And in her description and stories she does write with order, though it is the order of a picture not of a catalogue. Her adventures upon the hill of St. Rochus near Bingen, her little voyages on the Rhine, and her walks at Schlangenbad, are all the more real for the eloquent thoughts and bursts of feeling with which they are interspersed. How naturally the flow of animal spirits in a crowd is described after the procession to bless the vineyards of the Johannisberg is over, and the last vine has been sprinkled with holy water, and the sexton has tucked censer, surplice, and church-banner under his arm, and made the best of his way home.

got it out that you dream of me, for nowhere | On Friday I was at a concert, and a violincello else can you possibly have seen me.'" She was played, and I thought of thee, it sounded made him give her a note of introduction to so exactly like thy brown eyes. Adieu, girl, Goethe. thou art missing everywhere to thy Frau Rath." Bettina Brentano, Sophia's sister (Countess Herberstein), Maximilian's daughter, Sophie de la Roche's grand-daughter, wishes to see thee, dear brother, and pretends that she is afraid of thee; and that a note from me will be a talisman to give her courage. Though I am pretty certain that she is only making fun of me, still I must do as she chooses; and I shall be surprised if the case is not just the same with thee as with me.' And so she went and commenced her worship of Goethe, for it was more like devotion to a higher being than love. Not only what he was, though that was much, but all that she admired, or could conceive in art, in intellect, and in excellence, was idealised to her in him alone. She told him that if she lived at Weimar she would only come and see him on Sundays and holy days. A curious coincidence of serious feeling with Beatrice's witty answer to Don Pedro's posal:-'If I might have another for working days; your grace is too costly to wear every day.' She had been worn out by excitement and expectation. Years had passed in yearning for him. I fell asleep on his breast, and when I woke, began a new life. And more will I not write at this time.' This letter is addressed to his mother. Sometimes, however, the old lady thought it necessary to scold her, very characteristically, but with no more result than scolding produces in general. She was provoked at an exceedingly pretty image, with which Bettina describes her relation to Goethe. I don't hang on my love like lead. I am like the moon which shines into his room. When the people are there in full dress, and all the candles lighted, the moon is little noticed; but when they are gone, and the tumult is passed, then has the soul so much the greater yearning to drink its light. So will he, too, turn to me, and think of me when he is alone.'

pro

"Eh, girl," writes the Frau Rath, in answer, "thou art quite crazy, what fancy art thou taking up? Eh! and who is thy love, who is to think of thee by night in the moonlight? Dost thou think he has nothing better to do? God bless us! yes (Ja proste Mahlzeit). I tell thee again, once for all, everything in order, and write orderly letters, in which there is something to read. Write nonsensical stuff to Weimar-write what happens to you, all in order, one thing after another. First, who is there, and how thou likest everybody, and what everybody has got on, and whether the sun shines or whether it rains; that, too, is to the purpose. My son has written to me again. I am to tell thee to write to him but write to him in an orderly way, or thou wilt spoil thy whole sport.

:

"Temporal life comes on merry songs take possession of men's throats, and a lively allegro of carelessness supplants the penitential hymn, all kinds of disorder begin; the boys wrestle and fly their kites in the moonlight, the girls spread the linen which lies on the bleaching field, and the young men pelt each other with wild chestnuts: then the town cowherd drives his cows through the crowd, the bull first, to make room, the pretty host's daughters stand under the vine-arbours before the door, and clap the lid of the wine-can, and the choristers look in there and hold judgment on seasons and vinNow we have represented to our Lord God tages, and Mr. Celebrant says to Mr. Chaplain, what our wine wants-another week's dry weather, then rain in the mornings and bright sun at noon, and so on through July and August; and so if it is not a good year for wine it is no fault of ours.''

Little as she claimed from Goethe in return for her adoration, Bettina felt so far jealous of rivals for his favour, as to receive with amusing irritability the account of some civilities which he had exchanged with Madame de Staël, Die berühmte Frau (the famous woman) as she calls her; and notwithstanding that the celebrated foreigner appears totally innocent of any offence in the matter, and that no woman ever more fully deserved her fame, we cannot but enter into the ful spitefulness of the witty girl against the famous woman. Like Wieland, though we are pretty sure she is in the wrong, we must do as she chooses.

grace

"He has not written to me since August," she complains to the Frau Rath; "I suppose Madame de Staël has taken up his time, and he has not thought of me. A famous woman is a curiosity, no one else can compare with her; she is like brandy, with which the grain from which it is made cannot compare. Brandy bites the tongue and gets into the head, and so does a famous woman; but I like the simple

wheat better. The sower sows it in the loosen- | of lighted rooms, accompanied by Benjamin ed earth, and the kind sun and the fruitful rain Constant; she was dressed as Corinne, a turban tempt it forth again, and then it covers the field with green, and bears golden ears, and at last comes a merry harvest home. Well! I will rather be a simple grain of wheat than a famous woman, and I would rather he should break me as his daily bread, than fly through his head like a dram."

And then she proceeds to an account of a party at which she had met Madame de Staël the night before. She had sat next to the famous woman, and the gentlemen were pressing round her, and leaning over her

chair.

of lawn and orange-coloured silk, a dress like it with an orange tunic, with the waist very high, so that there was little room for her heart. Her black eyebrows and eyelashes shone, and her lips too with a mystic red; her gloves were drawn down, and only covered the hand, in which she held the well-known sprig of laurel.

Your mother cast some would becourageous glances at me, when they were introduced. I observed Madame de Staël's astonishment at your mother's extraordinary dress and look, which betrayed a strong feeling of pride. She spread out her gown with her left

hand, and with the right she saluted with a flourish of her fan, and while she bowed her head repeatedly with great consternation, she "I said, 'Vos adorateurs me suffoquent,' said in a voice raised so that one could hear it and when the pressure became too through the whole room, 'Je suis la mère de great, I said, 'Vos lauriers me pesent trop sur Goethe-Ah! je suis charmée,' said the aules épaules,' and I got up and pushed my way thor, and here followed a solemn silence. Then through her admirers, and then Sismondi, her followed the presentation of her clever follower, companion, came and kissed my hand, and said who was equally desirous to make the acquaintI had a great deal of wit. Afterwards ance of Goethe's mother. Your mother answerI listened to her, when she spoke of Goethe; ed their civilities, by wishing them a happy new she said she expected to find a second Werther, year in French, which she muttered between her but she had been mistaken, neither his figure nor teeth, accompanied by solemn curtesies. In his manner suit the character, and she was very short, I think the audience was perfect, and sorry that he was entirely without it. Frau gave a fine proof of the German dignity (GranRath, I was provoked at these speeches (that dezza). Presently your mother beckoned to me was superfluous you will say); I turned to I must be interpreter between them Schlegel, and said in German, 'Madame de Madame de Staël wanted to read how thou writStaël was mistaken twice; first in her expecta-est to thy mother, and thy mother promised it tion, and then in her opinion.' We Germans-I thought that she would certainly not get thy expect that Goethe can shake twenty heroes out letter from me to read, for I am not fond of her; of their sleeves, to astonish the French as much; as often as thy name passed her not well-shaped but we are of opinion that he is himself quite lips, an internal rage came over me; she told another kind of hero. * She threw a me that thou calledst her Amie in thy letters; laurel-leaf with which she had been playing on ah! she certainly saw that this came upon me the ground; I trod upon it, and pushed it aside very unexpectedly, ah! she said still more than with my foot and went away. That is the story this. But now my patience broke down-How of my meeting with the famous woman.' canst thou like so disagreeable a face? Ah! there one sees that thou art vain-or perhaps she has only lied-Were I with thee I would not suffer it."

Soon afterwards Madame de Staël paid a visit to the Frau Rath, and Bettina is not sorry for the opportunity of giving Goethe a history of the meeting:

"Your mother had either from irony or pride dressed herself out wonderfully, but with German humour, not with French taste. I must tell you that when I looked at your mother with her three feathers on her head, one white, one red, and one blue, the French national colours, rising out of a field of sun-flowers, my heart beat with pleasure and expectation; she was very skilfully rouged, her great black eyes shot out fire like cannon, round her neck hung the Queen of Prussia's well-known gold chain, lace of an ancient pattern and of great splendour, a real family treasure, covered her bosom, and so she stood with white kid gloves, in one hand an elaborate fan with which she set the air in motion, the other, which was bare, beringed all over with sparkling stones, now and then taking a pinch out of a gold snuff-box with a miniature of you in hanging locks with powder, leaning thoughtfully on your hand. At last the long expected visitor came, through a suite

Count Stadion's in drinking to the health of, in which she was forced to leave her love bethe Tyrolese. Every day she went to a hind, she would assuredly have borne with thee tower which commanded a view of the all the hardships of war, and spent the night on mountains to watch the scene of the war and food: the fire of freedom would have kindled in the rough Alps in wintry caverns with spare imagine its events, and attended the mass her bosom also, and brought fresh and healthier which Count Stadion, the Austrian ambassa-blood into her veins. Ah! wilt thou not, for dor, being himself in priest's orders, read to love of this child, leave all these people in the her in the king's chapel. The friendship mass? Melancholy gets hold of thee because which this singular man, the elder brother there is no world in which thou canst act. of the well-known Austrian minister, enter-Would that thou fearedst not human blood. tained for Bettina was a remarkable instance Here, among the Tyrolese canst thou act for a of the attraction which she exercised on love in the heart of Mignon. It is thou, Meister, right, springing from pure nature as much as the men much older than herself; founded, pro-who hast choked the bud of this tender life under bably, on her capacity to understand and ap- all the weeds which overgrow thee. Say, what preciate them. Tieck, Beethoven, and Ja-are they all to the earnestness of the time when cobi, all cultivated her friendship, and the Truth rises up in her pure original form, and deliterary and accomplished prince-primate, fies the corruption which the Lie has established? Seest thou, Meister, if after a most amusing flirtation, in which her to-night, in the starry cold night, thou callest thy answers are worthy of one of Shakspeare's Mignon from her bed, where she had wrapt herheroines in their comic dialogués, gave her, self to sleep with tears for thee-thou sayest to by his authority as successor to St. Boni- her, Be quick and come with me; I mean to face, permission thenceforth to confess her travel with thee unto the foreign land.'—Oh, she sins to Goethe. will understand it, it will not seem to her incredi

Goethe showed all the sympathy that ble; thou dost what she long ago required of could be expected with her feelings for the thee, and what thou hast unaccountably neglected. Thou wilt give her happiness in granting Tyrolese. Even if he shared them to the that she may share thy heavy toils. By night, full extent, it would have been foolish in or perilous roads, where every step deceives, her him to put them in writing. Language which quick sight, her bold confidence, will lead thee might safely be used by an enthusiastic girl safe to join the war-pressed nation; and when would have been madness in the minister of she sees thee offer thy breast to the shaft, she a prince, whose dominions a paragraph in will not tremble, it will not hurt her like the the Moniteur' might have erased from the shafts of the flattering Syren race; she will rimap of Europe. He told her, however, that pen quickly to the bold consciousness of striking truly into the harmony of the inspiration of freethe duke, as well as himself, had read her dom. And if thou must fall in the front rank, letters with pleasure, and, as usual, he asked what has she lost? What could make up to her her to continue to write. Her feelings, how- for this beautiful death, perhaps at thy side? ever, for the great cause were too genuine to Both locked arm-in-arm, ye would lie under the allow her to be satisfied with his silence, cool and wholesome earth, and mighty oaks would though she did not venture a direct remonshade your grave; say, would it not be better than strance. In the following passage on Wil-frame to the anatomical hands of the abbé, for to be obliged, ere long, to give over her delicate helm Meister,' she probably uses in a double him to drop into it an ingenious preparation of sense the name of Meister, which she often wax?" used as a title in addressing Goethe as Master. It is one of many expressions of her longing to join in the strife. Oh, had I a doublet, and hosen, and hat, she says in the words of a ballad.

"As a proof of my sincerity, I confess to thee, even in Wilhelm Meister,' I feel thus: most of the people in it pain me, as if I had a bad conscience, and then one is not at ease within or without. I should like to say to Wilhelm Meister,Come, fly with me beyond the Alps to the Tyrolese; there will we whet our sword, and forget the rag-bundle of comedians, and all thy mistresses must pine for a time, with their pretensions and their lofty feelings; when we come back the rouge will have faded on their cheeks, and their gauze gowns and fine feelings will shrink from thy sun-burnt Mars-like face. Yes, if anything is to come of thee at last, thou must place thy enthusiasm in the war, believe me, Mignon would not have fled from this fair world,

With 1810, the correspondence terminates, probably in consequence of her marriage; but she does not give any explanation, and we adhere to our resolution of knowing nothing of her except from herself. Those who have been told that her passion led to melancholy and misery, may be relieved by one of the latest glimpses we find of her, on a visit to her brother Christian at Bukowan, a country house in Bohemia. She says that she likes being with her brother, who is a universal contriving genius, and keeps her in constant employment. Whether he is working as a carpenter, mason, or blacksmith, she is his journeyman, and holds the rule or blows the bellows, in addition to having all the sewing and cutting out, when his ingenuity is exercised on softer materials. He is a poet too, and has writ

Because you have made honest gentlemen's wives, and respectable ladies determine, drink prussic acid in horror and shame, at a girl so outrageously German.

To

ten a comedy ' for mouth and heart to laugh ότι γενναίας καὶ γενναίων ἄνδρων ἀλόχους ἀνέπεισας κώνεια πιεῖν αισχυνθείσας διὰ τοὺς σοὺς Βελλεροφόντας. at,' and then he plays the flute, and composes melodies which all Prague is singing. which may be freely translated, "He teaches me to ride too, and manage a horse like a man; he makes me ride without a saddle, and wonders that I can keep my seat at a gallop. The horse would not let me fall, he bites my foot in play and to give me courage; perhaps he is an enchanted prince in love with me. Fencing too Christian teaches me with the left hand and with the right, and to shoot at a mark, at a great sunflower; all of which I learn with zeal, that my life may not be too absurd when war comes on again. This evening we were out shooting, and shot some butterflies. I

killed two at one shot."

ART. IV.-Carteggio inedito d'Artisti dei
Secoli XIV. XV. XVI., publicato, ed il-
lustrato con documenti pure inediti, dal
DOTTORE GIOVANNI GAYE; con fac-simile.
Tomi tre, 8vo. Firenze, presso Giuseppe
Molini. 1839-40.

We hope that the specimens which we have just given, will lead some readers to search these volumes for the various treasures which they contain; and, in the meantime, at least to suspend the duty of moral disapprobation, which is of all duties the THE literature of Italy has, during some gemost scrupulously discharged. It may be nerations, been singularly fertile in local histrue that few of them would wish to see tory and memoirs. The number of places similar danger incurred by a sister or a conspicuous in history, the frequency of andaughter; but to a majority of them she is tiquarian remains, the abundance of names not sister or daughter, and if she has had well known in arts and arms, in letters and suffering, it is no reason for our adding cen- politics, have there naturally conduced to a sure. The opinion of the world, founded in result which other circumstances have fathis respect on the nature of things, has con- voured. Nationality in its proper sense befined warm feelings within a few deep and ing unknown, the patriotism of the people is definite channels, which alone it recognizes concentrated upon their birth-place, and or protects. Beyond the love of lovers, and glows with a delusive brilliancy more apt to the affection which is strengthened by the ties exaggerate than to define the objects which of blood, any strong and enthusiastic attach- it lights up. The passion for authorship ment is likely to lead to disappointment from inherent in the national character has found the uncertainty of a return, and from the ab- an easy and safe outlet in numerous toposence of general sympathy which reacts on graphical works, on which Church and State almost all individuals. But if a person un- can look without jealousy, and which can dergoes the risk and bears the pain, we generally command a ready imprimatur. The can see no ground for resentment on the results have been little beneficial to literapart of the prudent, who have avoided the ture, for such effusions are more distindanger; and if a woman of genius has ex-guished by verbosity than eloquence, by proYet the prepressed in a beautiful form, her imagina- lixity, than absorbing interest. tive passion, the desire of the moth for the vailing pursuit has not been without its star,' we, at least, are willing to admire her fruits. Patient research has discovered and and sympathize with her, while we recom- rendered accessible important historical mumend no one to follow her example. niments, as well as minute details of manIf, however, notwithstanding our argu- ners, from which the general historian and ments, her sex is resolved to tolerate no de-investigator of local objects find an ample viation from the prescribed track of feeling, harvest of materials and facts awaiting their we feel it our duty to submit to those who judicious and impartial application. Of this are most especially scandalised by Bettina's nature are the multifarious pamphlets of writings, the practice of classical times in Olivieri, Passeri, and Padre della Valle in similar cases. Disapproving as we do of the last century; of Cancellieri, Fea, and measures so strong, and scrupulously abstain- Vermiglioli, in the present; and there is ing from recommending them, we cannot for- scarcely a spot too insignificant or secluded get that it was on themselves, according to for the pen of some kindred illustrator. the authentic statement of Aristophanes, that the ladies of Athens vented their indignation at the shock which their moral sense had sustained from the eccentric heroines of Euripides, whom Eschylus reproaches,

In such inquiries the fine arts enter largely into a land ever favourable to their growth, and upon them is lavished much of the pride which mainly conduces to that sort of authorship. Now-a-days in particular,