2°* S. X. Sept. 22. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



225 



not support wit in others ; and we find Lord 

 Chesterfield, writing for the guidance of his son in 

 Germany, deems it necessary to add a caution : — 



" The Germans are very seldom troubled with any ex- 

 traordinary ebullitions or effervescences of wit, and it is 

 not prudent to try it upon .them ; whoever does, offendet 

 solito." — Letters, ed. 1804, vol. iii. p. 324. 



While Goldsmith, harpingl on the same string, 

 makes a liberal concession : — 



" But let the Germans have their due ; if they are dull, 

 no nation alive assumes a more laudable solemnity, or 

 better understands all the decorums of stupidity.", — Pres. 

 State of Polite Learning, chap. v. 



And De Stendhal (Henri Beyle), writitig in 

 1823, remarks : — 



" A German prince, well known for his attachment to 

 literature, has just proposed a prize for the best philoso- 

 phical Dissertation on Laughter. I hope the prize will 

 be carried off by a Frenchman. Would it not be ridicu- 

 lous for us to be beaten in this department? To my 

 thinking there are more jokes made at Paris in the course 

 of a single evening, than in Germany during an entire 

 month." — QSuvres de Stendhal, " Racine et Shakspeare," 

 chap. ii. 



On the publication of Ernest Maltravers, Bul- 

 wer, it will be remembered, seized the oppor- 

 tunity of expressing his appreciation of the higher 

 qualities of our neighbours in dedicating it 



" To the great German people, a nation of thinkers and 

 of critics, a foreign but familiar audience, profound in 

 judgment, candid in reproof, and generous m apprecia- 

 tion." 



His dedication gave rise to some very severe 

 remarks in Fraser's Magazine, June, 1838 (p. 

 692.), in which it is asserted that 



" A book which points out prostitution as the path to 

 the peerage in this world, and to Paradise in the next, 

 could not be more fitly inscribed than Jothe sensual sen- 

 timentalists of Germany." 



And that 



" The mass of the Germans .... are the most lazy 

 thinkers, and the clumsiest talkers, you can encoun- 

 ter," &c. 



According to some it is in the language of the 

 Germans that we are to seek, in part at least, for 

 a cause of this alleged deficiency of brilliance and 

 wit. D'Argens, in his Jewish Spy, says : — 



" The genius of the Germans in general, which is not 

 very sprightlj', and their language, which is more proper 

 to write tracts of learning and morality, than pieces of 

 Eloquence and Poetrj', seem to be an argument why 

 there are not and cannot be many Poets and Orators 



among them I don't know any German Poem, 



dear Isaac, that has made any figure in Europe, and I 

 question whether ever there was one translated," &c. — 

 Vol. iii. p. 278-9. 



On this point, too, the witty author of Harry 

 Lorrequer, at the end of a most truculent satire 

 upon German manners, has some biting verses. 

 He sums up : — 



" It (Germany) is a country with little to suggest hope, 



and still less to create esteem. Flat, stale, and unprofit- 

 able as a residence, dull to live in, and only delightful to 

 leave. 



" Where evdtt the latigudge can interdict joking, 

 Nor gleam of bright fancy can ever arouse 

 The brains that are torpid by hourly smoking. 

 Or inviting flat phrases to flatter fat fraus," &c. 

 Dublin Univ. Mag., May, 1847, p. 543. 



While to the Cardinal Bentivoglio Is attributed 

 the saying that 



" Le Chevaux entendent fort bien les Allemans, pour 

 prouver que les betes s'entendent les unes les autres." 



And the author of the Life of Wolff", in the 

 Dictionnaire Historique, concludes his notice : "— 



" On pretend qu'il ecrivait mieux en allemand, si tontd- 

 fois I'on pent bien ^crire dans une langue aUssi rude." -^ 

 Diet. Hist, ed. 1806, torn. xii. p. 516. 



After these remarks, indicative of ignorance and 

 prejudice, the chapter of Madame de StaSl, " De 

 la Langue AUemande dans ses Rapports avec 

 I'Esprit de Conversation " (De VAlleniagne, chap, 

 xii.), Qiay be read with advantage. Here the fit- 

 ness and unfitness of the language for its various 

 purposes are fairly arid philosophically discussed ; 

 while the assertion of the authoress, strangely at 

 variance with that of M. d'Argens cited above, 

 that " Tallemand convient mieux a la poesie qu'k 

 la prose," will hardly be received with discredit 

 by those who are familiar tvith the Faust of Gothe, 

 and the Ballads of Schiller and Uhland. 



WlLMAM BATEI^. 



£:dgbastoil. 



ENGLAND'S FUTURE. 



There can be no doubt that Judicial Astrology, 

 of the knowledge of future events by the study of 

 the stars, Was received and practised by all the 

 ancient JeWs, Persians, and many of the Chris- 

 tians, particularly the Gnostics and Manicheans. 

 The persons now spoken of thought that the pla- 

 nets were the signs, that lis, gave information of 

 future events, not that they were the causes of 

 them — not that the events were controlled by 

 them. For between these two there is a great 

 difference. Eusebius tells us, on the authority of 

 Eupolemus, that Abraham was an astrologer, and 

 that he taught the science to the priests of Helio- 

 polis or On. This was a fact universally asserted 

 by the historians of the East. Origen was a be- 

 liever in this science, as qualified as above. And 

 M. Beausobre observes : — 



" It is thus that he explained what Jacob says in the 

 prayer of Joseph : ' He has read, in the tables of heaven, 

 all that will happen to you, and to your children,' " — 

 " II a lu, dans les tables du ciel, tout ce qui doit vous 

 arriver, et h, vos enfans." — Beausobre, Histoire de Mani- 

 chcei, Livre vii. chap. i. p. 429. 



Whatever it might have been once, is astrology 

 altogether impossible in the present day ? , 



