The Sun.
London, England, 1846-02-12 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

FOREST anti GAME TALES. I 01. 111. 1311

Harriet Plartincau.

As an acute and sound reasoner upon political
economy, Miss Martineau has long been familiarly !
known to English readers. Her powers of argument
are fully appreciated. her cases in point are generally
admissible, her manner of ' regardirg any moot. d
question of jurisprudence i.e always sufficie-•tly
new to render it attractive. Indeed, her popularity
is ascribable more to clearness of perception and appo•
siteness of d, velopment upon any abstruse principle
than to displays of rhetoric, .or those many superfluous
adjuncts which tend rather to decorate than actually to
improve a volume. Ingenuity or dexterity as a logician
are qualities to which Mss Martineau cannot advance
the veriest ghost of a claim ; she is wholly and entirely
deficient in the trickeries so prevalent among political
theorists. The does not skin a social wound over with
the gloss of language ; she probes it, with a firm and
unshrinking baud, to the very bottom ; ,she • xtracts
cash of its poisonous or virulent qualities, bit by bit,
classifies them, one after another, with scrupulous exact-
ness, and then holds them up in succession for public
scrutiny in s.) many chap-ers. Where the remedy is
questionable, she specifies one herself; and maintains it
by a I..ng array of wherefore:; where, however, the
course to be adopted is self-evident, she abandons it
to its own silent but moving eloquence. In the series
which have particu'arly originated these considerations
in our own mind, and of which the volume before us
forms the conclusion, Miss Martineau has exercised her
abilities in a more alluring, if not a more sound or sober
manner. The object of the entire work is pretty
tolerably plain from the title alone ; and so vigor-
ous is the handling of the theme, so unanswer-
able are the abuses ther,in pourtrayed, and to
utterly incapable of much longer support, is the
system stigmatised, that we are fain to regard
these " Forest Tales" as harbingers of death to the
game-laws, and as the precursors of a more rational
state of things. In this light the last effusion of the
" set" must be regarded as the a' to penultimate of
the abrogation. From the two adjectives which fists
the heading of this story—" Gentle and Simple"—we
may learn its most pervading- characteristic. Gentle and
simple enough the tale is—it is Ore, unadulterated,
limpid- English. Nor is -it merely thus in its style of
comp sition; it is English also in its general tone; it is
English—thoroughly English—in all its characters The
authoress has sea- cted her materials from the fountain.
head ; she has transferred to her pages the emotions
which are even welling up in our agricultural districts.
She has with a right 'a.thfui pencil copied tiie features
which are visible in our umntrymen. Whether in the mea•
dow, in the cottage, in the stubble-fiAii, in the high-road,
or among.the crops. All the characters, however lightly
sketched, will be recognised ; they a. e not so much
individuals as representatives of a genus. Their proto-
types are scattered tar and wide through every country,
without number. On,-low, • the honest, steady going,
plainspoken farmer; Lisathess the conscientious game-
keeper; Granny Stott, the industrious, peevish, and
respectable housewife; Groves, the hearty old fellow
who is licensed to sell game, and who advised his
" poaching party to s!sik their f ,was in the face of the
policeman they meet in his rounds of an autumnal
morning, or asked him to judge of th,- weight of a hare
yet warm on the coldest vvinter night;" all the pas
sengere, and many others not specifi.-d, are no more the
creations of fltncy than daguerrotypes are; down even to
little Tot hersels.

One blemish in the hook, which is however a neces
sary consequence of the subject and the aim proposed,
is its accumulation of dry and heavy dialogue. Every
scene, every situation, is used simply as a peg upon
which to hang a number of fresh arguments ; yet from
this very circumstance the object is never lost sight of
for an instant. The pernicious game laws !—there it
stands ever before the reader, from the opening sentence
to the concluding syllable—the pernicious gam,-laws !
Luke Voila, a common day-labourer, as one may say, a
hedger and ditcher, is the hero; and in tracing his
moral destruction, from his ignorance in picking up a
nest of partridge's eggs from a bank on his way home
from work, to his transportation for catching a couple of
leverets, the mistaken pdicy of the present legislation
about game is admirably defined; it is a vast political
question condenses, as it were, into an anecdote ; it is a
companion to the Iliad in a nutsh,ll. Any one who is
interested in the welfare of his fellow creatures, and V
his fellow-countrymen, will real " Gentle and Simple ;"
it is an important exposition of sin important topic ; nor
is it devoid of the merits necessary for a work of fiction.
In this respect the suicide of Lisainer. and the return of
Luke to his cottage-home after confinement in jail, are
passages fraught with a s•range end touching pathos.
Altogether this is a clever and good-spirited tale, ger-
minated not only in the mind but in the heart also of its
nu t horess.

POLITICAL MOVEMENT IN GER

MANY.
(From the Siècle.)
Germany is witness of a grea4 spectacle ; a people having
a consciousness of their streug h and their rights delay
royalty, to which they remain devoted, from giving them li-
beral institutions ; a King, entirely penetrated by the senti-
ment of the prerogatives of the Crown, nevertheless submits
to the irresistible ascendancy of the national desire, and pre-
pares to share this sovereign authority of which absolute
Princes show themselves so jealous. Prussia loudly cries for
a Constitution, a Parliainent, and the liberty of the press.
Frederick William IV., on the point of conceding all, heal-
t etes and halts, as if he were attacked by a sort of vertig,, !
Hitherto the representative form of government has existed
in certain German states, but only in those of the second and
third rank. This fact has, no doubt, contributed in a re-
markable manner to prepare Germany fur the practice of
liberal institutions, and it was as a pledge of the future esta-
blishment of those institutions in ail parts of the German
COUTltry.
But we may imagine what a powerful future interest is
attached to the liberal movement now ping on in Prussia.
It is not ens of the most curious and instructive features cf
contemporaneous history, that in a country still subject to
the almost exclusive system "of absolute government, all the
symptoms, all. the external.. facts are found, by which poli-
tical life is manifested in constitutional states? There is so
little doubt entertained in Prussia of the speedy triumph of
liberal opinions that, anticipating the period when the Prue.
sian constitution shall be in operation, the various parties
are preparing and delineating themselves; these parties exist,
they act, and discussions have been opened amongst them as
in the bosom of a regular assembly.
We have enabled our readers to keep pace with the labo-
rious parturition of the Prussian constitution. We shall now
complete our previous remarks on the subject by some infor •
illation relative to the origin of the political movement which
agitates Prussia. The Revue des Deus Blondes, whose im-
portant articles we have more than once pointed out, contains
an excellent article on the history of the liberal institutions
of Prussia, from the pen of M. St. Rene Taillandier, from
which we shall borrow a few extracts.

It is not front yesterday—ii is not even from the accession
of King Frederick William IV., that date the desires and the
hopes of Prussia. We must goback to the events of 1814 and
1815, to find the origin of the rights on which the present
demand- of the Prussian people are founded. It was et the
cry of liberty that the Allied Sovereigns raised Germany
against French domination. But they did not confine them-
selves to vague promises.
The 13th article of the federal compact says, that " there
should be assemblies of state in all the countries of the con-
federation." This prudent obscurity seemed to the Govern-
ment a sufficient, preservative against the embarrassing de-
mands ; but they had reckoned without their host; i. e
without making allowances for the progress of public opinion.
It was to promise too little if the interpretation of the ar-
ticle was to be left to them ; it was to promise too much, if
it was to be left to the people.
Either actuated by goad faith or wise foresight, the Prus
sian Government thought itself bound to anticipate the
wishes of the nation, by completing article 13, which was
addressed to the whole Germanic Confederation, by other ar-
rangements which would particularly concern Prussia. An
ordinance of the 22d of May, 1815, signed by Frederick Wil-
liam 111., openly proclaimed that a representation should be
given to the people of Prussia.
This ordinance appointed a commission, charged with a
twofold task. It was first to occupy its attention with the
formation of provincial estates, sitting in several cities of
Prussia; secondly, to determine the form of the assembly,
which was no longer to represent such and such a pravince,
but the whole of the kingdom, and which was to sit at Ber-
lin. The ordinance announced that this assembly would
issue from the States, but without saying how.
The labours of this Commission (presided over by the pre-
sent King, then Crown Prince) were prolonged much more
than had been anticipated. It was not until six years
after its appointment—on the sth of June, 1823—that the
law of the provincial States was promulgated, This was„
as our readers will see, taking a long time to accomplish
only one of the two promises of 1815. Prussia was endowed
with provincial States, but the general represention was still
a nullity.

Things 'remained in this state till 1840, althcngh imps.
tient to see the realisation of the engagements made by
royalty. Prussia remained silent, not wishing to disturb the
last days of a sovereign deservedly loved and respected ; but
in 1840 the acces,ion of the new monarch, and the political
crisis by which Europe was shaken, ro-awakened the desires
which had only been asleep. They broke out with such
force, that it must have been clearly seen that it would be
impossible to be unmindful of them. The personal disposi-
tions of the King at first appeared about to second the na
tional movement.

In several vague speecheA, but impressed with the enthu-
siasm peculiar to his character, this Prince made declarations
which were regarded as favourable, and as such received
with lively eagerness. But his last speech to the Deputies of
Konigsberg having been commented upon, a few weeks
afterwards (the 4th of October, 1840), by a Ministerial cir-
cular, which absolutely rejected the interpretation given to
the royal words, it was quickly understood that the King
and the people misunderstood one another, and.dissrust re-
plac. d the enthusiastic faith of the first days of his reign.
Still, the King had given reason to hope for something.
and his Government was actively occupied with the prepare
tion of the plan announced by him in terms so obscure.
What had the ordinance of 1815 promised? A general re-
pre3entation of the kingdom. how was this engagement
kept? In February, 1841, appeared a decree, which in-
creased the importance of the provincial States, by authoris
ing the publication of their discussions. They were, more-
over, summoned to assemble every two, instead of every
three years.

As to the essential question—the General Assembly,—the
' decree instituted a Diet, to which the provincial States sent
each a certain number of delegates. This assembly sat at
Berlin, and had two sorts of, functions :—lst. on all the
points on which the provincial States had emitted discor-
dant views it was to close the discusion, and so cut the
thfead of the (;ontlict ; 21. the General Diet of Berlin might
be consulted by the Government on all.subjects of public
intertel.
The stupefaction with which so derisive a satisfaction was
received may be readily divined. A constitution had been
promised in 1815, a•td the dee; et •of 1841 col& • I itself to
ordering the formation of au asiemblv, nothing more than a
commission chosen in the provincial Sta'es, todecide between
the contrary proposals emanating from thus: States. Besides
this—no rights, no guarantee, no authority. It was to arrive
at this great result that the new King had expended in his
speeches so much enthusiasm and eloquence.
From this moment a resistance was organised in Prussia
of which the provincial States took the initiative, and in
which they were followed by the press. The author of the
article before us gives some curious details relative to the
two parties, which now divide Prussia, the Conservative
party, or " historical school," and the Radical party, or " ra-
tionalist school." The result of this intellectual and poli-
tical crisis cannot be doubtful. Prussia, in spite of the heal-