To be, not to seem, is still the fairest feature in the character of my--I had almost said nation--of my quiet, thrifty, contented, diligent, honest countrymen. The German, at first glance, appears rarely what he is, and strikes the stranger as awkward and heavy. Yet, behind this plain quiet outside, there often dwells a cultivated mind, reflection, and deep feeling of duty, honour, diligence, and domestic virtue. In our father-land, honesty is universally at home; and during the night, you are safer on the highways and in the forests, than in the streets of Paris or London. "When in foreign countries," says an old author, "I fall in with a man too helpless for a Frenchman, too ceremonious for an Englishman, too pliable for a Spaniard, too lively for a Dutchman, too cordial for an Italian, too modest for a Russian--a man pressing towards me with oblique bows, and doing homage with ineffable self-denial to all that seems of rank; then my heart, and the blood in my face, says, 'that is thy countryman.'" How true! and how often have I lighted on such countrymen. North Germany commences as soon as you leave behind you Nurenberg and Cassel. Cassel, in comparison with Hamburg resembles an Italian town. The Thuringian Forest separates north and south. The north is a coast-land, commerce its destination; the south inland: hence agriculture and industry are more suitable. The spirit of the South German is more directed to what is domestic: a fruitful soil rewards his labour, and alleviates it by the juice of the grape. The mouths of his rivers and his harbours allure the North German into foreign lands; his father-land is there, where he finds what he seeks, and what his own country has denied him. The South German must hence be more self-dependent, for he has a father-land at home full of blessing and beauty;--the North German has to seek one elsewhere; and this makes him more pliant, more polished, more active; but also more ostentatious, less to be confided in, more adventurous. This distinction is primeval. The North Germans mingled themselves with the Britons, Gauls, Italians, and Slavonians; the Alemanni and Bavarians remained in their native country.