Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 359, September 1845

"Let me finish this chapter, Francis," interrupted Charles. "You shall tell me whatever you like afterwards. I have read fifty pages already, or devoured them, I should rather say."

"He has tasted the poison twenty-five times!" thought Francis. "My brother is a dead man."

He wiped, with his trembling hand, the chill dew that stood upon his brow, and waited, as the king had commanded, till the chapter was finished.

The end of Charles IX. is well known. A dreadful complaint, a sweat of blood, which many historians attribute to poison, and which the Huguenots maintained to be a punishment inflicted on him by Heaven for the massacre of their brethren, rendered the latter months of his life a period of horrible torture. At his death, Henry, having every thing to dread from the animosity of Catharine, and from that of the Duke of Anjou, Charles's successor, fled from Paris, and took refuge in his kingdom of Navarre.

THE BARON VON STEIN.[16 - Correspondence between Count Münster and the Baron von Stein, in vol. ii. of the Lebensbilder aus dem Befreiungskriege, Jena: 1841.Letters of Baron Stein to Baron Gagern, in Von Gagern's Antheil an der Politik, vol. iv. Stuttgart and Tübingen: 1833.]

"It is to the great abilities, enlightened patriotism, and enduring constancy of the Baron Stein that Prussia is indebted for the measures which laid the foundation for the resurrection of the monarchy." – Alison.

"Baron Stein," says Bourrienne, "has been too little known;" – and unquestionably, considering what he was to Prussia, and through Prussia to Europe, at the most important crisis of recent history, he is too little known still. Why is this? Plainly, in the first place, because he had the misfortune to be a German statesman, and not a French one; – these French do make such a noise in the world, partly with real cannons, partly with artificial volcanoes and puerile pyrotechny of all kinds, that a man cannot live and have ears without hearing about them. Celebrity is, indeed, a very cheap affair, according to the French fashion; restlessness and recklessness are the main elements of it. Only keep spurting and spitting about obstreperously, and the most stiff ears must at length be converted. As to real character and substantial worth, that must not give you a moment's concern. Is not Catiline to this day as famous a man as Cicero? and is not the celebrity of Bonaparte, who was (pace tanti nominis) nothing better than a bold and brilliant blackguard, equal to that of the Apostle Paul, who was a saint? Yes, verily; and M. Thiers, and the hot war-spirits in France, know it very well: but as for your great, meditative, unobtrusive, honest, truthful, and laborious German – your devoted Scharnhorst, for instance, who fell at Lutzen – the great world hears not of such a man, unless by accident, though his life be a living epitome of the gospel. But there are other Germans, too, as fiery, and hot, and volcanic as any Frenchman, of whom, however, Europe hears but little in proportion to their worth; their reputation suffers partly by the virtue, partly by the vice, of the people to whom they belong; for the people in general are not a noise-making people – this is the virtue – and the German government – this is the vice – are timid and eschew publicity. The Baron von Stein was one of these hot, glowing, impetuous, volcanic Germans – a political Luther, as he has most justly been called; but he had the misfortune to belong to a people who never dreamed of conquering any thing except transcendental ideas in the region of the moon, and beyond it; and he served a good, pious, "decent" master, the late Frederick William III., who, when he was merry, (like a good Christian,) was more inclined to sing psalms than to crack cannons, and prayed heaven every morning that he might die a good man, rather than live a great king. Then, in addition to this, comes the great and authoritative extinguisher of all German political reputation, the Censorship – a "monstrum horrendum ingens," and "cui lumen ademptum" truly; for it will neither see itself, nor allow others having eyes to see for it. An honest and thorough life of Baron Stein is, in fact, in the present slavish state of the Prussian political press, an impossibility; for the sturdy old Freiherr was a declared enemy of the whole race of red-tapists, and other officials of the quill, who, since the peace, have maintained a practical monopoly of public business in Prussia, and who, in fact, keep the monarch's conscience, and tie his hands, much more effectually than chancellor or parliament does in Great Britain. It is only therefore, in the way of scattered notices, drawn from various sources, that a knowledge of such a German statesman as Stein can be obtained; and these sources also, from the same evil influence of the censorship, are necessarily very imperfect; the men who knew Stein, and were in possession of correspondence and other papers that might illustrate his life, are all marked men; to the government of the bureaucracy suspected men – men who had, many of them, like the Baron himself, been, immediately after the peace, subjected to the most odious kinds of moral, and sometimes corporeal, persecution. Their publications, of course, were watched with peculiar jealousy by the Argus-eyed censorship; and we may always be sure that what they do tell us is only the half of what they might have told us, had they dared to speak out. Under these circumstances, the English reader will perhaps be obliged to us for taking the trouble to sketch out a short outline of the life and temper of Baron Stein from such scanty materials as time and chance have thrown in our way; and he will, at the same time, pardon the great deficiencies that must necessarily exist in the execution of such a work.[17 - Besides the correspondence of Münster and Gagern, which refer only to the latter part of Stein's life, from 1811 to his death, we have only a notice in the Conversations Lexikon, and a short biographical sketch by Arndt, (the Baron's secretary,) appended to his Erinnerungen, (Leipsig, 1840,) to guide us in the early part of Stein's career. There are some notices in the body of Arndt's Reminiscences, in Varnhagen's Memoirs, and in some others, none of which, however, go further back than the year 1811.]

Henry Frederick Charles, of and at Stein, (vom and zum Stein!) was born in the year 1757, of an old and noble family at Nassau on the Lahn. His father belonged to that higher class of nobility, according to the old German constitution, who held immediately of the Empire, (Reichs: unmittelbare und Landbarfreie,) – a descent which had perhaps a not unimportant effect in influencing the position which Stein afterwards assumed; for while the Baron always acted in the spirit rather of the middle classes than of the princes and their courts, and indeed often indulged in the strongest expressions of contempt for the whole body of princes in Germany, he never forgot his own character as a free and independent baron of the German empire, and was, notwithstanding the popular character of his great measures, in his tone of mind as much aristocratic as democratic. Intended by his father to take office under the Imperial government, he was sent first to Göttingen to study public law and history, and then to Wetzlar, the seat of the Imperial chamber; but the name of the Empire in those days had already lost its power over the minds of ambitious youth. Frederick the Great was the guiding star of the time; and, as if prophetic of the death-blow that awaited the crumbling old edifice from the hand of Napoleon in 1806, Stein, so early as 1780, entered the Prussian service as director of the mines (Bergrath) at Wetter, in Westphalia. In 1784 we find him ambassador at Aschaffenburg. He was then made president of all the Westphalian chambers, and in active connexion with this province we find him remaining till 1804, when, on occasion of the death of Struensee, one of the Prussian ministers, he was called to Berlin, and made minister of finance and of trade and commerce by Frederick William III. In this capacity he remained till the opening of the year 1807, when, as the Conversations Lexikon asserts, being at Königsberg with the king, after the battle of Jena, "on account of some differences with the cabinet" he resigned his situation, and retired to his estates in Nassau. We notice this retirement and the alleged cause of it particularly, because, as will appear in the sequel, Stein, with all his talent, seems to have been a man of a peculiar temper, and not so easily to be managed on many occasions as he was both willing and able to manage others. However, whatever the cause of the resignation might be, Frederick William had sense enough to see that these were not times when Prussia could want the services of any man of real talent and energy; and accordingly, (some say on the recommendation of Napoleon,) so early as the harvest of that same year, he called the baron back and made him prime-minister. Here was a situation worthy of a great man; Prussia, after the battle of Jena, overthrown, prostrate, and bleeding beneath the iron tramp of insolent France. How to convert this Prussia into the Prussia that in a few years afterwards was destined to be a chief instrument employed by Providence in the overthrow of the general European tyrant – here was a problem! – one worthy of the worthiest man that the kingdom of the Great Frederick could find; and most worthily did the Baron von Stein execute the mission. The reforms which he boldly planned, and no less boldly executed, in that critical year 1808, followed out as they were by his able successor, Count Hardenberg, are sufficient to place him in the very first rank of modern statesmen. He actually changed a nation of serfs, by a single bloodless blow, into a free people; he did that for Prussia, morally and socially, which Frederick the Great had done only geographically; he caused it to rank side by side with the more civilized and advanced, as opposed to the semi-barbarous (Russia) and stationary or retrograde (Austria and Spain) powers of Europe. To detail at large the important social changes thus effected in a single year by this most energetic man, would lead us too far from our biographical purpose here, and prevent us from making such a free use as we should desire of the correspondence published by Von Gagern and Hormayr. We shall therefore content ourselves with a short quotation from Mr Alison's sixth volume; and may refer the reader, at the same time, to the more detailed and yet succinct statement of the same matter given by Mr Russell —Tour in Germany, vol. ii. p. 116.

"So clearly were his ideas formed, and so decided his conviction as to the only means which remained of reinstating the public affairs, that he commenced at once a vigorous, but yet cautious system of amelioration; and, only four days after his appointment as Minister of the Interior, a royal decree appeared, which introduced a salutary reform into the constitution.

"By this ordinance, the peasants and burghers obtained the right, hitherto confined to the nobles, of acquiring and holding landed property, while they in their turn were permitted, without losing caste, to engage in the pursuits of commerce and industry. Landholders were allowed, under reservation of the rights of their creditors, to separate their estates into distinct parcels, and alienate them to different persons. Every species of slavery, whether contracted by birth, marriage, or agreement, was prohibited subsequent to the 11th November 1810; and every servitude, corvée, or obligation of service or rent, other than those founded on the rights of property or express agreement, was for ever abolished. By a second ordinance, published six weeks afterwards, certain important franchises were conferred on municipalities. By this wise decree, which is in many respects the Magna Charta of the Prussian burghs, it was provided that the burghers should enjoy councillors of their own election, for regulating all local and municipal concerns: that a third of the number should go out by rotation, and be renewed by an election every year; that the council thus chosen should assemble twice a-year to deliberate on the public affairs; that two burgomasters should be at the head of the magistracy, one of whom should be chosen by the king from a list of three presented, and the other by the councillors; and that the police of the burgh should be administered by a syndic appointed for twelve years, and who should also have a seat in the municipal council. The administration of the Haute Police, or that connected with the state, was reserved to Government. By a third ordinance, an equally important alteration was made in favour of the numerous class of debtors, whom the public calamities had disabled from performing their engagements, by prohibiting all demand for the capital sums till the 24th June 1810, providing at the same time for the punctual payment of the interest, under pain of losing the benefit of the ordinance. Thus at the very moment that France, during the intoxication consequent on the triumphs of Jena and Friedland, was losing the last remnant of the free institutions which had been called into existence during the fervour and crimes of the Revolution, Prussia, amidst the humiliation of unprecedented disasters, and when groaning under the weight of foreign chains, was silently relaxing the fetters of the feudal system, and laying the foundation, in a cautious and guiltless reformation of experienced grievances, for the future erection of those really free institutions which can never be established on any other bases than those of justice, order, and religion."

But Stein was too fierce and fiery a spirit, not merely too ardent, but too open and reckless a "French-hater," to remain long as prime-minister of Prussia under such a suspicious and jealous-eyed master-general of continental police as Napoleon. An intercepted letter revealed Stein's sentiments to the French; and by order of Napoleon, Hardenberg, a man of a more smooth and polite exterior, (though as true a German at heart,) was nominated in his place. The reforming baron, after felling a few gigantic trees, was obliged to surrender the work of perfect clearing of the social forest to a not unworthy successor, himself retiring, or (to speak more properly) being banished to Prague. There he lay in a convenient central position, like a lion nursing his wrath, ready to start off in any direction – back to Prussia, south to Vienna, north to Petersburg, or wherever any thing substantial, by word or deed, was likely to be done against the man whom his soul hated with an intensity of moral indignation truly grand, even out-Bluchering Blucher. Stein indeed hated Napoleon, not for one good reason only, but for four: first, as he was a Frenchman, vainglorious and false; second, as he was a conqueror; third, as he was a tyrant and an oppressor; fourth, as he was a godless man and a heathen. In Prague, therefore, Stein remained, in company with Justus Eumer, the banished Elector of Hesse-Cassel, Karl von Nostez, and many French emigrants, as it were in a secret-burning focus, and hidden metropolis of anti-Gallican spirit,[18 - In Prag halten sich die stärksten Mächte und Autriche zum Hassen gegen Napoleon Zugammengehäuft.– Varnhagen von Ense, iii. 195, first edition.] for a few years, waiting not patiently, but, in his fashion, with extreme impatience, for the coming of the great day of political retribution, in which he believed as firmly as in God, and in the last judgment. German writers speak with patriotic enthusiasm of the "noctes cænæque deûm" – "diegöttlichen Abende," which, with Pozzo di Borgo and other choice spirits, Stein spent in this important period, when events no less unexpected than great were knocking at the door. It must have been a god-like treat, indeed, in these terrible times, when a man in Germany could hardly draw his breath for fear of Davoust, to have seen launched from the dark, fiery, Saracenic eyes of Deutschland's political Luther, those "thundering fulgurations"[19 - "Donnerschwangere Fulgurationer." – Hormayr, in the Lebensbilder, i. 63.] of indignant German hate, which were soon to be followed by a tempest of more indignant cannon-balls; but few and feeble, amid the barrenness of German political literature, are the voices from those prophetic times that have been wafted to British ears. The following short notices from Varnhagen von Ense are all that we have been able to recover.

"Stein lived at Prague in a very retired manner; for though on familiar terms with the most noble families, by ancient family connexions, and by social position, he made great demands on those whom he admitted to his intimacy. German truth and honour, scientific culture, decision and firmness of character, and, if possible, talent and wit, were qualities not easily found combined; but such a combination he required to secure his friendship and respect. He was often forced, indeed, to content himself with some one of these qualities separately; and for myself, my principal recommendation to his notice consisted, I suppose, in my having travelled a good deal in Germany, in my having been at Paris and seen Napoleon, and, more than all, in my having fought against the tyrant. When introduced to him first, I was at once struck by something abrupt in his manner; it seemed to me he was a person who in every thing he did or said, asserted his own superiority to the mass of mankind, and was accustomed to work in all things without respect for time, place, or person. There was at the same time an unconstrained simplicity about him, and an utter want of pride and pretence in his manner. In conversation on public affairs, and matters of social economy, he was most animated and most instructive; once started on a subject of this kind, he was carried along irresistibly by his own enthusiasm; and any ignorance displayed, or doubt expressed, by those with whom he agreed, only served as a spur to set his ideas more on the gallop. And he would go with the most admirable patience into long details of fact, in order to bring round his adversary to his opinion. I was struck particularly by the decidedly polemical character of his remarks: ever and anon he drew this or the other Prussian statesman into the argument, and in criticising severely their conduct, seemed not seldom to give as much ease to his own heart as instruction to me. His whole manner was such as in the Opposition side of a British Parliament might have produced the most extraordinary effects. In his extreme fits of eloquent indignation, a sort of convulsive tremor would seize his whole voice and movements; he would shut his eyes, and could scarcely bring out his words with the due articulation. But immediately thereafter he would become calm again; and with what a breadth and penetration of glance did he then look through his adversary, reading every secret objection on his countenance, and preparing a new and more terrible onset to carry the citadel of his doubts by storm! To converse with him was indeed to carry on a continued battle; for it pleased him, even when the person with whom he conversed for the moment agreed with him, to consider him as an adversary, and to argue with him as in all points a decided opponent of his views: always, however, without any ill-will or the least personal feeling. This sort of animated irritation gave a peculiar charm to Stein's conversation; the Emperor Alexander, in particular, was quite charmed with the roughness and bluntness of his manner; for, except by a slight admixture of humour, Stein never attempted to tame the rudeness of his address, even in the presence of the most august personages.

"In literature, his taste was decidedly anti-speculative, although rather practical. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were the men of his heart; he had a high opinion of Niebuhr, both as a historian and as a practical statesman: Heeren he praised and recommended as the rough and practical: Fichte gained his good opinion by his patriotic addresses to the German people; but for philosophy in general he had no taste: Schleiermacher's philosophical religion was too subtle for him, and, in respect of orthodoxy, more than suspicious; and the most famous recent German speculators he declared plainly MAD. But of all the writers of the time, his sympathies drew him most strongly towards Arndt. When the second part of this writer's Spirit of the Age appeared, I found him continually (on the eve of the Russian expedition) in a state of the most violent irritation and excitement. He would seize the sheets as they were lying beside him, and read out the most violent passages to me, always with increasing vehemence. But seldom could he finish a whole page continuously, so strongly did the fit of mingled indignation and exultation seize him, so necessary was it for him to give vent to his own boiling feelings by irregular interjections. 'Since Burke,' said he 'no such genuine political eloquence has appeared, no truth that so cuts its way to the heart!' He then recommended Arndt's style to my imitation.' In this way you may attempt something – facts! – facts! – and not speculative phrases! Do you understand me, Herr Metaphysics?'

"It is worthy of remark how intimately Stein's impetuousness and violence of disposition were connected with his bodily organization. He asked me once what was the number of my pulses; and, on hearing my answer, held out his hand to me, and with a smile requested that I would count his. There were about a hundred in the minute. This number, he assured me, was the common rate of his pulse when in perfect health: and it seemed to me that he looked on this gallop of his blood as a sort of charter from nature, entitling him to be more passionate and violent, without offence, than other men."

This is a most characteristic passage, and introduces us into the inner nature of the man more than a whole chapter of dissertation. Verily, a Luther in every line! – a fitful, impulsive, and tempestuous – a glowing and a volcanic spirit – a most decided, despotic, and iron-willed German – a man altogether worthy to hate Napoleon with a perfect hatred, as Luther did the Pope, and to march to Paris as the true heart's brother of that hot old septuagenarian hussar, Marshal Blücher. One thing we have omitted in the above extract for the sake of brevity, and yet we must allude to it with a passing word. During the three ears of his residence at Prague, Stein employed himself assiduously in the study of the French Revolution, following it minutely through all its phases, through the columns of the Moniteur. His opinion, therefore, on this subject, is well worth registering; and we give the following two sentences on the subject, not from Varnhagen, but from Von Gagern's correspondence, (8th June 1825.) —

"Mounier wrote on 'Des Causes qui ont empéché les Français d'être Libres.' To me they seem very simple. Inconsiderate minsters, who called together an assembly of 700 Frenchmen, without having arranged the form of their deliberations, the organization of the persons who were to deliberate, or their respective rights. Then shallow, inexperienced, vain talkers, Lameth, Lafayette, and Barrère, &c., often abused for the worst purposes by persons of the most abandoned character, formed the first Assembly – murderers and robbers were dominant in the second."

But we must proceed in our history of Stein's outward fates. When Napoleon, in the culminating point of his vainglorious exultation, had assembled the monarchs of Germany around him at Dresden in the summer of 1812, Stein was still at Prague, and not without apprehensions for his personal safety. Napoleon had laid violent hands on, and butchered many less dangerous enemies in Germany – witness Palm the bookseller, and honest Andrew Hofer; and a German like Stein at the ear of Alexander in the year of 1812, was equal to an army of 60,000 men. However, by a lucky negligence of the French spies, the baron escaped to Russia, whither he had been invited by the emperor, and was in Petersburg during that eventful winter; a much more dangerous enemy to the French invaders than the cautious Kutusoff at Moscow. Here he was immediately followed by a no less fiery French-hater – the man whom we have seen him compare with Burke, and who was henceforward to act as his secretary – Ernest Maurice Arndt, the author of the well-known national song "Marshal Blücher," and of some admirable historical sketches. From his "Reminiscences" we extract the following few but marked lines of portraiture: —

"I arrive at Petersburg on the 26th of August, and proceeded immediately to the minister. On entering, I was immediately struck by his likeness to my old philosophical friend Fichte. The same figure, short, broad, and compact – the same forehead, only broader, and more sloping backward – the same small sparkling eyes, the same powerful now – the words racy, clear, decided, and going, like arrows from the bow, directly to the mark. And I soon also found the same inexorable moral sternness of character, only with the difference that always must exist in the whole manner of being between a practical statesman and a speculative philosopher. In Stein's face there were two distinct worlds, different and contrary. In the upper part dwelt the bright and serene gods, with an almost uninterrupted sway. His magnificent broad forehead, his keen and yet kindly eyes, his powerful nose, proclaimed conjoined depth and command. A strange contrast to this was offered in the lower part of the face: The mouth was too small and delicate for the upper region; the chin also was weak. Here common mortals had their haunts – here anger and passion sported terribly – here those sudden fits of impetuousness would rage, which, however, (thank God,) only required to be firmly met, that they might be soothed. Strange, truly, was it to behold the lower part of his face quivering with excitement – the little mobile mouth, with fearful celerity, brimming with indignant indignation – and yet, at the same time, the upper region remaining a sunny Olympus, and even his lightning eyes flashing no fear: one part of his face freeing the beholder from the terror inspired by the other. On other occasions, when no violent excitement moved him, every feature, every gesture, and every word of this noble man breathed honesty, courage, and piety. He was a man that brought from his mother's womb the instinct and the necessity to command. He was a born prince and king. He was one of those who must be first, or he could do nothing. His whole character was so peculiar and so powerful, that he could not adapt himself to other people, much less subordinate. Many noble men have been able to do this, but Stein decidedly could not."

These notices from Arndt and Varnhagen will, we hope, serve to bring the reader into some personal familiarity with the man; in what follows, the patriot and the statesman will demand our exclusive attention. The correspondence with Count Münster, published by Baron Hormayr it the second volume of the Lebensbilder, commences with a letter dated 6th October 1811, when Stein was still in Prague. From it we shall make a short extract, putting in a strong light the state of public feeling in Germany produced by the insulting despotism of Napoleon, and which was the main cause that ultimately led to his overthrow.

"Every thing here is based on mere force and oppression of every kind. Napoleon's endeavour is not, like that of Augustus Cæsar, to bewitch the world into the belief that a universal monarchy is the best thing for Europe; but, on the contrary, he seems anxious to seize every occasion, by haughty demeanour, rude despotic forms, and needless irritation of every noble feeling, to make the weight of the tyranny which he has superinduced as intolerable as possible. This conduct has a most beneficial effect, for it keeps alive in the breasts of men a constant indignation – a striving to break the bonds that confine them. Had his despotism been more mild, Germany might have slept the sleep of death.

"But the spirit of indignation thus awakened, acts not only against the foreign tyrant, but against the native princes, in whom the German people now see either dastardly poltroons, who, intent only on their own preservation, and deaf to every feeling of honour and duty, seek safety in their heels; or titled slaves and bailiffs, who, with the substance and the life-blood of their subjects, purchase a few years' lease of a beggarly existence. From this arises a general wish for a constitution based on unity, energy, and nationality; and any great man who should be able to give, or rather to restore us such a nationality and such a constitution, would be sure of a hearty welcome from the great mass of the people. Nor is there any thing in the character of those who now fill the petty thrones of Germany, calculated to react against this feeling of dissatisfaction; on the contrary, every sort of extra vileness, weakness, and low sneaking selfishness prevails."

The contempt here expressed for the German princes was (as we have said) very characteristic of Stein – an old, free baron of the Empire; and the important matter of German unity and nationality here touched on is more decidedly brought forward in the following extract from a letter to the same person, dated Petersburg, December 1, 1812: —

"I am sorry that your Excellency should see only a Prussian in me, while, at the same time, you reveal yourself to me in the character of a Hanoverian. I have only one fatherland, and that is Germany; and as, according to the ancient constitution, I belonged only to my whole country, and not to any particular part of it, so my heart is given still to the German fatherland, and not to this or that province. In this moment of important development, the dynasties are in fact quite indifferent to me; I view them only as instruments. My wish is, that Germany should become great and strong, and regain its ancient integrity, independence, and nationality; and that it should attain and firmly maintain this position, between France on the one hand and Austria on the other, is as much the interest of Europe in general as of this particular part of it; and it seems to me equally plain, that this great European object cannot possibly be attained by means of the present rotten and crumbling old machinery. This were to erect the system of an artificial military boundary on the ruins of the old baronial castles, and the walls and towns of fortified cities, and to throw aside altogether the ideas of Vauban, Cohorn, and Montalembert.

"My confession of faith in this matter is contained in one word – Unity. And if my plan does not please you, take another: Put Austria in the place of Prussia, and make it lord of Germany – if this be practicable – only don't bring back the old Montagues and Capulets, and the halls of the old barons. If the bloody contest which Germany has already stood for twenty years, and is now called upon to undergo again, be to end in a FARCE, ('mit einem possenspiel endigen,') I for one shall prefer to have nothing to do with the matter, and will take myself back into private life with all possible speed and comfort."

In this letter we see applied to the political constitution of Germany, as it was to be arranged at the peace, all that comprehensive grandeur of idea, combined with decision and despotism (it would be false to use a milder word) of execution, which had, in the single year 1808, done such wonders in reconstructing the social fabric in Prussia. But it was one thing to deal despotically with the internal government of one state – especially after a battle of Jena! – and another thing to apply the same over-riding principle to the complex relations of many states. It was one thing to say to the debased aristocracy of Prussia, Thou shalt admit the poor into the participation of thy privileges; the serf shall be a free man, and the merchant shall shake hands with the noble: quite a different thing to say to the King of Bavaria, in the spring of 1813, after the peace, Thou shalt be swallowed up in Austria; and to the Elector of Hesse-Cassel, Thou, who didst in 1807 flee from Jerome, shalt in 1813 flee to Frederick William III., who, like mighty Brahma, (in the Hindoo history,) shall absorb thee quite into his Prussian godhead. The eager and impetuous old Freiherr, with his racing pulse, had manifestly been anticipating a few centuries, and attempting to dictate to necessity here. He wished a good thing, perhaps, and a great thing; but a thing that, in the circumstances, could not possibly be. Hear how sensibly the calm, cool, and moderate Hanoverian, Graf Münster, argues the matter. 'Tis plain that our brave Luther is getting too violent, and will require a Melancthon and an Erasmus to keep him in order.

    "London, 4th January 1813.

"With regard to the future arrangements of the German states, you yourself say, we should invite the expelled princes to join our cause; and we cannot do this surely, if we intend, after the risk is over, to throw them overboard: or is it likely that they will resign of their own accord, and offer their thrones to either of the two masters of whom we may give them the option? The peace of Westphalia you call an abortion. Be it so; but it was better any how than a thirty years' war; and I see nothing more likely than such war to arise from any project to conquer Germany, and to make a violent subjugation of Bavaria, Saxony, Hessia, Baden, Brunswick, &c. In the most of these lands, the princes themselves will have the chief voice in determining what side their subjects shall take in the approaching struggle. I do not speak particularly of the Confederation of the Rhine, or of the state of things introduced in 1802; but from the days of Monbod and Hernam until now, Germany has always been divided, except, indeed, for one short period, during which the country suffered much misery. It is plain enough, I grant, that the constitution of Germany was not the work of an enlightened national will – did not proceed from any clear consideration of the best interests of the country – but what constitution in the world is there that has not been the work, in a great measure, of accidental circumstances? Since Solon and Lycurgus, only the Constituent National Assembly in France, and the stupid Cortes in Spain, have dreamed of such a thing as constitution-making, and the work of both has been blown, as we see, to the four winds. 'Tis true England is trying something of the same kind just now in the Sicilies; but God preserve us from such a mistaken course! Your criticism on our constitution is, indeed, altogether too severe; from the principles of the Teutonic constitution, all public liberty in Europe originally sprang. The contest in which we are engaged will certainly not end in a 'farce;' but why you should go back into private life, preferring to be rather the grave-digger than the physician of our present political state, I really cannot conceive. Let us rather endeavour after what is practically attainable, than grasp at splendid theoretical possibilities. You are fond of English authorities; let me, therefore, remind you of him who said —the practice of a constitution is frequently very different from its theory. There is much that I like in Arndt's book, and its author I highly esteem; but the way of amelioration (Verbesserung) which I propose to follow, seems to present some prospect of success, where your revolutionary projects bring with them a risk of losing all.

"You say that the dynasties are a matter of indifference to you. To me they are not. There lives in them a spirit which one can trace through ages. Read only what Müller in his Fürstenbund says of the Guelphs. 'Need I mention the fame of the Guelphs, whose spirit of unbending independence has made their name a watchword for liberty?' Even England has never been so free as under the three Georges, and the fourth George brings the same sentiments with him to the throne. Compare with this your slavish Prussian system! I respect Frederick the Great, but he caused the ruin of Germany by his aggrandizement, and the ruin, let me add, of his own state too, by creating a body that only his great soul could animate, and which, after his death, lay helpless. When I showed the Prince Regent your remarks on the dynasties, he exclaimed – If Stein is quite indifferent to them, why does he not name us (Hanover) instead of Prussia? I feel inclined to put the same question. Let us be content if we can do the best with the materials given us for our own age. ('Lassen sie uns doch auch für unsere eigene Lebenszeit sorgen.') Why think particularly of the King of Prussia, a man whom, with the same breath that you exalt him, you put under three subjects,[20 - Scharnhorst, Count Dohna, and President von Schoen, mentioned by Stein in a previous letter not translated.] and take at the same time his army into your own hands, to keep him from doing harm? I pray your Excellency to observe, that while my proposal leaves us free hands for any possible future improvement, your two plans will offend all parties: your first plan, to make Austria swallow up Germany, will offend all Europe, and Germany to boot; your second plan, to divide Germany between Austria and Prussia, will excite the opposition not only of Russia, England, and Sweden, but of all those North Germans who are not prepared to receive as a boon, the Prussian system with cell its machinery of boards and councils, of auscultants and assessors, and its hereditary incapacity to understand that old maxim of political philosophy– GOVERNA MEGLIO CHI MEN GOVERNA – He governs best who governs least.

"Neither am I at all prepared to agree with what you say on the subject of the German courts. I have lived long in great courts, and I know not a few small ones; and I can honestly say, that the state of morals among the peasants in country villages has always appeared to me more corrupt than in the highest circles of polite and cultivated society; and I can find little difference in principle between the case of one man intriguing in high circles for grandes entrées, and that of another setting a similar machinery to work to obtain the presidency in any church meeting of a small parish, or a union of parishes; between one who, to attain a selfish object, flatters a prince, and another who flatters the prefect of a department. If a difference is to be made, the higher object which excites the higher passions seems rather entitled to a preference.

"Again, I do not see why we should put altogether out of view, how much science, civilization, and wealth, have gained by the multiplication of central points, where all these things may be cherished, and whence, as from so many life-giving fountains, they may be beneficently dispensed. What country is there that can compete with Germany in respect of scientific culture? – and have the courts of so many princes not contributed to this result? And in ancient Greece was it not a similar state of things, that, as one great element at least, produced a similar result? But I will not attempt to discuss this subject in all its bearings. Enough, if you will believe me, that in the arrangement of the future political state of Germany, I do not look for a mere FARCE; while, at the same time, I feel obliged to protest decidedly, in present circumstances at least, against your project of uniting Germany under one or two masters."

There are many admirable points in the above letter; and after pondering it well, no intelligent reader will doubt for a moment that the schemes of Stein with regard to German unity, were not only impracticable in their main scope, but, in some respects, of very questionable propriety. It were necessary, however, to have had the experience of a Prussian, and the heart of a Stein, in the year 1813, if one would fully understand how imperatively these practical impossibilities must have presented themselves to the earliest and patriotic minds of those days. Convinced that the cool Hanoverian is right, we still feel inclined to sympathise with the hot Prussian, who is in the wrong. "Malo cum Plutone errare." Stein followed Alexander into Germany, witnessed the battles of Lutzen and Bautzen, disheartening as they were, like all true Germans, undismayed: and on the 23d August 1813, shortly after the resumption of hostilities, we find him a second time in Prague, and writing most characteristically as follows: —

"The spirit of the people here is by no means what it was in 1809; and for this plain reason, that the government does nothing, and will do nothing, to rouse it. At that time (1809) the Stadions held the helm, and they used every means to waken the nobler feelings of human nature, and they attained their object. Now, at the head of affairs, we have a cold, scheming, shallow, calculating man, who is afraid of nothing so much as an energetic measure – loves nothing more than a goal at the nearest possible distance from his nose – and is always ready to help himself out of a scrape with any miserable patchwork that may serve for the nonce. Hence the marriage introduced by a divorce, the foolish hope of a partial peace, the childish congress, the wretched ultimatum, and so forth."

And on the 14th September, after the war was fairly broken out again, we find the following remarks occasioned by the untoward battle of Dresden: —

"The latest events have taught us what to think of our new allies, and their commander, (Schwartzenberg.) We have gained an increase in mass, not in insight, nobility of sentiment, or vigour; we now understand what the fruits are of the new system pursued in Austria since 1810. From 1806 to 1809, the two Stadions gave all their energy to the great work of elevating the spirit of the nation, and at the same time strengthening and fully equipping the army; and they succeeded in both points; the nation was animated by the most devoted enthusiasm, the army fought with true valour. Since the peace of Vienna, on the other hand, the new ministry has been concerned only to purchase a beggarly peace, to disorganize the army, to cripple the public spirit, and to solve the great problem of European regeneration by the miserable arts of diplomacy. This also has succeeded. The nation has become lukewarm, and the army fight with no very remarkable display of soldiership. * * * The man who calculates, but without depth, may be a very good book-keeper, but is no mathematician.

"The result, as we have hitherto seen, is, that we have fought EVERY WHERE with distinguished success, except where the grand army was present, that between Russia and Austria no very friendly feelings prevail, ('eine grosse Abneigung herrscht,') made worse, of course, by the well-known lukewarmness of the latter power. Over and above all this, Metternich aims at a preponderant influence such as neither his talents, his character, nor the military position of the Austrian empire entitles him to. The Emperor Alexander sees all this clearly, and will very probably undertake the command of his own and the Prussian army in person; and the movement of masses thus animated, will then communicate itself to the inert Austrians.

"It is of the utmost importance that some conclusion should be come to about the settlement of Germany. From * * * expect no comprehensive views; he seeks for nothing but the shortest and most comfortable road, and will content himself with respectable vamping in any shape. The history of the negotiations proves this; and had it not been for the madness of Napoleon, we should unquestionably have had for the third, fourth, and fifth time, a ruinous and wretched peace."

The person so severely handled in two places of these letters where he is not named, is plainly enough Prince Metternich; a statesman who, whatever may be his abilities, and whatever may have been his merits – and merits in the management of German affairs – from the peace of Vienna in 1809, to that of Paris in 1815, (and it were out of place to attempt discussing these points here,) was plainly in every respect the antipodes of Stein; and a man whom the hot Prussian baron could no more form a just judgment of, than Martin Luther could of Erasmus. Diplomatists and mere politicians, even the best of them, are seldom – to say the least of it – the most noble specimens of human nature: there are bad and good amongst them of course; but Stein, in his despotic sweeping style, was fond of classing them all together, as in one of his letters to Gagern; where, after expressing his confident reliance on "Providence, and the hand of a loving Father who guides all," he adds, but "from the sly crafty animals called politicians – (the original is English) – from these homunciones I expect nothing."

The official position which Stein occupied during the eventful year 1813, was that of Supreme Director of the Interim Central Board of Administration (Central Verwaltung) of the conquered provinces of Germany, till arrangements should be made for their final disposal in a general congress. When that congress came to do its work, of course he had nothing more to do; and it will be pretty evident to the reader, from the temper and opinions of the man, as above exhibited, that he was in nowise calculated to work efficiently with such men as Metternich, Talleyrand, and Lord Castlereagh, at Vienna. The very composition of the congress, made up of every possible complex and contending interest, rendered from the beginning the realization of Stein's patriotic views, with regard to German unity, impossible. In such congregations of working and counter-working diplomatists, not the triumph of any great principle, but the compromise of a number of petty claims, is generally the result; but compromise and patchwork of every kind were, to a man of Stein's temper, only another name for the Devil. The congress of Vienna, so far as Germany was concerned, ended, according to his views, in a "Farce;" for not only were the other German states, great and small, left entire, but Saxony also – Napoleon's centre and base in the late war – was preserved, only a half (instead of the whole) of it being cut off for the great German object of forming "a strong Prussia." And with regard to this point, we must confess we feel, in some respects, inclined to agree with the Prussian baron. If Saxony was to be made an exception to the general rule, it would have been better, for many reasons, to have handed it over undivided to the great Northern power. If neither one strong German empire, nor an equally-poised federal system, was any longer possible, a strong Prussia was certainly a thing imperatively called for. But congresses are congresses; and we must even content ourselves with the most convenient adjustment of contending claims that was found practicable at the time; and if the result seems unsatisfactory, we may turn away our eyes from it; occupy ourselves with the best business that offers itself, and let God work. So at least Stein did. He kept his word to Count Münster most faithfully; and, after the decisive thunders of Leipsig and Waterloo, having done his part to bring the great European tragedy to a worthy catastrophe, he retired from witnessing the "farce," with all convenient speed, into private life, and was heard of no more in court or cabinet in Berlin, from that day till his death. In the spring of 1816, we find him, in his own ancestral castle in Nassau, addressing a fiend as follows: – "Yes, dear friend, we have won much; but much also should have been otherwise. God governs the world, and abandons no German; and if we remain true and German, (treu und Deutsch,) we shall take up the matter some other day with the French again, and settle the account more satisfactorily. For myself, I long to depart; this world is, once for all, so constituted, that a man cannot walk on the straight path, and yet ought not to walk on the crooked. 'Tis even so; circumstances and relations drive and force men. They act, and think they are the doers; but it is God that decides." This most characteristic passage expresses only Stein's feeling, that the French had been allowed to escape so cheaply, by the generosity of the Allies, at the peace of Paris; but he had much more substantial grievances to vex him nearer home; and, next to the feeble machinery of the diet at Frankfort, that which hurt him most was the political reaction at Berlin that commenced immediately after the peace, and threatened to undo that great social work which he had so boldly begun in 1808. However much a Prussian in his political sympathies, Stein was essentially an Englishman in his principles; the tendency of all his measures, as they were introduced by himself, or followed out by Hardenberg, was to temper the military and bureaucratic despotism of Frederick the Great by a wise admixture of popular influence; he wished a "constitution" after the English model, as much as circumstances might permit, not in form merely but in deed; he was not afraid of free discussion among a well-educated people like the Germans, and was too noble-minded to imitate, in Berlin or Maine, the spy-system on which Napoleon had based his immoral monarchy of physical force at Paris. It was not to be expected, however, that in a country hitherto governed solely by the Court and by the Bureau, these English views of Stein should not have met with sturdy opposition; in fact it was mainly by help of the battle of Jena, that he was enabled to do what he did for creating a Prussian PEOPLE in 1808. Now that terrible shock had passed; and the host of defeated bureaucratists and court minions, after the battle for the liberation of the fatherland had been fought by others, now began to crown into their old places, and to occupy the ears of a king more honest to promise what was right than strong to do it. Accordingly, instead of "freedom of the press" and "constitution" in Prussia, we have heard no sound, since the year 1815, but that of prohibited books, imaginary conspiracies of beer-inspired Burschen, deposed professors, and banished old Luther; and every thing, in short, except what the pious old Frederick William III. promised, or was made to appear to promise, with such gracious, popular, and constitutional phrases at Vienna, in the year 1815. Whether the military and bureaucratic despotism of Germany may not, after all, be a better system of government on the whole than our strange system of local and corporate influence of all sorts, of fermenting acids and alkalis, here is a question which some persons of a speculative disposition may consider open enough; but that the supreme power having once pledged itself to give a people a free constitution and freedom of the press, should act with honour, and do what was promised, seems, (if there be any such thing as public morals at all,) under any form of government, nothing more than what common policy as well as propriety would dictate. Those who bear the rule in Germany, however, have, for the last thirty years, done every thing that they possibly could do to make the royal word a public mockery, and a shame; one cannot review the well-known despotic proceedings of the German diet, first in 1829, and afterwards in 1832, without subscribing a most full assent to the sentence of the Baron von Stein, when he says, in reference to those very matters – "the falsehood that prevails in our age is deserving of the most serious reprehension." And again, "Our German government sink more and more daily in public estimation by their timidity and perfidy." With regard to the whole system, indeed, of Prussian government, the system of doing every thing by official men, and nothing by voluntary movement of the people, and apart from this special matter of the "constitution," Stein was accustomed to use the strongest language of reprobation; witness the following letter to Von Gagern, dated 24th August 1821. Coppenberg was a favourite seat of the Baron in Westphalia.

"In the lonely woody Coppenberg, I live so remote from the world and its doings, that nothing can disturb me in the enjoyment of nature and a country life, except bad weather, which happily has left us a few days ago, and is not likely soon to return. In Westphalia here, my friends are more concerned about the new tax, and the new edict about the peasants, (which satisfies no party,) than about the schemes of Metternich on the banks of the Danube, and the great events in Greece. For myself, I can say nothing more about public affairs, than that, while I have little confidence in the present leaders, I have an unbounded trust in Providence; and that, necessary as a Constitution is to Prussia, and beneficial as it would be if fairly worked, I expect nothing from any machinery which will necessarily be opposed by the persons who have possession of the king's ear, and the court influence generally: and I see plainly that we are still, as we have hitherto been, to be governed by salaried persons, equipped with mere book-learning, without any substantial interest in the country, without property, by mere bureaucratists – a system which will last so long as it can last – 'Das geht so lange es geht!' These four words contain the soul of our and suchlike spiritless (geistlos) government machines: – in the first place salaried – and this implies a tendency to maintain and to multiply the number of salaried officials; then book-learned– that is, living in the world of the dead letter, and not in the actual world; without interest– for these men stand in no connexion with any class of the citizens, which are the mass of the state; they are a peculiar caste, these men of the quill, ("die Schreiberkaste;") lastly, without property– this implies that they stand unmoved by all changes that affect property, in sunshine or in rain, with taxes high or low, with old chartered rights maintained or destroyed, with independent peasants or a rabble of mere journeymen, with a dependence of the peasants on the proprietors, or of all on the Jews and the bankers – 'tis all one to the bureaucracy. They draw their salary from the public purse, and write – write – write on – secretly – silently – invisibly with shut doors – unknown – unnoticed – unnamed – and bring up their children after them, to be what their fathers were – very serviceable writing-machines.

"Our machinery – the old military machinery – I saw fall on the 14th October 1806; possibly the machinery of the desk and the quill and the red tape has a 14th of October already doomed for it in Heaven."

These are serious words; and though Stein was one of those intense and strongly accentuating minds that never could state a truth without overstating it, (as Martin Luther also was continually doing,) they are not wise who would treat the hard blows from the cudgel of such a man as if they were puffs and whiffs of angry smoke from some wrathful Heine, or other furious poetical politician in Paris. Stein was the most practical of men; he had lived all his life amid the details of practice; and, like all practical men, in the midst of his violence knew how to preserve certain sobriety and moderation, without which no such thing as governing is possible. There is nothing, in our opinion, that any King of Prussia could do better than seriously to ponder the passage we have just quoted, and also the few short sentences that follow: —

    Nassau, Sept. 29, 1819.

"I expect nothing satisfactory and substantial from the assembling together, and the deliberations, of mediocre and superficial men.

"The most important thing that could be done for the preservation of the public peace in Germany, were to put an end to the reign of arbitrary power, and, in the place of it, to commence a system of constitutional law; in the place of the bureaucratists and the democratic pamphleteers – of whom the former oppress the people by much and bad governing, and the other excite and confound it – to place the influence and the activity of the proprietors of the soil."

With these memorable words we are willing that the character of Stein, as an English statesman in Prussia, should grave itself deep in the hearts both of Englishmen and Prussians. We have only to add that, in his latter years, Stein occupied himself in organizing a society at Frankfort for publishing the original documents of German history, which are best known to the English historical student in connexion with the name of Perz; and that he took an active share in the business of the provincial states of Westphalia. He was also (since 1827) member of the council of state in Berlin; but this dignity, conferred at so late a period, seems merely to have been intended as a sort of unavoidable compliment to a person of his rank and standing. It certainly did not imply that his well-known English principles were intended to assume any greater prominency in the conduct of Prussian and German affairs than they had enjoyed since the peace.

Baron Stein died on the 29th June 1831, in his castle of Coppenberg in Westphalia.

THE HISTORICAL ROMANCE

We are constantly told that invention is worn out; that every thing is exhausted, that all the intellectual treasures of modern Europe have been dug up; and that we must look to a new era of the world, and a different quarter of the globe, for new ideas or fresh views of thought. It must be confessed, that if we look to some parts of our literature, there seems too good reason for supposing that this desponding opinion is well founded. Every thing, in some departments, does seem worked out. Poetry appears for the time wellnigh extinguished. We have some charming ballads from Tennyson; some touching lines from Miss Barret; but where are the successors of Scott and Byron, of Campbell and Southey? Romance, in some branches, has evidently exhausted itself. For ten years we had novels of fashionable life, till the manners and sayings of lordlings and right honourables had become familiar to all the haberdashers' apprentices and milliners' girls in London. That vein being worked out, literature has run into the opposite channel. Action and reaction is the law, not less of the intellectual than the physical world. Inventive genius has sought out, in the lower walks of life, those subjects of novel study and fresh description which could no longer be found in the higher. So far has this propensity gone, so violent has been the oscillation of the pendulum in this direction, that novelists have descended to the very lowest stages of society in the search of the new or the exciting. Not only have the manners, the selfishness, and vulgarity of the middle ranks been painted with admirable fidelity, and drawn with inimitable skill, but the habits and slang of the very lowest portrayed with prurient minuteness, and interest sought to be awakened in the votaries of fashion or the Sybarites of pleasure by the delineation of the language and ideas of the most infamous wretches who ever disgraced society by their vices, or endangered it by their crimes.

"Whatever," says Dr Johnson, "makes the Past or the Future predominate over the present, exalts us in the scale of thinking beings." The words are familiar till they have become trite; but words are often repeated when the sense is far off. It is in the general oblivion of the thought of the philosopher, while his words were in every mouth, that the cause of the want of originality in modern works of imagination is to be found. If to the "Past" and the "Future," enumerated by Johnson, we add the "Distant," we shall have an effectual antidote, and the only one which is effectual against the sameness of present ideas, or the limited circle of present observation. The tendency to localize is the propensity which degrades literature, as it is the chief bane and destroyer of individual character. It is the opposite effect of engendering a tendency to expand, which constitutes the chief value of travelling in the formation of character. If the thought and conversation of individuals are limited to the little circle in which they live, or the objects by which they are immediately surrounded, we all know what they speedily become. It is in the extension of the interest to a wider circle, in the admission of objects of general concern and lasting importance into the sphere of habitual thought, that the only preservative against this fatal tendency is to be found. It is the power of doing this which forms the chief charm of the highest society in every country, and renders it in truth every where the same. A man of the world will find himself equally at home, and conversation flow at once with equal ease, in the higher saloons of London or Paris, of Rome or Vienna, of Warsaw or St Petersburg. But he will find it scarcely possible to keep up conversation for a quarter of an hour in the bourgeois circle of any of these capitals. It is the same with literature; and especially that wide and important branch of literature which, aiming at the exciting of interest, or delineating of manners, should in an especial manner be guarded against the degradation consequent on a narrow restriction of its subjects to matters only of local concern.

The prodigious success and widespread popularity which have attended some of the most able novels of this new school of romance in late years, as well as the great ability which their composition evinces, must not blind our eyes to the degrading tendency of such compositions upon the national literature. Immediate circulation, great profit to the bookseller, a dazzling reputation to the author, are by no means to be relied on as the heralds of lasting fame. In cases innumerable, they have proved the reverse. Still less are they to be considered as proofs that the writer, be his abilities what they may, has worthily performed his mission, or elevated himself to the exalted level of which his art is susceptible. The most pernicious romances and poems that ever appeared have often been ushered into the world by the most unbounded immediate applause; witness the Nouvelle Heloïse of Rousseau, and Pucelle of Voltaire. It was just their dangerous and seductive qualities which gave them their success. Rousseau knew this well. He addressed himself with skill and perfect knowledge of the age to its passions and vices: – "J'ai vu les mœurs de mon temps, et j'ai publié ces lettres," were the first words of his Nouvelle Heloïse. In the school we have mentioned, there is nothing immoral or improper; but is there any thing elevating or improving? The true test of real excellence is not immediate success but durable fame; it is to be found not in the popularity of circulating shops, or reading clubs, but in the shelves of the library, or the delight of the fireside. When a work suddenly attains great immediate celebrity in a particular circle or country, it is generally, though not always, an indication that it is not destined to enjoy any lasting reputation. The reason is, that it is addressed to local feelings, temporary passions, and particular desires; and it rises to eminence from interesting or gratifying them. But that is not the way permanently to attract mankind. Nothing can do so but what is addressed to the universal feeling of our nature, and has penetrated to the inmost chords, which are common to all ages and countries. The touching them alone can secure durable fame.