and their councillors, with whom it was more difficult to have to do than with Metternich or Hardenberg, are gone to rest; and thus the better will unfold itself, without blood, storms, and distraction by the justice, moderation and wisdom of greater princes. Humanity will develope itself as the march of Nature directs; and the march of Nature, neither monarchs, nor congresses, nor diplomatists can hinder.'

After these remarks on Germany in general, which occupy a good deal of the first volume, and are, in our opinion, by far the best part of the work, the author proceeds to give an account of the different states, their political condition, manufactures, natural scenery, and productions. Those who choose to follow him in these details will find them sometimes amusing and characteristic, yet on the whole meagre and unsatisfactory. The two volumes before us are devoted to South Germany, and the remaining two upon North Germany, have not yet reached us. A very few remarks on each of the countries which the author speaks of may be interesting to our readers. The first in order is Würtemberg, of which the author is a subject.

Würtemberg, only very recently saved from destruction, and elevated to the rank of a kingdom, in consequence of the good management and superior talents of the late Frederick, father of the present king, includes the greater part of what was formerly called the circle of Swabia; the remainder being contained in Baden and Bavaria. It has only a million and a half of inhabitants, a revenue of nearly one million sterling per annum, and a national debt of somewhat more than two millions. The chief sources of its support are agriculture, cattle breeding, the cultivation of the vine and of fruits, some of which are superior to any other in Germany; manufactures are to be found only in the less fruitful districts. It is a fertile land of hill and valley, rich in friendly, quiet, pleasing scenery. The roads are excellent, and the rows of fruit-trees along each side of them give the whole a delightful aspect.

The Swabians (Suevi) acted an important part in the ancient empire, giving it many of its best emperors. They are still distinguished from all other Germans by many peculiarities. The speech of a true Swabian is broader, more naïve; his manners blunter, his very person clumsier, more awkward; he is more cautious, less dextrous and artful, more religious, more inclined to superstition than other men. His rough exterior is at first repulsive enough, but the more you know of him, the more will you value him for his solid good qualities. In German literature the names of Schiller, Wieland, Schelling, &c., do honour to Swabia. No people in Germany are more attached to their government, and to every thing that is domestic.

The

The Grand Duchy of Baden stretches along the Rhine from Lake Constance to beyond Mannheim and the Neckar, and includes the greater part of the Black Forest, which occupies almost one-third of the whole country. It has only a million of inhabitants, but with a revenue proportionally greater, and a national debt proportionally smaller than Würtemberg. Its resources consist in wine, corn, wood, flax, tobacco, madder, fruits, &c.; and there are mines of lead, iron, copper, and silver in the Black Forest. In regard to striking and beautiful scenery, Baden is superior even to Würtemberg: we need only mention the banks of the Rhine and of the Neckar, and the situation and environs of Baden and Heidelberg.

There is perhaps more real freedom and public spirit in Baden than in any other German state. Its representative assembly has set an example of boldness, liberality, and disinterestedness to all Germany. The Badensers are more lively, speculative, and expert than their Swabian neighbours. They bear more resemblance to the French than other Germans do : they have much of the gaiety of the former, with the solidity of the latter. We do not know any country where one can travel with more pleasure and convenience.

Bavaria, raised to the dignity of a kingdom by Napoleon in 1806, is now become the third state of the Germanic Confederacy, and has four millions of inhabitants, with an annual revenue of about three millions sterling. Before the commencement of the present century, the Bavarians were the most sensual, ignorant, superstitious people in civilized Europe-their country was the home of jesuitism and priestcraft. Their connexion with France had paved the way for liberty and improvement, when the acquisition of the Duchy of Deux-ponts, on the French side of the Rhine, of almost the whole of Franconia, and part of Swabia, not only increased the power and importance of Bavaria, but contributed greatly to enlighten and civilize it: the deputies from the Rhine and Franconia distinguish themselves, in the national assembly, by their superior address and clearer political views; and even the common people in these countries have long been accustomed to greater freedom, and are much more cultivated than in Bavaria Proper. Under the liberal government of the late Maximilian, who formed the present representative constitution, somewhat after the model of the English, in 1819, the progress in improvement was truly astonishing. Ludwig is no unworthy successor of his father; he has introduced the strictest economy, diminishing the public expenditure in many departments, particularly in his own household and attendants, and in the army; and done every

thing in his power to promote the interests of literature, art and science, and public industry. Under him Munich is improving in elegance, and it has perhaps more attractions for an Englishman than either Vienna or Berlin: the collections of painting and ancient statues are not much inferior to those of Paris itself. The picture-galleries, besides containing many choice pieces of Italian and Spanish art, are unrivalled in regard to the school of Germany and the Netherlands, now that they have been enriched with the excellent historical collection of the Boisseries, formerly in Stuttgart. The university, lately transferred from Landshut to Munich, has, for the last two years, been attended by upwards of seventeen hundred students, and numbers among its professors, some of the most celebrated men in Germany: we need only mention the names of Schelling, Oken, Ast, Thiersch, Döllinger, Röschlaub, Schubert, Martius, Görres, &c.

With regard to the Austrian empire, the last of which the author speaks in the volumes before us, we despair of being able to say any thing very interesting to our readers in the short space allotted to us. The ancient excluding policy is still in force there; nay, we should say more in force than ever. It not only prevents improvement, but gives encouragement to that sensuality and gluttony for which Austria has long been notorious. Yet, perhaps, it is the sole policy, by means of which thirty millions of such people can be held together. From the fiery, indignant Italian, and the proud, intractable Hungarian, down to the stolid, good-natured, ignorant, contented Austrian, there are fierce enough elements of discord among the different nations which make up the empire, and they are kept in union only by force of an enormous standing army of three hundred thousand men. The present Emperor is a gentle, fatherly old man. We have heard none of his subjects speak of him with any thing but love and affection. The meanest peasant has access to him; and, except on public occasions, he leads a simpler life than many a nobleman amongst ourselves. It is, perhaps, less the Emperor than the nobility who govern in Austria, and less the nobility than Metternich the prince-pattern of prime ministers. Witness the fate of Joseph II., the nobility contrived to frustrate all his schemes of improvement, and even to render his life miserable, -and his premature death. Changes for the better, however, will, it is hoped, in time come over the dominions of the Hapsburg-descendants.

ART. III.

ART. III.-1. La Congrégation et la Deplomatie, ou le Ministre anglais à Paris. Comédie Politique en trois actes. 2. Avant, Pendant, et Après, par MM. Scribe et de Rougemont. 3. L'Oncle d'Amérique, par MM. Scribe et Mazères. 4. Les Manteaux, par MM. Scribe, Varner, et Dupin.

5. La Lune de Miel, par MM. Scribe, Mélesville, et Carmouche. 6. Une Visite à Bedlam, par MM. Scribe et Delestre Poirson. 7. Un Dernier Jour de Fortune, par MM. Dupaty et Scribe. 8. Théobald, ou le Retour de Russie, par MM. Scribe et Varner. 9. Jean, Pièce en quatre parties, mêlée de Couplets, par MM. Théaulon et Alphonse Signal.

10. Les Femmes Romantiques, par MM. Théaulon et Ramon de la Croisette.

11. Henri III. et sa Cour, etc., par Alexandre Dumas. 12. Cromwell, Drame, par Victor Hugo.

IT

T is now some years since the French have arrived at that unfortunate period, when superior literary genius being for the most part lost or unknown, the remnant of talent is divided and subdivided amongst a multitude of inferior writers, who, to use a French expression, are but the monnaie' of their illustrious predecessors. Every work contains its share of good and bad; but with the Parisian writers of the present day, the balance by no means seems to be equipoised; the good has kicked the beam, whilst the opposite scale has sunk to the lowest depth of depression. The time is now come, when, as the late Paul Courier very justly observes, any young man, with a small quantity of industry and conduct, may make a figure in the French literary world, particularly in the department of the drama.' It would require more space than we can at present afford, were we to enter into a detail of those works which have of late succeeded each other in France with such alarming rapidity. Our readers must remain satisfied with some few remarks on the principal characteristics of the dramatic literature of France.

In the time of Rotrou, who was the first tragic writer of any eminence, the national taste had not been formed, and the poet was secure of favour from an audience, who, being unbiassed by any fixed canons or public authority, decided according to their own caprices. The Spanish language and literature, at that time familiar in France, might have given a direction towards works of imagination, and thus have counterbalanced the growing influence of the party of savans,' who began to talk of rules, descant on the unities, and praise highly the Greek

and

and classical models. The two parties were, en preux chevaliers,' drawn up against each other in battle array; the nation was neutral, and patiently waited, like all neutral powers, to lend its voice in echoing the praises of the victors. The classicists, however, it is well known, then gained the day, although at the present moment the parties are again together by the ears, and the streets of Lutetia echo to the war cry of the angry combatants. With respect to old Rotrou, however, he had more method and less imagination than his Spanish masters. His pieces are remarkable for a rapid succession of incidents; and therefore far preferable to the frigid explanatory exordiums, for which French dramatic composition became afterwards so very remarkable. The works of Rotrou, with one exception, though its visitations on the stage are few and far between, are now entirely shelved, and seldom read ;-they are, in fact, quite obsolete.

Next came Corneille, who was a thorough 'savant.' He drew a strict line of demarcation between tragedy and comedy. The dramatic law of this writer, however militant against nature, has, like the Salic or any other famous law in France, commanded an implicit and blind obedience, even to our own days. Corneille sacrificed truth, plot, incident, circumstance,—all the materials and appliances of his art, to a pompous, cold, hyperbolical diction, which was never consonant with nature, and which, therefore, shocks every reader who can boast the possession of the slightest particle of taste. But the huge bladderlike inflations of Corneille have remained with our Gallic neighbours as true types of the true sublime.

Racine had not the genius of the preceding writer, but he had more grace, more sensibility, more taste. At Versailles, the Cour du Grand Roi,' he had been accustomed to see things en beau,' and hence his characters are always garmented in courtly graces.' In all their movements, whether of levity or passion, the same statue-like sternness of face and stiffness of manner and gait is observable. In this respect they remind us forcibly of the paintings of the Dutch painters, where man, woman, and child, burgomaster and peasant, even the very dogs, horses, and other beasts, are similarly remarkable for stubbornness of gravity in figure and face. Racine certainly fixed the balance in favour of the 'beau classique. From this moment the cause of nature was lost; and Voltaire, who might have retrieved this error, so fatal for the ascendancy of genius; who had both the pretension and the right to work a path for himself, servilely submitted to follow the chariot wheels of his triumphant predecessor.

He