PART I.

IN THREE DIALOGUES.

[Illustration]

I.

MEDON--ALDA.

MEDON.

And so we are to have no "_Sentimental Travels in Germany_" on

hot-pressed paper, illustrated with views taken on the spot?

ALDA.

No.

MEDON.

You have unloaded Time of his wallet only to deal out his "scraps of

things past," his shreds of remembrance, in beggarly, indolent fashion,

over your own fire-side? You are afraid of being termed an egotist; you,

who within these ten minutes have assured me that not any opinion of any

human being should prevent you from doing, saying, writing--any thing--

ALDA.

Finish the sentence--any thing, _for truth's sake_. But how is the cause

of truth to be advanced by the insolent publication of a mass of crude

thoughts and hasty observations picked up here and there, "as pigeons

pick up peas," and which now lie safe within the clasps of those little

green books? You need not look at them; they do not contain another

Diary of an Ennuyée, thank Heaven! nor do I feel much inclined to play

the _Ennuyeuse_ in public.

MEDON.

"Take any form but _that_, and my firm nerves shall never tremble;"

but with eyes to see, a heart to feel, a mind to observe, and a pen

to record those observations, I do not perceive why you should not

contribute one drop to that great ocean of thought which is weltering

round the world!

ALDA.

If I could.

MEDON.

There are people, who when they travel open their eyes and their ears,

(aye, and their mouths to some purpose,) and shut up their hearts and

souls. I have heard such persons make it their boast, that they have

returned to old England with all their old prejudices thick upon

them; they have come back, to use their own phrase, "with no foreign

ideas--just the same as they went:" they are much to be congratulated!

I hope you are not one of these?

ALDA.

I hope not; it is this cold impervious pride which is the perdition

of us English, and of England. I remember that in one of my several

excursions on the Rhine, we had, on board the steamboat, an English

family of high rank. There was the lordly papa, plain and shy, who never

spoke to any one except his own family, and then only in the lowest

whisper. There was the lady mamma, so truly lady-like, with fine-cut

patrician features, and in her countenance a kind of passive _hauteur_,

softened by an appearance of suffering, and ill-health. There were two

daughters, proud, pale, fine-looking girls, dressed _à ravir_, with

that indescribable air of high pretension, so elegantly impassive--so

self-possessed--which some people call _l'air distingué_, but which,

as extremes meet, I would rather call the refinement of vulgarity--the

polish we see bestowed on debased material--the plating over the

steel--the stucco over the brick-work!

MEDON.

Good; you _can_ be severe then!

ALDA.

I spoke generally: bear witness to the general truth of the picture,

for it will fit others as well as the personages I have brought before

you, who are, indeed, but specimens of a species. This group, then, had

designedly or instinctively entrenched themselves in a corner to the

right of the steersman, within a fortification of tables and benches, so

arranged as to forbid all approach within two or three yards; the young

ladies had each their sketch-book, and wielded pencil and Indian rubber,

I know not with what effect,--but I know that I never saw either

countenance once relax or brighten, in the midst of the divine scenery

through which we glided. Two female attendants, seated on the outer

fortifications, formed a kind of piquet guard; and two footmen at the

other end kept watch over the well-appointed carriages, and came and

went as their attendance was required. No one else ventured to approach

this aristocratic Olympus; the celestials within its precincts, though

not exactly seated "on golden stools at golden tables," like the

divinities in the song of the Parcæ,[1] showed as supreme, as godlike

an indifference to the throng of mortals in the nether sphere: no word

was exchanged during the whole day with any of the fifty or sixty human

beings who were round them; nay, when the rain drove us down to the

pavilion, even there, amid twelve or fourteen others, they contrived to

keep themselves aloof from contact and conversation. In this fashion

they probably pursued their tour, exchanging the interior of their

travelling carriage for the interior of an hotel; and every where

associating only with those of their own caste. What do they see of all

that is to be seen? What can they know of what is to be known? What do

they endure of what is to be endured? I can speak from experience--I

have travelled in that same style. As they went, so they return;

happily, or rather pitifully, unconscious of the narrow circle in which

move their factitious enjoyments, their confined experience, their

half-awakened sympathies! And I should tell you, that in the same

steam-boat were two German girls, under the care of an elderly relative,

I think an aunt, and a brother, who was a celebrated _jurisconsulte_

and judge: their rank was equal to that of my countrywomen; their blood,

perhaps, more purely noble, that is, older by some centuries; and

their family more illustrious, by God knows how many quarterings;

moreover, their father was a minister of state. Both these girls were

beautiful;--fair, and fair-haired, with complexions on which "the rose

stood ready with a blush;" and one, the youngest sister, was exquisitely

lovely--in truth, she might have sat for one of Guido's angels.

They walked up and down the deck, neither seeking nor avoiding the

proximity of others. They accepted the telescopes which the gentlemen,

particularly some young Englishmen, pressed on them when any distant or

remarkable object came in view, and repaid the courtesy with a bright

kindly smile; they were natural and easy, and did not deem it necessary

to mount guard over their own dignity. Do you think I did not observe

and feel the contrast?

MEDON.

If nations begin at last to understand each other's true

interests--morally and politically, it will be through the agency of

gifted men; but if ever they learn to love and sympathize with each

other, it will be through the medium of you women. You smile, and

shake your head; but in spite of a late example, which might seem to

controvert this idea, I still think so;--our prejudices are stronger

and bitterer than yours, because they are those which perverted reason

builds up on a foundation of pride; but yours, which are generally

those of fancy and association, soon melt away before your own kindly

affections. More mobile, more impressible, more easily yielding to

external circumstances, more easily lending yourselves to different

manners and habits, more quick to perceive, more gentle to judge;--yes,

it is to you we must look, to break down the outworks of prejudice--you,

the advanced guard of humanity and civilization!

"The gentle race and dear,

By whom alone the world is glorified!"

Every feeling, well educated, generous, and truly refined woman, who

travels, is as a dove sent out on a mission of peace; and should bring

back at least an olive-leaf in her hand, if she bring nothing else.

It is her part to soften the intercourse between rougher and stronger

natures; to aid in the interfusion of the gentler sympathies; to speed

the interchange of art and literature from pole to pole: not to pervert

wit, and talent, and eloquence, and abuse the privileges of her sex, to

sow the seeds of hatred where she might plant those of love--to embitter

national discord and aversion, and disseminate individual prejudice and

error.

ALDA.

Thank you! I need not say how entirely I agree with you.

MEDON.

Then tell me, what have _you_ brought home? if but an olive-leaf, let us

have it; come, unpack your budget. Have you collected store of anecdotes,

private, literary, scandalous, abundantly interspersed with proper names

of grand-dukes and little dukes, counts, barons, ministers, poets,

authors, actors, and opera dancers?

ALDA.

Me?

MEDON.

Cry you mercy!--I did but jest, so do not look so indignant! But have

you then traced the cause and consequences of that undercurrent of

opinion which is slowly but surely sapping the foundations of empires?

Have you heard the low booming of that mighty ocean which approaches,

wave after wave, to break up the dikes and boundaries of ancient power?

ALDA.

I? no; how should I--skimming over the surface of society with perpetual

sunshine and favouring airs--how should I sound the gulfs and shoals

which lie below?

MEDON.

Have you, then, analysed that odd combination of poetry, metaphysics,

and politics, which, like the three primeval colours, tinge in various

tints and shades, simple and complex, all literature, morals, art, and

even conversation, through Germany?

ALDA.

No, indeed!

MEDON.

Have you decided between the different systems of Jacobi and Schelling?

ALDA.

You know I am a poor philosopher; but when Schelling was introduced

to me at Munich, I remember I looked up at him with inexpressible

admiration, as one whose giant arm had cut through an isthmus, and

whose giant mind had new modelled the opinions of minds as gigantic

as his own.

MEDON.

Then you are of this new school, which reveals the union of faith and

philosophy?

ALDA.

If I am, it is by instinct.

MEDON.

Well, to descend to your own peculiar sphere, have you satisfied

yourself as to the moral and social position of the women in Germany?

ALDA.

No, indeed!--at least, not yet.

MEDON.

Have you examined and noted down the routine of the _domestic_ education

of their children? (we know something of the public and national

systems.) Can you give some accurate notion of the ideas which generally

prevail on this subject?

ALDA.

O no! you have mentioned things which would require a life to study.

Merely to have thought upon them, to have glanced at them, gives me no

right to discuss them, unless I could bring my observations to some

tangible form, and derive from them some useful result.

MEDON.

Yet in this last journey you had an object--a purpose?

ALDA.

I had--a purpose which has long been revolving in my mind--an object

never lost sight of;--but give me time!--time!

MEDON.

I see;--but are you prepared for consequences? Can you task your

sensitive mind to stand reproach and ridicule? Remember your own story

of Runckten the traveller, who, when about to commence his expedition

into the desarts of Africa, prepared himself, by learning beforehand

to digest poisons; to swallow without disgust reptiles, spiders,

vermin----

ALDA.

"Thou hast the most unsavoury similes!"

MEDON.

Take a proverb then--"Bisogna coprirsi bene il viso innanzi di

struzzicare il vespaio."

ALDA.

I will _not_ hide my face; nor can I answer you in this jesting vein,

for to me it is a serious thought. There is in the kindly feeling, the

spontaneous sympathy of the public towards me, something which fills me

with gratitude and respect, and tells me to respect myself; which I

would not exchange for the greater _éclat_ which hangs round greater

names;--which I will not forfeit by writing one line from an unworthy

motive; nor flatter, nor invite, by withholding one thought, opinion,

or sentiment, which I believe to be true, and to which I can put the

seal of my heart's conviction.

MEDON.

Good! I love a little enthusiasm now and then; so like Britomart in the

enchanter's palace, the motto is,

"Be bold, be bold, and every where be bold!"

ALDA.

I should rather say, be gentle, be gentle, every where be gentle; and

then we cannot _be too bold_.[2]

MEDON.

Well, then, I return once more to the charge. Have you been rambling

about the world for these six months--yet learned nothing?

ALDA.

On the contrary.

MEDON.

Then what, in Heaven's name, _have_ you learned?

ALDA.

Not much; but I have learned to sweep my mind of some ill-conditioned

cobwebs. I have learned to consider my own acquired knowledge but as a

torch flung into an abyss, making the darkness visible, and showing me

the extent of my own ignorance.

MEDON.

Then give us--give _me_, at least--the benefit of your ignorance; only

let it be all your own. I honour a profession of ignorance--if only for

its rarity--in these all-knowing times. Let me tell you, the ignorance

of a candid and not uncultivated mind is better than the second-hand

wisdom of those who take all things for granted; who are the echoes of

others' opinions, the utterers of others' words; who _think_ they know,

and who _think_ they think: I am sick of them all. Come, refresh me with

a little ignorance--and be serious.

ALDA.

You make me smile; after all, 'tis only going over old ground, and I

know not what pleasure, what interest it can impart, beyond half an

hour's amusement.

MEDON.

Sceptic! is that nothing? In this harsh, cold, working-day world, is

half an hour's amusement nothing? Old ground!--as if you did not know

the pleasure of going over old ground with a new companion to refresh

half-faded recollections--to compare impressions--to correct old ideas

and acquire new ones? O I can suck knowledge out of ignorance, as a

weazel sucks eggs!--Begin.

ALDA.

Where shall I begin?

MEDON.

Where, but at the beginning? and then diverge as you will. Your first

journey was one of mere amusement?

ALDA.

Merely, and it answered its purpose; we travelled _à la milor

Anglais_--a _partie carrée_--a barouche hung on the most approved

principle--double-cushioned--luxurious--rising and sinking on its

springs like a swan on the wave--the pockets stuffed with new

publications--maps and guides _ad infinitum_; English servants for

comfort, foreign servants for use; a chess-board, backgammon tables--in

short, surrounded with all that could render us entirely independent of

the amusements we had come to seek, and of the people among whom we had

come to visit.

MEDON.

Admirable--and English!

ALDA.

Yes, and pleasant. I thought, not without gratitude, of the contrast

between present feelings and those of a former journey. To abandon

oneself to the quickening influence of new objects without care or

thought of to-morrow, with a mind awake in all its strength; with

restored health and cheerfulness; with sensibility tamed, not dead;

possessing one's soul in quiet; not seeking, nor yet shrinking from

excitement; not self-engrossed, nor yet pining for sympathy; was not

this much? Not so interesting, perhaps, as playing the _Ennuyée_;

but, oh! you know not how sad it is to look upon the lovely through

tearful eyes, and walk among the loving and the kind, wrapped as in

a death-shroud; to carry into the midst of the most glorious scenes

of nature, and the divinest creations of art, perceptions dimmed and

troubled with sickness and anguish: to move in the morning with aching

and reluctance--to faint in the evening with weariness and pain; to feel

all change, all motion, a torment to the dying heart; all rest, all

delay, a burthen to the impatient spirit; to shiver in the presence of

joy, like a ghost in the sunshine, yet have no sympathy to spare for

suffering. How could I remember that all this _had been_, and not bless

the miracle-worker--Time? And _apropos_ to the miracles of time--I had

on this first journey, one source of amusement, which I am sorry I

cannot share with you at full length; it was the near contemplation

of a very singular character, of which I can only afford you a sketch.

Our CHEF _de voyage_, for so we chose to entitle him who was the planner

and director of our excursion, was one of the most accomplished and most

eccentric of human beings: even courtesy might have termed him old, at

seventy; but old age and he were many miles asunder, and it seemed as

though he had made some compact with Time, like that of Faust with the

devil, and was not to surrender to his inevitable adversary till the

very last moment. Years could not quench his vivacity, nor "stale his

infinite variety." He had been one of the prince's wild companions in

the days of Sheridan and Fox, and could play alternately blackguard and

gentleman, and both in perfection; but the high-born gentleman ever

prevailed. He had been heir to an enormous income, most of which had

slipped through his fingers _unknownst_, as the Irish say, and had stood

in the way of a coronet, which, somehow or other, had slipped over his

head to light on that of his eldest son. He had lived a life which would

have ruined twenty iron constitutions, and had suffered what might well

have broken twenty hearts of common stuff; but his self-complacency

was invulnerable, his animal spirits inexhaustible, his activity

indefatigable. The eccentricities of this singular man have been matter

of celebrity; but against each of these stories it would be easy to

place some act of benevolence, some trait of lofty gentlemanly feeling,

which would at least neutralize their effect. He often told me that he

had early in life selected three models, after which to form his own

conduct and character; namely, De Grammont, Hotspur, and Lord Herbert of

Cherbury; and he certainly _did_ unite, in a greater degree than he knew

himself, the characteristics of all three. Such was our CHEF, and thus

led, thus appointed, away we posted on, from land to land, from city

to city--

MEDON.

Stay--stay. This is galloping on at the rate of Lenora, and her phantom

lover--

"Tramp, tramp across the land we go,

Splash, splash across the sea!"

Take me with you, and a little more leisurely.

ALDA.

I think Bruges was the first place which interested me, perhaps from

its historical associations. Bruges, where monarchs kissed the hand

to merchants, now emptied of its former splendour, reminded me of the

improvident steward in scripture, that could not dig, and to beg was

ashamed. It had an air of grave idleness and threadbare dignity; and its

listless, thinly-scattered inhabitants looked as if they had gone astray

among the wide streets and huge tenantless edifices. There is one thing

here which you must see--the tomb of Charles the Bold, and his daughter,

Mary of Burgundy. The tomb is of the most exquisite workmanship,

composed of polished brass and enamelled escutcheons; and there the

fiery father and the gentle daughter lie, side by side, in sculptured

bronze, equally still, cold, and silent. I remember that I stood long

gazing on the inscription, which made me smile, and made me think. There

was no mention of defeat and massacre, disgraceful flight, or obscure

death. "But," says the epitaph, after enumerating his titles, his

exploits, and his virtues, "fortune, who had hitherto been his good lady,

ungently turned her back upon him on such a day of such a year, and

_oppressed_ him"--an amusing instance of mingled courtesy and _naïveté_.

Ghent was our next resting place. The aspect of Ghent, so familiarized

to us of late by our travelled artists, made a strong impression upon

me, and I used to walk about for hours together, looking at the strange

picturesque old buildings coëval with the Spanish dominion, with their

ornamented fronts and peaked roofs. There is much trade here, many

flourishing manufactories, and the canals and quays often exhibited a

lively scene of bustle, of which the form, at least, was new to us. The

first exposition, or exhibition, of the newly-founded Royal Academy

of the Netherlands was at this season open. You will allow it was a

fair opportunity of judging of the present state of painting, in the

self-same land, where she had once found, if not a temple, at least

a home.

MEDON.

And learned to be homely--but the result?

ALDA.

I can scarce express the surprise I felt at the time, though it has

since diminished on reflection. All the attempts at historical painting

were bad, without exception. There was the usual assortment of Virgins,

St. Cecilias, Cupids and Psyches, Zephyrs and Floras;--but such

incomparable atrocities! There were some cabinet pictures in the same

style in which their Flemish ancestors excelled--such as small interior

conversation pieces, battle pieces, and flowers and fruit; some of these

were really excellent, but the proportion of bad to good was certainly

fifty to one.

MEDON.

Something like our own Royal Academy.

ALDA.

No; because with much which was quite as bad, quite as insipid, as

coarse in taste, as stupidly presumptuous in attempt, and ridiculous

in failure, as ever shocked me on the walls of Somerset House, there

was nothing to be compared to the best pictures I have seen there. As I

looked and listened to the remarks of the crowd around me, I perceived

that the taste for art is even as low in the Netherlands as it is here

and elsewhere.

MEDON.

And, surely, not from the want of models, nor from the want of facility

in the means of studying them. You visited, of course, Schamp's

collection?

ALDA.

Surely; there were miracles of art crowded together like goods in a

counting-house, with wondrous economy of space, and more lamentable

economy of light. Some were nailed against doors, inside and out, or

suspended from screens and window-shutters. Here I saw Rubens' picture

of Father Rutseli, the confessor of Albert and Isabella: one of those

heads more suited to the crown than to the cowl--grand, sagacious,

intellectual, with such a world of meaning in the eye, that one almost

shrunk away from the expression. Here, too, I found that remarkable

picture of Charles the First, painted by Lely during the king's

imprisonment at Windsor--the only one for which he sat between his

dethronement and his death: he is still melancholy and gentlemanlike,

but not quite so dignified as on the canvass of Vandyke. This is the

very picture that Horace Walpole mentions as lost or abstracted from the

collection at Windsor. How it came into Schamp's collection, I could

not learn. A very small head of an Italian girl by Correggio, or in his

manner, hung close beside a Dutch girl by Mieris: equally exquisite as

paintings, they gave me an opportunity of contrasting two styles, both

founded in nature--but the nature, how different! the one all life,

the other life and soul. Schamp's collection is liberally open to the

public, as well as many others; if artists fail, it is not for want

of models.

MEDON.

Perhaps for want of patronage? Yet I hear that the late king of the

Netherlands sent several young artists to Italy at his own expense,

and that the Prince of Orange was liberal and even munificent in his

purchases--particularly of the old masters.

ALDA.

When I went to see the collection of the Prince of Orange at Brussels,

I stepped from the room in which hung the glorious Vandykes, perhaps

unequalled in the world, into the adjoining apartment, in which were two

unfinished portraits disposed upon easels. They represented members of

the prince's family; and were painted by a native artist of fashionable

fame, and royally patronised. These were pointed out to my admiration as

universally approved. What shall I say of them? Believe me, that they

were contemptible beyond all terms of contempt! Can you tell me why the

Prince of Orange should have sufficient taste to select and appropriate

the finest specimens of art, and yet purchase and patronize the vilest

daubs ever perpetrated by imbecility and presumption?

MEDON.

I know not, unless it be that in the former case he made use of others'

eyes and judgment, and in the latter, of his own.

ALDA.

I might have anticipated the answer; but be that as it may, of all the

galleries I saw in the Netherlands, the small but invaluable collection

he had formed in his palace pleased me most. I remember a portrait of

Sir Thomas More, by Holbein. A female head, by Leonardo da Vinci, said

to be one of the mistresses of Francis I., but this is doubtful; that

most magnificent group, Christ delivering the keys to St. Peter, by

Rubens, once in England; about eight or ten Vandykes, masterpieces--for

instance, Philip IV. and his minister Olivarez, and a Chevalier le Roy

and his wife: all that you can imagine of chivalrous dignity, and

lady-like grace. But there was one picture, a family group, by Gonsalez,

which struck me more than all the rest put together. I had never seen

any production of this painter, whose works are scarcely known out of

Spain; and I looked upon this with equal astonishment and admiration.

There was also a small, but most curious collection of pictures, of

the ancient Flemish and German schools, which it is now the fashion

to admire, and, what is worse, to imitate. The word _fashion_ does

not express the national enthusiasm on this subject which prevails in

Germany. I can understand that these pictures are often most interesting

as historic documents, and often admirable for their literal transcripts

of nature and expression, but they can only possess comparative

excellence and relative value; and where the feeling of ideal beauty and

classic grace has been highly cultivated, the eye shrinks involuntarily

from these hard, grotesque, and glaring productions of an age when

genius was blindly groping amid the darkness of ignorance. To confess

the truth, I was sometimes annoyed, and sometimes amused, by the cant I

heard in Germany about those schools of painting which preceded Albert

Durer. Perhaps I should not say _cant_--it is a vile expression; and in

German affectation there is something so very peculiar--so poetical,

so--so _natural_, if I might say so, that I would give it another name

if I could find one. In this worship of their old painters, I really

could sympathize sometimes, even when it most provoked me. Retzsch, whom

I had the delight of knowing at Dresden, showed me a sketch, in which he

had ridiculed this mania with the most exquisite humour: it represented

the torso of an antique Apollo (emblematical of ideal grace), mutilated

and half buried in the earth, and subject to every species of profanation;

it serves as a stool for a German student, who, with his shirt-collar

turned down, and his hair dishevelled, and his cap stuck on one side,

_à la_ Rafaelle, is intently copying a stiff, hard, sour-looking old

Madonna, while Ignorance looks on, gaping with admiration. No one knows

better than Retzsch the value of these ancient masters--no one has a

more genuine feeling for all that is admirable in them; but no one feels

more sensibly the gross perversion and exaggeration of the worship paid

to them. I wish he would publish this good-humoured little bit of satire,

which is too just and too graceful to be called a caricature.

I must tell you, however, that there were two most curious old pictures

in the Orange Gallery, which arrested my attention, and of which I have

retained a very distinct and vivid recollection; and that is more than I

can say of many better pictures. They tell, in a striking manner, a very

interesting story: the circumstances are said to have occurred about

the year 985, but I cannot say that they rest on any very credible

authority.

Of these two pictures, each exhibits two scenes. A certain nobleman, a

favourite of the Emperor Otho, is condemned to death by his master on

the false testimony of the Empress (a sort of Potiphar's wife), who has

accused him of having tempted her to break her marriage vow. In the

back-ground we see the unfortunate man led to judgment; he is in his

shirt, bare-footed and bare-headed. His wife walks at his side, to whom

he appears to be speaking earnestly, and endeavouring to persuade her

of his innocence. A friar precedes them, and a crowd of people follow

after. On the walls of the city stand the Emperor and his wicked

Empress, looking down on the melancholy procession. In the foreground,

we have the dead body of the victim, stretched upon the earth, and the

executioner is in the act of delivering the head to his wife, who looks

grim with despair. The severed head and flowing blood are painted with

such a horrid and literal fidelity to nature, that it has been found

advisable to cover this portion of the picture.

In the foreground of the second picture, the Emperor Otho is represented

on his throne surrounded by his counsellors and courtiers. Before him

kneels the widow of the Count: she has the ghastly head of her husband

in her lap, and in her left-hand she holds firmly and unhurt the

red-hot iron, the fiery ordeal by which she proves to the satisfaction

of all present the innocence of her murdered lord. The Emperor looks

thunderstruck; the Empress stands convicted, and is condemned to death;

and in the back-ground, we have the catastrophe. She is bound to a

stake, the fire is kindled, and she suffers the terrible penalty of

her crime. These pictures, in subject and execution, might be termed

tragico-comico-historical; but in spite of the harshness of the drawing,

and the thousand defects of style and taste, they fix the attention by

the vigour of the colouring and the expression of the heads, many of

which are evidently from the life. The story is told in a very complete

though very inartificial manner. The painter, Derick Steuerbout, was one

of the very earliest of the Flemish masters, and lived about 1468, many

years before Albert Durer and Holbein. I have heard that they were

painted for the city of Lorraine, and until the invasion of the French,

they remained undisturbed, and almost unnoticed, in the Hotel-de-Ville.

MEDON.

Does this collection of the Prince of Orange still exist at Brussels?

ALDA.

I am told that it does--that the whole palace, the furniture, the

pictures, remain precisely as the prince and his family left them: that

even down to the princess's work-box, and the portraits of her children

which hang in her boudoir, nothing has been touched. This does not speak

well for king Leopold's gallantry; and, in his place, I think I would

have sent the private property of my rival after him.

MEDON.

So would not I, for this is not the age of chivalry, but of common

sense. As to the pictures, the Belgians might plead that they were

purchased with the public money, therefore justly public property. No,

no; he should not have a picture of them--"If a Vandyke would save his

soul, he should not; I'd keep them, by this hand!" that is, as long as

I had a plausible excuse for keeping them; but the princess should have

had her work-box and her children by the first courier. What more at

Brussels?

ALDA.

I can recollect no more. The weather was sultry: we dressed, and dined,

and ate ices, and drove up and down the Allée Verte, and saw I believe

all that is to be seen--churches, palaces, hospitals, and so forth. We

went from thence to Aix-la-Chapelle and Spa. As it was the height of the

season, and both places were crowded with gay invalids, perhaps I ought

to have been very much amused, but I confess I was _ennuyée_ to death.

MEDON.

This I can hardly conceive; for though there might have been little to

amuse one of your turn of mind, there should have been much to observe.

ALDA.

There might have been matter for observation, or ridicule, or reflexion,

at the moment, but nothing that I remember with pleasure. Spa I disliked

particularly. I believe I am not in my nature cold or stern; but there

was something in the shallow, tawdry, vicious gaiety of this place,

which disgusted me. In all watering-places extremes meet; sickness and

suffering, youth and dissipation, beggary and riches, collect together;

but Spa being a very small town, a mere village, the approximation is

brought immediately under the eye at every hour, every moment; and the

beauty of the scenery around only rendered it more disagreeable: to me,

even the hill of Annette and Lubin was polluted. Our Chef de voyage, who

had visited Spa fifty years before, when on his _grand tour_, walked

about with great complacency, recalling his youthful pleasures, and

the days when he used to gallant his beautiful cousin, the Duchess of

Rutland, of divine memory. While the rest of the party were amused, I

fell into my old, habit of thinking and observing, and my contemplations

were not agreeable. But instead of dealing in these general remarks,

I will sketch you one or two pictures which have dwelt upon my memory.

We had a well-dressed laquais-de-place, whose honesty and good-humour

rendered him an especial favourite. His wife being ill, I went to see

her; to my great surprise he conducted me to a little mud hovel, worse

than the worst Irish cabin I ever heard described, where his wife lay

stretched upon some straw, covered with a rug, and a little neglected

ragged child was crawling about the floor, and about her bed. It seems

then, that, this poor man, who every day waited at our luxurious table,

dressed in smiles, and must habitually have witnessed the wasteful

expenditure of the rich, returned every night to his miserable home,

if home it could be called, to feel the stings of want with double

bitterness. He told me that he and his wife lived the greater part of

the year upon water-gruel, and that the row of wretched cabins, of which

his own formed one, was inhabited by those who, like himself, were

dependent upon the rich, extravagant, and dissipated strangers for the

little pittance which was to support them for a twelvemonth. Was not

this a fearful contrast? I should tell you that the benevolence of our

Chef rendered this poor couple independent of change or chance for the

next year. My other picture is in a different style. You know that

at Spa the theatre immediately joins the ball-room. As soon as the

performances are over, the parterre is laid down with boards, and in a

few minutes metamorphosed into a gambling saloon. One night curiosity

led me to be a spectator at one of the _rouge et noir_ tables. While I

was there, a Flemish lady of rank, the Baroness B----, came in, hanging

on the arm of a gentleman; she was not young, but still handsome. I had

often met her in our walks, and had been struck by her fine eyes, and

the amiable expression of her countenance. After one or two turns up

and down the room, laughing and talking, she carelessly, and as if from

a sudden thought, seated herself at the table. By degrees she became

interested in the game, her stakes became deeper, her countenance became

agitated, and her brow clouded. I left her playing. The next evening

when I entered, I found her already seated at the table, as indeed I had

anticipated. I watched her for some time with a painful interest. It was

evident that she was not an habitual gambler, like several others at the

same table, whose hard impassive features never varied with the variations

of the game. There was one little old withered skeleton of a woman, like

a death's head in artificial flowers, who stretched out her harpy claws

upon the rouleaus of gold and silver, without moving a muscle or a

wrinkle of her face,--with hardly an additional twinkle in her dull grey

eye. Not so my poor baroness, who became every moment more agitated and

more eager: her eyes sparkled with an unnatural keenness, her teeth

became set, and her lips drawn away from them, wore, instead of the

sweet smile which had at first attracted my attention, a grin of

desperation. Gradually, as I looked at her, her countenance assumed so

hideous, and, I may add, so vile an expression, that I could no longer

endure the spectacle. I hastened from the room--more moved, more shocked

than I can express; and often, since that time, her face has risen upon

my day and night dreams like a horrid supernatural mask. Her husband,

for this wretched woman was a wife and a mother, came to meet her a few

days afterwards, and accompany her home; but I heard that in the interval

she had attempted self-destruction, and failed.

MEDON.

The case is but too common; and even you, who are always seeking reasons

and excuses for the delinquencies of your sex, would hardly find them

here.

ALDA.

And unless I could know what were the previous habits and education

of the victim, through what influences, blest or unblest, her mind

had been trained, her moral existence built up--should I condemn? Who

had taught this woman self-knowledge?--who had instructed her in the

elements of her own being, and guarded her against her own excitable

temperament?--what friendly voice had warned her ignorance?--what secret

burden of misery--what joyless emptiness of heart--what fever of the

nerves--what weariness of spirit--what "thankless husband or faithless

lover" had driven her to the edge of the precipice? In this particular

case I know that the husband bore the character of being both negligent

and dissipated; and where was _he_,--what were his haunts and his

amusements, while his wife staked with her gold, her honour, her reason,

and her life? Tell me all this before we dare to pass judgment. O it is

easy to compute what is done! and yet, who but the Being above us all,

can know what is resisted?

MEDON.

You would plead then for a _female_ gambler?

ALDA.

Why do you lay such an emphasis upon _female_ gambler? In what respect

is a female gambler worse than one of your sex? The case is more

pitiable;--more rare--therefore, perhaps, more shocking; but why more

hateful?

MEDON.

You pose me.

ALDA.

Then I will leave you to think;--or shall I go on? for at this rate we

shall never arrive at the end of our journey. I was at Aix-la-Chapelle,

was I not? Well, I spare you the relics of Charlemagne, and if you have

any dear or splendid associations with that great name, spare your

imagination the shock it may receive in the cathedral at Aix, and leave

"Yarrow unvisited."[3] Luckily the theatre at Aix is beautiful, and

there was a fine opera, and a very perfect orchestra; the singers

tolerable. It was here I first heard the Don Juan and the Freyschutz

performed in the German fashion, and with German words. The Freyschutz

gave me unmixed pleasure. In the Don Juan I missed the recitative,

and the soft Italian flow of syllables, from which the music had been

divorced; so that the ear, long habituated to that marriage of sweet

sounds, was disappointed; but to listen without pleasure and excitement

was impossible. I remember that on looking round, after Donna Anna's

song, I was surprised to see our Chef de voyage bathed in tears; but,

no whit disconcerted, he merely wiped them away, saying, with a smile,

"It is the very prettiest, softest thing to cry to one's self!"

Afterwards, when we were in the carriage, he expressed his surprise that

any man should be ashamed of tears. "For my own part," he added, "when

I wish to enjoy the very high sublime of luxury, I dine alone, order a

mutton cutlet, _cuite à point_, with a bottle of Burgundy on one side,

and Ovid's epistle of Penelope to Ulysses on the other; and so I read,

and eat, and cry to myself. And then he repeated with enthusiasm--

"Hanc tua Penelope lento tibi mittit Ulysse:

Nil mihi rescribas attamen ipse veni;"

his eyes glistening as he recited the lines; he made me feel their

beauty without understanding a word of their sense. "Strangest, and

happiest of men!" I thought as I looked at him, "that after living

seventy years in this world, can still have tears to spare for the

sorrows of Penelope!" Well, our next resting place was Cologne.

MEDON.

You pause?--you have nothing to say of Cologne? No English traveller,

except your professed tourists and guide-book makers, ever has; of the

crowds who pass through the place, on their way up or down the Rhine,

how few spend more than a night or a day there! their walk is between

the Rheinberg and the cathedral; they look, perhaps, with a sneering

curiosity at the shrine of the Three Kings; cut the usual jests on the

Leda and the Cupid and Psyche;[4] glance at the St. Peter of Rubens;

lounge on the bridge of boats; stock themselves with eau-de-Cologne, and

then away! And yet this strange old city, which a bigoted priesthood,

a jealous magistracy, and a variety of historical causes, have so

long kept isolated in the midst of Europe, with its Roman origin, its

classical associations, the wild gothic superstitions of which it has

been the theatre; its legion of martyrs, its three kings and eleven

thousand virgins, and the peculiar manners and physiognomy of the people,

strangely take the fancy. What has become of its three hundred and fifty

churches, and its thirty thousand beggars?--Thirty thousand beggars!

Was there ever such a splendid establishment of licensed laziness,

and consecrated rags and wallets! What a magnificent idea does it give

one of the inexhaustible charity, and the incalculable riches of the

inhabitants! but the French came with their besom of purification

and destruction; and lo! the churches were turned into arsenals, the

convents into barracks; and from its old-accustomed haunts, "the genius

of beggary was with sighing sent." I really believe, that were I again

to visit Cologne, I would not be content with a mere superficial glance,

as heretofore.

ALDA.

And you would do well. To confess the truth, our first impressions of

the place were exceedingly disagreeable; it appeared a huge, rambling,

gloomy old city, whose endless narrow dirty streets, and dull

dingy-looking edifices, were any thing but inviting. Nor on a second

and a third visit were we tempted to prolong our stay. Yet Cologne has

since become most interesting to me from a friendship I formed with

a Colonese, a descendant of one of the oldest families of the place.

How she loved her old city!--how she worshipped every relic with the

most poetical, if not the most pious veneration!--how she looked

down upon Berlin with scorn, as an upstart city, "_une ville ma chére,

qui n'a ni histoire, ni antiquité_." The cathedral she used to call

"_mon Berceau_," and the three kings "_mes trois pères_." Her profound

knowledge of general history, her minute acquaintance with the local

antiquities, the peculiar customs, the wild legends, the solemn

superstitions of her birth-place, added to the most lively imagination

and admirable descriptive powers, were to me an inexhaustible source

of delight and information. It appears that the people of Cologne have

a distinct character, but little modified by intercourse with the

surrounding country, and preserved by continual intermarriages among

themselves. They have a dialect, and songs, and ballads, and music,

peculiar to their city; and are remarkable for an original vein of

racy humour, a revengeful spirit, an exceeding superstition, a blind

attachment to their native customs, a very decided contempt for

other people, and a surpassing hatred of all innovations. They never

admitted the jurisdiction of the electors of Cologne, and, although

the most bigoted people in the world, were generally at war with

their archbishops. Even Napoleon could not make them comformable.

The city is now attached to Prussia, but still retains most of its

ancient privileges, and all its ancient spirit of insubordination and

independence. When, in 1828, the king of Prussia wished to force upon

them an unpopular magistrate, the whole city rose, and obliged the

obnoxious president to resign; the government, armed with all its legal

and military terrors, could do nothing against the determined spirit

of this half-civilized, fearless, reckless, yet merry, good-humoured

populace. A history of this grotesque revolution, which had the same

duration as the celebrated _trois jours de Paris_, and exhibited in

its progress and issue some of the most striking, most characteristic,

most farcical scenes you can imagine, were worthy of a Colonese Walter

Scott. How I wish I could give you some of my friend's rich graphic

sketches and humorous pictures of popular manner! but I feel that their

peculiar spirit would evaporate in my hands. The event is celebrated in

their local history as "_la Revolution du Carnaval_:" and this reminds

me of another peculiarity of Cologne. The carnival is still celebrated

there with a degree of splendour and fantastic humour, exceeding even

the festivities of Rome and Naples in the present day; but as the season

of the carnival is not the season for flight with our English birds of

passage, few have ever witnessed these extraordinary Saturnalia. Such is

the general ignorance or indifference relative to Cologne, that I met

the other day with a very accomplished man, and a lover of art, who had

frequently visited the place, and yet he had never seen the Medusa.

MEDON.

Nor I, by this good light!--I never even heard of it!

ALDA.

And how shall I attempt to describe it? Unless I had the "large

utterance of the early gods," or could pour forth a string of Greek or

German compounds, I know not in what words I could do justice to the

effect it produced upon me. This wondrous mask measures about two feet

and a half in height;[5] the colossal features, and I may add, the

colossal expression, grand without exaggeration--so awfully vast, and

yet so gloriously beautiful; the full rich lips curled with disdain--the

mighty wings overshadowing the knit and tortured brow--the madness in

the large dilated eyes--the wreathing and recoiling snakes, came upon me

like something supernatural, and impressed me at once with astonishment,

horror, and admiration. I was quite unprepared for what I beheld. As I

stood before it my mind seemed to elevate and enlarge itself to admit

this new vision of grandeur. Nothing but the two Fates in the Elgin

marbles, and the Torso of the Vatican, ever affected me with the same

inexpressible sense of the sublime: and this is not a fragment of some

grand mystery, of which the remainder has been "to night and chaos

hurled;" it is entire, in admirable preservation, and the workmanship as

perfect as the conception is magnificent. I know not if it would have

affected another in the same manner. For me, the ghastly allegory of the

Medusa has a peculiar fascination. I confess that I have never wholly

understood it, nor have any of the usual explanations satisfied me;

it appears to me, that the Greeks, in thus blending the extremes of

loveliness and terror, had a meaning, a purpose, more than is dreamt

of by our philosophy.

MEDON.

But, how came this wonderful relic to Cologne, of all places in the

world?

ALDA.

It stopped there on its road to England.

MEDON.

By what perverse destiny?--was it avarice on our part, or force or fraud

on that of others?

ALDA.

It was, as Desdemona says, "our wretched fortune:" but the story, with

all its circumstances, does so much honour to human nature, that it

has half reconciled me to our loss. You must have heard of Professor

Wallraf of Cologne, one of the canons of the cathedral, who, with his

professorship and his canonship together, may have possessed from

five to seven hundred francs a year. He was one of those wonderful

and universal scholars, of whom we read in former times--men who

concentrated all their powers and passions, and intellectual faculties,

in the acquirement and advancement of knowledge, without any selfish aim

or object, and from the mere abstract love of science. Early in life

this man formed the resolution to remove from his native city the reproach

of self-satisfied ignorance and monastic prejudices, which had hitherto

characterized it; and in the course of a long existence of labour and

privation, as professor and teacher, he contrived to collect together

books, manuscripts, pictures, gems, works of art, and objects of natural

history, to an immense amount. In the year 1818, on recovering from

a dangerous illness, he presented his whole collection to his native

city; and the magistracy, in return, bestowed on him a pension of three

thousand francs for the remainder of his life. He was then more than

seventy. About the same time a dealer in antiquities arrived from Rome,

bringing with him this divine Medusa, with various other busts and

fragments: he was on his way to England, where he hoped to dispose of

them. He asked for his whole collection twelve thousand francs, and

refused to sell any part of it separately. The city refused to make the

purchase, thinking it too dear, and Wallraf, in despair at the idea

of this glorious relic being consigned to other lands, mortgaged his

yearly pension in order to raise the money, purchased the Medusa,

presented it to the city, and then cheerfully resumed his accustomed

life of self-denial and frugality. His only dread was lest he should die

before the period was expired. He lived, however, to pay off his debt,

and in three months afterwards he died.[6] Was not this admirable? The

first time I saw the Medusa I did not know this anecdote; the second

time, as I looked at it, I thought of Wallraf, and felt how much a moral

interest can add to the charm of what is in itself most perfect.

MEDON.

I will certainly make a pilgrimage to this Medusa. She must be worth

all the eleven thousand virgins together. What next?

ALDA.

Instead of embarking in the steam-boat, we posted along the left

bank of the Rhine, spending a few days at Bonn, at Godesberg, and at

Ehrenbreitstein; but I should tell you, as you allow me to diverge, that

on my second journey, I owed much to a residence of some weeks at Bonn.

There I became acquainted with the celebrated Schlegel, or I should

rather say, M. le Chevalier de Schlegel, for I believe his titles and

his "starry honours" are not indifferent to him; and in truth he wears

them very gracefully. I was rather surprised to find in this sublime

and eloquent critic, this awful scholar, whose comprehensive mind has

grasped the whole universe of art, a most agreeable, lively, social

being. Of the judgments passed on him in his own country, I know little,

and understand less; I am not deep in German literary polemics. To me

he was the author of the lectures on "Dramatic Literature," and the

translator of Shakspeare, and, moreover, all that was amiable and

polite: and was not this enough?

MEDON.

Enough for you, certainly; but, I believe that at this time Schlegel

would rather found his fame on being one of the greatest oriental

critics of the age, than on being the interpreter of the beauties of

Calderon and Shakspeare.

ALDA.

I believe so; but for my own part, I would rather hear him talk of

Romeo and Juliet, and of Madame de Staël, than of the Ramayana, the

Bhagvat-Gita, or even the "eastern Con-fut-zee." This, of course, is

only a proof of my own ignorance. Conversation may be compared to a lyre

with seven chords--philosophy, art, poetry, politics, love, scandal,

and the weather. There are some professors, who, like Paganini, "can

discourse most eloquent music" upon one string only; and some who can

grasp the whole instrument, and with a master's hand sound it from the

top to the bottom of its compass. Now, Schlegel is one of the latter:

he can thunder in the bass or caper in the treble; he can be a whole

concert in himself. No man can trifle like him, nor, like him, blend in

a few hours' converse, the critic, philologist, poet, philosopher, and

man of the world--no man narrates more gracefully, nor more happily

illustrates a casual thought. He told me many interesting things. "Do

you know," said he one morning, as I was looking at a beautiful edition

of Corinne, bound in red morocco, the gift of Madame de Staël; "do you

know that I figure in that book?" I asked eagerly in what character?

He bid me guess. I guessed playfully, the Comte d'Erfeuil. "No! no!"

said he, laughing, "I am immortalized in the Prince Castel-Forte, the

faithful, humble, unaspiring, friend of Corinne."

MEDON.

To any man but Schlegel, such an immortality were worth a life. Nay,

there is no man, though his fame extended to the ends of the earth, whom

the pen of Madame de Staël could not honour.

ALDA.

He seemed to think so, and I liked him for the self-complacency with

which he twined her little myrtle leaf with his own palmy honours. Nor

did he once refer to what I believe every body knows, her obligations to

him in her De l'Allemagne.

MEDON.

Apropos--do tell me what is the general opinion of that book among the

Germans themselves.

ALDA.

I think they do not judge it fairly. Some speak of it as eloquent, but

superficial:[7] others denounce it altogether as a work full of mistakes

and flippant, presumptuous criticism: others again affect to speak of

it, and even of Madame de Staël herself, as things of another era, quite

gone by and forgotten; this appeared to me too ridiculous. They forget,

or do not know, what _we_ know, that her De l'Allemagne was the first

book which awakened in France and England a lively and general interest

in German art and literature. It is now five-and-twenty years since it

was published. The march of opinion, and criticism, and knowledge of

every kind, has been so rapid, that much has become old which then was

new; but this does not detract from its merit. Once or twice I tried to

convince my German friends that they were exceedingly ungrateful in

abusing Madame de Staël, but it was all in vain; so I sat swelling with

indignation to hear my idol traduced, and called--O profanation!--

"_cette Staël_."

MEDON.

But do you think the Germans could at all appreciate or understand such

a phenomenon as Madame de Staël must have appeared in those days? She

whisked through their skies like a meteor, before they could bring the

telescope of their wits to a right focus for observation. How she must

have made them open their eyes!--and you see in the correspondence

between Goethe and Schiller what _they_ thought of her.

ALDA.

Yes, I know that with her lively egotism and Parisian volubility,

she stunned Schiller and teased Goethe: but while our estimate of

_manner_ may be allowed to be relative and comparative, our estimate

of _character_ should be positive and abstract. Madame de Staël was

in manner the Frenchwoman, accustomed to be the cynosure of a salon,

but she was not ridiculous or egoiste in character. She was, to use

Schlegel's expression, "femme grande et magnanime jusque dans les replis

de son âme." The best proof is the very spirit in which she viewed

Germany, in spite of all her natural and national prejudices. To apply

your own expression, she went forth, in the spirit of peace, and brought

back, not only an olive leaf, but a whole tree, and it has flourished.

She had a universal mind. I believe she never thought, and still less

_made_, any one ridiculous in her life.[8]

At Bonn much of my time was spent in intimate and almost hourly

intercourse with two friends, one of whom I have already mentioned to

you--a rare creature!--the other, who was herself the daughter of a

distinguished authoress,[9] was one of the most generally accomplished

women I ever met with. Opposed to each other in the constitution of

their minds--in all their views of literature and art, and all their

experience of life--in their tastes, and habits, and feelings--yet

mutually appreciating each other: both were distinguished by talents of

the highest order and by great originality of character, and both were

German, and very essentially _German_: English society and English

education would never have produced two such women. Their conversation

prepared me to form correct ideas of what I was to see and hear, and

guarded me against the mistakes and hasty conclusions of vivacious

travellers. At Bonn I also saw, for the first time, a specimen of the

fresco painting, lately revived in Germany with such brilliant success.

By command of the Prussian Board of Education the hall of the university

of Bonn is to be painted in fresco, and the work has been entrusted

to C. Hermann, Götzenberger, and Förster--all, I believe, pupils of

Cornelius. The three sides of the hall are to represent the three

faculties--Theology, Jurisprudence, and Philosophy; the first of these

is finished, and here is an engraving of it. You see Theology is throned

in the centre. The four evangelists, with St. Peter and St. Paul, stand

on the steps of the throne; around her are the fathers and doctors of

the church, and (which is the chief novelty of the composition) grouped

together with a very liberal disregard to all religious differences;

for there you see pope Gregory, and Ignatius Loyola, and St. Bernard,

and Abelard, and Dante; and here we have Luther, and Melanchthon,

and Calvin, and Wickliff, and Huss. On the opposite side of the hall,

Philosophy, under which head are comprised all science, poetry, and art,

is represented surrounded by the great poets, philosophers, and artists,

from Homer, Aristotle, and Phideas, down to Shakspeare, Raffaelle,

Goethe, and Kant. Jurisprudence, which is not begun, is to occupy the

third side. The cartoons pleased me better than the paintings, for the

drawing and grouping are really fine; but the execution struck me as

somewhat hard and mannered. I shall have much to say hereafter of the

fresco painting in Germany; for the present, proceed we on our journey.

Tell me, had you a full moon while you were on the Rhine?

MEDON.

Truly, I forget.

ALDA.

Then you had _not_; for it would so have blended with your recollections,

that as a circumstance it could not have been forgotten; and take

my advice, when next you are off on your annual flight, consult the

calendar, and propitiate the fairest of all the fair Existences of

heaven to give you the light of her countenance. If you never took a

solitary ramble, or, what is better, a _tête-à-tête_ drive through the

villages and vineyards between Bonn and Plittersdorf, when the moon

hung over the Drachenfels, when the undulating outlines of the Seven

Mountains seemed to dissolve into the skies, and the Rhine was spread

out at their feet like a lake--so ample, and so still;--if you have

never seen the stars shine through the ruined arch of the Rolandseck,

and the height of Godesberg, with its single giant tower, stand out of

the plain,--black, and frowning against the silvery distance, then you

have not beheld one of the loveliest landscapes ever presented to a

thoughtful worshipper of nature. There is a story, too, connected with

the ruins of Godesberg:--one of those fine tragedies of real life, which

distance all fiction. It is not so popular as the celebrated legend

of the brave Roland, and his cloistered love; but it is at least

as authentic. You know that, according to tradition, the castle of

Godesberg was founded by Julian the Apostate; another, and a more

interesting apostate, was the cause of its destruction.

Gerard[10] de Truchses, Count Waldbourg, who was archbishop and elector

of Cologne in 1583, scandalized his see, and all the Roman Catholic

powers, by turning Protestant. According to himself, his conversion was

owing to "the goodness of God, who had revealed to him the darkness and

the errors of popery;" but according to his enemies, it was owing to his

love for the beautiful Agnes de Mansfeld, canoness of Gersheim; she was

a daughter of one of the greatest Protestant houses in Germany; and her

two brothers, bigoted Calvinists, and jealous of the honour of their

family, conceived themselves insulted by the public homage which a

Catholic priest, bound by his vows, dared to pay to their sister. They

were yet more incensed on discovering that the love was mutual, and

loudly threatened vengeance to both. Gerard renounced the Catholic

faith, and the lovers were united. He was excommunicated and degraded,

of course; but he insisted on his right to retain his secular dominions

and privileges, and refused to resign the electorate, which the emperor,

meantime, had awarded to Ernest of Bavaria, bishop of Liege. The contest

became desperate. The whole of that beautiful and fertile plain, from

the walls of Cologne to the Godesberg, grew "familiar with bloodshed as

the morn with dew;" and Gerard displayed qualities which showed him more

fitted to win and wear a bride, than to do honour to any priestly vows

of sanctity and temperance. Attacked on all sides,--by his subjects, who

had learned to detest him as an apostate, by the infuriated clergy, and

by the Duke of Bavaria, who had brought an army to enforce his brother's

claims,--he carried on the struggle for five years, and at last, reduced

to extremity, threw himself, with a few faithful friends, into the

castle of Godesberg. After a brave defence, the castle was stormed and

taken by the Bavarians, who left it nearly in the state we now see it--a

heap of ruins.

Gerard escaped with his wife, and fled to Holland, where Maurice, Prince

of Orange, granted him an asylum. Thence he sent his beautiful and

devoted wife to the court of Queen Elizabeth, to claim a former promise

of protection, and supplicate her aid, as the great support of the

Protestant cause, for the recovery of his rights. He could not have

chosen a more luckless ambassadress; for Agnes, though her beauty was

somewhat impaired by the persecutions and anxieties which had followed

her ill-fated union, was yet most lovely and stately, in all the pride

of womanhood; and her misfortunes and her charms, as well as the

peculiar circumstances of her marriage, excited the enthusiasm of all

the English chivalry. Unhappily the Earl of Essex was among the first to

espouse her cause with all the generous warmth of his character, and his

visits to her were so frequent, and his admiration so indiscreet, that

Elizabeth's jealousy was excited even to fury. Agnes was first driven

from the court, and then ordered to quit the kingdom. She took refuge in

the Netherlands, where she died soon afterwards; and Gerard, who never

recovered his dominions, retired to Strasbourg, where he died. So ends

this sad eventful history, which, methinks, would make a very pretty

romance. The tower of Godesberg, lasting as their love and ruined as

their fortunes, still remains one of the most striking monuments in that

land, where almost every hill is crowned with its castle, and every

castle has its tale of terror, or of love.[11]

Another beautiful picture, which, merely as a picture, has dwelt on my

remembrance, was the city of Coblentz and the fort of Ehrenbreitstein,

as viewed from the bridge of boats under a cloudless moon. The city,

with its fantastic steeples and masses of building, relieved against

the clear deep blue of the summer sky--the lights which sparkled in the

windows reflected in the broad river, and the various forms and tall

masts of the craft anchored above and opposite--the huge hill, with its

tiara of fortifications, which, in the sunshine and in the broad day,

had disappointed me by its formality, now seen under the soft moonlight,

as its long lines of architecture and abrupt angles were projected in

brightness or receded in shadow, had altogether a most sublime effect.

But _apropos_ to moonlights and pictures--of all the enchanted and

enchanting scenes ever lighted by the full round moon, give me

Heidelberg! Not the Colosseum of Rome--neither in itself, nor yet in

Lord Byron's description, and I have both by heart--can be more grand;

and in moral interest, in poetical associations, in varying and wondrous

beauty, the castle of Heidelberg has the advantage. In the course of

many visits, Heidelberg became to me familiar as the face of a friend,

and its remembrance still "haunts me as a passion." I have known it

under every changeful aspect which the seasons, and the hours, and the

changeful moods of my own mind, could lend it. I have seen it when the

sun, rising over the Geisberg, first kindled the vapours as they floated

away from the old towers, and when the ivy and the wreathed verdure on

the walls sparkled with dewy light: and I have seen it when its huge

black masses stood against the flaming sunset; and its enormous shadow,

flung down the chasm beneath, made it night there, while daylight

lingered around and above. I have seen it when mantled in all the bloom

and foliage of summer, and when the dead leaves were heaped on the paths,

and choked the entrance to many a favourite nook. I have seen it when

crowds of gay visitors flitted along its ruined terraces,[12] and music

sounded near; and with friends, whose presence endeared every pleasure;

and I have walked alone round its desolate precincts, with no companions

but my own sad and troubled thoughts. I have seen it when clothed in

calm and glorious moonlight. I have seen it when the winds rushed

shrieking through its sculptured halls, and when grey clouds came

rolling down the mountains, folding it in their ample skirts from the

view of the city below. And what have I seen to liken to it by night or

by day, in storm or in calm, in summer or in winter! Then its historical

and poetical associations--

MEDON.

There now!--will you not leave the picture, perfect as it is, and not

for ever seek in every object something more than is there?

ALDA.

I do not seek it--I find it. You will say--I have _heard_ you say--that

Heidelberg wants no beauty unborrowed of the eye; but if history had not

clothed it in recollections, fancy must have invested it in its own

dreams. It is true, that it is a mere modern edifice compared with all

the classic, and most of the gothic ruins; yet over Heidelberg there

hangs a terror and a mystery peculiar to itself: for the mind which

acquiesces in decay, recoils from destruction. Here ruin and desolation

make mocks with luxurious art and gay magnificence. Here it is not the

equal, gradual power of time, adorning and endearing what yet it spares

not, which has wrought this devastation, but savage war and elemental

rage. Twice blasted by the thunderbolt, three times consumed by fire,

ten times ravaged, plundered, desecrated by foes, and at last dismantled

and abandoned by its own princes, it is still strong to endure and

mighty to resist all that time, and war, and the elements may do against

it--and, mutilated rather than decayed, may still defy centuries. The

very anomalies of architecture and fantastic incongruities of this

fortress-palace, are to me a fascination. Here are startling and

terrific contrasts. That huge round tower--the tower of Frederic the

Victorious--now "deep trenched with thunder fires," looks as if built

by the Titans or the Huns; and those delicate sculptures in the palace

of Otho-Henry, as if the genius of Raffaelle or Correggio had breathed

on the stone. What flowing grace of outline! what luxuriant life! what

endless variety and invention in those half-defaced fragments! These are

the work of Italian artists, whose very names have perished;--all traces

of their existence and of their destinies so utterly lost, that one

might almost believe, with the peasantry, that these exquisite remains

are not the work of mortal hands, but of fairies and spirits of air,

evoked to do the will of an enchanter. The old palatines, the lords of

Heidelberg, were a magnificent and magnanimous race. Louis III.,

Frederic the Victorious, Frederic II., Otho-Henry, were all men who had

stepped in advance of their age. They could think as well as fight, in

days when fighting, not thinking, was the established fashion among

potentates and people. A liberal and enlightened spirit, and a love of

all the arts that humanise mankind, seem to have been hereditary in

this princely family. Frederic I. lay under the suspicion of heresy

and sorcery, in consequence of his tolerant opinions, and his love of

mathematics and astronomy. His personal prowess, and the circumstance

of his never having been vanquished in battle, gave rise to the report,

that he was assisted by evil demons; and for years, both before and

after his accession, he was under the ban of the secret tribunal.

Heidelberg was the scene of some of the mysterious attacks on his life,

but they were constantly frustrated by the fidelity of his friends, and

the watchful love of his wife.

It was at Heidelberg this prince celebrated a festival, renowned

in German history, and, for the age in which it occurred, most

extraordinary. He invited to a banquet all the factious barons whom he

had vanquished at Seckingen, and who had previously ravaged and laid

waste great part of the palatinate. Among them were the Bishop of Metz

and the Margrave of Baden. The repast was plentiful and luxurious, but

there was no bread. The warrior guests looked round with surprise

and inquiry. "Do you ask for bread?" said Frederic, sternly; "you,

who have wasted the fruits of the earth, and destroyed those whose

industry cultivates it? There is no bread. Eat and be satisfied; and

learn henceforth mercy to those who put the bread into your mouths."

A singular lesson from the lips of an iron-clad warrior of the middle

ages.

It was Frederic II. and his nephew Otho-Henry, who enriched the library,

then the first in Europe next to the Vatican, with treasures of

learning, and who invited painters and sculptors from Italy to adorn

their noble palace with the treasures of art. In less than one hundred

years those beautiful creations were defaced or utterly destroyed, and

all the memorials and records of their authors are supposed to have

perished at the time when the ruthless Tilly stormed the castle, and the

archives and part of the library of precious MSS. were taken to litter

his dragoons' horses, during a transient scarcity of straw.[13]--You

groan!

MEDON.

The anecdote is not new to me; but I was thinking, at the moment, of a

pretty phrase in the letters of the Prince de Ligne, "la guerre--c'est

un malheur--mais c'est le plus beau des malheurs."

ALDA.

O if there be any thing more terrific, more disgusting, than war and

its consequences, it is that perversion of all human intellect--that

depravation of all human feeling--that contempt or misconception of every

Christian precept, which has permitted the great, and the good, and the

tenderhearted, to admire war as a splendid game--a part of the poetry

of life--and to defend it as a glorious evil, which the very nature and

passions of man have ever rendered, and will ever render, necessary and

inevitable. Perhaps the idea of human suffering--though when we think

of it in detail it makes the blood curdle--is not so bad as the general

loss to humanity, the interruption to the progress of thought in the

destruction of the works of wisdom or genius. Listen to this magnificent

sentence out of the volume now lying open before me--"Who kills a man,

kills a reasonable creature--God's image; but he who destroys a good

book, kills reason itself. Many a man lives a burthen to the earth, but

a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit embalmed and

treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. It is true, no age can

restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss: and revolutions

of ages do not oft recover the loss of rejected truth, for the want of

which whole nations fare the worse; therefore we should be wary how we

spill the seasoned life of man preserved and stored up in books."

MEDON.

"Methinks we do know the fine Roman hand." Milton, is it not?

ALDA.

Yes; and after this, think of Milton's Areopagitica, or his Paradise

Lost, under the hoofs of Tilly's dragoon horses, or feeding the fishes

in the Baltic! It might have happened had he written in Germany instead

of England.

MEDON.

Do you forget that the cause of the thirty years war was a woman?

ALDA.

A woman and religion; the two best or worst things in the world,

according as they are understood and felt, used and abused. You allude

to Elizabeth of Bohemia, who was to Heidelberg what Helen was to Troy?

One of the most interesting monuments of Heidelberg, at least to an

English traveller, is the elegant triumphal arch raised by the palatine

Frederic V. in honour of his bride--this very Elizabeth Stuart. I well

remember with what self-complacency and enthusiasm our Chef walked about

in a heavy rain, examining, dwelling upon every trace of this celebrated

and unhappy woman. She had been educated at his country-seat, and one

of the avenues of his magnificent park yet bears her name. On her

fell a double portion of the miseries of her fated family. She had the

beauty and the wit, the gay spirits, the elegant tastes, the kindly

disposition, of her grandmother, Mary of Scotland. Her very virtues as

a wife and a woman, not less than her pride and feminine prejudices,

ruined herself, her husband, and her people. When Frederick hesitated to

accept the crown of Bohemia, his high-hearted wife exclaimed--"Let me

rather eat dry bread at a king's table than feast at the board of an

elector;" and it seemed as if some avenging demon hovered in the air,

to take her literally at her word, for she and her family lived to

eat dry bread--aye, and to beg it before they ate it; but she _would_

be a queen. Blest as she was in love, in all good gifts of nature and

fortune, in all means of happiness, a kingly crown was wanting to

complete her felicity, and it was cemented to her brow with the blood of

two millions of men. And who was to blame? Was not her mode of thinking

the fashion of her time, the effect of her education? Who had

"Put in her tender heart the aspiring flame

Of golden sovereignty?"

For how many ages will you men exclaim against the mischiefs and

miseries, caused by the influence of women; thus allowing the influence,

yet taking no thought how to make that influence a means of good,

instead of an instrument of evil!

Elizabeth had brought with her from England some luxurious tastes, as

yet unknown in the palatinate; she had been familiarized with the dramas

of Shakspeare and Fletcher, and she had figured in the masques of Ben

Jonson. To gratify her, Frederic added to the castle of Heidelberg the

theatre and banqueting-room, and all that beautiful group of buildings

at the western angle, the ruins of which are still called the _English

palace_. She had inherited from her grandmother, or had early imbibed

from education, a love of nature and of amusements in the open air,

and a passion for gardening; and it was to please her, and under her

auspices, that Frederic planned those magnificent gardens, which were

intended to unite within their bounds, all that nature could contribute

or art devise; had they been completed, they would have rendered

Heidelberg a pleasure-palace, fit for fairy-land. Nor were those designs

unworthy of a prosperous and pacific sovereign, whose treasury was

full, whose sway was just and mild, whose people had long enjoyed in

tranquillity the fruits of their own industry. When I had the pleasure

of spending a few days with the Schlossers, at their beautiful seat

on the Necker, (Stift Neuburg,) I went over the ground with Madame de

Schlosser, who had seen and studied the original plans. Her description

of the magnitude and the sumptuous taste of these unfinished designs,

while we stood together amid a wilderness of ruins, was a commentary on

the vicissitudes of this world, worth fifty moral treatises, and as many

sermons.

"For in the wreck of IS and WAS,

Things incomplete and purposes betray'd,

Make sadder transits o'er Truth's mystic glass,

Than noblest objects utterly decay'd."

Close to the ruins of poor Elizabeth's palace, there where the effigies

of her handsome husband, and his bearded ancestor Louis V. look down

from the ivy-mantled wall, you remember the beautiful terrace towards

the west? It is still,--after four centuries of changes, of disasters,

of desolation,--the garden of Clara. When Frederic the Victorious

assumed the sovereignty, in a moment of danger and faction, he took,

at the same time, a solemn vow never to marry, that the rights of his

infant nephew, the son of the late palatine, should not be prejudiced,

nor the peace of the country endangered by a disputed succession. He

kept his oath religiously, but at that very time he loved Clara Dettin

de Wertheim, a young girl of plebeian origin, and a native of Augsburg,

whose musical talents and melody of voice had raised her to a high

situation in the court of the late princess palatine. Frederick, with

the consent of his nephew, was united to Clara by a left-hand marriage,

an expedient still in use in Germany, and, I believe, peculiar to its

constitution; such a marriage is valid before God and man, yet the wife

has no acknowledged rights, and the offspring no supposed existence.

Clara is celebrated by the poets and chroniclers of her time, and

appears to have been a very extraordinary being in her way. In that age

of ignorance, she had devoted herself to study--she could sympathize in

her husband's pursuits, and share the toils of government--she collected

round her the wisest and most learned men of the time--she continued to

cultivate the beautiful voice which had won the heart of Frederic, and

her song and her lute were always ready to soothe his cares. Tradition

points out the spot where it is said she loved to meditate, and, looking

down upon the little hamlet, on the declivity of the hill, to recall

her own humble origin; that little hamlet, embowered in foliage, and

the remembrance of Clara, have survived the glories of Heidelberg. Her

descendants became princes of the empire, and still exist in the family

of Lowenstein.

Then, for those who love the marvellous, there is the wild legend of

the witch Jetta, who still flits among the ruins, and bathes her golden

tresses in the Wolfsbrunnen; but why should I tell you of these

tales--you, whose head is a sort of black-letter library?

MEDON.

True; but it is pleasant to have one's old recollections taken down

from their shelves and dusted, and placed in a new light; only do not

require, even if I again visit Heidelberg, that I should see it as you

have beheld it, with your quick spirit of association, and clothed in

the hues of your own individual mind. While you speak, it is not so much

the places and objects you describe, as their reflection in your own

fancy, which I see before me; and every different mind will reflect them

under a different aspect. Then, where is truth? you say. If we want

information as to mere facts--the situation of a town, the measurement

of a church, the date of a ruin, the catalogue of a gallery--we can go

to our dictionaries and our _guides des voyageurs_. But if, besides form

and outline, we must have colouring too, we should remember that every

individual mind will paint the scene with its own proper hues; and if

we judge of the mind and the objects it represents relatively to each

other, we may come at the truth, not otherwise. I would ask nothing of

a traveller, but accuracy and sincerity in the expression of his

opinions and feelings. I have then a page out of the great book of human

nature--the portrait of a particular mind; when that is fairly before me

I have a standard by which to judge: I can draw my own inferences. Will

you not allow that it is possible to visit Heidelberg, and to derive

the most intense pleasure from its picturesque beauty, without dreaming

over witches and warriors, palatines and princes? Can we not admire and

appreciate the sculpture in the palace of Otho-Henry, without losing

ourselves in vague, wondering reveries over the destinies of the

sculptors?

ALDA.

Yes; but it is amusing, and not less instructive, to observe the

manner in which the individual character and pursuits shall modify the

impressions of external things; only we should be prepared for this, as

the pilot makes allowance for the variation of the needle, and directs

his course accordingly. It is a mistake to suppose that those who cannot

see the imaginative aspect of things, see, therefore, the only true

aspect; they only see one aspect of the truth. _Vous étes orfêvre,

Monsieur Josse_, is as applicable to travellers as to every other

species of egotist.

Once, in an excursion to the north, I fell into conversation with a

Sussex farmer, one of that race of sturdy, rich, and independent

English yeomen, of which I am afraid few specimens remain: he was quite

a character in his way. I must sketch him for you; but only Miss Mitford

could do him justice. His coat was of the finest broad-cloth; his

shirt-frill, in which was stuck a huge agate pin, and his neckcloth, were

both white as the snow; his good beaver shone in all its pristine gloss,

and an enormous bunch of gold seals adorned his watch-chain; his voice

was loud and dictatorial, and his language surprisingly good and flowing,

though tinctured with a little coarseness and a few provincialisms. He

had made up his mind about the Reform Bill--the Catholic Question--the

Corn Laws--and about things in general, and things in particular; he

had doubts about nothing: it was evident that he was accustomed to lay

down the law in his own village--that he was the tyrant of his own

fire-side--that his wife was "his horse, his ox, his ass, his any thing,"

while his sons went to college, and his daughters played on the piano.

London was to him merely a vast congregation of pestilential vapours--a

receptacle of thieves, cut-throats and profligates--a place in which no

sensible man, who had a care for his life, his health, or his pockets,

would willingly set his foot; he thanked God that he never spent but two

nights in the metropolis, and at intervals of twenty-seven years: the

first night he had passed in the streets, in dread of fire and vermin;

and on the last occasion, he had not ventured beyond Smithfield. What he

did not know, was to him not worth knowing; and the word _French_, which

comprised all that was foreign, he used as a term, expressing the most

unbounded abhorrence, pity, and contempt. I should add, that though

rustic, and arrogant, and prejudiced, he was not vulgar. We were at

an inn, on the borders of Leicestershire, through which we had both

recently travelled; my farmer was enthusiastic in his admiration of

the country. "A fine country, madam--a beautiful country--a splendid

country!"

"Do you call it a fine country?" said I, absently, my head full of the

Alps and Appenines, the Pyrenean, and the river Po.

"To be sure I do; and where would you see a finer?"

"I did not see any thing very picturesque," said I.

"_Picturesque!_" he repeated with some contempt; "I don't know what

_you_ call picturesque; but _I_ say, give me a soil, that when you turn

it up you have something for your pains; the fine soil makes the fine

country, madam!"

SKETCHES OF ART, LITERATURE AND CHARACTER.

II.

MEDON.

I observed the other evening, that in making a sort of imaginative bound

from Coblentz to Heidelberg, you either skipped over Frankfort, or left

it on one side.

ALDA.

Did I?--if I had done _either_, in my heart or my memory, I had been

most ungrateful; but I thought you knew Frankfort well.

MEDON.

I was there for two days, on my way to Switzerland, and it rained the

whole time from morning till night. I have a vision in my mind of

dirty streets, chilly houses, dull shops, dingy-looking Jews, dripping

umbrellas, luxurious hotels, and exorbitant charges,--and this is all

I can recollect of Frankfort.

ALDA.

Indeed!--I pity you. To me it was associated only with pleasant

feelings, and, in truth, it is a pleasant place. Life, there, appears in

a very attractive costume: not in a half-holiday, half-beggarly garb, as

at Rome and Naples; nor in a thin undress of superficial decency as at

Berlin; nor in a court domino, hiding, we know not what--as at Vienna

and Munich; nor half motley, half military, as at Paris; nor in rags

and embroidery, as in London; but at Frankfort all the outside at least

is fair, substantial, and consistent. The shops vie in splendour with

those of London and Paris; the principal streets are clean, the houses

spacious and airy, and there is a general appearance of cheerfulness and

tranquillity, mingled with the luxury of wealth and the bustle of

business, which, after the misery, and murmuring, and bitterness of

faction, we had left in London, was really a relief to the spirits.

It is true, that during my last two visits, this apparent tranquillity

concealed a good deal of political ferment. The prisons were filled

with those unfortunate wretches who had endeavoured to excite a popular

tumult against the Prussian and Austrian governments. The trials were

going forward every day, but not a syllable of the result transpired

beyond the walls of the Römer Saal. Although the most reasonable and

liberal of the citizens agreed in condemning the rashness and folly of

these young men, the tide of feeling was evidently in their favour: for

instance, it was not the _fashion_ to invite the Prussian officers, and

I well remember that when Goethe's Egmont was announced at the theatre,

it was forbidden by the magistracy, from a fear that certain scenes and

passages in that play might call forth some open and decided expression

of the public feeling; in fact, only a few evenings before, some

passages in the Massaniello had been applied and applauded by the

audience, in a manner so _ill-bred_, that the wife of one of the

ministers of the Holy Alliance, rose and left her box, followed by some

other old women,--male and female. The theatre is rather commodious than

splendid; the established company, both for the opera and the regular

drama, excellent, and often varied by temporary visits of great actors

and singers from the other theatres of Germany. On my first visit to

Frankfort, which was during the fair of 1829, Paganini, then in the

zenith of his glory, was giving a series of concerts; but do not ask

me any thing about him, for it is a worn-out subject, and you know I am

not one of the enthusiastic, or even the orthodox, with regard to his

merits.

MEDON.

You do not mean--you will not tell me--that with all your love of music,

you were insensible to the miraculous powers of that man?

ALDA.

I suppose they were miraculous, as I heard every one say so round me;

but I listened to him as to any other musician, for the sake of the

pleasure to be derived from music, not for the sake of wondering at

difficulties overcome, and impossibilities made possible--they might

have remained impossibilities for me. But insensible I was _not_ to

the wondrous charm of his tone and expression. I was thrilled, melted,

excited, at the moment, but it left no relish on the palate, if I may

use the expression. To throw me into such _convulsions_ of enthusiasm,

as I saw this man excite here and on the continent, I must have the

orchestra with all its various mingling world of sound, or the _divine_

human voice breathing music and passion together; but this is a matter

of feeling, habit, education, like all other tastes in art.

I think it was during our third visit to Frankfort that Madame

Haitzinger-Neumann was playing the _gast-rolles_, for so they courteously

denominate the parts filled by occasional visitors, to whom, as guests,

the precedence is always given. Madame Haitzinger is the wife of

Haitzinger, the tenor singer, who was in London, and sung in the Fidelio,

with Madame Devrient-Schroeder. She is one of the most celebrated

actresses in Germany for light comedy, if any comedy in Germany can be

called light, in comparison with the same style of acting in France or

England. Her figure is rather large--

MEDON.

Like most of the German actresses--for I never yet saw one who had

attained to celebrity, who was not much too _embonpoint_ for our ideas

of a youthful or sentimental heroine--

ALDA.

Not Devrient-Schroeder?

MEDON.

Devrient is all impassioned grace; but I think that in time even _she_

will be in danger of becoming a little--how shall I express it with

sufficient delicacy?--a _little_ too substantial.

ALDA.

No, not if a soul of music and fire, informing a feverish, excitable

temperament, which is to the mantling spirit within, what the

high-pitched instrument is to the breeze which sweeps over its

chords,--not if these can avert the catastrophe; but what if you had

seen Mademoiselle Lindner, with a figure like Mrs. Liston's--all but

spherical--enacting Fenella and Clärchen?

MEDON.

I should have said, that only a German imagination could stand it! It

is one of Madame de Staël's clever aphorisms, that on the stage, "Il

faut menager les caprices des yeux avec le plus grand scrupule, car ils

peuvent detruire, sans appel tout effet sérieux;" but the Germans do not

appear to be subject to these _caprices des yeux_; and have not these

fastidious scruples about corporeal grace; for them sentiment, however

clumsy, is still sentiment. Perhaps they are in the right.

ALDA.

And Mademoiselle Lindner _has_ sentiment; she must have been a fine

actress, and is evidently a favourite with the audience. But to return

to Madame Haitzinger;--she is handsome, with a fair complexion, and no

very striking expression; but there is a heart and soul, and mellowness

in her acting, which is delicious. I could not give you an idea of her

manner by a comparison with any of our English actresses, for she is

essentially German; she never aimed at making points; she was never

broadly arch or comic, but the general effect was as rich as it was true

to nature. I saw her in some of her favourite parts: in the comedy of

"Stille Wasser sind tief;" (our Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, admirably

adapted to the German stage by Schroeder;) in the "Mirandolina,"

(the famous Locandiera of Goldoni,) and in the pretty lively vaudeville

composed for her by Holtei, "Die Wiener in Berlin," in which the popular

waltzes and airs, sung in the genuine national spirit, and enjoyed by

the audience with a true national zest, delighted us _foreigners_.

Herr Becker is an excellent actor in tragedy and high comedy. Of their

singers I could not say so much--there were none I should account

first-rate, except Dobler, whom you may remember in England.

One of the most delightful peculiarities of Frankfort, one that most

struck my fancy, is the public garden, planted on the site of the

ramparts; a girdle of verdure and shade--of trees and flowers circling

the whole city; accessible to all and on every side,--the promenade of

the rich, the solace of the poor. Fifty men are employed to keep it in

order, and it is forbidden to steal the flowers, or to kill the singing

birds which haunt the shrubberies.

MEDON.

And does this prohibition avail much in a population of sixty thousand

persons?

ALDA.

It does generally. A short time before we arrived some mischievous

wretch had shot a nightingale, and was caught in the fact. His

punishment was characteristic; his hands were tied behind him, and

a label setting forth his crime was fixed on his breast: in this guise,

with a police officer on each side, he was marched all round the

gardens, and made the circuit of the city, pursued by the hisses of

the populace and the abhorrent looks of the upper classes; he was not

otherwise punished, but he never again made his appearance within the

walls of the city. This was the only instance which I could learn of

the infraction of a law which might seem at least nugatory.

Of the spacious, magnificent, well-arranged cemetery, its admirable

apparatus for restoring suspended animation, and all its beautiful

accompaniments and memorials of the dead, there was a long account

published in London, at the time that a cemetery was planned for this

great overgrown city; and in truth I know not where we could find a

better model than the one at Frankfort; it appeared to me perfection.

The institutions at Frankfort, both for charity and education, are

numerous as becomes a rich and free city; and those I had an opportunity

of examining appeared to me admirably managed. Besides the orphan schools,

and the Burger schule, and the school for female education, established

and maintained by the wives of the citizens, there are several infant

schools, where children of a year old and upwards are nursed, and fed,

and kept out of mischief and harm, while their parents are at work.

These are also maintained by subscription among the ladies, who take

upon them in turns the task of daily superintendence; and I shall not

easily forget the gentle-looking, elegant, well-dressed girl, who,

defended from the encroachments of dirty little paws by a large apron,

sat in the midst of a swarm of thirty or forty babies, (the eldest not

four years old,) the very personification of feminine charity! But

the hospital for the infirm poor--Das Versorgung Haus--pleased me

particularly; 'tis true, that the cost was not a third--what do I say?

not a sixth of the expense of some of our institutions for the same

purpose. There was no luxury of architecture, nor huge gates shutting

in wretchedness, and shutting out hope; nor grated windows; nor were the

arrangements on so large a scale as in that splendid edifice, the Hopital

des Vieillards, at Brussels;--a house for the poor need not be either a

prison or a palace. But here, I recollect, the door opened with a latch;

we entered unannounced, as unexpected. Here there was perfect neatness,

abundance of space, of air, of light, of water, and also of occupation.

I found that, besides the inmates of the place, many poor old creatures,

who could not have the facilities or materials for work in their own

dwellings, or whose relatives were busied in the daytime, might find

here employment of any kind suited to their strength or capacity,--for

which, observe, they were paid; thus leaving them to the last possible

moment the feeling of independence and usefulness. I observed that many

of those who seemed in the last stage of decrepitude had hung round

their beds sundry little prints and pictures, and slips of paper, on

which were written legibly, texts from scripture, moral sentences, and

scraps of poetry. The ward of the superannuated and the sick was at a

distance from the working and eating rooms; and all breathed around

that peace and quiet which should accompany old age, instead of that

"life-consuming din" I _have_ heard in such places. On the pillow of

one bed, there was laid by some chance a bouquet of flowers.

In this ward there was an old man nearly blind and lethargic; another

old man was reading to him. I remarked a poor bed-ridden woman, utterly

helpless, but not old, and with good and even refined features; and

another poor woman, seated by her, was employed in keeping the flies

from settling on her face. To one old woman, whose countenance struck

me, I said a few words in English--I could speak no German, unluckily.

She took my hand, kissed it, and turning away, burst into tears. No one

asked for any thing even by a look, nor apparently wanted any thing; and

I felt that from the unaffected good-nature of the lady who accompanied

us, we had not so much the appearance of coming to look at the poor

inmates as of paying them a kind visit;--and this was as it should

be. The mild, open countenances of the two persons who managed the

establishment, pleased me particularly; and the manner of the matron

superintendent, as she led us over the rooms, was so simple and kind,

that I was quite at ease: I experienced none of that awkward shyness

and reluctance I have felt when ostentatiously led over such places in

England--feeling ashamed to stare upon the misery I could not cure. In

such cases I have probably attributed to the sufferers a delicacy or a

sensibility, long blunted, if ever possessed; but I was in pain for them

and for myself.

One thing more: there was a neat chapel; and we were shown with some

pride the only piece of splendour in the establishment. The communion

plate of massy silver was the gift of two brothers, who had married

on the same day two sisters; and these two sisters had died nearly at

the same time--I believe it was actually on the same day. The widowed

husbands presented this plate in memory of their loss and the virtues

of their wives; and I am sorry I did not copy the simple and affecting

inscription in which this is attested. There was also a silver vase,

which had been presented as an offering by a poor miller whom an

unexpected legacy had raised to independence.

I might give you similar sketches of other institutions, here and

elsewhere, but I did not bestow sufficient attention on the practical

details, and the comparative merits of the different methods adopted,

to render my observations useful. Though deeply interested, as any

feeling, thinking being must be on such subjects, I have not studied

them sufficiently. There are others, however, who are doing this better

than I could:--blessings be on them, and eternal praise!--My general

impression was, pleasure from the benevolence and simplicity of heart

with which these institutions were conducted and superintended, and

wonder, not to be expressed, at their extreme cheapness.

The day preceding my visit to the Versorgung Haus, I had been in a fever

of indignation at the fate of poor R----, one of the conspirators, who

had become insane from the severity of his confinement. I had descanted

with great complacency on our open tribunals and our trials by jury, and

yet I could not help thinking to myself, "Well, if _we_ have not their

state-prisons, neither have _they_ our poor-houses!"

MEDON.

It is plain that the rich, charitable, worldly prosperous, self-seeking,

Frankfort, would be your chosen residence after all!

ALDA.

No--as a fixed residence I should not prefer Frankfort. There is a

little too much of the pride of purse--too much of the aristocracy of

wealth--too much dressing and dinnering--and society is too much broken

up into sets and circles to please me: besides, it must be confessed,

that the arts do not flourish in this free imperial city.

The Städel Museum was opened just before our last visit to Frankfort.

A rich banker of that name bequeathed, in 1816, his collection of

prints and pictures, and nearly a million and a half of florins, for

the commencement and maintenance of this institution, and they have

certainly begun on a splendid scale. The edifice in which the collection

is arranged is spacious, fitted up with great cost, and generally with

great taste, except the ceilings, which, being the glory and admiration

of the good people of Frankfort, I must endeavour to describe to you

particularly. The elaborate beauty of the arabesque ornaments, their

endless variety, and the vivid colouring and gilding, reminded me of some

of the illuminated manuscripts; but I was rather amused than pleased,

and rather surprised to see art and ornament so misplaced--invention,

labour, money, time, lavished to so little purpose. No effect was

aimed at--none produced. The strained and wearied eye wandered amid

a profusion of unmeaning forms, and of gorgeous colours, which never

harmonized into a whole: and after I had half broken my neck by looking

up at them through an opera glass, in order to perceive the elegant

interlacing of the minute patterns and exquisite finish of the

workmanship, I turned away laughing and provoked, and wondering at such

a strange perversion, or rather sacrifice, of taste.

MEDON.

But the collection itself?--

ALDA.

It is not very interesting. It contains some curious old German

pictures; Städel having been, like others, smitten with the mania of

buying Van Eyks and Hemlings and Schoréels. Here, however, these old

masters, as part of a school, or history of art, are well placed.

There are a few fine Flemish paintings--and, in particular, a wondrous

portrait by Flinck, which you must see. It is a lady in black, on the

left side of the door--of--I forget which room--but you cannot miss

it: those soft eyes will look out at you, till you will feel inclined

to ask her name, and wonder the lips do not unclose to answer you. Of

first-rate pictures there are none--I mean none of the historical and

Italian schools: the collection of casts from the antique is splendid

and well-selected.

MEDON.

But Bethmann, the banker, had already set an example of munificent

patronage of art: when he shamed kings, for instance, by purchasing

Dannecker's Ariadne--one of the chief lions of Frankfort, if fame

says true.

ALDA.

How! have you not seen it?

MEDON.

No--unhappily. The weather, as I have told you, was dreadful. I was

discouraged--I procrastinated. That flippant observation I had read in

some English traveller, that "Dannecker's Ariadne looked as if it had

been cut out of old Stilton cheese," was floating in my mind. In short,

I was careless, as we often are, when the means of gratifying curiosity

appear secure, and within our reach. I repent me now. I wish I had

settled to my own satisfaction, and with mine own eyes, the disputed

merits of this famous statue; but I will trust to you. It ought to be

something admirable. I do not know much of Dannecker, or his works, but

by all accounts he has not to complain of the want of patronage. To him

cannot be applied the pathetic common-place, so familiar in the mouths

of our young artists, about "chill penury," the struggle to live, the

cares that "freeze the genial current of the soul," the efforts of

unassisted genius, and so forth. Want never came to him since he devoted

himself to art. He appears to have had leisure and freedom to give full

scope to his powers, and to work out his own creations.

ALDA.

Had he? Had he indeed? His own story would be different, I fancy.

Dannecker, like every patronized artist I ever met with, would execrate

patronage if he dared. Good old man! The thought of what he might have

done, and could have done, breaks out sometimes in the midst of all

his self-complacent _naïve_ exultation over what he _has_ done. I will

endeavour to give you a correct idea of the Ariadne, and then I will

tell you something of Dannecker himself. His history is a good

commentary upon royal patronage.

I had heard so much of this statue, that my curiosity was strongly

excited. A part of its fame may be owing to its situation, and the

number of travellers who go to visit Bethmann's Museum, as a matter of

course. I used to observe that all travellers, who were on the road to

Italy, praised it, and all who were on their way home criticised it.

As I ascended the steps of the pavilion in which it is placed, the

enthusiasm of expectation faded away from my mind: I said to myself,

"I shall be disappointed!"--Yet I was not disappointed.

The Ariadne occupied the centre of a cabinet, hung with a dark grey

colour, and illuminated by a high lateral window, so that the light and

shade, and the relief of the figure, were perfectly well managed and

effective. Dannecker has not represented Ariadne in her more poetical

and picturesque character, as, when betrayed and forsaken by Theseus,

she stood alone on the wild shore of Naxos, "her hair blown by the

winds, and all about her expressing desolation." It is Ariadne, immortal

and triumphant, as the bride of Bacchus. The figure is larger than life.

She is seated, or rather reclined, on the back of a panther. The right

arm is carelessly extended: the left arm rests on the head of the

animal, and the hand supports the drapery, which appears to have just

dropped from her limbs. The head is turned a little upwards, as if she

already anticipated her starry home; and her tresses are braided with

the vine leaves. The grace and ease of the attitude, so firm, and yet

so light; the flowing beauty of the form, and the position of the head,

enchanted me. Perhaps the features are not sufficiently _Greek_: for,

though I am not one of those who think all beauty comprised in the

antique models, and that nothing can be orthodox but the straight nose

and short upper lip, still to Ariadne the pure _classical_ ideal of

beauty, both in form and face, are properly in character. A cast from

that divine head, the Greek Ariadne, is placed in the same cabinet, and

I confess to you, that the contrast being immediately brought before the

eye, Dannecker's Ariadne seemed to want refinement, in comparison. It is

true, that the moment chosen by the German sculptor required an expression

altogether different. In the Greek bust, though already circled by the

viny crown, and though all heaven seems to repose on the noble arch of

that expanded brow, yet the head is declined, and a tender melancholy

lingers round the all-perfect mouth, as if the remembrance of a mortal

love--a mortal sorrow--yet shaded her celestial bridal hours, and made

pale her immortality. But, Dannecker's Ariadne is the flushed queen

of the Bacchante, and, in the clash of the cymbals and the mantling

cup, she has already forgotten Theseus. There is a look of life, an

individual truth in the beauty of the form, which distinguishes it from

the long-limbed vapid pieces of elegance called nymphs and Venuses, which

"Stretch their white arms, and bend their marble necks,"

in the galleries of our modern sculptors. One objection struck me,

but not till after a second or third view of the statue. The panther

seemed to me rather too bulky and ferocious. It is true, it is not a

natural, but a mythological panther, such as we see in the antique

basso-relievos, and the arabesques of Herculaneum: yet, methinks if

he appeared a little more conscious of his lovely burthen, more tamed

by the influence of beauty, it would have been better. However, the

sculptor may have had a design, a feeling, in this very point, which has

escaped me: I regret now that I did not ask him. One thing is certain,

that the extreme massiveness of the panther's limbs serves to give a

firmness to the support of the figure, and sets off to advantage its

lightness and delicacy. It is equally certain that if the head of the

animal had been ever so slightly turned, the pose of the right arm, and

with it the whole attitude, must have been altered.

The window of the cabinet is so contrived, that by drawing up a blind

of stained glass, a soft crimson tint is shed over the figure, as if

the marble blushed. This did not please me: partly from a dislike to all

trickery in art; partly because, to my taste, the pale colourless purity

of the marble is one of the beauties of a fine statue.

It is true that Dannecker has been unfortunate in his material. The

block from which he cut his figure is imperfect and streaky; but how it

could possibly have suggested the idea of _Stilton cheese_ I am at a loss

to conceive. It is not worse than Canova's Venus, in the Pitti palace,

who has a terrible black streak across her bosom. M. Passavant,[14] who

was standing by when I paid my last visit to the Ariadne, assured me,

that when the statue was placed on its pedestal, about sixteen years

ago, these black specks were scarcely visible, and that they seemed to

multiply and grow darker with time. This is a lamentable, and, to me, an

unaccountable fact.

MEDON.

And, I am afraid, past cure: but now tell me something of the sculptor

himself. After looking on a grand work of art, we naturally turn to look

into the mind which conceived and created it.

ALDA.

Dannecker, like all the great modern sculptors, sprung from the people.

Thorwaldson, Flaxman, Chantrey, Canova, Schadow, Ranch--I believe we may

go farther back, to Cellini, Bandinelli, Bernini, Pigalle--all I can at

this moment recollect, were of plebeian origin. When I was at Dresden,

I was told of a young count, of noble family, who had adopted sculpture

as a profession. This, I think, is a solitary instance of any person of

noble birth devoting himself to this noblest of the arts.

MEDON.

Do you forget Mrs. Darner and Lady Dacre?

ALDA.

No; but I do not think that either the exquisite modelling of Lady

Dacre, or the meritorious _attempts_ of Mrs. Damer, come under the head

of sculpture in its grand sense. By-the-bye, when Horace Walpole said

that Mrs. Damer was the first female sculptor who had attained any

celebrity, he forgot the Greek girl, Lala,[15] and the Properzia Rossi

of modern times.

Dannecker was born at Stuttgardt in 1758. On him descended no hereditary

mantle of genius; it was the immediate gift of Heaven, and apparently

heaven-directed. His father was a groom in the duke's stable, and

appears to have been merely an ill-tempered, thick-headed boor. How

young Dannecker picked up the rudiments of reading and writing, he does

not himself remember; nor by what circumstances the bent of his fancy

and genius was directed to the fine arts. Like other great men, who have

been led to trace the progress of their own minds, he attributed to his

mother the first promptings to the fair and good, the first softening

and elevating influences which his mind acknowledged. He had neither

paper nor pencils; but next door to his father there lived a

stone-cutter, whose blocks of marble and free-stone were every day

scrawled over with rude imitations of natural objects in chalk or

charcoal--the first essays of the infant Dannecker. When he was beaten

by his father for this proof of idleness, his mother interfered to

protect or to encourage him. As soon as he was old enough, he assisted

his father in the stable; and while running about the precincts of the

palace, ragged and bare-foot, he appears to have attracted, by his

vivacity and alertness, the occasional notice of the duke himself.

Duke Charles, the grandfather of the present king of Wurtemburg, had

founded a military school, called the Karl Schüle, (Charles' School,)

annexed to the Hunting Palace of the Solitude. At this academy, music and

drawing were taught as well as military tactics. One day, when Dannecker

was about thirteen, his father returned home in a very ill-humour, and

informed his family that the duke intended to admit the children of his

domestics into his new military school. The boy, with joyful eagerness,

declared his intention of going immediately to present himself as a

candidate. The father, with a stare of astonishment, desired him to

remain at home, and mind his business; on his persisting, he resorted to

blows, and ended by locking him up. The boy escaped by jumping out of

the window; and, collecting several of his comrades, he made them a long

harangue in praise of the duke's beneficence, then placing himself at

their head, marched them up to the palace, where the whole court was

assembled for the Easter festivities. On being asked their business,

Dannecker replied as spokesman--"Tell his highness the duke we want to

go to the Karl-schüle." One of the attendants, amused, perhaps, with

this juvenile ardour, went and informed the duke, who had just risen

from table. He came out himself and mustered the little troop before

him. He first darted a rapid scrutinizing glance along the line, then

selecting one from the number, placed him on his right-hand; then

another, and another, till only young Dannecker and two others remained

on his left. Dannecker has since acknowledged that he suffered for a few

moments such exquisite pain and shame at the idea of being rejected,

that his first impulse was to run away and hide himself; and that his

surprise and joy, when he found that he and his two companions were the

accepted candidates, had nearly overpowered him. The duke ordered them

to go the next morning to the Solitude, and then dismissed them. When

Dannecker returned home, his father, enraged at losing the services

of his son, turned him out of the house, and forbade him ever more to

enter it; but his mother (mother like) packed up his little bundle of

necessaries, accompanied him for some distance on his road, and parted

from him with blessings, and tears, and words of encouragement and love.