and they certainly are for microscopes to be when structures that are perplexing are to used for instruction or amusement; but if be resolved, and things that are invisible are we wish to make great discoveries, to unfold to be seen. The microscope is but an inthe secrets yet hid in the cells of plants and strument, and its deepest revelations are to animals, we must not grudge a diamond to be reached only by the inspirations of a reveal them. If Sir James South, and Mr. prophet. Cooper, and others, have given a couple of thousand pounds for a refracting telescope, and if Lord Rosse expended £15,000 on a reflecting one, why may not other philosophers open their purse, if they have one, and other noblemen sacrifice some of their houshold jewels, to resolve the microscopic structures of the lower world,-to unravel mysteries most interesting to man, and secrets which the Almighty must have intended that he should know?

ART. VII.-Memoirs of Frederick Perthes; or, Literary, Religious, and Political Life in Germany, from 1789 to 1843. From the German of CLEMENT THEODORE PERTHES, Professor of Law in the University of Bonn. 2 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh, Thomas Constable & Co. 1856.

There is another imperfection inseparable from the compound microscope, which merits THE German people, having in various ways our consideration. Whatever defects may been deprived of the fruits which they had, exist in the material, or form, or position of reasonably or unreasonably, expected from its object-glasses, causing the rays to stray, the overthrow of their great oppressor, Naas Sir Isaac Newton calls it, from the true poleon, at Waterloo, have, during the last path, whether producing difference of density, twenty years, betaken themselves to the or uncorrected colour, or incoincident im- publication of Memoirs of various kinds, rich ages, from spherical aberration, or bad cen- in the reminiscences of the great age which tering, the effects are increased in proportion has just passed away. Among these, the to the distance of the image from the object-memoirs of Arndt, Herr von Gagern, Stromglass. From this cause the length of the beck, Varnhagen von Ense, Henry Steffens, microscope is limited, and the only remedy the Baron von Stein, and others, are fresh in for the evil is to shorten the instrument, and the recollection of all who take any interest produce the requisite power, by achromatic in German matters beyond the usual amount eye-glasses, single, double, or triple. We of gossip about Goethe, Schiller, Tieck, Hershall thus be led to make the microscope der, and Immanuel Kant, which now belongs shorter and shorter, till we descend to trip-to the literary furniture of every man of edulets, doublets, and single lenses, in which the cation even in remote Scotland. But works power of straying is reduced to its minimum. of this class have hitherto been kept almost Pure gems which, from their expense, we exclusively within the circle of professedly hesitated to use in the compound instrument, German scholars. The habitual exclusivenow come to our aid, and may be easily ness of the English mind, the well-known commanded for single lenses or doublets. narrowness of our political sympathies, our Fluids, too, which may yet be obtained, great ignorance of continental history in all with a refractive power equal, if not superior matters where we are not expressly called to the diamond, may, in the future, replace on to perform a prominent part, have our gems; and if, when such instruments no doubt contributed their full share to preare in our hands, we place the objects in a vent the enlargement of this circle. fluid filling the space between them and the part of the blame also unquestionably beobject-glass, if we illuminate them with longs to the extreme unwieldiness and porhomogeneous light, and prepare the observ- tentous prosiness in which some German ing eye, by washing its cornea, and giving to memoir-writers are apt to indulge; while, the fluid which lubricates it a true geometri- in other cases, the jealous eye of the censorcal figure, we may hope that the future of ship watching over the penman, seems to the microscope may transcend the present, have deprived his composition of that bold and that splendid revelations yet await the freedom and racy vigour, without which pophilosophical observer. The time must come litical memoirs, especially to an English when vast discoveries must be the trophies reader, lose more than half their value. of observers thoroughly acquainted with all Now, however, we are glad to see an attempt the refinements of optical science. A pro- has been made by one of our most enterfound knowledge of the phenomena of diffrac-prising Scottish publishers to present to tion, of the aberration, dispersion, and ab- British readers one of those rich records of sorption of light, and of the fallacies of vision, the public life of Germany during the last are absolutely necessary in an observer, fifty years, in a shape that cannot fail to re

But

many, where the public mind is not so prepossessed by party interests and occupations, the sphere of an active bookseller must be greatly more extended. With such a hightoned ideal did Perthes commence his bookselling business in Hamburgh; and his whole career is a most instructive proof of how a human life, commenced with a noble con

"I

commend the work to every intelligent Eng-in the intellectual and moral elevation of the lishman. The memoirs of the famous community to which he belonged. He had publisher, Frederick Perthes, are not merely observed that "where a bookseller possessed the biography of a most vigorous and widely an educated taste, works of a high class were sympathetic German man, living in an age in demand; and that where, on the other unusually rich in stimulating and elevating hand, the bookseller was a man of low taste moments, but they contain, as the title bears, and immoral character, a licentious and a record of "the literary, religious, and poli- worthless literature had a wide circulation." tical life of Germany," more truly and more That this must be the case in every country, comprehensively than any work that, to our to a certain extent, seems plain; but in Gerknowledge, has appeared in that country since the peace. The other memoirs that we mentioned were mainly of a political and literary interest; here the religious element every where marches with an equal right alongside of the other two; and the experience of the "inner life" is unfolded with a faithfulness proportioned to the importance which it must always hold in the eyes of ception, and followed out with a heroic enthose who do not estimate the significance of terprise and with an invincible perseverance, history by the mere breadth of flaunting ban- can never remain barren of notable results. ners, the noise of Lancaster guns, and the Men, generally, do not achieve great things, pomp of many-coloured processions. We simply because they have never greatly cannot, indeed, name a book so crammed willed to achieve them. Perthes soon found with the most substantial materials for a out what Nature had meant him for; and thorough knowledge of Germany, as this life was determined to give himself fair play, of the great Hamburgh publisher; and we and to be and to do nothing by halves. cannot but regard it as a striking fact of more am more than ever persuaded," says he, than accidental coincidence, that the most "that my destiny is an active masculine rich record of the life of the most book-mak career; that I am a man born to turn my ing people in the world for these "paper own wheel, and that of others with energy." times," (as Perthes himself used to phrase Never did physician, with stethoscope in it,) should have been made by a bookseller. hand, make a more correct diagnosis of his The subject of the present memoir was patient's case, than Perthes, at the age of born at Rudolstadt, in Thuringia, in the year twenty-six, here makes of his own character 1772. At the age of fifteen, he was trans- and career. Many people in the world must ferred from his native green hills, and bick- be content to turn their own wheel, and that ering mountain streams, to the narrow streets in a very intermittent and lame sort of a and the dark counting-houses of Leipzig; and way sometimes; others endeavour chiefly there served his apprenticeship to the book to turn the wheels of others; but this very trade under a bibliopolic gentleman named delicate task being undertaken often without Böhme. Like other young apprentices in sufficient knowledge of their own capacity or that disciplinarian age, he learned, of course, their neighbours' wants, ends in discomfinot only to handle his tools, but to endure ture; and some unfortunates have no wheel hardness of all kinds; and shewed the stuff at all to turn-they merely sit. But Perof which he was made by falling desperately thes achieved the highest thing; both to work in love with his master's daughter, and then, energetically himself, and to set every other when he found that matters were anything person with whom he came in contact, into but clear in that quarter, "sitting up half useful activity. This is a truly kingly habit the night, and seeking to allay the storm in of mind, which if Julius Cæsar and Napoleon his bosom by the arduous study of Kant's Buonaparte possessed in a high degree, cerPhilosophy, and Cicero de Officiis." In the tainly this North German seller of books year 1793, he was transferred to the first possessed in no inferior degree. His faculty scene of his future labours, Hamburgh. of drawing all that was good and great within Here he acted at first as an assistant to one the sphere of his action, into quick sympathy Hoffmann, a bookseller, till, in the year and living harmony with himself, is truly 1796, he was in a condition to establish a wonderful. Some people bristle all round business of his own; and this he did, not with points of repulsion; and have only one merely for the purpose of making money, small narrow slit open for the admission of and achieving an independence, but with a other human natures into their own. Perdeep feeling of the important part which a thes, like Goethe, was quite the reverse of bookseller of the present day may perform this. He sent out eager feelers on all sides

for the reception of whatever was good, and | There is a universal panting, longing, grasping in any wise enjoyable, into the Pantheon of after some point d'appui. Much is already clearhis heart, rejecting only with a tyrannical ed away; I instance only this, the end of the resoluteness, all intercourse with every form of sneakishness and cowardice. Thus his person became a magnet round which all that was most notable in the then political, religious, and literary life of Germany was attracted; and there are few names of any note in the world of German action or of books, which do not occur very often in the most intimate and significant relationship to this large-hearted and heroic publisher.

paper times. Twenty years more of such coquetdevelopment, such hawking of literary luxury, ting with literature, such playing at intellectual and we, too, should have passed through a siècle litéraire still more insipid than that of our neighbours. Are not our youth now persuaded that the country does not exist to serve knowledge, but knowledge to serve the country? How many are now convinced that strength and virtue grow other soil! Do not men regard the love and care out of moral principles, and are the fruit of no of their own houses as more important than a That he was large-hearted and heroic, not widely diffused love capable of no intensity? Are only as a tradesman-(for shopkeeping also they not now disposed to honour a hearty and has its heroism)-but as a citizen, the whole even passionate love of country, rather than a tenor of the rich political correspondence of cold cosmopolitanism? And even as regards rethis work proclaims. His letters form, in- ligion, although through the long-standing abuse deed, a running commentary on the history have struck their roots deep in our soil, still the of theological tenets, infidelity and indifference of his country, for the age in which he lived, want of religion is increasingly felt. I grant you and, taken along with the words of his cor- that a miracle must be wrought before the counrespondents, will form a storehouse of poli- try or the people can again have a faith; but tical intelligence for the future historian. then many, many lament this, and would pray As a specimen of the stout German spirit without ceasing to revive the religion of the nathat sustained him during the worst days of tion. Ought we not to feel ourselves great,' he Prussian degradation and French prestige, times?'" added, just because we are born in such evil we select the following:

·

"It was with bitter vexation and deep sorrow This is in the genuine old Roman vein. that he witnessed the stolid apathy which, since "Ought we not to feel ourselves happy just the peace of Luneville and the Diet of Ratisbon, because we are born in such evil times?" To had fallen upon men who were regarded as the read this is easy; but to say it and to do it pride of Germany, and from which neither the at the needful moment, is the business of a unutterable sufferings of their native land, nor the hero. After the peace of Tilsit, when Mülaudacity of their tormentors, could arouse them. ler the historian, and other influential GerHe was indignant at the appearance of Goethe's mans accepted places of honour in the newEugenia at this season. 'Our hearts must and should be filled with shame, burning shame, at ly-created kingdom of Westphalia, and thus the dismemberment of our fatherland,' he writes gave the sanction of their name to the fato Jacobi in 1804; but what are our noblest vourite idea of Napoleon-the merging of about? Instead of keeping alive their shame, Germany in France, Perthes kept aloof, and and striving to gather strength, and wrath, and in his own sphere as a German publisher, courage to resist the oppressor, they take refuge organized a periodical for the purpose of from their feelings in works of art!' A new keeping alive the embers of patriotism, and hope of deliverance dawned, when, in the summer of 1805, the report of an alliance between preparing fuel for the flames of liberation He was enEngland, Russia, and Austria was propagated. that must one day burst out. But Perthes saw with dismay the political leaders couraged to do this, not only by the essenof Germany array themselves on the side of Na- tial manliness of his political character, but poleon against England, and strive to work upon by his lofty idea of the intellectual vocation the minds of the people through the leading jour of the German people in the great world of nals. Our journalists,' he writes, take up the modern literature and speculation. cause of the tyrant and the "Grande Nation,” either from meanness, stupidity, fear, or for gold. indicates a vivid percepfollowing passage I need name only Woltmann, Archenholz, Voss, tion of the strong and weak points of the and Buchholz;' and in a letter to Müller of the German character:25th of August, he gives vent to his stifled feelings. Your letter distressed me, by the deep "We Germans have never been wanting in emotions that it stirred in my soul. If such men great moral and intellectual pursuits of a general grow faint-hearted-what then? I am not so nature; we have always devoted ourselves to hopeless; my courage, indeed, has grown of late. knowledge for its own sake. Has not Germany, True, I am young, and not well read in history. for many years been the general Academy of From the past you form conclusions as to the Sciences for all Europe? All that was discoverpresent, and so despond! But has not every ed or expounded, felt or thought in or out of people, till consolidated into unity, been ready to receive a leader, a deliverer, a saviour? This readiness is, I think, very observable among us.

The

Germany, was at once generalized by the Germans, and elaborated into a form which might further the progress of humanity. In so far as

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Memoirs of Frederick Perthes.

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we Germans had any vitality, we had it not for | He knew also that men without office ourselves alone, but for Europe. We have every often the most useful to men in office, and he right to take credit to ourselves for intellectual had learned by experience that "the voice of wealth and for depth of character, but, alas! we

to act as well as to think."

have never known how to use our treasures. We an honest man is a mighty power." Such, in have never given a general education, or a gen- fact, was the confidence reposed in him by all eral business aptitude to our people; nor have we parties, that in December of the same eventever founded those national institutions which ful year, he was deputed to represent the would have a tendency to keep alive the feeling Hanse towns at the Diet of Frankfort, where of national honour, and which might preserve us the affairs of Germany were to be deliberated from the aggressions of foreign enemies. That on; and here it was that he entered into that which we think and have thought can only be Baron Von Stein, which was so congenial to real and influential, when we shall have learned more intimate relation with the stout-hearted his own character. In May 1814, when the In the eventful year of 1813, Perthes Hamburghers had finally got rid of "that played an active part in the events which wild fellow, Davoust," Perthes returned to commenced in the temporary expulsion of his home and to his business; and there, in the French from Hamburgh, and its speedy the years following the second Peace of re-occupation by Davoust. The French, on Paris, digested with much more wisdom re-entering the town, proclaimed a general than most of his ardent contemporaries, the pardon; but ten names were excepted from transition from the poetical Kaiser of patrithe grace, and among these was that of otic imagination, to the prosaic BUND of Perthes. To escape a rebel's death by the diplomatic reality. He was a man of large hangman's hands, he was obliged to flee; and liberal views in all things, but by no his premises and dwelling-house were taken means possessed with the then fashionable possession of by the Government, and his rage for pure Constitutionalism, according property was sequestrated. He had not a to French or English models. "We GerBut the "mental mans," wrote he to a friend, "are so little penny in his pocket. sprightliness" which Niebuhr so much ad- acquainted with public affairs, and have so mired, and the buoyancy of a faith which little talent and training for public business, rode lightly over the flood-tide of misfor- that a strong and firmly established monartune, never deserted him for a moment. chical government will still be necessary for "The man who has nothing to repent of," us." For Liberalism, as it was commonly thus at that time he wrote to a friend, "has understood by those who imported that also nothing to complain of. I have acted word from France, he had no respect; for as in the presence of God. I have often true liberality, he always said, is that which risked my life, and why should I be dispir- is the fruit of love,-and love is not necesited because I have lost my fortune? God's sarily stronger, but often weaker in the will be done." God was a tower of strength minds of those who are most impatient of to him as to King David in his affliction; restraint, and most possessed by the mere and he in his turn became a tower of idea of freedom. In the year 1822, Perthes, being now "Your indomitable strength to other men. spirit, wrote the Duke of Augustenburg, fifty years of age, made a transfer of the "fills me with admiration. Your belief in bookselling business in Hamburg to his a higher world is a great matter; it is this partner Besser, and removed his own resibelief alone which is the source of your dence to Gotha, where he henceforward destrength." Niebuhr felt convinced that voted himself exclusively to that publishPerthes had a clear call from Providence in ing business which has connected his name those days to leave his private station, and so inseparably with some of the most devote himself as a public man to the ser- valuable departments of the German liter"Would to God," ature of the present century. Those who vice of his country. wrote the great historian, "that you would know how much Gotha and other German now step forth as a statesman to our father- towns, have been metamorphosed under the land! I call to every man who has love, to influence of railways, gas-lights, and hotels tell me how you can in future be brought for English tourists, during the last thirty into the administration of Germany." But, years, will read with pleasure the followthough clear-sighted, and gifted with a saga- ing description of the place, as it was when city and strength that might have made him it first became the residence of the distina great statesman, Perthes preferred work- guished publisher :ing for his country as a simple citizen in the sphere of life to which he had been bred. He knew that men, like trees when the roots have struck deep, will not bear transplanting,

"Together with the rest of Germany, Gotha was dragged into the whirlpool consequent upon the first French Revolution: but however strong

ly the period, dating from Luneville to the second long pipe over a glass of beer, and even the wopeace of Paris, had convulsed the whole country, mankind of the more cultivated families made it had not been able to overcome the tenacity afternoon visits to each other's spinning rooms. inherent in German character and outward cir- The theatre consisted of a large room in a mill, cumstance. In many a small state the good old where all classes, indifferently, might, for a times had passed over unchanged into a new zwanziger, gain admission to the benches, from epoch, and in the Duchy of Gotha when Perthes whence to contemplate the strolling players. Any first settled there in 1822, both town and coun- expensive outlay in eating and drinking was retry afforded a picture of manners, customs, and served for extraordinary occasions; the rooms regulations, which carried one back to the years were, according to the old fashion, small and low, immediately preceding the Revolution. Every the furniture, generally of deal, was at the very evening the streets of one-storied houses were fill- utmost of the cherry-wood of the district, and, in ed with cattle returning from pasture, and by short, unostentatious comfort and scrupulous night the only sound heard in them was the loud cleanliness everywhere prevailed. In trade and horn of the watchman and his pious caution,- business too, the old customs still endured. The dif'Put out fire, and put out light, that no evil ferent guilds were assiduous in preventing those, chance to-night, and praise we God the Lord.' who were not members of them from procuring The streets were lively only on the weekly market- employment; the saddler might not make a portdays, when the the robust form of Thuringian manteau, the locksmith was forbidden to interfere peasants, with their gaily dressed, healthy look- with his brother of the anvil, and the tailors were ing wives and daughters, selling corn and wood, sure to institute a crusade against any needlebutter, flax, fruit, and other country and forest women who might venture to overstep the limits produce, filled the square in front of the old town- of their peculiar calling; the right of brewing hall, on whose roof a greedy-looking wooden was confined to certain firms, which, according head opened its mouth wide at the striking of to rule and precedent, supplied the citizens with the hour, as if uncertain whether to speak or a beverage, thin and sour enough. All interbite. There were a multitude of strange relics course with the small villages around was carried of a past time which met the stanger at every on by means of a walking post, who indulged in step, though the inhabitants of the place hardly a perpetual warfare with the post-office authoriremarked them. Day by day a little man, in a ties of Thurn and Taxis. The Thuringian forest blue coat with shining buttons, mounted on a was only traversed by the Tambach and Schmalpony smaller still, might be seen wending his kald roads, and though the great highway way amid the confusion of heavily laden wag-through Gotha from Leipsic to Frankfurt was gons, which were wont to rest at night in Gotha kept alive all the year by countless waggons, it on their way from Frankfurt to Leipsic. This did not yet boast a mail; and when, in the Sepfunctionary was the Weimar escort, the terror tember of 1825, the first Diligence entered Gotha, of the waggoners, looking out for any defaulters among them, who had not paid the tax formerly levied in return for an armed escort, which served as protection against the assaults of knightly highwaymen. Long as this custom had become obsolete the fee was still rigidly exacted, as well as the town-toll, from waggons which were not permitted to go through but only around it. Not less notable to the youth of the place were In this old-fashioned petty metropolis of a the giant forms of the guard, with their wide petty principality, and in the midst of a sowhite cloaks down to their heels, their great ciety where a numerous local noblesse, with swords at their side, their heavy boots and clat- little property and much leisure, played a tering spurs, though horses they had none. much more important part than to a vigorous Peaceful, friendly, obliging people they were, carpenters, locksmiths, joiners, who, while follow- independent man would be at all agreeable, ing their respective trades, were accustomed to did Perthes commence that grand publishing figure as warriors, so many times a month for a career, the importance of which has been moderate compensation. There were only about felt in every corner of educated Europe, six or eight uniforms for the whole body, which from Athens to Edinburgh. What a highwere passed on from one to the other. Any one minded and spirited publisher can do for the crossing the town at mid-day, was sure to meet intellectual advancement of his country, has an elder scholar, followed by ten or twelve small