good
draught. Germany is to him a mere geographical spot, which he neither
loves nor hates; his family or his order are all that he serves or
cares for, and if one abstracts from him his high pretensions, and
compares the remains of the kernel with the men of our own time, we
should find more sense and rectitude in the stubborn head of a
corporation of the smallest town than in him.

Again a century has passed, a time of little energy or national
strength, and yet great changes have taken place. The year 1759 is in
the youth of our grandfathers; numberless remembrances cling to our
hearts; it will be sufficient to recall a few. The squire's house has
no longer a bare front: a porch has been added, supported by stone
pillars; the staircase is ornamented with vases; over the hall door a
rudely carved angel holds the family arms emblazoned on a spiral shell.
On one side of the building lies the farm-yard, on the other the
garden, laid out with trim beech hedges and obelisks of yew. The old
whitewashed walls are almost all covered with plaster-of-paris, and
some are highly ornamented. There is an abundance of household
furniture beautifully carved in oak or walnut; near the ancient family
portraits hang modern pastil pictures, amongst them perhaps the
daughter of the house as a shepherdess with a crook in her hand. In the
apartments of the lady of the house there is a porcelain table with
coloured tankards, small cups, pug-dogs, and Cupids of this newly
discovered material. Propriety reigns everywhere with a strict stern
rule; women and servants speak low, children kiss their parents' hands,
the master of the house calls his wife "ma chere," and uses other
French phrases. The hair is powdered, and the ladies wear stiff gowns
and high head-dresses; violent emotions or strong passions seldom
disturb the stiff formality of their carriage or the tranquillity of
the house.

The squire has become economist, and looks a little after the farming;
he tries by selecting choice breeds to improve the wool of his flocks,
and raises carefully the new bulb called the potato, which is to be a
source of unfailing nourishment to man and beast. The mode of life is
quiet, simple, and formal. The mother shakes her head about Gellert's
'Life of the Swedish Countess;' the daughter is delighted with Kleist's
'Spring,' and sings to the harpsichord of violets and lambs; and the
father carries in his pocket the 'Songs of a Grenadier.' Coffee is
pl