e one with
whom I had now most points of agreement was the elder Austin. I have
mentioned that he always set himself in opposition to our early
sectarianism; and latterly he had, like myself, come under new
influences. Having been appointed Professor of Jurisprudence in the
London University (now University College), he had lived for some time
at Bonn to study for his Lectures; and the influences of German
literature and of the German character and state of society had made a
very perceptible change in his views of life. His personal disposition
was much softened; he was less militant and polemic; his tastes had
begun to turn themselves towards the poetic and contemplative. He
attached much less importance than formerly to outward changes; unless
accompanied by a better cultivation of the inward nature. He had a
strong distaste for the general meanness of English life, the absence of
enlarged thoughts and unselfish desires, the low objects on which the
faculties of all classes of the English are intent. Even the kind of
public interests which Englishmen care for, he held in very little
esteem. He thought that there was more practical good government, and
(which is true enough) infinitely more care for the education and mental
improvement of all ranks of the people, under the Prussian monarchy,
than under the English representative government: and he held, with the
French _Economistes_, that the real security for good government is un
_peuple eclaire_, which is not always the fruit of popular institutions,
and which, if it could be had without them, would do their work better
than they. Though he approved of the Reform Bill, he predicted, what in
fact occurred, that it would not produce the great immediate
improvements in government which many expected from it. The men, he
said, who could do these great things did not exist in the country.
There were many points of sympathy between him and me, both in the new
opinions he had adopted and in the old ones which he retained. Like me,
he never ceased to be a utilitarian, and, with all his love for the
Germans and enjoyment of their literature, never became in the smallest
degree reconciled to the innate-principle metaphysics. He cultivated
more and more a kind of German religion, a religion of poetry and
feeling with little, if anything, of positive dogma; while in politics
(and here it was that I most differed with him) he acquired an
indifference, bordering on contempt, for