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find, at a sufficiently early date of classical history, its banks te nanted by rude and warlike tribes, whose inroads into Belgic Gaul, stimulated the policy and ambition of Julius Cæsar to lead, for the first time, the Roman armies across the Rhine. The fine, but doubtful campaigns of Drusus and Germanicus were manœuvred and fought the adjacent country, in which was also the theatre of the splendid efforts of Arminius to liberate his country from the chains of Rome, Some of the most remarkable events of the reign of Charlemagne were transacted in this quarter; and the conflicts between his descendants frequently rendered it a troubled scene. In the subsequent stages of Germanic story, the Rhenish territory has always formed a kind of debateable ground on which alien or native armies might contend for the mastery. It did not of course, escape the protracted visitations of the thirty years' war, when Gustavus and his school of warriors traversed Germany from the sea to the Carpathians, and from the Vistula to the Danube. Of the wars between the different Continental states, and between France and Great Britain, these regions have been the frequent field, and have given a melancholy immortality to the names of Spinola, Farnese, Condé, Luxembourg, Marlborough, Eugene, Villars, and a host of equally illustrious homicides.

The Rhine has seldom, and only for a brief time, served as the boundary of great and powerful nations. In the earlier periods of authentic history we find it bordered by savage tribes, who were at all times ready either to engage in autual quarrel or to range themselves under the command of some powerful or popular leader; and the neighbouring regions still bear testimony to that more recent, and not less turbulent period, when the summits of the Bergstrasse and the Adenwald were crowned with fortresses, whose ruins blend richly with the wild and grand scenery of these romantic tracts, and whose original possessors descended from their mountain fastnesses to encounter each other in fierce rivalry, or to plunder the helpless traveller. Within a narrower limit of commemoration, the Rhenish states have presented the same general aspect of minute and intricate separation, but with a more tranquil and better defined policy, and on the whole, perhaps, with favourable results to the general interests of mankind. Had the whole of Germany, for instance, been under the dominion of Austria, the efforts of Luther would probably have been as little successful as were similar attempts in the adjacent country of Bohemia ; but the division of territory, the variety of interests, the difference of policy, and the distinctions of personal character among the reigning monarchs of the Imperial states, afforded favourable opportunities for the introduction and advancement of the reformation, of which the great

instruments raised up by Providence for that transcendent work, did not fail to make skilful and vigorous use.

We have no present motive for discussing the now obliterated changes introduced into the Germanic constitution by Napoleon; but we can have no hesitation in expressing our strong disapprobation of the plans adopted by the Allied powers in their dissolution of the Rhenish confederation and their construction of a semifeudal, semifederative system. If justice-justice on their own principles, we mean-had been their object, it required something like the re-establishment of the former regime'; but if a sincere regard to the common weal had actuated them, we should have have heard nothing of the adjustments, absorptions, extensions, and mediatizations, by which they have arbitrarily, and as we apprehend, injuriously, altered the political aspect of Europe, and interposed formidable obstacles to the ascertainment and consolidation of civil and religious freedom. Not that we cherish much sympathy for the small princes and chieftains themselves who have been so unceremoniously ousted; nor that we regard the old system with any other feeling than with cordial dislike, and with sincere wishes for the substitution of a better; but we condemn the arrangements of the Allies, because we are unable to trace in them that enlightened solicitude for the independence of sovereigns, the liberty of subjects, and the happiness of nations, which the royal and noble negociators on all occasions clamorously professed. There was a fine opportunity for the proof of their sincerity, presented to them in the condition of the free cities and states of the Empire, and, to speak in courteous phrase, they neglected it. There is no part of German history on which the mind and memory dwell with greater interest, than on the rise, vicissitudes, and decay of those privileged establishments. In the olden time' of Germany' her merchants were princes,' and whatever might be the defects of their mercantile policy, whatever of error or of ambition might occasionally sully the internal rule or the honourable rivalry of the commercial states, there was a republican energy in their character, a boldness and a grandeur in their enterprises, which amply redeemed their vices, and almost authorized the occasional extravagance of their pretensions. In the dark periods of the Empire, they were its best resources; in its better days, they were its proudest boast. Amid surrounding deserts of despotism and poverty, they were as rich oases, flourishing in all the wealth of commerce, and in as large an enjoyment of the blessings of freedom as the conditions of mortality and the circumstances of political science would permit. Gradually, but forcibly and completely swept away by the tide of despotic encroachment and military violence, sound policy, the state of Europe, and the claims of man's moral and intellectual nature demanded their restoration. But the same

cold and selfish calculations which consigned Venice to Austria, and Genoa to Sardinia, rejected the appeal, and while affecting to re-establish four out of the number, left even these the mere 'shadows of a mighty name,' holding a precarious existence at the mercy of the stronger powers by whom they are surrounded. A pretty intelligible intimation of the kind of freedom which they are suffered to retain, is suggested by the affair of Colonel Massenbach. He was obnoxious to the Prussian Government, and sought safety in the free and independent city of Frankfort; his asylum was insulted by the demand of the Prussian ambassador, that he should be given up, and the magistrates were under the necessity of compliance. We are equally at a loss to guess the principle on which many of the general divisions and allotments of territory were made. How sagaciously soever they may have been partitioned, and with whatever regard to strength and compactness they may in reality have been assigned to their possessors, they certainly make a very strange and uncouth appearance in the map. Such interlinkings and insulations of states, such sections and separations of the same country: here, the king of Bavaria obliged to request permission of his brother, or cousin, of Wirtemburg to cross his kingdom, before he can reach his duchy of Deuxponts; there, the grand duchy of Hesse flanked and cut in two by the Electorate of the same name; in a third direction, the kingdom of Hanover winding and insinuating a long excresence between two fractions of the duchy of Brunswick. If we add to this strange and whimsical tesselation, the little counties, margraviates, and principalities, with their small patches of country, set in the midst of the larger states, we shall then have a faint idea of the condition in which Germany was left by those to whom its final settlement was committed.

The volume before us, from which these reminiscences have detained us a little too long, contains a number of miscellaneous and desultory, but very amusing sketches of government, society, habits, and scenery, put together, ostensibly, during a tour among some of the Rhenish states. We have not the smallest suspicion that the adventures and associations described by the Writer, really occurred in his personal experience; but we have as little hesitation in ascribing to him a fair portion of local knowledge, and a considerable acquaintance with the individuals both animate and inanimate who figure in his pages. Altogether, he has produced a very agreeable book, which will afford not only gratification, but considerable information on subjects which are, though much the matter of common conversation, very little familiar to general knowledge.

Mentz, the first important object occurring in these letters, presents a melancholy contrast to its former prosperity under

the ecclesiastical government. When, about thirty years since, Dr. Moore passed through this city, he was gratified by the sight of trim ecclesiastics with their smart equipages, and their well-drilled, and smooth-shaved soldiery.

The chapter and the grenadiers have now changed places. You see the meagre occupants of the pillaged stalls skulking to mass in threadbare soutanes, their looks proclaiming them no longer the monopolizers of the old Hock of the neighbourhood; while the Austrian and Prussian soldiers, to the number of 14,000, are rioting in the insolence of lawless superiority. The cafes', the billiardrooms, the promenades are crammed with these smoking and swaggering guests, come to give a sort of unhallowed vivacity to the mouldering haunts of the monks. The university-building is a barrack, and hospitals and guard-rooms strike one at every corner.'

The grand duke of Hesse is a respectable old gentleman, very musically and liberally inclined, but rather averse from trusting his subjects with too much liberty. At Darmstadt, the capital of the duchy, the Writer states himself to have been introduced to the admirable duchess of Saxe Weimar, who has nobly supported her husband in maintaining the high literary credit of the most enlightened court in Germany. An almost quaker-like simplicity of attire, a sensible though somewhat homely cast of features, with great ease and dignity of manner, distinguish this excellent woman, who, after the battle of Jena, succeeded, by her firm and prudent conduct, in procuring from Napoleon, an exemption from military visitation for her palace and capital, Some very good and spirited description of the fêtes and amusements of the Hessian court and nobility, occurs in this part of the work. At Frankfort, one of the four cities of Germany entitled free,' there still existed, as in Mentz and many other large towns, a strong sensation of regret for the absence of the French troops. They were civil if treated with civility, and were generally well furnished with money which they spent freely. In this city is held the Diet, composed of seventeen plenipotentiaries in ordinary cases, but as there is a good deal of whimsical complication in the appointment of votes, it sometimes happens that these seventeen deliberators are multiplied into sixty-nine. As yet, this admirable body has done precisely nothing, and it is not, we imagine, probable that it will ever do any more; it does not seem to be the will of its masters that this mock-senate should exert itself effectually for the benefit of the German people.

At Wilhelmsbad, the Traveller was on the territory of the Electorate of Hesse Cassel, whose ruler seems to consider himself as the absolute proprietor of his subjects, and is well-known to Englishmen as the contractor for supplying the British government with so many gross of soldiers at so much per head. This

very unamiable personage is said to be weak, tenacious, and avaricious, far advanced in years, and ornamented with a prodigious excrescence on his neck. It should not, however, be omitted, that with all his tyranny and singularities, be deals very moderately with his people in the article of taxation.

Čarlsruhe, the court residence of the grand duke of Baden, is a handsome town with a new church, which we notice as being the work of Weinbrenner, a living German architect, of high, but, if we may trust our critical Author, rather exaggerated reputation. Of this boasted production the Corinthian columns are described as thick and gouty,' and the pediment of the portico, as awkwardly perched in the air.' The interior is decorated with gigantic stained columns with gaudy gilt capitals, and with finical ornaments superinduced upon a 'grand outline.' The reigning duke is a weak and indolent, but well disposed man, who keeps up his army to an oppressive peace establishment of 8000 men, including the enormous and absurd appointment of no less than thirty three general officers; a proportion of about one general to 250 privates! He was, unfortunately for himself and his people, an only son and a spoiled child; his habits are consequently expensive, and his intentions vacillating. He has not yet given to his subjects the expected constitution, and refers them on this point to the decisions of the Diet. That worthy and valuable body take the hint from their masters, and employ ample time in deliberation on so grave a matter. They may, however, protract as they please; the concession may be somewhat later than is gracious or even prudent; but the public spirit of Germany is roused, and the promised meliorations in the general system of government, cannot, with safety, be much longer withheld. Baden, the capital of the old Margraviate, is well described. Its hot springs and gaming tables seem to constitute its principal attractions as a place of fashionable resort, but to the lovers of picturesque situation and of secret history, the finely shattered old castle, crowning the woody summit of a rocky height, presents a much more impressive object. Its subterranean passages and dungeons are supposed to have been the dark and mysterious court of a Vehm Gericht or secret tribunal. Of this dreadful institution, a well-written account is still a desideratum, though the general outline of its history is commonly known, and is given in brief in the present work. A more detailed, though far from sufficient collection of particulars, was published, some years since, in a small pamphlet by Mr. Coxe, and some very interesting illustrations will be found in the German romance of Herman of Unna. In the fifteenth century, when the power of this fearful tribunal was at its height, it marshalled in its ranks, 100,000 free judges, bound by a terrible oath, unknown to society at

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