apropos to chivalry, the fact is, that the institutions of a gene rous but barbarous period, invented to shield our helplessness, when women were exposed to every hardship, every outrage, have been much abused, and must be considerably modified to suit a very different state of society. That affectation of poetical homage which your strength paid to our weakness, when the laws were not sufficient to defend us, we would now gladly exchange for more real honour, more real protection, more equal rights. I speak thus, knowing that, however open to perversion these expressions may be, you will not misapprehend me; you know that I am no vulgar, vehement arguer about the "6 rights of women;" and, from my habitual tone of feeling and thought, the last to covet any of your masculine privileges. MEDON.--I do perfectly understand you; but, pray, what are our strictly masculine privileges, that you should covet them? Fighting! getting drunk! and keeping a mistress!--I beg your pardon if I shock your delicacy; but certainly, upon the score of masculine privileges, the less that is said the better: there are nations in which it is a masculine privilege to sit and smoke, while women draw the plough. It was some time ago,-and now, in some countries, it is still a masculine privilege to cultivate the mind at all; and in Germany, apparently, it is still a masculine privilege to publish a book without losing caste in society; whereas here, in England, we have fallen into the opposite extreme; female authorship is in danger of becoming a fashion, which Heaven avert! I should be sorry to see you women taking the pen you have hitherto so honoured, in the same spirit in which you used to make filligree, cobble shoes, and paint velvet. ALDA. It is too true that mere vanity and fashion have lately made some women authoresses ;-more write for money, and by this employment of their talents earn their own independence, add to the comforts of a parent, or supply the extravagance of a husband. Some, who are unhappy in their domestic relations, yet endowed with all that feminine craving after sympathy which was intended to be the charm of our sex, the blessing of yours, and somehow or other has been turned to the bane of both, look abroad for what they find not at home; fling into the wide world the irrepressible activity of an overflowing mind and heart, which can find no other unforbidden issue, and to such "fame is love disguised." Some write from the mere energy of intellect and will; some few from the pure wish to do good, and to add to the stock of happiness and the progress of thought; and many from all these motives combined in different degrees. MEDON. And have none of these motives produced authoresses in Germany? ALDA. Yes; but fashion, and vanity, and the love of excite ment have not as yet tempted the German women to print their effusions; their most distinguished authoresses have become so, either from real enthusiasm or from necessity; and in the lighter departments of literature they boast at present some brilliant names. I will run over a few. In There is Helmina von Chezy-but before I speak of her, I should tell you of her famous grandmother, Anna Louisa Karshin, though she belonged to the last century. The Karshin was the daughter of a poor innkeeper and brewer, in a little village of Silesia. She spent her early years in herding cows. She learned to read by stealth, by stealth she became a poetess; was first married to a boorish sulky weaver, secondly to a drunken tailor, and suffered for years every extremity of poverty and misery; at one time she travelled about the neighbouring country, the first example of an itinerant poetess, declaiming her own verses, and always ready with an ode or a sonnet to celebrate a wedding or hail a birthday. this strange profession she excited much astonishment-went through some singular, but not disreputable, adventures-and earned considerable sums of money, which her husband spent in drink and profligacy. Gifted with as much energy as genius, she struggled through all, and gradually became known to several of the critics and poets of the last century, particularly Count Stolberg and Gleim, and obtained the title of the German Sappho. She found means to reach Berlin, where she worked her way up to distinction, and supported herself, two children, and an orphan brother, by her talents. She was recommended to Frederic the Great as worthy of a pension, and -would you believe it ?— that munificent patron of his country's genius sent her a gratuity of two dollars in a piece of paper. This extraordinary and spirited woman, who had probably subsisted for half her life on charity, instantly returned them to the niggardly despot, after writing in the envelope four lines impromptu, which are yet repeated in Germany. I am not quite sure that I remember them accurately, and it is no matter, for they have not much either of poetry or point : "Zwei Thaler sind zu wenig, Zwei Thaler gibt kein König. Zwei Thaler machen nicht mein Glück; She died in 1791, and a selection of her poems was published in the following year. The granddaughter of the Karshin, the more celebrated Helmina von Chezy, is likewise a poetess; her principal work is a tale of chivalry, in verse, Die Drei Weissen Rosen (The Three White Roses), which was published in 18—, and she wrote the opera of Euryanthe, for Weber to set to music. Her songs and lighter poems are, I am told, exceedingly beau tiful. Caroline Pichler, of Vienna, I need only mention. I believe her historical romances have been translated into half a dozen languages. The Siege of Vienna is reckoned her best. Madame Schopenhaur, the daughter of a senator of Dantzic, is celebrated for her novels, travels, and works on art. She resided for many years at Weimar, where she drew round her a brilliant literary circle, which the talents of her daughter farther adorned. Since Goëthe's death she has fixed her residence at Bonn, where it is probable the remainder of her life will be spent. One of the best of her novels, "Die Tante," has been translated by Madame de Montolieu, under the title of "La Tante et la Nièce." Another very pretty little book of hers, "Ausflucht an dem Rhein," I should like to see translated. Besides being an elegant writer on art, Madame Schopenhaur is herself no mean artist. Moreover, she is a kindhearted, excellent old lady, with a few old lady-like prejudices about England and the English, which I forgave her, the more easily as I had to thank her in my own person for many and kind attentions. Madame von Helvig, of Weimar (born Amalia von Imhoff), was the friend of Schiller, under whose auspices her first poems were published. Her rare knowledge of languages, her learning and critical taste in works of art, have distinguished her almost as much as her genius for poetry. The first wife of the Baron de la Motte-Fouquet was a very accomplished woman, and the author of several poems and romances. Frederica Brun (born Münter), the daughter of a learned ecclesiastic of Gotha, is celebrated for her prose writings, and particularly her travels in Italy, where she resided at different periods. Madame Brun was a friend of Madame de Staël, who mentions her in her De l'Allemagne, and describes the extraorVOL. I.-H dinary talents for classical pantomime possessed by her daughter Ida Brun. Louisa Brachmann is, I believe, more renowned for her melancholy death than her poetical talents; both together have procured her the name of the "German Sappho." The wretched woman threw herself into the river at Halle, and perished, as it was said, for the sake of some faithless Phaon. This was in 1822, when she must have been between forty and fifty; and pray observe, I do not notice this fact of her age in ridicule. A woman's heart may overflow inwardly for long, long years, till at last the accumulated sorrow bursts the bounds of reason, and then all at once we see the result of causes to which none gave heed, and of secret agonies to which none gave comfort-in folly, madness, destruction. Whatever might have been the cause, thus she died. Her works in prose and verse may be found in every bookseller's shop in Germany. There is also a life of this unhappy and gifted woman by Professor Schutz. Fanny Tarnow is one of the most remarkable and most fertile of all the modern German authoresses. Her genius was developed by misfortune and suffering; while yet an infant, she fell from a window two stories high, and was taken up, to the amazement of the assistants, without any apparent injury, except a few bruises; but all the vital functions suffered, and during ten or twelve years she was extended on a couch, neither joining in any of the amusements of childhood, nor subjected to the usual routine of female education. She educated herself. She read incessantly; and, as it was her only pleasure, books of every description, good and bad, were furnished her without restraint. She was about eleven years old when she made her first known poetical attempt, inspired by her own feelings and situation. It was a dialogue between herself and the angel of death. In her seventeenth year she was sufficiently recovered to take charge of her father's family, after he had lost, by some sudden misfortune, his whole property. He held subsequently a small office under government, the duties of which were principally performed by his admirable daughter. Her first writings were anonymous, and for a long time her name was unknown. Her most celebrated novel, the "Thekla," was published in 1815; and from this time she has enjoyed a high and public reputation. Fanny Tarnow resides, or did reside, in Dresden. I have yet another name here, and not the least interesting, --that of Johanna von Weissenthurn, one of the most popular dramatic writers in Germany. She was educated for the stage, even from infancy, her parents and relations being, I believe, strolling players. She lived, for many years, a various life of toil, and adventure, and excitement; such, perhaps, as Goëthe describes in the Wilhelm Meister; a life which does sometimes blunt the nicer feelings, but is sure to develop talent where it exists. Johanna at length rose through all the grades of her profession, and became the first actress at the principal theatre at Vienna. She played in the "Phædra," before Napoleon, when he occupied the Austrian capital in 1806, and the conqueror sent to her, after the performance, a complimentary message, and a gratuity of three thousand francs; but her lasting reputation is founded on her dramatic works, which are played in every theatre in Germany. The plots, which, I am told, are remarkable for fancy and invention, have been borrowed, without acknowledgment, both by French and English playwrights. I was quite charmed with one of her pieces which I saw at Munich (Die Erden--The Heirs), and with another which was represented at Frankfort. Johanna von Weissenthurn has also written poems and tales. I have come to the end of my memoranda on this subject, and regret it much. I might easily give you more names and quote second-hand the opinions I heard of the merits and characteristics of these authoresses; but I speak of nothing but what I know, and not being able to form any judgment myself, I will give none. Only it appears to me that the Germans themselves assign to no female writer the same rank which here we proudly give to Joanna Baillie and Mrs. Hemans. I could hear of none who had ever exercised any thing like the moral influence possessed by Maria Edgeworth and Harriet Martineau, in their respective departments; nor could learn that any German woman had yet given public proof that the most feminine qualities were reconcileable with the highest scientific attainments--like Mrs. Marcet and Mrs. Somerville. MEDON. You said, the other night, that you had not formed any opinion as to the moral and social position of the women in Germany; but you must have brought away some general impressions of manner and character;-frankly, were they favourable or unfavourable? ALDA. Frankly, they were most favourable. Remember that I am not prepared with any general sweeping conclusions: I cannot assure you, from my own knowledge, that among my own sex the proportion of virtue and happiness is greater in Germany than in England. On the contrary— |