14
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHIAE.
right to a share in the representation of the people.
Estates that in olden times were endowed w ith the privi-
leges of a lordship, still confer the right of a representa-
tion upon the owners, whatever may be their birth. The
owners of these “ Rittergiiter,” or knights’ estates, form
a distinct body between the “hoher adel,” or nobility, and
the burghers and peasants. The knights of the Rhenish
j>rovinces elect a deputation from their number to the
Jirovincial diet that sits at Dusseldorf. The inhabitants
of the towns, as well as those of the rural districts, who pay
a certain amount of taxes, choose electors, to whom the
selection of their deputies for the provincial parliament is
intrusted. The political rights of the diet, or “ Landtag,”
as this assembly is called in German, are too circumscribed
to inspire that stirring sympathy which the publication
of the debates of a powerful and concentrated national
assembly awakens. The magisterial functions arc univer-
sally performed in Germany by salaried official person-
ages, so that neither the burthen nor the dignity of
Jiublic life is there attached to the station of a country
gentleman, and he is apt to waste his leisure hours in
trifling or in slothful occupations, unless, w hich is often the
case, he has cultivated some refined taste. On the othe:
hand, these very circumstances Iavourthatside of German
life which has only lately attracted the attention that it
deserves in England. The local and family ties are sub-
ject to less violent shocks than constant separations of
relatives occasion with us, and age advances surrounded
by the natural play of the affections amongst friends and
relatives. The aged totter to the grave amongst the
“old familiar faces ” with whom the man Iivedin friend-
shiɪi or in strife, and with whom the child shared his
Agbicdlture on the bhine.
15
hours of pleasure or of study. The idea of home in a
country where the brilliancy of the summer sky and the
clear frosty atmosphere of winter alike invite to the open
air, is less attached to the chimney corner and the pecu-
liar furniture of certain rooms, than to the periodical
assemblies of the members of a family at birthday and
other anniversaries, and to the sympathy that is sought
amongst friends on the most trifling occasion of sorrow
or of joy. Society is indispensable to the German.
Even the peasant and the labourer must have their talk,
if not with their equals in wealth, with those whose for-
tune is more or less brilliant ; and the observer will not
fail to remark that a far greater equality of manner pre-
vails in the mode of addressing people of all classes in
Germany than in England, where the relations of servant
and master pass into the very highest grades of society.
The simplest conditions are here attached to the indul-
gence of the sociable propensities. A country gentleman
therefore, of the standing that Wehavesupposed, drawing
fully 600Z. per annum from an estate of about 200 acres,
can assume no magisterial airs, nor is he called upon to
give electioneering or fox-hunting dinners. IIis hours
are early, his meals light, and he passes his life more as
a spectator than an actor in the busy world of industry or
politics. Such a man it will at least be acknowledged is
more likely to rejoice at and to aid in the gradual and
orderly growth of knowledge and of civilization, than
such as speculate upon unexpected changes, and great
and dazzling opportunities of success. We suspect, how-
ever, that the mode in which a gentleman farmer in Ger-
many contrives to draw 600Z. per annum from 200 acres
of land, will quite as much Interest our readers as the ex-