whole affair into ridicule.--To these succeeded, in 1819, the constitutions of Hanover and Lippe-Detmold, the former as aristocratic as possible, completely in the spirit of olden times, solely dictated and carried into effect by the nobility and government officers. The sittings of the chambers, consequently, continued to be held in secret.--The dukes of Mecklenburg abolished feudal servitude, which existed in no other part of Germany, in 1820.--In Darmstadt, the constitution was granted by the good-natured, venerable Grandduke Louis (whose attention was chiefly devoted to the opera), after the impatient advocates, who had collected subscriptions in the Odenwald to petitions praying for the speedy bestowal of the promised constitution, had been arrested, and an insurrection that consequently ensued among the peasantry had been quelled by force.--Petty constitutions were, moreover, granted, in 1821, to Coburg, and, in 1829, to Meiningen. The Gotha-Altenburg branch of the ducal house of Saxony became extinct in 1825 in the person of Frederick, the last duke, the brother of Duke Augustus Emilius, a great patron of the arts and sciences, deceased 1822. Gotha, consequently, lapsed to Coburg, Altenburg to Hildburghausen, and Hildburghausen to Meiningen. In Wurtemberg, the dissatisfaction produced by the ancient despotism of the government was also to be speedily appeased by the grant of a constitutional charter. The king, Frederick, convoked the Estates, to whom he, on the 15th of March, 1815, solemnly delivered the newly enacted constitution. But here, as elsewhere, was the government inclined to grant a mere illusory boon. The Estates rejected the constitution, without reference to its contents, simply owing to the formal reason of its being bestowed by the prince and being consequently binding on one side alone, instead of being a stipulation between the prince and the people, and moreover because the ancient constitution of Wurtemberg, which had been abrogated by force and in direct opposition to the will of the Estates, was still in legal force. The old Wurtemberg party alone could naturally take their footing upon their ancient rights, but the new Wurtemberg party, the mediatized princes of the empire, the counts and barons of the empire, and the imperial free towns, nay, even the Agnati of the reigning house,[1] all of whom had suffered more or less under Napoleon's iron rule, ranged themselves on their side. The deputy, Zahn of Calw, drew a masterly picture of the state of affairs at that period, in which he pitilessly disclosed every reigning abuse. The king, thus vigorously and unanimously opposed, was constrained to yield, and the most prolix negotiations, in which the citizen deputies, headed by the advocate, Weisshaar, were supported by the nobility against the government, commenced.