may be more easily remedied and removed | sentatives of the kingdom, yet the wisdom than in that of any other European state.* of the monarch cannot be sufficiently apThe faithful sketch we have here given preciated, who, to use the words of the of the Prussian government and adminis- author of No. 2, "has first erected the tration is sufficient we think to satisfy pillars before he thought of vaulting the every candid reader, that in the elevated cupola, and has given to a people entirely position in which she is placed by her unaccustomed to political and legislative numerous excellent institutions, Prussia functions, an opportunity of serving an has no reason to shrink from a comparison apprenticeship on minor theatres, before with the best constituted countries in ex- they are raised to the dignity of states of istence. No enlightened Prussian, how- the kingdom, which require so much more ever, either thinks or will be hardy enough political experience." And it must be to maintain, that the system is all perfec- confessed, that the acts of the provincial tion. Much yet remains to be done. Great states* still exhibit marks of great unskilimprovements are undoubtedly still re fulness and inexperience, so that the goquired both in the fiscal and the judicial vernment appears by its proposals and systems; the want of a proper organiza- administrative measures in a greatly su tion of the rural communities is greatly perior light to the provincial representafelt; a greater degree of liberty of the tives. What, indeed, might have been the press would raise the nation still higher consequences, if, in 1815, a chamber of in European estimation; and the institu- deputies had been convoked? Representation of a popular authority, which should tives from the Rhine, Westphalia, Saxony, accompany legislation with its counsels, Brandenburg, Silesia, Pomerania, Prussia, watch with unremitting vigilance over the and Poland, would have had to discuss ministers of the executive, and denounce laws for the whole kingdom. Would there to the sovereign all attempts to violate or have been harmony or agreement on a infringe the law, has in all countries into single point in such an assembly? If the which it has been introduced, been found question had, as in all such assemblies, so beneficial, that it is but a natural wish been decided by the majority, how loud that Prussia may also, ere long, as has would have been the complaint of the been promised, be provided with it. But Pole, if it had been attempted to make him a great part of the want has already been a German, how keen the feelings of the supplied by the erection of the provincial Rhinelander or of the Old Prussian, if the states; and although the financial, military, institutions of either had been forced upon and foreign relations require for their the other! All this might be much more consideration a chamber of general repre- easily accomplished now, and the revolution of every succeeding year must add to the facility, as the bond of union between the different parts of the kingdom daily grows more close. And thus the moment best suited for the completion of institutions which were freely granted, may be well left to the calm consideration of the monarch and his ministers, without seeking to extort concessions before their time. Meanwhile, as Mr. Hansemann correctly states, the desire for greater constitutional rights has no where in Prussia been very eagerly expressed. The nation, upon the whole, was satisfied; for it had made great progress in the social reforms, and enjoyed their fruits, and the comparison of its administration with those of other European states was such as to afford fair grounds of satisfaction. The honest, noble, and benevolent character of the king had generated an extraordinary affection for him in the breasts of his subjects, and the same

*These views, we are aware, are considerably at variance with those of two articles on the Prussian Commercial Policy, published in this Journal in May, 1832, and April, 1833 (Nos. XVIII. and XXII.) The able writer appears to us to have labored under considerable misconception of the objects of the Prussian government, in seeking to establish a commercial league among the German states, and to have been actuated too exclusively in his comments by considerations affecting British interests alone. This is not the arena, nor the present the opportunity, for entering the lists with our much respected collaborateur; but we may at least be allowed to enter our protest against the correctness of his representations, and would refer such of our readers as desire to hear what may be said on the Prussian side of the question to a short and able article inserted in Ranke's Historisch-politische Zeitschrift, June-August, 1832, written by Professor Hofman, of Berlin, one of the most enlightened and influential Prussian publicists; also to an English pamphlet printed at Hamburgh last year, under the title of "Remarks on the Averages of Hamburgb, and on the Commercial Policy of Great Britain towards Prussia and other Northern States," which is understood to be the production of an English gentleman, resident in that city in a public capacity. The views taken by the latter writer of the German commercial league, and of the injurious consequences which may result to British interests of all classes, should the British government persist in a refusal of all concessions which would neutralize the operation of that league, appear to us eminently sound and practical, and well worthy of the consideration of the statesmen who sway the British councils.

*They have been printed in nine volumes-Landtagsverhandlungen der Provincialstände in der Preussischen Monarchie, herausgegeben von J. F. D. Rumpf. 1826-1833.

character was stamped upon the whole administrative hierarchy. People live so comfortably under this paternal, benevolent, and enlightened government, that the question of a constitution has been hitherto entirely a question of higher politics.

kowski.) 23 Vols. 8vo. Leipzig.

1829-1834.

ALEXANDER VON OPELN BRONIKOWSKI is a writer whose varied career has afforded him ample means of gathering materials for his numerous productions. Belonging, as his name shows, to a noble Polish family, he is himself the scion of a branch that removed to Dresden, whilst the Electors of Saxony wore the crown of Poland. Our author's father was Ad

As to the foreign policy of Prussia, we may assert without fear of contradiction, that the confidence which she has acquired from both the political parties into which Europe is now divided, and the conciliatory and moderate course which she has pursued, have, more than any thing, jutant-General to the present King of contributed to the preservation of general peace in the present crisis. Much of this may no doubt be attributed to the personal character of the king, but scarcely less to the character of the state, which, as its history shows, has been from the beginning, a promoter of light and civilization, a supporter of the intellectual and moral interests of humanity, and which would naturally lose all the elements of its power, the moment it ceased to maintain its character of superior intelligence. For what is it that has given to a state so inferior in means of every kind to all the great political bodies of Europe an equality of rank and influence with the greatest? What else but the genius, knowledge, vigor, spirit and honesty of the people and the government can have secured to it that general confidence, which makes its relations friendly with powers the most opposite in their political principles, and raised it from its natural inferiority to that height as to hold in its hand the balance of European politics? We may conclude in the words of the author of the first book on our list.

Saxony, then Elector, but the son was, nevertheless, at an early age placed in the army of Prussia. After a brief confinement to the most unintellectual routine of garrison life in a petty Silesian town, his regiment was, in 1802, quartered at Erfurt, where Bronikowski was introduced to a literary society, was encouraged to write, and first saw the children of his brain introduced to the world in pic-nic volumes published by that society. His incipient authorship was, however, speedily crushed by Prussia's fatal war against France in the year 1806; and after the peace of Tilsit our Saxon Pole entered the French Army, whether dazzled by the brilliancy of Napoleon's military glory, or lured by the vain hope that the conqueror of two of Poland's destroyers (Austria and Prussia) would restore that unhappy and ever distracted country to independence. We give him credit for the latter and nobler motive the more confidently, because, after Napoleon's fall, when seven additional years had somewhat enlarged his experience and matured his judgment, a like hope induced him to enrol himself in the Polish army of the Russian Autocrat, and new King of Poland. But the Grand Duke Constantine proved a more efficient mas

"Prussia, by its geographical position, by the cautious and active character of its inhabitants, by the greatness of its power, and the superiority of its intelligence, seems to be destined by Providence to become the political cement not only for the whole of Germany, but also for the east and west of Europe.ter of the art of disappointing than the It will always become more evident, that Prussia may be justly called the state of the conciliatory principle."

A state, therefore, that derives its main strength from its intellectual and moral power, must of necessity do more and more for the development of mind-first, within its own boundaries, and afterwards by its influence upon the states with which it is connected.

ART. IX-Sammlung neuer Schriften von Alexander Bronikowski. (Collection of New Writings, by A. Broni

French Emperor, and Bronikowski, with the rank of Major, quitted the service in disgust. He then spent some time in exploring the "land of his sires," after which he took up his residence in his native city of Dresden, and in the year 1825, at the age of forty-two, resuming his early propensities, turned author.

In his new capacity, Bronikowski has, we believe, already published twelve volumes of Schriften (Writings), being chiefly Polish romances, various detached short tales, some political, and some historical works, besides the twenty-three volumes of "New Writings" that head this article. Of so formidable a mass, we, who boast not German industry, pretend

not to be acquainted with more than some the declining years of this most glorious half-dozen or so of novels, mostly of the of Polish monarchs, the defeater of the Neue Schriften; but these are sufficient Turks, and deliverer of Germany, if not for the purpose of forming an opinion of of Christian Europe. The best drawn, the nature of the writer's genius, and the at least best executed, characters are those general merits of his productions. Bro- of the Abbé de Polignac, French Embasnikowski, who appears to be deeply and sador, and of his dupe, Sobieski's French thoroughly versed in history, is, like many Queen, the vain, domineering, and rash of the German novelists of whom we have Marie Casimire. The imaginary loves of lately spoken, peculiarly félicitous in the Prince Wisniowieczki, and the king's conception and development of character, daughter, and the attachment of the lowas modified by the circumstances, political lier, though still noble, Eva Jorkiewior other, of the countries and times in czowna to the former, are far less effective. which he places or finds his personages; Our author is less happy when he unmost of his novels being historical, and dertakes to construct a fable altogether some of them in truth no novels at all, fictitious, the devising of stories being but fragments of History or Biography evidently not his forte; in illustration wrought out into a novel-like form, by whereof we shall say a few words conthe unfolding, and exhibiting, or insinu- cerning his extravagantly wild, but not ating the views and motives, as well as proportionately fanciful, Beate, which the detail of conduct, of the leading per- appeared in 1832. This tale professes to sons, in conversations, able and character- be extracted from an old, often illegible istic, but almost as lengthy, to speak chronicle, without a title page, but ends American, as the harangues of the Ameri- during the recent disastrous Polish insurcans themselves in Congress. Appa- rection. Beata, the heroine, is introduced rently for the sake of his female readers, to us as the devotee (Anglice, evangelihe intermingles herewith a few imaginary cal) widow of a shop-keeper, who, by the persons and incidents, and some little purity and tranquillity of her life and love; but the chief and really powerful feelings, has preserved her beauty longer interest is awakened by the great historical, political, and psychological truth of the already mentioned developments of historical characters and events.

As an instance or two we may name, first, Der Gallische Kerker (the French Prison), which recounts the fact of the arbitrary seizure and imprisonment in France of John Casimir, a Polish prince, by Cardinal Richelieu, together with the subsequent endeavors of the said Cardinal's spies and other instruments to lure him into attempts at escape, which, if he could not be shot in making them, might serve as pretexts for his detention, and the counter-endeavors of his Polish friends, and of Clara Hébert, a low-born French girl, who has fallen in love with the Sarmatian captive, to prevent his being so misled. This girl, be it observed, can scarcely be called an imaginary personage, since John Casimir did in afterlife marry the dowager Maréchale de l'Hôpital, who was of humble origin, and whose maiden-name was, we believe, Hébert. Secondly, Polen im Siebzehnten Jahrhunderte, oder Johannes der Dritte Sobieski, und sein Hof (Poland in the Seventeenth Century, or John III. Sobieski, and his Court); the main interest of which novel lies in the portraiture of the factions and plots, domestic and foreign, relative to the succession, that harassed

than most women. Gradually we discover in this supposed pattern of female excellence a hypocritical, heartless, and ruthless sensualist, who has poisoned her parents to get rid of their authority-her husband, because he refused her a silk gown-her children, to avoid maternal cares,-her successive paramours, when she was tired of them, or suspected their discretion-an honorable lover, to get his fortune by marriage-articles without actually marrying him, lest, in wedded life, he should discover that, vice having withered her prematurely, her charms are all false; being in fact, partly provided by the further poisoning of her maid to get her hair, of a poor child to get her teeth, &c. &c.* This wholesale murderess is solicited by Satan in proper person to do what we should have thought a complete work of supererogation, namely, to sell him her soul;-indeed, he does try to get it cheap -and she, to our no small surprise, positively refuses. But his Infernal Majesty proves too many for the scrupulous poisoner. By dying poisoned in her house, he occasions her detection; and then, by the help of Courts of Justice, and of the

*The idea of this personage, and a number of the details are evidently derived from the history of the bach's German Criminal Trials, will be found in woman Schonleben, whose case, as reported in Feuerour eighth volume, pp. 269, 275.

pages.

"A few hours afterwards Anna Veselenyi, richly attired, stood beside her mother in the receptionrooms of Castle Murany, modestly curtseying and replying to the greetings and inquiries of the illustrious ladies there assembled.

ghosts of her victims, he scares her into an author who works so much by detail: compliance. The bargain signed and the scene in question occupies about forty sealed, he rescues her from prison, and takes her to Poland, where he employs her in her old trade of poisoning; Diebitsch-Sabalkanski being one of her victims. But except this, she achieves little at Warsaw, and accordingly Satan carries home his doubly and trebly-secured purchase, when he has sufficiently displayed to her, and to the reader, the dissensions palsying the efforts of the most patriotic Poles, and the selfish views, the folly and the treachery of the majority of the in

surgents.

We now turn to Bronikowski's last work, Die Magyaren (The Magyars), because we deem his latest production the fairest specimen of the talents of a writer in the full vigor of his career. This is one of our author's developed histories, for, in truth, the loves and sorrows of Balthasar Zrinyi and Anna Veselenyi can hardly even be called a thread to connect the different scenes here presented to us. The Magyars, our readers need not perhaps be told, is the name of the Hungarians in their native language, which denominates Hungary, Magyar-Orszag, or land of the Magyars; and the book before us delineates various portions of the great Magyar insurrection during the latter part of the seventeenth century, when the discontented Hungarians were driven by resentment of Austrian encroachments upon their constitution, and acts of individual oppression, to place themselves under the protection of their hereditary foes, the Osmanli.

the effort to be every where the first, and the con"The first of these, whose whole carriage bespoke sciousness that this effort was seldom resisted, after greeting the lady of the house, turned her loftilyborne head to Lady Anna, looked her steadily in the face, glanced over her person, and then said, in a tone rather imperative than courteous, 'Come nearer, my fair girl."

"The speaker was a middle-aged lady, not tall, but of full person and strong make; her complexion was darker than is usually seen even in Lower Hungary, and a foreign air in her well-formed but somewhat masculine countenance seemed to indicate a more southern origin. The glance of her large dark brown eye was not only cold and commanding, like the Countess Veselenyi's, but, as were her voice and her manners, decided and abrupt, although majestic. A grass-green travelling dress embroidered with gold, assorting with the character of her person, completed the image of an amazon. This was Anna Catharina Frangipani, wife of Peter, Count Zrinyi, Ban of Croatia.

* * * * * *

66

Half-beside, half-behind her, stood or moved a delicate, languid young lady, with downcast eyes, and a soft, youthfully lovely face, the tender, almost transparent paleness of which rendered her as dissimilar to the goddess whose name she bore, the her by the gardener, Gabriel Cserklos. A friendly glowing Aurora, as similar to the white rose assigned glance exchanged between the two young ladies indicated their previous acquaintance.

and convent-bred. I am no friend to conventual education, at least in these times; it may be useful to train modest and domestic house-wives, and to guard them, for a while at least, against the allurements of the world; but at present the world is not alluring, it is stern and rough, and requires the strength of action rather than that of forbearance, which old books of morality pronounce the chief virtue of our sex. What think you of it, Countess Nadasdy?"

"At the Countess Zrinyi's command, Anna approached her, but with something of the shyness Veselenyi, and did reverence. which she usually inspired, as much as Countess Anna scarcely ventured to lift her eyes towards her whom she wished to love, or to gaze upon the features that seemed to disdain this sentiment. The Lady Zrinyi, after again This insurrection affords our author surveying her from head to foot, without addressing another word to her, turned to the mother, saying:three distinct novels, or shall we say threeA graceful, elegant, noble maiden, only too shy, series of scenes, of which two have been published in the last and current year, respectively entitled, Das VerlobungsFest zu Murany (The Betrothment Festival at Murany), and Balthasar und Anna. The Betrothment Festival is held at Castle Murany, the residence of Count Veselenyi, Palatine of Hungary, whither the Hungarian nobility are invited to witness the betrothing of Balthasar and Aurora Helena Zrinyi, the children of the Ban of Croatia, to Anna Veselenyi, and Francis, Prince Rakoczy; the further secret object of the assembly being to concert the means of maintaining the old constitutional rights of Magyar-Orszag. As one of the brides, Aurora Helena Zrinyi, became a person of great note in the troubles that ensued, we extract part of the scene in which she is first introduced; but must observe that it is difficult to do justice by extracts to

"This question, significantly, almost ironically asked, was addressed to the wife of the Judex Curia, the first magistrate, and one of the most distinguished and powerful magnates of the kingdom. But all the grandeur and splendor that surrounded the still juvenile Countess seemed not to touch her. The expression of her countenance was deep seriousness, though she bore an invisible burthen; her voice was if not melancholy; her movements were languid, as sweet but plaintive; and in this tone she replied: I am not of your Ladyship's opinion; the lessons of pious nuns open the heart to the peace of Heaven which is always needful, and the more so, the sterner and rougher the times are. * * * husband oftener wants a sympathizing companion, who may help him to bear, than a partner of his

I believe a