poem and the music contained; but although this conversation was extremely interesting to Constance, as proceeding from a man who possessed a superior mind, and displayed greater intellectual powers than any one she had known, we fear it might appear rather dull and rhapsodical to the general reader, so shall forbear inflicting them with its recital; and, as Christian had well nigh, if not all the conversation to himself, the reader will not need to be convinced that as it was rather long, it formed a tolerably learned and voluminous disquisition on the affinities of Goethe and the genius of Beethoven. This was at length interrupted by the step of the Money-changer, and in another moment he re-entered the apartment.

'Oh yes," she timidly replied.

"And you will soon be friends?" he inquired. "The best of friends, and cousins," answered Christian, rapidly and joyously: "for Constance has consented to become my pupil, and I have promised to be a most indulgent, though assiduous master. Is it not so, Constance ?"

"I am afraid that the time of the master will be too often spent in rebuke and reproof of his pupil, which one so thoughtless as myself will deserve," replied she.

دو

"But a truce to scholarship for the present,' interposed Johann: "let it be reserved for a future opportunity; the present calls for the promised relation of your father's life, and the cause of your present visit to Frankfort."

Oh yes, my father!" exclaimed Constance. "He will not refuse you, though he ungallantly complied not with my wish to hear it."

"It was not that, Constance," said Christian, objurgatively.

"Tush! my child," added the moneychanger, good-humouredly; "let your cousin proceed, and without interruption too, chatterbox!"

His daughter smiled. "I will strive to keep my tongue prisoner till you give me leave to free it; once at liberty, not even your parental authority shall again coerce it."

"Nor silence it," laughed her father.

"It is now exactly thirty years since, as you will remember," began Christian, "when, as I have heard my father say, three brothers separated at the grave of their father, each to begin in the Great World the tough battle that must be fought by all-that battle in which, where one

survives, thousands perish, cut down by the scythe of Death's chariot-wheel! their aspirations, their hopes crushed in the very moment when they are most soaring and buoyant. Those three brothers were named Johann, Wilhelm, and Leopold Von Holz. We are now in the spring of 1809: thus it was beneath one of the early suns of the year 1779, that over the cold marble which enclosed their father's clay, these three brothers, with clasped hands and upraised eyes, parted, perhaps never to see each other more!-neither of them could tell : the secret lay hid in the womb of the mighty Future!

"Leopold, the youngest of the brothers, holding in sovereign contempt-dislike, if you will -all ideas of commerce which swayed the minds of his brothers, had early determined to join the ranks of his countrymen during the then unsettled state of Germany; and he accordingly proceeded to carry out his wish, and entered as a common soldier in one of the corps of Joseph the Second's Landsknechts.'

"To relate the events-as connected with my father's history-which followed, it will be necessary to dip a little into material parts of the history of Germany antecedent to that period.

"On the death of the emperor, Francis the First, in 1765 (two years after the celebrated treaty of Hubertsburg), his son Joseph, who had been in 1764 proclaimed and crowned King of the Romans, succeeded him in the empire, under the name of Joseph the Second. Almost immediately after his accession, his real nature became visible. Before, always submitting with assumed deference and pretended filial obedience to the Empress-Queen his mother: his sole thought then was the realization of the early dreams of his vast ambition. With Russia and Prussia he joined in the dismemberment of Poland! This most barbarous and violent partition has been justly considered to be the first real breach in the modern political system of Europe.

"The Courts of London, Paris, Stockholm, and Copenhagen remonstrated against the usurpations of the King of Prussia; but they went no further. Words, empty words! not deeds! Such and so much was the real solicitude about what has been so often the pretext of bloody and disastrous wars for selfish purposes -wars doubly bloody and inhuman, because they were unjust-the much-vaunted and frequently boasted balance of Europe! Oh, could not the hand of one, even one of these powerful nations have been stretched to arrest the progress of the tyrant-to stem the tide of wrong and oppression? No! Cruelty lifted his red arm high in the lurid air, and there was none to stop its descent on the head of that doomed country! Poland was compelled and driven at the sword's point to submit, and the partition was ratified by their diet, held under the bribes and threats of the three powers. England, France, Sweden, and Denmark were guiltless of this wrong and devastation; but when their united power would have awed the usurpers from their blood-stained ca

reer, and it was not accorded, were they the less guilty, as silent spectators of the injuries heaped on that ill-fated land, than if they had joined with the ranks that laid it waste? Germany, my own land, I do not reproach thee; but I feel more than words can do justice to thoughtsshamed that thou wert one among these butchers! Oh, heaven! to think that thou must see the grasping Russian and crafty Prussian worry, like two wolves, the poor sheep, that was not a sufficient meal for either--this unhappy country! and yet rush on thyself to stain thy swords in its blood, to ravish away at the point of those swords that which the law of God and Nature made by right another's! But it availed thee little; for, as the strongest ever overcometh the weakest, so did Russia seize as his prey the most valuable possessions of Poland! What could Germany or Prussia do? They were forced to suffer it, and eschew their displeasure and discontent as best they might. But Poland's dying curse is still ringing in the ears of Europe! Her vexed Spirit is ever wandering in mid air, seeking a resting-place, yet finding none!

would grant whatever my father wished. My father frankly and boldly requested a commission. What the Emperor thought of this request he knew not, but he could perceive by the slight frown which overshadowed his face for an instant, that he was not only taken by surprise, but also displeased. Nothing, however, was said at the time; but the Emperor proved that his promise was sacred, and that he had not forgotten it.

"My father has repeatedly narrated to me the scene which occurred when he was raised from the ranks to the dignity of an officer by commission. It was a month subsequent to his having saved the Emperor's life, and at a time when my father began to despair of the Emperor's performing his promise. The Kaiser had commanded a general review of all his troops on the plains of Vienna, in the outskirts of the city. A finer and more imposing spectacle was never before witnessed. In slowly passing the lines, he halted abruptly, for he had dismounted previously, in front of my father, 'Leopold Der Graf!' My father gave the usual military salute-Advance!' My father stepped forward two paces, and then stopped. We have not forgotten your request to us the other day, when heaven sent you opportunely to preserve us from an early death. We have inquired, too, Der Graf, of your officers as to your general conduct: they all unite in commending you, and in considering you deserve the honour we are about to confer on you. We seek not to pierce the mystery-if there be any, as they affirm-of your life; but, in consideration of the service rendered to us, we hereby raise you to the rank of lieutenant; and may the same energy displayed in his coun try's welfare by the soldier be equalled by that of the officer.'

"Sire! I cannot speak what I feel; but it shall-you shall never have occasion to repent your condescension.'

"The Emperor looked graciously, and turning to his aid-de-camp, said-' You will see, Monsieur, the brevêt made out at once.'

"Joseph then paid a visit incognito, with few attendants, to Rome, and the principal courts of Italy, and had a personal interview with his Prussian Majesty, all with the view to the extension of a pacific understanding: but this latter visit did not prevent hostilities from almost directly afterwards being commenced between Austria and Prussia, on account of the succession to the Electorate of Bavaria. I, myself, candidly own, that the Austrian claims on this occasion were ill-grounded, as were the efforts to support them unsuccessful. It was shortly after this time that my father joined the ranks of the Emperor's army. From a motive which I confess I can easily divine, he had concealed his true name, and assumed one that he deemed would not create notice, and remind him of his family honour, in painful contrast with his present position. It was doubtless the same motive which caused him to keep aloof from his ccmrades. He did not join in their amusements; he did not make one among their revels. Al- "My father naturally expected to find his ways dressed with extreme care, attentive to brother officers-once his superiors, then his his duties, and respectful in his demeanour to his equals-distant and reserved; but not a trace superior officers, he soon attracted their atten- of hauteur could he discover. They welcomed tion, and this created at first a sort of ill-feeling him as if he had been of the noblest family in and envy among his comrades. Somehow or Germany, and with a cordiality and warmth another strange whispers got afloat that he was of manner that evinced plainly the high estimaa disguised noble, who had fled from his state tion in which he had been held. To follow my through some political revolution; and as this father's fortunes will be to follow those of the became very generally believed, they began to House of Austria. The next step of the Emtreat him with deference and respect, and al-peror was the fruitless demand on the Dutch for ways called him Der Graf. This name became at last so well known, that my father adopted it gladly; and even when he attained distinction, still retained it. It was not until quite lately that he resumed his right name; and this will account, my uncle, for the unsuccessful issue of your endeavour to trace him.

"It was my father's good fortune to save the life of the Emperor shortly after this; and as a testimony of his gratitude, the monarch said he

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Immediately, Sire,' was the reply.

the free navigation of the Scheldt, contrary to the faith of treaties. To do him justice, however, Joseph endeavoured in many ways to promote the happiness of his subjects. He granted a most liberal toleration of Čreeds, suppressed numerous religious Orders that allowed an admixture of both sexes, which he calculated was pernicious to the well-being of society-certainly useless; and in 1783, by an especial edict, abolished the last remains of hereditary servi

tude and villeinage; thus, to his praise, destroy- | tual defence and assistance against the effects of ing the sole existing record of the age of bar- the French Revolution and the preservation of barity and uncivilization. All modes of torture peace in Germany. After much resolution, and he abolished in his hereditary dominions, and in the early stage of his preparations for war, removed or lightened many of the grievances Leopold died of a pleuritic fever, on the 1st of under which the peasants and lower class la- March, 1792. It was not till the July following boured. Altogether this unhappy king was a that his son Francis was elected to the imperial very remarkable man. Mixing with his subjects diadem: but the policies of the court of Vienna with an ease and affability which are very rarely remained unchanged. With the warlike dispomet with in persons of his high station-court- sition of the late monarch, however, the impeing the society, and loving the conversation of rial cities whose commerce was thus exposed to men of genius, and always solicitous to acquire devastation, and the elector of Saxony, a friend and cultivate knowledge, he was, notwithstand- to peace, did not coincide; and the newly-elected ing this, far from fortunate. In the epitaph | Emperor underwent many difficulties in endeawhich he dictated for himself-Hic jacet vouring to accomplish his plan. The new parJosephus Secundus, in omnibus rebus infelix' tition of Poland induced him, by an official --he displayed how well he knew this. Unfor- notice, to express his surprise that the courts of tunate because unsuccessful, and unsuccessful St. Petersburg and Berlin had appropriated to because his imagination could not be tamed themselves a much larger proportion of Poland down to a fit level, and his desires outran his than had been agreed upon at the Convention of judgment. To render religion unconfined, laws Pilnitz. and legislation more perfect, vigorous, and tenable, and science free, were noble-were great and laudable objects; but in all-he failed. Before his undertakings were well matured, he had spoiled all by his over-anxiety and hastiness. In the moment before he breathed his last, which happened at Vienna in February, 1790, in his 49th year, he was doomed to suffer every aggravated accumulation of misfortune. Brabant wrenched from him-his family connexion with Russia severed-Hungary bearing off its crown, with noisy and insulting triumph, from the palace where he lay expiring-his views of ambition darkened by the death of the Princess Elizabeth-his own death, too, pronounced inevitable to him before he could witness the success of his arms at Belgrade (the single success of his life), and again that success thrown into suspense and uncertainty before his deathshadowed eyes, by the terrible news of the danger and expected defeat at Coburg-the dying monarch had indeed drunk of the chalice of misfortune, even to its very dregs!

He died and his brother, Peter Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, succeeded him in the empire, and rapidly gained the public reverence by repeated acts of moderation, and by his solid principles. His government of his Italian Sovereignty, characterized by prudence and beneficence, proved that he aspired to a truer and more lasting reputation than could be won by the mere splendour of royalty.

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'My father, who by that time was risen to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, attended the Emperor as one of the aides-de-camp to the con- | ference of Pilnitz. This event (the most memorable since the peace with Turkey) between the Emperor, the King of Prussia, and the Elector of Saxony, had for some of its objects the exchange of the Netherlands for Bavaria, the scrutinization of several German Bishoprics, and the proportionate diminution of the forces of Austria and Prussia. But though these were among the apparent objects, the more probable one was the endeavour to establish an alliance between these respective powers for mu

"To my father, in February, 1794, was entrusted the important mission of delivering, at the diet of Ratisbon, the demand on the part of the Emperor of the sense of the Germanic states respecting the necessity and desirability of arming all the inhabitants on the frontiers of Germany, and of furnishing a triple contingent on the part of those states. In this missive the Emperor observed that all Europe knew the manifold and just grounds which had impelled the Germanic empire, united and represented by its supreme Chief, to maintain a general war for the maintenance of the strictest covenants and most sacred treaties-for the preservation of international peace and social order from a wild, destructive, and most anarchic tyranny, falsely called freedom-for the defence of an acknowledged religion from pestilential Atheism, &c. The Emperor further proceeded, that the general requisition of the fighting-men in France had effected such a marked superiority, and had created such a change in the mode of making war, that it seemed in some measure almost imperative to make a similar edict; and this was to be done by the rising in a mass of the inhabitants of the Netherlandic frontier, and other places, in order to procure safety to the loyal subjects of the empire against the irruptions and ravages of their common enemy.

"In the battle of St. Tron, in March, 1793, when the Austrians advanced and were compelled to retire from their advanced posts between Tongers and Tirlemont to St. Tron, my father rendered himself so conspicuous for his bravery that he received the rank of colonel; he shared also in the successes of the June and July of that year.

"I will pass over the terrors and cruelties of the Revolution in France, and the horrors of La Vendée, the invasion of Holland by the French, and the termination of the war with Spain by a treaty of peace.

My father formed one among those whose regiments were driven out of the Bavarian provinces by the overwhelming forces of Jourdain and Pichegreu, by which they were enabled to

Coolness to my parch'd soul. E'en here, oh Night! Thou look'st down still, so mildly, beautifully bright.