A step or two downwards convinced me that I was not to take the parties at Madame la Baronne's as representing the general tone of society. My next visit was en garçon to a Kränzchen (or pelite réunion dansante) at the It was held in a suite of about eleven rooms belonging to the club, of which two were devoted to dancing, and the remainder laid out with supper-tables that were supplied with eatables, upon ordering them, by a restaurateur in waiting. The company consisted of professional men, persons employed in public offices, respectable tradesmen, and their families. The gentlemen were generally dressed in coats of most antiquated cut, that looked as if they had never been new; and many of the ladies wore high dresses of very common, as well as uncommon, materials, and black leather shoes. The favourite part of the amusement seemed to be the supper-tables. They were not uselessly encumbered with airy whips and unsatisfying ices, but were comfortably spread with rich and substantial roasts; nice "bits of brown" varnished over with gravy; or rosy and well-fed ham. Ladies when hungry are unkind, And men too faint to speak their mind, was a sentiment fully recognised by the company assembled at the who were much too sensible a class to think of paying for a supper without eating it. On the contrary, they "ate and danced, ate and danced, ate and danced, and ate again;" and it had the drollest effect imaginable to see a replenished pair start suddenly from the table, and whirl in mazy turns, to the distant echo of the music, through half a dozen rooms filled with other supper-tables, till they had whirled themselves once more into the dancing-room. Then the dancing itself! the unbecoming toilettes of the women, the angular attitudes of the men! What a contrast to the graceful waltzing of the crême de la créme! But they seemed to enjoy themselves; so we may presume that the object of their meeting was accomplished. As to the masked balls, they are the same throughout the world. It is impossible that the spirits of five hundred or a thousand persons can rise to a given point at a certain hour, on a certain evening, in any part of the world. Happiness never fixes the day she intends to visit us. "Les plus heureux moments de la vie," said the female philosopher of Copet, "sont ceux qu'un hazard bienfaisant nous accorde." I was not surprised, therefore, to find that the masquerades at Carlsruhe were as dull as elsewhere. Indeed, there was one of their customs which seemed eminently calculated to add to this effect. It is amongst the regulations that every one shall bear a distinguishing mark or dress. In order to comply with it, those who are neither in costume nor domino wear their hats, with a common playing-card, or a printed number, stuck in front; and as the appearance of a German en bourgeois is not particularly aristocratic, the hat gentlemen look like so many special constables just sworn in and ticketed by the borough magistrates on the morning of a contested election. The best dressed, though not the merriest, of these meetings was at the Museum, of which I had become an "extraordinary" member by a payment of about 4s. 6d. a month. It has a library, a reading-room well supplied with newspapers, a billiard and smoking room, a restaurant attached, and a very handsome suite of entertaining rooms. Its principal ball-room is remarkably well proportioned; and when lighted, as at the masquerades, by a profusion of splendid chandeliers suspended from the ceiling, the assemblage of gay costumes beneath them had a striking effect. From what I heard and understood of any attempts at dialogue, the wit (unlike that of the Italians) seemed rather ill-natured than sparkling ; and though a committee was sitting in an adjoining room, before whom any one charged with giving offence was obliged to unmask, some very hard words were ventured upon. A brother of the Grand Duke was roughly bantered upon his reported unsuccessful attempts to be numbered amongst the suitors of our gracious Queen. This was allowed to pass. But an officer of rank, who was teased and ridiculed by a black domino about some of the secrets of his domestic affairs, insisted that his assailant should follow him before the committee. The black domino complied with the invitation till they had reached the door of the ball-room; when, pushing the irate officer forwards, he slipped back amongst the crowd, and passing by a side entrance to the court-yard, very dexterously escaped. The clubs next in respectability to the Museum are the Lesegesellschaft (or Reading Club), and the Eintracht (or Harmony), a name rather whimsically taken by a body of schismatics from the Reading Club. There is also a kind of Mechanics' Union (the Gewerbverein), where communications are made of improvements in machinery, processes of manufacture, &c. The order of the day for the meeting at which I should have been present was "On the construction of steam-carriages; the improvement of carriage-springs; and other subjects; with communications from various journals." Once a year an exhibition takes place of their models and specimens. It is an institution that must work well in every way; both upon their immediate occupations and pursuits, and in fitting them for local government. In other respects the state of the mechanic in this and the neighbouring parts of Germany is depressingly humble. His wages as a journeyman are low, and his profits as a master very small. The generality of workmen receive, when first out of their apprenticeship, about 4s., and afterwards about 7s. 6d. a week. Sometimes the master finds them board and lodging; in which case he only pays them something under 3s. a week in lieu of 7s. 6d. : a difference that shows at how low a rate a workman may, in these countries, subsist. An apprentice for three or four years pays a premium of 300 or 400 florins-about 30l.; and for this, and his services, the master keeps him. Then follows the well-known period of the Wanderjähren, which is little better than a state of mendicity, though its object is to perfect them in their craft. Every traveller, by the highway, in Germany-for we know not how railways may have affected them-will recollect the appeals (less frequent, even in our time, than formerly) of these wandering mechanics; and his charity might often have been much worse bestowed. They are not left, however, without assistance from their respective trades. I was informed that each had its fund, except the dyers, furriers, and brewers; but the custom, in this respect, is not everywhere uniform. A contribution to this fund of about 20 florins (33s.) is paid upon being admitted, after the wanderjähren, to the privileges of a journeyman, and 50 florins upon becoming a master: out of which the wanderers receive their relief. There is generally a particular tavern where they are allowed 4 kreuzers (3 kreuzers being equal to 1d.) for their lodging; 4 kreuzers for soup; 6 kreuzers for meat; 2 kreuzers for a plate of vegetables, and also their beer; and, on their departure, they have from 48 to 60 kreuzers given to them for road-money. All this is superintended by the Herbergsvater (or appointed host) of their respective trades. If they are unable to find work in a day or two after their arrival, they are obliged either to support themselves or to proceed elsewhere. Some of the trades give more, and some less; and, in those which have no fund, the masters receive the wanderers into their houses for a couple of days, and give them a trifle upon their departure. Considering the low rate of wages which they at last receive, it is pretty evident that a superior workman will seek employment where it is better remunerated. The consequence is the establishment, in most of the small German towns, of a very inferior description of mechanics. Almost all they do is either frail or clumsy. The low rate of profits makes the masters indifferent; and much of the work is entrusted to apprentices. I will take the single instance of bookbinding. Nothing can be conceived more mean or inelegant than the bindings executed in a small German town ;-even at Carlsruhe, where there is an extensive bookselling and publishing establishment. It would have thrown a member of the Roxburgh Club into a fever to have seen margins mercilessly clipped, and letter-press cut to the quick, as I have seen them here; and partly, as I verily believe, to increase the miserable pittance to be derived from selling the shavings. Again, if a lock is to be put upon a drawer,-first it will not hold; then it will not open; and, at last, it will probably do neither the one nor the other; and with almost every kind of work it is the same. The German tradesman envies the fortunes which are made by the English; but he forgets that, independently of every other consideration -allowing for all the discouraging circumstances to which I have merely alluded-they are very different beings. It is not by their superior machinery alone, but by the persevering energy of their industry, that the English are the most wealthy nation in Europe. This is a quality which, generally speaking, the German seems to want. He will plod on respectably through his stated hours; but he will not, like an Englishman, sacrifice his rest or his meals to the calls of a customer, for the slow and almost imperceptible accumulation of a distant independence. The English tradesman is content to snatch his enjoyments from the night, or confine them to the Sunday; but the German would not relinquish his claf, his pipe, or ancient meal-time, for the mere prospect even of a fortune. When the tradesman of a small German town becomes independent, it is generally rather by care and thoughtfulness than by energetic exertion. But I am reminded that our winter is drawing to its close; and there are subjects still to be noticed. LITERARY LEAFLETS. BY SIR NATHANIEL. No. XXIX.-LORD JOHN RUSSELL'S MEMORIALS OF Fox.* WHETHER from the good-nature that cannot say no to request of friends, or from the promptings of conscious power, or (if "whether" will grammatically endure a third term) from that dare-all and copewith-all pluck, so memorably noted by Sydney Smith, in a passage immortal as the Channel Fleet and lithotomy,-from whatever cause, or by whatever occasion, the fact stands out in pretty distinct type, that Lord John Russell is an adventurous man in the department of letters. A high art tragedy (revived, by-the-by, last autumn, in the west of England), a series of essays by an ex-lodger, a treatise on political philosophy, a biography of his ancestor Lord William (King Charles's victim, not Courvoisier's), a biography of Thomas Moore, a biography of Charles James Fox,-any of these he will,—what indeed will he not, undertake ? Το γαρ θελειν παρακειται 'αυτω: the verb velle he can conjugate at a canter. But perhaps only too applicable is the remainder of the text: το δε κατεργαζεσθαι το καλον, ουχ ευρίσκει : the verb posse, charged with To kaλov, is not so easily mastered. Both as a literator and as a statesman, Lord John Russell has been foolishly under-rated and foolishly over-praised; political partisanship has cried him up or cried him down with a zeal equally factitious and equally irrational. That he, of the size he is, says Mr. Carlyle, should ever have got to the apex of English affairs, is enough to alarm a very big Lordship.† On the other hand, devout adherents to the Bedford connexion regard him as the foremost man of all this world, and question the right or ability of a single contemporary to hold a candle to him. Sneering Radicals again will agree, on occasion, with sneering Tories, that a statesmannikin of his inches is simply incapable of a big idea, a big sentiment, or even that poor thing, as things go, a big speech. Observers more candid and not less competent, will rather accept the portrait of him drawn, years ago, by a now parliamentary opponent-as embodying some characteristic features of the ci-devant premier, in his parliamentary personnel : Next cool, and all unconscious of reproach, * Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox. Edited by Lord John Russell. Vols. I., II., III. London: Richard Bentley. 1853-5. "Smallest wrens, we know, by training and the aid of machinery, are capable of many things. . . . . Smallest wrens, and canary-birds of some dexterity, can be trained to handle lucifer matches; and have, before now, fired off whole powder-magazines and parks of artillery. Perhaps without much astonishment to the canary-bird. The canary-bird can hold only its own quantity of astonishment; and may possibly enough retain its presence of mind, were even Doomsday to come. It is on this principle that I explain to myself the equanimity of some men and premiers whom we have known."-Latter Day Pamphlets. A political crisis at the very time we write (January 27, 1855) gives new force to Lord John's knack of "spilling" the Government drag. Like or dislike, he does not care a jot; From the starved wretch its own loved child we steal- At any rate, his Lordship has made a name, and taken a position in politics, which nobody can deny. But, as to literature, that he has made much of a name, or taken a very observable position there, is what few will affirm. A "respectable" appearance is about as much as the bestdisposed can claim for him. But this claim is resisted only by the evildisposed; for if "Don Carlos" be universally "d dash d" by all orders of men among us, yet other productions there are of the Don's creator which are not to be pooh-poohed into nothingness. There is one fatal condition, however, attached to his more recent publications-the necessity, imposed by political avocations, of doing his literary work by snatches. Whether he could have written such a life of Fox, as Fox himself would gratefully have anticipated (even with a fifty years' lease of preparation), and as the Fox Club would put their signet to-had his Lordship enjoyed real immunity from the distractions of public service; whether he could have indited such a biography as for half a century has been looked for-and such a biography, it must be added, in his Lordship's despite, as is to be looked for still-had he been beyond the beck and call of Downing-street and St. Stephen's, of morning deputations and evening committees, of councils privy and cabinet, of red-tape at sunrise, and blue books at noon, and blue looks at night; whether, with such seclusion as Chatham so jealously maintained for himself at Hayes and Hampstead, or as Fox so cordially enjoyed at St. Anne's Hill, Lord John Russell could have satisfied the general public, if not a particular party, by a complete, luminous, careful, instructive, shapely memoir of the Whig leader, is after all a question belonging to what the old schoolmen called media scientia, which discusses how things might have turned out, if the event had only been other than actually, and in stubborn fact, it is. The present "Memorials," in point of fact, are sadly deficient in unity and coherence. They are composed of pic-nic contributions from men of diverse orders and generations. Lord Holland, to whom the world looked for the biography of his illustrious uncle-just as it is now looking (with an occasional query of, How long?) to Lord Mahon for the biographies of Peel and WellingtonLord Holland furnishes a quota to the quotient; John Allen, Esquire, another; John Russell, Esquire, commonly called Lord John Russell, a third; and "a learned friend" of the latter, unnamed but highly valued by him, a fourth. Wary must the reader be, therefore, lest he |