ordered to change his route that he might bring, every Thursday, a provision of eels and other rich fish (pescado grueso) for Friday's fast. There was a constant demand for anchovies, tunny, and other potted fish, and sometimes a complaint that the trouts of the country were too small; the olives, on the other hand, were too large, and the emperor wished, instead, for olives of Perejon. One day, the secretary of state was asked for some partridges from Gama, a place from whence the emperor remembers that the Count of Orsono once sent him, into Flanders, some of the best partridges in the world. Another day, sausages were wanted of the kind which the queen Juana, now in glory, used to pride herself in making, in the Flemish fashion, at Tordesillas,' and for the receipt for which the secretary is referred to the Marquess of Denia. Both orders were punctually executed. The sausages, although sent to a land supreme in that manufacture, gave great satisfaction. Of the partridges, the emperor said that they used to be better, ordering, however, the remainder to be pickled. The emperor's weakness being generally known or soon discovered, dainties of all kinds were sent to him as presents. Mutton, pork, and game were the provisions most easily obtained at Xarandilla; but they were dear. The bread was indifferent, and nothing was good and abundant but chestnuts, the staple food of the people. But in a very few days the castle larder wanted for nothing. One day the Count of Oropesa sent an offering of game; another day a pair of fat calves arrived from the archbishop of Zaragoza; the archbishop of Toledo and the Duchess of Frias were constant and magnificent in their gifts of venison, fruit, and preserves; and supplies of all kinds came at regular intervals from Seville, and from Portugal. Luis Quixada, who knew the emperor's habits and constitution well, beheld with dismay these long trains of mules laden, as it were, with gout and bile. He never acknowledged the receipt of the good things from Valladolid without adding some dismal forebodings of consequent mischief; and along with an order he sometimes conveyed a hint that it would be much better if no means were found of executing it. If the emperor made a hearty meal without being the worse for it, the mayordomo noted the fact with exultation; and he remarked with complacency his majesty's fondness for plovers, which he considered harmless. But his office of purveyor was more commonly exercised under protest; and he interposed between his master and an eel-pie as, in other days, he would have thrown himself between the imperial person and the point of a Moorish lance. The retirement of the emperor took place on the 3d of February 1557. He carried with him to his cloister sixty attendants-not twelve, as stated by Robertson; and in his retreat at Yuste he wielded the royal power as firmly as he had done at Augsburg or Toledo. His regular life, however, had something in it of monastic quiet-his time was measured out with punctual attention to his various employments; he fed his pet birds or sauntered among his trees and flowers, and joined earnestly in the religious observances of the monks. The subjoined scene is less strikingly painted than in Robertson's narrative, but is more correct: The Emperor performs the Funeral Service for About this time [August 1558], according to the historian of St Jerome, his thoughts seemed to turn more than usual to religion and its rites. Whenever during his stay at Yuste any of his friends, of the degree of princes or knights of the fleece, had died, he had ever been punctual in doing honour to their memory, by causing their obsequies to be performed by the friars ; and these lugubrious services may be said to have formed the festivals of the gloomy life of the cloister. The daily masses said for his own soul were always accompanied by others for the souls of his father, mother, and wife. But now he ordered further solemnities of the funeral kind to be performed in behalf of these relations, each on a different day, and attended them himself, preceded by a page bearing a taper, and joining in the chant, in a very devout and audible manner, out of a tattered prayer-book. These rites ended, he asked his confessor whether he might not now perform his own funeral, and so do for himself what would soon have to be done for him by others. Regla replied that his majesty, please God, might live many years, and that when his time came these services would be gratefully rendered, without his taking any thought about the matter. But,' persisted Charles, would it not be good for my soul?' The monk said, that certainly it would; pious works done during life being far more efficacious than when postponed till after death. Preparations were therefore at once set on foot; a catafalque, which had served before on similar occasions, was erected; and on the following day, the 30th of August, as the monkish historian relates, this celebrated service was actually performed. The high altar, the catafalque, and the whole church shone with a blaze of wax-lights; the friars were all in their places, at the altars, and in the choir, and the household of the emperor attended in deep mourning. The pious monarch himself was there, attired in sable weeds, and bearing a taper, to see himself interred and to celebrate his own obsequies.' While the solemn mass for the dead was sung, he came forward and gave his taper into the hands of the officiating priest, in token of his desire to yield his soul into the hands of his Maker. High above, over the kneeling throne and the gorgeous vestments, the flowers, the curling incense, and the glittering altar, the same idea shone forth in that splendid canvas whereon Titian had pictured Charles kneeling on the threshold of the heavenly mansions prepared for the blessed. . . . The funeral-rites ended, the emperor dined in his western alcove. He ate little, but he remained for a great part of the afternoon sitting in the open air, and basking in the sun, which, as it descended to the horizon, beat strongly upon the white walls. Feeling a violent pain in his head, he returned to his chamber and lay down. Mathisio, whom he had sent in the morning to Xarandrilla to attend the Count of Oropesa in his illness, found him when he returned still suffering considerably, and attributed the pain to his having remained too long in the hot sunshine. Next morning he was somewhat better, and was able to get up and go to mass, but still felt oppressed, and complained much of thirst. He told his confessor, however, that the service of the day before had done him good. The sunshine again tempted him into his open gallery. As he sat there, he sent for a portrait of the empress, and hung for some time, lost in thought, over the gentle face, which, with its blue eyes, auburn hair, and pensive beauty, somewhat resembled the noble countenance of that other Isabella, the great queen of Castile. He next called for a picture of Our Lord Praying in the Garden, and then for a sketch of the Last Judgment, by Titian. Having looked his last upon the image of the wife of his youth, it seemed as if he were now bidding farewell, in the contemplation of these other favourite pictures, to the noble art which he had loved with a love which cares, and years, and sickness could not quench, and that will ever be remembered with his better fame. Thus occupied, he remained so long abstracted and motionless, that Mathisio, who was on the watch, thought it right to awake him from his reverie. On being spoken to, he turned round and complained that he was ill. The doctor felt his pulse, and pronounced him in a fever. Again the afternoon sun was shining over the great walnut tree, full into the gallery. From this pleasant spot, filled with the fragrance of the garden and the murmur of the fountain, and bright with glimpses of the golden Vera, they carried him to the gloomy chamber of his sleepless nights, and laid him on the bed from which he was to rise no more. G. H. LEWES. MR GEORGE HENRY LEWES, eminent as a philosophical essayist, critic, and biographer, has The emperor died in three weeks after this time written two novels-Ranthorpe, 1847; and Rose, -on the 21st of September 1558. Sir William Blanche, and Violet, 1848. In the former, he Stirling-Maxwell's narrative, we need hardly add, traces the moral influence of genius on its posis at once graceful and exact. Its author has sessor, and though there is little artistic power written another Spanish memoir-Velasquez and evinced in the plot of the tale, it is a sughis Works, 1855. There was little to tell of the gestive and able work. In his second novel, great Spanish painter, whose life was uniformly which is longer and much more skilfully conprosperous; but Sir William gives sketches of structed, Mr Lewes aims chiefly at the delineaPhilip IV. and his circle, and adds many critical tion of character. His three sisters, Rose, Blanche, remarks and illustrations. He prefers Velasquez and Violet, are typical of different classes of charto Murillo or Rubens. Sir William Stirling-acter-the gay, the gentle, and the decided; and Maxwell succeeded to the baronetcy and estate of Pollok (Renfrewshire) in 1865. He was born at the paternal seat of Keir, in Perthshire, in 1818; is an M.A. of Cambridge University, and LL.D. of the universities of Edinburgh and St Andrews. Velasquez's Faithful Colour-grinder. Juan de Pareja, one of the ablest, and better known to fame as the slave of Velasquez, was born at Seville in 1606. His parents belonged to the class of slaves then numerous in Andalusia, the descendants of negroes imported in large numbers into Spain by the Moriscos in the sixteenth century; and in the African hue and features of their son, there is evidence that they were mulattoes, or that one or other of them was a black. It is not known whether he came into the possession of Velasquez by purchase or by inheritance, but he was in his service as early as 1623, when he accompanied him to Madrid. Being employed to clean the brushes, grind the colours, prepare the palettes, and do the other menial work of the studio, and living amongst pictures and painters, he early acquired an acquaintance with the implements of art, and an ambition to use them. therefore watched the proceedings of his master, and privately copied his works with the eagerness of a lover and the secrecy of a conspirator. In the Italian journeys in which he accompanied Velasquez, he seized every opportunity of improvement; and in the end he became an artist of no mean skill. But his nature was so He reserved, and his candle so jealously concealed under its bushel, that he had returned from his second visit to Rome, and had reached the mature age of forty-five, before his master became aware that he could use the brushes which he washed. When at last he determined on laying aside the mask, he contrived that it should be removed by the hand of the king. Finishing a small picture with peculiar care, he deposited it in his master's studio, with its face turned to the wall. A picture so placed arouses curiosity, and is perhaps more certain to attract the eye of the loitering visitor than if it were hung up for the purpose of being seen. When Philip IV. visited Velasquez, he never failed to cause the daub or the masterpiece that happened to occupy such a position to be paraded for his inspection. He therefore fell at once into the trap, and being pleased with the work, asked for the author. Pareja, who took care to be at the royal elbow, immediately fell on his knees, owning his guilt, and praying for his majesty's protection. The good-natured king, turning to Velasquez, said: 'You see that a painter like this ought not to remain a slave.' Pareja, kissing the royal hand, rose from the ground a free man. His master gave him a formal deed of manumission, and received the colourgrinder as a scholar. The attached follower, however, remained with him till he died; and continued in the service of his daughter, the wife of Mazo Martinez, until his own death, in 1670. as each of the ladies forms an attachment, we have other characters and contrasts, with various complicated incidents and love-passages. The author, however, is more of a moral teacher than a story-teller, and he sets himself resolutely to demolish what he considers popular fallacies, and to satirise the follies and delusions prevalent in society. Here is one of his ethical positions : Superiority of the Moral over the Intellectual Nature of Man. for us. Strength of Will is the quality most needing cultivation in mankind. Will is the central force which gives strength and greatness to character. We overestimate the value of Talent, because it dazzles us; and we are apt to underrate the importance of Will, because its works are less shining. Talent gracefully adorns life; but it is Will which carries us victoriously through the struggle. Intellect is the torch which lights us on our way; Will is the strong arm which rough-hews the path The clever, weak man sees all the obstacles on his path; the very torch he carries, being brighter than that of most men, enables him, perhaps, to see that the path before him may be directest, the best yet it also enables him to see the crooked turnings by which he may, as he fancies, reach the goal without encountering difficulties. If, indeed, Intellect were a sun, instead of a torch-if it irradiated every corner and crevice-then would man see how, in spite of every obstacle, the direct path was the only safe one, and he would cut the way through by manful labour. But constituted as we are, it is the clever, weak men who stumble most-the strong men who are most virtuous and happy. In this world, there cannot be virtue without strong Will; the weak 'know the right, and yet the wrong pursue.' No one, I suppose, will accuse me of deifying Obstinacy, or even mere brute Will; nor of depreciating Intellect. But we have had too many dithyrambs in honour of mere Intelligence; and the older I grow, the clearer I see that Intellect is not the highest faculty in man, although the most brilliant. Knowledge, after all, is not the greatest thing in life; it is not the 'be-all and the end-all here.' Life is not Science. The light of Intellect is truly a precious light; but its aim and end is simply to shine. The moral nature of man is more sacred in my eyes that his intellectual nature. I know they cannot be divorced-that without intelligence we should be brutes—but it is the tendency of our those faculties which most astonish us. Strength of gaping, wondering dispositions to give pre-eminence to character seldom, if ever, astonishes; goodness, lovingness, and quiet self-sacrifice are worth all the talents in the world. And in the following we have a sound, healthy doctrine which has also received the support of Thackeray : at anyrate it advocates the honest dignity of labour; let my cause excuse my tediousness. Real Men of Genius resolute Workers. There is, in the present day, an overplus of raving Mr Lewes is a native of London, born in 1817. about genius, and its prescriptive rights of vagabondage, He received his education partly abroad and partly its irresponsibility, and its insubordination to all the from Dr Burney at Greenwich. Being intended laws of common sense. Common sense is so prosaic! for a mercantile life, he was placed in the office Yet it appears from the history of art that the real men of a Russian merchant, but soon abandoned it for of genius did not rave about anything of the kind. They the medical profession. From this he was driven, were resolute workers, not idle dreamers. They knew it is said, by a feeling of horror at witnessing that their genius was not a frenzy, not a supernatural thing at all, but simply the colossal proportions of facul-surgical operations, and he took to literature as a ties which, in a lesser degree, the meanest of mankind profession. His principal works are a Biographishared with them. They knew that whatever it was, cal History of Philosophy, four volumes, 1845; it would not enable them to accomplish with success The Spanish Drama, Lope de Vega and Calderon, the things they undertook, unless they devoted their 1846; Life of Maximilien Robespierre, 1849; Exwhole energies to the task. position of the Principles of the Cours de Philoso Would Michael Angelo have built St Peter's, sculp-phie positif' of Auguste Comte, 1853; The Life and tured the Moses, and made the walls of the Vatican Works of Goethe, two volumes, 1855; Sea-side sacred with the presence of his gigantic pencil, had he Studies at Ilfracombe, Tenby, the Scilly Isles, and awaited inspiration while his works were in progress? Jersey, 1857. In the Physiology of Common Life, Would Rubens have dazzled all the galleries of Europe, two volumes, 1870, Mr Lewes has made a very and Mozart have poured out their souls into such abun-readable and instructive compendium of informadant melodies? would Goethe have written the sixty volumes of his works-had they not often, very often, sat down like drudges to an unwilling task, and found themselves speedily engrossed with that to which they had he allowed his brush to hesitate? would Beethoven were so averse? 'Use the pen,' says a thoughtful and subtle author: 'there is no magic in it; but it keeps the mind from staggering about.' This is an aphorism which should be printed in letters of gold over the studio door of every artist. Use the pen or the brush; do not pause, do not trifle, have no misgivings; but keep your mind from staggering about by fixing it resolutely on the matter before you, and then all that you can do you will do; inspiration will not enable you to do more. Write or paint act, do not hesitate. If what you have written or painted should turn out imperfect, you can correct it, and the correction will be more efficient than that correction which takes place in the shifting thoughts of hesitation. You will learn from your failures infinitely more than from the vague wandering reflections of a mind loosened from its moorings; because the failure is absolute, it is precise, it stands bodily before you, your eyes and judgment cannot be juggled with, you know whether a certain verse is harmonious, whether the rhyme is there or not there; but in the other case you not only can juggle with yourself, but do so, the very indeterminateness of your thoughts makes you do so; as long as the idea is not positively clothed in its artistic form, it is impossible accurately to say what it will be. The magic of the pen lies in the concentration of your thoughts upon one subject. Let your pen fall, begin to trifle with blotting-paper, look at the ceiling, bite your nails, and otherwise dally with your purpose, and you waste your time, scatter your thoughts, and repress the nervous energy necessary for your task. Some men dally and dally, hesitate and trifle until the last possible moment, and when the printer's boy is knocking at the door, they begin; necessity goading them, they write with singular rapidity, and with singular success; they are astonished at themselves. What is the secret? Simply this; they have had no time to hesitate. Concentrating their powers upon the one object before them, they have done what they could do. tion on subjects which 'come home to the business and bosoms of men'-such as food and drink, mind and brain, feeling and thinking, life and health, sleep and dreams, &c. We quote a passage which may be said to be connected with biography: Children of Great Men-Hereditary Tendencies. If the father bestows the nervous system, how are we to explain the notorious inferiority of the children of great men? There is considerable exaggeration afloat on this matter, and able men have been called nullities because they have not manifested the great talents of their fathers; but allowing for all over-statement, the palpable fact of the inferiority of some to their fathers is beyond dispute, and has helped to foster the idea of all great men owing their genius to their mothers: an idea which will not bear confrontation with the facts. Many men of genius have had remarkable mothers; and that one such instance could be cited is sufficient to prove the error both of the hypothesis which refers the nervous system to paternal influence, and of the hypothesis which only refers the preponderance to the paternal influence. If the male preponderates, how is it that Pericles, who 'carried the weapons of Zeus upon his tongue,' produced nothing better than a Paralus and a Xanthippus? How came the infamous Lysimachus from the austere Aristides? How was the weighty intellect of Thucydides left to be represented by an idiotic Milesias and a stupid Stephanus? When was the great soul of Oliver Cromwell in his son Richard? Who were the inheritors of Henry IV. and Peter the Great? What were Shakspeare's children and Milton's daughters? What was Addison's only son [daughter]? an idiot. Unless the mother preponderated in these and similar instances, we are without an explanation; for it being proved as a law of heritage, that the individual does transmit his qualities to his offspring, it is only on the supposition of both individuals transmitting their organisations, and the one modifying the other, that such anomalies are conceivable. When the paternal influence is not counteracted, we see it transmitted. Hence Impatient reader! if I am tedious, forgive me. the common remark, Talent runs in families.' The proThese lines may meet the eyes of some to whom they verbial phrases, 'l'esprit des Mortemarts,' and the wit are specially addressed, and may awaken thoughts in of the Sheridans,' imply this transmission from father to their minds not unimportant to their future career. son. Bernardo Tasso was a considerable poet, and his Forgive me, if only because I have taken what is called son Torquato inherited his faculties, heightened by the the prosaic side! I have not flattered the shallow influence of the mother. The two Herschels, the two sophisms which would give a gloss to idleness and Colmans, the Kemble family, and the Coleridges, will incapacity. I have not availed myself of the splendid at once occur to the reader; but the most striking tirades, so easy to write, about the glorious privileges of example known to us is that of the family which boasted genius. My preaching' may be very ineffectual, but | Jean Sebastian Bach as the culminating illustration of a musical genius, which, more or less, was distributed over three hundred Bachs, the children of very various mothers. Götz von Berlichingen-written in 1771, but not published till 1773-is a vivid picture of wild robber life and feudal times. It caught the fancy Here a sceptical reader may be tempted to ask how a of Sir Walter Scott, who became its translator; man of genius is ever produced, if the child is always but though highly popular in its day, this tragedy the repetition of the parents? How can two parents of ordinary capacity produce a child of extraordinary of feeling and the subtle imagination that 'intergives but faint indication of the depth or delicacy power? We must consider the phenomenon of atavism, or ancestral influence, in which the child manifests strik- penetrates' Werther. The poet, it is well known, ing resemblance to the grandfather or grandmother, and wrote from genuine impulses. He was, or fancied not to the father or mother. It is to be explained on himself, desperately in love with Charlotte Buff. the supposition that the qualities were transmitted from Charlotte, however, was betrothed to a friend of the grandfather to the father, in whom they were masked the poet, Kestner, and a complication of passion by the presence of some antagonistic or controlling influ- and disappointment agitated the affectionate trio. ence, and thence transmitted to the son, in whom, the Charlotte and Kestner were married, and Goethe antagonistic influence being withdrawn, they manifested sought relief in his own peculiar way by embodythemselves. We inherit the nervous system no less than ing the story of their love and his own feelings, the muscular and bony, and with the nervous system we with the addition of ideal circumstances, in his inherit its general and particular characters-that is to 'philosophical romance' of Werther. The romance say, the general sensibility of the system, and the conformation of the brain and sensory ganglia, are as much was published in 1774, and Mr Lewes says: 'Persubject to the law of transmission as the size and con-haps there never was a fiction which so startled formation of the bony and muscular structures are; this being so, it is evident that all those tendencies which depend on the nervous system will likewise be inherited; and even special aptitudes, such as those for music, mathematics, wit, and so on, will be inherited; nay, even acquired tendencies and tricks of gesture will be inherited. But this inheritance is in each case subject to the influence exercised by the other parent; and very often this influence is such as to modify, to mask, or even to entirely suppress the manifestation. Mr Lewes has also been an extensive contributor to the reviews and other periodicals; and he is said to have edited for nearly five years a weekly paper, The Leader. English readers are now becoming familiar with both the life and writings of the great German, Goethe. Mr Carlyle first awakened attention in this country to the poet's personal history, as well as to the just appreciation of his genius. Since then, MR OXENFORD has translated the Autobiography and Eckermann's Conversations; MRS AUSTIN has given us Goethe and his Contemporaries, of which Falk's Reminiscences form the nucleus; and MR LEWES has presented the public with the Life and Works of Goethe, with Sketches of his Age and Contemporaries, 1855, We have the man and all his "environments before us. Goethe's mother seems to have given him everything, as Mr Lewes remarks, which bore the stamp of distinctive individuality. She was a lively, joyous little woman. Order and quiet,' she said, are my principal characteristics. Hence, I despatch at once whatever I have to do, the most disagreeable always first, and I gulp down the devil without looking at him. When all has returned to its proper state, I defy any one to surpass me in good-humour.' Goethe's mother was just eighteen when he was born. 'I and my Wolfgang,' she said, 'have always held fast to each other, because we were both young together.' It is pleasing to know that she lived to hail him the greatest citizen of Weimar and the most popular author of Germany. The father, a councillor of Frankfort, was somewhat cold and formal, but he appears to have been indulgent enough to the wayward genius, his son. Mr Lewes enters at length into the poet's college life at Leipsic and Strasburg, and has had access to various unpublished sources of information. The first literary work of Goethe, his drama of and enraptured the world. Men of all kinds and Thackeray's ballad on the story is more popular: Werther had a love for Charlotte Such as words could never utter; Charlotte was a married lady, So he sighed, and pined, and ogled, Charlotte, having seen his body Like weeks at his court. On the 7th of November 1775, Goethe, aged twenty-six, arrived at the little city on the banks of the Ilm [Weimar], where his long residence was to confer on an insignificant duchy the immortal renown of a German Athens.' Mr Lewes describes Weimar in the eighteenth century. Picture of Weimar. Weimar is an ancient city on the Ilm, a small stream rising in the Thuringian forests, and losing itself in the Saal, at Jena, a stream on which the sole navigation seems to be that of ducks, and which meanders peacefully through pleasant valleys, except during the rainy season, when mountain torrents swell its current and overflow its banks. The Trent, between Trentham and Stafford the smug and silver Trent,' as Shakspeare calls it will give you an idea of this stream. The town is charmingly placed in the Ilm valley, and stands some eight hundred feet above the level of the sea. Weimar,' | says the old topographer Mathew Merian, 'is Weinmar, because it was the wine-market for Jena and its environs. Others say it was because some one here in ancient days began to plant the vine, who was hence called Weinmayer, But of this each reader may believe just what he pleases.' On a first acquaintance, Weimar seems more like a village bordering a park, than a capital with a court, and having all courtly environments. It is so quiet, so simple; and although ancient in its architecture, has none of the picturesqueness which delights the eye in most old German cities. The stone-coloured, light-brown, and apple-green houses have high-peaked, slanting roofs, but no quaint gables, no caprices of architectural fancy, none of the mingling of varied styles which elsewhere charm the traveller. One learns to love its quiet, simple streets, and pleasant paths, fit theatre for the simple actors moving across the scene; but one must live there some time to discover its charm. The aspect it presented when Goethe arrived was of course very different from that presented now; but by diligent inquiry we may get some rough image of the place restored. First be it noted that the city walls were still erect; gates and portcullis still spoke of days of warfare. Within these walls were six or seven hundred houses, not more, most of them very ancient. Under these roofs were about seven thousand inhabitants-for the most part not handsome. The city gates were strictly guarded. No one could pass through them in cart or carriage without leaving his name in the sentinel's book; even Goethe, minister and favourite, could not escape this tiresome formality, as we gather from one of his letters to the Frau von Stein, directing her to go out alone, and meet him beyond the gates, lest their exit together should be known. During Sunday service a chain was thrown across the streets leading to the church to bar out all passengers-a practice to this day partially retained: the chain is fastened, but the passengers step over it without ceremony. There was little safety at night in those silent streets; for if you were in no great danger from marauders, you were in constant danger of breaking a limb in some hole or other, the idea of lighting streets_not_having presented itself to the Thuringian mind. In the year 1685, the streets of London were first lighted with lamps; and Germany, in most things a century behind England, had not yet ventured on that experiment. If in this 1854 Weimar is still innocent of gas, and perplexes its inhabitants with the dim obscurity of an occasional oil-lamp slung on a cord across the streets, we may imagine that in 1775 they had not even advanced so far. And our supposition is exact. A century earlier, stage-coaches were known in England; but in Germany, public conveyances, very rude to this day in places where no railway exists, were few and miserable, nothing but open carts with unstuffed seats. Diligences on springs were unknown before 1800, and what they were even twenty years ago many readers doubtless remember. Then as to speed; if you travelled post, it was said with pride that seldom more than an hour's waiting was necessary before the horses were got ready, at least on frequented routes. Mail travelling was at the rate of five English miles in an hour and a quarter. Letters took nine days from Berlin to Frankfort, which in 1854 require only twenty-four hours. So slow was the communication of news, that, as we learn from the Stein correspondence, so great an event as the death of Frederick the Great was only known as a rumour a week afterwards in Carlsbad. By this time,' writes Goethe, you must know in Weimar if it be true.' With these facilities it was natural that men travelled but rarely, and mostly on horseback. What the inns were may be imagined from the unfrequency of travellers, and the general state of domestic comfort. The absence of comfort and luxury-luxury as distinguished from ornament-may be gathered from the memoirs of the time, and from such works as Bertuch's Mode Journal. Such necessities as good locks, doors that shut, drawers opening easily, tolerable knives, carts on springs, or beds fit for a Christian of any other than the German persuasion,' are still rarities in Thuringia; but in those days when sewers were undreamed of, and a post-office was a chimera, all that we moderns consider comfort was necessarily fabulous. The furniture, even of palaces, was extremely simple. In the houses of wealthy bourgeois, chairs and tables were of common fir; not until the close of the eighteenth century did mahogany make its appearance. Looking-glasses followed. The chairs were covered with a coarse green cloth; the tables likewise; and carpets are only now beginning to loom upon the national mind as a possible luxury. The windows were hung with woollen curtains, when the extravagance of curtains was ventured on. Easy chairs were unknown; the only arm-chair allowed was the so-called Grandfather's chair, which was reserved for the dignity of gray hairs, or the feebleness of age. The salon de reception, or drawing-room, into which greatly honoured visitors were shewn, had of course a kind of Sunday splendour, not dimmed by week-day familiarity. There hung the curtains; the walls were adorned with family portraits or some work of extremely 'native talent ;' the tables alluring the eye with china in guise of cups, vases, impossible shepherds, and very allegorical dogs. Into this room the honoured visitor was ushered; and there, no matter what the hour, he was handed refreshment of some kind. This custom-a compound product of hospitality and bad inns-lingered until lately in England, and perhaps is still not unknown in provincial towns. Ön eating and drinking was spent the surplus now devoted to finery. No one then, except gentlemen of the first water, boasted of a gold snuff-box; even a gold-headed cane was an unusual elegance. The dandy contented himself with a silver watch. The fine lady blazoned herself with a gold watch and heavy chain; but it was an heirloom! to see a modern dinner service glittering with silver, glass, and china, and to think that even the nobility in those days ate off pewter, is enough to make the lapse of time very vivid to us. A silver tea-pot and tea-tray were held as princely magnificence. The manners were rough and simple. The journeymen ate at the same table with their masters, and joined in the coarse jokes which then passed for hilarity. Filial obedience was rigidly enforced, the stick or strap not unfrequently aiding parental authority. Even the brothers exercised an almost paternal authority over their sisters. Indeed, the 'position of women' was by no means such as our women can conceive with patience; not only were they kept under the paternal, marital, and fraternal yoke, but society limited their actions by its prejudices still more than it does now. No woman, for instance, of the better class of citizens could go out alone; the servantgirl followed her to church, to a shop, or even to the promenade... |