LIFE AND TIMES OF BARON VON STEIN THE COUNTRYWOMAN AND THE CHILD. BY THE AUTHOR OF PAGE 253 300 THE ADVENTURES OF A ROVING DIPLOMATIST THE QUEEN OF SPADES. MÉRIMÉE. BY WILLIAM BATES THE BATHS OF LUCCA. BY FLORENTIA A SWEDISH VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. TRAVELS IN NEGROLAND HARFORD'S MICHAEL ANGELO . VIII.-CHARLOTTE . 307 .308 317 TRANSLATED BY THE HISTORY OF THE NEWSPAPER PRESS. BY ALEXANDER ANDREWS, AUTHOR OF THE "Eighteenth CENTURY” . . 371 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. Towhom all Communications for the Editor are to be addressed. REJECTED ARTICLES CANNOT BE RETURned. SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND. AT PETER ROBINSON'S FAMILY AND GENERAL MOURNING WAREHOUSE. PETER ROBINSON has the honour to thank the Nobility, the Gentry, and the Public, for the extraordinary support he continues to receive, and to say that from the immense business done with Country Customers, in addition to his London Trade, he is enabled to supply large orders at a very reasonable cost, and to send goods for selection to any part free of expense. Always on hand, a very large stock of SKIRTS, MANTLES, AND BONNETS; Also, every description of Goods in the Piece, warranted of the Best Manufacture, and at Moderate Prices. COURT MILLINERY & DRESSMAKING. Complete Suits for WIDOWS' AND CHILDREN'S Mourning kept made up, ready for Immediate use; it being needful only to send Dresses or Bodies for pattern, with a note, descriptive of the Mourning required, to ensure its being carefully prepared and sent forthwith. PETER ROBINSON'S FAMILY MOURNING WAREHOUSE, 103, OXFORD STREET, LONDON (Opposite Argyle Street), In connexion with the Establishment for Coloured Goods, NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. LIFE AND TIMES OF BARON VON STEIN. 1757-1809. So many different views have been entertained about the conduct of the great Prussian minister Baron von Stein during the eventful years 1805-1815, that we hail with glad welcome the very valuable work for which we are indebted to the indefatigable researches of Pertz, editor of the "Monumenta Historica Germaniæ.”* The statesman who, as confidential adviser of Frederick William III., and then of the Emperor Alexander, did so much to ensure the liberation of Germany and the overthrow of Napoleon, has been very differently regarded by different nations; but all have been compelled, voluntarily or involuntarily, to recognise him as one of the greatest of the great men of his age. But though hundreds of books have been written bearing more or less immediate reference to Stein, no author had hitherto hit on the idea of writing his life in a manner worthy of the great subject. Stein's repugnance to memoir-writing had much to do with this, and when urged by personal friends to fill up the gap and prevent all possible misunderstanding, the old man would reply, gruffly, "I utterly detest the whole genus of memoirs. My memoirs must not rank with those of Vidocq, Samson le Bourreau, d'une Contemporaine, Miss Wilson," &c. After Stein's death, however, his intimate friend Pertz undertook the task of writing his life, and has received great assistance from all those persons who came into immediate contact with the minister. The result is a very German one : the editor has gone to work with that Gründlichkeit peculiar to his countrymen, and has produced a thoroughly unreadable book, yet full of the most valuable documents, which only a reviewer could have the patience to pick out of the surrounding heap of prosy reflections and laudation of the fatherland. Fortunately for our readers, Stein's life presents three great lines of demarcation in the years 1808, 1814, and 1816, and in the present paper we propose to regard the tangled web of his life from the commencement until his proscription by Napoleon, and flight to Russia. A memoir written by Stein himself in 1823, at the request of the Crown Prince Louis of Bavaria, supplies a portion of the material we purpose to employ. CARL VON STEIN was born at the ancestral Castle of Stein, in Nassau, on the 26th October, 1757, just ten days before the battle of Rossbach; he was the fourth child of his parents, and the favourite of the whole Das Leben des Ministers Freiherrn von Stein. Von G. H. Pertz. Berlin: G. Reimer. July-VOL. CX. NO. CCCCXXXIX. house. His father was disposed to enkindle a true love of his country in the lad, and was himself well acquainted with the tortuous machinations of court life by a residence of forty years at the ecclesiastical court of Mayence. Thence he retired to his estates, and devoted himself to hunting and shooting, and the education of his children. Carl spent his time in the study of history, and was a passionate admirer of the English constitution, and this feeling adhered to him through life. In 1773 he proceeded to the University of Göttingen, where he studied jurisprudence and history, and eventually proceeded on his travels-like a young baron was expected to do in those days of the grand tour-through Styria and Hungary. But a great change took place in his prospects: owing to the spendthrift habits of the eldest son, a written family compact was made that the family should give up all claim to the family estates on behalf of the one whom the parents selected as the future representative of the baronial house. The choice fell upon Carl, for no one foresaw that the family name was destined to expire with him. The certainty of eventually coming in to a large estate in one of the loveliest portions of Germany would, probably, have satisfied most men ; but the young heir only regarded it as active means to promote the welfare of his fatherland. However, he took advantage of the opportunity to give up the proposed plan that he should become a member of the Imperial Court of Exchequer, and he applied for an appointment at Berlin. On the 2nd February, 1780, Frederick II. nominated him chamberlain, and the young man planted his foot on the first rung of the ladder up which he was to climb so laboriously to renown. His first appointment was to the mining department, which was then in an unsatisfactory condition; and so laboriously did he work, and so satisfied were the ministers with him, that in two years he was promoted to the rank of chief mining counsellor in spite of the opposition of the king, who regarded his advancement as too rapid. After a lengthened journey of inspection, Stein returned to Berlin in 1784, and was ap pointed director of the Westphalian mines and factories. As he himself says, "I went to work zealously, but was apt to regard matters only from one side, so that I caused dissatisfaction and complaints, which I could have avoided by greater mildness, and which I eventually did avoid." In May, 1785, Stein was drawn into the vortex of diplomacy very unexpectedly, and from no desire of his own. Joseph II. had not given up his designs for the aggrandisement of his house dominions, which had been frustrated by the war of succession and the peace of Teschen. His meeting with Catherine II. prepared the way for fresh advances. They came to an agreement based on mutual interest: Catherine had full liberty of action in the East, where she proposed to overthrow Turkey and found a Greek empire for her grandson Constantine, while Joseph directed his attention to Germany and the Netherlands. Louis XVI., his brotherin-law, did all in his power to promote Joseph's plans, and as England had her hands full of the American war, the ambitious young emperor hoped to overreach his sole decided enemy among the great powers, and gain his object by perseverance. Frederick was well aware of the imminent danger, and prepared to resist. His position was very awkward: he had lost Russia as his ally, and England was too much exhausted to come to his assistance; hence the only prospect was to effect a con federation among the second-rate powers. The first step in this direction was a union of the German courts after the pattern of the confederation of Schmalkald. Joseph was very active, and his proposition to give the Elector Carl Theodore the Netherlands, under the title of a Kingdom of Burgundy, in exchange for Bavaria, soon reached the king's ears. At the same time, the Russian ambassador appeared at the court of the next agnate, the Duke des Deux Ponts, and demanded his consent to the proposed change. The King of Prussia immediately appealed to Russia and France, the guarantees of the treaty of Teschen; but as he could not gain any definite promise of the withdrawal of the Austrian plan, he decided on carrying out the proposed confederation. It was on this occasion that the old king made the memorable remark, "My age protects me from any apprehension that such things will take place in my time; and if I strive to prevent them it is solely through devotion to my country, and the duty which every good citizen must feel to maintain his fatherland in those rights and privileges which he found existing when he came into the world." The king, however, found an unexpected ally in the Elector of Mayence, and Stein was appointed to carry out the negotiations. The following extract will give a lively idea of the German courts at that day: The Gallicised Duke Charles des Deux Ponts was, like Louis XV., entirely devoted to pleasure. Women, plays, concerts, festivals, the chase, filled up his time, and constantly emptied his treasury: he paid but very slight attention to business, and his ministers had frequently to drive a couple of posts to obtain his signature to a document. . . . . Privy-Councillor von Esebeck had the management of the loans. The duke's friends congregated round Madame von Esebeck, at Homburg, while the duchess held her soirées at Karlsburg or the Pheasantry, but some young beauties were beginning to menace the ageing charms of the Esebeck. The duke's tutor, Abbé Salabert, clever and crafty, a thorough Frenchman by education, had been gained by a rich living: he, too, kept a harem, as was the custom of the country. Everybody lived exclusively for pleasure. The Elector of Mayence was in the habit of passing his time in the company of his nieces, Mesdames de Coudenhove and De Ferret. Although he had been long attached to Austria, the Prince Kaunitz had offended him by some remark, and he determined to revenge himself by adherence to Prussia, although, as Catholic primate, his religion bound him to Austria. The Austrian ambassador, Metternich, tried to gain over the elector's mistresses, but, failing in that, raised malicious reports against them, which naturally ended in making the prince-bishop more fond of them than before. After a variety of intrigues, Stein succeeded in gaining the day, and the treaty between Prussia and Mayence was signed. In 1786 the Great Frederick died, and was succeeded by his nephew, Frederick William II., whose character Stein thus describes : "He possessed a powerful memory, enriched by the study of history, a clear understanding, and a noble, benevolent character, joined to a lively feeling of his dignity. These good qualities were obscured by the sensuality which rendered him dependent on his mistresses, by a propensity for mysticism and spirit-seeing, through which men of moderate abilities governed, and want of perseverance. A great portion of his mistakes must, however, be ascribed to the nation, which knelt down and wor |