— 
—— 
er 
1829.] 
Witness.—(with much impatience, as if he 
thought that the counsel knew this as well as 
himself, but was affecting ignorance for some 
sinister purpose)—‘ Why to be sure [ did.” 
Counsel. Is he living or dead ?” 
Witness.— Living or dead?” 
Judge.—** Why don’t you answer the question, 
witness? I shall put you into the dock if you 
don’t. Come; Sir, is he living or dead?—answer 
that gentieman.” 
Witness.—(adyancing close up to the counsel, 
and looking him in the face, as mueh as to say, 
“ T now see clearly you are trying to humbug me, 
but I'll show you that I am not such a spalpeen 
as you take me for” )—‘‘ Damned well; you know 
he’s dead,” 
The prisoner’s counsel appears, in the 
person of O’Connell, who presently gets into 
a wrangle with the judge, on a point of law, 
relative to cuts and contusions—the counsel 
insisting that the length and breadth of a 
cut must be proved, the length and breadth 
of a contusion need not. How the matter 
ended, appears not, for the able reporter left 
the court before, &c. 
The lack of variety and adventure in Ire- 
land must, of course, have wearied the luck- 
less cornet, and he looked forward to a 
change of quarters with great satisfaction, 
especially England for Ireland. But Bir- 
mingham proves as uneventful as Ireland ; 
and page after page, to the number of fifty 
or sixty, is occupied with the details of a 
stratagem to drive the major out of the bar- 
racks, who, with his meddling and medicine- 
loving wife, had encroached upon the offi- 
cers’ apartments. This will suit some tastes 
admirably. To further his views of ad- 
vancement, the cornet is finally induced to 
go to Sandhurst, where officers of all ages 
and commissions are admitted in statu pu- 
pillari. The machinery of this institution, 
which we have no doubt is faithfully shewn 
up, constitutes the chief novelty of the book. 
Among the regulations of this precious esta- 
blishment, it seems, the students are required 
to attend the Hall of Study, not to be in- 
structed, but literally to study, or affect to 
study, or even notaftect to do so, for there is 
no controlling power present. For the most 
part, the hours are wasted in a sort of boy- 
ish frolicking, even by the older men; 
and the reading men, if there are ever any 
after the first week or two, are, of course, 
the objects of attack by the idlers. Our 
hero had some desire to get on, and, cutting 
the hall, pursued his studies quietly in his 
own apartment, for which he was quickly 
called before the governor. The cornet 
defended himself, and assured the governor 
that he not only copied the questions of 
Dalby’s Mathematics, which were already 
solved, but even worked the extra ques- 
tions. ‘This, however, was, by no means 
satisfactory to the governor; for how 
could the cornet know when he was 
right? In vain he urged that he thought 
himself secure, when the results corres- 
ponded with the answers furnished by Dal- 
Domestic and Foreign. 
547 
by; the goyernor insisted that the pu- 
pil’s presence in the hall was the essential 
act, for that alone could be admitted as evi- 
dence of study. That alone appears in the 
weekly reports, and the professor’s testi- 
mony is nothing without it. In spite of all 
testimony, if your name does not appear in 
he report, the general officers will be at 
once convinced you know nothing, &c. 
This, of course, is a personal hit. 
German Poetical Anthology, by A. Ber- 
nays ; 1829.—This is a judicious and ele- 
gant selection, comprising specimens of all 
the distinguished writers in the poetical re- 
cords of Germany. The aim of the very 
respectable selector has been to combine 
two, perhaps not very compatible, objects— 
at once to furnish a reading manual for the 
first stages, and a literary guide for the suc- 
ceeding ones of the German student. His 
excuse is, that the cultivators of German 
literature, in this country, are still too few 
to warrant an attempt to separate the two— 
to make two books, that is, each more spe- 
cific—because there are not enough to buy 
them. 
The specimens are preceded by an his- 
torical sketch of German poetry. The 
earliest surviving pieces are a few fragments 
of the Carlovingean period, of a very un- 
licked description. In the 12th century 
commenced the splendid era of the Suabian 
emperors, when the Minne-singers, with 
monarchs and nobles, vied with each other 
on subjects of love and chivalry in strains 
scarcely inferior to the Troubadours and 
Trouveurs of France. Among the compo- 
sitions of this period are the Epics of Nie- 
belungen and Book of Heroes, the latter of 
which, records some of the traditions of the 
days of Attila. The language of these 
poems, the editor describes as simple and 
harmonious—much more so than the literary 
language of the present day. With the fall 
of the house of Suabia declined the poetry 
of Germany. Private feuds and foreign 
wars brutalized the nobles, and silenced the 
minstrels. The muse, if muse she might 
still be called, took refuge in the free cities, 
and presided over the dull fraternities of the 
Meister-singers, who made verses and called 
them poetry. Hans Sacks, the Nuremberg 
cobler, deserves to be distinguished among 
them. The 17th century reopened a new 
era for something that better deserved the 
name of poetry. Opitz, a Silesian, is the 
chief, and he and his followers constitute the 
first Silesian school ; for in the latter part of 
the same century figured another school, 
called the second Silesian, the chiefs of 
whom are characterized by the editor, as 
better versifiers and worse poets—deluging 
the country with trash, which, however, 
suited the coarse taste of the readers. The 
early part of the 18th century is marked by 
the Lower Saxon school, which, though cold 
and feeble, was more refined in matter and 
Ma re To this succeeded the ‘ Leipsic,” 
4A2 
