, why
does he not name us (Hanover) instead of PRUSSIA? I feel inclined to
put the same question. Let us be content if we can do the best with
the materials given us for our own age. ('_Lassen sie uns doch auch
fuer unsere eigene Lebenszeit sorgen._') Why think particularly of the
King of Prussia, a man whom, with the same breath that you exalt him,
you put under three subjects,[20] and take at the same time his army
into your own hands, to keep him from doing harm? I pray your
Excellency to observe, that while my proposal leaves us free hands
for any possible future improvement, your two plans will offend all
parties: your first plan, to make Austria swallow up Germany, will
offend all Europe, and Germany to boot; your second plan, to divide
Germany between Austria and Prussia, will excite the opposition not
only of Russia, England, and Sweden, but of all those North Germans
who are not prepared to receive as a _boon, the Prussian system with
cell its machinery of boards and councils, of auscultants and
assessors, and its hereditary incapacity to understand that old maxim
of political philosophy_--GOVERNA MEGLIO CHI MEN GOVERNA--He governs
best who governs least.

"Neither am I at all prepared to agree with what you say on the
subject of the German courts. I have lived long in great courts, and
I know not a few small ones; and I can honestly say, that the state
of morals among the peasants in country villages has always appeared
to me more corrupt than in the highest circles of polite and
cultivated society; and I can find little difference in principle
between the case of one man intriguing in high circles for _grandes
entrees_, and that of another setting a similar machinery to work to
obtain the presidency in any church meeting of a small parish, or a
union of parishes; between one who, to attain a selfish object,
flatters a prince, and another who flatters the prefect of a
department. If a difference is to be made, the higher object which
excites the higher passions seems rather entitled to a preference.

"Again, I do not see why we should put altogether out of view, how
much science, civilization, and wealth, have gained by the
multiplication of central points, where all these things may be
cherished, and whence, as from so many life-giving f