LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.- No. 486.-10 SEPTEMBER, 1853. POETRY: Sonnets, 641; The Leaf on the Stream - Evening, 642; The Contrast, 653; SHORT ARTICLES: Correspondence, 641; Mercantile Marine, 642; The Policy of Peter the OFFICE OF THE LIVING AGE, CONSIDERING the unusual nature of the Russian course in the affair with Turkey; its violence, and its insolent tone toward France and England; the paltry pretences, put forth by the CCCCLXXXVI. LIVING AGE. VOL. II. 41 And as the eagle, from its earth-nest free, cower, Until it reach that Wisdom which is Love, From the Dublin University Magazine. I. MERCANTILE MARINE. One of the papers last arrived from America stated that a great want of seamen was experienced in the States as well as in England. Ships were taking any persons they could get, particularly for stewards and cooks. It may be inferred, therefore, that in this the golden age for laborers the seamen are as much in demand as any other class. From whatever cause it may have arisen, throughout that portion of society which comes into contact with England, and shares the influence of our Free Trade the services of all kinds of industrious men are in requisition. The work of our great mechanical giants is so untiring, such prodigious quantities of goods are made, produced, and exchanged, that the amount of carriage is quite enormous. The railway loads the ship by the goods it brings from far-off interiors; and the ship from the other side of the ocean brings piles of packages which the rail transports into the interior. On all sides there is competition, not merely competition in buying and selling bread and clothing, but competition for services; and the invention of machinery, which some thoughtless persons have characterAnd dark rolled the ripples adown it sweeping-ized as the ruin of labor, is making for it a para Ar noontide I mused by a stream, reclining, 'Mid sunshine and song forever to glide: Let life's tranquil current but waft me brightly, I care not how swift its tide. II. A summer breeze came o'er the waters creeping, A cloud cast its gloom the shining stream o'er, The leaves sank, to rise no more! Ah! such is too oft the fate before us, While heedless and gay we sport on life's dise of the world. For ages almost English seamen have served in American ships. It seems indeed natural that seamen, whose employment is everywhere similar, and who in pursuit of their avocations move from place to place, and become to some extent familiar with foreign countries, should be one of the great means of equalizing wages between them. They are universal carriers, and equally ready to carry for all. Speaking the same language as the Americans, having similar manners, there is no impediment whatever, and there has never been any natural impediment, to our seamen serving in American ships. There is no mean of preventing this, and if there were it would not be desirable to use them. On that ground the Americans are quite on an equal footing with us. They can have the services of Englishmen for seamen as well as our own ship-owners. Of no other mercantile marine can we have the least apprehensions. With the American ships our ships are in continual and close competition, and hitherto the result has not been in our favor. - Economist. From Fraser's Magazine. HISTORY OF THE PRUSSIAN COURT AND SIAN DIPLOMACY.* THE object of Dr. Vehse in these volumes is to give, in greater detail than has hitherto been done, an account of the manners of the Prussian court and aristocracy during the three periods into which the history of that country naturally divides itself. The first is the period immediately following the Refor mation, when the government was rude and contained many middle-aged elements, and when the petty Elector of Bradenburg was the most insignificant of his seven brother electors. The second is that after the thirty years' war, when the court presented a singular combination of French gallantry and military absolutism. And the third and last period is the age of Frederick the Great and his successors. the most careless reader between the English and the French memoir writers. The French invariably are great masters of form; they give a flowing, eloquent, and well-arranged narrative, full of life and vigor-the necessary authorities and documents being generally thrown into the appendix; whereas, in the English memoirs, the documents - whether they be despatches, letters, or journals-play the most conspicuous part in the work, and the narrative is often meagre enough. In the work before us, which does not profess to do more than record the on dits of past times, Dr. Vehse seems to have taken as his motto a passage from St. Simon's memoirs: C'est souvent une pure bagatelle qui produit les effets qu'on veut attribuer aux motifs les plus graves. In the sixteenth and even in the seventeenth century the dynasty of the Hohenzollerns were not great geniuses or heroes; they patiently bore the yoke which the Austriana had placed on the neck of the whole of the until the time of the Great Elector. German nation. They bent to the storm The first five Electors of Brandenburg, from the time of the Reformation till that of the Great Elector, were not remarkable for any great intelligence, but they had the good fortune to be served by men of distinguished abilities. We will not for this reason follow Dr. Vehse through the account he gives of the earlier Electors of Brandenburg- the Joachims, the Hectors, &c.; but we must find room to present our readers with a sketch of the life of a man who played a remarkable part during the reign of the Elector John George of Brandenburg. Dr. Vehse has availed himself of all the recent contributions to history, such as the despatches, memoirs and journals, of those who were engaged in diplomacy, or had peculiar opportunities of knowing the secret details of political life. Dr. Vehse pays a well merited compliment to the important works that have lately been published in this country. He states that he has invariably found English writers giving the best reports of public matters; that they are the most clearsighted and the nost unprejudiced in their accounts, and that therefore their judgments are more to be trusted than those of other diplomatists. In Germany, with perhaps the single exception of Count Kevenhuller, who wrote memoirs in the time of the Great Dr. Leonhard Thurneysser was born, in Frederick, the task of writing history has 1530, at Basle. His father, who was a goldbeen confined to men who made letters a pro- smith, brought his son up to his own profesfession, and who were more acquainted with books than with men and the passions that sion, but apprenticed him afterwards as Works like those of Bishop for whom the lad prepared medicines and famulus to a certain Dr. Huber, of Basle, Burnet; memoirs like those of Horace Walpole of the Court of George II.; valuable collected herbs, and in whose service he studied Paracelsus. Thurneysser married contributions to the history of our own time, like the diaries and correspondence of Lord at seventeen, but deserted his wife at the end of a year, when he commenced his travels. Malmesbury, the memoirs of Lord Hervey, the He went first to England, then to France, nemoirs just published by the Duke of Buckingham of the Court and Cabinet of fought under the wild Margrave Albrecht George III.; - French memoirs like those of Brandenburg-Culmbach, and was taken prisCardinal de Retz, the Duke of Sully, St. oner in the battle of Sievershausen in 1553. He then supported himself by working as a Simon, and so many others, who have thrown light on the history of the periods in which miner and smelter. As his wife had divorced they write; histories written by men who, him, Thurneysser married the daughter of a like Mr. Macaulay or Mr. Grote, are politi-goldsmith at Constance, with whom he went, in 1558, to Imst, in the Tyrol, where he these we look in vain in Germany. There is started a mining and smelting business on his influence them. cians as well as authors-for works such as one marked difference that must strike even *Geschichte des Preussischen Hofs und Adels, und der Preussichen Diplomatie. By Dr. Edward Vehse, Hamburg, 1851, 9 vols. own account. In 1560 the Archduke Ferdinand, of the Tyrol, took Thurneysser into his service, and sent him on his travels. For five years he again wandered about the world visiting Scotland and the Orkneys, Spain Portugal, Africa, Barbary, Ethiopia, Egypt, | years Thurneysser maintained his ascendency Arabia, Syria, and Palestine, returning in in the court of Brandenburg. Shortly after 1565 to the Tyrol, by way of Candia, Greece, his arrival in Berlin, the Elector had given Italy, and Hungary. He remained in the him rooms in what had been the Franciscan service of the Archduke inspecting mines. or Grey Convent, where Thurneysser lived in &c., until the year 1570. His extraordinary great style. He built a large laboratory, in knowledge of metals and chemistry made him which were prepared his arcanagold powregarded as the wonder of his age -as a sec-der, golden drops, amethyst waters, tinctures ond Paracelsus. He wrote books on the in- of sapphires, rubies, emeralds, &c., which fluences of the planets, and their effects on soon made the inventor's fortune. He held a the bodies of men and beasts; but the style sort of minor court in the Grey Convent: his of his works is diffuse and unintelligible. household seldom consisted of less than two The Elector John George's second wife, hundred persons, some of whom were emSabina of Anspach, was ill, and Thurneysser ployed in copying letters, while others worked was sent for. In the course of the consulta- in his laboratory, or acted as messengers or tion Thurneysser, to the astonishment of the travellers. He also set up a printing estabElector, described sundry bodily infirmities lishment in the Grey Convent, which was of the Electress, which in his opinion might provided not only with German and Roman, be attended with dangerous results. The but with Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, Syrian, Elector, struck by this knowledge, put his Turkish, Persian, Arabian, even with Abyswife under Thurneysser's charge; the cure sinian types. Almost all these workers in was effected. and the doctor's fortune was from the laboratory and for the press were married that moment made. He was employed and men, and lived with their wives and children consulted by all who had mines or alum works, in the convent; the expenditure, therefore, while the court ladies spread his renown far was considerable. Whenever Thurneysser and wide. Letters came from the remote walked abroad, he was accompanied by two country districts, from married and unmarried pages, of noble blood, who had been sent by ladies, begging the learned doctor to send his their parents to a household where they fair correspondents cosmetics, with particular would learn virtue and regular habits. All descriptions how to use them. The postscript the great people, Prince Radzivil, nay, even generally added that "he was on no account the Elector himself and his wife, came to to betray them, and not to give any cosmetics to other people.' visit him in his Grey Convent. He was a sort of oracle, and was consulted by many Thurneysser had a remarkable memory, and crowned heads. "The letter," says his bia great thirst for knowledge. He had closely ographer Möhsen, "which the Emperor Maxstudied nature in various countries, and had imilian II., and Queen Elizabeth of England learned much from books. He knew Greek wrote to him, together with thirty-nine other and several of the Oriental languages; Latin letters from illustrious princes, were cut out he had learned in his forty-sixth year, at Ber- of the collection at Basle.' But there are lin. He knew sufficient drawing to illustrate many letters to Thurneysser from Frederick his anatomical and botanical works. He II., the King of Denmark, from Stephen made a map of the March of Brandenburg far Bathory, the King of Poland, preserved in superior to anything that had yet appeared. the library at Berlin, in which these monHis knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, archs ask Thurneysser's advice on mining suband astrology, was very considerable, and jeets. Letters came to him daily from Boenabled him to publish almanacs, in which hemia, Silesia, Poland, and Prussia, with he predicted coming events, and the manner medical consultations: he answered none unof their fulfilment was explained in subsequent less a remittance accompanied the letter. tables. These almanacs had a prodigious Count Burchard Von Barby sent an account sale. The great defect in Thurneysser's mind of his symptoms, but received no answer to was a want of philosophical clearness; his his first letter; a second, with a fee of a hunknowledge was undigested, without order or dred ducats, received immediate attention. arrangement; but spite of this he was one of Thurneysser's messengers went all over Gerthe best naturalists of the sixteenth century; many, conveying the doctor's infallible remehis activity was boundless, and his head full dies, and brought back money, rare books, and of projects. manuscripts. The Elector named Thurneysser his body But the almanacs, to which we have bephysician, with the yearly salary of 1352 fore alluded, brought him in the largest inthalers -a large sum for those days; more- come: the booksellers from all parts of Gerover he had an allowance for horses, and other many and other countries sent messengers to extras. He also made money by the commis- Thurneysser for early copies. He printed sion on the purchases he effected for the large editions of these almanacs, of which Elector, of silver and gold plate, in Leipsic, he published a regular series between the Nuremberg, and Frankfort. For fourteen years 1573 and 1585. Each month had its Prognostica. In 1579 he foretold a hideous ick, the first King of Prussia; of Frederick deed; in 1580 the prophecy was discovered William I., to whose rough but sterling qualto allude to the poisoning, by Bianca Capelli, ities Prussia owes so much; and of his illusof her step-son at Florence. He also foretold trious son, Frederick the Great. It is worthy the day of the month and the year when King of remark, that the men who contributed most Sigismund Augustus of Poland died. These to raise the Prussian monarchy to its high fortunate hits brought him in large sums. estate were not the nobles, but men for the He also cast nativities: scarcely an heir to most part sprung from the burgher class : any noble family in Germany was born with- men of talent were sought out, rather than out Thurneysser being consulted as to the those of illustrious descent; and Prussia owes conjunctions and aspects of the planets, by as much to the ability with which these men which he foretold the probable fate of the wielded the pen as the sword. Joachim II.'s infant. These Prognostica interested every chancellor, Lampert Distilmeyer, who was one in those days; every one believed in called oculus et lumen marchiæ, was the son of them even bishops and learned profes- a tailor at Leipsic; Derfflinger, to whom the sors. Thurneysser likewise prepared talis- Great Elector was chiefly indebted for the mans. Even Osiander, the great polemical victory over the Swedes at Fehrbellin, was writer at Königsberg, wore an amulet round the son of an Austrian peasant. Meinders, his neck as a preservative against the Fuchs, and Spanheim, in the time of the leprosy and other maladies. Osiander pur- Great Elector; Dankleman, Kraut, and posely mentions the object with which he Bartholdi, in the reign of the first Prussian wore this chain, lest it should be set down to monarch; Ilgen, Thulemeyer, Cocceji, in the vanity. The best talismans were the sigilla reign of Frederick William I., were men of solis, on which Jupiter is represented like a the middle class; and to these, next to its professor of Wittenberg, with a long beard, a sovereigns, the greatness of Prussia is to be fur coat, and a large book in his hand. attributed. These sigilla solis, which were to avert all solar maladies, were made after the method suggested by the Abbot Tritheim, and Agrippa of Nettesheim, in his work De Occultû Philosophiû. There were other talismans such as the sigilla luna, specially directed against lunar influences; others, again, made of seven different metals, had the peculiar property of making men, though born under some malignant star, fortunate and successful. Whatever was required, Thurneysser was ready to manufacture: his wares were suited to all conditions of men, from the emperor down to the cowherd. By these means Thurneysser became exceedingly rich. He not only had a treasure estimated at 12,000 pieces of gold, but a rich collection of books, manuscripts, silver plate, and pictures. He also had made a cabinet of minerals and herbs, and strange anatomical preparations of men, birds, and beasts; a scorpion preserved in oil was held by the vulgar in extreme awe as a familiar imp of the doctor's. Unluckily for himself, Thurneysser married a third time, and this was his ruin. He divorced his wife for light conduct, and a scandalous suit took place, in the course of which much of his money was spent. In 1584 Thurneysser quitted Berlin, turned Catholic, and went to Rome, where he lived some time under the Pope's protection. He died in a convent at Cologne, in the year 1595, aged 65, in poor circumstances, and on the very day for which he had prognosticated his death. Dr. Vehse enters with great detail into the reigns of the Great Elector; of Freder The thirty years' war had depopulated Prussia, and the Great Elector's wish to introduce agriculture, commerce and manufactures, into his country was admirably assisted by the proceedings of his neighbors. Thousands and thousands of industrious families, driven out of the Palatinate and from France for their religion, were received with joy into Prussia. After the revocation of the edict of Nantes, in the year 1685, above 20,000 French refugees came at once into Prussia, bringing with them much capital, and, what was far more important, habits of thrift and a taste for literature and the fine arts. The silk, wool, and other factories in Prussia owe their origin to these refugees. The advent of the refugees introduced French habits of dress and modes of thought. But with this came also the luxurious tastes of the court of Louis XIV.; and to check the custom of going to Paris to acquire the fashionable air of the French court, the Great Elector, who knew the license and extravagance that prevailed in Paris, issued an edict, in 1686, forbidding his vassals to travel and waste their substance in foreign parts. The whole reign of Frederick William offers a curious picture of refinement and religious toleration mixed with the grossest superstitions of the middle ages. The Great Elector was much addicted to the study of alchemy. He had a laboratory of his own, and bought up all books and manuscripts relating to these secret arts. For a long time. he kept at his court the famous alchemist, Johann Kunkel, who shared the fate of many others of his trade, and was prosecuted, after the Great Elector's death, for peculation. |