French books as ourselves, have been employed for these twenty years upon mere absurdities?

In the ages of superstition, ail new opinions are easily accused of impiety; and in the ages of incredulity, they are not less easily charged with being absurd. In the sixteenth century, Galileo was delivered up to the Inquisition for having said that the world went round; and in the eighteenth, some persons wished to make J. J. Rousseau pass for a fanatical devotec. Opinions which differ from the ruling spirit, be that what it may, always scandalize the vulgar: study and examination can alone confer that liberality of judgment, without which it is impossible to acquire new lights, or even to preserve those which we have; for we submit ourselves to certain received ideas, not as to truths, but as to power; and it is thus that human reason habituates itself to servitude, ever in the field of literature and philosophy.

VOL. I.-2

PART I.

OF GERMANY,

AND

THE MANNERS OF THE GERMANS.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE ASPECT OF GERMANY.

THE number and extent of forests indicate a civilization yet recent: the ancient soil of the South is almost unfurnished o its trees, and the sun darts its perpendicular rays on the earth which has been laid bare by man. Germany still affords some traces of uninhabited nature. From the Alps to the sea, between the Rhine and the Danube, you behold a land covered with oaks and firs, intersected by rivers of an imposing beauty, and by mountains of a most picturesque aspect; but vast heaths and sands, roads often neglected, a severe climate, at first fill the mind with gloom; nor is it till after some time that it discovers what may attach us to such a country.

The south of Germany is highly cultivated; yet in the most delightful districts of this country there is always something of seriousness, which calis the imagination rather to thoughts of labor than of pleasure, rather to the virtues of the inhabitants than to the charms of nature.

The ruins of castles which are seen on the heights of the mountains, houses built of mud, narrow windows, the snows which during winter cover the plains as far as the eye can reach, make a painful impression on the mind. An indescriba

ble silence in nature and in the people, at first oppresses the heart. It seems as if time moved more slowly there than elsewhere, as if vegetation made not a more rapid progress in the earth than ideas in the heads of men, and as if the regular furrows of the laborer were there traced upon a dull soil.

:

Nevertheless, when we have overcome these first unreflecting sensations, the country and its inhabitants offer to the observation something at once interesting and poetical; we feel that gentle souls and tender imaginations have embellish ed these fields. The high-roads are planted with fruit-trees for the refreshment of the traveller. The landscapes which surround the Rhine are everywhere magnificent this river may be called the tutelary genius of Germany; his waves are pure, rapid, and majestic, like the life of a hero of antiquity. The Danube is divided into many branches; the streams of the Elbe and Spree are disturbed too easily by the tempest; the Rhine alone is unchangeable. The countries through. which it flows appear at once of a character so grave and so diversified, so fruitful and so solitary, that one would be tempted to believe that they owe their cultivation to the genius of the river, and that man is as nothing to them. Its tide, as it flows along, relates the high deeds of the days of old, and the shade of Arminius seems still to wander on its precipitous banks. The monuments of Gothic antiquity only are remarkable in Germany; these monuments recall the ages of chivalry; in almost every town a public museum preserves the relics of those days. One would say, that the inhabitants of the North, conquerors of the world, when they quitted Germany, left behind memorials of themselves under different forms, and that the whole land resembles the residence of some great people long since left vacant by its possessors. In most of the arsenals of German towns, we meet with figures of knights in painted wood, clad in their armor; the helmet, the buckler, the cuisses, the spurs,-all is according to ancient custom; and we walk among these standing dead, whose uplifted arms seem ready to strike their adversaries, who also hold their lances in rest. This motionless image of actions, formerly so

lively, causes a painful impression. It is thus that, long after earthquakes, the bodies of men have been discovered still fixed in the same attitudes, in the action of the same thoughts that occupied them at the instant when they were swallowed up.

Modern architecture in Germany offers nothing to our contemplation worthy of being recorded; but the towns are in general well built, and are embellished by the proprietors with a sort of good-natured care. In many towns, the houses are painted on the outside with various colors; one sees upon them the figures of saints, and ornaments of every description, which, though assuredly not the most correct in taste, yet cause a cheerful variety, and seem to indicate a benevolent desire to please both their fellow-countrymen and strangers. The dazzling splendor of a palace gratifies the self-love of its possessors; but the well-designed and carefully-finished decorations, which set off these little dwellings, have something in them kind and hospitable.

The gardens are almost as beautiful in some parts of Germany as in England: the luxury of gardens always implies a love of the country. In England, simple mansions are often built in the middle of the most magnificent parks; the proprietor neglects his dwelling to attend to the ornaments of nature. This magnificence and simplicity united do not, it is true, exist in the same degree in Germany; yet, in spite of the want of wealth and the pride of feudal dignity, there is everywhere to be remarked a certain love of the beautiful, which, sooner or later, must be followed by taste and elegance, of which it is the only real source. Often, in the midst of the superb gardens of the German princes, are placed Æolian harps close by grottoes encircled with flowers, that the wind may waft the sound and the perfume together. The imagination of the northern people thus endeavors to create for itself a sort of Italy; and, during the brilliant days of a short-lived summer, ¡t sometimes attains the deception it seeks.'

1 We will here add, from the Westminster Review (July, 1856, p. 72) a summary of W. H. Riehl's admirable view of the physical-geographica