FREELY TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF MARMIER.
BY M. HERTZ,ESQ.

Puckler Muskau, whose free and caustic criticism on the aristocracy of England rendered his work, “The Travels of a German Prince,” deservedly popular, has declared his intention of visiting the United States, for the purpose of indulging his book-making and erratic propensities. The bold originality of his ideas, the biting sarcasm with which he assails the weak points of society, with other independencies of criticism, ensure the production of an amusing volume of travels. But few particulars respecting him are known to the world that he has so severely handled, the industrious Frenchman has collected all that can be depended upon ; and the following sketch of the fashionable literairc appears, for the first time, in an English shape., Editor G. Ðœ.

Fashion is an innate habitude, and cannot be acquired. It is a difficult thing to give a perfect picture of a baccalauréat of fashion. There are men who place their heads under the care of the most skilful frizeur, and study intensely the various ties of the cravat, or the harmony of the different hues of their waistcoats, but, sooner or later, the plebeian alloy betrays the debasement of the finer metal. The Duke de Levy was one day asked his opinion about the new-made courtiers of Louis the Eighteenth. ” Egad !” said he, ” they walk uneasily upon the inlaid floors.” It is a difficult thing for a parvenu to climb the paths of fashionable life; but, on the other hand, how glorious is the triumph of the conqueror ! of him who has achieved the grave mysteries of the toilet, who can converse on the plait of a ruffle with a washerwoman’s skill, and can discourse on the polish of a pair of boots, with the tact of an experienced blackingmaker! Once arrived at this high point, and the eminence is only to be obtained by slow degrees, the master of fashion is like the master of arts at the university, he judges in approval or condemnation, speaking ex cathedra, and is listened to in silence by the multitude who resolve to take him as their model through life. Old Brummel, who, for a length of time, was the type of English fashion, would not have exchanged fortunes with the king. Brummel reigned like a despot over the beau monde, and various aspiring lords strove in vain to pluck his sceptre from his grasp. His assurance annihilated their pretensions, and almost drove them to despair. One day this autocrat of taste was asked who was the most celebrated man in Europe! “I am,” was the reply. ” After me, you may place Napoleon.” In later years, he acknowledged that Lord Byron had some remote claims to popularity.

Brummel’s sovereignty, like other royalties, had its days of storm and revolution. The potentate who ruled all classes of English society, from the mighty duke to the plainest gentleman, who, by a word, could proscribe the existence of the shoe with buckles, or the hat with feathers, was conquered one evening between two wax candles, by the power of a card. He left upon the gaming table all that he possessed. He abdicated hie crown ; and taking refuge in a foreign country, turned round towards Albion, and exclaimed with noble pride, “Ingrata patria.”

Prince Puckler Muskau went to see Brummel at Calais, and finds pleasure in relating the particulars of the visit, for it formed an event in his life. These two men met like two kings on neutral ground, one of them a little bruised through the severity of his fall, and the other still wrapt in ambitious dreams., Puckler Muskau had lately filled the same station in Germany that Brummel had occupied in England, he had governed the salons of Berlin and Dresden with uncontradicted authority, till, tired of supremacy, he journeyed forth in search of fresh excitement.

Puckler Muskau fully accomplishes all the requirements of fashionable excellence. He has placed himself at the head of the literature of the bon ton. He is a prince, and possesses a castle ; and his park, of which he is justly proud, is laid out according to the regulation of English taste. He travels post, never by the diligence. He is tall, lank, and pale, with curly hair, and has a very distingué appearance.

Prince Puckler was born in the Castle of Muskau, in Upper Lusatia, on the thirtieth of October, 1785. His father, one of the richest nobles of Saxony, held the title of Court Councillor, and the young prince was educated with all the dignity becoming his rank. Although he ridicules the young aristocrats who pride themselves on the nobility of their titles, yet he venerates the antiquity of his family, and endeavours to prove that he is descended in a direct line from the celebrated Rüdiger de Bechlarn, one of the heroes of Niebelungen. In early life, Puckler studied at Dresden, at Leipzig, and at Halle, but the romance of his life began when he quitted the university, and entered the gardes-du-corps of the King of Saxony. His youth, his fine countenance, his title of nobility, and extensive fortune, to say nothing about his dandy uniform, drew all eyes towards him ; and he threw himself with enthusiasm into the whirlpool which gaped before him. He had affairs of gallantry that made husbands uneasy; he was concerned in affairs of honour that affected the hearts of the young ladies, not only of the bourgeoisie, but of the highest nobility., He was the Alcibiades of Dresden, or to use a less classic comparison, he was what the English term a lion. No one, like Muskau, had as much wit at command, or displayed so much art in the exercises of the toilet. When he cantered across the Altmark, the Saxon burghers drove their daughters from the casements, but the belle countesses gazed from their windows with smiles of encouragement.

Several years passed in the enjoyment of these fairy dreams of love, but the hero of Dresden’s drawing-rooms, tired of his conquests, ordered his travelling equipage to be in readiness, not for a trip of pleasure to one of the lovely chateaus upon the Elbe, but for a peregrination across the Alpe. It is impossible to describe the consternation which the departure of the Prince spread over the whole city of Dresden. He went forth more like Don Juan than Childe Harold, to traverse the world with a light heart, a spoiled child of fortune.

His father died ; he returned from his travels, and became master of vast domains. He took possession of his estates, not with the timid joy of an heir surprised by fate, but with the proud scorn of a man of the world whose desires were not yet accomplished., Muskau Castle was magnificent, and its park was large and scientifically laid out, but he considered the whole affair to be in bad taste. He called in masons and architects, made them draw plans, pull down and reconstruct, design avenues and group clusters of trees, open roads, and excavate canals and lakes. In a short time he turned over so much ground, that the inhabitants of the township of Muskau, who were by nature averse to innovation, began to get wofully alarmed ; their fears affected the capitalist who had advanced money to the prince, and the supplies of cash were instantly suspended. The prince, compelled to circumscribe his expenditure, succeeded nevertheless, in making his chateau one of the mast beautiful in Germany. He spent two or three years, in the enjoyment of its delights, aided by the society of his friend Schefer and several of the literati of Muskau.

In 1813, he resumed military service, and the Duke of Weimar nominated him as aid-de-camp. He distinguished himself by several acts of bravery. One of his German biographers relates the particulars of a duel between the prince and a certain French officer. The two champions advanced, like Homer’s heroes, between the two armies, during the fight ; the spectators looked on in silence ; the combatants fought for a long time with equal address and courage. At last the French officer was vanquished, and his lucky adversary, the Prince, returned triumphantly to his friends.

Puckler Muskau, a year afterwards, was sent on a mission to Paris by the Duke of Weimar; he sailed from France to England, making a rapid excursion, and returned to Berlin, where he married Prince Hardenberg’s daughter. It has been said that this was a very unhappy marriage. It did not, perhaps, realize all the hopes which were expected from it ; for in a few years afterwards, the Prince obtained a divorce. But this divorce was agreed upon without hatred or resentment on either side. The daughter of Prince Hardenberg, remained Puckler’s best friend. She is the correspondent to whom, under the name of Julie, he addressed the various tender epistles, during his travels.

When the congressional resolutions divided Upper Lusat¡a from Saxony, and bestowed it upon Prussia, the prerogatives of the Prince were seriously affected by way of compensation to the Lord of the Manor, the King of Prussia, in the year 1822, conferred the title of prince upon Puckler Muskau, with other immunities. Both kingdoms were then honored by his occasional residence, but he eventually grew tired of this monotonous life, and, disliking to move eternally in the same circle, and seeing always the same facee, he resolved once more to travel.

He departed ; but not like the first time, with a young heart, nor with an imagination filled with pleasant illusions. The enjoyments of luxury had blunted his strength ; satiety had stimulated disgust, and the trifling vanities of the drawing-room, and the insipid hours spent in the pursuit of fashion, had furrowed wrinkles on his forehead, similar to those caused by misfortune.

Prince Puckler Muskau travelled throughout Europe, and noted the peculiarities of all branches of society. He passes with a delightful variety from an hour of levity in the ball room, to an hour of meditation in the churchyard, from the agitation of crowded cities, to the solitude of the mountains, travelled sometimes like a prince, with liveried lacqueys, and a carriage emblazoned with armorial bearings, sometimes with the student’s knapsack, or the pilgrim’s staff, taking notes of his impressions by the way, and intermixing his tale with the various witticisms that occur to his mind, and pleasantly relating all the anecdotes he is able to procure. He describes the charms of nature and the vagaries of life, not, perhaps with the majesty of Rousseau, but in a sprightly and convincing style excessively agreeable to the reader.

He published an account of his travels in 1830, wilhout the author’s name, and under the title of ” Letters of a Corpse” (Briefe eines Verstorbenen). This book produced a very great sensation in Germany. The critics were delighted with a work impressed wilh the stamp of originality, and the mystery by which it was surrounded contributed to increase its success. Goethe himself grants to the ” Letters of a Corpse” a flattering notice; and M. de Varnhagen, one of the most distinguished German authors, bestows a very spirited praise upon the Prince’s book.

The first edition contained the Prince’s travels through England. He has since published his travels in Ireland, Italy, and France. He likewise published under the title of “Tutti Frutli,” a collection of detached observations, and descriptions of travels, interspersed with anecdotes. Some of the tales frequently remind the reader of Tiecks’s poetical mind, and of Hoffman’s eccentric imagination ; while many pages are filled with satirical and pungent gaiety, which the English so happily denominate “humour.”

The Prince has now undertaken a tour to America. Let us hope that he will bring back from this distant excursion some volumes worthy to be placed by the side of those which he has written on old Europe.

M. Marmier is incorrect in his assertions respecting Brummel. The English dandy never gambled ; he retired from fashionable life to avoid the disagreeables inseparable from public disgrace. The Prince Regent, afterwards George the Fourth, quarrelled with the beau garçon, and resolved, after years of intimacy and regard, to reduce him to his original nothingness. The caprices of fashion were never more fully developed than in the career of this Massaniello of the haut ton. Brumme!, a commoner of obscure origin, of coarse manners, and clownish gait, ruled, for a time, the county precincts of St. James with a rod of iron. His dictum on a fashionable matter was insuperable. His eccentricities obtained him popularity in an eccentric age. At that time, the juvenile members of the aristocracy wore coats with bodies that scarcely covered the breasts, and thin, sparrow tails that almost reached the ground, leather breeches of a tightness that rendered their donning on act of positive fatigue and time ; large bunches of colored ribands hung at the knees, and a small pair of white-topped boots were wrinkled about the instep. Perhaps the dandy rejoiced in a pair of close-fining pantaloons, scarcely reaching the calves of his legs. The vests were of various patterns and modes. A couple of watches dangled from the fobs, and a profusion of thick, pudding-formed, loosely-tied cravat, supported a powdered and frizzled head, tipped with a high-crowned hat of a sugar-loaf shape. To assist this ” motley wear,” Brummel, one morning appeared in the Mall with a smooth and suffers vat of surprising whiteness; its texture and snow-white lustre remained unimpaired during the morning’s promenade.

The singularity of this neckgear, coupled with Brummel’s authority, obtained an excessive degree of popularity for the stiff cravat, and every body became anxious to obtain the secret of its make, but Brummel absolutely refused to disclose; his necessities were tempted by the offer of a considerable douceur, the prince laid his commands upon him, ladies of the highest fashion cajoled, and peers of the realm abjectly begged the solution of the riddle. But all in vain ; the dandy was aware of the precarious tenure of popularity, and refused to destroy the hold he had so unexpectedly secured. Every possible substitution was attempted ; frames of whalebone were canvassed over, sheets of pasteboard were covered with lawn, and thin rolls of tin and sheet-iron were enveloped in muslin, but nothing competed with the beauty of Brummel’s original cravat. When he voluntarily resigned his viceroyship of the beau monde, his departure was privy and unexpected ; he left a letter upon his table superscribed, ” The Secret of the Cravat,” and the envelope contained but one word, ” Starch.”

Brummel, like all parvenues, presumed upon his popularity, and destroyed himself. The prince admitted him to his private table ; at one of the most brilliant of the royal feasts, Brumme! addressed the host, and with much nonchalance, said, – George, my buck, ring the bell.” The guests were aghast at the beau’s impudence, but the prince rose from his seat, and did as he was desired, and when the servant attended the tintinnabulary summons, he was told to order Mr. Brummel’s carriage. The unfortunate beau was never again allowed to enter the palace walls. He struggled manfully against the disgrace, but his empire was destroyed ; his creditors poured in upon him ; and he retired to the more congenial air of France, where he resided in comparative poverty till his demise, which happened a few years ago.

Brummel had one good fling at the prince before he quitted England. The beau was riding with Sheridan down St. James’s street one morning, and met the prince surrounded by a fashionable cavalcade, coming from Carlton House. The prince, resolving to annoy the refractory Brummel, greeted Sheridan with an ехcess of cordiality, and keeping the cortege in the middle of the street, entered into a long and friendly chat, but without condescending to exchange word or glance with the quondam fashion-setter. At length, he rode away. Brummel, who had not quitted the centre of the group, immediately asked Sheridan in a loud tone of voice, that must have reached the whole of the party, ” Sherry, who is your fat friend that rides so badly ?” We are glad to say, that when George the Fourth ascended the throne, he appointed his old friend Brummel to some trifling situation under the consular arrangements in France, for the sake of ” auld lang syne.”, Editor G. M.

From: The Gentleman’s Magazine (August 1837, Vol. 1, No. 2)