From The Literary Examiner. Journal kept during a Visit to Germany in 1799-1800. Edited by the Dean of West

minster. 1861.

perfections. No foresight, no reflection, no sagacity, and, I had almost said, no advice, can supply the want of experience, even in situations where it appears least necessary. It is a melancholy consideration that we only know how to live when the chief pleasures of life, those attendant on youth and youthful spirits, are vanished forever.

She gives the following anecdotes of Russian manners, as told to her by a British envoy, but it is to be hoped that sixty years have produced a much-needed improve

ment:

EVERY line of this exquisite little volume of only ninety-seven pages is a treat, and we venture to affirm that the only sentence in it which will not give pleasure is the concluding one "The remainder of the journal has been sought in vain." The Dean of Westminster apologizes for the printing of his mother's journal: there was no need, and had such a manuscript as that from which it "Dresden is filled with foreigners from all has been taken been known to exist, the parts, chiefly Poles and Russians. Of the needed apology would have been for not latter Mr. Elliot told me two horrid anecgiving it publicity. The author of the jour- dotes. He was invited to dine with a Rusnal was the granddaughter of Chenevix, sian major; and one of his servants, a reBishop of Waterford, the frequent correcruit who had been thought too sickly to serve spondent of Chesterfield. Married at nine- in the army, laid the cloth rather awkwardly. teen and a widow at two-and-twenty, it was stick, next with an iron bar. His master beat him furiously, first with a 'Good heavas widow that she went to Germany. That ens!' cried Mr. Elliot, you will kill the man.' she was an elegant and accomplished woman Why,' replied the major, 'it is very hard and an acute and excellent observer is pro- that I have killed seven or eight, and never claimed by every page of her journal, and have been able to make a good servant yet.' that she was moreover a beautiful one we At another time Mr. Elliot dined with a clearly infer. Such a tourist, so connected, gentleman who talked of the aversion the Cossacks had to the Jews. 'Now I dare had, of course, access to the highest society say,' cried he, this little fellow behind me,' of Germany, and in it, at the eventful mo- turning to a Cossack of about thirteen, 'has ment of the termination of the first French dispatched them by the score. Come, tell republic, she encountered many personages me how many did you ever kill at once?' now belonging to history, on whose charac-The most I ever killed at once was eleven,' ters her clever pen throws a fresh light.

We proceed at once to quote as largely as our space will admit. While at Vienna the author of the journal makes the following shrewd observation on travelling:

"It grieves me to find travelling contributes so little to the improvement of my mind. A variety of causes operates to prevent the possibility of a woman reaping much benefit from a journey through Germany, unless she totally gives up the world. A certain enlargement of ideas must imperceptibly follow, and she corrects some erroneous notions; but she finds infinite difficulty in making any new acquirements. The multiplicity of visits, not confined to leaving a card, as in London, but real, substantial, bodily visits, and the impossibility, without overstepping all the bounds of custom, of associating with any but noblesse, may be reckoned among the greatest obstacles. To make travelling subservient to improvement, it must be undertaken on a different plan from my present journey. I believe there is no undertaking whatever, in which the first attempt is not condemned to many gross and obvious im

6

answered the young savage with a grin. could have killed eleven men!' Oh yes,' an'Impossible,' said Mr. Elliot, that that boy swered he, for my father bound their hands, and I stabbed them.""

We have this curious specimen of the mad pranks of the emperor Paul, who for his indulgence was soon after, not confined as a lunatic, but, according to Russian as well as Turkish fashion, strangled by his own cour

tiers :

"One assigned cause for Sir Charles Whitworth's disgrace with the Court of Russia is curious. The emperor had given orders no empty carriage should pass a certain part of the palace. Sir Charles, ignorant of this, had left his coach to speak with a workman, and desired it might drive on and meet him at a distance. The sentinel stopped the carriage; the servants insisted on driving on ; a scuffle ensued. The emperor, ever on the watch about trifles, inquired into the cause of the dispute, and, on learning it, ordered the servants to be beat, the horses to be beat, and the coach to be beat (Xerxes lashing the sea!) Sir Charles Whitworth

by way of washing off this stain, ordered his servants to be discharged, his horses to be shot, his carriage, after being broken into a thousand pieces, to be thrown into the river. The emperor, indignant at this mark of offended pride, insisted on his recall."

The barbarism of the Russian hero, Suwarrow, appears to have been such as to have incurred the censures even of the waiter at a country inn :

and a moldave (simply a body, train, and short sleeves) of pale pink silk, slightly sparkling with gold, and trimmed all round with sable. Her neck was richly ornamented with jewels. She speaks very graciously and politely to every one."

But the largest and the best-drawn characters in the journal are those of Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton, and these we give at full length, for they are both original and amus"March 20.—I was so fatigued, I remained ing. Lord Nelson was beyond all question to-day at the inn (Rothes Haus) where Su- a hero on the quarter-deck, and in command warrow lived three months of the last year. of a fleet a great and skilful captain, but on He rose every day at two hours after mid-shore and in private society we have always night, dined at eight, and went to bed at understood him to have been even below the three. He is a great bigot and great hog, the waiter told me, of whom I asked two or alluded to in the narrative was the future average of ordinary men. The Miss Knight three questions about him, but was soon obliged to desist." lady companion of the Princess Charlotte, and the same whose biography we reviewed last week.

Of the beautiful, busy, and clever queen of Prussia, with her husband, afterwards almost dethroned by Napoleon, we have the following pleasing, and, we doubt not, faithful portrait :

"Oct. 2.-Dined at the Elliots'. While I

was playing at chess with Mr. Elliot, the news arrived of Lord Nelson's arrival, with Sir William and Lady Hamilton, Mrs. Cadogan, mother of the latter, and Miss Cornelia Knight, famous for her Continuation of Rasselas, and Private Life of the Romans.

"Oct. 3.-Dined at Mr. Elliot's with only the Nelson party. It is plain that Lord Nelson thinks of nothing but Lady Hamilton, who is totally occupied by the same object. She is bold, forward, coarse, assuming, and vain. Her figure is colossal, but, excepting her feet, which are hideous, well shaped. Her bones are large, and she is excecdingly embonpoint. She resembles the bust of Ariadne; the shape of all her feat

"Dec. 28.-Went to court, which is here an evening assembly. I was presented to the king and queen. He is a fine tall military man, plain and reserved in his manners and address. She reminded me of Burke's star, glittering with life, splendor, and joy,' and realized all the fanciful ideas one forms in one's infancy, of the young, gay, beautiful, and magnificent queens in the Arabian Nights. She is an angel of loveliness, mildness, and grace; tall and svelte, yet sufficiently embonpoint; her hair is light, her complexion fair and faultless; an inexpressible air of sweetness reigns in her counte-ures is fine, as is the form of her head, and nance, and forms its predominant character. As perfect beauty in nature is a chimera, like the philosopher's stone, and as it is rarely to be found but in the higher works of art, I take nothing from her charms in saying she is not faultless. An ill-shaped mouth, indifferent teeth, a broad forehead and large limbs are the only defects the severest criticism can discover; while her hair, her height, her movements, her shoulders, her waist, are all unexceptionable. These slight faults only prove she is a woman and not a statue, and altogether she is one of the loveliest creatures I have ever seen. Her dress was in the best taste. Her hair was dressed in the fullest and most varied of the Grecian forms, going very far back, and ornamented with a heron's feather, and a number of immense diamond stars, so placed as to form a bandeau quite round, which came close to her temples. She wore a chemise of crape, richly embroidered in emerald-green foil,

particularly her ears; her teeth are a little irregular, but tolerably white; her eyes light blue, with a brown spot in one, which, though a defect, takes nothing away from her beauty and expression. Her eyebrows and hair are dark, and her complexion coarse. Her expression is strongly marked, variable, and interesting; her movements in common life ungraceful; her voice loud, yet not disagreeable. Lord Nelson is a little man, without any dignity, who, I suppose, must resemble what Suwarrow was in his youth, as he is like all the pictures I have seen of that general. Lady Hamilton takes possession of him, and he is a willing captive, the most submissive and devoted I have seen. Sir William is old, infirm, all admiration of his wife, and never spoke to-day but to applaud her. Miss Cornelia Knight seems the decided flatterer of the two, and never opens her mouth but to show forth their praise; and Mrs. Cadogan, Lady Hamilton's mother,

"Oct. 7.-Breakfasted with Lady Hamilton, and saw her represent in succession the best statues and paintings extant. She assumes their attitude, expression, and drapery with great facility, swiftness, and accuracy. Several Indian shawls, a chair, some antique vases, a wreath of roses, a tambourine, and "Oct. 8.-Dined at Madame de Loss's, wife a few children are her whole apparatus. She to the Prime Minister, with the Nelson stands at one end of the room with a strong light to her left and every other window closed. Her hair (which by the bye is never clean), is short, dressed like an antique, and her gown a simple calico chemise, very easy,

there will be no court while she stays. Lord Nelson, understanding the elector did not wish to see her, said to Mr. Elliot, Sir, if there is any difficulty of that sort, Lady Hamilton will knock the elector down, and -me, I'll knock him down too.' She was not invited in the beginning to Madame de Loss's, upon which Lord Nelson sent his excuse, and then Mr. Elliot persuaded Madame de Loss to invite her. From Madame de Loss's visited Mrs. Newman, a very obliging, entertaining woman of the tiers état, thence to sup at Mrs. Rawdon's. Here I found Lady Win the midst of a very animated discourse on precedence, which I soon found took its rise from Mr. Elliot's having led me

in to dinner at Madame de Loss's before her

and another lady who had place. She politely told me he showed his ignorance and his impertinence, and she was sorry he knew no better. I had been so amused by his conversation at dinner, I had quite forgotten the indecorum.

Mr. Elliot assured her it would not amuse
her, and that the elector never gave dinners
or suppers.
'What!' cried she, no gut-
tling ? Sir William also this evening per-
formed feats of activity, hopping round the
room on his backbone, his arms, legs, stars
and ribbon all flying about in the air."

The Elliots, frequently mentioned in the journal, were Lord Minto and Hugh Elliot, the same who as youths were placed by their father under the charge of David Hume, when the historian was Secretary of Legation at the French Court. The first was at the time Ambassador at Vienna,—had been Viceroy of Corsica, and became afterwards GovernorGeneral of India, in which capacity he conquered the whole of the French and Dutch possessions in the Indies, preserved the peace of the country intrusted to him, greatly reduced its debt, and left to his successor a full treasury. His younger brother, Hugh, "Oct. 9.-A great breakfast at the Elliot's given by the Nelson party. Lady Hamilton was at the time of the journey our Minister repeated her attitudes with great effect. All at the Court of Dresden, became afterwards the company, except their party and myself, Governor-General of the Leeward Islands, went away before dinner; after which Lady and finally Governor of Madras. He was a Hamilton, who declared she was passionately man of wit and talents, with a spice of infond of champagne, took such a portion of dolence and eccentricity, and the person it as astonished me. Lord Nelson was not behindhand, called more vociferously than usual for songs in his own praise, and after many bumpers proposed the queen of Naples, adding, She is my queen; she is queen to the backbone.' Poor Mr. Elliot, who was anxious the party should not expose themselves more than they had done already, and wished to get over the last day as well as he had done the rest, endeavored to stop the effusion of champagne, and effected it with some difficulty; but not till the lord and lady, or, as he calls them, Antony and Moll Cleopatra, were pretty far gone. I was so tired, I returned home soon after dinner, but not till Cleopatra had talked to me a great deal of her doubts whether the queen would receive her, adding, I care little

about it. I had much sooner she would settle half Sir William's pension on me.' After I went, Mr. Elliot told me she acted Nina intolerably ill, and danced the Tarantola. During her acting Lord Nelson expressed his admiration by the Irish sound of astonished applause, which no written character can imitate, and by crying every now and then, Mrs Siddons be- Lady Hamilton expressed great anxiety to go to court, and

who, when Envoy at the Court of Naples, is praised by Madame de Stael, in her "Corinne," as having by his skill and intrepidity saved, at the risk of his own life, the lives of some drowning fishermen, when no Neapolitan would make the attempt. Once when Hyder Ali had caught in an ambuscade and destroyed or taken a detachment of five thousand men, under Colonel Bailly, Frederick the Great, to whom the fact had been reported, asked Mr. Elliot, in an arrogant tone, who was the Hyder Ali that had been so well beating the English? "Sire," he answered, without a moment's hesitation, "C'est un vieux Roi qui a beaucoup pillé ses voisins, mais qui commence à radoter et que personne ne redoute plus." The cool retort of the young Minister to an insult offered to his country, made a sensation in a court where few would have ventured on such a reply to the great king,

We have only to repeat our regret at the shortness of this exquisitely graphic journal, and to express our hope that the lost manuscript may be recovered.