MAGAZINE. GENTLEMAN'S Rural and Domestic Life in Germany. By William Howitt. AFTER the etherial touches of Madame de Stael, we must confess that Mr. Howitt's book on Germany is somewhat coarse and uninviting. It is true that he discourses on most subjects, for he is "vir in omnibus festinabundus," but his rapidity of movement leaves him little time for preparing materials of knowledge, or using them to the best advantage. He is not an artist, or he would not have visited all the galleries of Europe, and not left a remark upon a single picture, except the very unfortunate one "of the Cattle of Ruysdael." He is not a botanist, or he would not call the "silver fir" of the Alps the Pinus Pinacea, or mis-spell the name of the plant "Corchorus" as he does he is not a natural philosopher, or he would not have talked of the " oxygen of great cities, when he meant the "carbon :" he is not a grammarian, or he would not confound the use of the verbs "shall" and " will;" and, lastly, he is but little acquainted with the language of the people he describes, or he would not have so mistranslated their poetry. He sometimes is so immoderately given to the figure of metaphor, that he talks" of the hydraulic press crushing anxiety and fearful starvation ;" and he is so little acquainted with ancient geography, that he speaks of the "herds of Apollo who fed in the fields of Trinacria and Asphodel !" With regard to his skill and taste in composition, we think that the opening sentence of the work will be a sufficient specimen : "It is only in the first moments in which you witness something which is entirely new to you, that you feel that novelty in all its vividness, and perceive really how widely divided is the nature and aspect of what you then contemplate : of from the object of your former knowledge. Every hour that you continue to regard what strikes you with its newness, carries off that newness, and your impressions fade and bedim themselves in proportion." It is not very clear with what honest purpose Mr. Howitt conceived the plan of writing a book on Germany, or what kind of information he proposed to bestow. He was not, of course, admitted into the society of the court, of the nobility, the ministers, or even the rich bankers and merchants he had no acquaintance with the philosophers, for even the key of their language was not in his possession. The scholars of Leipsic, and the theologians of Halle, were alike beyond his circle; and he was not able even to take his share in the national sports or pastimes of the people: he was no companion either to the bauer or the jäger: he could neither shoot, nor ride, nor wrestle; on the mountains he never discharged a rifle, nor in the saloons ventured on a waltz. In short, we consider Mr. Howitt to be a great afflicter of the highways of his country,"--without any definite object, further than the publication of a book, and the design of drawing upon the reader for the payment of his expenses. But as the most incurious observer must make some remarks when in a foreign country, and as Mr. Howitt remained some months in one of the cities, 66 * Caucherus, is the Howitt orthography. keeping the establishment of a native German maid, and making such inquiries as he thought would suit the English market, we extract some of those which we think to be among the foremost of interest, but in most cases somewhat abridging the matter, and omitting altogether all the sentences that were intended to be particularly striking and eloquent, and which are doubly refined. The Germans have too many new ideas to be easily comprehended; but Mr. Howitt has avoided speculative subjects, and has correctly confined himself to observation. Let us then begin with his observations on the character of the country, which he describes, as it appears in most parts of Germany, with tolerable correctness. "Far and wide, without a single fence, it is covered with corn and vegetables; as seen from the heights which bounded it, it presented a most singular appearance to the English eye. The predominating colour at that time of the year was that of ripening corn, but of different hues, according to its different degrees of ripeness, and the different kinds of grain. This is not planted in those vast expanses which you see in the corn farms of Northumberland and Lincolnshire, but in innumerable small patches and narrow stripes, because belonging to many different proprietors; some is also sown in one direction, and some in another, with patches of potatoes, mangel-wurzel, kidney beans, &c. amongst it, so that it presented to the eye the appearance of one of those straw-table mats of different colours which one has seen. Here and there you saw villages lying in the midst of the corn plain, and large woods, but not a hedge, and a few scattered trees; the long rows of these, marking out the highways, being the only dividing lines of the country. As we passed these trees, we observed that they were principally apple, pear, plum, cherry, and walnut trees. Fruit of all kinds was in abundance, and the heavy crops that were common here were indicated by the contrivances to prevent the branches being rent off. Some had their main branches held together by strong wooden clumps, others were propped with various poles; others, especially the plum trees, had their boughs tied up, and supported by ropes of chestnut-bark. We passed through several of the dorfs or villages. They had a primitive, heavy, and thoroughly agricultural air. The houses are built of stone, large and heavy, and each having a great roundheaded gateway leading into a sort of inner court or farm-yard. We observed numbers of women at work in the fields, without shoes, stockings, bonnets, or caps. They were healthy, contented, sunburnt creatures, many of them picturesque enough for any painter of primitive life. What however riveted our attention quite as much, were the country waggons and horses. The wag gons are the oldest, odd, jumbling things imaginable. What a contrast to the jolly fat horses, and ponderous painted waggons of the English farmer! Most of these vehicles may be worth from five pounds to five shillings, and are drawn by two or three horses abreast. The horses of a light bay or black, of a slouching look and gait, and harnessed by ropes : if there be four, the two foremost a long way a-head of the other two. *** Some of the waggons are drawn by two bullocks, or by two patient cows, which are yoked by the head. Some of them are yoked by two short yokes, which allow their heads some freedom, but more commonly by one yoke, which going over the backs of their necks, generally with a little quilted pad under it, and a pad in front, keep their heads fast, and as steady together as if they were screwed to their yoke. These patient animals are generally fawn-coloured, and strongly bring to your mind the cars and chariots of the ancients, which were drawn by just such cattle, just so yoked. These, by the bye, are the only cattle that you see. In Holland and Belgium you see cattle in the fields; but as you advance up the Rhine, you begin to wonder at the silence of the landscape: not a sheep, nor a horse, nor a cow, is to be seen. The mountain tops are covered with wood, instead of flocks, as in England. The slopes are covered with vineyards. You ask where the cattle are? you are answered in the stalls. Where are the sheep? under the care of shepherds somewhere, heaven knows whereyou never come across them. It is only on the great plains of the North that you afterwards find large flocks and herds, under the care of keepers, kept close together; for as they have no fences, they are under the momentary peril of their making ravages on their neighbours' crops. We looked from the tops of the mountains about Heidelberg into the Odenwald-all there was woody hills, without the apparition even of a sheep or ox, except such of the latter as were at work in the waggons. We felt astonished at the silence of nature. Not a horse, a cow, a sheep, or goat, and what is more singular, rarely a bird to be seen. In England nothing gives so much life to the country. Large flocks of rooks spread themselves on the plains, or raise their hoarse din round the mansion of the nobleman or gentleman. Pheasants and partridges are scen running here and there by wood sides in corn lands. The wood-pigeons dart out of the trees as you pass, or are seen coming in flocks from the fields. Here you see none, or next to none of all these; and we suspected, as it proved, that the peasants, who are the proprietors of lands, keep down these creatures for fear of their crops. The keeping up (stall feeding) of the cattle presents you with a new feature in rural life. As the quan tity of grass is very small, the grass is proportionably economised. The little patches of grass between woods and in the open parts of roads, the little strips along the river banks, and even in gardens and shrubberies, are carefully preserved for the purpose. You see women in these places cutting grass with a small hook, or smooth edged sickle, and carrying it away on their heads in baskets for their cows. You see the grass on the lawns of good houses, or grass plots, and in shrubberies, very long and wild, and when you ask why it is not kept closer mown, the reply is that it is given to the milkwoman, often for a consideration, who cuts it as it is wanted. You see other women picking the long grass out of the forests, or under the bushes on the hill sides, where the slopes have been mown, for the same purpose. Nettles, cheroil, cow parsnip, which in England are left to seed and rot, are all here cut for the imprisoned cow. You go down to the river side to fish, and a peasant's son with you, chattering and gesticulating, pointing to your feet and to the grass: it is to let you know that you are not to angle there, because it treads down the grass; and accordingly in Germany, with rivers full of fish, you seldom see an angler; if you do, he is pretty sure to be an Englishman," &c. The style of living among the German boors, seems much as it is with us among the peasants of Wales. "Their houses are commonly strongly built, dull* and uninviting to an English eye. The perpetual employment of every member of the family in the fields, destroys all the domestic neatness and ornament which one sees in the rural class in England. And to their houses are no gardens full of flowers: up their walls are trained no roses, no jasmines or honeysuckles, diffusing their fragrance around. On the contrary, the houses of the peasantry are generally so built that the cow or cows, the pigs and hens, with their family utensils, occupy the ground-floor; and in front, or on one side, grows, instead of wallflowers and polyanthus, a The manner of life in the country "Early hours and simple living distinguish the Germans. Three meals a-day are the usual order. The common people are astir extremely early, especially in summer, when waggons and carriages begin to roll about at two o'clock; and after that time, every hour becomes more lively with the country people proceeding to the town with articles for market. The cooks and good housewives are off to market to make their purchases for the day at five and six o'clock. The peasant girls, of course, before that hour are going along manure heap. In the house itself, a black stove, instead of a bright fire, gives a cheerless look to the apartment. It is dirty, and often pestiferous with unsavoury smells, of which the inhabitants appear totally unconscious. There is, as in country cottages in England, a dresser and set of shelves, on which are ranged their plates, &c. A spinning-wheel is still a regular part of the furniture, and it is only in these rustic cottages that you see beds with curtains: through the whole country besides, amongst all classes, the people occupy those small beds without posts, and adapted to one person." is thus described : in streams, with their tubs or baskets on their heads, full of vegetables, milk, eggs, fruits, &c. Men who get up early to study or work, often take some coffee directly they come down, and then breakfast with the family at six or seven, in the summer. This breakfast is generally simply coffee, and bread mostly without butter. Dinner is on table at twelve or one. The German cookery abounds with soups, vegetables, and sausages of various kinds, and sour kraut, of course, salads of as many kinds, amongst which a particular salad, made of *The darkness of the cottages in Wales is striking; to which the inhabitants are so accustomed, that they have refused to have larger windows inserted, and, in some cases in our knowledge, have insisted on the one small light being replaced.-REV. cold potatoes with vinegar and anchovies, is a great favourite. Their meat, like most continental meat, is very lean. Their beef, though lean, good. Their bullocks very fine, but killed just at the state in which we should begin to feed them. Their mutton is generally very bad, the sheep being kept principally for the wool, and never fed like ours. Veal is killed at about a week old, and is very poor and tasteless. Hood's description of a big man, with a big stick, and a big dog, driving a weak dying calf, is of every-day realization in the street. Lamb has no resemblance to that most princely of luxuries in England; and what is worse, the green peas are always spoiled by being gathered before they have any kernel, and by being cooked with sugar. Fowls they have in plenty, and cheap, but never well fed. Geese, on the contrary, are crammed when alive with Indian corn, and are stuffed in their cooking with chesnuts. They are often, however, to our taste spoiled by the plentiful addition of raisins. Hares are cheap, the common price being a shilling, and are good. Cheese is very indifferent, and little eaten at table. Their beer is a weak table-beer, very strong of the hop, very wholesome, and, with a little use, very agreeable but in wine districts, wine is much more drunk at table, being quite as cheap, and in summer being very pleasant, from its weakness and its subacid flavour. Tea is by no means a general afternoon beverage. Of late years it has been more and more introduced; but in the greater number of families is not drunk except when they have visitors, and then one or two cups is all that they can master. They complain that tea makes them drunk, makes their heads ache, heats them, gives them red noses, and, in fact, has all the effects of spirituous liquors. The mode in which the English drink off their three, four, or five cups occasionally, is to them amazing, but more so the strength of it. You have to water your tea for your German visitors till it is really not tea, but milk and water; and if you allowed the waiters at inns to make tea for you, it would require a good microscope to find the tea-leaves in the pot. Such is the effect of custom. German families in general, therefore, have their abends-essen, or supper, about seven o'clock. This consists very much of cold sliced meat, sausage, potatoe-sallad, and such like. The eating of meat suppers, and drinking of no tea, probably produces the common effect, that they require in the morning to supply themselves with that fluid which we take at tea time. The first thing, therefore, that you see a German do at breakfast is to toss off a large glass of cold water. Numbers, if they did not get their drop of cold water, could not eat a bit of breakfast," &c. Of the servants we have the following account : "Of German servants we may here say a word. The genuine German maid servant is one of the most healthy, homely, hard-working creatures under the sun. Like her fellows who work in fields, barns and woods, she is as strong as a poney, and by no means particular as to what she has to do. She wears no cap or bonnet at home or abroad. Has face and arms as stout and red as any that our farm girls can produce, and scours and sweeps and drudges on like a creature that has no will but to work, and eat, and sleep. She goes to market with a bare head, and in a large cloak. She turns out on Saturday afternoon, with all the rest of her tribe, with buckets and besoms, into the street, and then about three or four o'clock makes a perilous time of it in the city. Before every door water is flowing, and besoms are flirting the dirty puddles about. Each extends her labour not only to the pavement, if there be one, but to the middle of the street; so that they are, in fact, the city scavengers. German housewives complain dreadfully of their maids; but the maids certainly lead hard and most laborious lives, such as our servants would not do. They address you with a sort of family familiarity which would be thought strange in England, but yet without anything like insolence, and are much more willing than English ones. On the other hand, German servants have customs and privileges that would astonish both servants and mistresses in England. They have their public balls, and their invitation to the tradesmen's balls. These they expect to attend just as much as they expect to have their daily food. At least twice in the winter is stipulated for. They have carriages sent to fetch them and bring them back, and go off as smart as their masters or mistresses would. The girls have their ball-books, wherein to enter their engagements for the dance, just as well as any of their young ladies, and, in short, for these evenings are as much ladies as the best of them. At the burgher balls the maid-servants will often dance with some of the most respectable of the young tradesmen, and, of course, feel no little proud of it. An English housemaid whom we brought to Germany with us, being about to return to England again, we were surprised to find that the nursemaid had made her a parting present of a ball-book, the said housemaid never having learnt a step in her life, and never being likely to require her ball-book in England," &c. "We have already seen how perseveringly the women and children gather grass and weeds everywhere for the cows. Nothing that can possibly be made use of is lost. The children may be seen standing in the stream in the villages carefully washing weeds before they are given to the cattle. As we meet them and the women with large bundles of grass on their heads tied in large cloths, we cannot but call to mind the immense quantities by our highway sides, and great green lanes in England, and bywood-sides, which grow and wither, and which might support many a poor man's cow. But with the German peasant it is not merely grass, it is every thing which is collected and appropriated. The cuttings of his vines are dried and trussed-up for winter fodder. The very tops and refuse of his hemp are saved for the bedding of his cattle; nay, the rough stalks of the poppies, after the heads are gathered, serve the same purpose, and are all converted into manure. When these are not sufficient, the children gather moss in the woods, and in summer you constantly meet them coming down out of the hills with their great bundles of it. In autumn they gather the very fungi out of the woods to sell for poisoning flies, and the stalks of a late species of grass to sell for cleaning out their large pipes. Nothing is lost: the leaves in the woods are raked up as they fall, and are brought home before winter for bedding for cattle. The fir cones, which with us all lie scattered in the forest, are as carefully collected to light their fires, or are carried in sacks and sold in the cities for that purpose. The slops from their yards and stables are all preserved, and carried to the fields in water-carts to irrigate their crops. The economy and care of the German peasants afford a striking lesson of utility to all Europe. Time is as carefully economized as everything else. The peasants are early risers, and thus obtain hours of the day's beauty and freshness which others lose. As they herd their cattle and swine, or as they meet to chat, the everlasting knitting-needles are at work, and the quantities of stockings which they accumulate is astonishing. The English of the working class can indeed form no conception of the hardy, unceasing out-of-door labour of continental women all the year round: there is not an hour of that year in which they do not find unceasing occupation," &c. "As regards field-sports: hunting as we do in England is out of the question. A thousand bauers would raise a fiercer outcry against gallopping over their green crops and springing wheat, than ever was heard in a year of rebellion. The popular division of the land is a decided hindrance to hunting. It has been here and there attempted, and English packs of hounds have been imported by the princes, but the peasants put it down wherever it appeared in a very little time. The German bauers, or farmers, have no faith, and it is quite impossible to persuade them, as it has been attempted in England, that it does their corn good to have it in winter ridden over and torn to pieces by a troop of horsemen. On the contrary, they insist on wild-schaden, or damages done by game, whenever deer, hares, or other game are encouraged by the nobility to the injury of their crops: and the laws support them strongly in this, and give them damages strictly; so that many nobles and princes have yearly large sums on this score to pay. All field-sports, therefore, in Germany, resolve themselves into shooting. What they call the jagd, or hunt, is mere shooting; of this treib-jagd, or battue, is the most striking. In Austria, Moravia, Bohemia, &c. where the estates are large, and rather in the hands of the nobles than of the people, where, in fact, over vast extent of lands the people are serf and property themselves; here game reaches the acme of abundance, and the love of field-sports is ardent and universal. The Allgemeine Zeitung, on the fieldsports of Austria, presents a tolerable conception of its wealth. We deduct (it says) from this statement the unusual appearance of lynxes, bears, wolves, &c. which in individual instances, and in particular provinces, only present themselves. We speak not of the elk or ibex, which are totally extinct. The last ibex, so far as I know, was shot by the French Marshal Marmont in the hostile invasion in 1803, in Illyria. Since this period the author has not been able to discover that a single one has been met with throughout Austria. In the Alps of Styria and Upper Austria the chamois now in most quarters grow scarce, yet draw together in herds and look down into the blue mirror of lakes which roll their waves at their feet. The Archduke John, a celebrated mountain-hunter, and like all the princes of his house a celebrated shot, has in his preserves alone more than three thousand herd of chamois, of which three hundred are yearly shot. Wild swine, in the hereditary states of the monarchy, are found This should be "a herd of more than three thousand chamois," and not, as in the text, "more than three thousand herd."-REV. |