are stuck into the
ground in a circle, according to the required dimensions, and the poles
are bent inward so as to meet at the top. The form of the whole is that
of a large sugar loaf. The poles are wen connected with a kind of bas-
ket work, and the whole covered with a close thatch of straw. The ends
of the poles at the top form a nest ready built, which is never long left
imtenanted, for some stork or other is sure to take up his quarters there.
Simple as is the construction of these houses, they are generally so well
built, that the roof seldom lets in a drop of water, even during the heaviest
* showers of the rainy season. Of these tukkoli, from two to five are ge-
nerally erected for the use of one family, and the whole homestead
is then surrounded by a hedge of thorns, in which is a g^te likewise well
strengthened with thorns, that is carefully closed every time that any one

foes in or out. This is not done from any apprehension of thieves or
urglars, but merely to keep out the hungry vagrant camels, who would
else eat away the roof, and reduce the house to a skeleton, in an incre-
dibly short tune. These thorny indosures are a great inconvenience to
ia stranger, who, until he becomes familiarized with them, seldom passes
in or out without tearing his skin, or leaving part of his wardrobe to
adorn the prickly fence. The expense of such a house is so trifling, that
the poorest man may build himself his own tukkoli. The wood may be
cut m the forests without any charge being made for it, and from five to
ten piasters (less than two shillings) will procure straw enough to make
a roof that will set the heaviest rain at defiance. Workmen's wages
there are none to pay, for every neighbour is ready to lend a hand, and
when the house is finished, the whole fabric is so light, that if a man
finds he has settled in a neighbourhood that displeases him, he has
but to call in some ten or a dozen of his friends, who with very little ce-

410 Pallme^s Traveb in Kordqfan.

jemony take, the mapsion to pieces, and put it together again in a few
hours m a more suitable locality. If a fire breaks out^ no one thuiks of
extinguishing it, but all the neighbours immediately apply themael?e8 to
the demolition of their own houses, in order that they ipay convey the
materials, and their little articles of furniture, out of the reach of dai^.
Whole villages have sometimes been taken up and removed in this way,
when the ground on which they stood happened to be infected by aa in-
sect called the * kurat,' that burrows under the sand, whence it issues in
astonishing numbers if any one happens to place any naked part of the
body on the ground. The bite of this creature is most severe. A straw mat,
however, simply laid upon the sand, is generally a sufficient protection
against the diminutive enemy. The more wealthy inhabitants of a town
or village have often, in addition to their tukkoll, a somewhat larger hot,
of a square form, with two entrances, to allow a free current of air to pass
through. These larger houses, called * rakuba,' are not, however, equally
proof against the torrents that fall in the rainy season. In Bari and
Lobeid, where there are several Turkish and Dongolavi residents, more
spacious houses, built in the Egyptian style, are often to be seen, and
though the walls are rarely formed of more substantial materials than
wood and sand, with a covering of mortar, their appearance is generally
remarkably neat, and it is surprising how well they resist the weather.
Still, in the rainy season, they are not as water-tight as the common
tukkoli. I have myself lodged in such a house, and found my mnhirella
a useful piece of furniture, both by day and by night.

" The internal arrangement of one of these tukkoli is of correspond-
ing simplicity. The angareb, or bedstead, a frame with straps of
leather ^stened across, serves as a sofa during the day. A leathern
shield and a few lances generally hang against the wall. A water-pot,
a kettle for boiling food in, a vessel for brewing merissa, a kind of beer,
an earthem dish for baking bread in, a wooden dish or two, and a few
gourds to drink from, constitute the principal household implements.
Milk is kept in little rush baskets, so closely plaited, that, aft;er they
have been steeped some time in boiling water, they will hold any fluid,
without allowing a drop to ooze out. All articles of food must be hung
up, to protect them from the depredations of mice and white ants.
These insects are a real plague to the country. They even eat away the
woodwork of a house, till they bring the whole tenement about the ears
of its inmates. The only way to secure any thing against them is to
place it on stones, up which tney never attempt to creep, nor do they
vriDingly expose themselves to tne open air.

" No stabling of any kind is ever erected for the cattle. These are
simply driven into the thorn-fence above described, which is expected
to serve as a defence against any wild beasts that may be prowling
about. A hungry lion or hyena, nowever, will sometimes cany off ^
sheep, in spite of the best fence."

The wants of so simple a race, living in a tropical climate, and
on a soil that jrields abundantly in return for very little labour,
are of course easily supplied, and as the hateful slave-trade to

A temptinff Breahjhst, 411

which we have already atHuded, places it ift th(&! powef almost of
the poorest to secure to himself the compulsory labour of a fellow-
creature, we need feel no surprise at learning that a large pi*ppor-
tlon of the population generally spend their time in utter indo-
lence. At daybreak they all leave their couches (the meanest
slave has his mat of reeds to lie on), and having performed die
ablutions prescribed by their religion, they prepare to apply them-
selves to the avocations pf the day. These, with many of them,
consist in- sitting down upon the ' angareb,' on which they had
l)efoi:e been lying. Should a stranger pay a morning visit, a pipe
^and a bowl of meris^a will be ioifered to him, but the natives sel-
dom, breakfast till they have been up several hours. Coffee may
beJiad at a low price from Abyssinia, but is used only by the
Turks, and the coffeehouse at Lobeid, the only one in the country,
is never visited by the natives. We must give, however, in our
author's own words, his account of a native breakfast to which he
was invited by a wealthy proprietor in the country.

« On arriving at the appointed hour, I was invited to sit down on an
angareb, covered with rich carpets, and a pipe and merissa were brou^t
xne; but I saw no preparations for breakfast, not so much as a nre
on the hearth. I was satisfied there was no intention to put me off
with a pipe and merissa; so, as I had not much time to spare, I asked
my host, without much ceremony, where the break&st was. He told
me it would be ready directly, and, pointing to a sheep that was skipping
about in front of the door, said, he had only waited for my arrival to
have it killed. At a signal irova his master, a slave cut off the creature's
head with surprising rapidity, and then, without even waiting to skin
ihe animal, ripped open its belly, took out its stomach, cleaned it, and
having cut it in smaU pieces, laid these on a wooden dish. He then
took Uie gall bladder, and squeezed it over the tempting fragments^ ais
we in Europe might squeeze a lemon. After this, a liberal allow-
ance of red pepper was shaken over the whole, and our breakftust was
ready, the operations I have described having all been completed in
a surprisingly short time. I was invited to fall to before the delicate
morsel cooled, but I excused myself by saying that so exquisite a dish
would not agree with a European stomach,* and that I would content
myself vrith looking on. I was laughed at for my bashfuln^s, and the
rest of the party evidently enjoyed the fare set before them. In the
sequel, I frequently saw this dish served up as a fistvourite delicacy, and
curiosity led me to taste it. The flavour is by no means disagreeable.
The pungency of the pepper and the bitterness of the gall completely
neutralise the rawness of the meat. Nevertheless I never could prevail
on myself to eat heartily of the choice morsels."

Pallme, though he had seen so much of oriental life, was sur-
prised by the matchless indolence of his Kordofan friends. The
women attend to some domestic duties, but where a female slave

412 PdUme's Travels in Kordqfan.

can be liad for a few shillings, the majority of the free ladies find
means to spend the greater part of the time, like their lords,
recumbent on the angareb, tul some occurrence or other rouses
them to imwonted excitement. They are too indolent to quarrel,
and if disputes are rare, blows are still more so. Sometimes
young xmmarried men will fight out a quarrel of love or rather of
jealousy, * but the married are more tolerant on this point,' and
rarely allow their peace to be disturbed by the suggestions of the
yellow monster. The laws of a Kordofan duel, however, are
pecuUar in their way, and may not be undeserving the considera-
tion of some of our aspiring young heroes at home, who every now
and then are at such pains to prove their mettle by blowing a little
gunpowder at one another. Let us hear how two rival lovers in
Kordofan manage these matters.

'^ When fiiends have not been able to adjust the quarrel, a formal
defiance is sent. The duel takes place on some open ground, and all die
friends of the combatants assemble as spectators. An angareb is then
brought forth, and the two combatants place each a foot close to
the edge of the couch, the breadth of which alone divides them. A
formidahle whip, made of hippopotamus leather, is then placed in
the hand of each, and renewed attempts are made by their friends to
reconcile them. I^ however, they are bent on carrying out their afiair
of honour, the signal for battle is at last given. He who is entitled to
the first blow then inflicts as hard a lash as he can on his opponent, who
stands perfecdy still to receive the compliment, and then prepares to
return it. They then continue, turn and turn about, to flog eaeh others
backs and shoulders (the head must on no account be struck) while the
blood flows copiously at every stroke. It is a horrible spectacle, yet not
an acknowledgment of pain escapes the lips of either, and all the spec-
tators remain equally mute. This continues until one of the combatants,
generally from sheer exhaustion, drops his instrument of torture, where-
upon the victor immediately does the same, the rivals shake hands, de-
claring that they have received sufficient satisfaction, their friends con-
gratulate them on their reconciliation, their wounds are vrashed, and
sundry jugs of merissa, provided beforehand^ are produced and emptied
hy the spectators in honour of the gallant opponents."

The costume of both sexes is described as extremely simple.
The Dongolavi, the wealthiest of all the tribes, wear long shirts
with full sleeves and white turbans. As these articles of dress
are' rarely washed, they soon lose every vestige of whiteness, and
passing through a gradation of shades, are before long of the same
colour as the skins of their masters. The other tribes, women as
well as men, go bareheaded, and content themselves with a cotton
cloth wrapped round the loins, with the end thrown as a drapery
over the snoulders. Every man wears his dagger in a Aeath,

Female Finery, 413

fastened to his left arm. When going on a journey they arm
themselves more heavily with sword and lance.

Considerable care, and immense quantities of oil, butter, and
other oleaginous substances, are expended by the ladies of Kor-
dofan upon the arrangement of their hair. The coifiure, after
this laborious preparation continues glossy and black only till the
feir artist exposes herself to a cloud of dust, when her head is of
course powdered by the light sand. The oil and butter mean-
while become rancid in a very short time, when one whose ol-
factory nerves are at all susceptible, will find it difficult to endure
the proximity of a Kordofan beauty in fidl state. Pallme describes
the extreme inconvenience to which the women subject themselves
at night, in order to prevent the discomposure of their braids and
curls, but there are those still living who can remember when
English women submitted to at least equal sufferings for the sake
of their head-dresses, which were often arranged more than four
and twenty hours before the commencement of the ball at which
they were to be exhibited.

In their noses and ears the women wear rings of silver and brass.
Before the Egyptian conquest many of these rings were of gold, but
such costly ornaments are seldom seen now. If gold trinkets, how-
ever, are not to be had, brass, copper, and ivory are himg in pro-
fiision about their necks, arms, and legs; rows of bright glass beads
are wound among their hair, and wherever any thing bright and
tawdry can be m:ed to the person, the opportunity is not often
selected.

The slaves, of whom there are several attached to almost every
house, are, in general treated with kindness. They receive the
same fare as their masters, and wear the same scanty clothing. The
badge of servitude, however, is not wanting. This consists in heavy
iron rings fastened round the legs of the male slaves, to prevent them
from running away to their native hills, often almost in sight of
the house ot bondage. Attempts to escape are, nevertheless, fre-
quently made, though seldom successful, and it is for such offences
only that the slave is ever punished with severity. * I never saw
oaae of them flogged,' says Pallme, ' except for running away.*
Neglect of work is very leniently dealt with. Probably, a Kordofan
master can hardly find in his heart to be very severe upon idle-
ness in another, when he is so very indulgent to the same failing
in himself.

Our author speaks repeatedly in high terms of the kindness and
liospitality of the people. Thus, in one place —

<< I received so many proofs, of the goodness of their disposition, that,
in my own country, and among my nearest relatives, I could not have
looked for better treatment. I had the misfortune once to &U sick in
&B desert, 'viiiere, not having strength to rit upon a camel, I was ob^

414 Pallmes Travels in Kordofan.

liged to lie upon the sand till assistance came from the nearest village,
l3ds lay fiMtunately at only half an hour^s distance. A kind inhahit^
ant carried me into his hnt, where I remained on a bed for thirty days.
It is impossible to describe the interest shown for my sufferings by ^
good people. Night and day some of the women sat by my bedside,
keeping the flies off, and cooling me with hsis of ostrich, feothecs*^
More than, once I obeerred a pretty young slave girl — Agajni was her
name — shedding tears at the spectacle of my sufferings. I could .^tain
no relief from all the contents of my medicine chest, and after- the £^yer
had raged five days, I was so weak I could no lons^er stir, and had to be
lifted on and off my bed. For my own part, I looked upon death as
at hand, and unavoidable. Amulets and charms were tied to my arms
and laid u^der my head, to which I offered no resistance as I was un-
willing to offend my kind nurses. An old prophete^ wa^ even sent
for from a neighbouring village, who, after sundry incantations Over a
shell full of sand, decWed that the Frank would recover from hk iB-
ness. As soon as the wise woman was gone, my lady attendants lifted
me off my bed, pulled off my shirt, and placed me with my back against
the door. I felt now a sudden shock, and was unable to draw breath
for some moments. A large rush basket of cold water, fr«sh from the
well, had been poured over my body, heated as it was by a bumii^
fever. To hundreds the expenment would have caused instant death (?);
but mine was a strong constitution, and carried me tlurough. I was
immediately carefully dried, carried back to bed, and covered with
several empty sacks and sheepskins. I felt some relief, and had some
soimd sleep, a thing I had not enjoyed for many days. When I awoke
the women told me I had not sumciently perspired, and must haye
another shower bath. I offered no resistance, and the shock was kssi
this time, because I was prepared for what was coming. This time the
desired effect wais undoubtedly produced, for on awaking I could have
fancied myself still in a bath. The force of the fever was certwnly
broken, and I was soon strong enough to leave my bed, and walk up
and down a little under the shadow of some palm-trees. As soon as
it was known in the village that I was recovering, all the inhabitants
came to visit and congratulate me. At night a fire was lighted before
the door, and the people danced by way of testifying their joy. I re-
galed the party with merissa, whicn added, of course, to the mirth and
jollity of the scene. I now got better very fast, and was soon able to
resume my journey ; but never shall I forget my obligations to these
worthy people, who took so lively an interest in my helpless condition,
and that from no motive of interest or hope of reward, but from a pure
feeling of love for a fellow-creature."

Most of the remarks hitherto made apply to the oriffinal negro
race; but Kordofan contains other elements of population that
must not be passed over in silence. The native nesro race are,
with few exceptions, agriculturists, and reside in viUages, some
of which, being larger than others, have been dignifiei by the
ziame of towns. The Bakkara tribes, on the other hand, lead a

The Nomadic Tribes. 315

nomadiq life, and are supposed to be of Arab origin, thougb from
frequent intermarriages with negro women, the Bakkara, with
the exception only of one tribe, are as black now as any other of
the African nations. The Tmrks are too few in number to be
looked on as a distinct class of the population; and most of them,
moreover, consider their residence in Kordofan as only of a tem-
poTBry nature, and hope to leave it as soon as they have scraped
together money enough to enable them to live in comfort at
home. -'■ A very numerous class, however, consists of the Dongo-
lavi,, or people of Dongola, who seem to have increased and mul-
tiplied m most of the countries of Central Africa. Nearly the
whole commerce of Kordofan, and particularly the slave trade,
so far as Mehemet Ali leaves any part of the field unoccupied, is
in their hands. They are by mv the wealthiest people of the
country; are described as a fine athletic race, Hvely and good-
humoured, but altogether deficient in those estimable quaHties
which distinguish the native race of Kordofan. The Dongolavi,
according to Pallme, 'are a cheerful set of people, but have a
surprising aversion to any thing Uke work. Truth never escapes
from their lips, for they are, without exception, the greatest liars
on the face of God's earth. They are not thieves, but they never
neglect an opportunity of defrauding those with whom they deal.
They are full of flattery and fine words, but utterly dead to any
feeling of gratitude. Of all things, I would advise a European to
be careful not to engage one of tms race as a servant.'

Of the nomadic tnbes, the Bakkara, there are several. Each
of these tribes is governed by a sheikh, whose authority over his
own people is almost despotic. These tribes are subjected to a
tribute of about 12,000 oxen annually; and when ihe time for
levying the tribute comes round, the several sheikhs are himted
up by the Turkish oflScers, who take care to levy a little tribute
on their own account, in addition to what they are bound to collect
for the service of the viceroy. Nevertheless, though subjected to
this annual spoliation, the sheikhs are most of them wealthy,
have latge herds of horned cattle, besides horses, camels, &c., and
carry on a lucrative trade in the various countries through which
they drive their cattle. Where they feel themselves strong enough
they seldom hesitate to lay their hands on any stray property that
comes in their way ; and occasionally they amuse themselves by
kidnapping negro children, to be afterwards sold as slaves in the
markets of Kordofan. Indeed until Mehemet AU undertook his
great slave hunts — ^with horse, foot, and artillery — ^it was chiefly
through the Bakkari that the bazaars of Egypt were furnished
with their customary supply of human bones and sinews.

During the dry season tne Bakkari quit Kordofan with their
herds, and wander into the xmexplored negro countries lying to

%

416 PdUme^s Travels in Kardqfan.

the south. The Turks, however, are not, on this account, ap-
prehensiye of losing their tributaries; for it seems that in theie
southern countries, during the rainy season, a fly makes its ap-
pearance, whose bite, though not dangerous to man, is so de-
structive to cattle, and particularly to camels, that whole herds
have been sometimes destroyed by it in a few days. As the
lainy season advances, therefore, the Bakkari return to Kordo&n
with their herds, choosing rath^ to be plundered of a part by the
Turks, than to see the whole perish under the attacks of a dimi-
nutive but irresistible foe.

Fallme, having made acquaintance with one of their sheikhs,
spent some time with the JBakkari of the Lake Anat, where he
was hospitably treated, and admitted unreservedly iato all thar
secrets. He advises Europeans^ however, to be cautious how they
trust themselves into the hands of these people, till the fiiendahip of
a sheikh has been secured. The Bakkari know nothing about
^Franks, and every loan with a white skin is a Turk in their eyes^
and, as such, to be slaughtered as an enemy, if a safe opportunity
present itself.

Beef and milk constitute the chief food of these pastoral rovers,
and milk is in such abundance among them, that even their horses
are fed with it, and seem to thrive excellently upon it. Bread is
a luxury enjoyed only by the sheikhs. Theur tents are made of
ox leather, and the whole encampment, including the ground into
which the cattle are driven, is surroimded by a fence of thorns.
This, however, is not a sufficient protection either against wild
beasts, or against the enemies whom the predatory habits of the
tribe may have stirred up to seek an opportunity for vengeance.
Begular sentinels must therefore be stationed round the camp at
night, and a number of men, ready armed, must hold thems^ves
prepared, at the first signal of danger, to rush towards the tbre^
ened point. The guard-house, as it may be called^ where this
armed party hold their watch, is generally a scene of festiyity
throughout the night, for the wives and sisters of the watchers,
never Ml to repair to the place, that they may keep them a'wske
with their songs and dances*

^ Their dance,' observes Pallme, ^ qxdte different &om the usual
dances of Kordo&n, has something fantastic,, something really
imposing about it. The dancers range themselves in two lines,
the men in one, and the women in the other. The men hold
their lances, and often beat time with them on the ground while
dancing. At first their movements are moderate and subdued,
but gradually the performers become more excited, the men dash
their lances wildly about in the air, and seem ready to rush upon
the supposed enemy, the women. These now seek to conciliate
their conquerors, by aflwiming an attitude of submission. I can

Tribes adjoining Kordofan. 417

assiire my readers, that it is difficult to imagine any thing more
picturesque than one of these dancing groups, on a dark night,
the scene lit up by four blazing fires, perhaps, and every pause in
the wild merriment broken by the distant roar of a lion, or the
howl of a hyena.*

Our author gives a brief account of the several tribes and na-
tions that border on Kordo&n. Some of these are partially sub-
ject to the Egyptian government, but none of the countries beyond
Kordofan can be looked <m as the Viceroy's territories, nor do any
of them even pay a regular tribute. Many of these countries are
obKged to renounce the breeding of cattle, on account of the de*
structive fly, of which mention has alreadv been made; but most
of them have natural advantages, from wnich thev either do, or
mighty derive considerable wealth. Thus, the Shillook negroes
five in a country swarming with elephants, and export krge
quantities of ivory to Kordo&n and Abyssinia, and Pallme even
Bays that much of the ivory brought to England frcan India has
'been conveyed to us by the way of Abyssinia.

The Nuba negroes live in a moimtainous, and comparatively
healthy country, and might draw immense resources trom their
gum forests. Their hills and valleys appear to be free from the
dreaded cattle fly, for they have abundance of cattle, and agricul-
ture is carefuUy attended to; yet strange to say, with plenty of
bread, fruit, beef, pork, mutton, and almost every description of
African game, the favourite national dish is the rat, a delicacy, how-
ever, too nighly prized, for any but the wealthy to indulge in its en-
joyment. The poor Nuba negroes have two enemies, indeed, of
whom they live m constant dread. These are the Turks and the
locusts. The Turks hunt them for slaves, and the locusts every
now and then eat up their harvests, and leave not a blade behind
for man or beast. Famine then appears in its most horrible form,
and parents will sell their children at such times to the Kordofan
slave dealers for a few measures of com. * I myself,' says Pallme,
* saw a girl who had been bought for fifty handfuls of com; and
another merchant had bought eight oxen for a camel load of grain,
and eight children at precisely the same price ! These periods oi
famine among the Nub^ hills are seasons of calamity for the neigh-
bouring countries, as well as for the Nubans themselves, for the
latter on such occasions sally forth on marauding excursions, to
steal and carry away what they can lay their hands on.'

About five days' march south-east of Kordofan lies Takeli, a
country which Mehemet Ali, on three several occasions, attempted
to conquer, but each time his troops were driven back with consi-
derable loss. Since then the sturdy sultan of Takeli has been left
imdisturbed, and the two countries trade with each other in^^^
peaceable way. The whole of Takeli is mountainous, likM^p^^

418 Palbne^s Travds in Kardofan.

land of the NubanB. Were the latter also united under one
head, they might be found equally formidable, and Mehemet Ali
would be leas ready to yenture on his annual sdave-hunts among
iheir hills. The people of Takeli seem to have advanced finlher
in civilization than most of their neighbours. Hiey are described
as good agriculturists, not only planting the cotton-tree with caie,
but even weaving a kind of doth from ite fibres. Theyai^abo
bold himters, as may be judged fixnn the followuig description of
their customary manner of attacking a lion.

^' When the hunter has foimd the place where a lion usually takes Us
noonday repose^ a tree not far £rom the spot is sheeted. To this tree
the hunter repairs early in the morning, ^inien he knows the Hon is out
in quest of prey. He climhs up into the tree, armed only with a bagfiill
of stones, and six or eight short sharp lances, and patiently awaits die
return of his intended yictim. Between ten and eleven, as the heat of
the day hegins, the lion returns, and, should he even see the man, takes
little notice of him, hut lies down to sleep away the time tiU the retom
of evening. The hunter also remains quiet, and waits generally till
about an hour affcer noon, hy which time the sand has grown so scorch-
ing hot, that even the lion cannot set his foot upon it without endming
considerable pain. Now the hunter begins by flinging a stone or two
at the most sensitive parts of the animal's head. The latter growls with
pain and rage, for it is rarely that a stone misses its intended mark ;
still he is unwilling to leave his shady couch, and lies roaring and lash-
ing his tail, till perhaps a missile hits him in the eye, and inflicts a tor-
ture beyond what he has patience to endure. He now springs up, and
rushes towards the tree whence his torments proceed, but ne has scarcely
reached the trunk, when he finds Imnself transfixed by a well-directed
lance, and howling with pain, more from his scorched feet than his Heed-
ing side, he crouches again in his former resting-place. The hunter
allows him but little repose. Again, stone after stone strikes his head,
again he rushes madly at the tree, and again a sharp lance is fixed into
his side. Should the lion renew the attack, a third and a fourth lanoe
salute him, but by this time he is growing exhausted by the loss of blood,
crawls away to some distance, where the hunter s eye watches him till
the lord of the forest has stretched his limbs in death."

Pallme was desirous, he tells us, of visiting Takeli, and was
even urged to do so by the sultan*s brother, who, it seems, visits
Lobeid every year, and as no European has yet set foot in the
country, it is to be regretted that so good an intention should have
been abandoned; but our author was assured that the people of
Takeli knew nothing of Franks, and would infeUibly destroy any
white who fell into their hands, under the belief that he was a Turk.
For these apprehensions, however, he satisfied himself in the sequel
there was no foundation.

We cannot make room for the revolting anecdotes, of which the
book before us is full, connected with &e slave trade. Few of

Girqfft»— Gentleness of the Hyena, 4l9

our leaden -mlLbe surpiised to leain, ilutt all classes are Joore oi
less dempioUzed bj the efiects of tli^ Iiateibl traffic, aadin-.tlua re-
ject the mili^sry ceitaml^ fpon no exceptjon. Tlie.j^roops eta-
taOned iu thtan remote piovioccs scldam receive any paj ml after
their return irom liie annual dare-hunt, when their arrears are
Mflually liquidated hy a partition. of slaves. It is not an uncommoa
Ocpnrr^oc^, m suoh an pccasion, for a man to £nd his own father
O];,hrotlier ^sagned to him, hut the poor soldier must not yield to
the fee^gs of nature, for he holds hie property in his parent in
common with a comrade, who is httle disposed to sacrifice a year's
pay to gratify the natural affection of another. No, the poor slave
must be sold to some TJgngolavi for what he can bring, the produce
is divided between, ijie co:proprietors, and the afflicted son has
perhaps lived long cno]igh under Turkish rule to leam to console
himself luider every nusfortune,. with the customary exclamation,
' Allah kerim 1' (Godhas willed it !>

. Giraffes abound in Kordo&n and the adjoining countries during
the diy season, but ^ways disappear completely some time before
the rains set in. It b in the plains of Kordofan that nearly all
those have been caught, that have at various times been brought
te EuiT^. The old animals are never taken ahve, though onen
hunted for their flesh ; it is only the young ones that are preserved
to be sent to Egypt. The Sheikh Abdel Had of Hararn seems to
enjoy the monopoly of supplying all the menageries of Europe
with these delicate animals, and his men are represented to be re-
markably skUfiil in the pursuit of them, when the object is to take
a young giraffe alive ; to pursue the creature and kill it for ite flesh
is an easy task to any well-mounted rider, for though the girafle
runs with great velocity, it never nms in a straight hne when
hunted, but is constantly changing the direction of its flight,
thus giving its pursuer an important advantage. Its conveyance
tO'Cau-o requires constant cate. It must have four men to lead it,
and as none but a very young giraffe will submit to any sort of
constraint, a female camel must accompany the party to supply
&e captive with milk. Even when the greatest care is taken of
the ammal, it frequently dies before it reacnes Cairo, where, owin^
to the difficulty and expense of the transport, a hving giraffe is
never to be bought for less than five or six hundred domts.

All the usual wild beasts of Africa that figure in our menageries,
or in our books of natural history, such ae hons, leopards, hyenas,
elephants, antelopes, &c., abound more or less in Kordofan. Of
many of these creatures, however, the character given by our author
differs very much from what we have been accustomed to read in
our standing authorities on these matters. Thus, of all wild beasts,
he says, ' none is so easy to tame as the hyena. At Lob^d, I h»^^

TOL. XIIII. NO. LIIT. 2 P _ :J^^

420 PaUme's Travels in Kordqfan.

seen tame hyenas run about the garden, and allow the children of
the house to play with them and tease them, in all imaginaUe
ways. An old hyena and her two young were once oflfe?ed me
fer sale. The old one was muzzled, it is true, but she appeared
perfectly gentle, and had followed her master three leagues to town,
without onfering the ^ghtest resbtancc. The animal most dreaded
by the people in this part of Africa is die rhinoceros, whidii
though it feeds only on grass, is the most vicious creature in ex*
istence, and will attack a man, an ox, a licHm, or even an elephant,
and that without the slightest provocation. The rhinoceros <m
these occasions is always the aggressor, and <^))en pays for ili
temerity with its life, for if, at the first attack, it does not sacoeed
in goring with its horn such an antagonist as the lion or ^ephant,
the rhinoceros is lost.'

Pallme devotes an entire chapter to a description of Lobeid (in
some maps marked Obeid), the capital o( Kordofan. It consists of
six different villages, each inhabited by a distinct class of llie po-
pulation. The inhabitants are supposed to be about 12,000 is
number, and each family has its group of tukkoli or thatched huts,
and to each set of tukkoli is attached a mece of ground, cm whid
com is grown for the consumption of the famUy. Though dieie
are five mosques in the town, not one of them has a minaret at-
tached to it, and the only houses of better appearance than the
common native huts are a few two-story houses built by the Turks,
with clay walls, that would soon be washed away by the tromcJ
rains, if not protected by a good coating of cowdung. Notniag
can be more monotonous than the appearance of sudh. a town in
the dry season, when every tree is stnpped of its leaves, and eack
^rden presents nothing but a surface of scorched sand to the eye.
With the first rains all thischanges, the most luxuriant vegotati<»co-
vers the ground, the trees are all in jfuU leaf, the com springs quidcfy
to a height that almost hides the huts beyond, the loveliest flowers
spring up everywhere spontaneously, the thorn fences are hung
with creeping plants covered with the richest blossoms, and lie
whole atmosphere is full of deUcious perfumes. The houses are
almost lost amid this abundance of trees and bushes, and to oat
not familiar with the place it becomes impossible to find his waj
through the leafy labyrinth, which looks rather like a wood or a
park than like a city. The gentle showers that have wrought
this sudden change give way, however, before long to the tropical
torrents, which come down too suddenly and too heavily for the
soil to be able to absorb the moisture; the water then ploughs up
the ground, and streams are formed deep and rapid enough to
drown the incautious passenger who happens to fall into one of
them. Not a year passes in which several Uves are not lost at
Lobeid from tms cause.

Quidnuncs of Lobeid, 421

At the close of the rainy season the harvest is gathered in, and
all begins again to look dry, naked, and scorched. The last ope-
ration of the season is to collect together the dry grass a;nd set fire
to it. Thousands of locusts that had lain concealed, now spring
foTtii, and are eagerly caught by the bystanders to be sold,
as a particular delicacy, in the market of Lobeid. As the naked-
ness of the land is displayed, many objects present themselves
calculated to awaken pamM reflections. The streets and lanes of
liie city are seen scattered over with the bones of men and ani-
mals, that a few days ago lay concealed under a luxuriant covering
of hi^h grass. Tliese are the remains of slaves and domestic cattle
lliat bave died during the season, but whose owners have not
deemed it necessary to bury them, well knowing that bodies
tiirown into open ground, will have their bones well picked
bctfbre mominff by hyenas and dogs, or that if these happen to
leave their work imfinished, the vultures will not fail to complete
it. The hyena, in feet, renders invaluable services to the people of
diis part 01 Af5Fica, by consuming the dead animal matter, which
ebe would in a short time corrupt the air, and probably give rise
to most destructive epidemics.

The barracks for the soldiers consist only of a number of tuk-
koii (about fifty) ranged closely together; but as the troops are all
negroes who have onginally been carried ofi* in one or other of the
dave hunts, they are always supposed to be anxious to desert, and,
to prevent this, every encouragement is held out to them to marry.
The married soldiers have separate huts assigned to them, and the
consequence is that but a small number of the garrison are ever
lodged in the barracks.

The only public place of diversion of any kind at Lobeid is the
Bazaar or market-place, whither all classes repair, to amuse them-
selves by the bustle of the place, and by listening to the news
which each returning day seldom fails to bring to light. Here, in
the very heart of Africa, the affairs of Europe are discussed,
ddefly m front of the Turkish coffee-house, and even when the
heavy rains have cut off all communication with Egypt, news is
never wanting, though its complexion is ofl;en of a ond, scarcely
to impose even upon the most credulous. Thus, if mention hap-
pen to be made of Russia, England, Germany, or France, the
story generally is, that the Sultan of Constantinople is about to
adopt bostile measures to enforce the payment of the customary
tribute from the Franks.

A sudden shower of rain will sometimes fall, quite unexpect-
edly, when the market is at its ftillest, for one of these tropical
showers seldom gives any warning of its approach. In such a case
tlie sudden panic of the assembled multitude presents the

2f2

422 Pallme's Travels in Kordqfan.

ludicrous picture. The men rush away in search of shelter, the
women scream as they see their wares overturned, and the chil-
dren are running about crying after their lost parents. It is not
that these worthy blacks are apprehensive their clothes may be
spoiled, for few have on more than a long cotton shirt, and most
of them nothing but a piece of calico woimd roimd their loins,
yet they all dread the rain as if every drop were burning fire;
their fnght arises from a firm belief that to get wet from the rain
is enough to bring on a fever, and absurd as this notion may seem
to be, says Pallme, * it is not to be denied that there is some
ground for it, for any sudden chill, during the rainy season, is
enough to throw the strongest man upon a sick bed, and bring
him to the very verge of the grave.*

On his first arrival at Lobeid, our author found one European
residing there, a Dr. Iken, from Hanover; but this gentle-
man shortly afterwards fell a victim to the climate. His grave
was made by the side of those of seven other Europeans, who,
like himself, breathed their last at Lobeid. Several of these were
Englishmen, but Pallme makes no mention of their names.
' After I had recovered,' he says, * from the attack of fever,
which had so nearly consigned me to the same spot, and was just
able to creep along with the help of a stick, these melancholy
hillocks became my favourite haunt. I sat down there, and fen-
cied myself among Europeans again; nay, I could fancy myself
among those who sympathized with my sufferings in a foreign
land, and in my araent longings to return once more to my na-
tive country.'

The thing that makes Lobeid interesting to a traveller is the
vast variety of strangers who are constantly arriving there from all
parts of Africa, not excepting Tombuctoo, and even countries of
which we in Europe know neither the locality nor the name.
At daybreak all this mass of human life springs into movement,
and every man prepares to go about the business of the day.
With many this consists merely in looking for a cool shady place
to lie down in, or in going in quest of a neighbour to invite him
to participate in so important an undertaking. Nevertheless,
more active scenes are not wanting. The herds are collected and
driven out to their pasture-ffrounds by a herdsman, riding on an
ox. The slaves, with their fetterea limbs, are proceeding to
labour in the fields. A caravan, perhaps, is preparing to start on
a journey of weeks or months. The female slaves, while setting
about their little domestic avocations, are singing plaintive ditties
about their native hills. In short, the whole place is full of mo-
tion and life. About eleven the noon-day heat sets in, and the
whole town becomes as a city of the dead. Each seeks the shelter
of a roof, for life itself would scarcely be safe if exposed to

Night Scenes at Lobeid. 423

the vertical sun. A straggling dog is probably the last living
thing to be seen about the streets ; but even the dog soon creeps
to cover, and this perfect stillness continues till about three,
when all have been refreshed by their siesta, and prepare to resume
their work. At sunset again every one hastens home to his fru-
gal meal. Where provisions of every kind are abundant and
cheap, even the poorest may depend on having at least a suffi-
ciency of food; and * should there really be one who has not the
means of providing himself with a supper, he will not need to
make any ceremony, but may enter the house of his nearest neigh-
bour and freely partake of the family meal.'

As soon as supper is over, large fires are lighted in front of
many of the houses; and around these fires the young of both
sexes assemble to dance and sing. These festive groups continue
to enjoy themselves till midnight, when all retire to repose, and
Ae streets are again wrapped m a deathhke silence. This is the
signal for the prowling hyena to take possession of the ground
that man has for awhile abandoned ; and during the rest of the
night nothing is heard but the howling of the unclean beast, an-
swered by the whining cry of the terrified dogs. And now, hav-
ing put aU the ffood people of Lobeid to bed, we are warned, by
the extent to which we nave already carried our remarks, that it
is time we should bring our notice of Kordofan to a close, though
there remains a large portion of the work on which we have not
even touched. The chapter on the commercial capabihties of the
eoimtry is of too technical a character for the general reader, and,
if ffiven at all, should be given entire. The two chapters on
M^emet Ali's slave hunts were written several years ago, and
were published, as we have already mentioned, in 1841, in the
* Anti- Slavery Reporter.' The chapter on the adjoining empire
of Darfour, on which Mehemet Ali has had his eyes fixed for
several years past, though brief, is full of interest ; and the same
remark wiU apply to the chapters on the state of religion, on the
wevailing maladies of the country, and on various omer subjects.
On these matters, however, we must refer the curious reader to
the book itself ; from the perusal of which, we feel persuaded,
few will arise without having been gratified by .the variety of
information conveyed with a frankness and simplicity not always
foimd in modem travellers, and still fewer without having been

nired with kindness towards an author, as free from affectation
le is replete with good feeling; one, who never for a moment
attempts to discourse of matters beyond his ken, but merely de-
Kvers a round unvarnished tale of what the saw, suffered, and
heard, in a country whither few Europeans had found their way
before him, and wnence, even of those few, only two or three have
ever returned.

( 424 )

Aet. Vn. — 1. Memoires de la Societe Eihnologique. VoL 1.
Paris: Dondey Dupr^. 1841.

2. The Foulahi of Centred Africa^ omd the African Slave Trade,
By W. B. Hodgson, of ^rannah, Georgia. 1843.

3. On the Study of Ethnology. By Dr. E. JDibffenbach. Lon-
don: 1843.

The tiines are now long past when learned men used reciprocally
to communicate the result of their studies in epistles scazody ks
ponderous than their printed works. It has now been rendered
impossible that a second Demoiselle Goumay should hear for the
first time in a Latin epistle &om the remotest recesses of Grermany,
of the existence, the genius, and the eloquence of a second Mon-
taigne. Nous avons change tout cela. Modem ciYilizatioii ha^
Sromoted a pretty &ee circulation of ideas. Steam not only repro-
uces by thousands of copies the thoughts of every man whose
thoughts are worth knowing, but whirls them over the sur&ce of
the land, or bears them triumphantly over the sea to the remote^
comers of the habitable globe. But this impartial distxibutum
of intelligence, literary or otherwise, is far from satisfying the
wishes of scientific men. They desire to pursue their inyestigaticms
simultaneously, and therefore in some degree publicly, but at the
same time to enjoy as much as possible the advantages of privacy.
A society accordingly is their only resource, and we have societies
of all kinds, geographical, geological, and microscof>ical;* assooa-
tions have been formed for the purpose of speculating on dofSHSf
stones, soils, plants, beasts, birds, fishes, and insects; but until now
who have thought of imiting for the study of man?

To France is due the honour of being the first coimtry to pwH
duce an Ethnological Society, though the suggestion we bdbeve
eame from England. At least it was in consequence of a com-
munication from Dr. Hodgkin on the part of the Aborigines Pro-
tection Society, that Dr. Edwards and his Mends in Pans de-
termined to associate together for the purpose of examining the
human race in order to ascertain, as far as possiUe, its origin, and
gather materials for a more comprehensive knowledge of man^
kind than had yet been obtained. Dr. Ed wards had already pc^
lished a work, entitled ' Des Caracteres Fhysiologi<]^ae8 des Baces
Hunudnes, consideres dans leurs rapports avec I'Uistoire,' whidt
had attracted much attention, and he was enabled in a very dioit
time to obtain the co-operaticm of many of the most distinguished
members of the Listitute and of the Geographical Society of Paiifi.
A central committee was then formed, and a code of laws con-
structedy which was submitted — this will sound strangely to Eog-

Objects of the Societi Uthnoloffiqtie. 425

lish ears — to the consideration of the government. Fancy the
London Ethnological Society submitting its vc^uminons rules and
regulations to Sir Robert Peel, or Sir James Graham I To let
this pasSy however, an arreUj dated Pans, August 20th, 1839, and
signed * ViUemain,' (the approbation of the mimster of the in-
terior having been explicitly expressed,) authorized the establish-
ment of a scientific society to be called the Ethnological Society,
* having for its object the study of the races of mankind in the
historical traditions, the languages, and the physical and moral
characteristics of every people/ The first meeting took place three
days afterwards, since which time the sittings of the * Society
Etimologique' have been continued on the fourth Friday in each
month.

Those who drew up the statutes of this body, announce its ob-
jects in the following words : ' The principal elements by which the
races of mankind are distinguished, are, their physical organization,
their intellectual and moral character, their languages and their
historical traditions; these various elements have not yet been so
studied as to erect the science of ethnology on its true toundations.
It is in order to arrive at this result by a continued series of ob-
3ervations, and to determine what are in reality the different races
of mankind, that the Ethnological Society of Paris has been esta«
blished.'

After this general statement of the views and nature of the
society, there follows a series of articles sk^x^hing the plan to be
adopl^ for the attainment of the objects set forth. In the first
place, all observations calculated to throw light on the various
races, at present, or formerly, existing on the earth, axe to be
collected, arranged, and published. For this purpose members
engage to communicate papers, and the society corresponds with
all other scientific, religious, and philanthropic associations, as
well as with the learned, with travellers, and all individuals who
may be aiabled to afibrd them information. To facilitate the
researches of those who mav be disposed to render assistance, it

iblishes a general paper of instructions as to the points on which
jht is more especially required to be thrown, and is ready to
communicate to whoever may desire it, a series of inquiries
adapted to any particular country. It enters into its design, more-
over, to make collections, to bring together drawings and objects
vhic^ may assist in forming a conception of the physical charac-
ters of races; and to collect all such products of art and industrv as
may contribute to the accurate appreciation of the degree of in-
telligence exhibited by each people. Finally, whilst keeping
steadily in view its scientific object, the society has engaged to exert

426 The JStknoloffical Societies of London and Paris*

itself afl much as possible in ameliorating the condition of the abo-
rigines of those countries which may have been, or may hereafter
be, conquered by any of the nations of Europe — that is to say,
to co-operate with the English Aborigines Protection Society.

A amilar plan had already been conceived in England, and
the first step towards its accomplishment had been taken by the
formation of an ethnological section in the British Association,
before the letter which communicated the establishment of the
French Society was received by Dr. Hodgkin. But it was not
imtil the beginning of 1843 that the first meeting of the English
Society was called together to hear the paper of Dr. Dieffenbadi
' On the Study of Ethnology.' By the termination of the session,
however, the indefatigable exertions of Dr. Richard King, secre-
tary, had succeeded in collecting the names of more than 120
fentiemen. Encouraged by this good fortune, on the 22d of
Tovember, 1843, the society agam met at the house of- Dr.
Hodgkin, who has generously received and entertained the mem-
bers both during the first and second sessions, for the purpose of
electing oflEicers. It is now in active operation under the presi-
dency of Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Malcolm, with the Arch-
bishop of Dublin, the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, and Messrs.
G. B. Greenough, E.R.S., and James Cowles Prichard, M.D.,
as Vice-Presidents.

' The Ethnological Society of London is formed,' says the
book of regulations, * for the purpose of inquiring into the dis-
tinguishing characteristics, physical and moral, of the varieties of
mankind, which inhabit, or have inhabited, the earth; and to
ascertain the causes of such characteristics.'

It would perhaps have been impossible to select a wider field of
investigation, in which there would have been any imity of
design. It is proposed to subject human nature, in all its varied
phases, to a stnct and searching scrutiny, in order to discover the
nature and the causes of the differences which are observed to
exist between one race and another. Such a scrutiny, to lead to
any certain results, must be based on an extensive tiowledge of
the features of resemblance between man and man, that is, on a
philosophy which embraces every thing that is not accidental in
our nature. It may be said, this philosophy will grow up in the
mind as the investigation proceeds. True. Until it has gro^m
up, however, we must expect nothing more than a series of scat-
tered experiments, highly valuable, doubly so perhaps fix)m their
independence of a system, but no combination of ^results, no
criticism, no theory. The study of ethnology, in fact, cannot be
pushed far without the necessity being felt of something on

Papers published by the Parisian Society. 427

•which it may rest — of something broader than any science which
draws its conclusions from the examination of any particular
order of individuals, in one word, of the * philo^phia prima,* as
Bacon calls it. It appears to us that a majority of those who
have abeady written on the subject have been ill-furnished with
general ideas, and that most of their errors, most of their hasty
conclusions, may be traced to this source.

If we now examine the papers which have been already read
before the ethnological societies of London and Paris, we shall find
that, as far as they go, they form admirable materials for future
speculation. The first volume of the French * M^moires' is now
before us. It contains, in addition to the minutes of each meeting,
some very valuable papers. In the first place we find a reprint of
the work of Dr. Edwards, to which we have already alluded, and
which may in some sort be said to have suggested the society.
The author, moreover, up to the period of his recent death, con-
stantly presided, and made some very useful presents to the library
and museum. His essay is remarkable for extreme ingenuity, but
he has generalized somewhat hastily, and there remain strong
doubts on our mind whether he has discovered the real types of
the Grail and the Kimri. His argument on the Jews, besides, falls
to the ground before the single fact, that the individuals of that
nation have varied most remarkably in every coimtry where they
have settled long; so that the Polish Jew is different from the
Portuguese Jew, and the English from both. In the east, also,
the Israelites assume a new, but not atrall uniform aspect. In E^pt
they are by no means the same as in Damascus, or Persia, or Con-
stantinople. We have been assured, besides, by those who have
seen the figures on the ancient Egyptian tombs, supposed to be
Jews, and which give occasion to Dr. Edwards to affirm that the
type of the nation is absolutely unchanged, that the resemblance
is so faint as hardly to be discerned but by a prejudiced eye.

The next paper, entitled * A Sketch of the Present State of
Anthropology, or the Natural History of Man,' is by the same
author, and is chiefly remarkable for an outline of his own work,
in which he says he has distinguished most of the races of the con-
tinent of Europe, and described their physical characters correctly.
This is far too high praise ; the rapid excursion which he took
through Belgium, the north and east of France, Italy, and part of
Switzerland, not having been sufficient to enable him to perform
what he attempted.

The Memoir on the Gruanches, by Sabin Berthelot, is an admi-
rable performance, fiill of curious information concerning a people
which we must consider extinct ; for though there may be Gmmche

428 The JEibmdogkal SoaOies of Ltmdm OMd Paris.

blood in ihe vems of the mountaineers o£ the Canaries, and rem*
nants among tbem of their old customs and language, yet the
Europeans, by the introduction of new manners, as weu as bj
immigration, have destroyed aU vestige of nationality. Among
the most remarkable passages in this paper is that on the fi:uayres
or coundUois oSCa:^^ The featoFBtiength pecfoi^ef bj
these heroes reminds us of those related by Homer. There is a
striking resemblance between the account of the wresding match
between Guanhaven and Gayta&, and that between Odysseus and
Ajax in the ^mes in honour of Patrodus.

Theodore JPavie's ' M^oire sur les Parses' is interesting but
incomplete. It contains scarcely any information on the marriage
state among these fire-worshippers, and makes no allusion to the
power possessed by the husband in certain cases of taking a second
wife. Our readers are doubtless aware of the prominaice thk
question has assumed in consequence of the case of the Paraee
lady which is now making so great a stir at Bombay. Similar
leasons render M. Benet's communication on the Sikhs more than
usually important at the present moment. The author, in his
capacity of physician to the Maharajah Ranjit-Singh^ possessed
ample opportimities for studying what he profi^sses to describe,
and has accomplished his ta^ with great success. There is a
bluntness and at the same time a piquancy in his style, which
confer a certain charm on his performance independent of the
value of the facts.

The paper next following is by Colonel J. Jackson, secretaiy d
the Royal Geographical Society of London, and is of a gensnJ
nature. It points out, in a very clear and concise manner, in
what way the observation of the arts and inventions of savage
life may be made conducive to the scientific study of the raoes
of mankind. We differ, however, from the author on one poix^
We do not think that there exists at present any reason to be-
lieve that the observation of the artistical performances of the in-
ferior animals has ever, among an infant people, given a angle
impulse to hiunan invention.

An elaborate work on the history and origin of ihe Foulahs,
by Gustavo D'Eichthal, forms, with its appendices, the second
part of the first volimie of the French Memoirs. It is van-
cipally occupied in discussing the Malay origin of the Fomahsj
which has been since denied by Dr. Pntchard, and doubted by Mi;
Hodgson, in the very able essay, the title of which we have giyen
at the head of this article. This is not the place to enter into a dis-
cussion on the merits of M. D^Eichthal's theory. We can only say
that, in support of it, he has exhibited much learning and ingenuity

Papers read before the LoTtcUm Sockty. 429

Having thus fiimislied our readers with some idea of the direc-
tion whidi the studies of the French Ethnological Society have
taken, we shall give a brief sketch of the papers which have been
read at the London Society. Of these only one has been as yet
rjiblished, — namely, the first, ' On the Study of Ethnology,' by
jDr. Dieffenbach. It was read at ihe preliminary meeting Jan*
31, 1843, and contains a rapid view of the domains of the new
science, pointing out what has already been done and what re*
xnains to be accomplished. It is necessacily imperfect, but may
be consulted with advantage by any one who would obtain in a
short space of time a conception of the true nature of ethnology.
It must be borne in mind, however, that no complete definition
of the science has ever yet been given. We may expect this
some day; but at present our knowledge is too slight for it to
be constructed.

Five other papers were read on the four meetings following,
each entertaining and valuable in its way. Among them were
two by Dr. Richard King, the secretary, on the Esquimaux,
which contained a very complete view of their physical struc-
ture, arts, and manu&ctures. The section which attracted most
attention was the very graphic description of the mode adopted in
Labrador of building snow-houses in winter. A good deal of interest,
too, was excited by the discussion on the stature of the Esqui-
maux, the average of which. Dr. King stated, from personal ob-
servation, to be five feet seven, whereas they are commonly be-
lieved to be a nation of dwarfs. The Bathurst tribe of the
AustraUans, and the New Zealanders, formed the subject of two
other papers; the first by Mr. Edwin Suttor, the second by Dr.
Obadiah Pineo, both travellers. The concluding paper of the
first session, ' On the Physical Characters of the Ancient Greeks,'
was by Mr. James Augustus St. John, who entered into many
curious details on the infiuence of climate, and showed in what
manner the denuding of the moimtains of Greece of forests
afi&cted the conditi(»i of the population. He showed that the
absence of wood has necessarily induced the absence of water, by
which means many rivers have become exhausted before they can
leach the sea, spreading into marshy lakes, from which arise
noxious exhalations, the active agents in the production of fevers
and other diseases. He suggested, also, in what way these cir-
cumstances might act on the moral character of the people ; and
drew many very startling conclusions from the facts he adduced,
which his intimate acquaintance with the subject, however, war-
ranted him in doing.

At the opening of the present session was read an elaborate

430 The Ethnological Societies of London and Paris.

paper, by Dr. Hodgkin, on the history of ethnology, which
proved, that abeady had the science made progress since the
establishment of the society. We cannot here give an outline of
the author's observations. Our space forbids it. We must say,
however, that he has presented the best general view of the pMt
and present state of ethnology that has yet been offered. Neverthe-
less, we shall venture to make a few observations of a critical
nature, which may perhaps be not unuseful to those who desire
to have as complete an idea as possible of the prospects of the
science.

In the first place, it is worthy of remark, that, although the
plan sketched out by all who have attempted to take general
views of ethnology, has embraced man in his various aspects —
from the cradle to the grave — ^from the very depths of savage-
ness to the highest point of civilization ; yet, both in writmg
and conversation, ethnologists at present seem to direct their chief
attention to the study of the lowest stages to which our nature
has descended. This is not the result of mere accident.
The fact is, the science of ethnology is yet in its infancy.
Its limits are by no means strictly defined, neither is it ob-
vious to every one whither it will lead. For this reason,
they who apply themselves to the study of it, not feeling exactly
certain of the ground on which they are treading, confine them-
selves within the narrowest possible limits, fearing, as it were, to
be found trespassing on the territories of another science. Be-
sides, it is always easier to observe and describe the peculiarities
of a savage tribe than those of one more advanced in civilization.
In the latter case, the habits of what is called a state of natuie
have been in a great measure abandoned, or so modified by cir-
cumstances as to be completely disguised. But something is still
left. The texture of the original canvass appears through the
varied coats of colours which hiave been laid on at each successive
stage of refinement. It is not enough, then, to delineate a peo-
ple as they are, — ^in itself no easy task, — ^we must trace them back
through past ages, deprive them in imagination, one by one, of
all that they have acquired in the progress of time, ana restore,
if we may so speak, the savage man, in order to compare him
with other savage men, and determine the degree of affinity that
exists between them.

We have here for a moment supposed the truth of the theory
according to which the most stupid and ignorant savage it is pos-
sible to conceive, sunk in the scale of intelligence below most brutes,
is the father of the glorious human race. We suspect, however,
that he who will patiently retrace the steps of civilization, will

Examination of Records, 431

arrive at a point, nearly midway, at which he must suppose the
onward movement to have commenced. Every thing beyond that
he will find is retrograde. We have a tendency to deteriorate as
well as to ameliorate. Savage nations appear to us to be in a state
of degradation. We think we can discern in most of them the
remnants of a vanished system of things. Their traditions point
almost invariably to a happier state of existence, something ana-
logous to that which they hope to enjoy. hereafter. Many of their
arts and contrivances seem mutilated and imperfect recollections
of something more excellent and complete. They have nothing
infantine in their character. They are the awkward attempts of a
second childhood to emulate the performances of manhood.

The truth of what we here incidentally advance may be tested
by an examination of the records of past times preserved in the
legends of wild nations, of their manners, arts, and whole mode of
Existence. By this means it will be possible to ascend to the point
to. which we may descend by a critical study of civilized races. It
is not, perhaps, unreasonable to investigate the savage nations first.
If we recommend an occasional deviation from this practice it is
because we think it probable, if it be too strictly adhered to,
that when the time shall come for making a step in advance it
will be foimd that a wrong and narrow theory of ethnology has
been formed, and that some difficulty will be encountered in the
attempt to lead the public mind into new fields of inquiry. For
these reasons we imagine it would be advisable to mingle with
papers, such as those of Drs. King and Pineo on the Esquimaux
and New Zealanders, disquisitions on the ancient Egyptians, the
Phoenicians, the Gi^eeks (an example of which has already been
[iven by Mr. St. John), the Etruscans, the Romans, the Germans,
le French, and the English. Much may be discovered by com-
paring the various stages of civilization one with another, and ex-
hibiting what elements have been lost and what gained in each.
The study of the forms taken by thought, in different nations, at
corresponding epochs of their progress, may bring to Ught not a
little that is new and valuable. We are of opinion indeed, that
fer more is to be gained by psychological than by philological in-
vestigations. These however should not be rejected. Assistance
should be sought from the grammarian as well as the philosopher.

From this it will be seen that we agree entirely with Dr.
Hodgkin's observation, that the study of ethnology is by no means
the peculiar province of the medical man. We equally dissent
from those who believe that we should look principally to the
future traveller for materials on which to base our theories. As
much perhaps is to be learned by speculation on existing data as

432 J%e Ethnohgieal Societies of Ltrndon and

by observation; and it would be well to bear in mind lliat our
libraries contain almost inexhaustible stores of facts, leooids di
states of existence, the like of which may never again lecur, and
which must not be forgotten. We think that many persons show
a disposition to underrate the amount of attention toat has been
paid to the subject of man by voyagers and travellers. Tbeb ob-
servations, it is true, have been often unskilfully made and care-
lessly recorded. But still the task of extracting and methodiong
liieir contributions to the science of ethnology might piofitaUy
employ a very large section of the members of the society. The
* Voyages de la Gompagnie des Indes,' alone, are a rich mine of in-
formation, and many of the writers on the North American Indians,
Golden, Carver, and Lafitau, for example, are invaluable. It would
be out of place here to enumerate the books of travels wfaicii
contain information that should not be neglected. We only hx^
that attention will speedily be directed to ^em. What is required
are careful abstracts of their ccmtents, without reference to any
system, leaving an opinicm to be formed by the readers on the data
mmished. At least modem inferences i^ould be carefully distin-
guished firom old facts. The society might profitably employ 90fa»
of its Amds in publishing such abstracts. We feel confident that
persons might easily be found to undertake them.

The memod which we think it would be most advantageous
to pursue, would be for one person to take the aocoimts rf
one nation and analyze them seriatim in the order of dates.
Materials would thus be collected for forming an estimate df the
rapidity with which the aspect of society changes in the varioos
stages of civilization. Our present opimon is, that it is the tend-
emcy of refinement to distinguish nations one m>m another; because
every modification of the original character is the result of circum-
stances which are infimitely varied by time and place; and tiiat
when the intellectual faculties begin to develop themselves, lite
passion for improvement acquires more vigour, and is less easily
satisfied. There is far moro resemblance between one savage
people and another, and between the same savage people at di&
ferent periods of their history, than between two barbarous nations
compared with eadi other, or with tliemselves at distant cpodis.
But the variations observable in these instances are nothing by ^
side of those which may be remarked when we place two European
states in juxtaposition, and endeavour to discover their affinities and
recognise their prosent features in the portraits that have been
handed down oi them horn times past. The physiognomy of
childhood is less marked than that of youth, that of youth than
that of manhood. The parallel may be lollowed out, and it may be

Suppoied Immcinliiy of the Chinese Character. 433

added, that as it is ^e tendency of old age to impress one type
upon tlie features, so nalions in their decline are distinguished by
similar characteristics. We do not dogmatically advance this
theory, but consider it well worthy ci examination; and for this
purpose recommend the careful cluronological study of the suc-
cessive accounts whidi have been given to the world of one
people. When these accounts embrace a vast space of time, the
results to be expected from them are of course more important,
but pictures drawn of the same individual, at the distance even of
ten years, may offer striking points of dissemblance.

Much has been said of t& immobility, the unvarying sameness
of the Chinese character; but we suspect that too great stress has
been laid upon it, and that the only constancy lias been in our igno-
rance of tl^ subject. We are inclined to b^eve that the Engush,
for example, have scarcely undergone more changes, certainly not
more changes if we allow for their higher position in the scale of
civilization during the last two hundred years, than have the sub-
jects of the Celestial Empire. We do not at present refer to any
striking alterations in their political condition ; but to the different
impressions of their character, created by the reading of the books
of travels which describe them two centuries ago, and those which
represent them at present. To our mind the Chinese who resisted
E[ang-hi were very different from those with whom we came into
collision during the last war. We think that they have greatly
deteriorated, both in a moral and military point of view, though we
are far from believing that China was ever the paradise which the
French writers of the eighteaith century, with the single exception
perhaps of Montesquieu, would have persuaded us it was. We are
of course not spealang of the Manchds, who are, perhaps, as cou-
rageous as ever, but of the population they now govern, and which
then, especially in the tea-districts, opposed them, and forced
them to gain many a bloody victory before they would acknow-
ledge themselves vanquish^. Some of the scenes in this war
would seem rather to belong to Roman history than to Chinese.
When one of the principal towns of Fo Ei^ was besieged, and it
was foimd impossible to hold out any longer, the general invited
his friends to a feast of poison, and would have persuaded them to
partake of what he set before them. Upon their refrisal he resolved
to die alone, and was found by the Tartars when they entered the
city, sitting dead in his chair of state. Struck with awe, thej
made many obeisances to the corpse^ extolling the high spirit
which had prompted the deed. Their hearts, however, were only
softened for a moment; for though the garrison had capitulated,
they called them aU out into a great open place, and &lling upon

434 The Ethnological Societies of London and Paris.

them suddenl j,put them to death, to the number of fourteen thousand.
No one suspected that this sacrifice was intended; utdit is related
that one of the soldiers hearing the order, and having some business
to transact, said to a townsman, ^ I cannot make tame to Bfipeax.
Here is a piece of money. Go you for me.' Theoffer.vas<wcepted,
the substitute put to death, the soldier saved, mt was TFeryf(»-
tunate for the one,' says the historian of this tragic event, * and
very imlucky for the other.' • :• .3: ..- "

It would be a curious question for the^fidmcdogicalfSopkij^iQi
discuss, whether the practice of opium-smoking, -devdope4x)fla1sei
years to an extraordinary extent, and introduced pxobaMj-MJQ^
alleviation of the unhappines^ resulting &(mian^ppi?esn^v^mv<«nBh
ment, has not contributed in a great measuxeto dhftag^^l^e^ dbar
racter of the Chinese peo{)le. lliey would thus: not^v dbcadatQ
a very interesting pomt in itself, but aid in- estabU^Wg ^m^
general principles by which the influences of a change of^iliet^ if
we may use the word in so large a sense, in prodiicuig'alt«rald<»)B
of the characteristics^ mental and physical,* of nations, may fae»
estimated. • ..>..,..!

And this leads us to observe that it would fee well if soci^es,
both at home and abroad, would apply themselves some^onist^to ik&
discussion of points such as that whicn we have suggested, and not
endeavour at every meeting to embrace a subject which it would
take a volume to treat properly. Experience teaches the evils of
the latter course. Wherever there is a discussion it. becomessliglit
and uninteresting. Let us suppose the Ethnological Society! to ml
into this error, and reflect what would ensue^ Let .ue suppose
that at every meeting an entire people, in all its aspects, is attem^^
to be described. What would be the effect on the di^ussiQn?
Questions would be raised on government, religion, or morals, 9fftBi
commerce, or manu&ctures. All would depend on aocid^U<,> .If
a particular remark, say on food, should strike one member, be
would note it down and prepare to raise a discussion on.diet-.Ihfi
attention of another might be directed to a meteorological obser-
vation. A third might desire to say something on leligiqn, ^
fourth on morals, and so on. Well, the paper is brought to a
close, and the most eager or the best prepared opens the discussion.
It is very probable that few feel able to meet him on his own
ground. His remarks are therefore heard in silence or greeted
with applause; and another member rises to speak on a totally
distinct subject. There will forthwith be an intellectual move-
ment in the society. Each man will roll round hurriedly the globe
of his knowledge in search of the new country that has been
pointed out. Ten to one it will be Terra Incognita to the majority,

Conclvding Remarks, 435

and before they can scrawl down a promontory, or scratch the
course of a river, their attention will be called away to the opposite
hemisphere.

This evil will be in a great measure obviated by circumscribing,
as we have suggested, the field which each article embraces. Let it
be stated, for example, at one meeting that the wigwams of the
Red Indians, or of savage nations generally, or the dog-carts of
the S^amtschadajies, or the dances of the Hottentots, or of the Be-
looches, will form the subject of a paper to be read a month from
that time. It is probable that in the mterval all who have leisure
will prepare themselves to say something in the discussion. Even
those persons who acquire a sufficient degree of knowledge to be
able to ask an appodte question, or make a single remark, or state
a soHtary fact, will contribute to the interest of the evening; and
much tnat is valuable will doubtless be elucidated.

But if a subject, so comprehensive as to require the reading of
many weeks for any one to obtain even a confused notion of its
general outline, be treated at once, not only wiU the advantage
of completeness be lost, but those who are not abeady familiar with
it wiU be deterred from approaching it, and the discussion— one of
the most agreeable features of the London Ethnological Society —
will be comparatively languid and uninteresting.

We have thrown^out these desultory remarks with a sincere de-
sire to promote, as far as in us lies, the objects of the society. In our
opinion, however, it will not have fulfilled its mission until it shall
have investigated the history and varied fortunes of every nation
upon earth, as far as the materials to be obtained will allow. It
is within its province to study not only the moral and physical
development of mankind, but all the circumstances and institu-
tions which may directly or remotely influence its character and
manners, as climate, diet, education, legislation, government, and
religion. These projects are vast, the materials at our disposal
scattered and perhaps insufficient. To make the attempt, how-
ever, is honourable, and the results, if not entirely satisfactory,
will at least be as far as they go important and valuable.

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIV. 2 G

(436)

Art. VIII. — Des Finances et du Credit Public de TAutriche, de sa
Dette, de ses Ressources Financi^res et de son Systkme dtmr
position, Sfc, (The Finances and Public Credit of Austria, her
Debt, Financial Resources, and System of Taxation, &c)
Par M. L. de Tegobobski. Paris: Jules Renouard et CSe,
1843. In 2 vols.

The Austrian finances have been treated of in a general "way
hj several preceding writers, but we hare seen no work whida
enters so minutely into the subject as the present. M. de Teg^
borski illustrates the financial situation of that powerful state, by
comparisons with Prussia and France. Oppreaeed with debt, thle
natural capabilities of Austria to elevate her finamcial position are
many, but they are not available. To make them so, her rulos
must possess a more intimate acquaintance with some principle tfaafc
will admit a levy of the necessary amount of imposts to keep the
machine of government in motion, while the changes essential to
the operation are effected. Not is this all: she cherishes an in-
veterate adherence to protecting duties, amounting to a prohibition
of most articles of foreign manufacture. A grievous system of
domestic taxation is retained. Complete ignorance of the basis
upon which a profitable exchange of commodities with flourishing
manufactures can alone rest, is another impediment to any im-
provement of her revenue through an advantageous commerce.
Endeavouring to relieve her financial burdens, Austria entered
on the payment of debts without interest, by borrowing money
upon interest for the puroose. Besides this, sne had to encounter
the elevation in value of the outstanding portion of her obKga-
tions, as their total diminished in amount; a consequence of their
diminution which she ought to have foreseen. Verily, the image
of the Austrian chancellor of the exchequer should be set up as an
idol for the worship of the enemies of firee trade all over the world.

The debt and credit of a nation have, in recent times, become
subjects of the highest consideration, perpetually reproduced under
all social and poutical combinations. Tne study of finance is ho
longer confined to specious individuals who, by accident rather
than qualification, fill responsible public situations, but is happily
become a subject of general discussion submitted to the exercise
of the popular judgment. Hence there arises the hope that sound
financial principles will soon be matured, and secure every European
state for the future against a recurrence to that reckless system of in-
curring public debt which has crippled their resources. Too faith-
fully verified in recent days is the observation that * the financier
supports the state as the rope supports the strangling malefactor.*

The Austrian empire covers a superficies of 12,167 geogra-
phical square miles, having a population of 36,300,000. In 1840

Finances and Pubiic Credit of Austria.

437

the revenue was 140,000,000 florins, ' convention money' as it
is styled. A florin being reckoned 2^. Irf., or a small fraction less,
this amount is 14,530,000/. sterling; or 3fl. 51kr.* per head.
The public debt is 970,000,000fl (101,000,000/. sterling) being
about seven times the annual revenue. The principal is equal to
26fl. 43kr. and the interest to Ifl. lOkr. per head.

Prussia (for the sake of illustration) covers 5077 square miles,
the population is 14,700,000, the revenue 79,810,000fl.
(8^00,000/.) or 5fl. 26kr. per head. The debt in 1841 about
26,000,000/. sterling, or three years' revenue,.the interest 54kr.
per head, the principal 16fl. 56kr. The revenue of Austria is to
that of Prussia, in proportion to their respective population, as 7
to 10; while, rclativ^y to extent of territory, the revenue of
Austria is to that of Prussia as 11 to 15, Their respective sources

of revenue are,

Austria.

Domains and state forests 2,500,000fl.

Mines 960,000

Post 2,400,000

liOttery 4,000,000

Direct contributions 48,230,000

Indirect contributions ..., 74,550,000

Divers receipts 4,500,000

Ptiissia.

7,171,428fl.

1,310,000

2,000,000

1,327,143

26,802,857

40,740,000

458,572

137,140,000 79,810,000

The Contribution foncitre^ including land and houses forms
nearly a third of the Austrian revenue ; in Prussia only about
a sixth ; an indication, perhaps, that as trade and manufactures
increase, the burden is shifted more off" the land upon the pro-
ducts of industry. A proof too that the social system is more
generally advanced in Prussia, the objects of taxation produced by
refinement not being yet in a proportionate demand in both states.
The expenditure of the two countries is respectively as follows :

state Chancery

CjAimcil of ditto, AuHc authoritifls ..
Special administrations of all kinds.

I'^SMWs elsewhere omitted

Political funds «

The Cadastre

Sundry expenses. .....

Expenses of the covrt .
Fund of reserve. ......

The army

Interest of debt

Austria.

florins.

1,900,000

3,200,000

27,240,000

2,000,000

7,520,000

d22,000

Ministers, mint, treasury

—- ~ of worship and instruction . . . .

police and interior

loreign aifairs

justice

finance, works, commerce* &c..

Roads, &C.

Regencies, superior presidents . . . .

Prussia.

florins.

418,571
4,024,230
3,448,571

958,571
3,094,286
2,340,000
4,178,571
2,442,857

42,382,000 20,905,713

2,048,000 5,300,000

3,500,000 +

3,318^72

5O,715,0OOt 33,480,000

44,088,566 12,254,«8«

142,733,556

75,258,571

♦ A kreutzer is of different values in Germany; the old kreutzer was 7-15tlis of
a farthing sterling ; the above is that of Vienna, 60 to the florin.
t The court expenses are psddout of the crown domains in Prussia.
X Independently of 8,000,000 fl. jseparatdy given in the budget, which carri^t^jM

2Gr2

438 M. L. de Tegoborski on the

The resources of Prussia In 1839 afforded, it will be seen,
a considerable fund of reserve, while those of Austria were
deficient. The deficiency was covered by reductions in thelaurmy
and augmentations in certain branches of the revenue. Austria
pays for her military force 35.8 per cent, of her revenue: Prussia
44.5: France in 1841, paid but 21.1 per cent. The Prussian
military expenses are, therefore, to those of Austria as 18 to 11,
taking into account their respective population.

The main burden upon Austria is her debt, the larger part
of which, now pressing her, was the fruit of the coalitions
begun in 1792, against France, for the purpose, to use the phrase
of William Pitt, of putting down 'pnnciples;' coalitions which
severely reacted upon|all those who engaged in them. Loans
were made for meeting the extraordinary expenses of military
levies, and for repairing disasters, not only in Austria, but wherever
they could be obtained abroad. Forced loans and paper issues
became at home avenues of ruin to the people only to be again
repeated. Of the sums paid by England either as subsidies or
loans for the beforementioned purpose, making about a fifteenth
of her entire national debt, Austria received a large amount never
repaid. There was an old debt existing before, of 40,000,000fl.
(4,008,333/.) contracted in the reign of Leopold I. then in a
course of liquidation. A debt incurred during * the seven
years' war,' increased the public burdens to 367,OOO,O00fl. or
38,200,000/. to which the expenses of the Turkish war imder
Joseph must be added. The war of 1792 carried the total debt
to 650,000,000fl. or 67,700,000/. bearing interest from three to
si3cper cent.

Trie second part of the Austrian debt arose from its paper-
money, first issued as bank-notes, under the Empress Maria
Theresa, to the amount of 12,000,000 and carried under Joseph
to 20,000,000fl. These notes were withdrawn about 1796, and
replaced by augmented issues, so that in 1802 more than
706,000,OOOfl. were in circulation (73,400,000/.). Fresh issues
took place in 1809, and thus the amount attained the enormous
extent of l,060,798,653fl., or about 110,541,526/. sterling. The
exchange of the notes of the Vienna bank for the current coin
was suspended in 1797, but the notes preserved their credit imtil
1799, when they fell to a fifth of their nominal value; and
between 1799 and 1811 they dropped to one-twelfth. The abuses

the charge for the army to 59,000,000. The general charge may be set down at
52,000,000 fl., or 1 fl. 26 kr. per head upon the population. The army of Prussia,
on an average for the years 1841-2-3, cost 33,887,000 fl., or 2 fl. 18 kr. per h«id.
Thus the expenses of the Prussian compared to the Austrian army, are as 70 to
43. The expense of the civil administration of Prussia, for the years 1841-2-3,
was carried to 26,414,000 fl., or 1 fl. 48 kr. per head. That of Austria, reckoned
at 60,000,000 &, gives 1 fl. 39 kr. each penon.

Finances and Public Credit of Austria. 439

of this resource by the government were followed by a fearful
crisis. The utter loss of credit by the paper reduced vast numbers
of the wealthy to poverty, and of the indigent to utter beggary.
This fall of the paper currency was much enhanced in rapidity
hy an expedient that could have been the result only of the most
deplorable financial ignorance. The issue of the notes had been
accompanied by one of valueless brass money to the extent of
80,000,000fl., which was to be exchanged for the paper {Banco-
Zettel)^ just as if it possessed the intrinsic value of the more pre-
cious metals before money payments were suspended. WTiat httle
coin of real value remained, speedily went out of the country.
In the mixist of political disasters eflforts were made to re-
trieve the financial affairs by a new loan of 75,000,OOOfl.
(about 8,000,000/. sterling), called the Banco- Zettel'Tilgungs-
Anleihe. A new tax was levied for the express purpose of
calling in the Bank paper; the duties on salt and tobacco
were raised in the midst of wide spread ruin; the port and
customs duties received additions with the same object, and
all the silver in the country was subjected to a new law of
control, called the Repumirung, The war of 1809 now broke
out, the sums thus acquired were diverted to defray the ex-
penses; and the new paper fell, in a couple of months, to 460
for 100 fl. in money. In 1810 it was resolved to withdraw these
notes, and exchange them, giving 300 fl. for 100 fl. of another
paper money to be issued, styled JEinlosungs-Scheine, or ' Notes
of Redemption.' To establish a sinking fund for the new paper,
an impost of 10 per cent, was levied, named VermogenS'Steuer^
or the ' Property Tax,' with an intention to augment the produce
by loans upon mortgages of the state property. After this, in
1811, a celebrated epoch in the financial annals of Austria, the old
paper was called in, at the rate of 20 per cent., for the new re-
demption notes. These last were declared to represent the current
money of the country, under the title of the Wiener Wdhrung^
or ' value of Vienna.' The amount of the new currency, it was
pledged, should not exceed the sum needful to redeem the old
notes, or Banco-Zetteh The Vermogens-Steuer was then sup-
pressed, the sums levied were returned, and a sinking fund was
1)rojected from the money accruing by the sale of property be-
onging to the clergy, and other sources. The same law or
patent reduced the rate of interest due from the government to
half, seeing that it was impossible to pay the amount in full ! This
half was to be liquidated in the notes of redemption. Such a
step deranged the value of every species of property, ruined many
more private fortunes, and left deep traces of its effects upon the
public mind, without effecting the object for which it was imder-

440 M. L, de Tegoborski on the

taken. The new paper naturally followed the old in the course of
depreciation, down to 400 for 100 fl. in money. The cam-
paigns of 1813 and 1814 caused a new emission of paper money,
and carried the total newly emitted to 466,553,000 fl., or
48,590,000/. The last notes issued were called AnacipatwHs-
Scheine, or ^ Notes of Anticipation/ a term used because the go-
vernment had the idea of anticipating for twelve years a part of
the taxes. The last notes followed the career of those previously
issued into ruinous depreciation.

On the return of peace, it became a momentous object to remedy
this deplorable financial condition, and for that purpose Aus-
tria employed the 54,000,000 florins paid by France as a war
contribution. New loans were opened and operations seriously
begun to restore pubHc credit, and diminish the obligations of the
state. At this period, or 1816, the debt of Austria in the money
value of her depreciated paper, was 191,186,715 fl., bearing no
interest, representing paper, issued to the amount of 678,712,8304.

florins. florins.

Paper 191,186,765 678,712,630 Without interest.

{Bearing interest reduced
to ^ by the governmeut
in 181U
Loan of, 1815 22,000 000 44,000,000 bearing interest.

Money.. 293,820,515 (31,127,136^.) repretfentiug.. 1,330,712,830 (138,615,919/.) of paper.

The interest upon the loans being, on the old debt, 4,281,690 fl.,
on the loan, 1,100,000 fl.; total interest, 5,381,690 fl. Such was
the state of the debt of Austria at the peace of 1815, and such
the enormous depreciation which had befallen her paper money.
At that time an arrangement might have been effected with the
creditors of the government. The judicious application of
14,000,000 or 15,000,000 fl. annually for about thirty years,
might have extinguished the entire debt, and placed the financial
credit upon a firm basis. The ruin which nad happened pro-
bably entailed upon the government a consciousness that, not-
withstanding its many belligerent reverses, its own conduct regard-
ing the currency had been impolitic and unjust, having increased
the suffering of the nation. With a feeling more akin to a sense
of rectitude and a desire to make compensation, than to poHtical
perspicuity, an attempt was made to remedy a portion of the evil
thus inflicted. The reflection that such a demonstration must be
inoperative did not occur. It ought to have been seen that those
who had been ruined by the government paper long before the
peace, were not then the holders, having parted with it for what-
ever they could obtain. They who had the real right to redresB,
could not therefore be compensated, and the existing holders got a
bonus, at the public expense, to which they had no title. The ob-

Finances and Public Credit of Austria. 441

ject should rather have been to prevent 'any further depreciation
of tihe circulating paper, which was then at 335 for 100 in money.
In place of this, tne government actually forced the paper up to
250 for 100, and set about its redemption at that rate^ by loans
bearing interest, incurred to pay off a debt which bore none !

** We are far from being- persuaded in general of the utility of mea-
sures which have in view to restore the nominal value of depreciated
paper money,*' says the author ; " above all, when such a measure can-
not be effected without burdening the state heavily, and enchmning the
fioture revenues. When a paper currency is depreciated, passing from hand
to hand, incomes and commercial prices are regulated, more or less, by
such depredation, and the loss sustained is partaken for the most part, in a
xnodeimp^ceptible to those who expend, as well as to those who receive the
exchange for merchandise or service. When the circulating medium is re-
stored to the value it has lost, the operation turns generally to the profit
of those who suffered little or nothing by the depreciation, a just repara-
tion being impossible."

The plan pursued was this : the paper money was called in,
and the currency established on the footing of 20 fl. for a
Cologne nfiarc of pure silver, called * money of convention.'
A national bank was founded, the notes of which were pay-
able in money. Exchanges of old for new paper were effected
at the creditor's pleasure, the new paper being exchanged for
the money of the national bank, payable to tlie bearer, or in
purchase of shares in the bank itself. Tor 140 fl. just before
worth only 43 fl. from depreciation, the creditor received 40 fl.
in bank-notes, payable to the bearer, and 100 fl. bear-
ing one per cent, interest, which at five per cent represented
a principal of 20 fl. The state redeeming the paper money
debt at 40 fl^ per cent, above the real value, and contracting
a debt in its place, nearly half of which bore interest. The
bank-notes were now issued too rapidly for the means of the
bank, and a new law, in 1816, sanctioned a loan called ' Arro-
sinmgS'Anleihe,^ by means of which the holders of the old state
paper, whose interest had been reduced one half by the decree of
1811, received a certain value in paper money, called * me-
tallicfi/ bearing five per cent, interest in convention money.
These being issued to the extent of 120,000,000 fl.^ added
6,000,000 fl. to the annual expenses of the state for interest.
The bank shares were sold at 1000 fl. in paper and 100 fl.
in money, ^ by which means 50,621,000 fl. of the for-
mer paper were withdrawn firom circulation, and the bank re-
oeived a like sum in stete obligations, carrying 2\ per cent,
interest. This interest and the produce of its commercial affidre
becaane more and more lucrative, and the shares soon rose to
600 fl. in value. The bank profits had become considerable,

442 M. L. de Tegoborski on the

that it 'vya? necessary to limit the paper redemption through the
shares in the mode.ake^y mentioned, lest the interest shoiold
become too burdensome to the. state, Tlius much for thei re-
demption of . the state paper- The * old debt,'> jusiiii is
called, consisting of 608,000,000 fl. nominally,; i^uced ;to
488,000,000 flL. by the Arrosirungs loan, was, eubjepted ;to
redemption on another plan, being divided into 488 senesiof
one nominal million each, which were converted-bylottcafyinto
different obUgations, bearing ^ percent, interest upoaoL the r^nced
value. A portion of the origmal notes was every year to-be re-
deemed and burned. Unfortunately the extant paper has JEiflm
in value, and the piurchase for destruction become^ anmially
more costly. We have not space to follow thia part of ihe>8tib*'
ject further ; the total reduction of the debt cannot be con^ileted
imtil 1879. The sum devoted to the purpose in 1842 was
42,847,224 fl., or 4,462,752/. The outstanding state obit
gations which might, at the peace, have been purchased up. at
18 per cent., have risen to 65, and may rise higher.

The bank of Vienna which has so much contributed to iifi
aid of the government was established in 1816. The munbexof
bills it discoimted in 1840 was 61,913, having a mean vahxeof
4934 fl. or dl3Z. 19^. 2d, each, showing that its transactions
are with the more opulent rather than the small traders. Notes
are issued as low as 13*., of which 150,000,000 fl. circulate.
Of gold and silver coin from 140,000,000 to 150,000,000 A
more circulate, in all about 32,500,000/. sterling. The re-
ceipts of the bank were, in 1840, 5,285,913 fl. 32 kr., the
expenses 645,680 fl. 42 kr., the profit 4,640,232 fl. 50 kr., or
483,357/.

Tlie repose of the continent we fervently hope may be pro-
tracted beyond our day, but it is a maxim of prudence to be
prepared for a different state of things, since to be weak in wealth
IS to be miserable with nations as well as individuals. Austria
can scarcely hope to escape a repetition of her past calamities, in
the event of being involved in a war, surrounded as she is , by
jealous and powerful states; and we are of opinion that future
European wars will not be made by halves. Taxat^n has-it^
limits, and the most frugal in peace, despite the cant of too many
would-be statesmen, is the government best prepared for war.
Past prodigality, too blind to discern in enormous fiscal pressure
the germs of future revolution, has left the consequences of heavy
national obligations to the fortimes of posterity. Not only are
the Austrian finances less flourishing than those of Prussia, but
Austria is m a far more unfavourable position as regards the
proportion between her revenue and her debt. Her satest course
would be to develop her many sources for creating wealth, a c(m«

Finances and Public Credit of Austria.

443

summation for which it will be seen that her existing system of
taxation and trade dhowB nothing that promises auspiciously.

The sources of revenue in Austria differ much from those of
Prussia^ the last being more concentrated in territory. Hungary
and Transylvania contribute little to the state in proportion to
their superficies; the Hungarian noble pays no direct taxes, and
both provinces are exempt from many indirect contributions that
weigh heavily on the rest rf the empire. The payments of the
two amount only to 1 fl. 38 kir. per head of the population, whilst
5 fi. 26 kr. per head are paid in the other provinces. Vast forests,
mines, and forges, belong to the crown in these districts, but they
are iU managed. Out of 12,167 square miles, 10,296 are reported
productive. In comparison with Prussia the productive soil of
Austria is as 85 to 92; the proportion in which that soil is cul-
tivated being also in favour of Prussia. In the latter country 60.5
per cent, of^e productive soil is under cultivation, and only 51.9
per cent, in Austria. Lower Austria, Lombardy, and Venice, con-
tain a tenth of the productive soil of the Austrian empire, a sixth of
the population, and pay -/Z^, or nearly one-third of the total
revenue* The produce of the land throughout the empire is by
no means upon an equaUty with the natural advantages, but the
improvement of agriculture is a slow process where the interest
in the soil is small, and the husbandman content with meeting in the
fruit of his labour the bare necessities of the passing day. From
the taxes upon land, little increase to the revenue can therefore be
expected ior a long time to come. The following table exhi-
bits the state of the returns from the soil in the different provinces
of Austria. The productions are those of Europe generally be-
tween latitudes 45 and 49 deg. N. The population and other heads
are, for 1837, from the statistical work oi Professor Springer.

Per Head.

Austria below the Enns ,

Carinthia and Camiola

Littoral

Stjria

Upper Austria

Moraria and Silesia

Gallicia.

Bohemia

Lombardy

Hungary and Transylyania

Military frontiers

Venice

Tyrol.... ,

Balmatia

SoU

Revenue

Sq. Miles.

Productive

per Mile

per 100.

Square.

•

fl.

359.7

96.2

54,184*

370.4

94.5

10,486

144.3

92.9

19,848

407.6

92.3

10,601

347.9

91.2

14,487

497.2

89.1

18,483

1598.1

88.1

7,914

952.1

85.4

16,857

403.0

85.3

47,643

5297.0

85.

3,936

759.8

79.

3,473

429.7

73.8

35,002

516.5

74.

6,277

234.4

51.9

3,929

fl. kr.

14 40

5 24

6
4
6
4
2
4
7
1
2
7
3
2

15
37

0
25
49

0
44
35
16
15
58
28

The capital swells the returns of this province fully one-halfl

444 M. X. de Tegcborski on the

Omitting the provinces of Hungry and TnmsylTania, the
cultivated soil of the rest of Austria is fax superior to that of Prussia,
both in quantity aud quality of returns from a given superficies.
That is to say, the 53 per cent, cultivated soil of Austria yields
much more in proportion than the 60 per cent, possessed by Frusoi.
The climate is better, and the face of the country more varied;
while much of Prussia is sandy, and toilsome to keep in cultiva-
tion. High Austria is well cultivated, the fiirmers being the best
in Germany. In Lower Austria the vines occupy 34 out of 100
parts of the surface. Lombardy produces two crops of some kindfl
in the year, and a considerable quantity of rice. Gallicia is emi-
nent for its agriculturo, the land being often ten years without
dressing, and then returning eightfold. Hungary and Transylvania
excepted, the produce of me other eleven provinces for 1837 was
estimated at 123,861,000 metzen of all kinds, or 31,251,7024^^
quarters English, being 65,533 for eveiy square mile of produc-
tive soil. (Prussia yields 106,072,620 metzen, or 28,313,050
quarters.) The total corn produce of Austria, as above msor
tioned, was distinguished in kind as follows : 15,848,^30 metzen
of wheat; of rye and maize, 46,015,000; barley, 20,755,300; and
oats, 41,244,800. The vineyards, given in joc/i of 9560tollie
square mile, are 1,442,570; garden ground, orchards, meadows,
6,994,698; pastures, 6,642,067; forests, 16,650,245.

Austria, in 1834, had only three cities having above 100,000 of
population; viz., Vienna, Prague, and Milan; together, 584,000;
four only with 50,000; together, 257,000; viz., Trieste, Vaiioe,
Verona, and Leopold; and twelve above 20,000. Of 19,832,000,
the population of the eleven provinces, 60 in 1000 liv^ in the
large towns. Prussia has BerHn alone with more than 100,000,
the population of which is 265,000; five above 50,000, andtw^
above 20,000; 64 in 1000 live in the large towns. Tte vilWes
and little towns in Austria are more numerous and better peopled
than in Prussia. In the German and Italian provinces, the accom-
modation of the inhabitants is on a larger scale, and the populatioa
more wealthy. The same difference is observable as respects the
country in Prussia. Sombre, fragile houses of brick or wood, cased
in plaster and often half ruined, the streets of the smaller ixrma
deserted and silent, contrast, much to their disadvantage, with the
life and movement in those of Austria. A similar £fierenoe is
perceptible in the furniture and interior arrangements^ in the
taverns, shops, places of public amusement, equipages, dreaa, food
of the tradespeople and lower classes, all having more the extmar
signs of comjvetenoe or riches. In the capitals of the two coun-
tries the dissimilarity is more striking, as being the centres of
iashion and of the local aristocracy; and the same thing is observ-
able between the industrious and conmaercial claflsesof the lespectiYe

Finances and PuhUc Credit of Austria. 445

countries. In Vienna, taking the proportion of the two popula-
tions into account, more of the flower of aristocratic and commer-
cial rank is seen than in Berlin; and there is as great a disparity.
Bays the author, between the pecuniary means and the mode of
lire led by the different classes generally.

** I have inhabited both the one and the other long enough to judge,**
says M. de Tegoborski. " The sumptuousness, luxury, and affluence of
Vienna, and the fragal and economical life of the Berlin citizen, strike
the observer in an equal degree. Save a very few excq)tions, the
citizen of Vienna Kves, whether in what concerns table, dress, or social
expenditure, a life of more ease, and more expensively, than the noble
oor financial aristoeraev of Berlin. The same may be said of the lower
classes of citizens in Vienna, of the retail shopkeeper, compared with the
wholesale merchant or manu£Eicturer in the Prussian capital The work-
man or artisan is better fed, better clad, and spends more money in
pleasure, than the classes above him in the social scale do at Berlin. The
remark extends to the lowest grade of the population, and applies as
much to the chief places of the provinces, as to the towns of the second
and third classes, and even to the "\allages."

In a financial point of view the consumption of the Austrian towns
must be doubly as productive as those of Prussia to the indirect
taxes. The resources of Austria taken into account, her budget
ought to be three to two more to her advantage than that of
Prussia, while the opposite is the fact. Prussia must either be
oppressed with a fiscal load which may account for the difference
in her social aspect compared with Austria, or liie latter has ne-
glected the best means of raising the supplies necessary to place her
finances in a prosperous condition.

The direct contributions of Austria are those on land and
iiouses, Grund-und-Gebdude-Steuer, In the hereditary domi-
nions of Austria the payments made to the state were formerly
levied upon the communal and peasant lands, the amount being
regulated by the days of seignorial labour, or corvees. Subse-
qnently, in some parts of the empire, as in Bohemia, the taxes
were paid upon a surface measure of the cantons or districts, under
fin approximative valuation, so badly conducted that the larger
landed proprietors were enabled to shift the burden of taxation
ozpon their vassals and tenantry, themselves either wholly es-
caping or coming off with very light payments. The neoes-
fiities of the state increased this biurden upon the laborious classes
to a degree which must have amounted to a grievous oppres-
sion. The Empress Maria Theresa was the sovereign under
wiiose reign the miseries of this system first seriously attracted
the attention of the government; for although Charles .VI. had
subjected the Milanese to a regular survey, with a view to an

s

446 M, L. de Tegoborski on the

equitable taxation, denominated the Censimento Mikmesej' on m
other part of the empire had a similar benefit been confeinred. To
eflfect this object there were diflBculties to encotinter in ihe dast
ing interests and rusty prgudices of individuals. These wefe tjnly
partially surmounted durinff the reign of Ae empress, but she
succeeded in assimilating the seignorial lands to the same pro-
portional system of taxation as those of the communes and pea-
sants, and this was a most important step gained. IJnfbrtuiiately
the landowners themselves furnished the basis of what wall "dius
effected, and it may be surmised that the returns they made ifesQ
incorrect and arbitrary. The first survey of a better chtowter
was begun and completed in four years under Joseph 11., tjom-
risinff all the provinces of Austria Proper, but thespe was mtdi
ifficuity in procuring surveyors competent to the task, and "tiie
results were defective m consequence. Notwithstanding the eircffs
of this survey, the lands were valued upon the rough produce,
and the tax fixed at 12 fl. 13Jkr. for every 100 fl. of return,
which would be about IZ. 5*. 4|rf. for every lOL Ss, 4d. ster-
ling. This payment was afterwards altered lor vine and arable
land to 10 n. 37|kr.; for meadow land 17fl. 55kr.; and forest
21fl. 15kr. for every 100 fl.

Thus the system continued until 1806, when a better and more
accurate survey was proposed as a remedy for the existing ine-
quaUties of the old, and the project was again brought forward in
1810, but in both cases the poHtical troubles of the time pre-
vented any active measures being adopted for the purpose.
It was as recently as 1817 that this important undertaking was
seriously begun. The model adopted was that of the Gensi-
mento Milanese, but Himgary and Transylvania were especiallj
excepted from its operation. It deserves remark that even under
the miperfect survey previoudy made, the fiscal burdens upon
the land in Gallicia were lightened one-third of their amount
This may afford some idea of the inequality of the old imposts,
and of tne way in which the communes and peasantry must have
been aggrieved. An abstract of the imperial decree is given by
the author : it declares the objects of the crown to be, to affix taxation
according to the rules of rigorous justice, and to encourage agri-
culture. It goes on to specify that lands and houses are to be
taxed on the net return, and to state the deductions where
any are to be admitted. A map of every commune, with
a just description of each kind of soil, production, and building
it contains, is ordered for the purpose oi valuation : uncultivatea
lands, burying-grounds, churches, barracks, hospitals, and public
buildings are exempted from taxation. The particular ame-
liorations of soil produced by the outlay of capital or the dimi-

Finances and Public Credit of Austria. 447

•

nution of product by neglect of culture, are in no way to be
regarded, the true and distmct quality of tbe knd upon the mode
of cultivation and average returned W the majority oi cultivators is
to be the basis of the return: by this mode the more diligent are
encouraged, and those who are negligent feel the effects of their
misconduct. The calculation of the rough produce being thus set*
tied, it is valued with great care in numbers or classes, after a
mean taken from the more moderate prices of the markets upon
a range of fifty years. There se^ns exhibited in the proceedings,
as &r as the government is concerned, a desire to be rigidly just
towards every citizen. The communes are consulted, and the
replies compared with those from the individuals employed on
the siurvey and estimates, serving as a collateral guide as well as
a detection of any errors that may have been committed. The
expense of rectifymg faults in the survey falls upon those through
whose negligence they occur.

The provinces which have been, or are yet, subjected to this
survey, comprise all those in Italy, except Lombardy which fur-
nished the model, together with the Sclavonian or Austrian,
except Hungary and Transylvania, embracing a superficies of
5926 square geographical miles. Of these, as long ago as 1837,
the survey of no less than 35 11 , or -/tj of the whole surface, had been
completed. In the part of the archduch^j of Austria, situated
below the Enns, where the survey has been eight or nine years in
full operation, the payment on the net return is made at the rate of
IZ. 135. 7^^. upon every 10/. 8^. Ad. Lands subject to tithe pay
about 7^. 6rf. less upon the same sum, the difference being levied
on the tithe proprietor. The tithes were a burden most grievous
to the peasant, who was befoire made to bear them and other
similar burdens when due from the revenues of his landlord, in
consequence of their being wholly shifted upon him. The return
of the tax from Venice is nearly 24 in 100 fl., but the inequa-
lities of this kind of taxation are proportioned in Austria to
the fair value of the property and soil, which last is richest in
the Italian provinces. The land pays in Venice 16,946 fl. for
each square mile of productive soil, and in Lombardy 21,526 fl.
while none of the other provinces pay more than 8329 fl. In
Lombardy the return is 3 fl. each person, while in High Austria
it is only 2 fl. 30 kr.

In the endeavour to do substantial justice to the tax-payer
Austria ranks before Prussia, if we may place confidence in the
statements of the present author. She not only overcame those
obstacles, by no means to be lightly esteemed, which individual in*
terest or prejudice placed in the way of the cadastre or survey,
but she removed from the communes and peasants the burdens

448 M, L. de Tegobor$ki on the

which aristocratic oppression and injustice had laid upon tKent,
and she placed their own proper proportion upon the shoulders of
high and low ahke. Prussia has never attempted to comjdete a
survey or cadastre for this equitable purpose, though in it is iar
volved the true interest of her government and people. Nofthing
can be more oppressive and partial than the taxes on the land in
Prussia. Our author denies the existence of any such inequali^
in Austria, except in isolated cases in those portions of her pro-
vinces to which the survey has not yet extended itself. It goes
far towards substantiating his opinion, that the Austrian govenob-
ment has displayed such zeal for what is ric^ht^ and has eSeded
so lar^e a person of an expenave and tediouTandertaking. WhsL
Prussia has proceeded as far in the same route in the desire to do
justice to herself and her people, a fair parallel may be drawa
between the two countries, regarding the land-tax, but not until
then. Let us see what are the nnposts levied upon the agnGukuiJ
interest of Prussia.

In isolated cases, 76 out of 100 is paid in the same province
where only from 17 to 30 in the 100 is commonly exacted. In
Eastern Prussia the seignioral estates pay only a fourth of their net
revenue, the free tenants and others a third, and the unfortunate
peasant one-half ! In Western Prussia the nobles pay 25 per ceait
net, the free tenants &om 25 to 30, and the peasants 33^. In
Pomerania the payments are more unequal and even more op-
pressive. The Bitter- Griiter or the proparty of the equestrian
gentry pays only from 20 to 40 crowns a jrear. In Silesia the
princes and royal family pay 28 out of 100 of their net revedsme;
the peasantry 34. In the former Saxon provinces some pay ovlj
a h^ht sum and others 40 crowns. In the Duchy of Posen we
nobility pay but 24 in 100; the peasants 33. There was a pro^
ject for a general revision of the system in 1810, but Pru^a waa
then in a state very different from what she is at present. Goven-
ments, as well as individuals, find thirty- three years an inccmye-
nient period to carry back their recollection, when involving Bnatter
not at present agreeable. A law passed in 1820, relating to
certain imposts and fixing them at 20 in 100, belonged to a
mrticular category, and relieved only certain isolated cases; The
Khenish provinces alone having received under the French theca-
destral plan, had the benefit of its completion in 1839, and now
pay 20 per cent, of their net income. That the land has not been
fairly rated in Prussia may be inferred from the &ct that Austna
draws 6915 fl. from each square mile; Prussia but 3029.

The duty of carrying the cadastre into effect was at first in-
trusted to what is styled the Grundsteuer'ReguKrungS'Hof 'Com-
mission, This commission was afterwards dissolved and its duties

Finances and PtiMic Credit of Austria. 449

were pCTformed by the ordinary proTinckl auttorities, but a board
was instituted at Vienna as a central commission "^of direction, to
wliich the superintendence of the technical part of the labour was
confided.

The tax on houses is levied according to the number of rooms,
by a graduated scale, or else according to the rent; the latter mode
is tmncipally followed in the more opulent towns; 15 per cent,
beomg deaucted for repairs, the rest pays at the rate of 18 per
cent. If the house be let furnished, tne value of the furniture is
deducted. In other towns the houses are classed and pay from
20 kr. to 30 fl. each house as rated. The expenses of the collec-
tion are about 2^ per cent. The land and house tax in Austria
produce about one-third oi the revenue of the eleven provinces
m which it is collected, or about 36,000,000 fl. (3,900,000/.)
In Prussia this tax returns the moiety of that sum, and is much
Bkore onerous, being less equally levied, and of a larger proportion-
ate amount.

The second direct Austrian tax is on Trades and Professions.
There are four classes of individuals taxed, manufecturers, merchants,
artisans, and traders {Kimste und Gewerhe) and professors. The ma-
nufacturers and ' &bricants' (we have no analogous English word
for the last) are in two classes, the first may carry on their bua-
ness in a province only; the second throughout the empire. The
first are men of capital, but not of so large an amount as the
second. The rates of taxation are different for each class and
its subdivisions. All professors pay who are employed in in-
struction,^ pubUc or private; also attorneys, brokers, and similar
persons, iobbers out of horses and carnages, or individuals em-
ployed ii any my as cairiers. They who dispose of the produce
of their own land, men of letters, those who cultivate the fine arts;
medical men, surgeons, and midwives; such as are in the public
service; all who give instruction where the population is not 4000;
workmen on another's accoimt; those employed in selling revenue
articles of monopoly, as stamps or tobacco ; farmers of the revenue;
miners; those who let horses employed in agriculture the greater
part of their time; Turks, by the treaty of 1718; the inha-
bitants of the free ports and some others are excepted. Manufac-
turers or fabricants pay from 40 to ISOOfl.; bankers, &c. from 300
to 1500 fl.; merchants from 100 to 1000 fl.; traders and pro-
fessors from 5 to 300 fl. Without payment and a certificate or
licence fix)m the proper fimctionanes, no one can exercise his
business.

This tax was substituted for a stamp duty existing before upon
all kinds of indigenous productions, with a view to equalize
trade with agriculture in point of taxation, but which had been
found to press too heavily on the national industry. The tax

450 M. L. de TegebmnH am the

is levied in proportum to the ftmoant of tlie butniesB tnoiB-
acted hj the meidiant or trader, and the capital he emfdoyB;
in professiaoa accoTding to the pnoe demanded for aerfioM.
The tax lequifes that the piecise capital a tnidor intendato empio?.
inth every thing lekrive to his oomine«»l or tading. 4^
should be declared to the authorities, ewen,-^ the nsmbcc of.hii
workmen. If not satis&ctorj, the statement is to be Tevified im
detail, whilst a ^Ise declaration is subject to a heavy, fine. 'The
merchant or tcader is then entered in his class, which is ofaaiigBck
as circumstances require ; but he cannot trade outr of Us neBcriboI
locality. InPrussiathe same kind of tax is leried, but Ineamont
is regulated acconHng to the sise of the locality where iimvtajet
trades. The tax is thus comparativdy light of effibet,. aad tbo
rapid progress of Prussian industry has hem ottvibnted by 4R>md
to that circumstance. In Prussia the impost psoduoed in 1841^'
3,114,000 fl., and m Austria, 2,257,000 fl., Hunsaiy and Trnth
sylvania being excepted from its operation. The impost layi
open every man's affairs, and is decidedly injurious to buonett.
As in the income-tax of England, the disclosure of eadi man'f
means and speculations to the government, as well as to hitf
neighbour, is calculated to repress the firee spirit of traffic^ and
subjects the man of small capital to be crushed by the wealthier
trader, besides being abhorrent to personal medom and the
privity respecting his own concerns, to which every man has a
natural right. Such taxes are, on that account, ininucal to puUio
liberty, though in harmony with despotic governments^ where the
aggregate of taxation is light. Besides the above, there is a gm^
duated tax on income in Austria, called the PersanalrSteuer ; it
now only subsists in the Italian provinces, in Dalmatia, andbndier
Croat and Sclavonian frontiers; even there it is often -changed to a
capitation tax, levied equally upon all ranks, being about 3 UVfes,
or 2s, 6d. a head, and returning 1,240,000 fl. This tax is shortly
to be abolished. In Dalmatia and the military provinces the
amount returned is only about 60,000 fl. In Prussia the capita-
tion tax is onerous and unequal. The richest pay only 144 crowns,
or 26L per annum,' while the poor workman or labourer is bur-
dened with 8 crowns, or 1/. 2s. Sd. The miserable aspect of the
hamlets in Prussia can scarcely be matter for wonder.

The next Austrian tax is that upon Jews — ^upon a rdigioni
First, all Jews pay the FandUen^Steuer^ who have 300 fl. of in-
come; next, those of only 150 fl. pay the Vermogena-Steuer;
lastly, there is a separate tax on the slaughter of their cattle and
fowls. The total amount is 216,000 fl. . In Moravia the Jews
pay 5 fl. per family, and a tax on their meat, beer, and fowls; in
all, 65,000 fl. per year; in Grallicia, on their meat, fowb, and
light, producing 690,000 fl. In Lower Austria similar taxes pro*

Fmtmees emd JPMie Credit of Austria. 451

duce IS^OOQ fl. Pmsfiia has ^haauioneA tfaiir diflmsaoeful system
of -tasifttioBui Tlie total;* of . the dignet ii.xatiap m. Austna, £rom
sJio80ux€e8f land; aad laouses, r tEftdes and pxofesBioiiSy and per*
sooiJi limpostB, was in 1841, 42^000,000 fi^ of which the tax
(h:i kndS'^tfiid houaea paid .'ox-feventha.* Isc Prussia the direct
taxes' TOKidiMS >26,8a(H000 &^: ^. which seveiirthirteeiiths fall

tThe.dSsitr'liead of m<&>9Oi^;taxati0n ia^ that on artidies of con^
suniptidnf < ai part .o£ which, only ^afiecta the country at large*
19Mi8ejaiBdei#^tr4K)BEaderaUei;alte(ration in 1829, wnen a imi«
jboQfrinade .of . hfvyixig them was adopted. The towna and
couBlayikre^flUhjectoid to duties alike upon mm, anack, essence
of ipTniBoh,,7«id'Sfigai?ed' InjQora in general; upon. spirits of wine^
brandy of Jb3 ds^eea^ wine, wine must, cider, beer, &t cattle,
cah^, oalres under a -year old, sheop, goats, deer, lambs, sucking^
piin,ipigsy andbuichers' meat^ la the country the tariffis&om
S.sL a head^ down to 6 kr. In the chief towns from 4 fl. to 10 kr.
Thexlnty on liquor is paid on the eimer of 14.942 gallons, varying,
absondiiig tothe tariff, from 4 fl. 30 kr. on rum and spirits of wine,
to 45 krc on beer. For the large towns additional articles sub-
ject to. duly are, hydromel, vinegar, poultry, pullets, and pigeons,
T^iison^ game of all kinds, birds used for food, wild or tame,
aUikinds of flsh, even oysters and sheU-flsh, rice, flour^ grits, and
shmlar oreparations, com and dried vegetables, hay, straw, green
vegetables^ roots, finut, dry or green, butter, lard, candles, soap,
cheese^ ;milk, ^gs, wax, ou, wood, coal, bricks and tiles, stone and
sand for. bmldings, lime, plaster, timber, and fifty others. A single
pecevof thnber, used for the construction of a house, will some,
times have to pay, on being taken into Vienna by the builder, 5fl.
15 ks.',^>or.ll^.

When the tariff trenches upon certain rights of individuals and
communities, a commission is appointed in the province to ^r-
ranee the charges.

iSor are these duties inconsiderable for mainy articles:, even
in. the country, since they reach from 20 to 25 per cent., and
sometimes more. Thus ordinary wines pay firom 30 tor 40 per cent,
on their value there* In the large towns, consumers have to pay
from 25 to 100 per cent. duty. Those who deal in liquors and
cattlCj indicate to the authorities an approximation to the quan-
tities they make, or they slaughter, in the year, and the duty which
they are disposed' to pay down to avoid the tedious formularies of
the tariff, the arrangement being for one, two, or three years.
Those whose declarations are not agreeable to lie fiscal officers,
must submit to precisely the same vexatious minuteness of detail,
and designation of instruments and buildings, which are practised

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIV. 2 H

452 M, L. de Teffoborskion tlte

under the laws of excise in England, but wHcIi are more exten-
sively mischievous in Austria, because they extend to almost every
trade, and are rigorously executed. The houses, cellars, shops,
locaUties, utensils, or tools, are described in a formulary to the
proper officer. Every thinff is numbered, measured, and gauged;
the tubs, vats, furnaces, and coppers, if the trader deal in liquor,
for example; nor is he permitted to make the smallest change
irithout the competent authority. Notice must be given of every
operation an entire day in advance. No fluid can be made that is
sold without this demotic surveillance. The butcher cannot kill
his cattle, nor &e innkeeper sell what he does not make. The
^rstem is carried into eveiy tradesman's house, who deals in ar-
ticles of consumption: in the towns Man is regarded by the state
as a toiling, deahng, eating, drinking, and sleeping aninial, created
solely for the purpose of being taxed. Here is a picture of industry
cramped in its operations, and of fiscal tyranny, sufficient of itself
to explain why Austria, with vast resources and a fertile territory,
finds her budget defective. Freedom is the soul of trade: firee-
dom to project, freedom to amend, extend, or contract the means
of operation, unchallenged, in secrecy or openly, according to the
mode privately judged eligible. The government that does not
admit this principle is ignorant of its own best interest. Some-
times those who do not ^ree with the fiscal, have their duties
farmed, but this mode is foimd not to be so productive as the
contract or arrangement made with the dealer for a term.

In Prussia the taxes on consumption are neither so numerous
nor enormous: those on tobacco, wine, brandy, beer, &t beasts,
and com converted into particular articles, are the principal In
lieu of the two last items, the towns in which they axe levied aie
entitled to substitute, if they please, a personal tax satisfactory in
amount to the fiscal. The duty on farinaceous food is exceed-
ingly smaU, not quite seven farthmgs per hundredweight.

The product of this branch of Austrian taxation is 19,200,000

A personal tax in the room of the ahore on Venice and Lorn-

hardy produces '. 1^40,000

A special tax leyied upon the Jews 990,000

Nearly two-thirteenths of the revenue or 81,430,000

Q%e amount of these taxes in Brussia is 24,255,718^

On the population of Austria subject to tiiis tax, its spnount is
one-sixth of a kreutzer per day; on that of Prussia, ^kr. It
must be observed, notwithstanding, that this tax presses princi-
pally upon the large towns. In France it is heavier thwi in
Prussia by full ten per cent., and in Austria by 80 per cent., upon
the entire population subject to the impost.

Finances and Public Credit of Austria. 463

• The OaiomB form the second head of indirect taxation ; the

aznount received on importations is 14,862,1 16fl^ on exporta-

tions l,347,046fl. Total.... 16,209,162

Dnties received on the Hungarian line 2,643,527

Ditto firom tfaMB other provinoes 218,383

Venetian mannfactnres, duties on 15,993

Total 19,087,065fl.

The net profit of the Austrian customs, in 1840, was
14,315,319 fl. the gross receij)t being 19,087,065 fl.; the
expense of collection is therelore 26 per cent., levied upon
foreign goods, upon importations and exportations along the
Hungarian and other frontiers, on the commerce of Dalmatia,
which has an ordinance of customs for itself and on the commerce
of Venice, as a free port.

The prohibitions are few, relating principally to adulterated
articles, but the duties equal to a jprohibition are numerous, and
the tariff altogether highly restrictive. The system of Prussia is
that of the Grermanic commercial union, or Zoll" Verein.

M. de Tegoborski says that England did not * preach' in
favour of free trade until she had received the benefit of a
restrictive system. We might remind M. de Tegoborski that
England did not become Christian imtil she had had the benefit
of idolatry; that she did not possess civil freedom until she had
received the benefit of the tjn^nny of the Stuarts ; that she did
not adopt the jenny until she had disregarded the advantage of
the spinning-wheel. England is forced, according to our author,
to enter upon the career of free trade, that she may no longer
offer the inconsistent spectacle of precept and practice at
variance. Those both for and against the tariff of Sir Robert
Peel, are, according to the author, not quite in harmony with
themselves upon tne ultimate consequences of that measure.
In the teeth o£ this, M. de Tegoborski says, that liberty of com-
merce wisely tempered and appropriated to the particular cir-
cumstances of each country, is a source of prosperity, and wiU
become ultimately necessary in every state. What power is to

* temper and appropriate' we are not told; we presume upon the
continent it means the head of each state, which, if not pos-
sessing infallible judgment, always retains infeUible power. We
suspect that the Emperor of Russia, or of Austria, or an
English house of commons composed of agriculturists, would be
bad judges when each modicum of concession should be doled
out, and be more inclined than the generosities of the vul-
gar would allow them to admit, to settle the matter according
to their own 'particular advantage,' rather than the future
benefit of those most concerned. Sir Robert Peel has nothing
to fear for the principle of his tariff, notwithstanding the appre-

2h2

454 M. L, de Tegijboriki on the

hension of our author, or we should rather say the want of ap-
prehension of the sounder principles of trade which is so obvious
among continental economists.

We cannot follow M. de TegoborsH through the argum^its
he has adduced to favour some part of a restrictive system, which
we suppose he would himself denominate moderate in extent
He quotes unhappy Poland, and with justice states that she had
nothing to export but com, and could not cultivate that upon the
mere hazard of a bad harvest in England— her agriculturists
in consequence became sufferers. In 1821 the government, it
seems, took measures for settling the difficulty. Credit and a
system of customs being estabKshed, awoke the national industiy-
as if by enchantment, and placed ^ happib/ between Russia and
Germany, closing her frontiers to the last, and introducing her
manufactures at a low rate into the former, particularly her wooUen
goods, she continued to prosper. Justly does the author ask to
what end an agricultural country is to go on producing com
without a market, and whether creating a manufacturing popu-
lation to consume, is not a wise measure. No one disputes this*
A nation producing com and wool alone can only grow and
manufacture as far as a certain point; when this is attained, her.
industry must stand still, or she must offer in exchange what the
world will be little inclined to exchange with her at all. It is by
a multiplication of exchanges, embracing the greatest possible
variety of articles contributing to use or luxury, that a lasting
system of trade and manufactures can exist. Without the cot-
ton of America, Egypt, and India, exchanged for manu&ctures
or indigenous products, England could never nave been so wealthy.
That the home market must be first supplied is true, but the do-
mestic life of England exhibits numberless articles of use or luxury
that would never have been seen but for the interchanges of her
commerce. These, bringing wealth, generated other articles of
manufacture, that, as other countries attain refinement, wiU become
articles of demand in them. Those which are best and cheapest
find their way in preference all over the world. It is upon the
system of interchange, the wants of one country supplying those
of another, and not upon the reverse, that a beneficial trade
must be grounded; a system that cannot be begun too early, and
to which heavy protecting duties are obstaclea England is no
example here. Lord Liverpool justly said, * Commerce has
thriven despite parliamentary enactments.'

We must do the author the justice to say, he does not argue in
favour of enormous duties, and many of his observations merit
praise. He supports gradual alterations where systems are bad;
ne is not aware how fallible are all the laws made by govern-

Finances and Public Credit of Austria. 455

ments for trade, compared to those dictated by the nature of com-
merce itself. These last arise out of practical knowledge, the
others are generally the result of crude ideas, of financial nopes,
of the selfish interests of party, or of long-nurtured prejudices.

Prussia lightened her duties, though the change was met by
violent outcries; she has proportionally profited. Austria is not
wise enough to follow the example. The treasury of the one
country has a surplus, that of the other groans from famine. Of
651 articles in the Austrian tariflP, 547 pay duty without
Regard to the gross or net weight: 75 pay upon the value, 39
tipdn the piece. A new regulation recently altered the articles
charged after their value to 65, and those upon the weight to 547.
In the German Association, the duties are all imposed, except one,
upon the groSs weight. A special permission must be had for
the importation of many articles, and fifteen of these carry a duty
of 60 per cent.

Some of the duties are twenty times heavier in Austria than in
Prussia and the Germanic Association, a striking proof of the im-
politic system of Austria. M. de Tegoborski jusUy observes that
when an indigenous manufacture requires a protection of 60 per
cent, in duties, the protection is unwise. His reference to the
more flourishing state of the Prussian manufactures is decisive.
We learn, too, that the importation of cotton thread into Prussia
find the associated states appears to be upon the increase, while
the manufacture of the same article is carried on there to a great
extent. Prussia exported 22,812 cwt. of cotton fabrics in 1832;
in 1835 she exported 55,200. The cotton trade of the customs
union of Germany since it included Baden, Nassau, and Frank-
fort, gave in 1838-9 a mean of 77,795 cwt. received, — exceed-
ing that exported. Silk pays in Austria six times more duty than
in Prussia; yet the trade flourishes more out of all proportion in
the last countiy : here is a natural result of high duties. Again,
smugghng, known and felt too much in England, is fearfully ex-
perienced in Austria. The smuggler is the readiest schoolmaster
for bungling financiers. In Austria, encouraged by large profits,
he carries on his hazardous trade to a greater extent than in all
the Germanic states put together. Articles borne in a small
compass easily pass into Austria, owing to her vast frontier. Of
all the Eiuropean nations her interest in this respect is most
connected with low duties, while she perversely follows the oppo-
site plan. A proof of this is, that for ten years the mean amount
for what are called Putzwaaren (under which denomination are
included all all showy articles for male and female wear, except
goods in the piece) was but 5104 fl. for the whole empire. Now
many a lady of fashion in Vienna annually expends a larger

£

456 M. L, de Tegcborski on the

amount on her toilette, wluch consists in a great measure of Eng-
lish and French goods. In shawls the ffovemment retum
;ave but 479 fl. a year for ten years; while there was not a
amsel, even among the shopkeepers, but had several shawls, if
not cachmeres, still of foreign manuiacture, that should have paid
duty. Every lady in Vienna has dresses of Lyons alk, and yet
the mean retum of the customs for ten years gives but 41 fl. of
duty per annum. Prussia has little smuggling; for upon the
articles most easily introduced, and most profitable to the smug*-
gler she keeps her duties low. A table is given by the author of
the few articles in which there is a higher duty in Prussia than in
Austria, but for this there is generally some special reason, as in
the case of cattle, a tax existing on those wnich are native. In
her transit duties Austria is pecimarly liberal, the lar^r part pay-
ing only from 2 kr. to 5 kr. per cwt. Exportation is free in the
states of the Germanic Association, but on that of Austria there
are duties payable.

Hungary is imder a different system of taxation from the rest
of the empire, and is less heavily mulcted, but we have not ^»ce
to enter into detail. There are 685 custom stations along the
outer and the Hun^rian frontiers; 229 of the first, and 456 of
the second class. The first are styled Commerzial'ZoU'Aemter,
the others Halfs-ZolhAemter. In the chief towns there are 63
central custom stations called Haupt-ZoH-Aemter^ and in the in-
terior country 50 secondaries styled Legstatten, Besides there are
71 stations appointed to control the bifls of parcels travelling with
the merchandise passing in or out, and lastiy a frontier guard
called the Finanz-Wache, There are also tribes of inspectors and
other superior officials. The expenses of the customs in all the
provinces of the empire include the salaries of 19,124 persons,
who are paid incomes of various amoimts from 150 to 400 fl.
except the inspectors and officers, whose salaries range higher.
The cost to Austria of collecting this branch of her revenue may
be estimated at 30 per cent, lie gross income of the customs
of the Germanic Association was, in 1841, 38,352,000fl., out of
which the expenses were about 10 per cent, or 3,992,000, leaving
net 34,360,000 fl.

M. de Tegoborski indulges in conjectures as to the probalwility
of Austria joining the ZoU- Verein or German Association. Bte
examines the various obstacles to, and advantages of the measure
with shrewdness, and a perfect knowledge of the subject. Among
the obstacles, he aUudes to the repartition of the revenues, and
to the suppression of the custom duties occasioning a deficit,
together with the different monetary systems and the vireightsand
measures. He concludes this part of his work by stating that

Finances and Public Credit of Austria, 457

Austria has of late shown a spirit of industry, and is progressing
in Her manufactures. The ZoU- Verein consumes 70,000,000 lbs. of
cotton thread, of which it cannot supply more than 15,000,000 lbs.,
other accounts say a third; the remamder we presume comes from
Great Britain. Ino less than 311,532 workmen in the cotton line
are said to be employed in the states of the Association. M. de
Tegoborsld is for raising the tariff of the ZoU- Verein upon cotton
twist to protect and encourage the manufacture at home, and he
applauds the excessive tariff of Austria upon that article. The
result of his statements seems to be that Austria could not join
the German Associatio^ without the most impohtic sacrifices.

Austria manufactures woollen cloth in Moravia, Silesia, Bo-
hemia and Lower Austria. The number of sheep she feeds has
been estimated at 16,584,000, with l|lb. of wool each head; but
the present author thinks there are above 20,000,000 in the
entire country, and that 21,255,000 lbs. of their wool are con-
sumed at home. Prussia consumes 26,000,000 lbs. ; throughout
the ZoU'Verein the cloth is better made than in Austria, and the
export double in quantity.

The linen manufactures are principally confined to the
Sclavonic provinces of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia; the value
is from 70,000,000 to 90,000,000 fl. Ordinary cloths are ma-
nufactured in Higher Austria, the Tyrol, the north of Himgary,
and GaUicia. The linen manufactures are sufSicient for home
consiunption, and admit of exportation to the extent of 49,339
cwt. The exportations of me ZoU- Verein are nearly double
those of Austria. It would appear that though in damasks and
the finer linens this kind of fabric can bear no competition with
that of England, still the importations have diminished. The
silk manufactures are principally in the Milanese and Venice ;
these were valued in 1841 at 1,600,000/. The southern Tyrol
follows in the order of the manufecture. The total silk 50,500
cwt. is valued at 6 fl. the pound, giving a money total of
78,780,000 francs or 3,156,000Z. Of this 33,517 cwt. were the
mean exportation from 1829 to 1838, of which one-half was raw
alk, the rest dyed or in twist. The estabHshments for the manu-
facture of silk, Hungary exclusive, were 5095, not reckoning the
little domestic workshops; 3735 in Lombardy, 1244 in the Ve-
netian states, 69 in the Tyrol, in Austria below the Enns 28, and
24 at Vienna. With the advantage of the raw material so de-
cidedly in her favour, the exports of the Zott- Verein are to those
of Austria as 13 to 2 in silk goods. Those of Prussia alone are
to Austria as 7 to 1. Such is the effect of restrictive duties.

The ironworks of Austria are principally in the archduchjr of
Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Cainiola. Without reckoning

458 M. L.de Teffobarski 4m iUus

HuQj^ry, they iscludc 718 e8tabliahm^it8. The amoimt pro*
duced ifi variously given at 2,000,000 and at 2,500^00 cif}^;;
1,760,000 being malleable and the i^t cast. Becher, in hia work
on the oommeroe of Austria^ gives 129,754»183 lbs. as the quantity
exported. The Germanic Association imports /taw iron, free ^
duty, and exports it manufactured to an extent a^ain^t Austria of
23 to 2, where raw iron pays 68 per cent, on its valme. 'Hej»
it appears Austria and the associated states could never A^m,
England can deliver her raw iron free, at Stettin, for 30 silbargros
the hundred, while the price in Prussia at the i^Aanoe of produfl'?
tion is from 50 to 60. ^fhe expense of carriage is 8 pfennings^
or 1^. per hundredweight, per German mile by road, so that. 30
or 40 miles from Stettin (140 to 190 English) Austrian irqniis.SlQ
per cent, dearer upon introduction than that of Prussia, and seSfl
m her own territory in a proportion from 8 to 10 higher. This
article is an invincible obstacle to an Austrian junction with the
ZoU' Vereirij even in the opinion of the present writer. Up<w
locks and similarly manufactured articles, the Austrian duties lare
nearly seven times more than those of the Association. The dif-
ference in the price of raw iron is an important advantage for
England, by which country the ZoU-Verein must continue to be
suppKed without fear of rivalry.

The manufacture of sugar from beetroot has attained its cul*
minating point, and its decline is likely to continue, not onbr itt
consequence of the loss of the duties on foreign sugar, but. from
sound reasons of economy. But for the capital involved in this
manufacture in France, its fete would ere now have been -dedded
there; in Germany a failure in competition with colonial Sugar is
confidently predicted. There were recently eighty-eix manulacte-
ries in Austria, which produced 70,000 hundredweight pf raw
sugar. In the Zoll-Verein the product is 177,400 .hi^dred, oe,
as one to seven to that imported ; thus forming the eighth, pwt^af
the consumption. Austria, in 1837, imported 448,024 hundiedof
colonial sugar, that of beetroot being less than a seventh of hec
consumption. Thus the opinion that the advantages derived fr(»s
the consumption of beetroot sugar are not proportioned to thft
disadvantages, gains ground, and will before long cause its place
to be again occupied by the colonial product*

The foregoing are the principal articles in which it apppis
Austria would be no gainer by loining the German Associatioa.
There axe many other changes which would place her in the »e*
cessity of lessening a needful revenue already too much bucd^ned,
wlule the direct advantages, as on the increased demand fo£ Bohe-
mian gkss, for example, would be small compared to the loss. The
observations of M. de Tegoborski on the backwardness of Austria

Finark^s and PtcMk Credit of Austria. 45 J

in manufactures, compared to ike states of the Germ^o Aaso*
ciation, ate striking. Her *esteictive duties nourish the con-
traband system to an enormous extent; and jet shd cannot
afford beneficial ledtictions. On an average of three years, the
exportations of Austria amounted to 27,063,410fl.; those of the
Germanic Association to 70,610,914fl. So, whereas the states of
the' ZoH'Verein possess a population of but 27 millions, whilst
Austria numbers more than ^5 millions of inhabitants, the manu-
fiictured goods exported by the former exceed those exported by
the latter in the proportion of 70 to 27 nearly. The result in
sep£u:ute articles, is in cottons 25 to 2, silks 45 to 7, linens 29 to
10, and woollens 33 to 20; there is not one article in favour of
Austria. Here is a singular proof of deficient energy and want
o( a correct understanding of the true principles of trade. We
must add that the exports into Hungary, in 1840, were valued
at 41,938,7075., and that the returns imported were 50,064,902fl.,
leaving a balance of 5,719,607fl. in favour of Hungary.

The monopoly of salt is the third branch of indirect reve-
nue, and supphes a seventh of the total amount; returning
19,500,000fl. In Prussia this tax returns but 8,533,714fl.
The conmimption in Prussia is 13.42 Austrian pounds per
head, in Austria just 14lbs. The last-named coimtry is richer
in salt than any other in Europe, and could furnish enough for
the consumption of the whole continent. Prussia has only enough
for two-thirds of her consumption; the rest she obtains from
Liverpool at very little above what it costs at the mine. The
Atistrian brine-springs, or mines, are allplaced in the hands
of the fiscal, and importation prohibited. The trade is firee inter-
nally, except in the Italian provinces. The magazines in the salt-
works are regulated in such a manner as with some exceptions,
to bring in a profit to the government of 5fl. per quintal, ex-
penses deducted. In High Austria the best salt brings 6fl. 25kr.
per barrel. In Dalmatia it is sold at 3fl. 3(&r. according to the
poverty or distance of the province. In order to compensate
for this deficiency, Lombardy is charged llfl. 51kr. the hundred,
and Venice for sea-salt from Istria Km. Skr., a notable ^cimen
of Austrian financial arrangements. Englishmen would be sur-?
prised with good reason, u Cornwall were to pay 70 or 80 per
cent, more for a taxed article than Huntingdon, because the

Eople of the latter county happened to be the poorer. In the
dian provinces salt is only to be had of the agents of the fiscal,
and smuggling is carried on along the whole frontier. Tlie author,
with the characteristic feelings of a Russian, observes that this
mischief will not be remedied, until they do in Italy as in some

460 M.L.deTeg€barthimihe

districts of Prussia, oblige the inhabitants to bi;^ so' much salt
eadi per head ! If this be done for salt, why not for all other
eommodildes at the pleasure of officials, so umt the state maj
pocket 9fl. and lOfl., upon an article that costs less than Ifl. I The
despotism of finance never went furthei: in making costly one of
the first necessaries of existence. We almost think the smuggler
a public benefactor. Then as to the people, there caimot be a
doubt that the prevalence of intestine worms of the most trou-
blesome kind among the poorer classes on the ocmtinent, is owing
to the deprivation of this necessary adjunct to their coarse ve-
getable aument in sufficient quantity, its use being (h^ of the
greatest preventives of the vermicidar paradte. For salt alone
5,676,000fl. is levied upon the two Italian provinces, or 756,800t
upon 4,700,000 of population, an impost unequal with that of the
rest of die empire, and therefore unjust. In Prussia the tax is more
uniformly levied, the price being 6fl. 20^kr. the hundred, but
there the sale by retail is in the hands of the collector of the tax
or his agents.

Tobacco is another monopoly in Austria, first made such in 1670.
The gross produce in 1841 was 18,000,000fl., though in 1829 it
was only 6,000,000fl. The net revenue was, 12,000,000 or 34
kr. a head on 21,240,000 of population, on which number alose
it is at present levied; the quantity consumed was 31,860,000 lbs.,
or a pound and half per head, throughout the twelve provinces
liable to the tax. The collection is in the hands of t^e finan-
cial administration of each province, but the manufacture is
confided to a board called the Tabaks-FabrikenrDirection^ that
superintends the home growth and the purchases made out ef
the country. The price is fixed by law, and it is sold by
dealers accoimtable to the fiscal. The wholesale dealers are paid
by 1^ per cent, on the amoimt disposed of to those who deal in
retail. The profit of the latter is according to the roecies of
goods, from two and three to eight and ten per cent. Naturally^
too, there is a great deal of contraband trade in this article.

In Prussia the monopoly of tobacco, a mere luxury, does not
exist, although many more onerous and less defendble taxes are
continued.

The stamp duties and tax on official papers are the next heads
of indirect impost, and returned, in 1841, 5,500,000 fl. They
are levied on title deeds and documents; on judicial acts in
suits; on the like acts not in suits; and on official acts not in
the jurisdiction of the tribimals. There are twelve classes of
stamp duties, the lowest in value is 3 kr. and the highest 20fl.;
the last payable on money transactions of the value of 8000 fl.

Finances and JPubUc Credit of Austria. 461

and upwards. Stamps are required on a variety of mercantile and
priTate papers^ sales, bills of exchange, playing-cards, and similar
things. Some of the charges are unequal and impolitic. Docu-
ments without the necessary stamps are void. The stamps for
appointments to public functions, as benefices, privileges, and
titlies, run from 1000 fl. for the diploma of noble, to 12,000 fl. for
that of prince. A councillor pays lOOfl., and a privy councillor
6000 fl., different sums being fixed for intermediate grades. The
stamp duty on patents is regulated by the time they are conceded,
one year being 25 fl. increasing to 440 fl. in all for fifteen years,
the longest term for which they are given. This is an impolitic
and imjust tax in any country. In Prussia the stamp duties press
heavier on trade than in Austria.

The gross produce of the five foregoing heads of indirect tax-
ation is from recent official returns, 79,000,000 fl., the expense of
collecti^ nearly 13 per cent. In Prussia it averages about 10,
and in France 16 per cent.

The Post produces in Austria 2,400,000fl. ; inPrussia 400,000 fl.
less, while in France, deducting the expense of the administration,
the product is 7,632,000 fl.* There are only two classes of charge,
a single letter weighing ^ of an ounce, or 8.75 grammes of
France, is charged for ten miles 6 kr., beyond that distance 12 kr.
The Prussian charges are graduated from 3 kr. for one, up to 12 kr.
for a hundred miles the smgle letter. Weights up to 100 lbs., as
well as silver and gold, are charged by weight and value according
to a scale generalfy lowest in Austria. Thus 10,000 fl. in gold,
weighing 13 lb. 12 oz. carried 100 miles is charged in Austria
34fl. 53 kr.; in Prussia 133 fl. 20 kr., or 98 fl. 27 kr. more.

The Lottery^ another head of indirect taxation, brings in
about 4,000,000 fl. to the state. This demoralizing source of reve-
nue, existing also in Prussia, needs no further description; wher-
ever adopted it is a certain indication of financial weakness.

The total net amount of Austrian taxation we have already
given. The following table will afford some idea of the vast and
extravagant machinery by which it is kept in activity.

In 1839 there were 73,643 individuals of all ranks employed
and paid for civil services alone, or 1 in every 494 persons, and
adding 52,728 miners and workmen, 1 in 266 inhabitants. Their
salaries and emolimients reached 34,730,624 fl., and the expense
of the government officials was 12^ per cent, ofliie entire revenue.
The foUowing table on the separate provinces, with their revenues,
retainers, and emoluments, is interesting.

♦ The receipts of the post for France in 1841, giye a sum of 45,543,000 francs;
the expenses were 25,698,000; leaving a profit of 19,845,000 francs.

462 M. L. de TegdtortU m Ou Finances of Anitria.

BoTBnile t>tify«i.

H<n>Ti.».dKUalE.

■:,;-.i....

Sffi

£jr:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

■sss

The reorganization of tke Austriiia finances is neocsaaty for het
security; reform knocks loudly at hei dooi; the means are vithin
her reach; her resources are great, but the syBtem complex and
expensiTe. The dog of bureaucracy hampers her progress, and
makes the smallest change slow and difficult of execution. An
inclination is said to exist on the part of the government to amdio:
rate or even abandon the formal mode and tedious routine hitherto
pursued, and of the success of energetic endeavours for either pur-
pose there can be no doubt. Placed between Russia and We^^
Europe the independence of Austria is most important to the
latter, but she must be rich and powerful as well aa independent to

C serve her position, with jealous n^hbouza about her, and
barism on her eastern frontier. It is welt to know that the
material is not wanting^ that before long l^e change ao deaiabk
ma; chance to be effected, and the Austrian revenue made to pro-
duce 200,000,000 fl. without increased pressure upon the populatioa
M. de Tegoborski has done a great service to the public by
his work, which wiU not be read unpioiitably. We suspect
he possesses much better information than his book discloses upon
a good many points, and more than all that in his ^leart he la s
convert to free trade principles — ^how indeed could a writer of
sound judgment and reflection be otherwise? Of his non-decU-
ration of such an opinion it is not difficult to comprehend the
reasons.

( 463 )

Ab.T. IX. — Le Due de Bassano, Souvenirs Intimes de la Revolution
ei de V Empire, Recueillis et pubKes par Madame Charlotte
i)E SOR. (Personal Recollections of the Duke of Baesano, of
the Revolution, and of the Empire. Collected and published
by Madame BE Sob.) Brussels. 1843.

This is a poor, paltry book, compiled by a warm-hearted woman,
evidently with the best and kindest intentions. It is not neces-
sary, perhaps it would bo neither fitting nor decorous, that we
should too curiously pry into the relations of good neighbourhood
or of friendship, or haply of something more tender still, existing
between Maret, Duke of Bassano, and Charlotte de Sor. WitE
these, as we have nothing whatever to do, we desire in no degree
to meddle. The book, for aught we know or care, may be Ae
oflfepring of friendship, of gratitude, or of a tenderer passion ; but the
inqiiiries of our readers, no matter what the moving spring of the lady,
will naturally be, does this worthy woman tell any thing new — does
she throw any unexpected light on the character of her hero, or
in doing him honour, at all open to our view more distinctly or
more vividly the thorny path of public affairs? We regret to say
she does not; and we do not, therefore, very well see the necessity
under which Charlotte de Sor lay in putting her pen to paper to
produce this rifacimento. The career of Maret is as well loiown
2& the progress of any capable, industrious, plodding, subservient
rfiort-hand writer deserves to be. Honour he obtained in his day.
and some share of wealth with a dukedom to boot, and with these,
he and his ought to have been, if they are not, satisfied. Had he
been born in England he might have been a kind of second-rate
Ghimey or Cherer, making his 5000/. a year, labourinff hardly by
night and by day in houses of parUament and courts of law, spend-
ing all the while his 800/. a year, and therefore dying far richer
than he did as a peer of France; or he might have turned law
reporter like Peckwell, and having accepted an Indian judgeship,
fied forgotten in a foreign land; or he might have gone on plod-
ding his wearisome way, day by day, in all the courts of West-
minster Hall, and have come to nothing, like many and more
accomplished men, at last. But having fallen on stormy times, and
there being no one to compete with him in his speciality, he rose
from grade to grade, till ultimately he became a duke and minister
of state for foreign affairs. It will, however, be necessary to enter
into a few particulars, to give the reader an insight into his history,
but not at anv great length. Maret was bom at Dijon m
1763. His fatter was a doctor, and he was marked out to walk
in the same professional path, but there was a prize essay to be

464 Maret, Duke ofBassano.

contended for at the college of Dijon, the subject beinff an eulo^
ginm on Yauban. Maret entered the lists and obtained tne second
place, the celebrated Gamot having obtained the first. His &ther
now changed his views and devoted him to the bar. He was called
in due season, and admitted to practise at the provincial parliament
of Dijon. The old doctor, however, wished for something b^ter
than provincial success for his son, and sent him to Paris with in-
troductions to Vergennes the minister, and other persons of Ingh
credit. At Paris he followed the course of international kw

g'ven by Bonchaud, and had the jgood fortune to be noticed bj
uffon, Condorcet, and LacepMe. The death of Vergennes, how-
ever, deprived him of a patron, and he was preparing to finish his
studies in Germany, when the first revolution broke out. Mar^
suddenly changed his intention of quitting France. Madame de Sor
says he thought, and wisely thought too, ne could not follow a mcae
instructive course, or one in which there was more to be learned
than the sittings of the States-general. He accordingly estabH^bed
himself, with this view, at Versailles, in a small lodgmg. He was
then in his 25th year. * I did not,* said he to Madame de Sor,
* wish to lose a word of what was said, and that was the reason
why, with my small means, and having a hole to put my head
into in Paris, I went to the further expense of a little room at
Versailles.' The young Burgundian was the first to enter the
hall of the states every morning, and the last to leave it. Jaded and
tired he goes home, but neither to eat nor to sleep, much leas to
smoke or to drink. — No, he rits down to write out his notes word
for word, graphically describing the tone, manner, and gesture of
all the speakers, oo intent and busy was our short-hand writer
that he came to Paris but on the Sunday, the siknt sabbath-day
at Versailles.

On this day of rest he laboured not, but went into societp^. He
talked of his notes, and read some of them. They were raved
about like every novelty in Paris, quoted, and praised. Pano-
kouke, the publisher, heard of this nine-days' wonder called Hugh
James Maret, sought him out, and proposed that his Parliament-
ary Report, should be incorporated mto the * Monitear,^ in which
the crafty bookseller was interested. On the reoommendation of
Mirabeau, Lally Tolendal, Thouret, and others, Maret consented.
From this moment, the * Moniteur,' heretofore declining^ had cm-
limited success. It has been even said that it sold the ahnost in-
credible number of 80,000.

Maret worked industriously in this fashion for three or four
years, and made many thousand francs in an honourable and leri-
timate way. Bonaparte was some years his junior, and wlme
these things were going on, was grinding geometry at Biiennc,

An Industrious Short-hand Writer. 466

or spunging cannons clean at Toulon, or gaining a cutaneous disease
by seizing the rammer of an artillerjrman in the blood-heat of
tettle. But he had, nevertheless, heard by report of the fame of
the reporter, but withal, vagiiely , dimly, indistinctly. Years wear
away, and the sub-lieutenant oi Brienne becomes one of the three
Consuls. Then he sends for Maret, questions him with piercing
glance about his former labours, and is told that this wonder-work-
ing Hugh James, with head and pen for many years had laboured
eighteen hours out of the twenty-four ! ' Good night, Maret,' says
the brisk, brusque little Corsican, * I am busy this evening, but
working in that fashion, a man may i' faith, be something at last.'
Prim pragmatical Maret thought this manner odd. It was
certainly quick, unparliamentary, (why should npt we say un-
Peelishr} — but it was none the worse for that. To bed goes
Maret, his pencils, pens, and note-books, arranged and ruled for
the morrow-morning. Up he wakes betimes on that morrow,
and reads at the early hour of seven, in the matutinal * Moniteur,'
that he is named * Secretaire general des Consuls !' What species
of a secretary is this, we may be asked? It was certainly some-
thing new, even in novelty-loving France. He was not a
minister, with his particular department to preside over. His
functions did not apply to this or that isolated branch of the
pubUc service, but he was a functionary personally present at all
the meetings or dehberations or councils, as we might perhaps call
them in England, of the three consuls, and took a note of every
thing that was said or done. And never was there a happier
choice of a note-taker. As good a short-hand writer as that mar-
tinet of the Judges, Baron Gumey himself, Maret seemed to be
the very genius of abbreviation. With amazing promptitude and
fidelity, he seized the quick ideas, and caught the hasty, half-
mumbled words of Bonaparte, and jotted them down with unerr-
ing accuracy. He had no wiU of his own, no independent theory,
no system, the offspring of a stronff mind or an orimnal understand-
ing/ His pen was^rSnpt, quick! and obedient.^ He admiredjbis
master so thoroughly, and attached himself so strongly to him,
ihat it seemed as though that powerful being had plucked out of his
diort-hand writer's breast the faculty of volition, for he only thought,
saw, and felt, as the consul to whom he devoted himself * corps et
ame.' This was the sort of passive, mute, hard-working machine
which Bonaparte longed to mid. Ajid he found this man-thing in
Hugh James Maret. As the Consular system developed itself, the
functions of Maret became more important. Bonaparte was fond of
dictating, of thinking aloud, as Hamlet says. His snort ^uick words,
his rapid and picturesque ideas, which flew from his hps with the
speed of arrows, abounding in striking images and illustrations.

466 Marety Duke of Basmno.

in just conclusions, and often in profound and original thought^
could only be faithfully seized on and chronicled by a man accus-
tomed to this manner of labour. Who was more apt at it than
Maret ? Who, indeed, so apt in France ? He arranged, and col-
lated, and elaborated, and licked the creation of a more futile
brain into mould, shape, and form. Maret was, therefore, in his
way, a most valuable adjoint to the ConsuL He was, in truth, a
sort of aide-de-camp in plain clothes with a pen in his hand in*
stead of a sword. The devotion of this head clerk was perfectly
oriental, and proportionate was the satis&ction of his master. U
was a pleasant thmg, after he had left the council, for the litde
Corsican to £nd all his orders, wishes, and suggestions, writt^
out in decent readable French, with all the t's ax>S8ed, and all the
^'s and other little letters accentuated gravely, acutely, or ciicum-
flexedly; and in a plain running readable iWd, so tniat not a chef
de division could mistake a word, not a minister say I misappre-
hend this or that order.

The confidence of the Consul in his faithful scribe increases
daily. He accompanies him in all his journeys. He goes with
him to every field of battle. At the epoch of the empire he be-
comes secretary of state. He is at Vienna in 1805. In 1806 he
is charged with the organization of Poland. Subsequently all
the weighty affairs of Westphalia rest on his shoulders. Anon he
manages the Spanish junta at Bayonne. In 1809 victory again
calls him to Vienna — to that very Austria, in whose dungeons of
Kufstein he had in early life been a prisoner, and in whose states,
in 1816, 17, and 18, wnen proscribed by Louis XVHL, he found
refuge. In April, 1811, he is named minister for foreign a&irs.
On the 23d of Majr, 1812, Napoleon passes the Niemen. The
Duke of Bassano joined him at Wilna, where he managed not
only the affidrs of that duchy, but, under the eyes of his master, the
diplomacy of France. Maret did not, however, follow his master to
Smolensko, but returned by his order to Paris, where he continued
to receive and faithfully to execute his orders. But he was soon
removed from the ' affaires etrang^res' to the post of * secretaire
d'etat.' Misfortunes now came tliick and strong on the soldier of
fortune. He named Maret to assist at the congress of Chatillon on
behalf of France; but the congress was broken up, and France,
which had invaded so many other states, was now in her turn in-
vaded. Now came the abdication of Fontainebleau. Abandoned as
was Napoleon by nearly all those whom he had raised from their
native nothingness to honour, power, and glory, Maret was still,
among the faithless, faithful found. He was the only minister who
stood by his master to the last, despite the frowns of an adverse fate.

On tne return from Elba he received Napoleon at the Tuileries,

The Duke ofAngeulime — FoucM. 467

restaned the ^ secr^tairerie d'etat/ and was present at the battle
oSrHTaterloo, where he was very neaa^ly taken prisoner.

His fidelity did not end here. He labourcKl for the object of
his idolatry even to the departure from Rambouillet. This despe«
rate fidelity rendered him obncmous to the succeeding govern-
ment. He was exiled for four years by Louis XVni., though
that monarch must have known that the Duke of Angoul^e
was indebted for his liberty, perhaps for his life, to the Duke
of Bassano. In 1820 the dtike returned to France. For ten
ysiars.he -lived in retirement. In 1830 he resumed his place in
the chamber of peers, where he had sat in the one hundred days.
OocaisionalLy he spoke, but exercised little influence. Age and
labour had fully used out the energy of the man. At the Insti-
tute he occasionally attended, and presided over the class of moral
and political sciences. While a prisoner in Austria, he had writ-
tea in his dungeon some comedies which had gained him a place
in the Academy, but under the Restoration he was struck oft the
reJl of the forty at the same period as Amaud and Etienne. In
I383I he consented to preside gratuitously over the Uquidation of
the * anoienne liste civile,' and by his impartiality, amenity, and
real kindness of disposition, won golden opinions of all parties.
He continued iu the bosom of his femily those habits of labour
and industry to which he had been early accustomed. He rose
with the dawn, and always had his pen m hand. He had never
been an avaririous man nor a plunderer, and probably was care-
less as to money matters. In 1836 or 7 he intrusted large sums
to an agent, or * homme d'affaires,' who abused his trust. Thus
he lost a considerable portion of his fortune. It is possible that
this misfortune hastened his end. He died on the 13th of May,
1839, in the 77th year of his age. One of his sons, who inherits
his title, is employed in the diplomatic service of his country;
another is an engineer of great promise and perseverance ; and one
of his daughters is married to a son of Sir Thomas Baring.

Such, are nearly all the particulars we learn from two small
volumes^ and in them there is nothing new. Madame de Sor
amiably, and with all the sincerity and zeal of friendship, en-
deavourpi to make iis believe that Maret was a great man and a
great Bcfinister, but in this she completely and entirely fails; for, as
was said by Fouche, he saw only with the eyes, and heard only
with the ears of his master. Her hero was after all but a prompt
intelligent drudge, as ready to work at his clerkship at four
o'clock in the morning as at those ' wee small hours ayont the
twal', when men are generally either asleep, or engaged in the
far more pleasant occupation of discussing a bottle of Clos Vougeot,
or Chateau Margaux. It has been said that Maret was a man

VOL. XXXII. N O. LXIV. 2 I

468 Maret^ Duke of Bassano,

of lax principle, but this we are inclined to doubt, and in so fer
as Madame de Sor gives us an insight into his character, these
doubts are confirmed. The constancy and fervor of his attach-
ment to his patron did him the highest honour, and as he was
never a strong or original-minded man, his admiration and affec-
tion for the general and legislator may have blinded him to the
faults, foUies, and even crimes of his master.

The mediocrity of Maret*s talents was often sneered at by
Talleyrand, and he certainly was not a man of great intellect; but
he was a person of kind and benevolent disposition, steadfast and
sincere in his friendships, and of a warm heart ; and this is more
than can be said of other Frenchmen of fer greater intellectual
pretensions.

There are two or three anecdotes of Napoleon in these volumes
which show how immense, how Herculean the labours of the man
must have been. Often after reviewing his army, or giving the
enemy battle, he would send for his Mthful penman, and motion-
ing him to sit down, would dictate to aU his minions in Paris
what was to be done in the public works — what at the ' affaires
etrangeres' — what in the ' bureau de la douane' — what at the
* droits r^unis.' These labours would often occupy the emperor
and penman till the broad glare of the midday sun informed
them it was time to breakfast. It was not alone in dictating that
the emperor had bu^ days and nights of it. Sometimes there
were wagon-loads oi papers and public documents to wade
through. If these were not despatched, what became of our good
city of Paris — wliat of the kingdom of France? — what of con-
quered provinces? Then the Hst of promotions in all services, mi-
lltaiy, marine, diplomatic, revenue, &c.

Some of the many annotations made by the Emperor to these
lists are curious. Here they are. ' Accorde. — II n'y a pas heu.
— Y a-t-il eu du sang vers^?— A quel titre? — Non. — Combien de
blessures? — A la premiere bataille, s'il y a Ueu. — ^Les annees de
services, s'ils sont mediocres, ne constituent pas un droit. — Pour
la croix de la Reimion — On verra plus tard. — Pas une action
d'eclat.'

Sometimes the emperor exhibited great Uttleness of mind and
an unworthy spite, as the following anecdote, which we extract
from the book, will sufficiently prove.

" General Grouchy had a very capable young officer as aide-de-camp.
His conduct had been irreproachable, and ne had frequently distinguished
himself, but he did not nevertheless obtain the promotion which his ser-
vices deserved. In fact, he was never thought of at all. General
Grouchy grieved at this marked and unmerited neglect, exhibited to-
wards a man who had always conducted himself well. After having

The Secret of Napoleon! s Success. 469

vainly complained at the War Office, at length determined to address
himself directly to the Ministere Secretaire cTEtat, Maret. He soli-
cited the cross of the Legion of Honour for his aide-de-camp, Captain
George Lafayette. ' It is a forgetfulness,' said Maret ' on the part of
his Majesty, and of the minister of war, and if Captain Geo. Lafayette
is not included in the forthcoming promotion, I give you my word,
general, I shall cause him to he inserted.' A little time after this a list
was made at the emperor *s desire, hut the name of Geo. Lafayette was
not among the fortunate officers. Maret perceiving this, added the name
at the hottom of the list in his own hand. The list was then^ as in
ordinary cases, submitted to the personal examination of the emperor.
But no annotation of assent was placed in the emperor's handwriting
opposite the name of Lafayette.

" * Well !' said the Duke of Bassano, ' tins is a mere oversight, but
m tiy again.'

*' Some months passed away, during which a glorious campaign aug-
mented the chances of the young soldier's success. Bassano again came
to the charge ; again inscribed with his own hand, the same name ;
again placed it imder the eyes of the emperor. But alas ! with the
same luckless residt. Now thought the duke, this is a manifest injustice
in the guilt of which I shall have no hand, hut at all events there is
nothing like tenacity, and 1*11 try a third time. And he did generously
interpose a third time, but with no better result. Against so strong a
resolve, so imhappy a prejudice on the part of the emperor, the Duke of
Bassano deemed it vain any longer to struggle, but he thought himself
bound under the circumstances to intimate to young Lafayette by a third
person his opinion that he would do well to renounce a career which
only presented a succession of dangers without the hope of promotion or
reward."

This was an act of calm courage on the part of the secretary
which few men in the then state of France would have exhibited.
It was a grave rebuke of an unjust prejudice, it was a lesson given
to a man who did not in general bear lessons patiently, above all
from inferiors — and who might of his mere will have struck the
unfortunate giver of the lesson from off the list of his official ser-
vants. But Bonaparte was too shrewd, too wise a man to do
this. On the contrary not a word, not a gesture, betrayed the
slightest emotion of resentment against a minister who, after a
first refusal, had the courage at the risk of displeasing his master
twice again to renew a proposal which he knew would be dis-
relished. This is not the way to gain favour with the ordinary
great in general, for Moliere well says,

" Et les plus prompts moyens de gagner leur faveur
C'est de flatter toujours le foible de leur coeur,
D'applaudir en aveugle h ce qu'ils veulent faire,
Et n'appuyer jamais ce qui pent leur deplaire,"

2l2

470 New Accounts of Paris.

But, after all, what a wonderful man was tHs same Napoleon!
How admirably did lie gain the ascendancy over all who came
into contact with him ! How he was beloved by his soldiers — ^by
his children as he called them — with whom he marched from the
Bands of Egypt to the snows of Russia. What was the secret of
this? Employments were not monopolized either in virtue of
birth or favour or fortune.

* Je ne dois des faveurs h, personne,' said the little man with
loftiness ; * quant aux recompenses, il depend de chaciin de les me-
riter, par de bons services rendus au pays.'

This was the great secret of his success in every thing. The
fittest men were chosen for the several places, regard bemg had
only to their fitness. On this principle he conquered haJf the
world, and he might have conquered another quarter of it had
he but adhered to this the rule of his earlier life.

Art. X. — 1. Lettres Parisiennes, par Madame ElMiLi: de
GiKARDiN ( Vicomte de Launay). Parisian Letters by Emilt
DE GiRARDiN, under the pseudonym of the Vicomte de Launay.
Paris. 1843.

2. Paris im Fruhjahr, 1843. Von. L. Rellstab. Leipzig. 1844.

3. Paris and its People, By the Author of * Random Recol-
lections of the House of Commons.' London. 1843.

Of the myriads of books now yearly appearing which Time shall
swallow up, so that they or their memory be no more seen, we
hope this little work of Madame de Girardin's will not be one.
Not that it is more innocent or intrinsically worthy of life than
many others of its companions which will be handed over to the
inevitable Destroyer; but it deserves to have a comer in a histori-
cal library, where even much more natural and meritorious publi-
cations might be excluded; just as a two-headed child will get a
place in a museum-bottle, when an ordinaiy creature, with the
usual complement of skull, will only go the way the sexton
shows it. The ' Lettres Parisiennes' give a strange picture of a
society, of an age, and of an individual. One or the other Madame
Girardin exposes with admirable unconscious satire; and this is
satire of the best and wholesomest sort. One is apt to suspect
the moralist whose indignation makes his verse or points his wit;
one cannot tell how much of personal pique mars the truth of his
descriptions, or how many vices or passions are painted after the
happy ever-present model himself; and while we read Swift's
satires of a sordid, brutal, and wicked age, or Churchiirs truculent

Madame de Girardm* 471

descriptions of the daring profligates of his time, we know the
first to be black-hearted, wicked, and envious, as any monster he
represents, and have good reason to suspect the latter to be the
dissolute ruffian whom he describes as a characteristic of his times.
But the world could never be what the dean painted as he looked
at it with his furious, mad, glaring eyes; nor was.it the wild
drunken place which Churchill, reeling from a tavern, fancied he
saw reeling round about him. We might as well take the word
of a sot, who sees four candles on the table where the sober man
can only perceive two ; or of a madman who peoples a room with
devils that are quite invisible to the doctor. Our Parisian chro-
nicler, whose letters appear under the pseudonym of the Vicomte
de Launay, is not more irrational than his neighbours. The
vicomte does not pretend to satirize his times more than a gen-
tleman would who shares in the events which he depicts, and has
a perfectly good opinion of himself and them ; if he writes about
tnfles it IS because his society occupies itself with such, and his
society is, as we know, the most refined and civilized of all societies in
this world; for is not Paris the European capital, and does he not
speak of the best company there ? — ^Indeed, and for the benefit of the
vulgar and unrefined, the vicomte's work ought to be translated, and
would surely be read with profit. Here might the discontented
artisan see now his betters are occupied; here might the country
gentleman's daughter who, weary of her humdrum village-retire-
ment, pines for the delights of Paris, find those pleasures chro-
nicled of which she longs to take a share ; and if we may suppose she
possesses (as she does always in novels and often in real life) a sage
mther or guardian, or a reflective conscience of her own, either
monitor will tell her a fine moral out of the Vicomte de Launay *s
letters, and leave her to ask is this the fashionable life that I have
been sighing after — this heartless, false, and above all, intolerably
wearisome existence, which the most witty and brilliant people in
the world consent to lead? As for the man of the humbler class,
if after musing over this account of the great and famous people he
does not learn to be contented with his own condition, all instruction
is lost upon him, and his mind is diseased by a confirmed envious-
ness which no reason or reality will cure.

Nor is the Vicomte de Launay's sermon, like many others,
which have undeniable morals to them, at all dull in the reading;
every page, on the contrary, is lively and amusing — ^it sparkles with
such wit as only a Frenchman can invent — it abounds with pleasing
anecdote, bright pictures of human life, and happy turns of thought.
It is entirely selfish and heartless, but the accomplished author
does not perceive this : its malice is gentlemanhke and not too ill-
natured: and its statements^ if exaggerated, are not more so than
good company warrants. In a society where a new carriage, or

472 Madame de Girardin^

new bonnet, is a matter of the greatest importancje, how can one
live but by exaggerating? Lies, as it were, form a part of the
truth of the system. But there is a compensation for this, as for
most other things in life — and while one set of duties or delights
are ex^gerated beyond measure, another sort are depreciated cor-
respondingly. In that happy and genteel state of society where
a new carriage, or opera, or bonnet, become objects of the highest
importance, morals become a trifling matter; politics futile amuse-
ment; and religion an exploded ceremony. All this is set down in
the vicomte's letters, and proved beyond the possibility of a doubt
And hence the great use of having real people of fashion to
write their own lives, in place of the hiunble male and female
authors, who, under the denomination of the Silver Fork School,
have been employed by silly booksellers in our own day. They
cannot give us any representation of the real authentic gen-
teel fashionable life, they will relapse into morality in spite of
themselves, do what they will they are often vulgar, sometimes
hearty and natural ; they have not the unconscious wickedness,
the delightfiil want of principle, which the great fashionable man
possesses, none of the grace and ease of vice. What pretender can,
for instance, equal the dissoluteness of George Selwyn's Letters,
lately published? — What mere literary head could have invented
Monsieur Suisse and his noble master? We question whether Mr.
Beckford's witty and brilliant works could have been written by
any but a man in the very best company; and so it is with the
Vicomte de Launay, — ^his is the work of a true person of fashion,
the real thing, (the real sham, some misanthropist may call it, but
these are of a snarhng and discontented turn,) and no mere pre-
tender could have equalled them. As in the cases of Greorge
Selwyn and Monsieur Suisse, mentioned before, the De Laimay
Letters do not tell all, but you may judge by a part of the whole,
of Hercules by his foot, — by his mere bow, it is said, any one fin
high life) might judge his late Majesty George IV., to be tne
most accomplished man in Europe. And so with De Launay, though
he speak but about the last new turban which the Countess wore at

the opera, or of her liaison with the Chevaher , you may see

by the gravity with which he speaks of that turban, and the
graceful lightness with which he recounts the little breakage of the
seventh commandment in question, what is the relative import-
ance of each event in his mind, and how (we may therefore
pretty fairly infer) the beau monde is in the habit of judging
them. Some French critics who have spoken of Vicomte de Lau-
nay's work, do, it is true, deny his claim to rank as a man of
fashion, but there are dehcate shades in fashion and politenesSf
^^ which a foreigner cannot understand, and many a person will pass
B^ among us for well-bred, who is not what Mrs. Trollope calls fa

Aristocratic Morals. 473

C7'eme de la crime. The vicomte does not, as it would seem, fre-
quent those great and solemn houses of the Faubourg St. Germain,
■where the ancient nobility dwell, (and which are shut to all the
roture*^ — ^but he is welcomed at the court of Louis Philippe, and
the balls of the ambassadors (so much coveted by our nation in
France) — ^he dances in all the salons of the Faubourg, and he has
a box at all the operas; if Monsieur de CasteUane gives a private
play, the Vicomte is sure to be in the front seats; if the gentlemen-
sportsmen of the Jockey-club on the Boulevard have a racing or
gambling match in hand, he is never far off: he is related to the
chamber of deputies, and an influential party there, he has pub-
lished poems, and plays, and commands a newspaper; and hence
his opportunities of knowing poets, authors, and artists, are such
as must make him a chronicler of no ordinary authenticity.

It is of matters relating to all these people that the gay and
voluble vicomte discourses; and if we may judge of the success of
his letters by the nimaber of imitations which have followed them,
their popularity must have been very great indeed. Half-a-dozen
journals at least have their weekly chronicle now upon the De
Launay model, and the reader of the French and English news-
papers may not seldom remark in the * own correspondence' with
which some of the latter prints are favoured, extracts and transla-
tions from the above exclusive sources, compiled by the ambassa-
dors of the English press in Paris, for the benefit of their public
here.

It would be impossible perhaps for a journal here to produce
any series of London letters similar in kind to those of which we
are speaking. The journalist has not the position in London
which is enjoyed by his Parisian brother. Here the journal is
every thing, and the writer a personage studiously obscure; — ^if a
gentleman, he is somehow most careful to disguise his connexion
with literature, and will avow any other profession but his own:
if not of the upper class, the gentry are strangely shy and suspi-
cious of him, have vague ideas of the danger of * being shown up'
by him, and will flock to clubs to manifest their mistrust by a black
ball. Society has very different attentions for the Parisian jour-
nalists, and we find them admitted into the saloons of ambassadors,
the cabinets of ministers, and the boudoirs of ladies of fashion.
When shall we ever hear of Mr. This, theatrical critic for the
* Morning Post,' at Lady Londonderry's ball, or Mr. That, editor
of the * Times,' closeted with Sir Robert Peel, and * assisting' the
prime minister to prepare a great parliamentary paper or a Queen's

* Except as in the case of a rich American, who, though once a purser of a
ship, has heen adopted by the nobles of tiie Faubourg St. Germain, and is said to
have cut 'the family at the Tuileries,' and all his old acquaintances of the
Chaussle d*Antm,

474 Madame de Girardin.

speech? And, indeed, with all possible respect for the literary
profession, we are Inclined to think the English mode the most
wholesome In this case, and that it Is better that the duchesses, the
ministers, and the literary men, should concert with their kind,
nor be too intimate with each other.

For the truth Is, the parties have exceedingly few interests In
common. The only place in England we know of where the
great and the small frankly consort, is the betting ring at Epsom
and Newmarket, where his grace will take the horse-dealer's odds
and vice versa, — that is the place of almost national interest and
equality, but what other Is there? At Exeter Hall (another and
opposite national institution) my lord takes the chair and is al-
lowed the lead. Go to Guildhall on a feast day, my lords have a
high table for themselves, with gold and plate, where the com-
moners have crockery, and no doubt with a prodigious deal
more green fat in the turtle soup than falls to the share of the
poor sufferers at the plebeian table. The theatre was a place
where our rich and poor met in conmaon, but the great have de-
serted that amusement, and are thinking of sitting down to dinner,
or are preparing for the Opera when three acts of the comedy are
over. The honest citizen who takes his simple walk on a Sunday
in the park comes near his betters, it Is true, but they are passing
him in their carriages or on horseback, — nay. It must have struck
any plain person who may chance to have travelled abroad In
steamboat or railroad, how the great Englishman, or the would-
be great (and the faults of a great master, as Sir Joshua Reynolds
says, are always to be seen in the exaggerations of his imitators),
will sit alone perched in his sohtary carriage on the fore-deck,
rather than come among the vulgar crowd who are enjo3rIng
themselves In the more commodious part of the vessel. If we
have a fault to find with the fashionable aristocracy of tlils free
country. It Is not that they shut themselves up and do as they
like, but that they ruin honest folks who will insist upon imi-
tating them : and this Is not their fault — it is ours. A philosopher
has but to walk into the Bedford and Russell-square district, and
wonder over this sad characteristic of his countrymen; it is written
up in the large bills In the windows which show that the best
houses in London are to let. There is a noble mansion in Russell-
square, for instance, of which the proprietors propose to make a
club — ^but the inhabitants of Bloomsbury who want a club must
have It at the west end of the town, as far as possible from their
own unfashionable quarter; those who do inhabit it want to move
away from it; and you hear attorneys' wives and honest stock-
brokers' ladies talk of quitting the vulgar district, and moving
towards * the court end,* as if they were to get any good by living
near her Majesty the Queen, at rimUco I Indeed, a man who after

Lord-worship in England, 475

living much abroad, returns to his own country, will find there is
no meanness in Europe like that of the freebom Briton. A
woman in middle life is afraid of her lady's-maid if the latter has
lived in a lord's family previously. In the days of the existence of

the C club, young men used to hesitate and make apologies

before they avowed they belonged to it; and the reason was — not
that the members were not as good as themselves, but because
they were not better. The club was ruined because there were
not lords enough in it. The young barristers, the young artists,
the young merchants from the city, would not, to be sure, speak
to their lordships if they were present, but they pined in their
absence — they sought for places where their august patrons might
occasionally be seen and worshipped in silence ; and the comer of
Waterloo Place is now dark, and the friendly steam of dinners no
longer greets the passers by there at six o'clock. How those de-
serters would have rallied round a couple of dukes were they ever
so foolish, and a few marquises no wiser than the author of a
certain Voyage to Constantinople.

Thus, as it seems to us, the great people in England have killed
our society. It is not their fault : but it is our meanness. We
might be very social and happy without them if we would : but
follow them we must, and as in the good old vicar's time, the ap-
pearance of Lady Wilhelmina Ameha Skeggs amongst us (whom
we will ask) instantly puts a stop to the joviality and free now of
spirits which reigned before her ladyship's arrival; and we give up
nature and blindman's buff for stiff conversations about * Shaks-
peare and the musical glasses.' This digression concerning Eng-
lish society has to be sure no actual reference to the subject m
hand, save that moral one which the Reviewer sometimes thinks
fit to point out to his reader, who travelling with him in the
spirit to foreign countries, may thus their manners noting, and
their realms surveying, be induced to think about his own.

With this let us cease further moralizing, and as we have shown
in the above sentences that the English reader delights in none
but the highest society, and as we have humbly alluded in a
former paragraph to young countrywomen, who, possibly weary
of the sameness of their hall or village, yearn after the delight of
Paris and the splendours of the entertainments there; perhaps some
such will have no objection to accompany Madame or Monsieur
Girardin de Launay through the amusement of a Paris season, in
that harmless fashion in which Shacabac partook of the first feast
offered by the Barmecide, and which entails no evil consequences
upon the feaster. It is the winter of 1837. Charles X. is just
dead at Goritz, and we (the vicomte and his reader ) are for a while
too genteel to dance in public in consequence of the poor old mo^^
Bardh's demise. We pass some pathetic remarks on the fate dj^^

476 Madame de Girardin.

exiled kings; we wonder how it happens that the Tuileries do not
go into mourning. We do so ourselves, just to be in the fashion
and to show our loyalty, but only for a few days — ^but people
should fancy we could not afford to purchase spring fashions, and
so having decently buried the sovereign we give a loose to our
pleasures, and go of course to Madame d'Appeny 's ball.

* You have no idea how diamonds and your own hair are come
into fashion again — we remark this at the ball of the ambassador
of Austria, where really and truly the whole room glistened with
diamonds. Diamonds and hair f every one puts on every body's
own diamonds, and every body else's — every body wears their own
hair, and somebody else's besides. Look at the Duchess of
Sutherland. Have you seen her grace and her diamonds— all
the world is crowding to look at them; and as he goes to look at
her magnificent diadem, worth two miUions it is said, many a
young man has bien des distractions in gazing at her grace's b^u-
tiful eyes and chaiming face.

* This is in the Faubourg St. Honore — as for the people in the
Faubourg St. Germain, the poor creatures, on account of the poor
dear king's death dare not dance — ^they only waltz — ^its more triste
to waltz, more becoming — ^it seems by chaice as it were. Some
one sits down to the piano and plays a little waltz — just a little
pretty one — and some one else begms to turn round in time. It
IS not a dance — ^no invitations were given, only a few young
people have amused themselves by keeping time to M. de X. or
Leon de B. They were in white, but their parents were in
black all the time — for the good old king, the first gentleman in
Europe (the French too had a first gentleman in Europe), lies
dead yonder at Goritz.

' As Lent comes on, we are of course too well-bred not to go
to church. And to speak about the preachers, Ji done! but we
positively must hear M. de Ravignan, for all the world goes to
Notre Dame, and M. Dupanloup at Saint Roch, and the Abbe
Combalot at Saint Eustache. We only mention their names as a feet,
and to point out that there is a return towards religion^ at which
we are very happy; but as for conunenting upon, or criticising the
works of these ' austere inspired ones,' we must not venture to da
it; they speak for our salvation and not for their own glory, and
we are sure, must be quite above all worldly praise. And so no
more about religion in Lent. And oh, it is quite frightful to think
how the people do dance in Lent as it is !

ENGLISHWOMEN AT A FRENCH BAIX.

*^ The masked ball given in benefit of the English has been so sac-
cessful, that imitations may be looked for ; the ball of the civil list is to
be in the same fashion it is said. We dearly love masked-balls — hand-
some women appear there unc^ quite novel ai^pects, and as finr ugly wo-

English Women at a French Ball. 477

men 'whom a brilliant imagination carries thither, why they become de-
lightful too, in their way, the Englishwomen above all, there is such an
engaging frankness. It must be confessed that if we look at the hand-
some English and admire them with something like envy and bitterness
of heart, there are natives of a certain other sort whom the * perfide
Albion' sends over to us, and who charm us beyond expression ; let us
say it to the island's double renown, that if the modem Venus, that is
beauty, has come to us from the waves of the channel, the very contrary
goddess (whom we need not name) has risen in full dress out of the
frightened waves of the Thames. In a word, we admit that our neighbours
provide our f&tes with the most beautiful women, and with those who
are most of the other sort. They do nothing by halves the English-
women, they bring beauty to perfection or they carry ugliness to dis-
traction ; in this state they cease to be women altogether, and become
beings of which the classification is impossible. One looks like an
old bird, another like an old horse, a third, like a young donkey
— some have a bison look, some a dromedary appearance, and all a
poodle cast. Now all this seated quietly in a drawing-room, and repu-
tably dressed looks simply iigly, and there's an end of it; but set it off
in a masked ball — all these poor things dressed and bedizened, all these
strange faces,'and graces, and grimaces, twisting and hurling, and ogling
and leering their best, you can't conceive what a wonderfid effect they
have ! K you could but have seen them the other day in the Salle
Ventadour with seven or eight feathers in their heads ; red feathers,
blue feathers, black feathers, peacocks' feathers, cocks' feathers, all the
feathers of all the birds in the air — ^if you could have seen their sa-
tisfied looks as they glanced at the looking-glasses, and the grace with
which their fair fingers repaired some enchanting disorder of the dress,
and the perseverance with which they placed in its right position over
the forehead that charming ringlet which would come upon the nose,
and the yellow slipper, or the brown one, withdrawn or protruded with
alike winning grace, and all the shells, and beads, and bracelets, and all
the ornaments from all the jewel boxes of the ^unily conglomerated on
one strange person, and looking as if astonished to find themselves so
assembled ; you would say as we do, it is a charming thing a bal cos-
tume, and if anybody offers to show you such a sight for a louis, ^ve it,
my dear friend, you never laid out money so well."

Indeed any person who has been in a Paris ball-room will
allow that the aescription is a very true and very amusing one;
and as we are still addressing the ladies, we would beg them to
take warning, by the above remarks, on their visits to Paris; to
remember what pitiless observers are round about them in the
meager persons of their French acquaintance ; to reflect that their
costume, in its every remotest part, is subject to eyes so critical,
that not an error can escape; and hence, seeing the almost im-
possibility, from insular ignorance, to be entirely in the mode, to
cultivate a noble, a becoming simplicity, and be, as it werCi
it The handsomest women in Europe can best afford to

478 Madame de Girardm,-

adorned — it is different for a Parisian beauty, lean, yellow, and
angular; her charms require all the aids of address, while her
rivaPs are only heightened by simplicity. And but that com|)ari-
sons are odious in all instances, and in this not certainly flattering,
we would venture to point out an unromantic analogy between
Beauty and Cookery in the two countries. Why do the French
have recourse to sauces, stews, and other culinary disguisements?
— ^because their meat is not good. Why do the English content
themselves with roast and boiled? — because they need no prepa-
rations. And so Beauty Uke Beef .... But let us adopt a more
becoming and genteel tone. Scotland is the country where agri-
culture is best understood — France is most famous for the culture
of the toilet — and for the same reason ; the niggardliness of
nature to both countries, with which let us console ourselves for
any little national wants among ourselves.

We are sure the fair reader will have no objection to accom-
pany Madame de Girardin to a ball at so genteel a place as the
English Embassy, where Lady Granville is celebrating the birth-
day of our sovereign.

" On Friday was the beautiful /ele to celebrate the birthday of the
Queen of England ; and as it is a woman who is king in England, the
men did not wear uniform at Lord Granville's ball, but the women.
Nothing could look more agfreeable than all these white robes, strewed
over with roses, which made the most respectable matrons of the company
look young. It was the fete of the rose : and never did the royal flower
shine with more splendour. At the comer of each door was a mountain
of rose-trees in flower, ranged upon invisible steps: indeed a beautiful
sight ; and here and there you might perceive some of the fair young
dancers picking roses in order to replace the graceful bouquets of their
robes, which the whirl of the waltz had carried away. Nor was the
little theft likely of detection, there were enough roses there to crown
all the himdred-aiid-sixty English families with their eighteen daugh-
ters— Isabella, Arabella, Rosina, Susanna^ Eliza, Mary, Lucy, Betsey,
Nancy, &c. &c.

" Besides the flowers of the magnificent gardens and hothouses of
the embassy, ten or twelve hundred rose-trees had been sent for, of
which only eight hundred, it is said, could find a place in the reception-
rooms. Judge from this of the mythological splendour of the scene.
The garden was covered with a tent, and arranged as a conversation-
room. But what a room! The large beds, filled with flowers, were
enoTmous jardinieres that all the world came to see — the gravel-walks
were covered over with fresh cloths, iiill of respect for the white satin
slippers of the dancers; great sofia^ of damask and velvet replaced the
garden seats. On a roimd table there were books, and it was a plea-
sure to come and muse and breathe the air in this vast boudoir, from
which one could hear the noise of the music, like ftdry songs in the
distance, and see passing away like happy shades, in the three long

A Moral Reflection, . 479

galleries of flowers round about, the lovely and sprightly young girls
who were hastening to the dance, and the lovely, but more sedate young
married women, who were hieing to the supper.

'< There never is a fete without a Zeon, and the lion on this occasion
was a charming Anglo-Italian princess, whose appearance made the
most lively impression. Lady JVIary Talbot, mamed two months since
to the Prmce Doria, had arrived from Genoa only a few hours before
the ball, and only thought of going to rest after so long a journey, and
with regret of the splendid festival she must miss seeing. How could a
person, arrived only at four, think of being present at a fete at ten
o'clock? Had it been four o'clock in the morning, there might have
been a chance yet to prepare a dress, and to recruit oneself from the
fatigues of travel. But now the case seemed hopeless, when of a sud-
den the following wonderful words were uttered at the princess's door,
^ A ball dress is just brought for Madame la Princesse.' And as one
sees the courser stretched idly in the meadow start up and bound across
the plain at the first signal of the warlike trumpet, so did the fair young
traveller, stretched idly upon her couch, rouse herself on a sudden, and
bound to the dressing-table at the first signal of coquetry. Whence
came this robe so beautiful? what beneficent fairy had commanded it?
That question is easily answered — only a real friend could have thought
of such an attention. And shall I tell you, young beauties, how to
know a true friend? She who admires you, deceives you ; she who
makes others admire you, really loves you."

In this passage the viscount-disguise is surely thrown off
altogether and llie woman appears, as natural and as coquettish
as Heaven made her. If we have occasionally cause to complain
of the viscount's want of sincerity, here, at least, we have no right
to suspect Madame de Girardin. The incident of the dress over-
comes her nature ; and in the enthusiasm of the moment, she let
the great secret regarding her sex escape her. But for the mora-
lities that have already been uttered, how long and how profitable
a sermon might be composed with that last sentence for a sermon !
* She who admires you, deceives you; she who causes you to be
admired, loves you/ What a picture it is of the woman of the
world, and her motives, and her simplicity, and her sincerity, and
her generosity. Tliat was a fatal confession, Madame de Gi-
rardin. It may be true, but it was a fault to say it; and one
can't but think of the woman who uttered it with an involuntary
terror. Thus we have seen a man boast that he would play any
tricks upon the cards, and cut any given one any number of times
running, which he did, and the world admired — but nobody
afterwards was anxious to play at ^carte with that man; no, not
for a penny a game.

And now having introduced the English reader to two such
fashionable assemblies as the foregoing, we must carry them into
company still more genteelly august, and see the queen and the

480 Madame de Girardin.

Princess Helen. It is in this easy, lively way that the gay Pariaan
describes the arrival of the amiable widow of the Duke of
Orleans.

A FETE-DAT AT PARIS.

" The garden of the Tuileries was splendidly beautiful yesterday — it was
beautified by the king's orders and by the people's — by the sky's and by
the springes. What a noble and cheerful sight it was ! Go hang your-
selves, ye inhabitants of the provinces, you who could not see this
magnificent picture, for the canvas is torn, and the piece will never be
exhibited again. Fancy now sights such as were never before seen at
Paris at the same time : fancy a sky bright blue — fancy the trees real
green — ^the people neat and well-dressed — and the crowd joyous and in
its best attire, revelling in the perfumes of the flowering lihes. Confess
now you never saw any thing like that — at Paris when the sW is blue the
trees are always gray, for the dust eats them up — at Paris wnen the trees
are green then you may be sure it has just rained, and all the people are
muddy and dirty . . . Oh, how brilliant nature was that day, youth-
ful and yet strong — ^young and yet powerful, fresh and ripe, budding
and full : it was like the passion of a pure ^1 who should have waited
tiU five-and-twenty before she began to love — it had all the purity of a
first love — but a first-love experienced when the heart had attained its
utmost power and perfection.

" How noble those lofty chesnuts are — how finely do their royal flowers
contrast with the sombre verdure of their leaves !

'^ Look from here and see what a fine sight it is. The great alley of the
garden is before us — on the right, three ranks of national guards ; on the
Jefb, three of troops of the line. Behind them the crowd — elegant and
brilliant with a thousand colours. Before us is a basin with its fountain,
which mounts upwards in a sunbeam : behind the jet d'eau, look, you see
the obelisk, and behind that the arch of triumph. By way of frame to the
picture are two terraces covered with people, and great trees everywhere.
Look down for a moment at yonder flower-beds and tufls of lilac—
every one of them blossomed on the same day. What perfume ! what
sunsnine ! Hush ! here's a courier, the procession must be drawing near —
now comes a postilion all covered with dust, and gallops away : and now
comes a poodle dog [and gallops away too quite frightened — immense
laughter and applause from the crowd. After the poodle comes a
greyhound, still more alarmed — still more laughter and applause
from the crowd — and the first part of the procession serves to keep the
public in good humour. A stout workwoman in a cap elbows a genteel
old beauty, and says, * Let me see the Princess, Ina'am ; you, you can
g^ and see her at court.' The genteel old beauty looks at her with a
sneer, and says to her daughter, * The court, indeed ! The good woman
does not seem to know that there is much more likelihood for her to go
to that court than for us.' ' No doubt,' says the young lady. * Only
let her marry a grocer, and they'll make her a great lady.' By whida
dialogue we learn that the legitimists also have condescended to come
and see the procession. At last it comes. See ! here are the cuirassiers,
they divide, and you see the reflection of their breast-plates flashing in

A Fete-day at Paris. 481

the fountain. Now comes the cavalry of the national guards. What a

fine corps, and what a fine horse Mr, G has I The King ! M.

Montalivet — the ministers — they go too fast, I can't see any thing. The
Queen ! how nohle she looks ; how charmingly dressed — what a
ravishing hlue hat! The Princess Helen looks round this way, how
young her face seems ! ah, now you can only see her hat, it is a sweet
pretty one, in white paille de riz, with a drooping marahout. Her robe
IS very elegant, white muslin, double with rose. The Duke of Orleans
is on horseback by the Queen's side ; but, mercy on us, who are those
people in the carriages of the suite ? Did you ever see such old bonnets
and gowns — for a triumphal entry into Paris, surely they might have
made a little toilet ! The cortege has a shabby air. The carriages
are extremely ugly, and too fiill — ^indeed, it was more worth waiting for
it than seeing it."

If an English Baker-street lady had been called upon to de-
scribe a similar scene in her own country, we fancy her letter
would have been conceived in a very different spirit from that of
the saucy Parisian. The latter does not possess the Baker-street
respect for the powers that be, and looks at kings and queens
without feeling the least^oppression or awe. A queen in a ' ravis-
sante capote bleue' — sl princess of whom the description is that she
is a ' jolie Parisienne.' — Is not this a sad disrespectful manner of
depicting an august reigning family? Nor if we guess right, would
Baker-street have condescended to listen to the vulgar conversa-
tion of the poor woman in the crowd who was so anxious to see
the procession. The sneer of the great lady from the Faubourg St.
Germain is very characteristic, and the deductions by the lookers-
on not a little malicious and keen. That tasty description of the
spring, too, at the commencement of the passage, where its warmth
is likened to the love of an ' honn^te jeune fiUe de 25 ans,' could
only have been written by a French woman deeply versed in
matters of the heart. Elsewhere she utters still more queer and
dangerous opinions of the female sex, as this.

" Just look at the ' femmes passionnees' of our day, about whom
the world talk. They all beg^n by a marriage of ambition : they
have all desired to be rich, countesses, marchionesses, duchesses,
before they desired to be loved. It is not until they recognised the
vanities of vanity, that they have resolved upon love. There are some
among them who have simply gone back to the past, and at eight-and-
twenty or thirty passionately devote themselves to the obscure youth
whose love they refused at seventeen. M. de Balzac is right, then, in
painting love as he finds it in the world, superannuated that is ; and
M. Janin is right too in saying that this sort of love is very dull.
But if it is dull for novel-readers, how much more dismal is it for
young men, who dream of love, and who are obliged to cry out in the
midst of their transports about the beloved object, ' I love her,' and
^ Oh heavens, how handsome she must have been P "

4824^ •'-MtsMke^dm^iSirmtiif^^

nmh,irho klks read tte]ge&t6ebd0KBpip0teiea»^^
rather ficandmUzed «t tlKLSoeki j intckindikh'n^' Is ibtnsgim&^^ttid '
aoknowledge tbust the £n^iah:3abd6r:Bi#1&tf>Jbfite -I'Sl^ '^^^^
passion is n dedicate sabject-^theteasitgafleat*:steldisia(^^
iQ this book (or of.what is called Mnott-i^'PiEiJb)?^^^
English xnothos of &inilies would ukefto^kear JotC^tA^'ffBiiatli m}
f^£ful to fiuMony and as we have i«ad dfaiiibaaeaidci^nftihjik^^
now have an aocoont of pretcndeia •: --i^ r. hnii. — As^-yb g'l*^

" This makes me think of a young prince, ^pi^oAet'Tit^'Sc
whose audacions attempts we were far ftom^'fJWeseffi^J ■'•Xifi&6* ^1^ ji
parte is full of honour and gbod sense;- it cb«u4 i)A^'4$^''W^^Mnm%P
exile which inspired him with the foolish idea to war and be empimiiF^'
France. Poor youne: man ! it wa^ mora vleqsur&to l¥iU^to..lMl^ cap-
tive in his own country than &ee m. <^ fpitfign ,ian4v.,.oni^'V^H^^^
blood and a name like his, inaction is. hard" ^^ l^^^^j-uFJft!^ *^"^
given him right of citizen^ip in France, he hf^ perh^j>3, b^!m <
We have often heard him say that all nis ambitipn yf^ ^[Ib^
soldier, and gun his grade in our army — ^that a re^^mentj wpi^ si^t 1^,^^^
better than a throne. Hh ! mon Dieu ! it was not a'£3U[)g;dpi^jh^. cf||fi^^
to look for here, it was only a coimtry. ; ; !! ' nil uiij

" We have often known nim to laugh at the roydl ^d|Uci^^ion Vmc^

had been given him. One day he g^ly tcdd us, tW.in iu^ v^^Mx^tv^^i
his great pleasure was to water flowers, and that his goverp^^ Ma^AV^^

de B , fearing lest he should catch cold, had tlie watjering-poib ^M .

with warm water. * My poor flowers,' said the pJ^9P^>i.^l|li3iy.JttptgJ.,
knew the freshness of the waters I I was but an ihfai^t. wen/ja^'.s^j
the precaution appeared ridiculous to me.' He. nev^ ^^^H,|^^p9|,7
France without a tender feeing:, and in this he resemble? thei I/u»ejol,
Bordeaux. WfB were at Ilome when we heard of ,the nfiYis of Xaftufi.^}
death; every' one began at once to deplore his loss, and t6'te)l,i^ t^yi^
knew about the great actor, and speak of all the characters * in whicn
they. had seen him. Whikt he was listening to us, who waSiACen
scarcely. sixteiBn, he. stamped his foot with impajbioQee, jand,9ldiil^'i^tb{!
tears in his eyei^ V To think that I am a^ Fxenchmai} aj|^d jl;i^Q,.neirfiiri

seenTahna! .: : ■ ../...... i

*^ They $ay ithat on the day of his appearapp^e at,^tr^bijp:gj|:^|iJBC6.,
Louis, intoxicated hy his first moment of success, \ jjespaj^bj^d b \co^i^^^.^
id\x\^ mother to say he was master of Stijusbufg and ab9ijit tO;man^,.
on Paris. Three days after he received in prison the khswCT of ,t^^^^
Duchess of St. Leu, who, believing him to be cnfi^ly'victoriotti en-
treated htm to preserve the royal family from the ftiry pf hi^ ^^acmitsit
and to treat the king with the utmost possible^ re^ct. ' This shows i]4'
how far illuffions can he carried among those who bve ftir awa^ fiom tu^
and that exiled princes are deceived as mudi as others.*^ . ' v-

To think he is a Frenchman and has not seen Talma ! What a
touch of pathos that is^ of true French pathos. He has lost a king-

A Pau- 4f ntudk JPreimdm. 483

dom, an empire, bat, above aH, lie lias not seen Talnuu Faainr
tKe pretender, our pretender, dying at Borne, and aaykig cm lua
deatnbed that he dies nnhaxmj at not havizi^ seen Ganick in
* Abd Drugger V There would have beea a univeraal grin through
hi8t<»T at auch a q>eech fixMnaadi a man — but ours is not a coun-
try of equalkj; acting is an amusement with us, and does not come
within the domain of glory---butoneGan8eet^^ French people with
that Strang fantastic mixtare of nature and affectation, exaggera-
tion and smiplicityf weeping not alto^ther sham tears over the
actor's death-— and a prince thinking it necessary to ' placer son
petit mot' on the occasion.

We have a ' petit mot,' too, for the Duke of Bordeaux, no
doubt as authentic as that here attributed to the unlucky prisoner
of Ham.

** A traveller just returned from Groritz recounts an anecdote re-
garding M. le Due de Bordeaux, which is not without interest. The
prince had invited severalyoung men to ride, and every one admired
his boldness and ag^ty. Hedges and ditches — nothing stopped him.
At last he came to a ravine, a sort of torrent^ whereof the stream was
large enoueh to make the prince pause for a moment. But he turned
round smilms' to his companions, and said, ' Now, gentlemen, this is
the Rhine, let us pass into France;' and so saying he plunged his
horse into the torrent, and g^ned, not vrithout difficulty, the opposite
bank. When he was landed, he was aware of his own imprudence,
for many of his companions were by no means so good horsemen as he.
^ Ah!' said he, looking towards them, and speaking with his usual
charming kindness, * how thoughtless I am ! there is a hridge hard
by ;' and he pointed out the hridge to his suite, and heckoned them to
pass over hy it. All returned, admiring the young prince's coi:^age still
more perhaps than his presence of mind. To cross torrents on horse -
hack is more glorious for oneself, hut it is better to find a bridge for
one's friends.

Alas ! stem reason will not confirm this chivalrous opinion of
the Vicomte de Launay. Why is it more glorious to cross tor-
rents on horseback than to go over bridges? To dance on a tight-
rope— to lock oneself into a hot oven — to swallow half a score
of scimitars, or to stand on one's head on a church-weathercock,
would not even in France now-a-days be considered glorious, and
so we deny this statement of the viscount's altogether, as probably
the Duke of Bordeaux would, should it ever come to his royal
highness's ears. But must we say it? this story, like many others
in the book, that for instance, of the English knights at the
Eglinton tournament breaking their lances in the first place, and
pcLSting them afterwards together with paper — are, as we fancy,
due to the invention of the writer rather than to the talk of the

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIV. 2 K

484 Madame de Girardm.

day, which he professes to chronide. One of these queer tales
we caimot refraan from giving.

This, says Madame de Girardin, •pots me in mind of the Conner
who had a wife at Paris, and another at Strasbmg, ^ Wasita
crime f No* {O delicious moraKst !)

^* And this puts me in mind of die bigamist eouiier who^ had a irSfe
at Paris and another at Strasburg. Was it a crime? N<^; a fsdiMil
but alternate inhabitant of these two cities, has he not a right to po6*
sess a manage in each? One establishm^it was not Suffi^ent i(X him :
his life was so regularly divided, that he passed two days in each alter-
nate week at Paris and Strasburg. With a single vMe he would hs? e
been a widower for the half of ms time. In die first ihsftance b^ bad
lived many years uniquely married at Paris, but he came soon Htto4y
to feel the inconvenience of the system. The care which his wife iim,
cli him at Pans made him find his solitude when at Strasburg too
frightful. In the one place ennui and soHtudcy a bad supper and a ind
inn. In the other, a warm welcome, a warm room, and a supper most
tenderly served. At Paris all was pleasure : all Idank loneHness it
Strasburg.

*' The courier of the mail interrogated his hearty and at^nowle^^ed
that soHtude was impossible to him, and reasoned within himself, tiutl if
marriage was a good thing, therefore there could not be too miK^
of a good thing, therefore it became him to do a good thing at Stras-
burg as well as at Paris.

^^Accordingly the courier married, and the secret of his second union
was kept profoundly, and his heart was in a perpetual and happy vibra-
tion between the two objects of his affections. When on the road to
Strasburg he thought of his fair Alsacian with her blue eyes and
blushing cheeks; passed two days gaily by her side^ the lu^y
father of a family of little Alsacians, who smiled around him in )m
northern home. However one day he committed a rash act of la-
prudence. One of his Strasburg friends was one day at Paris, vhen the
courier asked him to dine. The guest mistaking Caroline for the
courier*s sister, began talking with rapture of the blue-^yed Alsacian
and the children at Strasburg ; he said he had been at the wedding*,
and recounted the gaieties there. And so the fatal secret was dis-
closed to poor Caroline.

" She was veiy angry at first, but she was a mother, and the dte
of her sons was thirteen years' old. She knew the disgrace and ruin
which would come upon the family in the event of a long and scan-
dalous process at law, and thought with terror of the galleys— the
necessary punishment of her husband, should his crime be made knotm.
She had very soon arranged her plan. She pretended she had a sick
relative in the country, and straightway set off for Strasburg, where sbe
found Toinette, and told her all the truth. Toinette, too^ was at first
all for vengeance, but Caroline calmed her, showed her that the wel-
fare of their children depended on the crime not being discovered, and

The Ttaa-wived Courier. 485

that the galleys for life must be ihe fate of the criminaL And go these
two women signed a sublime compact to forget their jealousies, and it
was only a few hours before his death that their husbsoDd knew of their
interview. A wheel of the carriage breaking, the mail was upset over a
precipice ; and the courier, dreadfully woimded, was carried back to
Strasburg, where he died after several days of suffering. As he was
dying he made his confession ; ^ My poor Toinette.' said he, ^ pardon
me, I have deceiv^ thee. I was au*eady married when I took you
for a wife/ ' I know it,' said Toinette sobbing, ' don^t plague your-
self now, its pardoned long ago.' * And who told you ?' * The other one^
* C^yxxline ?* ^ Yes, she came here seven years ago, and said you would
be hanged were I to peach, and so I said nothing.' < You are a good
creature,' said the two- wived courier, stretching out his poor muti-
lated hand to Toinette ; ^ and so is llie other one,' added he with a
sigh ; ^ts hard to quit two such darlings as those. But the time's up
now — ^my coach can't wait — go and biing the little ones that I may
; Jdss them — I wish I had the others too. Heigh ho !*

^' ' But here they are !' cried the courier at this moment, and his two
elder boys entered with poor Caroline, time enough to see him die. The
children cried about him. The two wives knelt on each side, and he
took a hand of each, and hoped that heaven woidd pardon him as those
loving creatures had ; and so the courier died.

^^ Caroline told Francois, her son, who had grown up, that Toinette
was her sister-in-law, and the two women loved each other, and never
quitted each other afterwards."

Here^ however, our extracts must stop. But for tbe young lady,
for whose profit they have been solely culled, we might have in-
troduced half a score of others, giving the most wonderful glimpses
iato the character if not of all me Parisian population, at least of
more than one-half of it— of the Parisian women. There is the
stoiy of the padded lady. If a duke or a prince came to her ch&teau,
■she sailed out to receive them as full-blown as a Circassian: if it
"was a dandy from Paris, she appeared of an agreeable plumpness:
if only her husband and her old friends were present, she came to
breakiast as meager as a skeleton. There is the story of the lady
at her tambour or tapestry-frame, very much puzzled, counting
the stitches necessary to work the Turk or the poodle-dog, on
which she is engaged. You enter, says the Viscoimt de Launay ,
jon press your suit; she is troubled, anxious'; as you pour out
your passion, what will she say — ' O heavens ! I love him — Al-
phonse, in pity leave me !' no such thing; she says ' Seven, eight,
lune stitches of blue for the eye; three, four, six stitches of red for
the lip, and so on.' You are supposed to be the pubhc, she the
general Parisian woman. You seem to fell in love with shcj as a
matter of course — (see the former extract regarding the Jemme
passionnee) — it can't be otherwise; it is as common as sleep or

2 k2

486 BelUtqb.

taking coffee for breakfast ; it is the natural conditipn of men, ^4
wives— other men's wives. Well, every ijountry ]^s its custopis;
and married ladies who wi^ to be made love to^ ar^ roappried ^yvfaoie
ih^ can have their will.

Then there is a delicious story about two old coquettes travd*
ling together y and each acting youth to the oth^. , i^H^ writes
home of the other, Madame de A. is charming, she h93 been gvite
a mother to me. Only women can find out thipse wo^4erf^lt His-
tories— women of the world, women of good (X>i^p£^y. , >,

And is it so? Is it true that the wome;n of Madame de Gii^-'
din's country, and of fashionable life, ajre th^ n.eair^les^,todiouS)
foolish, smndUng, smiling, silly, selfish creature she, paints them?
Have they no sense of religious duty, no feeling of jpci^em^ aiieo
tion,no principle of conjugal attachment, no motive (except vaiie^^
for which they will simulate passion, (it stands to reason that a
woman who does not love husband and children, can love nobody)
and break all law? Is this true — as every French romance wt
has been written time out of mind, would have us behevfi?
is it so common that Madame de Girardin can afford to laugh at
it as a joke, and talk of it as a daily occurrence — if so,, an^ wentpt
take the Frenchman's own word for it — ^in spite of all the fiuilts,
and all the respectability, and all the lord- worship, and all tke
prejudice, and all the intolerable dulness of Baker*street -r Jfiisf
(the young and amiable English lady, before apostrophized) had
much better marry in the Portman Square, than in the rlace
Vendome quarter.

Tlie titles of the two other works mentioned at the head of
our article have been placed there as they have a reference to
Parisian Hfe, as well as the lively, witty, and unwise letters of
M. la Vicomte de Launay. Unwise are the other named works
too, that of the German and the Englishman, but it cannot be said
that either of them, lays the least claim to the wit and liveliness of
the gay pseudo-vicomte.

Those who will take the trouble to compare the two authors,
Grant and Rellstab, will find in them a great similarity of s^-
timent, and a prodigious talent at commonplace; but it is not
likely that many of the public will have the opportunity, or take
the pains to make this important comparison. , Kellstab is ft Berlin
cockney, with one of the largest bumps of wonder that ever feD
to man. His facility at admiration may be imagined, when we
state that at the very first page of his book he begins wondering
at the velocity of the German Schnell post. He goes five miles
an hour, and finds the breathless rapidity of the conveyance like
' the uncertain bewilderment of a dream.* He enters the Malle-

The Germdn in Paris. 487

pdsteat Fmikfprt, and describe THj: NEW CONSTRUCTION
of "tKose vieKteles: iii: the most emphatic manner, says ^that 'AT
THE Very most they take five minutes to change horses' on
the road, and that the horses go at A GAt'LOP. O^e can see
his hbh^tj^le round face, peiering out of the' chaise windo-vir, and
the ^ondehnff eyes glaring, thtoqgh the specfacles, at the dangers
of thehprodigioris JQurney.

.'^rl airiVirig, he beigin$ sttaightWay to ddscribfe his hedroona
on the thirdil6br^,;.and the prides of other bedrooms. ' MV room/
saj^/h^V'^'h^^ ^h elfegaiit alcove "with an extraordihariiy clean
b^',4^it fe thi^, it is floored with tiles instead of planks, but
ih)^6^ are' coVeried \nth carpets. A marble ihantelpiec<6, a chest
C)fdi*a^^VT6i?s,^s^ct6tEiire,a marble, table by the bed, three custibned
aiin^ehaii's and three others form the furniture ; i and the room
altogether has a ^(wni>ft and comfortable look.'
■ \ Asfforthe aspect of the streets, he finds that out at ptlce.
•Tfheentifance into Paris through the Faubourg St. Martin Is
hke the Kopnicker street in Berlin, although the way from the
harrier to the post is not so long as in Paris;' arid then Mr. Rell-
dt^b details with vast exactness, his adventures in the yard of the
mes^g^rie, and the dexterity of an individual, who with little
asbisiance hoisted his luggage and that of his frienh on to his
brawny shoulders, and conveyed them from the carriage to the
ground without making the slightest claim upon their respective
purses. The hotel, and the extraordinary furniture of his apart-
ment, described as above, he is ready to sally with us into the
streets.

^ «^ We plxx^eeded first," he says, ** through the Passage du Pa-
norama. * Passage,' being the name given to such thorough-
feres, is made for the convenience of circulation in the different
quarters of the towns, are roofed over with glass, paved with gra-
nite or asphalte, and ^re Uned on either side by splendidly fur-
iiifihed shops, (we translate literally, being unwimng to add to or
take from the fact, that all passages are thus appointed). Here I
had the first opportunity of observing narrowly the tdste dis-
played in the arrangement of these latter. Nothing, not even the
plainest article for sale, is arrayed otherwise than with the most
jmrticular neatness. Many shops surprised me by their system of
combination. In one, for instance, devoted to the sale of such ar-
ticles as tea, coffee, and the like, we do not only see tea, coffee,
and chocolate, all neatly laid out, each with its price attached to
it, but also the various apparatus for the consumption of such
airticles ; teacups and saucers, teapots and tea strainers, as also
utensils of a similar nature for the preparation of coffee and cho-
colate. * * I consider it d most excellent arrangement, that to

488 ReOsta.

every article Its price is attached. The stranger who caimol!
judge of the price of an article, wiU often decline making inquiry,
lest the demand exceed his opinion of the value — but if he sees
what is the price, he is much more likely to buy, as he wiU know
whether his purse will enable him to mdulge his desire." Mr.
Rellstab then goes into a short disquisition on the price of hats,
which he finds are cheaper than in his own country.

Our author has not yet got into the streets of Pans, and we begin
to question whether our love of his company will allow us to
attend him there. However we can make a short cut, and come
upon him again as he is passing very slowly along the Boulevard
des Italiens, for he has not got farther. He has just remarked,
we find, that a very vast proportion of the people are in moum-
inff, and accounted for it by informing us that ceremony obliges
moummg to be worn a long time.

^^ The boulevards draw a half circle round the heart of Paris, just as
the walks round Frankfort and Leipzig surround the whole of the more
anment parts of these towns. But the half circle here is nearly five
mUes in leng^ ; their appearance is more town like than garden-like ;
they rather resemble our Lime Tree walk (in Berlin), only that the
passage for carriages is in the centre, whilst two rows of wide-spijeading
trees une a promenade on either side."

Here comes a minute description of the paving, in which we
cannot suppose all our readers mterested.

*' The general impression ^ven by the buildings on the boulevaids
resembles that given by the Ditch (Graben) of Vienna, though to be
sure, the construction of the houses differs considerahly from that in
Vienna, and still more from that in Berlin. None of the lower floors
appear to be occupied bv private individuals. They seem all to be made
of avail is shops or coffee-houses ; even the first and second stories ax^
often similarly employed, and at enormous rents."

M. Rellstab soon after beholds * the Venddme pillar with its
colossal statue of Napoleon, in the perspective of a broad noble
street, the Rue de la Paix, a shadowy form' he says, * which, as
by magic, darkened the present and brought forward, in its muiiy
light, the mighty past.*

This and the next sentence, in which he makes history speak to
him and his friend, are of the finest order of fine writing. He does
not retail what history says to him, but assures us that the few
moments which he passed beneath the pillar produced ' emotions
which are indescribable.' On a carnival day he conies upon th«
spot whence Fi^schi fired his hell-machine on the 28th July, 1835.
The poor fellow's terror breaks out In the most frantio poetry*
* Paris/ shrieks he, *is like-^tna. In the too-strong air of its with-
plants-and-flowers-luxuriously-decked ground (his epithets are

GrimU 489

always tremendous), the keenest nosed dogs lose the scent, and
in its wondrous environs, the eye finds itself wandering and lost
in such an immeasurable labyrinth of beauty, that one forgets
how the glowing lava heaves below, and how every moment the
thundering heU, in the very midst of the Paradise, may tear open
its mouth.'

' On, on !'
And ' on' he rushes, but this perhaps is the richest passage of elo-
quence in the book.

What can one say more about him? Good introductions
and the name of a writer suffice to introduce M. ReUstab to
one or two characters of note. He calls upon them, and finds
them, in some instances, not at home, and going or returning
in a hired cabriolet, he makes use of the opportunity to print
the tariff and propensities of these conveyances. He goes to
the opera and is squeezed; he attends the carnival balls and
is shocked; he lives in Paris and wishes himself back at Ber-
lin. There is a particularizing throughout the book which is
amazing, and to an EngUsh reader most comic. But we live
amongst commonplace, and we like to read of what we daily see.
M. Rellstab's book will tell the reader what he already knows,
and if he learns nothing new fix)m it, he will be able to flatter
himself on its perusal with the idea — ' I too could have been an
author.'

And, finally, with respect to the work of the celebrated Mr.
Grant. The ' Morning Herald' says, * it will find its way into every
library, and be read by every family;' the * Metropolitan' remarks
that ' they are able and comprehensive in plan, and nothing could
be better executed;' the * Jersey Times' declares (and this we ad-
mit) * that no living author coiud have presented us with such a
picture of Paris and its people;' and ' Ainsworth's Magazine' is of
opinion 'that Mr. Grant's volume will supersede the trashy Gxiide*
book of G^Hgnani.' Let us trust that these commendations have
had their effect, and that Mr. Grant has sold a reasonable number
of his volumes.

But for the honour of England, and as this review is read in
France, we are bound to put in a short protest against the above
dicta of the press, and humbly to entreat French readers not to
consider Mr. Grant as the representative of English literature,
nor to order the book which the * Morning Herald' declares no
English family will be without. If we are all to have it, let us,
at any rate, keep the precious benefit to ourselves, nor permit a
single copy of ' Paris and its People' to get out of the kingdom.
Ilfaub laver (the words are those of his majesty the Emperor
Napoleon) son linge sale en famiUe* Let us keep Mr. Grrant's
works in the same privacy, or the English loan-of-letters wiU

490 Gr(^. ■

such a reputation on tlie Continent as lie will hardly be anxious

to keep. ^ '/ - f

English families iftay,Hf they please/ puttihase Mr.' Gi4nt's]bbyt
inplace^of Galignatii's ^ trashy guide lk3ok 'yhicHisiSife ^^^
guide book that we fendW 6f iti any ktagwiaige/ljfhicii iexheT^ork
of scholars and gentlemen, the compilation o¥^which ririi^^ye
necesdtated a foundation of multifarious historitt&l^ aVc^dtecttii^l,
and antiquarian reading, (such as Mr. Graiit' lievir dd^td 'have
mastered, for he knows no language^liviilg 0^'ddai3;'bSbt eVfe^t^e
English language, whicKhe pretends to Ttote,^ kkd WHibh','%illy,
contains for half the price, four 6t five time^ th^ ambtitrt bf ^^tt^
to be found in these volumes, which eVeij^ Etl^U^ f^^ilj{^s to
Toad. Let us be allowed in a Foreign Rei^w' ta taak^ 'i'^^TOest
against the above sentiments,* for the sake of thelitetiry "ptSi

Mr. Grant spent some time in the nionths of Jialy^ andVAfei
in Paris; he ma)r have been there six, or possibly thiree'^^^ks.
With this experience his quaUfications for writing a bctok on
Paris were as follows: he did not know a syllable. ot the laixguftg^;
he is not acquainted with the civilized habits of any otiier county.;
his stupidity passes all bounds of behef ; his iCTOftince is w^^iit
a parallel that we know of, in professional merature ; h^lyiisrli
knack of blundering so extraordinary that he cannpt be truste(l:t9
describe a house-wall; and with these qualities he is sai4.to write
a book which is to be read by all English families, and to ruia
Galignani's trashy pubUcation. It is too bad; for the cnjio^ how-
ever good-natured, has, after all, a public to serve aa well as an
author; and has lio right, while screeninff the dulness and
the blunders of a favourite wit or blockhead, to undervalue tte
honest labours and cultivated abilities of meritooious schoto
and gentlemen. • : !

Mr. Grant begins to blunder at the first line of hia book^ mi
so continues to the end. He (Hsserts upon the gutters in lM
streets, the windows to the houses, the cabs and fibeir fibres, the
construction of the omnibuses; and by a curious feUcity of dull-
ness, is even in these matters entirely untrustworthy, .He . eajs
that Chautcbriand is a republican ^nd a member of th^ ChalQDer
of Deputies, he visits the Madeline and the Citie, he..caU§^Jidi^8
Caesar ' that distinguished writer,* and a nose * xm opgan whiicH it
is needless to name.* He discovers that the Palais Koyal^ is ifes
place to which all the aristocracy of France resorts; he sees * thp
most elegant latjies of the land sitting alongside of d^xitj driv^ra
m hack-cabriolets;' and dining at an eating-house fpr thirty sou§,
pronounces his meal to be the height of luxury, and declares thftt
the gentry of Paris are in the habit of so dining. Does the
* Morning Herald* seriously recommend every * English family*
to do likewise? We put tnis as a home question.

( ^%9r

^jAbit, 3S^.ttI- ;Ze Journal des ^ibah, i vt 6 4*N7. : .

.:,, i&jPfi^'a*. By Chaip^es, Mabsos, Esq. la 3 vols. liondoa:
;■„ Beatiey.: ,1842. ,. - ■

3. feraaaaC OtaervoHons oa Sinde. By T. P08Tan9, M.It.A.S.
^,. 3U)if4'^n: iX'Oi^giiianandiGo. 1843.
^;4. (Jorre^fon^ce relative to Sinde. Presoxted to bott Houses of

;;i]^'Vl'^*f.% copmiaBii.Df her MajeBty. -. 1843.-.
j^.|,^fepijrto, aad Papers, PoUHcal, Geegrapfdcfil, md Commercial,
^_, ^^mitted ta Government (unpubUahed).
^§.,Ca^ol. ,!^y, the late: Lleut.-Cd. Sir AiEX. BuEKES. ■ Second

„ pditipn; London : Murray. 1843,

,7r M<ftiffh Not^ of the Campaign in Sinde and Affghardiitan,

.1838-39. By Major Jambs Outbam. J. M. RichardEcm.

;/i84o. ■ .

fVWE. annexation of Sinde to the British empire appears to be
'pretty gcneralV regarded as an act the flagrant injustice of ivhich
bttght to'Weigh heavily on the public conscience. Even in par-
lliamftnt, up to the close of the last session, the leaders of all
^pfertres concurred in regardino; it as a doubtful matter. No oiie
Itordd express any defimte opmion respecting it. The oppoatlon,
UM havins; studied the despatches and public documents ooiv
rected with the war, and for other reasons by no means difficult
to be conjectured, would neither arraign formally, nor forn^lly
approve of the policy of the governor-general. They adroitly^
however, intimated, and caused it to be generally felt, that they
condemned the Sindlan war. On the omer liand, the ministers
refused to be a jot more exphcit. The series of transactions con-
neeted with the occupation of Sinde had not yet, they con-
1«ided, been brought to a close ; so that it would be highly im-
poUtic in them, and might prove detrimental to the public ser-
vice, to disclose the instructions which they had sent out, or to
eKoosi any opinion upon the torn which events had taken.
■ 'He Country, therefore, till tninisters . ehall think proper- to
lake up the question, must be content to draw ile own conclu-
sions, with the aid of such political writers as, not deterred by
^ extent or intri<iacy of the subject, may venture to forestal the
de^sions of parliament. All such inquirers must labour, of
ctrarse, under many disadvantages from which the membera of
the administration are delivered, the latter possesang complete
those letters and despatches, extracts only from whidi are laid
before the public, and having access besides to the diaries and
secret papers of the agents and residents, to none of which can
any other person refer. Still it seems to ua q^uite practicable \aM

492 Sinde, its AmirSj and its People.

form a correct judgment on the war in Sinde ; tliat is to say, to
determine on the measure of justice which has been dealt to the
Amirs.

In order to arrive at the true state of the case several points
must be cleared up. It will be necessary to ascertain whether, in
the course of our negotiations, we permitted the chiefs of Sinde
to follow the dictates of their own judgment, or imposed any re-
straint upon their will ; and if, ultimately, strong measures were
resorted to, whether they did not, by tne peculiar character of
their diplomacy, render the employment of such means abso-
lutely necessary. It will at once be seen that we have ourselves
decided in the affirmative ; it remains, therefore, that we state
the facts, and explain the reasons which have influenced our
determination.

In all matters of this kind it is of course incumbent on thos6
who undertake to influence the opinions of others to be them-
selves impartial. But we have frequently observed, that persons
who entertain a false theory of impartiality, imderstand by thifi
duty nothing else than a condemnation of ourselves. If, being
Englishmen, they accuse the policy of England, and cover her
achievements with obloquy, they expect to be complimented on
their impartiality. We have a different conception of what it is
to be impartial. We acknowledge that we owe justice to all
men, but that it is equally required of us that we be just to our
own country. This being premised, we proceed to offer such
observations as we have to make on the late events in the Valley
of the Indus.

The questions which at the outset we ought to ask ourselves are
these : — Had the Amirs perpetrated nothing which may be allowed
justly to have provoke tne vengeance of the British govern-
ment? Had tney broken no treaties? Had they made no
attempts to overreach us and abuse our confidence? Had they
not, on the contrary, most imequivocally evinced a disposition to
succumb to us while we were strong, and fall upon and destroy
us when they believed us to be w^k? Had they not intrigued
with Persia?* Had they not even invoked the aid of Mohaimned
AH, under the ignorant persuasion that he was subject to the
Shah?t Had they not received and entertained Russian spies
disguised as Turlcs?J Had they not attempted to excite the
Maharajah of Lahore against usr§ Did they not fire upon our

resident and insult our Mg?| Did they not plunder the stores

*^*"'— ' ' III -^— .— »^^ ■ III - » I « ■ ■»«^^"

• See on this point the opinion of Sir Heniy Pottinger, ' Correspondence on
Sinde/ No. 45, andNos. 12, 15.

Sir Henry Pottinger, * Correspondence,' No. Sa.

Major Outram, ' Correspondoice,' No. 249.

• Correspondence,^ Indosnre 12, No. 338.
II * CorrespondeDoe,' Ka 25.

Tributaries to Kabul. 493

collected for our army at Hyderabad? In short, will or will not
history, when it comes to investigate all the circumstances of the
transaction, rather applaud the policy by which we were guided
than condemn us as rapacious and unprincipled aggressors? Satis-
factorily to reply to these questions, it will be necessary to look
beyond the flyinff rumours of the day, and even to reject, in
many instances, me testimony of individuals who may have co-
operated personally in producmg the event under consideration.

It seems to us an important point to ascertain in the first place
by what right the Amirs themselves held the coimtry. For if
tiieir authority rested upon a legitimate basis there would, of
course, according to the common opinion of mankind, be more
caution to be observed in the act of overthrowing it; but if, as
was the fact, they had no right, and pretended to none but their
swords, without drawing which they observed menacingly that
the country should not pass from them,* it was between them and
us merely a question of might, or who had the longest sword,
since where there is no right there can be no injury. We had,
however, it may be urged, entered into treaty with the Amirs,
and thus acknowledged their authority .f But who will imdertake
to prove that an error in diplomacy on our part must, of neces-
sity, create a right on theirs? We negotiated with them as the
actual rulers of Sinde, without inquiring by what means they had
become such; because it was not necessary at the time to push
our inquisition so far. Afterwards, when our relations with them
became more intimate, we obtained a clearer insight into the foun-
dations of their power, and found that it rested upon a mixture of
force and fraud, which tended very little to elevate them in our
estimation*

Not to go back to the records of past times, the Amirs, at the
commencement of the present century, were confessedly tributary
to the King of KabiU;! tiiough, owing to the weakness of that
prince, payment of tiie tribute was generaUy refused. Now, in
deciding on the conduct of the Amirs in tiiis matter, it is neces-
sary to proceed upon some intelligible principle; that is, either to
condemn them as fraudulent and rebellious subjects, or to ac-
knowledge at once that might makes right, and justify them for
practically assertipg their mdependence because their sovereign
was imable to maintain his authority.

And this latter is the course generally taken — tadtiy, perhaps,
but not the less certainly — because on all sides we hear tiie Sm-

dian Amirs spoken of as independent princes, which must pro*

— ^ —

* Items of Intelligence receiyed by Major Clibbom, * Correspondence/ No. 384.

t See the Treaties, dated Angnst 22, 1809; Noyember 9, 1820; April 4, 1832;
April 20, 1838, &c. &c.

X Treaty between the BritiBli Gofenunmt, Basjit Singh, and Shah Siig
ArtiXvL

iaj^p^

494 Sinde, Ui Amirt and ite Paij/le.

ceed ^tW from igjoorsnce of llie . mal Btate ot -^ eoiie, ot'^Koa
^e eocvktjon tbat Ute cJiiims <iif the K^ifll g>ss%)$iffiKtM^<%Mi<'
ever juet and legitimate, ought to '\ie'tiatlei'!ViiM ctAOSiiptf
Itecsiue UEged by ivcftkness ogaiiiBt - Etrengtb. :• "Rteywht ketitA
a&es this &luOQ have only to^i^dy the. eatse r^Wtoitlts^^i^
the Am^ In Uiek cordteoiiaeaa -with the British got^raniSAt} u
order /to justify, whatever baa been achievod by fcOBd;ElM-
borough. Jiut m political aa in. monds, the Mt^is''lto¥.;bJn'i)J8
light which ingenuity is able to deftndj W«'fi}uiU'tditite^i«'cOtbi-^
template the aohjeot fcom.a diSerent point ef view.' ■' jjIu.lom'A

In Sinde, before -wemade onr agwataafieyidiMie T^te'lt*!)
parties*— the people and the Amirs. ^InefcwmEiry WNrill'ba^^i
reasoqing acoordHigtothepnnoipIefiTalgailyisdoptiediliyn^gEiB^i
owed (o the Utter, obedience and tribute ; while, aooordis^-^ W^
same ppncipLea, these again, in thedr turn, owed 't&s fonsi^'pin-
potion and good govemmcat. Bat what, at the period attTtdedttlf
was the real atate of the case? On their part the people bup^^
their rulers with no cause of complainfL They were ob«d^C'ffiid
paid tlieir taxes. Contented they were not, beeouwit wasrmjws-
^ble under suqh a government as that of the Amin to be' M).
Even the witnesses most lavourable to these princes confess ^iM
the peasantry were a prey to every species of vexatiom «nct ejetf*^
tion perpetrated towards them by the "ill-paid hirelings of A^
chiefs." It is charitably presumed, indeed, that th^ee i^btti^
ments of oppressioti were not ' authorized' to jtfaotis© tyraBBif;
but only, through negligence, permitted. To the' ihuabondtiea
however, whom tihey pillaged, it mattered little wh^heP 1^
were oommissioned or non-comnuBsioned plunderers, tbe'i«iult'fo
them being always the same. Again, that section of the' p^puld^
tion which professed the Hindu religion underwent a b^'tnde
grievous persecution, being imable to move fo)m vilh^e-to viUteej
oitowntotown, " without paying a fee to some MtdtamttteoflD
for hie protection."* In iact, tiierefoie, these ' poor; pedple'ir^
made aliens in their own land, which their indnstiy «hiefiy ^
riched and rendered habitable. ■..■;.'.

Another proof, and perhaps the most striKng,' of the'tyKduiy
of the Aai'ifs is fuinished by the manner in whieh €tief foMBiw
their ehikargdh or hunting-ground. Li]^ thie ^rly Norman
princes in this country, they were inordinately addicted -to lie
chase. To secure themEelves therefore a constant supply of game
of all kinds, but more especi^y of deer, they coforested wh(^
districts, without paying any regard to the interests of agricul-
ture; preferring, pernaps, the parts already in jangal, but wheie-
ever their designs appeared to require it, laying waste towns,

^ * MMaou, ToL i, p. 379.

Partiality for ihe English. 4dj?

Y^gQS, md hctmletS)^ leaTing the inhabitants to find db^lter
wW^yev jbhey eould^ approprlatmg to diemselTes their farms and
g^ijens* . Meanwhilet the immense preserreSv which eictended, in^
w^Y^einX ^ioatancee^ for thirty miles along the banks of the Indus^
0Qiil4 xi<>t' be ki^pt up witliont '^cpensev The weight of this fell,
oi^ QQi^rae^ upoa the irretched inhabitants, who may Ktera&y be
said 'Do : have beeia sacrificed to the deer^ every head of which;
Iqiiled by. the Amirs, cost their subjects eight huiidi^d rupees.t
'l^e oi^excfis^ that cah be made K>r such rulers i^ih^ir pitiable
ignorance. Like our princes; of ^ the Stuart family^ diey considered
iSepowle bom to be their drudges, l^ough they must have sidU
^if^i^^i^Qdi in vth^r memories? the very low origin from which thw
spnutg4' Whenr incddeixtally r^ninded of his duty by the Britisn
ppd^l^^ agent, ilussir Khan replied, — ♦' If I chooSci to com-
zait tyroisny, I may ; it has always been the custom in Sihde to
n^keei^aicitions^ to remimerate some and take from others. This
^ustQm I am not willing to alter." Nay more, when, by dint of
pi[>^emuient foreaght and industry, any of their subjects seemed
^ptabl^ to counteract the sinister influence of government, and
amass propertyi the Amirs felt and expressed extreme jealousy,
a^ would say, characteristically, " The fellows are too rich al-
ready ;§" and forthwith adopted the most direct meai^ to diminish
ihieirt opulence, which means, through their ignorance, were ge-
nerally detrimental to commerce, and every species of industry ;
consequently, in the long run, to their own revenues.

It will not therefore be matter of wonder that the Sittdiansi
coq^apariiig their condition with that of the Hindds' of Kutch,
and. other nations of India enjojdng the blessings of British rule,
sbpuld have most earnestly desired to become our subjects.! They
obs^rv^ed the mildness and equity of our sway ; they saw that wher-
ever: our authority extended, there every man o6uld enjoy with-
oylX n^plestation me fruits of his industty ; nay, that so far from
coveting: the property of the subject, government were cpnstahtly
4evi9tlig new means for &cilitatin^ their private speculations and
exertions for enriching their famihes.

■XJbie /knowledge oi these facts excited throughout Sinde a
strong desire on the part of the population, not Only Hindti but
Mus^uknan?^ to throw off the yoke of the Amirs, and become
British $ubjects.ir Of this, their conduct throughout the whole of
the. late transactions, leaves no room for doubt. They seized on
ev€jty occasion, and made use of every stratageib they could

^■1 «iii I » I

♦ PoBtans, * Personal Observations on Sinde,* pp. 7, 8f la, 27, 5C, 57. .,

PostabiB, * Penkcniol Observations/ &c., p. ^6.

Pottinger, Belodiist&n, p. 398.

Outram, * Correspondence,* No. 379, Indosure 80.
H Sir Henry Pottinger, * Correspondence,* No. 119; Migor Outram, No. 232.
^ * Correspondence,* Na 338, Inclosure 15.

496 Sindey its Amirs and its People.

devise, to escape firom the tyranny of their own rulers and secure
to themselves our protection. When the British government Uxk
possession of Kar&chi, the natives located themselves iso rapidly in
our camp, that the Amfrs began immediately to fear lest the
whole population of the city should transport themselves into the
same circ^.* A amilar tmng happened again at Sukkur, now
Victoria on the Indus, where, by pouring into our lines and
settling there, the Sindians disclosed to their rulers how ghSij
they would exchange British authority for their capricious aim
oppressive sway.f At Shikarpiir,| at Tattah, and every other
pomt where the English took up a position, however confined or
temporary, the same phenomenon occurred ; so that the militaiy
commanders and political agents calculated with the greatest coDi-
fidence, that, wherever our subsidiary force should remain fixr
any len^h of time, there marts and cities would spring rtp
around it. Of this truth the Amfrs themselves were painfu%
conscious, for in their treaties with the English there is nothing
on which they more pertinaciously insist than on this, that we
should not listen to the complaints of their subjects, or take any
steps towards redressing their grievances4

Against the people of Sinde, therefore, we have, at any rate,
been guilty of no injustice. They had long looked to us as the
central government and paramount authority in India — as the
successors of the Moguls, to whom of right llelong all the king-
doms and states over which those sovereigns formerly held swaf ,
from the banks of the Granges to Herat. They believed us to oe
their rightful masters; and it is, indeed, perfectly natural that
every Hindu, wherever his lot may be cast, should look upon
himself as a British subject. To the Sindians we appeared in
the light of deliverers ; « and it tells considerably in our fkvoUT,
that, m proportion as they have become acquainted with oilr
character and manners, their partiality for us has increased.§ Tik
being indisputably the case, very little account is to be made of
the claims and pretensions of the Talpiir Amirs. They who suffer
their minds to be influenced by antiquated and absurd prejudices,
may persist, if they please, in looking upon those barbarous chiefs

* See the Perwanna from Mir Nussir Khan of Hyderabad, directed to liSs
officers, kardars, &c^ at Karachi

JPostans, * Personal Observations,' &c., p. 32.
*' Our camps will afford a refuge to the trading classes ci ^nde, as would i&e
district of Shikarpur, if a British possession, to the agriculturaL And it xppem
to me, that the only method by which we can compS the Amirs to good gOTern-
ment, without the direct interference which is so much to be deprecated, is by the
example of our own better government over the spots we secure m the heart of
their country, and which, in giving refuge to Sinde subjects, who are driven by
tyranny to seek it, would oblige tl^ Amurs to rule better, in. order to preserre
&eir people." Major Outram, * Correspondence,' Na 379, Incksoze 2.
§ Outram. < Campaign,* &c., p. 9.

Slavery in Sinde. 497

as independent princes. It matters not a jot what name we
bestow on them. Th^ were, ii;i reality, tyrants ; and, in defiver-
ing the inhabitants of Sinde from their yoke, we were performing
good service to humanity. This is the light in which the people
of Great Britain should consider the subject. They have nothmg
to do with the technicalities of diplomacrjr. The only question
they ought to ask themselves is, whether their hearts prompt
them to sympathize with an estimable and industrious population
cruelly oppressed, or with some half dozen or so of military
adventurers, who, having got into their hands the instruments of
oppression, had acquired the knack of talking big and calling them*
celves independent princes. They were, in &ct, nothing but
dOreebooters, ignorant, coarse, and sensual, who sacnficed not only
Hxe interests of the conmiunity, but, what is more remarkable and
characteristic, the most natural feelings of the heart to their
passion for animal excitement.* For such persons it is difficult
to cherish any sympathy. Besides, they were upon a very large
scale slaveholders, and patrons and protectors of slavery. Traf-
fickers in men and women were constantly making their way
towards Kardchi, where the miscreants knew they could
always reckon upon a readj market. This, however, was not all.
As often as it suited their purpose, the Amirs also permitted
iheir subjects to be exported. We find, for example, fliat when
Hajji Hussein Ali Khan was proceeding towards the court of
Persia with treasonable letters for the Shah, we mean letters
full of hostility towards Great Britain, he was detected carryinsc
along mth hW a number of cheste, from wUch, in the bazir at
Xarkh&na, the voices of women were heard crying out for help.
The people of the place, upon inquiry, found they were six
Hindu girls whom the authorities wished to have it believed
Hajji Hussein had kidnaped ; but, as no steps were taken for
their release, though the British native agent brought the matter
directly before the Amfrs, it was imderstood that the ladies were
meant as a present to the Shah.f This view of the matter is cor»
xoborated by the fact that the western Mohammedan princes
have from very remote times been in the habit of purchasing
female slaves from Sinde, the Hindu women of that country
being celebrated for their beauty. Thus, to gratify their political
ambition, these lamented Amirs sacrificed the daughters of their
subjects to the passions of a despot more powerful than them-
selves.

Another trait in the character of the Anurs of Sinde ought to
be kept steadily in view. When communications had been

♦ Postans, * Personal Obseirations/ &c., p. 57.
t ' Gonespondence,' Na 13.

498 Sinde, its Amim and its People.

opened between them and tlie Indian government, ii\sj eshi-
bited little reluctance to negotiate and enter into treaties with it;
or at any rate, after the usoal train of intrigues, discosdons, era-
flionSy manoeuvres, and political Jesuitism, ihey concluded an
alliance with the rulers of India; of course because they expected
to derive some advantage fiom it. But, in most instances, as
must be obvious to all wno diligentiy oontider the matter, they
took no pains to fulfil their part of the compact They were very
ready to reap benefits, but uttle disposed to confer any.

To a certain extent the sentlemen deputed to oonduct oar
n^otiations in Sinde no doubt deceived the Amfrs; involuntarily
we admit, but still they deceived ihem. They dwelt much on the
important advantages which would accrue to those rulers from
tlm>wing open the commerce of the Indus, and such advantages
might certamly have been realized, but not by the Amfrs. lor,
so Ignorant were the^ of the art of government, so incapable of
profiting by the blessings of commerce, that it was next to im-
possible they should be able to turn the speculations of thdr
subjects to immediate account. Now anytning not immediate,
appeared to them non-existent. They could not mentally follow
tne long and intricate process by which the sap of wealth, dis-
tributed through the'general body of the people, is elaborated
ultimately into revenue and power and domimon. They could
not understand that the gain of their subjects was their own gain,
and that therefore to ennch them was to strengthen thems^ves.
No : they counted nothing to be theirs but what they could wrest
from the people, and lay up in their own coffers, lliat they con-
sidered to be real wealth, though it was in every respect barren,
and a cause of poverty to the country.

That these were their views of the matter they took no pains
to conceal. Nay, Ntir Mohammed, the principal Amir of Hyder-
abad, very frankly on one occasion explained to the British poli-
tical agent, who had been insisting on the advantage of throwing
open the Indus and cultivating a connexion with England, the
whole of their ideas on the subject.

'^ All this," said he, ^' may he very true ; but I do not understand
how it concerns us. What benefit do we derive from these changes?
On the contrary we shaU suffer injury. Our hunting preserves will be
destroyed ; our enjoyments ciu*tailed. You tell us that money will find
its way into our treasury. It does not appear so. Our contractors
write to us that they are bankrupt. They have no means of fulfilling their
contracts. Boats, camels, are all absorbed by the English troops. Trade
is at a stand. A pestilence has fallen on the land. You have talked
about the people : — what are the people to us — poor or rich ? "What
do we care, if they pay us our revenue ? You teU me the country will
flourish. It is quite good enough for us, and not so likely to tempt the

ciipi.dHV *f itis neiglibmire. Hmduft5n iviis rk-Ii, and that \i the i-easoii'J
it is uhflri'yOiii'aubjectTon. NoT^givp iig our hunting preserves and oiif
own enjiiynients free from inter frroncc, and that is ail wo renuire." — : '
Lieutenant Easttmck, Correapondoic''. No. 130, *

From views ^n (Irfoctivc tin politictil and commercial subjects',"
aiif! frOTh 'irMtivca common to uH Jespots, tlic Titlpujis ncvef
tr(iil1)Icd'^etrisdvC3 about fiiHilliilg tlie Ftipulations of the treaties '
■wit'h'tMGovernoi--gcnfJrnl into ivhich tlicy cnterpd. It seemed '
as though tbeyhatl jiot the moral foumge to deny any request dj- '
i"cW!y m'ftds' to them, thoiigh they entertained not the slightest
in'ttfftitiii'pf lteepiii£ their promises. Thus, on tbc arrival of the"
subsiiHftry force at ^arichi, it was noreed that it should be sup-"
plM'WJth'^proyisitms free of duty, but in order to prevent tha'
stifrtiltrtioh from talking effect, the natives were secretly forbidden
to-appfoach'ttiir cantonments with commodities. t "J

-A^iB;;;it"wafl Settled by treaty that mcrcbandise ascending the'
In^te sliottldi'so'lonc as it, remained on the river, be liable to no'}
tolls o^ dutiea,! and that if it proceeded beyond tbe from icra of^
Sifidetione would consequently bo le\-ied on it ; but in order to'
rcridet tfeis arrangement ineffectual, a large sum was extorteA*'
from the emp^ boats when they attempted to return down the
sti'edki. Another mode of misinterpreting the treaty was afterV
wirds invented. In that document it was stated that merchant^''
passing Up and down the Indus with their goods sliould not \m
molested or compelled to pay tolls ; but, observed the Amirs,"
under the term merchants we by no means understood Sindian,.',
mi^haats, from whom wc have always been accustomed to levy'
tolls and dutios.§ Pii-st, therefore, they stopped all boats in order'*
to inquire to whom they belonged : if ttcir owners proved to be
natives of Sinde, money was taken from them under that pretence ; if
they tm-ncd out to be British subjects, and showed the pcrmit'of th<i' '
Political Re;'ident, ihe paper wtis said to be a forgery, .ind they .
were still compelled to pay. On the other hand, if, confiding in the"
proteclffott (rfthe treaty, the traders refused to submit to the authoJ"
rity of the kardars or revenue-officers, they wei-c fired into,|| their
navigation was airested, tlieir merchandise seized on, and tbe tolla .
and' i^taes aMtnately were fotced froni.^th^m'.ir Andthesi Were

^ XJeAL'ZiSckie, f CorFeipoiidenee,''^o, 318. '•!■ ■-"'-

t Sjr Beoi^ PoUisger, ' Coii»8puDd^c«, . Ko. 33 ; lifia'b. Eaatwidc, Via. ISO t

Minutflby Sir .George ^hur. Governor of Bombaj;Ka. 362. . . .
X Tbe example ww set b; Khfrpore. Sir Alexander Barnes, ■ Correfpondeiice,*

Ko. las.

§ Lieut. Brown, ' Coireipcnidence,' Na 368, No. 379. IndoMures 16, ■ 17, 18;
Migor Outran), No. 87ft. . lucloniie 24. - ■

II Petition of Pokur Doss, Soukar, to Fir Ibrahim, ' Correspondence,' No. 370.

\ SirC. Napier, 'Correspondence,' Nos. 371 andilS; Petitions of Tarracliuiid,
Wadoo Mull, Morain Doss, Omer Khan, Btc.

VOL. XXSn. NO. LXIV. ^ "i- ■

500 Sinde, its Amirs and its People.

everyday occurrences, not tracing their origin to accident, but flow-
ing from a system. Nevertheless it is gravely pretended, by some
persons, that the navigation of the Indus was always open, and that
there existed no necessity for treaties or interference of any kind.

We are far, meanwhile, from maintaining that the rulers of
India had. never secretly formed any designs upon Sinde. It is
not our province to interpret intentions or unveil motives. We
only know that throughout the whole of our negotiations with
the Amirs, the greatest possible restraint was always put on the
lust of power, and every conceivable deference paid to the feelings,
tastes, and prejudices of the capricious chieftains with whom we
had to deal. It may perhaps be said that we infringed upon
their sovereign authority by insisting upon a passage for otii
armies into Affghanistdn. The proper reply to this is, that they
were never in possession of sovereign authority; that, on the
contrary, they owed and acknowledged allegiance to Shah Siijah,
to reinstate whom those armies were proceeding. They and their
forefethers had paid him tribute ;* large arrears of tribute were at
that very moment due, part of which they were called upon to
pay, and did pay,t and from the payment of part of which they
were excused, in consequence of the inconvemence to which the
country might be put by the passage of the forces and the per-
manent residence of a small subsidiary army, which the circum-
stances of the times rendered absolutely necessary. •

We are aware that they showed releases written in korans
which Shah Siijah had formerly given them.J But those re-
leases were conditional, and it has never been attempted to be
proved that they had fulfilled the conditions entered into. That
this was the way in which the matter was regarded in 1838, is
clear from Article XVI. of the Tripartite Treaty between the
British government, Maharajah Ranjit Singh, and Shah Siijah
til Miilk, by which the last agreed to render the Amirs completely
independent of the E^blll government on payment of a certam
sum. Consequently, it appears to us that nothing can be more unfair
than to pretend that Ghreat Britain has been guilty of injustice
towards the Hyderabad rulers.

' At the same time we own that had Lord Auckland remained
governor-general of India, there is every probability that the
annexation of Sinde would have been considerably deferred, be-
cause it was the policy of that nobleman to exhibit extraordinary
courtesy in his negotiations with the Amirs, to overlook as much

* Sir Alexander Bumes, * Correspondence/ No. 55 ; Sir Henxr Pottinger,

No. 88.

\

W. H. Macnaghten, * Correspondence/ No. 374, Inclosnre 44.
Sir Heniy Pottinger, * Correspondence/ Na 45.

CimlizaHon of India. 501

as possible tlieir infractions of treaties, and to prevail in all cases
rather by persuasion and reasoning than by menaces.

Lord Ellenborough adopted different maxims of pohcy. He
had relinquished Affghanist^, and along with it all hopes of
powerful influence in Central Asia ; and this he saw and felt
must be regarded by statesmen as a very great oversight. To
make amends to a certain extent for this extraordinary act, his
lordship believed that some brilliant movement ought to be made;
and consequently as the Amirs of Sinde recklessly laid themselves
open to attack, and seemed rather to court than avoid collision
with us, he seized on the opportunity which they voluntarily
offered, and extended the limits of the empire to me Indus and
even a Uttle beyond. We acknowledge that this achievement is
not easily reconcileable with his lordship's previous declarations
and professed policy. But it is not our business to clear Lord
Ellenborough from all imputation as a statesman. We only con-
tend that the conquest of Sinde was in itself justifiable, and might
with honour have been imdertaken even by Lord Auckland
himself

There is another light in which this and all similar questions
ought to be contemplated. From a careful study of the history
of the world, it will appear that nature itself has set limits to the
political development of certain races of mankind, while to
others would seem to have been assigned an almost unbounded
progression. Generally, however, a line may be drawn, beyond
which the sway of some nations cannot profitably be extended,
and at this point, therefore, if we could discover it, it would
be wise for conquest to cease. On the other hand it is equally
clear that, within these limits, the aim should be. as much as pos-
sible to assimilate and consolidate the population, to impart to it
one impress, to pervade it by one spirit. This formed the chief
business of a long succession of statesmen in Spain, France, Ger-
many, Great Britain, briefly in all civiUzed states. The same
thing ought to be effected by us in Hindustan. Providence has
there committed to our hand the paramount authority, and
doubtless designs that we should impart to the whole of the stu-
pendous fabric one aspect and type of civilization. One rajah
and petty prince after another disappears from the scene, and
leaves his territories to be merged in the British Indian empire.
Our maxims of policy, our sciences, our Hterature, our commerce,
our morals, and even our religion, are striking root in that vast
peninsula, slowly we admit, but to all appearance certainly, and
with the prospect of producing the greatest good. More than
140,000,000 of human beings depend in India for happiness or
the contrary upon the sway of (jreat Britain. They nave los^^^

2l^ I^*

502 Sinckj its Amirs and its People.

utterly the power of self-government, and, for the most part,
perhaps, the desire also. At least, there is no evidence that, for
many generations past, they have applied themselves to those
studies, without the aid of which the beneficial exercise of poli-
tical power is impossible.

To us, therefore, as to a conquering and civilizing caste, the
government of all India belongs, not so much through any paltry
right derivable from custom or originating in popular notions, as
from that sacred right imparted by providence to intellect and
justice to rule over violence and ignorance.* Accordingly, if we
be true to ourselves, our Asiatic empire will in all probability
be durable as that of Rome. It has been built up and conso-
lidated by the co-operation of some of the greatest statesmen
and soldiers known to history ; an^' although from time to time
the task of governing it may ber committed to incapable hands,
it must be maintained upon the whole that India has been ruled
with consummate abiUty. Slowly, therefore, and almost imper-
ceptibly, have the several parts of which it is composed, detached
themselves from the surrounding chaos of barbarism, and passed
into the finely organized system of our Indian empire, wluch it
may require many ages to bring to its proper development, and
thrice as many more to destroy.

It is not, however, at present, our object to examine the in-
ternal structure of that wonderful fabric of dominion which we
have reared in Asia, but rather to glance over that line of out-
works which nature may be said to have thrown up upon the
frontiers of Hindustan to protect it on all sides from invasion.
Among these the Indus may perhaps be enumerated, though it
be a most important question to consider, whether the mountain
ranges which command that river itself ought not rather to be
regarded as the boundary of India. Towards the possession of
those ranges we have of late made some steps, first by the in-
vasion of Affghanistan, and secondly by the conquest of Sinde.
Of this latter country the character and resources are not so well
known as they deserve to be ; for which reason we shall here
throw together some observations which may aid in rendering
them more familiar to a portion at least of the public.

The territories of Sinde extend along both banks of the Indus
from a point a short distance south of the confluence of that great

♦ Our opinion on this point concurs exactly with that of Sir Henry Pottinger
who, in his intercourse with the Amirs, observed that " they had themselves lite-
rally imposed on us the necessity of dictating the arrangements provided for by
the late treaty; and that they must henceforward consider Sinde to be, as it was
in reality, a portion of Hindustan, in which our position made us paramoimt, sod
entitled us to act as we considered best and fittest for the general good of the whole
empire." * Correspondence on Sinde/ No. 161.

Egypt and Sinde. 503

river with tlie PunjnM to the ocean.* Tliey consist of a series of
magnificent alluvid plains, diversified here and there by rocly
eminences of slight elevation and by sandy sterile tracts, indi-
cating the original character of the country before the Indus had
fertilized it by its deposits. In many of its leading features Sinde
strikingly resembles Egypt ; depending almost entirely for mois-
ture on one great river, subject to periodical risings, sluiced off ar-
tificially lor the purposes of irrigation, separated into numerous
branches by a delta near its mouth, and obstructed by bars at its
entrance into the sea. Vast sandy deserts or chains of lofty and
barren mountains form the boimdaries of both countries, insulating
and rendering them difficult of access, though the barriers of
Egypt be on the whole perhaps the more formidable. Both
countries again have wandering tribes upon their borders, which
from time to time make incursions into them, sack and plunder
their towns and villages, devastate their fields, and check the pro-
gress of civiUzation.

But in historical importance, Sinde will bear no comparison
with Egypt, for while the latter, from the concurrence of nu-
merous circumstances, has acted a distinguished part in the his-
tory of the world, having at one time been the illustrious seat of
the arts and sciences, and afterwards, for thousands of years, the
prize contended for by rival empires, it has been the fate of the
former to be invariably an obscure dependency on some neigh-
bouring state.

Nevertheless Sinde is, in many respects, an extraordinarily valu-
able possession. Its commercial importance can scarcely be ex-
aggerated, since on account of the Indus, which traverses it from
north to south, it may be regarded as the great high-road to
Central Asia. The native productions, however, compared with
thosaof many other parts of India, are neither rich nor numerous.
They consist of cotton, the culture of which has hitherto been
much neglected ; sugar-cane, to which nearly the same remark
may be apphed ; all sorts of grain, as well such as are known in
Europe, as those pecuhar to Ladia; various kinds of vetches, with
several species of fruits and vegetables. The date-palm flourishes
nearly all over the plain of the Indus, but either from some pecu-
liarity in the soil, or through defective cultivation, its fruit seldom or
never comes to perfection. Towards the sea Sinde degenerates into a
succession of salt marshes, overgrown in part by jungle, stinted
or luxuriant, according to the accidents of the soil. In many
places the eye wanders over large sombre tracts, covered thickly
by the camel-thorn, with its purple papiHonaceous blossoms, the
caper-bush, the salvadora, and the euphorbia, the last of which

* Dr. Lord, * Medical Memoir on the Plain of the Indus/ p. 59.

%

504 Sinde, its Amirs ccnd its People.

drops after a season upon the surface of the ground where it Hes
decajring, and suggests the idea of innumerable bundles of dry
sticfc collected by hands which are nowhere visible. At "various
points, both east and west of the Indus, there are large stony or
sandy districts, all perhaps equally barren, but presenting in their
aridity a variety of aspects. In some places the dreariness of the
view is slightly reUeved by thickets of prickly pear bushes,
which communicate to the landscape a character resembling that
of the Deccan between Seriir and Ahmednaggdr. Elsewhere the
sand, as in the Libyan desert, is blown up into hills from fifty
to two hundred and fifty feet in height, separated not by valleys
but by hollow basins, nowhere communicating with each other
without change of level. On the summit of these eminences,
when accident suffers them to become permanent, a few scattered
bushes occasionally make their appearance. Sometimes the surface
of the waste exhibits a smooth expanse, on which the fine sand is
blown into ripples, running from east to west, indicating the ex-
istence of winds setting in almost constantly from the desert.

From this account, no very favourable idea will be formed of
the face of Sinde. But other points remain to be insisted on.
In what may be strictly termed the Valley of the Indus, a very
large proportion of the country is covered by jungle, or forest, in
which the towns and villages are scattered, each surrounded by
its patch of cultivation, as thoudi it were a land recently re-
claimed from the wilderness. This circumstance, which has
hitherto operated as a curse to Sinde, must now prove an ad-
vantage to us, since it will not only furnish our steamers with an
inexhaustible supply of fuel, but afford us perpetually recurring
opportimities of appearing to the natives in the light of bene-
factors, by faciHtating inter-communication, and constantly sub-
jecting fresh tracts to the plough. Even the Shikarg^hs will
gradually yield to the axe, and become the abode of the peasants
whose fathers perhaps the late Amirs had dispossessed and turned
adrift upon the world.

With respect to the nature of the landscape, it may be said,
that whatever of picturesque and beautiful is consistent with the
accidents of a level country, is to be foimd in Sinde. Here and
there its mighty river, expanding to the breadth of a lake, ex-
quisitely diversifies the view; in one part reflecting mosques
and tombs and caravanserais and villages from its deep waters, in
another, running along the skirts of a huge and venerable forest.
At a point near Sehwan the Hala mount^ns project one of their

5)urs almost to the river's bank, just as the Arabian range comes
own upon the Nile near the ruins of Chenoboscion. Bukkur,
again, in many respects resembles Elephantine^ though it is of

A Indian Landscape. 505

infinitely greater importance, lying as it does in the highway
from Hindiistfin to Kabiil and Persia. In the grandeur of the

landscape it is likewise superior. Perhaps, indeed, from the
point where the Indus escapes from the Himalaya, there is no
situation more striking or extraordinary than the site of Bukkur,
where a pile of dark rocks, surmoimted in its whole extent by a
lofty fortress, rises in the centre of the river, harmonizing with
the precipitous cliffs which confine the waters of the Indus both
on the east and west.

Among other elevations which diversify the &ce of Sinde, are
a low range of hills on the borders of Jessalmir, and that on which
the citadel of Hyderabad is erected, with the projection, before
spoken of, of the Belooch mountains, near Sehwan, and the insig-
luficant eminences about Kardchi and Tattah. Elsewhere the
country consists of one level plain. But it is not on this ac-
count destitute of beauty. The several towns and villages suc-
cessively present themselves to the eye of the traveller through
breaks m pepul or palm groves, or long avenues cut through the
dense jungle. Even the Shikargdhs, or hunting grounds of the
Amirs, however mischievous in other respects, tend greatly to
adorn the face of the country, with their luxurious growtn of
forest trees, and matted and verdant sweeps of imdergrowth, ex-
tending in some cases for twenty or thirty miles along the banks
of the Indus, with here and there a small palace or hunting-
lodge, embosomed in the depth of the woods. Another source
of beauty is to be discovered in the tombs with which the whole
fiice of the country is sprinkled. All these elements beheld in the
cool of the morning, when the husbandmen are afield, when the
women of the different villages in their airy and fanciful costume
are busily engaged moving to and fro from the weUs, with water-
jars nicely poised upon their heads, when a party, perhaps, of
Belooch Lorsemen, grotesquely habited and accoutred, may be
seen dashing across the plain, while a kafila of laden camels fol-
lows the windings of the footpaths rather than roads which con-
duct from city to city, its long snake-like line appearing and dis-
appearing by turns as it issues from or enters one of those groves
which diversify the face of Sinde — beheld, we say, at such an
hour, and under such circumstances, the elements of a Sindian
landscape produce a powerful effect upon the imagination.

Viewed from the sea, however, the coast of Smde is pre-emi-
nently monotonous and uninteresting. From the moutn of the
salt river Liilii, which divides it from Kutch to Cape Mowaii,
where the grand moimtainous region of the Belooches begins,
there is scarcely a single swell in the whole extent of the shore.
The waves you ride appear to be higher than the land, and from the

506 Sind€^ its Amirs and its People.

deck of a large sliip you really in many cases look down upon it;
though on approacmng Kardchi the eye discerns a considerable
elevation in the line of coast. The appearance, meanwhile, of
the sea in calm weather is very remarKable, and has sometimes
been thought alarming, since the vast body of water thrown out
by the Indus at once discolours it and causes a constant ripple
which would appear to indicate the presence of shallows.

Among the cities of Sinde which deserve particular notice
is Shikarpiir, which may be said almost entirely to owe its exist-
ence to the trade of Affghanistan and Central Asia. It is three
miles in circumference, protected by walls, and situated in a large
and fertile plain at the distance of twenty-six miles from Bii-
kur, on the extreme limits of Sinde towards the north-west.* Some
writers suppose it to have owed its commercial prosperity to the
removal thither of the Hindu banking establishments from Mul-
t&n. It is more reasonable to infer that, Ijdng on the route
of the caravans from Delhi to Candahar and Herat, by the great
Bolan pass, it grew early though gradually into importance, and
echpsed Multan both in size and consequence, before the Hindu
speculators thought of making it the centre of their monetary
operations. The rise of the Durani monarchy no doubt accele-
rated the enrichment of Shikarpiir, by affording protection to
those Rothchilds of the East who decided the fate of armies and
kingdoms by the scantiness or Hberality with which they sup-
pKed the sinews of war. At present, the opulence of Shikarpur
IS greatly diminished. The government of the late Amirs
proved everywhere, in fact, fatal to commerce, by multi-
plying exactions, by rendering property insecure, and thus,
as far as possible, chasing the creators of wealth beyond the
the limits of their domimons. To this circumstance, in great

Eart, is owing the prosperity of Mult^ and Amritsir, wnich
itter city has sprung, almost like Jonah's gourd, into greatness;
so that though scarcely heard of some few years ago, it now
forms the goal and starting-point of numerous caravans.
The revenues of Shikarpiir are said to have amounted formerly to
eight lacs of rupees, nearly 90,0007. sterling per annum, whereas
under the late Amirs tney reahzed little more than a quarter
of that smn.

The place, however, is still of considerable importance, and It
is to be hoped that our Indian government will not suffer it to
sink any further towards decay. VVe are aware that Lord EUen-
borough, contrary to the advice of those best acquainted with the
interests of the country, commercial and miUtary, has signified his

* PoBtaoa^ « Fenonal Obsenratioiu,' p. 33.

Shikarpur. 507

intention of abandoning the place altogether. But suggestions
from home, based on more mature consideration, may possibly in-
duce a change in his lordship's policy. At any rate, the reader
may like to learn Sir Charles Napier's reasons fer insisting on the
occupation of Shikarpiir.

" I do not/' says he, " think it would be politic to give up Shikar-
pur: my reasons for this opinion are as follow: — The town of Sukkur
stands on an elbow of the Indus, which surrounds the town on two sides ;
on the other two, at about four miles distance, it is closed in by a large
jungle, through which passes the road to Shikarpiir, where the jungle
finishes. Now, if we evacuate Shikarpiir, the robber tribes will descend
from the hills, and establish themselves in this jungle ; so that Sukkur
will be blockaded ;* and no one be able to move beyond the chain of
sentries without being murdered. To clear this jungle with infantry
would be impossible ; the robbers would retreat before the advancing
troops, and when the latter retire, the former would again occupy their
position in the jungle. But if we occupy Shikarpiir, a body of cavalry
stationed there would spread along the outskirts of the jungle, while
infantry would, by concert, push through the wood from Sukkur. The
robbers, thus cut off from their hills, would receive such a terrible
punishment, as to deter any other tribe from trying the same experi-
ment.

" In a commercial point I consider Shikarpiir to be of considerable
importance. It forms a dep6t for the reception of goods from the north
and west ; with which countries it has long possessed channels of com-
munication ; circumstances of an adverse nature may for a while inter-
rupt these ; but under a firm protecting government they would soon
be again opened out ; and from Shikarpiir goods would be sent to Suk-
km*, there to be shipped on the Indus, and would also be passed by
land to Larkhana, and thence on to Karachi. These seem formerly to
have been the great lines of trade. They are geographically and na-
turally so, and will therefore quickly revive. But if Shikarpiir be left
to the mercy of the surrounding gangs of fi-eebooters, commerce cannot
thrive, nor without Shikarpiir be strongly guarded can it pass through
the jungle to Sukkur. These two towns are so placed as naturally to
support each other in conunerce.

" In a political light, Shikarpiir has the advantage of being chiefly
inhabited by a Hindu population, tolerated for ages by the Mussulmans,
and, consequently, forming a pacific link of intercourse between us and
the nations, north and west ; through Shikarpiir, the Hindiis will be the
means of gradually filtering the stream of commerce and social inter-
course between the Mohammedans and ourselves, and, in time, unite
those who will not abruptly amalgamate. Shikarpiir contains many rich
banking-houses, which is a sure evidence of its being a central point of
commimication between the surrounding countries ; and, consequently,

* Masson, voL i., p. 350.

508 Sindcy its Amirs <md its People.

one wbere the British govemment would learn what is going on in
Asia. The money market is, generally speaking, the best political
barometer.

'^ The robber tribes in this neighbourhood have kept down tiiis town
in despite of its natural and acquired advantages ; in fact, the robber is
everywhere the master. Theiefore all aroimd is barbarous, and bar-
barous must continue to be, till civilization gradually encrcxstches upon
these lawless people ; and I think Shikarpiir is precisely one of those
grand positions diat ought to be seized upon for that purpose." —
Correspondence relative to Sinde^ p. 364.

The bazaar of Shikarpiir, half a mile in length, and containing
884 shops, is extremely well furnished with fruits and merchan-
dise, and there is a &h-market^ supplied by the Indus, which
affords to the tables of the wealthy no less than thirty-sLx varieties
of this delicacy in the greatest abimdance. The heat in summer
being here intensely powerful, the streets of the bazaar are
covered at top by matting, as in Grand Cairo, to keep out the
sun's rays. They are narrow, moreover, and for the most part
filthy, both, in the opinion of some travellers, circumstances to
be regretted. Upoii the imdesirableness of filth there would
scarcely be a difference of opinion; but in the declamation in
which Europeans usually indulge against the narrow streets of
the East, we can by no means join, having often had reason to
applaud the contrivance which secures to the mnting traveller
the blessings of shade and a current of cool air. The same reason
justifies the turnings and windings in the streets of Eastern cities,
besides their advantages in a military point of view. Even as it
is, the heat of Shikarpiir is in summer so intense, that its Mo-
hammedan inhabitants, like those of Dadtir, have been known
piously to exclaim, "Oh, Allah! why hast thou created hell,
Imowmg the heat of this place?' When the south-east wind
blows at that season of the year, the air becomes inflamed like
that of a fiimace, and they whom the sun strikes fatally, turn
almost instantly after death as black as charcoaL Most persons
who have visited the East, speak of this wind. Before it begins
to blow, there is often a pile of lurid vapour observed rising and
spreading on the verge of the horizon, through which, towards
evening, the sim sometimes appears like a stupendous blood-red
portal rising ftom earth to heaven. The camels and all other
animals shudder at its approach, and evince by their scared and
unquiet looks how muck their economy is disturbed by the state
of the atmo^here.

" In the vicinity of ^karpiir," says Mr. Masson, " there are nu-
merous gardens yielding the ordinary Indian fruits, as mangoes, shah-
tuts, or long mulberries, plantains, figs, sweet limes, melons, and dates;

Totons of Sinde. 509

to which may be 'added, sugar-cane, (here eaten as a fruit,) both of the
white and red yarieties. There is also no scarcity of common vege-
tables, the egg-plant, fenugreek, spinach, radishes, turnips, carrots,
onions, &c. About a mile, or little more, from the city, is a cut, or canal,
from the Indus, but it appears to be only occasionally filled with water ;
for, on one occasion, I had to wade through it, and a few days after found
it so dry that I could scarcely have imagined there had ever been water
in it. For the constant supply of the city, there are numerous wells within
and without its limits, and the water is believed to be good and whole-
some. For the irrigation of the cultivated lands, wells are also in gene-
ral use, and require to be dug of no great depth."

The town of Omarkote, on the south-eastern frontier of Sinde,
may deserve a passing notice as the birthplace of the great
Akbar, who came into the world at that place, while his father
Humay^ was flying as an exile before his enemies. The fortresses
too of Deejee and Emaum-ghur, the latter reduced to a heap of
ruins by Sir Charles Napier, ought not perhaps to be altogether
forgotten. They were me places, where in times of danger the
Amirs deposited their women and their treasures ; on which ac-
count, reasoning from the necessity to the fact, the natives sup-
posed them to be impregnable. The physiomomy of Sindian
towns in general is thus delineated by Captain rostans.

" There is very Httle deviation in the general character of the towns
in Sinde: nearly all are surrounded with walls, which are intended to
be fortifications, but are of a very rude kind, and in complete disre-
pair, being built of mud, about twenty feet high, and pierced for match-
locks ; in the centre of the place is a bastion or citadel overlooking the
surrounding coimtry. The Jutts and pastoral classes fold their flocks
or herds under the walls, against which they build their reed huts*
Every place in Sinde swarms with village curs, the pariahs of India ;
and these, in the absence of any police, are valuable, as keeping a con-
stant and independent watch. The wands, or moveable villages of the
pastoral population, are generally composed of reed mats thatched across
rough boughs of the tamarisk : such are also the materials generally
employed by the fishermen and others living on the banks of the river ;
the houses are generally of one story, and fiat-roofed ; in the cities, the
dwellings are upper-roomed, the apartments small and iD-ventOated.
It is impossible to conceive any thing so filthy as the interior of a
Indian town : every inhabitant makes a common sewer of the front
of his dwelling ; the narrow passage, scarcely admitting a laden camel,
is nearly blocked up with dimg-heaps, in which recline in lazy ease
packs of fat Pariah dogs, from whom die stranger, particularly a Chris-
tian (they are true Moslems these dogs), need expect Httle mercy. FHea
are so plentiful, that the childrenlg faces are nearly hidden by them,
and it is utterly impracticable in a butcher^s or grocer's shop to discern
a particle of what is exposed for sale. Add to these mere outlines,

510 Sinde, Us Amirs amt Us

crowded streets of filthy people, an intoleraUe stendi, and a son wMch
would roast an egg, — some £dnt idea maj be formed of a Indian town
or dt J. Hie inhabitants generally sleep on the roofe of their houses for
coolness.

*^ One main street eonstitating ^e bazaar is always a principal foa-
tore in a place of any size. These bazaars have mats and other cover-
ings stretching from noose to hoose, as a protection against the fierce
rays of the son. Except the bazaar of Crrand Cairo, few places of a
nmilar kind present such yivid, strange, and yet interesting groups,
as the great street of ShikarpUr, frequented as it is by the merchants
of both Central Asia and ^ose of Eastern and Western India : the foil
pressure of business generally takes place about four o'clock, and then
amidst clouds of dust, in an atmosphere of ^e most stifling closeness,
and amid the loud din of perfect ch^manship, may be seen some of the
most characteristic features of the society of the East.

'^ The haughty Moslem, mounted on his fine Ehorassani steed, de-
corated with rich trappings, himself wearing the tall Sindian d^ of
rich brocade, and a soirf of gold and silk, jostles through the crowd,
between whom a way is opened by the Sindian soldiers, who precede
and follow him ; then follows the Aflghan with a dark blue scarf cast
over his breast, his long black hsdr foiling in masses on his shoulders,
his olive cheek painted by the mountain breeze, and his eye full of
fire and resolve. We have also the Seyund of Pishin in his g^t's-hair
cloak, the foir Herati, the merchant of Candahar, with flowing gar-
ments and many-coloured turban, the tall Patau with heavy sword, and
mien calculated to court offence, while among the rest is the filthy Sin-
dian, and the small miserable-looking, cringing Ifindu, owning perhaps
lacs in the neighbouring street, but fearing the exactions of the Amlis.
These present a fair sample of the groups who crowd the principal
street of ShikarpUr ; but we miss the wild Belooch, with his plaited
hair and ponderous turban, his sword, matchlock, and high-bred mare ;
but the freebooter of the desert loves not cities, and is rarely seen in
them." — Personal Ohservatioiis on Sindcy pp. 33 — 36.

The manufactures and commerce of Sinde merit particular at-
tention; the former chiefly, perhaps, for what they were, the
latter for what it may be rendered. Even up to the present day,
notwithstanding the oppression and bad government of the Amirs,
the produce of Sindian industry is celebrated throughout Asia.
For chintzes, shawls, flowered and plain muslins, cloth, of gold,
embroidered cloths, &c., the inhabitants of Beloochistan and many
other of the neighbouring countries depend principally upon the
looms of Sinde. They manufacture arms, also, such as matchlocks,
spears, swords, and in so superior a manner, that their handi-
work may often be mistaken for that of the most skilful Euro-
peans. Much of their excellence in this branch of industry may
perhaps be owing to the excessive passion of the Talpur princes

Manufactures. 511

for arms of superior workmanship. To gratify their taste in this
particular, they were in the habit of despatchmg annually agents
into Persia and Asia Minor, with a commission to purchase for
them the most costly and curiously-wrought swords and daggers,
of the very finest steel. Their collections, consequently, of curi-
osities of this kind must have constituted a sort of museum, which
it is to be presumed that the Governor-general of India will
transmit, among other trophies of his conquest, to England, where
they may take their place among the superb specimens of inlaid
armour worn by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. This
taste of the Amirs for magnificent arms produced, as we have
said, a beneficial effect upon the manufactures of the country, and
encouraged the armorers of Hyderabad more especially to aim at
that high state of excellence in their art which they afterwards
attained. For, according to the laws which regulate fashion
throughout the world, the preferences of the princes became those
of their courtiers and all other wealthy persons throughout the
country ; so that the rage for fine swords and daggers grew imi-
versal, to the great benefit of industry.

In Captain rostans we find the following particulars on the
same subject:

" The arms of Sinde are very superior to those of most parts 'of
India, particularly the matchlock-barrels, which are twisted in the
Damascus style. The nobles and chiefs procure many from Persia and
Constantinople, and these are highly prized, but nearly as good can be
made in the country. They are inlaid with gold, and highly finished.
Some very good imitations of the European fiint-lock are to be met with :
otur guns and rifles, indeed, are only prized for this portion of their
work ; the barrels are considered too slight, and incapable of retaining
the heavy charge which the Sindian always gives his piece. The
European lock is attached to the Eastern barrel ; the best of Joe Man-
ton's and Purdy's guns and rifles, of which sufficient to stock a shop
have at various times been presented to the Sindian chiefs by the
British Government, share this mutilating fate. The Sinde match-
lock is a heavy unwieldy arm ; the stock much too light for the great
weight of the arm, and curiously shaped. One of the Amirs used
our improved percussion rifles, but he was an exception to the general
rule, the prejudice being generally decidedly in fevour of the native
weapon. The Sindian sword-blades are large, curved, very sharp, and
well tempered. The sheath also contains a receptaxile for a small knife,
used for food and other useful purposes. The belts are leather or cloth,
richly embroidered. Great taste is also displayed in the manufacture of
the pouches — paraphernalia attached to the waist. Shields are made
fi-om rhinoceros' hides, richly embossed with brass or silver, carried over
the shoulders, or strapped between them. Sindians of all classes,

512 Sinde^ its Amirs and its People.

Belooches or Jutts, always travel fully accoutred, the matchlock slung
across the camel, generally with a red cloth cover : a group thus equipped
has a very picturesque effect." — PostanSy Personal Observations^
pp. 103, 104.

In the more flourishing days of Sinde, Tattah was the seat of
another very peculiar species of manufacture; we mean wheeled
carriages, which, though they by no means resembled those turned
out of Long Acre, were often very handsome things in their way.
The Tattah carriage consisted of a very singular light body
poised upon a pair of wheels. The bottom of the vehicle was of
solid wood covered usually with a rich carpet, and all around
extended a range of finely-turned pillars, sometimes united by a
fanciful ivory balustrade, sometimes by a network of leathern
thongs. The streets being narrow are shaded; a roof was often
dispensed with in the city; but most persons, when about to
imdertake a journey into the country, were careful to provide
themselves with a light canopy.

Another circumstance which may be mentioned as a feature in
the history of Sindian commerce is the commonness formerly of
an immense species of waggon constructed as well at Tattah as
elsewhere. Its wheels, like those in use among the rustics of
ancient Italy, and commonly to be seen in Ireland at the present
day, consisted of one piece of wood fashioned like a millstone,
while the framework of the waggon was of equally solid con-
struction. As many as 200 of these vehicles, each drawn by five
pairs of bullocks and attended by four peons or foot soldiers to lift
them out of deep ruts and hollows, might be seen in one kafila.*
From this circumstance, notwithstandmg the necessity for the
peons, we may infer that the roads were then in a much better
condition than they are at present, since in most parts of the
country, the use of all kinds of carriages has been nearly aban-
doned.

^' The manufactured productions of Sinde," says Captain Postans»
^' are not numerous, and appear to he confined to the passing wants of
its inhabitants. The natives are particularly ingenious as weavers,
turners, and artisans, and are noted for a very curious description of
wooden lacquered work, which has attained for then> a high reputation
throughout India. The articles of this description made at Hyderabad
have been esteemed as g^at curiosities even in England ; but as a proof
of the desertion of the workmen, only one is lefib at the capital capable
of doing this specimen of purely Sindian invention. The best workmen
and artificers finding plenty of emplo3nnent under milder governments,
emigrate to Bombay and other places, where they produce beautiful

♦ Thevenot, Voyages, t. iii, p. 155, &c.

Manufactures. 513

ornamental work in wood and ivory, admitting of a comparison with
that of China. .... The looms of Sinde are appropriated to the
manufacture of various descriptions of coarse silk and cotton cloths, or of
^Ekbrios half silk and half cotton : for the latter beautiful article the country
was much celebrated ; and of these the Limghis of Sinde were highly
estimated, and fashionable at all the courts in India ; and Tattah
formerly owed its great reputation to th^ production ; those of MCdtan
and Bhawulpur have, however, completely superseded the Sinde ^Eibrics,
and the latter are now comparatively scarce in the country. The coarse
silk goods, of which there are many sorts, are woven from silks imported
from China, Persia, and Turkistsm, the raw material is prepared and
dyed in Sinde. Cochineal, madder, and the dyes in general use are
brought from the north-west. These articles are of inferior quality,
wanting the gloss which is peculiar to silk fabrics when properly pre-
pared. Multan and Bhawulp^ now supply all the superior descriptions
of silk manufactiu'ed goods consumed in Sinde. No native of any pre-
tensions to rank is complete in his costume without a waistband of silk,
always of startling colour and ample dimensions ; the light-coloured caps
are also of the same materials amongst the rich, and the gaudy chintz and
cotton of the country are used for very coarse purposes ; and for finer
work the European prepared or spun thread is imported. The cloths
produced are in great demand amongst a poor population, who have
hitherto been able to do Httle more than clothe themselves in the simplest
manner. Blue dyed cotton garments are in general use amongst all
classes. Goats' hair is woven into coarse clothing for cold weather, and
ropes and sacks for conveying grain, &c., on camels and asses. Wool
is moistened and beaten out from pulp into what are called nummuds,
used as saddle-cloths and carpets. The manufactm*e of the many-
coloured caps, worn by the Sin£ans, is an important feature in native
handiwork. The most glaring and fancifrdly tinted silks and cottons
are employed in the production of this highly prized portion of costume ;
and the result is a considei*able display of taste and diversity of colours.
Sindian pottery is superior ; water vessels, and a beautiful description of
glazed coloured tile are produced for the decoration of the domes, mus-
jids, &c. The flat, thin bricks used in the ancient tombs near Tattah
have been universally admired for their beautiful finish and fine polish.
Their texture is so hard and close, that the edges of the buildings are as
perfect and well defined now as when originally erected, though many
of them date some centuries from their foundation.

" Embroidery is beautifrdly done in leather and cloth by Affghans,
but the preparation of leather is that for which Sinde is famous, and it
supplies many foreign markets with its tanned hides ; in these the whole
country is very rich. Larkhana in Northern Sinde has a very large
estabUshment of this sort, and leather is a great and important branch
of export trade for Sinde for waist belts, arms, and the large boots worn
by the Mahomedans of rank in travelling. The skin of the kotah-pacha,
or hog-deer, is used ; for water vessels, that of the goat ; and for other
purposes, ox hides. The bark of the baubul b employed in the tanning

#

514 Sinde,its Aifiirs .and. i^^J^^]^,

process, and the leather of all descriptioiis is beautifi^lj $o£k,aiid. ^eiyo
durahle. Sacks of sheep's of g6ats* skiu are use'j to QajTry /^^ajer^
throughout the desert tracts of Sinde, and akoprovide jja.e natives mth
means of crossing the river and its hranches. 'Aik fratef !§' then poured
o£^ and the sack heing hlown tip and tied rotmd th^ stoinacli, Serves to
huoj the traveller over the torgid stream'; on reaching the sfror^ he' '
refiis the skin, and pursues hb journey. Mvicb care % ¥^^i£]isd in '■
adjusting the halance nicely ; the body multbe exMtly^in^^ii^ ti6dtt^ k)f '
the inflated skin, which is turned with the legs of -'the'^ betM^pwtfrdlFv '
and strapped to the thighs and shoulders. /Che olighteal^^vifttkn :^
causes a capsize ; and few, but those well trained, can carry out this:
operation successfully. The chaguls, or leatheEa^aleri4>oHl^<tkf • @iild^,
are tastefully ornamented and much value^."-<r-Per^99a/ Obs^rvt^^ti^n^, ,.
^c. pp. 102-107.

Into a detailed account of the commerce of 3inde/otir Emits '
will not, in the present article, permit us to enter; . . Uiider the .
Amirs it had sunk to a very low ebb. The country, ill-goremed
and impoverished, afforded little, save rice and soite .few other
kinds of grain, that could be offered to foreigners iix exintwyrge for
such commodities as they might bring to its ports, end.paynaeiit in
specie was in most cases entirely out of the question. WKen^ ' 1
therefore, the agent of the British government spoke ia. the manu- :
facturing towns of Upper Sinde of the advantages which would
accrue to their inhabitants from the establishment of a great com-
mercial mart at Mittim Kot, they laughed, and said it was a good '
joke to suppose that poor people who fed on dhoura could be m^ i
ters of sufficient capital to contemplate any thing beyond the
profits of a retail trade. Besides, — and this shows the estimation
m which the government was held by the people, — they observed,
that the Amir Ali Mourad, from the ignorant jealousy of which
we have already Spoken, would absurdly throw all manner of ob-
stacles in their way, to prevent them lix>m entering into a foreign
trade. Precisely the same maxims regulated their policy in what-
ever related to commerce. Consequently even tKe .transit trade,
which might of itself have sufficed to enrich Sinde^ wa9 rapidly
dwindling away, and must speedily have been extinguished
altogether. To avoid the exactions of tte Hyderabad rulers,
merchants and kafilas often preferred the dangerous . routes of Be-
loochistan, where, if they were sometimes plundered,.they^ asa
general rule, paid much less. Still as the Hindu inhabitants had
no other dependence than the profits of trade, they, were pon-
strained to persevere in their dealings, however litde they . might
gain by them. No country, moreover, can subsist wbolly without
commerce, and the natural advantages of Sinde are ^ great, its
position between the rich regions of Hindustan and the poorer
countries towards the west so favourable, that, despite the most

Ckaraeter of tlie A&atic9i^ 515

lUing tyranny and oppression, the merchants and bankers of
thikarpiir and some other places contrive to become opulent.

The manufactured articles supplied by Sinde were, it will have
been seen, neither very rich nor very numerous; but they might,
under a good government, have been greatly multiphed, and
sufficed to maintain a large class of merchants and traders. Our
efforts will now be directed to this subject, and Sinde, under Bri*
tish rule, will probably attain a degree of commercial prosperity
greater than it ever knew in the most flourishing periods of its
history.

The population of Sinde, which has been calculated at about
a million, consists of three very distinct classes: the Belooches,
or mihtary and governing class, by far the least numerous ; the
J^ts, or cultivators, who may be regarded as the Helots of Sinde;
and the Hindiis, who dwell chiefly in the towns, and are con-
sidered foreigners, though they manage the whole trade and
commerce of the coimtry. Sir Henry I^ottinger, when he wrote
his work on Beloochistan, had formed a very low estimate of the
character of the Sindians, and in fact of all Asiatics whatsoever.
His opinion was far too cynical and sweeping to be philoso-
phical, and the experience of later travellers, who enjoyed greater
opportunities for observation, may enable us to soften in some
degree his harsh outline. It is no doubt perfectly true that the *
Orientals are generally in moral character very much inferior to
Europeans ; and it is equally true, that the form of government
imder which for the most part they Hve, will in some degree ac-
coimt for the fact. But now shall we explain their having in
almost all ages submitted to that form of government? The
institutions of a people may generally be looked upon as an
exposition of their moral and mtellectual character, since tfeey
must always bear some analogy to their feelings, tastes, and
preferences. But not to enter just now into the discussion of
this intricate question, we may remark, that the government of
the Amirs appeared quite as tyrannical and oppressive to Sir
Henry Pottinger thirty-three years ago, as it did recently, when
he advised the military occupation of the country. Speaking of
the worthless character of the Sindians, and endeavoiuing to ac-
count for it, he says,

" They are avaricious, full of deceit, cruel, ungrateful, and strangers
toVeracity ; but, in extenuation of their crimes, it is to be recollected,
that the present generation has grown up under a government, whose
extortion, ignorance, and tyranny, is possibly unequalled in the world ;
and that the debasement of the public mind is consequent to the in&my

of its rulers, seems to be an acknowledged fact in all countries."—

Travels in JBeloochistany p. 376. j^tt^

VOL. XXXII. NO. XLIV. ^ ^ '^

516 Sinde, its Awm and its People.

It may be gathered firom this writer's own views, put forward
in his correspondence with the Indian government, maX this 0{h-
nion was afterwards much modified, since he became, wh^i poli-
tical resident, attached to the people and country, and pieaded
their cause with an earnestness which could cmly have arisen fixun
a conviction of their comparative moral worth. Mr. Masson, too,
and Captain Eastwick, and Sir Alexander Bumes and Giqptam
Postans concur in judging more &vourably of the Sindians than
Pottinger did in 1810, though probably his remarks, even then,
were intended to apply chiefly to the Belooches, whose crueltjr,
rapacity, and insolence would almost seem to justify Ins sev^ty
The Uindlis of Sinde, descendants chiefly of emigrants firom
the Punj&b, and other regions of Northern India, are scattered
over every part of the land where a rupee is to be made by traffic
FrcHtn the nch bankers of Shikarptir and the influential merchants
of Kardchi, down to the humblest keeper of a tobacco-shop, they
monopolize every species of trade. Persecuted and plundered,
despised, and treated most contemptuously, they, like the Jews in
Europe, find a recompense for all their sufierings in the money
which they contrive to amass. Not that under the government of
the Amirs they would put forth the external tokens of wealth and
enjoy the respect usualfy paid to these insignia. On the conlxaij,
they were compelled for many reasons to aflTect a d^ree of hu-
mihty which, had it been voluntary, might have entitled them to
some praise. Their dress was mean, their habits were dirty, and
they in most instances found it necessary to lay aside the preju-
dices of caste, and to neglect the external observances of liieir
religion. To the Hindu, m his own country, the ass bears the
same relation as the hog to the Mohammedan, — ^namely, is an un-
clean beast, which it is defilement even to aj^roach. Nevertheless,
the Sindian Hindds, abandoning the horse to their haughty mas-
ters, reconcile themselves to the proscribed quadruped, and whe-
ther in the costume assigned to them by the rules of caste, or in
the Mohammedan disguise, which, under certain circumstanoes,
they were compelled to adopt, might be seen trotting about from
town to town and village to village, on the back of an ass. It is
common all the world over to depreciate the class of persons who
devote themselves to the making of money ; but they probably dis-
plajr, notwithstanding, quite as many virtues as any other large
section of mankind whatsoever. Industry, at any rate, and fru-
gality and pimctuaHty in their dealings they are compelled to
exhibit, in order to command success; and it is remarked of the
Sindian Hindus, that by whatever other vices their character
might be disfigured, they were commonly men of much probity in
business. An anecdote is related by Mr. Masson which, whaterer

J€A W&men. 517

else it may prove, certainly shows the extreme solicitude of the
Hindi! to maintain his credit for probity.

^ On the bank of the Gaj, R^likddd made some sales of raisins io
Hindiis of the neighbouring villages, and gave one parcel to a man he
had never seen before, taking in payment a draft, or order, on a bro-
ther Hind6 at In^. I asked him if he might not be deceived. He
thought it imlikely. . • . The order given by the Hindii at die
Gaj river proved worthless on presentation. I was indlined to joke with
my friend on his simplici^, but he was not willing to allow that I had
reason. There was no Hind(i, he said, in Sinde, who would venture
so egregiously to de&aud a Mussulman ; for the penalty would involve
ihe forfeiture of his proper^ to ten times the amount of the fraud, and
his being forcibly made a Mohammedan. This penal regulation seems
ingeniously framed to protect the Mussulman against the sharper- witted
Hmdti, as well as to increase the number of proseMes to Islam. Ki-
Kkdsld, however, was right in his estimation, for the Hindti came wiHingly
to In^ with the money. He declared he knew that the order was use-
less, but feared that had he not ^ven it, the raisins might have been
refiised him.** — Journey in Behochistan^ vol ii., pp. 137, 140.

The Jats or cultivators of the soil have for many ages made
profession of Islamism, though they are supposed to have been
originally Hindus converted by force. They are, by most w^riters,
admitted to be a peaceable, harmless, and industrious people, who
addict themselves to agriculture and the breeding of cattle. In the
vast marshy plains commencing on the confines of the Runn in
Cutch, and extending westward almost to the vicinity of Hyder-
abad, they rear immense numbers of camels which are thence dis-
tributed over the whole coimtry as beasts of burden. The J&t,
indeed, is said to be as inseparable from his camel as the Arab
from his steed, though we occasionally find him, like his ancestor
tbe Hindii, affecting a less elevated though more sacred monture.

'' These people (the J^ts of Kachi), seldom move abroad but on bul-
locks, and never unless armed. A laughable tendency is excited by the
sight of a Jat half-naked, for shirt or upper garments are generally dis-
pensed with ; seated on a lean bullock, and formidably armed with
matchlock, sword, and shield." — Masson^ vol. ii., p. 125.

The women of this tribe are said to be as distinguished for their
beauty as for their chastity. This is the more remarkable, as
they lead laborious lives, joining their husbands and fathers in the
labours of the field, exposed to the influence of a sultry climate.
It would seem in general, however, that the air of Sinde is favour-
able to the development of female beauty, which is scarcely recoup
cilable with the idea of its unhealthiness ; since there is, we beliieve,
no well-authenticated instance of handsome women being found
in an insalubrious country. The Belooch females.^ indfta^^ ^<2i j
said to preserve, even here, the harsh, coaiafc ioatoa^a-'w^^ ^oar |

518 Sinde^ its Amirs and its People.

tinguisli them in their native moiintams. But if so, the reason
may be that the race has not been settled sufficienily long in
Sinde to experience all the softening influences of its atmosphere.
In the other sections of the population at least, *the women axe
distinguished for the regularityof their features, and often for the
fineness of their complexion. The Nautch-girls firequently, in con-
junction with the most delicate symmetry of form, exhibit great
sweetness and beauty of coimtenance, and have esrtorted praise
even from writers little disposed to enthusiasm. The ranks of this
class of women, always extremely niunerous in Hindustan, are
almost exclusively recruited from the Mianis, a tribe of fishermen
inhabiting the creeks and estuaries of the Indus, and the various
lakes and sheets of water which are scattered over the face of the
country. Like numbers of the low^ order of the Chinese, they
have, for the most part, no other home than their boats whida
are steered by the women while the men are engaged in fishing.
A child, on this occasion, may often be seen swinging in an airy
hammock of network suspended between the mast and rigging of
the craft. Many hundreds of these light barks float constantly
hither and thither on the surface of the lake Manchiir amid the
long feathery tufts of reeds and myriads of white and blue lilies
which adorn it but render navigation difficult. These people,
though professing the Mohammeoan religion, cherish in common
with their neighbours abimdance of superstitions, apparently little
in harmony with the stem spirit of Iskmism. Dr. Beke found
recently among the Abyssinians, who make profession of some
kind of Christianity, certain traces of the worship of the Nile.
We can scarcely wonder, therefore, that tacitly the Indua should
be deified by this rude and ignorant people. They see that they
are blessed with plenty or otnerwise, according as its waters are
abundant or scarce, and therefore in various ways seek to pro-
pitiate its favour. Among other offerings they kindle occa-
sionally at night a number of lamps which tlii^ bear to the river's
edge and launch upon its waters. Being fictile and Hght,. they
float a while and bespangle the surface of the broad stream:, »ntJ
upset by the ripples and breezes, their vitafity is absorbed in diat
of the rushing mvinity.

In all Mohammedan coimtries the habit of pilgrimage more
or less prevails. We are not surprised, therefore, to find it;in
Sinde, more especially as it may be regarded as a break, in* that
monotony to which ignorance and despotism have redjooed the
lives of ity iiihabitants. Whilst on his journey towards the
shriiie Or ziata* which he holds in reverence, the jSindiau: ^scapes
for a moment from the trammels of government. Qej^'^i^gaged
in what he esteems as an act of piety, and theiefqre is ena^fto
I oppose sometlmig ^e svk^ti^Xxsc^^Xxsssi^^ the force of oppres-

The Belooches, 519

sion. In all parts of tlie country shrines have consequently sprung
up which attract the devotion of the faithful, though thp principdi
places of pilgrimage are Sehwan, and an ancient ruined city
situated near the delta of the Indus. Here may be seen throngs
of devotees from all parts of Sinde, engaged in prayer or amuse-
ment, for* this Mussulmans generally contrive to unite with their
devout exercises a large mixture of more culpable practices.

To the prevalence of the same feeling must we trace that host
of Faquirs, Saiyads, Hajjis, and other devotees, which almost
literally deluges the face of the country. The eye in fact only
turns from one holy man to light upon the visage of another.
Their presence consequently operates as a tax upon the poor cul-
tivators and traders who have ultimately to support this as well as
every other burden. Generally the Faquirs, though maMng profes-
sion of devotion, axe nothing more than sturdy mendicants, who,
like the military beggar in Gil Bias, demand your charity at the
point of the matchlock. They scorn, moreover, for the most part
to solicit alms on foot, but travel from village to village, and town
to town, mounted on a bullock or a buffalo, armed with dagger,
sword, and musket, ready to do battle with as many of the faith-
ful as exhibit an indisposition to give. Still they fall short of those
armies of Yoghis that sometimes to the sound of shell trumpets
and nakdras scour the plains of the Deccan fully armed and ac-
coutred, robbing, plundering, and sometimes, we believe, proceed-
ing still further in quest of gentle charity.

The Belooches, or govermng class in Sinde, differ at bottom
very little from their countrymen in the mountains, though some-
what lazier and less hospitable. Perhaps, also, as subsisting on
the labour of others, they are more msolent and overbearing,
though everywhere the Belooch exhibits a sufficient amount of
these qualities. According to some travellers, they were not only
under the late government complete masters of the country, but
exercised the most absolute control over the princes themselves.
But this is affirming too much. While living scattered about in
their different villages they might be said indeed to own no au-
thority save that of their chiefs; but as these for the most part
resided in the capital, under the influence and individually in the
power of the Amirs and their retainers, it was through them al-
ways possible to act upon the population to the remotest verge of
the country. The government tnerefore exercised sufficient con-
trol even over the Belooches, who in many respects resemble the
Mamelukes of Egypt, though, when circumstances rendered it
necessary to call together these armed feudatories, their want of
discipline, and all ideas of subordination, except to their own
immediate chiefs, often rendered them formidable to the Talpiir
family. For this reason the Hyderabad rulers always felt tl3kj^ ^<^»^i- ^

i

520 Sinde, its Amirs and its People.

est possible reluctance to assemble their forces, and were eager,
as soon as dbrcumstances afforded them a pretext, to disband them.
Some indeed have thought, and perhaps not witiiout reason, that
the late political catastrophe in Smde was at least precipitated by
the tumultuous violence of this military class, though they onhr
anticipated and outran the desires of their chiefs, the whob
current of whose policy had long set towards war.

In their own tandas, or fortified villages, the Belooches lead a
dirty and disorderly life, herding in l£e same shed with llieir
horses and cattle, though a small comer is always divided off f<»
the use of the harem. Their women are commonly supposed to
possess few charms, and to be dirty and neglected. With respect
to their personal attractions, as the men themselves have large fine
eyes and are generally handsome, we must think there exists
some mistake, because it is a rule fix)m which we believe nature sel-
dom swerves, that wherever the men possess fine features the women
exhibit stiU finer. Dirty, perhaps, they are, to suit the taste of
their lords, but that they are neglected is wholly inconsistent with
the undoubted fact that whenever any business of importance is
to be transacted they are invariably consulted, while their opinion
is allowed the greatest weight.

^^ The Belooch dress," says Postaos, " is a loose shirt and exceedingly
"wide drawers, after the old Turkish £B.shion ; the former reaching to the
knees, and, when in full costume, they add a waistband of silk or coloured
cotton, always of gaudy colours; such is also twisted round the cap
when travelhng. The head is not shaved, as usual with Mohammedans ;
but the hair^ on the cultivation and growth of which, like the Sikhs,
they are very proud, is twisted into a knot at the top of the head. The
hill Belooches wear it long over the shoulders, which imparts a very
wild appearance ; it is never allowed to become gray, but both sexes dye
it with a preparation of henuah and indigo. After a certain age, Saiyaos
and holy men affect red beards, and the ^ orang« tawny^ is by no
means micommon. Saiyads are distiuguished also by green garments,
the colour of the prophet. The turban has been superseded throii^ghoitt
Sjide by a cap, whi(Ui in fdrm looks something like an inverted EkigliA
hat, made of bright-coloured silk or brocade, and is a bad imitation of
a Persian head-dress. The Belooches are of a dark complexion^ hand*
some features, with fine eyes ; prone to corpulency, which is encouraged,
to a ridiculous extent, as a great mark of beauty. The late head of
the reigning family, Mir Nasir Khan, was considered the handsomest
man in the country, and was scarcely able to walk from rednndanqr ^
flesh, though quite in the prime of me.

*^ The dress of Belooch women, in common with that of the country
generally, is a full petticoat, gathered in at the waist, and trousers, a
cloth which covers the bosom, being tied round the neck and under the
arms, leaving the back exposed ; the head is protected by a loose mantil^
which if abo thrown zonod the person. The Bloodies sddxmi drnogo

The Amirs. 521

their garments, and they are often dyed blue to hide the dirt, and this
in one of the hottest climates in the East, and among the pretenders
to a religion in which cleanliness is ordained as a law.

'^ The arms of the Belooches are the matchlock, sword, and shield,
with a great paraphernalia of pouches, belts, steel, flint, &c. round the
waist ; in the use of weapons they are very expert, though they pride
themselves particularly on their sMll as swordsmen, always preferring
hand-to-hand combat, rushing in on their foe under shelter of their
large shields. The bravery of the Belooches has always been lightly
esteemed, but although late events have proved, in addition to former
instances, that they cannot cope with the steady discipline of our troops^
they have now fairly earned a name for courage, which was not for<*
merly conceded to them ; yet your true soldier is seldom a "worthless
pretender, and it is impossible to imagine a greater braggart than a
Sinde Belooch.

" The Belooches are expert marksmen, and are trained to arms at an
early age, but as before observed, they rely on the sword, and on a late
occasion verified what a former able commentator on the country pre-
dicted, ' that their country would derive little military renown if reduced
to depend on that arm.' At Miani they threw away their match-
locks and rushed on the bayonets of our troops. The gallant Sir
Charles Napier, says in his admirable despatch, * The brave Belooches,
first discharging their matchlocks and pistols, darted over the bank
with desperate resolution, but down went their bold and skilful swords-
men under the superior power of the musket and bayonet.' No man of
any rank, and no Belooch in Sinde, is considered dressed without his
sword ; it is as necessary a portion of his costume as his cap or turban.
They are very expert at the bow, and a blunt description of arrow,
which they i^oot transversely and with unerring aim, knocking down
small game with the precision of a good shot handling a fowling-
piece." — Personal Observations, pp. 45 — 47.

In the Amirs themselves the Belooch character may be sup-
posed to have exhibited itself to the greatest advantage, since
whatever development it is susceptible of under such a form of
civilization, it probably attained in them. They were a strange •
compound of refinement and rudeness, exhibiting gentlenesa
under one aspect, and extreme roughness and ins^ence imder
another. Their intellectual and moral qualities, however, have
by no writer been well described. Little care has been hitherto
bestowed on the cultivation of their imderstandings. They pos-
sessed hardly any thing of that kind of knowledge which we de-
nominate useful; had scarcely read, and certainly had never
studied, the history of their own country, though, fike most idle
persons in the East, they appear to have formed some slight
acquaintance with the voluptuous and dreamy poets of Persia.
Probably, could we get at their interior scheme of thought, we
should find that they resemble strongly the oriental princes de-
scnbed in tL^ ^ Arabian Nights.' L&e them, at any rate, they

iS22 Sinde, its Amirs and Us Feople.

\t(mghi Sot' kappinees^ iiL the-^xcitemeoit of th^ ob<i^<niaid uoider
. the influence of oeartain Tcimantite idea», tte |)lr6cise force of wlrioh
•we are nniabie to comprehendt instead of seeking to* xenddr then:
capital impregnable, they erected solitairy ftnrtreseeg fax in tke
desert, where they deposited their treasures, and in which^ on an
emergency, they might place their wives and cMldt^til ■ The
secret of tliese places they preserved with thd most jealdtis fedhd-
tude. No foreigner, during the existence of the Belooch goverii-
ment, was ever suffered to behold the interiojr of tH^, fortress, of
Deejee; and so thick a veil of mvstery was spread oy(^]q I^PPiaHti
Ghur, th^ its very site was for the most pai:t linKnqwn, i^ven Ji)
the natives, and still, we believe, remains ^mnarjk^i^ pn ^my ,ip|).
From these cdrcumstances alone the character of theiAT/ rule, ipignt
be conjectured. They acted under the influence of intense siolfi^b-
ness, which rendered them absolutely blind to ev^er]^ tlang ^ve
their own pleasures and their own authority. : ..• ;r

Amon^ their enjoyments, which were necessarily few beyo«d
those derived from the senses, we must reckon the indtdgefitofe bf
the spirit of intrigue, which led them to keep up a sectet c6f-
respondence with Persia, with the Sirdars of va*i^Har,"wi^
Dost Mohammed, and latterly even with the MaKaj^jiih: or Bis
instruments. The constant passing to and fro df kfel^s,., or
couriers, the reception and entertainment of adventurers, tlie
arrival aad deprture of foreign princes in disgwfie, or of^a^-
bonds masquerading as princes, meir dread of absorgUon^in ine
English empire, and the force of their evil destmy^ wWpb- jW
. them to adopt the very policy best calculated to Juwteni .tfef^ pjfe-
cess-T-all these circumstances, we say, tended at least to fiitreisify
j the latter hours of the political existence of the Amirs; In the rafes
of etiquette by which their durbars were regulated,,it'is diffirolt
to determine exactlv at what they aimed, there wiis fio '«xt«i-
ordinarjr a display of rudeness and magiiiflcencfe, of feihi&lr pre-
sumption on the part of their retainets, an<l »pleiidotd:;otLj''flie
-OBLtt of the princes. We shall bori:oT^ a descriptioii: dJP the Scfefie
from an eyewitness. " V ' 7"'"'

" On the arrival of a visiter (at Hyderdlyad) he wos^in^^f BOiae^*
ta,noe from the fort by a Pesk Khidmut, an advimc^ g^aod df*!fekgtr
fiity horse and foot men, lul^ armed and accoittriBd; the leading Mm-
duab of whom were personal friends or servan^U (^ t\i!^*yk^WJixMh
^deputed to give the welcome ia their mast^i's naihe'^a^ tiyi'Wsi^
etiquette precltiding^ the Amirs themselves edmin^ oat uM^S' fo ' d)fi^ in
equal . The rank of the persons deputed, de|)^^ on t^ o^ ' lite tit-
ter, and wa^ i^egulated accordingly. On fi^t desicn^n^^^^tl:^^^
his escort, a tumultuotis rash, as if for Some violent |)U^^d8(4' H^^iHAe
hy die^indkns towairda him ; horses Were put'tb iiie ^pilt^, ^d'ti^tmen
toi keep ^lUSe \ tile ^sefelior representative, followed by 'thode iof the

Sikdim Durbar, ^^ ^JS23

Oihef Amirs crdwding k^ouind' the Ytsiter^ and semng his hand^ nearly
.tore him from hid ^addJe, With nlde but hearty inquiries for his health ;
after the usual circuitous method' of Sindian salutation, following it up
-vvith an express message of inqiury and solicitation, from their bignesses,
.individually.

** This preliminary cerenaony being completed (and it occupied some
considerable timei for a single interchange of salutations is not
speedily complet^<l in Sinde, and on this occasion there were half a dozen
to receive and answer), the escort was formed to return, and the visiter
placed in the middle, his steed being nearly borne down by the press
^around him, iiiii woe betide him if he were not mounted on a quiet
' beast, for kicks would then shower round his legs thick as hail ; no remon-
strance t)r >equ0Sft * to be allowed a little more room,' ^ to take care of
his h6rSe,*<S^., Sverefor a motnent heeded, but would only have induced
'flidditionial persecution in the shape of additional pressure, and more
inquiries after health and comfort! thus jostling, shouting, and halloo-
ing, the fort and narrow entrances to the drawbridge was gained, when
! the ^escort i^as again swelled by additional followers. The senior Amir
idemajKiedthe first interview, and opposite his divan or hall of audienee
.the visiter was stopped; fifty obsequious retainers held the stirrup and
.assisted to alight, wnilst as many ' Bismillahs' were breathed out on the
, foot touching th^^ound ; here it was necessary to pause for a: moment,
to arrange the order of entrance to the royal presence. A certain num-
ber of men of rank being at the door, one took hold of the stranger's
liand, who, divesting his feet of shoes or boots, (the feet cannot be
^covered beyond the threshold of any dwelling in the East,) was ushered
,into a large square room, wholly bare of furniture, except a large
* ^Aarpat or ottoman covered with rich velvet or brocade etishions, Pct-
sian carets 'being spread around it ; on the former reclined the Aniir
\in full dress or otherwise, as the case might be, whilst the whole room
^'vras crowded with chiefs, ministers, servants, and armed retainers of
; every degree ; those of higher rank being nearest the Amirs^ and enjoy-
..ing the exclusive privilege of occupying the carpet* ■ ■ *[■

'^ Oa the entrance of the guest all rose, and the usixal formof in-

^qiiiiy and solicitation, coupled with an embrace, hwg interohanged

,^T|Fith the Apiir, was repeated by all in his vicinity ; ana as their hig|i-

xiesses, and the Belooches generally are very corpulent, the hugging was

not always of the most pleasant kind ! Conversation then commenced,

•^ i^ ^oesti iim^g accQ^pamodated with a chair aa a^post of h€alo^r.; The

.4Bt^diefd:attoQtipn to tb0 slightest word or gesture of the Amir was^ on

ij^f^ pp^xi^ion^' strikingly evinced bv his rude foUowecs; if. a fold of

Jos garmeijut w^re displaeed, a dozen hands adjusted it ; if in want of a

word to render the coi^versation glib, it was abundantly supplied; every

jnovement was aocompaAied by a ' BismiUah,' andevery eyQ.dire9tedi;o

the chief, whose sligntest gesture was instantly obeyed; ao^althovgh

^ jthe^. Amir might be in undi?ess . himself, no one of < those- about him .was

..'{pL otiber than iu.the &M costume of their countxy. .

' ^' ,0n state acoasions or visits <^ otreQM>ny, ^ swQrd»> shi^^ ai^d

fiiH panoply was adopted by th^ Amirsy and :tiie; Biitiedi. authonti^^p

524 Sinde^ its Amirs and its People.

always observed the same etiquette. The murder of Bijar Khan before
described was made a pretext for requiring the gentlemen who formed
the first mission to the Talpiir chie& to appear in durbar unarmed, a
request which of course could not be compUed.with. Politeness pecu-
liar to the East was carried in the Sinde durbars to a ridiculous extent
dimng any pause in the conversation: the chief invariably supplied the
hiatus by an inquiry after the health of his guest, putting ms hands
together and ejaculating ' Khoosh P and if the stranger's eye wand^^ing
over the assembled retiuners caught that of any of the men of rank, he
felt himself bound to perform the same ceremony immediately : these
constant questions on the same topic became at last almost ridiculous, but
were made with so much of at least apparent sincerity of manner, that
they became pleasing. However important the subject first discussed
with an Amir, though generally the topics were commonplace, it ordi-
narily terminated in the all-engrossing subject of sport, and the latest
and next intended visit to the Shikargah; llie greatest proof of the high
estimation in which a guest was held being an invitation to parta^
in this royal pastime. The Amir himself gave the signal for breakiog
up the conference, as is usual in the East for a superior; and honour wa&
shown to the visiter by his highness accompanying him to the border of tha
carpet, when the ^ Khuda hafiz,' or * God protect you,' was interchanged.

'^ Each Amir had his own divan and establishment, and observing
only the strictest etiquette of visiting each according to seniority, (£ix
any departure firom this would have been deemed a slight,) the same
ceremony obtained with each. On occasions only of discussing matters
of state importance affecting the national weal, did the Amirs meet
together in durbar, and tJiey then collectively represented the countiy
over which they ruled. On quitting the fort, the same escort a&
formerly was provided, and a portion even accompanied the vijsiter to
his own home, the rest only returning when expressly directed to do so.
On visits of ceremony, presents were always interchanged, but on (Hrdinary
occasions the guest was supplied with embles, generally in the shape of,
large trays of sweetmeats for himself and his attendants. Envoys to the.
court were fed, with all their retainers, for the whole time of their sojourn.

^ The rude hospitality and kind welcome shown on these occasions
of an (ordinary visit, seem very characteristic of Sindian manners. The
court showed nothing of the refinement of the East elsewh^*e observed^
and the group of wild Belooches and military mercenaries, from every
quarter, which made up the scene, reminded the stranger that he mB.
amongst a people of primitive manners, and chie& who ruled as a.
military feudalism. The untractable demeanour and uncouth beftniig of
the Belooches occasionally burst out even in the royal presence ; fitf
though devoted to their leaders, these barbarous people ao not jlways
show their respect outwardly ; and the Hyderabad durbar often pie-
smted a strange scene of disorder and tumultuous u{Hx>ar, incid^tiui to
its wild attendants, aided not a little by the discordant screaming of
Kautch- women, with their accompanying din of drum and ejmibal, mar-
shalled in a comer of the hall by fat Abyssinian eunuchs.'^ — Posiainis
Personal Observations^ pp. 200 — ^205.

( 525 )

SHORT REYIEWS

OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

Ktcnstwerke und Kiinstler in DeutschlancL Erster TheiL Kiinstler
und Kunstwerke im Erzgebirge und in Franken, (Works of Art
and Artists in Germany. First Part The Erz Mountains and Fran-
conia.) By Dr. G. F. Waagen. Leipzig. 1843.

Ueber die Stellung tvelche der Baukunsty der Bildhatterei UTid Mcderei
unter den Mitteln Menschlicher Bildtmg zuhymmU (On the Posi-
tion which belongs to Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting, in manly
Education. A Lecture deliyered before the Scientific Union of Berlin.)
By Dr. Waagek. Leipzig. 1843.

The first (^ these works consists of letters written by the worthy director
of ^e Royal Museum at Berlin to an intimate friend (the amiable Frau
Directorinn probably), and bid fair to extend over many hundreds of
sheets of paper. Some of the letters are eighty pages long; some, mere
brief billets, such as rigorous German writers and friends can throw off
at intervals of business or pleasiure, do not extend beyond fiye-and-twenty
pi^es ; indeed the doctor is a pattern for husbands at least, whose affec-
tionate spouses never find correspondence too long, or any matter con-
cerning the beloved object, uninteresting.

But the public cannot be expected to have that tender sympathy whii^
exists in the conjugal bosom, and if those who are attracted by the title
of the book expect to find in it a notice of art and artists in Germany, they
will be sadly disappointed by the contents of the Waagenish letters. There
are but seven letters in the four himdred pages ; these letters only describe
works of art and artists in the Erz Mountidns and Frankonia — ^but a very
small part of the German map ; and by the time the catalogue is con-
duded, Mrs. Waagen will have been made to peruse more letters than
fall to the share of most wives. About artists of the present day the
doctor says extremely little; they do not perhaps haunt the districts
through which he had passed : on the other hand, arriving at Dresden,
be te& us of the amial»lity of his friend Tied^ and his friend Bischof ;
at Annaherg cousin ZUrcher gives the doctor the heartiest reception,
and an ^ exemplary' bed to he on ; at "^esenbad he encounters Mr.
Eisenstiick, a man of most polished forms, as also the veneraUe fiather
of Oberzollinspektor Frege, who once kept a school; while at Schneeberg
the hospitable and love-worthy Mr. Tlulo shows him a handsome silk
mamiiactory. He has some smart descriptions of radicals and fat fellows
smoking pipes in the diligence, with bom of which wti of persons ihe
Beilin-royal-picture-gallery-director, Doctor Waagen, is prodigiously
discontent. In these feelings and incidents, as we have said, his amiable
lady will have much interest, and will be channed to think that her

62$ Waagen on Art in Germomy.

doctor, oa qoittii]^ the odious radicals and smoke of the post-wagon,
should be handea over to cousin Ziircher's hospitality and exempkiy
bedy. and to the urbanity of Herr Frege and Herr l!1iiIo. Bat the heart-
less European world will not care for mese little domestic jojs andsorrows
which move the soft heart of Mrs. Waagen'.

By far the greater part of the letters, however, are devoted to the
consideradon of the works dT art which the doctor saw ; and over these
disquisitions, even ISdjs. Waagen herself must have grown somewhat
weary. The doctor's criticisms are extremely curt and dty — as thus : *No.
19. Henry de Bles. A Royal Suite. In the late manneted timebf the
master : tne figures too long^ and the colours cold. iSo. 20. The Ctbwti-
ing of the Virgin. Grold-ground. In form and colour Eke No. 8; but
much weaker and more ^ed.* — Such criticisms go on fi)r msCiiy scores
of pages, and it is manifest that the most brilliant' imagination, or t^
tenderest sympathy in the world cannot extract from the above d^lscrip-
tion, any thing by which to form an idea of the painter and paintangs.

Ever and anon, one lights upon some curious little passage UlustratiYe
of manners and thoughts in the middle ages — as for mstance,

** The most peculiar objects in the church are, however, a collection of a
hundred figures in relief. The ten first on either side the choir represent the
ages of the two sexes, from the tenth to the hundredth year. Among the men
each age is characterized by a four-footed beast, among the women by a bird,
of which the appropriation is often very clever. The animals are figures upon
shields by the side of the men's and women's figures. By the man at 10 years
old is a oedf, at 20 a buck, at SO an ox, at 40 a lion, at 50 a fox, at 60 a wolf,
at 70 a dog, at 80 a cat, at 90 an ass, and at 100 death. The wolf must re-
present the rapacity, the hound the fidelity, the cat the slyness, and the ass
the dulness of old age : the other emblems are clear. The women are repre-
sented by tlie quail at 10, the dove at 20, tlie pie at 30, the peacodc at 40, the
hen at 50, the goose at 60, the vulture at 70, the owl at 80, the bat-at 90, and
by death finally at 100. Here the old German, however, speaks honestly out
in a wa^ which, it must be confessed, is any thing but gallant : and the appear-
ance or these figures in a church, and dose by figures of holy writ, shows boir
our ancestors were wont to mingle jest and earnest Next to the women is
represented a man with a scroll having the inscription, ' 1499 ist geleg^ das
Fundament 1525 ist das Werk vollendt*' .... In the lunette Saint Anne is
represented looking very cross in order to keep the holy child, who is sup-
ported by the Vir^n, from running towards her. Of the six surrounding an-
gels two are bringing forward meat and drink with a great deal of comic jovia-
lity. In the arches are angels swinging censers, their wings and floating dra-
peries deveriy filling up the space. On one side of the lower halfK^entre of
the door is a comic angel playing at ball, and another with a .ram on bis
head."

But these are exceedingly rare — and the trouble vast to the luckless
reader of the volume.

At Schwabach, at Dinkelsbiihl, at Pommersfelden, and other famous
cities of wMch the churches are described, the work will create a little
interest. And when he has accomplished his scor^ of volumes, the
doctors labours may serve to guide collectors and amateurs. I^e
£nglish artist may then profit by them (if, hj a wondrous exception to the
rule, he should hi^ppen to know any language but his own), and the girt

Administrative System of France. 527.

of the doctor^s remarks will no doubt be incorporated into Murray's all-
devouring Guide-books.

But the book has no right to the name it has taken; a Royal Aca-
demy Catalogue might just as weU, appear under the title of Art and
Artists in England.

If the above work may be found useful to some artists and amateurs
in Grermanvy so much at least cannot be said of the second work named
at/ the head of this notice, — a lecture read by Doctor Waagen to the
Berlin Scientific Association. That well-known distich of the Latin
Graipipar which is so . much admired by members of pariiament, and
which states,; that ^the learning of the ingenuous arts softens the man-
ners and mitigates their ferocity* — is the doctor's tJieme. He does not
in. the least settle the question which has g^ven a title to his pamphlet.
No person who reads, or hears him, can tell what position painting,
sculpture^ and architecture, ought to occupy among the mean of 'manly
education : but the doctor contents himself pretty much with asserting
that their origin is ancient, their effects pleasing and beneficial; that in
Greece the mie arts were held in high estimation; that after a period
of comparative barbarism. Christian art arose in t^e middle age; that
tha world, and especially Berlin, is much interested in art, and the motto
is 'foewakds.'

The notable piece finishes with a panegyric on the virtue and en-
lightenment of itie King of Prussia, who is about to administer to the
SPIRITUAL WANT (the capitals are the doctor's) ctf the people.
That it is His Majesty's will, cries the Museum -keeper, to advance
painting in its monumental meaning, (which has hitherto, with a few
except^ps, failed among us from want of space,) is proved by his call-
ing the great master Cornelius among us — All other Art-threads which
the death of his late blessed majesty brokef. asunder, are now begun
to be spun anew, &c. &c. The wormy director while he has one eye
to art, has evidently anoth^ to business, or gratitude if we wiU — out
these royal compliments are apt to cloy upon the English stomach.
^ Two ye^s smce it was our good fortune to hear a most eloquent
. ^ech oelivered by a Prussian doctor', upon his majesty's birthday —
he called upon all his gfuests to support him to a man— he allowed
his fedings to overpower him in the most approved fashion: ' Long live
the king,' said he; who wiH not empty a bumper to a toast so holy ?•<—
and so Doctor S — —^ of the Wasserheil-^Anstalt of Marienberg noUy
tossed off a sparkling bumper — of water. The Waagenish liquor is a
little muddy, but not much stronger.

• ■ I . t ■ . . . _ -

France, Her Governmental, AdministrativtifX^ SQqiatPrgonization,
Exposed and Considered^ in its JPrinciples, in its tror)tin^^ finii in
its Bestdts. London: Madden and Co^... 1844. . .'. -

The author of this important and opportune woik chooses^ fo^pradentlal
reasons, to conceal his name. Whoever he be, he had dbne his 'Country

52S Admmistratioe System ofFreinct.

good service by %a& ooorolete aofttainy of a hateM system, for ^fbich
certain Englisliinen woula fain extingcdsli tbe last trace of the free and
eimobfing mstitatioiis of our own Affired. They call on us to admire
and imitate the perfect symmetry, the sciaitifbo constmotian and eft-
ciency of an administrative system, established by wfami ? By a nuK-
taiy deiqpot, by Napoleon! And by whom perfiseted ? By tin political
iwmdlers, *" the cotpmses of the empire fluid the rale,* who lor timtera
years have kept thor heels on the necks, and their hands in die poi&ets
of the French people. It is for such a slave-makinc^ machinery as
this, that deforming reformers of all denominations, of all the ookmn
in the political spectrum,, would have us forego i^osa principles that
have been for a thousand years the quickening spirit o£ EngUmd^s free-
dom. To nothii^ is England more largely ind^yted for tilie |Hroud
r*tion she has long maintuned among tibe nations, than to the pc^po-
and local character of the institutions bequeadied us by our Saxon
forefathers. The ha^y sagacity of their instincts taught tnem to pro-
vide against the tyrannous influences of eentraliaation : tbe great aan
and end of all their legislation was to obtain tiie wiBing and reaaonaUe
obedience of the freeman to laws he had himsdf been instrumental in
enacting or sanctioning, and to magistrates and offieers he had a diaie
in controlling. These are principles befitting

Men who their duties know.

But know their rights, and knowing dare maintain.

If we suffer ourselves to be cajoled into adopting the Frendi system,
then will England become, what France now is, a land overspread to
its remotest corners with a filthy net, in the focus of whose converging
rays sits a great spider, 'cunning and fierce, — ^mixture abhooed;'
it will be a huge jaO, like Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, with a for-
tified city in the centre, occupied by the head jailer and his men.

It is to warn his countrymen against the approaches c^ such a catas-
trophe, that the author drew up the masterly pictm^ before us, 'of that
administrative engine of 900,000 officials, and 500,000 muskets* power,
which drains France, and corrupts, enslaves, and crushes her people.'
The following extract cannot fail to beget in e^^ reader a d^ire for
more detailed information upon so important a subject ;

'* According to the financial measures proposed in last April
by the English chancellor of the Exchequer, the expendi-
ture for the year was fixed at jCAO»222,000

"The charges on the Consolidated Fund, are . . . . 31,820,000

" So that there remains, for maintaining the army and the navy,

and for carrying on the government £18,402,000

^ In France the yearly expenditure according to the last budget,

was fixed at £52,462,124

'* Tbe charges on the Consohdated Fund (public debt and dona^

tions)are 15,200,000

«i

For the army and the navy, and the administration . . ^637,262,124

Admmisiratwe Si/stem of France. 529

** From this statement it results that the expenses of the French gOTernment
are more than double those of the British. This might be enough to deter
any one from advocating the French administrative system, and from support-
ing its introduction into this country ; but it is not enough to enable my
readers to judge correctly of the cost of that administration ; and I must
therefore go further on with my statement.

** The total expenditure for the army and the navy, and for the ordnance in
Englaiid, has been fixed, by the forementioaed budget, at 15,467,000/. : so
that there remains but 2,935,000/. for carrying on the government and the
administration of the country.

•• The estimates of the expenditure for the army and tlie navy, in France,
are set down in the last presented budget, at 18,800,000/. ; and consequently
the cost of the civil administration of the country is 18,462, 124/L ; that is to
say, six times as mudi as the same kind ^ expenditnre in En^and.

" I do not know what is at present the number of persons employed and
paid by the British government; but in 1835 it was, in the whole, 623,578/^
and the amount of the salaries was 2,786,278/. ; while the registered electors
are above 900,000. If the influence exercised over the British people in the
elections is notoriously great and corrupting, what must be the case in France,
with 180,000 electors only, and with 500,000 paid offices at the disposal of
the king and his ministers ; and so artfully graduated with regard either to
tank or to emoluments, that the holders of them always have a strong tendency
to tyranny and sabserviency ?

" The emoluments of dl tnese offices vary firom 12/. to 2000/. a year ;* so that
bribery and corruption may work in all classes of the people. About 500 of
these officers receive a salary of 800/. a year, or more, and most of them are
either peers or deputies, or near relations of those legislators. There are
about 18,500 places, the emoluments of which are from 120/. to 800/., which
fiill to the share of the deputies and the influential electors in the depart-
ments. 80,000 offices with salaries under 120/., but above 60/. are for the
most part bestowed on the principal electors^ as an inducement to, or a re-
ward for, electoral services ; and all the other offices are given to the poorer
Sectors, or to their relations and their friends. Under such circumstances
one must wonder, not at the servility of the French legislative bodies, but
at the existence of any opposition to a government exercising so vast a
patronage.

" The worst of all tyrannies is that which is exercised under legal forms,
with the appearance of a free constitution, and the sanction of the legislative
bodies. Such is the case in France. Neither of the chambers represents the
people. The peers are appointed by the government, and represent the
king and the diHerent coteries which promoted them to the peerage when in
power. As to the deputies, they are the nominees and representatives of
public functionaries, and in great part public fimctionaries themselves, or
aspiring to public functions. It cannot be otherwise. The number of elec-
tors in France is under 200,000, while the number of public functions at the
disposal of, and paid by, the government is, as I have said before, 500,000.
It follows, that the government, by disposing of all the offices in favour only
of the electors and their families, have always in their power the means of
securing the majority in the electoral colleges. It is not only on the 500,000

* This refers only to the general class of officials, and does not include the
ministers, the envoys, the residents, plenipotentiaries, and ambassadors, who re-
ceive frota three thousand to sixteen thousand pounds a year; and those well-paid
diplomatists are ignorant of the negotiations carried on till their conclusion, or
sign treaties which afterwards cannot be ratified.

530 Administrative System of France.

holders of office that the goverament can rely in electoral contests, but also
on an equal number of expectants for those same offices, whose principsl
qualification must be subserviency.* ^ :. ^« ^ v

But this is not all. Besides the holders of offices paid by the ffOTen*
ment, there are other unpaid officuds, who daire indirect 'MibSuqtieiitf
from their offices or monopolies. The rssnlt is -Aat tfte ^^tftnflUpfllt'
has at its disposal 932,000 paid or unpaid officials Md-fle|Hm<fi^^fl^
400,000 soldiers and gendarmes ( and 60,000 nnride^ Tbtjfl |,892;0^''
This force the author justly entitles the aimr of (Mi:^[>^ali. <^^'KUl^'!
than fiye times the number of ihe Franks 4mo made !tol 'tedr'tfiiwjll^siytf ''
invasions in Gaul, and who for fouiteen eenlorieis kepe iMM^sofoJ^i^Wil^
country as lords and owners of the soil and <yf tlie inmwm^tiii '^'fisid^ljl^
the general statement of the case which the author duddatoif in'SB M ^
details; and, . .m. -- .u)oi i:. .♦• i..x'

most in vectively he pierces thK)u|^ r t ■ . . r . ; 1 1 . j , \ n v* • ' •r.
The body of the country, city, court. '■' ^-i ^ •!'• {-^ », ^»j

■

Going through all the branches of the administratiofii ^mbflm, he
shows that the ministries of the interior and justice^ tend'' only to
enslaye and oppress the people : — ^the ministry of pubHc insttruction
tends to keep the people in ignorance, or to teach erronr t^^-'-^li^ mmistiy
of finance iJisorfos all the resources of the coiintry :— tiie tnimdhSr^'lif
agriculture and trade, trammels agriculture, manufactut^s, niid' t^de :-^
the ministry of public works is an obstacle to, or a cause' of ^aihii^ xfa,tbd '
execution of public works : — ^the ministry of marine, which lias bbst'^
country 90,000,000/. sterling, during the last thirteen years, has g^v^
the French nation nothing in return; unless conquering the Wjiitqd^sis..
islands, and compelling the Queen of Tahiti to submit to* the' pr6ti$c^
tion of France, be considered benefits equivalent to such an ^ismeiditnB^ ,,
— the ministry of war boasts of more memorable sefvic^ies ; alikibst i&
the principal towns of France have been attacked, captured, aidd^p^urhady
pillaged by a French army, for resisting the admitiistratrvb' despotism,'''
and maintaining their rights; Paris and Lyon have'eadt t^FrICe pr^ .
sented the spectacle of a stormed city, under the rdm of tl^l.dftiiNi
king:-«-lastly, as to the French foreign office, in the tSirte^tli year of
its royal manager's reign, ' affcer haying in turn employed in the £rec«
tion of his fordgn relations, Talleyrand, Mol6, Sebastian!, ;de Bh)gfie,
Thiers, Soult, and Guizot, France has not a single polkical^ or eten
commercial alliance with any nation or government in the ttfhole
world,*

The work before us, and ^ Louis Blanc's History of Ten Years,' a
translation of which is now in course of publication, shoiild be read in
conjunction with each other. They are distinct in design and manner of
execution, and are the productions of men differing in country^ and, as
it seems to us, widely differing in habits of thought. When we find
them, then, arriving at analogous results by yery different routes, we
are constrained to admit the strong probability of their oondusions.
The two works together will let in a flood of lignt on what has hitherto
been a yery dark comer of the public mind in England.

•■•-j-fiL' ''Jli.*. >'i,''ii ■'"t ^i-';.* ■■■•! ' • * ' • ■* »'■■ » )«•■

7:^ 'Gebihg una auf Jen Oietschern. (Oa. idle- M^HntaioL and upoa the
Glaciers.) By C. Vogt. Soleu^. Jent and Gassf^an. 1843.

I|^,^ eQip)»Jti«»^?))e ,«omietiqN8 ^^lii indeiL to the nuad, then so is
the, tiji^rOt. a bt^pk €feciMBia»aU^ utdicati^ . of its. > character. Nothing
can ,1i^ iwm ifantiMitifla^ 49Bd> fiailsaL (diaii the tkW ctf this voik, exeeptmg
th^„^nti3|iits (ifr tipc Wu^^e^ itw^^ ^ There is sometkittg amusiiig in the
hj^}^,^r94ity of a^iFx^ndbmany in Ihe sc4emn gravity of a Spaniard,
ii]^p^^ad(])tx^QPBe|:y. (^ &iNea)p(^ttiQ,'in the impudeikt swagger and
T€)^^y(ni,q{,^.,]J^)^ s^sitiveness of the simple

Sfpt^^^evei; jwniog. theinieltes. f<>rward to do even die work for which
tl^ ^e,hei^.^ti^rT-i^ul] what can he at once more deplorable and dis-
mal than to encoimter a German Swiss turned caper-master, to £nd him
curvettingy pirouettinig^ aild prancing most unreasonably^ and endea*
vouring to show off in a light and flashy s^le, when the man is not
onljf e99Wti^Uy dull aocl lumpish, too often the sin of his race and na-
tipn* bu^ pert;, pragmatical, and conceited to boot.

Thjis volume consists of more than 250 pages, occupying a quantity
or paper, abundantly sufficient to describe, Heaven knows, not only the
m<^nt^^, but.. the valleys, and towns, and agriculture, and manu-
factures of Switzerland ; yet instead of describing either the towns, or the
mai^U&etiires, or the agriculture of his country, M. Vog^ perpetually
thrii^ts forward, with painful prominency, the personal pronoun, and
talks of hia own sensations, of his own feelings, his sympathies, wishes,
pursuits. &p. There is a preface or dedication of eight pages to a
Frau^.H. v., a lady nearly connected with the author, written in no
very good taste ; and we cannot help saying, the w<xrds he puts into
the ; mouth of this lady convey a grave but well merited rebuke. ^ Lieber
Goil^ Karly Sie katten besser gethan, hinter Fischen und Kroten
sitzenzn bleiben^ als sich ndt Schongeistereien die Zeit zu rertreibenJ
Lest, liowever, we should be supposed to speak too harshly of the
book|. we present our readers with the following remarks oa Interla-
ch^, a place well known to most travelled English, and which, &om
the beauty of its situation, its cheapness, and its position in reference
to the Jungfratiy may be said to be the head-quarters of the tens of
thousands of ^ English who, between the months of July and October,
annually mmute from these shores. But to the extract touching In*
terlachen. Here it is :

^*:l love to sit and dream in the shade of the nut-trees. I l6ve to see the
sun when he rises heyoud the far-off mountains, and salutes the lake of
Brientz with the red. early rays of his food morning smiles. And in evening
I love to hide myself in the elder-bushes along the shore, to batlie myself in.
the blue waves of the lake of Thun, and to bow my last salutations to the
King of the Firmament ere he sinks down to his far-off home. I hardly
know what I would wish above this. To stroll in the beech forests, to
climb the rocks, to slide down its steep declivities after butterflies, to
chase them round and round the lake, to be again a boy, and with childish
simplicity to fling myself in the arms of Mother Nature. The crowded air-

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIV. 2 N

Sf^i Itrports of the SoeUie Asiatique.

*m *ra wiih hearr liead and still lw»yier bcart, vuhmg to ease both.

** )1ojin ! vh»t dc«!^t thc^v desire? Battered cncknels or electuary ? De-
WTTM tyKHJ «>«int*n»* Thew hwt tbow the Jitnprtm \n die rosy radiancy
rftl>r ?«iinc wn^^ich ooeof thy Bernese fneD& iw lately pointed outio
h» pi>c^e*4iot » w«th the seeing. WilPst th«, ddes or Talleys ? Go
t»»r. irh> the hnle t«iev of the Bddeli, into tbesut-^roves. contemplate the
pMfcNAPis* {vatws. »d die pretty servant-girls who peep oQt and forget not
t.-* i>»v' ai x\-»a!^ ^wIt tou will return tliat salute. Wiffsi thoa on the water
J^ • * f^Vr^hcT vv** i^» ami let thyself be rocked oa the bosoms of Tliun's
uict ai>r • bfT tK« hast had enough of the blue waves, thon can'st vary thy
7%V7&&r"»b)r ^iimwaicnf, for the billows of Drientz are every one of them

VWc T^JRnr this precious tomfoolery, our readers will doubtless

<i\oU^ ^SiLefisiDg. ^ Welch ein Kopf! Ohne Gtkim vnd mit

^.9.^ y^frm^^ Munde / Sollte das nicht der Kopf eimes Schwdtzers

?t^

« «

fur les Travatcx du Conseil de la Societe AsioHque pendant

1841. Paris. 1842.
annuel fait a la Societe Asiatique dans la Seance generah du
^Jhdj 1843. Par M. J. Mohl, Secretaire adjouit de la Societe.
1843.

f^lssE reports contidn a summary review of whatever was pabllshed, in
^r p<^ o^ ^^ world, during the years 1841 and 1842, by the oriental
MMars of Christendom. We have selected from the more recent of
lliese reports the following extract, thinking it calculated to interest the
l«Mieral reader. M. Mohl, the author of the report, was formerly, we
believe, professor of Chinese in the university of TUbingen, and, for
aught we know, may be so stilL His remarks have, thererore, the more
weight, as proceeding from a man who speaks on the subject of his own
qpecial studies:

*' Chinese literature has suddenly acquired, through the political events of
last year, an importance it had never before possessed in the eyes of Europe ;
or rather those events have awakened the curiosity of the public, and for a
moment startled it from the apathy with which it had till then regarded a sub-
ject, that so little deserved to be treated with such indifference. For ^idiat
study can have stronger claims to interest a cultivated mind, than that of a
literature formed apart from all those influences, under which other natioos
have successively modified their ideas ; a literature, inunense, embracing all
the branches of human knowledge, dealing with fects of every kind, and con-
taining the result of the experience of an ancient, innumerable, and inde&ti-
gable people; a literature, m fine, which is, for half the human race, whataH
the others put together are for the other half. It is incomprehensible that
Europeans should so long have neglected the study of Chinese civilization,
which is, so to speak, the second face of humanity, and which, by its reseoa-
blances as well as by its contrasts, may aid us clearly to nnderstand how much

Chinese Historical Romances. 5S3

is fortuitous'and accidental, and how much is necessary, in the social and moral
phenomena around us. Hie Jesuits succeeded for some time in fixing the at-
tention of reflecting men on Clhina ; but when they had lost all hope of con-
verting that empire, there ensued a relapse into the old indi^erence ; and if
we would know how intense that was, we have but to read Btousat's * Melanges
posthumes d'Histoire et de Litt^rature Orientales/ Paris, 1843 ; published
under the auspices of the French government. It is curious to see to what
shifts so subtle and so elegant a mind was driven in order to combat absurd
prejudices. He deems himself almost obliged to prove that those who founded
the greatest empire the world has ever known, were men and not apes. He
makes it his business before all things to show in what points the Chinese re-
semble us, and hardly does he dare to pronounce the name of Chinese litera-
ture, for fear of exciting the derision of the vulgar. Matters are no longer
quite at that poiot in our day, and no one has more contributed than M. R^
musat himself to the progress made by public opinion in this respect : but we
are still far from attaching to the subject the importance it will one day possess,
and that probably at no distant date : for the multiplication of European
counting-houses in China, the opening of a greater number of ports to foreign
commerce, and events which may easily be foreseen, will soon compel even
the most listless to interest themselves about a nation become the object of so
many religious, commercial, and political enterprises.'* ....

" The schools which the English have founded all round China, wherever
the number of the Chinese population admitted of their establishment, as at
Penang, Malacca, Batavia, Macao, and Hongkong, are deservedly objects of
the highest interest. The pupils are taught both the Chinese letters accord-
ing to the method of their own country, and the English letters according to
the European system : in this way there is trained up a class of men, who are
naturally destined to serve as intermediaries between the two civilizations.
A pupil of the Malacca college has given an agreeable specimen of the acquire-
ments he has derived from his sojourn in tne establishment, in an English
translation of a Chinese romance, entitled ' The Rambles of the Emperor
Ching-tih in Keang-nan,' (2 vols., Longman and Co , London, 1843). The
book belongs to a class of literature to which it is rather difficult to give a de-
signation ; it is not a history, for the incidents related are in a great measure
invented ; it is not a romance, for the basis and the frame-work of the narra-
tive are historical : it is a sort of historical romance. The author has taken
for his subject the troubles excited by the intrigues of the eunuchs during the
youth of the Emperor Ching-tih ; and his real object seems to have been to
celebrate the power and the virtues of the magicians of the sect of the Tao-sse,
in whom the lower classes believe to this day in China. The work, like all
others of its kind, contain some traits of manners, which must be welcome to
any one desirous of becoming acquainted with the moral condition of the Chi-
nese empire, and which the author lets fall almost unconsciously ; but I think
that a better selection might have been made from amongst the great number
of similar works. There is not much fineness of touch in the portraiture of
the characters ; the web of the story is rather coarse-spun, and the miracles
performed by the magicians, good and bad, seem to be narrated only for
the amusement of children, so that it would not be fair to judge of the
historical romances of the Chinese from this specimen. We shall soon be
enabled to form a better idea of them, through the translation of the oldest
and most celebrated work of this kind, the ' History of the Three King-
doms,' which treats of the troubles and convulsions of the Chinese empire,
from* the revolt of ^e yellow caps, a.d. 170, to the accession of the Tsin dy-
naMiy, a.d. 264. This history had been written by Tchin-tcheou, under the
Tsin themselves, in the grave style of the imperial annals. But when the

2n2

534 Vetch on a Ship Canal

popular literature began to be formed in the thirteen tli century, a great vrriter,
Lo-kouang-tchong, took up the subject, developed it, added episodes to it,
and worked it up into so varied and vivid a picture, that to this day all China
reads it with transports of admiration. It is regarded as a model 6f style;
portions of it are learned by heart, and it is one of the wotks which the prdfe*
sional story-tellers recite to the people in the streets and squares; as the Arab
rawis recite the adventures of Antar at Cairo, and under the tents of the Be>
douins. Hitherto we have possessed only fragments of the work : Mn DavB
published an English translation of some chapters at Ma^^ao, and .M« Julien
inserted a long and very dramatic episode in the Appendix pf his, Frendi
translation of the ' Orphan of China.' At present, M. Favie, to whom we al-
ready owe a collection of very pretty Chinese tales, has ondettaken a complete
translation of the * History of the Three Kingdoms,' and at hist we -shall be
able to founda judgment of this considerable portion of the Chinese literature,
upon what is regarded in the country itself as the chef^ceuvre in the depart-
ment of historical romance."

Inquiry into the Means of Establishing a Ship-NavigcUiim hetufeen
the Mediterranean and the Red Seas, by James Vxrrcfi, Captain
R. £. F.R.S. Illustrated by a map. London, Riehaiidsony 1843.

The execution of a ship-canal across the isthmus of Suez, is, as Captam
Vetch justly observes, a project combining ' probably more important
results (in proportion to the extent, and cost of the Undertaking) ibm
any other whicm natural circumstances offer to the science and sldU of
the engineer, or to the enterpnze of the capitalist*' < He discusses tbe
respective merits of the several lines that have been proposed for effeet*
ing a junction between the two seas, and concludes, witli g>ood reason
as we think, that the most nearly direct line between th^ Gulf of Siw
and the Bay of Tineh appears, in the present state of bnr knowledge^ to
offer the g^reatest probabilities of success. This line, on w^iicli it would
be desirable to have as few bends as possible, would in all Hkeliliood not
exceed seventy -five miles in length. The country through lyhict it wovH
pass is rcmaricably flat, with the exception of some scattered hillocks
of drifted sand. The soil near the surface is stated to consist m
general of a hard compact gravel, but the limit to which this kind
of soil extends has not been very fully ascertained. The greatest
obstacles which nature seems to present to the success of the project, con-
sist,— 1st., in the tendency of the shifting sands of the desert to ifill up
the channel of the canal ; and 2ndly, in the fact that at i^inel^ the sea is
shallow for a considerable distance, from the depositions of the mud of
the Nile, and it presents no natural harbour for any hat vessels of a
small draught of water. But, on the other hand, as Captain Vetch ably
argues, nature likewise has most happily provided the skilfbl engineer
"with the means of overcoming both these difficulties. The proposed
canal would have a fall of 29*57 English feet, from the mean level of the
water of the Gulf^ to the mean level of the Mediterranean Sea; and this
fall, he says, ' I am decidedly of opinion (if used judiciously) is ample,
not only to keep its own channel clear, but also to excavate and main-

between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, 535

tain a good navigable mouth in the Bay of Tineh, on the shore of the
Mediterranean Sea, all the year round.' The cost of executing the
work, he estiinates, would not be far short of two millions sterling: and
supposing that the whole trafEc of Europe, including that of Great
Britain, passing through the Suez canal, would be one. million tons
annually, L e, less than four times the average tonnage from Great
Britain to all places eastward of the Cape of Good Hope in 1832
and 1833 (a reiy moderate assumption), then a duty of 2s. 4|€?. per
ton would cover the following items :

** Interest on two millions capital, at 5 per cent. . • £100,000
Management, and keeping works in repair . . . 10,000
Toll to the ruler of Egypt . . . ... 10,000

£120,000
So that, whatever greater traffic might arise, or whatever higher rate of duty it
might be deemed prudent to exact, would operate as a bonus on the interest
of 5 per cent."

For further details we refer our readers to the essay itself, which they
will £nd highly deserving of their perusal. Meanwhile, we earnestly
bespeak their attention to the following cogent remarks : .

" A good deal is alleged by those trading from Britain against the policy of
any. part of the British nation lending patronage to such an undertaking,
which, it is presumed, would benefit the countries bordering on the Mediter-
ranean more than our own ; though if the canal in question would be the
means of most materially shortening the distance between the two most im-
portant portions of the British empire, little doubt can be entertained of
the benefit conferred on the extensive commerce of the two countries, even
though some otlier nations would receive a greater proportional advantage in
tbq accomplishment of the measure; and though the commerce of other na-
tions mi^ht increase in a greater ratio than the British, still all would partici-
pate in tlie facilities to be obtained ; and in the case of war arising, it is put too
obvious tliat the power possessing a naval superiority has the means of closing
such a channel of commerce to its enemies, by stationary cruisers at each ex-
tremit;^. So much may be argued with a view of removing the prejudices of
British interests against the measure; but it will readily be believed, that if
the British fail to patronize the undertaking, other nations and powers will
do so shortly : and it is, therefore, manifest, if British subjects were chiefly
concerned in advan'cing the capital, and in executing and managing this great
work, it would be vastly more for the benefit of Britain, than if any other na-
tion or government lent their resources. But undertake it who may, it is most
probable that both the funds and the energies of execution will come from this
country ; and it is too probable that if the measure is executed by any other
parties than British, the work will be upon a cheaper and less effective plan of
navigation, permitting only small craft to navigate, unfit for British cpmmerce
in the East, tliough sufficient for the small traders in the Mediterranean, who
would consequently in such a case reap the entire benefit. I am decidedly of
opinion that British capital and British energy would alone execute the work
in a truly useful and permanent style. But tne measure is daily becoming so
much more obvious as one of practical facility, that it cannot long be post-
poned in some shape or another."

\

636 San Martens ' Arthwr-Sage^

Die ArthuT'Sage und die JMdrchen des Rotken Buches von Hergest
Herausgegehen von San Marte (Albert Scbulz). (The Legend of
Arthnr and the Tales of the Red Book of Hergest.) Que&nbeig
and Leipsic. 1842. 8yo. pp. 828.

In thiB volume — ^which forms volume IL of the second division of
that extensive library of the national literature of Germany, publub-
ing at Quedlinberg and Leipsic, imder the title of ^Bibhothek d^
gesammten National Literatur,' and the first volume of which di-
vision was devoted to Franz Mone's valuable 'Researches mto the
History of the German Hero-Legends {Untersuchungen zur Ge-
schichte der Teutschen Helden^Sage) — are contained translations
of the Welsh tales, entitled 'The Lady of the Fountain, Perediir
the Son of Evrawc, and Geraent the Son of Erbin, which tales form
the first three parts of * The Mabinogion,' for which the lovers of
early romance, and the students of the language and literature of Hie
PrincipaHty, are indebted to the learning, taste, and patriotic Huini-
ficence of Lady Charlotte Guest. This is a com^diment which tiie
zeal, talents, and Hberaliiy of that lady well deserve ; and the readers
of the ' Foreign Quarterly Review,* in which honourable menti(Hi of
' The Mabinogion' has already been made, will look upon the work be-
fore us as an evidence that our opinion of the value of Lady C. Guest's
exertions in the field of hterary antiquities is echoed by the critics
of Germany.

The tales are translated by Albert Schulz, whose ^ Essay on the In-
fluence of Welsh Tradition upon the Literature of Germany, France,
and Scandinavia,' obtained the prize of the Cymreigyddion Society, at
the Eisteddvod of 1840, and of which an Eng^lish translation was
printed at Llandovery in 1841. This essay, which is very able and in-
genious, but tinged with a peculiarity characteristic of the writings of
all antiquaries who make the sayings and doings of the Principalis the
subject of their disquisitions, is here printed, and forms a very fitting
preface to the legends, which it introduces.

The objection which we felt, however, to Albert Schulz^s Essay, as
it appeared in its English dress — an objection resembling that which
the mathematician directed against Paradise Lost, — namely, that ^the
writer asserted every thing, but proved nothing,' remains, as a matter
of course, unaltered, by a perusal of the Essay in its original form:
but we find from such perusal, that many of the striking errors with
which the English version of it was disfigured, are attributable not to
the author, but to the translator's want of familiarity, if not with the
subject, at least with many of the mediaeval writers quoted iQ illustrati(Hi
of it.

Altogether the book before us is a very curious and interesting one.
Its appearance will doubtless be regarded by our Cambrian firiends as
highly complimentary to the literature of their native country ; and
must be looked upon as affording fi'esh evidence, if such were necessary,
of the far-spreading and ceaseless activity of the scholars of Germany.

Poems of tine. German Middle Ages, 5Xl

Dichtungen des D^utschen Mittelalters* Erstcr Beund : Der Nibe^
lungen N6t und die Klage, (Poems of the German Middle Ages.
Volume I. : The Song of the Nihelungen and the Lament.)
Edited hy Al. S. Vollmee. Leipsic 1848. 8vo. pp. xKv. 387.

The fondness of the Germans fer their fine old national epic, ^ The
Song of the Nihelnngen/ continues unahated; and editions of it, some
in its original antique form, some modernized and translated into the
language of the present day and illustrated with the ahility and cha-
racteristic fia.ncy of the German artists, succeed each other with a rapidity
perfectly astonishing.

The volume hefore us is the first of a series of reprints in a cheap
form of the most popular poems of the German middle ages, intended
to supply the demand for such works now so universally felt, not only
among philolo^sts and antiquaries, hut among the educated classes of
German readers.

The second volume will contain the poem of ' Tristan und Isolt,' hy
Gotfrit, of Strashurg, edited hy Massman ; and will be followed by the
^Barlaam tmd Josaphat,' by Rudolph of Ems, and the well-known
collection of German fables, *Der Edelstein,' of Ulrich Boner, both
under the editorship of F. Pfeiffer. These are to be succeeded by other
works of a similar character, and the value and utility of the collection
will be increased by a ^ History of German Poetry in the Middle Ages,'
by Albert Schott, and a ' Glossary of Early German,' by Massman and
Vollmer.

In choosing the * Nibelungen' for the opening volume, the projectors
of this collection have shown good judgment: for numerous as are the
existing editions of this interesting reHc of bygone days, we do not know
of one equal to the present in the two great desiderata of a popular book
— cheapness and utility. The Legend of Sigfiied and the Nibe-
lung formerly resounded throughout the whole Teutonic world. Nor
was it confined to Germany alone, on whose soil it first sprung up,
imder whose skies it first bloomed ; but it spread over all the kindred
nations of the North,— over Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland ;
and we believe still forms the theme of many of the songs with which
the maidens of the Faroe Islands cheer their aaily tcA,

The fe-vour which this splendid relic of Teutonic poetry enjoyed
In days long since passed away, has again returned to it, having slept
for ages to awaken with increased strength and intendty. Since the
commencement of the present century, but still more since the in-
solent oppression of Napoleon aroused the patriotic spirit of Germany,
and endued its literature with a national chwuster and a love of £Ather-
land — the ^ Song of the Nibelungen' has attracted the attention and
admiration of all classes of readers ; while its language, origin, and
history, have formed the subjects of investigation by the most profound
scholars and critics of Germany.

The reader, who is unable from want of time or of opportunity to

538 BjSma^enuis ^ Theogony^ PkUosaphj/j

dxamine for himself the titmidrous and learned works which have been
produoed by Lochmami, Vomder Hag«n, William Grimm^ W. Midler, in
lUuntration of the ^ G«rmaii Iliad,' at the work before us has been- a^y
designated j and who may yet be an:ooug to know soniething ^ the
orig^ and literary history ^a work which has excited so much atten-
tion in Germfl(n}% and exercised so much influence over the iiteratiire of
that country, will &id a very admirable synopsis of all that' -haS' yet
appeared upon the subject in V<^mer*8 preface to the pt^sent edition ;
wluch we do not hesitate to pronounoe the cheapest sind Idost Idefnl
which has yet aj^ared of the ' Nibelungen N6t,^ in its ttme-honoured
form, and antique, loud-sounding, and most harmonious ^rs^." ' -

-• .1:

Die Tkeoganie^ Pkihsophu und Kosmogonie der Htndtuf.' (The
Theogony, Philosophy, and Cosmogony of the Hindoos.) Von dem
GaAFEN M. Bj{$bnstj£rna. 8to. pp. 202. Btockholm. 1843.
Williams and Norgate, London.

Tms is a German translation from the Swedish, made under t^e super-
intendence of the author (the ambassador from Sweden to this country),
whose work on the British empire in India has appeared m an English
garb. If the present work does not much extend the sphere of our posi-
tive knowledge, it is nevertheless a very useful and interesting synopffls
of a subject so vast in extent, and so mtricate in detaU. By way of
specimen we pro<ieed to give an epitome of the author's remarks on
Buddhism, a subject on which much error has often been displayed \nth
a great deal of pretension. Many of the count's remarks on this topic
are very curious and striking, and some, w6 believe, are novel.

The whole number of those who profess ihe Buddhist ereied cannot
be computed at less than 380 millions. If to these we add tihe ^00
millions of Brahma's followers in India, we find that more than half the
human race (the latter amounting to 1000 millions in round numbers)
belongs to these two branches of one primitive religion.

The opinion propounded by Joinville and some other orientalists, that
Buddhism is older than Brahmaism, is altogether unfounded, and is
confuted by the best Hindoo authorities. Nether is the origin of Budd-
hism to be ascribed to a single founder, but to several successive re-
formers, the Husses, Luthers, and Calvins of Bn^^maism, wl^o .^se in
India and the neighbouring countries during many ceuturies preoeding
the birth of Christ, and who received £x>m their adherenta the surname
of Buddha, i. e, godly or holy man.

The metaphysics of the Buddhists differs from that of the Brahmaists
in this, that the god of the latter pervades and animated fill nature,
whereas the Buddhist god, like the epicurean, rtsts in perfect quietism,
takes no heed of huinan affairs; but, having once for all set them in
motion, leaves them to pursue their course without interference or con-
trol. But as such a doctrine as this could not satisfy the natural
longings of the human soul, for some object on which it may re
pose its trust, and to which it may address its wishes and its prayer

and Cosmogony of the Hindoos^ 539

the people are further taught to believe that men of extraordinary piety
and self-denial have appeared from time to time on earth, and have
been, on account of their distinguished worth, translated after death to
a state pf higher bliss. That bHss» however, is nothing more thanjfree-
dom ftom all care or sorrow^ just as bodily hiealth is merely freedom
from all disease. These meritorious and favoured mortals are the Bud-
dhas, who are worshipped next after the divine triad. Twenty -two of
them have, already appeared on «arth, and more are expected. The
most recent of them is Fo^ (Fudh, Budh,) who founded Buddhism in
China, under the reign of Jding-ty of the Hazi dynasty, about the time
of the birth of Christ.

The characteristics of Buddhism may be briefly described as a monk-
ish asceticism in morals, and a philosophical scepticism in religion. The
Buddhists^ in Tibet, China, Mongolia^ and Corea, have convents like
those of the «ad]<>lics, oecupied by ghostly fathers clad like the Francis-
cans, and vowed^ike them to celibacy. They have the tonsure, rosaries,
and holy water, and celebrate masses with solemn church music. These
points of resemblance struck the Jesuit missionaries with such ^surprise,
thdt one of th^m. Father Gerbillon, was led to believe that Buddhism
was an o^Tshoot of Nestorianism (an anachronism of at least 500 years),
whilst P^re Gremare, another of the reverend fathers, was convinced
that the resemblanoe was the work of Satan himself.

The g^and peculiarity of Buddhism is, that it is not only confessed by
the majority of mankind, but that it has also engrafted its dogmas on
most other religions.

"We have traces of its existence among the ancient Egyptians, whose
earliest form of religion was near akin to Brabmaism. We find that
it had made its way, long before the promulgation of Christianity, into
Chaldaea, Phoenicia, Palestine, Colchis, Greece, Rome, Gaul, and
Britain ; and again, after the diffusion of Christianity, we see Buddhism
penetrating through Asia to the Altai mountains, and through Europe
as far as Scandinavia.

** The Samaritans in Aram were Buddhists (see Johann von M tiller's
WeUgeschichte), as were likewise the Essaeans in Palestine ; at least they were
so in their esoteric doctrines, though subsequently they conformed externally
to the Mosaic, and afterwards to the Christian system. The Essaeans were
diyided into the contemplative and the practical, the former inhabiting the hilly
countiy round Nazaretn, the latter dwelling in the towns. Both divisions
subsequently coalesced with the Gnostics.

** The Gnostics were abo divided into two chief sects, each of which had its
subordinate ramifications. One of these sects, whose head-quarters were in
Meroe in (Ethiopia, was called the Egyptian sect ; the other the Asiatic.
The adherents of the latter were properly Buddhists, who for the most part
adopted the outward forms of Christianity, because, in accordance with their
own tenets, they considered Jesus to be a Buddha who had appeared on earth.
The Egyptian Gnostics, on the other hand, though they, too, were nominal
Christians, made a metaphysical distinction between Jesus and Christ, regard-
ing the former as a mere man, but the latter as the Holy Spirit, which had
become flesh in the man Jesus, to return after his death to the high place
whence it had descended. These were the doctrines of the Gnostics, parti-

540 Universal Diffusion of Buddhism,

cularly in the first and second centuries of the Christian era : they af^terwards
fell into still worse heresies. Simon Magus was an Egyptian Gnostic.

" The Greeko-Roman Olympus seems to he of all tne least akin to that of
Hindoostan ; nevertheless there are even here some points of resemblance,
which have been set forth by Sir William Jones, thou^, perhaps, he insisted
upon them somewhat too strongly. . . .

** The Druids, too, in ancient Britain were Buddhists ; they admitted the
metempsychosis, the pre-existence of souls, and their return to the realms of
universal space. They had a triad of gods, consisting, like that of the Budd-
hists, of a creator, a sustainer, and a destroyer. The Druids constituted a sap
cerdotal order, which reserved to itself the exclusive privilege of expounding
the mysteries of religion. Their wisdom was so renowned that Lucan says, in
his epic poem, ' If ever the knowledge of the gods has come down to earth, it
is to the Druids of Britain.' They afterwards (in CaesaPs time) propagated
their doctrines in Gaul, whence they spread among the Celtic tnbes in Spain,
Germany, and in the Cimbrian peninsula. The ban of the Druids (beackt,
whence probably the German word Acht) was as terrible as that of the Brah-
mins ; even the king whom it smote, fell, according to the expression of the
Druids, * like grass before the sc^rthe.' The Druids must have obtained their
doctrine through the traffic of the Phoenicians with Britain, that people having
been, as already stated, of the Buddhist creed.

" Nay, even into the far north did Buddhism make its way ; for it cannot
be denied that the doctrine of Odin is an echo of that of Buddha. The mere
resemblance in name between the sacred books of both religions ( Veda and
Edda) affords substantial grounds for conjecturing that the one creed was de-
rived from the other.

" The name of the founder, O^, is in the older Saxon dialect Wodan; in
and an are suffixes, Od and Wod are the root ; but the Saxon W (equivalent
to the English V) is a corruption of the sound B ; Wod and Bod are there-
fore identical, as are likewise Bodha and Wodha,

*' The fourth day of the week is named after Buddha in the coui^es where
his worship prevails ; in Sweden it bears the name of Odin to this day, ]jbl
England that of Wodan.]

** Odin, Wodin, Wodh, Bodh, was the name of the founder of the reUgm,
not of him who introduced it into the North ; the latter (as we surmise) was
Sigge Fridulfson.

" A comparison between the doctrines of the Vedasand of the £dda,it most
be owned, discloses many discrepancies even in the names of the goda» and in the
nature of the metaphors employed ; but here, as in other cases, we must break
the shell and get at the kernel, and thb will be found in many respects similar
in both systems. The vast interval of time that elapsed between the composi-
tion of the Vedas ( 1400 B. C.) and of the Edda ( A. D. 1200) must necessarity
have influenced their contents, and given to eaoi the character of the races
for which they were respectively written ; a mild and pacific character to snit
the then civilized Hindoos ; a wild and warlike one for the then uncivilised
Scandinavians. It was natural, too, that the names of the gods should be
adapted to the different imtures of die respective languages, and the meta-
phors to the diversity of the climates, so that elephants, lions, and tigers,
should figure in the imagery of the one people, and northern animals in that
of the other.

'^ But this is only the thell; the kemelis similar in Brahma's (Buddha's)
doctrine, and in Odin's. Both recognise one only, almighty creator ; both
admit the immortality of the soul. In the Vedas the angels ask : Who
made the world ? Ruder replies, Bhrim,

"In the Edda^ Gangler asks: Who is the first among the gods? Har

Odin and Buddha idenUcah 541

answers, Allvater, Where is this god ? asks Gangler, and what has he per-
formed ? Har answers. He lives evermore, rules his realm, and has sway over
all things great and small. Jafnhar adds to this. He has made heaven and
earth, and all that therein is ; he has made man and given him a spirit, that
shaU live and never pass away^ even though Ms body become dust, or be burnt to
ashes,

** Now can it be thought possible l!hat a people so rude as that of Scandi-
navia then was, should have arrived at such highly metaphysical conceptions,
had they not been communicated to it by a people further advanced on the
path of civilization ?

** Gangler goes on to ask : How did the world come into existence? What
was there before it ? Har replies (in the Vbluspa) : It was the beginning of
time, when nothing was, no sand, no sea, no cool waves. The earth was not,
Dor the heavens above ; it was an open abyss — but no grass.

" All these questions and answers are put forth in the Vedas, in a manner
so exceedingly similar, that we can hardly question the derivation of the Edda
from the Vedas. The Brahmins (in like manner as the Buddhists) admit
three essential persons in their deity; viz. Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, the
creator, the sustainer, and the destroyer ; just so the Scandinavians, among
whom Allvater has three designations ; viz. AUfader (creator), Fjolner (sus-
tainer), and Svidrir (destroyer). Here then we have exactly the Brahminic
or Buddhist Trimurti,

" A common emblem of tlie creator among the Hindoos (from whom it
passed into Egypt) vras the scarabceus or beetle. In Scandinavia likewise the
insignificant beetle vras holy and bore the name of Thor, the god most highly
revered. In heathen times it was called in Sweden Thorbagge (Thorns beast),
which name, in after-christian times, when every thing heathenish was to be
degraded, was changed into Thordyfvel (Thorns devil). Nay, there is a super-
stitious belief still existing among the country folks in many provinces, that
whoever finds on his path a beetle sprawling on its back and unable to help
itself, and sets the creature upon its legs again, thereby atones for his sins,
because Thor was the propitiator with Allvater.

*' In an etymological point of view, there are also some remarkable resem-
blances between the Hindoo and the Scandinavian mythology. The god of
love is called Kdrlekeya in Bengal ;« the abode of the god Indra (heaven) is
called Swerga in the Hindoo mythology, and is situated near the north pole ;
Skandy the god of war reigns there (hence Scandinavia), and seven steps
(zones) lead thither, the most northern of which is TTnde.

" The similarity between the Midyards serpent in the Edda and Vishnu's
serpent in the Vedas is also notable ; both are described as encompassing the
earth. But what is more deserving of attention, is the agreement between
the ^tes of fValhalla and the Indian secular periods or yugs. According to
the Edda, WalhaUa has 540 gates : 540 multiplied by 800, the number of
JEinherien that can march together out of each gate, gives 432,000 ; and this
is precisely the elementary number for the secular periods or yngs, so often
mentioned both in the Brahminical and the Buddhist system, according to
which the period now current is to last in all 432,000 ^ears, whilst each of
the three preceding yugs has endured respectively twice, thrice, and four
times that number of years.**

* Kdrlek is Swedish for hve. If it be objected that karlek is compoimded of
kar (dear) and kk (play), the CLuestion still remains, whence come these two words
so unlike the other Germanic roots?

( 542 )

MISCEILANEODS LITERMT NOTICES.

AUSTRIA.

A FLAN lias be«u far some time in cod temptation for foiHidiiig hn A.cMdemy
of Science in Vienna. It was at flrst intended ihattbircBtsb&hnent shfluld
wnbrace theitudyoc cultivation of Bcieoce in geaeral, biit it isnawdetcnaiiial
that it stiali be limited to natural scienceon^. A sit« hu be«o fixed bnfor-the
erection of die building, which will be coatraenced early in the enEiiin^ aprhifi
The splendid cabinet of Natural History in the Imperii Libraiy win fa^M-
Boved tothe new academy assoonas ttBuiteof rbomscwi be ptepwed for ib
reception. This colt tcti on is allowed to be one oftbe finest in Europe; and
is particularly rich in loologicitl and botanical ipccimens. ' It ia proposod to
esublish the classes gradually, according as the advanoement of tiie buiMiag
sbaU enable the scientilic collections, books, ttc^ to be arranged. The daseei
of botany, physiology, and anatomy, will be first iotiDded.

Some time ago it was ciirrentlv reported in the literary circles of Viensa,
that the laie FroiVsaor Enk was ttie reel author of the dramatic writings ettrt'
buted to Frederick Halm ^Baron Mlinch Bctlinghansen). The accuracy of
^is story always appeared aoubtful to those who compired the Very diffiarent
character wlijch imtrks the genius of tlie respective writers. The questioa is
now, hovever, set at rest by a collection of letters addressed by Enk to Halm,
which the latter has placed in the hands of Kriedrich Witthauer, the editor of
the ' Wiener ZeitscbrifL' Tile contents of these docnments prove inconteats-
bly that Halm is the sole author of the dramas to which his name ia attached.
It was proposed tliat these letters should be printed in the ' Wiener ZeiiBclirift,'
but weighty considerations render it advisable to postpone their publication.
Their authenticity is ceitified by the testimony of several of £Qk,'a litenuy
friends.

A new street, the building ofwhich is just completed in Vienna, has re-
ceived the name of ' Beethovensgasse' (Beethoven's Street). This circ(im-
ttance is the more remarkable, inasmuch as it is almost a solitary example of
a street in the Austrian capital being named oAer any man eminent in art.
The Bectliovensgasse is erected on the site of that locality in whicb. the great
composer spent the last years of his life.

The sculptor Pompeo Marches!, of Milan, is proceeding actively with the
colossal monument in honour gf the Emperor Francis, to be erected in the
inner square of the Imperial Palace. The statue of the monarch, larger than
life, stands on an octangular pedestal, which is in its turn supported on a
broad base, where four figures rest in a silting posture. The height of the
whole monument will measure abbiit fifty feet. The impGrisl statue will be
siiteen feet high, the sittingfigures eight feet, and the figures in the bas-reliefs
dfthe pedestal eight feet and a half. The sovereign, as the last order of em-
peror of the Roman succession, is clothed in the simple /iga liomana. He ii
represented as bending slightly towards the spectator with his arms out-
Stretched, as though in the act of pronouncing u blessing. A beautiful ex-
pression of repose and dignified benevolence is diffused over the imperial
countenance and flsure. A bronze wreath of laurel forms the cornice of the
octangular pedestal. The four sitting figures at the base of the monument
represent Religion, Justice, Power, and Peace. The figures and groups in the

Miscellaneous Literary Notices, 543

bas-reliefs, which adorn the eight sides of the pedestal, represent the fruitful-
ness of the imperial dominions in the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms ;
and the progress of science, art, manu&ctures, and commerce.

BELGIUM. -

For several years past particular attention has been directed in Belgium
to the study of the old history of the country. The archives of the different
provinces have been carefully explored, and many curious manuscript docu-
ments, long hidden, liave been brought to light. The most active researches
in this way have been carried on by the Commission of National History,
under whose direction many of the old Belgic chronicles baVe been revised
and printed at the expense of tiie government. Agents have also been com*
missioned to examine the correspondence with Belgiom, contained in the
archives of foreign countries. M. Gachard, whose researches in the libraries
of the Hague, Paris, and otlier places, have already been noticed in the
* Foreign Quarterly Review,' is at present on a mission to Spain, and an
account of bis labours in that country will be found in another portion
of this article. (See SpamJ) Some time at^o, when examining the state
papers in the royal library at the Hague, M. Gachard unexpectedly made
the important discovery of a series of letters written by Rubens the painter,
during his diplomatic mission from Holland to England. I1ie endeavours
previously made at the Hague, at Brussels, in Lille, or in Paris, to find
missing fragments of this correspondence, had proved fmitless, and the series
of letters attributed to Rubens, and published some years ago, were of very
doubtful authenticity. The correspondence recently discovered by M. Ga-
chard exhibits the diplomatic talent of Rubens in a conspicuous point of
view.

A colossal equestrian statue of Godfrey de Bouillon is to be erected in a
conspicuous part of the city of Brussels. The king has commissioned Fugene
Simonis, a sculptor of Brussels, to execute this grand public monument. It
is expected that it will not be completed in less than four years, and it is
proposed that its inauguration shall take place during the September fetes of
1847 i 90,500 francs is the price allotted for this statue.

DENMARK.

A Danish publication contains the following particulars relative to the
journals and other periodical publications of Copenhagen :

The most important journal in the Danish capital is that published by the
Brothers Berling (' Berlingske politiske o§ Avertissements tidende*). This is
the government newspaper, the record of all acts of administration, official
announcements, Uc, Tnis paper alone has the privilege of publishing foreign
political news ; and it has never incurred condemnation for inserting any thing
obnoxious to the government. Nathanson, its editor, is a man of very con-
siderable talent. The journal called ' Faedrelandet* (the Country), is in
opposition to the government. It is not, nor are any other journals of
toe same tendency, permitted to meddle with foreign political intelli-
gence. Tliis paper has frequently been condemned, sometimes to the
payment of fines varying from 50 to 300 crowns, and at other times to
the supervision of the censorship for an interval of from one to five ^ears.
Journals under the control of the censorship must not be published without
the imprimatur of the police, that is to say, at the head of the paper must
appear the permission for printing, signed by the censor, who is usually chosen
from among the judges of the police tribunal. Besides the * Fasdrelandet!
there are several other journab in opposition to the government : these are

544 MisceUaneous Idterary Notices.

* Den Frisindede* (the Liberal), the * Morgenblad* (the Morning Journal),
the * Aftenblad' (Evening Journal), the ' Kjopenhavns Post* (Copenhagoi
Post), the * Corsaren' (Corsair). There are some papers which do not
meddle with political affairs : such as the journals of commerce, — of naviga-
tion, the bulletin of laws, &c. Copenhagen has moreover several periodical
publications of the magazine class, such as the * Scandinavian Museum,' the

* Lsesefrugter* (Fruits of Reading), the medical and surgical journals, the
naval archives, &c.

The recent death of Dr. Jacobsen has occasioned a severe loss to the Uni-
versity of Copenhagen, and indeed to medical science generally. His works,
especially those on anatomy, are highly esteemed. He was first physician
to die King of Denmark, and he filled two professorships, one in the Uni-
versity of Copenhagen, and the other in the Academy of Surgery, in the
same capital. He was a member of the Jewish persuasion, and hb appoint-
ment to the professorships above-named is the more remarkable, inasmuch
as it customary in Denmark to exclude from such appointments persons not
professing the established religion of the country. Dr. Jacobsen died, after
a short illness, at the age of 61.

The long-projected monument in honour of Professor Ra^, of Copen-
hagen, is now about to be commenced. According to the description givea
of the design, it will be exceedingly simple, but, at the same time, novel and
appropriate. A large tablet of sand-stone is to be placed perpendicularly in
front of the tomb of the celebrated linguist. In order to dejiote the peculiar
literary attainments of Rask, various proverbs will be inscribed on uie tab-
let, in the Arabic, Sanscrit, Icelandic, and Danish languages. The Icelandic
inscription will be in Runic characters, and the Danish will be a fac-simile
of Rask s handwriting. On an urn at the foot of the tablet will be in-
scribed in Roman characters the dates of Rask's birth and death ; viz. 22d
November, 1787, and 14th October, 1832.

FRANCE.

The dispute now pending between the Roman Catholic Church and the
University of Paris, on the subject of Education, has become very warm and
even threatens to disturb the quiet which the government, doubtless, wishes
to preserve between the ecclesiastical and civil institutions; — -perhaps we
should rather say, associations; for, strictly speaking, there is no legalized in-
stitution which can be called the church of France. However, though the
Roman Catholic church lias received several serious checks since Louis
Philippe was raised to the throne by the revolution of 1830, yet it has
unceasingly struggled to recover its former ascendancy. During die di»^
cussion on the constitution which took place amidst the stormy agitation
consequent on the ever-memorable Three Days, an article waa added to
the document, which may be called the French Magna Charta, ^eclaffiog
that there is no superior religion or established church in Fnmce; but,
after long discussions, a clause was added setting forth that the ms^ortty
of the French people are Roman Catholics. This declaration seemed Jittle
calculated to produce any mischievous effect, but the priesthood suid their
party have made use of it very dexterously to serve their purposes. Not*
withstanding the violent conflictions of opinion which the questton of re-
ligious liberty has called forth, it seems, at last, to be almost generally
admitted in France, that, to enforce a profession of &ith is an act of ty^
ranny of the cruelest kind. On the other hand it is coatended, that iHiere
the doctrines of one sect are professed by a decided majority of the peo-
ple, some particular privileges or pre-emineoce ought to be conceded to

Miscellaneous Literary Notices. 545

that sect — that it will in the nature of things acquire great power — and
tliat, for the sake of public tranquillity, it ought to constitute what we
call the established religion, and be invested with the preponderance and
the advantages usually given to such an institution. This principle has
been in some measure adopted in our own country by our ancestors, though
it certainly has not been very perfectly followed out in each of our three king-
doms. On the question now at issue in France, much liberality is manifested.
Many members of the catholic church, distinguished for their piety and the
respectability of their stations in society, have become converts to that inde-
pendent system of religion which in this country is called ' voluntaryism.' La-
martine has declared for the complete separation of church and state, and tliat
great question is at present warmly agitated in France ; the details of the
dispute have, however, already appeared in our daily jounmls, and to re-insert
them here would, perhaps, be to trouble our readers with the repetition of
£icts with which tliey are already familiar.

Every reader of Chateaubriand's writings must be sensible to the harmo-
nious eloquence of his finely-rounded periods, though their force (we speak
here of his prose compositions) is often marred by excessive diffuseness. There
is, however, a peculiarity in the grammatical construction of Chateaubriand's
sentences whicn may have escap^ general notice, and which is curiously ex-
plained in the following anecdote, related in a foreign literary journal : ** In
the year 1 829, Pinard, the eminent printer of Paris, was engaged by the book-
seller, Ladvocat, to print the collected works of Chateaubriand. Every one
must be aware that in dealing out types for the use of the compositors in a
printing office, it is not necessary to supply all the letters of the alphabet in
equal numbers. For example, a very few of the letter z will be required in pro-
portion to hundreds of the letters a or e. Being supplied with tvpe, distributed
in the usual relative proportions, the compositors in Pinard's office set to work
on the new edition of Chateaubriand. After the l&pse of a day or two, one
of the compositors applied to the foreman of the office for a fresh supply of
letter a. The foreman expressed some surprise, but finding that the man had
not a single letter a remaining, he ordered a fresh supply. Presently another
compositor, employed on another volume of the work, and in quite a different
part of the office, entered the foreman's room, and declared that he too had
used all his letters a. This information created some dismay, and a suspicion
arose that a portion of the type must have been stolen ; but the compositor
declared his conviction that no theft had been committed, and that if the
number of a's in the composed sheets were counted, they would be found to
correspond with the number of types distributed to him. Whilst this point
was under discussion, a third compositor made his appearance, and announced
tliat he had used all his letters s. Struck with the singnlari^ of these facts,
Pinard mentioned the subject to Raymond, who has since then rendered him-
self eminent by his philological learning. * What can be the reason,' inquired
Pinard, ' that so many letters a and n are required in printing Chateaubriand's
works ?' — * The reason is obvious,' replied Raymond ; • and you will find that
in proportion as the celebrated writer employs a and N, he spares s and i.
For example, Chateaubriand avoids as mucn as possible the use of the relative
pronouns qtdtaidquef and in their stead employs verbs in the participial form^
ending in ant. This sufficiently accounts for the speedy consumption of the
types A and n in your printing-office.'

Some workmen lately employed in pulling down an old partition in the
Hotel de Yille in Paris, discovered on a wall two inscriptions recording
several remarkable events in the reign of Louis XI V. The inscriptions are
engraven in large letters on tablets of black marble, and are as fbUow :

** 166a Interview between Liouis XIV., Kwg of France, and Phillip IV.,

546 JUisceUaneotts Literary Notices,

King of Spain, in the Isle des Faiaans, where peace was declared between the
two monarchs. — Marriage of the King with* Maria Theresa of Austria, In-
fimta of Spain. — Solemn entry of their majesties into the city of Paris amidst
the acclamations of the people.

** 1683. The King concludes peace with the Algerinea, punishes the €re-
noese, takes Luxembourg, forces his enemies to agree to a truce of twenty
years, and at the prayer of the Spaniards remits §,300,000 livres of contn-
butions.'*

A few years ago, the ' Telephonic,* or method of transmitting communica-
tion between distant points, by means of musical sounds, of which M. Sudre
is the inventor, excited a considerable degree of interest in France. M.
Sudre was recently invited to exhibit specimens of his inpenious and useful
invention at the maritime Prefecture of Brest. Admiral Orivel was re-
quested by him to write any short sentence on a black tablet, which was
placed on a sort of easel in sight of the assembled company. The admiral
wrote the following question : ' How many troops have you T M. Sudre
then sounded a few notes on his violin, whicn, being heard by tlie interpreter
who was stationed behind the tablet, and quite out of view of the sentence in-
scribed on it, he immediately uttered the words : * How many troops have
you ?* Other trials followed, and all were attended with equal success. M.
Sudre declared that the ' Telephonic* was capable of communicating at night
and during foggy weather all tne directions contained in the book of Signals.
In proof of tiiis statement, he placed on the easel a book of naval tac-
tics, from which Admiral Grivel selected two or three directions, which were
correctly communicated by notes performed on a musical instrument. It was
remarked, in course of these experiments, that M. Sudre, in his musical inter-
pretations, never went beyond the combinations of three notes forming a per-
fect chord. The orders thus communicated were immediately understood
and interpreted, to the great astonishment and gratification of all present.

The readers of the * Foreign Quarterly Review* may, perhaps, remember
that a few years ago M. Sudre visited London, and gave some interesting
examples of his ingenious invention at a concert given bv Mr. Moscheles.

Paul Delaroche and Moral Fatio have been commissioned by King Louis
Pliilippe to paint some of the most interesting scenes wliich occurred during
Queen Victoria's visit to the Chateau d*£u. The subjects chosen for the
pictures are the landing at Treport, the arrival at the chateau, the fllte in the
forest, the review, and the departure. Delaroche is to proceed to London to
paint those personages of the queen's suite who are to be introduced into the
pictures, which are destined for the Museum at Versailles.

It is said, tiiat in the circular Place round the Arc de TEtoile are to be
erected twenty-four colossal statues of the most distinguished captains of the
empire.

About a month aeo two large packages from Athens arrived in Paris, for
the royal school of the Fine Arts. They contained portions of the bas-reliefs
collected from the ruins of the ancient" tern pie of the Parthenon. A gallery
is to be erected expressly for these valuable fragments of antiquity. An
architect has been sent to Athens by the French government, for the purpose
of collecting objects of art connected with the temple of the Parthenon, and
forwarding them to Paris.

Some time ago a plan was proposed for introducing singing classes on Wil-
hem's method into the French army. The idea originated with Marshal Soult,
who conceived that nothing could be better calculated to aiford rational and
agreeable recreation to the soldiery, than the practice of singing, and the study
of music. The first trial of the scheme commenced about six months ago,
when a thousand men belonging to the eighth regiment of Infantry, forming

MiaceUaneous Literary Notices, 547

part of the garrisoD of Paris, began to receive instructions under the direction
of the superintendent of the singing schools. On the 17th of October (after
about four months' tuition) the most advanced pupils, 380 in number, had
their first public performance. They sang several chonises vfith admirable
accuracy, and the effect produced by so vast a number of powerful male
voices IS described to have been truly marvellous. Among other eminent
persons, the poet Beranger was present at the performance.

Donizetti's Opera, ' Don Sebastian,' which had been for a long time
anxiously looked for, was performed for the first time in Paris, on the Idth
of Novemb^. The Maestro is accused of having spun out the Opera to a
tedious length. It occupied no less than ^"ve hours and a half in the per-
formance, having commenced at seven, and ended at half-past twelve o'clock.
Two or three morccaux are mentioned in terms of high eulogy by the Parisian
critics. These are a cavatina for the prima donna, one for the tenor, and a
duo for both. The rest of the Opera is described as not rising above medi-
ocrity. The scenery is superb, and there is a view of Lisbon by moonlight
which excites universal admiration. The principal parts were supported by
Madame Stoltz and Duprez.

The monument to the memory of Moli^re, which is to ornament the Rue
Richelieu, is rapidly advancing towards completion. It is to consist of a
fountain and a statue of Moli^re, with two allegorical figures of comedy.
The statue is to be cast in metal from a model by M. Seurre. The figures of
comedy are sculptured in Carara marble by rradier. The architectural
ornaments of the fountain are tolerably well advanced ; and at present the
workmen are employed on the great basin, which is to be composed of the
beautiful stone of Chateau Landon. It is expected that the whole will be
finished by the 15th of January, on which day (the anniversary of MoUere's
birth), the monument will be inaugurated. Directly opposite to the fountain
stands the house in which the great dramatic poet breathed his last. It is
No. 34, in the Rue Richelieu. Moliere's apartments were situated in the
entresol^ and they communicated with those occupied by Armande Bejart,
who lodged on the ground floor, now the shop of the shoemaker, Lyons.
In the internal fitting up, that is to say, the painting and decoration of the
walls, &c., Moliere's apartments have undergone but little change, since the
great dramatist occupied them : the bedroom, indeed, remains just as it was
in his life-time. The painting on the ceiling, which is the work of a pupil
of Philip de Champaigne, is almost obliterated. On one side of a small
square antechamber are two folding doors with looking-glass panels, opening
into a large circular apartment, walled wicli wainscoat,and painted in a gray tint.
The gilding which once adorned the mouldings is now entirely defaced. The
room is lighted by three ver}' broad windows, one of which (that facing the door)
looks out on the Rue Montpensier, and in Moliere's time it commanded a view
of the gardens of the Palais Royal. The position of the fireplace has been
changed ; but its original place is marked by a mirror surmounted by a paint-
ing. This picture, which represents a mythological subject, is correctly drawn,
and the warmth and force of the colouring prove it to be the work of an able
artist Within the last week or two a marble tablet has been fixed up in
front of the house, recording that Moli^re died there on the 17th of February,
1673, at the age of fifty-one.

GERMANY.

Eugene Sue's popular novel, * Les Myst^res de Paris,' has suggested the idea
of a work of a similar kind, which now appears in occasional portions in the
* Hamburger Neue Zeitung.' It is entitled ' Die Geheimnisse von Hamburg?

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIV. ^ O

648 MtMellaneous Ijtterary Notidi^

In the Prussian capital too 'Die Mysterien von Berlin' are annooDced.
The author of these last-named *Myst«rieif is understood to be a mannriio
has had the opportunity of obsenring life in the highest circles*

Among the numerous publications which at dbis season of the year inue
from the press of Germany, under the designation of * Taschenbucher (Pocket-
books), Almanacs, &c, and which are the parents of our English ' Annuals,'
there is one pubhshed at Ratisbon. entitled ' Cbarites/ It is e<£ted by Dr.
Darenberger, private secretary to the Crown Prince of. Bavaria. The
number for the year 1844, which has |ust made its appearance, oontains
several poetic emisions of his majesty the King of Bavaria, (among them
are distiches on fifteen Bavarian artists,) and also a poena from the pen dfUie
Crown Prince.

Dr. Bohraer lias recently returned to FrankforVon-^he-Mainej after a long
lour in various parts of Germany and Austria. He has cotiecced a laige
supply of materials for his historical labours, and has obtained leave to make
■lany copies and extracts from the archives in the Austriaa libraries. It is
understood to be Dr. Bohmer's intention to publbh a second part of lis
* Pontes Rerum Germanicarum,' the first part of which a^^^red at Stut^g&rd
in the beginning of the present year.

A letter from Dresden mentions that the recently-discovered Venus of
Titian, which now adorns the picture-gallery* excites the admiration of a&
true lovers of art. This splendid painting it appears must have been hiddes
from view for upwards of a century, and was recently found covered with
dust, in a place where it liad been deposited among some rubbish. Its m-
eovery is due to the exertions of Mattel, the director of the gallery^ and the
academic council.

The Feuilleton of a German journal has recently contained, under the title
of * Literarische Silhouetten,' a series of sketches of some of the most popuhr
living writers of Germany. From one of these sketches we extract the follow-
ing description of the Countess Hahn-Hahn, of whose ' Reiae Briefe' a notiee
lately appeared in this Review. — (See No. LX.) Aiier some smart comments
on the lady's writings, the author of the * Silhouetten' thus prooeeds. *' Ilelt
some curiosity respecting the personal appearance of the Countess Habo-
fiahn. My imagination bad painted her portrait in colours suggested by the
tone and character of her writing^. I had pictured her as a young, beauti£ttl,
and elegant woman. On my introduction to her I discovered my Biistake.
The countess is a lady about forty years of age, with an exceedingly r«(%
complexion. The eye, the loss of which she attributes to Dreffenbach'^opeift-
tion, disfigures her very much, as it is overgrown by a sort of thick white film.
The other eye has a pleasing goodhumoured expression. Unfortunately her
teeth are large and ill-formed ; but their defects are lost sight of when she
converses. Her figure is slender^ but rather too tall. Her hands and feetane
elegant, perfectly amtocratk, I had expected that the proneness to ceoqure
which pervades the writings of the Countess would also prevail in iter con-
versation. Here I was agreeably disappointed. Her words are as ^oh as the
ringlets of fair hair, which flow on her cheeks. Her language and her voice
harmonize beautifully together. There is nothing harsh or disoordant ia
either, and both are imbued with a tone of melancholy which seems to sprii^
from a suffering but gentle spirit. Once or twice \ said within myself can tbis
be the authoress of the * Erinnerungen ao und aus Frankreich/ — a work which
seems to be the mere outpourings of an ill-natured and prejudiced mind,
boldly condemning what it does not understand. In the romance of ' Ulricb,'
the authoress evinces a more amiable and womanly feeling; though the
laults I have just objected to, here and there peep out. In diort, the Coaotess

Miscellaneous Literary Notides. 549

Hahn-Hahn does not show herself to the best advantage in her writings.
She is much more agreeable as a woman than as an authoress."

The official Journal of the Wurtemberg government announces the af^
pointment of Dr. Dinglestedt to the post of librarian to the king.

GREECE.

Letters from Athens mention the death of Professor Uhrichs, of the Otho
University. Ulrichs, who was a native of Bremen, was appointed in the
year 1884 professor of the Latin language, and at a subsequent period lec-
turing professor of Latin philology, in the Otho University. His varied
knowledge and acquirements, but more especially his profound learning as a
philologist and antiquarian, gained for him the esteem and admiration of the
professors and students of the Athenian University. One of the conse-
quences of the revolirtion of September last was the dismissal of all fo*
reigners holding appointments unaer the Greek government. This measure
extended to the foreign professors of the University ; and in one day Feder,
Hertzog, Ulrichs, Fabritlus, Landerer, and Amici, received intimation that
their functions had ceased. This was a fatal blow to Ulrichs, who, with his
family, depended for support solely on the emoluments derived from his
professorship. This misfortune, preying deeply on his mind, increased the
feeble state of health under which he had been previously suffering, and
speedily terminated his life. He died on the 2d of October last.

Among the German professors who, like Ulriclis, were dismissed froin
their posts in the University of Athens, was Dr. Ross, the distinguished
archaeologist. He has been appointed Professor of Archseology in the Uni-
versity of Jena, and is commissioned to pursue his learned researches in
Greece and Turkey, for the space of two years, at the expense of the
Prussian government.

The treasures of classical literature known to be buried in the convents of
Mount Athos have for some time past excited considerable interest. A few
years ago M. Minoi de Mynas was sent to Greece on a mission from the French
government, for the purpose of exploring the libraries of Mount Athos, and if
possible rescuing their contents from destruction. M. Mynas has lately returned
to France, carrying with him numerous highly valuable manuscripts. Among
them are a collection of Fables in choliambic verse, by Babrias, of which
only a few fragments were hitherto known ; — a portion of the twentieth book
of Polybius ; — several writings of Dexippus and Eusebius ; — a fragment by
the historian Pryseas ; — a new set of fables by -^sop, with a life of the au-
thor J — a work on Greek Syntax, by Gregory of Corinth ; — an unpublished
grammar by Theodosius of Alexandria ; — a Treatise on Gymnastics, by Phi-
lostratus ; — some copies of laws ; — lexicons and grammars ; — comments on the
Greek poets, and various other works.

Some violent storms which have recently visited the Carpathian Sea have
been attended with circumstances highly interesting to the observers of natural
phenomena. The Carpathian Sea, it may be observed, is a name given by
some geographers to that part of the Mediterranean which surrounds Candia
and extends from that iskmd towarck the Nile. It is still what Horace em-
phatically called it a * Mare tumultuosum,' and its recent commotions seem to
realize the pictures bequeathed to us by the poets of antiquity. Frbra a letter
which has appeared in the columns of a continental journal, we extract the
following particulars :

''During and after the autumnal months, several shocks of earthquake were
felt in the neighbourhood of Crete and Rhodes, particularly to the west and
iiorth of the latter island. A gentleman who was in that quarter at the time
of the commotions writes that the north wind which prevails in the ^gean Sea

2 02

550 Mtsceilaneous Literary Notities,

during the summer, commenced this year later than usual, but that it was re-
markable for its vehemence and tlninterruptcd continuance. To the south-
ward, between Melos and Rhodes, Uie storm was so violent from the 9th to
the 15th of September, that no ship could keep the s^ In the evening of
the 15th, the force of the wind abated, and early on the 16th there was almost
a calm off Casos and Carpathos, and the temperature changed to an oppres-
sive heat. Towards mid-day there appeared in the north, over Calymnos,
Cos, and Nisyros, a collection of black clouds, but the north wind again aros^
and heavy showers of rain appeared to fall on Casos and the western extre^
mity of Crete, while only a few drops readied Carpathos and Rhodes. To-
wards the evening of the 16th, the north wind resumed its former vehemence^
and continued to blow with equal violence to the 20th. On the 17th it was
observed that the degree of cold was quite uncommon for the latitude of these
islands. Within the sunny shores of Rhodes, the thermometer fell to 10 de-
grees of Reaumur. On the night of the 16th, and about daybreak on the 17tl^
tne high calcareous masses of the little island, Chalke^ od the north-wesSt
coast of Rhodes, experienced their first serious shocks of earthquake knows
to have occurred ; for those with which they were visited in 1622 indicated
only a slight commotion. The shocks, the central point of which seemed to
be on the southwest coast of the island, were on this occasion so violent tbs^
houses of slight construction were thrown down, aud large rents appeared in
the walls of others. Part of a rock on the south-west of the island broke loose
and rolled into the sea. Tliis first shock was felt in all the surrounding
islands^ and the commotions continued during the whole week in Chaike aod
Rhodes, but they became gradually more feeble. However, <m Sunday,
October 1, half an hour before daybreak, a violent commotion agitated all&
ships in the port. More than twenty houses in the adjoining village were
thrown down, and the walls of all the rest were shattered. The shocb,
though in general very slight, recurred almost regularly every quarter of an
'hour until noon. It was now reported that a column of smoke had been seen
behind the promontory whence the mass of rock which rolled into the sea was
torn, but no eye-witness verified the phenomenon. Some slight movements
were felt on the morning of the 1st ot October in Chaike, but soon afler mid-
night a severe and long-continued shock agitated the bastions. On the 6th of
October, at two in the morning, a very violent convulsion occurred. The shocks
had been felt there from the 1 7th of September to the 1st of October. On
the contrary, no commotion had been felt at Calymnos, except one which oc-
curred several days before the 17th, and which was accompanied by an uncom-
mon vapour and much moisture. The islands of Chaike, Svme, Carpathos,
and Casos, consist altogether of masses of calcareous rock, ^e heart of the
•island of Rliodes, the lofty Atabyron is also calcareous rock and marble, but tbe
smaller hills and the promontories on the coast are chiefly sandstone. Nisy-
ros is a burnt-out volcano, the crater of which opens into the centre of?' the
island, where it forms a basin contaimng some pools of sulphur. The high-
land of Cos, which has sulphurous and other warm springs, i& also of volcanic
•origin. Pathraos is entirely volcanic The immense calcareous motint on
. Calymos, more than 2000 feet hi^h, consistsof a conglomeratfon of substaticcs,
tbe chief material of which is bruised pumice-stone. The little island of Leros,
between Calymnos and Pathmos, consists of chalk and slate. The only
^island not visited by the writer of these observations is Telos, sitnateif be-
tween Nisyros and Chaike. It is probably also volcanic.**

MigceHaneous J4terart/ liotieef. 551

HOLLAND.

The Rotterdam Musical Association has cotnmissioned the composer Cora-
mer, who is now id Berlin, to superintend an edition of the principal works
of the old Netherland composers, substituting the modern system of notation
for that in which they are written.

At Leyden an association has been formed for the purpose of reprinting
some of the most curious and scarce productions of the early literature of the
Netherlands.

HUNGARY.

Tlie General Assembly of the Hungarian Academy of Science and Litera-
ture held its annual public sitting in Pesth, on the 8th of Octobei: last. The
plan of this academy was first projected in the year 1825, by Count Szechenyi,
"who in furtherance of its establishment subscribed a year's amount of his re-
venues. It is supported by voluntary contributions, and its fimds liave now
attained a very considerable amount. The academy is divided into six prin-
cipal sections, via. — Philology, Philosophy, Jurisprudence, History, Mathe-
matics and Natural Science. Besides the members forming a directing council,
there are honorary members, salaried members, and corresponding members.
Tlie sittings are always held in Pesth, where the resident members have
weekly meetings for lectures on literary and scientific subjects. There is a
general meeting once every year, when prizes are distributed and new mem-
bers chosen. The lectures delivered in the weekly meetings of the academy
at Pesth, aflbrd ample proof that the taste for science and literature is more
advanced in Hungary than is generally believed.

ITALY.

Rome. — A work has recently been published in Rome, entitled * Lezioni
sulla Divina Commedia, preceduta da un' Discorso critico sopra tutti i Manos-
jcritti, r Edizioni e i Commentatori antichi e moderni di Dante Alighieri/ &c.
The author of this work is the Advocate Filippo Mercuri, who has already
earned reputation by his writings on several subjects connected with ancient
art. He is one of those who find allegories in every thing Dante has written,
and he explains them by references to historical events. He supports bis
views by a vast deal of curious and interesting matter which he has fonnd
in some old and hitherto unprinted chronicles. It is the author's intention
to write a life of Dante from old manuscripts preserved in the library of the
Vatican, and in the private collections of several Roman nobles. In this
fortiicoming work, Mercuri promises to give some specimens of a manus-
cript commentary on the Purgatorio and the Paradiso, written in Latin, by
Franceschino di Poggia Romana, at Faenza, in the year 1412.

Prince Joseph Poniatowsk/s romantic opera, *■ Bonifazio di Geremei,* was
performed, for the first time, on^ the 29th of November, at the Teatro Ar-
gentini, in Rome. An Italian journal observes, that all the principal Roman
nobility (il fior della nobi&ia Romana) were present, and at the conclusion of
the peiformance the composer was called on the stage times out of number.

Cornelius arrived in Rome from Berlin in the beginning of November, It
is his intention to pass the winter there, and to employ himself in tnaktng
sketches for several new fresco paintings.

On the site of the ancient city of Veii, in Etruria, a curious tomb has re-
cently been discovered. It is built of sandstone, and contains two cham-«
bers of an oblong form. The wall of the first chamber, which has an open*

552 Mhcelltxneous Ldterary Notices.

ing communicating with the second apartment, is decorated by painted
figures of various kinds, representing sphinxes, lions, and men on norseback
and on foot. The style of these paintings very much resembles that of Cometo,
only that it is more ancient, and is perfectly in keeping with the style of the
ornaments of bronze and clay contained in the tomb. The structure must
be anterior to the year 360 b. c, in which year the city of Veii was conquered
and destroyed by Camillus, and also anterior to the period when the influ-
ence of Greek art was known in Etruria!

Frev, the Russian artist, is at present in Rome. He accompamed the ex-
pedition to Egypt, under Dr. Lepsius, and, unfortunately, he had all his
drawings stolenby a marauding party of Arabs. His health has been much
injured by the Egyptian climate.

The Archaeological Academy of Rome gave out for the year 1842 the
following prize questions of high interest in relation to Italian antiquities :
"1. Is the heavy coin, the as graven which is not Roman, and has no iu-
scription^ to be attributed to any Italian people, and, among the cUfferent
nations of antiquity, to which ? 2. Is its origin anterior to the fourth cen-
tury of Rome ? 3. What consequences may be deduced from the comparison
of this coin with the artistical medals of the people of ancient Italy, or with
those of any trans-mediterranean people, with a view to ascertain the rise
and progress of the art? Dr. Achille Gennarelli, author of the Text of the
Museo Gregoriano, obtained the prize, and his Treatise is already published.
He ascribes the <ss grave to the people of Italy, and, reasoning tnereon, he
assigns a high degree of civilization to the primitive ages.

An event is on the tapis here, which causes much satisfaction amongst
the English artists. The English students liave hitherto been unable to
follow their professional avocations without many disadvantages, as the in-
stitutes here have not afforded them facilities to carry out their artistic pur-
suits ; not from want of courtesy, but from actual want of space and accom-
modation. The British Minister resident at Naples, Sir George Hamilton,
has opened a subscription among the English nobility and others, resorting to
the Italian States. The fund already amounts to near 3000/., with whidi it
is intended to erect an academ}', in which all English students will be enabled
to pursue their studies throughout the year, instead of, as heretofore, remain-
ing inactive for months. The establishment is to contain all that is necessaiy
for their use, and also a large and magnificent collection of casts from the an-
tique, and the chief works of the most celebrated modem sculptOKs, &c. ; Hke-
wise an extensive library.

Some rich veins of true fossil coal have been discovered in the Maremma.

A hypogeum of considerable extent has been excavated near Cortona. Its
construction is Etruscan, not Cyclopean. Eleven rooms have been deared
out, and a number still remain to be explored. Nothing but a few vases have
as yet been discovered.

A sketch of the life of Francesco Gianni, the celebrated improvisatore, has
been published at Rome, and gives an amusing account enough of his literary
life and fortunes, his squabbles with Vincenzo Monti, &c. He was a protege
of Napoleon, who gave him a pension of 6000 francs, a very comfortable in-
come for Italy, and the Cross of the Legion of Honour.

TiTBiN. — A machine invented by the engraver Giacomo Carelli, for pro-
ducing exact copies of works in bas-relief, has been attracting considerable
attention here. The fidelity and clearness of the impression is such, that
even a practised eye can hardly at first glance distinguish the copy of the
medal from the medal itself, when placed side by side on paper. The works
of A. Collas are well known to most of our readers ; it is sufficient therefore
to explain that the engravings executed by Signor Carellfs machine closely

Miscdlamaus IMerary NaticoMm 553

resemble those produced by M. Collas' process. In one important respect
however, the Italian invention promises to be of &r higher value than its
predecessor, inasmuch as it is adapted, not merely for producing exact impres-
sions on steel or copper of the smaller bas-reliefs, such as medals, coins, &c.,
but it will engrave, in any size which may be required, the largest works of
this class, the grandest designs of Ghiberti, Donatello, Gonova, &c. A dis-
covery like this is of very great value, diffusing, as it wiU, at a comparatively
low price, exact representations of treasures of art, which are now mono*
pob'zed by a few wealthy individuals.

Naples. — Signor Raphael Liberatore died at Naples on the 2d of June
last. He was one of the principal compilers of the * Vocaboiario della Lingua
Italiana.* He was also editor of the *Annali Civili del liegno delle Due SiciUe/
and of the * Lucifero,' one of the best of the Neapolitan weekly journals. His
father, Pasquale Liberatore, author of several works on legislation, &C.9 died
a few months before him.

Venice. — The * Enciclopedia Italiana,' now in course of publication, lias
lately been enriched with several valuable contributions to philosophical
science, from the pen of Professor Rivato. His biographies of Des Cartes
and Cassini, and his essay on * Cause and Causality, are especially worth the
attentive perusal of our metaphysical students, and of the contributors to
the current English Encyclopedias and Biographical Dictionaries.

Bologna. — An interesting dissertation has been published from the pen of
Professor Sauro, on the portrait of Dante, said to have been discovered
among the figures in the fresco crucifixion in San Fermo. The professor is
quite certain of the identity of the portrait with the poet, but his proofs are
not altogether so convincing as might be desired. Signior Cavaltoni, the
bookseller, has written a pamphlet in answer to the professor, which is also
well worth a perusal ; as, indeed, any thing of the least merit, connected with
the great poet, must needs be.

Pisa. — Literature and Science have sustained a heavy loss in the death
of Ippohto Rosellini, professor of archeeology in the university of Pisa, and
author of the colossal work on the monuments of Nubia and Egypt. It is
some compensation to be able to add, that the great undertaking in ques-
tion, commenced by Champollion, and continued by Rosellini, will, there is
every reason to believe, be adequately completed by Father Ungarelli, the
distinguished Orientalist and antiquarian^ to whom Rosellini bequeathed
his manuscripts.

Florence. — It is announced that the work of Galileo, on the satellites of
Jupiter, the discovery of which in the Pitti library we mentioned in our last
number, will be published in the early part of next year, under the superin-
tendence of Signior Alberi, to whom tlie discovery of this manuscript, so
long deemed lost, is owing. It seems curious, however, that there should
have been such a doubt on the subject, since in the catalogue of the Galilean
manuscripts in the library of which it formed part, it is entered and described
under three different heads. The work is not wholly Galileo's ; for, before
he had concluded his observations, blindness came upon him, and he then
entrusted the completion of his labours to his friend. Father Raineri, whose
portion of the manuscript will, of course, also be printed.

The progress of astronomical inquiry since that period has superseded the
treatise in a scientific point of view, but in every other respect the public
cation will be of the greatest interest.

During the year 1842 there were printed in Italy 8042 books (the number
printed in 1841 was 2999). Of these, 1769, or about three-fifths, were pub-
lished in the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom ; 508 in Piedmont ; 23^ in Tus-
cany; 216 in the Pi^ States ; 174 in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies ;

19 10 ^^'^duciiy, of rModeoa ;= w^ }\, in Hie «tate of Lupc^; .. . Of .(bese -worktv
^ coDsLderaJble portion wese translations. : < ;. i

■'■■■■■■■ ■; ■■■■■■ "i^ ■"•;•■ NOfiWlY. ' ■ ^^ ■■'!■■:•'■■■• ^^■:^ '■•■;;.'••

I ■ . . ' . •• . i •

When the congress of SeandinavUn naturali0ts ^sseopblfqd last<st|ninier ifi
Stockliolm, it wasdecide^ that tlae meeting of next yecM^ shoujdr^take; j^lac? iw
Christiania. The president observed that tbisf decision waait«b^.rflgre|!(lsd|
inasmuch as several distinguished naturalists, 'members of tbe J^wiij^ ^rautb
sion, would be predated from taking part in tb6.iseeliiifig».||p,jbsB9ieti^
permitted to enter Norway. The congress immediately resolved WaM'fQ^
a petition to the Norwegian government, praying that those J^wiBhjaa^iailists
who wished to join the scientific meeting* should be aUoif^^ta s^^fihifl
Christiania during its meeting. This request* to which the coiMiqfl of ;Slste
and the ministry of Norway were favourable, has been aop^ed.to*, hJt i8>)U>r
derstood that the Storthing, in its next session, will vote> for. fuUl and entir^
religious liberty throughout Norway. . ^ -^c. ,:

•;

PRUSSIA.

The personal reminiscences of Carl von Holtei, two volumes of which nans
recently been publbhed in Berlin under the title of ' Forty Years,' are said to
be now exciting considerable interest in the literary circles of Germany. t

A new oratorio, entitled * John Huss,' composed by Dr. Karl Lowe^ is
highly extolled by the musical critics of Berlin. The composer has vaUtt'
woven through the oratorio some old melodies which were adopted as bymii
tunes by the early reformers ; an idea, probably, borrowed from Meyerbeei^s
• Huguenots.'

A private letter from Bonn contains the following curious story. It was neces-
sary to state, in the usual Latin programme at the close of the last university
term, that the lectures on language and comparative philolo^ would not be
given, because the professor who was to deliver them (Dr. Kosegarten) was
travelling abroad. The writer of the programme, desiring to annoonoe thr&ct
in choice Latinity, placed after the professor's name the words^.' Barbaras tfntt
per^rans^' (wandering in foreign lands). The director of' the police, wfao, it
would seem, was not very profoundly versed in classic lore^ interpreted tte
word * barbaras* in the sense it commonly hears in modem labgua^^. The
country in which the prbfessor was travelling was Russia j and ^le ca^ar was
at that moment in Berlin on a visit to the king: die expression was plainif &
most offensive allusion to Russia — perhaps, even an insuhto the czar hiiosel^
Accordingly orders were forthwith issued for tearing dt>wn tbeprogiamBMS
which had been posted up, and for seizing all the copies remahung in tiie
chancery of the university. This affair has excited no little 'amiisem^itst
Bonn. i' '>..•!.- .

RUSSIA. . ■;: :;'. ..:..: ;;■ ..v;

Gretscfa, the imperial councillor of state, and editor of the< 'Norths Bik!
has been commissioned by the Russian government to = write an wmiMisti
Russia, with a view to counteract the alleged misstatements ot* the fVetocih
work lately published by tiie Marc^uis de Cusdne. ' The docnm^tt 16r
Gretsch's work are furnished from ofiicial soutx^es. Tb<6 author b ^th^ it
in the Rtissian language, and the slieets are sent one by one Id M^roa
Kotzebue, who translates them into German. A French tran^tioh witt tdso
be published under the sanction of the Russian goyernment^

Professor Jacobi, whose numerous experiments in electricity are well known

in th^ l^atnaed^orld, ha^ recieiV^d iristfuctii^ii frorti thir'littpetdt' Niipblfe tar
the establishment of an electrical td^^tiph betwfeefr St P6feiriilniT^ atid
Tsarko6-Selo. A trial of this galvanic correspondence between the emperor's
V inter palace and the hotel of th^ f^ Q^^ ^^ proved perfectly successful.

The College Counsellor Oertel has just published a * French- Russian and
Rusgiati^Freheh Dicliomlry,* m two vilume^. A thilxivoUtfttie, which ti in
|nrepdmtioif>, witl cdnfiain.the tertnsl of natural histbry find of the scienc es.

Froteior Buseh; of the Medlco-GhirurgScal Academy of St. Petersburg
died on ^e' Mh of November,' W the age of seventy-two. Dr. Busch had been
the prin^'palthedic^phictitioiier in the Russian capital, for upwards of half
Ifcel^ryi • .•■"•■

Prof<^dsor Btfei^, of the St. Petersburg Academy of Scien6e, has during tlie
last feir years mad^ several antiquarian excursions into the most northern re-
glOl>s bf Rt^Sia. He had recently mturtied from a visit to some of the small
bland&' adjacent to the Finnish coast. On those islands, as well as in several
pai^ of Lapleihd, and even in Novajo-Semhla, Professor Baer found masses
of stones ranged in rows and winding in alabyrinthian form. The artistical ar^
rangement of these stones bears evidence that they have been put together by
human hands. In spite of the most active researcnes, Professor Baer has been
unable to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion respecting the origin and object
of these ancient monuments. Ill Lapland the inhabitants alle^d that these
labyrinths had existed from the remotest antiquity, and that they everywhere
bore the name of Babylon ; but no one could say by whom or for vrhat prii^-
pose th^y had been constructed. They were entirely overgrown by lichens,
which, as those plants are of very tardy growth, is another proof of the anti-
quity of the monuments. They are highly prized by the people, who use
every precaution to preserve them from decay. Professor Baer believe^
them to be of Finnish or Russian origin.

SPAIN.

M. Gachard, the Belgian archivist, is busily pursuing his researches here.
After having explored the national library of Madrid, the libraries of the £s-
curial^ and of the Royal Academy of History, be set out for Simancas, where
the aiehives: of the Spanish monarcliy are preserved. No foreigner was ever
before aHovred to inspect that celebrated collection, and even native Spaniards
do not easdly gain admittance to it. M. Gachard was therefore singularly
foittunat& in being permitted not only to examine, but to make copies and
extracts from all documents relating to the history of Belgium, of which there
is a vast number at Simancas. M. Gachard bestowed particular attention on
the examination of the documents relative to the revo]uti<»i of the sixteenth
rceoturyk On this subjekst he found the most complete and valuable historical
records in the original correspondence of Margaret of Parma, Cardinal Grain-
ville, and the Duke of Alba, with Philip II., and numerous letters of Counts
Egmont and Horn, the Prince of Orange, and other eminent personages.
The letters of the Duchess of Parma to the king, which are in Italian, the
only language the princess could write, are all autographs, and very inter-
esting. The correspondence of Granville is still more voluminous ; it is in
Danish, and all \n nis own handwriting. M. Gachard had previously made
notes of all the correspondence of Granville with the court of Madrid pre-
served at Besan^on, and now in the course of publication by the French go-
yemment. The letters of the cardinal, in the library at Besan9on, form biit
a small portion of those preserved at Simancas.

19 io tb^'^dudi^y of rModQoa ^ a^ } I. in the «Ute of Luco^*:. . ^ Qf .lh«9e -woriEs^
a coDsider«ble portion wese traoelalkiiis. : . . «;....,r ^ > ,. ,, . m'i

■■■ ■; ■ ■••;^ '■;•• ■ NORWAY. ■, ' ■•;■■■ ••'• •'■^•- ■■■:•■■": ..'■•;:"

When the congress of SeandinavUn naturalists i^ssaablQd Jbs't^tqiifliec JS
Stockliolm, it was decided that the meeting of J[iext yelM'^hou)A^tak^^ac?jw
Christiania. The president observed that this' decision wa&jt^rb^.rfigr^^iQ^d,'
inasmuch as several distingui^ied naturalists, 'membcffs Q€':t^e' J^wil^ persmtj
sion, would be pre^nted from taking part in thejaeelting, :i)p,j^Es^tQ> j^eiqg
permitted to enter Norway. The congress immediately resolved Uk.iiMv99
a petition to the Norwegian government, praying that those J^ewi^h AatftjsiQsts
who wished to join the scientific meeting* should be aUow^ taaoj^fOrjiff
Christiania during its meeting. This request, to which ^e cotuaqll of ^male
and the ministiy of Norway were favourable, has been acceded, to^ bJt JthNti^
derstood that the Storthing, in its next session, will vote for >fiiU,.an(| evl^
religious liberty throughout Norway. : :- ^-r : :,.)■:■.

- ; I • \ w . ■

PRUSSIA.

Tiie personal reminiscences of Carl von Holtei, two volumes of which. nare
recently been publbhed in Berlin under the title of ' Forty Years/ are said to
be now exciting considerable interest in the literary circles of Gecoaany* <

A new oratorio, entitled * John Huss/ composed by Dr. Karl Lowe^ is
highly extolled by the musical critics of Berlin. The composer hasintei^
woven through the oratorio some old melodies which were adopted as byma
tunes by the early reformers ; an idea, probably, borrowed from Meyerbeer^s
• Huguenots.'

A private letter from Bonn contains the following curions story. It was neces-
sary to state, in the usual Latin programme at the close of the last university
term, that the lectures on language and comparative philolo^ would not be
given, because the professor who was to deliver them (Dr. Kosegarten) was
travelling abroad. The writer of the programme, desiring to amxNmoe thr&ct
in choice Latinity, placed after the professor's name the wordsi' Barbans teai&
per^raDS^' (wandering in foreign lands). The director of< the police, nfkoj it
would seem, was not very profoundly versed in classic lors^ iateiprcted tte
word * barbaras' in the sense it commonly bears in modem lakigua^.' IBat
country in which the professor was travelling was Russia j and die ctor was
at that moment in Berlin on a visit to the king: the expressmi visas. plamlftt
most offensive allusion to Russia — perhaps, even an iasuhto the czar himseK
Accordingly orders were forthwith issued for tearing =dt>wn theipiogsamBies
which had been posted up, and for seizing all the copies remamis^ in the
clianoery of tlie university. This affair has excited no little ■amusenient'at
Bonn. . . ; - 1 . Ti

RUSSIA. . ":;.•.• :,:,■;■■. ■;.-I

Gretsdi, the imperial councillor of stat», and editor of UiC * Northern Blab/
has been commissioned by the Russian government to ^ write an aoe<»u^f^%f
Russia, with a view to counteract the alleged misi9ta«ementB ot* the Frtbch
trork lately published by tiie Marouis de Custine. ' The db(5firoentt'^r
Gretsch's work are furnished from ofliclal soutx^et. The < author b writitig it
in the Rtissian language, and the sheets are sent one by c»ie td J(l. Von
Kotzebue, who translates them into German. A French 4:ranslatioh wi^ tibo
be published under the sanction of the Russian goyernment.

Professor Jacobi, whose numerous experiments in electricity are well known

in the leatned world, ha^ receive instructions frorii the^'Ettperbr Nicolte for
tlie establisliment of an electrical ttilegriiph betwfeen St. PetewbnTg and
Tsarko^Selo. A trial of this galvanic correspondence between the emperor's
winter palace and the hotel of th^ Po^ Qfficehas proved perfectly successful.

The College Counsellor Oertel has just published a ' French- Russian and
Russian^Fretvsh Dictionary,' in two v^umes. A third volufne, which 1^ in
preparation, will confiain.the terms of natural history and of the sciences.

rrofessor Bnsch; of the Med^o-Chirurgical Academy of St. Petersburg
died on the 5ih of Novembe*, at the age of seventy-two. Dr. Busch had been
the prindpal medical practitioner in the Russian capital for upwards of half
a century.

Professor Baer, of the St. Petersburg Academy of Science, has during the
last few years made several antiquarian excursions into the most northern re-
gions of Rifssia. He has recently mtumed from a visit to some of the small
islands adjacent to the Finnish coast. On those blands, as well as in several
parts of Lapland, and even in Novajo-Sembla, Professor Baer found masses
of stones ranged in rows and winding in alabyrinthian form. The artistical ar^
rangement of these stones bears evidence that they have been put together by
human hands. In spite of the most active researcnes. Professor Baer has been
unable to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion respecting the origin and object
of these ancient monuments. In Lapland the inhabitants alleged that these
labyrinths had existed from the remotest antiquity, and that they everywhere
bore the name of Babylon ; but no one could say by whom or for what pur-
pose they had been constructed. They were entirely overgrown by lichens,
which, as those plants are of very tardy growth, is another proof of the anti-
quity of the monuments. They are highly prized by the people, who use
every precaution to preserve them from decay. Professor Baer believe*
them to be of Finnish or Russian origin.

SPAIN.

M. Gacbard, the Belgian archivist, is busily pursuing his researches here.
After having explored the national library of Machid, the libraries of the £s-
curial, and of the Royal Academy of History, be set out for Simancas, where
the archives of the Spanish monarchy are preserved. No foreigner was ever
before allovred to inspect that celebrated collection, and even native Spaniards
do not easily gain admittance to it. M. Gachard was therefore singularly
fortunate in being permitted not only to examine, bat to make copies and
extracts from all documents relating to the history of Belgium, of which there
is a vast number at Simancas. M . Gacbard bestowed particular attention on
the examination of the documents relative to the revoluti<»i of the sixteenth
century. On this subject he found the most complete and valuable historical
records in the original correspondence of Margaret of Parma, Cardinal Gran-
ville, and the Duke of Alba, with Philip II., and numerous letters of Counts
Egmont and Horn, the Prince of Orange, and other eminent personages.
The letters of the Duchess of Parma to tlie king, which are in Italian, the
only language the princess could write, are all autographs, and very inter-
esting. The correspondence of Granville is still more voluminous ; it is in
Spanish, and all in his own handwriting. M. Gachard had previously made
notes of all the correspondence of Granville with the court of Madrid pre-
served at Besan9on, and now in the course of publication by the French go-
vernment. The letters of the cardinal, in the library at Be3an9on, form iMit
a small portion of those preserved at Simancas.

6H Jiifyfi^nfm^.^lferiwyi^

19 io tbo^'^ducj]^ of-Modena; aiyl II in the«Ute of l«uccpu- Of .tb»g igptfa^
a coDsider«ble portion were traoslatkms. .

NOKWAY. • . •.,::■■ r ::;',. -:r

When the congress of Scandinavian naturalists asseotblod Jt^tsvpxxm^ iS
Stockliolm, it was decided that tlae meeting of next year ahouldtakeplac^jtt
Christiania. The president observed that this* decision w^tAf^b^.tegfif^!^
inasmuch as several distinguished naturalists, .members o^tbe J^wiift pertiuib
sion, would be promoted from taking part in the meetin]^ .|h>- jtei!%etit9! j^eii^
permitted to enter Norway. The congress immediately resolved ip:aM(99
a petition to the Norwegian government, praying tbattboae JewsBhjaatlMdsts
who wished to join the scientific meeting* should be allow^ to i^^^iifvi)i4
Christiania during its meeting. This request, to which tbe cotmoil of ^ma(e
and the ministnr of Norway were favourable, has been acceded, to* .^Jtis^.Bl^
derstood that the Storthing, in its next session, will vote for. fuU an(| &pfy^
religious liberty throughout Norway. ■■ ■ ?m e/^

PRUSSIA.

The personal reminiscences of Carl von Holtei, two volumea of which narie
recently been published in Berlin under the title of Forty Years,' are said to
be now exciting considerable interest in the literary circles of Geroaany- •

A new oratorio, entitled * John Huss/ composed hy Dr. Karl Lowe^ is
highly extolled by the musical critics of Berlin. The composer has intei'
woven through the oratorio some old melodies which were adopted as hymn
tunes by the early reformers ; an idea, probably, borrowed from M^erbeei^s
• Huguenots.'

A private letter from Bonn contains the following curious story. It was neces-
sary to state, in the usual Latin programme at the close of the last university
term, that the lectures on language and comparative philolo^ would not be
given, because the professor who was to deliver them (Dr. Kosegarten) was
travelling abroad. The writer of the programme, desiring to amxNmoe thr&ct
in choice Latinity, placed after the professor's name the words^/ Bariiaias tfntt
per^raDS^' (wandering in foreign lands). The director ofthepolioey ntboi it
would seem, was not very profoundly versed in classic lore, rateipreted tte
word *barbaras* in the sense it commonly bears in modem lai^a^.' Hb
country in which the professor was travelling was Russia j and die Caa was
at that moment in Berlin on a visit to the king: die expression was plainly ft
most offensive allusion to Russia — perhaps, even an insuhto thecaaurhiim^
Accordingly orders were forthwith issued for tearing dt>wn theippogsamaies
which had been posted up, and for seizing all the copies remaiiung in die
chancery of the university. This affair has excited no little ■amusemoit'St
Bonn.

RUSSIA. . . ■■;::;. ;:/.;. s^

Gretscfa, the imperial councillor of state, and editor of d)e< < North)^ SHsb/
has been commissioned by the Russian government to ^vrrlte an aoeon^ff^f
Russia, with a view to counteract the alleged misstatements of the Fi^bcih
work lately published by die Marcjuis de Cusdne. The dOdnro^W i§r
Gretsch's work are furnished from oflicial soutx^esw The aut^r Ifl^ vtrithi^ it
in the Russian language, and the sheets are sent one by one Id M* Von
Kotzebue, who translates them into German. A French translation wittti^
be published under the sanction of the Russian governments

Professor Jacobi, whose numerous experiments in electricity are well known

in the leahied world, ha^ recdv^ itistruciiotis frorii the^'Ertperbi^ Nitolte for
the establishment of an electrical ttilegi^ph between St. PetewbuTg and
Tsarko^Selo. A trial of this galvanic correspondence between the emperor's
winter palace and the hotel of th^ Po^ Office has proved perfect^ successful.

The College Counsellor Oertel has just published a ' French- Russian and
Russian^Fret^fch Dictlomlry,' in two v^umes. A third vdlufne, which i^ in
preparation, witl confiainlhe terms of natural history and of the sciences.

Professor Bnsch; of the MecBco-Chirurgical Academy of St. Petersburg
died on ifee 5ih of November, at the age of seventy-two. Dr. Busch had been
the prind'pal medical p^ctitioiier in the Russian capital for upwards of half
a century^

Professor Baei^, of the St. Petersburg Academy of Science, has during the
last few years made several antiquarian excursions into the most northern re-
gions of Rifssia. He has recently mturned from a visit to some of the small
islands adjacent to the Finnish coast. On those blands, as well as in several
parts of Lapland, and even in Novajo-Sembla, Professor Baer found masses
of stones ranged in rows and winding in alabyrinthian form. The artistical ar^
rangement of these stones bears evidence that they have been put together by
human hands. In spite of the most active researcnes. Professor Baer has been
unable to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion respecting the origin and object
of these ancient monuments. In Lapland the inhabitants alleged that these
labyrinths had existed from the remotest antiquity, and that they everywhere
bore the name of Babylon ; but no one could say by whom or for what pur-
pose they had been constructed. They were entirely overgrown by lichens,
which, as those plants are of very tardy growth, is another proof of the anti-
quity of the monuments. They are highly prized by the people, who use
every precaution to preserve them from decay. Professor Baer believe^
them to be of Finnish or Russian origin.

SPAIN.

M. Gachard, the Belgian archivist, is busily pursuing his researches here.
After having explored the national library of Machid, the libraries of the £s-
curial, and of the Royal Academy of History, be set out for Simancas, where
the archives of the Spanish monarchy are preserved. No foreigner was ever
before allovred to inspect that celebrated collection, and even native Spaniards
do not easily gain admittance to it. M. Gachard was therefore singularly
f(Mtunate in b«ng permitted not only to examine, bat to make copies and
extracts from all documents relating to the history of Belgium, of which there
is a vast number at Simancas. M. Gachard bestowed particular attention on
the examination of the documents relative to the revolati<Mi of the sixteenth
century. On this subjekst he found the most complete and valuable historical
records in the original correspondence of Margaret of Parma, Cardinal Gran-
ville, and the Duke of Alba, with Philip II., and numerous letters of Counts
Egmont and Horn, the Prince of Orange, and other eminent personages.
The letters of the Duchess of Parma to the king, which are in Italian, the
only language the princess could write, are all autographs, and very inter-
esting. The correspondence of Granville is still more voluminous ; it is in
Spanish, and all in his own handwriting. M. Gachard had previously made
notes of all the correspondence of Granville with the court of Madrid pre-
served at Besan9on, and now in the course of publication by the French go-
vernment. The letters of the cardinal, in the library at Be3an9on, form iMit
a small portion of those preserved at Simancas.

556 JdUeeOaneouM IM^dry Notices.

SWEDEN.

The Swedish merchant brig, the Bull, which recently returned to Stock-
holm, after a yoyaee of tliree years, has brought some curious information
from the PaciiCy fiaving touched kfc's^teral simall Island^ whidi probably
have not been visited by any European since Cook's time, besides four other
islands, which are not^manced in anT chart, and of which possession was
taken in the name of King Charles John. Tlie natives are a handsome race,
and very gentle in disposition and manners. They had never seen iron.

A peasant ktely engaged in ploughing in the neighbourhood of Wisby,
found an oval-shaped copper box, containing no less that 3350 silver coins,
and several pieces of silver. The smaller coins, about 380 in number, are
Anglo-Saxon, Danish and Norwegian, of the reigns of Kings Ethelred^ Canut^
Harold, Hardeknute, Edward, and Sven GriksoiL The larger coins, bepx th0
names of Cologne, Magdeburg, Mentz, Strasburg, Aussburg^ aiad other
German towns. All the coins are of the tenth and elevenui centuries*

On the 11th of November, the Stockholm academy of science gave a grand
banquet in celebration of the anniversary of the appointment of the edicN
brated Berzelius, to the post of secretary to the academy.

■ I

I :j , V- , »

■\ '

..<' 5$^}

,.....,■; v

LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL NEW WORKS

PDBUSHED ON THE CONTINENT.

From October to DeccskbsB; 1843, inclusive.

Aim, F., Handbuch der f^ranz. XJmgangsspracIie. Koln, Is. 6d.

Ahrens, H. L., de Graecae Linguae dialecta lib. U., de dialecto Dorica. EL

8vo. Gott 10«. 6d.
Alcantarae, P., de mieditatione et oratione libeQns aureus cur, Al. Sintzel. 12mo.

Augsburg^ iB. 6d.
AliSoli, J. F., Handbuch der bibL Alterthumskunde. 9 lief. 8yo. LandschMt*

Is. 6d.
Almanach de Gotha pour Tannee 1844. 16mo. Prachtang, 4s.
Alsen, T., Drewshofer Ackerwerkzeuge und Beackerungsmethode nebst den

Grundsatzen der rationellen Beackerung n. Construction der diesen Grund-

satzen. Sva Hit 31 grossen u 53 kleinen lithogr Tafdn. Levin.

12. Is. 6d.
Alt, H., der Christliche Cultus nach seinen Terschiedenen Entwickelung s formen

u. seinen einzelnen Theilen historisch dargestdlt. BerL 98. 6d.
Anweisung, praktische, zum Dagnerreotypiren. Nebst Beschreib. u. Abbild. der

dazu gehorigen Apparate. Leip, 16nu>. 28.
Apologie des ungarischen Slawismus. Svo. Leip, 38.

Aristophanes Lustspiele, Ubersezt, u. erlautert t. H. Muller. 8vo. Leip, 8s.
Aristotelis Categoriae et Topica cum Porphrii Jsagoge. ex recens Bekkeri. 8yo.

Leip, 3s.
' Hermeneutica, Analytica Elenctica recens Bekker. 8vo. Leip.

38. 6d.

Physica recens Bekker. 8yo. Leip, 2s. 6d.

Axmide-Memoires de deux Victimes de I'erreur et de la politique dn regne de

Louis XVJJUL et de son successeur. Par La Comtesse Hameth dlny. 2 vols.

8vo. Basel lis.
Amds, C. M., Gedichte, der neun Ausg. 12mo. Leip. 8s.
Arnold, P., Handbuch der Anatomie des Menschen, mit besond. 1 Bd. 1 und 2

Abth. 8to. Freiburg, 48. 6d.
' Tabulae anatomicae, Fasc IV. pars IL F6L Stuttgard. 16s.
Abbildungen der gelenke und bander, &c des menschlichen Korpers.

FoL in Mappe. 16s.
Auerbaeh, B., Schwarzwiilder Dorfgeschichten. 2 Thle. 16mo. Manheim, 8s.
Auerswald, U., der preuss, Huldigungs-Landtag im J. 1840. 8ya Konig, Is. 6d.
Auffenberg, J., T. sammtliche Werke. 2 vols. 16mo. Siegeti. 2s.
Alt, J. K. W., Predigten iiber neu verordnete EvangeL 3 Bd. 8ya Ehend, 2s.
Asbach, J., de Cidi historiae fontibus dissertatia 8yo. Bonnae, Is. 6d.
Bachmann, W. L., Handworterbuch der pract* Apothekerkunst. 3 Bd. 1 Lief.

8yo. Ntmberg, 3s.
Backhaus, F., die lAgen der Stadt Leipzig 1844. 8yo. Leipzig, 4s.
Bader, J., Altdeutcher BildersaaL 6 u. 7 HefL Carkruhe. 8yo. 2s.

Badische Volksitten u. Trachten. 2 Heft. CarUruhe, 8yo. 2s.

Bagmihl, J. L., Pommersches Wappenbuch. 1 Bd. 1 — 9 Lief. 8yo. Stetten,

2s. 1842-3.
Baith, K., Teutschlands Urgeschichte. 4 Th. 2 AufL Syo. Enkmg. 88.

§58 \.v.M^ tfMm Wi^J^,v . I

Knapp, geordnet, erklart u. in ihrem Zusammenhange nu|; I^i^ nn^vGes-
chichtei.ider Ejbrpbcaibaukt uiid -ct^iK^sMt ^^o- Qhr« ~K. X.^ Bynq^n* J, ^^x^
rglio. \JI(^nchen. 5f j , - . ^ : :. -j

lind. Is. .\. \ .\x

Bechstein, L., Tfafuriagen JiQ ^er Q^^gesupraTl;. ^ya (3W*^ 3»i v
Becker, CL G:*> Verasuch c^oer Sooa-iu.^^etogfiUitiurgnd* 1 Hef|U Sro^; r SirMht^

lS« -. 1 .'^ \ ■. ., ' \ • . ,"'

sldtel, J., IJbersicht toGe4(!tucli;b$4i^ oateiT; . Syo* Jf^ipzig.. i l§44i -Siu. ,
irault^Bercastel's G^chicbte der ^arohe in einem g^tr^aen, Aji^^^g^,. i^^iisg.

6 Bd. 8vo. ;/n7»«6. • : . ,/ : it ;. :G

Berge, Ft., Kaferbuciu 4JtQ. 6'/u«^Kwrf. »'2a ■ r: I'-l _- ~ .

Berger, E., Cat«4Qgu8 herbariL 2 Th. K|l.; 8to. W«r**?"'fi^t /^ .ix;- '-Lii r^:
Beschreibung der Stadt Rom. v. E. Platner, C. Bunsen, E. Gf^a^ "^c.^^tostel

u.L.U^lpi9* 3Bd, aAbth. Svo^ 1842. U^r ... , i ,. p .ripri,,..a
Beseler, G., Volksrecht und Juristenrecht. 8vo. Leipzig, , B^. ■.].,>• .-.,\
BibiUothek der Claiisiker des Aiidand^ 1 xu 2~Bd. ,>2,/ W%;V4 T^b..:r ,)^^

Leipzig, 3s. ;, i .. ,^

Biedennann, C, die deutcbe Phitosopbie Ton Kant lua auf i^ksera ^idtt i)|]^l¥^

senscboft. 3 Bd. ^vo. Leip^ 278. ..... f, /,^.:.

Biscboff-Widderstein, F., Gbina oder Uebeisicht der Toranig^ t jgi^gnqpjiischea

Fualrte tt. Begtandtbeile des Chines. 8to. Wien, i%. . .; ^ >;x7(:

JSonnann, Jobaana, geb, y. bagemeister Gediohtev 8¥o^ Strulsund^ /^^ :
Braunscbweig, J. D. V., der !Flacbebau BussUmd in seineamebrfacheii ^jtai^tswirth-

schaftL Beziebungen. 8vo. JRiga, 48. .'.'.•;•' .r

Breitsobneider,. K. G., djte religiose Gtaubenslebre oacb der Yec^vinft ui ^^ pSeh^

barung. 2 Aufl. 8vo. Halle. 8s. . . • ►

Biiefe Preusa, Staatsmanner, Herausg. y. Dorow 1 Bd. K. E. Oelsner anl^ A« V*

Staegemann, von 1815 — 1827. 8vo. Leip, 88. ; - , - » - '

Brunnow, G., Ubicb v. Hatten, der Streiter fur deutscbe FreiUie^ '3 ipd^jnji

12Stahls. IBmo. L€t>. 1842-3. l8.6d, ' - <

Burckhardt, G., Allg. Gescbicbte der neuesten zeit. 2 Abtb. f l8i2<^T-40) ^

Lief. 8vo. Leip, 2s. j. , ......

Buschbeck, Cbr.F., iiberBobmensScbafiwoUbandelu. Industrie. 8yo. fre^g. Is,
Busclimann, J. Ch, Ed., Aperyu de la langue des iles marquises «| d^.la lapgqe

Taitienne, Accomp, d*un Yocabulaire inedit de la lapgoe ^I^ajitieivpe p., 0^

de Humboldt. 8vo. Berlin, 68. , , -. ■■-

^ach, W., djbe Jesuiten in ibre Mission Cbiquitoft in Sad Ao^eri^ yparf^n^

8vo. Leip, 28. .. ,. .• ■ .,.;,^. j. . ]|

Becker, W. A., Handbucb der Bomisdhen Altertbiimen. . I Tk. /^yp, /J^.r. 4^
Belani, H. G. N., Josepbine Gescbicbtlicber LebenMKiman.,.f .3 J!^ :^Q,\f£np*
■ ^ 1844. 18s. .-:: •, .;:. 7/ ,-,: :.f- "-i-j' ".>jp,..i

Bjomstjema, M., die Tbeogonie Pbilosopbie und Kosmogonie de|: fii^dm^^' Ans-

d. 8cbwed« 8va SiochholnL -68^. .- ;. -tA ■^v^m:^'}/' '^ K-y^

Blasius, J. H., Eeise im europaischen JUuuland JUi dea^a)>?:4^iiO-T^U,.2 Thi

Svo. Braunaehweig, 1844. 22s. 6d, - \ ♦ ;. -t : j] i.wi

Bojesen, E. F., Handbucb d. griecb Antiquitaten von X Sofia. ^ -$vo,^: J^L w
Brenner, Fr.,' Katbolische Dogmatik. 1 B4<'«iHieseUa:I>Qgn«Aik.|( 3r^^

Vierb. Aufligr.a,^ Begensb, 1844. .Os. ,. .' i oni .fj ^o] <'
Carove, Fr. W., iiber das sogenannte germaniscbe. Staatsprinzip. 8vor JSiegen*

5s. 6d. ■'• . ■ ^y-^■^,r/\ V (( . ;■> ^ -, ; "<

Carrasco, J. M., Bescbreibung der provinz.>£pjos'a^;.d;i]4 .f4i2;ie^^
,• .. Magdeburg, .-!& ..•...>.,, :,i\. .. ,-/;,:/.-,',." S ^^'-''j-ny^

Chrysostomi, Dionis, opera graece, E. recens A, Emperu. Pars 1^ j^vo. ^.Sfn^n^mgde,

Ciceronis orationes XTV. Prsemissa (a Ciceronis J i^^^a sdpti^^ ,' 8^^ j , Anfs^'

Corpus Rdbrmatorum. Edidit C.G.BretscbxioiderJ..\^ii^ (^
opera, Vol XI.) 4to. Halle, 18s.

pubBihed oH like 'Continent 56d

Oretzchmat, Fh« T., Beitri^ Ha der Lehl^ Ton ^em liebdbi ' !2 Thi 9Vo. Frthiii^

Csatplovics', J/lT;, Ungem's IndiistriteTmdCtil(?tfr. SYO. Xcip. lAi:6d.

Q. Curtii Kufi de gest^s Alexandri magni yon J. MutzeU. SVdi ' Berlin, 4s. 6d«

Chelms, M. J., Haiidbttch der Ohirur^fei ' 1 Bd. 1 Abtlh in 2 Bdeij. 8vi

Heidelberg, 80s.
DeUtzch, Fr., der Fropbet Habakok. AusglBlegt. Xe^. 6b. 6d.
Desaga^i^ Bech^nbach.' 2, gonz imigeaa'b, il Terni. Attfl. mit Uebangsaufgabe^

8vo. Frankfurt 3s. 6d.
Dessaiir, J, H.^ llehiMi. Lesebuch f&r Israelitiitehe Heligi(»s-tmd deutsche Schnlen

und privatel^ransttitai. 8vo. Erlan§ek* 1844. £9.'
Dichtvmgen des deutschen Mittelalters, 1 Bd. 8yo. Leip» 4s*

der, 2 Bd. IMstan und Isolt. 8vo. Ebend;, 4s.

Jointer's SapuntlicM.Schriften. 2Abt^ (Catechet Werke.) 8Bd. 8vo. Neu^

stadi Is. tdu '
Drobisch, Th., Iduna, Foesien uber Gott XJnsterl^chkeit imd Tngend. 8yq.

Leip, 1844. ]4s.
Bieftsch, B., Das Leben fitersog Albrechts des Beherzten. 8to. Grimmd,

Is. 6d.
IKetzsch, C. ^., Grabfedcn. 3 Th. 8to. Uhn, 6s.
Bomas, J., Versuch einer chemischen Statik der Organischen Wesen 2 Verm.

'AiA Aus de Franz. Ton C. Vieweg. Kl. 8to. Leip, 1844. 2s.
Busterdieck, Fr. A. Chr., Qoae de Ignatiarum epistolamm autben^ dnonnnque

textdm ratione et dignitate hucusqne prolata sunt sententlae enarrantor c%

dejtidicahtur-commentatio. 4to. GatHngen, 4s.
£o]lcer, A., Fhysiolog, Untersuchnngen iiber die Bewegungen des G^hims u.

IlUcl[^marks, hisbesondere den Einfluss der CenebrospinabflUssigkeit auf

di^lben. 8vo. Stuttgart 2s.
ihrenberg, C. Ck, Verbreitung u. Einfluss des mikroskop. Lebens in Sad*tind-

Nprd-Amerika. Fol. Berlin, 24s^
Erasnnis Agricola, Roman in 3 Bucbem. 8yo. Leibnitz, 88.
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Is. 6d: '
Euripides restitiitus, siye scriptorum Euripidis ingeniique censura, Ed. J. A.

Hartung. Vol. I. 8vo. Hamburg, 10s. 6d.
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len aus <r<^iaimes. Von A.' G. Vogel, u. Fl*. Wagner. 8yo. Frankfurt,

4s. 6d,
Ei^g^fanann, C, Kreuznach, seine HeilquelkfQ und deren Anwendung. 2 Av^

Heidelberg, Eng^lman. Leipzig, 7s.
SJuripidis fabufee sefectse, Becogn. et in usum scholar edid A. Witzschel. VoL L

' HippOlytusJ 8yo. Jena, Is. 6d.
Fouque, Fr. de la Motte, Abfall u. Busse oder der SeelenspiegeL 3 Bde. 8ya

Berliri. 14s.
Fritz, E., Miniatur .Armamentarium oder Abbildungen der wiohtigsten akiur-

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Forster, H., Fredigten auf alle Sonntage des kath. Kirchenjahres. 2 Bde. 8y(>.

Brtdau, 17s. =

FucluB, C. H., TM Sltesten Schtiftstdller iiber die Lustzeuche in Beutcbland vob

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• &s. ■■■ ■ ^- • '•••■
Geiger, C. G., Bes Konigs Gustaf m. nachgelassene u. 50 Jahre nach seinem

TodegwflfhetePapiere. Aus, dem. Schwed. 8vo. Hamburg, 4s. 6d,
Geryinus, G. G., Neuere Geschichte der poet, National-Literator. 1 Th. 8yp.

Leipzig* ISs.
Gluck, Chr. Fr. v., Ausfuhrliche Erlanterung der Pandecten fortgesezt. v. Chr.

Fr. Miihlenbrticb. 43 Thl. 8vo. Erhngen, 6s.
Goethe, F^ust., Ein Traggdie. 2 Thl. in 1 Bde. 8yo. StuttganL 4s.
Gorres, G., BaaLebenderhea CScilia In 3 Gesangen. 16mo. MwwhMu 6d.

(leO LuiofNew Wari$

Qoichen, T. Pr. lu Vorieiiingai i&ber das gemelne CiTil-veriit. Herautg: r. A.

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Qii&nhan, A^ Geschichte dor WJniwiiiehei FhOoIogie im AlterSmm. 1 Bi

8va Bom. ISa
Grimm*s J., Grammatik der hochdentschen Sprache unseier Mt. TOr Bcdiiikn

imd FriTatoBteriKht boirbcltet Tim J. BueMn. 8vo. JftfltbudT. 4«. 6d.
Grone, A. C G. t., Sammlung dniger Urkandeii und Acktengtiicke, die cofpan-

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lietn Syo. Hanmooer. Si. 6d.
Gottflchalck, Fr. Genealogisdies Taadienbudi t dai ^alir IS44. > ISino. I>ri»-

(fen. 4«.6d.
Gximni, J., Deatsche m7thok>gie. 1 Abth. GliUhpmL 13f;-6d.
Haacke, Chr. Fr. F., Lehrboch der Staatengeschidite; S Th. 8T«ii> Slatdal

4fl.

jwwt 7s.
HaUmann, E., die Gesdiichte des UrBpmngs der bdgifloheii Segidiien neM eiscr

Authent. 8vo. Berlin, 4s.
Hanke, Hen. geb. Amdt Poltenbeiid*0cenen und AvfrOgis^ iSmo. 'Am.

38 6d.
Hansen, M. C, Folyoarps sopplirte Mamucripte, 'oder eine IVyniliengefehkSite.

Aus. dem Norweg. Romane iL NoveUen. 1-3 Hl I6ma IUl
Haym, R., de renim diyinanun apad JSschyhim conditimie, pan L Bra BerUn,

. Is. 6d.
Hegel's Philosophie in wortlichen Anszngen fur Gebildete; ana deaaen Werken

znsammengestellt and mit ciner iSnleitang hng. toq C. Franz und A. M-

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H^tenbuch, das von R. Simrock. 8yo. StiMgart 6f.

dessen 2 Bd.: Das Nibelungenlied, 8 Aofl. 8ya E^emi. 4m.

Hendewerke, C. L., des Propheten Jes^ja Weissagangen ChronoL geofdnut

ubersezt a. erUart 2 Tb. 8to. Koni^, 58.
Hengstcnberg, G. W., Commentar iiber die Psalmen. 2 Bd. 8yo. BcWoi. 78.
Hohne, Fr., Beise iiber Bremen naeh Nord Amerika u. Tezaa in den Jalnai

1839, 40, and 41. 16mo. Weimar. 48. 6d.
Homig, G. P., Sammlong practischer Zimmerwerke-BigBe. 2 WbbiUl Aoaq. Teit

in 4, mit 48 Lithogr. Tafeki in gr. foL Dretden. 278.
Hahn-Halm, Ida Graffin, Cecil 2 Bde. Berlin. 1844. 16s.
Halm, W., das Leben Jeso. 8to. Berlin^ 1844. 58. 6d.
Herrich-schaffer, G. A. W., Systematische Bearbeitong der Sdimetteriinge Ton

Europa. 1 a. 2 Heft. 8ya Begentb. 128. 6d.
Homeri Odyssea, ex recog. Imm. Bekkeri. 8va BerUn. 78.
Q. Horatii Flacd Opera omnia, Beoogn. et camment. in asmn Schdaram iMtr.

G. Dillenborger. 8ya Bonn. 1844. 78.
Jacobi a Yoragine legenda aorea Talgo hiatoriaLombardica cBcta. Edid. J. G. !%•

Gracsse Fasc L 8yo. Dreadtn. 48.
8. Justini opera Becens. Jo. Oar. Th. Otto. Tom. H. 8it)w Jena, 7a.
Kaulbach, C. L., Yermischte Gedichte. 8vo. Mvnehm. 6s.
Kimchi, D., Coxnroentar zor Gcnesia. Nacli e, Manascripte in der bibL lofsle fti

Paris heraosg. dnrch A. Einabnrg (Hebraiach). 8vo. Pretiurg. 48. 6d.
Elippel, G. H., Historische, Forschangen and Darstelfamgen. 1 Bd. 8ya Brt-

men. 5s.
Eobbe, P. T., Geschichte der neaesten Z^t. 2 Thie. 8Ta HanAur§, lis.
Lange, J. P., Die Eiichliche Hymnologie Theoretiadie Ablb., im Gnmdiiaa. 8m

Zurich, 2s.
Langenberg, C. dai Wesen des Satzes and Dessen TMle. BL'8i>a Ltrnj.

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Larsow, F., Die Genesis iibersetzt, and schwierige Stdlen derselben eiUiri 8to.

Berlin. 38.

published on^ ike Comihent. 661

Lasaulx» R r., Prometheus. Die Sageund ilur Siniu EihBeitiJIag sur BeUgionsF-

philosophie. 4to. WUrzhurg. Is. 6d* . <
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Lofimann, C. A., der Lusthain. Eine Ergahlupg £ Kinder. 16nia Brawnsch.

18. 6d.
Lohmann, F. Sammt. Erzahliingen. In 18 Bdn. 1. u. 2. Bd. 16mo. Leipzig. 68.
Lut^eri Commentaiiam in Epistolam S. Fanli ad Ghdatas, cor* J. C Irmischer.

Tom. 1. 8ya Erlangen. 28. 6d.
Lubojatski, F., Luther und die Seinen. Histr. Boman. 3 Thle. 12ma Qrirnma.

188.

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Mohler, J. M., die Einheit in Der Kirche, oder das Frincip des Katholicismus. 2

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Miiller, C, Conunentatio de locis quibosdam Epistdae Fauli ad Fhilippenses. 4to.

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Mobius, A. F., die Elemente der Mechanik des Mmmels, auf neuffln Wege Ohne

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Millile, H. Graf yon der, Beitrage zur Omithologie Griecbenlands. 8yo. Leipzig,

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Neander, A., Greschichte der cbristl BeUgicm u. Eirche. 1 Abth. 2 Bd. 2 u.

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Niemann, C, Predigten. 2 Sanmd. 8yo. Hanover. 6s.
Nitzsch, G. G., de Elensiniorum ratione publica commentatio. 4to. KieL 28.
Noback, F. der Eaufmann. 2 Bd. Der Commis. 16ma Leipzig. 68.
Orsted, A. S., Annulatorum Danicor. Conmctna. F. 1. Maritxiae, 8yo. 5s.
Otto, E., Beise-erinnerungen an Cuba Nord— und Siid America. 1838-^1841.

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Frestel, M. A. F., Lehrbuch der Naturgeschichte. 2 Thl. das Pflanzenreich.

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Ukert, F. A, G^ographie der Griecben und Bomer. 3 111. 1 Abth. 8ya

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C. WHITING, BEAUFORT BOUSE, STRAND.

'i

INDEX

TO TKW . • ■ ■ ♦.

THIRTY-SECOND VOLUME

OF THi; .

FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW.

A.

Ai^orm (De T), etde 1» Mort dans toates
les Classy da la Sodi^te; sous le
Bapport Humanitaire^ Fhysiologique
et K^Ugieux (Agony and Death in
all Classes of Society: humanitaiily,
physiologically and religiously con-
sidered). Par H. Loayergne. Paris,
1842, 76— visions of the dying, 77—
the inspired woman of Var, 77 —
death-bed scenes described, 80 — 89.

Amdia (Princess) of Saxony, Original-
Beitrage zur deutschen Schaubiihne,
197, 216.

American Poetrj/t 291.

Annuaire Historique pour VAnnee 1843,
public par la Societe de THistoire de
France, Paris, 371.

Amdt (E, M.), Sdiwedische Geschichten
unter Gustar dem Dritten, yorzuglich
aber unter Gustav dem Vierten,
Adolf; 34.

Arthur-Sage (Die) raid die IVfiurchen
des BothenBuches von Hergest.
Herausgegeben von San Marte (Al-
bert Schulz). fThe Legend of Ar-
thur and the Tales of the Bed Book
of Hergest). Quedlinberg and Leip-
sic, 1842, 536.

B.

Bananier (Le). Par Frederic Soulie,
Paris, 1843, 226.

Bassano (Le Due de). SonTcnirs In-
time de la B^Yolntion et de TEm-
pire. Becueillis et pnbU^s par Ma-
dame Charlotte de Sor (Personal
BecoUections of the Duke a£ Bas-
sano, of the Bevolution and of the
Empire. Collected and published by
Madame de Sor). Brussels, 1843,
463— sketch of the life of Maret,
463—468 — anecdote ofNapoleon, 468,

Benserade, 143 — 153.

VOL. XXXIX.

Seachretbung vonKordofan und einigen
angranzenden limdem (Description
of Kordofan and some ot the adjoin*
ing Countries, with a Beyiew of the
Commerce, Habits and Manners <^
the Inhabitants, and of the Slave
Hunts carried on under Alehemet
Ali*s Ooyernment). Von Ignax
Pallme, 1843, 402— Mehemet All,
402— notice of Pallme, 404 — ^history
and description of Eordo£an, 403 —
423.

Biographie des Catemporams : Es-
partero. Paris, 1843, 247.

BjOmstjema (Grafen M.), Die Theogo-
nie. Philosophic und Eosmogonie
der Hindus, 538.

Black (John), Schlegd's Lectures on
Dramatic Art and Llf^ature, trana«
latedby, 160.

Blanc (Louis), L'Histoire de Diz Ans,
1830 — 1840, tomes i ii iii., 61.

Bray*8 Moxmtains and Valleys of Swit-
zerland, 90.

Bryants Poems, 291.

Bucket, Introduction & la Sci^ce de
THifitoire, ou Science du Deyeloppe*
ment de THumanite, 325.

Btcmes (the late Lieu.-CoL Sir Alex),
CabooL 2d Edition, 1843, 491.

C.

CabooL By the late Lieu.-C6l Sir
Alex.Bumes. 2d Edition, London,
1843, 491.

Calendars and Abnanacs, 371. [See
under Steinbeck, AuJrkkUger JTo&m*
dermann, Src,']

Capefigue, IMplomates Europeens, 190.

Carus (C. Bw), Gothe, 182.

CoUon, (George H.) Tecumseh; or. The
West, Thirty Tears Smce, 291.

Confessions (Les) de J. J. Boussean,
nouyelle ^tion, precede d'une nor

564

INDEX.

tice par George Sand (New Edition
of Rousseau's Confessions, preceded
by a Notice by George Sand). Paris,
1841 — 1 — ^incongruities in thecharac-
ter*of Rousseau, 1 — 4 — Madame Du-
devant's preface, 4 — 6 — Rousseau's
early history, 6—17 — ^his literary
career, and notices of his works, 17
—33.

Congress of Vienna, 194, 347.

Correspondence relative to Sinde. Pre-
sented to both Houses of Parliament,
by command of her Majesty, 1843,
491.

Cours d'Etudes Historiques. Par P.
C. F. Daunou. 3 vols., Paris, 1842,
325.

D.

Daunou, Cours d'Etudes Historiques,
S25.

Death and Dying in France, 76.

Demoiselies TLes) de Saint Cyr (Comedy
in Five Acts, followed by a letter to
Jules Janin). By Alexander Du-
mas. Paris, 1843, 265.

Deshouillieres (Madame de), "Sketch of
her Life and Writings, 145.

Dichtungen des deutschen Mittelal-
ters. Erster Band. DerNiebelun-
gen Not und die Elage (Poems of the
German Middle Ages. VoL i The
Song of the Niebdungen and the
liament). Edited by ^ S. Vollmer.
Leipsic, 1843, 537.

Di^enbach (Dr. E.), On the Study of
l^hnology. London, 1843, 424.

Dijihmates Europ6ens (European Di-
plomatists). 1. Prince Mettemich.
2. Pozzo di Borgo. 3. Prince Talley-
rand 4. Baron Pasquier. 5. The
Duke of Wellington. 7. Prince Har-
denberg. 8. Count Nesselrode. 9.
Lord Castlereagh, Par M. Capefigue.
Paris, 1843, 190.

Drumann (W.), Geschichte Boms, 273.

Dumas (Alexander), Les Demoiselles
de Saint Cyr, 265.
E.

English (The) on the Continent, 90.

JSsparterv, 247.

Essais Litteraires et Historiques (Lite-
rary and Historical Essays) . By A.
W. SchlegeL Bonn, 1842.--Vorie-
sungen iiber dnunatische Eunst und
Literatur (Lectures on Dramatic Art
and Literature). By A. W. Schle-
gel. — A Course of Lectures on Dra-
matic Art and Literature. Trans-
lated from the Grerman by John
Black, 1840, 160~chajracteri8tic8 of

Schlegel, 160 — 161 — ^plagiarism of
Coleridge, 161— 163— Schlegel's cri-
ticism, 163, &c. — ^his criticism on
the Greek drama, 170 — 175 — on the
modern drama, 175 — 181.

Ethnoh^, On the Study of. By Dr.
B. Dieffenbach. London, 1843, 424.

Ethnological Societies of London and
Paris, 424.

F.

Fetes et Souvenirs du Congr^s de
Vienne ; Tableaux des Salons, Scenes,
Anecdotiques et Portraits; 1814 —
1815 (Festivities, &c. of the Congress
of Vienna). Par le Comte A. de la
Garde. Paris, 2 tomes, 1843, 190,
347.

Finances (Des) et du Credit Public de
TAutricbe; de sa Dette, de ses Res-
sources Financi^res, et de son Sys-
t^me d'Imposition, &c (The Finances
and Public Credit of Austria, her
Debt, Financial Resources and Sys-
tem of Taxation, &c.)< Par M. L.
de Tegoborski Li 2 vols. Paris,
1843, 436 — ^finances of Austria and
Prussia, 436, &c. &c. — debt ofA.as-
tria,438 — 442— Bank of Vienna, 442
— revenue of Austria, 443 — 445 —
direct taxes: land and houses, 445 —
trades and professions, 449--Jews,
450 — indirect taxes: articles of
consumption, 451 — salt, 459 — ^to-
bacco, 460 — stamps, 460 — ^post and
lottery, 461— Sur R. Peel's tarifl^
455 — ^Austria and the Zoll-Verein,
456—459.

FouJahs (The) of Central Afinca, and
the African Slave Trade. By W.
B. Hodgson, of Savannah. Georgia,
1843, 424.

France, her Governmental, Administra-
tive and Social Organization, ex-
posed and considered, in its Prin-
ciples, in its Working and in its Be-
sidts. London, 1844, 527.

G.

Oarde (Comte de la). Fetes et Souve-
nirs du Congres de Vienne. Ta-
bleaux des Salons, Scenes, Anec-
dotiques et Portraits, 1814 — 1815,
190, 347.

German Plains and Actors, 197.

Geschichte Roms (History of Bome).Von
M. Drumaxm. Konigsberg, 1841,
273.

Girardin, Madame Emile de (Vicomte
de Laonay), Lettres Parisiemies,
470.

INDEX.

665

Gdthe. Von C. B. Carus. Leipsic,
1843, 182.

Grahhe (Dieterich Christian), Dra-
matischeWerke, 197, 213.

Grant* 8 Paris and its People, 470, 489.

Grillparzer (Franz), Dramatische
Werke 197 207.

GW«eWw(Griselda'). Der Adept (The
Alchymist). Camoens (The Death
of Camoens). Ein Milder Urtheil
(A Mild Judgment). Imilda Lam-
bertazzi, Konig und Bauer (King
and Peasant). Der Sohn der Wild-
ness (The Son of the Desert). Plays
by Friedrich Halm (Baron Miindi-
Bellinghausen), 1836, 1843, 197, 217.

Griswold (Rufus W.), The Poets and
Poetry of America, with an Histo-
rical Introduction, 291.

Gubitz (F. W.), Volks-Kalender.
Berlin, 371.

H.

Hagen (G.), Handbuch der Wasser-
baukunst, 272.

Uabtt (Baron Miinch-Bellinghausen),
Griseldis, Der Adept, Camoens, &c.,
197,217.

Hampson (B. T.), MecUi JEvi Kaleri'
darium; or Dates, Charters, and
Customs of the Middle Ages, with
Calendars from the Tenth to the
Fifteenth Centuries, &c. 2 vols. 371.

Handbuch der Wasserbaukunst (Ma-
nual of Hydraulic Architecture),
Von G. Hagen. Konigsberg, 1841,
272.

Hempel (Carl Friedrich), Dr. C. G.
Steinbeck's Aufrichtiger Kalender-
mann, neu bearbeitet und vermehrt.
In Drei Theilen, 371.

Histoire (i') de Dix Ans, 1830—1840.
Par M. Louis Blanc. Tomes 1, 2, 3.
Paris, 1843, 61— character of the
work, 61 — 65 — ^Lafayette described,
63 — the Baroness de Feucheres and
the Due de Bourbon, 65 — 69— nie-
tails respecting the death of the Due
de Bourbon, 69 — 75 — ^Louis Phi-
lippe, 75.

Histoire Philosophique et Litteraire du
Theatre Fran9aas, depuis son Ori-
gine jusqu*a nos Jours (Philoso-
phical and literary History of the
French Theatre, from its Origin to
our own Time), par M. HippoUte
Lucas. Paris, 1843, 266.

Histoireites (Les) de Tallemaat des
Beaux. Seconde Edition. Pteced^e
d'une Notice, &c. Par M. Mon-
merque. Paris, 1840, 135.

L

Im Gebirg imd auf den Gletschem
(On the Mountain and upon the
Glaciers), par CVogt, 1843, 531.

Immermann*8 Dramatische Werke. Mer-
lin: Das Trauerspiel in Tyrol (The
Tragedy in Tyrol): Alexis, Die Op-
fer der Schweigens (The Victims of
Silence), 1837—1841, 197, 214.

Inquiry into the Means of establishing
a Ship Navigation between the
Mediterranean and the Bed Seas,
by James Vetch, Captain B. E.
F. B. S. Illustrated by a Map. Lon-
don, 1843, 534.

Introduction a la Science de THistoire,
ou Science du D^veloppement de
THumanit^. Par P. J. B. Buchez.
Seconde Edition. 2 vols. Paris, 1843.
— Cours d'Etudes Historiques. Par
P. C. F. Daunou. 3 vols. Paris, 1842,
325 — ^the science of history, 325, 326
— ^i\otice of the work of M. Buchez,
326 — 331 — ^biographical account of
M. Daunou, 331 — 334 — review of M.
Daunou's work, 335 — 346.

J.
Jesuites (Des). Par MM. Michelet et
Quinet. Paris, 1843, 263.

K.

Kunstwerke und Kiinstler in Deutsch-
land. Erster Theil. Kiinstler und
Kimstwerke im Erzgebirge in
Franken (Works of Art and Ar-
tists in Germany. First Part. The
Erz Mountains and Franconia). By
Dr. G. F. Waagen. Leipzic, 1843,
525.

L.

Zauvergne, De I'Agonie et de la Mort
dans toutes les Classes de la Societe,
sous le Bapport Humanitaire, Phy-
siologique et Eeligieux, 76.

Lehrbuch der Ungarischer Spraehe
(Comi)endium of the Hungarian
I^mguage). Von J. N. Bem^e,
Vienna, 1843, 273.

Lettres Parisiennes. Par Madame Emile
de Girardin. (Vicomte de Launay).
(Parisian Letters, by Emily de Gi-
rardin, under the pseudonym of the
Vicomte de Launay. Paris, 1843,
470, 486.

List of the Principal New Works pub"
Uaihed on ^ Continent, 284 — 290 —
557—562.

Literary Notices (ISfisceUaneous), 274—
283 ; 542—556.

566

INDEX.

Longfellow (Henry Wadsworth), Voices
of the Night and other Poems, 291.

Luccu (Hippolite), Histoire Philoso-
phique et Litt^raire du Theatre
Francais, depuis son Origine jnsqu'a
nos Jours, 266.

M.

Maretf Due de Bassano, Memoirs of^
463.

Mdswn (Charles), Narrative of yarious
Joumies in Belochistan, Affghan-
istan and the Fanjab, 491.

Medii JSvi Kalendarium; or, Dates,
Charters, and Customs of the Middle
Ages, with Calendars from the
Tenth to the Fifteenth Centuries,
and an Alphabetical Digest of Names
of Days, forming a Glossary of the
Dates of the Middle Ages, with
Tables and other Aids for ascertain-
ing Dates, byR. T. Hampson. 2to18.
London, 371.

Mimoires de la Societe Ethnologique,
VoL I. Paris, 1841— The Foulahs of
Central Africa and the African
Slave Trade, by W. B. Hodgson of
Savannah — On the Study of Ethno-
logy, by Dr. E. Dieffenbach, 424 —
the Ethnological Societies of London
and Paris, 424 — 430 — ^remarks on
the study of Ethnology, 430 — 434 —
on the management of societies, 434,
435.

Nemoires touchant la Vie et les Ecrits
de Marie de Kabutin-ChantaJ,
Dame de Bourbilly, Marquise de Se-
vigne, durant la Begence et la
Fronde. Par M le Baron Walck-
enaer, Deuxi^me Partie, durant le
Ministere du Cardinal Mazarin et
la Jeunesse de Louis XIV. Paris,
1843. 135 — notice of Madame de
Bambouillet, 135 — 145 — Voiture,
141, &c. — ^rival sonnets of Voiture
and Benserade, 143, 144 — Madame
Deshouillieres, 145 — 1 48 — Made-
moiselle de Scudery, 148 — 161 —
Madame de Lafayette, 151 — 153 —
Benserade, 153 — 155 — Moli^re's
Precieuses Ridicules, 155 — Madame
de Sevigne, 155 — 159 — Manage, 155 ,
156.

Menage, 155.

Michelet et Quinet (MM), Des Je<
suites, 263.

Mignet, Notices et M^moires Histo-
riques, 387.

Miscellaneous Literary Notices, 274,283;
542—556.

Mold (M. T.), Rapport annuel fait I
la Soci^t6 Asiatique dans la Seaooe
G^n^rale du 30 Mai, 1843, 532.

Monmerque (Les Historiettes de Tal-
lemant des Beaux, seconde Edi-
tion, prec6d6e d'lme Notice, &c, 135.

Mountains (The) and Valleys of Switz-
erland, by Mrs. Bray. 3 vols. Lon-
don, 1841, 90.

N.

Narrative of various Joumies in Be-
lochistan, Afighanistan and the
Paiyab, by Charles Masson, Esq. In
3 vols. London, 1842, 491.

New Works published on the Continent,
(List of), 284—290, 557 — 562.

Nizza imd die Meeralpen, geschildert
von ein Schweizer (Nice and the
Maritime Alps, described by a
Swiss). Zurich, 268.

Notices et M6moires Historiques. Par
M. Mignet. 2 vols., Paris, 1843,
387— review of the work, 387. 388—
biographical sketch of Sidyes, 388—
of Broussais, 393 — of Destutt de
Tracy, 399.

O.

Original - Beitrage fcur deutschen
Schaubiihne (Original Contributions
to the German Theatre). By the
Princess Amelia of Saxe. Dresden,
1836—1842, 197,216.

Outram (Major James), Rough Notes
of the Campaign in Sinde and AS-
ghanistan, 1838-39, 491.

P.

PaUme, Beschreibung von Kordofen
(Description of Kordofen and some
of the adjoining Countries; with a
Beview, &c &c.), 402.

Paris im FrUhjahr 1843. Von L. Rell-
stab. Leipsic, 1844, 470, 486 — 489.

Paris and its People, By the Author
of *Bandom Becollections of tlie
House of Commons.' London, 1843,
470, 489.

Personal Observations on Sinde, byT.
Postans, MB.A.S. London, 1843,
491.

Poems, by William Cullen Bryant Lon-
don, 1842, 291.

Poets and Poetry of America (The), with
an Historical Introduction, by Bufus
W. Griswold, Philadelphia, 1842,
291 — ^Poetry of America, 291 — ^297 —
Dr. Channing on American National
Literature, 292— Mr. Griswold's An-
thology, 297, 298—301, &C.— brief
notices of American poets, 302 —

INDEX.

667

317 — American copies of Englisli
models, 318—324.
Tostans (T.), Personal Observations on
Sinde,491.

Q.

Quinet et Michelet (MM.), Des Je-
suites, 263.

R

Haimund (Ferdinand), Sammtliche
Schriften. 4 vols., Vienna, 1837, 197
—220.

HamhouiUet (Madame de), 135.

Rapport Annuel, fait k la Socicte Asi-
atique dans la Stance Generale du
30 Mai, 1843. Par M. T. Mohl, Se-
cretaire adjoint de la Societe. Pars,
1843, 532.

Bapport sur les Travaux du Conseil de
la Societe Asiatique pendant I'Annee
1841. Paris, 1842, 632.

jRaupacKs Dramatische Werke: Em-
ster Gattung — ^Komischer Gattung.
1829—1842, 197—209.

Recent Publications (Short Beviews of),
263—273; 525—541.

Relations des Ambassadeurs Y^n^tiens
sur les Affaires de France au Sei-
zicme Si^cle (Correspondence of the
Venetian Ambassadors on the Affairs
of France in the Sixteenth Century).
Becueillies et traduites, par Tom-
masseo, 2 vols., Paris, 107 — short
accounts of Paris from the year 1535
to 1579, 108, &c. &c— the ill-paid
ambassador, 108 — ^Francis I., 110,
111— Henry IL, 111, 112— Catherine
of Mededs, 112, 114, 121,, 124—
Charles DC, 113 — ^prediction of Nos-
tradamus, 114 — ^the Guise &mily,
116— the Hers-^tat, 117, 123— the
Huguenots, 118— 122— King of Na-
varre (Henry IV.), 126 — adventures
of an ambassador travelling through
France, 127, 128 — ^Bussy d'Amboise,
129, 131— Dukeof Alen9on's arrival
in London and projected marriage
with Queen Elizabeth, 130.

Hellstab, Paris im Friihjahr 1843, 470.

Jicmele (J. N.), Lehrbuch der Ungari-
scher Sprache, 273.

Analyse Ungarischer Clas-

siker, 273.

Ungarischer Geschaftsstyl

in Beispielen, 273,

"Reports and Papers, Political, Geogra-
phical, and Commercial, submitted
to Government, 491.

Rosenkranz (Karl), Schelling, 271.

VOL. XXXTI.

Rough Notes of the Campaign in Sinde
and Affghanistan, 1838, 1839, by
Major James Outram, 1840, 491.

Rousseau (J, J.), Les Confessions de,
NouveUe Edition, prec6d6e d*une No-
tice, par George Sand, 1.

S.
ScheUing, Von Karl Bosenkranz. Dant-

zig, 1843,271.
Schlegel (A,W.\ Essais Litt^raires et

Historiques, 160.
Vorlesungen uber Dra-
matische Kunst und Literatur, 160.
A Course of Lectures

on Dramatic Art and Literature,
translated from, the Grerman, by John
Black, 160.

Sckuhy Albert (San Marte), Die Arthur-
Sage und die Marchen des Bothen
Buches von Hergest: herausgege-
ben von, 536.

Schwedische Geschichten unter Gustay
dem Dritten, vorzuglich aber unter
Gustav dem Vierten, Adolf (Sketches
of Swedish History under Gustavus
HL, and Gustavus IV. Adolphus).
Von E. M Amdt, 1 vol., Leipzig,
1829, 34 — biographical notice of
Amdt, 37 — 40— details relating to
the constitution and history of Swe-
den, 40—60.

Scudejy (Mademoiselle de), 148.

Sevigni (Madame de), 155.

Short Reviews of Becent Publications,
263—273; 525—541.

Sinde, its Amirs and its People: — ^Le
Journal des D^bats, 4 et 5 Avril —
Masson's Narrative of various Jour-
nies inBclochistan, Affghanistan, and
thePanjab, &c. &c. &c, 491 — ^the an-
nexation of Sinde to the British Em-
pire, 491 — 502 — ^resources of Sinde,
502 — 515 — the classes composing
the population of Sinde, 515 — 524.

Societe Ethnchgique (Memoires de la),
VoL L Paris, 1841, 424.

Sor (Madame de), Le Due de Bassano
— Souvenirs de la Bcvolution et de
TEmpire, recueillis et publics par,
463.

Smdie (Frederic), Le Bananier, 226.

Steinbeck (Dr. C. G.), Aufrichtiger Ka-
lendermann, neu bearbeitet und ver-
mehrt von Karl Friedrich Hempel.
In Drei Theilen, Leipzig— Volks-
Kalender der Deutschen, herausgege-
ben von G. W. Gubitz — ^Annuaire
Historique, 1843 — Medii ^vi Ka-
kndarivm, &c, by B. T. Hampson^

568

INDEX*

* ■ ■ *

371 — ^the Gregorian Calendar, 371 —
Lord CheBtei^eld's account of his
attempt to reform the Calendar,
372 — ^proi^tic aknanacs, 873, 374
— ^weather signs, 374 — 377 — habits
of the spider, 377 — historical anec-
dote, 377 — ^379— Anglo-Saxon names
of Hhe months, 379 — 381 — account
of the Medii JEvi Kalendariumf 381
—386.
Summer (A.), in Western France, by
J. A. Trollope, ISjsq^ B.A. 2 vols.,
LondoD, 1841, 90.

T.

TecumseJt; or. The West. Thirty Years
Since. A Poem, by George H. Col-
ton. New York, 1842, 291.

Tegoborski (L. de), Des Finances et du
Credit Public d'Autriche, de sa Dette,
de ses Bessources Financi(^res, &c.,
436.

Theogome (Die), Philosophic und Kos-
mogonie der Hindus (The Theogony,
Philosophy, and Cosmogony of the
Hindoos^. Von dem Grafen M.
Bjomstjema. Stockholm, 1843, 538.

Tomasseoj Relations des Ambassadeurs
V^n^tiens sur les Affaires de France
au Seizieme Si^de, 107.

Tr60ope*8 Summer in Western France,
90.

U.

Ueber den Frieden unter der Eirche
und der Staaten (On Peace between
the Church and State). By the Arch-
bishop of Cologne. Miinster, 1843,
272.

Ueber die Stellong w^he der Bau-
kunst, der Bildbauerel und Malerei,
unter den Mitteln Menschlicher Bil-
dung zukommt (On the Position
which belongs to Architecture, Sculp-
ture, and Painting in manly Educa-
tion. A Lecture delirered before the
Scientific Union of Berlin), by Dr.
Waagen, Leipzig, 1843, 525.

Ungarischer Classiker, Analyse (Ana-

lysis of Hungarian Clasaica), von J
N. Rem^le, 1842. 273.

Geschafbsstyl, in Beispiele;

(Hungarian Commercial Style, i:
Examples), von J. N. Remele, 184?
273.

Sprache (Lehrbuch der'

(Compendium of the Hungarian Lan
guage), von J. N. Remele. Vienna
1843, 273.

V.

Venetian Embassies in France, in tb
16th Century, 107.

Vetch (Capt. James), Liquiry into the
Means of establishing a Ship Navi-
gation between the Mediterraneau
and Red Seas, 534.

Vogt(fi.), Im (rebirg und auf dem Glet-
schem, 531.

Voices of the Night, and other Poems,
by Henry Wadsworth Longfdlow.
London, 1843, 291.

Voiture, 141.

VolAs-Kalender der Deutschen, heraus-
gegeben von F. W. Gubitz. Berlin,
371.

VoUmer ( Al. S.), Dichtungen des Deut-
schen Mittelalters. ErsterBand: Der
Niebelungcn-Not und die Klage,
537.

W.

Waagen (Dr. G. F.), Kunstwerke und
Eiinstler in Deutschland, Erster
Theil, 525.

— Ueber die Stel-

lung welche der Baukunst. der Bild-
bauerel und Malerei unter den Mit-
teln Menschlicher Bildung zukommt,
525.

Wakkenaer (M. le Baron), Memoires
touchant la Vie et les Elcrits de Ma-
rie de Rabutua-Chantal, Dame de
Bourbilly, Marquise de Sevign^, 135.

Washington, a National Poem, port I,
Boston, 1843, 291.

Wemer^s Sammtliche Werke (Wer-
ner^s Collective Works), 12 to\b.,
Berlin, 1840, 197, 202.

G. ^VBITD^Q, mLMIlO^.T HOUSE, STRAND.

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