directly in front, there is a general pattern exhibited to the eye; but upon continuing to look, the eye will lose one pattern and take up another, and sometimes a third and a fourth. This singular variety of patterns is increased in number, and each of them is better developed, as the eye views the diagram at different degrees of obliquity, and in different azimuths. These effects arise from the various direction of the component curves, similar parts of which, having similar directions, combine to produce the various forms which are successively developed. Now, as the carpets of rooms, geometrical pavements, and paper-hangings, are all viewed by the spectator with various degrees of obliquity, might it not be desirable to invent patterns, which, though they might not be the most beautiful when seen directly, have the power of developing in succession a series of beautiful combinations, when viewed, as they always must be, at different obliquities? These effects might be greatly increased by giving certain portions of the component curves greater intensity of colour, or greater breadth, and by introducing particular tints into particular spaces, symmetrically placed in the pattern.

Mr Hay promises us another treatise, containing the application of his system to the various arts in which it is calculated to be useful; but he thinks it would be premature to apply rules until their accuracy is acknowledged. We would dissuade Mr Hay from this pause in his career. The acknowledgment of statutes in the republic of art is scarcely to be expected: The eye is the only tribunal before which questions of form and points of order can be justly and satisfactorily decided; and with his fine taste and sound judgment, Mr Hay may safely surrender himself for trial.

Notwithstanding some trivial points of difference between Mr Hay's views and our own, we have derived the greatest pleasure from the perusal of these works. They are all composed with accuracy, and even elegance. His opinions and views are distinctly brought before the reader, and stated with that modesty which characterises genius, and that firmness which indicates truth. We trust they will be generally read, and that they will be considered as ornamental in the drawing-room as they will be found useful in the workshop.

ART. III.-Memoiren von Karl Heinrich, RITTER VON LANG: Skizzen aus meinem Leben und Wirken, meinen Reisen und meiner Zeit. 2 Bde. Braunschweig, 1842. (Memoirs of Charles Henry, Knight of Lang: Sketches of my Life and active Career, my Travels, and my Time. 2 vols. 12mo. Brunswick, 1842.)

IN

N a former Number we attempted to give a slight sketch of the state and aspect of German society before Europe had felt that mighty convulsion which has shaken all the relations of social life, and all the ideas upon which those relations rest, or by which they are governed. We say advisedly, all; for we are persuaded that there is no corner, however secluded, of social or domestic life, through which the vibration is not felt.

Having seen a little of Germany in her more tranquil days, we are now about to catch a partial glimpse of her, tottering on the brink of the abyss into which she was soon to fall. That awful catastrophe, and the regeneration by which it was succeeded, may perhaps afford matter for future consideration. Our present task is a painful one. It brings us to the contemplation of an august and venerable body in the last stage of feebleness and corruption; exposed by the parricidal hands of its sons to the insults and lacerations, and betrayed by their meanness and selfishness to the rapacity, of the stranger. If, in the following article, we are forced out of the province of domestic and social life, which is more agreeable to our taste, we entreat our readers to recollect that it is the inevitable consequence of the evil times we are fallen upon. German life, as we have seen it, was inextricably bound up with the existence and character of the Germanic empire. Danzig or Nürnberg could have been no other than free imperial cities; Gotha, than the capital of a small principality; and so on. The Ecclesiastical States had a character of their own--and one, we may add, on which it is allowable to look back with regret, as models of mild, pacific government. With the overthrow of the great body of which these were the various and widely differing members, their peculiar life was overthrown; and it is impossible to detach the consideration of the one from that of the other.

The further we advance in the great historical drama, the more will domestic life fall into the background; or rather, the more deeply will it be coloured by political events. How, for example, would it be possible to account for the state of many an honourable household in Berlin in the years 1811-12, with an expenditure narrowed to bare necessaries; servants dismissed

every article of show or luxury gone-in many, not even a gold ring or a silver spoon left-without the explanations so fearfully and so nobly afforded by the exactions of the invader, and the zeal which flinched before no personal sacrifice for his expulsion? Without, therefore, abandoning the domain of Manners and Customs,' we shall see, first, how these affected the political condition of the country; and may perhaps afterwards try to show how they were again reacted on by the overthrow of monarchs and states.

We must premise that the book before us gives the most unfavourable picture of the last days of the Empire ;—indeed, of all that it describes. The author belongs to a class of men for whom we entertain neither affection nor respect. He is essentially a derisor; and, like all writers of that temper, seems never so well pleased as when men act in so base and absurd a manner as to justify contempt and derision. While they fancy themselves emancipated from prejudice, and believe that they take a large and dispassionate view of human things, they are in fact condemned to the narrowest one-sidedness; for what is a more miserable defect of vision than to see only the deformed? as is undoubtedly the case with the book before us, they often reveal truths from which a more earnest mind may draw useful as well as grave reflections. All that they see is there; but there is a great deal which they do not see. They want the appropriate moral visual organs.

Yet,

A curious instance of this partial blindness occurs in our author's account of the coronation of the Emperor Leopold at Frankfurt, in which there is not a single incident nor image that is not exquisitely ludicrous and mean. If we turn from this to Goethe's description of the same ceremony, at the coronation of Joseph II. in 1764, we shall see how true it is that omne receptum modo recipientis recipitur. Of this more hereafter.

Lang says in his few words of introduction, that he shall give Wahrheit und keine Dichtung,' (truth and no poetry ;) and inexorably has he fulfilled his promise in the latter respect. As to the former, it is difficult to believe that he has been equally scrupulous. Yet we must confess that, much and justly as the book is disliked by all people of good taste in Germany, for its sneering and cynical tone, we have not, after some enquiry, been able to learn that any body has contradicted the facts it contains. We have heard Germans who love their country regret its publication, and seem distressed that strangers should read so unfavourable a picture of it. We think this a mistake; and if we contribute in any degree to make known to England a state of things so scandalous and corrupt, we beg it to be understood that we

should not do so, did we not believe it to be for the honour of actual living Germany.

It is obvious to the most uninstructed and superficial observer, that the progress made by this great country within the last half century is immense; perhaps unparalleled in the history of the world. But it is only by comparing what Germany was in the last century with what it is now, that we can appreciate the magnitude of the change. It is only after seeing how the noble metal had been debased, that we can estimate how it has been refined in the furnace through which it has passed. Well might Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia say, (in the hearing of one who repeated his words to us,) during the period of indecision which preceded the declaration of war- We must be utterly destroyed and crushed. Then we may rise, like a phoenix from its ashes.' His prophetic forebodings of his own and his country's fate were fulfilled throughout.

As the most prominent point in the social picture, we may cite the Courts of Germany; for whatever may be said of the enormous difference between court and people, we entirely doubt the fact. We are convinced that the court is, in general, a very fair expression of the current morality of the people; partly, because it is sure to influence them by its example; and partly, because no court will venture to indulge in shameless depravity in the face of a virtuous people. Who that thinks of the brutal orgies of Frederick William II., or the remorseless debaucheries of Augustus the Strong, can look at the domestic virtues which are now enthroned at Berlin and at Dresden, without confessing that the chastisements of Heaven have not been bestowed in vain, and that a new standard of morality is accepted by rulers as well as by their subjects? It is always with considerable hesitation that a candid writer will submit any disadvantageous picture of foreign manners to a public so ludicrously inclined to overrate its own superiority in morals, as that of England. We must therefore just premise, that before Englishmen indulge in that swell of self-gratulation which they so frequently display at any representation of continental enormities, it might be as well if they were to reflect what sort of picture a man gifted with the keenest perception of the base and profligate, and blind to the noble and the pure, might draw of certain portions of English political and private life.

6

Ritter von Lang says, he presents us with the shadows of a past world, which few of its descendants can understand;-of the ' ruins of a worn-out empire, and of a conflict between old and 'new manners.' Matter enough, it will be acknowledged, for interesting contemplation.

The fret worse of this curious drama is laid in one of the www.. prindpalities of which the French Revolution left so few wanding, and even those retaining scarcely the shadows of their former independent existence. With the empire vanished the power and consideration which they enjoyed as members of that august and time-ha..owed body. Those which have been spared wust only by the mutual jealousy of the great powers, and look with an anxious glance into a dim and uncertain futurity. We have heard the amount of good and evil resulting from their existence discussed often enough, to have been able, one might think, to arrive at a decided opinion. But we confess ourselves unable to do so. To a Frenchman, or to a Prussian, the doubt must appear the result of imbecility; and truly, if greatness and power, conquest and domination, are the sole ends of social and political life, he is right. But spite of the evils of a little court which is at every body's elbow-the trifling occupation it gives to men's minds; the tiresome monotony of its gossip; the tendency to shut out the larger world, and to contract all the views and ideas-these small communities have advantages and blessings of their own, which wisdom aud humanity will not overlook. This is not the place to particularize them; but as the picture we are going to offer our readers is not a very flattering one, we are bound to say that another might be drawn, equally true, and in much fairer colours.

Heinrich Lang was born in 1764 at Balgheim, a village in the district called Riess, (Rhætia,) one of the most beautiful and fertile in Swabia; in which, though lying on the frontier of both Franconia and Bavaria, the Swabian character and dialect reigned in all their freshness and purity. The land formed part of the extinct ecclesiastical principality of Oettingen-Oettingen, and was at that time in the possession of another branch of the princely house, called Oettingen-Spielberg. His father was pastor of Balgheim. He was descended from a line of foresters, (Jägers,) who, for a time beyond the memory of man, had possessed the Forsthaus, or as we should call it the Ranger's House, at Morbach, which, together with the calling, was transmitted from father to son as a right. Many posts and employments in Germany had, by the mere sanction of time and custom, acquired an hereditary character which no one ventured to dispute. Lang's family was of great antiquity; the name occurs in the archives of the Empire in the year 1290, as possessors of land in this neighbourhood. But to come nearer to our own days. The destiny of our author's grandfather was decided in the following curious manner:- At a magnificent boar-hunt, my great-grandfather, Jäger Johann Conrad Lang, complained bitterly to his princely master, that