placed about his person, have been attended with so good a result that a perceptible alteration in his address is noticeable, and in his moral eharacter, an appearance at least, of a more active disposition to serve others has spring up. But a character, not altogether one of the best, left in neglect for seventeen years, and fostered almost to selfshoess by improper management sited to his disposition, crammed full of science without knowing how to direct it to any useful purpose, obstinate in retaining false conceptions and slow to seize the means of correcting them, without inquisitiveness as to what would instruct and improve, and only solicitous about such things as ofer amusement or aford matter for satirical remark.—a character of this kind. I repeat is Lot so susceptible of being brought to perfection. "He shuns commuting with his own thoughts, and is silent to others lest he should provoke a truth; his good wishes, which he endeavours to prove by words, and occasionally by deeds, do not arise from any conviction of his faults or desire for amendment, but are a shift to escape annoyance, to stop the mouths of his monitors for awhile, and to enable him to go on his accustomed course without troubling himself farther about the matter. If driven to extremities, or put in a fright, he gives vent to his ill-humour, and having seen how those about him were induced, by his perverseness and silence, to try to please and encourage him, he makes use of similar means not to be put out of his way another time, thinking that people must be grieved when they see him in the sulks.* "This being the case, the only thing remaining is the employment of an extremely disagreeable remedy, presupposing, as it does, one of the lowest, dullest, and most unintellectual of human characters, namely, to work upon his fear and dislike of any cause of vexation. "These two feelings, and not the causes which originate them, render him humble and pliant; he even forms good intentions and makes promises, but these slight efforts do not induce him to throw away his false maxims, his ill-understood pride of birth, nor do they give rise to any right manly feeling. "Indifferent to all things, or perhaps from a desire to be considered eccentric, he cherishes his errors, and he is vain enough to be proud even of his ungraceful manner and awkwardness in society, his uncouth movements, his unintelligible phrases, and even certain trifling points of his dress. "As neither conviction nor the force of example, desire of information, nay, not even the principles of religion, the love of virtue on philosophical considerations, or for its own sake; neither glory, nor patriotism, nor probity, nor honesty in the discharge of his duties has been awakened in him, though he has been frequently admonished, nor any symptom exhibited, nothing remains but to apply the remedy unscrupulously and rigorously, in order that when a proper restraint is laid upon his actions, his indolence may be mastered by depriving him of all hope of evading his duties, and thereby his intellect be roused to exertion. By these means he will become convinced that compulsion, which must always be vexatious to such a character as his, has been employed only for his benefit. The German "Wenn er Pfnottet," a word I never met with elsewhere, and which is unknown both to Thieme and Flügel, "He should be considered, not by his physical, but his moral age, his neglected education and lost years, the slow growth of his ideas placing him in the condition of a child twelve years old. His education must consequently be continued longer than would be necessary with any other youth. To this there can be no impediment, there being no reason why it should not last more than twenty-four years, or why his marriage should not take place till its completion. "The House of Austria is not in want of heirs, though it is of great importance to the State that the successor to the throne should be fully qualified to fill it. "Acting on such considerations, Count Colloredo, in his department relating to public presentations; the two Adjutants-General, in the cultivation of the Arch-duke's character and external graces, as well as in his military education; lastly, the Abbé Diesbach, who has been selected for his extensive knowledge in educational matters, to give lectures to the Arch-duke in mathematics and physics, and improve his style in writing, by dictating to him aloud, are all and each to cooperate with each other for these ends; their only aim being the real benefit of their pupil. "February 4th, 1785." "JOSEPH." On the outside, in the same handwriting as the remarks to A and B appears the following. "C'est principalement dans cette Instruction, qu'on voit la profondeur du jugement de l'Empereur sur le compte de son auguste neveu qu'il aimait, et voulait être fondé à devoir toujours aimer davantage, raison pour laquelle il mettait un aussi vif intérêt aux soins de son éducation, et à la formation de son moral comme de son physique pour en faire à l'avenir un prince digne de sa tendresse paternelle, ainsi que du trône qu'il lui avait réservé en renonçant lui-même à se marier." Thus ends one of the most singular fragments of history. It would be easy enough to write an essay on it, whether the writer thought proper to dissert on the earnestness and right feeling which are perceptible in so many passages, or the mistaken severity which could reprove a lad of seventeen for not loving virtue" on philosophical considerations." The life and character of Joseph were both singular. Maria Theresa said of him "I teach my son to love the arts, that they may soften his mind, for he has a hard heart." Yet his passionate grief at the death of his niece, the Arch-duchess Elizabeth, which is believed even to have hastened his end, and the touching letter, written the day before he died, and addressed " To the five Ladies who bore with my Society," and in which he thanks them for their "patience and kindness" to him for so many years, shows that he really had very deep feelings, and that his mother judged him too harshly. It was he who first conceived the idea of the Unity of the Austrian Empire, and he met with such ill success in attempting to realize it, that, worn out and broken-hearted, as his troubled career was drawing to a close, he said, "I would have engraven on my tomb, 'Here lies a Sovereign, who, with the best intentions, never carried a single project into execution."" The unhappy end of his reign seems to do more even than bear out the Swedish Chancellor's remark, that "it requires very little wisdom to govern the world,” and to show that wisdom is sometimes a positive disadvantage. Joseph was certainly a wise and, in many respects, a good man; he was handsome and amiable enough to win the friendship, perhaps, the love of Catharine of Russia, who was a good judge in such matters, and he possessed almost every brilliant and attractive quality a prince could have, yet neither Austria nor her provinces have much reason to remember his reign with satisfaction. The Arch-duke Francis, the subject of these letters, succeeded his father, Leopold II., in 1792. He is said, by those who knew him best, to have remained throughout his life just as Joseph has painted him, selfish, dissembling, heartless, vulgar in his feelings and expressions, and without a good or great idea; yet by one of those singular touches of irony, we sometimes meet in history, he has been styled "Der Guter Franzil." He was the last of the Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, and by proclamation, dated 4th of August, 1804, declared himself merely Emperor of Austria. Lastly, he was the father-in-law of Napoleon. The following anecdote is told of the lively conviction entertained by the Viennese of his incapacity. The inscription beneath the statue of Joseph II. is, "Non diu sed totus." It was proposed to write under that of Francis, "Non totus sed diu." Some Vienna wit also wrote beneath the fine equestrian statue of Joseph in the Hof Platz, during a period of public trouble, "Seppel, Seppel Steig herunter und lap den Frauzel reiten." He died in 1835, after a reign of forty-three years. A CLUSTER OF NEW NOVELS. It is often remarked by those who choose to devote a great portion of their leisure to the reading of novels, that they seldom find anything very new or original in these performances. They say, that a sort of family likeness runs through all, that the Augustus Montagu of Grosvenor-place, is somewhat nearer than a cater-cousin to the Charles Mortimer of Belgrave-square, and that the heroines (Heaven save the mark !) are like grist, which, although brought to the mill by different hands, comes forth flour of the same unsullied but undistinguishable whiteness. They observe, likewise, that Oliver Cromwell must have been a much more destructive warrior than is popularly supposed, since so many pic-nic parties are arranged for the purpose of inspecting the picturesque ruins of castles battered by his artillery, and they think it odd that ladies and gentlemen should transact so much sentimental business at her Majesty's theatre. All this, however, is not uttered in the tone of complaint. When they see grim, impracticable, and purse-proud fathers, as like each other, as the iron safes are, which contain their ledgers and cash-boxes; generals by the gross, who have distinguished themselves in the same campaign; admirals tarred with the same stick; heartless men of fashion, like Brummell (but who keep their wit to themselves), and devoted domestics with the identical gravity and grey hair-when the lack-lustre eye lights upon these familiar persons, they do not exclaim,— "What! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?" no; in a spirit of due resignation they arrive at this conclusion, that a delineation of national manners has been the close and anxious labour of so many, that the staple is well-nigh worked up; nay, further, that human nature has been so assiduously ransacked, that nothing either rich or rare is any longer to be expected from her. There cannot be a greater mistake. Not only have our dramatists and romance-writers not exhausted human nature, but they have not yet carried away any perceptible portion of the harvest. It may be a just complaint, that our modern novels strikingly resemble each other in many particulars; but this arises from a poverty of invention in the authors, or an utter inability to draw characters from life. The man of real genius, however, the true artist, works in a different spirit; operates upon living beings whom he idealizes, presenting us at length with a picture, which, although it may portray passions often before painted, is as fresh, new, and original, as though these passions had never engaged the attention of a predecessor. Let Shakspeare tell us-notwithstanding that his lines were written with no such purpose-a few of the subjects which lie ready to the hand, and fall under the province of the dramatist and the romancewriter, and then let the reader decide whether any one of them has been worn threadbare. (6 -The whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, That patient merit of the unworthy takes." Surely, there are themes here, suggestive of passions, a thoroughly satisfactory illustration of which might somewhat strain the faculties of any author we have now amongst us. Let us hope that, in some of the works at least which it is now our duty to report upon, we shall recognize an endeavour, more or less successful, to draw something directly from human nature. And first, we lay our hands upon "Jacob Bendixen, the Jew," adapted from the Danish of Goldschmidt, by Mary Howitt. We have a very sincere regard for the graceful talents of Mrs. Howitt. She has written much, but she has written well, and we do not anticipate the time when we shall not be rejoiced to hear that a work is about to proceed from her pen. To the pleasure we have derived from a perusal of her own works, we must add, the pleasure she has afforded us by her introduction to the English public of the admirable tales of Frederika Bremer. We are now called upon by Mrs. Howitt to give a welcome to another Danish author. Well, we have read the work of Goldschmidt with an attention, which the good word of the translator would be certain to excite within us; and, while we would be by no A CLUSTER OF means so ungallant as to address Mrs. Howitt in the words of Dr. Johnson to Hannah More,-"Dear lady, before you are so prodigal of your praise, it were well to consider what it is worth," we would fain inquire what Mrs. Howitt understands by the word "genius." Never was word so profaned as this unhappy word of late years has been. Every butterfly is a dragon now-a-days, and "the smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor," has a mane dealt out to him, and is forthwith dubbed a lion, and he roars till he wakes up old Oblivion, who comes quietly, whips him under his arm, and bears him away. Goidschmidt, says Mrs. Howitt, "is a man of unquestionable genius, and originality of mind." No such thing, or the term "genius" is capable of a far wider signification than we have been accustomed to assign to it. Jacob Bendixen is the history of a Jew, who from his infancy had experienced and been compelled to endure the wrongs and insults which it was the horrible pleasure of Christians to inflict upon that oppressed race. A boy of a very sensitive nature, as a young man pursuing his studies at Copenhagen, he is not much better fitted to bear with patience the ill-disguised aversion with which some of his fellow-students regard him. He falls in love, however, with a young Christian maiden, who returns his affection. He proposes, and is accepted. But here, again, he is doomed to misery. He cannot but perceive a certain constraint in the members of his Thora's family,-a constraint which he, nevertheless, feels is increased (if it has not been created) by his own invincible reserve. He flies from Thora, joins the French army at Algiers, thence proceeds to Poland to fight in the cause of liberty, and at last returns to Copenhagen, where he finds Thora married to another. The end is a pair of broken hearts. That this work makes us familiarly acquainted with the domestic life and manners of Jews, is true, and that is its chief merit; but to exhibit these demands no exercise of genius. What we should have been glad to see, we do not find, namely, a story constructed with skill, and characters-or even one character-delineated with force and sharpness. The story is exceedingly ill-managed, all such scenes as the author was unable to depict, being, with Hebrew adroitness, left to the reader's imagination. The adventures in Algiers and Poland are tame and tedious. After Again, the author has utterly failed to do what he purposed to effect, that is to say, to raise in the breast of the reader a sympathising interest for the hero, Jacob. Let us see how far this sensitive youth is entitled to our tender consideration. Having seen some Christian boys with wooden swords make an attack upon a mimic fortress, he has a mind to provide a similar sport for himself. He takes the house-cat, ties her to a board in the garden, and commences the siege. some time, the cat begins to like a game of which her claws enable her to have the better; but Jacob "did not rest till his uncle furnished him with a little dagger." The father appears upon the scene just when "his son for the last time struck his dagger into the breast of his enemy." Being asked what he takes himself for, to do such a thing, the sensitive child answers, "I want to see what more is inside the cat." This is part of "the history of a human soul," as Mrs. Howitt has it, drawn by a man of unquestionable genius with a view to enlist our pity and admiration! |