LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL NEW WORKS

PUBLISHED ON THE CONTINENT.

FROM MAY TO JULY, 1834, INCLUSIVE.

THEOLOGY AND ECCLESIASTICAL LITERATURE. | Pellico, Des Devoirs des Hommes. Traduit de l'Ital

Macquart, Histoire Naturelle des Insectes. Diptères.
Tomes I. et II., avec planches. 158.
Lesson, Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux de Paradis,
des Séricules et des Epimaques. Livraison I. 8vo.
Avec 4 Planches. To be completed in 1 Vol. 8vo.
Spach, Histoire Naturelle des Végétaux. Phanéro-
games. Tome II., avec Planches. 7s. 6d.
Dufrénoy et Elie du Beaumont, Mémoires pour servir
à une description Géologique de la France. Tome
II. In 8vo.

D'Orbigny, Tableau Synoptique du Regne Végétal
d'apres la Méthode de Jussieu. On a Sheet. In

Hübener, Hepaticologia Germanica, oder Beschrei-Munch, Geschichte des Hauses Nassau-Oranien. 3ter bung der deutschen Lebermoose. 8vo. Mannheim.

THE

FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW.

No. XXVIII.

FOR DECEMBER 1, 1834.

ART. I.-Friedrich der Grosse. Eine | ceased to pay them the homage which Lebensgeschichte. Von J. D. E. Preuss. was really their due for the improvements 4 Bände, und Urkundenbuch, 4 Theile. in society to which their sallies gave ori(Frederic the Great. The History of gin. The History of gin. But it is the civil government of his Life. By J. D. E. Preuss. 4 vols. Frederic,-the mind which planned, and 8vo. together with four volumes of ori- the resources which were applied to the ginal documents by way of Appendix.) construction of the Prussian monarchy,— Berlin, 1832-1834. of which we have as yet a very confused and imperfect knowledge; while, if the THE history of Frederic the Great is subject is fully considered, we shall find deserving of greater attention than it in him the real founder of that peculiar generally receives from the men of this form of moderate autocracy which now age, on more accounts than one. It is not prevails over the greater part of Europe. only as the general and the conqueror, The military monarchy, the most recent (although in military fame equalled by of all great systems of policy, and widely one only who has ever appeared on the differing from the military despotism of stage of modern Europe,) that history an usurper, this was the creation of Freexhibits him as the most prominent figure deric. The foundations of the edifice of this time. Nor can we take much in- were laid undoubtedly by many of his terest in the contemplation of his career, predecessors in German states, and espein that point of view in which he most cially by his father in Prussia. But he desired admiration-his connection with completed by forty years of labor this the literary history of the last century. No subject is now less generally attractive than the quarrels and reconciliations, the mutual flatteries and mutual insults, of the philosophic school of littérateurs. The reaction in the public mind has been so complete, that the scepticism of Frederic and Voltaire, that negative system of criticism, which assumed such proud dictation over all the wisdom of modern and ancient times,-is now even more obsolete than the exploded dogmatical fashion of thinking, against which their warfare was directed. They labored entirely for present fame, and they have had their reward; for posterity has more utterly forgotten them, than the antiquity which they wished to supersede; and has even

monument of his genius and of national submission; other sovereigns have done nothing but extend to distant regions the copy of the model which he bequeathed to them.

The task of breaking down the power of inferior nobles was very gradually accomplished by princes of the German empire. In France the old fabric of aristocracy had been demolished much earlier, by the wars of the league and the policy of Richelieu. But the feudal garb was rather laid aside, like the traveller's cloak, through the warmth of court favor, than torn away by main force from the wearer. The French government became a paradise of courtiers and royal favorites; it retained the vices of an aristocratic system

without any of its independent strength; ciple, which he followed even to erroneand the power of standing armies, the ous results, was to do every thing by the substitute which modern times have dis- simplest, cheapest, and most compendious covered for that strength, was not fully method. The end of government-the understood even by Louis XIV. in the happiness of the people, but prescribed plenitude of his military glory. But the and regulated happiness-was kept in poverty of German capitals offered none view with steady, unremitting rectitude. of those means which France had found All separate authorities, corporate or indiso efficacious in subduing the pride of the vidual, which might interpose between the nobles. Saxony alone, of all the realms royal person and his subjects, lost one by of the Emperor, emulated the character one their weight and authority, and he beof the court of Paris in splendor and came the central mover of everything. magnificence. The lesser barons of Ger- The nobles became still more impoverishmany owed the decline of their authority, ed and dependant than before; their subabout the beginning of the last century, stance was wasted in the expenses of an rather to the warlike character of the na- ill-paid military service, while the laws tion, and the frequent campaigns which which forbade the disposal of their lands rendered standing armies necessary for to rotuiriers, still propagated from one the protection of wide tracts of open generation to another their needy multicountry. As the subordination, the regu- tude. The clergy, gradually more and lar constitution, and the numbers of these more discountenanced while ostensibly new armies increased, the gentlemen gra- protected, lost their independent providually exchanged the character of their sions whether enjoyed by Protestant or ancestors for that of officers and servants Catholic, and became pensioned servants of their sovereign, while that sovereign, to perform a state duty, less for the love from their suzerain and equal, became of God than for the peace of the people their general and their master. Frederic and the security of the king. All the inWilliam I. the father of Frederic, one of dependent authorities, which in ill-governthe most eccentric of monarchs,-whom, ed countries are apt to arise out of the had not all his enterprises been fortunate, body of the administration, disappeared had he not been one of the most sagacious before a king who was his own minister, and successful princes of his time, we and succeeded more nearly in realizing should find it difficult not to pronounce a the daring idea of universal surveillance madman,-pursued the one great object than any other monarch has ever done. of forming his army from predilection as The brief forms, quick execution, and unmuch as from system. The inheritance hesitating obedience of the camp, were which Frederic received from him was this transferred by degrees into every departmagnificent army-a treasure which, how- ment of the state; and its presiding spirit ever, one campaign sufficed to dissipate; devoted himself wholly and without the an extensive, but poor, sandy, half-culti- slightest remission of his vigilance to the vated kingdom; two or three fortresses, performance of his own part. "Si l'on and as many second-rate cities; a nobility veut que le gouvernement monarchique proud and punctilious, but almost wholly l'emporte sur le républicain," says he, in his devoted to military service; a clergy pow- Essai sur les Formes du Gouvernement. erful, pedantic, and somewhat fanatical; "l'arrêt du souverain est prononcé il doit an administration conducted on indifferent être actif et intègre." And to this selfprinciples, but orderly and well arranged imposed obligation he adhered as an inin detail; a patient, brave, and laborious flexible law. Such an artificial instrument population. as a government of this nature can hardly continue long in action, unless its general operation is for the immediate benefit of the subject. Accordingly, the system of Frederic was to do all for the people, nothing by the people; and, while not a single shred of the capricious political liberty of the middle ages was left, civil freedom was secured and extended to a higher degree than before. Mind as well as person was freed from the restrictions of centuries. All the vexatious small persecutions which the zeal of the clergy, and the jealous pride of corporate bodies,

*

Out of these materials, the modern kingdom of Prussia-that wonderful machine of state-craft, as a mere machine the most remarkable in existence, on the model of which most European governments are gradually proceeding to reform themselves-was framed by the unwearied energies of one man. Frederic's first prin

* "After all the meditation I have bestowed on the subject," Frederic used to say, when disappointed in his agricultural speculations, "I never yet could discover why God made sand,"