CURRENT LITE RAT UR E.
THE HOHENLOHE MEMOIRS.
Memoirs of Prince Chlodwig of Hohenlohe. Translated from the First German Edition and Supervised by George W. Chrystal, B.A. , 2 vols. (W. Heinemann. 24s. net.)—The promised translation into English of the famous Memoirs is now before us, and it has been made, it should be noted, from the first German edition. This is as it should be, though it will be interesting some day to see what has appeared indiscreet to the formal or informal censorship. The Memoirs have been already reviewed in the Spectator (November 3rd and 10th), and we do not propose, though, of course, much matter has been left untouched, to give anything like a third notice. In the earlier portion of the first volume there are occasional non-political entries, and these are always noteworthy. Prince Chlodwig was one of the children of a mixed marriage, the daughters being brought up as Protestants, the sons as Roman Catholics. This does not seem a very good arrangement, but it worked well, and there is certainly something in the remark that "religions toleration was the foundation and indispensable condition of domestic happiness." Prince Chlodwig was not without zeal. In 1849 we find him remarking that it was " essential to send out [to Syria and Asia Minor] no Protestant bishops and missionaries " ; but the whole entry has a somewhat political tone about it. Else- where we find the Prince saying that" he should be delighted to see a great universal Christian Church embracing all that is pure and lofty in Christianity." In 1846—he was then twenty-seven—he has given up the liking that he had once felt for the Ultra- montanes. He specially dislikes the Jesuit idea that " the Reformation and all its consequences was a mistake " ; he even goes so far as to speak of "this devilish society." He had, indeed, an independence of mind which wholly unfitted him for the part of a docile disciple." He speculates, for instance, on what he might have become if he had not boon so carefully looked after. "I should," he candidly remarks, " have committed many follies, and perhaps gone to the devil. But it seems to me that I might have become a better man." He conceived himself to have "a dreamy and passive character," one that required " the stimulus of being left to act for itself." In 1846 his marriage becomes an absorbing interest. The affair, though half a diplomatic arrangement, was essentially a love match, and the story, told as it is with a charming simplicity and diffidence, is a delightful one. In 1850 he pays a visit to Paris, thinks that Madame Rachel is " beyond criticism," is disgusted at Auber's opera of L'Enfant Prodigue—" concluding with a scene in Heaven itself, with the angels playing on harps"— and describes the President as a " little man in a Bavarian Light Horse uniform." In 1859 be paid his first visit to England, and in the course of a few hours spent in Hyde Park concludes that "no people is so much the slave of its manners and customs as the English." The Queen charmed him with her " very sympathetic, unaffected, and natural way, quite unlike the apathetic chatter of Continental Sovereigns." " The Lord Mayor and his suite" strike him, we are glad to see, by their "peculiar magnificence." English statesmen do not seem to have impressed him very much. Lord Aberdeen is "old and frail," the Duke of Newcastle " a man with a thick beard," and a third, whom we will not name, "an affected creature with the manners of a ballet- master." As to our politics, he was told, " we have no system ; we live from hand to mouth." We might do worse.
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