tones and gestures. We think, however, that the author has gone a little too far in endeavouring further to account for this inaptitude to chit-chat, by the grammatical construction and multiplied consonants of the language.

We pass by some very sensible and eloquent remarks on the freedom of the press, (Ch. 6.) and hasten on to Northern Germany. Here thought is more free, literature more cultivated, and the press altogether open. The commonest workmen in Saxony recreate themselves from their labour with a book, and it is not unusual to find even the lower orders acquainted with French literature. You find,' says she' even in the villages professors of greek and latin; and there is no town so mean, but it contains a tolerable library. If we compared the provinces of France with Germany in this respect, we should imagine that the countries were at the distance of three ages from one another.' The industry of German scholars is truly amazing. Fifteen hours a day of solitary study, continued for whole years, is not at all esteemed an unnatural kind of life.' And, in another place, she tells us of Müller, the historian, that there was not a village in Switzerland, not a family among the nobility, with whose history he was unacquainted. One day, to decide a bet, he was asked the succession of the Sovereign Counts of Bugey. He gave them at once, only forgetting whether the title of one whom he mentioned was regent or regnant. He was seriously dissatisfied with himself for such a lapse of memory.' (II. 347.) The German literati live much apart even from one another, and still more from the world. The consequence is, that they trouble themselves little with political institutions, but give themselves entirely up to poetry and abstract speculation. This, perhaps, continues to them such an 'unlimited freedom of the press. The great men of this world,' remarks the autlior, have little to fear from theories and erudition, from literary and philosophical researches.'

The literary cities of Saxony are those in which one finds the most benevolence and simplicity. Letters have been consi. dered every where else as an appendage of luxury; in Germany they seem to exclude it. The tastes which they inspire give a kind of frankness and timidity, and these again a love for domestic life. Not but that the vanity of an author has a very marked character among the Germans, but it addresses itself not to success among contemporaries, but to posterity.' Vol. I. 134.

The honest character of the German manifests itself as much here as in the South. A man planted an apple tree on the public walk, and fixed to it a writing, begging that no one would take the fruit: and for ten years there was not a

single apple stolen. We are not inclined to place much confidence in such a story, or, if authenticated, to build much upon it: we rather quote it to shew the manner in which Mad. de Staël acts with her readers; she gives them one fact, and founds twenty remarks upon it. She mentions, however, another circumstance, which, if true, is certainly worthy of observation. The imposts, at Hamburgh,' she says, are paid into a kind of box, without any one to examine the several payments. They ought to be proportioned to the respective fortunes of the individuals, and on being reckoned, are always found so.'

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Our

Chapters 16 and 17 bring us to Prussia and Berlin. The country presents to the mind much such a spectacle as the capital does to the eye. A newly-built city, the houses good and well-arranged, the streets commodious,-every thing in Berlin is comfortable and elegant, nothing picturesque, nothing poetical, nothing that speaks to the imagination. readers know the difference between surveying places like Chester or Conway, and walking the streets of an upstart town like Birmingham. In the former the imagination is perpetually called back to antient times, the times of castles and barons, of monasteries and monks, of all that is grand and all that is romantic in our annals. In the latter, the mind cannot get away from manufactures and manufacturers, wealthy citizens and city dinners. Berlin,' says Mad. de S., however beautiful it may be to the eye, makes no serious impression; one can find in it nothing that reminds one of the history of the country, or the characters of the inhabitants; and these magnificent dwellings seem meant only as the commodious resorts of pleasures and of industry. Now very similar to this is the impression that the institutions and manners, the ensemble of the country, make upon the mind. They are all of yesterday, all bear date from Frederic. There is nothing in the government or the laws of Prussia that savours of antiquity. The Prussian has not his enthusiasm awakened by the remembrance of a long line of Henrys and Edwards; he has no institution to defend that comes down, like our trial by jury, from an Alfred; every thing to him recalls Frederic,-laws, arts, literature, Frederic was the founder of every thing. The author then has very rightly observed, that whoever would be acquainted with Prussia, must study Frederic. She accordingly devotes a chapter to his character; but as there is nothing very new in it, we pass it over.

The 'universities of Germany' form the next subject of her consideration. And here again we find plenty of observaVOL. XI.

C

tions, and very few facts. Languages form the basis of a German education; and she enters into a discussion of the comparative excellencies of the systems of education founded upon classical literature, the mathematics, and the physical sciences. She gives a decided preference to the first. On this topic we would remark that the business of education is not merely, not even principally, to furnish the mind with ideas, but to call out, and exercise, and strengthen the faculties, to form the habits, to fit the mind for being it's own instructor. We should not always carry the child, but, by leading it, teach it to walk by itself. Now every one must agree that for drawing out the imagination, as well as for furnishing the memory with pleasant subjects of meditation, elegant literature should be employed; and the literature of a foreign language is generally used, because, not being mastered without some little difficulty, the mind in the mean time is formed to habits of attention and industry. So far we agree with this lady; but when she adds that the study of grammar requires the same regular attention as the mathematics, that it is much more nearly allied to thought,that the logic of grammar is as precise as that of algebra,'--she leaves us quite behind her. The grammarian draws certain rules from the practice of certain writers; and the business of the pupil is to recognize the rules in the writings. The rules are arbitrary and not unfrequently unphilosophical. What great exertion of the reasoning powers is there here? what chain of ratiocination of which the mind has to examine every link? what assemblage of particulars which must be comprehended and grasped in one general conclusion? We grant that the problems of life are more complicated than those of cyphers,'-that demonstrated truths do not conduct to probable truths,' (if, however, we do not mistake the expression,) that mathematical reasoning is not applicable to conduct;'-but still the reason is exercised and improved; caution, circumspection, and comprehension are acquired; and the mental wealth gained by this patient drudgery may be spent more liberally on our daily affairs. On the third system of education that we mentioned, she remarks:

Some have imagined that, in education, children should be spared all the trouble possible; that their studies should come in the shape of amusements; that they should have collections of natural history for playthings; and physical experiments for sights. It seems to me that this too is an erroneous system. If knowledge could really be thus played into a child, it would be at the risk of suffering a faculty, more essential than even

knowledge itself, to remain undeveloped,-I mean, attention....Education, carried on by games disperses thought: endurance of every kind is one of nature's great secrets; the mind of a child must be accustomed to the efforts of study, as our soul must be to suffering..... With boards of cards you may teach your children a multitude of things, but you will not teach them to learn; and this habit of looking out for amusement, the course of which you would turn towards science, will find out another channel, when the child shall be no longer under your direction.' Vol. I. p. 166.

These remarks are very good when applied to the above as an exclusive system of education? yet, as the mind must be relieved from the labours of mathematical reasoning, and the dry details of grammar, there seems no objection to the mingling instruction with amusement, and to the filling up a long winter evening with arithmetical, historical, or geographical games.

We have been detained so long with the first part of the work that we can but just allow ourselves time to notice the Festival of Interlaken.' This romantic solemnity was held, in the midst of lakes and inaccessible mountains, in memory of Berthold, the founder of Berne. The spectators,-among whom, says Mad. de S., it was curious to see young Parisians, listening to the torrents, and looking at the mountains, to try if they could not find enough of ennui in these solitary places to drive them back with keener zest to the world,' -were ranged on wooded hills above which rose some of the highest mountains of Switzerland. The procession was heard advancing from a distance, accompanied by pleasant music. The magistrates appeared at the head of the peasants; the young women were clothed, each according to the ancient and picturesque costume of her own canton; the halberds and banners of each valley. were carried before the procession by white-headed old men, drest precisely as the fashion was five ages back, at the time of the conspiracy of Rutli. The games began-trials of agility and strength, and the prizes were distributed. After the games, they dined in tents; and in cups, on which were engraved the names of Tell and the three founders of Helvetic liberty,' they drank, with transport, to peace, to order, to independence.' Life flows on in these valleys,' says the author, like the rivers that water them; the waves are new, but the course that they follow is the same. May it never be interrupted! may the same solemnity be often celebrated at the foot of the same mountains!'

Mad. de Staël begins the second part of her work, 'on literature and the arts,' by an enquiry into the reason why

the French are insensible to the merits of German literature.' The literati of France, or rather of Paris, form a society among themselves; they are perpetually meeting, perpetually talking and laughing over literary matters, (the more because it is a very serious thing in Paris to talk and laugh over politics) criticizing every new production that appears, till a dominant taste is formed, similar in literature to bon ton in society: he who wants these may be a genius or an honest man, but he is not of nous autres,—we cannot receive him into our drawing-rooms, or his books into our libraries. The Frenchman judges by rule: his literary conscience' is always awake, and will not suffer him to enjoy any pleasure, unwarranted by Boileau and the critics. The proprieties of society pursue talent even to its inmost emotions, and the fear of ridicule is the sword of Damocles from which no feast of imagination can withdraw the eye.'

6

Now in Germany there is no capital, no literary centre. The scholar lives alone, among his own people,' and judges of excellence by his own feelings. The despotism of taste is as unknown to him, as the despotism of fashion to a country squire in his native village. Difficulty conquered is the great merit with a Frenchman, who forgets as Mad. de Staël well observes, that either this difficulty is not perceived by the reader, and then can have no merit; or is perceived, and then it is not entirely conquered.' 'If we were,' she says in another place, to discipline a German writer after the prohibitory laws of French literature, he would not know how to steer in the midst of the shoals we had pointed out.' Another circumstance worthy of remark, and arising from the same cause, is that the Frenchman talks, the German thinks. Hence the German does not mind a little obscurity; but nothing can be more essential to the Frenchman, who reads in the morning that he may talk in the evening, than clearness. The Frenchman too is accustomed to what is brief and brilliant in conversation, because no one can bear to be long shut out from it,--and he expects the same in books: the German allows himself time and space to bring out his idea; there is a fresh interest to him in every touch he adds, and he never suspects that he is growing tedious to others. Lastly, we think, it should never be forgotten that the French are the only nation who have not two languages, -one for prose and another for poetry: and it is, perhaps, partly on this account, that they have introduced so many artificial rules into their poetry,-supplying, if we may venture on the metaphor, proportion of form for beauty of feature.