The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Travels In Germany.
• Chapter I.: Courts For the Administration of Justice.
• Chapter II.: Hannover—civil Laws and Processes.
• Chapter III.: Criminal Laws—processes and Punishments.
• Chapter IV.: Hannover.—appropriation of Landed Property.
• Chapter V.: Hannover—agriculture.
• Chapter VI.: Hannover.—manufactories.
• Chapter VII.: Hannover.—commerce.
• Chapter VIII.: Hannover—schools.
• Chapter IX.: University of GÖttingen.
• Chapter X.: On the German Language.
• Chapter XI.: Literature.
• Chapter XII.: Influence of the Situation of the Germans On Their Literature.
• Chapter XIII.: Private Life and Morals.
• Chapter XIV.: Alteration of Morals.
• Chapter XV.: Cassel and Frankfort.
• Appendix.
• Appendix.: No. I.
• No. II. Persons Composing the States of Hannover.
• No. III.: Translation. Regulations For the Meeting of the General States At Hannover, the 15 Th December 1814.
• No. IV. List of the Public Lectures Given In One Year At Göttingen, For the Half Year Beginning In April 1818.
• No. V. Measures, Weights, and Monies, Mentioned In This Work.

CHAPTER XIII.

private life and morals.

Much has been already said, at various places in this work, on the manners and morals of the different classes of society in Germany; but, as something may yet be added, I shall here employ a whole chapter for the purpose. It is extremely difficult for a traveller to appreciate, from actual observation, the domestic manners of a foreign nation. He is seldom admitted to the privacy of family scenes; the natives are on their guard before him, and are generally clothed in some of those disguises, which they wear, like their apparel, more for fashion and shew than for comfort and convenience. He learns little or nothing of the amiability or rudeness of their domestic intercourse. He sees them at table, in the ball-room, in the saloon, when all the politeness, knowledge, and wit, which can be mustered, are brought on, rank and file, for the entertainment and accommodation of the company. Gallantry may lead to the chambers of the ladies, but that is an intercourse which spreads its own colours on every neighbouring object, and seldom allows a correct judgment to be formed of what is seen. A long residence in a foreign land makes the manners of the people familiar; and those slight differences of character, which distinguish one European nation from another, are then never remarked.

We are well acquainted with the manners of the people of Paris, and we have learnt them from the memoirs, letters, and novels, of the Parisians. I believe also, that any foreigner who has acquired a correct notion of our manners, has acquired it rather from our own writings than from his own actual observation. So far as I am acquainted with German literature, it contains but few works from which much information relative to their own morals and manners can be procured. The follies or vices of courts, which are much the same all the world over, have been sketched in the comedies of Iffland. Kotzebue deals more with the people at large, but he has so caricatured them, that the likeness can seldom be discovered. The novels of La Fontaine, though they lay claim to be representations of manners, are written with less regard to truth than to false and ridiculous effect. Goethe’s Memoirs, his Herman and Dorothea, his Wilhelm Meister, some of the smaller pieces of Schiller, and some of the poems of Bürger, may all teach something concerning German manners; but, in general, the Germans have few books written expressly for this purpose, and the traveller must be content with very moderate gleanings.

Much of the character of our countrymen is known from their public actions. But the Germans seem to do nothing more in public than teach and pray. Schools and churches are open to the stranger, but parliaments and courts of justice are closed. Unfortunately, also, the part of Germany which I had the most opportunity to become acquainted with, does not possess any of those celebrated men whose names are known all over Europe, and of whom the merest trifle is a matter of interest. The looks of such people seem regarded like amusing anecdotes. Hannover is in all things a humble town, to which even the presence of the Duke of Cambridge gave neither celebrity nor magnificence. On Saint George’s day, when there was a review and a levee held, the splendour was about equal to what we might expect at the house of a nobleman who commanded a corps of volunteers, and who did the honours of his sovereign’s birth-day to the military of some garrison town. Hannover has none of the scandal of a court. I am anxious, by these preliminary remarks, to caution the reader against expecting any of those amusing anecdotes which the title of the chapter might seem to promise, and to provide an excuse for not having it in my power to give any.

There seems to be no part of morals which is more deserving consideration than what is dictated by religion, and, though something has been said of the church government, it yet remains to describe the practices of religion. In Hannover the reigning religion is the Lutheran. In some other parts of Germany, the Catholic, or the Calvinistic modes of worship, are most prevalent. In no part are sectaries numerous, and the only conspicuous sects more than those mentioned, are the Herrenhuters and the Jews. It is said that there are in the whole kingdom 1,060,000 Lutherans, 160,000 Catholics, 90,000 Calvinists, 10,000 Jews, and 1000 Herrenhuters and Mennonites.

A particular instance of toleration,—the admission of Catholics to be members of the highest court of appeal in Hannover,—has been already mentioned, and Catholics may be generals or ministers of state. There is no law of exclusion. There is a pleasure in recording virtues, though they may not be our own, and the toleration which exists in Germany seems worthy of our imitation. No question is there made as to a man’s faith. He may believe either of the numerous fables which are commonly believed that he pleases, and if he deliver his reasons in support of it, he is sure to be listened to with attention and candour. Both Catholic and Protestant professors teach at the same university, and in the schools children of every description of parents listen to the same moral lessons. Men are not likely to persecute their school-fellows and their playmates, nor look with bitterness and anger on those with whom they have grown up to manhood, merely because they differ from them on some speculative point. In several parts of Germany the Lutherans and the Calvinists have recently joined in one common mode of worship, and, in 1817, the Catholics lent the Protestants the ornaments of their churches, that they might more pompously celebrate the centenary of the Reformation. The only restrictions on opinion, of which I heard, were on political opinions, and almost the only persecutions were of the Jews and of the philosophers. Kant was threatened with the loss of his professorship on account of some of his opinions, and Fichte was subjected to some sort of trial at Weimar, in 1807, for a similar cause, and he is said to have died of chagrin in consequence.

The Jews are still subjected to odious distinctions in many parts of Germany. In Prussia they enjoy protection the same as the other citizens. In Hannover they are not allowed to hold land, and each Jewish family must pay the sovereign a certain sum of money for protection. There are some certain trades which none of them are allowed to practise, and no one must live in the old town of Hannover. The poorer classes of Germans hate and despise Jews, because they envy them their wealth. Excluded from all places of honour and trust, the Jews naturally sought wealth as a means of buying protection and respect. They have not been strictly scrupulous in the means of obtaining it, and their conduct now serves as an excuse for persecuting them. The poorer classes of the Germans believe the most absurd stories of the Jews; such as, that they possess the power to make people wither and die under the curse which they have uttered in secret, and that children are driven mad by the wrath of their parents.∗

Toleration, in its most lovely form, seems to exist both in public and private life, to regulate the manners of the people, and to sway the councils of monarchs. We learn from history also, that this has long been the case, and we shall probably seek in vain for examples of tolerance in other European countries similar to what are found in Germany. When Louis XIV. of France was persecuting and banishing the Hugonots, John Frederick, the Duke of Kalenberg, and a friend of Louis, allowed his Protestant subjects to live in peace. This prince governed between the years 1665 and 1679; he was a zealous Catholic, surrounded by priests; he had the highest opinion of his own powers, frequently styling himself emperor in his own dominions; he was an active and intelligent prince. The greater part of his subjects were Protestants, yet he never ill-treated nor oppressed them, nor made any efforts to convert them to the Catholic faith.∗ When we compare his conduct to that of our James II. we immediately perceive either a superior penetration, or a want of that fiery zeal which drove our sovereign from his throne.

The members of the present royal family of Saxony, whose subjects are almost exclusively Protestants, have been Catholics for more than 100 years, that is, since 1697:† yet they have never oppressed their Protestant subjects, have never attempted to gain converts, or to make Catholicism the religion of the land. Although they differ in their religion from their subjects, they are probably as well beloved as any royal family of Europe. As common religious ceremonies are sometimes called spiritual drams, the gay chapel of the sovereign at Dresden, with its fine Italian singers, and exquisite music, may be called the very Champagne of religion. While the monarch, with his hands in a large white muff, was devoutly saying his prayers in the gallery, the lower part of this chapel was always filled with his Protestant subjects, who go there to take intoxicating draughts of the music and singing. For those persons to whom amusement is necessary, or who seek enjoyment in religion, there can be no question that Catholicism has many more charms than any other, and those who saw only that part of it which is seen in the chapel of Dresden, might easily justify preferring it to every other.

As it may teach us that no danger can ensue to the church of England, while its votaries are the majorities of the nation, from the sovereign being a Catholic, and while we may learn, from the tolerance of Catholic sovereigns to their subjects, to be ashamed of our own intolerant laws against Catholics, I shall here mention two other instances of Catholic sovereigns with Protestant subjects. Indeed, in most of the reigning families of Germany, some of the members profess a faith different from the majority of the people. The sovereigns of Wirtemberg were Catholics from 1733 to 1793—although, during that period, their subjects remained Protestants, and remained unpersecuted. Frederick, the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, the ally of George II. and George III., changed from a Protestant to a Catholic; yet he was not banished from his throne,—nor did he persecute his Protestant subjects.∗ More such instances might probably be found; and, compared with our own conduct, they seem to prove that Catholicism is not more intolerant than Protestantism. As another instance of the harmony which exists on the subject of religion between subjects and their sovereigns in Germany, I may mention the King of Prussia, who is a Calvinist, while the majority of his subjects are Lutherans; and he might be a Catholic if he pleased.∗

The manner in which different principles, some of which are called irreligious, have long been discussed in Germany, is a matter of public notoriety: and it may unhesitatingly be affirmed, that tolerance is greater in Germany than in any other part of Europe. It has also been greater for many years, and must have had a proportional influence. The Germans have known none of the angry passions of religious opposition, and know nothing of the bitterness of persecution. One part of their society has not been the declared religious enemies of the other; and the whole, therefore, display features of mildness and of love.

Various causes have conspired to produce this effect. Luther and his friends appear to have been more animated with their good cause, and less with worldly ambition, than most reformers. They laid it down as a rule that, as their Master and his apostles had given no direction for the government of the church, and had prescribed no form of worship, so each community must be left, in these particulars, to its own discretion. They recommended the Scriptures as the best guide to the several sovereigns and the inhabitants of those free towns which embraced the Reformation; and they assisted in drawing up forms of prayer, and prescribing religious ceremonies,—but they left the church to be modelled, particularly in its temporalities, by the people themselves.∗ Hence the government of the Lutheran church differs in almost every town and city in a variety of minute particulars, which helped to teach moderation to all. So long as the principle of not prescribing a form of church government, and of not fixing articles of faith and belief, was followed, there were no quarrels among the different sects of Protestants which grew out of the Reformation. But so soon as the Confession of Augsburgh had clearly prescribed the bounds of Lutheranism, there was a ground of exclusion for the Calvinists, and the two parties of Protestants became the enemies of each other. The Reformers did not adhere to their principle throughout; and while the Reformation, which they had themselves brought about, was a great change, they vainly attempted to fix their own rules for ever on their children. Every improvement is a change, and nothing can be more absurd than to prevent improvement by those fixed regulations which proscribe every change. Till they had this fixed Confession, the Protestants of Germany went on rapidly improving; and though differences of opinion then existed sufficient at length to teach all parties moderation, it was long prevented by fixing as dogmas what ought to be for ever left to discussion.

There is one point in which the Lutheran church is almost every where the same. The clergy have little or no wealth, and they have no political power. Their salary is proportionate to their labours, and they have ceased to stir up the spirit of persecution, because no worldly wealth or power was to be gained by it. Ever since the Reformation, whatever religion the sovereigns might profess, they have always been superior to the priesthood. Wherever the church retained a power nearly equal to that of the magistracy, as in the Hanse Towns, there intolerance was, and is greater, than where it lost all its worldly dominion. Exclusive, therefore, of the poverty which an opulent priesthood entails on the industrious classes of a society, there is a powerful motive, in the persecution such a priesthood has always occasioned, why it ought not to be allowed to grow into existence.

The authors of Lutheranism were not sour, morose, and disappointed men—the enemies of natural pleasure, and the lovers of mystical dogmas. “As for the Lutherans,” says Riesebeck,† (and the observation is correct,) “they possess part of the humour of their founder, and, to a high degree of frugality, unite a great love of pleasure and jollity. An unnatural hatred of joy does not damp their wit and good temper. They have none of the savage slovenliness, the dark hypocrisy, and the ill-breeding, which distinguish the majority of other sects.”∗ The strong natural sense of Luther seems to have extended itself to most of the actions of his followers; and they did not fill their books with absurd and incomprehensible creeds. They lost their worldly grandeur, and nothing remained to excite envy; and, as they did not impose “articles” and tests on the consciences of men, there was no motive for opposition and hatred. Hence few sects have grown up in Germany, and hence the people are mild and tolerant.∗

To these causes may be added the fact, that the Germans, more particularly the northern Germans, seem never to have been so degraded by Catholic superstition as some other of the nations of Europe. The reader may see this fact fully explained in Venturini, Vol. III. p. 36. The passage is too long to quote. The senses were less dazzled in Germany, and the understanding less deluded, than in Italy. Poverty had not allowed superstition to be arrayed in all its pomp; and Luther, according to this author, was successful because he had less delusion to combat.

An increase of knowledge has utterly changed the character of the Germans. They were dark, cruel, and unrelenting. They were persecutors and martyrs. They were bigots and ferocious murderers. Now, they are gentle, mild, and forgiving. When such a lovely change has taken place in some of their evil passions, it is only rational to extend the inference which may be drawn from this fact to the whole race, and to hope that all our evil propensities may be rendered harmless, or extirpated by an increase of knowledge. By the progress of opinion, ferocity and bigotry have been changed to gentleness and tolerance; and there is no reason to despair that the lust of wealth, which is our present curse and crime, may not be so modified as to produce, at a future period, nothing but honest pains-taking industry and ingenuity.

On Sundays, some few people go once to church. They sing psalms, they hear prayers and a sermon, and are dismissed with a blessing. Sunday is rather a day of recreation than of prayer; and the dancing-houses are more crowded towards evening than the churches at mid-day. Church-going is not a matter of necessity in Germany, and, in truth, few people go to church. The inhabitants of the towns communicate seldom: those of the country flock in crowds to partake of the bread and wine.

Among the followers of Luther, confirmation seems to form an epoch in their lives, which, like their marriage, is never forgotten. In England, it reminds one of the story told by Dr Franklin of saying grace over a whole barrel of beef. Our young people procure a certificate from any priest they please; they collect in numbers in a church, and are blessed in dozens by the bishop; they remember the ceremony from the quantity of people, and probably because they then saw lawn sleeves for the first time in their lives. In England it seems to be a matter of indifference whether people are confirmed or not. In Hannover the law orders every body to be confirmed; and no Lutheran there reaches his 18th year without paying the priest for dispensing to him, as the law says, “The great and wonderful advantages which come, even in this unmiraculous age, from laying on hands in public.”

Previous to being confirmed, the children are instructed by the clergymen during several weeks; and even the young girls are publicly examined in the church, that they may testify their fitness to be admitted members of the congregation. This public examination, and the confirmation, are very trying, and seem to be thought very momentous by the children. They are collected in the body of the church, totally separated from the rest of the assembly. Those whom I saw were dressed in black; the girls wore white shawls, and had flowers in their bosoms, and the little things trembled and cried through the whole two hours which the ceremony lasted. They were, for the whole of this time, the exclusive objects of attention. The clergyman prayed for them, he preached to them, he questioned them, and he called on them to testify their faith aloud. When they had done this they were led to the altar, and allowed to communicate for the first time in their lives. The ceremony seemed impressive. The clergyman, the congregation, and the children, all wept. The latter, indeed, seemed to suffer much. It was a sort of tragedy, in which all were actors. “This painful solemnity,” I was told, “made a more powerful impression;” and I was not a little surprised to learn, from several young women, that they remembered the day on which they were confirmed as one of the sweetest of their lives. After confirmation they go no more to school. At the end of the ceremony they receive the congratulation of their friends, and they are changed at once, as it were by magic, from boys and girls into men and women. These following consequences make this day of trembling and of tears a day of sweet recollections throughout life.

This ceremony is one of the many instances of the manner in which an ambitious priesthood established that dominion over other men which is now so fast decaying. There is a period of life at which instruction must cease, and at which the ambition of children must be gratified by a participation in the pursuits and employments of their parents. This period has been sanctified by a religious ceremony, that the power of giving or of withholding the pleasure might belong to the priests. Nothing, surely, is more natural than love; but they have persuaded us that even its joys are unholy if they are unsanctioned by them. A day of rest which every man should take when it is convenient to him, and which, when it is general, is to both man and animals a most beneficial institution, has been likewise claimed by the priests as a gift of religion, that they might build their power on our most innocent enjoyments. Our entrance into life, our rest from labour, the joys of love, and even our death, have all been turned by these gentlemen to the account of their firm, as if they were derived from them, and gave them a claim to our gratitude and obedience. If it were possible for the man to trace, through the whole of his life, every sensation which has ever entered into the composition of the sentiment of faith, or which now make up the consolations of religion, it would be a curious inquiry to ascertain how much of this sentiment and of these consolations were derived from the sensual enjoyments with which all religious truths have been combined. The mincepies, songs, gambols, and friendly parties at Christmas—the fritters of Shrove Tuesday—the pudding-pies of Lent—the geese of Michaelmas—the fine clothes and amusements of Sunday—the pompous ceremonies of the church—and, above all, the manner in which faith is sung into the heart with sweet and solemn music, and in which it is taught to us in multitudes, when men catch enthusiasm from one another∗ —are probably some of the most powerful ingredients in what is called religious emotion. The very attempt to analyse it takes from it all its pleasure, and all its influence, except that which it derives from the truth combined with these sensual enjoyments.

The whole conduct of the Germans seems to me to partake of that gentle and tolerant character which also belongs to their religious practices. There is a quietness, placidness, and cheerfulness in their countenances, a readiness to oblige, and a true and estimable politeness, which can be much better felt and enjoyed than described. I should have thought either that my estimate of their character was wrong, or that I had been peculiarly fortunate in the individuals I had encountered, had I not recently seen my opinion confirmed by the author of the Life of Haydn. In numerous parts of his work, he displays his knowledge of “the native goodness of German hearts.” There is nothing in this which is strongly expressive—nothing which he who runs may read. There is no contortion of countenance, and absurdity of conduct—no strength of phrase and vigour of step—but all is calm, quiet, and methodical. The following instances of politeness may be taken as specimens of their general conduct:—

I became acquainted in Hannover with a most respectable gentleman. In the course of our conversations I remarked, that, in consequence of the general secrecy observed on matters of government, it was difficult to acquire any accurate knowledge of them. In a few days afterwards, he invited me to visit him on purpose to introduce me to a gentleman holding a high situation under government. From both I repeatedly received marks of kindness and attention no unknown stranger can ever rationally expect. If I have any regret at the nature of my remarks on the Hannoverian government, it is only because I think they impose on me the necessity of not mentioning the names of these gentlemen. I should have been otherwise proud to record them as the names of men who knew and practised the most estimable politeness. By another gentleman, who was also a stranger to me, I was introduced to one of those public reading rooms, which are such agreeable places, both of amusement and instruction. I experienced repeatedly such instances of kindness, my wants and my wishes were often prevented by a politeness that seemed to delight in finding out what would be agreeable to me. This is a part of the German character which necessarily escapes the notice of those travellers whose acquaintance with the people does not extend beyond the inhabitants of their hotels, and beyond a knowledge of some distinguished men. It is found in all classes, and has left in my mind an indelible esteem for their private character. That part of hospitality, which consists in feasting strangers, seems rare. In truth, they do not abound in wealth, and are obliged, in general, to live so economically, that they have no power to waste much on strangers. But, among themselves, there is a better hospitality, which the foreigner learns when he becomes intimate with them, which makes them offer him a share of their family meals without ceremony, and which frequently invites him to partake of their evening amusements, of the morning dram, or of the refreshing coffee.

I have already frequently mentioned the delight they seem to have in cultivating and adorning their gardens; and it seems to be done less from ostentation than from real love to the amusement. The taste for flowers is carried into their houses, and roses or hyacinths adorn all their windows. As spring approached, husbands and wives, parents and children, rich and poor, were seen every evening cultivating a thousand little spots lying in the neighbourhood of Hannover. This taste is nearly universal, and serves at once to adorn the land and tranquillise the passions.

The reciprocal presents they make at Christmas, and on birth-days, seem also proofs of a gentleness and amiability of character. Such presents are made in other countries. Les etrennes of the French are, however, the gifts of vanity and gallantry, and are little more than baits for sensuality. The Christmas boxes of England have degenerated to mere fees of office, not always willingly given; but Das Weihnachts Geschenk of the Germans is the offspring of friendship or love, and is made by all classes. Towards Christmas, fairs are held in the towns, in order that all persons may provide themselves with what they mean to give. There is not a wife in the whole country who does not lay by some of her pennies to purchase a present for her husband. There is not a husband who does not pilfer his till, or curtail his pleasures, that he may give something to his wife. There is not a maiden nor a youth who is so unlucky as not to have some friends with whom gifts are exchanged at this season. The rich buy luxuries and ornaments—the poor necessaries. The prince and the noble decorate their rooms with evergreens, that they may make the presents they give to their children and servants more acceptable. Boys receive skaits, or guns, or new clothes—girls, albums, work-baskets, and necessaries. The wife buys her husband a coat, and she receives a new gown, or some article of furniture. Whoever is not so dreadfully poor at Christmas as to have no friends, and nothing to give, is then happy; for he has something over which he exults, which is a secret for some persons, and a subject of conversation with others. The nature of the present is carefully concealed from those who are to receive it till the moment it is given, though it is always something for which the person receiving it has expressed a desire.

Between Berlin and Leipsic I had for a short time a female companion, who had sufficient reason to complain of her situation. She had three children, and though both her husband and she were always ready to do any kind of work, they could barely obtain a subsistence. Their united labours procured them about 1s. 6d. per day. She complained of nothing so much, however, as that she had received no Christmas gift. She had never before known the season to pass without receiving something, and never, she said, “were times so hard.” These are quiet offices of kindness, and sources of attachment and affection, which a mere traveller can rarely observe, and which, if he saw them occasionally, he might imagine were displayed for some purposes of deceit and ostentation, if he had not inquired and found them universal.

The presents which are given on birth and name days are like Christmas presents, and are given by parents, children, and friends. They are an interchange of visible signs of love, and serve to bind all the parties together by acts of kindness. In Die silberne Hochzeit, one of the best of the comedies of Kotzebue, is a very good description of the eagerness with which a whole family of children tried to make themselves acceptable to their parents by the presents they made them on their wedding-day. There is perhaps a little more outward shew in such acts than suits our character, but there seems also to be a light tenderness and cheerful affection that are almost unknown to us.

With all this gentleness, however, of the polished classes, there is yet a sort of rudeness and cruelty amongst the lower classes of the people. The murders which have been mentioned in the Chapter on Criminal Laws is one proof of this, and another, and more important one, because more general, is, that both masters and mistresses yet occasionally permit themselves personally to chastise both male and female servants. Some instances came under my observation, and I have heard of several more. The relation betwixt masters and servants is so perfectly derived from the barbarous feudal laws, that the charity of feeling which is so common in other parts of their conduct, seems not yet to have extended to this. An equality of political condition has many advantages; and it prevents the opposite vices of servility and pride, of meanness and arrogance, of hatred and cruelty. There can be no doubt that this unfavourable trait of character in the Germans has been occasioned by their want of political equality.

It is well known that music is most extensively cultivated in Germany; that there is scarcely a young man or woman, of decent family and education, who does not both play and sing scientifically; but perhaps it is not so well known that the words are as musical as the people, and these have borrowed some part of their taste for harmony from the songsters of the forests. Never did I hear so many nightingales as sang every evening in the vicinity of Hannover. Other places are equally blessed with them, and all the woods resound with notes of harmony which respond to the voice of the people.

To an extensive cultivation of music, and an extensive education, the Germans add a great love for society, and such a gentle stream of pleasure flows through their life, that they have no time left to brood over anger, or to nourish disdain. In every town there are some public rooms constantly open, where society, amusements, and books, are always to be had, and no sooner is ennui felt than relief is sought in some place of this kind. They pass much time in society, and smoke, and game, and converse a great deal, and they seem to be easily made happy by trifles. They have no Birmingham festival once a-year, but music is their hourly relaxation. They have neither routes nor squeezes, and yet they are constantly in society; they look on it as a source of enjoyment, and not of ostentation. Every thing seems to interest them. A new game of chess, a newly-discovered insect or plant, or an event on which the fate of mankind depends, seemed to be equally regarded, and to excite an equal degree of warmth. Passion seldom mixes in their conversation, disputes never. Even when the uproar at Göttingen excited universal remark, the party-spirit was only visible in a somewhat greater warmth of phrase. Their conversation is light and agreeable, but not important. A people who are constantly occupied with trifles cannot speak of matters of importance. When men regard sucking tobacco smoke through a wooden tube as one of the greatest earthly enjoyments, they may also possess a love for light and agreeable amusements, but they will hardly combine with these any special admiration for what is noble and grand. And, accordingly, though I always found something to amuse me in the conversation of the Germans, I rarely observed any thing in it to admire, or received from it any valuable information.

German pride, says the author of the Life of Hadyn, is ridiculous only in the printed accounts of their ceremonies; the air of kindness which accompanies the reality, gives a pleasing colour to every thing.∗ We are apt to imagine them a stiff and ceremonious people, when we learn that there is no man, from his excellency a cabinet-minister to a door-waiter, who is not addressed in conversation by his title of office. Women also receive the titles of their husbands, and must never be addressed without this mark of dignity. Die gnädige Frau Ministerinn—My Lady Minister,—Mrs Secretary—as the wife of a copying-clerk is called, and Madame Shoemaker, all have their titles bandied to them whenever they are spoken to by equals or inferiors. In point of phrase, they certainly surpass the ceremony of the Parisian water-carriers, but, like them, they accompany their ceremony with much good will. By the bye, the politeness of those men of pails does far more honour to the peasantry of France, who go in crowds yearly to Paris to fill this honourable office, than to the Parisians themselves, who are too much lost in selfishness to know any thing of true politeness. With a ceremonious mode of address, however, there is a freedom and a familiarity of communication. The stiff disdainful pronoun, the third of the singular, with which great people were accustomed to speak to tradesmen and servants, is going out of fashion. Strangers are readily associated with, and indeed sought after, and no introduction is wanted to make the most agreeable acquaintance. Taverns are frequented by the learned and the great, and you may become acquainted with some of the first men of the country at a table d’hote. Parents and children address each other freely and without reserve. Pleasing epithets are in common use. A husband, a wife, a relation, or friend, is seldom spoken to without the epithet My dear, or Beloved. A stranger or acquaintance is soon called My dear, or My best friend. The Deity is rarely spoken of without some term of love. Such epithets, according to the laws of association, serve to produce in the minds of those who use them those gentle affections for which they stand. The people are made by them kinder to each other, and the Deity is stripped of half those terrors with which he has been clothed by an ambitious priesthood. Terms of endearment are, however, too often used without discrimination, and the affections are somewhat weakened by being spread alike over worthless and valuable objects.

I once called on a magistrate, and unthinkingly asked if Mr—was at home. Mr—,the consistorial councillor, is not at home, was the stately reply of the servant. I resolved afterwards not to forget any person’s title. This gentleman received me, however, without any ceremony whatever, and executed the little business I had with him with great dispatch. I have entered apartments, both as a stranger and as an acquaintance, when they were yet littered with the night-dress and breakfast apparatus, and when the persons were in their morning-gowns and slippers. I had, on another occasion, to ask a magistrate for permission to see the workhouse of Hannover, and, while he regretted that other occupations prevented him accompanying me, he continued to regale himself with his pipe, and, very deliberately resting the bowl on the far side of his desk, he smoked on as he wrote me the permission.

The rulers of Germany, or their ministers, may have busied themselves, and have wrangled whether they should sit at feasts in arm-chairs or chairs without arms, but such follies have either not descended to the people, or are now entirely banished. There was a time when nobles and persons not noble never breathed the air of the same room, but as masters and servants;—when public places, such, for example, as the Aue Garten at Vienna, could be entered only by those persons who were enrolled in the College of Heralds. To this day an inscription remains at Herrenhausen, a seat of the King’s close to Hannover, telling the citizens they are at liberty to sit on the benches round the large fountain, when the said benches are not required by strangers and people of distinction. The pride of the aristocracy may have excluded citizens from its parties, though this is not always the case, and never extends beyond their private circles. In all public places, the mixture of all ranks, whatever may be their political names and privileges, is perfect. Persons of any one class are not to be distinguished, either in their manners or their dress, from those of any other, and this mixture compensates to the citizen for much of the nominal superiority of the noble. At the subscription reading-room in Hannover, before mentioned, the museum, which was frequented by several nobles, there appeared to be no other qualification required in the members, than that they were gentlemen, and of irreproachable character. In this society the Lord-Chamberlain, the President of the Justice-Chancery, the Director of the High-School, the Inspector of the Seminary, pastors, advocates, army officers, amtmen, surgeons, all familiarly associated with each other. The nobles have a particular club, into which none but nobles are admitted; but in most of the towns of any importance there is a society like this, of which all gentlemen may be members. At public concerts, the best seats are sometimes kept for ladies, but the nobles at the same time stand, and speak, and mix with grocers, confectioners, and tinmen. The nobles still keep political offices in their own hands; but that broad distinction of men into casts, of which we have heard so much, no longer exists. It may be doubted if the aristocracy of wealth, whose signs are so easily distinguished, be not now more punctual in its separation into castes than the aristocracy of birth. Certainly if an individual of one caste glides into another caste, he only effects it by assuming the external marks of the caste into which he intrudes. The distinctions of wealth are broader and more precise than those of birth, and, with all our democratic institutions and boasting, ours is the country of Europe in which there is the greatest inequality, and the most marked distinctions between men.∗

A ceremonious manner of writing, somewhat similar to that of speaking, is also common to the Germans. They pay a vast deal of attention to give each other all sorts of pleasing and meritorious titles; such as well-born, or high-born, or high and wellborn, with all the possible distinctions of birth. A polite and friendly invitation to visit a club or society addresses the stranger as a highly-prized, most estimable, and honourable gentleman. Our language has scarcely any corresponding terms to those of Hochfürstliche, Allerdurchlauchtigste, Grossmächtigste, Allergnädigste, &c. &c. which are used in addressing the mighty sovereigns of 20,000 men, and of L. 5000 revenue per annum.

The numbers are couples. The first columns contain those who are wholly divorced; the second those who have a separate maintenance. The list is taken from Jacobi and Kant’s Annals of Brunswick Lüneburg. From the same work I learn that the number of applications for divorce, in the quarter of the year beginning Easter 1793, was 54. In the last quarter of the same year the number was 48. In the quarter beginning Easter in the year 1795, the number of applications was 53. I have met no later records of this kind, in consequence of this work not being further carried on. There is some reason, however, to believe, that the numbers have not since then decreased.

I have given this list of divorces, though rather old, as a sort of document relative to the domestic morality of the people. I should suppose, considering the number of people, that the number of divorces is great. Compared with our own country, they can only be considered as an evidence of the less expence of a divorce in Germany than in Britain; and, probably, that the marriage tie is somewhat less strictly regarded, where the sanction both of government and of religion must be added to that of nature, than it is with us, who need only the sanction of religion. There it has been doubly fortified; both the priest and the king must confirm the impulse of nature and the affections of the heart, or their gratification remains unholy.

The quantity of divorces is perhaps not an accurate criterion for judging of the character of the intercourse of the sexes, for who can tell how many intrigues never end in divorce? Individual experience is also of no use. It may be so much the measure of the individual’s power to please as of frailty. It can also be rarely had recourse to, for there is no worse traitor than he who exposes to public scorn the face that was hid in his own bosom. The opinion of the Germans, so far as it has been gathered from the writings of their authors, from their conversation, and from the manner in which people guilty of faux pas are treated in society, appears to be by no means favourable to the encouragement of chastity. Marriage is generally a contract for an establishment in which affection has no share, and in which fidelity is not one of the stipulations. At the age of thirty, when the round of libertinism has been beaten, if a man have any property, he thinks it right to secure an heir to it, and looks about for the most convenient wife, according to his circumstances. He asks her of her parents; her heart has no share in the choice. She is bestowed as a present. She is thus taught to undervalue all she has to give, and she is ever afterwards ready to bestow it on whoever may have a better claim, by pleasing herself. It is the men of Germany who have degraded the women by making a property of them, and they have no right to complain.

There is hardly any part of Germany in which public women, except those of the very lowest description, can be distinguished from other women, till darkness permits a more open display of the signs of their avocations. Their trade does not seem necessarily connected, as in our country, with numerous other vices. Public opinion does not banish them into corners, nor doom them to bear any conspicuous marks of guilt, and they have no occasion to assume a hardened impudence, or have recourse to drunkenness to stifle shame. The distinction between public women and other females seemed stronger in Hannover than in most other parts of Germany.

They are there few, and in general distinguished by a flaming vulgarity of dress and rouged faces. For concealed dissoluteness it is like other places. At one end of the Kalenberg Street there always sat rather a nice-looking girl selling fruit and cakes. This was the visible means she had of getting a livelihood,—what she presented to the police as her occupations, and to her neighbours as her character. Her invisible occupations, her hidden sale, were something different. She was seen, towards evening, accompanied by a child, walking in the different streets, giving signs to whoever she thought likely to attend to them.

It is a notorious fact, that, among the higher classes, a want of reputation does not exclude women from society. This is also true of the middling classes. At balls I have seen young women who were described as of very doubtful reputation, and, in a private circle of the middling classes, in which were mothers and daughters of unblemished fame, a lady and her daughter were pointed out to me, the former of which was notoriously kept by a man not her husband, who was at the same time said to be the lover of her daughter. His appearance was almost a security for any lady’s reputation. It was natural to ask how he could succeed. He was rich, and the women here, as in other places, can give themselves up to dotage and ugliness for fine clothes, gay ornaments, and the miserable gratification of their vanity.

“Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare, And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair.”

From such a fact, and from the facts that parents talk of such things before their daughters, as mere matter of amusement, without reprobating them, much more may be inferred of the state of morals than from any accurate enumeration of divorces, or from any single anecdotes of intrigue. No person would have dared to venture into such a society with a torn coat or a dirty gown. These ladies and their paramour would not have intruded in a morning-dress, but they come clothed in all the deformities of vice; and when these are not reprobated, there is a great chance they will be practised. When the chaste and the unchaste are equally admitted into every society, and are equally honoured and respected, there are no other motives for chastity than what may be derived from bodily temperament.

There are some virtues possessed by the women of the north of Germany which must be here remembered, that it may not be thought they are worse than they are. From the good education which is common to all classes, you find females in the middling ranks of life, who have read, in the original language, and justly appreciated, most of our celebrated works. Walter Scott, Miss Edgeworth, and Lord Byron, are known to them without the help of translations. There are few English ladies who can say as much of those works of Goethe and Schiller, of which they, however, speak very fluently. It is not uncommon to meet, among the females of the middling classes, many who not only know and practise music, but who are also acquainted with both the language and literature of France and England. Many of them are also good housewives, the managers of the kitchen and the sempstresses of the family. The education of the higher classes is equally attended to, though they necessarily follow the fashion, by seeking, in amusement and dissipation, that forgetfulness of care which other people find in their necessary employments.

It is probably owing to their excellent education that the ladies, finding amusement in literature, have not yet reached that extreme point of civilization at which nothing is regarded as of any value but sumptuous dresses and superb furniture. A love for ostentation is rapidly increasing in Germany, but it does not seem to have reached so far as to suppress in the heart every other affection. They have not yet arrived at the most glorious practical conclusion, that man is nothing to his house, and that he may be sacrificed, provided it glitters with polished ornaments and shining furniture. Finding amusement in their books and music, it does not seem to be necessary to their bliss to condemn a large number of immortal beings to degradation, that their rooms may be resplendent and be admired.

The Germans have a method of hawking their affections in public, which robs them of much of their sanctity and holiness. There is a mawkish display of love between persons of different sexes that is rather indelicate and disgusting. In both public and private rooms, when other persons have been present, I have seen husbands kiss and fondle their wives, and young men bestow those caresses which are better reserved for secrecy. This probably gives them a reputation for unchastity which they do not deserve.

The manner in which baptisms, marriages, and deaths are announced, seems to partake of this character of publicity. Such events are officially notified by the parties themselves. A man informs the public and his friends, through the medium of a newspaper, “that his wife yesterday added to his happiness by presenting him with a boy, who remains, with his mother, in perfect health.”—“We hereby,” says a newly-married couple, “inform our friends that our marriage was consummated on the 29th day of last month.” A widow advertises, “that the death of my beloved husband, Daniel Leibgot Rau, from apoplexy, on the 28th of October, has inflicted great sorrow on me and on my young daughter. I make this heart-rending death hereby known to my friends, and I beg their silent pity. I continue the occupations of my husband, and solicit all those who honoured him with their custom to continue the same favour to me. His last poem, on the Centenary of the Reformation, that was printing at his death, is now to be had of me.—12th of November 1817.” The regulations of the police, also, have some influence on this part of the character of the people. They oblige every man to notice every alteration in his family to it. When a child is born to him, or one dies, or he brings home a wife, or discards a mistress, he must give official notice of the alteration in the number of his family to the police. This seems to be treating men something like beasts, in whom their rulers have a property. Our best affections are degraded to a level with a partnership in trade, or a common mercantile speculation. To gratify the impertinent curiosity of the magistrate or his nonsensical regulations, neither the griefs nor the joys of the heart are allowed to be secret and sacred. They must all be open to his inspection and registered in his book. The art, or science, or craft, or knavery, whichever it may be, of government, considers man as a sort of machine, that can be wound up, and made to point with its index to some events the magistrate wishes to be acquainted with.

[∗]These unfortunate prejudices have lately been the cause for the Jews being insulted and oppressed.

[∗]Spittler’s Geschichte, Vol. II. History of the reign of this prince.

[†]I have lately read the Travels of Mr Jorgenson, in Germany, who seems to wish to shew that faithlessness has long been characteristic of the sovereigns of Saxony. If they are to be judged by their vacillations during the thirty years’ war, and the wars of religion prior to that period, they must not be stigmatized more than the other sovereigns of Germany, for they seem all to have vacillated alike. Mr Jorgenson is wrong in the period at which he says the royal family of Saxony became Catholic, and this error may be taken as a specimen of the probable correctness of some facts which he has given, “though no historians have narrated them.” It was Augustus, the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, who changed, towards the end of the seventeenth century, from Protestantism to Catholicism.—(Putter, Vol. II. p. 353.) But Mr Jorgenson makes this Augustus the brother and successor of Maurice, who died in the year 1553, and who, consequently, lived near a century and a half prior to the Augustus who changed his religion. I may also add, in order to justify the Saxons from some of Mr Jorgenson’s remarks, that, during the three months I remained in their country, I saw nothing but what was amiable, polite, and friendly. If any difference could be discovered between them and the other Germans, they appeared more gentle, more kind, and softer. I know that this opinion of the Saxons accords with the opinions of many English travellers, and of many Germans. If it were not for the influence of political prejudices, it would be difficult to understand how Mr Jorgenson could single out the Saxons as the only exception to the good character he has in general so justly given to the Germans. There can be no justification of telling untruths even of a tyrant and oppressor, but it is surely much worse to calumniate a whole people to justify the ambition and the imagined expediencies of political charlatans.

[∗]Hassel.

[∗]Demian Handbuch, p. 123.

[∗]See Putter, Vol. I. p. 373–381; Spittler, Vol. I. p. 137, where there is an example of the inhabitants of a very small town making regulations for their own church.

[†]Letter 46.

[∗]Luther seems to this day to be as much remembered as the apostle of good living as of religion. He is thus commemorated in song:—

• D’rum stosset an,
• Und singet dann:
• Was Martin Luther spricht: : : .

• Chor: Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib und Gesang
• Der bleibt ein Narr sein Lebenlang,
• Und Narren sind wir nicht.

“Then let us drink, and sing what Martin Luther said—Who does not love wine, women, and music, remains a fool all his life; and we are not fools.”

[∗]The clergy of Germany, to judge from the following sample among others of their conduct, appear to have had similar propensities with their brethren in all parts of the world. In some little town on the Rhine, on a particular feast-day, one of them preached a long and an eloquent sermon against intemperance, which he concluded by describing what intemperance was. It was passing those bounds which nature had prescribed. It was intemperance, he said, for some men who were quarrelsome in their cups ever to drink wine. There were others to whom a bottle was refreshment, but to whom two caused sickness. They were intemperate when they drank more than one. Some men enlivened a circle of friends, and were kind to their wives, even after they had drank four bottles; and it was not right in them to diminish their kindness by drinking less. There were others, more highly gifted servants of the Deity, who felt their hearts warm with gratitude to Him as the generous juice circulated in their blood,—who were friendly with their families, generous to all men, and even nobly forgetful of injuries, when they had drank eight bottles. With them intemperance began at the ninth. But these, he said, are the peculiar favourites of God, to whom he has given the joys of the world as an evidence of the joys of hereafter; and all his congregation knew with what gratitude (bowing as he said it) he acknowledged himself to be one of these favourites.

[∗]Schiller understood the effects of religion being taught to a multitude of people at once. When he said, “That nothing but the faith of all can strengthen faith, where thousands pray and honour, there the glow becomes a flame, and the winged soul soars in every heaven.â€

• Denn nur der Glaube Aller stärkt den Glauben,
• Wo Tausende anbeten und verehren,
• Da wird die Glut zur Flamme, und beflügelt
• Schwingt sich der Geist in alle Himmel auf.

Maria Stuart, 5 Act, 7 Scene.

[∗]Page 197.

[∗]Since this was written, I read, in a military journal, a sort of correspondence between a colonel of the army and a respectable tradesman, in which the former, prouder of the tinsel with which another man decorated him when he was made a soldier, than of the dignity which his Creator bestowed on him when he was made man, refused to sit at table with the latter, because he “would not level all the distinctions of society.” The German nobles may call bauers and journeymen tradesmen ill names, but it is believed no instance of such aristocratical disdain of one decent man for another can be met with in that country.