distant glance. Their main hope, however, is in
the small officials, young professional men, clerks
&c., in plain evening dress, whose head-quarters
are near the refreshment-room. These are
expected to dance, and are willing to dance,
though they well know that they could only
abstain from dancing at their peril. With his own
hand, next year, the duke would strike out of
the list of invited any of those young men whom
he saw playing the wallflower. To the state
ball all foreigners of note are invited, and at
supper-time they join the highest functionaries,
who alone of the male sex, except a few husbands,
sup at the same table with the duke and
duchess. For as there is not a room large
enough to contain all the company, the ladies
sup at the ducal table, and the bachelors, who
are not of the highest social mark, are turned
into another room, and committed to the honour
of the company of one another.

The masked ball in the theatre at carnival
time is the other great gaiety of Gotha, during
the duke's presence in the town. It is held in
the theatre, and on the condition of wearing
fancy dress, admission is free. On such
occasions the duke behaves only as a gentleman; he
does not, unfortunately, come up to the Gotha
ideal of a stuck-up person; condescends too
much, and does not measure his attentions by
the local rank of those about him; is too likely
to talk to a clever stranger and to turn his back
upon an ass when the ass may be his own grand-
polisher-of-the-high-ducal-copper-scuttle.

He does not even live in state at Friedenstein,
but has built for himself a simple little lodge in
the main avenue outside the park gates, with an
adjacent building for the servants, and a fine
Gothic range of stables over the way; for he is
choice over horses. In their lodge the duke
and his wife live comfortably. The duke, says
his anatomist, rises early and works by himself,
writing letters, making entries in his diary,
receiving his ministers, or going for conference
with them to the ministerial residence. He
breakfasts simply, alone with the duchess and
his guests, if there be any. After breakfast he
will spend, perhaps, several hours in lively,
clever conversation, somewhat impetuous, and
singularly frank. If he has a guest to talk with
over a cigar, he tests his power of following a
rapid mind in its transitions from grave to gay,
and an earnest mind in its tendency to extract
from little things their best significance. The
liveliness of impulse, says M. Schmidt-Weissenfels,
is shown by the duke even in his way of
composing music. He has not patience to make
round dots while he thinks, but walks up and
down his study, whistling, humming, or singing
his melody, while the duchess writes from such
dictation his idea into notes for the piano, upon
which they afterwards are tested.

That is the German journalist's personal
impression of a duke who is honoured throughout
Germany at large, but therewith he
intersperses the opinions of the duke's people.
They say that the duke troubles his head
too much about high politics, and too little
about his own subjects, whom he underrates,
whose government he thinks a work below his
talents, and on whom he bestows, in fact, little
attention. He brings into the land shoals of
strangers, and gives them the best places in his
government, while local claims to office and rank
are neglected. His people are none the better
for the praise he gets from Germany as best of
princes. There are many grievances of theirs
to be attended to that do not get attention;
and the duke does not like to have the truth
told him. The Diet is so full of government
officials, that you cannot turn round in it without
treading on a placeman's toes. No truth comes
through that, and there is no more help from
the free press. A man may, indeed, think
and say what he likes in Coburg-Gotha about
Germany and the world in general, but let him
speak critically of Coburg-Gotha's own affairs,
and if he attack educational arrangements, he
may suffer for libel on the education commissioners;
if a tax-gatherer should be extortionate
it is not safe to say so; even theatrical criticism
has to be guarded, lest it run into what might
be called libel of his highness's servant.

Herr Eduard Schmidt-Weissenfels goes on
to provide partial answers to these matters of
complaint, in which he admits an element of
truth. It is clear that the whole purpose of his
publication was to say these things to the duke
boldly and inoffensively, so as to bring about a
better understanding between duke and people.
The duke's reply gives little hope of that, and
through no fault of his own, except in one
respect. We think it evident, from his own
expression of a constant determination to repress
libel, coupled with the just remark applied to
himself, that in so small a country nothing can
be said or done for public good affecting persons
that shall not give personal offence, that he does
really deny his press anything like personal
freedom in discussing local matters. Of course,
where everybody knows everybody, and public
matter is a private matter too, as between every
one and any one free comment is hard to get
and hard to maintain. As regards Peddlington,
the Peddlington Free Speaker is in no enviable
position, even when there is no duke to be
offended by its liberties.

Fuller answers are made by the duke in the
yellow pamphlet. Until the year eighteen 'twenty-
six, says Duke Ernest, the duchy of Gotha had
for a century been governed in one spirit by my
ancestors on the mother's side, men genial, or
somewhat eccentric, or insignificant, but always
honest and courteous, with a taste, even in
frivolous days, for solidity; solid in luxury and
ready to offer hospitality to foreigners of solid
worth. Voltaire, and Grimm, and Diderot
were entertained by them. None of them
troubled themselves about affairs of government,
and none of them extracted any cry of pain
from among their subjects, who were left to the
rule of a powerful, well-salaried bureaucracy
supplied from among the numerous families of
the nobility. The state was ordered partly by
tradition, after an old patriarchal way that