In a fortnight hence, Hyndford, who had followed to Berlin, got transient sight of the King one morning, hastening through some apartment or other: "'My Lord,' said the King, 'the Court of Vienna has entirely divulged our secret. Dowager Empress Amelia [Kaiser Joseph's widow, mother of Karl Albert's wife] has acquainted the Court of Bavaria with it; Wasner [Austrian Minister at Paris] has told Fleury; Sinzendorf [ditto at Petersburg] has told the Court of Russia; Robinson, through Mr. Villiers [your Saxon Minister], has told the Court of Dresden; and several members of your Government in England have talked publicly about it!' And, with a shrug of the shoulders, he left me,"—standing somewhat agape there. [Hyndford's Despatch, Berlin, 28th November, 1741; Ib. Breslau, 28th October (secret already known).]
Chapter VI. — NEW MAYOR OF LANDSHUT MAKES AN INSTALLATION SPEECH.
The late general Homaging at Breslau, and solemn Taking Possession of the Country by King Friedrich, under such peaceable omens, had straightway, as we gather, brought about, over Silesia at large, or at least where pressingly needful, various little alterations,—rectifications, by the Prussian model and new rule now introduced. Of which, as it is better that the reader have some dim notion, if easily procurable, than none at all, I will offer him one example;—itself dim enough, but coming at first-hand, in the actual or concrete form, and beyond disputing in whatever light or twilight it may yield us.
At Landshut, a pleasant little Mountain Town, in the Principality of Schweidnitz, high up, on the infant River Bober, near the Bohemian Frontier—(English readers may see QUINCY ADAMS'S description of it, and of the long wooden spouts which throw cataracts on you, if walking the streets in rain [John Quincy Adams (afterwards President of the United States), Letters on Silesia (London, 1804). "The wooden spouts are now gone" (Tourist's Note, of 1858).]): at Landshut, as in some other Towns, it had been found good to remodel the Town Magistracy a little; to make it partly Protestant, for one thing, instead of Catholic (and Austrian), which it had formerly been. Details about the "high controversies and discrepancies" which had risen there, we have absolutely none; nor have the special functions of the Magistracy, what powers they had, what work they did, in the least become distinct to us: we gather only that a certain nameless Burgermeister (probably Austrian and Catholic) had, by "Most gracious Royal Special-Order," been at length relieved from his labors, and therewith "the much by him persecuted and afflicted Herr Theodorus Spener" been named Burgermeister instead. Which respectable Herr Theodorus Spener, and along with him Herr Johann David Fischer as RATHS-SENIOR, and Herr Johann Caspar Ruffer, and also Herr Johann Jacob Umminger, as new Raths (how many of the old being left I cannot say), were accordingly, on the 4th of December, 1741, publicly installed, and with proper solemnity took their places; all Landshut looking on, with the conceivable interest and astonishment, almost as at a change in the obliquity of the ecliptic,—change probably for the better.
Respectable Herr Theodorus Spener (we hope it is SpeNer, for they print him SPEER in one of the two places, and we have to go by guess) is ready with an Installation Speech on the occasion; and his Speech was judged so excellent, that they have preserved it in print. Us it by no means strikes by its Demosthenic or other qualities: meanwhile we listen to it with the closest attention; hoping, in our great ignorance, to gather from it some glimmerings of instruction as to the affairs, humors, disposition and general outlook and condition of Landshut, and Silesia in that juncture;—and though a good deal disappointed, have made an Abstract of it in the English language, which perhaps the reader too, in his great ignorance, will accept, in defect of better. Scene is Landshut among the Giant Mountains on the Bohemian Border of Silesia: an old stone Town, where there is from of old a busy trade in thread and linen; Town consisting, as is common there, of various narrow winding streets comparable to spider-legs, and of a roomy central Market-place comparable to the body of the spider; wide irregular Market-place with the wooden spouts (dry for the moment) all projecting round it. Time, 4th December, 1741 (doubtless in the forenoon); unusual crowd of population simmering about the Market-place, and full audience of the better sort gravely attentive in the interior of the Rathhaus; Burgermeister Spener LOQUITUR [Helden-Geschichte, ii. 416.] (liable to abridgment here and there, on warning given):—
"I enter, then, in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, upon an Office, to which Divine Providence has appointed, and the gracious and potent hand of a great King has raised me. Great as is the dignity [giddy height of Mayoralty in Landshut], though undeserved, which the Ever-Merciful has thus conferred upon me, equally great and much greater is the burden connected therewith. I confess"—He confesses, in high-stalking earnest wooden language very foreign to us in every way: (1.) That his shoulders are too weak; but that he trusts in God. For (2.) it is God's doing; and He that has called Spener, will give Spener strength, the essential work being to do God's will, to promote His honor, and the common weal. (3.) That he comes out of a smaller Office (Office not farther specified, probably exterior to the RATHS-COLLEGE, and subaltern to the late tyrannous Mayor and it), and has taken upon him the Mayoralty of this Town (an evident fact!); but that the labor and responsibility are dreadfully increased; and that the point is not increase of honor, of respectability or income, but of heavy duties. (A sonorous, pious-minded Spener; much more in earnest than readers now think!)
It is easy, intimates he, to govern a Town, if, as some have perhaps done, you follow simply your own will, regardless of the sighs and complaints your subjects utter for injustice undergone,—indifferent to the thought that the caprice of one Town Sovereign is to be glorified by so many thousand tears (dim glance into the past history of Landshut!). Such Town Sovereign persecutes innocence, stops his ears to its cry; flourishes his sharp scourge;—no one shall complain: for is it not justice? thinks such a Town Sovereign. The reason is, He does not know himself, poor man; has had his eye always on the duties of his subjects towards him, and rarely or never on his towards them. A Sovereign Mayor that governs by fear,—he must live in continual fear of every one, and of himself withal. A weak basis: and capable of total overturn in one day. On the contrary, the love of your burgher subjects: that, if you can kindle it, will go on like a house on fire (AUSBRUCH EINES FEURES), and streams of water won't put it out.... "And [let us now take Spener's very words] if a man keep the fear of God before his eyes, there will be no need for any other kind of fear.
"I will therefore, you especially High-honored Gentlemen, study to direct all my judicial endeavors to the honor of the great God, and to inviolable fidelity towards my most gracious King and Lord [Friedrich, by Decision of Providence—at Mollwitz and elsewhere].
"To the Citizens of this Town, from of old so dear to me, and now by Royal grace committed to my charge, and therefore doubly and trebly to be held dear, I mean to devote myself altogether. I will, on every occasion and occurrence, still more expressly than aforetime, stand by them; and when need is, not fail to bring their case before the just Throne of our Anointed [Friedrich, by Decision of Providence]. Justice and fairness I will endeavor, under whatever complexities, to make my loadstar. Yes, I shall and will, by means of this my Office, equip myself with weapons whereby I may be capable to damp such humors (INTELLIGENTIEN), should such still be (but I believe there are now none such), as may repugn against the Royal interest, with possibility of being dangerous; and to put a bridle on mouths that are unruly. And, to say much in little compass, I will be faithful to God, to my King and to this Town.