CHAPTER CCXXXIII.

THE PETTY GERMAN PRINCES EXCELLENT PATRONS OF LITERATURE AND LEARNED MEN.—THE DUKE OF SAXE WEIMAR.—QUOTATION FROM BP. HACKET.—AN OPINION OF THE EXCELLENT MR. BOYLE.—A TENET OF THE DEAN OF CHALON, PIERRE DE ST. JULIEN,—AND A VERITABLE PLANTAGENET.

_Ita nati estis, ut bona malaque vestra ad Rempublicam pertineant._

TACITUS.

“We have long been accustomed to laugh at the pride and poverty of petty German Princes,” says one of the most sensible and right minded travellers that ever published the result of his observations in Germany;[1] “but nothing,” he proceeds, “can give a higher idea of the respectability which so small a people may assume, and the quantity of happiness which one of these insignificant monarchs may diffuse around him, than the example of the little state of Weimar, with a Prince like the present[2] Grand Duke at its head. The mere pride of sovereignty frequently most prominent where there is only the title to justify it, is unknown to him; he is the most affable man in his dominions, not simply with the condescension which any prince can learn to practise as a useful quality, but from goodness of heart.” The whole population of his state little if at all exceeds that of Leicestershire; his capital is smaller than a third or fourth rate county town; so in fact it scarcely deserves the name of a town; and the inhabitants, vain as they are of its well earned reputation as the German Athens, take a pride in having it considered merely a large village: his revenue is less than that of many a British Peer, great Commoner, or commercial Millionist. Yet “while the treasures of more weighty potentates were insufficient to meet the necessities of their political relations, his confined revenues could give independence and careless leisure to the men who were gaining for Germany its intellectual reputation.” It is not too much to say that for that intellectual reputation, high as it is, and lasting as it will be, Germany is little less beholden to the Duke of Weimar's well-bestowed patronage, than to the genius of Wieland, and Schiller and Goëthe. “In these little principalities, the same goodness of disposition can work with more proportional effect than if it swayed the sceptre of an empire; it comes more easily and directly into contact with those towards whom it should be directed: the artificial world of courtly rank and wealth has neither sufficient glare nor body to shut out from the prince the more chequered world that lies below.”

[Footnote 1: RUSSELL.]

[Footnote 2: A. D. 1822.]

Alas no Prince either petty or great has followed the Duke of Saxe Weimar's example! “He dwells,” says Mr. Downes, “like an estated gentleman, surrounded by his tenantry.” Alas no British Peer, great Commoner, or commercial Millionist has given to any portion of his ampler revenues a like beneficent direction.

A good old Bishop[3] quoting the text “not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called,” cautions us against distorting the Scripture as if it pronounced nothing but confusion to the rulers of the earth, “let not the honourable person,” said he, “hang down his head, as if power and wisdom, and noble blood, and dignity were causes of rejection before God: no beloved! Isaiah foretold that Kings should be nursing fathers, and Queens should be nursing mothers of the Church, but it is often seen that the benignity of nature and the liberality of fortune are made impediments to a better life; and therefore Nobles and Princes are more frequently threatened with judgment. I adjoin moreover that the Scriptures speak more flatly against illustrious Magistrates, than the common sort; for if God had left it to men, whose tongues are prostituted to flattery, they had scarce been told that their abominable sins would bring damnation.”

[Footnote 3: BISHOP HACKET.]

When our philosopher considered the manner in which large incomes are expended, (one way he had opportunities enough of observing at Doncaster) he thought that in these times high birth brought with it dangers and evils which in many or most instances, more than counterbalanced its advantages.

That excellent person Mr. Boyle had formed a different opinion. To be the son of a Peer whose prosperity had found many admirers, but few parallels, and not to be his eldest son, was a happiness that he used to “mention with great expressions of gratitude; his birth, he said, so suiting his inclinations and designs, that, had he been permitted an election, his choice would scarce have altered God's assignment. For as on the one side, a lower birth would have too much exposed him to the inconveniences of a mean descent, which are too notorious to need specifying; so on the other side, to a person whose humour indisposes him to the distracting hurry of the world, the being born heir to a great family is but a glittering kind of slavery, whilst obliging him to a public entangled course of life, to support the credit of his family, and tying him from satisfying his dearest inclinations, it often forces him to build the advantages of his house upon the ruins of his own contentment.”

“A man of mean extraction,” he continues, “is seldom admitted to the privacy and secrets of great ones promiscuously, and scarce dares pretend to it, for fear of being censured saucy, or an intruder. And titular greatness is ever an impediment to the knowledge of many retired truths, that cannot be attained without familiarity with meaner persons, and such other condescensions, as fond opinion, in great men, disapproves and makes disgraceful.” “But he himself,” Mr. Boyle said, “was born in a condition that neither was high enough to prove a temptation to laziness, nor low enough to discourage him from aspiring.” And certainly to a person that affected so much an universal knowledge, and arbitrary vicissitudes of quiet and employments, it could not be unwelcome to be of a quality, that was a handsome stirrup to preferment, without an obligation to court it, and which might at once both protect his higher pretensions from the guilt of ambition, and secure his retiredness from contempt.

There would be more and higher advantages in high birth than Mr. Boyle apprehended, if the Dean of Chalon, Pierre de St. Julien, were right when he maintained _contre l'opinion des Philosophes, et l'ordinaire des Predicamants,—que la vraye Noblesse a sa source du sang, et est substancielle._

_Ces mots Gentilhomme de sang, et d'armes, de race genereuse, de bonne part,_ &c., says the well-born Dean, who in his title pages let us know that he was _de la maison de Balleurré,—sont termes non de qualité, ny d'habitude; ains importants substance de vray, comme il est bien dit,_

_veniunt cum sanguine mores;_

_et aillieurs,_

_Qui viret in foliis venit à radicibus humor; Sic patrum in natos abeunt cum semine mores._

_Et comme le sang est le vehicule, et porteur des esprits de vie, esquels est enclose la substance de l'ame; aussi est il le comme chariot, qui porte et soustient celle substance qui decoule des peres, et des ayeulx, par long ordre de generation, et provient aux enfants, qui, nez de bonne et gentille semence, sont (conformement à l'opinion du divin Philosophe Platon) rendu tels que leurs progeniteurs, par la vertu des esprits enclos en la semence.—Tellement qu'on ne peut nyer, que comme d'une bonne Ayre sortent de bons oyseaux, d'un bon Haras de bons chevaux,_ &c., _aussi il importe beaucoup aux hommes d'estre nez de bons et valeureux parents; voire tant, que les mal nez, ennemys de ceste bien naissance, ne sont suffisants pour en juger._

Sir Robert Cotton once met with a man driving the plough, who was a true and undoubted Plantagenet. “That worthy Doctor,” (Dr. Hervey) says that worthy Fuller (_dignissimus_ of being so styled himself,) “hath made many converts in physic to his seeming paradox, maintaining the circulation of blood running round about the body of man. Nor is it less true that gentle blood fetcheth a circuit in the body of a nation, running from Yeomanry, through Gentry to Nobility, and so retrograde, returning through Gentry to Yeomanry again.”

“_Plust à Dieu_,” said Maistre François Rabelais, of facetious memory, “_qu'un chacun saust aussi certainement_—(as Gargantua that is,) _sa genealogie, depuis l'Arche de Noé, jusqu'à cet âge! Je pense que plusieurs sont aujourd'hui Empereurs, Roys, Ducs, Princes et Papes en la terre, lesquels sont descendus de quelques Porteurs de rogatons et de constrets. Comme au rebours plusieurs sont gueux de l'hostiere, souffreteux et miserables, lesquels sont descendus de sang et ligne de grands Roys et Empereurs; attends l'admirable transport des Regnes et Empires,_

_Des Assyriens, és Medes; Des Medes, és Perses; Des Perses, és Macédoniens; Des Macédoniens, és Grecs; Des Grecs, és François._

_Et pour vous donner à entendre de moy qui vous parle, je cuide que suis descendu de quelque riche Roy, ou Prince, au temps jadis; car oncques ne vistes homme qui eust plus grande affection d'estre Roy ou riche que moy, afin de faire grand chere, pas ne travailler, point ne me soucier et bien enrichir mes amis, et tous gens de bien et de sçavoir._”