The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-07 00:00:00

THE SUN', LONDON, TIIIIRSDA Yt; -OCTOBER 7, IS4I.

Pi r 9 G T j OF THE STATu
TO AIZ KIM ra;;
MANY."

amTmoLD, S::PI'. 8, 184 would appear abilost an
unheard-of thing, that after eighteen centuries had
tonics
t
thrown their forgetful darkness over the nathe.and me-
mory of Arminius, that the very spot on which Iris
patriotism t ihs
iiiineavgeleol4dd,
lisilslopuel
rd.,
a
this v remotee re
i idnaedy, abnedhohlicsi
son. Yet so it is ; upon a hill that ovules** the broad
extent of the liercyntan tnrest, ink w,haSf),,?;llllPire, dark
with shade," Armanius won the laurels .OEI4 fame,
there has for several years pa;t beerrerecting to
him a monumental statue. At length:. the solid marble
has been sculptured, and the artist's chisel completed its
work, On the Bthinstant, at Deltmold, which. borders
on the ancient forest, and which is still,strewn with re-
lics of the ancient times, the. mayor .and authorities of
the locality, with crowds of persyns from .all•partaiif the
vicinity, were present at theinauguration of.lina• whom
Germany, in her younger. days, acknowledged its. the
deliverer" of her land and soil, •• . •,, „
" Who, then, was. Artninius?". exclaims. one-half
the world at the present. dap,. Pewsindeed, know; and
it is only the painful schylar, who throws open • his
musty Tacitus, and bids you read the " Germany," that
.can set before you whole pages, luminous with the
achievements of Oda self-same'Arminius, and lustrous
with eulogies on his prowess andpatriotism. Let not
the reader Fear, nnw that he -awaits an -introduction to
this ancient hero, that some " grim -Visigoth" will
appear, prone to slaughter and ferocity; since he of
whom we speak, before he became the sterner patriot,
was as famous a yonng Knight as Chivalry ever loved,
and as perfect in gallantry as the sweetest Junia or
Octavia of Rome could desire.
Arminius, though known to scholars best by this name
from its Latin form in Tacitus, appears in the original
German as Hermann, son of one of the Princes of the
Cherusci ; his father's name was Sighner, which, in the
old German, signifies afamous conqueror.
The great German provinces on the banks of the Rhine,
Elbe, and Saal, had long been, from their. turbulences, a
thorn in the Roman side, and this Government, there-
fore, thinking to secure its most powerful men by adopt-
ing their sons,. and installing them in the honours. of
Rome, transplanted many of the children of the Chiefs
to its own soil, endowed them with a Roman education,:
and wrapped them in the purple of its own bosom.
Young Hermann, or Arminius, was one ofthese. Noble
of bearing, and dauntless of courage, he rode proudly
among the knights or equites of Rome, who little dreamed
that in their glittering company Arminius wore the
spurs and brandished the sword which was one day to
be their sorest havoc.
Princely- favour and the charms of learning were in-
sufficient to make the young barbarian forget his early
associations and his country's gods. He bore in his
heart remembrances of his home, hisMilldhood,•rind his
own dark hills, and Roman education had the effect to.
teach him how to conquer his instructors.-
Regarding the Romans only as oppressors of his
country, Arminius, a high patriot at twenty-one,•con-
ceived himself not hound to Roman courtesy or.care,.and
in secret he, funned a powerful confederacy and forhented
the hatred of his own German compatriots.- • -.. .
An opportunity. 'don- (Ore(' itself, Whereby Aratinius;
grieved that the Roman yoke should so severely gall his
countrymen, rushed into the career marked ont'by him-
self of being his country's deliver. ArartiS. the Roman
general, with some of the finest cohorts of the empire,-
was•sent:to retake hint en his desertion, and ,aking with
him; as a strange equipage, he brought a- multitude
hullers, to try Arminius on his re-seizure. -Arminius,
by ambuscade, annihilated them all. The lawyers, too,
were
.the especial object of the soldier's spite : one in-
stance alone will suffice :—A soldier having torn the
tongue out of one of these legists, cried, as he held the
trophy still wagging in his hand, " Viper, now cease to
hiss I"

At the first news of this terrible defeat, and the de-
struction of his most superb regiments, Augustus, in his
palace at Rome, tore his garments, and for many months
after, says an historian, was heard to cry aloud, " Quin-
tilius Varus, give me back my legions !'
This great defeat of the troops of Yarns took place
at Deltmold, the very spot on which the present statue
is erected, and the whole vicinity of the place abounds
to this day with military relics and memorials of the
affair. At a later century, it was here that Charlemagne,
on passing, found an image of a great warrior, whom
they called Hermann, and which, he says, was the ob
ject of the most fervent adoration of all the people whom
he fought with, but which has long since perished.
Heavy vengeance was now prepared by Rome against
the youthful patriot. Germanicus with his cohorts
rushed down upon the German territory, defeated
Ar-
minius, and his wife, then pregnant, was taken prisoner.
This allows of one of those exquisite episodes, which,
beautiful in their simplicity, so begem the pages of Ta-
citus. This great painter represents her with her hands
folded, and her gaze fixed upon the bosom which then
carried the son of the Deliverer of Germany—" Com-
pressis intra sinwn minibus, gravidam uterum intuens !"
This son, of whom his beloved wife was pregnant when
captive, was afterwards brought up at Ravenna, and un-
derwent misfortunes, the particulars of which Tacitus
promises to relate, but they have not reached us.
Nothing daunted by this defeat, Arminius rose up the
prouder, formed a new confederacy, and his uncle
Inguiomerus, a chieftain of great power, clad anew his
hosts in iron, and marshalled them for another conflict.
Shut up in the fastnesses of a woody and morassy land,
Arminius waited the Romans, and in the attack that
ensued produced much of a drawn battle.
Germanicus rested for a whole year before he again
ventured to attack this sturdy patriot, when the following
singular circumstance took place :—Arminius had a
brother, named Flavius, adopted into the hoatile.avoyi
and serving under Roman arms. The two broth_eas bud
a conference across the blue waters of the river which
ran between them, and each urged the other, by every
art of eloquence, to engage the other to his own party.
Tacitus, who describes the scene, puts into the mouth of
Arminius every noble sentiment of patriotism and inde-
pendence, but the ultimate issue was that they parted
frowning, and with mutual reproaches and menaces.
Germanicus passed the Weser. Two bloody combats
ensued. The Germans were defeated. Arminius him-
self was disabled by a wound, and the young lion had
but little power to romp in the battle.
Ambition at last sums to have caught his eye, and
the gold crown of his nation dazzled his heart. The
treachery of his kindred, and the jealousy of his coun-
trymen interposed to hinder this assumption of sove-
reignty, and while yet the early strength of manhood
was in his veins, and the fire of youthful patriotism un-
quenched in his eye, the hand of assassins struck Armi-
nius to death, in his thirty-seventh year. Shortly before
his fall, Adgantestes, Prince of the Celts, proposed to
the Roman Senate to dispatch him by poison ; but the
Senate took no notice of the offer.

" Doubtless," says Tacitus, "Arminius was the de-
liverer of Germany. Twelve years he stood at the head
of his country's armies, and contended, not. like other
Kings and leaders, with the juvenile force of Rome, but
with its mature strength." The historian further as-
serts that he was in his day " still celebrated in the
songs of the barbarous nations, though unknown to
Greece, and not enough noticed by Roman writers." In
his own country, Brotier remarks in a note, even divine
honours were long paid to him, under the title of the
God Irmin,.
He who dwells a moment upon the results of the re-
sistance and victories of Arminius, will find that the
present age of Germany, remote though it be from the
epoch of our hero, has many and pressing reasons why
homage should be done to the name of this hero. By
these victories Arminius preserved to Germany the
ancient institutions which she now reveres, and kept in
unmixed purity the primitive beauty of the German
tongue. The whole character of Germany, literary and
political, would have been different from what it now is
had it not been fur him ; for had the Romans remained
in quiet possession of the country, they would have given
a tune to all things around them, as they have done in
all other European regions. The language of the Ger-
mans has thus remained unmixed and uninfluenced by
Latin. Had not Arminius crushed the Roman power in
Germany, an idiom similar to the French and Spanish
would have been spoken there, where now a language
and literature exist of a peculiar and original character.
What wonder is it, then, that the remembrance of this
hero is so dear ?. What wonder that the poet should
have sung ot• him in lofty measures.? Klopstock, the
divine author of the " Messiah,". has written two poems,
of which Arminius is in both the .majestic theme ; and
Lohenstein's " Arminius" had the greatest success, at
an epoch even when German taste was scarcely formed.
Schmidt, the venerable historian of Germany, has drawn
a fine picture of Arminius, whom, in common with his
countrymen, he considers the first of patriqA Ilia new
statue now invests him with a new immortality.

STATE OF TRADE.
(From the Manchester Guardian.) •
MANCHESTER.—There was little change in the market
yesterday. Owing to the near approach of the time for
closing the shipments to Russia, some descriptions of
yarn, suitable for that market, were more earnestly in-
quired after, and, in some few cases, a slight advance
was obtained. On the whole, however, the market was
rather quiet, and prices remain, generally, without
change. In goods there was no alteration, either of
demand or price ; and all descriptions, except fustians,
continue much depressed, notwithstanding the firmness
of the Cotton market.
ROCHDALE FLANNEL MARKET, OCT. 4.—The demand
for goods to-day has been better than that of last
Monday ; but there has been no change in prices. In
the Wool market there is nothing to report, except that
prices remain firm.
HUDDERSFIELD MARKET, OCT. s.—This WAS much
the same sort of dull market as that of last week ; per-
haps no worse, but still cold and inanimate. The chief
demand was for heavy woollens for the home trade, and
light
.fancies for exportation. Prices remain pretty
firm. Business in the warehouses is, on the whole, en-
couraging.

A DIsCoVERY.---On Sunday week a boy who
was nutting at Queen's Wood discovered what appeared
to him to be a grave scooped out, and having the bold-
ness to enter in, discovered a tolerably large cave, and a
butcher's knife and a roll of brimstone placed carefully
in one corner. 'The boy immediately went to Prestbury
and gave 11e alarm, and several constables were sent to
riew the spot, who brought away the knife and brim-
stone. The lovers of the marvellous declared that mur-
der Was 'intended. happily, however, these wonder-
moiters Were doomed to be disappointed. It appears
a native Prestbury, ho had enlisted in the Rifle
not relishing his situation, had deserted, and
scooped out this cave as a place of refuge, where he made
matches to travel with and sell for his subsistence, but
being, unluckily fur him, pounced upon, he discovered
place .of retreat, and thus unravelled the mystery.
dpserter's name is Langstone.—Cheitentinm Free
Pros. ' ' •