Here the programme of the Committee of Seven was read, and the order of proceeding as arranged by them was submitted to the Assembly. Mittermaier was chosen President. An animated discussion then ensued upon the question whether the Assembly should declare itself to be 'in permanence,' or should appoint a Committee of Fifty (der Funfziger Ausschuss) to watch over the interests of United Germany, until the meeting of the Parliament. Hecker proposed that the Assembly should declare itself in permanence, as the only means of securing the confidence of the German Nation. Welcker advocated the appointment of a committee. Von Itztein suggested a compromise which might secure both objects. The question was at last decided in favour of Welcker's motion by a majority of 368 to 148. It was further resolved that the Committee of Fifty should be empowered to communicate with the Diet, and to advise it in all questions of public policy, and that in case of urgent necessity it might again call the Assembly together. The next proposition, that such members of the Diet as had taken part in any resolutions contrary to the Federal Act, should be henceforth excluded from it, led to a most violent discussion. Hecker and Struve, the leaders of the Republican section of the Assembly, threatened to withdraw if their proposition should not be carried. It was rejected, and they accordingly withdrew. But the President, Mittermaier, having received an assurance from Count Colloredo, the President of the Diet, that the obnoxious members would resign their seats, if they had not already done so, the Secessionists were induced to return to the Assembly. The schism however between the parties was complete. The King of Prussia had meanwhile abandoned his scheme of a Congress of Princes and States at Potsdam. This intended German Congress, according to a semi-official statement in the Allgemeine Preussische Zeitung' of 27th March, was prevented by the force of circumstances, which made it incumbent on the princes of Germany to remain in their respective States;' in other words, if the princes had left their capitals, it was extremely doubtful whether the gates would not have been closed against their return. The princes of South Germany most certainly declined to accede to the Prussian proposal, and the King of Saxony took the same view; they could not but be sensible that, if they met at Potsdam, they would be little more than an assembly of hostages in the hands of Prussia. The Prussian Government, however, sought to keep up the appearance of leading the movement by adopting resolutions similar to those already carried at Heidelberg. Prussia likewise, in the name of the princes of Germany, proclaimed their intention to hasten the con sideration sideration of these points by increasing the Diet by seventeen men who enjoyed public confidence, and, as an earnest of her sympathies, announced that Prussia has chosen Dahlmann.' On the 7th of April the Assembly at Francfort resolved upon a system of direct election for the Representatives of Germany in the future parliament, in the ratio of one representative for every fifty thousand inhabitants. Prussia had, however, prejudged the question, and the King had decreed that the Prussian United Diet should nominate the Representatives of Prussia for the Francfort Parliament. This act of contumacy on the part of Prussia elicited the strongest marks of disapprobation at Francfort, and the King of Prussia found himself under the necessity of cancelling the elections, in order, as M. Camphausen declared to the Berlin Diet (April 10th), to give aid and assistance to all that could promote the union of Germany.' The schism between the Republican and Constitutional parties in South-Western Germany had now become open and inveterate: armed movements were set on foot by the Republicans in several parts of Baden; Hecker raised his standard at Constance, Struve at Eberlingen; the former failed at the outset, the latter was partially successful, but only for the moment. Herwegh likewise appeared at the head of a German Republican Legion in Alsace. The 20th of April brought with it momentous results for Germany, as the occurrences of that day turned the scale against Republicanism. The burgher-guard at Berlin declared themselves on the side of order, whilst the insurgents in Southern Germany under Hecker and Struve were routed by the troops of the Diet, and stained their cause with the blood of General von Gagern. On the 25th Herwegh and his followers were dispersed by the troops of Wurtemberg, and the Republican insurrection was for this time at an end. We can at present notice only in the briefest manner the subsequent course of events. It should have been stated that the Committee of Fifty had admitted on the 5th of April six representatives of Austria amongst its members. On the 12th a deputation from Austria arrived at Francfort, consisting of Count Auersperg, Professor Endlicher, and six others. The Committee received the deputation with the most distinguished welcome. Austria, however, did not commit herself heartily to the proceedings; on the contrary, at a much later period the Vienna Gazette' announced that Austria could not undertake to accept beforehand the resolutions of the approaching Parliament at Francfort. During this interval the seventeen men of confidence' who had been called in to advise the Diet had been diligently employed in preparing a project of a constitution for the German people, which they submitted for approval on the 26th of April. Its outline embraced an hereditary Emperor, two legislative Chambers, and a responsible Ministry. The members of the Lower Chamber were to be elected by the people at large, the electoral bodies being divided into districts of 100,000 souls. Francfort was to be the seat of Government. Schleswig, Posen, and Istria were to be incorporated into the Empire. The current of public opinion set strongly against this plan, more particularly against the proposal of an hereditary Emperor, and the constitution of the Upper Chamber, which was to consist of all the existing German sovereigns, and a further body of their nominees. -Circumstances had meanwhile caused the meeting of the Parliament to be deferred from the 1st to the 18th of May. On the latter day it assembled at Francfort. A message from the Diet was thereupon read, in which that body, after offering its congratulations, expressed its desire to co-operate with the Representatives of the Nation. On the following day Heinrich von Gagern was elected Interim President, and von Soiron, who had been the President of the Committee of Fifty, Vice-President of the Assembly. The interval until the 28th of June was occupied with arrangements as to the mode of transacting business, the verification of the elections, and a protracted debate as to the constitution of the Central Executive. On the 28th it was resolved that the Provisional Central Power should be committed to an Administrator of the Empire (Reichs-verweser), to be elected by the Parliament, himself irresponsible but with responsible Ministers. It was further carried by a majority of 510 to 35, that the functions of the Diet should cease on the Provisional Central Power coming into operation. On the 29th the Assembly proceeded to the election of an Administrator of the Empire, and by a great majority pronounced itself in favour of the Archduke John of Austria. On the 12th of July, the anniversary of the extinction of the ancient Empire by the secession of the Rheinbund, the Arch-duke was installed at Francfort. He received shortly afterwards a deputation of the Diet, consisting of the President, the Envoys of Wurtemberg, Hanover, and the Free Towns, and proceeded with them to the palace of the Confederation. An address of congratulation was there read to the Regent by the President of the Diet, who, after enumerating the various functions of his office, formally in the name of the States of the Confederation deposited his power in the hands of the Central Provisional Government, and declared that the functions of the Germanic Diet had ceased. The curtain may here be allowed to drop, as the system of 1815 retires from the stage. We propose, however, to resume the subject in our next Number. ART. VII. ART. VII.-1. Geschichte der Europäisch-Abendländischen oder unserer heutigen Musik, von dem ersten Jahrhundert des Christenthums bis auf unsre Zeit. Von R. Kiesewetter. Leipsig, 1846. 2. The Quantity and Music of the Greek Chorus. Discovered by the Rev. W. W. Moseley, A.M., LL.D. Oxford, 1847. 3. Mozart's Leben. Von A. Oulibichef, Ehrenmitglied der Philharmonischen Gesellschaft in St. Petersburg. Stuttgart, 1847. 4. The Life of Mozart, including his Correspondence. By Edward Holmes. IN 1845. N attempting to define the sister arts of Music and Painting, we should say, broadly, that the one is supplied from inward sentiments, the other from outward observation: therefore, that in presenting them to the comprehension and enjoyment of a race of beings compounded of body and spirit, the art consists in giving to music a form, and to painting a soul; that it is an argument both of our earthly and heavenly natures, that music must be materialised and painting spiritualised to fit them for our service, since only a higher order of beings can be supposed to partake of their ineffable beauties in their abstract essence, and converse with art as they do with truth, face to face. We mean no comparison of the relative value and beauty of these two arts, feeling sure that, however distinct their lines of light may appear to us here, they unite in one radiant point beyond our sight, though visible to true artist faith. Nor are we less assured that each art is equally favourable to that purity of life and high spiritual attainment to which all great poetic gifts are intended to contribute as a subordinate but still divine revelation; but inasmuch as the process of music is necessarily from within to without, as the very depth of its source requires it to pass through so much of this earth before it reaches the surface of our perceptions, music is of all others that art which is more especially placed at the mercy of mankind. The painter, when he has completed his picture, rests from his labour-it requires nothing further at his hands. It stands there in silent. independence, needing nothing but the light of heaven to convey it to the organ by which it is admitted to the mind. But the offspring of the musician is born dumb-it reaches no ear but his own, and that a mental one-it has to appeal to others to give it voice and being. Men and women, subject to all the caprices and corruptions of their kind-and those of the mere material musician are among the meanest in the world-wood and wire, and brass and catgut, liable to every variation of the atmosphere, are indispensable to its very existence; and thus the composer and 21 his VOL. LXXXIII. NO. CLXVI. his composition are separated by a medium which too often reflects dishonour, though falsely so, on the art itself. As Guido, in the prologue to his Antiphonarium, bitterly says of those who for centuries were the only instruments of music, namely singers,— Musicorum et Cantorum Magna est distantia : Isti dicunt-illi sciunt, Quæ componit Musica : Nam qui facit quod non sapit, It is a strange thing, the subtle form and condition of music. When the composer has conceived it in his mind, the music itself is not there; when he has committed it to paper, it is still not there; when he has called together his orchestra and choristers from the north and the south, it is there-but gone again when they disperse. It has always, as it were, to put on mortality afresh. It is ever being born anew, but to die away and leave only dead notes and dumb instruments behind. No wonder that there should have been men of shallow reasoning powers or defective musical feelings, who in the fugitiveness of the form have seen only the frivolity of the thing, and tried to throw contempt upon it accordingly. But in truth such critics have hit upon the highest argument in favour of the art; for how deep, on the contrary, must be the foundations of that pleasure which has so precarious a form of outward expression;-how intensely must that enjoyment be interwoven with the Godlike elements of our being, in which mere outward sense has so fleeting a share! The very limitation of its material resources is the greatest proof of its spiritual powers. We feel its influence to be so heavenly, that, were it not for the grossness of our natures, we should take it in not by the small channel of the ear alone, but by every pore of our frames. What is the medium of communication when compared with the effect on our minds? It is as if we were mysteriously linked with some spirit from the other world, which can only put itself en rapport with us, as long as we are here, through a slight and evanescent vibration of the air, yet even that all-sufficient to show the intensity of the sympathy. 'Whence art thou-from what causes dost thou spring, We ask the question in vain, as we must ever do when we would follow paths which lose themselves in the depths of our being. We only know and only can know of music that its science is an instinct of our nature-its subjects the emotions of our hearts -that at every step we advance in its fundamental laws we are but |