14 AGRICULTURE OX THE RHI>'E. 



right to a share in the representation of the people. 

 Estates that in olden times were endowed with the privi- 

 leges of a lordship, still confer the right of a representa- 

 tion upon the owners, whatever may be their birth. The 

 owners of these " Rittergiiter," or knights' estates, form 

 a distinct body between the " hoher adel," or nobility, and 

 the burghers and peasants. The knights of the Rhenish 

 provinces elect a deputation from their number to the 

 provincial diet that sits at Diisseldorf. The inhabitants 

 of the towns, as well as those of the rural districts, who pay 

 a certain amount of taxes, choose electors, to whom the 

 selection of their deputies for the provincial parliament is 

 intrusted. The political rights of the diet, or " Landtag," 

 as this assembly is called in German, are too circumscribed 

 to inspire that stirring sympathy which the publication 

 of the debates of a powerful and concentrated national 

 assembly awakens. The magisterial functions are univer- 

 sally performed in Germany by salaried official person- 

 ages, so that neither the burthen nor the dignity of 

 public life is there attached to the station of a country 

 gentleman, and he is apt to waste his leisure hours in 

 trifling or in slothful occupations, unless, which is often the 

 case, he has cultivated some refined taste. On the othei 

 hand, these very circumstances favour that side of German 

 life which has only lately attracted the attention that it 

 deserves in England, The local and family ties arc sub- 

 ject to less violent shocks than constant separations of 

 relatives occasion with us, and age advances surrounded 

 by the natural play of the affections amongst friends and 

 relatives. The aged totter to the grave amongst the 

 " old familiar faces " with whom the man lived in friend- 

 ship or in strife, and with whom the child shared his 



