Cambridge Library CoLLeCtion

Books of enduring scholarly value

Music
The systematic academic study of music gave rise to works of description, analysis
and criticism, by composers and performers, philosophers and anthropologists,
historians and teachers, and by a new kind of scholar - the musicologist. This
series makes available a range of significant works encompassing all aspects of the
developing discipline.

Music and Manners in France and Germany

Henry Fothergill Chorley was music critic of The Athaneum for over thirty years.
This three-volume book originated in a journal written by Chorley while travelling
in Europe, which he edited heavily before its publication in 1841. His aim was to
‘illustrate the present state of theatrical, orchestral, and chamber music abroad’,
focusing on aspects that would be least familiar to an English readership. Volume
2, mainly on Germany, begins with Chorley’s impressions of the Harz mountains.
He then describes the cultural scene in Berlin – opera, theatre, art galleries and
monuments. A final chapter reflects upon Parisian journalism of the time. Chorley’s
incisive and entertaining eye-witness accounts will fascinate music-lovers and
theatre historians, as well as others interested in the performing arts or travel
writing in the nineteenth-century.
Cambridge University Press has long been a pioneer in the reissuing of out-of-
print titles from its own backlist, producing digital reprints of books that are still
sought after by scholars and students but could not be reprinted economically using
traditional technology. The Cambridge Library Collection extends this activity to a
wider range of books which are still of importance to researchers and professionals,
either for the source material they contain, or as landmarks in the history of their
academic discipline.
Drawing from the world-renowned collections in the Cambridge University
Library, and guided by the advice of experts in each subject area, Cambridge
University Press is using state-of-the-art scanning machines in its own Printing
House to capture the content of each book selected for inclusion. The files are
processed to give a consistently clear, crisp image, and the books finished to the
high quality standard for which the Press is recognised around the world. The
latest print-on-demand technology ensures that the books will remain available
indefinitely, and that orders for single or multiple copies can quickly be supplied.
The Cambridge Library Collection will bring back to life books of enduring
scholarly value (including out-of-copyright works originally issued by other
publishers) across a wide range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences
and in science and technology.
Music and Manners in
France and Germany
A Series of Travelling Sketches of Art and
Society
Volume 2

He nry Fothergill C horley

 C A M B r i D G E U n i V E r si t y P r E s s

Cambridge, new york, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape town, singapore,

são Paolo, Delhi, Dubai, tokyo

Published in the United states of America by Cambridge University Press, new york

www.cambridge.org
information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108001908

© in this compilation Cambridge University Press 2009

This edition first published 1841

This digitally printed version 2009

isBn 978-1-108-00190-8 Paperback

This book reproduces the text of the original edition. The content and language reflect
the beliefs, practices and terminology of their time, and have not been updated.

Cambridge University Press wishes to make clear that the book, unless originally published
by Cambridge, is not being republished by, in association or collaboration with, or
with the endorsement or approval of, the original publisher or its successors in title.
 MUSIC AND MANNERS
IN

FKANCE AND GEKMANY:

SERIES OF TRAVELLING SKETCHES

OF

antr &octctg.

BY HENRY F. CHORLEY,
AUTHOR OF "CONTI," ETC. ETC.

" Praising all, is praising none.' — Burncy.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:
LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS,
PATE R NOSTER- ROW.
1841-
Aca&emta*
Cibcr.
 CONTENTS
OF

THE SECOND VOLUME.

THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

CHAPTER I.
A NIGHT ON THE BROCKEN.

From Brunswick to Halberstadt. — Mademoiselle Lowe.

— The Prinz Eugen at Halberstadt; — Its Landlord.
— News of Lord Eglintoun and the Marquis of Water-
ford. —The " Close" in Halberstadt. —The Jehu.—
Wernigerode. — Travelling Puppet-Show. — Ilsen-
burg. — Inn Sketches. — The Old Man and the Child.
—Walk to the Ilsenstein. —Ascent of the Brocken.—
The Brockenhaus. — Gottingen Students. — The Sun-
set.— More Inn Sketches. — The Travellers' Book;
— German and English Entries therein. — The Enter-
tainment of the Evening. — A Word on Part-singing
&nd popular Music in Germany. — Liedertafel Socie-
ties founded by Zelter. — Younger Liedertafel Society.
A 2
IV CONTENTS.

— Their Meetings. — Their Organization.— The Ger-

mans' Love of Scenery as well as Smoke. — Weber's
Part Songs. — " Tim Sifyein." — German Ignorance of
English-Part Songs. — The Winding-up of the Orgie.
Page 3

CHAP. II.
RUBELAND.

Morning on the Brocken.— Impenetrable Atmosphere.

— Sunrise. — Picturesque Mountain-walk to Schi-
ercke. — Drive from Schiercke to Elbingerode. —
Church Tower; — a Fantasy on Forms. — Fright-
ful Road. — Riibeland ; — its Delicacies and its
Shows. — The Baumanshohle. — Travelling Parties.
—The Grotto. — Music underground. — Illuminations,
— Echo. — Triumphal March. — The Dinner ; the
Reckoning after it. — Absurd Predicament. — North
German Good-will. — Unsuspiciousness and Art. —
Mrs. Grundy not among the Amateurs. — Drive from
Riibeland to Blankenburg. — Road Inspector. —
Blankenburg - - - - - 35

CHAP. III.
THE ROSS-TRAPPE.

Blankenburg to Thale. — Blech-hiitte. — One-eyed Guide.

— The Ascent.—Garland-weavers. — Harper on the
Hill. — Echo and Pistol-shooting. — The Summit. —
The Bode-Kessel. — The Descent. — A Travelling
Group. — A solitary Painter. — A Wood Scramble. —
Conclusion - - - . . . _ . . ^9
 CONTENTS.

GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.
CHAPTER I.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS. " DER FR^ISCHUTZ."

A Peep at a Kirmesse and the Cathedral of Magde-

burg.— Arrival at Berlin changed since the Days ot
Burney. — First Impressions of Berlin. — The Splen-
dour of its Buildings. — Musical Anticipations. —
Illustrations of Display at Dinner. — The Afternoon of
the Germans. — " Der Freischutz " at the Schauspiel
Haus. — The Manner of its Performance. — The Cast
of the Opera. — Mademoiselle von Fassmann.—Dis-
appointment. — The Metropolis of Criticism. — Morn-
ing Visits in Berlin. — Rumours and Qualifications.—
Partisanship. — The Fassmann and the Lowe. — Vol-
taire and Burney on the Berlin Spirit. — Mrs. Grundy
and Mrs. Candour. — Absence of Form and Sincerity.
— Scene among Artists at a German Supper-table.
Page 71

CHAP. II.
THE COURT AND THE OPERA.

The Opera-House at Berlin. — Voltaire's Correspond-

ence, with Paris. — Frederic the Great a Patron of
Art; — a Despot over Art. — Burney's Glimpses of the
Berlin Opera.—Madame Mara.—Zelter's Anecdotes of
her.—Genius and Despotism. — Frederic the Great's
Taste in Music. — Royal Patronage. — German Opera
hardly formed in the clays of Frederic. — The Na-
 VI CONTENTS.

tional Theatre.— German Singers.— Madame Milder;

a short Sketch of her. — Her Popularity in Berlin. —
Her Traditions maintained there to this day.—Madame
Schroder Devrient. — Hoffmann's " Undine."—Spon-
tini and Zelter ; — the latter criticises the former.—
The Appearance of " Der Freischutz."— Melody and
Elephants. — The Result of Weber's Successes nul-
lified. — Gradual Deterioration of the Berlin Opera.
Page 101
CHAP. III.
SPECIMENS OF GERMAN NATIONALITY. THE LOWE.

The French Operas I heard.—The Pound of Tea across

the Border. — Mademoiselle Lowe. — Her Cadences,
— her Demeanour, — her Popularity, — her Magni-
ficence of Costume. — Mademoiselle Griinbaum.—
The Konigstadtisches Theater. — " Der Bauer als
Millionair.9' — German Humour. — German Opera
Books addicted to the Supernatural and the Mon-
strous. — Specimen of their Subjects. — Stye ^)iper of
£ameln. — Glaser's Music. — The Hybrid School. —
Lortzing's Operas. — Weber's slighter Music con-
trasted with this. — Truth to Nature an Element of
his Style. —Wants of Opera in Germany 143

CHAP. IV.
MORNING HOURS.

An Hour at Potsdam and Sans Souci. — The New

Palace.— The Music heard in its Gardens.— The
Pfauen Insel. — The Schloss. — Wall-painting. —
Untidy Gardening. — An Hour in the Berlin Gallery.
 CONTENTS. Vll

— The Van Eyck Wing-Pictures. — The Fancy of the

old German Masters,—A Word or two touching Lucas
Cranach.— The Bath of Youth.— An Hour with
Madame von Arnim. —Herself and her " Letters to
a Child" identical. — Her Conversation. — Her Rhine
Pictures. — St)c ^Romance of ttje $PoSt4iorn. — The
Spirit of this truly German. — An Hour with Herr
Liepmann. — His Invention, — his Patience, — his
Assistant Page 167

CHAP. V.
A LETTER TO A LADY. 204

CHAP. VI.
QUARTETTS AND AMATEURS.

Berlin in Autumn. — Haydn's " Seasons." — Indisposition

to Music-—Herr Zimmermann's Quartett.— Comfort
of Chamber Music. — Female Education in North
Germany. — The Sing-Academic—Fasch and Zelter :
a brief Sketch of the former. — Imaginative and
Eccentric Character. — The Performance I heard.—
Haydn. — Mendelssohn. — Amateurs versus Profes-
sionals. — A worthy " Agnes von HohenstauflTen." —
Conclusion 212

C H A P . VII.
A GLUCK PILGRIMAGE.— THE " HI LDIGUING" IN 1840.

A Belief in Luck consolatory. — The " Huldigung " at

Berlin. — Indifference to move. — Gluck's " Iphigenie
Vlll CONTENTS.

en Tauride." —Wretched Night Journey. — Rain and

Pageantry. — Arrival at Berlin. — Gay Sight—-Musical
Chill.—The Schauspiel Haus. — The Fassmann again.
— The Chorus, Orchestra, and Stage Arrangements in
Gluck's Opera. — Thorough Disappointment. — Visit
to the Exhibition. — Steinbriick's Girl and Elves. —
The Illuminations. — Departure. — A Note concerning
the Ball, and the new King of Prussia - Page 228

PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.
CHAPTER I.
FRENCH CRITICS. —THE JOURNALISTS.

Prominent Position of Music in Paris. — Writers on the

Art. — A dangerous Subject.— The Journalist in a
Garret. — The Journalist in a Palace. — M. Balzac. —
M. Janin. — Madame de Girardin : — M. Karr's hu-
morous Account of the Reading of her Comedy. —
The Style of the Journalists of Paris. — MADAME
PREVOST'S BOOK, by M. Janin. — Effects of Style upon
Criticism. — The Honesty of the Journalists. — A true
Story of M. and L'Ecole Polytechnique. — Style
and Honesty brought to bear upon Music. — M.Ber-
lioz 253
 MUSIC AND MANNERS
IN

GERMANY.

THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

VOL. II.
 MUSIC AND MANNERS
IN

GERMANY.

THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY,

CHAPTER I.
A NIGHT ON THE BROCKEN.

From Brunswick to Halberstadt.— Mademoiselle Lowe.

— The Prinz Eugen at Halberstadt; — Its Landlord.
—News of Lord Eglintoun and the Marquis of Water-
ford. — The " Close " in Halberstadt. — The Jehu. —
Wernigerode, — Travelling Puppet-Show. — Ilsen-
burg. — Inn Sketches. — The Old Man and the Child.
— Walk to the Usenstein. — Ascent of the Brocken.—
The Brockenhaus. — Gottingen Students. — The Sun-
set.— More Inn Sketches. —The Travellers' Book; —
German and English Entries therein. — The Enter-
tainment of the Evening. — A Word on Part-singing
and popular Music in Germany. — Liedertafeln Soci-
eties founded by Zelter.— Younger Liedertafel Society.
— Their Meetings. — Their Organization. — The Ger-
mans' Love of Scenery as well as Smoke.—Weber's
Part Songs. — " 2Cm 9tyein."—German Ignorance of
English Part Songs. — The winding up of the Orgie.

A TRIFLE of tobacco-smoke to be swallowed

allowed for, the drive from Brunswick to Hal-
B 2
4 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

berstadt was pleasant enough. The afternoon

was glorious—the perfection of autumn weather,
and the road offers some agreeable objects. Be-
tween Brunswick and Wolfenbuttel stands the
Duke's country-house of Richmond, which is ap-
parently as English in its Elizabethan style, and
in the trimness of the rich garden round it, as in
its name. Then the trees on either side of the
way were hung with a profusion of apples, plums,
and pears, glowing with every sunny colour of
the season, and so appetizing as to make it
positively disappointing that, at the first change
of horses, no other refection was to be procured
than a cup of coffee and a cigar. Every trench-
bank and field enclosure, too, showed a roadside
Flora of poppies, campanulas, and huge mul-
leins, gay enough to attract any eye that is
sensitive to rich colour. Not long after Wolfen-
buttel was left behind, the Brocken began to
rise on the horizon; — and what is there in the
world so engaging to the fancy as watching the
gradual growth of a hill, more especially if the
hill have a name and a legend ?
My companions in the schnellpost were
 A NIGHT ON THE BROCKEN. 5

cheerful and good-natured. While waiting

under the vine which clothes the wall of the
Brunswick post-house, we had become very
sociable. As we jogged on, we discussed the
Festival just over, and agreed that Mendelssohn
was the musical hope of modern Germany. I
was warned, when I reached Leipsic, to open
my ears to Mademoiselle Schlegel, as a young
singer of great promise, and excessively pretty
to boot. I was promised a wonderful treat in
Berlin, from the Lowe — the only songstress, as
far as my experience served, who enjoyed a
general, as distinguished from a local reputa-
tion, in North Germany, and was as popular
among all travellers as Madame Vestris in
England. It was of no use to quote Grisi or
Persiani,— had I named Madame Dorus-Gras,
a French singer, it would have been as much
as my popularity was worth. " There was no
one, there had been no one, like the Lowe,
for beauty and brilliancy, since the days of
Sontag: — happy was the man who could hear
her, and happier he who could speak to her ! "
The day went down gloriously, and the
B 3
6 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

friendly and thriving town of Halberststdt,

where we joined the great road to Berlin,
looked quaintly picturesque in the strong lights
and broad purple shadows of evening. I cannot
fancy a pleasanter halting-place for a night than
the Prinz Eugen. While I was discussing the
savoury roast partridge (a sure piece de resistance,
let me warn all those whom the indigestibilities
of a German supper karte annoy), the master
of the house came and took the chair at my side,
— as handsome, well-informed, and thoroughly
courteous a host as Prussia can show. One of
my fellow-travellers had acquainted him with
my designs on the Harz country, and my in-
experience in its language; and, with as much
circumstantial civility as he could have used to
detain the most desirable guest, in ten minutes of
very good French, the whole plan was arranged
for me, commodiously and inexpensively, and
I was at leisure to satisfy as well as I could the
curiosity of my friendly entertainer about the
Eglintoun tournament. Upon the strength of
this, the Coronation, and the London and
Birmingham railroad, any one who could com-
 A NIGHT ON THE BROCKEX. 7

municate was sure of being voted agreeable in

Germany during the summer of 1839. Only
six weeks later, while sitting among heaps of
pressed grapes, at the door of a tavern at
St. Goar, wraiting the coming of a Rhine steamer,
I saw the boatman who had rowed me from
the Lurleiberg pause over his bottle of colour-
less and fragrant wine, and the untidy landlady
let her knitting drop forgotten on her knee,
while a white-haired and spectacled official be-
longing to that small town read aloud, from the
Ck
Rhein-und-Mosell-Blatt," the tragical issue of
Mr. Pratt's upholstery, and the last Scottish
freak of the Marquis of Waterford. To think
of thus stumbling, as it were, upon Lord's
Cricket Ground, and Limmer's Hotel, within
sight of the Katz and the Schweitzer Thai !
But I am wandering away from the capital
host, and capital coffee, and capital bed, at the
Prinz Eugen. It was five o'clock in the
morning when I woke and leaned out of my
window. The air was clear and fresh enough to
put Spleen itself into spirits — the sky without
a cloud, and Day coming up so fast and so
B 4
8 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY*

brightly behind the minarets of the great

church as to declare that a splendid sunrise
was at hand. Splendid it was; and I hastened
abroad to spend the half hour which was to
elapse ere the vehicle and Jehu purveyed for
my Harz excursion made their appearance, in
prying about the little town. But I did not
get beyond the Platz — a fine enclosure shaded
with well-grown trees, surrounded with ancient
houses, and commanded at its extremities by
theFrauen Kirche and the Dom-Kirche—a pair
of grand old buildings, which looked solemn,
but not severe, in the cheerful but delicate
light of early day. In a niche against one of
the houses was a grim carved effigy, which,
for collar, had been decked with a garland of
withered flowers. Here and there the morning
face of comfortable man or comely matron look-
ing out of an open door, or through a diamond-
bright window, made an impromptu Ostade,
which would have been worth its hundreds in
a picture-gallery. Few places so casually seen
have left so clear and so cheerful an impression
on my mind as Halberstadt. To judge from the
 A JSIIGHT ON THE BROCKEN. 9

list of its manufactories it ought to be thriving as

well as cheerful; nor should the lover of letters
like it the less from its having been the resi-
dence of Gleim, the Maecenas of some of Ger-
many's best men of genius. To tempt the
musician, I have but to say that the organist of
the Dom-Kirche, whom we met at Brunswick,
so loudly vaunted his instrument (but organists
have that way with them), that Dr. Mendelssohn
had consented but the day before my arrival to
stop on his homeward journey to Leipsic, and
give it a trial at the hour of fashionable London
midnight, — or six in the morning.
Half an hour behind his time, a shabby little
carriage, drawn by a shabby little pair of horses,
jingled up to the door of the Prinz Eugen.
But the equipage was well worth waiting for in
virtue of its driver — as honest, good-natured,
and intelligent a fellow as ever made a party of
pleasure more pleasant. Small civil eyes with
a touch of roguery in them, a walnut-brown
complexion, a wide mouth containing a case of
the whitest, cleanest teeth in North Germany,
a stout jean shooting-jacket, and a tidy blue
10 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

cloth cap, — such ingredients made up my Jehu,

who, to crown his perfections, could command a
few words of French, a few of English, a few
of Latin, and neither smoked nor wished to
smoke. He deserved to belong to the town.
We were presently rattling through its ancient
gateway, and across the open plain towards the
hill co an try. The morning kept its early promises
— more inspiriting weather for a ramble could
not be imagined-—and those alone, who, during
fifteen years, have only exchanged town for
town, can comprehend the fulness of good-will
with which I gave myself up to the influence
of the hour and the scenery.
It was a day of pictures. For the first Ger-
man mile we had groups of people harvesting in
the fields, looking up as we passed to nod, and
greet us with a good-humoured " tag," or hailing
us from the primitive waggons of the country
upon which they were clustered. Then, though
wretchedly poor was the hamlet (I lost its name)
at which Carl Alhelm stopped to give his horses
and himself breakfast from the same junk of
pumpernickel — it was a fair specimen of the
 A NIGHT ON THE BROCKEN. 11

ruinous-picturesque. Shortly after leaving this,

the hills, every one of which has its own quaint
form and its own quaint legend, began to close
in upon us; the fruit-trees on either side the
road to be fewer, and the chesnuts more nu-
merous. We were presently within ^sight of
Wernigerode, a strange little walled town, over-
crowed by its schloss — an imposing but heavy
mass of building which loads the thickly-
planted hill rising abruptly beyond the walls.
Not far from this we encountered another
painter's group. It was an itinerant puppet-
show, the properties of which, dead and living,
were crammed into a small covered cart, while
the lank, knavish, gipsy-looking man, who
throughout all the world presides over such vani-
ties, trudged lazily on by its side. I have seen a
Flight into Egypt by one of the ancient Flemish
masters — Paul Brill, perhaps, or Breughel —
with precisely such a landscape, and figures little
more refined. Wernigerode was soon passed, and
Altenrode too, of whose old convent there was
no getting a peep among the high walls and thick-
leaved plum-trees, and a good hour before mid-
12 THREE BAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY,

day we were fairly on the skirts of the Wonder-

land ; at Ilsenburg — a little red-roofed village
nestling picturesquely in the opening of the val-
ley, where the Use, clear and brown as a cairngorm
stone, hurries out into the plain. At the " Rothe
Forelle," Anglice, Red Trout, — a pleasant little
inn, —• mules and guides are to be heard of,
and, report says, to be paid for exorbitantly. In
my own case it was not so : the breakfast was
cheap and good; and my Jehu, from whom I
was here to part company for the day, found
out a guide for me, who, if less companionable,
was no less honest and civil than himself.
There were other parties bound for the
Brockenhaus — our station for the night —
whom I had time to observe during my own
breakfast, and while waiting till the guide
should have dined. One pair in particular—
an old man and a boy — made a singular con-
trast. Never did I see a more repulsive study
of Age without respectability than the former-—
a lean, nimble, brawling fellow, for ever in
a passion, who wore a long loose wrap-rascal,
the shrunk sleeves of which showed the whole
 A NJGHT ON THE BROCKEN. 13

of his enormous hands, and a cap perched

upon, rather than covering, a profuse crop of
ill-kept and coarse grizzled hair. But his face
was the worst: the yellow and blood-shot eyes,
the brindled complexion of scarlet and tawny,
the dry thirsty mouth garnished with strag-
gling teeth, and always agape to the misery
of every one in the neighbourhood, told of
debauchery as plainly as they could speak. His
companion was a fair gracious-looking boy of
fourteen, with a clear blue eye, rosy German
cheeks, and a voice as shrill but twice as
loud as a girl's. For a good five minutes after
they had left The Red Trout I heard the hoarse
bawl of the one, and the piercing answer of the
other, as they pushed off towards the Brocken.
It was a positive boon to be spared such com-
pany on the road.
My guide came. He, too, was an old man,
but with his wise withered face and bis white
hair, his tidy blouse and his sheepskin knapsack,
he looked like a palmer, when compared with the
unclean roisterer who had just quitted us. In
five minutes we were beyond the boundaries of
J4 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

Ilsenburg, and, turning away from the stream,

began to ascend a steep bank, close under the
walls of a poor little grey church, built among
the ruins of a monastery. This can now only be
traced in a dusty and dark cellar, the mouth of
which must be passed by all who would mount
to the Ilsenstein. The path leads through a
croft, which was as thickly spread with the lilac
crocus as if it were a Nottingham meadow.
Then comes a fir wood: huge stones shagged
with moss, peering out capriciously on either
side of the path; and among them the richest
tufts of foxgloves I have ever seen. Where,
indeed, should faery-caps grow if not in the
Harz country? Here and there, as we began to
mount, an opening through the trees afforded a
lovely prospect of the plain, dotted with clean
red-roofed villages, and framed by the entrance
of the valley. The Ilsenstein, passing which
— as all the readers of Shelley's wonderful frag-
ment from " Faust" know — the Witch, on the
Walpurgis-night, saw
" the owl awake in the white moonshine,"

is a grand promontory of rock, jutting out into

 A NIGHT ON THE BROCKEN. 15

the valley, and crowned with an iron cross, in

memorial of the brave achievements of Count
Stolberg's troop during the war. The view
thence is superb. But with the best will in the
world to surround myself with a visionary atmo-
sphere, I could not do it. The day was too fine;
the brawling of the stream, when we again joined
it, too merry and musical; and the only thing
to be noted as in the least " eerie," was the
stillness of the columnar pine woods through
which we mounted, — broken, not by bird or
breeze, but by the clicking of the locked wheels
of the charcoal burners' carts as they slipped
down to the valley below — a measured but un-
familiar sound. As we ascended higher, the
cessation of this noise was supplied by the per-
petual bubbling and tinkling of countless run-
nels of water, that creep away under the stones,
which shoulder each other as countlessly and
closely as if the Gnomes had made a compact
that not a tree should have room to grow:
whence an unusual number of writhen serpent-
like roots forced, as it were, out of the steep bank,
and of distorted trunks, which, at even-fall,
16 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

might serve, in default of Kobolds or other such

company, to scare and menace the fancifuL
In spite of these, however, the ascent of the
Brocken, even to one endowed with the most
willing of imaginations, is a rough and pic-
turesque walk of three hours and a half, up a to-
lerably steep and very stony hill — nothing more.
The little plain at the top, like all mountain
plains, is harsh and barren in its physiognomy:
the inn, a strong and gloomy house of refuge,
one story high. The wind was keen enough,
even on that still afternoon, to intimate how it
could roar about the thick logs and timbers of
which the Brockenhaus is built. Hard by the inn
stands a tower, also built of massive wood, and-
the view thence is as magnificent as expanse can
make it: small points, which the eye must strain
itself to see honestly, standing for towns; hair
lines for roads, and tufts of moss for reaches of
wood. There is nothing, however, either in dis-
tance or foreground, to render it comparable to
the panorama commanded by the great Winter-
berg in Saxon Switzerland. Had I enjoyed the
tower to myself, nevertheless, I could have lin-
gered there, as long as daylight lasted, to exercise
 A NIGHT ON THE BUOCKEN. 17

the powers of discovery for which such a wide

prospect gives fair occasion; but I had at least
twenty fellow-gazers; and what with the hubbub
made by them, while hacking their names on the
timber battlements, contradicting each other
about this scldoss or the other spire, at boat-
swain pitch — hallooing to their mates down
below, or playing violent tricks with each other
— a noisier score of scenery-hunters
" You would not find in Christendie."

They were, for the most part, a party of stu-

dents from Gottingen,—fine lawless fellows,
unkempt and loosely dressed, with every vagary
of travelling-cap and knapsack, tobacco beitel^
and fore-finger ring, — more dirty, more good-
natured, more jovial than any thing of the same
order to be found in England. If they had
planned during a whole course of class and
lecture-work, to come and "make a night of it"
on the Brocken, they could not more thoroughly
have carried their purposes into execution.
The host, who sat in the outer hall of the house,
making bird traps, seemed to concern himself
little for their comfort; and, now drinking,
VOL. II. c
18 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

now smoking, now chasing each other, they

scrambled hither and thither, to the Hexen
altar, and the other stations of a Harz pil-
grimage, till the setting of the sun and the
bitter sharpness of the mountain air drove them
under cover.
Were I able to do it justice, I should hardly
venture to expatiate upon that set or burial of
the sun, among such intensely mazarine blue
clouds, as the ancient artists sometimes intro-
duced into their landscapes with more enter-
prise than success. After all was grey, there
remained still a long evening to be got through
in a comfortless apartment, with no luxury of
fare attainable to beguile the time. The party
of bilrschen withdrew into a room of their
own; and there were left in the speise-saal
with me, the aged Iniquity I had seen at
Ilsenburg, his companion with the childish
face and voice; another youth, a regular and
respectable specimen of the German travel-
ler ; and a fourth, who, after his own pat-
tern, was as pretty an example of a rough
diamond as one could desire. He might
 A NIGHT ON THE BROCKEN. 19

be some twenty-one years old or thereabouts,

— stalwart, thick-set, clean-limbed, and bullet-
headed, succinctly done up in a sand and salt-
coloured coat, the laps of which buttoned behind
in a manner more original than becoming ; —
with breeches and gaiters of the same. His
fist was as huge as that of Duke Adolph of
Gueldres, in Rembrandt's marvellous portrait
at Berlin; his stentorian voice never was still;
his thick utterance was to be ascribed to the
loss of two front teeth, which gave a peculiar
villany of impudence to his face; and when
the huge bull-dog belonging to the Brocken-
haus, Cerberus by name, nestled up to the side
of his chair, and lifting up a surly head, showed
a hair-lip, the similarity of expression between
the human and the canine visages was as strong
as any thing in Hood's inimitable sketches of
Comparative Anatomy. Man and dog — alike
burly and savage — were the very figures for a
Harz adventure.
Rough as my companions presently proved
themselves to be, there was none of that in-
solence in all their riot, which makes the young
c 2
20 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

Englishman, when unchained, or, according to

his own parlance, " out on a lark," often so in-
tolerable. If they bawled for wine, it was that
the foreigner might share; if they threat-
ened the host with extinction because he had
no cards, it was because we could not play;
and on my withdrawing myself from their
clamour, to turn over that motley record, the
" Traveller's Book/' I was neither molested by
word, look, or sign; nor was the orgie, when at
its climax, made an excuse for the slightest
uncivil freedom.
This unexpected observance of the humanities
by a party so thoroughly wild, and by contrast
made striking, when I thought of my neighbour
at the Brunswick Festival dinner, was further
illustrated— at least Fancy would have it so —
by the greasy pages of the Fremdenbuch, to which
I betook myself; the four being now deep in a
game not unlike the Italian morra. Teazed as
I was with their riot, disgusted by the hoarse
shrieks of the old grey-haired man, who seemed
the most unruly of the party, I think I was yet
more vexed by the stupidities, and worse, to which
 A NIGHT ON THE BROCKEN. 21

English signatures were annexed in the "Stran-

gers' Book/' Enough high-flown German en-
thusiasm there was, no doubt; — doubtless, too,
some German grossness; — but while I stum-
bled upon traces of almost every singer and
dancer belonging to the Brunswick Opera,
some of the names, of course, garnished with
quotations, however silly, harmlessly expressive
of some feeling for the scene,— it was vexatious
to find Englishmen of title and family an-
nouncing their presence in one of Nature's
high places, by dull and trivial jokes, which
showed how little admiration they could have
brought thither. Captain This chronicled the day
when he "jumped Jim Crow on the Brocken."
Sir That, in tracing his route, wrote himself
down " as having come from nowhere, and
going to Hell." The whole truth should not
be spoken at all times, and in all places, says
Lord Chesterfield ! — With such humiliating
evidences before me, I felt I had little right to
quarrel with the confusion worse confounded,
of shouts, exclamations, and tisck-lieder, which
bade fair to deafen me as the advance of even-
c 3
22 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

ing wrought them up to a crescendo. By this

time the sky had grown pitch black; and in
the rare intervals, when a moment's pause per-
mitted its being heard, there came up from the
plain below, a murmur of the night-wind, as
quiet as a whisper, but as deep in tone as the
lowest pedal pipe of an organ. Save for that
intimation, it would have been far easier to
fancy one's self in Auerbach's Cellar, than on
the top of the haunted mountain; for the
merry ditties of Zumsteeg, and Eisenhofer,
and Blum, and Osthoff, and the explosions of
laughter which burst out on every side, had
quite too much of rough earthly glee in them,
to be for an instant accepted as the Satanic
music of a Walpurgis night.
These part-songs are too little known in
England, as one of the most national and not
least engaging features in modern German
music. We have rested upon our glees with
a complacency so exclusive as to make us
overlook what our neighbours were about. I
question whether these German efforts were
known to a dozen professors in England before
 A NIGHT ON THE BROCKEN. 23

the arrival of the brothers Herrmann. The latter

even were by many, who should have known
better, strangely confounded with the Tyrolese
minstrels ; though their classical quartett play-
ing (the best rehearsed and understood I have
heard on this side the water) must have puzzled
those fancying that the wild national air and
the well-constructed composition were " all one
concern." Among the French I am inclined to
believe that the amount of real taste for and
intimacy with German music is even now little
less partial. A periodical critic, speaking of a
concert given at Frankfort last autumn, which
some untoward spirits wished to disturb by
singing " La Marseillaise," in proof of the
French sympathies of the Germans, says, " And
this was in the midst of their own favourite
music — in the midst of a classical programme,
combining the severe and the wild—' des mor-
ceaux' of Beethoven, and Tyrolese airs ! "
Nothing can be much more ignorant in its
flippancy than this; as if the popular music of
Germany had not been contributed by its best
hands ! It is forty years since Zelter (best
c 4
24 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

known in England as Goethe's correspondent)

and his friend Fleming founded at Berlin a
congregation of staid elderly men, who met
once a month to sit down to a good supper, and
to diversify the pleasures of the table by singing
four-part songs, principally composed by them-
selves.* Their number was forty; and far the
larger part of it composed of amateurs or men
in office. It was an original statute that no
one was eligible as a member who was not a
composer, a poet, or a singer. During his life-
time Zelter was their president and principal
composer; and in no branch of art, perhaps,
did his peculiar talent evidence itself so brightly
as in these convivial effusions, where humour,
raciness, a masterly employment of the limited
materials at his disposal, and a fine s£nse of

* I am not able to mention the date of Haydn's " Cat's

Fugue," in four parts, but I think it must belong to an
earlier period, and in any case is valuable as an evidence
of grave science applied to the popular uses of mirth;
— I have heard too, unless I greatly mistake, of comic
part-songs as well as qnodlibcts by Sebastian Bach. I feel
it, however, particularly incumbent here to remind the
reader that I am not writing history, but sketching im-
pressions.
 A NIGHT ON THE BROCKEN. '25

the poetry he took in hand distinguish him

among his contemporaries. Goethe used to give
his songs to be composed by Zelter; and many
of them were sung at the Berlin " Liedertafel"
before they were printed or known elsewhere.
Fleming also contributed some fair musical
compositions — that to Horace's ode, "Integer
vitae," amongst others.
It was in the year 1815, or thereabouts, that
Berger, Klein, and a younger generation of
musicians founded a young " Liedertafel" so-
ciety, on the same principle, and for the same
number of members. Friedrich Forster wrote
some very pretty songs for it. Hoffmann, the
novel writer and kapellmeister, made it one
scene of his strange and extravagant existence;
and left behind him there an immortal comic
song — " Turkische Musik," the words by
Friedrich Forster. In general, a gayer and
more spirited tone pervaded this younger so-
ciety than belonged to their classical seniors.
It was the practice of both bodies to invite
guests on holiday occasions; and by the younger
part-singers ladies were admitted twice a year.
26 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

Nothing could be sprightlier or pleasanter — a

little extra noise allowed for — than these latter
meetings.
It would seem as if the old German love of
corporate processions — the old affection for
guilds and burgherships — found an expression
in the societies to which this couple of institu-
tions gave rise. They were not long in spread-
ing far and wide. The good suppers became of
less integral consequence; original compositions
were not always attainable; but in every town
it was natural to collect the younger men of all
classes, for the purpose of singing together. A
regular system of organisation, of division and
subdivision, has arranged itself. The town so-
cieties in combination form provincial assem-
blies, where many hundreds come together. In
the north of Germany the large class of young
men, who are either schoolmasters or organists
in the towns and villages, or are educated as
such at the normal schools, have societies of
their own, and periodical celebrations.
The provincial festivals of these societies are
held in the good time of the year, so that open
 A NIGHT ON THE BROCKEN. 27

air performances are practicable. A fine site,

too, is a thing always chosen. Not very long
before my Harz ramble, the Liedertafeln so-
cieties of that district had been holding a con-
gress at Blankenburg. The natural man of
the German, indeed, which seems to require a
pipe every hour, and a refection at every mile-
stone, seems never, by the indulgence of his
appetites, to be coarsened out of his love of
Nature. He loves a fine view to smoke over;—
will make a riot in the years of his cub-hood in
such a sanctuary as the top of the Brocken over
night, and still earnestly enjoy the panorama
and the mountain-walk in the morning. One
might have thought that the beer-cellar and
" the bosky bourne " must appeal to a totally
different class of pilgrims; but it does not seem
so. There is a picturesque spirit in all German
public festivities, to which we never approach
nearer than by rifling* conservatories of their
flowers, to die in the stifling and oleaginous at-
mosphere of a ball-room. These Liedertafeln
societies take part in other celebrations not
their own. When Schiller's statue was inau-
28 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

gurated in Stuttgart, the singing bodies of all

the towns in the districts round about poured in
through the gates of the town, one after the
other, each with its banners and its music, till the
separate chords, to speak fancifully, united in a
grand chorus in the market-place. And while
there exists a well-trained army of volunteer
choristers ready to be called into action on all
occasions — it need not be pointed out how
different it is in quality to the body of subordi-
nates at once semi-professional and untaught,
at whose mercy lies so much of the best music
ever to be heard in England — I should say,
laid; for part-singing is now flourishing with
us like the bean-tree in the Faery Tale.
It is needless, again, to remark how the works
which make a whole great people vocal, — " a
whole country" (to quote a forcible expression
of the accomplished musical friend to whom I
am here indebted for my facts) " absolutely
heave with harmony,"— must have a value and
an interest in more aspects than one. If we
lay aside the sober and serious compositions of
the elderly gentlemen, and, on the other, the
 A NIGHT ON THE BROCKEN. 29

familiar " Crambambuli," and other such ditties

of the burschen (musical weeds worth nobody's
own ing), there is on every hand, and in every
guild, much to interest To offer an instance or
two likely to be familiar to the English — Music
has nothing nobler in her stores than the battle
songs in which the harmonies of Weber and
the burning words of Korner are united. We
sit by our firesides, it is true, and know not the
sound of an enemy's cavalry in our streets, nor
the booming of an enemy's cannon without our
gates; and hence are touched only faintly by
the spell of the soul within them ; but it is im-
possible coldly to listen to the masculine chords
and bold modulations of " Lutzow'sWild Chase,"
and the "Sword Song," and the"Husarenlied."
Again, we have taken home to ourselves and
half nationalised " %m Sftfyetn V among our

* As the'Rhine Song is here spoken of as a composi-

tion, the name of its composer may be given (on Berlin
authority), as it has been attributed by some to Haydn.
It is now said to belong to the same Schulz who was em-
ployed on a far less ungenial task, the setting to music of
the translated choruses of Racine's " Athalie." He was
a kapellmeister at Copenhagen.
30 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

" Black-eyed Susan"s and " Rule Britannia's,

because of its spirit and beauty; — though we
cannot feel, save dramatically and by going
out of ourselves as well as from home, the
joviality and mirth of those who dwell in a
wine-land, or the kindling of such a spirit as
moved the army of Liberators on their return
from victory, when within sight of Ehrenbreit-
stein, to burst out with one consent into that
noble melody which was heard with little ceas-
ing for two days and nights while the band was
passing over the river !
Honour, then, to the part-songs of Germany,
and better acquaintance with them ! is not the
worst toast one could propose at a glee club.
But I must say, that, beyond having harmonised
our " Rule Britannia" in one edition of their
" Orpheus," or Part-Singer's Vade Mecum, my
friends the Germans trouble themselves far
too little with our vocal music. By the surprise,
as well as delight, which I have seen our
madrigals excite in them, it is plain that the
reciprocal indifference has been mutual. It
ought to be so no longer. If these be not great
days of creation, they ought to be good days
 A NIGHT ON THE BROCKEN, 81

of acquisition.—That long rambling vocal solos

are ineffective and absurd, and that to cut up a
poem into as many movements as there are lines
is to betray want of power over forms and
progressions, the English glee-writer might
learn from such well-knit and admirable com-
positions as the " Rastlose X^iebe" of Spohr, or
the beautiful recent productions of Mendels-
sohn, The German composer of vocal quar-
tetts might learn to lay stress upon such delicacy
of effect as is to be gained by the admixture of
female voices from such elegant and charming
strains as Stevens's " Ye spotted snakes/'
and Horsley's " See the chariot." I would
alike give over to separate and utter demolition,
the rambling accompanied scenas and songs
which some of our classical writers have devised
for the exhibition of a bass or counter-tenor
voice, and the instrumental polaccas and waltz
tunes by Blum and Kuffner, and even Eisen-
hofer (who is sometimes a delicious melodist*),
* As in his " Schlaf wohl," one of the most lulling
tunes in the catalogue of serenades ; in its luxurious
sweetness little inferior to the charming theme, " Secon-
date aurette amici," in " Cosi fan tutte."
82 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

which disfigure their collections. Enough re-

mains on both sides to be of use and help to the
rapidly increasing schools of popular music in
England and Germany.
This digression is to be understood as filling
a chasm in my chronicle. I do not pretend
that all these thoughts and fancies arranged
themselves in my mind during the long hours
of that evening in which the familiar " Der
Schmidt" of Conradin Kreutzer, and a merry
waltz by Blum, with its " Hop-sa-sa " burden,
were heard but faintly from the next chamber
•— though sung by a dozen voices — so furious
was the noise made by my four companions.
Surely never such an outcry came out of so few
bottles of wine,—only three, I think, being ex-
hausted by them, and that so foolishly weak in
quality as to be almost warrantable under the
Temperance seal. Drunk they became, how-
ever, to all intents and purposes; and though I
had begun by a resolution of holding out to
the end as a spectator, about half-past ten the
uproar became so ear-splitting that I was fain
to quit the company for bed. My ill stars ap-
 A NIGHT ON THE BROCKEN. 33

portioned my zirnmer next to the room where

the revel went on; and though I tried again
and again to resort to the " Fantasy Pieces " of
Hoffmann, which I had chosen as pocket-com-
panion, and again and again endeavoured to
read on the Brocken,as I had agreed with myself
I would do, his fantastic but deeply penetrating
analysis of Mozart's " Don Juan " — it was all
in vain. The table was banged by fists and
heels till I thought it must break — the chairs
launched hither and thither so furiously that it
was a marvel, at morning-light, to find one leg
still united to its partner. Had the wind been
provoked to come forth in his utmost fury, he
must for once have been outroared. Once or
twice mine host tried to quiet a riot so particularly
unseasonable to those who were to rise before
day-dawn : once the stube-mddchen put her head
within the door. If piercing noise could take
a form, she must have drawn herself back in the
condition of the Headless Barmaid of the goblin
tale. It was an hour past midnight ere the
unruly pack chose to go to bed. By this time
they were all so tipsy — the singers into the
VOL. II. D
34 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

bargain—that to stow each in his appointed

lodgement was not easy. Up and down the
corridor which divides the Brockenhaus they
rushed like a menagerie let loose, pelting each
other with their boots, or fighting to keep to-
gether or asunder for the night. Two of them,
in one of these conflicts, at last burst my door
open, and threw all their drunken weight on my
bed. Luckily, my light had been extinguished
for some time, and I could take means, by the
aid of the tough vine-branch with which I had
trudged up the Brocken, to free myself of the
intruders without getting into a personal brawl.
Considerably stung, as daylight showed their
faces to be, by the random strokes necessary to
my deliverance, the pair stumbled out as inco-
herently as they had tumbled in; and at half-
past one in the morning, after some hours of
irritating exercise (for to this does the endurance
of such brutal and violent noise amount), I was
at liberty to sleep as well as I could, on the fact
that I had no idea of the meaning of the word
" tapage" till I passed the night on the Brocken
in the midst of a rout of Gottingen students.
 35

CHAP. II.
RUBELAND.

Morning on the Brocken. — Impenetrable Atmosphere.

— Sunrise — Picturesque Mountain-walk to Schi-
ercke. — Drive from Schiercke to Elbingerode. —
Church Tower; — A Fantasy on Forms.—Fright-
ful Road. — Rlibeland;—-Its Delicacies and its
Shows. — The Baumanshohle. — Travelling Parties.
The Grotto. — Music underground.— Illuminations.
— Echo. — Triumphal March. — The Dinner ; the
Reckoning after it. — Absurd Predicament. — North
German Goodwill. — Unsuspiciousness and Art. —
Mrs. Grundy not among the Amateurs. — Drive from
Rlibeland to Blankenburg. — Road Inspector. —
Blankenburg.

DURING the three hours of sleep allowed me,

old remembrances and new impressions com-
bined themselves into such a whimsically dis-
tinct mosaic, that the transcript of the same
would possibly not be the dullest page of these
journals. But, according to Dr. Watts, the
telling of dreams is the sluggard's occupation,
and in the Harz country at least few deserve
that character. At five o'clock the inmates of
D 2
86 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

the Brockenhaus were all shaken out of their

heavy sleep, to be in time for the far-famed sun-
rise. One by one the spirits of the last night's
orgie made their appearance, looking neither
much dirtier nor more debauched for the carouse
than they had done the previous evening, and
alertly eager for the spectacle they had mounted
to see. It was soon evident, however, that of
this they were to be disappointed. The aspect of
matters on issuing forth reminded me of a gra-
phic expression in Mr- Monck Mason's account
of the ascent of the great Nassau balloon, which
he described as at midnight silently cleaving
its way through black marble. No less dense
and substantial seemed the dingy white fog in
the heart of which the summit of the Brocken
was imbedded and which only gave way a span's
breath before us. Having blundered all round
the Prospect Tower ere we came to the side of
entrance, we mounted to the summit. In vain;
the same world was there as below, and the only
appearance or sensation, which could possibly
suggest the idea of its ever being dissipated,
was the sudden passage of some detached scarf
 RUBELAND. 37

of mist, which trailed so close to the face as to

make one aware of the neighbourhood of damp-
ness in motion. The strange apparition of
hands protruding from no visible bodies, of
heads [such heads !) without shoulders, and of
coat tails, seemingly to hang self-supported in
the air, were presented in the area of a very
few feet, more strikingly even than on the me-
morable eve of our young Queen's visit to the
city, when half London lost its way. All that
could be discovered of the progress of dawn
was the change in this provoking envelope,
from whitish grey to greyish white; and as our
watches announced a quarter to six, the dim-
mest possible tinge in the east, which took a
redder glory, when some fold of the mist, part-
ing for an instant, opened out fleecy depths and
vistas so interminable as to defy all hope of
their ever vanishing. For one little moment,
however, as I strained my eyes towards the
quarter of promise, the veil was wholly rent,
and a brilliant golden eye showed itself, as if
to make disappointment greater, by indicating
the existence of no ordinary splendour; but, in
D 8
38 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

another instant, down and round and over us

on every side, swept the all-covering envelope;
and the sun was seen no more. An hour was
spent in vain expectation, until the very land-
lord of the Brockenhaus, more conscientious
than some of his calling, announced that it was
clearly a waste of time for any one to linger
there longer, the show being postponed till
another day ! Such postponements, he added,
fell to the lot of five travellers out of every six
who hoped to assist at the far-famed sunrise
from the Brocken.
The bill for night's lodging, supper, cup of
morning coffee, and the refreshment of my old
guide, was somewhere under the amount of
four shillings; an apology being affixed to the
" Rechniing" for the dearness of the charges,
owing to the necessity of all provisions being
carried up to the hill-top from a very great
distance. This mighty sum discharged, the
next step was to Schiercke, where Carl and his
carriage were waiting; so, leaving behind the
rout ofbiirsclwn busily resuming their staves and
their knapsacks, I set forth, with a boy to carry
 RUBELAND. 39

my wallet. The scramble down the Brocken was

far more striking than the ascent had been. It
was this way that Faust and Mephistopheles
mounted; and the masses of rock which stared
out from among the larch trees on either side of
the rough path — many of them in their wind-
ing-sheets of mist, looking as grim and chill as
Lapland idols,—were huge in size, and fantastic
in their forms, though still not to compare with
the fragments which lie about and overhang the
Elbe in Saxon Switzerland. Some of the pine
trees have been able to grow to a superb height
and bulk, from their not shouldering each other
so closely as on the other side of the mountain.
That morning, too, the underwood was so netted
over with gossamer, as almost to lose every form
of foliage: and, as we stepped down from
boulder to boulder, —my guide keeping the cold
out by his pipe, — through the wet and cottony
atmosphere which still formed round us an
impervious screen, our rapid and silent progress
had far more the air of a journey through a
land of enchantment than any part of the pre-
vious day's walk. It was eight o'clock when
D 4
40 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

we reached Schiercke, a miserable little village.

There I dismissed my guide ; and, candied over
with hoar-frost during my descent, rejoined the
vehicle and its Jehu.
The road we took is by the side of the
Bode, a cheerful and tumultuous mountain-
brook, overhung in places by fine wooded banks,
and not brawling so loudly as to drown the
pleasant and lulling tinkle of the cow and sheep
bells, which produces an effect not unlike a
harp prelude on the upper strings. The in-
fluence of this was hardly to be resisted; and
it was more asleep than awake that I drove
on for the next hour and a half, till jolted
beyond all power of rest or day-dreaming, as we
neared Elbingerode. The round to which Tony
Lumpkin treated Mrs. Hardcastle was a bowl-
ing-green compared with the road as it enters
and issues from that large, naked, bleak-looking
village. Of this, I remember little beyond a
severe-looking, square, lumpish church, — its
tower crowned with that Saracenic black cap,
which seems in the Harz district as inevitably
the finish for all buildings of which Chance has
 RtJBELAND. 41

been the architect, as the extinguisher is every-

where in France. Somewhere or other I have
encountered a speculation upon nationality of
form and style carried through all the arts; —
showing, for instance, how point (without play
upon the words) and neatness characterise alike
French poetry, and painting, and costume, and
architecture, and take the form of rhythm in
French music : — how a richer and sweeter har-
mony pervades all the creations of the South ;
and is to be felt in the expression of the Flo-
rentine painters, and the colour of the Vene-
tians—in the delicious measures of the versifiers,
and in the whole tissue, whether popular or
scientific, of Italian music. As I lay back in
the hay-strewn stable-yard of the little Gasthaus
at Elbingerode, at once kept awake and lulled
by the chime of a quartett of flails, while my
trusty driver stopped to rest his horses after
the last dislocating half hour, the recurrence
of this terminal form in so many of the less-
pretending buildings of North Germany re-
called to me the perhaps wiredrawn fancy I
havo journalised ; and I puzzled myself in vain,
42 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

unable to hit upon any one word which should

indicate the genuine and distinctive peculiarities
of German, as distinguished from French and
Italian art and fancy. On some one such un-
broken thread, I am persuaded, do the poetry,
the painting, and the music of every country
lie more closely side by side than their separate
historians have taken the trouble to conceive;
and he who could analyse the texture and trace
the direction of the support and link proper to
each race and country, would perform a service
of no common interest and value. The most
superficial thinker upon the spirit, rather than
the technicalities of Art, cannot penetrate a
hair's depth beneath the surface without being
lured on and tantalized by indications of cen-
tral originating causes, which remain unchanged
through the revolutions wrought by Time upon
the outer world. It were a life's labour to follow
out and combine these; and largely must the
labourer be endowed with the divining rod ol
Fancy, as well as with the mining tools and the
line and the plummet of Reason : but the labour
is worth the pains.
 RUBELAND. 43

Thus, letting Imagination take the tower of

Elbingerode church as text for what is pos-
sibly but a dream, the half hour allotted to
baiting was soon over. By this time the sun
was very warm, and, provokingly enough, as
we receded from the Brocken, the mist slowly
dissipated, till the summit became as clear as it
had shone when luring me to climb it while I
drove along the road to Halberstadt. To ex-
tricate a pair of wheels and a pair of horses
from Elbingerode, is nothing short of a feat;
such a track I never passed over, save once, in
a rough scrambling drive to shooting quarters,
among the hills of Glamorganshire. Shortly
after issuing from the little town, the road
leaves the plain, and again joining the Bode,
runs along the side of a valley, till, in the cleft
which the stream has formed between grey and
picturesque rocks, not unlike those in Mid-
dleton Dale, Derbyshire, the little village of
Rlibeland is seen, — a clean, warm, cheerful-
looking haunt of comfort and refreshment, par-
ticularly agreeable to reach at noon-tide, after
a scanty breakfast, taken at the unnatural hour
44 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

of five A. M., and seven hours of exposure to the

most bracing air man can breathe.
My driver's face, it was easy to perceive, was
popular in those parts; for the landlord of the
" Golden Lion "—in shape and visage the very
model of an English tailor — bustled to and fro
on the appearance of Carl Alhelm's shabby
vehicle, with an alacrity which nothing short
of two coaches and four would command in
England. I should have a capital dinner, he de-
clared — trout of course (the trout of the Harz
is capital), and a bottle of his best wine;—-and,
while my dinner was getting ready, of course
I would see the Baumanshohle, the most inter-
esting of the grottos which make Riibeland a
notorious station. I assented:—then, of course
too, I would have extra lights, to show the
grotto to its best advantage, — and music
in it, too ? When not particularly anxious or
interested in the matter, or in that moody and
meditative humour which makes one splenetic
or intolerant, it is good wisdom to let guides
and ciceroni take their own way. The taxe,
too, for all these luxuries and entertainments,
 UUBELAND. 45

was but a trifle; so the trout was to be put in

the pan, and the Marcobrunner in the Bode,
and the village rummaged for its band, — some
twenty men in number.
Before they could be collected, two other
parties arrived at Rubeland, and made haste to
avail themselves of the opportunity to see the
Hohle in its court dress. We mounted the
steep bank at the back of the inn, each with a
kittel) or smock frock of black glazed calico, on
his arm, and were presently at the mouth of
the cave. Under cover of this were waiting
the musicians bespoken for my first and only
benefit concert, —- a set of good-humoured
manly-looking fellows, a good deal besmirched
with the labours of the forge and the mine.
As they lay about among their cornets, trom-
bones, and other brass instruments, some in
shade, some in shine, — they made a capital
painter's study of " wayfarers at the mouth of
a cavern." I was much amused with one of the
parties of grotto-seekers who were to bear me
company. This was a gentleman with two ladies,
not very young, odd-looking, and curiously tidy.
46 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

The gentleman turned up his pantaloons, to be

out of danger from the drippings of the stalac-
tites which were to be found on the floor of the
cave; the lady bound a handkerchief over her
cap, with as anxious a precision as if it had been
ajazzoletto for a fancy ball. It was not this, how-
ever, that so much struck me, as the curiosity,
earnest to rapacity, evidenced in all the three
faces, which told a pleasant tale of powers of
enjoyment, retained in all their freshness, and
of credulity willing to believe every thing at a
moment's word and warning. They were the
most incessant talkers too I ever encountered;
and from the moment when their carriage
stopped at the door of the " Golden Lion,"
till the moment when mine drove away
from it, the time of dinner inclusive, a con-
tinuous trio of two soprani and one baryton
was never out of my ears for one solitary mo-
ment. Of the other three I have more to say
presently.
After a few moments, our musicians, in
single file, dropped one by one into the hole,
down which too we were to vanish. Then each
 KUBELAND. 47

of us, bearing his little tin lamp, began to pick

his way down a steep and broken descent, into
the bowels of the earth, with that stumbling
caution, which is always laid aside some two
minutes after daylight is fairly left, I am not
going to course the reader through the wonders
of the grotto, — the Organ, and the Lion's
Head, and the Bust, and the Skeleton Hand, —
which Nature and Imagination never fail be-
tween them to carve out in all such situations.
The awe and mystery of the spot were entirely
dissipated by the enthusiastic " Ach!" and
" Himmel!" and " Wunderhubsch I'" of my
companions; and when, upon the principal
guide whistling a signal, a cross of light revealed
itself in the distance, and the Riibelanders
struck up a Prussian march and quick step
(one of those things the sight of which in an
old music book transports the mind back to
such strangely different times), their screams of
rapture very nearly hindered me from profiting
by the music. Fatiguing as is such violent
admiration, it is more tolerable than sulkiness
or apathy; and as the solemnities of Nature
48 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

were out of reach, it was as well to content one's

self with the whimsicalities of Man.
The music produced a fair effect. In
another mood, I should have wished for less
lively and common-place strains, in the midst
of all those dimly seen and quaintly writhen
rock figures:—I should have bespoken the
" Amplius," or " Confitebor," written by Beeth-
oven for brass instruments alone, and performed
at his own funeral. Yet perhaps there might
have been less difference between the rever-
berations of a Strauss melody, and one of those
dark and pompous burial strains, thus heard,
than would have been felt in the aisles of a
cathedral, or the saloons of a palace. The
best got-up scene is often disappointing in
effect, when Nature is one of the elements. I
have always mistrusted open air exhibitions
(even when directed by a Goethe for a clas-
sical court such as Weimar's,) as being only
one degree more probable and poetical in
effect, than the groups of opera milkmaids who
used to pirouette among the laurels and lawns
of Holly Lodge, on the anniversaries kept by
 RUBELAND. 49

its late jovial and hospitable proprietress* The

last exhibition in the Baumanshbhle was the
burning of sundry blue lights, which diffused a
strange and infernal glare throughout the vault,
bringing all its darkest nooks and recesses into
full notice, and making it a fit scene for the
demon court of Ahrimanes and the resus-
citation of Astarte in " Manfred." I never,
till I returned to upper earth, knew the full
value of " the light of common day."
By this time we were all desperately hungry,
and the provisions of mine host of the " Golden
Lion" recurred to me most comfortably. One
other wonder of Riibeland remained. A most
articulate and pertinacious Echo inhabits the
crags on the side of the Bode, opposite to the
Baumanshohle; and as we walked down from
the grotto, the men of Riibeland formed before
us in procession, playing marches and galoppes
as they went — the Voice from the hill mocking
them all the way. In such state we arrived at
the little inn, where Boniface, thinking to make
a sulky Englishman comfortable according to
his own liking, and turning a deaf ear to all
VOL. II. E
50 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

my sociable inclinations, handed me off to a

little clean bed-room, glaring with sunlight,
and there set before me the promised treat. I
could not help thinking I was dining after the
fashion of the monarch in " the Song of Six-
pence," when, by way of a last indulgence,
the village band ranged itself round the window,
and gave one more hearty flourish of their
trumpets — " an appeal/' thought I, " to the
long purse which my countrymen are presumed
to carry." So availing myself of the interval
between the forellen (trout) and the eternal
Kaltfsbraten (roast veal) of a German dinner, I
opened the window, determined for once in my
life to make myself popular by an act of muni-
ficence.
Out came my purse —out came its contents ;
when, at that moment, a conviction in which I
know not whether dismay or diversion predo-
minated, flashed on my mind. I had left a good
half of the thalers apportioned for my Harz
journey of three days, with my heavy baggage,
at Halberstadt; and if I paid for my trout
and my trumpet-ry with the most laudable at^
 RtJBELAND. 51

tention to economy, it stared me in the face

that I should then have some twenty groschen,
and no more, left for the remainder of my tour.
The thorough absurdity of such a falling-
short after such an extra regale was all but ir-
resistible ; but it was vexatious, owing to care-
lessness, to be compelled to stint the good-
humoured musicians of Rubeland: and some will
comprehend the feelings of relief with which I
saw the last of them disappear, slowly, and, I
dare say, disappointed. Then came a moment's
brown study; and, but for the summons of the
landlord, who, armed with a dish of plum jelly,
recommended me to turn and finish my roast
meat while it was hot, I might have leaned out
into the still, sunshiny village street, pondering
ways and means for the rest of the afternoon.
Pondering, however, would do no good: the
fact was clear that my money was all but done,
and only half of my Harz round accomplished.
I called my kutscher, and interrogated him as to
the possibility of his delivering me that night at
the Prinz Eugen. His horses would not do it,
he said, and he could not in conscience take me
E 2
52 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

home without my having seen the most beauti-

ful thing in the Harz — the Ross-trappe. In
truth, the brilliancy of the weather, and the
rarity of such an excursion, made the thoughts
of abridging my first plan thoroughly distaste-
ful. So I sent away my dinner, paid my bill,
again counted over my groschen, and again
leaned out of the window in search of an idea.
Some money was to be raised, it was clear; —
but from whom?
A laugh, in six parts, with a brisk ohligato
accompaniment of knives and forks, from the
sociable party in the parlour, determined me.
I resolved to try what the compassion of my
fellow grotto-hunters would do. As I stood
with the handle of the door betwixt the rooms
in my hand, a hundred tales of the frolics of
impudent travelling Englishmen came back to
me, and I caught a glimpse in the glass of a
person too thoroughly disreputable-looking, by
reason of early rising, exposure to the air, and
the climbing of muddy ladders, to stand any
chance of being believed or assisted; even if
he could keep down the strong sense of diver-
 RUBELAND. 53

sion, which the contrast between the parade

before and the petition after dinner excited.
A moment more, and I should have lost com-
mand of my gravity. So I threw open the door,
and, by the aid of the better French than my
own of a lady of the party, managed to make
my difficulty known. Before my tale was half
ended, before I could unfold my passport, or a
single authentication to encourage the benevo-
lent, or to explain where I came from and
whither I was going, every purse and pocket-
book was out on the table: — every one was
pressing offers of service upon me with a whole-
sale liberality which it warms the heart to
remember; and so earnestly, as well as unani-
mously, that I had to raise my voice to the high-
est pitch to give my name and address in Berlin.
No one would look at a single corroboratory
document, and I might have levied contribu-
tions to any amount. Of course I preferred aid
from those belonging to the place of my imme-
diate destination; and having helped myself as
moderately as possible out of their store, we
shook hands and parted, in the midst of a peal
E 3
 54 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY,

of merriment and mutual good wishes, which

are already like things in a dream. I might
have spared the egotism of this little adventure,
did I not hope that an expression of hearty gra-
titude might, by some freak of chance, haply
meet the eye of those who rendered me such
essential service; and were not this timely
aid, given to an utter stranger at a moment's
warning, too closely illustrative of the unaffected
and unsuspecting goodwill which, as far as I
know, distinguishes social intercourse in Ger-
many, to be omitted from pages in which Man-
ners as well as Music are sketched.
The health and prosperity, indeed, of the
best music of Germany — that of combination
— is largely owing to the friendly unsuspicious-
ness which allowed me to be so seasonably
helped, and which manifests itself in a free-
dom and ease of intercourse between the sexes,
bearing upon Art with direct and important
influences. Mrs. Grundy is rarely heard of
among the young ladies and young gentlemen
of the country, however pertinaciously they
choose to sing choruses together or practise the
 HUBELAND. 55

harmony-niusic of instruments. As a friend of

mine remarked, when adverting to the hinder-
ance which manners, as well as artificial refine-
ments, present to a full and hearty combination
of the amateurs of England or France, " the
obstacle, in both countries, is the difficulty your
ladies find in moving alone, without servants,
gentlemen, and other accompaniments obligato.
Yet this is almost indispensable to such an un-
dertaking, unless it be confined entirely to the
inferior classes. Now our damsels, even at
night, if there are three or four of them, and
an old spinster in the rear, will roam about and
fear nothing; or the singing gentlemen will ac-
company them home; at the bare idea of which
every Frenchman's morals would go into fits."
There is something in this worthy of honest
attention. We cannot, perhaps, return on our
track so as to assume a more primitive form of
manners; and no audacity is so unbridled, no
affectation so pernicious, as the courage and the
artlessness of an acted simplicity. The uneasy
shame of the first adult English waltzers was a
more dangerous profligacy than the unconscious
E 4
56 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

effrontery of many a professional danseuse* who

has been trained to her exhibitions from her
cradle. While exciting our energies for the diffu-
sion of Music, as a desirable and attainable house-
hold guest, we shall labour in vain till something
is done towards rendering it independent of all
cumber, and formality, and expense; to make
it a thing of daily love and custom, and not of
show. We have better voices than the Germans,
and a fair musical organization; but the scien-
tific training of patient study is not less wanting
among us, than the social support of a system of
manners which shall give room to the art to
move easily; and by detaching it from an
exclusive association with paid and public ex-
hibitions, deliver it from the undistinguishing
ban under which Intellect and Morality have so
unfairly placed it.
I saw nothing more beautiful in the Harz
country than my drive from Riibeland to Blan-
kenburg. The weather continued genial and
cloudless, and the instance of goodwill I have
recorded was surely enough to make the dullest
of spirits sunshiny. Thus, let no one take my
word for it, that Bodenthal is the most beautiful
 RUBELAND- 57

of villages; niched though it be beneath high

crags dotted with pine trees, and with its group of
marble works, which'have availed themselves of
the " water privilege," to stand for the never-
omitted water-mill of our landscape painters.
But such it seemed. Nor dare I aver that the
hilly miles from Bodenthal to Blankenburg,
undulating between warm sloping meadows,
covered with noble oaks, whose lower branches
sweep the ground, are a richer passage of coun-
try than could be found on many a mail-road
in England — say the valley of the Severn.
Yet, as Blankenburg is approached, and the
country opens, I thought I had never seen view
so beautiful, — the heavy and quaint-looking
castle of the town laid along rather than seated
on a knoll above it, and the Regenstein, serving
as frames to a wide reach of country. As we were
driving from Huttenrode the way was blocked up
by a heavy wain, loaden with sweet and fresh hay.
From the back of this a man jumped out —
in face, voice, and dress the very double of the
Ettrick Shepherd — and offered Carl an armful
of provender for his horses in return for a ride
and a little good company. He was the inspec-
58 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

tor of the roads in the district, and, getting up

beside my Jehu, began, at a noisy rate, to do his
part in making me feel at home, by telling me all
the news " of the country side." I tried my
best to catechise him about the meeting of the
Liedertafeln societies of the district, which only
shortly before had taken place at Blankenburg;
but as I did not understand one word in ten
he said, of course what he answered was not
worth journalising. He had plenty to tell me on
that subject, however, as well as about the excel-
lence of the crops, the good condition of Carl's
horses, and the roughness of the road. The
last was enough to make even a bunch of thistles
palatable to the poor fatigued beasts who had
dragged us over it; — how they must have re-
lished, then, their fresh and fragrant supper !
A hundred yards before we entered Blanken-
burg, he leaped from the box, and disappeared
among a gang of men at work, with a promise
that I should find a good supper, a good bed,
and a good host at the " Weisse Adler." His
promise was fulfilled to the letter; and is so, I
trust, for the comfort of all travellers, even unto
this dav.
 59

CHAP. III.
THE ROSS-TRAPPE.

Blankenburg to Thale. — Blech-hiitte. — One-eyed

Guide. — The Ascent. — Garland Weavers. — Harper
on the Hill. — Echo and Pistol-shooting. — The
Summit. — The Bode-Kessel. — The Descent. — A
Travelling Group. — A solitary Painter. — A Wood
Scramble. — Conclusion.

PERHAPS I ought to stop at Blankenburg, hav-

ing no pretensions to draw out an Itinerary of
the Harz, and few adventures during my third
and last day's ramble to report, which touch
either Music or Manners. But it is difficult to
break off in a journal full of those pleasant
remembrances that light up the fogs of a wintry
spring, and fill a dingy street-prospect with
" A mountain ascending, a vision of trees."—

A little jaded, and very unwilling to move, I

was driven out of Blankenburg at half-past seven
in the morning. Carl would fain have tempted
me up to the platform on which the schloss is
built to take a look at the prospect, and an
60 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

observation of the building, whose greatest at-

traction, in my eyes, was its possession, beyond
all doubt, of The old original White Lady,
or Household Demon (cousin-german to the
Irish Bensliee), whose appearance denotes that
a death is sure to take place* But I recollected
that the Palace at Berlin has another White
Lady equally authentic, and that few spirits of
any colour are ever abroad in the morning air.
I had seen, moreover, the best of the view on
the previous evening; so I sate still, and we
drove on.
From Blankenburg, the road, which is wretched,
becomes more and more insipid, the bergs keep-
ing in the back-ground, till it suddenly turns in
among them at Thale, and crosses the Bode,
over a wide bed of blanched stones, among
which the stream soaks. The " water privilege "
is here employed in the service of iron works;
and just ere reaching the village belonging to
these, which is well nigh as black and grim with
charcoal dust as if it stood on the spur of the
Yorkshire hills, a one-eyed lad, in face and
figure a perfect Flibbertigibbet, fastened upon
 THE ROSS-TRAPPE. 61

us. This was to be my guide to the Ross-trappe.

Never had any one more completely the true
hackney tone and hackney slouch of the fra-
ternity, and it was lucky for my undisturbed
meditations that he sucked away so constantly
at his pipe as only to be able to give out his
legends and other information in scraps between
the whiffs. A rough plank bridge crosses the
bright and busy Bode, and in a few minutes
more the path begins to lose itself among trees,
and to mount so steeply, that one seems to
ascend by stories rather than a more gradual
acclivity. It was easy to gather that this was
the great lion of the Harz, from the number
of the temptations thrown in the way of the
visitor. Scarcely were we in the wood, than a
pretty child ran after us, with a nicely knit
garland of oak leaves, which she threw over my
shoulders; and by the number of dead ones
which strewed the path, it would seem as if the
trade was a brisk one. There are many arti-
ficial stations for rest as the hill is mounted : at
Eckart's Hohe, a bare piece of rock jutting out
through the trees, where the view over the
62 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

plain becomes magnificent, and, to my taste, sur-

passing, because within more manageable com-
pass than, the wider panorama of the Brocken,
the pilgrim is invited to halt to eat and drink
at a way-side cottage covered with heather,
whose mistress, when I saw it, was a plump
pale old frau, with as shrewd an eye and as
tidily formal a cap as if Gerard Dow had just
let her out of one of his pictures. Beside her,
" at the shieling door," was a faded elderly
young person, with that crossed-in-love water-
ing-place look of haggard welcome, which, to
my discomfort, threw light on a harp I had seen
an instant before under a tree. It was a pity
that so lovely a scene should be spoilt by an
exhibition; and somehow or other I never felt so
intolerant of a favourite instrument (even when
disgraced by the foul embraces and the musi-
cal charlatanerie of a B ) as when its owner,
laying aside a roomy blue worsted stocking
she was knitting for the wearing of her own
solid leg, began to tinkle out waltzes, seguidillas,
and the other tunes one associates so naturally
with all that is most squalid in musical itine-
 THE ROSS-TRAPPE. 63

rancy, and all that is stalest in town life;—with

dancing dogs and blind men, the scarlet tin tray
with its rattling coppers, and the parades of
Cheltenham ! —Those worn-out scraps of ball-
room and ballet music, and the unmeaning
mechanical smile with which my groschen were
acknowledged, put a bad taste into my mind as I
mounted a story higher. As we came nearer the
summit there was more show-work to be gone
through; but this was impressive rather than
otherwise. A smart round of pistol-shooting
was going on, the echoes of which rolled away
in muttered thunder among the rocks, like the
sound of the bowlers whom Rip Van Winkle
saw in Sleepy Hollow. At last we came out
upon the cliff, which we had been now climbing
during a hot half hour.
The Ross-trappe is a bare and splendid
piece of rock, challenged from the other side
of the narrow rift, through which foams the
Bode, by many no less wild and lofty crags, —
the Devil's Ballroom, &c. &c, — and set
round with spires, and needles, and strangely
balanced lumps of rude stone, thrown about
64 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

into the most extravagant attitudes, and me-

nacing each other from point to point. On the
flattened platform at the top of the cliff where
I stood, are two or three large indentations.
There is a goodly legend belonging to these, of
a Princess Cunigonda, pursued by a ravisher or
fiend — perhaps both, and the miraculous leap
of a horse, which either saved her or destroyed
her rescuer. That I retail this after dear Mrs.
Nickleby's fashion is not the fault of Flibberti-
gibbet— for he shouted it out at the top of his
lungs, as loudly as if I had bespoken the tale to
try the echo withal, in place of the pistol and the
cannon-shooting which is performed for those
delighting in sudden noises. But I was looking
up the valley of the Bode too busily to heed
him ; — following the long horizontal lines which
seam its grim slanting crags so thickly fea-
thered with fir-trees, and watching far down in
the dark chasm the whirling water, which
gleamed among the bushes like a shaken diamond
chain, boiling more and more impetuously, in
proportion as it is near the Bode kessel, or
spring, where it wells up into daylight. After
lingering a long time on the summit, and pick-
 THE ROSS-TRAPPE. 65

ing out the town of Quedlinburg, and the eight

towers of Halberstadt in the distance, we hur-
ried down a rude path, to the great discomfiture,
I fear, of a timid young lady and her party
who were ascending. She had taken off her
bonnet, so as to display a fine crop of bright
orange-coloured hair, and had divested herself
of her shawl, and her gingerbread-coloured
knit mittens (the product of her own industry
doubtless), that neck and bosom and arms might
be dyed to match. Why, by the way, the
young ladies of North Germany should affect
this unlovely colour, is a point of taste as diffi-
cult to account for as the frequent love of a
red umbrella among their old men, which must
make it a miracle to keep turkey-cocks in a
good temper in any German town. Another
no less national figure was perched like a
bittern at the water's edge far beneath us.
His wide straw hat, blue shirt, and carnation-
coloured silk neck handkerchief, setting off his
jet-black beard, scarcely made a brighter spot
of colour among the sober-hued stones where
he had fixed his seat, than the flagrant land-
VOL. II. F
66 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

scape on which he was at work. There was

the old caricature of violet hills and orange
trees and China blue water which may be seen
on any French paper, drawn out in all its taw-
driness, just as confidently as if Nature with all
her delicious hues and shades had not been be-
fore and around and above her libeller. He
was better employed in biting at the long wiirst
with which his mouth was half full, than in
libelling green foliage and grey rocks. Pre-
sently, he, too, was shut out; and we went over
a Devii's Bridge towards the last attainable sta-
tion overlooking the kessel, or caldron. There
are many scenes of the kind on a grander scale;
but I doubt whether I could have been more
delighted by a sight of Niagara itself, than by
watching the ceaseless brewing and seething of
those brilliantly clear waters which have folded,
not worn, the stone around them, till, in its forms,
it takes the easy roundness and play of drapery.
It was impossible not to wish to advance be-
yond the station at which the rude path comes
to an end, — an almost perpendicular rock
blocking up the valley just above the source of
 IHE ROSS-TRAPPE. 67

the stream. And accordingly, in spite of

Flibbertigibbet's remonstrances, I started off
on such a scramble through briars, stones, and
hazel-bushes, as I have not undertaken since
tracking the course of the brooks which, falling
into the Lune above Lancaster, run through
some of the loveliest rock-scenery in England.
All would not do. Vexatious as it is to mortal
self-conceit to be circumscribed by those who
lay out the haunts of Nature to the utmost ad-
vantage, after half an hour vainly spent in
attempting to obtain a nearer glimpse of the cal-
dron, the roar of which took at last a positively
malicious tone, the feat was abandoned as an
impossibility: I turned back towards Blech-
hiitte, there to take vehicle for Quedlinburg.
The drive to that clean-looking town, and the
drive thence to Halberstadt, offered little to be
remembered, save the renewed strength and
spirits with which one who has "been long in
populous cities pent" looks back to such a
ramble as the one here journalized. But
enough — I remember Byron's caution to
Moore, when they stood together overlooking
F 2
68 THREE DAYS IN THE HARZ COUNTRY.

the Venetian sun-set, " not to be poetical."

I remember, too, that my reader is bound
for the music of Berlin. Should he ever take
a Harz ramble, I cannot wish him better wea-
ther than shone during my three glorious days,
a more capital charioteer than Carl Alhelm, or
keener feelings of enjoyment than those with
which I relished this little episode of open-air
life and wild scenery, in the midst of a never-
ceasing course of " shining theatres," with their
heavy atmospheres, and their gross illumina-
tions, and their tawdry mockeries of the real
shows and splendours of earth and heaven.—
Those have already ceased to love Art, who
have lost their comprehension of and affection
for Nature.
 GLIMPSES
OF

BERLIN.

" Nichts liegt der Musik ferner als die Ironie."—Truhn.

F 3
 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

CHAPTER I.

A Peep at a Kirmesse and the Cathedral of Magde-

burg. — Arrival at Berlin changed since the Days of
Burney. — First Impressions of Berlin. — The Splen-
dour of its Buildings. — Musical Anticipations. —
Illustrations of Display at Dinner. — The Afternoon of
the Germans. — " Der Freischutz " at the Schauspiel
Haus. — The Manner of its Performance. — The Cast
of the Opera. — Mademoiselle von Fassmann. — Dis-
appointment. — The Metropolis of Criticism. — Morn-
ing Visits in Berlin. — Rumours and Qualifications. —
Partizanship. — The Fassmann and the Lowe. — Vol-
taire and Burney on the Berlin Spirit. — Mrs. Grundy
and Mrs. Candour. — Absence of Form and Sincerity.
— Scene among Artists at a German Supper-table.

SAVE the damsel, who stood under the vine-

hung porch of the post-house at Egeln, to show
F 4
72 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

the splendid flaxen ringlets which were ga-

thered up at the back of her head by a massive
silver bodkin,—there was little to be seen for the
first six hours after leaving Halberstadt, by
the schnellpost which runs between Cologne
and the metropolis of Prussia. At Magdeburg,
a mid-day halt of three hours gave us time to
assist at the opening of a Kirmesse: this
would have been gay and pretty, but for a
hurricane of wind, which raised clouds of sharp
stony dust, to the laceration of the skins and
the blinding of the eyes of holiday-keepers. The
cathedral, too, was to be seen ; one of the finest
buildings of its class in North Germany. The
front is very complete, and its two graceful
lantern-towers with the noble window between
them have a certain originality in the combina-
tion of their Gothic details I had not elsewhere
encountered. The building has been recently
repaired, so that the alabaster pulpit, by Se-
bastian Extel, and the tombs of Kaiser Otto,
and Editha of England his wife, — a pair of
stately sitting figures, — and Peter Visscher's
exquisite Apostles in bronze round the monu-
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 73

ment of Archbishop Ernest, are not disho-

noured by being lost amidst the dust and mil-
dew which make so many an ancient building
desolate rather than venerable. Perhaps the
piers of the magnificent nave are even too
brilliantly white and too trimly neat, and the
arabesque paintings of the western chapel,
where the Archbishop's sepulchre stands, too
glaring in their renovated tawdriness, not to
shock an eye unused to polychromy. Or it may
be that there is little comfort in a snatch of a fine
building thus laid hold of in the midst of a
journey. The spirit of such a stately church
tempts the foot to linger, and demands a.mind
not urged onward by anticipation. The cice-
rone of Magdeburg cathedral was at once the
most exacting and mechanical of the tribe I
have encountered in Germany, — possibly he
had been disturbed in the midst of a jolli-
fication. At all events he smelt most fiercely
of brandy, though it was scarcely one o'clock
in the day.
The above laconic note, with a word or
two in admiration of the panorama of strong
74 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

works, and zig-zag fortifications, girdling one

of the strongest fortresses in Europe, which
may be seen from the tower of the cathedral,
are all that my journal records of Magdeburg.
Thence to Berlin is a blank, only broken by
a coarse and greasy supper at Genthin, and
by a guess or two at the wide and naked
splendours of Potsdam, through which the
schnellpost passed an hour after midnight.
One could hardly make a less interesting
journey of fourteen hours; and it was with
feelings of no common relief that I felt our
vehicle slowly rumbling to its full stop some-
where about seven o'clock A. M. in the yard
of the post-office, Berlin. From thence to the
Hotel de the transfer is short and easy.
Modes of conveyance and usages have changed
with a vengeance since Dr. Burney made the
capital of Brandenburg a principal station in
his musical pilgrimage. The night before he
reached Berlin, he remained, as his own agree-
able Journal tells us, for seven cold, dark, wet
hours, stuck fast in a bog, on a bleak and
barren heath, between the last post-house and
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 75

the city; and on arriving, after having been

detained for three quarters of an hour at the
barrier, was conducted, under custody of a
centinel, to the custom-house, to abide another
detention of two hours. It would have been
only natural, if all his life long he had hated a
place of which his first impressions were so
repulsive. Thanks to the activity of M. von
Nagler, roads are now smooth, and convey-
ances punctual and commodious. The liberality
of the times has reduced the inquisitorial pro-
ceedings of the custom-house to a cursory and
civil examination on the frontier: there is,
then, no excuse for bad humour—call it even
by the convenient name of low spirits — on
the part of the traveller entering the Prussian
metropolis. Yet my first feelings in Berlin were
those of depression.
The finest of modern cities is like a beauty in
a ball dress, and should never be first seen (let
the Wordsworths write what sonnets they will)
by the light of very early day. However striking
be the repose of that hour, the want of welcome
to a stranger, in the total cessation of life and
76 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

bustle, is chilling to the heart. Bodily weari-

ness, and the reaction after much pleasant ex-
citement, had of course their part, in the first
nonchalant glance which I cast at the spacious
old Palace, the Arsenal, SchinkePs far-famed
Museum, and his square flaring Ban Academie.
The last, built of a dull red brick, and traversed
by pin stripes of lilac tiles, introduced on most
original principles of concord, reminded me of
a huge bale of one of those coarse and tawdry
calicoes which are manufactured for the Man-
dingoe or Eboe market.
All pre-occupation apart, however, there is a
certain coldness in the physiognomy of Berlin
which never wholly passes away — morning,
noon, or night; a frigid and academical splen-
dour in the new edifices, which makes the eye
long for a bit of dingy antiquity. Mine, at last,
found a positive delight in resting on the group
of corrupt and heavy oriels and bell-towers of
the Palace, overhanging the water on the side of
the Long Bridge. The mathematically straight,
wide streets, lined with noble houses, are beau-
tiful ; — but it is the beauty of a set of regular
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 77

features without variety of expression, where

Fancy has nothing to discover. The Linden,
of course, is an exception : and still . . . . but,
not to cavil, there are few things more splendid
than that long avenue, closed by the magnifi-
cent Brandenburgh gate, with the masses of
forest in the Thiergarten beyond, especially
when seen by such brilliant and mellow moon-
light as shone in September, 1839.
As I would fain not incur the charge of heresy
and presumption, it is well that I have no in-
tention to talk of styles, and columns, and capi-
tals in my journal. The Prussian capital, in
right of its modern Greek buildings, is the
Mecca of many a German architect, — Munich
being his Medina. Thus, too, it had been
to me, musically, long a Holy City. While
half dozing on my hard sofa, half watching
the ceaseless gleaming of the fountain in the
Lustgarten, I had dim dreams of Mara and
Milder; — I remembered that Sontag had
burst upon the world of her adorers from Berlin.
I had been told in England wonderful things
of Mademoiselle von Fassmann, who was now
 78 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

the star of classical Opera. I had heard at

every table from which I had eaten since I
came into the country of the grace and con-
summate brilliancy of Mademoiselle Lowe. I
anticipated the utmost orchestral and choral
perfection, and hoped for " Iphigenia," or
"Armida,"or " Fidelio," or " La Vestale,"— to
say nothing of such good new German operas
as were worthy of metropolitan honours. Of
course I called for a play-bill with my break-
fast ; and, in spite of fatigue and indisposition,
it was with a leaping-up of delight and expect-
ation which effectually charmed away fatigue,
that I saw the announcement of " Der Frei-
schutz," to be given that very evening at the
Schauspiel Haus,— with the identical von Fass-
mann for the Agatha of the opera.
The morning was spent in a pleasant hurry
of spirits; — in familiarising the eyes with the
principal sights of the city, and in learning how
heartily its inhabitants accredit letters of intro-
duction. That day's dinner, too, was amusing:
it furnished materials for a scene in an un-
written comedy of " Display." At mine host's
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 79

right hand sat Herr , the singer, calling

for champagne at every mouthful, and boasting
of his bonnes fortunes with a no less amazing
prodigality. There was such an incurable twang
of the stage Leporello, however, in every word
of his gasconade, and in every name he an-
nounced, as to make his adventures at every
listener's service amusing rather than offensive.
Perhaps, my entertainment in the bustle he
kept up was not lessened from observing how
seriously he traversed the intentions of one
of my dear countrymen, who was equally
resolved to shine, but in another fashion.
With him, it was all " my dinner with the
Crown Prince/7 — " t h e day we spent with
the King,5' — " my breakfast at Count Rac-
zynski's,"— and " what I said to him about
my own place in shire ! " Never was great-
ness thrust upon a man more willingly shared
with the public of the highways and hedges.
Never was victim — like Mr. Lofty deprived of
a single moment's breathing-time by the im-
portunate claims of the great and the influential
— more willing to tarry and (to quote the
80 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN,

American who misquoted Mr. R 's lyric to

the poet himself),
• " show his tale
To every passing villager/'

Not far off sate a less showy pair of contrasts :

one was a middle-aged English gentlewoman,
the civilest, most untravelled, most precise of
single ladies who had ever come to Berlin to
place a nephew at school. Sore bested was she
with foreign usages, curtseying with a nervous
dolefulness of expression when she entered the
saloon — mistrusting every dish that was set
before her, and, with almost tears in her eyes,
recalling the wholesome roast and boiled of her
own kitchen, as mess after mess of disguised
vegetables passed round (the Telltower ruben
— a notable Berlin delicacy—among the rest),
or as sweets and savouries were shed on her
neighbours' plates in strange admixture. There
was a life's training under Chapone and For-
dyce in her reserved acceptance of the courtesies
of her cavalier and neighbour. He was a
blithe, shrewd-faced, loquacious inhabitant of
the town, who in very fair English expatiated
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 81

upon every use and custom, great and small, of

German life and manners, till her poor head, lam
sure, must have turned "quite round and back
again !" Sancho, in Barataria, had not a worse
time of it, under the restrictions of his physician,
than the victim of my neighbour's civility among
the meats and drinks of the Hotel de ,
which he pressed upon her, in spite of herself;
and when, in the midst of an elaborate disserta-
tion upon this and the other Professor's method
(how far from the Reading-made-easy studies of
her own scholastic experience ! ) he fairly took
the good-natured freedom of jointing the leg of
a pheasant on her plate with his own knife,
the bewildered gratitude of her wintry smile,
and her " O, dear sir !" " Thank you, sir!" was
almost too much for any by-standing nerves to
bear. The repast ended in the gentleman's in-
sisting upon esquiring her to see Seydelmann *

* I have no pretensions to discuss the dramatic art as

separate from Music. But I may not have another oppor-
tunity of alluding to Herr Seydelmann ; and to sketch
Art in Berlin at all, without mentioning this admirable
actor, would be an absurd omission; the more so, since his
name is not mentioned, as far as I recollect, by any of the
VOL. !!• G
8*2 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN,

in Schiller's " Don Carlos ! " She was to be

shown every thing. No German ever leaves
a sight unvisited : and this was one of the cases
in which total ignorance of the language made
but little difference. But, after this perplexing
civility, the good lady seemed eager to escape,

travellers and critics who have done so much to draw En-

glish attention to the theatre of modern Germany; — not
even by that elegant and thoughtful writer, Mrs. Jameson.
When I saw him first it was in a translation from the French,
as Moliere the lover: and the perfection of his style as re-
gards finesse, demeanour, and the power of saying every
thing while saying nothing in the common conversational
tone of society, made me so completly forget the difference
of their languages that I wrote — " I would give any
thing to see him with Mars." His Philip of Spain was
described to me as no less Spanish than his Moliere was
French ; his Mephistopheles is, again, as thoroughly Pan-
demoniacal. In short he seemed to me the only German
actor, among those I encountered, whom the schooling
of attitude, gesture, and diction, to which the theatrical
aspirants of the country laudably subject themselves, had
led wholly to the desired result—the easy and vivid simu-
lation of Nature, the life-like completeness of the figure,
without a stray chisel-mark. I cannot remember a single
point made — a single attitude indulged in : but I know-
that he was the being he set himself to personate, and
not " Seydelmann in the part of ."
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. <S3

I thought, as though by no means sure that

further inflictions would not be attempted. I
found that she had a tapestry frame in her own
room; and, like a good work-woman, had bound
herself to complete her task of so many square
inches there every day !
The early dinner hour in Germany leaves a
peculiarly profitless chasm of time before the
early theatre. There are sociable coffee visits,
to be sure, principally confined to the ladies,
which may be paid; or, following a male Ber-
lin fashion, one may drop into Kranzler's or
Stehely's, to toss over the papers and to eat
something ; but, for a traveller's purposes, the
afternoon thus spoiled is next to worthless.
Energy itself cannot rummage libraries and look
at pictures, when the heaviest meal of the day
remains still undigested. So I sauntered up and
down the Linden, which was as vacant of foot
passengers as our own Bond Street of equipages
in the month of September; peeped into Asher's
to see what English books were most in request
— finding, by way of reply, a heap of annuals
new fledged in scarlet and gold — and read the
o 2
Hi GLIMPSES OF 13F.KLIN.

permitted dole of intelligence in the journal of

the day — till it was time to be found in my
sperr-sitz at the Schauspiel-haus. I had been
forewarned at dinner that I was not to look for
a very grand representation; many of the
singers and half the orchestra were then at
Potsdam with the camp, in attendance upon
the grand autumnal review; and the opera was
therefore given on a small scale in the smaller
theatre. Still, to hear "Der Freischutz" in
Germany was something. The sensation made
by that work throughout Europe had excited
one of my first musical yearnings; and the zeal
with which I had trudged after barrel-organs in
the streets, to catch up the Hunters' Chorus,and
had risen at sunrise to pick out the waltz on the
pianoforte, came back like feelings of yester-
day. It chanced, too, that, save the overture and
the great scena for the soprano,—which, after all,
is hardly a concert song,—I had never heard
any part of the opera decently performed.
Therefore, having taken a hasty look round,
and satisfied myself that the theatre (another of
SchinkePs works) had a grand classical com-
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 85

fortless appearance, in spite of its limited scale;

and that the two huge heads of Tragedy and
Comedy, set like cameos half the height of the
proscenium pillars, cut the perpendicular un-
pleasantly, I composed myself to enjoy the
most delicious of all musical prologues to a
faery tale — more than I had ever enjoyed it
before.
The overture began: I was at last hearing it
played in Berlin style. Numbers may give tone,
but they do not surely influence the intelligence
of the conductor, communicated to his band.
Nay, there are musical epicures who believe
that the finest and most spiritual effects are in-
communicable to large orchestras. The body
of sound, too, was quite full enough for the size
of the theatre. But was this Berlin style ?
Could it be that the quartett of horns in the
introduction — music recalling the rich wood-
scenery of some of Tieck's mdrchen—was allowed
to plod through its work, with only the coarsest
lights and shades rubbed in, as one says of a
painter's sketch ? Were my ears, or they, out of
tune? I thought of Herr von Raumer's dic-
G 3
86 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

tatorial demolition of our London music, and

the sneers lavished by him in his English and
Italian journals on all performances save Ber-
lin performances—on all singers save Berlin
singers,— drew my breath, and listened again.
It was past doubt — the horns were lazy and
false. Greater disappointment I have not often
felt; nor was the rest of the composition
wrought up in a manner to re-assure me : the
close, in particular, wanted firmness and ani-
mation. One does not go to Germany to hear
people play together; and to say that the over-
ture went correctly is tantamount to praising
the Lancashire chorus singers for going through
the "Hallelujah" of the " Messiah" without
utterly breaking down. So largely, however,
did I distrust my own impressions, that, had 1
not afterwards enjoyed the realisation of my
beau ideal of German instrumental performance
to the fullest completeness, and had many op-
portunities of confirming my judgment of the
Berlin orchestra, I should have torn this page
from my journal.
Yes, not only was the tone of the band
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 87

fatigued, rather than crisp or mellow; its exe-

cution was characterless and slovenly. Up
went the handsome green curtain, with its
classical devices, and the business of the stage
began. The hero of the opera was Herr Eich-
berger,—the Caspar, Herr Blum,—the Kilian,
Herr Mantius; the last highest in rank among
the singers; yet, according to the sensible
statutes of German management, taking a
secondary part, and doing his best with it,
without apparent condescension or reluctance.*
Himself excepted, there was not a solo singer
on the stage who did not sing with an impaired
or inferior organ. Finish of style there was
none, nor those traces of vocalisation which
give the most wretched Italian artist a certain
air, and a certain hold on the attention; and

* A friend of mine encountered die grosse Schroder (so

the Germans delight to call their Siddons) behind the
scenes of the theatre, one evening when " Romeo and
Juliet" was to be given. She was dressed for her part.
" How ?" exclaimed he, in true English surprise,
" You going to play ' Lady Capidct ?'" " I think it
an honour," was her simple answer, — the answer of
a true artist.
G 4
88 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

yet where has style a fairer opportunity for

display — where a well-trained voice—-than in
the two cantabiles which relieve the great tenor
scena ? Blum's Caspar was rough and hearty—
a touch too broad in its buffoonery; and this
was all the more strongly obvious from the
generally careless and somnolent tone of the
performance. The enthusiasm of hope did not,
however, quite forsake me till the second act
had brought forward the favourite of the Berlin
classicists, whose attitudes, had told me,
the sculptor Rauch sends his pupils into the
theatre to study. Let every one henceforward
distrust a singer who is described by her atti-
tudes — nay, and even an actress; for a suc-
cession of skilful arrangements of figure and
drapery surely as little makes a personification
as a collection of descriptive passages in verse
constitutes a drama. But I had been too often
provoked by the indifference of our vocalists to
every thing save the show-off of the crude
natural voice, to make the due distinction. On
the stage Mademoiselle von Fassmann is a mag-
nificent blonde, and when she arranges her hair
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 89

in rich Vandyke ringlets on either side of her

face, seldom has a blonde presented a more
effective appearance. Her voice must have
been a powerful soprano, the natural toughness
of which has never been wrought out of it by
practice. In all passages of the least volubility
she was totally inaudible, or so languidly heavy
as to destroy every idea of time; but the purity
and truth of her organ were already gone; the
middle notes were false, the high notes, when
forced, thick and harsh. It seemed as if in all
passages of excitement or animation her physical
powers became utterly extinct; and while her
postures were separately graceful and picturesque,
I could not but feel the total want of that electric
warmth which would have made even an awk-
wardness welcome for the sake of a sudden burst
of feeling. Musically speaking, her performance
was bad; dramatically, elaborate and weari-
some. The Annchen, DUe. Galafres, was beneath
dispraise. The audience was scanty and (no
wonder!) sluggish. What a contrast between this
and even my first night at the French Opera!
I was as much puzzled as disappointed. Se-
90 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

dulousness and care in performance had been,

till then, believed in by me as an integral part of
the musical creed of Germany. It could not be
because " Der Freischutz " was a familiar work,
and belonging to a class, the interest of which
must exhaust itself in a limited period, that the
orchestra played so disregardfully, and that the
singers were so far behind the Brunswick corps
in spirit and unity of purpose. Nor was it fair
to my own star to believe I had stumbled on
the worst night of the season. All that I after-
wards heard and observed in Berlin — all that
I have since learned concerning its in-comings
and out-goings — furnished me with an expla-
nation of my disappointment, which, right or
wrong, comes too strongly before me not to be
stated.
Berlin is notoriously the city of criticism —
one must not say of pretension ; for a Zelter has
presided over its music — a Rahel (Madame
Varnhagen von Ense) adorned its social cir-
cles— and such professors as a Waagen have
been charged with the care and classification of
its works of art. But when a critical spirit, from
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 91

analysing facts and principles, condescends XQ

the care of persons and events, Temper and
Pique are apt to have something to say as well
as Judgment. So kindly do the inhabitants
welcome strangers — so delightful (in spite of
its touch of precision) is the tone of their society
— intellectual without ostentation — that I can-
not but wish they were kinder to each other.
To pay a round of visits in Berlin is like
dancing the egg dance, where at every step you
are in danger of breaking a shell, and leaving a
stain. If I asked, with a natural interest, about
Madame von Arnim, whose published corre-
spondence with Goethe gives her a claim to be
numbered among the distinguished women of
her country, a dozen voices made haste to as-
sure me that her letters were no " Letters of a
Child," and attacked her reputation with that
weapon most odious to woman — a calendar of
dates ! Who ever thanked the Quarterly re-
viewer for disinterring the Lynn register that
destroyed our belief in the early authorship of
the delightful "Evelina?" If I praised the
hospitable attentions of , I was chilled by
 92 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

a direct " You go there? It is a hollow house."

If I inquired in one quarter for Mendelssohn's
music, a dry " Yes, he had talent as a boy,"
discouraged a second question. If I desired to
know, in a second, which of Marschner's works
were most in favour, " They perform none
here," was the certain answer, and as certain a
prelude to some story of cabal and quarrel,
which it fatigued the heart to hear. If I
wished to be told, in a third, what M. Leon de
St. Lubin, who is or was a resident in Berlin,
had done besides a pianoforte trio in G minor,
and a quintett for stringed instruments, which
made me desire to increase my knowledge of
his music, I got, in return, the fact that he
had played terribly out of tune when appearing
at Leipsic as candidate for the leadership, now
enjoyed and adorned by my friend David, —
nothing more.* And if, in a fourth and last
quarter, I expressed a natural curiosity con-
* Since my return, I have stumbled upon the titles of
two operas, " Die Goldene Fisch " and " Kornbliimchen,"
by this composer. It is vexatious that, even in Germany,
one should know so many modern operas, belonging to
names of promise, only by their titles.
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 93

cerning Spontini's later operas, which have

never made their way past the Brandenburgh
gate, — his " Nourmahal" and " Agnes von
Hohenstauffen," for instance, — it was like
pulling the string of a shower-bath charged
with bitter waters, and drawing down a dis-
charge of those nursery tales of which every
great musician has in turn been made the hero.
I was favoured with the name of the real com-
poser of " La Vestale," — I was told how he had
been disposed of. In every play-going house was
an earnest partisan for Mademoiselle Lowe, or
for Mademoiselle von Fassmann. Of this I had
a curious proof one evening, when a German
translation of Herold's " Pre aux Clercs" was
performed, in which the rival queens appeared.
The score (how could composer be so thought-
less ?) makes their entrati succeed each other
without pause. First came the Fassmann, at-
tired as the Queen of France, in a splendid
hunting costume of green velvet* She laboured
through her song, in a manner which showed,
beyond mistake, that French music was not
within her circle of possibilities. Scarcely had
94 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

she finished, and received her round of ap-

plause from the classical party, — applause al-
most insulting, after the positive demerit of her
performance, — when forth sailed the Lowe (I
beg pardon for introducing her thus uncere-
moniously) in all the magnificence of her fine
figure, brilliant arch black eyes, and captivating
smile, — most wonderfully dressed. Ere she
could open her mouth, — which, by the way, is
usually in the first instance to utter some
musical falsity, — an uproar of welcome broke
from the French or fashionable party, which
seemed to make her eyes sparkle brighter, and
her form dilate to a nobler height. The Fass-
mann pressed her hand to her heart, gasped,
turned red through her stage rouge, and did
all but burst into tears. We heard the pre-
liminary sob; this she swallowed down; but for
the rest of the evening she was inaudible. —
" Was ever any thing like the rage she is in? f>
cried one of the Lowe's adorers, whose sperr-sitz
was next to mine. " Delicious! "
This theatrical feud was not the only public
evidence I witnessed during my transient
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 95

glimpse of Berlin, which appeared to indicate

that the world both of art and society there is
traversed by a network of coterie influences,
partizanships, objections, and reserves, so wide-
spreading, as well as deep-rooted, as painfully to
strike even a bird of passage. Nor is the character
a new one. " Musical controversies in Berlin/9
says Burney, " have been carried on with more
heat and animosity than elsewhere ; indeed there
are more critics and theorists in this city than
practitioners, which has not, perhaps, either re-
fined the taste or fed the fancy of the performers/'
Earlier even than the date of Burney's visit,
" Berlin," writes Voltaire to Madame Denis, in
the same letter which vaunts the beauties of the
Opera House, and the noble execution of " Iphi-
genie en^Aulide,"—" Berlin est un petit Paris.
II y a de la medisance, de la tracasserie, des
jalousies d'auteurs, et jusqu'a des brochures/'
Times have changed proportions, I fancy; for
I must add, that a reasonably intimate acquaint-
ance for three years with the musical circles
of the French metropolis has not disclosed to
me the same amount of artistic disunion and
96 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

vexation of spirit, as three weeks of casual and

superficial observation of Berlin.
A worse atmosphere for Art than this could
not be imagined by its most malicious enemy.
What avails putting Mrs. Grundy to the door,
and opening it to Mrs. Candour ? What avail
freedom of motion, superior ease and unsuspi-
ciousness in social intercourse, if a scandalising
spirit be allowed to creep in, and if those who
think the most deeply upon Art feel the most
meanly concerning its petty precedences and
honours, — for are not all precedences and
honours petty when compared with the in-
dwelling consciousness of being gifted for high
things, — which is the only safe motive and
sure solace of the artist? It will not do to dis-
miss the case with coarse and shallow sneers
on the differences
" 'Twixt tweedle dum and tweedle dee ;"—

a squabble between a pair of common crowders,

who care no more for their calling than its mi-
nistering to them a certain amount of gin and
water, may be thus disposed of; but not a
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS, 97

disease which paralyses the energies of an

eager and intelligent population like that of
Berlin. I was talking on the subject with one
of the most accomplished and acute observers
I have known,— a German too,— and remark-
ing how ill such a spirit of intrigue and evil-
speaking in Art suited with the social geniality
and absence of form in the manners of his
countrymen. In England, I said, where Music
was so long disproportionately considered a
mere means of money-getting, one might, in-
deed, have looked for such narrowness of view;
and yet I had never observed any thing at
home in degree analogous to this. " No," was
the simple answer, " it is not so with you in
England ; your very forms of society prevent it.
Here, the universal necessity of their being laid
aside, for any one who wishes to be thought a
good neighbour, sometimes brings on hypocrisy;
professions of regard and heartiness which are
not felt; —and then, the comfort of raising the
mask afterwards !"
I have had not a few visible demonstrations
of the truth of this remark: one in particular
VOL. II. H
98 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

occurs to me — the scene was a supper-table

at the principal hotel of no matter what Prussian
town. The arrival of two of the most distin-
guished musicians in Europe was sure to be
noised abroad in a few seconds; and, ere the
soup was gone, a professional of the place made
his appearance. Lean, bilious, conceited ; — in
an agony to look affectionate and to talk cleverly,
dressed with a sort of pedagogic neatness — now
he kissed one of the party — now he lavished
splendid words and compliments on the other—
hung on the words of both, and, with bowed
head and clasped hands, received their news as
oracles. Damon was not more enchanted to
see Pythias. — This man had only stigmatised
one of the two in print as presumptuous in his
art; and on a public musical occasion been over-
ruled by the other for a like fault !
But the comedy was not done. Enter next my
old friend, the identical Leporello of the Hotel
de , in a fuller bloom of success among the
fair than ever. Enter, too, , about whose
merits as an instrumentalist so much has been
said and written. The two had been giving
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 99

concerts together. More sweet words from Herr

Professor ; more extravagant compliments
to the last new-comers; more bland smiles at
their great-boy play with each other, which had
the desired effect of drawing the attention of
the rest of the company upon them. Surely, if
Charity lived any where on earth, it was in that
good man's breast! The concert-giving pair
rose to go. They were not upon the threshold
when their panegyrist laid his lean hand eagerly
upon 's shoulder, with a quick hungry look,
which would set up Sir Benjamin Backbite, and
leave something to spare for Snake, as he ex-
claimed, in a loud whisper, — " Well, well, my
dear friend, you cannot like his playing, I am
sure ! Do tell me !"
If the artistic intercourse of Germany be
crossed by frequent veins of insincerity like
this, it accounts for many of the short-comings
and deficiencies which, in the theatrical ar-
rangements of musical Germany, for a while
so entirely puzzled me, as occurring among a
people at once so friendly in manner and so
devoted to Art. I could give other anecdotes.
H 2
100 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

derived from my own personal experience, not

less illustrative of the truth of my German friend's
remark ; but a single instance is enough — the
smile they raise is one of bitterness. Beyond
any general causes of disunion or egotism, there
are particular conditions in the history of Berlin
Opera, which, I think, have tended to bring
about its present unsatisfactory decadence.
 101

CHAP. II.
THE COURT AND THE OPERA.

The Opera House at Berlin. — Voltaire's Correspond-

ence with Paris. — Frederic the Great a Patron of
Art; — a Despot over Art. — Burney's Glimpses of the
Berlin Opera.—Madame Mara.—Zelter's Anecdotes of
her.—Genius and Despotism. — Frederic the Great's
Taste in Music. — Royal Patronage. — German Opera
hardly formed in the days of Frederic. — The Na-
tional Theatre. —German Singers. — Madame Milder;
a short Sketch of her. — Her Popularity in Berlin. —
Her Traditions maintained there to this day.—Madame
Schroder Devrient. — Hoffmann's " Undine."—Spon-
tini and Zelter ; — the latter criticises the former.—
The Appearance of " Der Freischutz."— Melody and
Elephants. — The Result of Weber's Successes nul-
lified. — Gradual Deterioration of the Berlin Opera.

THOUGH a more oddly assorted quartett of

authorities could hardly be picked out than
Voltaire, Dr. Burney, Zelter, and the musical
editor* of " The Atlas," — each of them gives
his drachma or his mite of information to those

* The author of the " Ramble among the Musicians of

Germany,"
H 3
102 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

who seek the causes of the present state of

Berlin Opera in its past history. From the
philosopher-courtier, the friend of Johnson and
Garrick, the worshipper of Goethe, and the
pleasant man of modern art and letters, who
mingles in his speculations the Hummels of
Germany and the Hunts of Cockayne with a
graceful and good-humoured individuality, we
learn different parts of one and the same
history.
But a little way up the Linden Strasse stands
the magnificent Opera House, where all the
splendours of the French lyric drama are ex-
hibited under the nominal direction of M. le
Chevalier Spontini. Though its interior de-
corations were faded when I saw it, it seems
to me the handsomest and best proportioned
theatre I have ever entered ; large without vast-
ness, and having that habitable look which is
indispensable to the comfort of a place of public
amusement, and, perhaps, unattainable in such
a building as the Schauspiel Haus, where clas-
sical rigour of style is attempted. This is the
identical theatre built by Knobersdorf, one of
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 103

the chamberlains of Frederic II., with the

grandeur of which, in the first days of Vol-
taire's sojourn at the Prussian court, he de-
lighted to pique his far-away enemies at Paris.
Not a few also of his letters to his "anges^v the
Count and Countess D'Argental, and to Ma-
dame Denis, contain allusions to its splen-
dours, among the other glories of Berlin. The
tournament of 1750 was pronounced by him to
be worthy of the brilliant age of Louis Quatorze*
— the opera " Phaeton," to be more magni-
ficently got up than any thing in those theatres
of Paris which had so strong a hold on the

* " You would find it difficult," writes Voltaire to

M. le Comte d'Argental, " on the delivery of Madame
la Dauphine, to give a spectacle as noble and as gallant
as that in preparation here ; —a tournament composed of
four numerous quadrilles (battalions ?) of Carthaginians,
Persians, Greeks, and Romans, headed by four princes,
who will rival each other in their magnificence, to take
place under an illumination of twenty thousand lamps,
that will change night into day ; the prizes to be delivered
by a lovely princess, before a crowd of strangers assembled
to witness the spectacle. What is this but the age of
Louis Quatorze revived again on the banks of the
Spree ? "
H 4
104 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

philosopher's affections to his dying day, — the

scene of the Palace of the Sun being beyond
all admiration. Madame Astrua, the prima
donna, had the best voice in Europe; and the
music was very good. How should it be other-
wise, when these pomps and splendours ema-
nated directly from a King, " in every respect
like Marcus Aurelius, save that Marcus Au-
relius did not make verses, and that his proto-
type does, and excellent ones, when he gives
himself the trouble of correcting them:"—a
King (to quote from another couleur de rose
letter of the same period) " who fights like
Caesar, thinks like Julian, and gives me an
income of twenty thousand livres, and honours also,
for supping with him ! " Alas ! could the last
be the reason why Philosophy should extol
valour and liberality in his royal pupil and
flatterer ? It seems so; and shortly afterwards
the " mais" indicative of a sense of hollowness
and dissatisfaction, which would even then creep
into Voltaire's letters to Madame Denis, became
an exception too potent to admit of his re-
maining any longer in so brilliant a court,
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 105

and under so peerless a sovereign. The King

had begun to talk of " throwing away the
orange as soon as he had squeezed it dry," —
the Mentor was become weary of " washing
dirty linen"— so Voltaire contemptuously styled
the literary assistance rendered by him to the
Marcus Aurelius, who made verses, and was
too royal to correct them. Nine years after-
wards he was not ashamed to record his change
of note yet more decidedly. The " Memoires
pour servir a la Vie de M. Voltaire " give us the
thread ends and the coarse canvas of the tapestry
with a vengeance ! What availed the splendid
Opera House,— its boxes supported by Cary-
atides,— if the sovereign who built it lorded it
there after the fashion of a Tiberius? The
panegyrist turned satirist informs us, that the
King's favourite danseuse, La Barbarini, had
been carried off from Venice by his soldiers,
though anything but a Helen; — so depraved
was the monarch's taste. And we are not told that
the quondam Julian lavished upon this unworthy
fancy a thousand livres of salary more than he
had accorded to the " orange he had squeezed,"
106 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

and the " washer-m^m of his dirty linen" in the

chaste retreats of Sans Souci,—till the bitterness
of the reproach had been already secured by an
earlier paragraph. For there we read, that the
greatest of Kings showed little grace to his an-
cient favourites;—and only rewarded with a
pension of seventy crowns the poor Madame
Sbommers, his first love, who had played the
harpsichord to his flute in his young days, and
for her complaisance had been flogged by
rough old Fritz, his father ! Too much of
the weakness of humanity is displayed in these
humiliating exhibitions of spleen, to make us
wish to linger with them, though they have a
value and a bearing as regards the history of
Opera in the Prussian metropolis.
Notices, however, yet more directly significant,
are to be found concerning it in Dr. Burney's
Journals. He visited Berlin, some twenty
years after the reign of Voltaire, when the
monarch, beginning to be a " little scant of
breath," was harassed by the long passages of
brilliant execution which Quantz had written
to close the solos in his flute concertos. The
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 107

historian's musical eyes discerned that Art

flourished in an ungenial fashion. It was
bid to hold up its head and step out, in the
straight lines of parade and form, just as the
King pleased ! — Music, in short, was under a
military despotism. The King was at the whole
expense of the opera; the public being then
admitted gratis; and at six o'clock in the
evening the monarch took his place in the pit5
close to the orchestra, behind the maestro di
capetta, overlooking the score, and rebuking any
of the singers who should chance to make a
flourish, or change a note in the music. The
poor humble vocalists ! What could come of
such cast-iron severity, but a monotonous bald-
ness of execution ? The orchestra consisted of
fifty performers (two harpsichord players among
the number): the singers were, Signora Agri-
cola, wife of the composer, and fifty years of
age; Signora Gasparini, a yet more ancient
wonder, inasmuch as she was seventy-two years
old; Signori Concialini and Porporino, and
Mademoiselle Schmaling, afterwards the Mara.
What a pity it is that we have been de-
108 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

frauded of the memoirs of the life which that

eminent songstress told Zelter, in 1829, that she
was designing to write, though late in the day,
for she was then eighty-one years of age ! The
personal incidents of her long artistic career
must surely have been interesting in the hands
of one who remained to the last, as her friend
and panegyrist assures us, " characteristic, self-
dependent, and peculiar.59 The memoir by
Rochlitz, in his interesting work, " Fiir Freunde
der Tonkunst," gives us a desire to know
more; while the following passage from Zelter's
correspondence to Goethe is too curiously con-
nected with Royalty and Art in Berlin, not to be
welcome, independently of its anecdotical value.
" She came hither," says Zelter, " i n 1771,
from Leipsic, as Mademoiselle Schmaling, and
made her debut in Hasse's ' Piramo e Thisbe,' at
the same time with Concialini, — to the King's
astonishment, who, at first, would hardly deign
to hear her, as her paternal name sounded far
too German for his ear. From that time to
1773, she sang here in the carnival operas
' Britannico,' < Ifigenia/ ' Merope/ Then she
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 109

fell in love with MaYa, a violoncellist, and fa-

vourite of Prince Henry the King's brother.
As the two powers of course refused to sanction
a marriage betwixt Berlin and Rheinsberg,
Prince Henry's residence, the lovers absented
themselves without leave. They were caught,
and Mara was despatched to a regiment at
Kustrin, where he was compelled to become a
fifer. Mara returned to Berlin, and was allowed
to marry her. From December, 1773, she
sang as Madame Mara in the following carni-
val operas: 'Arminio,' ' Demofoonte,' 'Europa
galante,' ' Partenope,' ' Attilio Regolo,'' Orfeo,'
4
Angelica e Medoro,' ' Cleofide,' ' Artemi-
sia,' < Rodelinda.' In 1779, in consequence
of the Bavarian succession war, there was no
carnival; and in the following year, 1780, the
married couple secretly absented themselves for
the second time.# Again they were arrested ;

* The cause of this flight is by other historians ascribed

to the following " passage :"—On leave of absence being
denied to her when she wished to recruit her strength by
a visit to the Bohemian badeny the songstress took the
resolution of neglecting her professional duties, in the
110 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

but the King ordered they should be set free,

to go where they liked; as he was anxious to
get rid of Mara, even at so high a price. This
we know from actual documents; but she, our

hope of being allowed to depart as worthless. The

Czarovitch, Paul the First of Russia, happened about that
time to pay a visit to Berlin; and she was announced to
appear in one of the grand parts. She pretended illness.
The King sent her word, in the morning of the day, that she
was to get well and sing her best. She became, of course,
worse — could not leave her bed. Two hours before the
opera began, a carriage, escorted by eight soldiers, was at
her door, and the captain of the company forced his way
into her chamber, declaring that their orders were to bring
her to the theatre, dead or alive. " You cannot; you see
I am in bed." " That is of little consequence," said the
obdurate machine; " w e will take you, bed and all."
There was nothing for it but to get up and go to the
theatre, dress, and resolve to sing without the slightest taste
or skill. And this Mara did. She kept her resolution for
the whole of the first act, till a thought suddenly seized her
that she might be punishing herself in giving the Grand-
Duke of Russia a bad opinion of her powers. A bravura
came; and she burst forth with all her brilliancy, in parti-
cular distinguishing herself by a miraculous shake, which
she sustained and swelled and diminished with such won-
derful art as to call down more applause than ever. Her
disgust, however, at the transaction led, it is said, to a
resolution to escape.
 T H E C O U R T A N D T H E OPERA. Ill

friend, will not confess any knowledge of it, and

complains of violence having been exercised to-
wards her." That her Berlin trammels had
graven deep traces in her mind may be gathered
from a trait noted in Zelter's letters of 1803:
" Mara," says he, " is said to have signified,
while in Dresden, her wish to exhibit for the
entertainment of the Elector; but when she was
informed that His Highness in general is pleased
to eat while music is going on, she let it be
understood that it would be impossible for her
to sing while others are dining. This declara-
tion has cost her a hundred ducats, and the
Elector an aria" When she was in England
she had so far followed the natural order by
which those tyrannised over become in turn de-
spotic, that, at Oxford, she walked, with all the
grandeur of Rodelinda's self, out of the orchestra,
rather than stand up while " the Hallelujah
Chorus" was performed.
The rest of this curious and genuine frag-
ment of biography has its value as further illus-
trating the state of art and patronage in Berlin.
112 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN-

" Mara," continues Zelter, " had become an ob-

ject of the most universal enthusiasm ever since
the performance of the opera ' Britannico/ # in
which, as Agrippina, she sang behind the scenes
the aria c Mi paventi il figlio indegno!' with a
voice of tremendous power, and yet with a ma-
ternal pathos that forced bitter tears from my eyes
every time I heard her. The piece is a regular
bravura air, and such as was the fashion in those
days: it was as if a thousand nightingales were
straining their throats to warble for revenge.—
In all tragic parts she seemed to rise a head
taller than usual. I never beheld any thing
grander than her Queen Rodelinda. Connois-
seurs censured her for want of action in pas-
sionate parts. ' What!' she used to exclaim,
c
am I to sing with my hands and legs ? I am
a singer ; and what I cannot do with my voice,
I will not do at all.'
" The relation of such a being to her husband

* By Graun, who wrote, be it noted, Italian operas

for the gratification of the royal ear. This very bravura
it is which has recently been revived by Mademoiselle
Lowe with such success in Berlin.
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 1 13

was a general subject of compassion. Mara

in Rheinsberg abused the Prince's favour in the
most gross and public manner. As it was a
rarity to hear him play, the Prince had on one
occasion, at carnival time, being then at Berlin
with his whole suite, and eclipsing with his
entertainments the royal redoutes, invited the
court to hear the incomparable Mara perform.
All came but the King, and one other, who was
also missing,— namely, Mara himself. At last
they dragged him in. He was drunk, and
refused before the whole court, in spite of the
entreaties of his patron, to play; so that the
Prince could not but feel himself publicly com-
promised. The King regarded the insult as a
species of high treason against his consort, who
was present; and this was considered to be the
cause of his severity on the occasion of Mara's
first desertion There were many
other causes. The fine residence of Rheinsberg,
near the frontier of Mecklenburg, was a nest of
smugglers, whom no one dared to oppose that
loved his life, while they were under the pro-
tection of the favourite. But the King knew
VOL. II. I
 114 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

very well where the contraband clue was fast-

ened, which extended, by the aid of the court
equipages, from Rheinsberg to Berlin. Mara
closed his existence here in the most abandoned
debauchery, although his wife never wholly for-
sook him. I once expressed to her my surprise
at the generosity of her conduct towards him,
when she replied, Q But you must at least allow
that he was the handsomest man ever seen !,' —
Reichardt, too, had continual quarrels with him,
because he would meddle with the Royal Opera.
The King, for one whole carnival, sent Mara to
sleep in the guard-house on the hard boards;
where the common soldiers were allowed to
play the roughest tricks with him. This nettled
Reichardt; and therefore, as a young patronising
kapellmeister, he wrote a long story to the King
on the treatment of old musicians. On this
the King remarked, c I thought I should have
thrown the trouble of the opera off my shoulders;
and now I have the old plague again, with the
addition of one fool more into the bargain.5"
How far " the old plague" complained of
was the consequence of mistake and egotism, it
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 115

were not altogether a loss of time to examine.

In Burney's time, at least, the Philosopher-king
was abundantly narrow in the choice of his
music. The only operas permitted to be given
were by Graun, Agricola, and Hasse; and
even by the last composer very few. Occa-
sionally His Majesty chose to write a score him-
self, which, to judge from the manuscript of " II
Re Pastore," and certain marches recently dis-
covered at Berlin, appears to have consisted in
his vouchsafing to scratch down a few melodies
upon the ruled paper: noting down his notions
of the manner in which they should be com-
pleted for Quantz, his musical washer-mcm, to
fill up. The latter, however, seems to have kept
the peace, and yet gone his own way; for we
find that he was independent enough to dare in
one composition to give an upward motion to cer-
tain orchestral parts, in spite of the monarch's
pencilled injunction — " L e t them descend/'
" Upon the whole/' concludes the judicious
Burney, " my expectations from Berlin were
not quite answered, as I did not find that the
style of composition, or manner of execution;
i 2
116 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

to which his Prussian Majesty has attached

himself, fulfilled my ideas of perfection." What
good, indeed, to the free mind of Art could result
from such narrow patronage? What good from
the three flute concertos played nightly by the
royal virtuoso at his private concerts, until the
loss of his front teeth destroyed the possibility
of further trespass upon the patience of the
obsequious court; and the King, as Burney tells
us in his ' History of Music,' ceased, therefore,
to " take further pleasure in the a r t ! " The
manner, indeed, resulting from such paralysing
support, or, to call things by their right names,
interference, could hardly fail to be what Burney
declares it was — mechanical and devoid of
sensibility. The King's musical presidency, it
is needless to point out, tended to a systematic
and resolute discouragement in composition of
all those national characteristics out of which a
style is made. His liberty of conscience meant
prejudice against all things grave and ecclesi-
astical ; when he heard of any composer having
written an anthem or oratorio, the Philosopher
fancied his taste was contaminated by it, and
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 117

would say of his other productions, — " O /

this smells of the church !" He would be French
in his opinions — Italian in his ears, and, be-
tween the two, German Art, the spirit of which
is Belief, and the musical expression uttered in
harmony more than in melody, stood but a poor
chance. The natural stuff of his countrymen is
too robust and solid in texture to take the colour
with which he resolved to dye it; and hence,
in place of displaying that vitality and crea-
tive power which we have a right to expect in
a great metropolis, the Opera of Berlin was,
under the auspices of Frederic IL, a formal
state machine, as innocent of the warmth of
real life or the poetry of enjoyment as are the
bespoken dithyrambics of a laureate, or the
restricted festivities of a diplomatic circle.
For such royal patrons I have often thought
that the fittest musical amusement would be the
monster snuff-box playing the few chosen tunes,
or the puppet-show of the Great Mogul on his
throne with a band to be wound up at pleasure,
which theDinglingers or Maelzels of mechanical
invention can construct. It is of little matter
i 3
118 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

whether the romantic or the classical or the

frivolous predominates in the composition of
him who prefers possessing in Art a puppet
which can be manoeuvred at pleasure, in place
of a free and grateful creature, constrained only
by love and cherishing to exercise spontaneously
the noble powers of creation. A King should
not make of Music either his drill-serjeant, or
his fool, or his paramour, lest his people too
become towards her tyrannical, or absurdly to-
lerant, or licentious. The best patronage which
those who sit in high places can bestow on the
works of Genius is by practising the hardest
lesson they have to learn—the sacrifice of their
own whims and fancies. All honour to King
Louis of Bavaria, then, who, in planning his
magnificent palace of Munich, desired his archi-
tect to build it not merely for himself, but for
his children, and for his children's children.
Even Louis of France, who cared for little,
Heaven knows ! beyond the circumference of
his ambrosial perruque and his velvet mantle
covered withjleurde Us, was, musically to speak,
a better King for the French nation, when pro-
viding in L'Academie Royale for all those na-
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 119

tural tastes and impulses of his subjects out of

which styles and schools proceed, than the
redoubtable Frederic, when endeavouring in
his superb Opera House to feed the German
people with French superficialities and Italian
airs and graces.
Still, while we remark how the brilliant and
philosophical King not only threw back his
country's music, but, by the abiding popularity
gained for his name, made a false taste, as it
were, sacred, and to some degree perpetual in his
metropolis,—it is just, too, to observe, that Ger-
man Opera had shown few signs of a will or
way of its own before the time when Frederic
the Great was called away from his piping and
patronising of Art to his hard and unadorned
tomb in theGarnisonKirche at Potsdam, whence
Napoleon carried off his sword. Gluck's operas,
it is true, might have startled him out of his
despotic exclusiveness, and he might have has-
tened to adopt them in the fulness of his Gallo-
mania, seeing that their most brilliant successes
were gained in Paris rather than in Vienna;
but he loved Italian singers, and these could
i 4
120 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

not abide Gluck's music. At that period, too,

Mozart had only just begun to give the world
those marvellous compromises where Italian can-
tilena and German harmony combined, to the
enchantment of all civilised musical ears. The
fame of the Great King, and the love borne to his
memory, may, after all, be more largely charge-
able with the exotic tendencies of the Royal
Opera in Berlin, than his own despotic manage-
ment and short-sighted tastes. Be this as it
may, the national lyric drama, when it began
to take a shape and form of its own, was rather
for the people than for the court, being per-
formed at the National Theatre. There, how-
ever, the arrival of Iffland in 1796 as manager,
and his distinction as actor no less than dra-
matist, contributed to make the soil as little
genial to musical growth as the scene of Weber's
first triumphs in " Oberon" became with us
under the admirable dramatic management
of Mr. Macready. Nevertheless, HimmePs
" Fanchon " managed to struggle into life, and
to circulate thence from Berlin throughout
Germany. It i^ now forgotten: forgotten.
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 121

too, is the " Donauweibchen" of Kauer —

in its day a universal favourite; and the
merry operas of Dittersdorf. To these slighter
works the court can hardly be blamed for pre-
ferring the.buffo music of Italy, executed by
Italian singers. Yet in the executive department
of Opera, too, Germany was becoming richer. In
the catalogue of popular operatic celebrities at
Berlin, — to turn over which makes one half-
melancholy, the mime and the musician being
among the most signal illustrations of Fame's
transiency that the world possesses, — we shall
find such names as "die schone Baranius," " die
Dobbelin," celebrated for her performance
in Naumann's " Cora; " " die Unzelmann,"
praised by Zelter for her agreeable singing and
acting in "Die verwandelten Weiber;" "die
Schick," and " die Bethmann;" the last, from
a pretty singer, having ripened into a great
actress; while at the court theatre, Fischer the
elder was a basso sufficiently excellent to have
parts written expressly for him.
Ere Fischer appeared, Reichardt had passed
away, who, in 1775, succeeded Graun as kapell-
122 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

mezster, and is described to have mounted the

Italian opera in a very splendid manner, after
the death of Frederic the Great. Reichardt was
in turn succeeded by Righini, an Italian, and
who composed many works ; not, however, more
Italian in their style than the operas of the
Winters and Naumanns, who chose any writer
rather than Gluck as their model. This timid
want of nationality among the German compo-
sers may probably have told favourably upon
the German vocalists. By this time, too, the
delicious works of Mozart were at hand, form-
ing a point of universal union, simultaneously
satisfying the taste of the court and of all who
loved such melodies as could flow sweetly from
la bocca Romana> and the more muscular desires
of a people who were increasingly earnest to
find thoughts rather than sounds in Music.
The early period of the present century, then,
seems to have been a time of progress and en-
joyment for Opera in Berlin. The court and
the people, while their tastes kept asunder, were
gradually influencing each other, — these to the
improvement of the singer, those to the in-
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 123

creased nationality of the composer. An un-

toward fate, however, seems to have pursued
German Opera. Mozart died at the moment
when he was attaining to a true knowledge of
its capabilities; Beethoven's melancholy in-
firmity, and the disappointments which at-
tended the production of his " Fidelio," limited
his stage contributions to that one drama. At
the moment, however, when the national reper-
tory of new master-works was in danger of being
exhausted, and the national taste of composers,
hardly sufficiently assured, ran some danger of
being lost among the Italian melodies rather
than the German harmonies of Mozart, the evil
day was averted at Berlin by the appearance
and triumphs of Madame Milder in 1812.
For many subsequent years her acting and
singing illustrate the golden period to which all
those devoted to German Opera enthusiastically
recur. They triumphed, at all events, for a time,
above the flimsy court predilections for foreign
aid and talent, by which the taste of Frederic
the Great—even now represented in a diluted
form— has always hindered the national music
124 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

of Germany from thriving kindly on the stage

of its northern metropolis.
This celebrated songstress was, according to
Fetis, born in the year 1785, at Constantinople,
where her father, a courier belonging to the
Austrian court, was upon a mission. Her mu-
sical and dramatic endowments, — a voice which
has been universally described to me as magni-
ficent, the fullest and richest of sopranos,—and
a person which ripened into a rare stateliness,
early attracted the attention of M. Shikaneder,
the same Vienna manager for whom the " Zau-
berflote " was composed, and who wrote its in-
comprehensible libretto. He placed her under an
Italian singing-master, and superintended her
appearance on the stage. But she was a voice
and an actress of Nature's making; for so in-
flexible was her organ, or so indifferently cul-
tivated, as to be incapable of the slightest trill
or embellishment; and though Mrs. Jameson
says that" this magnificent creature never would
sing any other than German music," the truth
is, that she could not. She was, in addition to
this, so indifferent a musician, as to learn every
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 1*25

part only by having it played again and again

to her. But for that, she might have been
accepted implicitly as the type of the great
German songstress; because the incomparable
"Fidelio" was written for her, and also the part
of Emeline in Weigl's somewhat lachrymose
" Die Schweitzer Familie." It was for her,
too, I believe, that the operas of Gluck were
revived, which make so brilliant a point of
retrospect in the history of Berlin Opera, and
still form its best and most satisfactory fea-
ture. It may be fantastic to presume that the
Greek blood which some say ran in her veins
had any part, conjointly with the heaviness of
her voice, in prompting her to assume the lyrical
cothurnus in those splendid dramas ; but certain
it is, that they were her greatest triumphs. In
later years she took the fancy of singing such
parts as Mozart's Donna Elvira and Susanna;
but even this music was too slight and figura-
tive for her to succeed in.
How completely Madame Milder satisfied a
national desire, in spite of all these technical
deficiencies, and the drawback of a manner
 126 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

in society which has been described to me

as indolent and frigid even to the unamiable
point *? may be gathered from the rapture
which she excited — not merely in the court
— not merely in the public — but in grave
composers and tough German critics. So much
* I have been told that Milder was restrained and un-
gracious towards children ; in this how different from
our own stately Mrs, Siddons, who was more than once
found, as one of her biographers tells us, " with her mag-
nificent hair let down, playing with a little child, and
telling it faery tales! " A friend of mine, who remembers
Milder's reserve, but remembers too her magnificent im-
personation of the heroines of Gluck at Berlin, in the
years 1818, 1819, was present at a whimsical scene in
one of these performances. At the moment when Blum,
the bass singer, who used to strengthen himself for the
part of Hercules upon champagne, was carrying off the
colossal Alcestis from the shades below, singing the while
u
Dem Orkus zum Hohn, raub ich ihm seine Beute"
" In defiance of Orcus, I rob him of his prey,"— Queen
Milder, aware of the risk she ran in arms so unsteady,
and overpowered with sudden terror, exclaimed, " Herr
J ! Ich falle ! " This exclamation, than which the
wife of Noah's invocation " to the Father and swete St.
John," in the old Mystery, was hardly more curiously in-
appropriate, elicited a simultaneous roar from all parts of
the theatre. And from that day forward Milder was led,
not carried, from the stage by the God of Strength.
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 127

for the triumph of Nature ! On her first

visit to Berlin in 1812, " The voice, counte-
nance, and manner of this young lady/' writes
Zelter, " have a power, grace, and freedom,
especially in the part of Emeline, such as we
have not witnessed here for a long time. Her
singing has been blamed as unscientific; but I
find much to praise in it — warmth, truth, con-
nexion, certainty; and a kind of Swiss plain-
ness which is displayed in the most innocent
manner in the world. At least I have never
seen passion represented with such moderation
and decided effect." Three years later we find
the same writer (by no means a blind and
bigoted lover of German singers) lauding her
golden voice as " positively belonging to the
class of rarities," and herself as " the only singer
who gives you entire satisfaction." So popular
became this stately enchantress in Berlin, that
she settled finally there, till made willing to
yield her throne in consequence of misunder-
standings with Spontini. Her picture is in
every musical house I entered. She must have
been a gorgeous-looking woman — the very
 128 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

Alcestis and Iphigenia of Gluck in her ma-

jesty of attitude and the sublime repose of her
features; and so entirely did she impress her
own statutes upon her subjects, the public, as
things not to be departed from, that I have
been told that when Madame Schroder
Devrient came to Berlin, and presumed to
costume some of the classical characters with
less munificence of veil and drapery and more
liberality of arm and bosom than her prede-
cessor, it was as distasteful to the rigid Berlin
critics as a yard-long Rubini-warble thrust
into the midst of " Total Eclipse " would be to
the frequenters of the Ancient Concerts. Nay,
by a touch of royal despotism, inherited from
him who sent his soldiers to fetch him la Bar-
barini, her unclassicality cost her an engage-
ment. Only last autumn, when I saw Made-
moiselle von Fassmann, to my ignorant eye
absolutely overladen with veil and diadem, and
chaplet and stole, in " Iphigenie," and re-
marked to some one on the impolicy of such a
disproportionate quantity of drapery, I was
answered — and the answer was considered to
be final — " Milder dressed it so/'
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 129

While the Milder was thus possessing the

public of the Court-Opera with her classical
traditions, the National Theatre was making a
step in the advancement of German Opera to-
wards one of its most brilliant periods. This
was by the production of Hoffmann's "Un-
dine," in 1816.
The name of this singular man is best known
in England by those terrible or fascinating
tales, in which Imagination, while walking on
the bounds of Madness, still keeps so strong a
hold of probability and natural feeling that the
reader hardly knows, on laying down the book,
which is real — the dream he has been perusing,
or the life to which he is returning. Every
chamber of imagery, to which creative power
has resort, lay open to Hoffmann. He was a
draughtsman, as well as a novelist and musi-
cian ; had tried many professions, and proved
many vicissitudes; and hence the marvellous
versatility of illustration by the spell of which
his tales, if they fail of catching the reader in
one paragraph, cannot but lay hold of him in
the next; — since, in their wildest vagaries,
VOL, I I , K
 130 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

some homely domestic picture, or some feeling

we have all of us felt, steals in so imperceptibly
yet so familiarly as to make its entourage forgot-
ten. From such a man one might have expected
nothing less than night-mare music; but these
reasonings by analogy are as often confuted as
confirmed by fact. Harlequin, because he bounds
lightly on the stage is not always a good runner
on a race-course: — wits in talk have proved
very dull men in comic authorship. There was a
touch of the faery and goblin spirit of his tales in
his choice of La Motte Fouque's novel; but little
in his music, if we are to believe Herr Truhn,
from whose contribution to " Der Freihafen "
for 1839 I derive the notice of Hoffmann as a
musician.* " Whoever opens a score of Hoff-

* During the period of Hoffmann's musical career,

which included a directorship at Bamberg and another
at Dresden, — a career only entered on somewhere about
his thirtieth year, when the war of 1806 had driven him
from his Rath-s\i\\) in Prussian Poland,— he tried every
form of composition. He has left behind him operas,
ballets, a Miserere, a Mass, a Symphony, a piano-forte
trio, sonatas for the same instrument, and several vocal
compositions. Taken in conjunction with his stories,
the1 number of his utterances seems, by this catalogue,
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 131

mann's5" says he, u with the expectation of

meeting in sound all that world of diablerie and
phantasm which the celebrated author of the
' Phantasie Stiicke* had entirely made his own,
will be considerably disappointed. His music
has no where that unearthly wildness which
pervades the romantic operas of Weber, Mar-
schner, Lindpaintner, and the gloomy ballads
of Lowe and others: on the contrary, it is
composed after such classical models as Mozart
and Cherubini; and, like their works, dwells
in the genuine musical region of sweetness of
sound and beauty of form. Even in the music
he composed for Werner's tragedy, ' Das Kreuz
an der Ostsee,' where he might have embodied
all the terrors of the aboriginal forests and
their heathen inhabitants, the Scythian rhythms
of Gluck, in the ' Iphigenia in Tauris,' served
him as a model." Yet, somewhat to mitigate

to have been extraordinary. Perhaps he possessed the

most feverish spirit of all those universally gifted men,
of all countries, who fill such a strange and interesting
chamber in the gallery of artists; to some of whom, time and
encouragement permitting, I may return on a future day.
K 2
132 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

the impression of insipidity or want of enter-

prise which such a character is calculated to
convey, we are told by the same authority
that the music for the parts of Undine and
her uncle Kiihleborn the water-sprite is mys-
terious and characteristic; that the heroine's
songs are for the most part accompanied by the
violoncello, whence such a manner of colouring
as Weber afterwards perfected appears to be
indicated — to say nothing of several wind-
instrument effects no less novel and romantic.
A. happier story for a romantic opera than
" Undine " could hardly be met with; and the
success of Hoffmann's music was great — the
work having been performed twenty-three times
before the National Theatre of Berlin was burnt
down. Since that time it has not been played
any where, — partly owing to the expensive
decorations required — those in Berlin cost
twelve thousand thalers, — partly owing to a
rumour, that the score had perished in the
flames, which was spread abroad. This the
composer, who had betaken himself to his fan-
tastic world of Fiction, cared little to contradict.
He may have felt its want of that decided
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 133

musical merit which, at least in Germany, is

required of a work destined to live and circulate
on its strangely narrowed and encumbered stage.
The score, however, is about to be published;
and perhaps the Prussian powers that be will
one day esteem its revival worth at least as
much trouble and expense, for the sake of
Fatherland, as they bestowed upon the pro-
duction of Auber's weakest work, " Le Lac des
Fees," on the occasion of the national festival,
the " Huldigung," in 1840.
Neither the strong influences which Queen
Milder exercised and still exercises on the
stage of the Berlin Opera, nor the production
at the second theatre of a work so attractive
as " Undine" is said to have been, could
break the court habits of taste and preference.
The limited extent of the genuine German
repertory, and the all-pervading intoxications
of Rossini, which, for the time, were strong
enough to seduce Beethoven's own townsmen
from their allegiance, might have something to
do with this. How shall we wonder, when, at
home, English music and English musicians
K 3
134 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

are well nigh prejudged among English

grandees as contemptuously as Mademoiselle
Schmaling was by Frederic the Great in his
less enlightened days? There were no other
new works in the artistic mart so likely to fit a
Grand German Theatre Royal, not vowed to
its own country, and yet not wholly Italian, as
" La Vestale " and " Fernand Cortez; " and
accordingly Signor Spontini was invested with
the baton of operatic sovereignty at Berlin,
which he still continues to wield; — with what
success and benefit to the city which received
him, the present stormy and unworthy con-
troversies now pending unhappily declare too
emphatically. It would seem as if every bar of
his music was like that Raug or magical tune
which the Hindoos believe is a certain bringer
on of storms, clouds, and earthquakes !
Before Spontini's appointment took place,
however, Berlin art, as well as Berlin litera-
ture, had, among the people, in a great mea-
sure thrown off the French stays into which
Frederic the Great had forced it. The people
of the town had found a natural develop-
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 135

ment of their own strongly-marked musical

tastes in the Sing-Academie founded by Fasch
and perfected by Zelter.* There had been

* Zelter's catholicity and fairness as a critic is not

more signally displayed in any passages of his letters than
in those relating to Spontini's operas. As illustrative of
the history of the Theatre of the Caryatides in Berlin,
I must give one or two ; the chapter being already pro-
fessional beyond redemption for the unmusical reader : —
" Berlin, June 1820. Spontini has just got his last opera
translated into German. He requires for this work forty
violinists in the band (not more than half the number
being there already), and an enlargement of the space for
the orchestra in the Opera House. If the rest of the in-
struments be increased in proportion, the people in the
parterre may look for places outside the doors. For my
part, I shall not fail to derive some good from observing
the experiment, although I plainly see how and where it
must end, if the grain which is wrapped in all these folds
is ever to be found
" July, 1820. I have heard Spontini's * Cortes' twice.
The poem is by De Jouy, and much better than the very
bad German version which is substituted here. I am
disposed to prefer the music to that of ' La Vestale,'
but must hear it once or twice again, as I have gained
a kind of general view of the whole, but as yet no fixed
point of observation. Single portions are, in reality, ad-
mirable ; and the dances throughout are good, and full of
genius. But what has hitherto confounded me, is to see
that an Italian of great natural powers, habituated to great
K 1
136 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

also growing up a sound instrumental amateur-

ship, which can never flourish without patience,

effects, should adapt to great heroical subjects such petty

melodic forms, which seem the more unaccountable from
being, as regards the instrumental accompaniment, most
heavily overlaid. . . .
" June, 1825. I have twice sat through our new
twenty-stone-weight opera, ' Alcidor,' by Spontini, which
takes four hours in the performance. The music is a work
of almost miraculous labour; one must be a thorough
musician even to appreciate its amount with the proper
measure of astonishment. It is a chaos of the rarest
effects, which seem to be striving each to destroy the other,
like the singing princes that appear in it, and imply im-
measurable diligence in the composer. There is the toil
of ten years in the work; and I might fret myself to bits,
and still be unable to produce any thing like it. The
current criticisms are not just to the author; they either
condemn the work, or extol it with cold approbation. He
has succeeded only too wrcll in what he intended to do :
he wished to excite wonder,— to amaze ; and with me he
has fully accomplished his object. To me he appears like
the Gold King in the story, who breaks people's heads
with lumps of gold. As musical execution now depends
for its success on e\rcess, the greatest demands upon it
are not unreasonable; and the complaints of the people in
the orchestra of its difficulty, are a mere nothing to what
the ear has to endure in dwelling so long in a labyrinth of
sounds, which are at once too attractive and too op-
pressive to escape from. I have no such power of en-
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 137

knowledge, and experience,— all, in short, that

predisposes its maintainers to a deeper music
than Italian vocalism or French conventional-
ism. It was unlucky for Spontini that the
" Olimpia," the first of his new compositions
produced after his appointment, should fall so
far behind his earlier operas, where there is more
of solidity and less of sound. The obstinate
frequenters of the Sing-Academie, — the ama-
teurs who had taken part in one or other Lieder-
tafel society long enough to find how the national
heart beat,— who had not in vain listened to the

durance, and thought that yesterday I should come off

more easily; but to-day I still ache all over ; eyes and
ears, yea, my very skin and bones, are sore with much
seeing, and hearing, and sitting. All this is not to be laid
to the door of the composer in particular ; it belongs to the
timcy which hurries every one to destruction who cannot
help being carried away by it. In short, the work is, in all
externals, a very remarkable one, on account of the ex-
aggeration of style carried to the utmost pitch, exhibiting
power and beauty in travestie, and in its real hollowness,
producing a confusing — nay, an annihilating effect. The
parts intended to be melodious seem to me like an out-
line drawing, in which the contours are perpetually
breaking off instead of flowing, and thus wander into
caricature."
138 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

exquisite quartett-playing which so many pri-

vate Berlin circles afford almost as liberally as
knitting-needles and tapestry-frames to the
ladies, and cakes to the world of both sexes,—
resented this foreign domination. Though they
ran to see the gorgeous spectacle, the elephants
the size of life and the other stage splendours
called forth for the inauguration of the new
kapellmeister,— they criticised him searchingly in
the true Berlin fashion; and only waited the
moment and the man to declare themselves
openly.
The moment and the man arrived in the year
1822, on the occasion of the opening of the New
Schauspiel-haus, and the bursting into day of
Weber's " Der Freischutz," then and there re-
presented for the first time. " It came upon us,"
writes one to whose warrant this sketch is largely
indebted for its historical tone, " like sunshine
and unexpected good news. There had been
no puffing and very little talk about it. From
the first notes of the overture to the last of the
finale, it was a brilliant triumph ; and not merely
for the author, but for all true Germans. When
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 130

Weber was called for at the conclusion of the

opera, and showers of garlands were rained
upon him from all parts of the house, there
came down also numberless copies of a poem in
which he*was praised as the man who gave us
music instead of elephants. The opera was ad-
mirably performed. Madame Seidler was the
loveliest Agatha one could see. It was po-
pular — I mean in the very streets — as soon
as brought out; even difficult portions, like
the first air of Caspar, being heard every where.
When I paid a visit to Weber at Dresden, six
months later;—in his half-modest, half-ironical
way, he raised his hand to the top of the
looking-glass in his drawing-room, which was
overhung with laurel garlands, and said quietly
—' Die hat mir alle Der Freischutz eingebracht.'
(All this has Der Freischutz brought me.)
The work had then been performed every where
throughout Germany."
And this very opera was the one I heard
massacred with such carelessness in the very
Schauspiel-haus where it had first appeared !
Had the performance taken place under one
140 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

of our own theatrical managements, I should

not have ventured to assume its mediocrity
as typical or significant of the general style;
but we have learned, since the days of our mu-
sical nonage, to look to Germany as the head-
quarters of zeal and completeness; and the
Berlin Opera is directly under the patronage
of the state. There ought, in such an establish-
ment, to be no bad days — no blanks — no
chasms. Inquiry, not confined to Berlin sources,
gave me some intelligible reasons for the sore-
ness felt by the musical public of the Prussian
metropolis, on seeing their theatre possessed
by a stranger ; — and patronised most largely
by a court, when it was given over to the
comic opera of the French, or the roulades of
the Italians; — a court which, in its disregard
of national genius, could plead the example
of the great Frederic himself. Since the days
of Milder's departure, and the triumphs of
" Der Freischutz," it was universally agreed
that the general style of theatrical singing in
Berlin had become less and less excellent; that
voice after voice had been destroyed, and artist
 THE COURT AND THE OPERA. 141

after artist alienated; while the composers of

the country, ill-paid, coldly received, and indif-
ferently treated, gradually shrunk off to their
own nooks and corners, there to nurse the hope
long deferred, and the irritation so hard to
repress, which would be reproduced in the form
of humours and crotchets on the part of the
active, and of a sullen indolence on those more
phlegmatically organised. Fourteen years ago,
when the agreeable author of the " Ramble
among the Musicians in Germany" was at
Berlin, the parts taken by Milder in Gluck's
operas were given to Mademoiselle Schechner.
She, however, was only a passing stranger; and,
though an excellent voice and a fine actress,
was still one of those whose appearance, how-
ever welcome, leaves no traces on the progress
of her art. The Sontag, too, was then in full
bloom at the Kbnigstadtisches Theater, but her
immeasurable brilliancy led her shortly after-
wards to devote herself to the Italian stage.
Those times, also, are gone. As regards clas-
sical opera in Berlin, the age of lead has come
on. The Fassmann, as I saw her, was a weary
142 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

distance below the Schechner as she had been

described to me. Every visit to the Berlin Opera
left me more chilled and more disheartened
than the last. And yet, if I was unlucky in the
great music of the country, I ought (according
to north German taste) to have rated myself as
the most fortunate Coelebs who ever travelled
forth in search of music, from the frequent op-
portunites I had of making acquaintance with
Sontag's successor, — as the Lowe's friends were
pleased to style her. But of her, and the
exotic operas I heard, in another chapter.
 143

CHAP. III.
SPECIMENS OF GERMAN NATIONALITY. THE LOWE.

The French Operas I heard. — The Pound of Tea across

the Border. — Mademoiselle Lowe. — Her Cadences,
— her Demeanour, — her Popularity, — her Magni-
ficence of Costume. — Mademoiselle Griinbaum. —
The Konigstadtisches Theater. — u Der Bauer als
Millionair." — German Humour. — German Opera
Books addicted to the Supernatural and the Mon-
strous. — Specimen of their Subjects. — Stye $)tper of
Spamtln. — Glaser's Music. — The Hybrid School. —
Lortzing's Operas. — Weber's slighter Music con.
trasted with this. — Truth to Nature an Element of
his Style. — Wants of Opera in Germany.

" You must wait for our grand operas till the
review is over, when the court comes back from
Potsdam, and the orchestra is in full force," was
the unanimous answer of every one to my com-
plaint against the weak and languid perform-
ance of " Der Freischutz : " — " they do some
of Gluck's very magnificently; and Spontini's
< La Vestale ' and ' Fernand Cortez.' " " And
which of Marschner's ? " — " None." " And
144 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

Weber's ' Euryanthe?'" — " Very rarely : " and

out came the hundredth tale of cabal and court
predilection. I might as well, from all I heard,
in indulgence of my intense curiosity as to an-
tique German Opera, have bespoken " La Cos-
tanza e Fortezza," — the composition by Fux,
performed in the open air at Prague one hun-
dred and twenty years ago, on the coronation
of Charles VII. as King of Bohemia; which
Quantz described to Dr. Burney as being in the
old church style, coarse and dry, but at the
same time "grand," and as having " a better
effect perhaps with so immense a band # , and in
such an immense space, than could have been
produced by more delicate compositions."
But the visitor to Berlin, however rational
* " This opera was performed by a hundred voices and
a hundred instruments. There was not an indifferent
singer among the principal performers, all of whom were
of the first class. Among the six male singers, Carestini is
perhaps the name best known. The female singers were
the two sisters Amberville. The choruses were in the
French style, and served for dances; and it was upon the
singing in this opera that Benda formed his style/'— See
Burney\ Present State of Music in Germany, vol. ii.
p. 177, 178.
 GERMAN NATIONALITY. 146

in his operatic expectations, would stand but a

poor chance of his wishes being fulfilled. As
regards the slighter national works of the day, —
such operas, I mean, as Glaser, and Lortzing,
and Conradin Kreutzer pour out with a fecun-
dity which speaks well for their perseverance
at least,—I suspect I might have waited for the
return of King Sebastian, before I should have
been treated to any thing of the kind at the
Grand Opera. That its managers, however, do
not disdain works flimsy in structure, and un-
ambitious in scale, I had proof in the operas
which I did hear in Berlin. These were —
" Le Postilion de Longjumeau " Adam.
" Le Ma^on" - Auber.
" Le Pre aux Clercs" - - Herold.
" Le Domino NoirJ' - - Auber.

What has been said of the " Guido and

Ginevra " at Brunswick, applies, I think, even
in fuller force to these pretty trifles, as re-
o-ards their effect when translated from French
to German.
Every one has been told the fate of the first
pound of tea that ever crossed the Border: how
VOL. ii. L
146 GLIMPSES OF BERLINS

the good Scottish lady to whom the delicacy

was intrusted had it cooked and served up like
a vegetable, to the extreme disappointment of
her guests, who found the far-famed delicacy
" nothing so wonderful after all." Little better
treated than this unlucky Hyson or Bohea i§
the Comic Opera of France, as far as I am ac-
quainted with the result of German attempts to
naturalise it. Though more generally relished in
Germany than it has been with us in England, —
where* indeed* it has been thoroughly disguised
under an intolerable grossness of condiment,
when not utterly changed past recognition by a
destruction of its distinctive taste and texture,
— the real aroma is not the less lost. And yet,
as performed in Berlin, when I heard them,
the French comic operas had every advantage
which Germany could give them — royal pa-
tronage, and a company well fitted for their
representation, difference of clime and lan-
guage considered. In three of the works here
enumerated, the prima donna was the far-famed
Mademoiselle Lowe.
I ought, perhaps, in discretion to say nothing
 GERMAN NATIONALITY. 147

of this lady, because it is more than probable

that she may have been heard, before my jour-
nals are read, in England; and she may have
created herself anew, as a singer and as an
actress, since the month of September, 1839.
At that time,—though she was the most am-
bitious of all florid singers I have ever heard,
constantly venturing cadences in such a style as
this —

/T\

or, in other words, losing no opportunity to

exhibit the long compass of her voice, in imi-
tation of the example set by Malibran, — Ma-
demoiselle Lowe was neither exact in tune nor
in time. The extreme notes of the scale she
hazarded were oftener false than true; the
roulades she launched were executed with that
hurry, betokening anxiety as to their comple-
tion, which, as all the world knows, makes
florid singing scarcely tolerable. " I '11 shake
you!" exclaimed the provoked old singing-
L 2
148 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

master, and not without cause, when the aspir-

ing Aristea, whom he was superintending, chose,
without giving warning, to break away into an
enormous trill, more enterprising than correct.
Neither, in 1839, was Mademoiselle Lowe the
comic actress she professed to be. It is true,
however, that, as often as I remonstrated against
any of her smorfie, I was told that her forte was
in the passionate and stately tragedy of Italian
Opera, — her best characters such as Norma or
Desdemona. For these, her majestic presence,
her brilliant eyes, and her raven hair, eminently
fit her. Yet so extravagantly was she applauded
by her friends whenever she attempted the
drawing-room airs and graces of Auber and
Herold and Adam, that I suspect the qualifica-
tion was an excuse employed to quiet a cavil-
ling stranger, rather than a distinction owned
for home use. Had I said, in the pit of the
Berlin Opera, that I thought serenity and ele-
gance were wanting to the Lowe's demeanour,
— had I whispered that marchionesses and
court-ladies do not grasp their furled fans in
the middle, as if they were tools, not toys, but
 GERMAN NATIONALITY. 149

let them gracefully dangle from the wrist,—had

I insinuated that in the supper-scene in " Le
Domino Noir," where the heroine is obliged
to appear in a peasant's disguise to baffle the
curiosity of a house-full of rakish young diplo-
mates, there was a conscious humour and cle-
verness in her glance and in her assumed ton de
soubrette, too natural to the woman to be natural
to the situation, which is one of the utmost
discomposure and alarm : — Had I uttered any
one of these heresies, I say, I should probably
have been worse treated than I once was at a
Paris soiree for presuming to assert that Ma-
dame Dudevant (George Sand) had ever wan-
dered about the world in " doublet and hose/'
Therefore, for the sake of peace, as often as my
neighbours broke forth into raptures about one
of the Lowe's enormous flourishes, I admired
the crown of blush-roses from beneath which it
issued; —when they found "favour andpretti-
ness" in everyone of her motions and gestures,
I fell back upon her symmetrical corsage, and
the sleeve, which was a real seduisante. I have
never — no, not even in Paris, the Paradise of
L 3
150 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

millinery — seen on the stage any one who

understands the attractions of costume better
than Mademoiselle Lowe.
Less admirable in every respect was Made-
moiselle Griinbaum, a sprightly and rather ugly
young lady, possessing no better requisites for
opera than a destroyed voice, and a complete
ignorance that such is the fact. Yet she is
vaunted as a star by Herr von Raumer, in his
letters from England. Of the male part of the
corps, Herr Mantius was undoubtedly the best;
his voice being a sweet tenor, and his style
more cantabile than the style of most of his
mates. Herr Blum, the principal bass, was one
of those hard-working artists who take great
pains and produce very small results; but he,
too, was entirely worn out. In short, as regards
the singers, French opera in Berlin, in every
other town where I have met it, is a dreary
and disappointing entertainment. The German
orchestras have no sympathy with the music.
However correct and careful they be, I have
never failed to find them falling short of that
smart and stimulating piquancy which belongs
 GERMAN NATIONALITY. 151

to French blood, and to French blood alone.

The superficial glitter of the Opera Comique
(the glitter of a diamond, which, however thin,
is genuine) can never be got up by German
industry and research. Why the trick should
be attempted I know not; why the Germans,
with all their humour and fantasy, their capital
low comedians, their careful actors, and their
honest love of the stage, should not be able or
willing to support comic music of their own,
must strike every one as strange, till he has
weighed and considered matters a little.
This I was led to do, after visiting the
Konigstadtisches Theatre in Berlin; the third
theatre of the city, — and the head quarters of
illegitimate drama — to which German comic
opera now seems banished. To the musician,
this theatre, shabby and dusty as it looks, is well
worth a visit on other grounds: for memory's
sake, as the scene of Sontag's earliest triumphs;
for present enjoyment too, as possessing an
excellent resident prima donna in Mademoiselle
Hahhel,-—a lady most unmeritedly shut out of
the greater Opera House, I was told, by the ex-
j, 4
152 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

press command of the late King. Here the en-

tertainments are as miscellaneous as at one of
our own legitimate theatres. One night I heard
a version of Rossini's " Guillaume Tell/' very
tolerably performed, though obviously a work
many sizes too large for the theatre. Another
evening I enjoyed there a " Grosses roman-
tisches original Zauber-Ma'rchen," by Raimund;
" Der Bauer als Millionair," a sort of pot-pourri,
made up of domestic interest and faery sympa-
thy; —the comedie larmoyante of Kotzebue, and
the broad farce of the Leopoldstadt Theatre at
Vienna. This would be as difficult, I suspect, to
bring home to the sympathies of a British play-
going audience as it once was for me to reconcile
a foreign friend of mine to the suitability of a
bishop's apron, or as it always is to unriddle the
arm-wavings and genuflexions of a ballet for those
unused to pantomimic narrative. I was fresh
from reading the " Fiabe " of Carlo Gozzi, where
the same indefensible mixture of the real and the
absurd is effected with so forcible a mastery over
feeling and imagination, that Turandot and her
Three Riddles, and the Wonderful Crow, with
 GERMAN NATIONALITY. 153

their long line of other marvellous kindred,

can hardly fail to become old and familiar
friends, on a first introduction, to all who have a
particle of faith or fancy. Hence, besides being
amused, I was interested by finding that the
German world had not grown too wise to
relish extravaganzas little less monstrous. The
story of Raimund's faery legend has the same
cast as the ever-green tale of " Cinderella : " —
there is a cruel father and an oppressed daughter,
and the latter is under the especial care of good
angels, who, to avenge Herr Wurzel's ill-usage
of her, turn his house upside down, and his
money-bags inside out — deliver her and beggar
him. The tale could not be carried on, of
course, for popular use, without some sentiment
and cookery *; but in these essentials we were

* This is not said unadvisedly, but in weary remem-

brance of more than one "Lust-spie/," where tender talking
and cofFee-drinking (at least) seemed entirely sufficient to
keep the German public alive and amused. The fourth
and last act of one comedy I shall never forget, in which,
after the adventures at a watering-place of a graceful and
coquettish heroine (admirably played by Charlotte von
Hagen) were entirely wound up, a domestic scene of
154 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

let off easily, and it was kept alive by a fund of

humour in a low comedian, Beckmann, sur-
passing any thing in its way which I have seen,
— Liston and Odry and Vernet not forgotten.
Though many of the jokes and grimaces of this
kitchen Leporello escaped me, as completely as
the Wellemms of Samuel the immortal must
escape a newly-imported German, enough was
left and comprehended to shake my sides in
concord with those of my neighbours, and to
make me inclined to wonder why the familiar
vein of German genius is not more largely ex-
plored by the caterers for German opera.
That its audiences are not beyond the reach
of the broadest drollery, or the most simple re-
presentations of every-day life, the theatre of the
country bears ample witness. But that the living
writers of opera books are not further from the
repartee or badinage which gives its vivacity to

winding silk and eating cakes in an arbour, as accompani-

ments to the delicate stratagems by which courtship may
be protracted, threw every one into extasies, and seemed
absolutely to be the portion of the evening's entertain-
ments the most relished.
 GERMAN NATIONALITY. 155

French dialogue, than they are from the com-

mand over interest and climax which makes even
Kotzebue's domestic plays so moving, — is no
less certain. In France, that sense of the ridicu-
lous, and touch of the positive, which ever inter-
vene to save the convenances of the stage, give a
certain point and probability to legends even as
absurd as " Le Cheval de Bronze/' or as re-
pulsive as " Don Juan de Marana." Not merely,
on the other hand, do the German librettists,
when they get hold of a good subject, wander
about dreamily and aimlessly among what is
impossible and pointless; they appear to con-
sider all the birds of the air and all the fishes
of the sea their fair game. The success of
Weber's faery tale was certain to be followed
by an outpouring of enthusiasm for the super-
natural. Not less than four of Spohr's operas,
" Faust," " Zemire und Azor," " Der Berg-
geist," and " Pietro von Abano," have been
founded on legends of the same family. But
the vein, if not already exhausted, requires con-
summate skill in working; and the Germans
have been long reduced to gather up the scraps,
156 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

as it were, of the banquet of Wonder, without

having learned the art of combination. I will
not weary the reader with an interminable list
of operas produced since " Der Freischutz," in
which sorcery and necromancy, the diabolical
and the faery world, take every conceivable form.
To instance the want of selectness of which I
have complained, I need only describe the sub-
ject of one of Glaser's operas, which I narrowly
missed at the Konigstadtisches Theatre, on my
second visit to Berlin. This was " Der Ratten-
fanger von Hameln;" and as the legend is less
known in England than others of its quality, I
will even give a version of it, never printed,
which was said and sung to me in my young days
till I knew every note of it by heart. It was,
indeed, strangely like returning to times earlier
than those of my intercourse with the spider-
legged piano without additional keys, — to
Haydn's " Mermaid's Song," my first musical
recollection, — and to the old house, with the
cherry tree — a treasury of blossoms in spring
and black-red fruit in summer, which over-
spread the irregular nursery windows,—when
I encountered, among the particularly ill-printed
 GERMAN NATIONALITY. 157

advertisements and announcements of a German

paper, a long criticism upon the music and the
scenic decorations of an opera, founded upon the
good old tale of
£l)e $iper of £amelm*
At Hameln in Westphalia,
Two hundred years ago,
A tragedy was acted
That made all eyes o'erflow.
A legion of destructive rats T h e pi ague
of H a l n e l n
This town did sore affright: '
In vain were all the dogs and cats
To put the foe to flight.
The citizens of Hameln
Were wrought into a fume,
To see such fierce invaders
Their precious grain consume.
And as in lamentation
They mournfully bewailed,
Their ears with strains of music
Were suddenly assailed.
And soon to their astonish'd view
The strange musician came; The guest.
All piebald was his garment,
And unknown was his name.

* The legend may be found recorded in as ancient a

book as the " Letters of James Howel, Esq.," written by
him when in Germany (1619).
158 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

Keen was his eye, and shrill his voice,

When from his lips he drew
His pipe. That pipe, whose loud mysterious notes
Such prodigies could do.

His speech. " Ye citizens of Hameln ! "

The piebald piper cried,
" To save you from destruction
My talents shall be tried ;
" And every wild voracious beast
Be put to sudden flight,
If unto me most solemnly
His bargaip. You will your promise plight —
u
That I a golden recompence
Shall this day twelvemonth have,
If I return unto your town
The bright reward to crave."
The men of Then loud assented every voice,
Hameln . . ,
promise: And promised every tongue ;
Whilst loudly did the piebald man
Exalt his wondrous song.
and are And as he march'd with solemn step
delivered. _, . ,
Through the ungrateful place,
The rats, both old and young, did join
In one continuous race.
Nor when a lake appear'd in view,
Did they the race refrain,
But 'midst its glassy waters sank,
Nor ever rose again !
 GERMAN NATIONALITY. 159
Now all was ease and mirth and peace; The piper
cometh
The year rolPd swiftly by; again —
The piper came his boon to claim, —
His boon they did deny. is disap-
pointed.

Three days he loiter'd in the town,

Like one full of dismay ;
And when these perjurM citizens
A mass knelt down to pray,
The wondrous man a vengeance plann'd His revenge.

For that forgotten plight, —

And piped such wild, melodious tones,
That every infant wight
Pursued his steps, as on he march'd,
To catch the lofty strain,
Till not a baby in the town
Did very soon remain.
Each mother's darling urged the chace,
As loud the piper play'd ;
And soon approach'd a lofty hill,
— No little heart dismay'd, —

When through a chasm in its side,

Each tender infant pass'd ;
And, as it closed its fatal jaws,
The piper gave a blast.
Nor ever, from that day to this, It lasteth to
this day.
Hath he or babe return'd;
But every father, conscience-struck,
The awful vengeance mourn'd!
160 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

The mother's hope, the father's pride,

Engulph'd in one dark tomb ! —
A pillar, by that dreary hill,
Alone records their doom.
R. C.

It would seem difficult to imagine how the

Berlin machinists themselves, who are said to
be even wiser in their craft than Stone, the
old property-man of Drury Lane*, could make
any effect with a story like this; even if one
remembers the thrilling interest excited by the
flight of the magpie with the spoon in "LaGazza
Ladra." But, granting the rat procession to be
an equally practicable thing, Glaser is not quite
a Rossini. I was told that " Der Rattenfanger"
is not the best of his productions. As far as I
know his music, it seems to me to belong to the
hybrid school, and to be at once dry and flimsy.
To characterise this hybrid school would not
be easy, and is hardly worth the trouble. But I
* This was the worthy who was used to pronounce
judgment upon every new drama, in proportion to the list
of movables required for its production. On one occasion
his quota confined itself to merely a cradle and a spoon.
"Urn !" said Stone ; " strong domestic interest, I see."
 GERMAN NATIONALITY. 161

fear it must include graver composers than

Glaser. The Lachners, and Lindpaintners, and
others of the hour, seem to me, as far as cham-
ber trial and hearsay enable me to form an
opinion, to be wandering every where in search
of a style. And their want of decision in the
matter has in part led to the neglect of the public.
For the blame must not be wholly laid upon
courts and cabals, that, during four months
passed by a traveller in Germany, in towns of
every size, each possessing its lyric theatre, —
except " Euryanthe" once at Dresden, and
Gluck's " Iphigenie" at the " Huldigung" at
Berlin, — he could not hear a single German
opera! save three by the only writer, ancient
or modern, who, to judge from playbills and
papers, seems to have a general as distinguished
from a local circulation.
This is Lortzing. Resolved not to imitate my
Parisian acquaintance ——, who, on a critical
tour from city to town, and from town to city,
declared he could never fall in with a German
opera, when the truth was that he would not take
the pains of going to the theatre, — I heard in
VOL. II. M
162 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

one place " Die Beiden Schiitzen," founded on

a flimsy French vaudeville ; in another, " Cara?
mo;" in a third, the " Czar und Zimmermann."
In spite of a certain admiration for the universal
genius of a composer who writes the words, and
sets the music, and plays a part in one of his own
operas — which Lortzing does — I could not
relish them. They seemed to me, in the style
of their composition, as utterly guiltless of genial
German fancy, as the niusic to which Weippert
might set one of our own hard-hearted fashion-
able novels would be innocent of English
spirit. Fade and feeble, I could have better
borne with the most extravagant melodrame of
the Black and White school, that is told in
music alternately by creeping tremolando con
sordini^ or the hoarse and overpowering blasts
of three trombones ! Neither the exercise of
mastering that which is dry and difficult (which
in certain moods of mind has its charms), nor
the disrespectable pleasure derived-from what
is pretty and enticing, apart from, character,
was to be enjoyed in such music by Lortzing
as I heard. If « Le Macron " and " Le Pos-
 GERMAN NATIONALITY, 163

tillon," in their German dress, reminded me

of the Scotch lady's tea in a tureen, these in-
digenous comic operas bore a strong resem-
blance to the same beverage as it is rendered
in the interior parts of Germany; — where a
pinch of ashy dust, in whitey-brown paper, is
brought to the gasping traveller, and the water
follows in an open pan, smoking and smoked
— where tea, in short, is no tea at all.
The oftener I became so weary and low-spi-
rited under the infliction of these colourless pro-
ductions, that I could long for the wildest piece of
witch-work in the German repertory—-the more
was I disposed to exalt Weber to an immea-
surable height for the nationality of his lighter
music; —witness Kilian's song, and the whole
part of Annchen, in " Der Freischutz" —
witness the exquisite overture and dance tunes
belonging to " Preciosa." Yes ; he possessed, if
ever any man did, the secret of German gaiety.
He could transfer to his songs and dances, how-
ever light and brilliant, that spirit which is also a
living principle of Beethoven's playful music, and
worthy of the deep study of any one who would
M 2
1(J4 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

analyse the mysteries of style. Not only have

his airs and melodies a costume — in their merri-
ment there is a truth to the outer world, as well
as in their sadness to Man's inner heart. Every
thing in Nature that is wildest and blithest—the
laughing of brooks as they leap from stone to
stone, the glancing of early sunshine over the
ocean when its waters are curled by the blithest
of autumn breezes, the extasy of birds in the
full enjoyment of life and summer—has apart
and a reflection in his livelier music.

Child of Romance! how varied was thy skill ! —

Now, stealing forth in airy melody,
Such as the west wind breathes along the sky,
When golden evening lingers on the hill;
Now, with some fierce and startling chord didst chill
The blood to ice, and bathe with dew the brow ;
Anon, thou didst break forth in brilliant flow
Of wild rejoicing, such as well might fill
The bright sea-chambers where the mermaids play :
All elemental sounds thou didst control;
The roar of rocking boughs, — thefla.shof spray, —
The earthquake's muttered threat,— the thunder's roll,—
Scattering, like toys, their changes through thy lays,
Till wonder could no more, and rapture silenced praise.*

* From " A Garland of Musicians/'

 GERMAN NATIONALITY. 165

It was this vivid felicity of describing emo-

tion by simile, — of expressing the passions in
a manner as free from the conventionalisms of
France as from the sensualisms of Italy, — that
made Weber's operas strike with an electric
force to the hearts of his countrymen. It is
this peculiar and admirable nationality which
has given him the ear of all Europe, and will
embalm him for posterity — dare one prophesy
how long ? Pity, that the throne to which he
ought to have been raised in Berlin was be-
stowed upon a stranger.# Our German friends
have anathematised the English climate for
cutting short the glorious career of Weber; but

* I do not forget that Spontini had been appointed to

his place before " Der Freischutz " appeared. But the
whole early life of its composer was a painful struggle
with difficulties ; and the obstacles to his advancement
were so numerous, that for a twelvemonth he laid music
wholly aside, and addicted himself to lithography. Let
no one reply that Weber started out, in all the fulness of
his originality, at once. We have his earlier " Silvana "
to prove the contrary. When will kings and patrons
remember, that one hand held out to struggling genius
is worth " a mob of palms " compelled to honour genius
triumphant ?
M 3
166 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

assuredly the lukewarm ness at home (till home

was taken by storm), which so warped it aside
from its natural direction, ought not to be alto-
gether forgotten. To the Artist, self-reliance;
but to the patrons of Art, justice !
At the risk of being thought offensively to
generalise, I cannot close this chapter without
enumerating the three things which every day's
experience, in and out of the country, has im-
pressed upon me, as the three wants of modern
German Opera: —
Nationality, on the part of its patrons:
Agreement, on the part of its managers:
Probability and truth, on the part of its
writers.
I shall be only too glad to be proved in the
wrong.
 167

CHAP. IV.
MORNING HOlRs.

An Hour at Potsdam and Sans Souci. — The New

Palace. — The Music heard in its Gardens. — The
Pfauen Tnsel. — The Schloss. — Wall-painting. —
Untidy Gardening. — An Hour in the Berlin Gallery.
— The Van Eyck Wing-Pictures.—The Fancy of the
old German Masters. — A Word or two touching Lucas
Cranach. — The Bath of Youth. — An Hour with
Madame von Arnim. — Herself and her " Letters to
a Child " identical. — Her Conversation. — Her Rhine
Pictures.—Stye Romance of ti>e spoSfefyorn. — The Spirit
of this truly German. — An Hour with Herr Liepmann.
— His Invention, — his Patience, — his Assistant.

IF, during my operatic evenings at Berlin, I was

provokingly disappointed in Germany, I had rich
compensation in some of my mornings, which
were most delightfully spent, a certain lassitude
of body and depression of spirit allowed for;
which, rather than lay it to the account of a
vexed musical spirit, I will make bold to ascribe
to miasma from the Spree, that blackest and most
canal-like of streams. There was the morning
M 4
 168 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

idled away at Potsdam, among the terraces

which, height above height, rise by a stately
and formal gradation of steps and platforms
from the great avenue of the New Palace to
Sans Souci, — that Prussian Trianon, where
Frederic the Great wrote and Voltaire flattered
him. It was not permitted me to enter and
see the relics of the monarch and his familiar,
as the present King of Prussia (then Crown
Prince) was, at the time of my visit, sojourning
there, to take his part in the autumn reviews.
But the best relics, after all, are those that
Memory has in store: so, little disappointed,
I lingered among the gigantic golden pump-
kins and the vines which clothe the front
of the terraces (these eatables being more
plentiful and curiously tended than the flowers,
which would have the first care in an English
royal "policy"), thinking of the days that
garden had seen, and how like it wras to some
decoration which a Watteau would have thrown
off#, or a Mondonville have bespoken for the

* The French taste, formerly affected, and maintained

to a certain degree in Berlin during the late King's
 MORNING HOURS. 169

show-scene of one of his grand operas. Then

I roamed up the park to the New Palace,
the scene of Frederic the Second's concerts;
but another King was there, who, like his son,
was superintending the military evolutions of
the camp; and therefore I could not make my
way in to discover whether any traces remain of
the musical curiosities enumerated by Burney;
— the piano-forte " by Silbermann of Neuberg,
beautifully varnished and embellished; and a
tortoise-shell desk for His Majesty's use, most
richly and elegantly inlaid with silver; and the
catalogue offlute-concertos for the New Palace;"
and " the most magnificent harpsichord, made
by Shudi in England, all silver and tortoise-
shell, which cost two hundred guineas," and
was spoilt by its transmission up the Havel.

reign, was strangely crossed by a vein of Gallo-phobia,

the manifestations of which were sometimes amusing.
I happened to speak of the garden at Sans Souci to a
Berlin friend of mine, in much the same words as I
have written in my journal. " French, indeed! ** was
the quick rejoinder ; " they are like a much handsomer
thing than any thing French ! —like an Italian garden,
sir! "
170 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

In place of any sound of flute or harpsichord,

my wanderings round the New Palace were
accompanied by the reiterated and pompous
cannonading carried on by a party of sham-
fighters within a quarter of a mile. Whenever
it ceased for a moment, the pertinacious birds
of the garden resumed their very noisy concert.
The effect was most curious. At a less war-
like moment I should have had more chance, I
suspect, of coming upon a ballet than a concert
at the New Palace. The late King, though a
staunch upholder of Spontini's thundering
marches, in which the utmost amount of Janis-
sary music was accumulated, was rumoured to
care but little for Music, but to take a lively
interest in the sister art. He was a liberal and
courteous patron of those whom he did patron-
ise. It was his wont, I have been told, to sur-
prise the artistes who exhibited in his presence
with magnificent contributions to their toilettes
of cachemeres, ball dresses, and jewellery, laid
out in the ante-chamber to await their de-
parture.
Another pleasant morning was devoted to the
 MORNING HOURS. 171

royal folly of the Pfauen Insel, a little bosky island

on the lake-like Havel, not far from Potsdam,
where his late ballet-loving Majesty of Prussia
indulged in simpler tastes, and built up, within
sight of each other, menageries, palm-houses,
temples, conservatories, and show-dairies, and
other rural edifices, in such profusion that the
privacy of the retreat was entirely destroyed.
Un-German as was the taste of Sans Souci, it
was better, because more substantial, than the
stucco-romanticism of the mock ruin where
the King of the Pfauen Insel lived. This is
an odd structure, with two shattered towers
connected by a bridge of iron-work, as trim
and tidy as if it were new from Colebrook
Dale; and, on the ground floor, a sham arch-
way in the outer wall, enclosing a piece of
scene-painting by Herr Gropius, representing
a vault and a man in armour, seen through
half-open doors. Absurd as all this must appear
to an eye used to the rural edifices of English
landscape gardening, it was hardly less strange to
mine than the manner in which the royal edict
to promote floriculture in the Pfauen Insel had
172 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

failed in its execution. The " knot" of flowers

immediately under the windows of the castle
contained nothing choicer than an assemblage
of rankly-grown coxcombs. Nor was the mono-
tony complained of a solitary instance of want
of tasteful finish: the paths through this faery
domain were of a deep gravelly sand; and the
grass seemed innocent of the roller, which pro-
duces such miracles on the lawns of our Blen-
heims and Chatsworths. It has been said that
the museums and marvels of the Peacock Island
will, under Prussia's new monarch, share the fate
of the Pavilion at Brighton under our present
sovereign.
But I no more went to Germany to look at
quasi-French palaces, or English gardens badly
executed, than to hear French music; and as I
had seen Versailles, and many a fair pleasaunce
at home, the suburban beauties of Potsdam and
the Pfauen Insel pleased me less than other
morning sights within the range of Berlin. The
hour, for instance, expended in the Picture Gal-
lery never failed to return a fund of speculation
for the rest of the day. The building itself is
 MORNING HOURS. 173

of European fame. Yet, beautiful as it is —•

SchinkeFs recognized master-piece — I never
could stand beneath its symmetrical colonnade,
nor cross its ample and majestic rotunda to
approach the picture saloons (shame that a na-
tional propensity should disfigure such a noble
vestibule with the odious furniture of spitting-
boxes !) without thinking of the old adage of " a
large gate to a little city." The contrivance of
closetting off the not-too-spacious gallery which
surrounds three sides of the building, by lateral
screens between every window, may be favour-
able to classification ; but it is singularly de-
structive of that spaciousness and grandeur of
vista which are not inconsistent with serial
arrangement, as the perspective of the Louvre
testifies. The larger Italian pictures fare ill in
the Berlin gallery. Save in one or two excep-
tional instances, — as in the case of Lorenzo
Costa's " Presentation," which is seen down the
whole length of the room, — no ingenuity can
place the spectator at the distance demanded for
a due appreciation of their effect. But as the
Prussian collection contains no master-pieces of
174 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

southern art to rival the renowned attractions

of Dresden, this pettiness of the several com-
partments may possibly be of less consequence.
I should, nevertheless, have not come to such
a conclusion of my own unassisted ignorance;
nor so easily have resigned the Italian moiety
of the gallery, had I not been warned, by one of
the most acute and searching modern critics #
on painthig, in preference to study the fine
series of master-pieces of antique German and
Flemish art which it contains. Certainly my
daily tour to the left of the central entrance
ended in my leaving Berlin an idea or two
the richer. I had been prepared for the monu-
mentally calm, but not passionless spirituality
of the six precious Van Eyck wing-pictures which
formerly surrounded the marvellous "Adoration
of the Spotless Lamb" (a work worth crossing

* I mean the anonymous writer of a series of letters

on the Berlin and Dresden picture galleries, which ap-
peared in " The Athenaeum," in the years 1838 and 1839.
I have found nothing upon painting in which criticism
and illustration are so pregnant with suggestion for the
uninstructed. Their technical value too, is, I believe,
admitted to be great by those most learned in the art.
 MORNING HOURS. 175

the Channel to St. Bavon's, Ghent, to see); pre-

pared for the richness of their colouring, in
which, as my guide has poetically described it,
" the azures, greens, and crimsons, like richest
jewels reduced to pure and many-coloured water,
which swam and stayed itself on various parts of
the surface, seem rather waved thither by the ma-
gician painter's wand—his pencil—than spread."
Surely the winged angels on two of the panels
are none other than Palestrina's or Orlando
Lasso's rich and stately chord transferred to
canvas! I had been prepared, again, for the deep
feeling and the homely pathos of Hans Hemlink;
and so patiently did I wait upon his works, too,
that it may be hoped that an appreciation some
little deeper than an imitative and traditional
sympathy resulted. But, in presence of master-
pieces like these, honoured over all the world,
it were presumption to venture beyond a simple
expression of reverent admiration. Other pic-
tures, however, of an inferior class, are less
sacred, and may be less known. One or two,
by the singularity of their subjects and manner
of treatment, laid such a close siege to my fancy >
 17G GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

and will for ever remain so closely intertwined

with all my day-dreams, touching one most
interesting section of ancient Art, that, perhaps,
they may be dwelt upon less reservedly without
impertinence. The day-dreamer, however, must
run the risk of being thought to utter fancies
signifying nothing.
The wonderful affluence of imagination in
someof the antique Flemish and German pictures
has hardly been sufficiently felt by those who have
contemned them as stiff and monstrous. Yet
the chisel of the Gothic stone-cutter never rioted
more wildly among the chimaeras and the foliage
which enwreathe the pillar-shafts and border
the portals of old cathedrals, than the pencils
of the Paul Brills, and Breughels, and Bosches
among combinations of perspective and figures,
or even yet wilder exhibitions of the florid gro-
tesque which make up their rich and elaborate
and fatiguing pictures. Strange that the law-
lessness and exuberance at which Music is only
now arriving should have been the point whence
Painting seems to have started among the people
on this side of the Alps ! It is possible, however,
 MORNING HOURS. 177

that the fantastic tricks of the newest musicians

and the eldest painters proceed from sources
totally opposite: in the former case, assumed to
conceal exhaustion of power and meagreness of
invention; in the latter, the unconscious result of
the high spirits and extravagant strength of Art
in its childhood and inexperience. Be this as it
may, Weber never produced any thing wilder
in his supernatural or faery scenes than is to be
found in the lower part of "The Last Judgment"
by Hieronymus Bosch. A coarse and sensual
Hell indeed is this; — such an one as, to all ap-
pearance, might have been littered on the canvas
during the throes of intemperance following
some gross and violent carouse; yet still won-
derful from its congruous incongruity — from its
direct appeal to those feelings which make out
pictures in the fire, and trace warriors, &c. &c.
in the veins of a block of marble —wonderful, in
short, from the same sort of fascination which the
half monstrous half familiar objects of a vision
exercise over the first waking thoughts and pur-
poses of the seer. Again, there is Paul Brill's
" Tower of Babel," an anticipation of Martin's
VOL. II. N
178 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

vast perspectives and pompous architectural

inventions ; and there is Breughel's " Ascent to
Calvary," teeming with multitudes, strange in
garb, earnest in gesture, life-like in feature, and
with its Gothic city in the background, — Jeru-
salem being merely some Prague or Nuremburg
amplified. The imagination with which these
pictures overflow made mine, at least, positively
giddy, and I never approached them without re-
newed surprise at the stage-tinsel and Lenten
starvation of Fantasy now-a-days.
In another mood, yet no less startling in
their affluence of invention, are a picture or
two by Lucas Cranach. I know not whether
I am right, or even state intelligibly my im-
pression with respect to this stout old artist, in
saying, that there seems to me in his genius —
Gothic as was its manner of expression — a
touch of the same lingering paganism as made
Dame Venus* long time figure as a demon in
* A long and curious collection of facts and traditions
on this subject will be found, illustrated with some of the
most elegantly-romantic verses of the day, in the last
published volume of Mr. Milnes, — his " Poetry for the
People."
 MORNING HOURS. 179

the popular legends and faery tales of Ger-

many, and as is manifest (as antiquarians will
witness) in the signs and symbols which may be
found among the Christian emblems adorning
our most primitive ecclesiastical architecture.
In spite of all his incorrectness of design, and
unselectness of model, I have fancied that a
voluptuousness of tone may have existed in
Cranach's mind, not altogether in accord-
ance with the school and period and people to
which he belonged. Naked gods and god-
desses, the size of life, recur to me, in which
the utmost grossness of contour, the most
flagrant distortion of limb, cannot utterly neu-
tralise a rich and subduing meretriciousness of
intention — an attempt to realise ideal concep-
tions of sensual beauty. While, last autumn,
roaming over that curious and most picturesque
building—the Burg of Nuremburg, I came
suddenly upon one of these divinities, which
had been removed from the picture gallery (so
called), and been put aside in a sunny corner.
Even then and there — though my head and
heart were as full of as many other thoughts
N 2
180 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

and other associations as they could carry —

the malicious gleam from those long eyes, and
the sunbeam dancing upon the artfully ar-
ranged golden hair, brought back to my mind
the heathen troubling Appearance in Tieck's
exquisite tale of a The Runenburg," that se-
duced the innocent gardener from the culture
of his flower-beds to a wasting and passionate
quest of a cruel evil spirit, — the end of which
was madness and death !
The work in the Berlin Gallery which gave
birth to this idea, is the " Bath of Youth ; "
at a first sight as ugly and repulsive a com-
position as ever tempted dainty gazer to walk
on hastily, — still with a curious fecundity of
conception, and a hard, heart-striking truth of
execution, rivetting all whose inclination per-
mits them to indulge in a second glance. The
magical fountain is in the midst of the picture.
To the left of it are waggons full of old women
— other hags are riding upon pillions—others,
again, reversing the legend of the Wives of
Weinsburg, are conveyed pick-a-back on men's
shoulders. All are in the last stages of hideous
 MORNING HOURS. 181

decrepitude, and urging on their charioteers

and horsemen with a hollow-eyed, ravenous
eagerness; some of them absolutely agape with
terror lest Death seize hold of them before they
have undergone that wonderful immersion by
which their enchantments of youth shall be
renewed. The bath itself is half filled with
these withered, dismal spectres, as unsightly as
Milton's Sin, or Spenser's Error;—in the other
half are floating, with an extatic languor,
. . . young budding virgins, fair and fresh and sweet:

on the one side is all the fierce impatience for

the wondrous transformation; on the other, the
conscious pleasure and amazement of Beauty,
as she quits the fountain to bask on the smooth-
shaven grass, or to array herself in the gems
and garments which are to double her sor-
ceries. Behind is a rich flower-grown par-
terre, with inviting arbours, and mysterious
bosquets, and tables spread, round which a
company of banqueters is arranged, and golden
cups are kissed by the brave to the health of
the fair. The epicureanism of the precept —
NX
182 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

If the world be worth thy winning,

Think, O think it worth enjoying —

is hardly more voluptuously breathed in glorious

John Dryden's familiar couplet, than, in spite
of their grimness and angularity, it is expressed
in the forms of the ancient painter: and I never
passed onward to make myself familiar with the
Rubenses or the Rembrandts which hang in a
further compartment of the same section of the
gallery, without pausing one moment, from the
same feeling as makes one unable to resist
turning a page of the most familiar or absurd
book of "gramarye," however choice or eru-
dite be the library where it is encountered.

Any true musician who has a touch of the

fantastic in his composition — and what true
musician has not?—will probably take an interest
in another of my morning pleasures, greater than
he has found in my feeble transcript of Cranach's
•4 Bath of Youth." I allude to the hour in
which I had the pleasure of listening to the
earnest and brilliant conversation of Madame
 MORNING HOURS. 183

von Arnim; — that friend of so many artists,

and whose journals and letters to Goethe have
presented the world with the most poetical
picture it has yet received of the master-genius
of German music,—the rapt and rugged Bee-
thoven. Even were I willing to publish what
passed in the confidence of private intercourse,
to record that interview in detail would be
impossible. Such a rapid and vivacious and
ever-changing flow of eloquence I never en-
countered, even in a woman, — never such a
fund of racy language and quaint illustration,
or such a child-like and artless nationality. It
was like reading a suppressed page of her strange
and poetical " Letters of a Child ;"— few cele-
brated persons being so identical on paper and
in personal intercourse as the reporter of Bee-
thoven's raptus for Goethe's benefit, and the
Lady of Berlin. Never, too, did I look upon
a more expressive and striking countenance
than Madame von Arnim's. There is a touch
in it of Mignon and Fenella; a certain gipsy
animation and brilliancy beyond the power of
Time to destroy. The hazel eyes are still as
N 4
 184 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

deep, tender, and searching as when they re-

minded good Frau von Goethe of the tones of
the violoncello.* The small and symmetrical
figure is as nimble, and th^ gestures are as
impulsive, as in the days when their owner
jumped into the Main, near Aschaffenburg, on
the overturn of her brother-in-law's carriage*
* The list of similar descriptions, in which the opera-
tions of one sense are employed to symbolise those of
another, is rich and long. As collaterally illustrating my
favourite theory, that such a thing as a solitary gift only
exists by exception, and that the several arts are " linked
by many a hidden chain," I have taken some pains in its
collection, beginning with the well-known definition of
scarlet given by the blind man, — " that it resembled the
sound of a trumpet." But, not utterly to disgust those
who do not incline to such speculations, I will offer only
a few specimens. The German girl, over her interminable
tapestry work, talks of a " screaming yellow ; " the little
child, who has since grown one of the most distinguished
amateur musicians in England, was overheard improvising
on the pianoforte, and singing to herself the while, " This
is the tune of the golden spots." But the finest application
of this class of metaphor I have ever met with was made
by a beautiful mute, in whom the deprivation of speech and
hearing seems but to have sharpened every intelligence,
and refined every grace, and quickened every affection.
On overlooking some one writing a letter in very pale ink,
she said, in her manual language, " whisper-writing ! "
 MORNING HOURS. 185

to rescue the purse of violets Goethe had

thrown to her at a party at Wieland's, among
the other treasures of the floating band-boxes.
The enthusiasm is still untired which stirred
the maiden to take an active interest in the
fate of the poor Tyrolese, and enabled the
mature woman to master the modeller's difficult
and delicate art, for the purpose of designing
a monument to the memory of her beloved
friend — as the striking design at the head of
the English version of the " Letters of a Child"
testifies. A like ardour of perseverance helped
Madame von Arnim through the study of a
strange language, for the purpose of effecting
her unique translation of her own letters: and
had the reader heard her once describe all her
hopes and fears, the dissuasions of her more*
experienced friends and the undismayed per-
tinacity with which she plunged into the chaos
of case and person and idiom, in fulfilment of
her purpose, — he would, perhaps, feel with me,
that though incorrect and baroque and at times
hardly intelligible, is the language called English
in which the " Letters of a Child " are rendered,
 186 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

no other version would do as close a justice to the

meaning and to the personality of the authoress.
No translation would make the book acceptable
to the million. Yet those who would search out
the connection between Music and the visible
and invisible world, without some examination
of which no one can enter into the music of
Germany, should not disdain the " Letters " in
question ; even supposing him to care nothing
for the vivid and breathing pictures of character,
and the adventures, fully as good as faery tales,
they contain. There have been few illustrations
of the delicate and almost impalpable chain of
associations, which connect particular sounds
with particular scenes, more exquisite than some
of the less known passages. One or two, as
this chapter has taken a fantastic colour, can be
hardly resisted. The first is from the " Letters
on the Rhine." How they teem with the true
spirit of that festal and fancy-haunted river, I
felt when, a few weeks after reading them in
Berlin, I was wandering among its old grey
castles, and its vineyards, each protected by its
own crucifix. Surely there is a Rhine-picture
 MORNING HOURS.

and a Rhine-melody in every line that follows.

The date is from Rochusberg above Bingen: —
" Here are still a thousand splendid paths,
all leading to the celebrated parts of Rhine;
on the other side lies the Johannisberg, up
whose steep we daily see processions clamber-
ing, who invoke blessing on the vineyards;
yonder the departing sun streams in his purple
over the rich land, the evening breeze solemnly
bears up in the air the flags of the tutelary
saints, and swells out the white folded wide
surplices of the clergy, who, at dusk, wind like
an obscure cloud-picture down the mountain.
As they approach nearer, the singing may be
heard: the children's voices sound the music
distinctly ; the bass pushes only at intervals the
melodies into the right joints, that the little
school-crowd may not carry them too high; and
then pauses at the foot of the hill, where the
vineyards discontinue. As soon as the chaplain
has sprinkled the last vine from the holy-water
vessel, the whole procession is scattered like
chaff; the clerk takes flags, water-vessel, and
sprinkler, stole and surplice, all under his arm,
188 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

and carries them bodily away; and, as if the

boundaries of the vineyards were also those of
God's audience, worldly life directly follows :
their throats are taken possession of by roguish
songs, and a merry allegro of fun drives away
the song of penitence. All sorts of mischief go
forward: the boys wrestle and fly their kites
on the banks in the moonlight, the girls spread
out their linen which lies upon the bleach, and
the lads bombard them with chestnuts; then
the herdsman drives the cows through the up-
roar, the ox foremost to make a way; the pretty
daughters of the landlord stand under the vine-
foliage clapping with the cover of the wine-can.
Then the canons call in and pass judgment
upon the vintages and cellars ; the matin
preacher says to the chaplain after the proces-
sion is done, < Now we have represented to
God what the vines need: one more week's dry
weather, then early in the autumn rain, and at
noon warm sunshine, and so on through July
and August:—if then there be no good vintage,
it is not our fault.'"
Another story of musical association is too
 MORNING HOURS. 189

entirely German in its theme and its romantic

colouring not to have a place here. None who
have travelled through the country can have
failed to catch up the postilion's well-known
ditty, blown sometimes through a cracked pipe ;
for it is not every post-boy who is skilful enough
on the horn to be promoted, like our Cologne
Jehu, to the post of stage-herald : —

To some the tune will be known by its having

been wrought upon by Spohr, as the theme of
a minuet in the sonata for piano-forte and
violin, op. 96., which he calls " Souvenir d'un
Voyage a Dresde," though certainly never was
exercise drier than the production in which this
travelling ditty is put into the harness of sci-
ence. Others, again, will couple it in their fancy
with Schubert's charming song " Der Post." I
know nothing more pleasing, of its own dreamy
 190 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

kind, than, when travelling late at night, to be

wakened from some reverie by the sudden
striking up of this melancholy tune (all melodies
for the horn have an ineradicable touch of me-
lancholy in them) and seeing the toll-bar which
lies across your road rise, with a motion like
the waving of a recumbent giant's arm, to the
diagonal posture it occupies by daylight. Let
us see how Madame von Arnim, in her diary
of the last days of Goethe's mother, under-
taken at the poet's own request, and here given
with but a trifling change or two, in her own
racy and broken English, gives us

Romance of tfye
" BEFORE I went into the Rheingau," says
Bettina, " I went to take leave of her, and, as a
post-horn was heard in the street, she said that
its sound even now pierced her heart, as at the
time when she was seventeen.
" At that time the Emperor Charles XII.,
surnamed The Unlucky, was at Frankfort. All
were filled with enthusiasm for his great beauty.
On Good Friday she saw him in a long black
 MORNING HOURS. 191

mantle, with many gentlemen and pages dressed

in black, visiting the churches on foot. ' Hea-
vens ! what eyes had that man ! with what a
melancholy did he look up from under his
sunken eyelids ! I did not leave him ; I fol-
lowed him into all the churches; in every one
he knelt upon the last bench among the beg-
gars, and laid his head a while between his
hands; when he looked again, I felt as if my
heart was struck with a thunderclap. When
I returned home I found myself no longer in
my old way of life: it was as if bed, chair, and
table no longer stood in their usual places. It
had become night; lights were brought in. I
went to the window, and looked out into the
dark streets, and when I heard those in the
room speaking of the Emperor, I trembled like
an aspen-leaf. In my chamber at night I fell
upon my knees before my bed, and held my
head between my hands like him, and it was as
if a great gate were opened in my heart. My
sister, who enthusiastically praised him, sought
every opportunity of seeing him. I went with
her — nobody could have an idea how deeply
1942 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

my heart was concerned. Once, as the Emperor

drove by, she sprang upon a stepping-stone by
the way-side, and gave him a loud cheer; he
looked out and waved his handkerchief kindly.
She boasted much that the Emperor had given
her so friendly a token; but I was secretly per-
suaded that the greeting was meant for me, for
in driving past he looked again towards me.
Indeed, almost every day that I had an oppor-
tunity of seeing him something occurred which
I could interpret as a mark of his favour, and
in my chamber at night I always knelt before
my bed, and held my head between my hands,
as I had seen him do on Good Friday in the
church; and thus was a private intelligence of
love built up within my heart, of which it was
impossible for me to believe that he knew no-
thing. I believe that he had surely inquired
out my dwelling, because he now drove oftener
through our street than before, and always
looked up to the windows and greeted me.
Then I may well say that I wept for joy.
" ' Once, when he held open table, I pushed
my way through the sentinels, and came into
 MORNING HOURS. 193

the saloon instead of the gallery. The trumpets

were sounded: at the third sound, he appeared
in a red velvet mantle, which his two cham-
berlains took off, and walked slowly, bending
his head a little. I was quite near him, not at
all thinking of my being in the wrong place.
His health was drunk by all the nobles pre-
sent, and the trumpets crashed in ; and then
I shouted loudly in concert. The Emperor
looked at me, took a goblet to pledge again,
and nodded to me; nay, it seemed to me as if
he would have brought me the goblet, and I
must believe it to this day. It would cost me
too much if I were compelled to give up this
thought, at which I have shed so many tears of
happiness. And why should he not ? — he must
have read the great enthusiasm in my eyes.
At the flourish of drums and trumpets in tho
saloon, that accompanied the toast in which he
pledged the princes, I became quite miserable
and faint; so much did I take this imaginary
honour to heart. My sister, with a good deal
of trouble, got me out into the fresh air, scold-
ing me that on my account she was forced to
VOL. 11. o
 194 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

lose the pleasure of seeing the Emperor dine 2

indeed, after I had drunk from the fountain,
she tried to get in again; but a secret voice
said to me that I ought to content myself with
what had been granted that day, and I did not
return with her. No, I sought my lonely cham-
ber, and seated myself upon the chair by the bed-
side, and wept painfully sweet tears of the most
ardent love for the Emperor. The next day he
took his departure. It was four in the morn-
ing on the 17th of April, I was lying in bed,
when I heard five postilions' horns blow.
This was he. I sprang out of bed; with over-
haste I fell in the middle of the room and hurt
myself; I took no notice of it, andflewto the win-
dow. At that moment the Emperor drove past.
He looked up at my window, even before I had torn
it open; kissed his hand to me, and waved his
handkerchief till he was out of the street. From
that time I have never beard a post-horn blow
without thinking of this parting ; and to this
very day, now that I have voyaged down the
whole stream of life and am just about to land,
its wide-sounding tone painfully affects me, and
 MORNING HOURS. 195

that, too, when so much upon which mankind

has set value has sunk around me without my
feeling sorrow. Must one not make strange
comments when one sees how a passion, which
at its very origin was a chimaera, outlives all
that is real, maintaining itself in a heart which
has long neglected all such claims to folly?
Neither have I ever had the desire to speak of
it: to-day is the first time.
" < In the fall which I then got through over-
haste, I wounded my knee upon a large nail
that stood somewhat high out of the floor ; the
sharp head of the nail formed a cicatrice, re-
sembling a very fine and regular star, upon
which I looked often during the four weeks in
which, shortly afterwards, the death of my Em-
peror was tolled by all the bells for a whole
hour every afternoon/
# # # # %
" Your mother showed me the scar above the
knee, which remained in the form of a very
distinct and regular star. * * # In September,
while at the Rheingau, I received a letter to
say that your mother was not well. I hastened
o 2
196 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

my return, and went immediately to her. The

physician was just then with her, and he looked
very grave. When he was gone, she handed
me the prescription with a smile, saying,
' There, read: what may that forbode ? An
application of wine, myrrh, oil, and laurel-
leaves to strengthen my knee, which since the
summer has begun to give me pain; and now
at last water has collected under this scar.
But you will see that this imperial specific of
laurel, wine, and oil, with which the Emperor is
anointed at his coronation, will give me no re-
lief. I see it coming already, that the water will
be drawn towards the heart, and then it will
soon be over/ She bid me farewell, and said
she would let me know when I might come
again. A few days afterwards she had me
called. She was lying in bed, and said, < To-
day I lie in bed again as formerly, when I was
scarcely sixteen, of the same wound/ # * * The
next morning she was no more; she had passed
away in her sleep."

So ends this strange and fantastic history —

 MORNING HOURS. 197

strangely and poetically told, I do not say

that none but those who enjoy it can enter
into the chambers of imagery in which a
Beethoven and a Weber, a Schubert and a
Mendelssohn, have found their inspirations.*
But it is in spirit as intimately related to their
picturesque and descriptive works, as the novels
of Hugo and Balzac are akin to the operas of
Meyerbeer — that music in which young Paris
delights. And, after having been wearied by
traces of spurious taste and misdirected patron-
age of Art in a guise antipathetic to the national
humour, as the visitant to the Berlin Opera
needs must be, any outbreaks of Nature like the
freaks of the old German masters, or the ex-
cursive rhapsodies such as the " Letters of a

* " German literature is inextricably interwoven with

German philosophy. There is not a faery tale of Tieck,
not a song of Goethe, not a play of Schiller, not a de-
scription of Humboldt, in which this under-current is not
perceptible : nay, however paradoxical it may appear, I
will venture to affirm, that German music has received
much of its peculiar character from the same source;
that the compositions o£ Beethoven, Weber, Sphor,
Mendelssohn, are deeply tinctured with the same spirit."
—Mrs. Austin's Characteristics of Goethe, vol. iii. p. 266,
o 3
198 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

Child " contain, become welcome by recoil and

contrast. To myself, one of Madame von Ar-
nim's pages is very like one of Schubert's ex-
quisite melodies; and the hour I spent in her
company took me as far away from the frigid
and unnatural classicalities in which the patron
of Voltaire and Quantz delighted, as if, half a
hundred paces from her hotel, I was not to be
shocked by the sight of the Library, which, as
every guide-book tells, was built in accordance
with a whim of Frederic the Great, who de-
sired the architect to take a chest of drawers
for his model.

A thoroughly agreeable hour, too, was the

one spent in the study of Herr Liepmann.
This indefatigable man, as all Europe by this
time knows, has found means — by an inven-
tion, the details of which are still a secret — to
reproduce fac-similes of the works of the ancient
painters, so exact as to make many cavillers, in
the first instance, foolishly insist that his im-
pressions were but copies wrought by the hand.
A small head by Rembrandt, the original of
 MORNING HOURS. 199

which had struck me in the Museum, was in

every circle and drawing-room, dividing public
attention from the yet more miraculous works
of that engine of modern necromancy —the
Daguerrotype.
But I was more interested by what I heard
of the man than even his invention; and my
interest was not disappointed on speaking with
him face to face. He was living, in Septem-
ber, 1839, in a remote part of the city — the
Alexander-strasse. His lodging (for one does
not speak of a house in Germany) was up a
gloomy and desolate court, approached, of
course, by a common stair, which was broken
and dirty. The two little rooms appeared yet
more squalid than the reality to an English eye,
from the uncarpeted floors, and the close, loaded
atmosphere attendant upon stove-warmth. A
few chairs, and a few copies of the Rembrandt
head, formed the principal furniture.
We were ushered into this comfortless place
by a pretty fair-haired girl — such an one as
Sohn or Bendemann might take as model for
one of their female figures. This was an orphan
o 4
200 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN,

whom the artist had adopted-—his sole con-*

fidante — his sole assistant. She watched every
question we put with a jealous alacrity, as if
(woman-like) she feared that her master's sim-
plicity might allow him to utter the secret her
wit knew how to conceal. But, as regarded me,
she need not have been uneasy. Satisfied that
the copies could not have been brought to so
.marvellous an identity by any manual process,
and unable to have remembered the secret of the
method, had I even once understood it, I was
much more intent upon the slight, pale, timid
man, as an impersonation of steadiness and
perseverance, than upon the intrinsic curiosity
and value of his invention. Herr Liepmann has
the softest German voice that ever spoke to me.
A thin and flaxen moustache upon his upper
lip added to his appearance of bad health.
This, he said, was largely owing to the hard la-
bour which he had undergone to keep life and
soul together, while he was making his experi-
ments. Originally a not very successful painter,
he had been for years haunted by a notion of his
invention; and, in spite of the laughter and
 MORNING HOURS. 201

want of sympathy of all to whom he had spoken

of it, he had gone on studying the picture in
the Museum selected as his first experiment till
he had brought it away, to quote his own
words, " hair by hair; " and arranging his pro-
cess— working half the night the while as a
manufacturer of sealing-wax, to gain time and
groschen to bring his plans to maturity. I have
never seen any one freer from the conceit and
self-assertion so often evident in inventors. He
listened to every objection as to permanence,
universal practicability, &c, &c. as meekly as if
he had never thought of such things before :
while the girl, who hung about the door of his
sanctuary with her hand jealously upon the
lock, looked half out of patience at so much
catechising and qualification ; and a thoroughly
Berlin expression passed over her face when
Herr Liepmann said, that, though his labours
had excited some interest in England, they
had met no encouragement in France. To
close the visit, we had the King's letter brought
out, which had bestowed upon the inventor an
honorarium, amounting to some 20/. of English
202 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

money, with many flattering expressions of ad-

miration and protection.
Since then the art has made great progress :
the successful reproduction of a second subject,
after a cabinet picture by Mieris, has assured
the discoverer that his invention is not limited,
as many declared it must be, to freely-touched
subjects on a large scale. Notice and honours
have flowed in upon him; but I am mistaken
if he be not too good a German to have be-
come other than the same simple, unprofessing,
uncourtier-like man as I saw in the Alexander-
strasse.
Who knows but that Music's turn is next to
come in the century of modern inventions; and
that the machine for registering improvisations,
which excited so much of Dr. Burney's curiosity
when he visited Berlin, may not be all but per-
fected by some German votary to his art, as
patient and self-denying as Herr Liepmann ?
Instances of industry rise up on every hand in
Germany which are positively frightful to people
so careless of detail and indolent in research
as ourselves. One of the finest collections of
 MORNING HOURS. 203

sacred music in the country, belonging to a

learned professor of jurisprudence at Cologne,
is based upon the scores, to copy which he
abridged himself of sleep, while undergoing
the severe study of the law, and when unable
to purchase. We should do well, in all the
arts, to take home examples like these !
 204

CHAP. V.
A LETTER TO A LADY,*

TIRED with strange sights—since, even with Youth's

endeavour,
The zest of wandering cannot last for ever ;
Tired with strange voices — coarse, and loud, and
glad; —
Alone — a little dull — a little sad ; —
* • " sometimes on the road
My dear Mr. Rumble composes an ode."
I had meant to include in my chronicle of mornings in Berlin
my ramble through the lonely and umbrageous Thiergarten to
Charlottenburg; but I have already so far overpassed my limits
as to prefer, because shorter, the rhymes which, following the
bad habit of the divine in Hayley's comedy, I strung together as
I loitered thither, and on my return. Going, the sun was most
oppressive, and the air loaded with exhalations from the ponds
with which the Hyde Park of Berlin is diversified : returning,
the public conveyance into which I mounted was one, compared
with which a Parisian coucou is a positive down-pillow on wheels
— an English taxed cart effeminately soft. The traces of that
hot heavy air, and that punishing leathern ^convenience, which
the verses, I doubt not, bear, may assure those who read them
that they are a part of my journal, in its original form, and written
as a letter, without the remotest idea of their ever being printed.
 A LETTER TO A LADY.

Dear Lady, ever present to my thought,

Say, may I tell you what Berlin is not ?

A wide white city, stretched along the brink

Of the dull Spree, — no river, but a sink;
It could not charm you — if to you, as me,
The trimly-modern brings satiety.
Here, streets in ranks and squadrons are array'd
In one same uniform of dull parade,
As if great Fritz (whose shade, methinks, looks down
A pig-taiFd cherub in a false bay crown,
Simpering to ape the sneer of keen Voltaire
The while he hovers heavily in air)
Had bidden the conscript walls to muster come
By proclamation made at beat of drum.
Yet, many a temple's fair proportion charms,
Where Schinkel mimics all the classic forms,
As like the ancients — ev'n when least he fails —
As is Sans-Souci to the true Versailles,
Or shepherd, with his pipe, on German plains,
To blessed Arcady's unsmoking swains.

O ! far more welcome such old towns to you

As quaint Cranach or Albert Durer knew;
206 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

Where stately minster, with its holy bells,

In every chime some pious legend tells;
Where 'broider'd gables totter o'er the streets,
And every passer-by the pilgrim meets, —
The coif yd and wrinkled nurse, who lifts to view
The heavy babe with eyes of china blue,
The square red burgher and his kerchief'd dame, -
Are each a picture in its ancient frame!

Yet, strange to say, despite its lifeless grace,

The seasons seem to doat upon this place:
Ev'n now, — while fierce and devastating rains
Plough up your gardens and lay waste your plains,
And, by hard Common Sense in mockery sent,
Make water-souchey of your Tournament,—
Here stays the sun, as though he hoped to see
Fair Daphne's self in every linden-tree;
Here smiles the moon, as soft, as bright, as bland,
As though Endymion couch'd on Prussia's sand.
I've linger'd in the Palace-court at night,
Lured by the witchery of her blessed light,
And wondering at the faery work she made
With corridor and arch and balustrade,
 A LETTER TO A LADY. 207

Wrapping, the while, in clear sepulchral glow

The silent soldier pacing to and fro,
Till — every earthly cumber cast aside —
I soar'd aloft with Fancy for my guide;
Thought, o'er the lofty window's gleaming glass,
I saw the Lady of the Castle * pass,
Or that forsaken court and gloomy hall
Were lighted for some ghostly festival,
Where, with long locks and sweeping mantles, came
In chill procession many a knight and dame;
Gazed on the pageant with an icy glance,
Where crowned phantoms swept in solemn dance ! —
Then, from such visions down to earth drawn back
By thoughts that haunt ev'n Fancy's wildest track,
My heart, in time gone by, on distant shore,
Past dreams and hopes and pleasures living o'er,
Yearn'd with strong love for those, beyond recall,
Who answer not beneath the funeral pall;
And summon'd next, with like impassion'd prayer,
The few who still support, assist, forbear —
# # * # # # #

* Every guide-book has the story of the Family Phantom of

the Prussian Kings, who is seen gliding through their palace
shortly before the decease of any member of the royal family.
*208 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

Nay—this is wanton ! Do not scorn me quite !

Though your poor friend have ta'en so far a flight,
'Tis only transient. Lo ! the dream is o'er,
And Berlin shines by day — a handsome bore !
A bore, in whose unvarying gait is seen
The forms mechanical of forced routine ;
The soldier's wisdom and the soldier's cares,
His Bobadil approach, his Werter airs:
And here, in truth, 'twould move your mirth to see
How sabre-tash and sentiment agree ;
How prim young ensigns sigh (the while they eat)
In fraiileins* ears, — fat, melting, half discreet; —
Nay, even the stalwart roidier, tough as oak,
Embalm'd while living in tobacco-smoke,
Buys not his love with gold —^.oiir lure of Age —
But the stale phrases of the comic stage ;
And, parting with a comrade, sweetly sips
His " iciederselin" from male, moustachio'd lips !
While thus the town, with military air,
Doth its King's tastes de garnison declare,
'Tis whisper'd that, minutest waifs to catch,
Ev'n martinets o'er vagrant words keep watch.
'Twas but the other night I chanced to see
Hark! some oneknock'd! thekelhie?^ with my tea!
 A LETTER TO A LADY. 209

Truce to state secrets — know ye not full well

Not mine their tangled maze? And must I tell
Of all the shrines which threefold Art uprears? —
Not of the Opera, that would scratch your ears,
As Lowe, with a most tramontane skill,
Screams Normals passion through a throat of quill;
Nor, knowledge granted, hath my feeble rhyme,
To lead you through that gorgeous temple, time,
Where hard, but life-like, from the canvas start
The darlings of the homely German heart,—
Where Holbein's bearded men their girdles clasp,
And Hemlink's Marys o'er the Martyr'd gasp,
And many a plain old painter holds in thrall
The silenced spirit to an inch of wall.
Leave we these treasures to a fitter fate,
would laugh, of pictures should I prate !

But one lone temple claims, before we part,

Your poet-worship, and your woman's heart.
Where are we now ? The town is far behind, —
No distant hum is wafted on the wind;
In Autumn's mellow noon-tide, scarcely wave
Yon tall columnar pines, that watch a grave,
VOL. II. P
210 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

Lone, but not dreary, — sacred and serene,

Where, sweetly shelter'd, rests a weary Queen *,
Her children's garlands wither'd o'er her head,
But not her children's love ! What peace is shed
O'er that mild brow; — how like an angel's fall
Those long chaste tresses 'neath her coronal!
Calmly her clasped hands her breast enclose : —
You will not weep. O well is such repose !
O well the sleep no battle-clarion breaks —
No earth-cloud dims — no slanderous phantom shakes;
O well when nations such a rest revere !
No pompous verse — no purchased mass is here;
But mothers pray; and, treading small, like birds,
Creep little children, whispering holy words;
And Man's harsh tones drop down, subdued and slow,
Around the couch where the Beloved lies low !

Was that the passing-bell ? or but the chime

Of the town clocks ? I know the fated time ;
For here, replete, the weary sons of men
Shut up their doors and hide in bed at ten;

* It is hardly needful to mention Rauch's statue to Queen

Louisa of Prussia, as the chief if not the sole attraction to
Charlottenburg.
 A LETTER TO A LADY. 211

And I, who deem that maxim wisdom true,

To " do in Turkey what the Turkeys do,"
Feel, like the rest, outworn and slumberous quite,
And, nodding, wish your Ladyship good night !

Ah ! where are you ? Enthroned in golden chair,

Watching the great world roll without a care ?
Opening with eager lips your stores of wit,
Some falsehood to laugh down — some fool to hit ?
Or, with more generous bravery, to defend
The faults and follies of an absent friend ?
Heard I my name? and was the vision true? —
Take, then, a rhymester's blessing, and adieu !

Berlin, September, 1839.

v '2
 •212

CHAP. VI.
QUARTETTS AND AMATEURS.

Berlin in Autumn. — Haydn's " Seasons."— Indisposition

to Music.— Herr Zimmermann's Quartett. — Comfort
of Chamber Music. — Female Education in North Ger-
many.—The Sing-Academic—Fasch and Zelter: a brief
Sketch of the former. — Imaginative and Eccentric
Character.—The Performance I heard. — Haydn.—
Mendelssohn. — Amateurs versus Professionals. — A
worthy"Agnes von Hohenstauffen."—Conclusion.

WHATEVER influences constraint and disunion,

patronage capriciously bestowed, and authority
turned into an engine of cabal, may have
exercised in the Prussian capital to the de-
terioration of its Opera, they have still not
been able to destroy a spirit of strong musical
vitality, taking forms too exclusively German to
be passed over. There is admirable chamber-
music to be heard in Berlin; quartett-playing
worth a journey thither to seek ; to say nothing
of that magnificent institution, the offspring of
 QUARTETTS AND AMATFATRS. 213

Fasch and the god-child of Zelter — the Sing-

Academie.
I visited Berlin during its flat season, when
the amateurs were taking health at some brun-
nen or other, or pastime among that fine scenery
which the Germans enjoy so heartily• The
court was at Potsdam for the reviews, with its
army of fiddlers in attendance. To a Lon-
doner, then, who is accustomed to the utter
pause and desolation which September brings
— when the one-eyed street musician, who
hobbles along his doleful way, scraping out his
surgical tunes, is about the only specimen of the
genus Violin to be found; when every Cello is
holiday-ing it in the provinces, or gone home to
Germany to recruit himself; and even Golden
Square, that centre of instrumental study, is as
guiltless of melody as a Friend's meeting-house;
it was a welcome surprise, and an evidence of the
wealth of the city, that, at such a stagnant time to
collect a quartett was possible, even to the active
hospitality to which I was so largely indebted.
Yet more remarkable it seemed, that, when col-
lected, the quartett should be one of such rare
p 3
214 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

excellence as our own metropolis could never

match in the very prime of its fullest season.
I had been hearing in the morning two parts
of Haydn's " Seasons " performed in the bleak,
naked, rectangular Garnison-Kirche, with an
indifference ascribable as much to a severe
headach as to the moderate excellence of the
performance, — music though it be to revive
the weary, and give appetite to the satiated, by
its exquisite freshness: and, in the waywardness
of indisposition, I had half grumbled at the
necessity of listening to any thing more that
day. Letters had not come when they ought to
have come: the weather was airless ; the street
odours of Berlin anything but Sabean, as the
entire flatness of the site renders all kennel-
streams stagnant. I was suffering, then, under
a malaria, which I chose to consider was not to
be fought off. A potent specific was required
to deliver me from the incubus sitting so heavily
upon my spirits. I but chronicle this per-
versity of mind and sickliness of body (the
latter, dear nervous reader, depends more closely
on the former than you will like to own) to
 QUARTETTS AND AMATEURS. 215

illustrate the excellence of the tonic which re-

stored me to that eager and enjoying state of
attention without which Music has no exist-
ence, — on the principle of the extinction of
sound in vacuo.
Excellent, indeed, was Herr Zimmermann's
party, beyond my then experience. I have since
heard my friend Herr David lead a similar
force at Leipsic, in a yet finer style. In
Beethoven's admirable quartett in E flat —

such ease, breadth, and boldness, — such a con-

sentaneous, yet firm, playfulness in its scherzo ;
such a deep, yet uncaricatured intensity in
its slow movements — such a spirit and fire
in Mendelssohn's quartett in E minor which
followed, with just that touch of old-world
quaintness which many of his secondary sub-
jects demand—such a French fineness, without
French conceit, in the quintett by Onslow
which wound up the evening, — one of his
later and more elaborate works (which came out
p 4
216 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

from under their hands, as the old lady said of

her daughter's favourite suitor, "quite overboard
graceful,")—I must be more languid in body
than I was then, and more sullen in mood than
I hope ever to be, to partake of such a treat
without the liveliest and most pleasurable
excitement. After all, there is nothing like
chamber-music, heard in one's own chair, and
among one's own friends, — music that one
can at pleasure stop when the spirit grows
dull, and that goes on without that anxious
straining after effect, of which, in presence of
the public, few if any artists are able utterly
to divest themselves. Were I the Duke of
, I should be largely tempted to imitate
Frederic the Great's strong measures employed
to obtain La Barbarini, and to send off my
myrmidons in search of Herr Zimmermann
and his associates.
This admirable quartett is only one among
many which Berlin affords for the delight of
the winter evening circles of those who are not
sold to the exotic opera, and can enjoy, intel-
ligently, music which, according to common
 QUARTETTS AND AMATEURS. 217

English estimation, is of little use save to make

" Quintilian stare and gasp." Herr Zimmer-
mann's party would hardly have played the
exquisite and widely-varying compositions of
Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Onslow with such
expression and spirit and unction, had not intel-
ligence been quickened and study encouraged
by the attentive and refined sympathy of their
audience. " The amateurs in Berlin," says my
pleasant predecessor, the author of the " Ramble
among the Musicians of Germany," "are all
little maestri ; they dabble in composition, have
most of them the score of a mass, sinfonia, or
overture locked up in their desks, the conscious-
ness of which helps to sweeten their lives, and
gives them the smiling satisfaction which Mr.
Bickerstaff discovered in the girl who wore
embroidered garters." As much as this I had
no means of discovering ; but I found traces of
taste and knowledge every where, and know
that they possess one amateur pianiste and com-
poser of force and feeling sufficient to solve, in
her own single self, the question of female capa-
city in the art which perplexed us while study-
218 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

ing the " Esmeralda " of Mademoiselle Bertin.

Madame H , indeed, is little less accom-
plished in music than is her husband in his
profession as a painter. I shall never think of
the grand oil sketches of heads, taken from the
life in Rome, which adorn his studio, without
a running accompaniment, as it were, of the
graceful and masterly compositions in which,
by the aid of her exquisite finger upon the
pianoforte, she called up her scarcely less cha-
racteristic remembrances of their long Italian
journey. The solidity of female musical accom-
plishment in Germany is one of the surest
evidences of the deep root which the art main-
tains in the land. For, be it remembered,
this knowledge is found in a society where
the housewifery, ridiculously banished from
our female education, is practised sedulously
and with a cheerful self-complacency; where
every room bears tokens of the tapestry-working
diligence of its female inmates, — and where in
every circle the Englishman runs a good chance
of being relieved from his uncouth struggles at
German phraseology by being addressed clearly
 QUARTETTS AND AMATEURS. 219

and elegantly in his own language. How, in

spite of the gratuitous demolition of time,
caused by early and frequent and long-pro-
tracted meals, the German ladies work, upon
chairs, screens, and ottomans, so many scenes
of Sir Walter Scott, so many sentences of the
Language of Flowers, — speak so many lan-
guages — astound one with familiarity with so
many books — and understand Music so tho-
roughly,— is a mystery I am unable to this day
to solve, and which I leave to all conscientious
" principals of seminaries" to examine.
A splendid vocal testimony to their artistic
accomplishments is the often-adverted-to Aca-
demie founded by Fasch, and brought to per-
fection by that good man of Berlin — Goethe's
friend, and Mendelssohn's master; — the up-
right and intelligent and liberal Zelter.
Of the services rendered by the latter to
Art, and his claim to be numbered among the
worthies of German music, as a man of many
gifts and pursuits, from all of which he drew
something of aliment and support for the one
to which his life was devoted, the English
220 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

public already knows as much as can be given

in sketches as limited as mine. The fund of
golden precepts which his letters contain, the
honest, zealous, affectionate heart they display,
has in some measure been opened to us by
critics and translators. No one, indeed, can
touch Music in North Germany without draw-
ing upon it for some of the clearest writing, and
sincerest thinking, and most healthy feeling
which aesthetic criticism possesses. The name
of Fasch is less known. It is true that, when
Dr. Burney was in Berlin, he was then harp-
sichord player to Frederic the Great; but
some unlucky accident hindered the two from
ever meeting; and it is a question whether
Burney would have appreciated much in him
beyond his fluency of finger upon his instru-
ment. The real musical spirit of Germany,
up to that epoch, most strikingly illustrated by
the compositions of Sebastian Bach, was but ill
comprehended by the courtly and elegant bio-
grapher of Metastasio: and though the works
of Fasch, as far as I know them, be not alto-
gether guiltless of the Italian cadences and
 QUAHTETTS AND AMATEURS. 221

flourishes which were gathered and combined

in the writings of most of the composers of the
time, the man seems to have been a true Ger-
man. Not, however, one of those rough vigor-
ous sons of his country, with a strong mind in a
sound body — working hard and hopefully, and
taking Life as it comes, without being vexed with
the " fever of vain longing," — who make such
excellent pillars to the fabric of Art; — but
crotchetty, fantastic, as earnest in dreaming as
in working. Born at Zerbst in the year 1736,
the son of an elder Fasch, who wrote oratorios,
and an opera " Berenice " (like all other an-
cient German operas, long since forgotten), —
his zealous and enthusiastic spirit took so de-
vout a direction in music, after hearing a sacred
composition by Zelenka, at Dresden, that his
father interdicted his frequenting the churches,
lest he should become a Catholic. The current
of such aspirations must have been strangely
checked by his being appointed, in the year
1756, at the instance of Francis Benda, as
accompanist to the flute solos and concertos of
the philosophical King of Prussia. Small en-
 222 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

couragement for his religious dispositions was

to be found in the sybaritic cabinets of Pots-
dam ! And, whether from having fallen into
an ungenial soil, or whether benumbed by a
settled engagement, bringing with it a com-
petency, — a condition which has proved so
fatal to many a German ambition, as if hunger
and thirst were the best incentives to Genius,
— it matters little ; but many of his years were
trifled away among shadows: some in imaginary
experiments to improve the arts of warlike at-
tack and defence; some in building card-houses,
a passion analogous to that of Winter's for
dressing up puppet-show Calvaries; some in
arranging a table of colours, by which means a
farben clavier (harpsichord of colours) should be
constructed. At another period, he was in the
habit of ascertaining, by arithmetical calcula-
tions, undertaken thefirstthing in the morning,
whether he was fit to compose that day, or
merely to untie those technical puzzles in which
the Donnes and Quarleses of Music have
always found a whimsical delight. We are
told that he was subject to frequent fits of self-
 QUARTETTS AND AMATEURS. 223

despondency; would destroy his compositions as

soon as they were finished : and it seems as if
his genius hardly entered freely and fearlessly
on its own proper path till he had reached a
late period of life, when the fruits of a journey
to Italy, and the composition of a sixteen-part
mass, in emulation of Orazio Benevoli's famous
composition, took the form of his organising an
amateur society, which I am inclined to believe
remains unique to this day.
Certainly, it is not saying too much, that the
performance I heard at the Sing-Academie was
worthy of its habitat. The concert-room and
the chorus were both in the first style of art:
the former, by Herr Ottmer,—a long, cheerful*
resonant chamber, richly decorated, with its
orchestra at one end, and its wide open space
in the midst of the room, — took the air of a pri-
vate saloon, from the ease and good-nature with
which its members chatted and talked: those
indisposed to sing, lounging on the benches ;
those who were less indolent, joining the or-
chestra. There was no ceremony— no stiffness
— no time lost in wrangling for parts: each
224 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

one seemed to know his appointed place. The

conductor, Herr Ungarn, struck a chord on a
Collard pianoforte, and off started upwards of
two hundred voices in one of Haydn's clear
and jubilant motetts, with a sweetness, a cer-
tainty, and a refinement I never heard else-
where. I felt this all the more from having
generally remarked that the quality of the
stage voices I had heard in Germany was throaty
and metallic. What amateurs lose in power,
they perhaps gain, when well cultivated, in
delicacy. It is hard, indeed, to believe that
the diction of instructed persons, occupying
themselves for their pleasure in works which,
being analogous to the highest strains of poetry,
give scope for conception as well as correctness,
should not be superior to the delivery of a
body, which at best can feel but indistinctly —
at worst, is but impressed mechanically with the
semblance of feeling. If my notion be reason-
able, the critical spirit of Berlin, by making its
amateurs fastidious as to nuance^ may here show
its bright side.
Mendelssohn's beautiful psalm, "As pants the
 QUARTETTS AND AMATEURS. 225

Hart," was then admirably sung: and then a

complicated composition by Fasch, which, as I
heard it, was charming, but, intrusted to a less
sensitive body of choristers, must fail in its effect
It is not strange that in the world of Art, as in
every other condition and passage of life, the
balance should be kept even; and that over-
weening ascendency should be provided against
by the fact, that extreme perfection in the execu-
tive machine is apt to tempt the creator away
from thoughts to details! The excellence of such
a body of singers as the Berlin amateurs present,
is certain to seduce one writing expressly for it,
into such combinations as can be no where else
executed. It was a double, perhaps even a qua-
druple chorus I heard, supporting a high silvery
voice throughout a florid solo, with orchestral
richness and certainty, I was lost in wonder
at the feat; but, on coming away, neither chord
nor theme was in my ears. How different was
it from my first introduction to the close of
Handel's "Israel" — weakly played on the
pianoforte, and sung by a handful of coarse and
melancholy singers ! Yet the leading phrase
VOL. II. Q
226 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

of that chorus niched itself in my ear, and will

remain there till it loses its retentive faculty.
The solo was admirably sung by a debutante ;
and it was a pretty sight, when the Academic
broke up, to see every one crowding round her
with words of praise and encouragement. All
seemed union and good understanding there:
and, by way of a last sanction to the young lady,
as one inevitably destined for great things,
approached her with his blandest smile,
and a most dulcet " Voila une veritable Agnes
von Hohenstauffen !" The force of applause
could no further go.
My journal has rambled on as usual, and
given to speculations, perhaps as fruitless as those
in which Fasch loved to indulge, that place which
ought to have been occupied by the stricter
facts; that the Sing-Academie, when I heard it,
consisted of about five hundred members who
met once a week, — a separate practice being
held for the younger and less assured portion of
its singers; — that admission was made contin-
gent on a certain amount of musical acquire-
ment and vocal gift; and that, as their beautiful
room has cost more money than the amateurs
 QUARTETTS AND AMATEURS, '227

had to spend, they are obliged to give public

performances from time to time to keep the debt
down. On these occasions they call in orchestral
aid. Had my stars been kinder, I would have
described one of these "celebrities" for the
benefit of our amateurs; but I have already
said enough to the wise, — and to the timid
perhaps too much. As I strolled down the
Linden that evening, when all was over, listen-
ing to the merry talk of the groups as they
parted for their homes, and my ears full of a
choral harmony finer in quality than they had
ever before received, all my cavillings against
Berlin were forgotten ; and, in the humour of
the French widow who heard in the church bells
an encouraging " Prends ton valet," the clocks,
as they chimed seven, seemed to say to me,
mockingly, " You can't do that in Eng-land! " *

* Were I now to return to Berlin, I should have to

discover another interpretation of the chimes ; as, even in
the last eighteen months, a taste for choral music has ?o
rapidly advanced, that the formation of not one but many
establishments, in structure like the Sing-Acadcmie, may
be looked for in England as a thing by no means
Utopian. — April, 1841.
Q 2
 228

CHAP. VII.
A GLUCK PILGRIMAGE. THE " HULDIGUNG" IN 1 8 4 0 .

A Belief in Luck consolatory. — The " Huldigung " at

Berlin. — Indifference to move. — Gluck's " Iphigenie
en Tauride." —Wretched Night Journey. — Rain and
Pageantry. — Arrival at Berlin. — Gay Sight.—-Musical
Chill.—The Schauspiel Haus. — The Fassmann again.
— The Chorus, Orchestra, and Stage Arrangements in
Gluck's Opera. — Thorough Disappointment. — Visit
to the Exhibition. — Steinbriick's Girl and Elves. —
The Illuminations. — Departure. —ANote concerning
the Ball, and the new King of Prussia.

WITHOUT a certain superstitious belief in luck,

so flattering to that sagacity which would fain
never be at fault, and to that enterprise which
cannot bear to own itself baffled, save preter-
natural ly, small crosses and disappointments
would sometimes be hard to endure. Nothing is
so convenient and so soothing as fatalism! The
people who are always overturned in whatever
vehicle they travel (there are such) set forth on
their journeys secure from dismay and surprise.
 THE "HULDIGUNG" IN 1840. 229

Those whose lot it is for ever to lose at cards,

have the conviction for a warning; and a win-
ning stands them instead of a miracle. I have
never returned from a journey without its
having yielded me more than I expected in
amount of present enjoyment, and of pictures
so precious as a treasure stored up against the
dark days of laborious confinement or exhausted
health. But I must still make an exception
or two to this general rule in my own private
mind. My luck is to have the stormiest winds
that blow, and the roughest seas that roar,
whenever I want to travel along "the silent
highway " by which, unhappily, every English-
man is compelled to leave his island. My luck
it is, never to see Bouffe, or to hear a note of
the music of M. Berlioz, in Paris: my luck in
Germany is to make vain attempts at rectifying
my first judgment of Berlin Opera, and at
bringing my voice into concord with theirs who
have described it as nothing short of the
choicest and most magnificent perfection.
I was never so pleasantly circumstanced for
quiet enjoyment — never less disposed to move
Q 3
230 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

— than when I essayed to revise my judgment

of 1839, late in the autumn of last year. The
best of music and the best of company enjoyed
at Leipsic, with such ease and absence of form-
ality as to make me feel them very like home-
pleasures, would have tempted me to sit still,
if even an ailing body had not chosen, in spite
of myself, to confine me to a sofa. It was a
drizzling, dreary October Thursday afternoon,
closing in coldly and bleakly; the very weather
to make an invalid — many days distant from
his own books and piccolo, and stared at by the
cold, glazed, sombre stove instead of being
smiled on by his fire (that only companion with
whom one is never at odds) —anticipate an
evening of choice chamber-music, and the carte-
blanche " to do just as he liked/5 with particular
gusto. " How unfortunate you are ! " said ,
who came in to pay me a friendly visit. " They
have changed the opera at Berlin to-morrow
night, and are going to give Gluck's ' Iphigenie
en Tauride/ The letter is only just come.
• has taken a stall for you: you could have
got there in time. What a pity you cannot go ! "
 THE " HULDIGUNG " IN 1840. 231

This was in the week of the " Huldigung,"

when the nobles of Prussia had prepared for the
new King in their metropolis those shows which
the limited boundaries of Konigsberg, where
the monarch was crowned, rendered impossible.
Every day's schnellpost had brought us its new
detail of the splendours of the fete — such illu-
minations as had never been kindled before —
and such a ball as no mortal sovereign ever was
bidden to, with concerts, tableaux, speeches, and
a, supper —and such a production, by way of
nationality, of Auber's pretty, but feeble, " Lac
des Fees " at the Theatre of the Caryatides !
But, after having run the gauntlet of a long
London season, a ball in autumn^ in a strange
town, was not one of the delights calculated
66
my mind to move" away from the quieter
pleasures I was enjoying; and I had seen the
opera in Paris, done in all perfection by Made-
moiselle Nau, and Duprez, and Levasseur,
But an opera of Gluck — given in Milder's
palace, and on such an august occasion, — that
was another thing ! I had been accused, on
my return to England in 1839, of having list-
Q 4
282 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

ened to German music with uncharitable ears.

When I had mentioned my disappointment in
the Fassmann, I was told that I corald not have
heard her: she was nothing save in Gluck's
operas— in them superb. Dear reader, of any
given age, never believe reserves and qualifica-
tions such as these ! It is only Cinderella, who
is a kitchen maid in the evening, and the queen
of a ball at midnight; and nothing short of a
faery grandmother can make a voice, which is
destroyed in one character, a nightingale note
in any other; or erase the appearances of fore-
sight and study for a single drama only. Such
partial praises are always the apologies for weak-
ness. I have even heard people who, in place of
being heartily ashamed of our climate in the
month of November, will not scruple to assure
the stranger — be he even the sensitive Italian.,
shrivelled to a skeleton by its cold, or blinded
by its smoky fogs — that these were pheno-
mena entirely unprecedented, and that London
has, in real truth (as meteorological tables
would prove), rather more sun than Naples.
These sage considerations, however, did not
 THE "HULDIGUNG" IN 1840. 233

rule me, when I was within four-and-twenty

hours of Berlin with one of Gluck's operas to
be given. On the contrary, the name acted
as tonic and cordial: and I had been told I
could not go. Next to the invitation of a long-
desired treat to afanatico, there is no spur like
his incapacity being taken for granted by kind
counsellors. — At six o'clock I was leaving
Leipsic for a night's journey to Berlin.
What a night's journey that was ! The North
German system of conveyance, which is bound to
purvey for every traveller a seat in a carriage —
in this indescribably convenient for one who
must get forward —cannot sweep the roads clear
of mud, and does not undertake that the bei-
ckaisen, to which he is obliged to have recourse,
shall be better vehicles than the one in which
the redoubtable Knockicroghery drew Lord
Glen thorn, in Miss Edgeworth's inimitable
" Ennui." The rain, which had for many days
been coming down in torrents, that night " fell
as if the world were drowned/5 Half of my
fellow-travellers, some forty in number, were
wet through before leaving the Leipsic post-
234 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

house, — the process being pretty well completed

at the first stage, where, on stepping out to
change carriages, some of us plunged mid-leg
deep into the inky streams with which the high
road was covered. Ere we had proceeded for a
couple of posts on our way, matters had be-
come too desperate for complaint, —for all, at
least, who had not the solace of tobacco —
that German bosom-friend! The fumes of
" the weed " mingled with the steams from the
smoking upper-benjamins and cloaks of the
males, and the strong odours of eatables from
the provident sacs of the gentler moiety of the
caravan. A like atmosphere, indeed, I never
breathed, save in the foyer of the Paris Opera
on a masquerade night: both being only flat-
tered by 's description when he said, " Talk
of air ! -— I say it was a hot, bad smell! " It
was a relief, after two hours of such a Black
Hole, in a close six-inside vehicle, to be trans-
ferred to an open britska ; though this was not
so screened by rotten curtains of oil-cloth,
which refused to draw, but that the icy, steely
rain searched every corner of it out. After
 THE "HULDIGUNG" IN 1840. 235

all, such nights, even with rheumatic aches to

boot, are worse when described than they are
when endured. Mine, on the road to the
" Huldigung," had its redeeming point, despite
the showers and the tobacco-smoke, and a foot
which felt like a weight of lead — only that lead
is incapable of twinges. The intelligent and
sprightly conversation of a lady casually en-
countered — one of those distinguished women
whose age, whatever that be, is the only ad-
mirable age, and whose country is intellectual
Europe — was worth much inconvenience and
a little pain, and has survived in my recollec-
tion the bitter air and the blighting rain*
Most disastrous was the work wrought by the
latter element on the road. At Delitsch and
Bitterfeld, and all the other little towns on the
Prussian side of the frontier, the national fancy
for garlands had displayed itself, and attempts
to do honour to the festival by illumination had
been made. But one lamp in three was sput-
tering out a faint and feeble flame; and when
the night-wind rustled the leaves of the ever-
green wreaths, a deluge was discharged on the
236 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

heads of those entering or issuing from the doors

thus graced. The early dawn showed a wretch-
edly chill and dripping scene; and though, as
the day grew older, the sun came out, and
the clouds were tossed hither and thither in
vast and parti-coloured masses, so as to exhibit
a ground of blue sky, the weather remained, to
the very gates of Berlin, wild and ungenial —
the very worst pageant-weather imaginable.
And the holiday dress of the stately city gave
a bleak and desolate air of mockery to the drag-
gled crowds under umbrellas that caught the
eye whichever way it went.
After driving about for an hour, and, for the
one only time in my German experiences, being
encountered by extortion in its grossest forms,
in despair I found quarters where I should least
have expected to find them, in the Hotel de
Petersburgh, under the Linden. Service and
ministry of every comfort (and truly I required
both) were there afforded me as promptly as
if I had been one of the Grafs, or Princes, or
Countesses whose plumed chasseurs, striding
about in every direction among their plumed
 THE "HULDIGUNG" IN 1840. 237

lords and ladies, gave the court-yard an appear-

ance which whimsically reminded me of Lance's
inimitable piece of feather-painting — the tor-
mented jackdaw among the peacocks. If every
preparation had not been spoilt by the rain, the
show must have been magnificent. I never saw
so many fine-looking men in the same narrow
space, or so many gorgeous uniforms; and the
ladies (though not to compare with an Opera
blaze of English beauty, or the galaxy in the
Theatre which makes the Dublin Festival in-
comparable in my remembrance) were some of
them well worth looking at, and received the
compliment as a matter of course. These gay
apparitions, taken in conjunction with food,
rest, and warmth, restored me to a belief that
a festivity at Berlin must be a very brilliant
thing, and that the performance of Gluck's
opera could hardly fail to be worth the journey,
and the fascinating chamber-music 1 had left
behind me.
Of the earlier ceremonies I heard nothing
to make me regret having missed them. The
King had been kept in the Dom-Kirche by a
238 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN,

clergyman who had never heard 's apho-

rism, " that no gentleman can keep his congre-
gation entertained longer than twenty minutes;"
and, on issuing thence, and taking his place on
the throne erected in front of the Palace to
receive the homages of his people, he had been
reminded of his mortality most cruelly. A
sudden burst of the malicious element drenched
the fine clothes of the courtiers, laid flat their
feathers, and, streaming down the monarch's
face, had given it, according to the loyal
Rosa Matildas of the Berlin press, only an
additional serenity and intellectual glory !
" Well," I said, hugging myself with a stupid
security, as all these melancholy details were
laid before me, " the rain cannot at least have
washed away the violoncellos and flutes of the
orchestra. Perhaps I was unjust to Fassmann
last year. I am going to hear Gluck in all his
glory!"
A promise not easy to be kept, as regards
that Milton of Music; for — orchestral intricacy
and its exigencies laid aside — the art has
perhaps no works demanding a higher union
 THE "HULDIGUNG" IN 1840. 239

of all the powers which captivate and all that

impress than the grand lyrical dramas of the
composer of " Iphigenie en Tauride." I know
that the master-pieces loved and learned late in
one's career are apt to be unduly prized—•
that, till the time when fond Memory takes the
place of judgment, and declares nothing is so
delicious or perfect as the music that charmed
us twenty years ago, Imagination and Conceit
combine to heighten the gusto with which works,
traditionally considered crabbed, severe, and
above common sympathy, are enjoyed. It is a
compliment to our own far-sightedness to believe
that toe have the thorough key to their myste-
ries ; and I feel jealous lest, on egotistic and
selfish grounds, I may value Gluck's opera-
music too highly, because it is one of the last
acquisitions I have made, and because the making
of it has cost me some trouble — and a night
of rain in bei-chaisen !
For all these reasons, the reader is spared
the rhapsody of anticipation which my journals
register. The fulfilment is the thing. This
began in a blanking information that, like the
240 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

" Der Freischutz " of my first day in Berlin, the

opera was to be given in the Schauspiel-haus,
with a smaller orchestra and smaller chorus
than those of the Grand Opera. The latter was
bespoken for the ball. Still I took my seat in the
halcon of the smaller theatre, though blanked,
not hopeless. The work, performed by official
command, and during the coronation festivities
of a monarch who had even then given indica-
tions of strong and large national sympathies,
could surely not fail to be well given.
Alas ! let no one count upon Royalty being
stronger than Luck ! The overture to " Iphi-
genia in Aulis," not remarkably well played,
passed over; — and the symphony of the storm,
in the midst of which the Priestess enters, upon
as fine but as trying a vocal burst as was ever
planned by composer for his prima donna. But
my ear waited and waited in vain. A sound,
at once harsh, tough, and feeble, ill represented
that splendid invocation of awe and terror; and,
but for seeing the distinctive bandeau and
wreath, and mystery of many veils (traditionally,
as the reader knows, copied from Milder), I
 THE "HULDIGUNG" IN 1840, 241

should never have separated the heroine of the

piece from the host of screaming satellites who
crowded round her, by any predominance of
tone, manner, or gesture. It was the very same
von Fassmann that I had journalised, and none
other ! a year worse in voice than she had been
in 1839, and not a day better in method than
when she dragged Weber's exquisite cantabiles
out of shape.
The opera was done with much care in stage
arrangements, and much liberality as to num-
bers and costume.# The Scythians danced

* The probability, as well as .liberality, of the German

stage arrangements struck me forcibly whenever I entered
a theatre. One of the most real presentments I ever saw
was the scene without the cathedral in the fourth act of
Schiller's " William Tell," where the booming of the bells,
and the measured thunder of artillery, and the flourishes
of wind-music, wafted past on the air, and then trodden
out by the sound of many feet, were given with a reality
which imposed upon the senses by its force — enhancing
the effect of that splendid scene. Modern drama, save
perhaps the tremendous interview between Thekla and
the soldier in " Wallenstein's Death," has for me nothing
more moving than the meeting of Joan of Arc and her
sisters, with her dogged, credulous father, who curses her
for a wicked sorceress. The acting of the play, as I saw
VOL. II. R
4
242 GLIMPSES OF BERLTN.

their ferocious measure in costumes well nigh

as savage as those of the tape-durs* who lorded
it in the pits of the French theatres during the
days of terror. The Furies, who, by a permis-
sible licence, are preternatiirally multiplied in
the scene of the vision of Orestes, were suffici-
ently frightful and ghastly. Nevertheless, in
the splenetic mood engendered by vexation and
want of sleep, I had something against them also.

it, was very bad ; the Maid of Orleans being personated

by a middle-aged woman, little more sylphid in figure than
our own Mrs. Glover: but the scene alluded to, as a scene,
excited and affected me deeply.
* " The Tape-durs" says the writer of M. Fleury's
recently-translated " Memoirs of the French Stage,"
" amused themselves by making a noise in the theatre ;
singing, or rather roaring, their patriotic songs to the
annoyance of all who were less boisterously inclined than
themselves. They had not acquired their title of Tape-
dur quite so early as the 10th of August, but they had
long laboured to deserve it. These janisaries of the
Revolution wore a peculiar livery: it consisted of wide
pantaloons and short waistcoats, with a strange kind of
cap, covered with fox-skin, and falling down over the
broad shoulders of the wearer; who, moreover, carried
about with him, as an auxiliary to this elegant costume, a
large knotted stick, which was styled a constitution"
 THE " HULDIGUNG " IN 1840. 243

They were too tangible, too prominent: instead

of being hid among enveloping shadows, with
a head or an arm at intervals more distinctly
evident — an effect entirely attainable, as many
a French ballet will testify, — they stood as
nakedly out as though they had been so many
men and women, applying their snakes to the
tormented dreamer very " deedily," as the
Hampshire folks have it, and as if they had been
good for his complaint. I would have forgiven
them this, however, or erased such a passage of
cavil from my journal, had they only satisfied
my ear, and sung in tune; but even this simple
excellence was denied rne. The chorus was
throughout false and coarse: perhaps, on the
principle of the white-linen madness of Tilbu-
rina's confidante, because their sovereign priestess
set them an example.
With her I could only have been satisfied
could I have been contented with posture-
making, in place of personation. It is true that
the graceful and statuesque foldings of her veil
changed with every moment to a new and more
effective arrangement, but this was done so
R 2
•244 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

obviously and anxiously as to convince me that

there lay Iphigenia's heart and treasure : and I
could not, for the sake of such drapery-work,
forgive defective musical intonation, and the
want of that impulse and geniality which, no
matter how it be manifested, must contribute
its share to every performance as distinguished
from an exercise. Those might be MiJder's
robings, but Milder's Greek fire was absent;
and the audience ended as it began the evening
— cold, and respectful, but unsympathising. It
was with an effort that I could remain to see
" the charm wound up."
It will serve no good purpose to dwell on the
rest of the performance, — on the antiquity of
Herr Bader's voice, and the unsuitability of his
figure for the part of Orestes. Herr Mantius,
as Pylades, delighted me by contrast; and the
sweetness of his voice struck me so welcomely
as to add another to the long list of assurances
that my last year's impressions of the Berlin
Opera were neither sarcastic nor uncharitable.
As I crept home to bed, more weary in mind
than in body, I made a covenant with myself
 THE "HU^DIGUNG" IN 1840. 245

never again to leave a certain pleasure for

an uncertain opera eighteen hours off, though
the name of Gluck, and the reputation of a
metropolis at high festival-tide, conspired to
beckon me.
Betimes in the next morning I went across
to the Exhibition to spend an hour, before visits
could be admissible, among the modern painters
of Berlin. The show was confessedly meagre
and inferior — indebted to French artists for
some of its cardinal attractions. But one pic-
ture, of sweet and delicate fancy, so haunted me
as to stand out like a bright spot in the not very
bright recollections of the public sights of those
two days. It was a very small work by Stein-
briick, which, perhaps, I relished all the more
from having admired the original sketch a day
or two before in 's album. The subject was
a little girl among elves. The vagrant child
has sailed away in a boat, not caring whither,
and the waters have floated her into one of
those deep woodland recesses where the stream,
overhung with trees, is yet more intimately
canopied by the large fan-like leaves of water-
R 3
246 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

plants, so thickly interlacing each other as

wholly to prohibit day from coming through,
save in a green-tempered light — the very at-
mosphere of Elf-land ! Thus entrapped, the
maiden is surrounded by the small creatures of
the place. One has leaped into the prow of
her shallop — another holds up a rosy shell
full of nectar-dew — while a band of yet more
graceful creatures, linked hand-in-hand, do
their part in arresting her progress, offering
her garlands, and gifts, and courtesies. Never
was encouragement for truancy so exquisitely
painted! The child of Earth is, however, not
wholly at ease with her playmates : she stands
upright in the midst of the band, half fearful,
half pleased. Her sober eye contradicts her
saucy lip; and she looks round her with a de-
mure and suspicious glance, as if she knew she
was only half worthy of, or only half believed
in, the earnest and pretty welcome arranged for
her greeting. The picture worthily illustrated
one of Tieck's exquisite legends; — and, like
the mermaid-music in Weber's " Oberon," or
ihe leading phrase in Mendelssohn's delicious
 THE "HULDIGUNG" IN 1840. 247

overture to " Melusine," haunts me to this day

with the remembrance of its airy grace and
fantastic sweetness.
If I gave the Germans credit for pre-emi-
nence in the fantastic vein in the morning, the
illuminations of the evening, incomplete as they
were — a rechauffe of preparations spoiled by
the rain of the preceding night, — riveted me
in the conviction that in some things they out-
do us in the picturesque. The pair of domes
belonging to the churches in the Gens d'Armes
Platz, which, with the Schauspiel-haus, make
such an effective architectural group from
whatever side contemplated, were surrounded
with rings of blue and crimson and yellow
light — less brilliant than the gas illuminations
which, with us, produce such strong contrasts
when relieved against the intense sky of night,
but of a more harmonious variety and sweet-
ness. The bronzes, again, at either extremity
of the Museum were, by some unseen contriv-
ance, so felicitously presented, that the figures
seemed balanced in air upon a field of light.
R 4
*248 GLIMPSES OF BERLIN.

I paused long to admire them. It was tanta-

lizing to be compelled to take up my staff and
return, just when the elements had begun
to show more clemency, and when every kind
voice was inviting me to remain for the
magnificent fete, the preparations for which in
the Opera House # had so cruelly traversed

* The accounts of this festivity furnish another proof

of that closer love of the picturesque on the part of the
Germans than we possess, and their more constant desire
to give Art its due place in all pageants and public cele-
brations, to which allusion has been already made. One
of the principal features at the ball was a series of tableaux
vivansy arranged by the most eminent painters of Berlin,
representing scenes and groups from the history of Bran-
denburg, beginning with the days of Frederic I., Burggrave
of Nuremburg (1417),and coming down to one of Frederic
the Great's Potsdam concerts, with a flute solo, performed
as in order due ; and Mara's nightingale air, " Mi paventi,"
executed by Mademoiselle Lowe. This representation,
described to me as got up with every conceivable splen-
dour, had been preluded by the performance of Gluck's
overture to " Armida," and a prologue spoken by Madame
Crelinger.
It ought to be added, that the spirit of this inauguration
Festival seems to have been worthily borne out by the
present King of Prussia's magnificent and wise patronage
of the men of literature, science, and art of his own coun-
 THE "HULDIGUNG" IN 1840. 249

my desire to see a work of Gluck's worthily

represented. But the temptation was not to
be yielded to; and I set forth to return to
Leipsic, through another night of bei-chaisen
and tobacco-smoke, gratified to have a pleasant
parting impression of a city which I fear I may
be thought to have visited in the humour of
or , rather than in that amiable and pla-
cable frame of mind which should distinguish
the fanatico, — or his love for " the concord of
sweet sounds" means nought, if Shakspeare
was a true poet.

try. Under such a reign there is every hope that musical

Berlin, ten years hence, will be far different from the Berlin
of 1839 and 1840, sketched by me. Every step taken
by the new government seems to be wise, liberal, — and
national.
 MUSIC AND MANNERS
IN

FRANCE.

PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.
 MUSIC AND MANNERS
IN

FRANCE,

PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

CHAPTER I.
FRENCH CRITICS. — THE JOURNALISTS.

Prominent Position of Music in Paris.—Writers on the Art.

— A dangerous Subject.—The Journalist in a Garret.—
The Journalist in a Palace. — M. Balzac. — M. Janin.—
Madame de Girardin.—M. Karr's humorous Account
of the Reading of her Comedy. — The Style of the
Journalists of Paris. — MADAME PREVOST'S BOOK,
by M. Janin. — Effects of Style upon' Criticism. —
The Honesty of the Journalists. — A true Story of
M. and L'Ecole Polytechnique. — Style and
Honesty brought to bear upon Music. — M. Berlioz.

THE writers upon Art in Paris are a subject

neither to be escaped from, nor handled easily.
While pointing out the characteristic features
of the musical world of the French, it is
254 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

impossible not to advert to the quantity of

words expended upon its cares and concerns by
the literary as well as the professional men of
the day. There is hardly a circle, be it ever so
grave, where the art is not discussed with a
fluency and a decision startling to an English-
man, who has become used, owing to the bad
habits of a century, to hearing Music mentioned
in intellectual society with apology and hesita-
tion. There is hardly a journalist addicted to
les belles lettres who does not give Music a turn
in the course of his month's labours, and vent
his pretty paragraphs, not merely in praise or
attack of Madame Thillon, the graceful and
coquettish little Englishwoman at the Opera
Comique, — or Mademoiselle Heinefetter's
chances of keeping her ground at L'Academie,
— not merely concerning the wild entrechats of
Mademoiselle Maywood, the American (who
should wear a branch of wild vine round her
head, or an Indian cincture of feathers, when
she dances, so national are her graces)—or the
majestic attitudes of Mademoiselle Theresa
Elssler, or the brilliant pantomime of her
 THE JOURNALISTS. 255

incomparable sister, — but in eulogy of the

grand names and immutable principles of
Gluck, Bach, and Palestrina.
But the necessity of alluding to those who in-
fluence public taste, in a sketch which refers as
much to the social position of Music as to its
intrinsic wealth or poverty for the time being,
does not make the task easier. Can one forget
that, after the publication of certain of the " Pic-
tures of the French," " The Grocer " wrote a
letter to M. Balzac, containing a spirited attack
on that gentleman, besides vindicating " Vesprit
epicier" under the charge of " fat, contented
ignorance" by him brought against it? — that
the figurantes^ raising their pretty voices with
shrill accord against M. Philibert Audebrand,
who had sketched a type of their class, entered
into a close confederacy that no piece of his,
were it tragedy, comedy, opera, melodrame, or
vaudeville, should ever again make its way to
the boards of the Parisian theatres ? What, then,
reasoning analogically, may not be apprehended
by a stranger—and one, therefore, at best more
imperfectly familiar with the world behind the
25G PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

curtain — who ventures to speak of the critical

world of Paris, — of the life, manners, and con-
versation of its members, as influencing the
progress and stability of Art?
The task would be hopeless, as well as un-
gracious, had not the class in question, partly
in jest, partly in earnest, described itself. To
begin with the Press. It is needless again to
point out how Journalism in Paris—> instead of
creeping into corners as with us, and using
every possible shift to get rid of responsibilities
and to disclaim -an identity which ought to
imply qualities at once solid and shining, in-
formation and promptitude — is like Wisdom,
and " crieth in the streets/' You may touch
it, taste it, handle it. You may meet it in a
minister's salon or at a duchess's private con-
cert ; you may hear it bargaining at the coulisses
with an audible "How much?" clinking in
money paid, and laughing at its no conscience
over a third bottle of champagne in every third
cafe along the Boulevards. " Vive la Bo-
heme ! " seems to be the motto of its life. You
will encounter the feuilletonist one year in all
 THE JOURNALISTS. 257

the slovenly misery of a room which, like the

cobbler's dwelling in the song,
. , . served for parlour, and kitchen, and hall!

breathing an atmosphere of tobacco and odours

yet less Sabaean, There he sits, knee-deep in
wood-ashes; otherwise only one quarter clad in
a wretchedly-worn dressing-gown tied about
his waist with a ragged silk handerchief, on his
head the ruins of a gay Greek cap whose faded
embroidery tells of some long-past liaison : as
foul, disputatious, and rudely-spoken a mauvais
sujet as ever took pen in hand to pierce a
reputation, or to spice a scene for the gross
public's digestion. Then, dirt is asserted as a
Spartan's self-denial, and a ragged coat as a
badge of incorruptibility. You will hear from him
the unflattering truth of art and manners. He
will tell you of such an actor's cupidity, or such
a painter's vanity; how such a danseuse was
compelled to fail at the Opera because M. le
Marquis un tel was unable to strike a bargain
with her: you will learn the precise sum that
expended in bringing out his own play,
and fete-mg all such guardians of the public
VOL. II. S
258 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

taste as will sell themselves for a piece of

silver and a morsel of bread. And you will
retire —if very young — from the hug of the
unwashed garret genius in a mingled state of
admiration at the honesty of the Parisian litte-
rateur, and suffocation with the evil odours (not
air) he breathes. Innocent visitor ! those foul
odours will have vanished before you return.
The honesty was gone long ago!
Come back in three little months, and you shall
find that the Journalist has exchanged " the
chamber in the wall" for the most magnificent
apartments of a superb hotel. Aladdin's ring
never worked greater wonders. There sits the
Power you left so turbulent, so unpurchaseable,
so greasy, so unshorn, — like Malvolio, "in his
branched velvet gown, having left Olivia sleep-
ing." A writing-table is beside him, but with
more bouquets than pages of manuscript upon
it. The Sevres cup which holds his coffee is
worth his month's revenue when you saw him
lasu Vive laBoheme! Your host is playing
the part of a man of pleasure, and must suit
his conversation to the company he keeps. Ask
 THE JOURNALISTS.

him for Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas,

and, playing with his diamond ring, he will tell
you of the fine esprit of Madame tine telle, —
of the exquisite marivaudage of " cette chere
comtesse" such another. The men you inquired
for were coarse, passe. Should your English
simplicity lead you to name Paul de Kock, he
draws up. You are too indelicate. Even De
Lamartine hardly escapes — he is so cold, so
pedantic, so pompous. Talk of either opera if
you are musical, and your enthusiasm shall be
quenched by a yawning complaint that Duprez
is already perruque ; has nothing of the tone of
good society, — that Rubini is tolerable in half
a song, — that Grisi has grown insufferably fat
and hoydenish, andTagiioni been sent to (where
is the French Coventry?) ever since she chose
to give brandy and train-oil breakfasts to the
Russian barbarians. A silver bell tinkles; and
though your host will say " Let her wait," you
are bowed out in the midst of such a shower of
fine words, — for silence is beyond the Journal-
ist's attainment, though he rise to the seventh
heaven of Fashion, — that, whether you laugh
s 2
260 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

or whether you believe, you are quite sure that

the magnificent and recherche personage you
have left cannot be your friend au sixieme of
the cheapest rue in the Faubourg !
Come back once more (when the leaves have
fallen), and you may, perhaps, find him re-
stored to his plainness of speech and a garret
again; the diamond ring gone, and the Sevres
cup left behind for some less demonstrative
successor !
I am not drawing an imaginary picture, but
describing what I have seen. Yet, lest any one
should think I have aped the tone of those whose
influence upon Art I would fain discuss, and
have " rouged Truth " in painting contrasts, I
can but point to the wonderful mass of words,
not without its kernel of thought as well as its
clothing of fancy, which M. Jules Janin has
poured forth : — now describing the sewers, the
abattoirs^ and the kennel-trades of Paris, with
a squalid and noisome force which bears in-
ternal evidence of intimate experience; — now
fluttering over the artificial delicacies of Mari-
vaux and Dorat (a grasp would destroy them),
 THE JOURNALISTS. 261

to bring their nuances into light, with as exqui-

site and fastidious a delicacy as if his hand were
familiar with nothing besides the lace ruffle and
the brilliant ring and the enamelled tabatiere
of theDamises and Philintes of the Regency.—
And in every line, however it be mystified, there
is personal confession as well as personal allusion.
I can but point to M. Balzac's fearful and forci-
ble novel, " Un grand Horn me de Province a
Paris: " — a piece of morbid anatomy, which
takes a double strangeness from M. Balzac's
subsequent adherence to the very journalism he
has there analysed. I can but point to Madame
Emilede Girardin's "L'Ecole desJournalistes,"
a comedy yet more incomprehensibly written
to stigmatize a class * to not the first ranks of
which its authoress belongs — and not written
anonymously : a comedy read, too, publicly to
the outraged guild, some of whose members
* One of the main incidents of this comedy is the
death of a veteran artist, who has been stung into suicide
by newspaper sarcasms. Another (in this, real scandal
was followed closely) is a quarrel raised between a public
man and his wife — the latter being taught by the jour-
nalists to be jealous of her own mother!
s 3
'262 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

had assuredly sat for their portraits. London

comedy has no such scenes as the confection of
the journal, which forms the first act of Madame
de Girardin's work ; Street or Square
no such gatherings as her reading party; and
our fashionable and artistic intelligence of the
year 1839 no such entry as the following ac-
count of the above, in " Les Guepes," by no
means to be omitted from a chapter of Illus-
trations of French Journalism : —
" It was the evening/' says M. Alphonse
Karr, " when ' The Murder of the Innocents'
was played at the Theatre de la Gaiete. Scarcely
a single writer charged by the journals to give
an account of theatrical representations was to
be seen in the theatre. The most influential
among the feuilletonists had received a letter
couched thus : — ' M. and Madame Emile de
Girardin request that M. < will do them
the honour of passing the evening of Tuesday', the
12th of November, with them, to hear the "School
for the Jouimalists" — Nine o'clock.' — In a
drawing-room hung with green, and decorated
ivith rich and elegant simplicity? were assem-
 THE JOURNALISTS. 263

bled MM. Hugo, De Balzac, Etienne de Jouy,

Lemercier, Ancelot, E. Sue, Emile Deschamps,
Malitourne, Roger de Beauvoir, De Custines,
Madame de Bawr, Madame Gay, Madame
Ancelot, Madame Menessier. Many women of
fashion — some clever, some pretty, — one both
— many distinguished artists, &c, were there.
But especially might be remarked, among the
company, all the monarchs of the feuilleton, with
M. Jules Janin, their master, at their head.
There, too, was represented ' The Murder of
the Innocents !'
" The Herod of the drama was not long in
appearing:—a young lady, at once finely and
firmly formed, like an antique Muse; her beau-
tiful features set in a frame of splendid fair
hair. She was dressed in white, and resembled,
at no great distance, the Velleda of M. de
Chateaubriand. She took her place, and began
to read a series of fine and clever verses, which
provoked in the minds of many the smile which
they checked ere it rose to the lips, — a satire
against the journalists. The first act finished
in the midst of applause. Madame de Girar-
s 4
264 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

din drank a glass of water; and I trembled.

The flower of our journalists were there; and,
while ices and confectionary were served to
them, 1 bethought me of the poisons of the
Borgias. But what were my feelings when I
perceived that almost every man had on his
back a white mark ! I remembered the missions
to the church of Les Petits Peres, in the time of
the Restoration. It was thus that the agents of
the police singled out in the church those trou-
blesome spirits who were poignarded on issu-
ing thence. These two remembrances crossed
each other, and I remained uncertain — not
whether the five-act comedy would have a sixth
act of tragedy, — that was past doubt; but
whether it would finish like < Bajazet,' when
the Sultana dismisses the hero whom her mutes
await at the door to strangle with her terrible
6
Sortez ! y — or like ' Lucrece Borgia,' when
the heroine bursts forth upon the banquet-guests
of her son Gennaro, with Q My lords! you are
all poisoned ! ' The reading, however, or rather
the execution, went on. Some of the gentle-
men, who knew by sight the gentlemen of the
 THE JOURNALISTS, 265

press, pointed them out to the people of fashion

who did not know them, and applied to each,
in his turn, the few lines which were read
while the victim was undergoing examination.
It was, I assure you, seriously embarrassing;
and I thought myself happy to have been
only a journalist of passage, and no more.
Keen sayings, charming verses, things epigram-
matic, true, and unjust, poured out of the
mouth of our Herod! There even came a
dramatic scene of a high order, beautiful and
very well written ; and (as Janin : declared in
his reply to Madame de Girardin) better de-
livered than any actress of the Theatre Fra^ais
could have delivered it. All this while, M.
Emile Deschamps was reiterating at every verse
what he always reiterates at such readings, —
6
Cha-ming! chd-ming ! ' * * *
"The reading was over: not so the martyrdom
of the journalists. Madame de Girardin was
* After this reading, the king of the feuilleton addressed
one of his most graceful and sprightly pieces of writing to
the lady, remonstrating against the unfairness and severity
of her portraiture, and asking her whether she had not
too much confined herself to the kitchen of journalism !
266 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

surrounded. Some cried, ' O the monsters !'

others, ' You have given them too much
wit; they have not as much as that!' — a plea-
sant hearing for the practitioners in presence!
Nevertheless, no one was strangled; no one
died of ' The School;' the white marks on the
backs of the party turned out but to be the
consequences of an ill-timed painting of the
doors, done by an awkward upholsterer. The
day after, no journalist was to be seen in his
coat. It was at the scourer's, and its owner in
a pea-jacket ! "
Vive la Boheme! Such a life of jugglery
and banter and self-exposure, joined with an
attempt to lead and to influence,— such a parti-
coloured, animated, gipsy existence, assuming
Paris to be the world, which it is to every
Frenchman,—has not only a charm and an ex-
citement, but also a poetry of its own, suited
to the wants of the time. The man who has
kept all sorts of company, from King Cophetua
down to the beggar-maid, runs a far better
chance of being able to amuse the mob who now
read, by his variety of illustration and fami-
 THE JOURNALISTS. 267

liarity of appeal, than the wit of the Mercure of

other days, who vibrated between the salon of
his elected GeofFrin or Lespinasse and the salon
of the Academy, and, having arranged his life
in accordance with his humours and appetites,
rarely ventured beyond the self-prescribed
orbit. The Bohemians of Paris (they have
taught me the name themselves) possess a
style shaped and coloured by the vicissitudes
they plunge into, — surprising by the inex-
haustibility of its elegant pleasantry, and by the
scintillations of a fancy whose faery-land, how-
ever, lies rather in the Palais Royal than
the Athenian wood or the Ardennes of the
true poet. The haunter of the cafes and spec*
tacles of Paris will again and again stumble
upon fragments of rhapsodical criticism, which,
but for this town modishness, as contradis-
tinguished from the air of the country, are
almost worthy of being compared with the
poetical extravaganzas of Christopher North ; or
snatches of sentimental romance which, of
their kind, are unparagoned. I know not where,
for style, incident, and (fantastically to speak)
268 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

perfume, a prettier type of modern Paris

could be found than in the following gossamer
fiction; the best paraphrase of which, however,
in our more muscular language, would be
almost like " a lubberly post-boy " in place of
the real Anne Page.

BY JULES JANIN.

" You have permitted to die, while I was

away, one of the most amiable women of
whom the trade of Paris could, by good right,
boast itself, — Madame Prevost, the florist of
the Palais Royal. Not far from the gloomy cor-
ridor which leads to the stage of the Theatre
Fran9ais, behind an enormous pillar, was
hidden in the stone, like a violet under a leaf,
the shop, or call it rather the parterre, of
Madame Prevost. A perennial parterre it was,
subject neither to Winter's cold nor Summer's
heat of the sun, nor dust, nor storm. A per-
petual spring inhabited that massive pillar ; —
the rose of every season^ the pale violet, the
modest anemone, the superb camellia, the fra-
 THE JOURNALISTS. 269

grant pink, the dahlia now become vulgar,

were more at home in its protecting shadow
than in any other place. On its square of four
feet the Parisian Flora emptied all the treasures
of her basket, from the orange-flower, that coronal
of queens, down to the humble daisy. Over
this fair garden presided and reigned an amiable
and benevolent woman, who had placed it, as
by enchantment, in the midst of the diamonds,
the paste, the new clothes, the stunted trees,
the abortive flowers of the Palais Royal, and its
vices, premature as its flowers. For most of the
persons who entered those splendid galleries,
—the man fresh from the provinces, who arrived
only yester-evening; the rapacious Englishman ;
the loitering grisette; — for all those idlers in
the sunshine who have eyes to see nothing, and
ears to hear as little, the'shop of Madame Prevost
had no existence, — she herself even had never
existed. Who, indeed, could stop to look at a
few gentle flowers, when Chevet, hard by, dis-
played his flaming lobsters ?
" But because it was so hidden, so little known,
so concealed as in its own fragrance, the shop
270 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

of Madame Prevost was only all the more pre-

cious to those frequenting it. It was (so to say)
the antechamber of all the loves of twenty ; it
was the rendezvous of all innocent passions, of
all permitted coquetries,—of all elegance taking
its fairest forms. The young lady — Parisian
in her youth and in her lady-hood—never
passed before that unobtrusive garden without
remembering, with a sigh, the first flower she
had placed in her bosom. At every hour of
the day, you were there offered, as your fancy
sought them, finished idyls -*- tender elegies —
eloquent poems; all ready made, and yet all
written on purpose : the only billets doitx which
a woman will never refuse. At your need, you
would have found at Madame Prevost's the
universal language so much sought for by the
philosophers. Thus, then, that amiable woman
reigned over all the ambitions of youth; and kept
in her delicate and ever-open hand the secret
of the sighs and the loves of all the world; and,
hidden as she was, was the most popular woman
of Paris, in the separate world of youth and
beauty. * * * She had been herself very
 THE JOURNALISTS, "271

beautiful; and one look at her faded coun-

tenance, shrouded among its laces, was sufficient
to inform you that she, too, had her own love-
story to tell. There was a veiled acuteness in
her glance : her smile was sweet and calm, but
it came rarely. She had all her life had a pas-
sion for flowers: not only did she cultivate
them with unequalled success, but no mortal
hand knew how to combine and arrange them
with such art and taste. She would make a
bouquet with as much earnestness as Cardillac
the jeweller, when he was showing one of his
chefs-d'oeuvre. When it was made, she would
keep it in readiness for her who was beautiful
enough to wear it; and if none such came that
day, Madame Prevost kept her bouquet for her-
self, and was contented. To ladies who passed
and purchased a nosegay by chance, she would
give what she had made by chance : to the hus-
band, who bought a bouquet for his wife as he
would have bought a doll for his child, she
cared not what she sold, — so well she knew that
it would neither be looked at by him who gave,
nor by her who was to wear it! She had wares
272 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

suitable for every age, for every position in life.

She could see, in an instant, what flower she
must employ to save a poor heart which was
going to ruin, — to reanimate a love which was
waning. * * # So far had she carried the
science of this emblematical language, that, in
her later years, she invented the most malicious
epigram ever made against the gentlemen and
ladies of the theatre. Taking a handful of
hay, and disguising it by a few flowers of
lively colours, she would make what she called
Q
her 'bouquets comiques' Good enough,' she
would say, ' to throw at the heads of those la-
dies and*gentlemen. What! profane real flowers
by casting them at such beings ! Abuse the
rose ! — degrade the camellia ! —pour forth my
poor treasures to wither, in return for a roulade,
a burst, a tirade ? No, my ladies and gentle-
men, I will have no part in such profanations.
You shall have some hay,— and, as the proverb
says, the useful and the agreeable combined!9
And, in fact, nothing was so amusing as to see
her composing her bouquets comiques of hay,
luccrn, cress, and a few coarse flowers bought
 THE JOURNALISTS. 273

at the Halle: when they were made, she would

cry laughingly, ' Only look at my shower of
flowers !'
" I t was not every one whom this excellent
woman would admit to her acquaintance — I
will not say her intimacy. Her parterre, it is
true, was open to all; but there the common
right ended. You entered, you made a purchase,
you asked her advice, which she never refused;
but then you gave up your place, not to new
comers, but to the new comer, for her shop only
held one single person. Madame Prevost did
not like to part with herflowersin public. She
said that the choice of a bouquet is already a
mystery, and that to treat flowers like a com-
mon present was to take away their perfume.
' Do not talk to me,' she would add, * of those
coarse men who buy nosegays for their mis-
tresses as they would melons for their table ! —
people who stop at the corner of the street at a
fruit-merchant's shop, thrust their red noses
into one melon after another, handle one, pinch
it, bargain for it, and carry it off in triumph in
their hot hands ! Fair and good — they under-
VOL. II. T
274 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

stand their business; but let them come here to

paw and to pull about myflowers— I would not
even sell them a bunch of thorns ! And then,
do you not see yonder foolish being, who
wanders along the trottoir, bouquet in hand, as
if he said to his neighbours, " Look at me in my
nankeen pantaloons and velvet waistcoat: it is
I who am paying court to Madame , who
lives at No. 20. a Ventresol" ' When Madame
Prevost was in this humour, she was charming.
Her black eye lighted up, and she would smile;
and in both eye and smile was a certain ridicule,
from which no one would have escaped, if there
had not been behind that, grace, esprit, and a
tender heart, which had compassion upon every
weakness, even that of vanity. # * #
" Little by little, — owing to my reserve,
my prudence, and my awkwardness, and by
only buying bouquets on the fete days of
Saint Anne, Saint Mary, and Saint Louis, — I
was taken into the confidence of Madame
Prevost, and into her back shop. This was
nothing less than her laboratory, — a sort of
reserved garden, where the rarest plants were
 THE JOURNALISTS. "275

jealously tended. There reigned and lived their

mistress — there abandoned herself to her melan-
choly study of the human heart, there composed
her master-pieces of a day — what do I say ? —
of an hour, which were to bloom in ephemeral
triumph in the delicate hands or on the fair bo-
soms of the loveliest beings in Paris. Into this
sanctuary, where few men were seen, entered
familiarly for many years the only person who
had a right to be there, — Redoute, the van
Dyck of our gardens, and the companion of
their fairest flowers. They presented themselves
to him as the Three Goddesses presented them-
selves to Paris. To look at that gross shapeless
hand, and that coarse, shrewd, good-humoured
head of his, you could hardly believe that
he was that Redouts who in all his life never
crumpled a rose-leaf, and could have made the
bed of Sybaris without an accident. Redoute
was naturally the friend of Madame Prevost.
* * I nevertheless made good my footing; and,
after some first moments of jealousy, Redoute
adopted me, and I was installed in this sanc-
tuary forbidden to all the world, where no one
T 2
t>76 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

could see me — happier and prouder of my

post than if I had gained the much-coveted
honour of sitting beside Madame Chevet at
her desk ! This sanctuary overlooked the shop
by means of a window. Once there, I could
see, and I have seen, many a little drama, begun
in a sprightly mood, to end fearfully. I have
been present at many a whimsical or painful
comedy: I have learned many a secret I shall
never tell — many a treason no one would
believe. Had I not retired in time from this
dangerous study, I too should have become a
misanthrope, — have conceived a hatred for the
world and its crimes, so daintily masqueraded !
How many a time has Madame Prevost said to
me, by her finger on her lips, ' Hush ! you are
not to listen: do as Redoute does, and pretend
you are admiring my flowers !'
"One day I was alone in this sanctum (Re-
doute was gone to the King's garden at Neuilly
to pay his devotions to some flower or other he
had christened with a barbarous Latin name),
when my hand happened to fall upon a small
book, bound in green, which had the appear-
 THE JOURNALISTS. 277

ance of an account-book. I opened it without

thinking. What was my astonishment, I may
say terror, to find that I had fallen into the
midst of the most secret history of Parisian
life ! A fearful and touching history of faith-
lessness, and falsehood, and betrayal; but also
of devotion, passion, and fidelity. It was there
that Madame Prevost entered day by day (as
in a ledger) the names of those who or-
dered flowers from her, with a 'To be sent to
Madame , Rue .' Such was the
book. A man's name, and written, opposite to
it, the name and the residence of a woman:
and yet — will you believe me ? — never did
one of M. Balzac's romances, even in his best
days, when the harvest of his brain and heart
was the richest, present an interest equal to
those simple names ! A person sends a modest
bouquet of violets to one who accepts themr;
the violet becomes a rose; then every day some
new flower is added; and then every day some
flower taken away; till, at last, the two names
no longer are coupled. Did you but know the
i 3
 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

short life of those grandes passions; as eternal —

as the roses!
" Turn another page—let me read on. To-
day the sender has ceased to offer his remem-
brance to its object: but, at the moment when
one bouquet dwindles, another is seen arising
on the horizon. Through such dim and flower-
shaded paths you may trace the history of Love
in Paris ! Strange, too, how names are con-
nected by this link of flowers, the casual meet-
ing of which you would have thought impos-
sible ! Strange the chains which are in turns
broken, mended, destroyed !—what bouquets
sent and returned ! —what a singular and incre-
dible mixture of gallant adventures and fatal
events ! Here is the bouquet which she wore
the day her lover was killed in a duel; and the
bouquet was not the lover's! I know now
where the flower came from, Coralie, which
was in your hair that night, and which you said
you had gathered in your father's garden ! —
Louisa, my poor child ! I understand the his-
tory of the withered blossom beside your pillow
at the foot of the crucifix. — Here is one who
 THE JOURNALISTS. 279

has received a'rose; soon after, an orange-flower

for her wedding: there is one happy being, at
least! Alas! hard by, is a coronal of ama-
ranths for the young husband to throw upon
his tvife's tomb ! — Such were the contents of
that fearful book. * # *
" So absorbed was I in its perusal, that I did
not hear the entrance of Madame Prevost, who
returned laden with the fragrant treasures the
gardens had given her. ' Ah !9 cried she,
seeing her open book before me, 'what have
you done ?' — and she took it out of my hands
with an air of displeasure and sadness. I
knew what she would say, and asked pardon.
' You are sufficiently punished/ she said, gently:
< though you have only read the first pages of
the book, you have seen enough to guess at the
weakness and treachery which the world con-
tains. You have seen what this world, so bril-
liant, so polished, so serene, is made of: you
have seen what corruption my flowers cover.
* # # But the fault is mine rather than yours.
1 have not only allowed you to possess yourself
of my secret, but the secret also of poor Parisian
T 4
280 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

society. Give me your honour, that no name

you have seen written in my book shall pass
your lips/
" She had done; and, closing her book with
care, betook herself to her daily task. It was
now almost four o'clock — the hour when the
Parisian lady, till then indifferent and languid,
begins to remember that the fete of the evening
expects her, I profited that day by my in-
voluntary indiscretion. Madame Prevost for-
got to say to me c Go, now !' as she usually
did; and it chanced, therefore, that I became
a witness of, and almost an actor in, a little
drama, which I may tell you without blame,
because it is not written in her book.
" It began by the entrance of a tall, fresh-
coloured man, of forty or thereabouts, — an
unfinished dandy, who, to be a complete one,
would have been obliged to retrace a few
years, so awkwardly did he wear his hair, his
gloves, and his cane: otherwise he was well
enough for the Parisian of the provinces that
he was. ' You wil] take,' he said, without
preamble, wa bouquet to Madame Melcy, Rue
 THE JOURNALISTS.

-, and Hotel ; ' and he threw down

abruptly two five-franc pieces on the counter.
" Madame Prevost followed him with her eye
till he had disappeared in the court of the Palais
Royal. < He shall have one for his money/
she said; and of two bunches of common flowers,
thrown carelessly into her basket, she made a
bouquet; adding, byway of a finish, an enormous
tuberose with large leaves. ' Why, you will
poison the poor lady !' I said to her. < I will
preserve her from the pursuit of an impertinent
fool,' was the answer. ' Do not be uneasy :
if she have only nerves (I will not say a heart),
she will throw the bouquet out of the window,
and deny herself to the man who has sent it.
What a clown ! to attack Madame de Melcy,
so pale and so delicate as she is ! Take this
bouquet/ she said to a commissioner, ' with
the gentleman's card' (he had left it) < to Ma-
dame de Melcy's/ The Mercury departed,
holding the nosegay in his two hands. He had
stuck the card in the midst of the tuberose:
the name upon it was surmounted by the equi-
vocal coronet of a count or a baron.
2&2 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

" < The stupid man !' exclaimed Madame

Prevost. While she was speaking, a younger
gentleman, at least twenty-nine years of age,
came in. He was fat, and had a sufficiently
knowing eye; but the rest of his person was so
gross, that the glance was lost on so massive a
face. Evidently he had been better brought up
than the other. He was a shade more tolerable
than a Parisian of the provinces ; — he was one
of the provincials of Paris, who, by residing
there, have caught, if not elegance and grace,
at least scepticism and esprit. < Madame,' he
said to Madame Prevost, ' you will send a bou-
quet for this evening to Madame de Melcy.'
" When he was gone, ' Here/ said she, ' I
shall be neuter — I will neither do him good
nor harm. Madame de Melcy shall have a
bouquet like every body else; — a few fine
dahlias, and some flowers with no scent, that
she may wear in her hand, or place in her belt.
He may have done wrong to send a bouquet to
the lady, but I shall not concern myself in the
matter — let him take care of himself/ As
soon said as done. Madame Prevost made up
 THE JOURNALISTS.

a second bouquet, less coarse, less fragrant, and

much less ridiculous than the first.
" This second bouquet despatched, I was on
the point of going; when there crept into the
shop a handsome youth of eighteen, as trembling
and as timid — positively blushing even—as if
he had been entering the presence of the lady
of his vows. ' Madame,' said he, half in-
audible, ' would you have the goodness to send
some flowers, without mentioning from whom
they come, to Madame de Melcy?' And he
offered Madame Prevost a louis-d'or. Little
astonished at this third arrival, she gave him
back seventeen francs out of his lords; and
when he was gone, ' For him/ she said, ' I
will do something. Young, handsome, timid,
and modest, not wishing she should know where
her flowers come from; — I will protect him.'
And while she spoke, she took almost by chance
out of her basket a few very simple field-flowers,
of soft colours and gentle scent, and put together
a nosegay one might have gathered in a meadow
in June. A fancy seized her, and she placed in
the midst a sprig of thyme in flower. I watched
2S4 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES,

her as she went on, ' It is impossible/ she

said, in explanation, ' that Madame de Melcy
should not choose this among the three bou-
quets. The first, with its coarse red flowers, is
only fit for a butcher's wife; if a lady were to
wear it, she would look as if she had been
drinking: the second is too colourless for a pale
and languid creature like Madame de Melcy:
this, on the contrary, looks lively and modest,
like no other one — it will be worn this evening.
Are you not on my side ? Do not you, too,
patronise this young man?' she added, with a
smile.
" ' To-morrow I will,' was my answer.
" < And what are you doing to-night?'
" c Going to the Opera.'
" < Much good you will do. Will you have
a bouquet — I mean a real bouquet this time
— to offer, on our behalf, to Mademoiselle
Taglioni ?'
" It was, in fact, the night when that Marvel of
the Air—so light in her step that the very birds
might envy her—took leave of us. We were about
to lose, if not for ever, at least for a long time,
 THE JOURNALISTS.

that admirable creature. All Paris was at the

Opera, to see once more its darling idol. The
theatre was full to overflowing. I was early in
my place, in a box to the left au seconde, think-
ing of the great loss which was about to befall
us, when the door of the box next to mine opened
suddenly, and two ladies, one very young, the
other not very old, placed themselves in front;
three gentlemen behind them, — the eldest on
the next seats, the youngest on the bench at
the back. Judge of my amazement when I
recognised the three men I had seen at Madame
Prevost's!—the tall, confident, noisy gentleman;
the other, fat, and quiet, and worldly-wise; and
the boy who nursed his good fortune in secret.
The middle-aged lady carried in her hand the
huge red nosegay: her young companion adorned
her flexible and graceful figure with the field-
flowers ; they seemed made for her, and she
for them, — her bloom was as pale as if it had
been the reflection of the daisies : from time to
time she seemed to inhale the faint odour of the
thyme. I could, with all my heart, have ac-
quainted the protege of Madame Prevost with
*2$6 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

the whole of his good fortune . . . but the young-

enthusiast was not in a state to hear anything.
" The spectacle began. What am I to say of
Taglioni ? — she was admirable ; and yet, that
evening, I was equally divided betwixt the god-
dess and Madame de Melcy, — betwixt Earth
and Heaven; the one was so graceful, but the
other was so fair! # # The three cavaliers
behind her were all of them occupied, each ac-
cording to his nature. The tall one applauded
outrageously, and cried c Bravo ! ' — the fat one
profited by the noise his neighbour kept up, to
murmur, in a low voice, into her ear some of
those words which have too much meaning or
not meaning enough, — the youth, absorbed in
his silent contemplation, could not, in his
seventh heaven, have told you who was with
him. Of the three, the first was stupid, the
second too clever, the third inexperienced,—he
had therefore the advantage. * * *
" At last, Mademoiselle Taglioni had danced
— with what exquisite elegance I need not tell
you — the admirable last step of La Sylphide.
The house rose like one person ; hands, feet.
 THE JOURNALISTS. 287

voices, and hearts were united in one general

applause : not a single lady kept that night in
her hand, or on her heart, the bouquet she
wore. There was an avalanche of flowers at the
feet of the enchantress in the twinkling of an
eye. # # Madame de Melcy was perhaps the
only one who had kept her modest bouquet
in her ceinture, till, unluckily for himself, the
youngest cavalier, till then motionless and dumb,
— whether he was awakened by that universal
enthusiasm, or whether he wished to show that
he had seen the ballet, — suddenly began like
the rest to make a noise and to applaud. Then
the young beauty drew hastily her bouquet
from her belt: once more aware of its odour,
she detached between her lips the sprig of
thyme, and then launched her precious nosegay
at the feet of Taglioni. Hardly, however, was
it on the stage ere she repented, and, turning to
the gentlemen behind her with a pretty air of
entreaty, ' Which of you,' said she, ' will bring
me back my nosegay ?'
" Bring back a nosegay out of such a moun-
tain of flowers ! When the three heard the
*288 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

orders of their Empress, you should have seen

the difference of their attitudes ! The tall man
answered, with a laugh, ' that it would be as
easy to find a drop of water in the sea;' the
stout one called the lady ' capricieusej in an
insinuating tone; as for the youth—he was gone,
like one possessed, to hasten on the stage. The
tall man gave the lady her shawl, the fat one
his arm: I left my box to offer my adieus and
last compliments to Mademoiselle Taglioni.
" In those days, one could get upon the stage
of the Opera without an ivory ticket, if known
to the door-keeper. There stood my youth,
panting and impatient, besieging the door in
vain. It opened for me and for him. The
adorable Taglioni was still on the stage, in the
midst of her pile of flowers; at once so happy
and so sad, that she seemed to wish in the same
instant to laugh and to cry. She gave us her
two small hands while saying adieu, when on a
sudden she drew back, startled by the sight of my
young lover burying himself among her flowers,
to recover the bouquet of his mistress. How
should one be able to perform such a feat when
 THE JOURNALISTS. 289

only eighteen? I explained, in a low voice, to

Mademoiselle Taglioni what was the matter:
she made a little flight backwards, as if to say,
' Search carefully/
" When she had withdrawn, I found, with little
difficulty, among the heap of camellias and
roses, my charming little nosegay of field flowers.
No wonder : I had seen Madame Prevost ar-
range it flower by flower; I had admired it all
the evening on the white bosom of its wearer.
It was the only one of its kind. I stooped and
took possession of it. ' Sir/ I said to the
unlucky young man, ' have you found the
bouquet you were seeking?'
" ' Alas ! sir,' was his answer, ' I am out of
my senses ! I do not even know what I am
seeking !' and was again beginning his hopeless
quest; when over the stage poured a swarm
of inferior danseuses, who were come to
share the trophies of Taglioni. In another
moment we were in the street together,
4
Shall I come to your assistance to-morrow ? '
said I.
" He looked at me in astonishment, as if I
VOL. II. u
290 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

had been as mad as himself. Nevertheless, as

I had the appearance of being sure of what I
was about, he eagerly accepted this unexpected
assistance, and agreed to come to me the next
day.
" He was exact to the instant. At nine o'clock
he was with me, dressed for a ball. ' Well,'
said he, sadly, ' any news of our bouquet ? '
" ' None,' said I ; ' and it would not in any
case have availed you to have taken back flowers
withered, and which had been offered at the
feet of another woman. You are in love, and
of course you are as superstitious as a heathen.
Just put this broken sprig of thyme in your
button-hole; it will do you no harm,— at least
it has done me good. Remember, however, I
do not give — I only lend it you.'
" He looked at me so dolefully, that I could
have laughed in his face; but he took it (your
lover will cling to a blade of grass), and we
went together to the ball of Madame de Melcy,
to whom he was to present me. The two rivals
were already there, — they had sent thither all
manner of rich and rare flower-homages. The
 THE JOURNALISTS. 291

rooms filled slowly. The pretty widow was

silent and thoughtful. He introduced me, and
she was receiving me with languid indifference,
when on a sudden her countenance became
animated, and she smiled again.
" ' You are late this evening, Arthur/ she
said to the youth.—
" That day month they were married. He
wore in his button-hole my sprig of thyme.
4
Now that my talisman has taken effect,' said I,
' you must give it me back this evening/
" 6 Give back what ? ' said Madame de Melcy.
'' ' My sprig of thyme,' said Arthur; € it
belongs to him, and he lent it me a month ago:'
— and as he gave it back, he got up a sigh.
" ' Pray,' said Madame, ' let him keep it.'
" € And what will you give me, Madame?'
" ' Nothing for nothing,' was her answer, in
a low voice, and she showed me (she had
worn it on her bosom) the other half of the
sprig of thyme, which she had kept. It was
now quite dry.
" I went back to Madame Prevost, and told
her my history.
u 2
292 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

" c Good/— said she, ' I did not expect as

much as this. And you have seen Madame de
Melcy since?'
" ' S h e is gone to her estate in Normandy/
was my answer,

" ' 'Mid the thyme and the dew,5

sang Madame Prevost, gently.

" But, alas ! she is no more: — so excellent, so
indulgent, so intelligent from the heart ! — she
is gone ; and there is no more poetry in the rose,
nor scent in the violet; and flowers are again
nothing better than things to wear and throw
away. Who is there — now that she is dead — to
make us a whole drama out of a sprig of thyme ?
And her book—what think you has become of it ?
She burned it herself, four and twenty hours
before her death ; watching with a tranquil eye
the last spark of the fire which consumed so
many ill-kept oaths, so many prayers so often
heard3 so many promises cast to the winds.
With Madame Prevost are buried all the mys-
teries of the human heart she had discovered,
•—all that history of the world of Paris which I
 THE JOURNALISTS- 293

should take good care not to disclose if even

I had not passed my word to her."

That the real Madame Prevost was about as

like thegoodfaery here represented as the stage
shepherdess is to the real Mopsa, may be an
ungracious thing to state at a moment when the
reader, it is to be hoped, has been pleased by
the elegant little romance in which she has
figured.
But the cosmetic style which has made her
what she seems is not.without its influences.
The power of making something out of no-
thing, — of building reveries, and histories, and
sentiments upon facts or feelings one half
imaginary, — is pernicious enough in its effects
when brought to bear upon criticism by those
who are earnest in their aims and purposes and
deeply instructed in their subject, and who, in
the fulness of their enthusiasm, make what is
possible and what is impossible alike their minis-
ters. But this is not exactly the case with the
Bohemians of Paris, if all tales — if their own
u 3
294 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

tales — be true. Their brilliant sleight of hand,

it is to be feared, is at the command of the
highest bidder, and employed alike on what they
understand and what they do not understand.
We English do not dwell in an Elysium of
Spartan incorruptibility; but there are few in-
stances in our journalism (none, I would boldly
say, among writers of common respectability)
parallel to the case of the brilliant feuilletonist
who has attacked in " L e " the identical
person and principle that he was at the same
time defending in " La ;"—who will bestow
some of his most exquisitely turned and sincere
and convincing sentences publicly to entreat
the fascinating Mademoiselle to devote
her talents entirely to comedy, — while she has
in her desk a private letter, no less exquisitely
turned and sincere and convincing, to en-
courage her to an exclusive devotion to Mel-
pomene. English morals — to speak without
reserve — make it impossible to illustrate the
strange traffic of opinions for favours which is
a part of the trade, in all its ramifications.
Suffice it to say, that the old droits du seigneur
 THE JOURNALISTS. 295

hardly exacted more than the privileges which

some of these graceful and delicate analysts of
Drama and Music and Dancing have arrogated
for themselves — and obtained. But the value
they set upon their own expressed judgments,
apart from the purchase of sensual indulgences,
may be gathered from an occurrence which was
related to me on authority not to be disputed,
and which is not the only anecdote of the kind
that could be told.
Once upon a time—I am not going to specify
date, name, or journal — there appeared, in no
obscure print, a violent attack upon L'Ecole
Poly technique. The attack was by M. ,a
well known and popular matador of the press ;
who, while he walks on the line which sepa-
rates sense from nonsense, as often falls by
accident into a poetical vein, as into the high
bombastic fustian which befits a Tilburina or
Whiskerandos.* M. 's personality and abuse,

* As a specimen of the latter, I cannot withhold a pas-

sage from 2ifeuilleton on the Romeo and Juliet Symphony
by M. Berlioz. Of the Scherzo of Queen Mab,—" This is
indeed faery music," says the writer; " we could fancy we
u 4
296 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

then, was a thing not to be swallowed without a

wry face by the school. The fiery young spirits
rose en masse to resent the insult. A court
martial was called. The journalist was to be
dealt with. As the whole school could not go,
however, six youths were selected by lot for
this interesting service. To the house of the
unlucky feuilletonist they marched — stern and
civil — the last guests a knowing Scapin would
care to turn loose upon his master. M. ,
accordingly, was " not at home." They must
see him, however, they declared. When could

hear the dew-drops falling into the urns of the flowers,

where the little sylphs paint each other's noses with the
yellow dust of the stamina. We are entirely transported
into a world of fantasy. The toad shakes its silver bell;
the spider with its long paws runs along the mullein leaves ;
the lazy elves unstring their necklaces of pearl, which
they throw into the crystal lake—the fall tracing sonorous
circles which spread wider and wider." Enough of M. 's
criticism : it is but another gloss upon the text furnished
by his more distinguished brother artist, — the reader of
Madame Prevost's book,—when, after writing in the most
magniloquent phrases concerning the selfsame symphony,
he said to a friend, " C'est charmant! charmant! mais,
enfin, je nc comprtnds rien de la musique!"
 THE JOURNALISTS. 297

they see him ? After ten minutes' parley and

running backwards and forwards, Scapin found
he had been mistaken,— was sorry to have kept
them waiting; and, since no better could be, they
were admitted to the presence of the great man
of the press. One had need be sustained by a
strong sense of duty, when confronting such a
half-dozen as ranged themselves silently in the
journalist's appartement; but M. had only
a good face to put upon the matter, and, with
many bows and smiles, begged to know what
had procured him the distinguished honour of
such a visit.
" You are M. ?" said the spokesman.
M. • has no particular respect for his name ;
but people dare only deny their identity in the
third act of a comedy. " I am."
" And we are from L'Ecole Polytechnique."
Another deferential bow. " That, I am aware,
gentlemen, by your dress. May I ask to what I
am indebted for such a compliment?'5
" It is soon told: we are here on simple
business. You are the author of the article
in ' Le ,' concerning our establishment ?"
298 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

There was no denying this. — It had been

1
M. s painful duty; indeed, journalists were
called upon to do violence to their feelings, in
no respect more stringently than when compelled
to acquaint the public with unpleasant truths.
" Truths! " echoed the spokesman. " M. ,
you know, every one knows, that what you have
said is a lie !"
" Messieurs ! "
" A lie, M. ! and here is a note which we
have written, contradicting your assertions. Sir,
you will sign it, and print it as your own in your
ne^t paper. This is the object of our visit/'
And a note of the most unqualified and abject
apology was "put in," as the law phrase runs.
M. was horror-struck. Afflicted as he
was to have caused such a brave and honourable
body of gentlemen the slightest uneasiness, they
must feel that their anger was unreasonable.
It was an impossibility — an outrage to his con-
science. What he had written had cost him
already — Heaven knows what it had not cost
him ! but his duty to the public had demanded
the sacrifice.
 THE JOURNALISTS- 299

" You will sign that paper," exclaimed the

sestett, in a louder and more insolent tone.
" Impossible ! " was the reply of M. , with
a more courteous bow.
" Then, sir/' said the first spokesman, step-
ping forward, "but one course is left to us.
You will give me satisfaction."
" My dear sir ! — you must permit me — the
thing is unheard of! — I have written from a
sense of duty, and, as I have said, not to dis-
turb any one; and, as to demanding satisfaction,
I have not been insulted. It is a totally pro-
fessional affair,"
" Well, then," said the second of the band,
advancing and filliping the dismayed feuille-
tonist on the face with his glove, " are you in-
sulted now? Will you now sign that paper? or
give M. satisfaction ? Another ' NoJ and
you shall be accountable to me as well as to
him, — and so on. Here are six of us ! "
" Really, gentlemen, any thing so unheard
of, any thing so peremptory as this, 1 have
never met with in the course of my arduous
labours. The situation you place me in
300 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

the earnest wish I have not to disoblige. • . . and

as the best of us are liable to deception "
" In short, M. , you will sign the paper
and publish it." And M. signed.
" Now, then," said the first speaker with a
contemptuous smile, " we have attained our ob-
ject. We do not wish to ruin you, M. ,
knowing that you write for bread ; and we can-
not degrade you further. We will not insist
upon your publishing this document, but shall
keep it in the archives of L'Ecole as your own
testimony to the value of your own word. Good
morning, M. ."

So much for the light infantry of Criticism in

Paris ! With a command of words so extensive,
and a knowledge, not of principles merely, but
even of terms, hanging so loosely about them,
it is not wonderful that, to a large portion of
their gayly sounding analyses, and picturesque
rhapsodies, might be applied the Quaker's re-
proof to the soldier in the stage coach, —
u
Verily, friend, thy drum is a type of thee; it
 THE JOURNALISTS. 301

soundeth by reason of its emptiness." It is not

wonderful that they should feel most at home
when their subject, by its remote vagueness, is
one to embroider with glorious language, rather
than to dissect with keen thought. Hence, the
imaginative and obscure and gigantic works
of M. Berlioz, before which deep theoretical
musicians hesitate, as too bizarre and familiar,
too strangely compounded of what is the tritest
in melody and what is most daring in construc-
tion *, offer no difficulties to these confident
andfloridrhapsodists. But the influences which
this gentleman's compositions and criticism ex-
ercise in Paris are at once too extraordinary

* I must not be understood here as presuming to offer

an opinion of my own on these much-canvassed compo-
sitions. In spite of reiterated attempts, the opportunity
has never fallen in my way which could justify me in de-
scribing the impressions I had received from them. They
are here mentioned solely to illustrate the confidence
with which the very works demanding the widest know-
ledge and the most passionless impartiality for their right
appreciation are laid hold upon by those possessing little
positive learning,and only "pretty words" (to borrow John
Wesley's endorsement of some of the apologetic letters of
that termagant, his wife) in place of clear ideas.
302 PARISIAN AUTHORITIES.

and too characteristic of the effect of Manners

upon Music to be dismissed at the close of a
chapter. In the mean while, to place the au-
thority of the journalists in its true light, it is
enough to say that were their powers of com-
prehension indeed raised to the poetical heights
they fancy they occupy when admiring the
works of M. Berlioz, they would not satirize
the worthies of Art for the sake of any younger
successor, — remembering that, however high
their idol is enthroned, the topmost step of a
staircase stands not self-balanced, save by mi-
racle; and that their own creed and manner
«
of life bind them to believe in no marvels, save
such as are wrought by the charlatanry of a
Robert Macaire !

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

LONDON:
Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE,
New-Street Square.