Germany, witnessed the battles of Lutzen | Metternich aims at a preponderant influence, and Bautzen, disheartening as they were, like all true Germans, undismayed: and on the 23d August, 1813, shortly after the resumption of hostilities, we find him a second time in Prague, and writing most characteristically as follows:

"The spirit of the people here is by no means what it was in 1809; and for this plain reason, that the government does nothing, and will do nothing to rouse it. At that time (1809) the STADIONS held the helm, and they used every means to waken the nobler feelings of human nature, and they attained their object. Now, at the head of affairs, we have a cold, scheming, shallow, calculating man, who is afraid of nothing so much as an energetic measure-loves nothing more than a goal at the nearest possible distance from his nose-and is always ready to help himself out of a scrape with any miserable patchwork that may serve for the nonce. Hence the marriage introduc

ed by a divorce, the foolish hope of a partial peace, the childish congress, the wretched ultimatum, and so forth."

And on the 14th September, after the war was fairly broken out again, we find the following remarks occasioned by the untoward battle of Dresden.

"The latest events have taught us what to think of our new allies, and their commander Schwartzenberg]. We have gained an increase in mass, not in insight, nobility of sentiment, or vigor; we now understand what the fruits are of the new system pursued in Austria since 1810. From 1806 to 1809, the two Stadions gave all their energy to the great work of elevating the spirit of the nation, and at the same time strengthening and fully equipping the army; and they succeeded in both points; the nation was animated by the most devoted enthusiasm, the army fought with true valor. Since the peace of Vienna, on the other hand, the new ministry has been concerned only to purchase a beggarly peace, to disorganize the army, to cripple the public spirit, and to solve the great problem of European regeneration by the miserable arts of diplomacy. This also has succeeded. The nation has become lukewarm, and the army fight with no very remarkable display of soldiership. The man who calculates, but without depth, may be a very good book-keeper, but is no

mathematician.

*

*

*

*

*

such as neither his talents, his character, nor the military position of the Austrian empire all this clearly, and will very probably underentitles him to. The Emperor Alexander sees take the command of his own and the Prussian army in person; and the movement of the masses thus animated, will then communicate itself to the inert Austrians.

"It is of the utmost importance that some conclusion should be come to about the settlement of Germany. From * expect no comprehensive views; he seeks for nothing but the shortest and most comfortable road, and will content himself with respectable vamping in any shape. The history of the negotiations proves this; and had it not been for the MADNESS OF NAPOLEON, we should unquestionably have had for the third, fourth, and fifth time, a ruinous and wretched peace."

The person so severely handled in two places of these letters where he is not named, is plainly enough Prince Metternich; a statesman who, whatever may be his abilities, and whatever may have been his merits-and merits in the management of German affairs-from the peace of Vienna in 1809, to that of Paris in 1815 (and it were out of place to attempt discussing these points here), was plainly in every respect the antipodes of Stein; and a man whom the hot Prussian baron could no more form a just judgment of, than Martin Luther could of Erasmus. Diplomatists and mere politicians, even the best of them, are seldom-to say the least of it-the most noble specimens of human nature: there are bad and good amongst them of course; but Stein, in his despotic sweeping style, was fond of classing them all together, as in one of his letters to Gagern; where, after expressing his confident reliance on "Providence, and the hand of a loving Father who guides all," he adds, but "from the sly crafty animals called politicians-(the original is English)-from these homunciones I expect nothing."

The official position which Stein occupied during the eventful year 1813, was that of Supreme Director of the Interim Central Board of Administration (Central Verwal tung) of the conquered provinces of Germany, till arrangements should be made for "The result, as we have hitherto seen, is, their final disposal in a general congress.that we have fought EVERY WHERE with distin- When that Congress came to do its work, guished success, except where the grand army of course he had nothing more to do; and was present; that between Russia and Aus- it will be pretty evident to the reader, from tria no very friendly feelings prevail (eine grosse Abneigung herrscht'), made worse, of course, by the well-known lukewarmness of the latter power. Over and above all this,

the temper and opi ions of the man, as above exhibited, that he was in nowise calculated to work efficiently with such men

as Metternich, Talleyrand, and Lord Cas-myself I long to depart; this world is, once tlereagh, at Vienna. The very composition for all, so constituted, that a man cannot of the congress, made up of every possible walk on the straight path, and yet ought not complex and contending interest, rendered to walk on the crooked. 'Tis even so; cirfrom the beginning the realization of Stein's cumstances and relations drive and force patriotic views, with regard to German uni- men. They act, and think they are the ty, impossible. In such congregations of doers; but it is God that decides." This working and counter-working diplomatists, most characteristic passage expresses only not the triumph of any great principle, but Stein's feeling, that the French had been the compromise of a number of petty claims allowed to escape so cheaply, by the generis generally the result; but compromise and osity of the Allies, at the peace of Paris; patchwork of every kind were to a man of but he had much more substantial grievStein's temper, only another name for the ances to vex him nearer home; and next to DEVIL. The congress of Vienna, so far as the feeble machinery of the diet at FrankGermany was concerned, ended, according fort, that which hurt him most was the poto his views, in a "FARCE;" for not only litical reaction at Berlin, that commenced were the other German states, great and immediately after the peace, and threatensmall, left entire, but SAXONY also-Napo-ed to undo that great social work which leon's centre and base in the late war--was he had so boldly begun in 1808. However preserved, only a half (instead of the whole) much a Prussian in his political sympathies, of it being cut off for the great German ob- Stein was essentially an Englishman in his ject of forming "a strong Prussia." And principles; the tendency of all his measwith regard to this point, we must confess ures, as they were introduced by himself, we feel, in some respects, inclined to agree or followed out by Hardenberg, was to temwith the Prussian baron. If Saxony was per the military and bureaucratic despotism to be made an exception to the general rule, of Frederick the Great by a wise admixture it would have been better, for many reasons, of popular influence; he wished a "constito have handed it over undivided to the tution" after the English model, as much great Northern power. If neither one as circumstances might permit, not in form strong German empire, nor an equally poi- merely but in deed; he was not afraid of sed federal system, was any longer possible, free discussion among a well-educated peoa strong Prussia was certainly a thing im-ple like the Germans, and was too nobleperatively called for. But congresses are minded to imitate, in Berlin or Maine, the congresses; and we must even content spy-system on which Napoleon had based ourselves with the most convenient adjust- his immoral monarchy of physical force at ment of contending claims that was found Paris. It was not to be expected, however, practicable at the time and if the result that in a country hitherto governed solely seems unsatisfactory, we may turn our eyes by the Court and by the Bureau, these Engaway from it, occupy ourselves with the lish views of Stein should not have met best business that offers itself, and let God with sturdy opposition; in fact it was work. So at least Stein did. He kept his mainly by help of the battle of Jena, that he word to Count Münster most faithfully; was enabled to do what he did for creating and after the decisive thunders of Leipsig a Prussian PEOPLE in 1808. Now that terand Waterloo, having done his part to bring rible shock had passed; and the host of the great European tragedy to a worthy ca- defeated bureaucratists and court minions, tastrophe, he retired from witnessing the after the battle for the liberation of the fath"farce," with all convenient speed, into erland had been fought by others, now beprivate life, and was heard of no more in gan to crowd into their old places, and to court or cabinet in Berlin, from that day occupy the ears of a king more honest to till his death. In the spring of 1816, we promise what was right than strong to do find him, in his own ancestral castle in Nas-it. Accordingly, instead of "freedom of sau, addressing a friend as follows:-"Yes, the press" and "constitution" in Prussia, dear friend, we have won much; but much we have heard no sound, since the year also should have been otherwise. God gov- 1815, but that of prohibited books, imagierns the world, and abandons no German; nary conspiracies of beer-inspired Burschen, and if we remain true and German (treu deposed professors, and banished old Luund Deutsch), we shall take up the matter ther; and every thing, in short, except what some other day with the French again, and the pious old Frederick William III. promsettle the account more satisfactorily. Forised, or was made to appear to promise,

with such gracious, popular, and constitu- ing from any machinery which will necestional phrases at Vienna, in the year 1815. sarily be opposed by the persons who have Whether the military and bureaucratic des- possession of the king's ear, and the court inpotism of Germany may not, after all, be a fluence generally: and I see plainly that we better system of government on the whole erned by salaried persons, equipped with mere are still, as we have hitherto been, to be govthan our strange system of local and cor-book-learning, without any substantial interest porate influence of all sorts, of fermenting in the country, without property, by mere buacids and alkalies, here is a question which reaucratists-a system which will last so long some persons of a speculative disposition as it can last-Des geht so lange as geht! These four words contain the soul of our and may consider open enough; but that the supreme power having once pledged itself chines:-in the first place salaried—and this such like spiritless (geistlos) government mato give a people a free constitution and implies a tendency to maintain and to multiply freedom of the press, should act with hon-the number of salaried officials; then bookor, and do what was promised, seems (if learned-that is, living in the world of the there be any such thing as public morals dead letter, and not in the actual world; withat all), under any form of government, noth-out interest-for these men stand in no coning more than what common policy as well as the mass of the state; they are a peculiar caste, nection with any class of the citizens, who are propriety would dictate. Those who bear these men of the quill ("die Schreiberkaste); the rule in Germany, however, have, for the lastly, without property-this implies that they last thirty years, done every thing that they stand unmoved by all changes that affect proppossibly could do to make the royal word erty, in sunshine, or in rain, with taxes high or a public mockery, and a shame; one can-low, with old chartered rights maintained or denot review the well-known despotic pro-stroyed, with independent peasants or a rabble ceedings of the German diet, first in 1829, of mere journeymen, with a dependence of the and afterwards in 1832, without subscribing Jews and bankers-'tis all one to the bureaupeasants on the proprietors, or of all on the a most full assent to the sentence of the cracy. They draw their salary from the pubBaron von Stein, when he says, in reference lic purse, and write-write-write on-secretto those very matters-"The falsehood that ly-silently-invisibly with shut doors-unprevails in our age is deserving of the most known-unnoticed-unnamed-and bring up serious reprehension." And again, "Our their children after them, to be what their German government sink more and more fathers were very serviceable writing-machines. daily in public estimation by their timidity and perfidy." With regard to the whole system, indeed, of Prussian government, the system of doing every thing by official men, and nothing by voluntary movement of the people, and apart from this special matter These are serious words; and though of the "constitution," Stein was accustomed Stein was one of those intense and strongly to use the strongest language of reproba- accentuating minds that never could state a tion; witness the following letter to Von truth without overstating it (as Martin LuGagern, dated 24th August, 1821. Cop-ther also was continually doing), they are penberg was a favorite seat of the Baron in Westphalia.

"In the lonely woody Coppenberg, I live so remote from the world and its doings, that nothing can disturb me in the enjoyment of nature and a country life, except bad weather, which happily has left us a few days ago, and is not likely soon to return. In Westphalia here, my friends are more concerned about the new tax, and the new edict about the peasants (which satisfies no party), than about the schemes of Metternich on the banks of the Danube, and the great events in Greece. For myself, I can say nothing more about public affairs, than that, while I have little confidence in the present leaders, I have an unbounded trust in Providence; and that, necessary as a CONSTITUTION is to Prussia, and beneficial as it would be if fairly worked, I expect noth

"Our machinery-the old military machinery-I saw fall on the 14th October, 1806; possibly the machinery of the desk and the quill and the red tape has a 14th of October already doomed for it in Heaven."

not wise who would treat the hard blows from the cudgel of such a man as if they were puffs and whiffs of angry smoke from some wrathful Heine, or other furious poetical politician in Paris. Stein was the most practical of men; he had lived all his life amid the details of practice; and like all practical men, in the midst of his violence knew how to preserve a certain sobriety and moderation, without which no such thing as governing is possible. There is nothing, in our opinion, that any King of Prussia could do better than seriously to ponder the passage we have just quoted, and also the few short sentences that follow :

"Nassau, Sept. 29, 1819. "I expect nothing satisfactory and substan

tial from the assembling together, and the de- j connected with the movement, from the liberations of mediocre and superficial men.

"The most important thing that could be done for the preservation of the public peace in Germany, were to put an end to the reign of arbitrary power, and in the place of it, to commence a system of constitutional law; in the place of the bureaucratists and the democratic pamphleteers-of whom the former oppress the people by much and bad governing, and the other excite and confound it-to place the influence and the activity of the proprietors of

the soil."

With these memorable words we are wil

ling that the character of Stein, as an Eng lish statesman in Prussia, should grave itself deep in the hearts both of Englishmen and Prussians. We have only to add that, in his latter years, Stein occupied himself in organizing a society at Frankfort for publishing the original documents of German history, which are best known to the English historical student in connection with the name of Perz; and that he took an active share in the business of the provincial states of Westphalia. He was also (since 1827) member of the council of state in Berlin; but this dignity, conferred at so late a period, seems merely to have been intended as a sort of unavoidable compliment to a person of his rank and standing. It certainly did not imply that his wellknown English principles were intended to assume any greater prominency in the conduct of Prussian and German affairs than they had enjoyed since the peace.

tale of the relic, the conduct of the pilgrims, the open dissent of Ronge, and the ed themselves from Rome, to a view of various congregations which have separattheir sundry confessions or declarations, Mr. Laing discusses the deeper principles of the question, in order to estimate the probable result of the schism in Germany, and to point its moral in reference to the possible endowment of the Irish Church. This involves an inquiry into the nature of the Prussian system of education,—which ing the pilgrimage to Treves, or raising the Mr. Laing pronounces nil, as not preventmind of its pupils one jot above that of the darkest part of the middle ages; a very keen and searching examination of the chaEngland,-which, if the conclusion were racter of the popular mind in Germany and true in the full extent, would place the German people on the level of slaves trained to the Irish people, and a consideration of the be players; an inquiry into the prospects of economy of the Romish Church in raising money, in order to show that the endowment of the Irish priests would be impolitic.

Germany Mr. Laing speaks doubtfully, and As regards the result of the movement in evidently thinks more doubtfully than he speaks. In this he may be right. The confessions of faith put forward by the various bodies are, for the most part, negations; their denials or disbeliefs are stated loose. Mr. Laing affirms that almost any plainly their belief, vague, general, and mechanic in Scotland would have drawn up better and more logical Scriptural confessions than has been done by the illuminati in Germany. There is perhaps exaggeration in this; but some of the declarations Mr. Laing quotes have no doubt a mixture LAING'S NOTES ON THE PILGRIMAGE TO of college-declamation and German tran

Baron Stein died on the 29th June, 1831, in his castle of Coppenberg, in Westphalia.

From the Spectator.

TREVES.

earnestness.

scendentalism, little indicative of manly views. Some stand by the seven sacraThen, too, they differ in ments and transubstantiation in direct terms; the confession or declaration of

Notes on the Rise, Progress, and Prospects of the Schism from the Church of Rome, called the German-Catholic Church, instituted by Johannes Ronge and I. Czerski, in October, 1844, on occasion of the Berlin rejects the bodily presence in the pilgrimage to the Holy Coat at Treves. elements, but holds a sort of spiritual presence at the ceremony;* many do not By Samuel Laing, Esq., Author of "A Residence in Norway," &c.-Long-greatly differ in creed from the Anglican

man & Co.

THE subject of Mr. Laing's Notes on the religious schism in Germany is much more extensive than the title implies. Besides a condensed and vigorous account of the facts

* Article IV. "reject, however, the doctrine of transubstantiation; that is, the change of the of the body and blood of Christ. We acknowledge, however, that we partake of the substances in the real spiritual presence of our Saviour."

substance of bread and wine into the substances

SOCIAL STATE OF GERMANY.

less of them as their fellow-citizens or their

Church, so far as their general mode of exaggeration both of fact and of judgment, speaking enables one to pronounce. They, as well as much onesidedness, arising from however, unite in rejecting the authority of" truly British" prejudices, and the nationthe Pope, the forced celibacy of the cler- al tendency to find every thing wrong which gy, the service of the Church in a foreign is contrary to home customs. But the language, the worship of relics, pilgri- views are urged in a striking and powerful mages, and the denial of the Scriptures to manner, in their historical, social, and phithe laity, (in any version they please, as we losophical aspects. The reader who would understand;) though some are not very comprehend the whole scope of Mr. Laing's clear on relics, &c. In short, the differ- argument must consult his little volume; ent declarations rather appear to emanate we will give a few examples of his manner. from intelligent men disgusted with grievances, irritated by pupilage and constraint, and whose national vanity, as Mr. Laing inBetween the higher and lower classes in timates, has been wounded by the supersti- such a social body as the German, the intertion of the pilgrimage to Treves, than from course, and even familiarity, may be great, persons animated with a strong religious yet the common feeling and interchange of feeling, and prepared to sacrifice all, or in- opinion very small. It is as in a ship, or a regideed anything, for the cross. Of course ment, in which the officers know the men only there are individual exceptions to this re- through their duties and discipline, know them mark; but the nominal leader Ronge him- well in that one capacity, but know in reality self had been stimulated by persecution, as fellow-men, less of their opinions, their sentiwell as by disgust at the pilgrimage, and at ments, and home affairs, than any third perthe gross delusion set on foot by a Bishop. son who stands in no such artificial relaMr. Laing, however, with his practical tion to them. This kind of military relation and literary knowledge of Germany, goes between the different classes of society keeps more deeply into the question, and doubts men far more apart from each other in reality, whether much more than a few nondescript miliarity between them than in our less feudalizalthough in appearance there may be more of facongregations will result from the schism; ed structure of society in England. The want of because the German mind, enslaved and a common feeling and common interests and emasculated by its Governments, is incapa- objects is best illustrated by the effects it has ble of rousing itself to any great effort of produced in the German language. The any kind. Every one is educated; but, he usages, or idiomatic expressions of the lansays, it is an education like a parrot: he guage of a people, display, perhaps, better can do what he is taught to do-read, write, tions of the different classes in a country. In than any other indication, the social relacipher, sing, dance, and possibly play upon English and French the same form of lan an instrument; but to turn these things to guage is used in addressing all, from the sovean independent account, or form an opin-reign to the meanest beggar. All are addression of his own, is out of his power. The ed equally by the personal pronoun you or vous. mass of the upper classes are in one way In French, the singular number of the proor another dependent upon the Government noun is used from fondness or familiarity—tu, for bread, status, or advancement, and dare and, altogether rarely, it is sometimes used to inferiors. The usage of the English language not do it if they would. The lower class- admits of no such difference of expression, no es want mind to do it; especially the Ro- such inferiority between the classes of society, manists, who are enslaved by their religion or between man and man, as entitles the highas well as their government. There re-est to address the lowest in any other terms mains only a very scanty middle class in a few commercial towns, and learned or peculiar individuals, who are likely to take an independent course; and most of these have done it already. If the Protestant Governments would speak out in favor of the movement, no doubt it would have many recruits from the upper classes; but this would not form a church, or shake the Papal system, though it might set up a sort of establishment, and be a thorn in the Pope's side.

In these views there is doubtless some
VOL. VI.-No. III.

24

than are used in communication between than four very distinct modes and gradations of equals. The German language has no less expressing the different relative social positions of the person addressed. Sie, the third personal pronoun in the plural number, is the equivalent to you or vous, the plural of the second personal pronoun used in English or French, and is used in the same way between equals. Du is also equivalent to the French tu, in expressing not only affection between the persons speaking, but also, when applied to an inferior, in expressing the inferiority of the person spoken to, as when an officer speaks to a private soldier. The use of du in speaking