Pictures of German Life in the XVIIIth and XIXth Centuries Volume I Part 11

In conclusion, I remain, with constant esteem,

"My beloved one's

"Most affectionate

"C. C. K.

"A. Monsieur, Monsieur ... at Coburg."

So cautious, formal, and florid were the love-letters of a true-hearted frank maiden, like the dear wife of Professor Semler.

But he himself, Johann Salomo Semler,--the father of modern theology, long the highly-honoured head of the University, who, in his scientific views, was a bolder, rasher man than his older contemporaries,--how should we judge him, if measured by the standard of our time? Because he has no money for his journey, and some debts in Coburg, he determines to marry; he informs his love in Saalfeld of his situation, and woos the daughter of his wealthy landlady, to whom hitherto he had appeared indifferent. The like of this in our time, speaking mildly, would be called--pitiful. And yet when the aged Professor gave his narrative to the public, he plainly a.s.sumed that his conduct would not appear dishonourable in the eyes of his contemporaries. There is no reason to doubt that the friends of his youth thought exactly the same, perhaps somewhat less conscientiously. When he was young, what rights had the heart of a poor scholar against a cold, tyrrannical world?

Little as yet. What was the aim and object of his life? To learn and labour from early mom till dead of night, in order to instil his painfully gained knowledge into other souls, to spread by writings and teaching, all that was important and new that he searched out, descried, or conceived. Therein lay his highest duty and honour, the object and pride of his earthly days; to this must his private life be adapted and accommodated. Thus it was not only the few, that felt a burning ambition, it was a general feeling, as with Semler, in many hundreds who starved, bowed themselves before the powerful and changed their faith, in order to be able to live for science. There is nothing n.o.ble in this, but it is nevertheless a seeking after something n.o.bler; it is the old German yearning for something to be devoted to, which is immeasurably more estimable than devotion to self. Let manly power be united with such a tone of mind, together with the feeling of being a ruler upon earth, and something will arise which all following ages will call great and good.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: In this battle (A.D. 9) Armin defeated the Romans, and freed Germany.]

[Footnote 2: J. Arends, in "East Friesland and Jever" (vol. ii. p.

190), has collected traces of ancient culture on the excavated ground.

The coast of the North Sea, from Bork.u.m to Schleswig, stretched, in the time of the Romans, probably farther to the north; the encroachment of the sea had already begun at the time that Pliny wrote, and since that it has taken more than it has given. The Dollart and the Zuyderzee (1164) were formed by several great inundations after the Crusades, and the Jahde in the fifteenth century.]

[Footnote 3: The smoked meats of Germany were named as an article of traffic under Diocletian.]

[Footnote 4: Thus, for example, in the monastery of Alpirs.p.a.ch, in the Black Forest, from which Ambrosius Blaurer escaped in 1622, a certain holy Pelagius and John the Baptist had both their va.s.sals, who rejoiced in peculiar privileges.]

[Footnote 5: Dialogue of "New Karsthans." This is the fict.i.tious name a.s.sumed by Ulrich von Hutten, the author of a political squib at that period.]

[Footnote 6: Seifried Helbling, viii., in Moriz Haupt, periodical for German Antiquity, Vol. iv., p. 164. The Austrian knight laments the intrusion of the peasant into his order as an abuse. He wrote, according to Karajan, the eighth of his little books about 1298.]

[Footnote 7: The quaint way in which the old language is here mixed with foreign dialects cannot be rendered.]

[Footnote 8: Our word _pferd_ (horse), then the Roman elegant word for the German horse.]

[Footnote 9: Duke Ernst of Swabia, a celebrated poem of the middle ages.]

[Footnote 10: These names could hardly have been invented by Helmbrecht, to characterise the robbers; it is probable, from what follows, that the like wild nicknames were humorously given by the n.o.bles themselves, and used as party names.]

[Footnote 11: The old German wedding custom. In the thirteenth century the Church had seldom any concern in the nuptials of country people and courtlings. It was only in the fourteenth century it began to be considered unrefined not to have the blessing of a priest. When our junkers declaim against civil marriages they forget that it was the fashion of their forefathers.]

[Footnote 12: An ancient popular superst.i.tion. It was similar with the wooers in the "Odyssey" before their end.]

[Footnote 13: This song is to be found in Kornmann's "Frau Veneris Berg," 1614 p. 306. Similar songs in Uhland.]

[Footnote 14: The great poet for the people, a native of Nuremberg.]

[Footnote 15: Means Hoejack, which was adopted by Ulrich von Hutten as a characteristic t.i.tle of a political squib in defence of the peasantry.--_Trans_.]

[Footnote 16: Quaint t.i.tle of a series of pamphlets denouncing abuses in Church and State, published about 1521.--_Trans_.]

[Footnote 17: A colloquy between a fox and wolf, in the "Staigerwaldt,"

1524, p. 6. Under the similitude of a wolf and fox two fugitive junkers of the Sickingen party discourse together. The plundering of the n.o.bles having been strongly spoken of, the wolf says: "By this voracity, we have made enemies of many citizens and peasants, who have lately bound themselves to take away all our lives, if they can catch us." Fox: "Who are these citizens and peasants?" Wolf: "Those who live in Upper Swabia, Augsburg, Ulm, Kempten, Bibrach, Memmingen, and by the Neckar, and the Nurembergers and Bavarians on the frontier."]

[Footnote 18: Full details of the sufferings of the country people during the war will be found in the second volume of "The Pictures of German life."]

[Footnote 19: "Imperial Privileges and Sanctions for Silesia," vols.

i., p. 166; iii., 759.]

[Footnote 20: Ib., vol. i., pp. 150-59.]

[Footnote 21: "Imperial Privileges and Sanctions for Silesia," vol. i., p. 125.]

[Footnote 22: Ib., vol. i., p. 138.]

[Footnote 23: Seven hundred and fifty of these have been reckoned by C.

H. von Lang, in his "Historical Development of German Taxation," 1793.]

[Footnote 24: F. von Liebenroth: "Fragments from my Diary," 1701, p.

159. The writer was a Saxon officer, a sensible and loyal man.]

[Footnote 25: District regulations for the Princ.i.p.alities of Oppeln and Ratibor of the year 1561.]

[Footnote 26: The provincial ordinances for the Princ.i.p.alities of Oppeln and Ratibor, year 1561.]

[Footnote 27: Von Hohberg: "Country Life of the n.o.bles," 1687. See the Introduction.]

[Footnote 28: Imperial Privil. and Sanct., vol. iv., p. 1213.]

[Footnote 29: One may nearly estimate the proportion of the peasants to the collective population of Germany, about 1750, at from 65 to 70 per cent.; of these four-fifths were villeins, thus more than half the people.]

[Footnote 30: "The Exposure of the Vices, Morals, and Evils of the thick-skinned, coa.r.s.e-grained, and wicked Peasantry," by _Veroandro_, of _Truth Castle_, 1684. The author appears to have been the same clergyman who added verses to the later editions of the Simplicissimus, and pointed the moral.]

[Footnote 31: "The Happy and Unhappy Peasantry," p. 178. Frankfort, s.

a. About 1700.]

[Footnote 32: "Lasterprob," p. 82.]

[Footnote 33: "The Happy and Unhappy Peasant Cla.s.s." p. 155.]

[Footnote 34: "Kurtze Beschreibung, der Acker-Leuthe und Ehrenlob," p.

33. Hof. 1701.]

[Footnote 35: "Imperial Privil. and Sanct.," vols. ii., p. 584; v., 1511.]

[Footnote 36: F. von Liebenroth, p. 146.]