[Footnote 1: Also the unfortunate Dr. Plath, to whom science is

indebted for an excellent historical work upon China. He became

implicated in this affair and remained in confinement until 1836, when

he was sentenced to fifteen years' further imprisonment.]

[Footnote 2: All national distinctions must cease and be fused in

universal liberty and equality; this was the sole aim of the noble

French people, and for this cause should we meet them with a fraternal

embrace, etc. Paul Pfizer well observed in a pamphlet on German

liberalism, published at that period, "What epithet would the majority

of the French people bestow upon a liberty which a part of their

nation would purchase by placing themselves beneath the protection of

a foreign and superior power, called to their aid against their

fellow-citizens? If the cause of German liberalism is to remain pure

and unspotted, we must not, like Coriolanus, arm the foreign foe

against our country. The egotistical tendency of the age is,

unhappily, too much inclined (by a coalition with France) to prefer

personal liberty and independence to the liberty and independence

(thereby infallibly forfeited) of the whole community. The supposed

fellowship with France would be subjection to her. France will support

the German liberals as Richelien did the German Protestants."]

CCLXX. The Struggles of the Provincial Diets

The Estates of the different constitutional states sought for

constitutional reform by legal means and separated themselves from the

revolutionists. But, during periods of great political agitation, it

is difficult to draw a distinctive line, and any opposition, however

moderate, appears as dangerous as the most intemperate rebellion. It

was, consequently, impossible for the governments and the Estates to

come to an understanding during these stormy times. The result of the

deliberations, whenever the opposition was in the majority, was

protestations on both sides in defence of right; and, whenever the

opposition was or fell in the minority, the chambers were the mere

echo of the minister.

In Bavaria, in 1831, the second chamber raised a violent storm against

the minister, von Schenk, principally on account of the restoration of

some monasteries and of the enormous expense attending the erection of

the splendid public buildings at Munich. A law of censorship had,

moreover, been published, and a number of civil officers elected by

the people been refused permission to take their seats in the chamber.

Schwindel, von Closen, Cullmann, Seyffert, etc., were the leaders of

the opposition. Schenk resigned office; the law of censorship was

repealed, and the Estates struck two millions from the civil list. The

first chamber, however, refused its assent to these resolutions, the

law of censorship was retained, and the saving in the expenditure of

the crown was reduced to an extremely insignificant amount. In the

autumn of 1832, Prince Otto, the king's second son, was, with the

consent of the sultan, elected king of Greece by the great maritime

powers intrusted with the decision of the Greek question, and Count

Armansperg, formerly minister of Bavaria, was placed at the head of

the regency during the minority of the youthful monarch. Steps having

to be taken for the levy of troops for the Greek service, some

regiments were sent into Greece in order to carry the new regulations

into effect. The Bavarian chambers were at a later period almost

entirely purged from the opposition and granted every demand made by

the government. The appearance of the Bavarians in ancient Greece

forms one of the most interesting episodes in modern history. The

jealousy of the great powers explains the election of a sovereign

independent of them all: the noble sympathy displayed for the Grecian

cause by King Louis, who, shortly after the congress of Verona, sent

considerable sums of money and Colonel von Heideck to the aid of the

Greeks, and, it may be, also the wish to bring the first among the

second-rate powers of Germany into closer connection with the common

interests of the first-rate powers, more particularly explains that of

the youthful Otto.[1] The task of organizing a nation, noble, indeed,

but debased by long slavery and still reeking with the blood of late

rebellion, under the influence of a powerful and mutually jealous

diplomacy, on a European and German footing, was, however, extremely

difficult. Hence the opposite views entertained by the regency, the

resignation of the councillors of state, von Maurer and von Abel, who

were more inclined to administrate, and the retention of office by

Count Armansperg, who was more inclined to diplomatize. Hence the

ceaseless intrigues of party, the daily increasing contumacy, and the

revolts, sometimes quenched in blood, of the wild mountain tribes and

ancient robber-chiefs, to whom European institutions were still an

insupportable yoke. King Otto received, on his accession to the

throne, in 1835, a visit from his royal parent; and, in the ensuing

year, conducted the Princess of Oldenburg to Athens as his bride.

In Wurtemberg, the chambers first met in 1833, and were, two months

later, again dissolved on account of the refusal of the second chamber

to reject "with indignation" Pfizer's protestation against the

resolutions of the confederation. In the newly-elected second chamber,

the opposition, at whose head stood the celebrated poet, Uhland,

brought forward numerous propositions for reform, but remained in the

minority, and it was not until the new diet, held in 1836, that the

aristocratic first chamber was induced to diminish socage service and

other feudal dues twenty-two and one-half per cent in amount. The

literary piracy that had hitherto continued to exist solely in

Wurtemberg was also provisionally abolished, the system of national

education was improved, and several other useful projects were carried

into execution or prepared. A new criminal code, published in 1838,

again bore traces of political caution. The old opposition lost power.

In Baden, the venerable grandduke, Louis, expired in 1830, and was

succeeded by Leopold, a descendant of the collateral branch of the

counts of Hochberg. Bavaria had, at an earlier period, stipulated, in

case of the extinction of the elder and legitimate line, for the

restoration of the Pfalz (Heidelberg and Mannheim), which had, in

1816, been secured to her by a treaty with Austria. The grandduke,

Louis, had protested against this measure and had, in 1817, declared

Baden indivisible. Bavaria finally relinquished her claims on the

payment of two million florins (£166,666 13_s_. 4_d_.) and the cession

of the bailiwick of Steinfeld, to which Austria moreover added the

county of Geroldseck. The new grandduke, who was surnamed "the

citizen's friend," behaved with extreme liberality and consequently

went hand in hand with the first chamber, of which Wessenberg and

Prince von Furstenberg were active members, and with the second, at

the head of which stood Professors Rotteck, Welcker, and von Itzstein.

Rotteck proposed and carried through the abolition of capital

punishment as alone worthy of feudal times, and, on Welcker's motion,

censorship was abolished and a law for the press was passed. The

federal assembly, however, speedily checked these reforms. The

grandduke was compelled to repeal the law for the press, the Freiburg

university was for some time closed, Professors Rotteck and Welcker

were suspended, and their newspaper, the "Freisinnige" or liberal, was

suppressed in 1832. Rotteck was, notwithstanding, at feud with the

Hambachers, and had raised the Baden flag above that of Germany at a

national fete at Badenweiler. This extremely popular deputy, who had

been presented with thirteen silver cups in testimony of the affection

with which he was regarded by the people, afterward protested against

the resolutions of the confederation, but his motion was violently

suppressed by the minister, Winter. The Baden chamber, nevertheless,

still retained a good deal of energy, and, after the death of Rotteck,

in 1841, a violent contest was carried on concerning the rights of

election.

In Hesse-Darmstadt, the Estates again met in 1832; the liberal

majority in the second chamber, led by von Gagern, E. E. Hoffmann,

Hallwachs, etc., protested against the resolutions of the

confederation, and the chamber was dissolved. A fresh election took

place, notwithstanding which the chamber was again dissolved in 1834,

on account of the government being charged with party spirit by von

Gagern and the refusal of the chamber to call him to order. The people

afterward elected a majority of submissive members.

In Hesse-Cassel the popular demonstrations were instantly followed by

the convocation of the Estates and the proposal of a new and

stipulated constitution, which received the sanction of the chambers

as early as January, 1831; but, amid the continual disturbances, and

on account of the disinclination of the prince co-regent to the

liberal reforms, the chamber, of which the talented professor, Jordan

of Marburg, was the most distinguished member, yielded,

notwithstanding its perseverance, after two rapidly successive

dissolutions, in 1832 and 1833, to the influence of the (once liberal)

minister, Hassenpflug, and Jordan quitted the scene of contest.

Hassenpflug's tyrannical behavior and the lapse of Hesse-Rotenburg

(the mediatized collateral line, which became extinct with the

Landgrave Victor in 1834), the revenues of which were appropriated as

personal property by the prince elector instead of being declared

state property, fed the opposition in the chambers, which was,

notwithstanding the menaces of the prince elector, carried on until

1838. Hassenpflug threw up office.

In Nassau, the duke, William, fell into a violent dispute with the

Estates. The second chamber, after vainly soliciting the restitution

of the rich demesnes, appropriated by the duke as private property, on

the ground of their being state property, and the application of their

revenue to the payment of the state debts, refused, in the autumn of

1831, to vote the taxes. The first chamber, in which the duke had the

power of raising at will a majority in his favor by the creation of

fresh members, protested against the conduct of the second, which in

return protested against that of the first and suspended its

proceedings until their constitutional rights should have received

full recognition; five of the deputies, however, again protested

against the suspension of the proceedings of the chamber and voted the

taxes during the absence of the majority. The majority again

protested, but became entangled in a political lawsuit, and Herber,

the gray-headed president, was confined in the fortress of Marxburg.

In Brunswick, a good understanding prevailed between William the new

duke, and the Estates, which were, however, accused of having an

aristocratic tendency by the democratic party. Their sittings

continued to be held in secret.

In Saxony, the long-wished-for reforms, above all, the grant of a new

constitution, were realized, owing to the influence of the popular

co-regent, added to that of Lindenau, the highly-esteemed minister,

and of the newly-elected Estates, in 1831. The law of censorship,

nevertheless, continued to be enforced with extreme severity, which

also marked the treatment of the political prisoners. Count Hohenthal

and Baron Watzdorf, who seized every opportunity to put in

protestations, even against the resolutions of the confederation,

evinced the most liberal spirit. On the demise of the aged king,

Antony, in 1835, and the accession of the co-regent, Frederick, to the

throne, the political movements totally ceased.

Holstein and Schleswig had also, as early as 1823, solicited the

restitution of their ancient constitutional rights, which the king,

Frederick IV., delayed to grant. Lornsen, the councillor of chancery,

was arrested in 1830, for attempting to agitate the people. Separate

provincial diets were, notwithstanding, decreed, in 1831, for Holstein

and Schleswig, although both provinces urgently demanded their union.

Frederick IV. expired in 1839 and was succeeded by his cousin,

Christian.

Immediately after the revolution of July, the princes of Oldenburg,

Altenburg, Coburg, Meiningen, and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen made a

public appeal to the confidence of their subjects, whom they called

upon to lay before them their grievances, etc. Augustus, duke of

Oldenburg, who had assumed the title of grandduke, proclaimed a

constitution, but shortly afterward withdrew his promise and strictly

forbade his subjects to annoy him by recalling it to his remembrance.

The prince von Sondershausen also refused the hoped-for constitution.

In Sigmaringen, Altenburg, and Meiningen the constitutional movement

was, on the contrary, countenanced and encouraged by the princes.

Pauline, the liberal-minded princess of Lippe-Detmold, had already

drawn up a constitution for her petty territory with her own hand,

when the nobility rose against it, and, aided by the federal assembly,

compelled her to withdraw it.

In the autumn of 1833, the emperor of Russia held a conference with

the king of Prussia at Munchen-Gratz, whither the emperor of Austria

also repaired. A German ministerial congress assembled immediately

afterward at Vienna, and the first of its resolutions was made public

late in the autumn of 1834. It announced the establishment of a court

of arbitration, empowered, as the highest court of appeal, to decide

all disputes between the governments and their provincial Estates. The

whole of the members of this court were to be nominated by the

governments, but the disputing parties were free to select their

arbitrators from among the number.

A fresh and violent constitutional battle was, notwithstanding these

precautions, fought in Hanover, where Adolphus Frederick, duke of

Cambridge, had, in the name of his brother, William IV., king of

England, established a new constitution, which had received many

ameliorations notwithstanding the inefficiency of the liberals,

Christiani, Luntzel, etc., to counteract the overpowering influence of

the monarchical and aristocratic party. William IV., king of England

and Hanover, expired in 1837, and was succeeded on the throne of Great

Britain by Victoria Alexandrina, the daughter of his younger and

deceased brother, Edward, duke of Kent, and of the Princess Victoria

of Saxe-Coburg; and on that of Hanover, which was solely heritable in

the male line, by his second brother, Ernest, duke of Cumberland, the

leader of the Tory party in England. No sooner had this new sovereign

set his foot on German soil[2] than he repealed the constitution

granted to Hanover in 1833 and ordained the restoration of the former

one of 1819, drawn up in a less liberal but more monarchical and

aristocratic spirit. Among the protestations made against this _coup

d'état_, that of the seven Göttingen professors, the two brothers,

Grimm, to whom the German language and antiquarian research are so

deeply indebted, Dahlmann, Gervinus, Ewald, Weber, and Albrecht, is

most worthy of record. Their instant dismission produced an

insurrection among the students, which was, after a good deal of

bloodshed, quelled by the military. In the beginning of 1838, the

Estates were convoked according to the articles of the constitution of

1819 for the purpose of taking a constitution, drawn up under the

dictation of the king, under deliberation. Many of the towns refused

to elect deputies, and some of those elected were not permitted to

take their seats. The city of Osnabruck protested in the federal

assembly. Notwithstanding this, the Estates meanwhile assembled, but

declared themselves incompetent, regarding themselves simply in the

light of an arbitrative committee, and, as such, threw out the

constitution presented by the king, June, 1838. The federal assembly

remained passive.[3] In 1839, Schele, the minister, finally succeeded,

by means of menaces and bribery, and by arbitrarily calling into the

chamber the ministerial candidates who had received the minority of

votes during the elections, in collecting so many deputies devoted to

his party as were requisite in order to form the chamber and to pass

resolutions. The city of Hanover hereupon brought before the federal

assembly a petition for redress and a list of grievances in which

Schele's chamber was described as "unworthy of the name of a

constitutional representative assembly, void of confidence,

unpossessed of the public esteem, and unrecognized by the country."

The king instantly divested Rumann, the city director, of his office,

but so far yielded to the magistrate, to whom he gave audience in the

palace and who was followed by crowds of the populace, as to revoke

the nomination, already declared illegal, of Rumann's successor, and

to promise that the matter at issue should be brought before the

common tribunal instead of the council of state, July 17th. Numerous

other cities, corporations of landed proprietors, etc., also followed

the example set by Hanover and laid their complaints before the

federal assembly, which hereupon declared that, according to the laws

of the confederation, it found no cause for interference, but at the

same time advised the king to come to an understanding consistent with

the rights of the crown and of the Estates, with the "present" Estates

(unrecognized by the democratic party), concerning the form of the

constitution. In the federal assembly, Wurtemberg and Bavaria, most

particularly, voted in favor of the Hanoverians. Professor Ewald was

appointed to the university of Tubingen; Albrecht, at a later period,

to that of Leipzig; the brothers Grimm, to that of Berlin; Dahlmann,

to that of Bonn. Among the assembled Estates, those of Baden,

Wurtemberg, and Saxony most warmly espoused the cause of the people of

Hanover, but, as was natural, without result.[4]

In 1840, the king convoked a fresh diet. The people refused to elect

members, and it was solely by means of intrigue that a small number of

deputies (not half the number fixed by law) were assembled, creatures

of the minister, Schele, who were disowned by the people in addresses

couched in the most energetic terms (the address presented by the

citizens of Osnabruck was the most remarkable) and their proceedings

were protested against. This petty assembly, nevertheless, took under

deliberation and passed a new constitution, against which the cities

and the country again protested. The king also declared his only son,

George, who was afflicted with blindness, capable of governing and of

succeeding to the throne.

[Footnote 1: Thiersch, the Bavarian court-councillor, one of the most

distinguished connoisseurs of Grecian antiquity, who visited Greece

shortly after Heideck and before the arrival of the king, was received

by the modern Greeks with touching demonstrations of delight. No

nation has so deeply studied, so deeply become imbued with Grecian

lore, as that of Germany, and the close connection formed, on the

accession of the Bavarian Otto to the throne of Greece, between her

sons and the children of that classic land, justifies the proudest

expectations.]

[Footnote 2: He did not restore the whole of the crown property that

had, at an earlier period, been carried away to England. A

considerable portion of the crown jewels had been taken away by George

I., and when, in 1802, the French occupied Hanover, the whole of the

movable crown property, even the great stud, was sent to England. On

the demise of George III., the crown jewels were divided among the

princes of the English house.--_Copied from the Courier of August,

1838._]

[Footnote 3: The Darmstadt government declared to the second chamber,

on its bringing forward a motion for the intercession of Darmstadt

with the federal assembly in favor of the legality of the ancient

constitution then in force in Hanover, that the grandduke would never

tolerate any cooperation on the part of the Estates with his vote in

the federal assembly.]

[Footnote 4: "This defeat is, however, not to be lamented: the battle

for the separate constitutions has not been fought in vain if German

nationality spring from the wreck of German separatism, if we are

taught that without a liberal federal constitution liberal provincial

constitutions are impossible in Germany."--_Pfizer._]

CCLXXI. Austria and Prince Mettenich

Austria might, on the fall of Napoleon, have maintained Alsace,

Lorraine, the Breisgau, and the whole of the territory of the Upper

Rhine in the same manner in which Prussia had maintained that of the

Lower Rhine, had she not preferred the preservation of her rule in

Italy and rendered her position in Germany subordinate to her station

as a European power. This policy is explained by the peculiar

circumstances of the Austrian state, which had for centuries comprised

within itself nations of the most distinct character, and the

population of whose provinces were by far the greater part Slavonian,

Hungarian, and Italian, the great minority German. By this policy she

lost, as the Prussian Customs' Union has also again proved, much of

her influence over Germany, while, on the other hand, she secured it

the more firmly in Southern and Eastern Europe. Austria has long made

a gradual and almost unperceived advance from the northwest in a

southeasterly direction. In Germany she has continually lost ground.

Switzerland, the Netherlands, Alsace, Lorraine, the Swabian counties,

Lusatia, Silesia, have one by one been severed from her, while her

non-German possessions have as continually been increased, by the

addition of Hungary, Transylvania, Galicia, Dalmatia, and Upper Italy.

The contest carried on between Austria, the French Revolution, and

Napoleon, has at all events left deep and still visible traces; the

characters of the emperor Francis and of his chancellor of state,

Prince Metternich, that perfect representative of the aristocracy of

Europe, sympathize also as closely with the Austrian system as the

character of the emperor Joseph was antipathetical to it. This system

dates, however, earlier than those revolutionary struggles, and has

already outlived at least one of its supporters.

Austria is the only great state in Europe that comprises so many

diverse but well-poised nationalities within its bosom; in all the

other great states, one nation bears the preponderance. To this

circumstance may be ascribed her peaceful policy, every great war

threatening her with the revolt of some one of the foreign nations

subordinate to her sceptre. To this may, moreover, be ascribed the

tenacity with which she upholds the principle of legitimacy. The

historical hereditary right of the reigning dynasty forms the sole but

ideal tie by which the diverse and naturally inimical nations beneath

her rule are linked together. For the same reason, the concentration

of talent in the government contrasts, in Austria, more violently with

the obscurantism of the provinces than in any other state. Not only

does the overpowering intelligence of the chancery of state awe the

nations beneath its rule, but the proverbial good nature and

patriarchal cordiality of the imperial family win every heart. The

army is a mere machine in the hands of the government; a standing

army, in which the soldier serves for life or for the period of twenty

years, during which he necessarily loses all sympathy with his

fellow-citizens, and which is solely reintegrated from militia whom

this privilege renders still more devoted to the government. The

pretorian spirit usually prevalent in standing armies has been guarded

against in Austria by there being no guards, and all sympathy between

the military and the citizens of the various provinces whence they

were drawn is at once prevented by the Hungarian troops being sent

into Italy, the Italian troops into Galicia, etc., etc. The

nationality of the private soldier is checked by the Germanism of the

subalterns and by the Austrianism of the staff. Besides the power thus

everywhere visible, there exists another partially invisible, that of

the police, in connection with a censorship of the severest

description, which keeps a guard over the inadvertencies of the tongue

as well as over those of the press. The people are, on the other hand,

closely bound up with the government and interested in the maintenance

of the existing state of affairs by the paper currency, on the value

of which the welfare of every subject in the state depends.

To a government thus strong in concentrated power and intelligence

stands opposed the mass of nations subject to the Austrian sceptre

whose natural antipathies have been artfully fostered and

strengthened. In Austria the distinctions of class, characteristic of

the Middle Ages, are still preserved. The aristocracy and the clergy

possess an influence almost unknown in Germany, but solely over the

people, not over the government. As corporative bodies they still are,

as in the days of Charles VI., convoked for the purpose of holding

postulate diets, whose power, with the exception of that of the

Hungarian diet, is merely nominal. The nobility, even in Hungary, as

everywhere else throughout the Austrian states (more particularly

since the Spanish system adopted by Ferdinand II.), is split into two

inimical classes, those of the higher and lower aristocracy. Even in

Galicia, where the Polish nobility formed, at an earlier period and

according to earlier usage, but one body, the distinction of a higher

and lower class has been introduced since the occupation of that

country by Austria. The high aristocracy are either bound by favors,

coincident with their origin, to the court, the great majority among

them consisting of families on whom nobility was conferred by

Ferdinand II., or they are, if families belonging to the more powerful

and more ancient national aristocracy, as, for instance, that of

Esterhazy in Hungary, brought by the bestowal of fresh favors into

closer affinity with the court and drawn within its sphere. The

greater proportion of the aristocracy consequently reside at Vienna.

The lower nobility make their way chiefly by talent and perseverance

in the army and the civil offices, and are therefore naturally devoted

to the government, on which all their hopes in life depend. The

clergy, although permitted to retain the whole of their ancient pomp

and their influence over the minds of the people, have been rendered

dependent upon the government, a point easily gained, the pope being

principally protected by Austria.

The care of the government for the material welfare of the people

cannot be denied; it is, however, frustrated by two obstacles raised

by its own system. The maintenance of the high aristocracy is, for

instance, antipathetic to the welfare of the subject, and, although

comfort and plenty abound in the immediate vicinity of Vienna, the

population on the enormous estates of the magnates in the provinces

often present a lamentable contrast. The Austrian government moreover

prohibits all free intercourse with foreign parts, and the old-

fashioned system of taxation, senseless as many other existing

regulations, entirely puts a stop to all free trade between Hungary

and Austria. Consequently, the new and grand modes of communication,

the Franzen Canal, that unites the Danube and the Thiess, the

Louisenstrasse, between Carlstadt and Fiume, the magnificent road to

Trieste, the admirable road across the rocks of the Stilfser Jock,

and, more than all, the steam navigation as far as the mouths of the

Danube and the railroads, will be unavailing to scatter the blessings

of commerce and industry so long as these wretched prohibitions

continue to be enforced.

Austria has, in regard to her foreign policy, left the increasing

influence of Russia in Poland, Persia, and Turkey unopposed, and even

allowed the mouths of the Danube to be guarded by Russian fortresses,

while she has, on the other hand, energetically repelled the

interference of France in the affairs of Italy. The July revolution

induced a popular insurrection in the dominions of the Church, and the

French threw a garrison into the citadel of Ancona; the Austrians,

however, instantly entered the country and enforced the restoration of

the _ançien régime_. In Lombardy, many ameliorations were introduced

and the prosperity of the country promoted by the Austrian

administration, notwithstanding the national jealousy of the

inhabitants. Venice, with her choked-up harbor, could, it is true, no

longer compete with Trieste. The German element has gained ground in

Galicia by means of the public authorities and the immigration of

agriculturists and artificers. The Hungarians endeavored to render

their language the common medium throughout Hungary, and to expel the

German element, but their apprehension of the numerous Slavonian

population of Hungary, whom religious sympathy renders subject to

Russian influence, has speedily reconciled them with the Germans.

Slavonism has, on the other hand, also gained ground in Bohemia.

The emperor, Francis I., expired in 1835, and was succeeded by his

son, Ferdinand I., without a change taking place in the system of the

government, of which Prince Metternich continued to be the directing

principle.

The decease of some of the heads of foreign royal families and the

marriages of their successors again placed several German princes on

foreign thrones. The last of the Guelphs on the throne of Great

Britain expired with William IV., whose niece and successor, Victoria

Alexandrina, wedded, 1840, Albert of Saxe-Coburg, second son of

Ernest, the reigning duke. That the descendant of the steadfast

elector should, after such adverse fortune, be thus destined to occupy

the highest position in the reformed world, is of itself remarkable.

One of this prince's uncles, Leopold, is seated on the throne of

Belgium, and one of his cousins, Ferdinand, on that of Portugal, in

right of his consort, Donna Maria da Gloria, the daughter of Dom

Pedro, king of Portugal and emperor of the Brazils, to whom, on the

expulsion of the usurper, Dom Miguel, he was wedded in 1835. These

princes of Coburg are remarkable for manly beauty.

The antipathy with which the new dynasty on the throne of France was

generally viewed rendered Ferdinand, Duke of Orleans, Louis Philippe's

eldest son, for some time an unsuccessful suitor for the hand of a

German princess; he at length conducted Helena, princess of

Mecklenburg-Schwerin, although against the consent of her stepfather,

Paul Frederick, the reigning duke, to Paris in 1837, as future queen

of the French. He was killed in 1842, by a fall from his carriage, and

left two infant sons, the Count of Paris and the Duke of Chartres. The

Czarowitz, Alexander, espoused Maria, Princess of Darmstadt.

The French chambers and journals have reassumed toward Germany the

tone formerly affected by Napoleon, and, with incessant cries for war,

in which, in 1840, the voice of the prime minister Thiers joined,

demand the restoration of the left bank of the Rhine. Thiers was,

however, compelled to resign office, and the close alliance between

Austria, Prussia, and the whole of the confederated princes, as well

as the feeling universally displayed throughout Germany, demonstrated

the energy with which an attack on the side of France would be

repelled. The erection of the long-forgotten federal fortresses on the

Upper Rhine was also taken at length under consideration, and it was

resolved to fortify both Rastadt and Ulm without further delay.

Nor have the statesmen of France failed to threaten Germany with a

Russo-Gallic alliance in the spirit of the Erfurt congress of 1808;

while Russia perseveres in the prohibitory system so prejudicial to

German commerce, attempts to suppress every spark of German

nationality in Livonia, Courland, and Esthonia, and fosters

Panslavism, or the union of all the Slavonic nations for the

subjection of the world, among the Slavonian subjects of Austria in

Hungaria and Bohemia. The extension of the Greek church is also

connected with this idea. "The European Pentarchy," a work that

attracted much attention in 1839, insolently boasts how Russia, in

defiance of Austria, has seized the mouths of the Danube, has wedged

herself, as it were, by means of Poland, between Austria and Prussia,

in a position equally threatening to both, recommends the minor states

of Germany to seek the protection of Russia, and darkly hints at the

alliance between that power and France.

Nor are the prospects of Germany alone threatened by France and

Russia; disturbances, like a fantastic renewal of the horrors of the

Middle Age, are ready to burst forth on the other side of the Alps, as

though, according to the ancient saga of Germany, the dead were about

to rise in order to mingle in the last great contest between the gods

and mankind.

CCLXXII. Prussia and Rome

While Austria remains stationary, Prussia progresses. While Austria

relies for support upon the aristocracy of the Estates, Prussia relies

for hers upon the people, that is to say, upon the public officers

taken from the mass of the population, upon the citizens emancipated

by the city regulation, upon the peasantry emancipated by the

abolition of servitude, of all the other agricultural imposts, and by

the division of property, and upon the enrolment of both classes in

the Landwehr. While Austria, in fine, renders her German policy

subordinate to her European diplomacy, the influence exercised by

Prussia upon Europe depends, on the contrary, solely upon that

possessed by her in Germany.

Prussia's leading principle appears to be, "All for the people,

nothing through the people!" Hence the greatest solicitude for the

instruction of the people, whether in the meanest schools or the

universities, but under strict political control, under the severest

censorship; hence the emancipation of the peasantry, civic self-

administration, freedom of trade, the general arming of the people,

and, with all these, mere nameless provincial diets, the most complete

popular liberty on the widest basis without a representation worthy of

the name; hence, finally, the greatest solicitude for the promotion of

trade on a grand scale, for the revival of the commerce of Germany,

which has lain prostrate since the great wars of the Reformation, for

the mercantile unity of Germany, while it is exactly in Prussia that

political Unitarians are the most severely punished.

The great measures were commenced in Prussia immediately after the

disaster of 1806: first, the reorganization of the army and the

abolition of the privileges of the aristocracy in respect to

appointments and the possession of landed property; these were, in

1808, succeeded by the celebrated civic regulation which placed the

civic administration in the hands of the city deputies freely elected

by the citizens; in 1810, by freedom of trade and by the foundation of

the new universities of Berlin (instead of Halle), of Breslau (instead

of Frankfort on the Oder), and, in 1819, of Bonn, by which means the

libraries, museums, and scientific institutions of every description

were centralized; in 1814, by the common duty imposed upon every

individual of every class, without exception, to bear arms and to do

service in the Landwehr up to his thirty-ninth year; in 1821, by the

regulation for the division of communes; and, in 1822, by the extra

post.

In respect to the popular representation guaranteed by the federal

act, Prussia announced, on the 22d of May, 1815, her intention to form

provincial diets, from among whose members the general representation

or imperial diet, which was to be held at Berlin, was to be elected.

When the Rhenish provinces urged the fulfilment of this promise in the

Coblentz address of 1817, the reply was, "Those who admonish the king

are guilty of doubting the inviolability of his word." Prussia

afterward declared that the new regulations would be in readiness by

the February of 1819. On the 20th of January, 1820, an edict was

published by the government, the first paragraph of which fixed the

public debt at $180,091,720,[1] and the second one rendered the

contraction of every fresh debt dependent upon the will of the future

imperial diet.[2] The definitive regulations in respect to the

provincial Estates were finally published on the 5th of June, 1823,

but the convocation of a general diet was passed over in silence.

The prosperity of the nations of Germany, wrecked by the great wars of

the Reformation, must and will gradually return. Prussia has inherited

all the claims upon, and consequently all the duties owing to Germany.

Still the general position of Germany is not sufficiently favorable to

render the renovation of her ancient Hanseatic commerce possible.[3]

It is to be deplored that the attachment of the Prussian cabinet to

Russian policy has not at all events modified the commercial

restrictions along the whole of the eastern frontier of Prussia,[4]

and that Prussia has not been able to effect more with Holland in

regard to the question concerning the free navigation of the Rhine.[5]

Prussia has, on the other hand, deserved the gratitude of Germany for

the zeal with which she promoted the settlement of the Customs' Union,

which has, at least in the interior of Germany, removed the greater

part of the restrictions upon commercial intercourse, and has a

tendency to spread still further. Throughout the last transactions,

partly of the Customs' Union, partly of Prussia alone, with England

and Holland, a vain struggle against those maritime powers is

perceptible. England trades with Germany from every harbor and in

every kind of commodity, while German vessels are restricted to home

produce and are only free to trade with England from their own ports.

Holland finds a market for her colonial wares in Germany, and, instead

of taking German manufactured goods in exchange, provides herself from

England, throws English goods into Germany, and, in lieu of being, as

she ought to be, the great emporium of Germany, is content to remain a

mere huge English factory. The Hanse towns have also been converted

into mercantile depots for English goods on German soil.

The misery consequent on the great wars, and the powerful reaction

against Gallicism throughout Germany, once more caused despised

religion to be reverenced in the age of philosophy. Prussia deemed

herself called upon, as the inheritor of the Reformation brought about

by Luther, as the principal Protestant power of Germany, to assume a

prominent position in the religious movement of the time. Frederick

William III., a sovereign distinguished for piety, appears,

immediately after the great wars, to have deemed the conciliation of

the various sects of Christians within his kingdom feasible. He,

nevertheless, merely succeeded in effecting a union between the

Lutherans and Calvinists. He also bestowed a new liturgy upon this

united church, which was censured as partial, as proceeding too

directly from the cabinet without being sanctioned by the concurrence

of the assembled clergy and of the people. Some Lutherans, who refused

compliance, were treated with extreme severity and compelled to

emigrate; the utility of a union which, two centuries earlier, would

have saved Germany from ruin, was, however, generally acknowledged. It

nevertheless was not productive of unity in the Protestant world. In

the universities and among the clergy, two parties, the Rationalists

and the Supernaturalists, stood opposed to one another. The former,

the disciples of the old Neologians, still followed the philosophy of

Kant, merely regarded Christianity as a code of moral philosophy,

denominated Christ a wise teacher, and explained away his miracles by

means of physics. The latter, the followers of the old orthodox

Lutherans, sought to confirm the truths of the gospel also by

philosophical means, and were denominated Supernaturalists, as

believers in a mystery surpassing the reasoning powers of man. The

celebrated Schleiermacher of Berlin mediated for some time between

both parties. But it was in Prussia more particularly that both

parties stood more rigidly opposed to one another and fell into the

greatest extremes.

The Rationalists were supplanted by the Pantheists, the disciples of

Hegel, the Berlin philosopher, who at length formally declared war

against Christianity; the Supernaturalists were here and there outdone

by the Pietists, whose enthusiasm degenerated into licentiousness.[6]

The king had, notwithstanding his piety, been led to believe that

Hegel merely taught the students unconditional obedience to the state,

and that Pantheist was consequently permitted to spread, under the

protection of Prussia, his senseless doctrine of deified humanity, the

same formerly proclaimed by Anacharsis Cloote in the French

Convention. When too late, the gross deception practiced by this

sophist was perceived: his disciples threw off their troublesome mask,

with Dr. Strauss, who had been implicated in the Zurich disturbances,

at their head, openly renounced Christianity, and, at Halle, led by

Ruge, the journalist, embraced the social revolutionary ideas of

"Young France," to which almost the whole of the younger journalists

of literary "Young Germany" acceded; nor was this Gallic reaction,

this retrogression toward the philosophical ideas of the foregoing

century, without its cause, German patriotism, which, from 1815 to

1819, had predominated in every university throughout Prussia, having

been forcibly suppressed. Hegel, on his appearance in Berlin, was

generally regarded as the man on whom the task of diverting the

enthusiasm of the rising generation for Germany into another channel

devolved.[7] Everything German had been treated with ridicule.[8]

French fashions and French ideas had once more come into vogue.

While Protestant Germany was thus torn, weakened, and degraded by

schism, the religious movement throughout Catholic Germany insensibly

increased in strength and unity. The adverse fate of the pope had, on

his deliverance from the hands of Napoleon, excited a feeling of

sympathy and reverence so universal as to be participated in by even

the Protestant powers of Europe. He had, as early as 1814, reinstated

the Jesuits without a remonstrance on the part of the sovereigns by

whom they had formerly been condemned. The ancient spirit of the

Romish church had revived. A new edifice was to be raised on the

thick-strewn ruins of the past. In 1817, Bavaria concluded a concordat

with the pope for the foundation of the archbishopric of Munich with

the three bishoprics of Augsburg, Passau, and Ratisbon, and of the

archbishopric of Bamberg with the three bishoprics of Wurzburg,

Eichstadt, and Spires. The king retained the right of presentation. In

1821, Prussia concluded a treaty by which the archbishopric of Cologne

with the three bishoprics of Treves, Munster, and Paderborn, the

archbishopric of Posen with Culm, and two independent bishoprics in

Breslau and Ermeland were established. The bishoprics of Hildesheim

and Osnabruck were re-established in 1824 by the concordat with

Hanover. In southwestern Germany, the archbishopric of Freiburg in the

Breisgau with the bishoprics of Rotenburg on the Neckar, Limburg on

the Lahn, Mayence, and Fulda arose. In Switzerland there remained four

bishoprics, Freiburg in the Uechtland, Solothurn, Coire, and St. Gall;

in Alsace, Strasburg and Colmar. In the Netherlands, the archbishopric

of Malines with the bishoprics of Ghent, Liege, and Namur. In Holland,

three Jansenist bishoprics, Utrecht, Deventer, and Haarlem, are

remarkable for having retained their independence of Rome.

The renovated body of the church was inspired with fresh energy. On

the fall of the Jesuits, the other extreme, Illuminatism, had raised

its head, but had been compelled to yield before a higher power and

before the moral force of Germany. The majority of the German

Catholics now clung to the idea that the regeneration of the abused

and despised church was best to be attained by the practice of

evangelical simplicity and morality, that Jesuitism and Illuminatism

were, consequently, to be equally avoided, and the better disposed

among the Protestants to be imitated. Sailer, the great teacher of the

German clergy, and Wessenberg, whom Rome on this account refused to

raise to the bishopric of Constance, acted upon this idea. In Silesia,

a number of youthful priests, headed by Theimer, impatient for the

realization of the union, apparently approaching, of this moderate

party with the equally moderately disposed party among the Protestants

into one great German church, took, in 1825, the bold step of

renouncing celibacy. This party was however instantly suppressed by

force by the king of Prussia. Theimer, in revenge, turned Jesuit and

wrote against Prussia. Professors inclined to Ultramontanism were,

meanwhile, installed in the universities, more particularly at Bonn,

Munster and Tubingen, by the Protestant as well as the Catholic

governments; by them the clerical students were industriously taught

that they were not Germans but subjects of Rome, and were flattered

with the hope of one day participating in the supremacy about to be

regained by the pontiff. Every priest inspired with patriotic

sentiments, or evincing any degree of tolerance toward his Protestant

fellow citizens, was regarded as guilty of betraying the interests of

the church to the state and the tenets of the only true church to

heretics. Gorres, once Germany's most spirited champion against

France, now appeared as the champion of Rome in Germany. The

scandalous schisms in the Protestant church and the no less scandalous

controversies carried on in the Protestant literary world rendered

both contemptible, and, as in the commencement of the seventeenth

century, appeared to offer a favorable opportunity for an attack on

the part of the Catholics.

A long-forgotten point in dispute was suddenly revived. Marriages

between Catholics and Protestants had hitherto been unhesitatingly

sanctioned by the Catholic priesthood. The Prussian ordinance of 1803,

by which the father was empowered to decide the faith in which the

children were to be brought up, had, on account of its conformity with

nature and reason, never been disputed. Numberless mixed marriages had

taken place among all classes from the highest to the lowest without

the slightest suspicion of wrong attaching thereto. A papal brief of

1830 now called to mind that the church tolerated, it was true,

although she disapproved of mixed marriages, which she permitted to

take place solely on condition of the children being brought up in the

Catholic faith. Prussia had acted with little foresight. Instead of,

in 1814, on taking possession of the Rhenish provinces and of

Westphalia, concluding a treaty with the then newly-restored pope,

Hardenberg had, as late as 1820, during a visit to Borne, merely

entered upon a transient agreement, by which Rome was bound to no

concessions. The war openly declared by Rome was now attempted to be

turned aside by means of petty and secret artifices. Several bishops,

in imitation of the precedent given by Count von Spiegel, the

peace-loving archbishop of Cologne, secretly bound themselves to

interpret the brief in the sense of the government and to adhere to

the ordinance of 1803. On Spiegel's decease in 1835, his successor,

the Baron Clement Augustus Droste, promised at Vischering, prior to

his presentation, strictly to adhere to this secret compact; but,

scarcely had he mounted the archiepiscopal seat, than his conscience

forbade the fulfilment of his oath; God was to be obeyed rather than

man! He prohibited the solemnization of mixed marriages within his

diocese without the primary assurance of the education of the children

in the Catholic faith, compelled his clergy strictly to obey the

commands of Rome in points under dispute, and suppressed the Hermesian

doctrine in the university of Bonn. The warnings secretly given by the

government proved unavailing, and he was, in consequence, unexpectedly

deprived of his office in the November of 1837, arrested, and

imprisoned in the fortress of Minden. This arbitrary measure caused

great excitement among the Catholic population; and the ancient

dislike of the Rhenish provinces to the rule of Prussia, and the

discontent of the Westphalian nobility on account of the emancipation

of the peasantry, again broke forth on this occasion. Gorres, in

Munich, industriously fed the flame by means of his pamphlet,

"Athanasius." Dunin, archbishop of Gnesen and bishop of Thorn,

followed the example of his brother of Cologne, was openly upheld by

Prussian Poland, was cited to Berlin, fled thence, was recaptured and

detained for some time within the fortress of Colberg, in 1839.--The

pope, Gregory XVI., solemnly declared his approbation of the conduct

of these archbishops and rejected every offer of negotiation until

their reinstallation in their dioceses. A crowd of hastily established

journals, more especially in Bavaria, maintained their cause, and were

opposed by numberless Protestant publications, which generally proved

injurious to the cause they strove to uphold, being chiefly remarkable

for base servility, frivolity, and infidelity.

On the demise of Frederick William III., on the 7th of June, 1840, and

the succession of his son, Frederick William IV., the church question

was momentarily cast into the shade by that relating to the

constitution. Constitutional Germany demanded from the new sovereign

the convocation of the imperial diet promised by his father. The

Catholic party, however, conscious that it would merely form the

minority in the diet, did not participate in the demand.[9] The

constitution was solely demanded by Protestant Eastern Prussia; but

the king declared, during the ceremony of fealty at Koenigsberg, that

"he would never do homage to the idea of a general popular

representation and would pursue a course based upon historical

progression, suitable to German nationality." The provincial Estates

were shortly afterward instituted, and separate diets were opened in

each of the provinces. This attracted little attention, and the

dispute with the church once more became the sole subject of interest.

It terminated in the complete triumph of the Catholic party. In

consequence of an agreement with the pope, the brief of 1820 remained

in force, Dunin was reinstated, Droste received personal satisfaction

by a public royal letter and a representative in Cologne in von

Geissel, hitherto bishop of Spires. The disputed election of the

bishop of Treves was also decided in favor of Arnoldi, the

ultramontane candidate.

Late in the autumn of 1842, the king of Prussia for the first time

convoked the deputies selected from the provincial diets to Berlin. He

had, but a short time before, laid the foundation-stone to the

completion of the Cologne cathedral, and on that occasion, moreover,

spoken words of deep import to the people, admonitory of unity to the

whole of Germany.

[Footnote 1: £26,263,375 16s. 8d.]

[Footnote 2: The Maritime Commercial Company, meanwhile, entered into

a contract.]

[Footnote 3: "We have long since lost all our maritime power. The only

guns now fired by us at sea are as signals of distress. Who now

remembers that it was the German Hansa that first made use of cannons

at sea, that it was from Germans that the English learned to build

men-of-war?"--_John's Nationality_.]

[Footnote 4: Prussia, of late, greatly contributed toward the

aggrandizement of the power of Russia by solemnly declaring in 1828,

when Russia extended her influence over Turkey, that she would not on

that account prevent Russia from asserting her "just claims," a

declaration that elicited bitter complaints from the British

government; and again in 1831, by countenancing the entry of the

Russians into Poland, at that time in a state of insurrection.]

[Footnote 5: The reason of the backwardness displayed from the

commencement by Prussia to act as the bulwark of Germany on the Lower

Rhine is explained by Stein in his letters: "Hanoverian jealousy, by

which the narrow-minded Castlereagh was guided, and, generally

speaking, jealousy of the German ministerial clauses, as if the

existence of a Mecklenburg were of greater importance to Germany than

that of a powerful warlike population, alike famous in time of peace

or war, presided over the settlement of the relation in which Belgium

was to stand to Prussia."]

[Footnote 6: At Königsberg, in Prussia, a secret society was

discovered which was partly composed of people of rank, who, under

pretence of meeting for the exercise of religious duties, gave way to

the most wanton license.]

[Footnote 7: The police, while attempting to lead science, was

unwittingly led by it. The students were driven in crowds into Hegel's

colleges, his pupils were preferred to all appointments, etc., and

every measure was taken to render that otherwise almost unnoted

sophist as dangerous as possible.]

[Footnote 8: In this the Jews essentially aided: Borne more in an

anti-German, Heine more in an anti-Christian, spirit, and were highly

applauded by the simple and infatuated German youth.]

[Footnote 9: Görres even advised against it, although, in 1817, he had

acted the principal part on the presentation of the Cologne address.]

CCLXXIII. The Progress of Science, Art, and Practical Knowledge in

Germany

In the midst of the misery entailed by war and amid the passions

roused by party strife the sciences had attained to a height hitherto

unknown. The schools had never been neglected, and immense

improvements, equally affecting the lowest of the popular schools and

the colleges, had been constantly introduced. Pestalozzi chiefly

encouraged the proper education of the lower classes and improved the

method of instruction. The humanism of the learned academies (the

study of the dead languages) went hand in hand with the realism of the

professional institutions. The universities, although often subjected

to an overrigid system of surveillance and compelled to adopt a

partial, servile bias, were, nevertheless, generally free from a

political tendency and incredibly promoted the study of all the

sciences. The mass of celebrated savants and of their works is too

great to permit of more than a sketch of the principal features of

modern German science.

The study of the classics, predominant since the time of the

Reformation, has been cast into the shade by the German studies, by

the deeper investigation of the language, the law, the history of our

forefathers and of the romantic Middle Age, by the great Catholic

reaction, and, at the same time, by the immense advance made in

natural history, geography, and universal history. The human mind,

hitherto enclosed within a narrow sphere, has burst its trammels to

revel in immeasurable space. The philosophy and empty speculations of

the foregoing century have also disappeared before the mass of

practical knowledge, and arrogant man, convinced by science, once more

bends his reasoning faculties in humble adoration of their Creator.

The aristocracy of talent and learned professional pride have been

overbalanced by a democratic press. The whole nation writes, and the

individual writer is either swallowed up in the mass or gains but

ephemeral fame. Every writer, almost without exception, affects a

popular style. But, in this rich literary field, all springs up freely

without connection or guidance. No party is concentrated or

represented by any reigning journal, but each individual writes for

himself, and the immense number of journals published destroy each

other's efficiency. Many questions of paramount importance are

consequently lost in heaps of paper, and the interest they at first

excited speedily becomes weakened by endless recurrence.

Theology shared in the movement above mentioned in the church. The

Rationalists were most profuse in their publications, Paulus at

Heidelberg, and, more particularly, the Saxon authors, Tschirner,

Bretschneider, etc. Ancient Lutheran vigor degenerated to shallow

subtleties and a sort of coquettish tattling upon morality, in which

Zschokke's "Hours of Devotion" carried away the palm. Neander,

Gieseler, Gfrörer and others greatly promoted the study of the history

of the church. The propounders of the Gospels, however, snatched them,

after a lamentable fashion, out of each other's hands, now doubting

the authenticity of the whole, now that of most or of some of the

chapters, and were unable to agree upon the number that ought to be

retained. They, at the same time, outvied one another in political

servility, while the Lutherans who, true to their ancient faith,

protested against the Prussian liturgy, were too few in number for

remark. This frivolous class of theologians at length entirely

rejected the Gospels, embraced the doctrine of Hegel and Judaism, and

renounced Christianity. Still, although the Supernaturalists, the

orthodox party, and the Pietists triumphantly repelled these attacks,

and the majority of the elder Rationalists timidly seceded from the

anti-christian party, the Protestant literary world was reduced to a

state of enervation and confusion, affording but too good occasion for

an energetic demonstration on the part of the Catholics.

Philosophy also assumed the character of the age. Fichte of Berlin

still upheld, in 1814, the passion for liberty and right in their

nobler sense that had been roused by the French Revolution, but, as he

went yet further than Kant in setting limits to the sources of

perception and denied the existence of conscience, his system proved

merely of short duration. To him succeeded Schelling, with whom the

return of philosophy to religion and that of abstract studies to

nature and history commenced, and in whom the renovated spirit of the

nineteenth century became manifest. His pupils were partly natural

philosophers, who, like Oken, sought to comprehend all nature, her

breathing unity, her hidden mysteries, in religion; partly mystics,

who, like Eschenmaier, Schubert, Steffens, in a Protestant spirit, or,

like Gorres and Baader, in a Catholic one, sought also to comprehend

everything bearing reference to both nature and history in religion.

It was a revival of the ancient mysticism of Hugo de St. Victoire, of

Honorius, and of Rupert in another and a scientific age; nor was it

unopposed: in the place of the foreign scholasticism formerly so

repugnant to its doctrines, those of Schelling were opposed by a

reaction of the superficial mock-enlightenment and sophistical

scepticism predominant in the foregoing century, more particularly of

the sympathy with France, which had been rendered more than ever

powerful in Germany by the forcible suppression of patriotism.

Abstract philosophy, despising nature and history, mocking

Christianity, once more revived and set itself up as an absolute

principle in Hegel. None of the other philosophers attained the

notoriety gained by Schelling and Hegel, the representatives of the

antitheses of the age.

An incredible advance, of which we shall merely record the most

important facts, took place in the study of the physical sciences.

Three new planets were discovered, Pallas, in 1802, and Vesta, in

1807, by Gibers; Juno, in 1824, by Harding. Enke and Biela first fixed

the regular return and brief revolution of the two comets named after

them. Schröter and Mädler minutely examined the moon and planets;

Struve, the fixed stars. Fraunhofer improved the telescope. Chladni

first investigated the nature of fiery meteors and brought the study

of acoustics to perfection. Alexander von Humboldt immensely promoted

the observation of the changes of the atmosphere and the general

knowledge of the nature of the earth. Werner and Leopold von Buch also

distinguished themselves among the investigators of the construction

of the earth and mountains. Scheele, Gmelin, Liebig, etc., were noted

chemists. Oken, upon the whole, chiefly promoted the study of natural

history, and numberless researches were made separately in mineralogy,

the study of fossils, botany, and zoology by the most celebrated

scientific men of the day. While travellers visited every quarter of

the globe in search of plants and animals as yet unknown and regulated

them by classes, other men of science were engaged at home in the

investigation of their internal construction, their uses and habits,

in which they were greatly assisted by the improved microscope, by

means of which Ehrenberg discovered a completely new class of

animalculae. The discoveries of science were also zealously applied

for practical uses. Agriculture, cattle-breeding, manufactures

received a fresh impulse and immense improvements as knowledge

advanced. Commerce by water and by land experienced a thorough

revolution on the discovery of the properties of steam, by the use of

steamers and railroads. Medical science also progressed,

notwithstanding the number of contradictory and extravagant theories.

The medical practitioners of Germany took precedence throughout

Europe. Animal magnetism was practiced by Eschenmaier, Kieser, and

Justin Kerner, by means of whose female seer, von Prevorst, the seeing

of visions and the belief in ghosts were once more brought forward.

Hahnemann excited the greatest opposition by his system of

homoeopathy, which cured diseases by the administration of homogeneous

substances in the minutest doses. He was superseded by the cold-water

cure. During the last twenty years the naturalists and medical men of

Germany have held an annual meeting in one or other of their native

cities.

The philologists and savants have for some years past also been in the

habit of holding a similar meeting. The classics no longer form the

predominant study among philologists. Even literati, whose tastes,

like that of Creuzer, are decidedly classic, have acknowledged that

the knowledge of the Oriental tongues is requisite for the attainment

of a thorough acquaintance with classic antiquity. A great school for

the study of the Eastern languages has been especially established

under the precedence of the brothers Schlegel, Bopp, and others. The

study of the ancient language of Germany and of her venerable

monuments has, finally, been promoted by Jacob Grimm and by his widely

diffused school.

The study of history became more profound and was extended over a

wider field. A mass of archives hitherto secret were rendered public

and spread new light on many of the remarkable characters and events

in the history of Germany. Historians also learned to compile with

less party spirit and on more solid grounds. History, at first

compiled in a Protestant spirit, afterward inclined as partially to

Catholicism, and the majority of the higher order of historical

writers were consequently rendered the more careful in their search

after truth. Among the universal historians, Rotteck gained the

greatest popularity on account of the extreme liberality of his

opinions, and Heeren and Schlosser acquired great note for depth of

learning. Von Hammer, who rendered us acquainted with the history of

the Mahometan East, takes precedence among the historical writers upon

foreign nations. Niebuhr's Roman History, Wilken's History of the

Crusades, Leo's History of Italy, Ranke's History of the Popes, etc.,

have attained well-merited fame.--The history of Germany as a whole,

which Germany neither was nor is, was little studied, but an immense

mass of facts connected with or referring to Germany was furnished by

the numberless and excellent single histories and biographies that

poured through the press. All the more ancient collections of _script.

rerum_ were, according to the plan of Stein, the celebrated Prussian

minister, to be surpassed by a critical work on the sources of German

history, conducted by Pertz, which could, however, be but slowly

carried out. Grimm, Mone, and Barth threw immense light upon German

heathen antiquity, Zeusz upon the genealogy of nations. The best

account of the Ostrogoths was written by Manso, of the Visigoths by

Aschbach, of the Anglo-Saxons by Lappenberg, of the more ancient

Franks by Mannert, Pertz, and Löbell, of Charlemagne by Diebold and

Ideler, of Louis the Pious by Funk, of the Saxon emperors by Ranke and

his friends, Wachter and Leutsch, of the Salic emperors by Stenzel, of

the German popes of those times by Höfler, of the Hohenstaufen by

Raumer, Kortum, and Hurter, of the emperor Richard by Gebauer, of

Henry VII. of Luxemburg by Barthold, of King John by Lenz, of Charles

IV. by Pelzel and Schottky, of Wenzel by Pelzel, of Sigismund by

Aschbach, of the Habsburgs by Kurz, Prince Lichnowsky, and Hormayr, of

Louis the Bavarian by Mannert, of Ferdinand I. by Buchholz, of the

Reformation by C. A. Menzel and Ranke, of the Peasant War by

Sartorius, Oechsle, and Bensen, of the Thirty Years' War by Barthold,

of Gustavus Adolphus by Gfrörer, of Wallenstein by Förster, of

Bernhard of Weimar by Röse, of George of Lüneburg by von der Decken.

Of the ensuing period by Förster and Guhrauer, of the Eighteenth

Century by Schlosser, of the Wars with France by Clausewitz, of Modern

Times by Hormayr.

Coxe, Schneller, Mailàth, Chmel, and Gervay also wrote histories of

Austria, Schottky and Palacky of Bohemia, Beda, Weber, and Hormayr of

the Tyrol, Voigt of the Teutonic Order, Manso, Stenzel, Förster,

Dolum, Massenbach, Cölln, Preusz, etc., of the Kingdom of Prussia,

Stenzel of Anhalt, Kobbe of Lauenburg, Lützow of Mecklenburg, Barthold

of Pomerania, Kobbe of Holstein, Wimpfen of Schleswig, Sartorius and

Lappenberg of the Hansa, Hanssen of the Ditmarses, Spittler, Havemann,

and Strombeck of Brunswick and Hanover, van Kampen of Holland,

Warnkönig of Flanders, Rommel of Hesse, Lang of Eastern Franconia,

Wachter and Langenn of Thuringia and Saxony, Lang, Wolf, Mannert,

Zschokke, Völderndorf of Bavaria, Pfister, Pfaff, and Stälin of

Swabia, Glutz-Blotzheim, Hottinger, Meyer von Knonau, Zschokke,

Haller, Schuler, etc., of Switzerland. The most remarkable among the

histories of celebrated cities are those of St. Gall by Arx, of Vienna

by Mailath, of Frankfort on the Maine by Kirchner, of Ulm and

Heilbronn by Jæger, of Rotenburg on the Tauber by Bensen, etc.

Ritter, and, next to him, Berghaus, greatly extended the knowledge of

geography. Maps were drawn out on a greatly improved scale. Alexander

von Humboldt, who ruled the world with his scientific as Napoleon with

his eagle glance, attained the highest repute among travellers of

every nation. Krusenstern, Langsdorf, and Kotzebue, Germans in the

service of Russia, circumnavigated the globe. Meyen, the noted

botanist, did the same in a Prussian ship. Baron von Hügel explored

India. Gützlaff acted as a missionary in China. Ermann and Ledebur

explored Siberia; Klaproth, Kupfer, Parrot, and Eichwald, the

Caucasian provinces; Burckhardt, Rüppell, Ehrenberg, and Russegger,

Syria and Egypt; the Prince von Neuwied and Paul William, duke of

Würtemberg, North America; Becher, Mexico; Schomburg, Guiana; the

Prince von Neuwied and Martius, the Brazils; Pöppig, the banks of the

Amazon; Rengger, Paraguay. The Missionary Society for the conversion

of the heathen in distant parts and that for the propagation of the

gospel, founded at Basel, 1816, have gained well-merited repute.

At the commencement of the present century, amid the storms of war,

German taste took a fresh bias. French frivolity had increased

immorality to a degree hitherto unknown. Licentiousness reigned

unrestrained on the stage and pervaded the lighter productions of the

day. If Iffland had, not unsuccessfully, represented the honest

citizens and peasantry of Germany struggling against the unnatural

customs of modern public life, Augustus von Kotzebue, who, after him,

ruled the German stage, sought, on the contrary, to render honor

despicable and to encourage the license of the day. In the numerous

romances, a tone of lewd sentimentality took the place of the strict

propriety for which they had formerly been remarkable, and the general

diffusion of these immoral productions, among which the romances of

Lafontaine may be more particularly mentioned, contributed in no

slight degree to the moral perversion of the age.

Jean Paul Friedrich Richter stands completely alone. He shared the

weaknesses of his times, which, like Goethe and Kotzebue, he both

admired and ridiculed, passing with extraordinary versatility, almost

in the same breath, from the most moving pathos to the bitterest

satire. His clever but too deeply metaphysical romances are not only

full of domestic sentimentality and domestic scenes, but they also

imitate the over-refinement and effeminacy of Goethe, and yet his

sound understanding and warm patriotic feelings led him to condemn all

the artificial follies of fashion, all that was unnatural as well as

all that was unjust.

Modern philosophy had no sooner triumphed over ancient religion and

France over Germany than an extraordinary reaction, inaptly termed the

romantic, took place in poetry. Although Ultramontanism might be

traced even in Friedrich Schlegel, this school of poetry nevertheless

solely owes its immense importance to its resuscitation of the older

poetry of Germany, and to the success with which it opposed Germanism

to Gallicism. Ludwig Tieck exclusively devoted himself to the German

and romantic Middle Ages, to the Minnesingers, to Shakespeare,

Cervantes, and Calderon, and modelled his own on their immortal works.

The eyes of his contemporaries were by him first completely opened to

the long-misunderstood beauties of the Middle Ages. His kindred

spirit, Novalis (Hardenberg), destined to a too brief career, gave

proofs of signal talent. Heinrich von Kleist, who committed suicide,

left the finest-spirited and most delightful dramas. Ludwig Achim von

Arnim, like Tieck, cultivated the older German Saga; his only fault

was that, led away by the richness of his imagination, he overcolored

his descriptions. Aided by Brentano, he collected the finest of the

popular ballads of Germany in "des Enaben Wunderhorn." At Berlin,

Fouque, with true old German taste, revived the romances of chivalry

and, shortly before 1813, met the military spirit once more rising in

Prussia with a number of romances in which figured battle-steeds and

coats of mail, German faith and bravery, valiant knights and chaste

dames, intermixed, it must be confessed, with a good deal of

affectation. On the discovery being made that many of the ancient

German ballads were still preserved among the lower classes, chiefly

among the mountaineers, they were also sought for, and some poets

tuned their lyres on the naive popular tone, etc., first, Hebel, in

the partly extremely natural, partly extremely affected, Alemannic

songs, which have found frequent imitators. Zacharia Werner and

Hoffiman, on the other hand, exclusively devoted themselves to the

darker side of days of yore, to their magic and superstition, and

filled the world, already terror-stricken by the war, with

supernatural stories. Still, throughout one and all of these

productions, curiously as they contrasted, the same inclination to

return to and to revive a purely German style was evident. At that

moment the great crisis suddenly took place. Before even the poets

could predict the event, Germany cast off the yoke of Napoleon, and

the German "Sturm and Freiheitslieder" of Theodor Körner, Arndt,

Schenkendorf, etc., chimed in like a fearfully beautiful Allegro with

the Adagio of their predecessors.

This was in a manner also the finale of the German notes that so

strangely resounded in that Gallic time; the restoration suppressed

every further outburst of patriotism, and the patriotic spirit that

had begun to breathe forth in verse once more gave place to

cosmopolitism and Gallicism. The lyric school, founded by Ludwig

Uhland, alone preserved a German spirit and a connection with the

ancient _Minnelieder_ of Swabia.

The new cosmopolitic tendency of the poetry of these times is chiefly

due to the influence exercised by Goethe. The quick comprehension and

ready adoption of every novelty is a faculty of, not a fault in, the

German character, and alone becomes reprehensible when the German,

forgetful of himself and of his own peculiar characteristics, adopts a

medley of foreign incongruities and falsifies whatever ought to be

preserved special and true. Goethe and his school, however, not

content with imitating singly the style of every nation and of every

period, have interwoven the most diverse strains, antique and

romantic, old German and modern French, Grecian and Chinese, in one

and the same poem. This unnatural style, itself destructive of the

very peculiarity at which it aims, has infected both modern poetry and

modern art; the architect intermixes the Grecian and the Gothic in his

creations, while the painter seeks to unite the styles of the Flemish

and Italian schools in his productions, and the poet those of Persia,

Scandinavia, and Spain, in his strains.--Those are indeed deserving of

gratitude who have comprehended and preserved the character peculiar

to the productions of foreign art, in which the brothers Friedrich and

August Wilhelm Schlegel have been so eminently successful. Hammer and,

after him, Ruckert have also opened the Eastern world to our view.

Count Platen, on the other hand, hung fluctuating between the antique

Persian and German.--Cosmopolitism was greatly strengthened by the

historical romances in vogue in England, descriptive of olden time,

and which found innumerable imitators in Germany. They were, at all

events, thus far beneficial; they led us from the parlor into the

world.

But no sooner was genuine German taste neglected for that of foreign

nations than Gallomania revived; all were compelled to pay homage to

the spirit and the tone prevalent throughout Europe. The witty

aristocratic _médisance_ and grim spirit of rebellion emulating each

other in France, were, in Germany, represented by Prince Piichler, the

most _spirituel_ drawing-room satirist, and by the Jew, Börne, the

most spirited Jacobin of the day. The open infidelity again

demonstrated in France, also led to its introduction into Germany by

the Jew, Heine, while the immoral romances with which that country was

deluged speedily became known to us through the medium of the

translations and imitations of "Young Germany," and were incredibly

increased by our literary industry; all the lying memoirs, in which

the French falsify history, view Napoleon as a demigod, and treat the

enthusiasm with which the Germans were animated in 1813 with derision,

were also diligently translated. This tendency to view everything

German with French eyes and to ridicule German honor and German

manners was especially promoted by the light literature, and numerous

journals of the day, and was, in the universities, in close connection

with the anti-christian tendency of the school of Hegel.--The late

Catholic reaction, too exclusively political, has as yet exercised no

influence over the literary world, and would scarcely succeed in

gaining any, being less German than Roman.

While German poetry follows so false a course, it naturally follows

that art also must be deprived of its natural character. Architecture

has, it is true, abandoned the periwig style of France, but the purer

antique or Byzantine taste to which it has returned is generally

insipidly simple, while the attempts at Gothic and Moorish are truly

miserable. A more elevated feeling than the present generation (which,

in Goethe's manner, delights in trifling alternately with every style,

or is completely enslaved by the modes imposed by France) is fitted to

comprehend, is requisite for the revival of German or Gothic

architecture. Still it may be, as is hoped, that the intention to

complete the building of the Cologne cathedral will not be entirely

without a beneficial influence.

The art of painting aspires far more energetically toward national

emancipation. In the present century, the modern French style

affecting the antique presented a complete contrast with the German

romantic school, which, in harmony with the simultaneous romantic

reaction in the poetical world, returned to the sacred simplicity of

the ancient German and Italian masters. Overbeck was in this our

greatest master. Since this period, the two great schools at Munich

and Dusseldorf, founded by Peter Cornelius, and whose greatest masters

are Peter Hesz, Bendemann, Lessing, Kaulbach, etc., have sought a

middle path, and with earnest zeal well and skilfully opposed the too

narrow imitation of, and the medley of style produced by the study of,

the numerous old masters on the one hand, and, on the other, the

search for effect, that Gallic innovation so generally in vogue. Were

the church again to require pictures, or the state to employ the

pencil of the patriot artist in recording the great deeds of past or

present times or in the adornment of public edifices, painting would

be elevated to its proper sphere.--Germany has also produced many

celebrated engravers, among whom Muller holds precedence. Lithography,

now an art of so much importance, was invented by the Bavarian,

Senefelder. The art of painting on glass has also been revived.

In music, the Germans have retained their ancient fame. After Mozart,

Beethoven, Weber, etc., have gained immense celebrity as composers.

Still, much that is unnatural, affected, _bizarre_ and licentious has

crept into the compositions of the German masters, more particularly

in the operas, owing to the imitation of the modern Italian and French

composers. A popular reaction has, however, again taken place, and, as

before, in choral music, by means of the "singing clubs," which become

more and more general among the people.

The stage has most deeply degenerated. At the commencement of the

present century, its mimic scenes afforded a species of consolation

for the sad realities of life, and formed the Lethe in whose waters

oblivion was gladly sought. The public afterward became so practical

in its tastes, so sober in its desires, that neither the spirit of the

actor nor the coquetry of the actress had power to attract an

audience. The taste and love for art were superseded by criticism and

low intrigues, the theatre became a mere political engine, intended to

divert the thoughts of the population, of the great cities from the

discussion of topics dangerous to the state by the all-engrossing

charms of actresses and ballet-dancers.

The Germans, although much more practical in the present than in the

past century, are still far from having freed themselves from the

unjust, unfitting, and inconvenient situation into which they have

fallen as time and events rolled on.

A mutual understanding in regard to the external position of the

German in reference to the Slavonian nation has scarcely begun to dawn

upon us. Scarcely have we become sensible to the ignominious

restrictions imposed upon German commerce by the prohibitory

regulations of Russia, by the customs levied in the Sound, on the

Elbe, and Rhine. Scarcely has the policy that made such immense

concessions to Russian diplomacy, and scarcely has the party spirit

that looked for salvation for Germany from France, yielded to a more

elevated feeling of self-respect. And yet, whoever should say to the

people of Alsace, Switzerland, and Holland, "Ye are Germans," would

reap but derision and insult. Germany is on the point of being once

more divided into Catholic and Protestant Germany, and no one can

explain how the German Customs' Union is to extend to the German

Ocean, on account of the restrictions mutually imposed by the Germans.

Could we but view ourselves as the great nation we in reality are,

attain to a consciousness of the immeasurable strength we in reality

possess, and make use of it in order to satisfy our wants, the Germans

would be thoroughly a practical nation, instead of lying like a dead

lion among the nations of Europe, and unresistingly suffering them to

mock, tread underfoot, nay, deprive him of his limbs, as though he

were a miserable, helpless worm.

More, far more has been done for the better regulation of the internal

economy of Germany than for her external protection and power. The

reforms suited to the age, commenced by the philosophical princes and

ministers of the past century, have been carried on by Prussia in her

hour of need, by constitutional Germany by constitutional means.

Everywhere have the public administration been better regulated,

despotism been restrained by laws, financial affairs been settled even

under the heavy pressure of the national debts. Commerce, manufactural

industry, and agriculture have been greatly promoted by the Customs'

Union, by government aid and model institutions, by the improvements in

the post-offices, by the laying of roads and railways. The public

burdens and public debts, nevertheless, still remain disproportionately

heavy on account of the enormous military force which the great states

are compelled to maintain for the preservation of their authority, and

on account of the polyarchical state of Germany, which renders the

maintenance of an enormous number of courts, governments, general staffs

and chambers necessary.

The popular sense of justice and legality, never entirely suppressed

throughout Germany, also gave fresh proof of its existence under the

new state of affairs, partly in the endlessly drawn-out proceedings in

the chambers, partly in the incredible number of new laws and

regulations in the different states. Still, industriously as these

laws have been compiled, no real, essential, German law, neither

public nor private, has been discovered. The Roman and French codes

battled with each other and left no room for the establishment of a

code fundamentally and thoroughly German. The most distinguished

champions of the common rights of the people against cabinet-justice,

the tyranny of the police and of the censor, were principally

advocates and savants. The Estates, as corporations, were scarcely any

longer represented. The majority of governments, ruled by the

principle of absolute monarchy and the chambers, ruled by that of

democracy, had, since the age of philosophy, been unanimous in setting

the ancient Estates aside. The nobility alone preserved certain

privileges, and the Catholic clergy alone regained some of those they

had formerly enjoyed; all the Estates were, in every other respect,

placed on a level. The ancient and national legal rights of the people

were consequently widely trenched upon.

The emancipation of the peasant from the oppressive feudal dues, and

the abolition of the restraint imposed by the laws of the city

corporations, which had so flagrantly been abused, were indubitably

well intended, but, instead of stopping there, good old customs, that

ought only to have been freed from the weeds with which they had been

overgrown, were totally eradicated. The peasant received a freehold,

but was, by means of his enfranchisement, generally laden with debts,

and, while pride whispered in his ear that he was now a lord of the

soil and might assume the costume of his superiors, the land, whence

he had to derive his sustenance, was gradually diminished in extent by

the systematic division of property. His pretensions increased exactly

in the ratio in which the means for satisfying them decreased; and the

necessity of raising money placed him in the hands of Jews. The

smaller the property by reason of subdivision, the more frequently is

land put up for sale, the deeper is the misery of the homeless

outcast. The restoration of the inalienable, indivisible allod and of

the federal rights of the peasant, as in olden times, would have been

far more to the purpose.--Professional liberty and the introduction of

mechanism and manufactural industry have annihilated every warrant

formerly afforded by the artificer as master and member of a city

corporation, and, at the same time, every warrant afforded to him by

the community of his being able to subsist by means of his industry.

Manufactures on an extensive scale that export their produce must at

all events be left unrestricted, but the small trades carried on

within a petty community, their only market, excite, when free, a

degree of competition which is necessarily productive both of bad

workmanship and poverty, and the superfluous artificers, unaided by

their professional freedom, fall bankrupt and become slaves in the

establishments of their wealthier[1] competitors. The restoration of

the city guilds under restrictions suitable to the times would have

been far more judicious.

The maintenance of a healthy, contented class of citizens and peasants

ought to be one of the principal aims of every German statesman. The

fusion of these ancient and powerful classes into one common mass

whence but a few wealthy individuals rise to eminence would be fatal

to progression in Germany. By far the greater part of the people have

already lost the means of subsistence formerly secured to all, nay,

even to the serf, by the privileges of his class. The insecure

possession, the endless division and alienation of property, an

anxious dread of loss, and a rapacious love of gain, have become

universal. Care for the means of daily existence, like creeping

poison, unnerves the population. The anxious solicitude to which this

gives rise has a deeply demoralizing effect. Even offices under

government are less sought for from motives of ambition than as a

means of subsistence; the arts and sciences have been degraded to mere

sources of profit, envious trade decides questions of the highest

importance, the torch of Hymen is lit by Plutus, not at the shrine of

Love; and in the bosom of the careworn father of a family, whose

scanty subsistence depends upon a patron's smile, the words

"fatherland" and "glory" find no responsive echo.

Among the educated classes this state of poverty is allied with the

most inconsistent luxury. Each and all, however poor, are anxious to

preserve an appearance of wealth or to raise credit by that means.

All, however needy, must be fashionable. The petty tradesman and the

peasant ape their superiors in rank, and the old-fashioned but

comfortable and picturesque national costume is being gradually thrown

aside for the ever-varying modes prescribed by Paris to the world. The

inordinate love of amusements in which the lower classes and the

proletariat, ever increasing in number, seek more particularly to

drown the sense of misery, is another and a still greater source of

public demoralization. The general habit of indulging in the use of

spirituous liquors has been rightfully designated the brandy pest,

owing to its lamentable moral and physical effect upon the population.

This pest was encouraged not alone by private individuals, who gain

their livelihood by disseminating it among the people, but also by

governments, which raised a large revenue by its means; and the

temperance societies, lately founded, but slightly stem the evil.

The public authorities throughout Germany have, it must be confessed,

displayed extraordinary solicitude for the poor by the foundation of

charitable institutions of every description, but they have contented

themselves with merely alleviating misery instead of removing its

causes; and the benevolence that raised houses of correction,

poor-houses, and hospitals, is rendered null by the laxity of the

legislation. No measures are taken by the governments to provide means

for emigration, to secure to the peasant his freehold, to the

artificer the guarantee he ought to receive and to give, and the

maintenance of the public morals. The punishment awarded for

immorality and theft is so mild as to deprive them of the character of

crime, pamphlets and works of the most immoral description are

dispersed by means of the circulating libraries among all classes, and

the bold infidelity preached even from the universities is left

unchecked. But--is not the thief taught morality in the house of

correction? and are not diseases, the result of license, cured in the

hospitals with unheard-of humanity?

Private morality, so long preserved free from contamination, although

all has for so long conspired against the liberty and unity of

Germany, is greatly endangered. Much may, however, be hoped for from

the sound national sense. The memory of the strength displayed by

Germany in 1813 has been eradicated neither by the contempt of France

or Russia, by any reactionary measure within Germany herself, by

social and literary corruption, nor by the late contest between church

and state. The Customs' Union has, notwithstanding the difference in

political principle, brought despotic Prussia and constitutional

Germany one step nearer. The influence of Russia on the one hand, of

that of France on the other, has sensibly decreased. The irreligious

and immoral tendencies now visible will, as has ever been the case in

Germany, produce a reaction, and, when the necessity is more urgently

felt, fitting measures will be adopted for the prevention of

pauperism. The dangers with which Germany is externally threatened

will also compel governments, however egotistical and indifferent, to

seek their safety in unity, and even should the long neglect of this

truth be productive of fresh calamity and draw upon Germany a fresh

attack from abroad, that very circumstance will but strengthen our

union and accelerate the regeneration of our great fatherland, already

anticipated by the people on the fall of the Hohenstaufen.

[Footnote 1: Because more skilful.--_Trans_.]

CCLXXIV. German Emigrants

The overplus population of Germany has ever emigrated; in ancient

times, for the purpose of conquering foreign powers; in modern times,

for that of serving under them. In the days of German heroism, our

conquering hordes spread toward the west and south, over Italy, Gaul,

Spain, Africa, England, and Iceland; during the Middle Ages, our

mail-clad warriors took an easterly direction and overran the

Slavonian countries, besides Prussia, Transylvania, and Palestine; in

modern times, our religious and political refugees have emigrated in

scarcely less considerable numbers to countries far more distant, but

in the humble garb of artificers and beggars, the Pariahs of the

world. Our ancient warriors gained undying fame and long maintained

the influence and the rule of Germany in foreign lands. Our modern

emigrants have, unnoted, quitted their native country, and, as early

as the second generation, intermixed with the people among whom they

settled. Hundreds of thousands of Germans have in this manner aided to

aggrandize the British colonies, and Germany has derived no benefit

from the emigration of her sons.

The first great mass of religious refugees threw itself into Holland

and into the Dutch colonies, the greater part of which have since

passed into the hands of the British. The illiberality of the Dutch

caused the second great mass to bend its steps to British North

America, within whose wilds every sect found an asylum. William Penn,

the celebrated Quaker, visited Germany, and, in 1683, gave permission

to some Germans to settle in the province named, after him,

Pennsylvania, where they founded the city of German town.[1] These

fortunate emigrants were annually followed by thousands of exiled

Protestants, principally from Alsace and the Palatinate. The industry

and honesty for which the German workmen were remarkable caused some

Englishmen to enter into a speculation to procure their services as

white slaves. The greatest encouragement was accordingly given by them

to emigration from Germany, but the promises so richly lavished were

withdrawn on the unexpected emigration of thirty-three thousand of the

inhabitants of the Palatinate, comprising entire communes headed by

their preachers, evidently an unlooked and unwished for multitude.

These emigrants reached London abandoned by their patrons and

disavowed by the government. A fearful fate awaited them. After losing

considerable numbers from starvation in England, the greater part of

the survivors were compelled to work like slaves in the mines and in

the cultivation of uninhabited islands; three thousand six hundred of

them were sent over to Ireland, where they swelled the number of

beggars; numbers were lost at sea, and seven thousand of them returned

in despair, in a state of utter destitution, to their native country.

A small number of them, however, actually sailed for New York, where

they were allotted portions of the primitive forests, which they

cleared and cultivated; but they had no sooner raised flourishing

villages in the midst of rich cornfields and gardens, than they were

informed that the ground belonged to the state and were driven from

the home they had so lately found. Pennsylvania opened a place of

refuge to the wanderers.[2]

The religious persecution and the increasing despotism of the

governments in Germany meanwhile incessantly drove fresh emigrants to

America, where, as they were generally sent to the extreme verge of

the provinces in order to clear the ground and drive away the

aborigines, numbers of them were murdered by the Indians. Switzerland

also sent forth many emigrants, who settled principally in North

Carolina. The people of Salzburg, whose expulsion has been detailed

above, colonized Georgia in 1732. In 1742, there were no fewer than a

hundred thousand Germans in North America, and, since that period,

their number has been continually on the increase. Thousands annually

arrived; for instance, in the years 1749 and 1750, seven thousand; in

1754, as many as twenty-two thousand; in 1797, six thousand Swabians.

The famine of 1770, the participation of German mercenaries in the

wars of the British in North America, at first against the French

colonies, afterward against the English colonists (the German

prisoners generally settled in the country), induced the Germans to

emigrate in such great numbers that, from 1770 to 1791, twenty-four

emigrant ships on an average arrived annually at Philadelphia, without

reckoning those that landed in the other harbors.[3]

The passage by sea to the west being continually closed during the

great wars with France, the stream of emigration took an easterly

direction overland. Russia had extended her conquests toward Persia

and Turkey. The necessity of fixing colonies in the broad steppes as

in the primitive forests of America, to serve as a barrier against the

wild frontier tribes, was plainly perceived by the Russian government,

and Germans were once more made use of for this purpose. Extensive

colonies, which at the present date contain hundreds of thousands of

German inhabitants, but whose history is as yet unknown, were

accordingly formed northward of the Black and Caspian Seas. Swabian

villages were also built on the most southern frontier of Russia

toward Persia, and in 1826 suffered severely from an inroad of the

Persians.