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DEFENCE

OF THE

GERMAN UNIVERSITIES

AGAINST THE CALUMNIES OF

AUGUSTUS VON KOTZE BUE.

On doit donc songer, non à repousser les lumières, mais à les rendre complétes, pour que leurs rayons brisés ne presentent point de fausses lueurs. Un gouvernement ne sauroit pretendre derober à une grande nation la connoissance de l'esprit qui regne dans son siècle; cet esprit renferme des éléments de force et de grandeur, dont on peut user avec succès quand on ne craint pas d'aborder hardiment toutes les questions: on trouve alors dans les verités éternells des ressources contre les erreurs passagères, et dans la liberté même le maintien de l'ordre et l'accroissement de la puissance.

DE L'ALLEMAGNE PAR MADAME DE STAEL.

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As the author of the following observations has been six years a pupil at the three universities of Wittenberg, Jena, and Gottingen, and twentyfive years a teacher at those of Frankfort, Konigsberg, Wittenberg, and Leipsic, he has had sufficient opportunities of gaining a thorough personal knowledge of the present state of the German universities; and he therefore feels himself competent to give an opinion on the subject. These remarks arose from the strictures contained in Kotzebue's weekly journal, wherein this topic is also discussed, though most probably without the writer's having any fixed data to guide his inquiries, and influenced more by prejudice than actual observation.

As the violent death of the imperial Russian counsellor, was unfortunately attended by circumstances, that appear to the readers of his paper as having had a close connection with his opi

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nions on the state of our universities, it has been thought necessary to break the silence hitherto preserved relative to the complaints against them contained in the above-named journal. It is for the reader, who may honour his remarks with a candid and dispassionate perusal, to decide between the accusations sent forth in the Weekly Literary Journal of M. Von Kotzebue, and the Author's reply to those heavy charges.

DEFENCE,

&c.

If the adage, de mortuis nil nisi bonum, affected the laws of criticism, we should gladly adopt it in reference to a periodical publication, whose third volume was stifled in its birth by the violent death of the author.

This fatal event, arising from political zeal and religious enthusiasm, which often resorts to such extraordinary expedients for the accomplishment of their object, has gone so far towards expiating the errors of the victim himself, that it must induce a mitigation of censure in the severest judges. But in the present instance, we have less to do with the author personally, than with the emanations of his mind; and shall not therefore take into consideration, that the poignard of an enthusiast has taken a terrible revenge on the man, who so often prostituted his fine talents, by perverting truth, violating good manners, and defaming his oppo

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