THE

FOREIGN

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

ART. I.-1. Vorletzter Weltgang von Semilasso-Traum und Wachen. Aus den Papieren des Verstorbenen. 3 Bände. Stuttgart, 1835. (Travels in Germany and France. By Prince Pückler-Muskau.)

2. Conversations-Lexicon der neuesten Zeit und Literatur, 1833, Voce "Pückler-Muskau."

WHEN Prince Pückler-Muskau published his celebrated Tour, which, as our readers will recollect, was most severely and mercilessly attacked by two of our most respectable and influential journals, we thought it our duty to stand forward as the champions of the much-reviled tourist, and to expose the narrowness of those English prejudices which had smarted sore under the sweeping and uncompromising criticisms of a free-spoken foreigner. But our estimate of the German Prince and his Tour was by no means so high, or expressed in such unqualified terms of admiration, as that which appears to have been formed by many cotemporary British and continental critics.* We have, since that period, imposed it on ourselves as a duty to keep a close watch over the literary proceedings of the German Prince, and we have now, especially since the perusal of his latest work, -the mystic title of which stands at the head of this article,come to the conclusion that Prince Pückler-Muskau, so far from being a writer of whom Germany has reason to be proud, (as the author of the article in the Conversations-Lexicon seems to imagine,) is a vain coxcomb, and a frivolous and superficial scribbler of silly sentimentalities, shallow witticisms, and gabbling gossip, This judgment may appear severe; but we hope, before concluding our present observations, to satisfy our readers, that, notwithstanding the undoubted merits of the Tour in England and Wales, such are and ought to be the terms in which the impartial critic feels himself called upon to characterize the author of

* See our ninth volume, p. 290.

VOL. XVII. NO. XXXIII.

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"Tutti Frutti," and the " Penultimate World-walk of Semilasso."
The fact of the matter is, that the " Briefe eines Verstorbenen"
owed their celebrity in a great measure, though certainly not
altogether, to extrinsic and accidental circumstances. In the first
place, this work contained the tour of a prince; in the second
place, it was the tour of a German prince; in the third place, it
was not merely a tour, but a tour made the medium of throwing
recklessly about certain theological opinions and speculations,
whose novelty, in this country at least, was sufficient of itself to
"excite a sensation;" in the fourth place, it was pregnant with
gossip of persons in high places, and profusely studded over with
those personal charades,-in the shape of Lord B-s and Lady
Cs, which never fail to stimulate the curiosity of even the
most dull and apathetic reader; in the fifth place, it was patro-
nized by Göthe; and, in the sixth place, it was, as before-men-
tioned, most recklessly and unjustly battered down by certain
redoubted Aristarchs of periodical literature in this country, whose
extravagant censure was with many a sufficient reason, per se, for
no less extravagant eulogium. Four years have now passed away
since Mrs. Austin's translation of the " Briefe" was given to the
British public; and during that period the Silesian nobleman—
ambitious, it would seem, of literary, as he has already earned
military honours-has delivered himself of five supplementary
volumes, which, along with the previous four of the Tour, form
a sufficiently well-furnished record from which to pronounce sen-
tence on the intellectual and moral character of their author. We
have made a patient survey of all the papers that compose this
bulky record, and are grieved to express our opinion, that what-
ever merit of no vulgar kind they exhibit is more than neutralized
by the superabundant infusion of vanity, frivolity, and affectation
with which they are replete. The Prince, indeed, is a strange
compound of an English coxcomb and a German Bursch. The
qualities of mind which we have just enumerated seem borrowed
from the former; add to these the girlish sentimentality, the
dreamy imaginings, the wayward whimsicality, and the break-neck
recklessness, of the latter, and you are in possession of all the in-
gredients out of which a Pückler-Muskau may be composed.
We do not say that the author of the different works above enu-
merated is not possessed of qualities of mind, which might, under
proper regulation, prove of great service either to the state of
which he is a subject, or to the general republic of letters.
does not want imagination, he does not want feeling; but the one
is under no control of a strong understanding, and the other is
affected in its style and feminine in its tone. He is possessed of
considerable general information; but that information is by no

He

means of a sound and solid description, and is composed, in a great measure, of such rags, (some of them purple rags to be sure, plucked from the robes of brother princes,) as a man of common abilities, who has employed a great part of his life in wandering idly from country to country, could scarcely fail to have collected. He is neither a man of science, nor a connoisseur in the arts; he can make, and frequently does make, such pertinent remarks on pictures and buildings as a man of common feeling and ideality, who has seen many cities and lounged through many picture-galleries, might be expected to make; pretensions of a higher order he has none. He does not want enterprise, and a certain rash boldness; but these qualities with him do not go beyond the state in which they are developed in the mind of a Jena student, big with the swelling desire of " renowning." To scale "la Brêche de Roland," or the " Pic du Midi" in the Pyrenees, and play fantastic tricks before the sun with Mademoiselle Reichard in an air-balloon, are enterprises which seem sufficiently to gratify the appetite of his ambition, which is merely the ambition of impulse. In the year 1813 he was roused as who with a German soul was not?-to take a share in the military deeds of glory that achieved his country's liberty. There was something romantic and chivalrous in the "rising" of that time, with which his erratic spirit readily sympathized; and, to make it yet more romantic, we are informed in his biography that he signalized himself by a Quixotic duel with a Quixotic French colonel of Hussars, in which the Quixotic German came off victorious. Since that period, however, the Prince has not taken any active share in the public affairs of his country, either as a "bureaucratist" at home, or as a diplomatist abroad. He appears to be destitute of that solidity of character, and that manly ambition, which fit an individual for distinguishing himself in the public service; and seems to prefer coquetting with Welsh bar-maids, and pirouetting with dark-eyed rustic madonnas of the Pyrenees, to the rivalry of Stein and Hardenberg, as the coadjutor of "the first Reformer in Europe." The only department of useful activity, in which he has steadily and perseveringly exerted himself, is that of landscapegardening-and here, to do him justice, his merits are of a high order: here he shows that he can, when he pleases, forget his trifling frivolity and rambling superficiality, and become a serious professional man, instead of a mere gossiping dilettante. But the reader will probably agree with us, that the laying out and adornment of pleasure-grounds, however much it may indicate the man of taste and the agricultural martinet, is but a poor foundation on which to build a literary or a political reputation. Besides, this passion for landscape-gardening becomes with the

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Prince-as with weak and vain minds most passions are apt to become an absolute mania; he exhibits and parades it on all occasions, and suggests improvements as profusely on the scenery of the Pyrenees as on the garden of the Tuileries in Paris.

But wherefore do we thus busy ourselves at such conscientious length in dissecting the character of Prince Pückler-Muskau? We are engaged in a work of supererogation. The Prince has painted himself at full length passim in his writings, and especially in a notable passage, à la Walter Scott, with which the present "Penultimate World-walk" is introduced. Our fair readers, who lost their hearts to the " prepossessing" mustaches, the dark Byronic eyes, and the star-bestudded bosom of the portrait that introduced the third volume of the Tour of the German Prince into England, will doubtless be much edified by the following "genial" specimen of self-portraiture. After describing, at considerable length, the fashionable vis-à-vis curricle in which he set out on his tour, the traveller himself is minutely depicted as follows:

"The individual, who sat in the box of this trim vehicle, was a man of high stature, to all appearance a little beyond the middle period of life,* of a slender elegant figure, which, however, displayed more delicacy than strength of physical structure, and more of vivacity and mobility than of compactness and solidity. On closer inspection, it was easy to remark that the cerebral system of this individual was much more complete than the ganglionic, and the intellectual part of his nature more strongly developed than the animal. A phrenologist would have been apt to conclude that the Creator had given him somewhat more of head than of heart-more of imagination than of feeling-more of rationalism than of enthusiasm; and that, therefore, the individual was not destined to enjoy much happiness in this state of existence. Every one, however, who had the least knowledge of the world, could not fail to perceive that the stranger, whatever might be the state of his mind, belonged to that class of society from whom men are accustomed to receive quietly the laws of good ton, and the etiquettes that regulate the polished and refined intercourses of life. His features, though far from regular, were delicate and striking-of that kind, in a word, which once seen, are not easily forgotten. If they had any peculiar charm, it lay in their extraordinary activity. The eyes were a perfect mirror of every rapid change that passed in the mind, and, in a few seconds, they were seen to vary from dull and colourless to a brightness that rivalled the stars. But the permanent expression of these orbs was rather suffering than active—a strange middle shade betwixt pensive melancholy on the one hand and sarcastic bitterness on the other, that might well have suited with the countenance even of a Doctor Faust. To this dramatic personage, however, we do not believe that the character of our hero had much resem

* The German scholar will see from the Conversations-Lexicon that Prince Pückler. Muskau was born on the 30th of October, 1785.

blance; it appears rather that the feminine element was predominant in his character, whence arose a certain over-refinement and vanity, which were by no means inconsistent with a great capacity of endurance and self-denial. His great happiness lay in the joys of the imagination, and in the trifles of life. The way, not the goal, was his enjoyment; and when, in the child-like simplicity of his soul, he tumbled motley images together, and played with the many-coloured soap-bubbles of his fancy, he was in these moments at once the most joyous in his own spirit, and the most amiable in the eyes of others.

"While we are thus diligently engaged in scrutinizing our traveller, we perceive that he has laid himself gracefully back, and that he is now looking with his lorgnette' through the wood, as if to detect us in the midst of our criticisms. His bushy black hair-now, alas! not so rich and luxuriant as it once was, and which evil tongues will have to be dyed-discovers itself from beneath a red African Fez, whose long blue tassel sports playfully in the wind. Round his neck a motley Cashmere shawl is carelessly thrown, and his high white forehead and pale countenance are in good keeping with this half Turkish accoutrement. A black military frock-coat, adorned with silk embroidery of the same colour, nankeen pantaloons, and light boots, whose lustre vies with polished marble, complete the somewhat ostentatious toilette; and now our fault at least it is not, if our fair readers have not before their eyes a distinct representation of the 'world-tourist,' who hopes that he may never wander far without being accompanied by their good wishes."

We do not know how many self-complacent hours before the looking-glass of vanity the Prince may have been occupied before he fitted himself for penning this most minute and accurate portraiture of himself; but assuredly a more curious, a more perfectly unique, specimen of self-admiring self-portraiture has seldom been exhibited to an indulgent and a discerning public. No doubt the ladies in Berlin and Vienna, and the author's fair acquaintances at Almack's, will be suffused with a gentle titillation of delightful feeling, when they recognize in this minute description the same "prepossessing" personage who figured at once so fiercely and so tenderly in the before-mentioned frontispiece to the third volume of the Tour of a German Prince. Our author, in this passage, exhibits himself in a double capacity, calculated to captivate the hearts of all his fair readers, from the most sentimental and the most poetical devotees of Byron and Keats, to the most silly and the most trifling "pretty nothings" that serve to furnish and deck out a fashionable ball-room. the one side, the "strange middle shade betwixt pensive melancholy and sarcastic bitterness" is a composition of the poetic mind, evidently intended to unite all that is most ethereal and most misanthropic in the creations of Shelley and Byron; while, on the other side, the Prince exhibits himself as an exquisite of

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