which had cherished it, and owed to it their independence and even
their existence. Perhaps this jealousy, not always reasonable in its
grounds or judicious in its measures, may have contributed to occasion
the extravagances in which it afterwards found new motives for
precaution and restriction, by checking the active spirit which might
have been usefully guided into proper channels, and thus forcing it to
licentious and mischievous aberrations. The circumstances too which
usually accompany all revolutions of public feeling, attended likewise
on this. The spirit of the times always finds in different individuals
various degrees of capacity for receiving and containing it. Those who
are possessed by it instead of possessing it, are apt to attach great
importance to outward badges and distinctions, to attribute to them a
productive power, and to substitute them for that which can alone give
them value as signs and indications of its existence. These externals,
which satisfy the indolent and amuse the weak and superficial, become
the ready instrument and mask of imposture. The strong and glowing
language, which in such seasons of general excitement gushes in a
living stream out of the inmost depth of really inspired bosoms, is
echoed by the imbecile without meaning, and by the designing with
selfish views. Thus things in themselves innocent and even commendable
become first contemptible and then suspected; the most genuine
expressions of the purest and warmest feeling are profaned and abused,
till they sink into unmeaning or equivocal commonplace. All this
happened in Germany. In the first effervescence of patriotic rapture
several violent and premature innovations were introduced or attempted
in things of no moment, except so far as they are the natural and
unforced expression of the inward character which produces them and by
them is brought to light. Efforts were made to return to the dress,
language and manners of a former age, by those who did not reflect
that, until the spirit of the past had penetrated the whole mass of
society, it was neither practicable nor desirable that any great change
should be wrought on its surface; that it was in vain to think of
improving the physiognomy without altering the disposition. The
consequence was, that this imitation instead of becoming a popular
habit remained a fashion confined to a few, and exhibited a strange and
ludicrous contrast with that which it was meant to supplant. T