"We represent him to ourselves as of dignified and prepossessing exterior. He knows how instantly to place himself on an equality with high and low, and to be welcome to all;—that he excites the attention of women is natural enough—he attracts and is attracted; but his experience of the world enables him to terminate any little affaires du cœur without violence or indecorum."
We shall presently enable the reader to judge for himself as to some points of this eulogy. Meantime, we turn the leaf, and find a second flourish from—the translator of these wonderful letters.
"A rumour," says this cautious and disinterested critic, "has ascribed them to Prince Puckler-Muskau, a subject of Prussia, who is known to have travelled in England and Ireland about the period at which they were written. He has even been mentioned as the author in the Berlin newspapers: as, however, he has not thought fit to accept the authorship, we have no right to fix it upon him, though the voice of Germany has perhaps sufficiently established his claim to it. At all events, the Letters contain allusions to his rank which fully justify us in ascribing them to a German Prince."
After Goethe and the translator, or, in German phrase, oversetter, comes the editor!—who, in the midst of some would-be-pathetic cant, drops two bits of information, both entirely false; namely, that "the letters, with very few and unimportant exceptions, were written at the moment;" and, secondly, that "the author is dead!" The editor adds that there actually exist four volumes of this correspondence, but from "various circumstances, which cannot be explained, it has been found necessary to publish the two last volumes first;"—the pair, as yet unprinted, containing his highness's opinions and illustrations of London society, as these, now before us, exhibit the "manners and customs" of the provinces, and of Ireland.
As to the alleged demise of the author—Shakspeare mentions a certain class of persons who "die many times before their deaths;" and perhaps his highness may have thought it as well to feel his ground with our provinces before venturing upon what he calls "the grand foyer of European aristocracy." However—unless the whole affair is an impudent juggle—we are justified in fixing this performance upon the Prince Puckler-Muskau; and we only wonder how any English reviewer of the book could have hesitated about doing so, provided he had read as far as page 284 of the first volume, where we find our "German prince" at Limerick, in company with Mr. O'Connell, a relation of the great agitator.
"We quitted the church, and were proceeding to visit the rock near the Shannon, upon which the English signed the treaty after the battle of the Boyne—a treaty which they have not been remarkably scrupulous in observing. I remarked that we were followed by an immense crowd of people, which increased like an avalanche, and testified equal respect and enthusiasm. All on a sudden they shouted, 'Long life to Napoleon and Marshal ——.' 'Good God,' said I, 'for whom do the people take me? As a perfectly unpretending stranger I cannot in the least degree understand why they seem disposed to do me so much honour.' 'Was not your father the Prince of ——?' said O'Connell. 'Oh no,' replied I; 'my father was indeed a nobleman of rather an older date, but very far from being so celebrated.' 'You must forgive us then,' said O'Connell, incredulously; 'for, to tell you the truth, you are believed to be a natural son of Napoleon, whose partiality to your supposed mother was well known.' 'You joke,' said I, laughing: 'I am at least ten years too old to be the son of the great emperor and the beautiful princess.' He shook his head, however, and I reached my inn amid reiterated shouts. Here I shut myself up, and I shall not quit my retreat to-day. The people, however, patiently posted themselves under my windows, and did not disperse until it was nearly dark."
We make no apology for anticipating here the arrival of his highness at Limerick, because, by showing in the outset the mistake that Mr. O'Connell made between the titles of Prince de la Moscowa and Prince Muskau, we establish at once the identity of Goethe's "unprejudiced traveller," and a "right-minded" and "decorous" terminater of affaires de cœur—of whom many of our readers have had some personal knowledge—and whose imposing mustachios are still fresh in our own recollection. The cold nights of November do not more surely portend to the anxious sportsman in the country the approach of woodcocks, than do the balmy zephyrs of May foretell the arrival of illustrious foreigners in London; each succeeding season brings its flock of princes, counts, and barons, who go the ordinary round of dinners, assemblies, concerts and balls; yawn each of them one night under the gallery of the House of Commons; one day take their position on the bench at the Old Bailey; visit the Court of Chancery; snatch a glimpse of the House of Peers; mount St. Paul's; dive into the Tunnel; see Windsor; breakfast at Sandhurst; attend a review on a wet morning in Hyde Park; dance at Almack's; try for an heiress—fail; make a tour of the provinces; enjoy a battue in Norfolk; sink into a coal-pit in Northumberland; admire grouse and pibrochs in Scotland; fly along a rail-road; tread the plank of a steam-packet, and so depart,—"and then are heard no more."
Such was this Prince Puckler-Muskau; and such were his qualifications and opportunities for depicting that
"strange insular life which" (according to the clear and consistent summary of M. Goethe) "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 the derision of the world!"
His first letter, addressed, as all his letters are, to his "dear Julia,"—(that is to say, no doubt, his highness's consort, Princess Puckler, to his alliance with whom, we believe, he owed his princeship)—is dated Cheltenham, July 12, 1828; and the first observation which his highness is pleased to make upon his arrival at that popular watering-place is one of a mixed character, political, statistical, and philosophical, whence may be derived a tolerably fair estimate of his highness's accuracy and knowledge of "things in general." He is describing to his "dear Julia" the nature and character of the distress amongst the lower orders in England, and its causes and origin.