"You see the mischief; all comes from unbelief; Voltaire "and Rousseau propagated unbelief, and that revolution grew "out of it which threatened to send us all to the right-about. "There is unbelief in Germany; the revolution peeps already "out of it: therefore while it is still time, do not lose a moment; prenez mon ours, and re-install the pope in his ancient au"thority."

These two once convinced, all the German princes agreed unanimously to sign concordats with the pope. The small princes met with no difficulties-the thing was quickly settled, and the pope to them proved the most obliging person imaginable. But as to Prussia and Bavaria, the pope raised difficulty after difficulty; these, however, were first removed with respect to Bavaria, which concluded its concordat in 1817. We may, however, mention in what mode the proceedings were shortened. The king of Bavaria chose for his plenipotentiary a Catholic priest, who went to Rome, and when at Rome drew up the concordat according to the instructions of the pope. As he had been duly accredited as plenipotentiary, the treaty was binding upon his court; the pope made the plenipotentiary a cardinal, and the king of Bavaria promulgated the concordat on the 28th of October.

Whatever may be the secret history of the Prussian concordat, it is a fact that the negotiations continued until the 16th of July 1821, when the pope published his bull, "De salute animarum;" it is a fact that this bull is the Prussian concordat; and it is a fact, that no German prince received more unfavourable conditions from the pope than the king of Prussia. When promulgated (23d of August), it excited one cry of astonishment all over Germany; for whatever was clear in the document conferred great prerogatives upon the Romish see; and the greater part was couched in ambiguous terms, which allowed great latitude to subsequent pretensions. Thus Prussia and Bavaria, the principal rivals, had each her concordat, and both the most unfavourable of all those concluded with Germany. And what is the consequence? The Prussian government, at this moment, is at daggers-drawn with all its Catholic subjects; and the king of Bavaria has received permission to occupy a snug place of retirement somewhere in the middle ages, well ornamented with gothic

turrets and paintings, while the government of all the present time belongs to the church. The king of Bavaria is no longer the king of his own country-he has retained nothing but the mere title: the country is governed by priests, and the priests are the king and everything else in Bavaria.

Before explaining the change which has taken place, we beg leave to examine a little the germs which were perceptible at the beginning, and which determined the species of the plant which has grown out of them. There can be no doubt that both Bavaria and Prussia saw, in the new power introduced into the state, a political engine, which they hoped to make use of for the sake of restraining the liberal propensities of the times. But that in which they were mistaken was, that what they intended for an instrument and tool had a will of its own, and consequently was neither instrument nor tool. With respect to Austria, it is perfectly true that Catholicism is a political instrument. But why? Because the pope is a mere functionary acting under the Austrian Government, whom the cabinet can restrain and deprive at pleasure.

The case was very different with respect to Prussia and Bavaria; there the Catholic church was to become an independent establishment, and all that constituted its independence was so much taken away from the power of the political sovereign. The king of Bavaria made no resistance: he established monasteries peopled by monks, whom the Austrians sent into his country; and the great beauty he saw in the venerable beards of his Capuchins, and in the ornaments of gothic churches, so engrossed his attention, that he quite overlooked who, in the mean time, sat down upon his throne. The king of Bavaria is no longer a king, but merely a paid pensionary of the Catholic church; and Austria, at this moment, has no more faithful ally and friend than the government of Bavaria.

The king of Prussia, on the contrary, endeavoured to resist the growing influence of his new rival, and to destroy the imperium in imperio; and he has been forced to the retreat we have described above. The influence of Prussia over Germany is gone. As long as the Prussian cabinet marched at the head of learning and scientific enlightenment, Prussia had the 2 K 2

supremacy of Germany, without intrigues. They turned upon enlightenment and betook themselves to intrigues-and they were beaten, because in that branch of science Prince Metternich is greatly their superior. The Prussian court is aware that they have now to tremble before Austria, or how else could we explain the crouching courtship they pay to Russia? the emperor of Russia was received like a Saviour in Berlin during his late visit. Do they believe they may by subjection to Russia avoid subjection to Austria? But to whom else could the king appeal? To his subjects? They would say, "You have not kept the promise under which "you engaged us to fight for you against Napoleon; you "shall not cheat us a second time." To Germany? They would say, "You have assisted Austria in quashing all our "public freedom; if there is oppression, we prefer to be oppressed by our old imperial house and to form at least one 66 country, than to suffer the Russians, whom you through your intrigues have introduced into Germany, any longer 66 amongst us. Austria has raised a national banner-and "against foreigners: we are decided to be Germans, if we "cannot be freemen."

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We have explained in how far and from what reason Catholicism or Popery is synonymous with political thraldom in Germany; it is not Catholicism as a religion, but the Catholicism which represents Austrian influence in Germany. The encouragement of this description of Catholicism only forms one part of the system by which Austria endeavours to revive the old German empire, and to enforce the rights which the emperors of Austria claim, by long possession, upon the possession of the supremacy of Germany. The Diet, the Catholic church, and all the other auxiliaries which Austria previously introduced into Germany, act no longer separately; the different corps d'armée have united, and their common banner is, "The Old German Empire."

As things are now, we must rather sympathize with Austria. The success of the present policy of Prussia could only prepare for Germany a lot similar to that of Polanddissensions in the interior, and at last a partition of the country itself; while the fully established supremacy of Austria would

at least exclude Russian influence from the continent, and oppose to the encroaching spirit of that ambitious cabinet the strong barrier of a compact, well-united German empire.

ARTICLE III.

The Pentameron and Pentalogia. London, 1837.

WE have so recently brought Mr. Landor's writings and literary character before our readers, that the making them the subject of a second notice, however brief, requires some explanation. Whether this remarkable man abuses his strength in violent and capricious enmities, or wastes it upon paradoxes, whatever comes from his pen betrays, with lesser or greater degrees of obscuration, the artist, and brings with it or suggests, either in the way of assent or opposition, instructive and frequently profound truths in politics, morals and criticism. In the volume before us, there is something of each of these; but what has especially moved us to give a short account of the Pentameron is, that it illustrates, as it were empirically, a leading quality or defect of the author's mind, and confirms us in the opinions we formerly expressed of his peculiar strength and weakness.

It must be evident to those who have read the Imaginary Conversations, not merely as an amusing book, but as the production of a powerful though irregular intellect, that Mr. Landor's entire sympathies are with the ancient rather than with the modern world, in philosophy, politics and literature: for although he fully and frequently does homage to the surpassing majesty of his own countrymen in invention and imagination, and in his last work avows his conviction that England "has produced four men so pre-eminently great, that no name, modern or ancient, can stand very near the lowest; these are, Shakspeare, Bacon, Milton, and Newton; "-still, notwithstanding, it is easy to gather from his prejudices and from his deliberate judgements, from the bent of his imagination and

the direction of his understanding and taste, that his temperament is ethnic, and that he imperfectly apprehends and goes along with the current feelings and the moral constitution of the Christian world. Let us not be misunderstood,-we are as far from thinking as from saying that Mr. Landor is not a Christian; or that he has ever directly and intentionally supported or insinuated the doctrines and the sentiments of a sceptical philosophy; but we infer from the general tenor of his writings, and from the natural track and orbit of his speculations in art, ethics and politics, that he is "more an antique Roman" than a poet or philosopher of the nineteenth century; that Homer and Aristotle, Ovid and Cicero, are his divines, in spite of the commendations he bestows upon Hooker and Barrow; and that the native impulse and bias of his intellect is, in argumentation, towards the palpable, the practical, the orderly, rather than to questions of higher intellectual" pith and moment;" and in poetry, towards the exact proportions and clearness of form, the characteristics of ethnic art, more than to the pathos and personal reflectiveness of modern. Perhaps this is most apparent in his political sentiments. Mr. Landor believes himself to be, and is frequently represented as, an uncompromising democrat; whereas he is an aristocratic republican of the antique cast, not more impatient of kings and pontifical supremacy than of popular rule and predominance in its present sense. His comments on history show little predilection for the many, and less faith in their perfectibility; while they point out, and in a manner underline, the individual greatness of the few in action and intellect. If anywhere Mr. Landor is a leveller, it is in his projects or his dreams for a primitive constitution of the church. We are not sure whether on this subject he is in earnest or ironical; but if he is serious, "venturum expectat."

In some of his former publications, Plato was the cynosure of Mr. Landor's dislikes; and the philosopher who has exhausted the admiration and taxed the powers of the most subtle thinkers in every age is represented in the Imaginary Conversations as an inexact reasoner, inconsistent in his doctrines, and luxuriant and rank in his diction. In the Pentameron, Dante, though upon the whole less an object of distaste, being saved from rough treatment, not, as in the Inferno,