"I am listening here in Rome; Over Alps a voice is sweeping: "Let others shout, Other poets praise my land here; I am sadly setting out, Praying, "God forgive her grandeur !'" Nor less authoritative is the same earnest and truthinspired voice, in its protest against the inhumanity that ignores or wilfully repudiates the claims of other nations: "I confess that I dream of the day when an English statesman shall arise with a heart too large for England, having courage, in the face of his countrymen, to assert of some suggestive policy, 'This is good for your trade; this is necessary for your domination: but it will vex a people hard by; it will hurt a people farther off; it will profit nothing to the general humanity; therefore away with it! It is not for you or me.' When a British minister dares so to speak, and when a British public applauds him speaking, then shall the nation be so glorious, that her praise, instead of exploding from within, from loud civic mouths, shall come to her from without, as all worthy praise must, from the alliances she has fostered, and from the populations she has saved.” * Voltaire compared the English to beer-"the bottom dregs, the top froth, and the middle excellent." The first and last class, for a considerable period, alone reported us; low abuse and superficial sneers being their legitimate expression, and an inability to understand a people, sympathize with an unaccustomed life, or rise above selfish considerations, their normal defects; whereof the last three years have given memorable proof. 'Instead of the vague title of Annus Mirabilis which Dryden bestowed upon a memorable year in English history, these might more appropriately be called, as far as our country is concerned, the Test Years. Not only have they proved the patriotism, the resources, and the character of the people * Elizabeth Browning. and their institutions, but they have applied specific tests, the result of which has been essentially to modify the convictions and sentiments of individuals. Any thinking man who will review his opinions, cannot fail to be astonished at the changes in his estimate of certain persons and things, which have taken place since the war for the Union began. Thousands, for instance, who entertained a certain reverence for the leading British journal, simply as such, without any familiarity therewith, having become acquainted with the Times in consequence of its gratuitous discussion of our national affairs, and perceiving its disingenuous, perverse, inimical spirit toward their country in the hour of calamity; and, of their own personal knowledge, proving its wanton falsehoods, have been enlightened so fully, that henceforth the mechanical resources and intellectual appliances of that famous newspaper weigh as nothing against the infamy that attends a discovered quack.* In countless hearts and minds on this continent, pleasant and fond illusions in regard to English character, government, and sentiment are forever dispelled, first by the injustice of the official, and then by the uncandid and inimical tone of the literary organs of the British people. There lies before us, as we write, a private letter from an American scholar and gentleman, who, on the score of lineage as well as culture and character, claims respect for his deliberate views. What he says in the frank confidence of private correspondence, indicates, without exaggeration, the change which has come over the noblest in the land: 'Let John Bull beware. War or no war, he has made an enduring enemy of us. I am startled to hear myself say this, but England is henceforth to me only historical-the home of our Shak * Cobden thus characterizes the Times with reference to its treatment of a home question and native statesmen: "Here we have, in a compendious form, an exhibition of those qualities of mind which characterize the editorial management of the Times-of that arrogant self-complacency, that logical incoherence, and that moral bewilderment which a too long career of impunity and irresponsibility could alone engender." speare, and Milton, and Wordsworth; for all her best writers are ours by necessity and privilege of language: but farewell the especial sympathy I have felt in her political, social, and total well-being. With her present exhibition and promulgation of jealousy and selfishness and heartlessness and ungentlemanly meanness, she has cut me loose from the sweet and cordial and reverent ties that have kept her so long to me a second fatherland.'' CHAPTER VIII. NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. KALM; MISS BREMER; GUROWSKI, AND OTHERS; GERMAN WRITERS: HUMBOLDT; SAXE WEIMAR; VON RAUMER; PRINCE MAXIMILIAN VON WEID; LIEBER; SCHULTZ ; OTHER GERMAN WRITERS: GRUND; RUPPIUS; SEATSFIELD; KOHL; TALVI; SCHAFF. In In the North of Europe, since the beginning of the pres ent century, French literature has been the chief medium of current information in regard to the rest of the world. Within the last twenty years the English language has become a fashionable accomplishment; and, with the wonderful development of German literature, books of science and travel, in that language, have furnished the other northern races with no small part of their ideas about America. Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, many of our best authors have been translated; and the Journal de St. Petersbourg, L'Abeille du Nord, Vedemosti (Bedemoctu), during the civil war, have, by the accuracy of their facts and the justness of their reasoning, evidenced a remarkably clear understanding of the struggle, its origin, aim, and consequences. A pleasant book of "Impressions" during a tour in the United States, by Lakieren, a Russian, was published in that language in 1859; and a Swedish writer-Siljestroem *-gave * "The Educational Institutions of the United States, their Character and Organization," translated from the Swedish by Frederica Rowan, London,. to his countrymen an able description and exposition of the American system of popular education, which is justly esteemed for its fulness and accuracy; while the great work of Rafn on "Northern Antiquities" identifies the profound researches of a Danish scholar with the dawn of American history. It is refreshing alike to the senses and the soul, to turn from the painfully exciting story of those early adventurers on this continent, whose object was conquest and personal aggrandizement, whose careers, though signalized often by heroism and sagacity, were fraught with bloodshed, not only in conflicts with the savages, but in quarrels among their own followers and rivals,' to the peaceful journeys and voyagesattended, indeed, with exposure and privation-of those who sought the woods and waters of the New World chiefly to discover their marvels and enjoy and record them. We find in all the desirable reports of explorers, whether men of war, diplomacy, or religion, more or less of that observation, and sometimes of that love of nature, so instinctively active when a new scene of grandeur or beauty is revealed to human perception. But these casual indications of either a scientific or sympathetic interest in the physical resources of the country are but the episodes in expeditions, whose leaders were too hardy or unenlightened to follow these attractions, for their own sake, with zeal and exclusiveness. Other and less innocent objects absorbed their minds; and it is chiefly among the missionaries that we find any glowing recognition of the charms of the untracked wilderness, the mysterious streams, and the brilliant skies, which they strove to consecrate to humanity by erecting, amid and beneath them, the Cross, which should hallow the flag that proclaimed their acquisition to a distant but ambitious monarch. To the naturalist, America has ever abounded in peculiar interest; and 1853. Other Swedish works on America are C. D. Arfevedson's "Travels,” (1838); Gustaf Unonceis' "Recollections of a Residence of Seventeen Years in the United States " (1862-23). Munck Rieder, a Norwegian, wrote a work on his return from the United States in 1849--chiefly statistical. |