43 



precious which denotes the individuality of man. My 

 brother's letters are very fine ; his critique on the 

 Chancellor does much honour to his character, and the 

 conclusion, which appears to detract somewhat from 

 the praise he has expressed, conceals a profound 

 political meaning. It may have reference to another 

 grander termination, to which that development of 

 events might have led. I am more especially de- 

 lighted with the recognition of your talent, of your 

 powers of delineation, and the recognition of the rich- 

 ness of soul which (revealed to few) lies in Kanel's 

 letters. Adam Miiller's* aristocratic crotchets and the 

 Princess,! so boorishly natural in her amours, hunch- 

 backed, and therefore sure to be to some degree unchaste, 

 furnish a capital contrast between political and social 

 rubbish : " to save the Fatherland means," says Gentz's j 

 first man, "reinstating the Prussian nobility in its 

 privileges, and leaving it untaxed, in order that after a 

 short negotiation it may present to the monarch its 

 ' don gratuit/ Moreover the man shall remain chained 

 without hope of release to the soil." How the Mont- 



* Adam Miiller, born in 1779, at Berlin. He became, like his friend Gentz, 

 a religious apostate and political renegade ; he was at last employed in the 

 Chancellerie of Prince Metternich, and died in 1829. Varnhagen is loud 

 in praise of Miiller' s personal amiability and of his great conversational 

 parts. TR. 



f Sophie Wilhelmine von Baireuth. 



Friedrich Gentz, a native of Breslau, born 1767. In 1802 he left 

 Prussia, entered the Austrian diplomatic service, and became a convert to 

 Catholicism. In politics he began as an ardent liberal, but ended by being 

 one of the most sophistical defenders of Conservative doctrines. His numerous 

 writings against Napoleon caused much excitement, and obtained for him a 

 subsidy of 9000 from England. Among other topics which engaged his 

 attention was the " Jnnius" question, and he indicated Sir Philip Francis as the 

 author of the letters. One of the works which obtained him great credit 

 was a Treatise upon the " Finances of Great Britain," published at Ham- 

 burg in 1801. TK. 



