observations occur of great weight and utility. We cannot help extracting that which she makes upon the latter restriction.

"Le mal que peuvent faire les mauvais livres n'est corrigé que par les bons, les inconvénients des lumières ne sont évités que par un plus haut degré de lumières. Il y a deux routes à prendre en toutes choses: retrancher ce qui est dangereux, ou donner des forces nouvelles pour y résister. Le second moyen est le seul qui convienne à l'epoque où nous vivons; car l'innocence ne pouvant être de nos jours la compagne de l'ignorance, celle-ci ne fait que du mal. Tant de paroles ont été dites, tant de sophismes répétés, qu'il faut beaucoup savoir pour bien juger, et les temps sont passés cù l'on s'en tenoit en fait d'idées au patrimoine de ses pères. On doit donc songer, non à repousser les lumières, mais à les rendre complètes, pour que leurs rayons brisés ne présentent point de fausses lueurs. Un gouvernment ne sauroit prétendre à derober à une grande nation la connoissance de l'esprit qui règne dans son siècle; cet esprit renferme des éléments de force et de grandeur, dont on peut user avec succès quand on ne craint pas d'aborde hardiment toutes les questions; on trouve alors dans les véritées éternelles des ressources contre les erreurs passagères, et dans la liberté même le maintien de l'ordre et l'accroissement de la puissance." (Vol. I. p. 63, 6.1.)

We felt a peculiar pleasure, a tranquil train of emotions, half romantic and half domestic, in perusing the description which is given us of the recreations of the promenade, called the Prater, near the city of Vienna. As it owes nothing of its effect to the language, we will lay the passage before our readers in the English dress.

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"There is no great city without its public building, its promenade, or some other wonder of art or of nature, to which the recollections of infancy attach themselves; and I think that the Prater must possess a charm of this description for the inhabitants of Vienna; no where do we find, so near the capital, a public walk so rich in the beauties, at once of rude and ornamented nature. majestic forest extends to the banks of the Danube; herds of deer are seen from afar passing through the meadow; they return every morning, and fly away every evening when the influx of company disturbs their solitude. A spectacle, seen at Paris only three times a year, on the road to Long-Champ, is renewed every day, during the fine season, at Vienna. This is an Italian custom-the daily promenade at the same hour. Such regularity would be impracticable in a country where pleasures are so diversified as at Paris; but the Viennese, from whatever cause, would find it difficult to relinquish the habit of it. It must be agreed that it forms a mast striking coup d'œil, the sight of a whole nation assembled under the shade of magnificent trees, on a turf kept ever verdant by the waters of the Danube. The people of fashion in carriages, those of the lower orders on foot, meet there every evening. In this wise country, even pleasures are looked upon in the light of duties, and they have

this advantage, that they never grow tedious, however uniform. They preserve as much regularity in dissipation as in business, and waste their time as methodically as they employ it.

"If you enter one of the redoubts where balls are given to the citizens on holidays, you will behold men and women gravely performing, opposite to each other, the steps of a minuet, of which they have imposed on themselves the amusement; the crowd often se parates a couple while dancing, and yet each persists, as if they were dancing to acquit their consciences; each moves alone, to right and left, forwards and backwards, without caring about the other who is figuring all the while with equal conscientiousness; now and then, only, they utter a little exclamation of joy, and then immediately return to the serious discharge of their pleasure.

"It is above all on the Prater that one is struck with the ease and prosperity of the people of Vienna. This city has the reputation of consuming more victuals than any other place of an equal popu lation; and this species of superiority, a little vulgar, is not contested. One sees whole families of citizens and artificers, setting off at five in the evening for the Prater, there to take a sort of rural refreshment, equally substantial with a dinner elsewhere, and the money which they can afford to lay out upon it proves how laborious they are, and under how mild a government they live.

"Tens of thousands return at night, leading by the hand their wives and children; no disorder, no quarrelling disturbs all this multitude, whose voice is hardly heard, so silent is their joyj! This silence, nevertheless, does not proceed from any melancholy disposition of the soul; it is rather a certain physical happiness, which induces men in the south of Germany to ruminate on their sensations, as in the north on their ideas. The vegetative existence of the south of Germany bears some analogy to the contemplative existence of the north: in each, there is repose, indolence, and reflection.

"If you could imagine an equally numerous assembly of Parisians met together in the same place, the air would sparkle with bon mots, pleasantries, and disputes; never can a Frenchman enjoy any pleasure in which his self-love would not in some manner find itself a place.

"Noblemen of rank take their promenade on horses or in carriages of the greatest magnificence and good taste; all their amusement consists in bowing, in an alley of the Prater, to those whom they have just left in a drawing room; but the diversity of objects renders it impossible to pursue any train of reflection, and the greater number of men take a pleasure in thus dissipating those reflections which trouble them. These grandees of Vienna, the most illustri ous and the most wealthy in Europe, abuse none of the advantages they possess; they allow the humblest hackney coaches to stop their brilliant equipages. The Emperor and his brothers even quietly keep their place in the string, and choose to be considered, in their amusements, as private individuals; they make use of their privi leges only when they fulfil their duties. In the midst of the crowd

you often meet with Oriental, Hungarian, and Polish costumes, which enliven the imagination; and harmonious bands of music at intervals give to all this assemblage the air of a peaceable fête, in which every body enjoys himself without being troubled about his neighbour." (V. I. p. 71-75.)

Upon the whole, the government and society of Austria, and indeed of southern Germany in general, presents a scene of so much order, duty, virtue and felicity, that we are inclined rather to covet than to commiserate their depression below the intellectual altitude of their northern brethren. Fruition and contentment, when limited to the pleasures which are pure and natural, are, after all, no despicable allotment in the distribution of earthly blessings.

Madame de Staël has thought" the desire among foreigners of imitating the French manners" a subject of sufficient importance to make it the title of a whole chapter; and perhaps no chapter throughout the whole work is of more substantial importance. We earnestly recommend the perusal of it, and offer as a specimen the following extract.

"Les étrangers, quand ils veulent imiter les Français, affectent plus d'immoralité, et sont plus frivoles qu'eux, de peur que le sérieux ne manque de grace, et que les sentiments ou les pensées n'aient pas l'accent parisien.

"Les Autrichiens en général ont tout à la fois trop de roideur et de sincérité pour rechercher les manières d'être étrangères. Cependant ils ne sont pas encore assez Allemands, ils ne connoissent pas assez la littérature allemande; on croit trop à Vienne qu'il est de bon goût de ne parler que français; tandis que la gloire et même l'agrément de chaque pays consistent toujours dans le caractère et l'esprit national.

"Les Français ont fait peur à l'Europe, mais sur-tout à l'Allemagne, par leur habileté dans l'art de saisir et de montrer le ridicule: il y avoit je ne sais quelle puissance magique dans le mot d'élégance et de grace, qui irritoit singulièrement l'amour-propre. On diroit que les sentiments, les actions, la vie enfin, devoient, avant tout, être soumis à cette législation très subtile de l'usage du monde, qui est comme un traité entre l'amour-propre des individus et celui de la société même, un traité dans lequel les vanités respectives se sont fait une constitution républicaine où l'ostracisme s'exerce contre tout ce qui est fort et prononcé. Ces formes, ces convenances légères en apparence, et despotiques dans le fond, disposent de l'existence entière; elles ont miné par degrés l'amour, l'enthousiasme, la religion, tout, hors l'égoïsme que l'ironie ne peut atteindre, parce qu'il ne s'expose qu'au blâme et non à la moquerie.

"L'esprit allemand s'accorde beaucoup moins que tout autre avec cette frivolité calculée; il est presque nul à la superficie; il a besoin d'approfondir pour comprendre; il ne saisit rien au vol, et les Allemands auroient beau, ce qui certes seroit bien dommage, se désabuser des qualités et des sentiments dont ils sont doués, que la perte du fond ne les rendroit pas plus légers dans les formes, et

qu'ils seroient plutôt des allemands sans mérite que des Français aimables.

"Il ne faut pas en conclure pour cela que la grace leur soit interdite; l'imagination et la sensibilité leur en donnent, quand ils se livrent à leurs dispositions naturelles. Leur gaieté, et ils en ont, surtout en Autriche, n'a pas le moindre rapport avec la gaieté française: les farces tyroliennes, qui amusent à Vienne les grands seigneurs comme le peuple, ressemblent beaucoup plus à la bouffonnerie des Italiens qu'à la moquerie des Français. Elles consistent dans des scènes comiques fortement caractérisées, et qui représentent la nature humaine avec vérité, mais non la société avec finesse. Toutefois cette gaité telle qu'elle est, vaut encore mieux que l'imitation d'une grace étrangère: on peut très bien se passer de cette grace, mais en ce genre la perfection seule est quelque chose. L'ascendant des manières des Français a préparé peut-être les éstrangers à les croire invincibles. Iln'y a qu'un moyen de résister à cet ascendant: ce sont des habitudes et des mœurs nationales très décidées.' Dès qu'on cherche à ressem bleraux Français, ils l'emportent en tout sur tous." (Vol. I. p. 83-86.)

The state of the German towns in general, and particularly of the literary towns of Saxony, adds greatly to the interest of the above passage. It is reasonable to dread the force of imitation where things as they exist are productive of happiness; it is excusable almost to tremble at the sound of improvement where so much felicity seems bound up with ancient habits. In reading Madame de Staël's account of the moral purity of the inhabitants of Leipsic, we can almost imagine Astrea to have de serted her place in the zodiac, and descended afresh upon this globe. We are told that the honesty of the inhabitants of that town was such, that a proprietor having fixed on an apple-tree which he had planted on the borders of the public walk a notice, desiring that people would not gather the fruit, not a single apple was stolen from it for ten years. Whatever allowance we may make for an amiable credulity in the adoption and diffusion of such pleasing anecdotes, a people of whom such a story can be recorded without shocking probability deserve the prayers of every friend of humanity for their deliverance and preservation from the intercourse as well as from the arms of France.

To the eulogy of Madame de Staël upon universities we are disposed to give a measured assent. Of the German universities we know very little; of our own we have known so much as to make us cold in our terms of respect. Yet whenever we have amused ourselves with speculations upon better modes of discipline, we have found all our projects expire in the conviction that universities must follow rather than lead the general manners, and that the state of all academical discipline will be found to regulate itself by the scale of national sentiment. Perhaps Madame de Staël may know as little of our English universities as

we of the German, She seems, however, to be pretty right in supposing that in our English academies substantial distinctions accompany the disparities of fortune. The German institutions of the literary kind, in the midst of arbitrary forms of political government, exhibit the image of a free republican body, and engender the loftiest speculations of political freedom. The feelings of Madame de Staël seem to be much in unison with this liberal system. We presume, however, to doubt its advantages.

A discordancy between theory and practice does not lay the foundation of the useful character; why teach men to wander into speculations of conjectural good where the practical good lies iminediately before them? Independence of thought has an alluring sound; but if men are taught by it to reason upon their own situations, independently of their own experience, prejudice becomes surely a much better thing. If, as Madame de Staël assures us, the Germans are honest and happy, their education should instruct them in the best means of securing this happy state, this “bien être monotone." Real improvement will be among the certain fruits of this education. The moral order of mankind is insensibly going on, like the human stature during the period of its growth while a healthy condition is maintained; but the principle of improvement involved in the principle of conservation is perpetually overlooked. In our own country what rational man is there who thinks we are defective in political and moral freedom? but it is here only that political change has been real improvement, because the very motive to change has been final conservation. Something bounded and defined is always present to the imagination of the honest politician in this country. To preserve or recover something of which experience has attested the value, or to which prescription and inheritance have established the right, is the only principle on which an English statesman or senator can ground his propositions of constitutional amendment. And this ought to be and generally is the polar star of a British political education. In Germany education overshoots the realitics and practicabilities of life. The young academician brings little into society which he himself dares execute or even propose for execution. The correspondence, therefore, between action and reflection is in a great measure cut off. Literature, which is chiefly useful and ornamental when it mellows the harshness and generalises the details of office, is thus in Germany given up to the recluse; and those who by their genius, if profitably applied, might have improved the dispositions of ordinary life, and caused a smiling vegetation to spring up in the paths of business, have wasted existence in exploring the labyrinths of a forest for the sake of the wild flowers that grow on its borders, and which, after all, refuse the cultivation of the garden. In the chapter upon universities many judicious, some fanciful,