THE

ECLECTIC MUSEUM

OF

FOREIGN LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

JUNE, 18 4 3.

"THE DESOLATER DESOLATE "-BYRON.

Engraved by Mr. Sartain, from Haydon's Picture.

Stern tide of human Time! that know'st not rest,
But, sweeping from the cradle to the tomb,

Like them. The unguilty Power pursues his way, Bear'st ever downward on thy dusky breast
And before him doth dawn perpetual run.
WORDSWORTH.

CHANGES OF SOCIAL LIFE IN GER-
MANY.

From the Edinburgh Review.

last incident recorded in them is the arrival, at Danzig, of the news of the destruction of the Bastile. Her daughter, upon whom 1. Jugendleben und Wanderbilder. Von devolved the duty of publishing these MeJohanna Schopenhauer. (Recollections moirs, chose rather to give them in their of my Youth and Wanderings. By Jo- fragmentary form than to fill up the chasms hanna Schopenhauer.) 2 vols. Bruns- from her own knowledge of her mother's history; and though such a work could never fall into more competent hands, we admire the good taste which influenced her decision. She has added nothing but the few words absolutely necessary to explain the circumstances under which the book was given to the world.

wick: 1839.

2. Zeitbilder-Wien in der Letzten Halfte des Achtzehuten Jahrhunderts. Von Caroline Pichler. (Sketches of Bygone Times-Vienna in the Latter Half of the Eighteenth Century. By Caroline Pichler.) Vienna: 1839.

old times," and more apt to lament over the degeneracy of modern manners.

Madame Pichler's work consists of ReTHE authors of these works were, in miniscences. True to her vocation as a their day, among the most popular female novel-writer, she has strung her amusing novel-writers of Germany; and some of "Sketches" of the society of Vienna at their productions rank with the standard the end of the last century on a thread of novels of that country. The first of the story. This detracts from the air of truth two also published travels in France, Bel- which they would otherwise have, and, as gium, and England, and a little work of the story itself is of the feeblest texture, some merit on old German art, entitled adds nothing to the interest. They lose "Van Eyk and his Contemporaries." This the character of descriptions by an eyelady's life was a varied and eventful one. witness, which is the greatest merit such a It was her lot to live through, and partly work can possess. Madame Pichler is into witness, some of the greatest events ferior to her northern contemporary in the of modern times. Her earliest recollection candor which ought to preside over all comwas the dismemberment of Poland, and the parisons of different ages or countries. She consequent ruin of her paternal city, Dan-is more prejudiced in favor of the "good zig. Then came the American war, which excited such intense and universal interest. Her first visit to Paris was during the mut-. terings of the storm which soon burst over France. She was present at Versailles the last time Louis XVI. and his unfortunate Queen were permitted to celebrate the Fête de St. Louis. She saw the last gleam of their setting sun. She lived for some years in Hamburg, and had thus an opportunity of comparing that city with its Hanseatic sister and rival, Danzig, her native place. After the death of her husband she went to reside at Weimar. She had not been there a fortnight when the battle of Jena fell like a thunderbolt upon Germany. She has left a circumstantial and lively account of the scenes of which she was an eye-witness at that terrible moment. At Weimar she lived in the closest intimacy with Goethe; and her house was the resort of the eminent persons who were attracted to that remarkable court.

Unfortunately, the whole of this eventful history, from the year 1789, exists only in mere notes and fragments. At the age of seventy-two she sat down to put her "Recollections" into a regular form and order; but she had got little beyond the period of her early marriage, when her hand was stopped by a sudden but placid death. The

These two works, with one or two others to which we shall occasionally refer, will enable us, we hope, to lay before our readers some agreeable details; and at the same time to furnish some glimpses of the life and condition of the middle classes in Germany at the end of the last century.

The progress made by England in what the French call material civilization-in all that conduces to the splendor, comfort, and convenience of physical life-has been so much more rapid than that of the nations of the Continent, that fewer remains of the domestic life of the last century are to be found among us than among any other people. Less than half a century has totally changed the habits of the middle classes. In Germany, where the change is much more recent and partial, an Englishman is still continually reminded of the customs and the traditions of his childhood; especially if that childhood was passed in a provincial town. In the more remote parts, we find a state of civilization which we have regarded as passed forever. The observant and reflecting traveller meets, with a kind of delighted recognition, some custom, some saying, some implement, dress, or viand-perhaps some sentiment or opinion, for these, too,

have their day-of which he has heard his parents talk with the fond recollection of childhood. He finds the garment for which his mother's hoards were ransacked; and which, once the dress of the higher classes, is now become the distinctive costume of a retired peasantry not yet infected with the rage for imitation. He will hear with surprise the traditions of his paternal house, and the sayings of his ancient nurse. In one district, he will find the undoubting simple faith of his forefathers; in another, the feudal attachment to the immediate lord, or the blind and affectionate loyalty to the sovereign, for which he must look through a long vista of centuries at home. In this or that free city, he will see the coarse substantial comfort, and the strict adherence to the manners and pleasures of his class, which once characterized our citizens. He will see in operation what to him is extinct, and will be able, in some degree, to measure the extent of his gain and his loss.

merchant princes of the south. In the former, are to be found the descendants of the sturdy bourgeoisie which once drove out the nobles, and (good Catholics as they were) would not allow their sovereign Archbishop to sleep within their walls, now carrying on a quiet but dogged contest with the Rhineland aristocracy-resisting all their attempts to be recognised as a distinct body in the state, and uniting cordial loyalty to their present King with a determined spirit of equality. This spirit, partly transmitted to them by their ancestors, partly, no doubt, the result of their contact with France, has probably led the more ignorant writers of that country into their confident mistakes. A very little inquiry might suffice to show them that it often places them among the most inveterate enemies of French domination.

Many curious proofs of the force and tenacity of the municipal character might be found here. And in social life, while the wealthier citizens enjoy their wellFrom Madame Schopenhauer we get an stored tables and joyous amusements, withidea of one of the Hanse towns, while it out the smallest desire to intrude themstill retained its commercial prosperity, selves into the ranks of the nobles-while and its municipal franchises. In many re- they retain much of the coarse joviality spects, it may doubtless be taken as a sam- and sturdy independence of their forefaple of the class to which it belonged; thers-the people have not lost their souththough each of those interesting cities was ern taste for out-of-door shows and amusestrongly marked with a character of its ments-their singular talent for decoration, own. We greatly regret that death has their hearty familiar manners, or their jocu robbed us of the comparison she intended lar temper. Cologne was one example, to draw between Danzig and Hamburg; though these, from their northern and maritime position, would have afforded the least striking differences and contrasts.

It would not be easy to point out a field in which so rich a harvest of curious and amusing traditions might still be gleaned, as in the free Imperial cities of Germany. Their political importance is gone, or at least changed; but there are vestiges enough remaining to show what they once were. We have often wondered that, in learned and industrious Germany, no one has undertaken a history of these remarkable communities-exhibiting their quaint customs, as well as their political and municipal institutions. We shall advert to only two of these cities-Cologne, whose Roman origin and ecclesiastical government form, so to speak, two curious substrata to its strongly-marked burgher character, and its sturdy democratic spirit-and Nürnberg, the younger sister of Venice, whose institutions she copied, as far as national differences would permit; and whose Geschlechter (gentes, or patrician families) affected to tread in the footsteps of the

among many, of the old saying, "Unter den Krummstab ist gut wohnen"-"It is good living under the Crozier." The gov ernment of the Ecclesiastical Electors was liberty itself compared to that of the civic oligarchy of Nürnberg. This was so oppressive and arrogant that the tempest which swept it away, together with crowns and diadems, was hailed as a deliverer. The traveller, who stands amazed before the matchless treasures of art with which the patrician families encircled their city; who looks at the gorgeous windows placed by the piety of the Hallers, the Beheims, the Tuchers, the Löffelholzers, and the Holzschuhers, in her beautiful churches; who sees himself surrounded on every side by traces of their antiquity, their munificence, and their taste-must feel the melancholy with which fallen glory inspires every generous mind. There is an exquisite portrait of one of the Holzschuher family, painted by Albert Dürer in 1526, which, by the courtesy of the present head of that most ancient house, is shown to strangers. When we stood before it, and thought that then-three centuries ago—

the Holzschuhers were already a timehonored race; that, in the year 1291, Herdegen Holzschuher was elected to the seat in the Senate or Supreme Council, which his descendants, in unbroken line, filled down to the dissolution of the Germanic Empire; when we turned over the vellum pages containing the effigies and armorial illustrations of these potent and reverend Councillors, we fell unwittingly into a fit of veneration for purity and antiquity of descent, unworthy of Englishmen, proud of the mixed blood and confused heraldry of their aristocracy.

each of these sits, on a Sunday, a sworn master (meister) of the trade; before him stands a plate, on which are deposited the alms of the congregation. After service, each master carries his contribution into the vestry. This is a curious relic of the kunstwesen (guild-system) which we have never seen noticed. If such are the things which strike a passing stranger, what might not be told by old inhabitants of the city? what might not be discovered by an inquirer who united knowledge and patience with a love for antiquity;-imagination enough to seize the local color, But the smallest inquiry into the condi- and fidelity enough to render it exactly? tion of the people under this oligarchy, There is no time to lose. The French Resoon dissipates all sentimental regrets. No volution, which levelled to the dust all the sympathy with the fallen fortunes of indi- tottering edifices of the Middle Ages, viduals can prevent our rejoicing in the already dates half a century back, and the overthrow of a tyranny the more intolera- living chronicles of what remained of antible from its proximity. We have heard an quity are fast dropping into the grave. aged Nürnberger contrast the haughtiness" Any one," says Madame Pichler, speaking and morgue of his former masters, who of Vienna, "who had gone to sleep in 1790, never suffered their servants to address and waked again in 1838, might have them without the magnificent title of thought himself transported into another "Hochfreiherrlicher Herr," with the plain planet; so thoroughly is every thing alterhabits and easy manners of their present ed-from the greatest to the least, from Sovereign. It reminded us of the naif the most intimate to the most superficial." wonder expressed by Madame Schopen- Madame Schopenhauer's descriptions of. hauer, then fresh from her free city, and her native city have all the charm and vifull of republican pride, at seeing the young vacity of truth. The institutions, customs, reigning Duke of Mechlenberg-Schwerin and manners of the great and ancient types (grandfather, we presume, of the present) take out a flower-girl to dance in the public walks at Pyrmont. "What would the Danzigers say if their reigning Bürgermeister were to demean himself so in pub. lic ?"

In later times, arbitrary and rapacious exactions were added to the insolent domination of the hereditary senate of Nürnberg. It had no hold, as already mentioned, on the popular sympathies, and its fall is spoken of without regret. In Nürnberg, therefore, we must seek not so much the peculiar stamp impressed on the popular character, as the recollections connected with picturesque streets, and the domestic habits of its inhabitants. How strongly does every house bear the stamp of an opulent merchant city, as distinguished from the feudal aspect of Prague or Ratisbon! How distinctly do we trace the impression which Italy, then the Queen of commerce, the nurse of municipal independence, had left on the minds of these travelled burghers! Nor are all the ancient customs extinct. At intervals around the magnificent church of St. Lawrence, are fixed massive carved oaken chairs, bearing the symbols of the trades or guilds of the city. In

of trading cities are peculiarly interesting to an Englishman, who can compare them with those which not long since existed in his own country. The civic life of England, as such, is extinct. Municipal institutions remain, but the pomp, pride, and circumstance that surrounded them are gone. What is more, the spirit that inspired them is extinct. Civic honors are become nearly ridiculous, and civic customs have lost their significance. In London, indeed, the Lord Mayor's show is kept up-as a show; but in other corporate towns the antique and traditional pageants, and the peculiar customs, have been abolished.

Who that has seen a Norwich guild twenty years ago, does not remember Snap Snap, as necessary to the mayor as his gold chain?-the delight and terror of children, the true representative of the dragon slain by St. George, patron of the city, who used to be borne, like a barbarian monarch in a Roman triumph, at the heels of the civil power, opening his wide and menacing jaws with no more felonious intent than the reception of the half-pence which it was the touchstone of courage to put into that blood-red and fearful gulf.