was not only unread in England, but that he considered that the

English, as a people, are incapable of apprehending it.' Robinson he mentions as a most remarkable and attractive man,' an exception 'to the insular character of intellectual exclusiveness.' A letter from a German lady residing in London, though not very complimentary either to our country-women or our clergy, is not uninstructive, as regards both the remarks on religion and culture. We cannot, however, help feeling surprised that a man like Perthes, so clearsighted at home, should class the relations of England and Ireland as worse than those of Austria and Hungary and her other dependencies! The common talk with which a traveller is assailed abroad, comparing Ireland with Poland, and British with Russian and Austrian oppression, to the advantage of the two latter, is unworthy of such a man, and shows that in some things his national prejudices blinded his judgment. Certainly, the years which have elapsed since the expression of those opinions have brought to England a wide-spread knowledge of German books, and proved also very practically the difference between English legislation towards Ireland, and Austrian towards her Hungarian

brethren.

Years passed on, and the ties which held Perthes to Hamburg were many of them severed.

In

1821 he lost his beloved Caroline. She had fulfilled her mission, and rested from her labours. Perthes felt her death with all the strength of his warm temperament. During his active and anxious life many a time had the energetic man rested on her gentle strength: in her it seemed as if everything had been taken from him at once, and he gave way for a time to his grief with vehement and passionate tenderness. Writing some time afterwards he says:

For twenty-four years we have lived together through cares and anxieties, sometimes through sorrow and trouble, but in all she was happy, for every moment was filled with love and lively sympathy; always resigned to the inevitable, she preserved her heroic spirit in

great events. That poverty of spirit so extolled by Tauler and Thomas à Kempis was hers.

Caroline's death rendered Hamburg utterly distasteful to him: he resigned his bookselling business to Besser, and removed to Gotha, where two of his daughters were married. There, at the age of fifty, he recommenced life as a publisher, in the important walks of history and theology, and during the twenty years of his activity in this department, had the happiness to stamp his name imperishably on some of the most noted productions of German research in the present century. While acting in this capacity he was necessarily brought into connexion with most of the leading politicians, historical inquirers, and theologians of the age.

To enumerate his friends and correspondents would be to write a list of all who, in those days, played a prominent part, besides very many private friends, whom he preserved through life. Ranke, Bunsen, Niebuhr. Humboldt, Richter, and the Schlegels, are names nearly as familiar to the English as to the German public. We must, at least, extract some account of Niebuhr. Perthes' acquaintance with him had begun at Hamburg, and had ripened into friendship, not uninterrupted by quarrels arising from their very different political views. In these quarrels Niebuhr's generosity of character shone forth, for he was the first to extend the hand, and own to his old friend that he had been wrong: Perthes afterwards frequently visited Niebuhr at Bonn. The following are his remarks after his first visit:

Niebuhr's disposition is very melancholy; the purer his heart, the deeper his sensibilities, the more he feels the want of some firm support for his soul; he fights with uncertainty and quarrels with life. He said to me, 'I am weary of life, only the children bind me to it.' He repeatedly expressed the bitterest contempt for mankind; and, in short, the spiritual condition of this remarkable man cuts me to the heart, and his outpourings alternately elevated and horrified me. To see such a heart and mind in the midst of the convulsions of our time, gives a deep insight into the machinery of our poor human life.

sions, and that his views had met with such a one-sided apprehension, and been carried to such extremes by his adherents, that he had subsequently been obliged, for truth's sake, to appear as their opponent. But he added, that his position, in regard to his brother Frederick, prevented an edition of his collective works. They had formerly accomplished the greater part of these together, but their opinions were now diametrically opposed on the most important subjects. He could not give up his own convictions, and his feelings forbade him publicly to oppose his brother. I then requested him to prepare a posthumous collection of his works, saying, that when our race is run, natural ties cease to fetter, and that the open confession of what each held to be truth would do honour to both. Schlegel spoke very openly of his relations to Niebuhr. The latter is so offended with his criticism on his Roman History. that he will not see him. 'Niebuhr,' said Schlegel, 'has no ground for this; no one made such efforts as I to follow him in his investigations in all directions, and this is the highest proof of appreciation and respect. Niebuhr might have forgiven me a few witticisins and jests, which he knew to be a part of my nature; but so it is, no one in Germany understands criticism, and so I keep to myself my opinion of Voss's perfor mances, though I could express it in three words.' I begged him to tell them me, and he replied, Voss has enriched our literature with a stony Homer, a wooden Shakspeare, and a leathern Aristophanes.' Schlegel took me to see his Indian printing office, and I could not but admire the simplicity and practical wisdom of his arrangements; indeed, on this occasion, I saw nothing but the good side of his character. faults are better known than those of most of us, and every one speaks of his incredible vanity, but it lies so on the surface, that one can hardly suppose it sinks deep. He has always been distinguished for strict conscientiousness in all affairs of business, and now he is firmly attached to Bonn, and a regular and active life may still further improve him. Good-natured he certainly is, if not exasperated or tempted by a sally

of wit.

His

A few years after settling in Gotha, Perthes married again. His mind was too elastic to bear depression long, and his was a disposition to crave for sympathy and love, and he had the rare power of gathering happiness and enjoyment from every source while life remained.

His daughters married, his sous left home, it was intolerable to him to be alone, and he married. His choice seems to have been a fortunate one: Clement Perthes makes very graceful mention of his stepmother, who was a widow; and though she brought with her four children (two of them hopeless invalids) to add to the household cares, she still seems to have healed the wounds of sorrow, and added to the happiness of all.

Goethe is frequently mentioned in these pages, but little new light is thrown on the giant of German literature, whose every word and action have been treasured and chronicled by his countrymen, who have filled volumes with their learned worship, till now nothing new can be said of Goethe. Perthes, however, saw in the great man the man of the world more than the poet and genius, and says:

In estimating Goethe, it must never be forgotten that he was a citizen of Frankfort it was his traditional civic dignity that made the society of the great so agreeable to him, and kept him aloof from the agitated scenes of human intercourse, whereby a privy councillor's cabinet in Weimar could still appear to him the world.

Perthes frequently made the tour of Germany, and though chiefly for business purposes, still scenery and art claimed their share of his attention, and with the clearness which characterizes him, he lays the country before one like a map, full of living figures and life-like portraits, and there are charming bits of landscape painting in his letters. His description even of the wellknown Rhine has a certain raciness in it, and though one no longer sees glass cages full of children hung out at the windows in Cologne, as he describes, many antiquated customs he mentions in Gotha still linger in the small towns, and even in the capital of Saxony. Even in these railway days the Germans slowly relinquish old habits.

To give any lengthened notice of the contents of the second volume of this work would require more space than we can spare-so many men of note are mentioned, and so many subjects of thought suggested. We hope the life of Perthes will become a

1856.]

much-read book in this country, as we believe it one likely to be very useful. The closing chapters offer a beautiful picture of old age, and of a life passed in usefulness and closed in peace. The good old man had a happy old age. Surrounded by his children, and his children's children, and in the full enjoyment of his faculties to the last, when drawing towards the close of his life, his thoughts seem frequently to have dwelt on his Caroline, with whom he had lived, and loved, and laboured, and who had entered the unseen world so many years before himself; but he seems also to have had the most affectionate feeling to his second wife, who nursed him with a tenderness to which his son bears record. She and one of his daughters always kept by his bedside during his last illness, and on the eighteenth anniversary of their marriage day he said to her:

Death is here. I am conscious of a most strange feeling, as if all earthly ties were dissolving, but there is no expressing this in words.

After this he lived some daysdays of great suffering. One time, waking as from a dream, he said:

Herder on his death bed sought only an idea. 'Light, light,' exclaimed Goethe; it would have been better had they cried out for love and humility.

The closing scene we must leave to his son to narrate. With it we conclude our notice: we cannot add anything to his pathetic words:

On Thursday, the 18th May, the Doctor was able to tell him that all would soon be over. He had no longer any actual pain, and on being asked whether his dreams were distressing, he answered, 'No, no, not now, once distressing, now delightful.' Sometimes he would pray aloud, and repeat hymns in a firm voice. But for the most part he lay there peaceful and joyful, and the peace and joy that God had granted to

523

him pervaded all that were near. 'When he folded his cold hands,' wrote one of his daughters, and prayed from his inmost soul, we too were constrained to fold our hands and pray; it was all so sublime, so blessed, we felt as though Our Lord Jesus Christ were with us in the room.' 'The last conflict is severe,' we find it said in another letter, 'but we see with our own eyes that he can overcome it in love and without pain or fear. The last enemy loses all his terrors for us, and the resurrection seems nearer us than the death.' About six o'clock in the evening, an intimate friend, the Court preacher Jacobi, came in. Perthes opened his languid eyes, and stretched out his hand to him, saying, 'For the last time it will be soon over, but it is a hard struggle.' About seven, Jacobi and the Doctor left him; at eight, his breathing became slower and deeper, but without occasioning any distress. His whole family stood round him. Perthes had folded his hands, and for a short time prayed aloud, but his speech had now become inarticulate; only the oft-repeated words, my RedeemerLord-forgiveness,' could be distinguished. It had grown dark.

When

lights were brought in, a great change was visible in his features, every trace of pain was gone, his eyes shone, his whole aspect was, as it were, transfigured, so that those around him could only think of his bliss, not of their sorrow. The last sounds of this world that reached the dying ear were, 'Yea, the Lord hath prepared blessedness and joy for thee, where Christ is the Sun, the Life, and the All in All.' He drew one long breath; like a lightning flash, an expression of infinite suffering passed over his face, then his triumph was complete. It was within a few minutes of half-past ten. Immediately after death, a look of peace and joy settled on his face. Early on the morning of the 22nd of May he was buried in the churchyard of Gotha, and his favourite hymn was sung around his grave: What can molest or injure me, who have

in Christ a part? Fill'd with the peace and grace of God, most gladly I depart. G. E. F.

IT

was now time to look about for some place to pass the night in, and at length a turn in the road brought us within sight of a small house, which we found to be a dismantled post station, but not seeing any water at hand, we preferred pushing on, in expectation of meeting some running brook. We soon arrived at a stream, clear as crystal and cold as ice, tumbling down from the base of the cliff into a basin by the roadside; at a little distance stood the roofed ruins of a deserted villa. To this we accordingly repaired, first watering our horses, which had carried us through all the heat of the day. Indeed, we almost observed it as a rule, to allow our animals to drink whenever we came to water-a practice which, when the work is slow and heavy, I found invariably observed both in Spain and Turkey.

The villa was a complete wreck. Doors and windows were all gone, and in some places the floors torn up. Such furniture as had not been carried away lay broken and strewed about the rooms, and the garden was wild and choked with grass and weeds. After dismount ing all the baggage, we put up the horses in the kitchen and stable, and seizing a hatchet we had brought with us, the edge of which did not turn or chip, I set hard to work in cutting up some of the dry broken timber for our fire, which was speedily lighted in the principal room, where we discovered a table and a one-legged bench. The latter we soon put to rights, and in half an hour our servants had the horses fed and made snug for the night, and a pot of water boiling on the fire, into which we plunged our preserved eatables. The room had a deep bay window, looking out upon the sea over the garden, from which it was elevated but a few feet. Two smaller rooms opened into it at either end, one of which was floored with asphalte, and in the other were arranged a couple of table-tops in a sloping position, which we appropriated for beds, in preference

to unpacking and pitching a tent. Certainly we could not complain of want of air, as all the sashes were broken, but so calm was the night, that when we lighted a candle, it burnt as steadily as in an English drawing-room. Before long we had an excellent dinner smoking before us, to which we felt perfectly ready to do the fullest justice. A huge fire blazed and crackled away in the wide-mouthed chimney, and on it stood the hissing kettle, and

Sang songs of family glee,

ever at hand to replenish our teapot and punch-bowl, till, somewhat tired, we sought our respective tables. The moon had now risen, and was nearly full, and poured a flood of silvery light into our window across the ocean and slopes beneath us. It sparkled on the sea like gleaming phosphorus, and caught the edges of the rocks and the trunks and branches of the trees. Having partaken of a cup of coffee and crust of bread, we mounted soon after six o'clock, and continued our journey along the same road, which in many places was covered with stones and rocks of various sizes, which the rains and thaws of winter had loosened and brought down. The cliffs now gradually began to recede from the road and coast lines, but the farther they retired, the higher and grander did they appear. The character of the slope began to alter, and was in many places cut by ravines and water-courses, showing frequently deep land-slips. The soil became black and slaty, and here and there dark masses of black and green-looking stone were tossed confusedly above the surface, the whole aspect showing evidences of volcanic agency. There were hardly any trees, the ground being covered with a scanty oak brushwood, with but few attempts at cultivation, except along the seacoast, many hundred feet beneath us. A few miles along this road we met a patrol of a couple of Cossacks,