Complaint of the Landgrave of Hesse,' may be contrasted with others of a less desponding nature; such as were sung by the well-armed Lansquenet, playing cards on the drum-head all the while; or, as animated the sturdy citizens of Frankfort and Magdeburg, when they had cleared the churches of Papal trumpery, and bade defiance to the Emperor and his Spa

niards.

6

A history of German music is yet wanting. In the few tunes of the Master-singers' which are published, we cannot distinguish any national or characteristic melody. Some very ancient tunes of Danish ballads have been recovered and collected by Nyerup and Rahbeck. They possess a full and plaintive harmony, although we do not find in them any vestiges of the symphonious singing' which Giraldus imagined the Northumbrians had borrowed from the Danes and Norwegians. Vocal music became a favourite accomplishment in Germany in the sixteenth century, during which several collections of songs were published. Italian composers came to the assistance of the native amateurs, amongst whom are mentioned the names of Orlando di Lasso, Raynardi, and Mancini. Song writing, unfettered by the rules of the Masters,' thus found encouragement. It was necessary, of course, to suit every taste; and the good wine of the Rhein-land, which, by the way, appears to have been the most poetical tract in Germany, came in for its full share of praise. The old German songs, in general, have a pleasing simplicity, and often show a degree of delicacy of sentiment—we do not mean sentimentality-of which there are not the slightest traces in the more bulky productions of the later part of the 16th century. But the few good writers who appeared, perverted their vigorous talents, and employed themselves in coarse and clumsy satires and travesties. At the commencement of the 17th century, some attempts were made for the refinement of the German language, and the preservation of its purity. Academies, the old nostrum, were founded; these produced little denefit: But Martin Opitz (1620) in the north of Germany, and his little knot of poetical disciples-and Weckherlin (1618) in the south, rose far above mediocrity.

After the peace of Westphalia, solid learning and the sciences flourished in no ordinary degree; but the art of composition in the vernacular tongue, seemed wholly lost. The Germans held an honourable station in the republic of letters: But, until the modern school of poetry and literature was created by Halus and Hagedon and Gellert,-their stern jurists, covered with learned dust,-their philologists and theologians, each wrapped in an ambient atmosphere of tobacco smoke,-their chymists, worn down, and parched with the heat of the laboratory, and all

speaking a barbarous form of a dead language-formed an uncouth group by the side of the polished and courtly wits of France, and the graceful dignity of their English rivals.

We have hardly left ourselves room to do justice to the authors of the works by which our desultory remarks have been suggested. Hagen and Büsching, who reopened the career of ancient Teutonic literature, have done more for the promotion of these studies, than any of their fellow-labourers. Without yielding to them in acquirements, the brothers, J. and W. Grimm, are sound and judicious archaiologists, who have thoroughly investigated every part of the wide field of the antiquities of the middle ages. Görres is a forcible and eloquent writer;-but his imagination is too glowing for an antiquarian; and he is every moment on the point of taking wing from Asgard to Bern.

M. Bouterweck's failings are of an opposite nature. His volume on the history of German Poetry and Eloquence' forms part of his extensive history of the literature of modern Europe: It may be consulted with great advantage for the facts which it contains; but his observations savour strongly of hypercriticism and false refinement, The collection of antient German songs by Arnim and Brartano, is of little value, as the originals are modernized and interpolated; and, although we shall not echo Joseph Ritson's invectives, this mode of proceeding should never meet with encouragement.

The authors of the Illustrations of Northern Antiquities,' in introducing the reader to the poems and metrical romances of the Gothic dialects, have reason to assert, that their ma

terials are new to British literature;' and their names are sufficient pledges of the ability with which the task has been performed. Mr Weber's former publication, his Metrical Romances, ' is a lasting monument of his editorial fidelity and learning. A fresh proof is given of the poetical talent, as well as of the industry of the enthusiastic Robert Jamieson,' as he is termed by the celebrated Nyerup. And, although the communications of W. S. of Abbotsford,' are not very bulky, they form an interesting portion of the volume. We hope Mr Jamieson, in particular, will soon be prevailed upon to perform the promise which the editors have given, of extending their researches to the Romances of Russia, and the original Songs of the Letts and Esthonian nations, His residence on the Continent has enabled him to collect information possessed by no other individual. He well understands the art of combining the useful with the agreeable. And we should not part with him in good humour, if we thought that he would refuse to gratify the curiosity which he has excited.

ART. IX.

The Substance of some Letters written by an Englishman resident at Paris, during the last Reign of the Emperor Napoleon: With an Appendix of original Documents. Two vol. 8vo. pp. 950. London, 1816.

THI HIS is undoubtedly a very curious and interesting work ;though for our own parts we should have liked it better if it had not been quite so long, and if it had contained more facts and fewer reasonings. It is not unlikely, however, that we have taken up this opinion, from our not agreeing with the author in many of the speculations in which he has indulged. He is more intolerant to the Bourbons, and a great deal more indulgent to Bonaparte, than we think reasonable. The book, indeed, is as stout an apology for the Emperor and his party as we can conceive any intelligent Englishman to have written,and, we doubt not, will be received with all reprobation by the champions of legitimacy, and those who hanker after the complete restoration of the old order of things. Though we do not agree with all the doctrines of the author, however, we think he has done quite right in publishing them; and are rather well pleased to see a writer of ability and information go a little too far on one side of a question, on which such a herd of servile scribblers have gone a great deal too far on the other. The book is written throughout in the manner of a gentleman and a man of talents, and, above all, with a firmness and manliness that stoops to no disguise or equivocation on the one hand, and breaks out into no bursts of mere passion or folly on the other. The author maintains his opinions with earnestness, and is noways sparing of his sarcasms on those whom he censures: But his tone is always that of reasoning and reflection;-and those who are most likely to be offended with his doctrines, will sometimes find it hard to refute them, without endangering the foundations upon which English liberty is built.

The great evil of Bonaparte's despotism, next to the hazard to which it exposed national independence, was the insensibility which it produced to all other sorts of misgovernment. Every state that was opposed to him, was to be flattered or spared, however tyrannically or basely it might conduct itself; and every one that allied itself to him was to be reprobated without mercy, whatever might be the prudence or correctness of its general policy. The great danger then was, lest all the world should be subdued by the military power of France; and it was held as a sort of treachery to the common cause, to run the risk of offending or disuniting those who were associated in its support, by taking any notice of the habitual tyranny and oppress

sion of which some of them might be guilty. Even now that the danger is over, we do not very well like to hear of any body's tyranny but Bonaparte's; and the merit of having opposed him, seems almost to be regarded as an atonement for every species of injustice. Nothing, however, can be more absurd or more alarming, than the prevalence of this way of thinking. The great danger now is from the abuse of legitimate power, and the corruptions of ancient establishments; and the most effectual way of betraying the cause of good government, and ultimately encouraging the return of revolution, is to interdict the free discussion of the political errors and crimes that may still afflict the world-though Bonaparte has disappeared from the scene. The enormities of the restored Spanish government have fortunately been too great to admit of any palliation. The errors of the same family in France are less flagrant indeed, and far more excuseable; but it would be to the last degree dangerous to shut either our eyes or our mouths with regard to them. Nor can we conceive any thing more truly ominous to English liberty itself, than the prevalence of a doubt whether Englishmen have right to publish their opinions upon the faults and errors of foreign governments, and in particular to point out to their countrymen the defects or maladministration of the government of France;-a topic, the discussion of which has, from time immemorial, been popular and perpetual, and productive of the greatest benefits to this country.

Though we think it right, however, to protest for this liberty whenever we may see cause to exercise it, we do not propose at present to enter at any length into that subject. Nor have we referred to the work before us so much for the purpose of discussing any of the matters of controversy which it suggests in abundance, as of calling the attention of our readers to some of the important facts which it discloses. The author, we think, has by far too favourable an opinion of French virtue and Imperial sincerity. But at present we shall not argue these or any other points with him. We wish merely to give an idea of the very interesting narrative which the work contains.

This narrative may be divided into three periods,-the last week of the King's first reign,-the hundred days of his successor, -and the final abdication of Bonaparte, and its consequences.

No one who contemplates the state of France for the last. twenty-five years, and who remembers the opinion uniformly manifested in her greatest distresses, and recognised by the Allies at Chatillon in 1814, can believe that the Bourbon dynasty was recalled by the affection or desire of the people of France, Although indications of such a wish were perceptible in the South, where the Royalists have always had the majority, yet

nothing like a national will was manifested; and in Paris, the city above all others where bread and shows' have the most, effect, that novelty was so little coveted or expected, that the restoration was notoriously effected without any participation on the part of the people. No popular enthusiasm, no loyal effusions, no Bourbon standard even-intimated the general wish to the Sovereigns of Europe assembled to decide on the fate of France. A few ladies of the Fauxbourg St Germaine, with white handkerchiefs in their hands, and the cries of fifty urchins in the Place de Louis Quinze, was all the demonstration of regard for the exiled family which Mons. de Talleyrand could exhibit to the Emperor of Russia, to induce him to support the Bourbon cause. Strange as it may appear, there is no doubt that the declaration of that minister, with respect to that important crisis, is perfectly authentic, namely, that the people were unwilling -the Legislature alarmed-the Allies incredulous; that the Senate was prevailed upon to receive the King by the promise of a Constitution-the popular feelings allayed, by the bargain with the Regicides; and, lastly, the Emperor of Russia overpersuaded by his arguments, and by the concerted demonstration above alluded to.

But although a miserable manœuvre thus succeeded, in placing the exiled family on the throne; yet the positive advantages conceded to France in consequence of its adoption of that dynasty-the cessation of a power become odious from its abusethe prospect of peace, and renewed commercial intercourse with all nations, together with the fatigue of all partics, afforded to a wise monarch many chances of preserving a throne which he had reascended by a sort of miracle.

Our author, in Letters V and VI, inquires how these chances were improved, and traces the conduct of the restored Sovereign-his refusal to subscribe the act which recalled him to the throne-his renunciation of the title decreed to him by the Senate of the 6th of April- his silly enumeration of the 19 years during which he had reigned over his kingdom in partibus infidelium '—his mention of the Prince Regent of England and of his own rights, to the exclusion of those of his people in his earliest proclamations-his disputed election-his violations of the charter octroyé to his people--and, lastly, the tone and character of his court and government, defamatory of the revoJution to which he succeeded, and offensive to the habits, character, and interests, of the nation he ruled over.

With an attention to dates and particulars, infinitely valuable in an inquiry of this nature, our author cites the several violations of the charter by the King; and as almost any one of them would have been construed into a virtual abdication, had