To English readers the prince's name was once familiar as the author of Briefe eines Verstorbenen (Letters of a Dead Man), which contain a lively account of his Highness' sojourn in England and Ireland between the years 1826 and 1828. These letters, which were translated into English under the title of The Tour of a German Prince, made a sensation, favourable and otherwise, in the early 'thirties,' owing to the candid fashion in which they dealt with our customs and our countrymen. The book received the high honour of a complimentary review from the pen of the aged Goethe. 'The writer appears to be a perfect and experienced man of the world,' observes this distinguished critic; 'endowed with talents and a quick apprehension; formed by a varied social existence, by travel and extensive connections. His journey was undertaken very recently, and brings us the latest intelligence from the countries which he has viewed with an acute, clear, and comprehensive eye. We see before us a finely-constituted being, born to great external advantages and felicities, but in whom a lively spirit of enterprise is not united to constancy and perseverance; whence he experiences frequent failure and disappointment.... The peculiarities of English manners and habits are drawn vividly and distinctly, and without exaggeration. We acquire a lively idea of that wonderful combination, that luxuriant growth—of that insular life which is based in boundless wealth and civil freedom, in universal monotony and manifold diversity; formal and capricious, active and torpid, energetic and dull, comfortable and tedious, the envy and derision of the world. Like other unprejudiced travellers of modern times, our author is not very much enchanted with the English form of existence: his cordial and sincere admiration is often accompanied by unsparing censure. He is by no means inclined to favour the faults and weaknesses of the English; and in this he has the greatest and best among themselves upon his side.'

As these Letters were not written until the prince had passed his fortieth year, it will be necessary, before considering them in detail, to give a brief sketch of his previous career. Hermann Ludwig was the only son of Graf von Pueckler of Schloss Branitz, and of his wife, Clementine, born a Graefin von Gallenberg, and heiress to the vast estate of Muskau in Silesia. Both families were of immense antiquity, the Puecklers claiming to trace their descent from Ruediger von Bechlarn, who figures in the Nibelungenlied. Our hero was born at Muskau in October 1785, and spent, according to his own account, a wretched and neglected childhood. His father was harsh, miserly, and suspicious; his mother, who was only fifteen when her son was born, is described as a frivolous little flirt. The couple, after perpetually quarrelling for ten or twelve years, were divorced, by mutual consent, in 1797, and the Graefin shortly afterwards married one of her numerous admirers, Graf von Seydewitz, with whom she lived as unhappily as with her first husband. Her little son was educated at a Moravian school, and in the holidays was left entirely to the care of the servants. After a couple of years at the university of Leipzig, he entered the Saxon army, and soon became notorious for his good looks, his fine horsemanship, his extravagance, and his mischievous pranks. Military discipline in time of peace proved too burdensome for the young lieutenant, who, after quarrelling with his father, getting deeply into debt, and embroiling himself with the authorities, threw up his commission in 1804. Muskau having become much too hot to hold him, he spent the next years in travelling about the Continent, always in pecuniary difficulties, and seldom free from some sentimental entanglement.

In 1810 Graf Pueckler died, and his son stepped into a splendid inheritance. Like Prince Hal, the young Graf seems to have taken his new responsibilities seriously, and to have devoted himself, with only too much enthusiasm, to the development and improvement of his estates. In the intervals of business he amused himself with an endless series of love-affairs, his achievements in this respect, if his biographer may be believed, more than equalling those of Jupiter and Don Giovanni put together. Old and young, pretty and plain, noble and humble, native and foreign, all were fish that came to the net of this lady-killer, who not only vowed allegiance to nearly every petticoat that crossed his path, but—a much more remarkable feat—kept up an impassioned correspondence with a large selection of his charmers. After his death, a whole library of love-letters was discovered among his papers, all breathing forth adoration, ecstasy or despair, and addressed to the Julies, Jeannettes, or Amalies who succeeded one another so rapidly in his facile affections. These documents, for the most part carefully-corrected drafts of the originals, were indorsed, 'Old love-letters, to be used again if required!'

In 1813 the trumpet of war sounded the call to arms, and the young Graf entered the military service of Prussia, and was appointed aide-de-camp to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar. He distinguished himself in the Netherlands, was present at the taking of Cassel, and in the course of the campaign played a part in a new species of duel. A French colonel of Hussars, so the story goes, rode out of the enemy's lines, and challenged any officer in the opposing army to single combat. Pueckler accepted the challenge, and the duel was fought on horseback—presumably with sabres—between the ranks of the two armies, the soldiers on either side applauding their chosen champion. At length, after a fierce struggle, Germany triumphed, and the brave Frenchman bit the dust. Whether the tale be true or apocryphal, it is certain that numerous decorations were conferred upon the young officer for his brilliant services, that he was promoted to the rank of colonel, and appointed civil and military governor of Brueges. Pueckler took part in the triumphal entry of the Allies into Paris, and afterwards accompanied the Duke of Saxe-Weimar to London, where he shared in all the festivities of the wonderful season of 1815, studied the English methods of landscape-gardening, and made an unsuccessful attempt to marry a lady of rank and fortune.

After his return to Muskau the Graf continued his work on his estate, which, in spite of a sandy soil and other disadvantages, soon became one of the show-places of Germany. Having discovered a spring of mineral water, he built a pump-room, a theatre, and a gaming-saloon, and named the establishment Hermannsbad. The invalids who frequented the Baths must have enjoyed a lively 'cure,' for besides theatrical performances, illuminations, fireworks and steeplechases, the Graf was always ready to oblige with some sensational achievement. On one occasion he leapt his horse over the parapet of a bridge into the river, and swam triumphantly ashore; while on another he galloped up the steps of the Casino, played and won a coup at the tables without dismounting, and then galloped down again, arriving at the bottom with a whole neck, but considerable damage to his horse's legs.

In 1816 Pueckler became acquainted with Lucie, Graefin von Pappenheim, a daughter of Prince Hardenberg, Chancellor of Prussia. The Graefin, a well-preserved woman of forty, having parted from her husband, was living at Berlin with her daughter, Adelheid, afterwards Princess Carolath, and her adopted daughter, Herminie Lanzendorf. The Graf divided his attentions equally between the three ladies for some time, but on inquiring of a friend which would make the greatest sensation in Berlin, his marriage to the mother or to one of the daughters, and being told his marriage to the mother, at once proposed to the middle-aged Graefin, and was joyfully accepted. The reason for this inappropriate match probably lay deeper than the desire to astonish the people of Berlin, for Pueckler, with all his surface romanticism, had a keen eye to the main chance. His Lucie had only a moderate dower, but the advantage of being son-in-law to the Chancellor of Prussia could hardly be overestimated. Again, the Graf seems to have imagined that in a marriage of convenience with a woman nine years older than himself, he would be able to preserve the liberty of his bachelor days, while presenting the appearance of domestic respectability.

As soon as the trifling formality of a divorce from Count Pappenheim had been gone through, the marriage took place at Muskau, to the accompaniment of the most splendid festivities. As may be supposed, the early married life of the ill-assorted couple was a period of anything but unbroken calm. Scarcely had the Graf surrendered his liberty than he fell passionately in love with his wife's adopted daughter, Helmine, a beautiful girl of eighteen, the child, it was believed, of humble parents. Frederick William III. of Prussia was one of her admirers, and had offered to marry her morganatically, and create her Herzogin von Breslau. But Helmine gave her royal suitor no encouragement, and he soon consoled himself with the Princess Liegnitz. Lucie spared no pains to marry off the inconvenient beauty, but Pueckler frustrated all her efforts, implored her not to separate him from Helmine, and suggested an arrangement based upon the domestic policy of Goethe's Wahlverwandschaften. But Lucie was unreasonable enough to object to a menage a trois, and at length succeeded in marrying Helmine to a Lieutenant von Blucher.

In 1822 the Graf accompanied his father-in-law to the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, and shortly afterwards was raised to princely rank, in compensation for the losses he had sustained through the annexation of Silesia by Prussia. By this time the prince's financial affairs were in so desperate a condition, thanks to the follies of his youth and the building mania of his manhood, that a desperate remedy was required to put them straight again. Only one expedient presented itself, and this Lucie, with a woman's self-sacrifice, was the first to propose. During a short absence from Muskau she wrote to her husband to offer him his freedom, in order that he might be enabled to marry a rich heiress, whose fortune could be used to clear off the liabilities that pressed so heavily on the estate. The prince at first refused to take advantage of this generous offer. He had become accustomed to his elderly wife, who acted as his colleague and helper in all that concerned his idolised Muskau, and upon whose sympathy and advice he had learned to depend. But as time went on he grew accustomed to the idea of an amicable divorce, and at length persuaded himself that such a proceeding need make no real difference to Lucie's position; in fact, that it would be an advantage to her as well as to himself. For years past he had regarded her rather in the light of a maternal friend than of a wife, and the close camaraderie that existed between them would remain unbroken by the advent of a young bride whom Lucie would love as her own child. A divorce, it must be remembered, was a common incident of everyday life in the Germany of that epoch. As we have seen, Pueckler's father and mother had dissolved their marriage, and Lucie had been divorced from her first husband, while her father had been married three times, and had separated from each of his wives.

The matter remained in abeyance for a year or two, and it was not until 1826, when the prince probably felt that he had no time to lose, that the long-talked-of divorce actually took place. This curious couple, who appeared to be more tenderly attached to each other now than they had ever been before, took a touching farewell in Berlin. The princess then returned to Muskau, where she remained during her ex-husband's absence as his agent and representative, while the prince set out for England, which country was supposed to offer the best hunting-ground for heiresses. Week by week during his tour, Pueckler addressed to his faithful Lucie long, confidential letters, filled with observations of the manners and customs of the British barbarians, together with minute descriptions of his adventures in love and landscape-gardening.

The prince, though at this time in his forty-first year, was still, to all appearance, in the prime of life, still an adept in feats of skill and strength, and not less romantic and susceptible than in the days of his youth. With his high rank, his vast though encumbered estates, his picturesque appearance, and his wide experience in affairs of the heart, he anticipated little difficulty in carrying off one of the most eligible of British heiresses; but he quite forgot to include the hard-hearted, level-headed British parent in his reckoning. The prince's first letter to Lucie, who figures in the published version as Julie, is dated Dresden, September 7, 1826, and begins in right Werterian strain:—

'My dear friend—The love you showed me at our parting made me so happy and so miserable that I cannot yet recover from it. Your sad image is ever before me; I still read deep sorrow in your looks and in your tears, and my own heart tells me too well what yours suffered. May God grant us a meeting as joyful as our parting was sorrowful! I can only repeat what I have so often told you, that if I felt myself without you, my dearest friend, in the world, I could enjoy none of its pleasures without an alloy of sadness; that if you love me, you will above all things watch over your health, and amuse yourself as much as you can by varied occupation.' There are protestations of this kind in nearly every letter, for the prince's pen was always tipped with fine sentiment and vows of eternal devotion came more easily to him than the ordinary civilities of everyday life to the average man.

A visit to Goethe at Weimar, on the traveller's leisurely journey towards England, furnished his notebook with some interesting specimens of the old poet's conversation. 'He received me,' writes the prince, 'in a dimly-lighted room, whose clair obscure was arranged with some coquetterie; and truly the aspect of the beautiful old man, with his Jovelike countenance, was most stately.... In the course of conversation we came to Walter Scott. Goethe was not very enthusiastic about the Great Unknown. He said he doubted not that he wrote his novels in the same sort of partnership as existed between the old painters and their pupils; that he furnished the plot, the leading thoughts, the skeleton of the scenes, that he then let his pupils fill them up, and retouched them at the last. It seemed almost to be his opinion that it was not worth the while of a man of Scott's eminence to give himself up to such a number of minute and tedious details. "Had I," he said, "been able to lend myself to the idea of mere gain, I could formerly have sent such things anonymously into the world, with the aid of Lenz and others—nay, I could still, as would astonish people not a little, and make them puzzle their brains to find out the author; but after all, they would be but manufactured wares...."

'He afterwards spoke of Lord Byron with great affection, almost as a father would of a son, which was extremely grateful to my enthusiastic feelings for this great poet. He contradicted the silly assertion that Manfred was only an echo of his Faust. He extremely regretted that he had never become personally acquainted with Lord Byron, and severely and justly reproached the English nation for having judged their illustrious countryman so pettily, and understood him so ill.' The conversation next turned on politics, and Goethe reverted to his favourite theory that if every man laboured faithfully, honestly, and lovingly in this sphere, were it great or small, universal well-being and happiness would not long be wanting, whatever the form of government. The prince urged in reply that a constitutional government was first necessary to call such a principle into life, and adduced the example of England in support of his argument. 'Goethe immediately replied that the choice of the example was not happy, for that in no country was selfishness more omnipotent; that no people were perhaps essentially less humane in their political or their private relations; that salvation came, not from without, by means of forms of government, but from within, by the wise moderation and humble activity of each man in his own circle; and that this must ever be the chief source of human felicity, while it was the easiest and the simplest to attain.'

The prince seems always to have played the part of Jonah on board ship, and on the occasion of his journey to England, he had a terrible passage of forty hours, from Rotterdam to the London Docks. As soon as he could get his carriage, horses, and luggage clear of the customs, he hastened to the Clarendon Hotel, where he had stayed during his first visit to London. Unlike the American, N. P. Willis, he had come armed with many prejudices against England and the English, few of which he succeeded in losing during the two years of his sojourn among us. In his first letter from London, dated October 5, 1826, he writes: 'London is now so utterly dead to elegance and fashion that one hardly meets a single equipage, and nothing remains of the beau monde but a few ambassadors. The huge city is at the same time full of fog and dirt, and the macadamised streets are like well-worn roads. The old pavement has been torn up, and replaced by small pieces of granite, the interstices between which are filled up with gravel; this renders the riding more easy, and diminishes the noise, but on the other hand changes the town into a sort of quagmire.' The prince comments favourably on the improvements that had recently been carried out by Nash the architect, more especially as regards Regent Street and Portland Place, and declares that the laying out of the Regent's Park is 'faultless,' particularly in the disposition of the water.

The comfort and luxury of English hotels, as well as of private houses, is a subject on which the traveller frequently enlarges, and in this first letter he assures his Lucie that she would be delighted with the extreme cleanliness of the interiors, the great convenience of the furniture, and the good manners of the serving-people, though he admits that, for all that pertains to luxury, the tourist pays about six times as much as in Germany. 'The comfort of the inns,' he continues, 'is unknown on the Continent; on your washing-table you find, not one miserable water-bottle with a single earthenware jug and basin, and a long strip of towel, but positive tubs of porcelain in which you may plunge half your body; taps which instantly supply you with streams of water at pleasure; half-a-dozen wide towels, a large standing mirror, foot-baths and other conveniences of the toilet, all of equal elegance.'

The prince took advantage of the dead season to explore the city and other unfashionable quarters of the town. He was delighted with the excellent side-pavements, the splendid shops, the brilliant gas-lamps, and above all (like Miss Edgeworth's Rosamund) with 'the great glass globes in the chemists' windows, filled with liquid of a deep red, blue or green, the light of which is visible for miles(!)' Visits to the Exchange, the Bank, and the Guildhall were followed by a call on Rothschild, 'the Grand Ally of the Grand Alliance,' at his house of business. 'On my presenting my card,' says our hero, 'he remarked ironically that we were lucky people who could afford to travel about, and take our pleasure, while he, poor man, had such a heavy burden to bear. He then broke out into bitter complaints that every poor devil who came to England had something to ask of him.... After this the conversation took a political turn, and we of course agreed that Europe could not subsist without him; he modestly declined our compliments, and said, smiling, 'Oh no, you are only jesting; I am but a servant, with whom people are pleased because he manages their affairs well, and to whom they allow some crumbs to fall as an acknowledgment.'

On October 19 the prince went to Newmarket for the races. During his stay he was introduced to a rich merchant of the neighbourhood, who invited him to spend a couple of days at his country-house. He gives Lucie a minute account of the manners and customs of an English menage, but these are only interesting to the modern reader in so far as they have become obsolete. For example: 'When you enter the dining-room, you find the whole of the first course on the table, as in France. After the soup is removed, and the covers are taken off, every man helps the dish before him, and offers some to his neighbour; if he wishes for anything else, he must ask across the table, or send a servant for it, a very troublesome custom.... It is not usual to take wine without drinking to another person. If the company is small, and a man has drunk with everybody, but happens to wish for more wine, he must wait for the dessert, if he does not find in himself courage to brave custom.'

On his return to town the prince, who had been elected a member of the Travellers' Club, gives a long dissertation on English club life, not forgetting to dwell on the luxury of all the arrangements, the excellent service, and the methodical fashion in which the gaming-tables were conducted. 'In no other country,' he declares, 'are what are here emphatically called "business habits" carried so extensively into social and domestic life; the value of time, of order, of despatch, of routine, are nowhere so well understood. This is the great key to the most striking, national characteristics. The quantity of material objects produced and accomplished—the work done—in England exceeds all that man ever effected. The causes that have produced these results have as certainly given birth to the dulness, the contracted views, the inveterate prejudices, the unbounded desire for, and deference to wealth which characterise the great mass of Englishmen.'

During this first winter in London the prince was a regular attendant at the theatres, and many were the dramatic criticisms that he sent to his 'friend' at Muskau. He saw Liston in the hundred and second representation of Paul Pry, and at Drury Lane found, to his amazement that Braham, whom he remembered as an elderly man in 1814, was still first favourite. 'He is the genuine representative of the English style of singing,' writes our critic, 'and in popular songs is the adored idol of the public. One cannot deny him great power of voice and rapidity of execution, but a more abominable style it is difficult to conceive.... The most striking feature to a foreigner in English theatres is the natural coarseness and brutality of the audiences. The consequence is that the higher and more civilised classes go only to the Italian Opera, and very rarely visit their national theatre. English freedom has degenerated into the rudest licence, and it is not uncommon in the midst of the most affecting part of a tragedy, or the most charming cadenza of a singer, to hear some coarse expression shouted from the gallery in a stentor voice. This is followed, either by loud laughter and applause, or by the castigation and expulsion of the offender.'

The poor prince saw Mozart's Figaro announced for performance at Drury Lane, and looked forward to hearing once more the sweet harmonies of his Vaterland. 'What, then, was my astonishment,' he exclaims, in justifiable indignation, 'at the unheard-of treatment which the masterpiece of the immortal composer has received at English hands! You will hardly believe me when I tell you that neither the count, the countess, nor Figaro sang; these parts were given to mere actors, and their principal airs were sung by other singers. To add to this the gardener roared out some interpolated English popular songs, which suited Mozart's music just as a pitch-plaster would suit the face of the Venus de' Medici. The whole opera was, moreover, arranged by a certain Mr. Bishop; that is, adapted to English ears by means of the most tasteless and shocking alterations. The English national music, the coarse, heavy melodies of which can never be mistaken for an instant, has to me, at least, something singularly offensive, an expression of brutal feeling both in pain and pleasure that smacks of "roast-beef, plum-pudding, and porter."'

Another entertainment attended by our hero about this time was the opening of Parliament by George IV., who had not performed this ceremony for several years. 'The king,' we are told, 'looked pale and bloated, and was obliged to sit on the throne for a considerable time before he could get breath enough to read his speech. During this time he turned friendly glances and condescending bows towards some favoured ladies. On his right stood Lord Liverpool, with the sword of state and the speech in his hand, and the Duke of Wellington on his left. All three looked so miserable, so ashy-grey and worn out, that never did human greatness appear to me so little worth.... In spite of his feebleness, George IV. read his banale speech with great dignity and a fine voice, but with that royal nonchalance which does not concern itself with what his Majesty promises, or whether he is sometimes unable to decipher a word. It was very evident that the monarch was heartily glad when the corvee was over.'

In one of his early letters the traveller gives his friend the following account of the manner in which he passes his day: 'I rise late, read three or four newspapers at breakfast, look in my visiting-book to see what visits I have to pay, and either drive to pay them in my cabriolet, or ride. In the course of these excursions, I sometimes catch the enjoyment of the picturesque; the struggle of the blood-red sun with the winter fogs often produces wild and singular effects of light. After my visits I ride for several hours about the beautiful environs of London, return when it grows dark, dress for dinner, which is at seven or eight, and spend the evening either at the theatre or some small party. The ludicrous routs—at which one hardly finds standing-room on the staircase—have not yet commenced. In England, however, except in a few diplomatic houses, you can go nowhere in the evening without a special invitation.'

The prince seems to have been bored at most of the parties he attended; partly, perhaps, out of pique at finding himself, so long accustomed to be the principal personage in his little kingdom of Muskau, eclipsed in influence and wealth by many a British commoner. Few persons that he met in the London of that day amused him more than the great Rothschild, with whom he dined more than once at the banker's suburban villa. Of one of these entertainments he writes: 'Mr. Rothschild was in high good-humour, amusing and talkative. It was diverting to hear him explain to us the pictures round his room (all portraits of the sovereigns of Europe, presented through their ambassadors), and talk of the originals as his very good friends, and in a certain sense his equals. "Yes," said he, "the Prince of ——- once pressed me for a loan, and in the same week on which I received his autograph letter, his father wrote to me also from Rome, to beg me, for Heaven's sake, not to have any concern in it, for that I could not have to do with a more dishonest man than his son...." He concluded by modestly calling himself the dutiful and generously paid agent and servant of these high potentates, all of whom he honoured equally, let the state of politics be what it might; for, said he, laughing, "I never like to quarrel with my bread and butter." It shows great prudence in Mr. Rothschild to have accepted neither title nor order, and thus to have preserved a far more respectable independence. He doubtless owes much to the good advice of his extremely amiable and judicious wife, who excels him in tact and knowledge of the world, though not, perhaps, in acuteness and talents for business.'

Although the prince had not as yet entered the ranks of authors, he was always interested in meeting literary people, such as Mr. Hope, author of Anastasius, Mr. Morier of Hadji Baba fame, and Lady Charlotte Bury, who had exchanged the celebrity of a beauty for that of a fashionable novelist. 'I called on Lady Charlotte,' he says, 'the morning after meeting her, and found everything in her house brown, in every possible shade; furniture, curtains, carpets, her own and her children's dresses, presented no other colour. The room was without looking-glasses or pictures, and its only ornaments were casts from the antique.... After I had been there some time, the celebrated publisher, Constable, entered. This man has made a fortune by Walter Scott's novels, though, as I was told, he refused his first and best, Waverley, and at last gave but a small sum for it. I hope the charming Lady Charlotte had better cause to be satisfied with him.' Towards the end of December, his Highness's head-gardener, Rehde, a very important functionary at Muskau, arrived in London to be initiated into the mysteries of English landscape-gardening. Together the two enthusiasts, master and man, made a tour of some of the principal show-places of England, including Stanmore Priory, Woburn Abbey, Cashiobury, Blenheim, Stowe, Eaton, Warwick, and Kenilworth, besides many of lesser note. At the end of the excursion, which lasted three weeks, the prince declared that even he was beginning to feel satiated with the charms of English parks. On his return to London he was invited to spend a few days with Lord Darnley at Cobham, and writes thence some further impressions of English country-house life. He was a little perturbed at being publicly reminded by his elderly host that they had made each other's acquaintance thirty years before.

'Now, as I was in frocks at the time he spoke of,' observes the prince, 'I was obliged to beg for a further explanation, though I cannot say I was much delighted at having my age so fully discussed before all the company, for you know I claim to look not more than thirty. However, I could not but admire Lord Darnley's memory. He recollected every circumstance of his visit to my parents with the Duke of Portland, and recalled to me many a little forgotten incident.'

The vie de chateau the traveller considered the most agreeable side of English life, by reason of its freedom, and the absence of those wearisome ceremonies which in Germany oppressed both host and guests. The English custom of being always en evidence, however, occasioned him considerable surprise. 'Strangers,' he observes, 'have generally only one room allotted to them, and Englishmen seldom go into this room except to sleep, and to dress twice a day, which, even without company, is always de rigueur; for all meals are usually taken in public, and any one who wants to write does it in the library. There, also, those who wish to converse, give each other rendezvous, to avoid the rest of the society. Here you have an opportunity of gossiping for hours with the young ladies, who are always very literarily inclined. Many a marriage is thus concocted or destroyed between the corpus juris on the one side, and Bouffler's works on the other, while fashionable novels, as a sort of intermediate link, lie on the tables in the middle.

Early in February the prince paid a visit to Brighton, where he made the acquaintance of Count D'Orsay, and was entertained by Mrs. Fitzherbert. He gives a jaundiced account of two entertainments, a public ball and a musical soiree, which he attended while at Brighton, declaring—probably with some truth—that the latter is one of the greatest trials to which a foreigner can be exposed in England. 'Every mother,' he explains, 'who has grown-up daughters, for whom she has had to pay large sums to the music-master, chooses to enjoy the satisfaction of having the youthful talent admired. There is nothing, therefore, but quavering and strumming right and left, so that one is really overpowered and unhappy; and even if an Englishwoman has a natural capacity for singing, she seldom acquires either style or science. The men are much more agreeable dilettanti, for they at least give one the diversion of a comical farce. That a man should advance to the piano with far greater confidence than a David, strike with his forefinger the note which he thinks his song should begin with, and then entonner like a thunder-clap (generally a tone or two lower than the pitch), and sing through a long aria without an accompaniment of any kind, except the most wonderful distortions of face, is a thing one must have seen to believe it possible, especially in the presence of at least fifty people.'

By the middle of April the season had begun in town, and the prince soon found himself up to the eyes in invitations for balls, dinners, breakfasts, and soirees. We hear of him dining with the Duke of Clarence, to meet the Duchess of Kent and her daughter; assisting at the Lord Mayor's banquet, which lasted six hours, and at which the chief magistrate made six-and-twenty speeches, long and short; breakfasting with the Duke of Devonshire at Chiswick, being nearly suffocated at the routs of Lady Cowper and Lady Jersey, and attending his first ball at Almack's, in which famous assemblage his expectations were woefully disappointed. 'A large, bare room,' so runs his description, 'with a bad floor, and ropes round it, like the space in an Arab camp parted off for horses; two or three badly-furnished rooms at the side, in which the most wretched refreshments are served, and a company into which, in spite of all the immense difficulty of getting tickets, a great many nobodies had wriggled; in which the dress was as tasteless as the tournure was bad—this was all. In a word, a sort of inn-entertainment—the music and lighting the only good things. And yet Almack's is the culminating point of the English world of fashion.'

Unfortunately for his readers, the prince was rather an observer than an auditor; for he describes what he sees vividly enough, but seldom takes the trouble to set down the conversation that he hears. Perhaps he thought it hardly worth recording, for he complains that in England politics had become the main ingredient in social intercourse, that the lighter and more frivolous pleasures suffered by the change, and that the art of conversation would soon be entirely lost. 'In this country,' he unkindly adds, 'I should think it [the art of conversation] never existed, unless, perhaps, in Charles II.'s time. And, indeed, people here are too slavishly subject to established usages, too systematic in all their enjoyments, too incredibly kneaded up with prejudices; in a word, too little vivacious to attain to that unfettered spring and freedom of spirit, which must ever be the sole basis of agreeable society. I must confess that I know none more monotonous, nor more persuaded of its own pre-eminence than the highest society of this country. A stony, marble-cold spirit of caste and fashion rules all classes, and makes the highest tedious, the lowest ridiculous.'

In spite of his dislike to politics as a subject of conversation, his Highness attended debates at the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and was so keenly interested in what he heard that he declared the hours passed like minutes. Canning had just been intrusted by George IV. with the task of forming a government, but had promptly been deserted by six members of the former Ministry, including Wellington, Lord Eldon, and Peel, who were now accused of having resigned in consequence of a cabal or conspiracy against the constitutional prerogative of the king to change his ministers at his own pleasure. In the House of Commons the prince heard Peel's attack on Canning and the new government, which was parried by Brougham. 'In a magnificent speech, which flowed on like a clear stream, Brougham,' we are told, 'tried to disarm his opponent; now tortured him with sarcasms; now wrought upon the sensibility, or convinced the reason, of his hearers. The orator closed with the solemn declaration that he was perfectly impartial; that he could be impartial, because it was his fixed determination never, and on no terms, to accept a place in the administration of the kingdom.... [Footnote: In 1831 Brougham accepted office as Lord Chancellor.] Canning, the hero of the day, now rose. If his predecessor might be compared to a dexterous and elegant boxer, Canning presented the image of a finished antique gladiator. All was noble, simple, refined; then suddenly his eloquence burst forth like lightning-grand and all-subduing. His speech was, from every point of view, the most complete, as well as the most irresistibly persuasive—the crown and glory of the debate.'

On the following day the prince heard some of the late ministers on their defence in the House of Lords. 'Here,' he observes, 'I saw the great Wellington in terrible straits. He is no orator, and was obliged to enter upon his defence like an accused person. He was considerably agitated; and this senate of his country, though composed of men whom individually, perhaps, he did not care for, appeared more imposing to him en masse than Napoleon and his hundred thousands. He stammered much, interrupted and involved himself, but at length he brought the matter tolerably to this conclusion, that there was no "conspiracy." He occasionally said strong things—probably stronger than he meant, for he was evidently not master of his material. Among other things, the following words pleased me extremely: "I am a soldier and no orator. I am utterly deficient in the talents requisite to play a part in this great assembly. I must be more than insane if I ever entertained the thought, of which I am accused, of becoming Prime Minister."... [Footnote: In January 1828 the duke became Prime Minister.] When I question myself as to the total impression of this day, I must confess that it was at once elevating and melancholy—the former when I fancied myself an Englishman, the latter when I felt myself a German. This twofold senate of the people of England, in spite of all the defects and blemishes common to human institutions, is yet grand in the highest degree; and in contemplating its power and operation thus near at hand, one begins to understand why it is that the English nation is, as yet, the first on the face of the earth.'

The traveller was by no means exclusively occupied in hearing and seeing new things. With that strain of practicality which contrasted so oddly with his sentimental and romantic temperament, he kept firmly before his eyes the main object of his visit to England. He had determined at the outset not to sell himself and his title for less than L50,000, but he confesses that, as time passed on, his demands became much more modest. His matrimonial ventures were all faithfully detailed to the presumably sympathising Lucie, for whose sake, the prince persuaded himself, he was far more anxious for success than for his own. But he had not counted on the many obstacles with which he found himself confronted, chief among them being his relations with his former wife. It was known that the ex-princess was still living at Muskau with all the rights and privileges of a chatelaine, while the prince never disguised his attachment to her, and openly kept her portrait on his table. English mothers who would have welcomed him as a son-in-law were led to believe that the divorce was only a blind, and that the prince's marriage would be actually, if not legally, a bigamous union. The satirical papers represented him as a fortune-hunter, a Bluebeard who had ill-treated his first wife, and declared that he had proposed for the hand of the dusky Empress of Hayti, then on a visit to Europe.

Still our hero obstinately pursued his quest, laying siege to the heart of every presentable-looking heiress to whom he was introduced, and if attention to the art of the toilet could have gained him a rich bride, he would not long have been unsuccessful. In dress he took the genuine interest and delight of the dandy of the period, and marvellous are the descriptions of his costume that he sends to Lucie. For morning visits, of which he sometimes paid fifty in one day, he wore his hair dyed a beautiful black, a new hat, a green neckerchief with gaily coloured stripes, a yellow cashmere waistcoat with metal buttons, an olive-green frock-coat and iron-grey pantaloons. On other occasions he is attired in a dark-brown coat, with a velvet collar, a white neckerchief, in which a thin gold watch-chain is entwined, a waistcoat with a collar of cramoisie and gold stars, an under-waistcoat of white satin, embroidered with gold flowers, full black pantaloons, spun silk stockings, and short square shoes. Style such as this could only be maintained at a vast outlay, from the German point of view, the week's washing-bill alone amounting to an important sum. According to the prince's calculation, a London exquisite, during the season of 1827, required every week twenty shirts, twenty-four pocket-handkerchiefs, nine or ten pairs of summer trousers, thirty neckerchiefs, a dozen waistcoats and stockings a discertion. 'I see your housewifely ears aghast, my good Lucie,' he writes, 'but as a dandy cannot get on without dressing three or four times a day, the affair is quite simple.'

However much the prince may have enjoyed the ceremony of the toilet, he strongly objected to the process of hair-dyeing, and his letters are full of complaints of his sufferings and humiliation while undergoing the operation, which, he declares, is a form of slow poison, and also an unpleasant reminder that he is really old, but obliged to play the part of youth in order to attain an object that may bring him more misery than happiness. As soon as he is safely married to his heiress, he expresses his determination of looking his full age, so that people might say 'What a well-preserved old man!' instead of 'Voila, le ci-devant jeune homme!' Still, with all this care and thought, heiresses remained coy, or more probably their parents were 'difficult.' The prince's highly-developed personal vanity was wounded by many a refusal, and so weary did he become of this woman-hunt, that in one letter to Lucie, dated March 5, 1827, he exclaims, 'Ah, my dearest, if you only had 150,000 thalers, I would marry you again to-morrow!'



PART II

The summer months were spent in visits to Windsor and other parks near London, and in a tour through Yorkshire. In October his Highness was back in town, and engaged in a new matrimonial venture. He writes to Lucie that 'the fortune in question is immense, and if I obtain it, I shall end gloriously.' In the correspondence published after the prince's death is the draft of a letter to Mr. Bonham of Titness Park, containing a formal proposal for the hand of his daughter, 'Miss Harriet,' and detailing (with considerable reservations) the position of his financial affairs. Muskau, he explains, is worth L4,000 a year, an income which in Germany is equivalent to three times as much in England. 'Everything belonging to me,' he continues, 'is in the best possible order; a noble residence at Muskau, and two smaller chateaux, surrounded with large parks and gardens, in fact, all that make enjoy life (sic) in the country is amply provided for, and a numerous train of officious (sic) of my household are always ready to receive their young princess at her own seat, or if she should prefer town, the court of Prussia will offer her every satisfaction.' Owing to the fact that Muskau was mortgaged for L50,000, he was forced, he confesses, to expect an adequate fortune with his wife, a circumstance to which, if he had been otherwise situated, he should have paid little attention.

This missive was accompanied by a long letter, dated Nov. 1, 1827, to 'Miss Harriet,' in which the suitor explains the circumstances of his former marriage, and of his divorce, the knowledge of which has rendered her uneasy. 'It is rather singular,' he proceeds, 'that in the very first days after my arrival, you, Miss Harriet, were named to me, together with some other young ladies, as heiresses. Now I must confess, at the risk of the fact being doubted in our industrious times, that I myself had a prejudice against, and even some dread of heiresses. I may say that I proved in some way these feelings to exist by marrying a lady with a very small fortune, and afterwards in England by never courting any heiresses further as common civility required. My reasons for so doing are not without foundation. In the first instance, I am a little proud; in the second, I don't want any more than I possess, though I should not reject it, finding it in my way, and besides all this, rich young maidens are not always very amiable.' The prince continues that he had gone, out of principle, into all kinds of society, and seen many charming and handsome girls, but had not been able to discover his affinity. At last, after renouncing the idea of marriage, he heard again of Miss Harriet Bonham, not of her fortune this time, but of her many excellent qualities, and the fact that she had refused several splendid offers. His curiosity was now at last aroused; he sought an opportunity of being introduced to her, and—'Dearest Miss Harriet, you know the rest. I thought—and I protest it by all that is sacred—I thought when I left you again, that here at last I had found united all and everything I could wish in a future companion through life. An exterior the most pleasing, a mind and person equally fit for the representation of a court and the delight of a cottage, and above all, that sensibility, that goodness of heart, and that perfect absence of conceitedness which I value more than every other accomplishment.... I beheld you, besides all your more essential qualities, so quick as lively, so playful as whitty (sic), and nothing really seemed more bewitching to me as when a hearty, joyful laugh changed your thoughtful, noble features to the cheerful appearance of a happy child! And still through every change your and your friends' conversation and behaviour always remained distinguished by that perfect breeding and fine tact which, indeed, is to private life what a clear sky is to a landscape....'

There is a great deal mere to the same effect, and it is sad to think that all this trouble, all this expenditure of ink and English grammar, was thrown away. Papa Bonham could not pay down the fortune demanded by the prince without injuring the other members of his family; [Footnote: Mr. Bonham's eldest daughter was the second wife of the first Lord Garvagh.] and although Miss Harriet deplores 'the cruel end of all our hopes,' the negotiations fell through.

The prince consoled himself for his disappointment with a fresh round of sight-seeing. He became deeply enamoured of a steam-engine, of which newly-invented animal he sends the following picturesque description to Lucie: 'We must now be living in the days of the Arabian Nights, for I have seen a creature to-day far surpassing all the fantastic beings of that time. Listen to the monster's characteristics. In the first place, its food is the cheapest possible, for it eats nothing but wood or coals, and when not actually at work, it requires none. It never sleeps, nor is weary; it is subject to no diseases, if well organised at first; and never refuses its work till worn out by great length of service. It is equally active in all climates, and undertakes all kinds of labour without a murmur. Here it is a miner, there a sailor, a cotton-spinner, a weaver, or a miller; and though a small creature, it draws ninety tons of goods, or a whole regiment of soldiers, with a swiftness exceeding that of the fleetest mail-coaches. At the same time, it marks its own measured steps on a tablet fixed in front of it. It regulates, too, the degree of warmth necessary to its well-being; it has a strange power of oiling its inmost joints when they are stiff, and of removing at pleasure all injurious air that might find the way into its system; but should anything become deranged in it, it warns its master by the loud ringing of a bell. Lastly, it is so docile, in spite of its enormous strength (nearly equal to that of six hundred horses), that a child of four years old is able in a moment to arrest its mighty labours by the pressure of his little finger. Did ever a witch burnt for sorcery produce its equal?'

A few weeks later we hear of one manifestation of the new power, which did not quite come up to the expectations of its admirers. On January 16, 1828, the prince writes: 'The new steam-carriage is completed, and goes five miles in half an hour on trial in the Regent's Park. But there was something to repair every moment. I was one of the first of the curious who tried it; but found the smell of oiled iron, which makes steamboats so unpleasant, far more insufferable here. Stranger still is another vehicle to which I yesterday intrusted my person. It is nothing less than a carriage drawn by a paper kite, very like those the children fly. This is the invention of a schoolmaster, who is so skilful in the guidance of his vehicle, that he can get on very fairly with half a wind, but with a completely fair one, and good roads, he goes a mile in three-quarters of a minute. The inventor proposes to traverse the African deserts in this manner, and has contrived a place behind, in which a pony stands like a footman, and in case of a calm, can he harnessed to the carriage.'

In the early part of 1828 Henriette Sontag arrived in London, and the prince at once fell a victim to her charms. The fascinating singer, then barely three-and-twenty, was already the idol of the public, at the very summit of her renown. Amazing prices were paid for seats when she was announced to appear. Among his Highness's papers was found a ticket for a box at the opera on 'Madame Sontag's night,' on which he notes that he had sold a diamond clasp to pay the eighty guineas demanded for the bit of cardboard. He was in love once again with all the ardour of youth, and for the moment all thoughts of a marriage of convenience were dismissed from his mind. He was now eager for a love-match with the fair Henriette, whose attractions had rendered him temporarily forgetful of those of Muskau. But Mademoiselle Sontag, though carried away by the passionate wooing of the prince, actually remembered that she had other ties, probably her engagement to Rossi, to which it was her duty to remain true. She told her lover that he must learn to forget her, and that when they parted at the conclusion of the London season, they must never meet again. The prince was heart-broken at the necessity for separation, and we are assured that he never forgot Henriette Sontag (though she had many successors in his affections), and that after his return to Germany he placed a gilded bust of the singer in his park, in order that he might have her image ever before his eyes.

In the hope of distracting his thoughts from his disappointment, Prince Pueckler decided to make a lengthened tour through Wales and Ireland, and with this object in view he set out in July 1828. Before his departure, however, he had an interesting rencontre at a dinner-party given by the Duchess of St. Albans-the ci-devant Harriet Melton. 'I arrived late,' says the prince, in his account of the incident, 'and was placed between my hostess and a tall, very simple, but benevolent-looking man of middle age, who spoke broad Scotch—a dialect anything but agreeable; and would probably have struck me by nothing else, if I had not discovered that I was sitting next to ——, the Great Unknown! It was not long ere many a sally of dry, poignant wit fell from his lips, and many an anecdote told in the most unpretending manner. His eye, too, glanced whenever he was animated, with such a clear, good-natured lustre, and such an expression of true-hearted kindness, that it was impossible not to conceive a sort of affection for him. Towards the end of the dinner he and Sir Francis Burdett told ghost-stories, half terrible, half humorous, one against the other.... A little concert concluded the evening, in which the very pretty daughter of the great bard—a healthy-looking Highland beauty—took part, and Miss Stephens sang nothing but Scottish ballads.'

Before entering upon a new field of observation, the prince summed up his general impressions of London society with a candour that cannot have been very agreeable to his English readers. The goddess of Fashion, he observes, reigns in England alone with a despotic and inexorable sway; while the spirit of caste here receives a power, consistency, and completeness of development unexampled in any other country. 'Every class of society in England, as well as every field, is separated from every other by a hedge of thorns. Each has its own manners and turns of expression, and, above all, a supreme and absolute contempt for all below it.... Now although the aristocracy does not stand as such upon the pinnacle of this strange social edifice, it yet exercises great influence over it. It is, indeed, difficult to become fashionable without being of good descent; but it by no means follows that a man is so in virtue of being well-born—still less of being rich. Ludicrous as it may sound, it is a fact that while the present king is a very fashionable man, his father was not so in the smallest degree, and that none of his brothers have any pretensions to fashion; which unquestionably is highly to their honour.' The truth of this observation is borne out by the story of Beau Brummell, who, when offended by some action of the Regent's, exclaimed, 'If this sort of thing goes on, I shall cut Wales, and bring old George into fashion!'

'A London exclusive of the present day,' continues our censor, 'is nothing more than a bad, flat, dull imitation of a French roue of the Regency, Both have in common selfishness, levity, boundless vanity, and an utter want of heart. But what a contrast if we look further! In France the absence of all morality and honesty was in some degree atoned for by the most refined courtesy, the poverty of soul by agreeableness and wit. What of all this has the English dandy to offer? His highest triumph is to appear with the most wooden manners, as little polished as will suffice to avoid castigation; nay, to contrive even his civilities so that they are as near as may be to affronts—this is the style of deportment that confers on him the greatest celebrity. Instead of a noble, high-bred ease, to have the courage to offend against every restraint of decorum; to invert the relation in which his sex stands to women, so that they appear the attacking, and he the passive or defensive party; to cut his best friends if they cease to have the strength and authority of fashion; to delight in the ineffably fade jargon and affectations of his set, and always to know what is "the thing"—these are the accomplishments that distinguish a young "lion" of fashion. Whoever reads the best of the recent English novels—those by the author of Pelham—may be able to abstract from them a tolerably just idea of English fashionable society, provided he does not forget to deduct qualities which the national self-love has erroneously claimed —namely, grace for its roues, seductive manners and witty conversation for its dandies.'

The foregoing is a summary of the prince's lengthy indictment against London society. 'I saw in the fashionable world,' he observes in conclusion, 'only too frequently, and with few exceptions, a profound vulgarity of thought; an immorality little veiled or adorned; the most undisguised arrogance; and the coarsest neglect of all kindly feelings and attentions haughtily assumed for the sake of shining in a false and despicable refinement; even more inane and intolerable to a healthy mind than the awkward stiffness of the declared Nobodies. It has been said that vice and poverty form the most revolting combination; since I have been in England, vice and boorish rudeness seem to me to form a still more disgusting union.'

The prince's adventures in Wales and Ireland, with the recital of which he has filled up the best part of two volumes, must here be dismissed in as many paragraphs. On his tour through Wales, he left his card on the Ladies of Llangollen, who promptly invited him to lunch. Fortunately, he had previously been warned of his hostesses' peculiarities of dress and appearance. 'Imagine,' he writes, 'two ladies, the elder of whom, Lady Eleanor Butler, a short, robust woman, begins to feel her years a little, being nearly eighty-three; the other, a tall and imposing person, esteems herself still youthful, being only seventy-four. Both wore their still abundant hair combed straight back and powdered, a round man's hat, a man's cravat and waistcoat, but in the place of "inexpressibles," a short petticoat and boots: the whole covered by a coat of blue cloth, of quite a peculiar cut. Over this Lady Eleanor wore, first the grand cordon of the order of St. Louis across her shoulders; secondly, the same order round her neck; thirdly, the small cross of the same in her buttonhole; and, pour comble de gloire, a golden lily of nearly the natural size as a star. So far the effect was somewhat ludicrous. But now you must imagine both ladies with that agreeable aisance, that air of the world of the ancien regime, courteous, entertaining, without the slightest affectation, speaking French as well as any Englishwoman of my acquaintance; and, above all, with that essentially polite, unconstrained, simply cheerful manner of the good society of that day, which in our hard-working, business age appears to be going to utter decay.'

Thanks to his letters of introduction and the friendships that he struck up on the road, the prince was able occasionally to step out of the beaten tourist tracks, and to see something of the more intimate side of Irish social life. He has given a lively and picturesque account of his experiences, which included an introduction to Lady Morgan, [Footnote: See page 142.] and to her charming nieces, the Miss Clarkes (who made a profound impression on his susceptible heart), a sentimental journey through Wicklow, a glance at the humours of Donnybrook Fair, a visit to O'Connell at Derrinane Abbey, a peep into the wilds of Connaught, an Emancipation dinner at Cashel, where he made his debut as an English orator, and an expedition to the lakes of Killarney. All this, which was probably novel and interesting to the German public, contains little that is not familiar to the modern English reader. The sketch of O'Connell is sufficiently vivid to bear quotation.

'Daniel O'Connell,' observes the prince, after his visit to Derrinane, 'is no common man—though the man of the commonalty. His power is so great that at this moment it only depends on him to raise the standard of rebellion from one end of the island to the other. He is, however, too sharp-sighted, and much too sure of attaining his ends by safer means, to wish to bring on any such violent crisis. He has certainly shown great dexterity in availing himself of the temper of the country at this moment, legally, openly, and in the face of Government, to acquire a power scarcely inferior to that of the sovereign; indeed, though without arms or armies, in some instances far surpassing it. For how would it have been possible for his Majesty George IV. to withhold 40,000 of his faithful Irishmen for three days from whisky drinking? which O'Connell actually accomplished in the memorable Clare election. The enthusiasm of the people rose to such a height that they themselves decreed and inflicted a punishment for drunkenness. The delinquent was thrown into the river, and held there for two hours, during which time he was made to undergo frequent submersions.... On the whole, O'Connell exceeded my expectations. His exterior is attractive, and the expression of intelligent good-humour, united with determination and prudence, which marks his countenance, is extremely winning. He has perhaps more of persuasiveness than of large and lofty eloquence; and one frequently perceives too much design and manner in his words. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to follow his powerful arguments with interest, to view the martial dignity of his carriage without pleasure, or to refrain from laughing at his wit.... He has received from Nature an invaluable gift for a party-leader, a magnificent voice, united to good lungs and a strong constitution. His understanding is sharp and quick, and his acquirements out of his profession not inconsiderable. With all this his manners are, as I have said, winning and popular, though somewhat of the actor is noticeable in them; they do not conceal his very high opinion of himself, and are occasionally tinged by what an Englishman would call vulgarity. But where is there a picture without shade?'

The prince's matrimonial projects had been pursued only in half-hearted fashion during this year, and on his return to England in December, he seems to have thrown up the game in despair. On January 2, 1829, he turned his back on our perfidious shores, and made a short tour in France before proceeding to Muskau. In one of his letters to Lucie he admits that on his return journey he had plenty of material for reflection. Two precious years had been wasted, absence from his dearest friend had been endured, a large sum of money had been spent in keeping up a dashing appearance—and all in vain. He consoles himself with the amazing reflection that Parry had failed in three attempts to reach the North Pole, and Bonaparte, after heaping victory on victory for twenty years, had perished miserably in St. Helena!

But if the prince had not accomplished his design of carrying off a British heiress, his sojourn in England brought him a prize of a different kind—namely, the laurel crown of fame. His Briefe eines Verstorbenen, the first volumes of which were published anonymously in 1830, was greeted with an almost unanimous outburst of admiration and applause. The critics vied with each other in praising a work in which, according to their verdict, the grace and piquancy of France were combined with the analytical methods and the profound philosophy of Germany. In England, as was only to be expected, the chorus of applause was not unmixed with hisses and catcalls. The author had, however, been exceptionally fortunate in his translator, Sarah Austin, whose version of the Letters, entitled The Tour of a German Prince, was described by the Westminster Review as 'the best modern translation of a prose work that has ever appeared, and perhaps our only translation from the German. As an original work, the ease and facility of the style would be admired; as a translation, it is unrivalled.' Croker reviewed the book in the Quarterly in his accustomed strain of playful brutality, rejoiced savagely over the numerous blunders, [Footnote: The most amusing of these is the derivation of the Prince of Wales' motto 'Ich dien' from two Welsh words, 'Eich deyn,' said to signify 'This is your man!'] and credited the author with almost as many blasphemies as Lady Morgan herself. The Edinburgh, in a more impartial notice, observed that a great part of the work had no other merit than that of being an act of individual treachery against the hospitalities of private life, and commented on the fact that while the masterpieces of Goethe and Schiller were still untranslated, the Tour of Prince Pueckler-Muskau had been bought up in a month.

The prince was far too vain of his unexpected literary success to preserve his anonymity, and the ink-craving having laid hold upon him, he lost no time in setting to work upon another book. The semblance of a separation between himself and Lucie had now been thrown aside. During the summer months they lived at Muskau, where they laboured together over plans for the embellishment of the gardens, while in the winter they kept up a splendid establishment in Berlin. The sight of a divorced couple living together seems to have shocked the Berliners far more than that of a married couple living apart, but to Pueckler, as a chartered 'original,' much was forgiven. At this time he went a good deal into literary society, and became intimate with several women-writers, among them the Graefin Hahn-Hahn, Rahel, and that amazing lady, Bettine von Arnim. With the last-named he struck up an intellectual friendship which roused the jealousy of Lucie, and was finally wrecked by Bettine's attempts to obtain a spiritual empire over the lord of Muskau.

In 1832 the prince's debts amounted to 500,000 thalers, and he was obliged once again to face the fact that he could only save himself from ruin by a wealthy marriage, or by the sale of his estate. In a long letter he laid the state of the case before his faithful companion, pointing out that even at forty-seven, he, with his title and his youthful appearance, might hope to secure a bride worth 300,000 thalers, but that as long as his ex-wife remained at Muskau he was hardly likely to be successful in his matrimonial speculations. Lucie again consented to sacrifice herself in the good cause; but the prince, a man of innumerable bonnes fortunes according to his own account, was curiously unfortunate as a would-be Benedick. The German heiresses were no more propitious to his suit than the English ones had been; and though, as he plaintively observes, he would have liked nothing better than to be a Turkish pasha with a hundred and fifty sultanas, he was unable to obtain a single Christian wife.

In 1834 the prince published two books, Tutti Frutti, a collection of stories and sketches, and Observations on Landscape-Gardening. Tutti Frutti was by no means so popular as the Briefe eines Verstorbenen, but the Observations took rank as a standard work. The project of a journey to America having been abandoned, the prince now determined to spend the winter in Algiers, leaving Lucie in charge at Muskau. This modest programme enlarged itself into a tour in the East, which lasted for more than five years. The travellers adventures during this period have been described in his Semilasso in Africa, Aus Mehemet's Reich, Die Rueckkehr, and other works, which added to their author's fame, and nearly sufficed to pay his expenses. We hear of him breaking hearts at Tunis and Athens, shooting big game in the Soudan, astonishing the Arabs by his horsemanship, and meddling in Egyptian politics. It was not until 1838 that, moved by Lucie's complaints of her loneliness, he reluctantly abandoned his plan of settling in the East, and turned his face towards Europe. On the homeward journey he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and turned out of his course for the visit to Lady Hester Stanhope that has already been described.

His Highness arrived at Vienna in the autumn of 1839, bringing in his suite an Abyssinian slave-girl, Machbuba, whom he had bought a couple of years before, and who had developed such wonderful qualities of head and heart, that he could not bring himself to part from her. But Lucie obstinately refused to receive Machbuba at Muskau, and declared that the prince's reputation would be destroyed for ever, if he brought a favourite slave under the same roof as his 'wife,' and thus sinned against the laws of outward seemliness. So Machbuba and the master who, like another Pygmalion, seems to have endowed this dusky Galatea with a mind and soul, remained at Vienna, where the Abyssinian, clad in a picturesque Mameluke's costume, accompanied the prince to all the public spectacles, and became a nine days' wonder to the novelty-loving Viennese. But the severity of a European winter proved fatal to poor Machbuba, consumption laid its grip upon her, and it was as a dying girl that at last she was taken to the Baths of Muskau. Lucie received this once-dreaded rival kindly, but at once carried off the prince for a visit to Berlin, and in the absence of the master whom she worshipped with a spaniel-like devotion, Machbuba breathed her last. The slave-girl was laid to rest amid all the pomp and ceremony of a state funeral, the principal inhabitants of Muskau and the neighbourhood followed her to her grave, and on the Sunday following her death the chaplain delivered a eulogy on Machbuba's virtues, and the fatherly benevolence of her master.

The prince was temporarily broken-hearted at the death of his favourite, but his mercurial spirits soon reasserted themselves, and a round of visits to the various German courts restored him to his accustomed self-complacency. The idea of selling Muskau, and thus ridding himself of the burden of his debts, once more occupied his mind. A handsome offer for the estate had been refused a few years before, in compliance with the wishes of Lucie, who loved Muskau even better than its master, and had appealed to the king to prevent the sale. But in 1845 came another offer from Count Hatzfeld of 1,700,000 thalers, which, in spite of Lucie's tears and entreaties, the prince decided to accept. Although it cost him a sharp pang to give up to another the spot of earth on which he had lavished so much time, so much labour, and so much money, he fully appreciated the advantage of an unembarrassed income and complete freedom of movement.

For a year or two after the sale, he led a wandering life, with Berlin or Weimar for his headquarters. In 1846, shortly before his sixtieth birthday, he met, so he confided to the long-suffering Lucie, the only woman he had ever loved, or at least the only woman he had ever desired to marry. Unfortunately, the lady, who was young, beautiful, clever, of high rank, large fortune, and angelic disposition, had been married for some years to a husband who is described as ugly, ill-tempered, jealous, and incredibly selfish. The prince's letters at this period are filled with raptures over the virtues of his new inamorata, and lamentations that he had met her too late. For though his passion was returned the lady was a strict Catholic, for whom a divorce was out of the question, and for once this hardened Lothario shrank from an elopement, with the resultant stain upon the reputation of the woman he loved. In 1846 he parted from his affinity, who survived the separation little more than a year, and retired with a heavy heart to his paternal castle of Branitz, near Kottbus, where he occupied himself in planting a park and laying out gardens. Branitz was only about a tenth part the size of Muskau, and stood in the midst of a sandy waste, but at more than sixty years of age the prince set himself, with all the ardour of youth, to conjure a paradise out of the wilderness. Forest trees were transplanted, lakes and canals dug, hills appeared out of the level fields, and, in short, this 'earth-tamer,' as Rahel called him, created not only a park, but a complete landscape.

The remainder of our hero's eventful career must be briefly summarised. In 1851 he made a flight to England to see the Great Exhibition. Here he renewed his acquaintance with many old friends, among them the Duchess of Somerset, who told him that she had known his father well twenty-five years before. The prince, who has been described as a male Ninon de L'Enclos, was naturally delighted at being mistaken for his own son. In 1852 the work at Branitz was so far advanced that its lord invited Lucie to come and take up her abode at the Schloss. But the poor lady's troubled life was nearing its close. She had a paralytic stroke in the autumn of this year, and remained an invalid until her death, which took place at Branitz in May, 1854.

In the loneliness that followed, the prince amused himself by keeping up a lively correspondence with his feminine acquaintance, for whom, even at seventy, he had not lost his fascinations. His celebrity as an author and a traveller brought him many anonymous correspondents, and he never wearied of reading and answering the sentimental effusions of his unknown admirers. In 1863 he paid a visit incognito to Muskau, the first since he had left it eighteen years before, though Branitz was but a few leagues away. He was recognised at once, and great was the joy in the little town over the return of its old ruler, who was honoured with illuminations, the discharge of cannon, and torchlight processions. The estate had passed into the hands of Prince Frederick of the Netherlands, who had carried out all its former master's plans, and added many improvements of his own. Pueckler generously admired the splendour that he had had so large a share in creating, and then went contentedly back to his kleine Branitz, his only regret being that he could not live to see it, like Muskau, in the fulness of its matured beauty. In 1866, when war broke out between Prussia and Austria, this grand old man of eighty-one volunteered for active service, and begged to be attached to the headquarters' staff. His request was granted, and he went gallantly through the brief campaign, but was bitterly disappointed because he was not able to be present at the battle of Koniggraetz, owing to the indisposition of the king, upon whom he was in attendance.

In 1870, when France declared war against Prussia, he again volunteered, and was deeply mortified when the king declined his services on account of his advanced age. For the first time he seems to have realised that he was old, and it is probable that the disappointment preyed upon his spirits, for his strength rapidly declined, his memory failed, and on February 4,1871, after a brief illness, he sank peacefully to rest. He was buried in a tomb that he had built for himself many years before, a pyramid sixty feet high, which stood upon an acre of ground in the centre of an artificial lake. The two inscriptions that the prince chose for his sepulchre illustrate, appropriately enough, the sharply contrasting qualities of his strange individuality—his romantic sentimentality, and his callous cynicism. The first inscription was a line from the Koran:

'Graves are the mountain summits of a far-off, fairer world.'

The second, chosen presumably for the sake of the paradox, was the French apothegm:

'Allons Chez Pluto plutot plus tard.'



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT

PART I



The names of William and Mary Howitt are inextricably associated with the England of the early nineteenth century, with the re-discovery of the beauty and interest of their native land, with the renaissance of the national passion for country pleasures and country pursuits, and with the slow, painful struggle for a wider freedom, a truer humanity, a fuller, more gracious life. The Howitts had no genius, nor were they pioneers, but, where the unfamiliar was concerned, they were open-minded and receptive to a degree that is unfortunately rare in persons of their perfect uprightness and strong natural piety. If they flashed no new radiance upon the world, they were always among the first to kindle their little torches at the new lamps; and they did good service in handing back the light to those who, but for them, would have had sat in the shadow, and flung stones at the incomprehensible illuminations.

Of the two minds, Mary's was the finer and the more original. It was one of those everyday miracles—the miracles that do happen—that in spite of the severity, the narrowness, the repression of her early training, she should have forced her way through the shell of rigid sectarianism, repudiated her heritage of drab denials, and opened both heart and mind to the new poetry, the new art, and the new knowledge. In her husband she found a kindred spirit, and during the more than fifty years of their pilgrimage together their eyes were ever turned towards the same goal. Though not equally gifted, they were equally disinterested, equally enlightened, and equally anxious for the advancement of humanity. They took themselves and their vocation seriously, and produced an immense quantity of careful, conscientious work, the work of honest craftsmen rather than artists, with the quality of a finished piece of cabinet-making, or a strip of fine embroidery.

Mary Howitt was the daughter of Samuel Botham, a land-surveyor at Uttoxeter. His father, the descendant of a long line of Staffordshire yeomen, Quakers by persuasion, loved a roaming life, and having married a maltster's widow with a talent for business management, was left free to indulge his own propensities. He seems to have had a talent for medical science of an empirical kind, for he dabbled in magnetism and electricity, and wandered about the country collecting herbs for headache—snuffs, and healing ointments. Samuel, as soon as he had served his apprenticeship, found plenty of employment in the neighbourhood, the country gentlemen, who had taken alarm at the revolutionary ideas newly introduced from France, being anxious to have their acres measured, and their boundaries accurately defined. While at work upon Lord Talbot's Welsh estates in 1795, he became attracted by a 'convinced' Friend, named Ann Wood. The interesting discovery that both had a passion for nuts, together with the gentle match-making of a Quaker patriarch, led to an engagement, and the couple were married in December, 1796.

Ann Wood was the granddaughter of William Wood, whose contract for supplying Ireland with copper coin (obtained by bribing the Duchess of Kendal) was turned into a national grievance by Swift, and led to the publication of the Drapier Letters. Although Wood's half-pence were admitted to be excellent coin, and Ireland was short of copper, the feeling against their circulation was so intense, that Ministers were obliged to withdraw the patent, Wood being compensated for his losses with a grant of L3000 a year for a term of years, and 'places' for some of his fifteen children. Ann's father, Charles, when very young, was appointed assay-master to Jamaica. After his return to England in middle life he married a lively widow, went into business as an iron-master near Merthyr Tydvil, and distinguished himself by introducing platinum into Europe, having first met with the semi-metal in Jamaica, whither it had been brought from Carthagena in New Spain. After his death, Ann, the only serious member of a 'worldly' family, found it impossible to remain in the frivolous atmosphere of her home, and determined, in modern fashion, to 'live her own life.' After spending some years as governess or companion in various families, she became converted to Quaker doctrines, and was received into the Society of Friends.

Samuel Botham took his bride to live in the paternal home at Uttoxeter, where the preparation of the old quack doctor's herbal medicines caused her a great deal of discomfort. In the course of the next three years two daughters were born to the couple; Anna in 1797, and Mary on March 12, 1799. At the time of Mary's birth her parents were passing through a period of pecuniary distress, owing to a disastrous speculation; but with the opening of the new century a piece of great good fortune befell Samuel Botham. He was one of the two surveyors chosen to enclose and divide the Chase of Needwood in the county of Stafford. In the early years of the nineteenth century there was, unfortunately for England, a mania for enclosing commons, and felling ancient forests. Needwood, which extended for many miles, contained great numbers of magnificent old oaks, limes, and hollies, and no less than twenty thousand head of deer. In after years, Mary Howitt often regretted that her family should have had a hand in the destruction of so vast an extent of solitude and beauty, in a country that was already thickly populated and trimly cultivated. Still, for the nine years that the work of 'disafforesting' lasted, the two little girls got a great deal of enjoyment out of the ruined Chase, spending long summer days in its grassy glades, while their father parcelled out the land and marked trees for the axe.

In her Autobiography [Footnote: Edited by her daughter Margaret, and published by Messrs. Isbister in 1889.] Mary declares that it is impossible for her to give an adequate idea of the stillness and isolation of her childish life. So intense was the silence of the Quaker household, that, at four years old, Anna had to be sent to a dame's school in order that she might learn to talk; while even after both children had attained the use of speech, their ignorance of the right names for the most ordinary feelings and actions obliged them to coin words of their own. 'My childhood was happy in many respects,' she writes. 'It was so, as far as physical health, the enjoyment of a beautiful country, and the companionship of a dearly loved sister could make it—but oh, there was such a cloud over all from the extreme severity of a so-called religious education, it almost made cowards and hypocrites of us, and made us feel that, if this were religion, it was a thing to be feared and hated.' The family reading consisted chiefly of the writings of Madame Guyon, Thomas a Kempis, and St. Francis de Sales, while for light literature there were Telemachus, Fox's Book of Martyrs, and a work on the Persecution of the Friends. But it is impossible for even the most pious of Quakers to guard against all the stratagems by which the spirit of evil—or human nature—contrives to gain an entrance into a godly household. In the case of the Botham children an early knowledge of good and evil was learnt from an apparently respectable nurse, who made her little charges acquainted with most of the scandals of the neighbourhood, accustomed their infant ears to oaths, and—most terrible of all—taught them to play whist, she herself taking dummy, and transforming the nursery tea-tray into a card-table. In that silent household it was easy to keep a secret, and though the little girls often trembled at their nurse's language, they never betrayed her confidence.

In 1806 another daughter, Emma, was born to the Bothams, and in 1808 a son, Charles. In the midst of their joy and amazement at the news that they had a brother, the little girls asked each other anxiously: 'Will our parents like it?' Only a short time before a stranger had inquired if they had any brothers, and they had replied in all seriousness: 'Oh no, our parents do not approve of boys.' Now, much to their relief, they found that their father and mother highly approved of their own boy, who became the spoilt darling of the austere household. A new nurse was engaged for the son and heir, a lady of many love-affairs, who made Mary her confidante, and induced the child, then nine years old, to write an imaginary love-letter. The unlucky letter was laid between the pages of the worthy Madame Guyon, and there discovered by Mr. Botham. Not much was said on the subject of the document, which seems to have been considered too awful to bear discussion; but the children were removed from the influence of the nurse, and allowed to attend a day-school in the neighbourhood, though only on condition that they sat apart from the other children in order to avoid contamination with possible worldlings.

In 1809 the two elder sisters were sent to a Quaker school at Croydon, where they found themselves the youngest, the most provincial, and the worst dressed of the little community. Even in advanced old age, Mary had a keen memory for the costumes of her childhood, and the mortification that these had caused her. On their arrival at school the little girls were attired in brown pelisses, cut plain and straight, without plait or fold, and hooked down the front to obviate the necessity for buttons, which, being in the nature of trimmings, were regarded as an indulgence of the lust of the eye. On their heads they wore little drab beaver bonnets, also destitute of trimmings, and so plain in shape that even the Quaker hatter had to order special blocks for their manufacture. The other girls were busy over various kinds of fashionable fancy-work, but the little Bothams were expected, in their leisure moments, to make half-a-dozen linen shirts for their father, button-holes and all. They had never learnt to net, to weave coloured paper into baskets, to plait split straw into patterns, nor any of the other amateur handicrafts of the day. But they were clever with their fingers, and could copy almost anything that they had seen done. 'We could buckle flax or spin a rope,' writes Mary. 'We could drive a nail, put in a screw or draw it out. We knew the use of a glue-pot, and how to paper a room. We soon furnished ourselves with coloured paper for plaiting, and straw to split and weave into net; and I shall never forget my admiration of a pattern of diamonds woven with strips of gold paper on a black ground. It was my first attempt at artistic handiwork.'

After a few months at Croydon the girls were recalled to Uttoxeter on account of their mother's illness; and as soon as she recovered they were despatched to another Friends' school at Sheffield. In 1812, when Mary was only thirteen and Anna fifteen, their education was supposed to be completed, and they returned home for good. But Mr. Botham was dissatisfied with his daughters' attainments, and engaged the master of the boys' school to teach them Latin, mathematics, and the use of the globes. The death of this instructor obliged them thenceforward to rely on a system of self-education. 'We retained and perfected our rudimentary knowledge,' Mary writes, 'by instructing others. Our father fitted up a school-room for us in the stable-loft, where, twice a week, we were allowed to teach poor children. In this room, also, we instructed our dear little brother and sister. Our father, in his beautiful handwriting, used to set them copies, texts of Scripture, such as he no doubt had found of a consolatory nature. On one occasion, however, I set the copies, and well remember the tribulation I experienced in consequence. I always warred in my mind against the enforced gloom of our home, and having for my private reading at that time Young's Night Thoughts, came upon what seemed to me the very spirit of true religion, a cheerful heart gathering up the joyfulness of surrounding nature; on which the poet says: "'Tis impious in a good man to be sad." How I rejoiced in this!—and thinking it a great fact which ought to be noised abroad, wrote it down in my best hand as a copy. It fell under our father's eye, and sorely grieved he was at such a sentiment, and extremely angry with me as its promulgator.'

The sisters can never have found the time hang heavy on their hands, for in addition to their educational duties, their mother required them to be expert in all household matters; while, in their scanty hours of leisure, they attempted, in the face of every kind of discouragement, to satisfy their strong natural craving for beauty and knowledge. 'We studied poetry, botany, and flower-painting,' Mary writes. 'These pursuits were almost out of the pale of permitted Quaker pleasures, but we pursued them with a perfect passion, doing in secret that which we dared not do openly, such as reading Shakespeare, the elder novelists, and translations of the classics. We studied French and chemistry, and enabled ourselves to read Latin, storing our minds with a whole mass of heterogeneous knowledge. This was good as far as it went, but I now deplore the secrecy, the subterfuge, and the fear under which this ill-digested, ill-arranged knowledge was obtained.'

The young Quakeresses picked up ideas and models for their artistic handicraft from the most unlikely sources. A shop-window, full of dusty plaster medallions for mantelpiece decorations, gave them their first notions of classic design. The black Wedgwood ware was to be seen in nearly every house in Uttoxeter, while a few of the more prosperous inhabitants possessed vases and jugs in the pale blue ware, ornamented with graceful figures. These precious specimens the Botham sisters used to borrow, and contrived to reproduce the figures by means of moulds made of paper pulp. They also etched flowers and landscapes on panes of glass, and manufactured 'transparencies' out of different thicknesses of cap-paper. 'I feel a sort of tender pity for Anna and myself,' wrote Mary long afterwards, 'when I remember how we were always seeking and struggling after the beautiful, and after artistic production, though we knew nothing of art. I am thankful that we made no alms-baskets, or hideous abortions of that kind. What we did was from the innate yearnings of our souls for perfection in form and colour; and our accomplished work, though crude and poor, was the genuine outcome of our own individuality.'

It was one of the heaviest crosses of Mary's girlish days that she and Anna were not permitted to exercise their clever fingers, and indulge their taste for the beautiful, in their own dress. But they found a faint vicarious pleasure in making pretty summer gowns, and embroidering elaborate muslin collars for a girl-friend who was allowed to wear fashionable clothes, and even to go to balls. Even their ultra-plain costumes, however, could not disguise the fact that Anna and Mary Botham were comely damsels, and they had several suitors among the young men-Friends of Uttoxeter. But the sisters held a low opinion of the mental endowments of the average Quaker, an opinion that was only shaken by a report of the marvellous attainments of young William Howitt of Heanor, who was said to be not only a scholar, but a born genius. William's mother, Phoebe, herself a noted amateur healer, was an old friend of Mary's grandfather, the herbal doctor, but the young people had never met. However, in the autumn of 1818, William paid a visit to some relations at Uttoxeter, and there made the acquaintance of the Botham girls, who discovered that this young man-Friend shared nearly all their interests, and was full of sympathy with their studies and pursuits.

Before the end of the year Mary Botham was engaged to William Howitt, he being then six-and-twenty and she nineteen. 'The tastes of my future husband and my own were strongly similar,' she observes, 'so also was our mental culture; but he was in every direction so far in advance of me as to become my teacher and guide. Knowledge in the broadest sense was the aim of our intellectual efforts; poetry and nature were the paths that led to it. Of ballad poetry I was already enamoured, William made me acquainted with the realistic life-pictures of Crabbe; the bits of nature and poetry in the vignettes of Bewick; with the earliest works of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, and the first marvellous prose productions of the author of Waverley.'

After an engagement lasting a little more than two years, William and Mary were married on April 16, 1821, the bride wearing her first silk gown—a pretty dove-colour—and a white silk shawl, finery which filled her soul with rapture. The couple spent the honeymoon in the bridegroom's native Derbyshire, visiting every spot of beauty or haunt of old tradition in that country of the romantic and the picturesque. Incorporated in his wife's Autobiography is William Howitt's narrative of his parentage and youthful days, which is supplemented by his Boys' Country Book, the true story of his early adventures and experiences. The Howitts, he tells us, were descended from a family named Hewitt, the younger branch of which obtained Wansley Hall, near Nottingham, through marriage with an heiress, and changed the spelling of their name. His ancestors had been, for generations, a rollicking set, all wofully lacking in prudence and sobriety. About the end of the seventeenth century, one Thomas Howitt, great-great-grandfather of William, married Catherine, heiress of the Charltons of Chilwell. But Thomas so disgusted his father-in-law by his drunken habits that Mr. Charlton disinherited his daughter, who loyally refused to leave her husband, and left his property to a stranger who chanced to bear his name. After this misfortune the Howitts descended somewhat in the social scale, and, having no more substance to waste, reformed their ways and forsook all riotous living. William's father, who held a post as manager of a Derbyshire colliery, married a Quaker lady, Phoebe Tantum of the Fall, Heanor, and was himself received into the Society of Friends in 1783.

William received a good plain education at a Quaker school at Ackworth, and grew up a genuine country lad, scouring the lanes on his famous grey pony, Peter Scroggins, the acknowledged leader of the village lads in bird-nesting and rat-hunting expeditions, and taking his full share of the work on his father's little farm. Long afterwards he used to say that every scene in and about Heanor was photographed with absolute distinctness on his brain, and he loved to recall the long days that he had spent in following the plough, chopping turnips for the cattle, tramping over the snow-covered fields after red-wing and fieldfare, collecting acorns for the swine, or hunting through the barns for eggs. The Howitt family was much less strict than that of the Bothams, for in the winter evenings the boys were allowed to play draughts and dominoes, while at Christmas there were games of forfeits, blind-man's buff, and fishing for the ring in the great posset-pot.

On leaving school at fifteen, William amused himself for a couple of years on the farm, though, curiously enough, he never thought of becoming a farmer in good earnest; indeed, at this time he seems to have had no distinct bias towards any profession. Mr. Howitt had somehow become imbued with Rousseau's doctrine that every boy, whatever his position in life, should learn a mechanical handicraft, in order that, if all else failed, he might be able to earn his own living by the labour of his hands. Having decided that William should learn carpentering, the boy was apprenticed for four years to a carpenter and builder at Mansfield, on the outskirts of Sherwood Forest. The four precious years were practically thrown away, except for the enjoyment obtained from long solitary rambles amid the picturesque associations of the Forest, and the knowledge of natural history gained from close observation of the wild life of that romantic district.