actually insulted his wife before me on account of too much soap having been used in the "great wash," and gave me a catalogue raisonné of all her shortcomings as a Hausfrau, highly embarrassing to me, though I think she was too much used to it to feel it very acutely.

I am

I have seen a word on small shops in low London neighbourhoods which often recurred to my mind at K—:"Kitchen-stuff." not aware of the precise nature of this mysterious article; but if I have not met with it in substance, I have at least made its acquaintance in the spirit during long dreary hours of coffee at K. Oh, the "kitchen-stuff" that was then talked! the wearisome wealth of detail, the prolific extravagance of example! It is not, perhaps, polite of me to call anything "stuff" which was talked by a bevy of fair creatures with towers of hair on the tops of their heads, and spotless Garibaldi muslin jackets; but truth compels me to say it was "stuff," and not only so, but "kitchen-stuff."

How odious was the conduct of Mr. Burchell towards the Honourable Wilhelmina Caroline Angelina Skeggs! And yet I have often found a certain solace in imitating that gentleman's ungenteel example, and muttering the above unflattering monosyllable between my teeth during one of those horrible séances endured from the early afternoon until the shades of dewy eve or the flicker of the early gas-lights would disperse the fair experts. A woman is no more mistress of her own house in Germany than you or I are masters of our fate (let Mr. Tennyson say what he may). She is simply an upper servant; and her master knows so well the cost of everything, that her allowance would not admit of an extra cabbage, if she wanted it never so much, or a surreptitious egg, might her desire pancakewards be never so strong.

After a year's matrimony comes the customary baby. It is born, is swathed up, and has a huge peasant-girl in loco parentis. A mummy is not a thing to fondle, nor is a little stiff bundle of humanity (which you might stand up on end in the corner of the room without detriment to its arrangements) an object on which to lavish caresses. Thus the young mother is scarcely a mother at all; all the maternal functions being delegated to another. The baby does not lie on the floor, or crawl on to the hearthrug, crowing and kicking and curling up its pink toes, and trampling with its chubby legs. It does not swarm up and about its mother's neck and bosom, finding its little life and all its tiny pleasures in her arms; it does not at length fall into a sleep of lazy rosy repletion, and with its little mouth open slumber away like the satisfied, beautiful little animal it is. No; it is out walking, tied to a feather-bed, and accompanied by a tall soldier, the father of its poor little foster-sister, which is to grow up as it can. It comes in presently, and is taken to its mamma to kiss; but its real mother, the mother that fosters it, carries it away again, and usurps all the privileges of maternity for the rest of the day. Thus the "tidy little Frau" has plenty of time for that "knitting" of which the poet has made mention in his song. Her husband goes to his club every

afternoon after he has had his siesta and taken his coffee; and whilst there he reads the newspapers and plays several rubbers (pronounced "robbers") of whist with his associates. The newspapers are then discussed (if such discussions be prudent), and at nine o'clock the husband finds his way home again. If he is gallant, and his wife is at the theatre, or he is an amateur of the ballet, and she is not, he will probably turn into that temple of the Muses, in order to while away the time till nine o'clock. Having discussed (as far as was prudent) all political news at the clubs, he is not likely to begin on the state of the outer world again at home. Besides, women don't read the newspapers; so a little local talk is all that turns up, and as it is very local indeed, and has been revolving in the same circle (on his part) for the last thirty, and on hers for the last twenty years (for at five they both knew a fair amount of the town gossip), it is not of a nature to make them forget the time or be heedless of the coals and candles.

After I had been three years at K- I began almost to wonder what could have led me to such foregone conclusions as to the Sapphos and Corinnas of my imagination. I had ceased to look for one of those gifted females in every tenth or even twentieth woman I met, but in my secret soul I pined for her, and still carried a lantern beneath my cloak in order to aid me in my search. I was unwilling to renounce my little illusions.

I saw a stout heavy girl with spiral ringlets very often at my friends' houses, and as she never talked "kitchen-stuff" I ventured to make some inquiries about her. My dear, she is insupportable," said her cousin ; "she writes verses, goes to church nearly every Sunday, has not a notion of cooking, and reads in bed at night!"

"Quite a desperate character in fact?"

66 Quite so. Ah, you are au fait at once. quite überspannt."

She is in fact, entre nous,

"Ah!" I said, looking horrified, for my friend had lowered her voice as she uttered that significant word, and I felt that it behoved me to make an appropriate observation. "Ueberspannt?" What a world of reproach lay in that term! What scorn and contumely; what a depth of condemnation and disapproval ! "Overstrung,"—as we might say of a bow of which the tension was too great. "Overdrawn, overstrung." Poor Louise yon Dürlach! She was a quiet girl, who knew some of Schiller's and most of Geikel's poems by heart; went to church, read French and English fluently, made elegant extracts in a neat little niggling German hand, curled her hair, and wore dowdy gowns. There was nothing romantic, sentimental, affected, or überspannt in her (that I could see), but "give a dog a bad name and hang him." And when Louisa von Dürlach married a little stout elderly man with a bald head, hook-nose, and round owl-like spectacles, the same lady shook her head, and said reflectively, "She was always iberspannt, you know."

The time came for me to leave K-. We arrived at L

in

the winter time, and a bitterly cold winter it was. At Lthere was an English embassy; and whereas we had only had 50,000 inhabitants at K—, we had 80,000 at L. My heart beat with joyful emotion as out of my drawing-room windows I beheld two British youths linked arm in arm and stepping languidly down the pavement in garments vociferous of the genius of Poole. The Germans were all disguised in furs, and were going swiftly up and down the town, with their ears tied down under rabbit-skin pads; whilst these two god-like youths, apparently impervious to heat and cold, sauntered languidly along the pavement, their manly throats bared to the breeze. Instead of a married court, we had a bachelor prince at L, which gave society, so to speak, a lopsided aspect, though it was not, in consequence, without a certain piquancy.

I think it is Thackeray who somewhere tells a story of his having felt himself obliged to cut a friend dead during the space of four years (although the man had once saved his life and lent him 1,7001.,) because he saw him eating peas with his knife. Had one been disposed to take offence at any feats of jugglery with that dangerous weapon at L there would have been ample field for such exception. I remember on one occasion (when it was my inestimable privilege to sup at the serene table, an honour to which only twelve could be admitted, because we fed off gold, and the service was only made for a dozen)—I remember, I say, on that august occasion nearly fainting with horror and dismay when I beheld an old man in a gorgeous suit of clothes (painted, padded, dyed, and polished à ravir, and scintillating with orders,) drinking gravy off a knife. A serene highness is, I suppose, pledged to remain serene under any provocation. Our serene highness watched the juggling feat of this old gentleman with perfect placidity, but he ate his own supper after another fashion. But why should I speak of old and ugly men, their feats and failings? Did I not see scores of young and beautiful creatures doing likewise?" And does not Mr. Thackeray declare, at the same time as he recounts how his sense of duty as an English gentleman forced him to cut the man that ate peas with his knife at some table d'hôte, how he saw the beautiful Hereditary Princess Amalia of PolytausendDonnerwetter use the same weapon in lieu of a fork or spoon at the table of one of her royal relatives, with all the dexterity of an Indian juggler, without blushing?

Two years at L- were very much like three years at K. Some slight variations, perhaps, but on the whole no new impressions. We were a little grander at L; we had a diplomatic circle,-exclusive, expensive, ponderous, awful, slow. Officers' wives were not admitted within this magic ring unless they had some special plea to such admission, such as extraordinary birth, wealth, or personal attractions; though this latter would not have counted unless backed up by one or other of the foregoing qualifications. But beyond and without this pompous, expensive, exclusive, slow set to which I have alluded, all was as it bad been at K

66

Surely you are unjust," says some candid, impartial friend. I think not. Women have not their proper place in Germany. They are treated as irresponsible beings; they are kept in a state of tutelage, that makes them helpless in emergency and troublesome at a crisis. They have no rational amusements. They are not allowed to share their husbands' and brothers' pursuits. They are thrown back upon themselves or upon each other for society and conversation: they are not their husbands' equals; they do not stand by his side "to warn, to comfort, and command,”—such words would savour to a German wife of blasphemy. They are there to knit and spin, to sew buttons on his shirts and darn his stockings, to iron his collars and pocket-handkerchiefs, and cook his favourite dishes. They are there to drive the "slavey," and do half of the "slavey's" legitimate work. They are there to peel the baked potatoes at supper, and take the scaly armour off the shrimps and prawns. And if they do these things assiduously have they not their reward? Are they not allowed to go to the theatre in the winter, and frequent the coffee-gardens in summer? May they not choose their own gowns (provided they are not too expensive), and have half-a-dozen bosom friends to envy them all these privileges? German girls ought to be companions for German men. They have advantages at school, such as we in England should accept in an ecstasy of gratitude. The same professors that lecture to their brothers and cousins within the university halls or college class-rooms come down from those greater altitudes to teach the young girls and children that we have seen passing to and fro through the streets to school. They are taught regularly, systematically, patiently, conscientiously. A German girl must be dull indeed who is not well-read. Everything is taught, and everything is taught well. Nothing is of itself; a building is not made of one brick, nor a ship of a block of wood; and there are a score of diverse influences working on the outer and inner systems of female education in Germany, of which I have neither time nor space to speak here.

A Dark Chapter of Austrian History.

ALTHOUGH modern civilization is a fertile nursery of scoundrelism, it is by no means favourable to the culture of the elevated and picturesque qualities which scoundrels formerly had to affect. In an age when capital is plentiful and easily lured by the promise of great and speedy gains, the field of imposture is widened, and the impostor has chiefly to reach his dupes by vicarious means, to the comparative exclusion of the ancient methods of personal influence and intervention. Accordingly, some of our best swindlers have been mere empirics, who have found their account in meetings, puffs, dividends, and the rest of the recognized machinery for gulling an enlightened public. Except in the case of mere retail praetitioners, even courage is now scarcely an essential of success. An era of toleration relieves spiritual necromancers from the awful penalties which once dogged the heels of the apostles of celestial enthusiasm and fraud; while financial knaves, if detected and exposed, far from incurring the due punishment of robbery and cheating, are comforted with general sympathy, perhaps applause, elected to seats in the Imperial Parliament, and encouraged to sin once more.

The archæology of scoundrelism reveals the existence of far other accomplishments than these. As the rascal of the dark ages and the Renaissance could not live upon the many, he had to prey upon the few. To win power and fill his pockets, the contemporary of the basilisk and the cockatrice had to insinuate himself into the confidence of grandees, and, like Solomon's spider, to take hold with his hands in kings' palaces. It was not enough for an artist of this school to study the contents of the lexicon of imposture, and learn tricks of thaumaturgy. He must needs be an astronomer, a poisoner, an alchemist, an experienced and plausible courtier, a gay and travelled cavalier. Then, religious quackery being in those days a potent engine of deceit, his aggressive panoply would have been imperfect without as much theological varnish as might enable him, when occasion required, to propound a new heresy or affect the subtleties of mystic and scholastic lore. Besides, as the players at such games, lay or spiritual, were liable on detection to be roughly handled, perhaps to be thrown into a dungeon below the Tiber or the Seine, or privily poniarded in a corridor of the Escurial or the Louvre, scoundrelism could not be profitably professed without audacity, nerve, and self-command, and other refined attributes which might seem to belong less to imposture than to political and diplomatic skill.