them to pillar and post. Sir! sir! if I entertained not the
remains of respect for you, in your domestic state, I should never have
held with you this conversation. Germany is Germany: she ought to have
nothing political in common with what is not Germany. Her freedom and
security now demand that she celebrate the communion of the faithful.
Our country is the only one in all the explored regions on earth that
never has been conquered. Arabia and Russia boast it falsely; France
falsely; Rome falsely. A fragment off the empire of Darius fell and
crushed her: Valentinian was the footstool of Sapor, and Rome was buried
in Byzantium. Boys must not learn this, and men will not. Britain, the
wealthiest and most powerful of nations, and, after our own, the most
literate and humane, received from us colonies and laws. Alas! those
laws, which she retains as her fairest heritage, we value not: we
surrender them to gangs of robbers, who fortify themselves within walled
cities, and enter into leagues against us. When they quarrel, they push
us upon one another's sword, and command us to thank God for the
victories that enslave us. These are the glories we celebrate; these are
the festivals we hold, on the burial-mounds of our ancestors. Blessed
are those who lie under them! blessed are also those who remember what
they were, and call upon their names in the holiness of love.

_Kotzebue_.--Moderate the transport that inflames and consumes you.
There is no dishonour in a nation being conquered by a stronger.

_Sandt_.--There may be great dishonour in letting it be stronger; great,
for instance, in our disunion.

_Kotzebue_.--We have only been conquered by the French in our turn.

_Sandt_.--No, sir, no: we have not been, in turn or out. Our puny
princes were disarmed by promises and lies: they accepted paper crowns
from the very thief who was sweeping into his hat their forks and
spoons. A cunning traitor snared incautious ones, plucked them, devoured
them, and slept upon their feathers.

_Kotzebue_.--I would rather turn back with you to the ancient glories of
our country than fix my attention on the sorrowful scenes more near to
us. We may be justly proud of our literary men, who unite the suffrages
of every capital, to the exclusion of almost all their own.

_Sandt_.--Many Germans well deserve this honour, others are manger-fed
and hirelings.

_Kotzebue_.--The English and the Greeks are the only nations that rival
us in poetry