narrow-mindedness and by provincial and local exclusiveness. Whoever should thus feel, may well inquire whether we Germans are old or young, whether it is destined by fate that the German nature should only find expression in the individual virtuosoship of art and science, or whether an harmonious development of the nation in its practical and ideal tendencies, in labour and enjoyment. State, church, science, art, and industry, lies before us in the future: whether we shall ever again, as members of a great State, play the part of masters in Europe, which old records inform us our ancestors, in remote ages, won by their swords and the energy of their natures. There is still a time in our memory when hope was so faint, that one may be excused for giving a doubtful answer to such questions.

After the War of Freedom, the decay of the old method of culture became the characteristic of the time; but we now approach, with youthful vigour, new ideas and an energetic will, to a new and higher climax. In the characters of that past time we find, only too frequently, isolation, hopelessness, and deficiency in political morality; in the new time we have a sharper vision, a higher interest for the nation as a whole, and a power of viewing things in a practical light which makes us feel the need of close union between all of like mind. The realism, which is called, either in praise or blame, the stamp of the present time, is in art, science, and faith, as in the State, nothing but the first step in the cultivation of the rising generation, which endeavours to spiritualise the details of present life in all directions, in order to give a new tendency to the spirit.

But, though it may be no longer necessary to cheer the soul with hope, yet it is a pleasing task to demonstrate the point to which we have attained in comparison with the past, and in comparison with other civilised nations; why we were obliged to remain behind in many things which our neighbours possess in abundance, and why we have made other acquisitions in advance of them. It is instructive for us to make such inquiries, and the answer that we shall find may be instructive to other nations. No individual can give a satisfactory solution to each single question; even the strongest mind can but imperfectly comprehend the great life of his nation: the clearest eye and the most ingenuous judgment is contracted in comparison with the great unity of the people. But, however imperfect may be the portrait given by individuals of the life of their nation, yet each contemporary will discover some main features of the picture lying in his own soul, more especially he who stands in the same grade of cultivation with the delineator.

This kind of delineation of the period of the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, was the object of the former series of pictures of the past life of Germany; the following will be a sketch of some of the phases of development of German character during the last century up to the present day. Again shall the narratives of those who are gone, as well as the living, portray the times in which they figure; but the nearer we approach the present, the less do the records of individuals give an impression of the nature of the general community. First, because from the greater proximity we are able more accurately to distinguish the individual from the community, and also, because the diversity of character and the difference of culture become ever greater the further the German mind advances in profound investigation; therefore these examples will probably lose for the reader some of the charm afforded by those of former centuries. And in addition to this, the records of these latter times are far more known and realised by our popular writers. Lastly, the political history, as well as the development of the German mind, since the time of Frederick the Great, has, through copious works, become the property of the nation. It is not therefore intended here to enter upon a representation of the scientific mind, or of the political condition of the nation; but only to represent those phases of the spirit and social circumstances, which more especially define the character of a people. By these the continuity and many peculiarities of our present cultivation will be illustrated.

The new time began in Germany, after the invention of printing, by a struggle in which Germans broke the fetters of the Papal Church of the Middle Ages, and passed from submissive belief in authority, to an energetic, independent search after truth. But they did not at the same time succeed in building up a compact monarchy out of the unsymmetrical feudalism of the Middle Ages. The Imperial House of Hapsburg became the zealous opponent of the national development. Owing to this opposition arose the power of separate territorial princes, and the political weakness of Germany became the more perceptible, the more the rising vigour of the nation demanded an answering development of political energy. From this the German character suffered much. Ecclesiastical disputes were for a long period the only national interest; there was but too great a deficiency in Germans of that pride and pleasure in a fatherland, and of that whole circle of moral feelings, to which political independence gives life, even in the most obscure individual.

After the Reformation it became the fate of the German nation to develope its character under conditions which were materially different from those of the other civilised people of Europe. In France, the Protestant party was struck down with bloody zeal by the crown under the despotic government of Louis XIV.; and the Revolution was the growth of this victory. In England, the Protestant party gained the dominion under the Tudors; the struggle against the Stuarts and the completion of the English constitution was the result. In Germany, the opposition of parties was not followed either by victory or conciliation; the result was the Thirty Years' War, and the political paralysis of Germany, from which it is only now beginning to recover.

This Thirty Years' War, the worst desolation of a populous nation since the national exodus, is the second period of German history which gave a peculiar tendency to the character of the people. The war shattered into ruins the popular strength, but it also certainly removed the dangers which threatened German cultivation, by the alliance of the Imperial House with the Roman Hierarchy. It also separated the Imperial State, politically, from the rest of Germany; what was lost to France in the west by the Hapsburgers, was gradually regained to Germany in the east by another Royal House. The great destruction caused by the war, changed the State life of Germany to a hollow form; it threw the Germans almost two centuries back, in comparison with their English kinsmen, in wealth, population, and political condition. It must again be repeated that it destroyed at least two thirds, probably three fourths of the population, and a still greater portion of their goods and cattle, and deteriorated the morals, arts, education, and energies of the survivors. Out of these remains of German life, the modern character of Germans was slowly and feebly developed--individual life under despotic government.

It is this period, in which our popular strength was slowly raised from the deepest degradation, which will be here portrayed by the narratives of contemporaries. Again a great time, but a period of German development of which the last and highest results have not yet become history.

The way in which the people raised themselves from this abyss is peculiar to the Germans. Marvellous as was the destruction, so also was the revival. More than one nation has been overpowered by outward enemies or cast down under political oppression, each of which has had to undergo special trials which have given them from time to time a hopeless aspect, but through the whole course of history a renovation has