of them, whether in Spain, or Italy, or Greece; it is just rebel A, rebel B, rebel C. and so on." This nobleman, himself a pretty regular attender of these levees, thought otherwise, and had amused himself with drawing up a discourse to prove that the Greeks could not be considered, and ought not to be treated, as rebels. He had communicated it to some of his intimate acquaintances. A few days afterwards the manuscript was not to be found in his desk. He immediately understood the matter, and foresaw the consequences. The next courier but one from St. Petersburgh brought a very friendly expressed notice from the Autocrat, that, until some determined resolution was adopted regarding Greece, it would be agreeable to his Imperial Majesty that Prince should choose his residence elsewhere than in Vienna. The recommendation, of course, was attended to, and the prince retired to a six months' tiresome sojourn in a provincial town.

Foreigners are still more pryingly watched than natives, and Englishmen more than any other foreigners, except Italians. An English gentleman's papers were seized one morning in a domiciliary visit by agents of the police, carried off, examined, and returned. "Mind what you are about," said a foreign minister, who was stating this circumstance next day to another British sojourner," Mind what you are about; I know you keep something like a journal; take care what you put in it, and that nobody shall know what you do put in it.""> Vol. II. pp. 293–301.

The master-demon who presides over this state of things, the man who forms the key-stone of the holy Alliance, is thus portrayed.

At the head of the ministry stands despotic the Chancellor of State, Prince Metternich, the most powerful individual in Europe who does not wear a crown. A private nobleman from the banks of the Rhine, whose most celebrated vineyard has been bestowed on him by the grateful monarchs for whom he laboured, he has raised himself to be absolute master of the empire, firmly rooted in the confidence of his master, unwilling to bear a rival near the throne, but neither liked nor admired by the people. When I first saw him in the ball-room at Baden, he was sitting by the court, but yet alone. He was dressed in a plain suit of black, for it was the mourning for the late Queen of England. His eyes were fixed on the floor, as if in deep thought, except when they glanced up to follow the fair Countess A- who was flying round the hall in the waltz. His appearance has nothing striking or commanding. He is of middling stature, rather meagre than otherwise, but altogether a handsome man. His countenance is pale; his large, broad brow is marked with what seem to be the wrinkles of cunning, rather than the furrows of thought; his smile appears to be so habitual, that it has scarcely any character, except when it is satirical. His manners are polite and conciliating, for he is through and through a man of the world. He possesses in a high degree the power of concealing his own

sentiments, and a coolness which keeps him clear of all embarrass

ment.

It is in vain to deny that Prince Metternich possesses talent, be cause we dislike his politics. What he has made himself is an irrefragable proof that he must be a clever man. It would be equally unjust to judge of him from the extravagant eulogiums of those who flutter round him at his levees, and worship no other idol than their political maker. In the country which he governs, among men who have heads to judge, and no temptation to judge partially, you will never hear ascribed to him any comprehensive political view, or any commanding quality of intellect; their praise seldom rises above "Il est très adroit:"-shrewdness in detecting means, and patience and tact in using them, are his excellences. They usually quote the success with which he blinded Napoleon, and his ministers and marshals, at Dresden, regarding the designs of Austria, as the chef d' œuvre of his political skill, and add, "In what does political skill of this sort consist, but in the art of telling lies with a good grace ?" His activity in the multifarious matters which are laid upon his shoulders is inexhaustible; though very far from being insensible to pleasure, he never allows it to interfere with business.

'However hostile we may be to the general spirit of Prince Metternich's administration, the steadiness with which he pursues his object is a most valuable political quality. If he be the most implacable enemy among European ministers to liberal alterations in the European governments, this arises partly from ambition, and partly from what may almost be called a sense of duty. Enjoying such extensive power, a representative body is the last rival his ambition could endure, because it would be the most dangerous. His imperial master considers all such innovations as rebellious encroachments on his divine prerogative, and conscientiously believes them to be pregnant with misery to the world; and the minister of such a prince holds himself bound to rule on these principles. His object is to keep the empire safe from this supposed infection; he attacks it, therefore, wherever it appears, and is within his reach. He garrisons Naples with Austrian troops, and sends the Carbonari of Lombardy and Romagna to Laybach or the Spielberg. Where they are beyond the reach of his artillery and judges, as in Spain and Portugal, then, besides the more serious engines of political intrigue, he takes care that, in Vienna at least, they shall be hated or despised.

"Besides ambition, the Premier is said to have two other strong passions, money and beauty; the former, however, much less certain than the latter. If the universal voice of Vienna speak truth, it may justly be inscribed on his tomb, "Lightly from fair to fair he flew.” Vol. II. pp. 314-318.

After eiting an instance in which a husband was paid by being appointed to the government of a populous, beautiful, and fertile region of Upper Austria, for the infamy of his wife, to which he had lent himself, Mr. Russell adds:

• When blockheads can thus climb to offices of power and trust by such means, what honest man can hope to win them by the fair exercise of his talents and integrity? If even clever men gain them by such means, what must the state of society be which renders such means necessary or practicable, and, in public opinion, scarcely dis honourable? It is thus that despotism produces at once moral and intellectual degradation. Power and influence, or the favour of those who possess power and influence, are made the leading objects in the eyes of all the citizens. The means by which they are to be acquired, base and immoral as they may be, become mere laudable and prudential sacrifices. Respectability is made to consist in standing well with those who have power, or with those who stand well with those who have power. The Austrian aristocracy, though far from being the least respectable of Germany in point of wealth, is the least respectable in education, conduct, and manliness of spirit. I once heard some Hungarian officers express great doubts of the credibility of an English officer, when he told them, that it was quite possible and customary to hold a commission in the British army or navy, and yet vote against ministers in Parliament. They could not conceive how such a state of things could exist in any well regulated government. A body of nobility, elevated above the great mass of the people by rank and wealth, and having no other public duties to dis charge than implicitly to obey the commands, and fawningly court the smiles of a monarch, must be ignorant and unprincipled; for knowledge would be incompatible with the unthinking submission to which they are bound by habit, as well as by authority; and moral rectitude cannot exist with their systematic idleness, which seeks only pleasures. The aristocracy of Britain is not only unique in the world, but is almost a political and moral phenomenon. It is not to be ascribed, however, to any peculiar temperament of feeling, or any peculiarly well balanced constitution of mind. It is principally the result of the form of our government, which, necessarily recognizing a higher class, (which must exist in all states, however it may be disguised in name,) and investing its members with high privileges, loads them, at the same time, with high public duties, which these privileges only enable them the more effectually to perform; gives them, in the respect and honest favour of the people, a much surer pillar of prosperity than the smiles of a monarch to a worthless flatterer, and leaves the public eye to watch strictly how their important vocation is fulfilled. Shut the doors of the House of Lords; exclude its members from lieutenancies of counties, grand juries, and commissions of the peace; leave them, in short, no other space to fill in the public eye but what may be occupied by the recklessness of their expenditure, or the magnificence of their equipages, by their rank in the army and navy, or by provincial employments which they seek merely from views of gain; and the high-minded and well-informed peerage of Britain will speedily become as ignorant, as dissolute, and as useless, as the servile and corrupted aristocracy of Vienna.' Vol. II. pp. 320--323. We have no room for the reflections which will suggest

themselves to every intelligent reader. Two more entertaining and sensible volumes than these, have seldom come before us, and they will, we doubt not, soon be, if they are not already, in the possession of our readers.

Art. IV. The Life of Friedrich Schiller. Comprehending an Examination of his Works. 8vo. pp. 352. Price 10s. 6d. London, 1825.

Sc

CHILLER seems to be nearly the only one among the writers of Germany that has secured the admiration of foreigners in an equal degree with the estimation of his own countrymen. Wieland, Goethe, Klopstock, though highly rated by Teutonic readers, have obtained only an imperfect celebrity among those of other nations, while the Author of the Robbers, Don Carlos, Fiesco, and Wallenstein, stands high on the list of those whom men of all varieties and languages conspire to praise. By the transcendentalists among German critics, he is, indeed, placed below the Author of Faust, on the scale of high and original genius; but we must confess ourselves quite unable to guess the nature of the reasoning which has led them to this conclusion. In the power of delineating character, in the construction of plot, in the combination of circumstances, and the consequent production of interesting and impressive situations, Schiller, as we think, maintains a decided superiority over Goethe; and if there be any real advantage on the side of the latter, it must lie in some of those minor details of which we can scarcely deem ourselves competent judges. Klopstock, the very German Milton,' it were altogether idle to put in comparison with Schiller: they move in different spheres, and their poetical agencies have nothing in common.

Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller, a native of Würtemberg, was born November 10, 1759, of respectable parents. His father, after serving first as a surgeon in the Bavarian army, and afterwards in a capacity more decidedly military, among the troops of his own sovereign, obtained the office of orna mental gardener to his Serene Highness; and the early years of young Schiller were spent among the groves and parterres of Ludwigsburg and Solitude. After receiving the rudiments of knowledge in a village school, he was removed to a public seminary, where his studies were regulated with a direct view to the ecclesiastical profession. He does not, however, seem to have applied himself with extraordinary diligence to the business of acquisition. When no more than nine years old,

he had visited the Ludwigsburg theatre, and his infant imagination had been kindled by the splendour of scenic representation, nor does the impression appear to have been effaced by any of the subsequent vicissitudes of his life.

The first display of his poetic gifts occurred also in his ninth year, but took its rise in a much humbler and less common source than the inspiration of the stage. His biographers have recorded this small event with a conscientious accuracy, second only to that of Boswell and Hawkins in regard to the Litchfield duck. "The little tale," says one of them, " is worth relating; the rather that, after an interval of more than twenty years, Schiller himself, on meeting with his early comrade (the late Dr. Elwert, of Kantstadt) for the first time since their boyhood, reminded him of the adventure, recounting the circumstances with great minuteness and glee. It was as follows: Once in 1768, Elwert and he had to repeat their catechism together on a certain day publicly in the church. Their teacher, an ill-conditioned, narrow-minded pietist, had previously threatened them with a thorough flogging if they missed even a single word. To make the matter worse, this very teacher chanced to be the person whose turn it was to catechise on the appointed day. Both the boys began their answers with dismayed hearts and faultering tongues; yet they succeeded in accomplishing the task; and were in consequence rewarded by the mollified pedagogue with two kreutzers apiece. Four kreutzers of ready cash was a sum of no common magnitude; how it should be disposed of formed a serious question for the parties in terested. Schiller moved that they should go to Harteneck, a hamlet in the neighbourhood, and have a dish of curds and cream: his partner assented; but alas! in Harteneck no particle of curds or cream was to be had. Schiller then made offer for a quarter-cake of cheese; but for this, four entire kreutzers were demanded, leaving nothing whatever in reserve for bread! Twice baffled, the little gastronomes, unsatisfied in stomach, wandered on to Neckarweihingen; where at length, though not till after much inquiry, they did obtain a comfortable mess of curds and cream, served up in a gay platter, and silver spoons to eat it with. For all this, moreover, they were charged but three kreutzers; so that there was still one left to provide them with a bunch of St. John's grapes. Exhilarated by such liberal cheer, Schiller rose into a glow of inspiration: having left the village, he mounted with his comrade to the adjacent height, which overlooks both Harteneck and Neckarweihingen; and there in a truly poetic effusion he pronounced his malediction on the creamless region, bestowing with the same solemnity his blessing on the one which had afforded him that savoury refreshment.' pp. 10-12,

Notwithstanding his general negligence and his propensity to indulge in reverie, Schiller's education was, on the whole, going on successfully, when a circumstance occurred which changed his destination, and visited with disastrous influence the earlier portions of his life. It had pleased the despot in whose VOL. XXIV. N.S. Z