all care of the proper results of good government-the happiness of a people-improvement in the condition of mankind-practicable under a thousand forms-and without which all forms are valueless and shadowy phantoms. It will serve also as an auxiliary in convincing mankind that the origin of the principal social evils of any given land are not to be found (except in a much less degree than we usually suppose) either in republicanism or monarchy or any especial method of government-that we must look for the source of our tial, with Inter-Chapters. The pages have now and [sorbed their attention as to exclude in a strange degree then a typographical queerity—a monogram, a scrap of grotesque music, old English, &c. Some characters of this latter kind are printed with colored ink in the British edition, which is gotten up with great care. All these oddities are in the manner of Sterne, and some of them are exceedingly well conceived. The work professes to be a Life of one Doctor Daniel Dove and his horse Nobs-but we should put no very great faith in this biography. On the back of the book is a monogram-which appears again once or twice in the text, and whose solution is a fertile source of trouble greatest defects in a variety of causes totally distinct with all readers. This monogram is a triangular pyra- | mid; and as, in geometry, the solidity of every polyedral body may be computed by dividing the body into pyramids, the pyramid is thus considered as the base or essence of every polyedron. The author then, after | his own fashion, may mean to imply that his book is the basis of all solidity or wisdom-or perhaps, since the polyedron is not only a solid, but a solid terminated by plane faces, that the Doctor is the very essence of all that spurious wisdom which will terminate in just nothing at all—in a hoax, and a consequent multiplicity of blank visages. The wit and humor of the Doctor have seldom been equalled. We cannot think Southey wrote it, but have no idea who did. RAUMER'S ENGLAND. from any such action-in a love of gain, for example, whose direct tendency to social evil was vividly shown in an essay on American Social Elevation lately published in the "Messenger." In a word, let this book of Von Raumer's be read with attention, as a study, and as a whole. If this thing be done-which is but too seldom done (here at least) in regard to works of a like character and cast-and we will answer for the resultas far as that result depends upon the deliberate and unprejudiced declaration of any well-educated man. We agree cordially with the opinion expressed by Mrs. Austin in her Preface to this American imprint. The book is the most valuable addition to our stock of knowledge about England and her institutions which America has ever received or which, in the ordinary course of things she is likely to receive. Of Professor Von Raumer it is almost unnecessary England in 1835. Being a Series of Letters written to for us to speak-yet a few words may not be amiss. Friends in Germany, during a Residence in London and He is a man of unquestionable and lofty integrity-the Excursions into the Provinces. By Frederick Von Rau- most highly esteemed living historian-second to none, mer, Professor of History at the University of Berlin, Au- living or dead, in all the high essentials of the historiothor of the "History of the Hohenstaufen," of the "History grapher-profoundly versed in moral and political sciof Europe from the end of the Fifteenth Century," of "Il-ence-and withal, a lover, and a connoisseur of art, and lustrations of the History of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth fully aware of its vast importance in actuating manCenturies," &c. &c. Translated from the German, by Sarah Austin and H. E. Lloyd. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanchard. This work will form an æra in the reading annals of the more contemplative portion of Americans-while its peculiar merits will be overlooked by the multitude. The broad and solid basis of its superstructure-the scrupulous accuracy of its data—the disdain of mere logic in its deductions-the generalizing, calm, comprehensive-in a word, the German character of its philosophy, will insure it an enthusiastic welcome among all the nobler spirits of our land. What though its general tenor be opposed at least apparently to many of our long cherished opinions and deeply-rooted prejudices? Shall we less welcome the truth, or glory in its advancement because of its laying bare our own individual errors? But the England of Von Raumer will be sadly and wickedly misconceived if it be really conceived as militating against a Republicanism here, which it opposes with absolute justice, in Great Britain, and Prussia. It will be sadly misconceived if it be regarded as embracing one single sentence with which the most bigoted lover of abstract Democracy can have occasion to find fault. At the same time we cannot help believing that it will, in some measure, be effectual in diverting the minds of our countrymen, and of all who read it, from that perpetual and unhealthy excitement about the forms and machinery of governmental action which have within the last half century so ab kind, individually, and nationally. He is a member of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin, and Councillor of the Court Theatre in which he labors to keep up the moral influence of that establishment as a school of art. He has constantly opposed absolutism in every form-especially the absolutism of exclusive political creeds. "If," says the Conversations Lexicon, "the much talked of juste milieu consists in endless tacking between two opposite principles, Raumer belongs rather to one of the extremes than to that. But if the expression is taken to denote that free and neutral ground on which a man, resting upon the basis of justice, and untrammelled by party views, combats for truth proved by experience, careless whether his blows fall to the right or the left-then Raumer unquestionably belongs to the juste milieu." He has written the History of the Hohenstaufen and their Time—a history richer than the richest romance-a work On the Prussian Municipal System-a work On the Historical Development of the Notions of Law and Government-Letters from Paris in 1830, a series of papers printed precisely as they were written to his family, and evincing a spirit of foresight nearly amounting to prophecy-so accurately were his predictions fulfilled-Letters from Paris in Illustration of the History of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries-a History of Europe from the End of the Fifteenth Century, in six volumes, of which one is yet to be published-a History of the Downfall of Polandin which although employed and paid by his govern ment he did not hesitate to accuse that government of for freedom, and the very antipodes of the English reinjustice-Six Dialogues on War and Commerce-The British System of Taxation-The Orations of Eschines and Demosthenes for the Crown-CCI Emendationes ad Tabulas Genealogicas Arabum et Turcarum-Manual of Remarkable Passages from the Latin Historians of the Middle Ages-Journey to Venice-Lectures on Ancient History—and some other works of which we have no The present Letters are printed just as the author wrote them from day to day. We are even assured that some mistakes have been suffered to stand with a view of showing how first impressions were gradually modified. account. cruiting and flogging system, may, perhaps, be more unintelligible to an Englishman, than all the theological and scientific curiosities of Oxford to a German. But what have military arrangements to do with our schools? If Lord Brougham has read any thing but the title-page of Cousin's work, he may and must know that all he said about the Prussian schools was entirely visionary, him. The doctrine of passive obedience and non-reand could only serve to mislead those who believed sistance, so long upheld by certain parties in England, is not known in our schools even by name; and if any Professor at Oxford should venture to speak of church and state as, thank heaven, any Prussian Professor is at liberty to do, it would certainly be said-the heretic and universities we know of no theological intolerance, brought church and state into danger. In our schools no exclusion of Dissenters, no idolatry of what exists for the moment, no forced subscriptions; yet we are not by this alienated from Christianity, but hold fast to the imperishable diamond of the Gospel without converting it into an amulet with thirty-nine points. In Prussia, then, it would seem the wickedness and impiety of every attempt to improve civil institutions is systematically enforced! In Prussia, which, without The plan of Von Raumer's work embraces, as may any boasting of journals and newspapers, silently ef well be supposed, a great variety of themes-the politi-fected the greatest reforms, and rose from a state of cal topics of the day and of all time-the present state aversion and opposition between citizens and soldiers abject degradation, like a phoenix from its ashes-the and future prospects of England-comparative views is abolished; the system of the defence of the country of that country, France, and Prussia-descriptions of is easy, yet general and powerful; the regulations of scenery about London, localities, architecture, &c.-commerce and of duties of custom freer than in any social condition of the people-society in high life-and other part of Europe; the peasants are converted into land-owners; a municipal system introduced twenty. frequent disquisitions on the state of art and musical sci-seven years ago, which England is now copying; and We will proceed, without observing any precise schools and universities placed on so firm a basis that order, to speak of some portions which particularly in- the calumnies of Lord Brougham can only recoil on his terested us. The book, however, to be properly appre-own head. From the descriptions of what is called the ciated, should be read and thoroughly studied. Mrs. Austin, the translator, however, has taken some liberties in the way of omission, which cannot easily be justified. Some animadversions on her friend Bentham are stricken out without sufficient reason for so doing. We learn this as well by her own acknowledgment as by ominous breaks in particular passages concerning the great Utilitarian. The latter portion of the book is translated by H. E. Lloyd. ence. Prussian compulsory system, one would be inclined to hounds, and driven every morning with blows to be believe that the children were coupled together like trained! Should a parent be so wicked as not to give his children any education, and purposely keep them from school and church, the law justly gives the magis have never heard of the actual application of outward have had a salutary effect in individual cases, but I compulsion-obtorto collo. Morality, sense of honor, general custom, conviction of the great advantage of a careful education, suffice among us to excite all parents accordance with our school laws it is considered as voluntarily to send their children to school. In perfect equally sinful to withhold nourishment from their minds as from their bodies. If we duly appreciate the spirit of the laws, cavils about the letter fall away; but even the letter has had a wholesome influence, and without the application of corporal restraint, in promoting the intellectual emancipation of the people. It appears that although Raumer was received with the greatest kindness by nearly all the leading men of all parties in Great Britain, he was treated with neglect if not with rudeness by Lord Brougham, who remained obstinately deaf to all overtures at an intro-trates a right of guardianship. This remote threat may duction. It does not appear from the course and tenor of these Letters that the harshness with which the traveller so frequently speaks of his Lordship, had its origin in this rude treatment. It is more probable that the rude treatment had its source in the knowledge on the part of Lord Brougham, that Raumer could expose many of his falsities in relation to municipal law and some other matters concerning Prussia. His Lordship's Report on the State of Education is especially the theme of frequent censure. The person (says our author) who judges the Prussian institutions most dogmatically is Lord Brougham. Our author's letter on the Finances of Great Britain He says "It may matter little what sentiments are in-will be read with surprise and doubt by many, but with culcated on all Prussian children by their military chiefs; but it would be something new in this country systematically to teach all children, from six to fourteen years of age, the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance, the absolute excellence of its institutions, and the wickedness and iniquity of every effort to improve them." If the noble lord, in the excitement of debate, and the flow of his eloquence, let such notions and words escape him, we cannot wonder; but that, when called on by a parliamentary committee to give a dispassionate, true testimony, he should have uttered things so entirely false, nay, so utterly absurd, cannot in any way be justified, or even excused. Sir Robert Peel compassionately intimates that our school-children are tormented by theologians, and Brougham places them under the rod and cane of the corporal. That our military arrangements are a school of freedom, and respect by all. He commences with an analysis of finance in general, and with a brief survey of many financial distresses which are as old as history itself His remarks on the absence of all finance in the middle ages will arrest attention. In these days men had no money, and yet did more than in modern times—they effected every thing, and we can effect nothing, without the circulation of the "golden blood." Every individual in those days, garnered, says Raumer, without the medium of money, what he wanted; and the whole was entirely kept together by ideas. It is only since Machiavelli-since the power of the middle ages was lost in the feudal and ecclesiastical systems, that we have had to seek a new public law, and a science of Finance. In regard to England, our author runs through | in their way, gave them the most rational comfort; or the weal of the church and of religion, (or of their Von Raumer presents a vivid picture of the miseries of Ireland. . Our author speaks of the dissolution of the Union as of a measure which would and should naturally be opposed by any person who has never seen Ireland, and who considers the case merely in a general and theoretical point of view-but allows that he can easily conceive how well-disposed persons may rely on this alternative as the most efficient remedy. He does not, however, approve of the demand—although he goes even farther than O'Connell. His propositions are nearly as follows: First, that provisions should be When I recollect (says he, after some distressing equally made for the schools and churches of the Pronarrations,) the well-fed rogues in the English prisons, I admire, notwithstanding the very natural increase of testants and Catholics, out of the church property already Irish criminals, the power of morality-I wonder that existing or to be created. Secondly, that the tithes should the whole nation does not go over and steal, in order to be abolished-that is, as a mode of taxation-not the enjoy a new and happier existence. And then the tax itself. It is observed, that to deprive the church of its English boast of the good treatment of their country- due, and to make a present of it, without any reason, men, while the innocent Irish are obliged to live worse than their cattle. In Parliament they talk for years to the landlord, would not only be an act of injustice, together whether it is necessary and becoming to leave but would operate to the prejudice of the poor tenants, $100,000 annually in the hands of the pastors of 526 Protestants, or $10,759 to the pastors of 3 Protestants, while there are thousands here who scarcely know they have a soul, and know nothing of their body, except that it suffers hunger, thirst and cold. Which of these ages is the dark and barbarous-the former, when mendicant monks distributed their goods to the poor, and, since the clergyman has not so many means to distrain the cattle as the temporal landlord, and generally is less willing to employ them. Thirdly, that poor laws should be introduced, taking care to avoid their abuses. This idea is in opposition to that of O'Connell, who dreads the misapplication of the laws as in England. Von VOL. II-65 Raumer acknowledges the difficulty of introducing them, Much of our traveller's time, while in Great Britain but insists upon the necessity. The difficulty proceeds was passed in close intimacy with her statesmen. Of from the want of a wealthy middling class in the coun- Russell, Spring Rice, Sir Robert Peel, and O'Connell, try-the true basis of all finance. To obviate this he speaks in terms of evident respect. From many want, he insists-Fourthly, upon a law respecting ab-passages in which he mentions the latter, we select the sentees. He denies the injustice of such law, and following. rejects as false that notion of private property which would impose on the land owner no duties, while it gives him unconditional rights. He does not, however, propose compelling the absentees to return home, but to pay more to the poor-tax than those I suddenly conceived the project of going straight from P-to his antagonist-to- (H- will be furious) to Daniel O'Connell. I found him in a small room, sitting at a writing table covered with letters, in his dressing gown. I began with apologies for intrud my interest in the history and fate of Ireland, and in his efforts to serve her. When I found he had read my Historical Letters I felt on a better footing. I could not implicitly accept his opinion concerning Elizabeth We agreed, however, on the subject of the much dis (which he has borrowed from Lingard) as a good bill. who are present. "Is this impossible?" he asks- upon him without any introduction, and pleated "have not the Catholics borne for centuries higher taxes than the Protestants? This was possible, without reason; and therefore the other would be very possible, with good reason." He suggests-Fifthly, the complete abolition of the system of tenants at will, and the con-puted and much falsified history of the Catholic conspi version of all these tenants at will into proprietors. "On reading this," he says, "the Tories will throw my book into the fire, and even the Whigs will be mute with astonishment. The whole battery of pillage, jacobinism, and dissolution of civil society, is discharged at me; but it will not touch me-not even the assertion that I would, like St. Crispin, steal leather in order to make shoes for the poor. Even the Radicals ask with astonishment, how I would work this miracle. There is a Sybilline book, a patent and yet hidden mystery, how this is to be effected; and there is a magician who has accomplished it—the Prussian Municipal Law, and King Frederick William III of Prussia." Granting that his proposal should be rejected unless both parties are gainers, our author proceeds to show that both parties will be so. That those who are raised to the class of land-owners would gain, is evident. That the present proprietors would gain, he asserts, is proved from the fact, that in the long run, the tenant-at-will is able to produce and to pay less than he who has a long lease, the latter less than the hereditary farmer, and the hereditary farmer less than the proprietor. The subject is discussed very fully and clearly in another letter on English Agriculture. racy of 1641. .... I am also perfectly of his opinion, that the tenants at will-those serfs-are in a worse condition in Ireland than any where, and that, both cal prosperity, their position is not comparable to that with regard to moral and intellectual culture, or physiof our thrice happy proprietary peasants. I told him that what he desired for Ireland had long been possessed by the Catholics of Prussia: and that hatred and dis content had expired with persecution..... The English Ministry first made this man a giant but he is a giant too, by the strength of his own mind and will, in com parison with the Lilliputians cut out of reeds, which we call demagogues; and which are forced to be shut up in the Kopenick hot-house, or put under a Mainz forcingglass to rear them into any size and consideration. Thank God, however, the governments of Germany do this prevailed, and prevailed with justice, O'Connells not prepare the ground for universal discontent. If must of necessity arise..... Your dissertation on the greatness or smallness of German demagogues (1 hear you say) is quite superfluous: you had much better have described to us what that arch agitator and rebel, gaunt man, with a thin face, sunken cheeks, a large O'Connell, looks like-What he looks like? A tall hooked nose, black piercing eye, malignant smile round the mouth, and, when in full dress, a cock's feather in his hat, and a cloven foot. That is just what I ima gined him!' cries one. But, as it happens, that is just what he is not. On the contrary, he has a round, goodnatured face. In Germany he would be taken for a good, hearty, sturdy, shrewd farmer: indeed he dis tinctly reminded me of the cheerful, sagacious, and witty old bailiff Romanus, in Rotzis. Professor Von Raumer makes a proper distinction between the nature and consequences of English agitation, and the agitation of many continental countries. In these latter we find anticipative and preventive polices-especially in France. When a movement breaks At page 391, Von Raumer alludes to some notices of out under a government employing this system, it is his historical works in the British Quarterlies. He com because the preventive means are exhausted, and thus plains of injustice done him in a review of his "Letters every thing rushes at once into disorder and irretrieva- from Paris in 1830." The Reviewer states that our ble confusion. A similar movement, however, in Eng-traveller did not court society, and that he professes land, (and the remark will apply equally to the United to have seen and become acquainted only with what States, although Von Raumer does not so apply it,) is suffered to gather strength and flourish until the overt act, and the citizen who dwells under the influence of the preventive system, would of course, in observing us, expect the same irretrievable confusion to ensue with us as with him. If our own government, or that of England, should attempt to interfere before the overt act, the administration would meet with no support. But when the movement has grown to an open violation of the laws, the case is different indeed. "In short," says our author, “what is regarded abroad as the beginning of a revolution, is, in reality, the crisis, and is, in a very different sense than in France, le commencement de la fin." strikes the eyes of every observer in the streets, tavern, and theatre. This is denied by Von Raumer, who de clares his chief associates to have been "wealthy met chants and distinguished literati, old and new peers, members of the Chamber of Deputies, the most cele brated diplomatists, and three of the present ministers of Louis Philippe." The remarks of our author upon Art, (in the extensive German signification of the word) are worthy of all attention and bespeak an elevated, acute, and comprehensive understanding of its properties and capabilities. Many pages of the work before us are devoted to comments upon the Architecture, the Painting, the Stage, and especially the Music of England, and these pages will prove deeply interesting to a majority of readers. At pages 143 he thus speaks of Mrs. Sloman. Lady Macbeth, Mrs. Sloman, a fiendish shrew, who must have been the torment of her husband's life long before the predictions of the witches. Even in the sleeping scene she betrayed only fear of discovery and punishment; and the exaggerated action, the rubbing of the hands, and seeming to dip them in water, and the rhetorical 'to bed! were very little to my taste..... To sum up my impression of the whole-an excess of effort, of bustle, and of accentuation, with every now and then, by way of clap-trap, a violent and yet toneless screaming. Exactly those passages in which these stage passions were the most boisterous and distressing were the most applauded. There is not a single wellfrequented German theatre (such as those of Vienna, Berlin or Dresden) in which so bad a performance as this would have been exhibited. Our traveller is in raptures with Windsor, and censures the tasteless folly of Buckingham house. Of the Italian opera in England he speaks briefly and contemptuously-nor does the national music find any degree of favor in his eyes. His criticisms on sculpture and painting are forcible and very beautiful. In some observations on the attic bas-reliefs, and the works from the Parthenon and Phigalia, to be found in the British Museum, he takes occasion to collate the higher efforts of Grecian art with the rudeness of Roman feeling, and the still more striking rudeness of the German and Italian schools of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. His remarks here are too forcible and too fresh to be omitted. rianism on pages 398, 399, an account of Bentham's penitentiary, and other matters) but we perceive that we are already infringing upon our limits. This book about England will and must be read, and will as cer tainly be relished, by a numerous class, although not by a majority, of our fellow-citizens. The author, we rejoice to hear, has engaged to translate into his own language the Washington Papers of Mr. Sparks. We will only add that Professor Von Raumer has the honor of being called by the English organ of the High Church and Ultra Tory Party, "a vagrant blackguard unfit for the company of a decent servants' hall." MEMOIRS OF AN AMERICAN LADY. Memoirs of an American Lady. With Sketches of Manners and Scenery in America, as they existed previous to the Revolution. By the author of "Letters from the Mountains." New York: published by George Dearborn. This work has been already a favorite with many of our readers-but has long been out of print, and we are glad to see it republished. Mrs. Grant of Laghan is a name entitled to the respect and affection of all Americans. The book, moreover, is full of good things; and as a memorial of the epoch immediately preceding our Revolution, is invaluable. At the present moment too it will be well to compare the public sentiment in regard to slavery, Indian affairs, and some other matters, with the sentiments of our forefathers, as expressed in this volume. In Albany and New York it will possess a local interest of no common character. Every where it will be read with pleasure, as an authentic and well written record of a most exemplary life. The edition is well printed on fine paper, and altogether creditable to Mr. Dearborn. These schools (the German and Italian) were, it is true, internally impelled by Christianity towards the noblest goal of humanity and of art, but they have unsuitably introduced the doctrine of election even into these regions. To the beautiful forms pardoned by God are opposed the ugly bodies of the non-elect; to the healthy, the sick; to the blessed, the damned. In theology, in philosophy, in history, this dark side of existence may be employed at pleasure, but when it appears in art I feel hurt and uncomfortable. ... This In the society I am describing, even the dark aspect caput mortuum may be wholly separated. It should of slavery was softened into a smile. And I must, in evaporate and become invisible. Not till this is accom-justice to the best possible masters, say, that a great plished can we place Christian art above Greek art, deal of that tranquillity and comfort, to call them by no as the Christian religion above the Greek religion. A higher names, which distinguish this society from all great confusion of ideas still prevails, in considering and others, was owing to the relation between master and judging of these things. How often have modern works servant being better understood here than in any other of art been praised in reference to the doctrine, and place. Let me not be detested as an advocate for slaancient works reprobated for similar reasons. But the very, when I say that I think I have never seen people demoniac is not a suitable subject for art, merely be- so happy in servitude as the domestics of the Albanians. cause he is mentioned in the Bible; or a Venus to be One reason was, (for I do not now speak of the virtues rejected, because the worship of the goddess has ceasof their masters,) that each family had few of them, ed..... Music without discord is unmeaning and and that there were no field negroes. They would retedious, and painting and sculpture likewise need such mind one of Abraham's servants, who were all born in discord. But every musical discord is necessarily re- the house, which was exactly their case. They were solved, according to the rules of art-while painters and baptised too, and shared the same religious instruction sculptors often leave their dissonances unresolved, and with the children of the family; and, for the first years, eternized in stone. In every discord I feel its transition there was little or no difference with regard to food or into euphony. It is but a motion, a creation of har- clothing between their children and those of their masmony; but no musician would ever think of affirming ters. that to sing out of tune is ever permitted, much less When a negro woman's child attained the age of that it is necessary in his art. The combats of the three years, the first new-year's day after, it was soCentaurs and Lapithæ display a chain of discords, lemnly presented to a son or daughter, or other young which originate, advance, and develop themselves relative of the family, who was of the same sex with one could set them to music without violating the rules the child so presented. The child to whom the young and euphony of the science. But were we to attempt negro was given, immediately presented it with some a similar musical transposition with many celebrated piece of money and a pair of shoes; and from that day statues, we should break all the strings of the instru- the strongest attachment subsisted between the domesment by the violence of the effort. tic and the destined owner. I have no where met with instances of friendship more tender and generous than that which here subsisted between the slaves and their masters and mistresses. Extraordinary proofs of them Some remarks on slavery, at page 41, will apply with singular accuracy to the present state of things in Virginia. We had noted many other passages for comment and extract-(especially a lively Philippic against Utilita |