| <The Saturday Review Oct. 1857>
| <Saxon Ideas of Anglo-Saxon Manners>
| <Lord Robert Cecil>
| <pb n="325">
| Germans have the reputation of being among the best 
| informed of nations.  The learning of their learned men is 
| proverbial, and their peasants' children must go to school 
| unless the parents prefer to go to prison.  On the other hand, 
| we flatter ourselves that there are few things better known, or 
| better worth knowing, than England and English institutions.  
| It may therefore be interesting to some of our readers to 
| ascertain the ideas concerning English laws and manners 
| which German dramatists entertain, and which German 
| audiences calmly swallow.  Every theatre represents pretty 
| exactly the ideas of the class that frequents it.  The dramas of 
| the Surrey side reflect with accuracy the extent of historical 
| knowledge prevalent among the ten-pound householders; 
| while, on the other hand, all the learning and research of 
| English antiquaries have been put into requisition to furnish 
| the theatrical properties of Macready and Kean.  The German 
| text, therefore of Flotow's <hi rend="italic"> Martha, </hi> 
| as produced at the principal theatre in Dresden, may be 
| accepted as a fair picture of the current notions of an 
| educated German concerning the manners and customs of 
| England as it was.
| The date of the action of the piece is Queen Anne's reign.  
| Lord Tristan Mikleford, her Master of the Horse and Captain 
| of the Pages, and also a member of Parliament, burns with an 
| ardent but unrequited flame for Lady Hariet Durham, one of 
| her maids of honour.  The play opens with a morning call 
| from him, in which, to recommend his suit, he proposes 
| various English sports for her morning's amusement.  He runs 
| through them <hi rend="italic"> seriatim </hi> ~~ 
| cockfighting, donkey-riding, horse-racing, tilting, 
| bear-baiting; but she is cruel, and 
| declines them all.  Just then they 
| hear outside the noise of Richmond fair ~~ an institution 
| peculiar to that town, in which the maidens of the 
| surrounding country come to be hired by the farmers; the rule 
| of the fair being that when the earnest-money is once 
| received, the maiden is irrevocably bound to a year's service.  
| The young lady and her <hi rend="italic"> confidante </hi> 
| insist that Lord Tristan shall accompany them in disguise to 
| the fair, under the plebeian name of "Bob."  In vain he 
| indignantly exclaims, <q> </q> ~~ they will take no refusal.  
| Forth the party sally accordingly; but no sooner have the 
| young ladies arrived there than they are accosted by two 
| farmers, who wish to hire them, and offer, as a bait, <q> </q> 
| on Sundays, and plum pudding on New Year's day; and 
| before the young ladies quite know what they are about, they 
| have taken the earnest-money, and are irrevocably bound for 
| a year.  The next scene opens in the dwelling of these two 
| farmers, who are in vain trying to induce their very 
| unserviceable handmaids to do a little work.  It ends, 
| however, in one of them, named Lyonel, falling in love with 
| the disguised Lady Hariet.  Fortunately Lord Tristan pursues 
| the farmers, makes a burglarious entry into the house after 
| the family have retired, and lets the two young ladies out of 
| one of the windows.  The farmers awake, find out theft, and 
| set off at midnight, with the whole <hi rend="italic"> posse 
| comitatus </hi> of the farm, in pursuit of the fugitive 
| housemaids.  If the farmers of Queen Anne's time had only 
| had American experience to guide them, no doubt they would 
| have employed bloodhounds.  As it was, the game naturally 
| escaped.
| The next scene is in a wood.  The Queen and all her Court are 
| out hunting ~~ what, we are never able to discover.  But, as a 
| preliminary to the arrival of the hunters, we are presented 
| with a party of farmers, who apparently have selected the 
| hunting ground for a genuine British carouse.  They are 
| introduced in the act of celebrating the merits of <p> 
| "Porter-beer," </p> in lines of which the following is a close 
| translation.  The principal singer is one of the farmers from 
| whom the two young ladies have escaped:  ~~
| <q> </q>
| No sooner is this song concluded, than Lady Hariet's 
| <hi rend="italic"> confidante </hi> appears on the stage with a 
| troop of <p> "huntresses," </p> all in hunting costume.  Now 
| a hunting English lady ~~ or, indeed, an active English lady 
| of any kind ~~ has always been an unfathomable mystery to 
| a foreigner; and therefore, whenever he allows himself to 
| contemplate it, his imagination invests it with the wildest 
| colours.  In the present instance, our author's notion of an 
| English lady's equipment for the hunting-field is unique.  It 
| consists of a bare head, a green velvet jacket, a yellow satin 
| petticoat, white kid gloves, and a harpoon in her hand.  What 
| species of animal these Dianas were intended to kill with this 
| peculiar weapon, it is rather hard to make out.  One can only 
| suppose that some faint notion of the whale-fishery as a great 
| field of English industry must have floated through the 
| author's mind.  However, the farmer who had been 
| eulogizing <p> "porter-beer" </p> stands aghast, as well he 
| may, at this strange apparition of his quondam maid-of-all-work
| in yellow satin and harpoon.  But, spite of the oddity of 
| her apparel, he thinks the opportunity is not to be lost, and 
| attempts to carry her off then and there ~~ doubtless 
| according to the statute in that case made and provided.  The 
| huntresses, however, are too much for him ~~ they lay their 
| harpoons in rest, and hunt him off the stage.  Next appears 
| Lyonel, who seems to have selected the same wood for a 
| solitary constitutional, and is discovered mourning over the 
| pangs of love and the inconstancy of maids-of-all-work.  As a 
| matter of course, Lady Hariet chances to be walking that way 
| too, and a love-scene ensues.  It is, however, as they say in 
| the East country, love deformed, or all the one side; for she is 
| very much frightened at being detected in her unlucky frolic, 
| and professes not to know him.  A lively conversation 
| follows, in which she calls him <q> </q>, and he calls her 
| <q> </q>.  She cries out for assistance.  Lord Tristan comes 
| to her aid, and, in exercise of a power which the Constitution 
| seems at that time to have vested in the younger sons of 
| Dukes and Marquises, but which it has since unhappily 
| withdrawn, at once scuds Lyonel off to prison, where he is 
| put in heavy irons.  But at this juncture a critical discovery is 
| made.  There was always a mystery hanging over Lyonel's 
| birth; and it now turns out that his father was <q> </q>.  
| Lyonel, therefore, who makes love to pretty housemaids at 
| midnight, and afterwards insults a maid of honour in a wood, 
| is no less a person than ~~ we beg pardon for mentioning so 
| respectable a name in such a connexion ~~ Lord Stanley.  
| After this discovery, Lady Hariet, in the most ample manner, 
| apologizes for her past conduct, and at once proposes to him, 
| and sugars the proposal by coupling it with the presentation 
| of a patent, in which the Queen restores him to the honours of 
| the House of Derby.  At first he rejects both the peerage and 
| the lady, being a little sore at his unceremonious 
| incarceration; but at last his resentment is overcome, 
| everybody is made happy, except Lord Tristan, and the 
| curtain falls.
| We cannot take leave of <hi rend="italic"> Martha </hi> 
| without expressing our surprise that Flotow's singularly gay 
| and sprightly music is entirely unknown to the English stage.  
| To high art, of course, it makes no pretension; but that can 
| offer little objection in dealing with a public taste which 
| adores Verdi, and swallows even Halevy without a wry face.  
| The reason that used to be always given for the scantiness of 
| our <hi rend="italic"> repertoire </hi> was, that Madame 
| Grisi declined to learn any more; but that reason can hardly 
| be valid now.