2. OFF THE SKELLIGS. By Jean Ingelow. Part XXIV., Saint Pauls, 3. SAALBURG and SaarbrucKEN. By Edward A. Free

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From The Quarterly Review.
BARON STOCK MAR.*

these lines are the prelude, that "the world knows nothing of its greatest men," it Ir reputation always followed desert, the would surely be in that of Baron Stockmar. question "Who was Baron Stockmar?" For his is not the case of the men of whom would not be so general as we fear it will this is generally asserted, men who have be among our readers, on seeing the title made a great impression upon their own of this paper. His story is unique of its circle by some exceptional brilliancy of kind. In every sense a remarkable man, gifts or energy of character, but who have remarkable in his gifts, in his career, in the been shut out from a practical career by extent and importance of his influence upon early death or other causes. Of these it leading men and great events, - he was must always be doubtful, whether they in nothing more remarkable than in that would have answered to the hopes of their stern self-suppression, which was content admirers, or have turned out little better with the accomplishment of the noble aims than "the ordinary of Nature's sale-work," to which the whole powers of a long life as so many promising men constantly do. were devoted, without a thought of the But of Stockmar it could never be said, as personal fame which with most men is the it may be said of these, Consensu omnium chief incentive to high and sustained effort, capax imperii, nisi imperâsset. His genius, and which, if it be an infirmity, is at least on the contrary, was never more conspicuthe infirmity of noble minds. With every ous than when put to the severest test. It quality to have made himself acknowledged was not only pre-eminently practical, but throughout Europe, as among the ablest it rose to difficulties with an elasticity diplomatists and statesmen of his time, he which no obstacle could daunt, and a coolpreferred to keep himself in the back-ness of judgment which no contingency ground, leading what one of his friends could surprise. called "an anonymous and subterranean life," and to let others have all the credit of making many a successful move in the great game of politics, which was in fact inspired by himself. Gifted with the intuition of true political genius, at once acute and comprehensive in his views -he was not more swift to read afar off with the prescience of the philosophic observer the signs of the coming changes, political, social, and religious, of the period of transition through which we are now passing, than prompt to grapple them with all the practical sagacity of the man of action. Possessing courage and tact equal to every emergency, and with opportunities to have gone to the front, had such been his ambition, Stockmar was certainly one of "the singular few," of whom Van Artevelde, in Sir Henry Taylor's drama, speaks, "Who, gifted with predominating powers, Bear yet a temperate will, and keep the peace." And if in any case the truth is to be admitted of the seeming paradox, to which

• Denkwerdigkeitdn aus den Papieren des Freiherrn Christian Friedrich v. Stockmar. Zusammengestellt von Ernst Freiherr v. Stockmar. Braunschweig, 1872.

Working as he did through others, the full extent of Europe's debt to him can never be known, and of not a little that is known it would be premature now to speak. But this much at least is certain, that wherever he had power, it was used to advance the welfare and happiness of nations. The bosom friend and counsellor of the heads of the Royal Houses of Belgium and England, his influence with them was due not to his personal loveableness or social qualities, great as these were, still less to the blandishments of the courtier, which his princes equally with himself would have despised, but to the skill and persistency with which he evoked all that was best in their own natures (in which his own nobleness happily found a kindred response), and impressed them with the paramount duty, imposed upon them by their position, of using it not for personal or dynastic purposes, but to make their subjects better, happier, wiser, and nobler in themselves, as well as the founders of a greater future for their successors. Europe is now reaping, in many ways, the fruits of his forethought and strenuous endeavour. It was no more than Stockmar's due, that a cenotaph should be reared to his memory, as it

was, above his grave at Coburg, "by his friends in the reigning Houses of Belgium, Coburg, England, and Prussia." Never was tribute more thoroughly deserved, nor, we believe, more sincerely and lovingly rendered. But it is not alone by these friends that Stockmar's name should be held in honoured remembrance. It is one which Belgium, England, and Germany, whose welfare was at once the dream and practical study of his life, should not willingly let die.

After completing the usual curriculum at the Coburg Gymnasium, he spent the five years between 1805 and 1810 at the Universities of Würzburg, Erlangen, and Jena, in the study of medicine. To his professional training, in the study and practice of physic he was indebted for the habit of exact observation, which is never misled into mistaking effects for causes, and which divines what is essential, what merely incidental, as well as for the patient courage, which seeks by the removal of disturbing Christian Friedrich Stockmar was born agencies to give full scope to nature, and at Coburg on the 28th August, 1787. His to restore her normal and healthy action, father, a man of culture and literary tastes, rather than by active remedies to give apand some independent means, who held a parent relief, at the risk too often of only small magisterial office at Rodach, a little aggravating the mischief which they profess town between Coburg aud Hildburghau- to cure. It is in this gift of diagnosis that sen, died suddenly, when Stockmar was the genius of the great physician lies, and still young. From his mother he seems to Stockmar appears to have possessed it in Lave inherited the combination of humour a high degree. The habit of mind which with strong practical sense, which formed his medical studies induced was of infinite a leading feature of his character. Her value to him in later life, when dealing shrewd judgments on men and things were with social and political phenomena, in the frequently clothed in language which only power which it gave him, " of penetrating," wanted the stamp of general use to. be- as his friend Carl Friedrich Meyer has come proverbial. One of these, "The Al-said, "at a glance, from single expresmighty takes care not to let the cow's tail sions and acts, the whole man, or the grow too long," was often in King Leo- whole position of things; and, after this pold's mouth, in times of domestic or politi-diagnosis, of straightway settling his own cal perplexity. Her thoughts in conversa- line of action." Stockmar felt this strongly tion ran naturally into quaint shapes; and in this her son resembled her closely. In one of his letters about the Coup d'État of December, 1851, he gives a good lustration of this peculiarity. "My mother," he writes, "would have said, 'Just try to cobble out of that a verse that will clink; if you manage to make the rhymes fit, you have my leave to bake yourself a cake of rusty nails and aqua vitæ.' A clever good woman," he adds, "with more practical sense in her little finger than Nicholas, Louis Napoleon, Schwarzenberg, and Manteuffel had in their whole heads.". It is recorded of himself as a boy, that he was of an eager, sanguine temperament; quick to observe, fond of fun, with a ready talent for characterizing men and things by apt humorous nicknames, and not indisposed for a mad prank when occasion served. He early showed a love for field sports, and he had turned sixty before he laid aside his gun.

himself. Writing in 1853, about the calls made upon his sagacity and judgment by the distinguished personages who had so many years leant upon his confidential counsels, he says, "It was a happy hit to have originally studied medicine; without the knowledge, without the psychological and physiological insight thereby obtained, my savoir faire must often have gone a-begging." On Friedrich Rückert, the poet, who made his acquaintance at Würzburg, he left the impression of being "a grave, industrious, young man, of somewhat retiring and dignified manners." The strong humorous element in his character appears at that time not to have struck the poet, who in the lifelong friendship which was afterwards formed between them had good

* In an admirable memoir, which appeared in the 1863. Heri Preussische Jahrbucher," October, Meyer, now Councillor of Legation at Berlin, was for many years the Librarian and Secretary of the late Prince Consort.

reason to know it; but if their college
acquaintance was, as it seems to have
been, slight, this was no more than natural.
The great humorist is ever sensitive and
shy. Intensely sympathetic himself, he
must be sure of sympathy, before he lets
out his heart in the fun, steeped in feeling,
in which thoughts often the saddest, and
emotions the most painful, sometimes find
relief.

great, and a power among the nations,
which were ever afterwards abiding prin-
ciples with him. The day of emancipa-
tion was far off, and much had to be done
and undergone before it came. But not
alone in this instance, but in reference to
many other things, which though desirable
seemed for a time hopeless, Stockmar nev-
er bated in heart and hope. His axiom

was,

The time, moreover, was not one to in-
"Wait; my faith is large in time,
spire cheerfulness in a man who felt
And that which shapes is to some perfect end."
strongly, and who loved his country pas-
sionately, as Stockmar did. His student's At the end of 1810, Stockmar returned
years fell within the period of Germany's to Coburg and commenced the practice
deepest degradation. The petty selfish- of Physic under the guidance of his uncle,
ness of the smaller principalities, the Dr. Sommer. He soon becaine conspicu-
shame of her defeats, the grinding domina-ous for his skill in diagnosis, and in 1812 he
nation of Napoleon in his expressed deter-received the official appointment of Stadt-
mination "to cut the wings of the Prus- und Land-Physicus, in which capacity he
sians so closely as to preclude thé possi- had to organize and superintend a military
bility of their ever again disturbing the hospital in Coburg. It was rapidly filled,
French," the pitiful internal divisions, at first with the sick and wounded of the
which strengthened the invader's hands, French, and afterwards with Russians.
were enough to banish smiles from the The hospital typhus, following in the wake
lips of the most heedless. These things of the armies, established itself there with
sank deep into Stockmar's heart, and in- such virulence that the other physicians
spired it with that yearning for the unity deserted the hospital in alarm, and the
and greatness of the Fatherland which sole charge of it devolved upon Stockmar
burned within it to the last. These and an old surgeon. Contrary to the
were the days when the assassination of practice then universal, but now dis-
Napoleon was freely talked of among the carded, of shutting out fresh air from fever
hot spirits of the universities as the one patients as much as possible, he flung open
specific for their country's wrongs. "This the doors and windows of the wards, even
is the talk of boys; have done with it," in severe weather, and with the best re-
said an old Prussian officer once, when sults. But at the end of more than a year
Stockmar was present.
"Whoever knows of unremitting toil, he was himself struck
the world, knows that the French su- down by the illness in its worst form. After
premacy cannot last: put your trust in the hovering for three weeks between life and
natural course of events." The words death, he rallied, and so quickly, that he
made a deep impression upon Stockmar. was able to march, in January, 1814, with
They breathed that confidence in the ulti- the Ducal Saxon Contingent to the Rhine
inate justice of Providence; they rested as Chief Physician. On his arrival at
on the conviction that it is to themselves Mayence, he was appointed Staff-Physi-
a people must look, if they are to become cian of the Fifth German Army Corps to
"These haughty Prussians," said Napoleon, under the great Stein's directions in
the hospitals which had been established
speaking to a Russian officer, "low as they are
brought, still carry themselves very high. They Mayence, Oppenheim, Guntersblum, and
breathe nothing but vengeance against France, and Worms. His introduction to Stein was
desire peace only as a means, in time, of executing
it; but," he added with great emphasis," they de- somewhat of the roughest. Having no
ceive themselves greatly, if they expect to rise again wounded of his own, Stockmar admitted
to the height of a great power; for their wings shall wounded French prisoners into the hospi-
now be so closely cut as to preclude all possibility
tal. This was no more than his duty.
But all at once came an unexpected rush

of their ever again disturbing us." - Diaries and

Letters of Sir George Jackson, vol. ii. p. 167.