length, in realizing her most ambitious dreams. Her husband is a yellow little nabob, rolling in wealth, and half suffocated with bile. She has three rickety children, whom she is ashamed to produce. With no more ear than a fish, she has a box at the Opera, and gives private concerts. In short, there is no luxury she is incapable of relishing, which her fortune does not enable her to command; and no enjoyment really adapted to her taste, in which her imagined gentility does not deter her from indulging.

What a contrast was the accomplished, the fascinating Fanny with her lovely features irradiated with innocent hilarity, yet tempered with sentiment, and deep feeling. She was all intelligence-spiritual-ethereal; at least, I often thought so, as her sylph-like form seemed to be treading upon air, while it responded spontaneously to every pulsation of the music, like a dancing echo. "The course of true love never did run smooth:" Fanny was portionless-I was pennyless; yet even despair did not prevent my loving her; and, though my tongue never gave utterance to the thought, I am well aware that she read it in my eyes, and gave me in return her pity. With this I was contented-in the romance of a first love, I thought it would be delightful to die for her, and I sent her the inclosed song, but she never noticed my effusion, though she never returned it. Poor Fanny! she fell a sacrifice to one of those pests of society, a dangler, a male coquet; who paid her his addresses, won her affections, changed his mind, and married another-the scoundrel! Her pride might have borne the insult, but her love could not be recalled-her heart was broken. Her fine mind began to prey upon itself the sword wore out the scabbard-her frame gradually faded away, and a rapid decline at length released her from her uncomplaining misery. I followed her to the grave; and how often did I return to the spot to bedew it with my tears! Many a vow have I made to suppress my unavailing grief, and refrain from visiting the place of her burial; when, in the very midst of my resolutions, my feet have unconsciously carried me to it again. Most truly might I have exclaimed with Tibullus,

Juravi quoties rediturum ad limina nunquam?
Cùm bene juravi, pes tamen ipse redit."

Years have since rolled away, and I can now think of Fanny without Forgive me, Mr. Editor, but a tear has fallen upon the very spot where I was about to make a boast of my stoicism. I may, however, without emotion declare, that of all the girls I ever knew, Fanny Psha! another tear! I will not write

a word more upon the subject.

'For still I dream of thee.

When wit, and wine, and friends are met,
And laughter crowns the festive hour,
In vain I struggle to forget;

Still does my heart confess thy power,

And fondly turn to thee.

How do I mourn my lonely lot,

And, Fanny, sigh for thee!

I know my love is hopeless-vain,
But, Fanny, do not strive to rob
My heart of all that soothes its pain-
The mournful hope, that every throb

Will make it break for thee!

H.

GERMANY-PAST AND PRESENT.

"Armorum sonitum toto Germania cœlo
Audiit, insclitis tremuerunt motibus Alpes."

VIRGIL. Georg.

BEFORE the wars of the French Revolution, the political and social face of Germany was marked by features, that widely distinguished it from every other country in Europe, and which the convulsions of later days have rather softened down and shaded off, than obliterated or effaced. It displayed, in grotesque and singular variety, all the peculiarities and anomalies of a constitution, in which feudality might be said to have run to seed. The Germans, in comparison with the English or the French, still appeared a people of the middle ages. They dwelt enveloped in forests, sands, baronial castles, walled and gated towns, rigid ceremonies, and impregnable barriers of rank and title. Chivalry had left behind it a rough military spirit; aristocracy produced the most inflexible separation of ranks; and superstition and legendary lore were now replaced by dreaming mysticism and wild metaphysics. The mailed knight was suceeeded by the mustachioed hussar; the feudal sovereign by the count armed with parchments and pedigrees; and the magnetical doctor, and the metaphysical professor, were the legitimate descendants of an intrigue between the cabalistic monk of the 15th century, and the white nymph of the fountain

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or the forest. The political constitution, and the social system, had alike become a tangled labyrinth of complicated ranks, titles, rights, privileges, prescriptions, and usages. The spirit of improvement, and the activity of talent, were fettered and cramped on every side, by the artificial mounds of despotic power or aristocratic privilege. Every thing remained stagnant and motionless, because none of the restless energies of character or mind, which give the first impulse to improvement, had room to expand themselves. The great origin of the sluggish obtuseness of this system, and the source of most German peculiarities, from the subdivided despotism of the state, down to the petty ceremonies and etiquette of the saloon, was undoubtedly the singular predicament of the body politic.

From the early periods of German history down to the French Revolution, the bane of this fine country had always originated in the subdivision, the isolation, and the conflicting animosities of its states, and its interests. With the exception of the religious wars in the 14th and 17th centuries, and some few European struggles, the history of Germany is made up of feuds and contentions, solely arising from its anomalous constitution, and the incongruous materials, of which it was composed. Eternal disputes concerning the election of emperors; the precedence and dignities of dukes and princes; the family compacts, marriages, partitions, and inheritances of the princes; the aggressions and reprisals of litigious neighbours; the privileges of nobles; and the claims of reigning cities-are the never-ending incidents of German history. Germans were eternally engaged in making war upon Germans, till the bonds of country and brotherhood were destroyed, and seeds of indelible hatred sown between Prussians and Austrians, Bavarians and Saxons, Wirtembergers and Hessians. The institution of the Imperial Chamber, in the 16th century, as a great national tribunal, where one prince might bring his action (as in our Court of King's Bench) against another, instead of leading his troops into his territory; and the institution of the Austregues, or arbitrators, to whom these illustrious litigations might be referred, tended much to civilize the system: often, however, the Directors of the Circles, who answered to the bum-bailiffs and tipstaves of humbler tribunals, and were charged with executing the terrors of the law, were not potent enough to enforce submission from sovereign delinquents, at the head of some thousand hussars. About the commencement of the last century, the consolidated weight and superiority of Prussia, Austria, and one or two other powers, kept the smaller reigning fry in order and awe, and generally gaged them as auxiliaries, on one side or the other, in hostilities of more important dimensions, if not of more rational object. The ascendancy of Frederic of Prussia then rebuked the genius of more diminutive heroes; and he became the great model, after

en

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which territories were squared and carved, dragoons manufac tured, and spatterdashes shaped. Madame de Staël has well observed, that, in order to understand Prussia, it is only necessary to study the character of Frederic. That country still bears his impress, in all its institutions and characteristics. But Frederic had very little influence on Germany at large. He was a great many but not a great German. His genius was not indigenous it was an exotic in Germany. He ought to have been born at Paris, and a writer in the Encyclopædia. He had nothing Teutonic about him; and a man will never make a lasting impression on his country, who pretends to run counter to its genius and spirit. He strove to make Prussia a sort of elegant French colony, to sneer at his fine native tongue, which he did not understand; to convert sober and religious Germans into French sçavans and smart sceptics; and he thus demoralized his capital, and gave to his people a light, vain-glorious character, which to this day distinguishes them from other Germans.

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In the latter days of the empire, in the intervals between European wars, Germany was still busied with the same jarrings and conflictings of interest as formerly. The princes were pursuing long processes before the Chamber at Watzlar, and eternal appeals and discussions in the Diet at Ratisbon, to adjust their complex quarrels and alliances, their compacts of inheritance, their appanages, their territories mediate and immediate, their rights of precedence, the comparative purity of their blood and antiquity of their houses. The hussars were not quite so often called out as formerly, but they were regularly equippedand manœuvred; and theirs was the virtual influence, that still decided every thing. In all these collisions and concussions, the popular voice did not raise even a whisper. Territorial arrangements, barters, and bargains, were made among the princes exactly as private gentlemen dispose of their freehold estates. The subjects, who cultivated the soil, were turned over from one owner to another, precisely like the live stock on a farm. The majority of the people were still serfs attached to the glebe.. They lived in a state of feudal vassalage, such as had ceased in England for three centuries; dwelling in primitive villenage on the demesnes of the counts, the landgraves, and the barons; tilling rudely the sandy soil; resorting to the lord's petty, courts for justice; and performing corvées, and paying tithes and taxes at his pleasure. If the people were not very generally oppressed, it was solely owing to the mild German character of some of their rulers, who wielded their absolute sceptres with a praiseworthy moderation. The inhabitants of the Rhenish provinces in the hands of the three ecclesiastical electors, enjoyed their beautiful country under a sway peculiarly mild. Their spiritual masters were bachelors, and had no expensive progeny of princes.

8

to provide for. Splendid establishments of mistresses, or of dragoons, were hardly compatible with their sacred functions.

In a country, governed by about a hundred and fifty sovereigns, and containing, perhaps, twenty times that number of nobles, some of them of equal consequence with the smaller sovereigns, it is not extraordinary that a genealogical connexion, in the tenth or the hundredth degree, with some of these purpled lords of the earth, should be esteemed the highest ground of pride and distinction. Where learning and commerce were shut up in a few confined haunts, and where no shadow of a popular constitution gave consequence or scope to humble merit, birth became naturally the first and only distinction. To be a roturier was a badge of irremediable exclusion; to be sprung from the loins of one, was little better. It was a very awkward circumstance, if a man's great-grandfather had not written his name with a Von; and it was only when the purity of the stream could be established, by undoubted vouchers for four or five generations, that the fortunate baron could become a candidate for the chamberlain's key, or the marshal's baton, with the title of excellency, and a salary of £50 per annum, half in corn and half in money, at the little courts of the empire. The same qualifications were exacted, with double strictness, as passports to the substantial loaves and fishes of the land-the stalls of the cathedrals, the abbot's chairs, the fat canonries, and diplomatic and military offices. The fair sex must be prepared with similar vouchers, before they could be eligible to the honours of dames d'atour and maids of honour, or the substantial comforts of the chapters of noble ladies. Birth and title were thus in possession of an undisturbed monopoly of all the goods, and all the graces of life. The Germans are naturally as friendly, hospitable, and kindly a people, as any in Europe; but, when above a hundred stiff and ceremonious courts set the fashion in as many towns of the empire, is it to be wondered at if artificial ceremony and pomp often overlaid their natural plain and honest simplicity. Besides, regality, on a petty scale, naturally required to be hedged in with a double portion of splendour and etiquette, to preserve it from mere burlesque. While the Emperor Joseph used to drop in, unattended, at the Conversazionis at Vienna, the pettiest prince of his empire could not stir without half a dozen aides-de-camp and equerries at his heels. Every sovereign of twenty thousand souls could summon a hundred or a hundred and fifty privy councillors to his cabinet; and had an army, of which the general officers were in proportion of about one-third to the privates; and to complete the magnificence of these Liliputian establishments, a Lord High Admiral, with appropriate sub-officers, commanded the navy of the Elector Palatine, consisting of three gun-boats riding at anchor in the Rhine.