for the seizure of these sheets, at the moment they should be ready for issue: but Wieland, the editor of the opposition paper, had already received proof-sheets of the article, and caused it to appear at the same time in the People's Friend, which he edited, with still more biting remarks; since Luden, in the Nemesis, had expressed some doubts whether Kotzebue were really the author of these malicious calumnies. A long legal process took place between Kotzebue and the learned editors, and proceedings were laid before the Spruch Collegium--College of Arbitration of the University of Leipsic. These gentlemen were declared by this tribunal, guilty of a literary robbery upon Kotzebue, since the bulletin was not intended or delivered out by him for publication; but after the death of Kotzebue in the following year, they were declared free from all penalty by the High Court of Appeal in Weimar.
The fact, however, which finally and at once sealed the determination of Sand, was the appearance of the work of Stourdze, and Kotzebue's standing forth as his defender. Stourdze, a Russian, published a most odious and miserable volume, in which he lauded absolute monarchy, railed against freedom of the press, misrepresented the spirit of the German High Schools in the most abominable terms, and at the same time advised that they should be stripped of all their rights and privileges, and laid under the strictest discipline. The author was formally accused by the Burschenschaft of Jena for his calumnies, to the Grand Duke of Weimar, who laid the case before the Bundestag. Stourdze defended himself in the public papers; two youths, not students, but belonging to the Burschenschaft, afterwards challenged him to single combat, whom, however, he answered only with words in the newspapers.
Sand now brooded a whole half-year in irresolution over this thought--whether he should devote himself as the instrument for taking out of the way this, in his eyes, so dangerous an enemy of the weal of the German people. "The determination," said he, "must first progress in myself to a greater maturity, since I have partly to contend in myself with the natural shrinking from the performance of such a deed, and partly with the oft recurring thought that I am worthy of and qualified for something better, by the character of my mind, and my already acquired accomplishments. I have also waited for a third, since I had as good a right to wait for a third, as he to wait for me. But as I found no one, this was likewise a ground of determination for myself. Oft have I thought--'thou canst quietly live on, if but a third person undertake the deed.' This waiting was thus properly only a wish that another might step before me; for the rest, however, I knew no such third."
Sand often prayed to God that this requisition might be allowed to pass from him, and that he might be left to pursue his ordinary duties. But in this inward warfare, the inner voice perpetually returned, saying--"Thou hast promised so much, and hast yet done nothing." The projected work stood thenceforth so vividly before his eyes, that his imagination enabled him to sketch out a drawing of the murder-scene beforehand, which was found amongst some indifferent pen-and-ink outlines amongst his papers in Jena. Still he continued to waver, till the newspapers brought a report, that Kotzebue intended to return to Russia; and then stood forth Sand's resolution to murder the traitor, let it turn out as it would, and though he should himself lead the way to death for him. Besides this it was part of his plan to make a confession, to bring the Death-Blow to the knowledge of the people. His original plan was, after the accomplishment of the deed, to betake himself to his weapons, and to make his escape if possible, so that provided he effected his own retreat, self-destruction formed no part of the scheme. While he brooded over his enterprise, he prepared the instruments of his design. He made choice, to that end, of a smaller and a greater dagger. The latter he called the small sword, and had it made in Jena after a model in wax, prepared by his own hand, and from his own drawing. For the carrying of these weapons he made a hole in the breast of his waistcoat, in which on account of its weight, this dagger hung; but for the lesser one he had a small hook sewed into the left-arm sleeve of his coat, which by a small eye secured the sheath there. Before setting out on his expedition of death, he completed his Death-Blow, or Confession, prepared the fair copy, which after the accomplishment of the act, he purposed to stick up in some public place; then the original of the same, as he called it, and numerous transcripts of the same. This Death-Blow was a document on which Sand long laboured, and for the promulgation of which, after the deed, he had taken measures. It was designed to be a call to the people to rise and assert their liberty. As this composition not only places in the clearest light the then overstrained state of Sand's mind, but also gives us glimpses of many ideas of the Burschenschaft at that period, which the government were afterwards obliged to hold in check, it shall here find a place.
DEATH-BLOW TO AUGUST VON KOTZEBUE!
"ONLY IN VIRTUE, UNITY."
"Our days demand a decision for the law which God has written in flaming characters in the hearts of his men. Prepare yourselves! decide for life and for death!
"Open nightly profligacy is not the corruption which rages in our blood, but vice devours around him only the more hideously under the mantle of an accustomed pious politeness: falsehood masks itself under a thousand assumed holy forms; and the condition of the people should be the blossom of so many sacrifices, and is the state of the old miserable laxity.
"Half-accomplished fools, and the stunted overwise, for ever deride the truth, which unadorned and simple, throws itself on the human mind, and they cripple and distort her use in life. The moral strength of the Germans is split on the Babel of foreign affectation, and keeps itself no longer in the house-life. The will is wanting in us for the deed. The Fatherland fails the youth. Courtiers and money-service rule, instead of that honour-firm integrity which has resigned itself to the influence of time, and is become mouldy in it.
"The virtue of the burger class bends itself servilely at the nod of the great, and rushes, with already gripped clutch, at the gold-bag. The idleness of servants devours our bones; courage and hero-mind display themselves alone in paper panoply amongst the whole people in empty vapouring; and since they glow not as pure flames in every heart, we find them not even in ourselves.
"Deep based on equally vile sentiments in the people, stands the most sensual government; and unrestrained arbitrary power needs no other protection than these;--the separation fraternal hearts by the means of jealously-guarded frontiers, of the leading-strings of strict and public surveillance; of cradle-songs, and the sermons of sloth; and it rests itself as upon very sufficient props, on the wages and the oaths of police and soldiers. Many amongst the great German people may stand far before me; but I also hate nothing more than the cowardice and effeminacy of this day. I must give an example of this. I must proclaim myself against this laxity; and I know nothing nobler to achieve than to strike down the arch-slave, and great advocate of this mercenary time, the corrupter and betrayer of my people--August von Kotzebue!
"Thou, my German People, exalt thyself, to a higher moral worth of manhood; of the free spirit of man, and his creative strength! My German People! thou hast no realler nor nobler possession; it is thy highest good. Honour, guard this faith--this thy love to God. Let thy sanctuary no more be trodden under foot.
"Man, be he born in the most miserable and abject condition, is created to become an image of God. Rely on the promised Christian freedom. Honour and trust only the free man. Detest the traitors, the slaves in soul, the false teachers, who will not have this. Hate the dastardly poets of half-measures, the preachers of cowardice, the hirelings who hold thee back from every bold enterprise. Detest and murder all those who lift themselves so high in their villanous and despotic fancies that they forget the godlike in thee, and hold and drive thee, the mad multitude, in their high-wise hands, as a complex wheel.
"Free conscience! free speech! Man shall solace himself at his own free pleasure in the divine light, of which the fountain is in him. He shall strive after the highest discoveries, and shall be able, unburdened by those of others, to prove and build up his own convictions. But man also shall verify these opinions; he shall live and act; he shall exercise his divine creative power--his will, and shall make it availing. It is for this that we have received the whole might of will--not that we may suffer others to decide what they please concerning