was secured by law to the villeins. The
peasant obtained the right of complaint to the royal government, and
this right became for him a quick and vigorous law, for, however much
the King favoured the nobility when it was serviceable to the State,
yet he was constantly occupied, together with his officials, in
elevating the mass of tax-payers. The most insignificant might present
his petition, and the whole people knew, from numerous examples, that
the King read them. Many of this great Prince's attempts at
civilization did not succeed; but on all sides the pressure of a system
was felt which so assiduously raised the strength of the people, in
order to utilise them to the utmost in the State. Nowhere is the work
of this mighty ruler so thankfully acknowledged by contemporaries as by
the peasantry of the conquered province. When, on his numerous journeys
through Silesia, the country-people thronged round his carriage with
respectful awe, every look, every fleeting word that he addressed to a
village magistrate was treasured as a dear remembrance, handed down
carefully from generation to generation, and still lives in all hearts.

Ever greater became the sympathy of the literary classes. It is true
that poetry and art did not yet find in the life of the peasant,
material which could foster a creative spirit. When Goethe wrote
"Hermann and Dorothea," it was a new discovery for the nation that the
petty citizen was worthy of artistic notice; it was long, however,
before any one ventured lower among the people; but the honourable
philanthropists, the popular promulgators of enlightenment in the
burgher classes, preached and wrote with hearty zeal upon the singular,
uncouth, and yet numerous fellow-creature, the peasant, whose character
frequently only appeared to consist of an aggregate of unamiable
qualities, but who, nevertheless, was undeniably the indispensable
foundation of the other classes of human society.

One of the most influential writings of this kind was by Christian
Garve, "Upon the Character of the Peasants, Breslau, 1786," taken from
lectures given shortly before the outbreak of the French revolution.
The author was a clear-sighted, upright man, who was anxious for the
public weal, and was listened to with respect throughout the whole of
Germany, whenever he spoke upon social questions. His little book has a
thoroughly philanthropic tendency; the life of the peasant was
accurately known by him as it was by