long resisted, must inevitably be recognized at last. Sluggish as they naturally are, the Germans will yet rouse themselves from their lethargy, and demand the fulfilment of those pledges so solemnly made, and so dishonourably broken; they will not always be content to sit in darkness, with the yoke of oppression on their necks: liberal principles, notwithstanding the formidable apparatus devised for shackling the press, are daily gaining ground, and making converts; a spirit is at work among men, which no laws can reach, no despotism long resist; the hour of regeneration must come. "No people of the continent," says our author," better deserves political liberty than the Germans; for none will wait for it more patiently, receive it more thankfully, or use it with greater moderation." But even the proverbial patience of Germans may be exhausted; the Holy Allies have indeed resolved that the world shall stand still; but it will move notwithstanding, and carry the Germans along with it. Passing over the author's account of Silesia, through which he journeyed, we enter the Austrian capital along with him; and here the first thing which attracts his notice, is the universal taste for music. We have the following account of Beethoven, the most celebrated living composer in Vienna, and, in certain departments, the foremost of his day: His powers of harmony are prodigious. Though not an old man, he is lost to society, in consequence of his extreme deafness, which has rendered him almost unsocial. The neglect of his person which he exhi bits gives him a somewhat wild appearance. His features are strong and prominent; his eye is full of rude energy; his hair, which neither comb nor scissors seem to have visited for years, overshadows his broad brow in a quantity and confusion to which only the snakes round a Gorgon's head offer a parallel. His general behavour does not ill accord with the unpromising exterior. Except when he is among his chosen friends, kindliness or `affability are not his characteristics. The total loss of hearing has deprived him of all the pleasure which society can give, and perhaps soured his temper. He used to frequent a particular cellar, where he spent the evening in a corner beyond the reach of all the chattering and disputation of a public room, drinking wine and beer, eating cheese and red herrings, aad studying the newspapers. One evening a person took a seat near him whose countenance did not please him. He looked hard at the stranger, and spat on the floor as if he had seen a toad; then glanced at the newspaper, then again at the intruder, and spat again, his hair bristling gradually into more shaggy ferocity, till he closed the alternation of spitting and staring, by fairly exclaiming, "What a scoundrelly phiz!" and rushing out of the room. Even among his oldest friends he must be humoured like a wayward child. He has always a small paper book with him, and what conversation takes place is carried on in writing. In this, too, although it is not lined, he instantly jots down any musical idea which strikes him. These notes would be utterly unintelligible even to another musician, for they have thus no comparative value; he alone has in his own mind the thread by which he brings out of this labyrinth of dotes and circles the richest and most astounding harmonies. The moment he is seated at the piano, he is evidently unconscious that there is any thing in existence but himself and his instrument; and, considering how very deaf he is, it seems impossible that he should hear all he plays. Accordingly, when playing very piano, he often does not bring out a single note. He hears it himself in the "mind's ear." While his eye and the almost imperceptible motion of his fingers, show that he is following out the strain in his own soul through all its dying gradations, the instrument is actually as dumb as the musician is deaf. I have heard him play, but to bring him so far required some management, so great is his horror of being any thing like exhibited. Had he been plainly asked to do the company that favour, he would have flatly refused; he had to be cheated into it. Every person left the room, except Beethoven and the master of the house, one of his most intimate acquaintances. These two carried on a conversation in the paper-book about bank stock. The gentleman, as if by chance, struck the keys of the open piano, beside which they were sitting, gradually began to run over one of Beethoven's own compositions, made a thousand errors, and speedily blundered one passage so thoroughly, that the composer condescended to stretch out his hand and put him right. It was enough; the hand was on the piano; his companion immediately left him, on some pretext, and joined the rest of the com pany, who, in the next room, from which they could see and hear every thing, were patiently waising the issue of this tiresome conjuration. Beethoven, left alone, seated himself at the piano. At first he only struck now and then a few hurried and in terrupted notes, as if afraid of being de tected in a crime; but gradually he for got every thing else, and ran on during half an hour in a phantasy, in a style extremely varied, and marked, above all, by the most abrupt transitions. The amateurs were enraptured; to the uninitiated it was more interesting, to observe how the music of the man's soul passed over his countenance. He seems to feel the bold, the commanding, and the impetuous, more than what is soothing or gentle. The muscles of the face swell, and its veins start out; the wild eye rolls doubly wild; the mouth quivers, and Beethoven looks like a wizard, overpowered by the demons whom he himself has called up. lance with which a party of respectable merchants or shopkeepers speak of their amours, you would think them dissolute bachelors; yet they are husbands and fathers, and, provided all circumstances of public scandal be avoided, it never enters their heads that their conduct has any thing improper in it. Every one, mate and female, bears most Christianly with every other. All this leads to a strange mixture of society, particularly on public occasions. In a Baden redoute, it is nothing uncommon to see worthless women elbowing the Archduchesses of Austria. Here walks the Empress, and there a couple of genteel frail ones from Vienna. It is perfectly true that it is a ball-room, and the ticket costs only eighteen-pence; and, as worthy women say, how can we prevent them from coming, when they pay their money? But thither virtuous women do go, knowing perfectly well beforehand the sort of society with which they will infallibly be mixed up. The gentlemen do not seem to lay themselves under much restraint. I have seen noblemen, in the presence of the court, flutter for a while round the more distinguished of these creatures, and then return to flutter round the maids of ho The manners of the Viennese are just as bad as it is possible for a despotic Government to desire them to be: There cannot be a more dissolute city, -one where female virtue is less prized, and, therefore, less frequent. A total want of principle, the love of pleasure, and the love of finery, are so universally diffused, that wives and daughters, in not only what we would call comfortable, but even affluent circumstances, do not shrink from increasing the means of their extravagance by forgetting their duty. They sacrifice themselves, not so much from inclination, as from interest. You will probably find in Naples or Rome as many faithless wives, who are so from a temporary and variable liking, as in Vienna; but you will not find so many who throw away their honour from the love of gain. "The advantage seems to be on the side of the Italian. Worthless as both are, even a passing liking is something less degrading than the mere infamous calculation of pounds, shillings, and pence, without even the excuse of poverty. The girls of the lower classes grow up to licentiousness; the rage for dress and luxury is no less strong among them than among their superiors; and though it certainly looks like a harsh judgment, it is not too much to say, as a general truth, that, from the time they are capable of feeling this love of show and easy living, 'they consider their person as the fund that is to supply the means of its gratification. It is not seduction; it is just a matter of sale; nor are mothers ashamed to be the brokers of their daughters. The quantity of licentiousness is commonly smallest in the middle class of a people. It is not so in Vienna, at least among the men. To hear the noncha VOL. XIV. nour. It is in vain that their Imperial Majesties are spotless in their life and conversation; it does not go beyond themselves; the public mind is vitiated through and through; they are surrounded by a mass of corruption, much too dense to be penetrated by the light of any single example. A wealthy foreigner, generally resident in Vienna, the companion of princes and ministers, used to drive his mistress into the Prater before the admiring and envious eyes of all the world. The girl had what in this country would be called the impudence to invite most of the ministers and corps diplomatique to a ball; and they had what in this country would be called the forgetfulness of character to go. Prince Metternich being asked by a foreign minister whether he intended to go, archly answered, "Why, I would rather like to see the thing; but, you know, it might hurt one's character here!" When it was proposed to Joseph II. to build licensed brothels, the Emperor said, "The walls would cost me nothing, but the expense of roofing would be ruinous, for it would just be necessary to put a roof over the whole city." The hospitals and private sick-rooms of Vienna teem with proofs how mercifully Providence acted, when it placed the quicksilver mines of Idria in a province des tined to form part of an empire of which Vienna was to be the capital. 5 A This is truly a frightful picture, and yet we have suppressed one of its worst features. Let the advocates of despotism look to this, its natural and proper fruit. Absolute Governments find it their interest to encourage licentiousness of manners, because it debases and destroys all the higher and more untractable elements of human nature, and, in proportion as it incapacitates men for either acquiring or enjoying freedom, it fits them for the yoke of slavery. Over such a people it would appear a mere superfluity of jealousy, to establish any very vigilant and powerful system of police. The Government thinks and acts very differently. The author is very warm in his eulogium on the personal character of the Emperor; but this is a poor compensation for the miseries he has been so instrumental in inflicting on Europe. The fact seems to be, that he is a poor dozing bigot in matters of religion, and that, in political affairs, he is neither more nor less than a puppet, which Metternich can play off in his pleasure. Like every other man, who has lived fifty years and upwards, he must, taciturn as he constitutionally is, have spoken a good deal in his time; but the only words of his which will ever be remembered and handed down to posterity, are those he employed when he declared that "he wanted no learned men, needed no learned men, and desired only subjects obedient to his sovereign will." He tries, it seems, like his holy brother of Prussia, to make himself popular by mixing familiarly with the people, and by holding weekly levees, where the middling and lower classes may present themselves, and freely state their grievances. Now, as to this condescension and familiarity, it is, no doubt, very good in its way, and very political and wisc, as it may tend to blind the unthinking mob to some of the more hideous and revolting deformities of the iron despotism under which they are kept in a state of degradation; and with regard to the levees just alluded to, our author well remarks, that "wherever a monarch must interfere personally to de justice, it is a proof, either that the laws are at variance with justice, or that those who administer them are scoundrels." But we must here take leave of these interesting and instructive volumes, which require only to be known, in order to be read and admired. Their claims to public favour are numerous and powerful, and much as has been previously written on the countries to which they refer, these claims are such, that we are confident they will not be preferred in vain. The author has a lurking affection for Kings and Queens, not much in unison with the principles and spirit of the present age, and a certain aptitude to discover in them virtues to which they are evidently strangers; but, in general, he is sufficiently impartial, and delights to render what he conceives to be justice to men even of the most opposite principles, both in religion and politics. We could wish, also, that he had avoided a certain affectation of point and smartness, upon some occasions where simplicity would have been more graceful and appropriate; this, however, is only the excess of a quality, which infuses animation into the dryest details of the dryest subject, and imparts to his Tour a considerable portion of that intense interest which we feel in perusing a well-written novel or romance. In a word, he is a rara avis among the mob of modern Tourists. WORKS PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION. LONDON. Mr John Nicholson, son of the late Mr W. Nicholson, is preparing for early publication, a Library for Practical Mechanics, consisting of full and correct descriptions of all machinery now used in the Manufactories of the British empire. The whole will be illustrated with nearly 300 engravings, and be sold at a moderate price, for the use of Mechanics' Institutes. Mr Dupuis, late his Britannic Majesty's envoy and consul at Ashantee, is about to publish a Journal of his Residence in that Kingdom, which is expected to throw considerable light on the origin and causes of the present war. It will comprise also his notes and researches relative to the Gold Coast, and the interior of Western Africa, chiefly collected from Arabic manuscripts, and information communicated by the Moslems of Guinea. Early in June will be published, the Works of Vicesimus Knox, D. D. in seven volumes, octavo, with an engraved portrait. In the press, Woodland Echoes, by W. Taylor, or a Description of the Sylvan Charms of Marlow, with poetical sketches of the scenery and objects in that highlypicturesque vale, through which the Thames flows from Medmenham Abbey to Cliefden, with notes historical and topographical, and other Poems. Mr Loudon, the author of the popular "Encyclopedia of Gardening," is about to follow up that work by an Encyclopedia of Agriculture, or the theory and practice of the valuation transfer, improvement, and management, of landed property and the cultivation and economy of the animal and vegetable productions of agriculture, including all the latest improvements, a general history of agriculture in all countries, and a statistical view of its present state, with suggestions for its future progress in the British isles. Mr. Farey, jun, engineer, is about to publish a Treatise on the Steam Engine, historical, practical, and descriptive. Illustrations, Critical, Historical, Biographical, and Miscellaneous, of Novels by the Author of "Waverley," are publishing by subscription, by the Rev. R. Warner; and will be delivered to the subscribers in September next, in three volumes, of a similar size with the novels. In the press, No. I. of a quarterly publication, entitled the Philomathic Journal, to be conducted by the members of the Philomathic Institution. VOL. XIV. W. Buchanan, Esq. has in forwardness at press, Memoirs of Painting, in two volumes, octavo; containing a chronological history of the different collections of Pictures of importance which have been brought to Great Britain since the French Revolution. In a few days will be published, in a pocket volume, Letters between Amelia in London and her mother in the Country, from the pen of the late W. Combe, Esq., Author of the "Three Tours of Doctor Syntax." The Principles of Medical Science and Practice, deduced from the phenomena observed in health and in disease, by H. Shute, M. D. is in the press. Speedily will be published, Elements of Vocal Science, being a Philosophical Enquiry into some of the principles of Singing, with a prefatory essay on the objects of musical acquirements; by R. M. Bacon, Esq. Memoirs, Anecdotes, Facts, and Opinions, collected and preserved by Miss L. M. Hawkins, are shortly expected. Speedily will be published, Five Years' Residence in the Canadas, including a Tour through the United States of America in 1823, by E. A. Talbot, Esq. of the Talbot Settlement, Upper Canada. An Excursion through the United States and Canada, during the years 1822 and 23, by an English gentleman, is printing. Mr H. Nicholas has in the press a small work for the use of antiquaries, historians, and the legal profession, containing Tables that show exactly the year of our Lord corresponding with the year of the reign of each monarch, an alphabetical and chronological calendar of saints' days and other festivals on which ancient records are dated, &c. The Sisters of Narsfield, a tale for young women, by the author of "the Stories of Old Daniell," &c. is in the press. A Short History of the Horse, and progress of Horse Knowledge, by B. Clark, F.L.S. &c., is in the press. The Author of "Conversations on Botany" is about to produce Conversations on Geography and Astronomy, illustrated with plates, wood-cuts, &c. In the press, and will be published early in June, a Key to the Science of Botany, comprising a familiar and pleasing conversation between a mother and her daughter, with plates, either plain or coloured, by Mrs Selwyn. 5 B Mr T. L. Busby's first number of the Costume of the City of London, dedicated, by permission, to his Majesty, will be be published in a few days. In the press, Alterations made in the London Pharmacopoeia in 1823 fully stated, with introductory remarks and schemes, illustrative of all the formulæ influenced by chemical action. Lieut. Morgan has in the press, the Emigrant's Note-Book, with Recollections of Upper and Lower Canada during the late war. An Essay on the Beneficial Direction of Rural Expenditure, is announced by R. A. Slaney, Esq. A work is in the press, called the Relapse, or True and False Morality. Helon's Pilgrimage to Jerusalem is preparing for publication, consisting of a picture of Judaism in the century which preceded the Advent of the Messiah, translated from the German of F. Strauss, with notes and illustrations by the translator. Shortly will be published, a second edition, and greatly improved, of the Young Naturalist, a tale, calculated for the amusement and instruction of young people, by A. C. Mant. In the press, and speedily will appear, in two volumes, embellished with nu merous engravings on wood, Typographia, or the Printers' Instructor, by J. Johnson, Printer; dedicated, by permission, to the Roxburghe Club. A little work, illustrative of the sentiments of the two parties in the Church of England, is in the press, entitled the Two Rectors, in ten papers, containing the Mail-coach, the Bookseller's Shop, Social Intercourse, the Missionary, Patriotism, Amusements, the Keeper's Lodge, the Repentant Criminal, the Church Service, the Departure, neatly printed in duodecimo. The Slave, a poem, is in the press. Mr Maugham, author of the "Pupil's Pharmacopoeia," is printing, uniformly with the small edition of the Pharm. Lond. an Appendix to the latter work, comprising a concise history of the Materia Medica, as well as of the preparations contained therein, with a brief notice of their doses, virtues, and uses. Mr White, Lieut. in the United States Navy, has in the press, a Voyage to Cochin China. Mr Rhodes is printing a second edition of Peak Scenery, or the Derbyshire Tourist, which will contain a revision of the quarto copies, with a preliminary chapter, a series of road sketches for the use of travellers, and a map of the country, with the routes of the different excursions. EDINBURGH. Preparing for publication, in a neat pocket volume, a British Flora; or Description of the Plants indigenous to Britain. To which is prefixed, arranged in the form of a Dictionary, an Expla nation of the Terms used in Botany. By James Macfadyen, Lecturer on Natural History. The Satire "Glasgow," by G. L. Amargo, Esq. will appear early in Autumn. Historical Notes respecting the Indians of North America, with Remarks on the attempts made to convert and civilize them. A Poet's Lay from South America, one volume foolscap Svo. Modern Horticulture; or an Account of the most approved method of managing Gardens, for the production of Fruits, Culinary Vegetables, and Flowers. By Patrick Neill, F.R.S.E. F.L.S. and Secretary to the Caledonian Horticultural Society. |