injury to the faith of superior minds has been wrought by the quiet sneers of Goethe! French philosophy was a pert child that endeavoured with a pin to overthrow the Christian Cross; German philosophy may be compared to a hacker and hewer, who seeks, though with a blunted edge, to lay the axe to the root of the tree. Paris shouts, and yells, and hoots, and proclaims its own omniscience daily, and brings forth some new "Eureka," with every gust of popular fancy: but Germany has been long advancing, more slowly but more surely, towards a democratic goal, and seems moved, as by one consent, to hail the final dawn of the era of equality.

It is not to be questioned that an aristocratic and orthodox party still maintains itself in the north of Germany, more especially in Pomerania and Mecklenburg, as also partially in EastPrussia, Brunswick, Hanover, and even Brandenburg; nor can we deny that many individuals, more or less conservative in their views and tendencies, may still be found in various quarters of the Teutonic empire, as we may yet denominate those states in which the Teutonic mind, in some sense or other, rules supreme. Nevertheless, an apparent ascendancy has been acquired by the friends of democratic and pantheistic or infidel innovation in all the great cities of Germany (Hamburg perhaps excepted), whilst it must be admitted to reign in almost undisputed majesty over the existing literature of that country. There is this great difference betwixt France and Germany: in the former, Paris alone (if even Paris), is decidedly democratic in its views and tendencies; other cities, and the provinces generally, being favourable to the re-establishment of conservative order and a monarchical form of government, whilst even Paris is respectful to religion in Germany, on the other hand, Vienna, Berlin, Francfort, Dresden, Leipsic, Prague, Munich, &c. are all more or less rife for democratic revolutions, and the mind of the country as a whole is directly hostile to the cause of Christianity. These are melancholy facts: but our present purpose is not so much to mourn over, as to recognize and explain, them. No doubt, if the example of foreign lands could ever induce this favoured realm to barter her liberty for licence, and her religion for rationalism, Germany would be far more likely to incite us to such a course of emulation than France. The literature of the latter has never carried very serious weight with us, and it has lost ground of late in popular, at least national, estimation. German literature, on the contrary, has for some time exercised, and may be destined to exercise, an increasing influence over our own. Some of our most admired essayists and public writers are esteemed for their reflection of its worst peculiarities: many of

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our deepest thinkers have more or less strongly acknowledged its intellectual power: not only our philosophers, but our very theologians, tend to yield more and more attention to its claims, and become imperceptibly imbued with its spirit. It is a remarkable fact, that several of those, who have of late seceded from our National Church in search of an external infallibility, were first led to feel dissatisfaction with the ordinary evidences of faith, from their study of German thinkers, and philosophers, called." The German nation, whatever cause may be assigned for the fact, possesses not a single standard writer, with the exceptions of Frederick von Schlegel and Klopstock, who can be regarded as orthodox in religious views and bearings; and the vast majority of its writers of prose or poetry, within the last thirty years, are more or less openly democratic also. That democracy and infidelity should go hand in hand can appear strange to none: both are equally inimical to that principle of reverence for order and degree, on which the scheme of the visible universe may be said to be founded. No doubt, democrats may here and there be found, who are staunch and orthodox Christians and again, infidels, such as Hobbes or Goethe, may be essentially monarchical in their political views, and even favourable to despotism: nevertheless the general rule is such as antecedent judgment and consideration would lead us to expect.

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Such, then, is the existing aspect of the German mind. Christianity is regarded as effete as a Divine Revelation, devoid of value save such as may yet attach itself to its moral code; equality, or the absolute right to govern of the one direct majority, unhampered by any distinction of ranks or division of authority, is too generally acknowledged as the existing rule of things. Some of our readers may incline to imagine that this statement is exaggerated: we do not speak, however, without mature consideration, or without such acquaintance with the subject as may be supposed involved in a residence of many years, and a careful study of the Teutonic mind in its past and present developments: nay, we believe that the broad facts which now lie patent to the world will suffice to vindicate the truth of our assertions. For democracy, even now when we write, may be regarded as partially triumphant throughout Germany, despite the nominal authority of sovereigns who act as vicegerents to the Francfort congress. In Prussia as in Austria, in the minor German states as well, one democratic chamber exists, each and all of these subject to the central assembly, yet each in itself absolute, elected without any regard to rank or property by the one majority of the entire population. There are no chambers of peers, no second chambers of any order, left in existence, save in

one or two nominal instances: there is no virtual check to the supremacy of the democratic will.-An apparent re-action may manifest itself at this moment,-nay, does so, both at Vienna and Berlin. All honour to Frederick William! We forgot, for a moment, the innumerable difficulties of his position, and halfcondemned the monarch, whom our hearts have long loved, and with whom our sympathies must aye abide. His Quixotic rashness, in dismissing his defenders after some hours of civil conflict, and throwing himself on the mercy of his foes, we are still unable to approve but we confess that the error was one of greatness. His haste "to bid for imperial sway" we still regard as unbecoming; and, most of all, are we constrained to blame, his fanning of the popular flame against the rights of his Danish brother. But the vigour and resolution, displayed by him at the late crisis, have partially redeemed him in our estimation, and have again commended him to the prayers of all good men. Austria, too, has awakened from her trance. Democracy has been checked, seemingly crushed, by the valour of a Windischgrätz and a Jellalich. Yet, we regret to add, our convictions are still substantially the same. The destiny of both countries would still appear Republican! The system of one chamber elected by universal suffrage remains intact, and seems likely to do so; and we need not add that this is utterly inconsistent with any just balance of power, or the possession of rational freedom.

And, for the national infidelity of Germany, we see not how it can be questioned: here and there, no doubt, orthodox Christians may yet be found, in Brandenburg and Westphalia, and elsewhere but speaking broadly, the mind of the country is hostile to revealed religion; far more decidedly so than that of France. A popular confirmation of this hostility may be found in the rationalistic tone of the press of Germany, the "Augsburg Gazette" included. Whilst in England, no man, whatever be his personal opinions, dares treat Christianity with disrespect, or avow openly his disbelief of it, in any of our great public organs, the very contrary holds good in Germany, where vast moral courage would be requisite to embolden a writer to profess orthodox views in religion in any of the more widely-circulated journals of the country. In France infidelity might be supposed sufficiently rampant, yet an enormous contrast will be discovered betwixt the tone of De Lamartine, Thiers, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Eugene Sue, and even George Sand,-and that of the great lights of modern Germany, Gutzkow, Heine, Sallet, or even the moderate Gervinus.

Let it be the purpose of this essay, then, to inquire, how that existing spirit of irreverence originated and developed itself, which

now exercises such potent sway over our German brethren; let us trace the causes of this aversion to all constituted authority, of this licence in politics and rationalism in religion: let us endeavour to pierce to the heart of the seeming mystery, and ascertain, how a nation naturally gifted with lofty devotional instincts and a deep-rooted reverence for lawful authority, has degenerated to this democratic level, and assumed so menacing an aspect to the future welfare of humanity.

Our inquiry is obviously twofold, theological and political; but the two questions are so intimately interwoven that we cannot pursue them separately. We must retrograde some way to obtain a firm footing for our researches.-The aspect of Germany in the middle ages, though it has of course much in common with that of France and England, bears yet a special character of its own, being marked by the absence of that spirit of chivalry, which seems to have mainly attached itself to the Norman banner. German knights were, for the more part, rude and uncouth; honest, but savage, brave, yet devoid of gallantry, in the "trouvère" sense of the term. Despite the close connexion which subsisted for so long a time between Germany and Italy, the Teutonic and Ausonian elements never in any degree assimilated. German art, even, was harsh and stiff, and the ideal was little valued by the sturdy Saxon. Nevertheless, the mediæval development of Christianity, which held sway in Germany as in the rest of Europe, whatever might be its corruptions, was not deficient in romantic beauty, and lent some grace by its influence to the sports and customs of those ages. Germany had, too, a middle-age poetry of its own: its "Niebelungen Lied" with the whole cyclus appertaining to it, dates from the tenth century or thereabouts, and is replete with savage grandeur despite the clumsy homeliness which it occasionally exhibits. Two or three centuries later, in the ages more directly preceding the Reformiation, Wolfram von Eschenbach and Walther von der Vogelweide, with Gottfried von Strasburg and other knightly minstrels, arose, and founded a more polished school, which owed no little to the influence of the "Provençal Trouvères," and with much of Chaucer's freshness, combined perhaps more dignity of purpose and breadth of design. Still, the German race, as a whole, despite elfs and witches and hobgoblins, was not at that period poetical. Hans Sachs and his followers, with their dull formality and low humour, are perhaps the most characteristic embodiments of the main bearings of Teutonic mind, within the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The effect of the Reformation on its first development could scarcely be esteemed progressive. Whilst in England it heralded

the dawn of a mighty national literature, the Elizabethan, it operated in a negative direction amongst our German neighbours. Few authors of any celebrity arose, and intestine brawls and civil wars ensuing, plunged the nation into a state of apparently hopeless darkness. Thus Germany may be reasonably declared to have been centuries behind the other civilized countries of Europe in developing to a state of self-consciousness, in exhibiting external manifestations of the mind of her people. In the middle of the last century, when Frederic of Prussia came to the throne, whilst Italy, Spain, England, and France, in the order thus enumerated, had long accumulated stores of mental and literary trophies, Germany was the Boeotia of Europe, possessing indeed its universities and its learned professors, who sent forth ponderous controversial folios from time to time to its Leipsic book and treatise-market, yet wholly deficient in the original creations of mind, and destined, according to the then current faith even of its own greatest men, to endure the curse of perpetual sterility. To what should we attribute this state of things? Partly, perhaps, to "a tardiness of nature;" partly, no doubt, to the civil conflicts already alluded to, but, in a great degree also, as we believe, to the direct workings of the German Reformation. This is not an ecclesiastical article, and we are therefore only enabled to indicate the bearings of our argument; but setting all preconceived notions aside, derived from our natural admiration of episcopacy and our own Church institutions, so much may surely be admitted by all reasonable men: religion, however spiritual, should have a corresponding expression in the external world, or it cannot long maintain itself. Now Presbyterianism, as finally adopted by Luther and his followers, is cold and harsh in its forms, hostile to the developments of imagination and fancy, critical, and more or less mechanical. It encourages rather a constant cleaving to the first principles of the faith, than an attempt to carry those principles into action. It is antipoetical, and consequently sterile. Yet a literary manifestation could only be expected from the Protestant States of Germany. The Roman Catholic, taking refuge in blind obedience to an external infallibility, practically anathematized the intellect as "the accursed thing; as some of our living teachers would bid us do, "since the intellectual power is so liable to abuse." Neither Austria, nor Bavaria, nor the other States of Roman Catholic Germany, exhibited any symptoms of mental life. What movement there was, was confined to Protestantism: and this, after a period of strict Bible orthodoxy, first warm and real, but even then ungracious,-then cold, but still correct, finally tended to a moderate rationalism at the beginning of the eighteenth century.