entertained, with regard to the blameable course pursued by M. Kotzebue, so clearly explained by the writer. But heaven forbid the Editor should imagine that unfortunate victim merited such a tragical end, for the mere act of making comments, which, whether the result of honest conviction, or of venal profligacy, should still be corrected rather by the pen of the critic, than the knife of the assassin. Without being in any manner answerable for the doctrines or arguments of the Professor, the Editor could not be insensible to the importance of several of his facts and observations, the whole of which, he has done his utmost to place in the clearest point of view, leaving the final decision of their merits to a more competent tribunal.

In laying the following Memoir and Defence before a British public, the Editor is, however, induced to offer some preliminary remarks, explanatory of the motives which have prompted this undertaking, as well as for the purpose of disarming the prejudices of those, who are ever ready to put an evil

construction on the actions of others, if not perfectly in unison with their own mode of thinking.

The Editor has recently visited Germany; he has observed the extraordinary sensation created by the fate of M. Kotzebue, and has been very forcibly struck by the great degree of involuntary sympathy every where so eagerly manifested in favour of the perpetrator Sand, whose portrait he frequently saw exhibited in frames containing those of the most distinguished German patriots ; while various pamphlets, and numerous elegiac stanzas extolled his early virtues and deplored his melancholy fate. It was natural for him to feel the utmost surprize at these circumstances, and that too, in a country whose inhabitants are above all others, least likely to advocate or approve the dreadful crime of assassination.* Concluding, therefore, that this singular state of the public mind, must have originated in some

* Robberies and murders, are less frequent in the German states, than in any part of Europe.

cause arising from the peculiar nature of the times and condition of the people, he determined to extend his inquiries; and although the more minute results of the information he obtained, are reserved for a future occasion, he is yet unwilling to omit the present opportunity of stating a few of the most prominent facts; because they have an immediate connection with that simultaneous desire for reform and improvement, now so unanimously felt throughout the whole European commonwealth.

The high sense of religion, turn for deep thinking and simplicity of manners, by which the second and third classes of society are distinguished in Germany, have been already illustrated by several writers; but by none so ably as Madame de Stael, in her admirable work entitled DE L'ALLEMAGNE : for, to the exact veracity of her assertions, and the solidity of her reasonings, with the exception of some trifling inaccuracies, all those who have any knowledge of the country, including the natives themselves, bear

ample testimony. Whoever reflects on those qualities, and the amazing intellectual advances made by Germany during the last century; when he recollects, at the same time, that an ardent love of freedom was the marked characteristic, and has invariably, however studiously repressed, appeared to be the instinctive passion of the people; cannot wonder that after having witnessed the innumerable abuses eradicated by the late struggle for public liberty in France, the Germans should now pant for a removal of those evils, civil and political, which still continue to impede their own happiness and prosperity.

Owing to the fatal direction taken by the politics of France, when that country was given up to the inexorable sway of sanguinary demagogues and unprincipled factions in the early part of the revolution, and by which the hopes anticipated from the event, were blasted for a time at least; a long series of uninterrupted warfare and reciprocal aggression, suspended the progress

of liberal principles to the north of the Rhine. But they were revived on the restoration of peace in 1814, and greatly augmented, when, notwithstanding their unheard of sufferings, and endless sacrifices, the people saw, that instead of performing often re'peated promises, and establishing a social system, more conducive to the interests of the Germanic confederation, and consonant to the improved spirit of an enlightened age; the congress assembled at Vienna, for the avowed purpose of consolidating the peace and happiness of nations, seemed only to think of aggrandizement and partition, transfer and spoliation!

It seems, however, that a war of twentyfive years, was insufficient to expiate the sins of Europe, or glut the insatiate idol of depotism; consequently, when the violation of the treaty by which Elba was allotted to the Emperor Napoleon, and the non-observance of the charter, led to the return of that sovereign,* the nations were once more

*For an account of the circumstances attending the