J.-.Occidental,, CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOZESSAYS: COLLECTED AND REPUBLISHED BY THOMAS CARLYLE. IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. I. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY BROWN AND TAGGARD. 25 AND 29 CORNHILL. M DCCC LX. RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. CONTENTS OF VOLUME I PAGE JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER......... 5 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE......... 30 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER....... 92 GOETHE'S HELENA........ 152 GOETHE.-........... 2(, BuNS............... 65? LIFE OF HEYNE............. 327 GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS....... 363 APPENDIX. I. PREFACE, AND INTRODUCTIONS, TO THE BOOK CALLED " GERMAN ROMANCE." Preface to German Romance.......... 405 Musius.......... 409 Fouqu............ 416 Ludwig Tieck............... 422 Hoffminann.430 Richter.......443 Goethe....... 453 II. FRACTIONS. Tragedy of the Night-Moth............469 Cui Bono.............471 Four Fables............. 471 The Sower's Song........... 473 Adieu..474 The Beetle................. 475 To-day........476 Fortuna....... 476 MISCELLANIES. JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.1 [1827.] DR. JOHNSON, it is said, when he first heard of Boswell's intention to write a life of him, announced, with decision enough, that, if he thought Boswell really meant to write his life, he would prevent it by taking Boswell's! That great authors should actually employ this preventive against bad biographers is a thing we would by no means recommend: but the truth is, that, rich as we are in Biography, a wellwritten Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one; and there are certainly many more men whose history deserves to be recorded, than persons willing and able to record it. But great men, like the old Egyptian kings, must all be tried after death, before they can be embalmed: and what, in truth:, are these' Sketches,''Anas,''Conversations,''Voices,' and the like, but the votes and pleadings of so many ill-informed advocates, jurors, and judges; from whose conflict, however, we shall in the end have a true verdict? The worst of it is at the first; for weak eyes are precisely the fondest of glittering objects. Accordingly, no sooner does a great man depart, and leave his character as public property, than a crowd of 1 EDINBURGH REVIEW, NO. 91. -Jean Paul Friedrich Richter's Leben, nebst Characteristik seiner Werke; von Fleinrich Diring. (Jean Paul Friedrich Richter's Life, with a Sketch of his Works; by Heinrich DMring.) Gotha; IHennings, 1826. 12mo, pp. 208. 6 MISCELLANIES. little men rushes towards it. There they are gathered together, blinking up to it with such vision as they have, scanning it from afar, hovering round it this way and that, each cunningly endeavouring, by all arts, to catch some reflex of it in the little mirror of Himself; though, many times, this mirror is so twisted with convexities and concavities, and, indeed, so extremely small in size, that to expect any true image, or any image whatever from it, is out of the question. Richter was much better-natured than Johnson; and took many provoking things with the spirit of a humorist and philosopher; nor can we think that so good a man, had he even foreseen this Work of D6ring's, would have gone the length of assassinating him for it. Dbring is a person we have known for several years, as a compiler, and translator, and ballad-monger; whose grand enterprise, however, is his Gallery of Weimar Authors; a series of strange little Biographies, beginning with Schiller, and already extending over Wieland and Herder; — now comprehending, probably by conquest, Klopstock also; and lastly, by a sort of droit d'aubaine, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter; neither of whom belonged to Weimar. Authors, it must be admitted, are happier than the old painter with his cocks: for they write, naturally and without fear of ridicule, the name of their work on the title-page; and thenceforth the purport and tendency of each volume remains indisputable. Ddring is sometimes lucky in this privilege; otherwise his manner of composition, being so peculiar, might occasion difficulty now and then. Biographies, according to Dbring's method, are a simple business. You first ascertain, from the Leipsic Conversationslexicon, or Jirdens's Poetical Lexicon, or Fl6gel, or Koch, or other such Compendium or Handbook, the date and place of the proposed individual's birth, his parentage, trade, appointments, and the titles of his works; the date of his death you already know from the newspapers: this serves as a foundation foi the edifice. You then go through his writings, and all othei writings where he or his pursuits are treated of, and wher JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 7 ever you find a passage with his name in it, you cut it out,:and carry it away. In this manner a mass of materials is collected, and the building now proceeds apace. Stone is laid on the top of stone, just as it comes to hand; a trowel.or two of biographic mortar, if perfectly convenient, being spread in here and there, by way of cement; and so the strangest pile suddenly arises; amorphous, pointing every way but to the zenith, here a block of granite, there a mass of pipe-clay; till the whole finishes, when the materials are finished; — and you leave it standing to posterity, like some miniature Stonehenge, a perfect architectural enigma. To speak without figure, this mode of life-writing has its disadvantages. For one thing, the composition cannot well be what the critics call harmonious: and, indeed, Herr DIring's transitions are often abrupt enough. The hero changes his object and occupation from page to page, often from sentence to sentence, in the most unaccountable way; a pleasure-journey, and a sickness of fifteen years, are despatched with equal brevity; in a moment you find him, married, and the father of three fine children. He dies no less suddenly; — he is studying as usual, writing poetry, receiving visits, full of life and business, when instantly some paragraph -opens under him, like one of the trap-doors in the Vision of AMiirza, and he drops, without note of preparation, into the shades below. Perhaps, indeed, not forever; we have in-.stances of his rising after the funeral, and winding up his affairs.. The time has been that, when the brains were out,.the man would die; but D!ring orders these things differently. After all, however, we have no pique against poor Ddring: on the contrary, we regularly purchase his ware; and it gives us true pleasure to see his spirits- so much improved since we first met him. In the Life of Schiller his state did seem rather unprosperous: he wore a timorous, submissive, and -downcast aspect, as if, like Sterne's' Ass, he were saying "Don't thrash me; -but if you will, you may!" Now,. 8 MISCELLANIES. however, comforted by considerable sale, and praise from this and the other Litteraturblatt, which has commended his diligence, his fidelity, and, strange to say, his method, he advances with erect countenance and firm hoof, and even recalcitrates contemptuously against such as do him offence. Glhick auf dem Weg! is the worst we wish him. Of his Life of Richter, these preliminary observations may be our excuse fobr saying but little. He brags much, in his Preface, that it is all true and genuine; for Richter's widow, it seems, had, by public advertisement, cautioned the world against it; another biography, partly by the illustrious deceased himself, partly by Otto, his oldest friend and the appointed Editor of his Works, being actually in preparation. This rouses the indignant spirit of Diring, and he stoutly asseverates, that, his documents being altogether authentic, this biography is no pseudo-biography. With still greater truth he might have asseverated that it was no biography at all. Well are he and Hennings of Gotha aware that this thing of shreds and patches has been vamped together for sale only. Except a few letters to Kunz, the Bamberg Bookseller, which turn mainly on the purchase of spectacles, and the journeyings and freightage of two boxes that used to pass and repass between Richter and Kunz's circulating library; with three or four notes of similar importance, And chiefly to other booksellers, there are no biographical documents here, which were not open to all Europe as well as to Heinrich Ddring. Indeed, very nearly one half of the Life is occupied with a description of the funeral and its appendages, - how the'sixty torches, with a number of lanterns and pitchpans,' were arranged; how this Patrician or Professor followed that, through Friedrich-street, Chancery-. street, and other streets of Bayreuth; and how at last the torches all went out, as Dr. Gabler and Dr. Spatzier were perorating (decidedly in bombast.) over the grave. Then, it seems, there were meetings held. in various parts of Germany, to solemnise the memory of Richter; among the rest, JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 9 one in the Museum of Frankfort-on-the-Maine; where a Doctor Borne speaks another long speech, if possible in still more decided bombast. Next come threnodies from all the four winds, mostly on very splay-footed metre. The whole of which is here snatched from the kind oblivion of the newspapers, and' lives in Settle's numbers one day more.' We have too much reverence for the name of Richter to think of laughing over these unhappy khrenodists and panegyrists; some of whom far exceed anythingwe nglish can exhibit in the epicedial style. They rather testify, however maladroitly, that the Germans have felt their loss, - which, indeed, is one to Europe at large; they even affect us with a certain melancholy feeling, when we consider how a heavenly voice must become mute, and nothing be heard in its stead but the whoop of quite earthly voices, lamenting, or pretending to lament.. Far from us be all remembrance of D)ring and Company, while we speak of Richter! But his own Works give us some glimpses into his singular and noble nature; and to our readers a few words on this man, certainly one of the most remarkable of his age, will not seem thrown away. Except by name, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter is little known out of Germany. The only thing connected with him, we think,'that has reached this country, is his saying, imported by Madame de Stael, and thankfully pocketed by most newspaper critics:-' Providence has given to the'French the empire of the land, to the English that of the''sea, to the Germans that of- the air!' Of this last element, indeed, his own genius might easily seem to have been a denizen; so fantastic, many-coloured, far-grasping,:everyway perplexed and extraordinary is his mode of writing. To translate him properly is next to impossible; nay, a dictionary of his works has actually been in part published for the use of German readers! These things have restricted his sphere of action, and may long restrict it, to his own 10 MISCELLANIES. _country: but there, in return, he is a favourite of the first ~.class; studied through all his intricacies with trustful admiration, and a love which tolerates much. During the last forty years, he has been continually before the public, in various -capacities, and growing generally in esteem with all ranks of critics; till, at length, his gainsayers have either been silenced or convinced; and Jean Paul, at first reckoned halfmad, has long ago vindicated his singularities to nearly universal satisfaction, and now combines popularity with real depth of endowment, in perhaps a greater degree than any other writer; being second in the latter point to scarcely more than one of his contemporaries, and in the former second to none.,The biography of so distinguished a person could scarcely fail to be interesting, especially his autobiography; which, accordingly, we wait for, and may in time submit to our readers, if it seem worthy: meanwhile, the history of his life, so far as outward events characterise it) may be stated in a few words.t He was born at Wunsiedel in Bayreuth, in MiBarch 1763. His father was a subaltern teacher in the Gymnasium of the place, and was afterwards promoted to be clergyman at Schwarzbach on the Saale. Richter's early education was of the scantiest sort; but his fine faculties and unwearied diligence supplied every defect. Unable to purchase books, he borrowed what he could come at, and transcribed from them, often great part of their contents,a habit of excerpting which continued with him through life, and influenced, in more than one way, his mode of writing and study. To the last, he was an insatiable and universal reader: so that his extracts accumulated on his hands,' till they filled whole chests.' In 1780, he went to the University of Leipsic; with the highest character, in- spite of the impediments which he had struggled with, for talent and acquirement. Like his father, he was destined for Theology; from which, however, his vagrant genius soon diverged into Poetry and Philosophy, to the neglect, and, ere long, to the JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 11 final abandonment of his appointed profession. Not well knowing what to do, he now accepted a tutorship in some family of rank; then he had pupils in his own house, — which, however, like his way of life, he often changed; for by this time he had become an author, and, in his wanderings over Germany, was putting forth, now here, now there, the strangest books, with the strangest titles. For instance, - Greenland Lawsuits; - Biographical Recreations under the iCranium of a Giantess;- Selection from the Papers of the.Devil; - and the like! In these indescribable performances, the splendid faculties of the writer, luxuriating as they seem in utter riot, could not be disputed; nor, with all its extravagance, the fundamental strength, honesty and tenderness of his nature. Genius will reconcile men to much. By degrees, Jean Paul began to be considered not a strange crack-brained mixture of enthusiast and buffoon, but a man of infinite humour, sensibility, force and penetration. His writings pro — cured him friends and fame; and at length a wife and a settled provision. With Caroline Mayer, his good spouse, and a pension (in 1802) from the King of Bavaria, he settled in Bayreuth, the capital of his native province; where he lived thenceforth, diligent and celebrated in many new departments of Literature; and died on the 14th of November 1825, loved as well as admired by all his countrymen, and most by those who had known him most intimately. A huge, irregular man, both in mind and person (for his Portrait is quite a physiognomical study), full of fire, strength and impetuosity, Richter seems, at the same time, to have been, in the highest degree, mild, simple-hearted, humane. He was fond of conversation, and might well shine in it: he talked, as he wrote, in a style of his own, full of wild strength and charms, to which his natural Bayreuth accent often gave additional effect. Yet he loved retirement, the country and all natural things; from his youth upwards, he himself tells us, he may almost be said to have lived in the open air; it was among groves and meadows that he studied, - often that 12 MISCELLANIES. he wrote. Even in the streets of Bayreuth, we have heard, he was seldom seen without a flower in his breast. A man of quiet tastes, and warm compassionate affections! His friends he must have loved as few do. Of his poor and humble mother he often speaks by allusion, and never without reverence and overflowing tenderness.' Unhappy is the man,' says he, [ for whom his own mother has not made all other mothers venerable!'2And elsewhere:'O thou who' hast still a father and a mother, thank God for it in the day'when thy soul is full of joyful tears, and needs a bosom'wherein to shed them!' We quote the following sentences from Dbring, almost the only memorable thing he has written in this Volume:'Richter's studying or sitting apartment offered, about this'time (1793), a true and beautiful emblem of his simple and'noble way of thought, which comprehended at once the high'and the low. Whilst lhis mother, who then lived with him,'busily pursued her household work, occupying herself about'rstove and dresser, Jean Paul was sitting in a corner of the'same room, at a simple writing-desk, with few or no books'about him, but merely with one or two drawers containing'excerpts and manuscripts. The jingle of the household'operations seemed not at all to disturb him, any more than'did the cooing of the pigeons, which fluttered to and'fro in the chamber, — a place, indeed, of considerable'size.' 1 Our venerable Hooker, we remember, also enjoyed'the jingle of household operations,' and the more questionable jingle of shrewd tongues to boot, while he wrote; but the good thrifty mother, and the cooing pigeons, were wanting. Richter came afterwards to live in finer mansions, and had the great and learned fbri associates; but the gentle feelings of those days abode with him: through life he was the same substantial, determinate, yet meek and tolerating man. It is seldom that so much rugged energy can be so blandly at1 Page 8. JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 13 tempered; that so much vehemence and so much softness will go together. The expected Edition of Richter's Works is to be in sixty volumes; and they are no less multifarious than extensive; embracing subjects of all sorts, from the highest problems of Transcendental Philosophy, and the most passionate poetical delineations, to Golden Rules for the Weather-Prophet, and instructions in the Art of Falling Asleep. His chief productions are Novels: the Unsichtbare Loge (Invisible Lodge); Flegeljahre (Wild-Oats); Life of Fixlein; the Jubelsenior (Parson in Jubilee); Schmelzle's Journey to Fldtz; Katzenberger's Journey to the Bath; Life of Fibel; with many lighter pieces; and two works of a higher order, Hesperus and Titan, the largest and the best of his Novels. It was the former that first (in 1795) introduced him into decisive and universal estimation with his countrymen: the latter he himself, with the most judicious of his critics, regarded as his master-piece. But the name Novelist, as we in England must understand it, would ill describe so vast and discursive a genius: for, with all his grotesque, tumultuous pleasantry, Richter is a man of a truly earnest, nay high and solemn character; and seldom writes without a meaning far beyond the sphere of common romancers. Hesperus and Titan themselves, though in form nothing more than'novels of real life,' as the Minerva Press would say, have solid metal enough in them to furnish whole circulating libraries, were it beaten into the usual filigree; and much which, attenuate it as we might, no quarterly subscriber could well carry with him. Amusement is often, in part almost always, a mean with Richter; rarely or never his highest end. *His-thoughts, his feelings, the creations of his spirit, walk before us embodied under wondrous shapes, in motley and ever-fluctuating groups; but his essential character, however he disguise it, is that of a Philosopher and moral Poet, whose study has been human nature, whose delight and best endeavour are with all that is beautiful, and tender, and mysteriously sub 14 MISCELLANIES. lime, in the fate or history of man. This is the purport of his writings, whether their form be that of fiction or of truth; the spirit that pervades and ennobles his delineations of common life, his wild wayward dreams, allegories, and: shadowy imaginings, no less than his disquisitions of a nature directly scientific. But in this latter province also Richter has accomplished much. His Vorschule der Aesthetik (Introduction to.Esthetics 1) is a work on Poetic Art, based on principles of no ordinary depth and compass, abounding in noble views, and, notwithstanding its frolicsome exuberance, in sound and subtle criticism-; esteemed even in Germany, where criticism has long been treated of as a science, and by such persons as Winkelmann, Kant, Herder, and the Schlegels. Of this work we could speak long, did our limits allow. We fear it might astonish many an honest brother of our craft, were he to read it; and altogether perplex and dash his maturest counsels, if he chanced to understand it. - Richter has also written on Education, a work entitled Levana; distinguished by keen practical sagacity, as well as generous sentiment, and a certain sober magnificence of speculation; the whole presented in that singular style which characterises the man. Germany is rich in works on Education; richer at present than any other country: it is there only that some echo of the Lockes and Miltons, speaking of this high matter, may still be heard; and speaking of it in the language of our own time, with insight into the actual wants, advantages, perils and prospects of this age. Among the writers on this subject Richter holds a high place; if we look chiefly at his tendency and aims, perhaps the highest. - The Clavis Fichtiana is a ludicrous performance, known to us only by report; but Richter is said to possess the merit, while he laughs at 1 From atai9zvolzat; to feel. A word invented by Baumgarten (some eighty years ago), to express generally the Science of' the Fine Arts; and now in universal use among the Germans. Perhaps we also might as well adopt it; at least if any such science should ever arise among us. JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 15 Fichte, of understanding him; a merit among Fichte's critics which seems to be one of the rarest. Report also, we regret to say, is all that we know of the Campaner Thal, a: Discourse on the Immortality of the Soul; one of Richter's beloved topics, or rather the life of his whole philosophy, glimpses of which look forth on us from almost every one of.his writings. He died while engaged, under recent and almost total blindness, in enlarging and remodelling this Campaner Thal; the unfinished manuscript was borne upon his coffin to the burial vault: and Klopstock's hymn,' Auferstehen wirst du, Thou shalt arise, my soul,' can seldom: have been sung with more appropriate application than over the grave of Jean Paul. We defy the most careless or prejudiced reader to peruse these works without an impression of something splendid, wonderful and daring. But they require to be studied as well as read, and this with no ordinary patience, if the reader, especially the foreign reader, wishes to comprehend, rightly either their truth or their want of truth. Tried by many an accepted standard, Richter would be speedily enough disposed of; pronounced a mystic, a German dreamer, a rash and presumptuous innovator; and so consigned, with equanimity, perhaps with a certain jubilee, to the Lim-: bo appointed for all such windbags and deceptions. Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly: quarrel with; as if, observes our Author himself, any origi-n nality but our own could be expected to content us! In fact, all strange- things are apt, without fault of theirs, to estrange. us at first view; unhappily scarcely anything is perfectly plain, but what is also perfectly common.. The current coin of the realm passes into all hands; and be it gold, silver, or copper, is acceptable and of known value: but with new in-: gots, with foreign bars, and medals of Corinthian brass, the case is widely different. There. are few writers with whom deliberation and careful, 16 MISCELLANIES. distrust of first impressions are more necessary than with Richter. He is a.phenomenon from the very surface; he presents himself with a professed and determined singularity: his language itself is a stone of stunluilng to the critic; to critics of the grammarian species, an unpardoaable, often an insuperable, rock of offence. Not that he is ignorant'of grammar, or disdains the sciences of spelling and parsing; but he exercises both in a certain latitudinarian spirit; deals with astonishing liberality in parenteses, dashes, and subsidiary clauses; invents hundreds of new words, alters old ones, or, by hyphen, chains and pairs and packs them -together into most jarring combination; in short, produces sentences of the most heterogeneous, lumbering, interminable kind.'xFigures..without limit; indeed, the whole is one tissue of metaphors, and similes, and allusions to all the provinces of Earth, Sea and Air; interlaced with epigrammatic breaks, vehement bursts, or sardonic turns, interjections, quips, puns, and even oaths! A perfect Indian jungle it seems; a boundless, unparalleled imbroglio; nothing on all sides but darkness, dissonance, confusion worse confounded! Then the style of the whole corresponds, in perplexity and extravagance, with that of the parts. Every work, be it fiction or serious treatise, is embaled in some fantastic wrappage, some. mad narrative accounting for its appearance, and connecting it with the author, who generally becomes.a person in the drama himself, before all is over. He has a whole imaginary geography of Europe in his novels; the cities of Flachsenfingen, Haarhaar, Scheerau, and so forth, with their princes, and privy-councillors, and serene highnesses;. most of whom, odd enough fellows everyway, are Richter's private acquaintances, talk with him of state matters (in the purest Tory dialect), and often incite him to get on with his writing., No story proceeds without the most erratic digressions, and voluminous tagrags rolling after it in many a snaky twine. Ever and anon there occurs some'Extra-leaf,' with its satirical petition, program, or other wonderful intercalation, JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. -17 no mortal can foresee on what. It is, indeed, a mighty maze; and often the panting reader toils after him in vain; or, baffled and spent, indignantly stops- short, and retires, perhaps forever. All this, we must admit, is true of Richter; but much more is true Also. Let us not turn from him after the first cursory glance, and imagine we have settled his account by the words Rhapsody and Affectation. They are cheap words, and of sovereign potency; we should see, thereforej that they be not rashly applie'd. Many things in Richter accord ill with such a theory. There are rays of the keenest truth, nay steady pillars of scientific light rising through this chaos: Is it in fact a chaos; or may it be that our -eyes are of finite, not of infinite -vision, and have only missed the plan? Few'rhapsodists' are men of science, of solid learning, of rigorous study, and accurate, ektensive, nay universal knowledge; as he is. With regard to affectation also, there is much to be said. The essence of affectation' is that it be assumed: the character is, as it were, forcibly crushed' into some foreign mould, in the hope of being thereby reshaped. and beautified; the unhappy man persuades himself that he has in truth become a new creature, of the wonderfullest symmetry; and so he moves about with a conscious airs though every movement betrays. not symmetry but dislocation. This it is to be affected, to walk in a vain show. But the strangeness alone is no proof of the vanity. Many men that move smoothly in the old-established railways of custom will be found to have their affectation; and perhaps here and there some divergent genius be accused of it unjustly. The show, though common, may not cease to be vain; nor become so for being uncommon. Before we censure a man for seeming what he is not, we should be sure that we know what he is. As to Richter in particular, we cannot but' observe, that, strange and tumultuous as he is, there is a certain benign composure visible in his writings; a mercy, a gladness, a reverence, united in such harmony as VOL. I. 2 18 MISCELLANIES. bespeaks not a false, but a genuine state of mind; not a feverish and morbid, but a healthy and robust state. The secret of the matter is, that Richter requires more study than most readers care to give him. As we approach more closely, many things grow clearer. In the man's own sphere there is consistency; the farther we advance into it, we see confusion more and more unfold itself into order, till at last, viewed from its proper centre, his intellectual universe, no longer a distorted incoherent series of airlandscapes, coalesces into compact expansion; a vast, magnificent, and variegated scene; full ofy wondrous products; rude, it may be, and irregular; but gorgeous, benignant, great; gay with the richest verdure and foliage, glittering in the brightest and kindest sun. Richter has been called an intellectual Colossus; and in truth it is somewhat in this light that we view him. His facul.ties are all of gigantic mould; cumbrous, awkward in their movements; large and splendid, rather than harmonious or beautiful; yet joined in living union; and of force and compass altogether extraordinary. He has an intellect vehement, rugged, irresistible; crushing in pieces the hardest problems; piercing into the most hidden combinations of things, and grasping the most distant: an imagination vague, sombre, splendid, or appalling; brooding over the abysses of Being; wandering through Infinitude, and summoning before us, in its dim religious light, shapes of brilliancy, solemnity, or terror: a. fancy of exuberance literally unexampled; for it pours its treasures with a lavishness which knows no limit, hanging, like the sun, a jewel on every grass-blade, and sowing the earth at large with orient pearl. But deeper than all these lies Humour, the, ruling quality with Richter; as: it were the central fire that pervades and vivifies his whole being. He is a humorist from his inmost soul; he thinks as a humorist, he feels, imagines, acts as a humorist: Sport is the element in which his nature lives and works. A tumultuous element for such a nature, JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 19 and wild work he makes in it! A Titan in his sport as in. his earnestness, he oversteps all bound, and riots without' l!a/w,: or measure. He heaps Pelion upon Ossa, and hurls the uii. verse together and asunder like a case of playthings. The Mloon'bombards' the -Earth, being a rebellious satellite:;Mars'preaches' to the other planets, very singular doctrinie nay, we have Time and Space themselves playing fantastic tricks: it is an infinite masquerade; all Nature is gone forth:-:mumming in the strangest guises. Yet the anarchy is not without its purpose: these vizards are not mere hollow masks; there are living faces under them, and this mumming has its significance. Richter is a man of mirth; but he seldom or never condescends to be a 4merrandrew. Nay, in spite of its extravagance, we should say that his humour is of all his gifts intrinsically the finest -and most genuine. It has such witching' turns; there is something in it so capricious, so quaint, so heartfelt. From his Cyclopean workshop, and its fuliginous'limbecs, and huge unwieldy machinery, the little shrivelled twisted Figure comes forth at last, so perfect and so living,-to be forever laughed at and forever loved!. Wayward as he seems, he works not without forethought:'like Rubens, by a single stroke, he can change a laughing face into a sad one. But in his smile itself a touching pathos may lie hidden, a pity too deep for tears. He is a man of feeling, in *the noblest sense of that word; for he loves all living with the heart of a brother,; his soul rushes forth, in sympathy with gladness and sorrow, with goodness or grandeur, over all Creation. Every gentle and generous affection, every thrill of mercy, every glow of. nobleness, awakens in his bosom a response; nay strikes his spirit into harmony; a wild music as of windharps, floating round us in fitful swells, but.soft sometimes, and pure and soul-entrancing, as the song of angels! Aversion itself with him is not hatred; he despises.much, but justly, with tolerance also, with placidity, and even a sort of love. Love, in fact; is the atmosphere he breathes in, the 20 MISCELLANIES. medium through which he looks. His is the spirit which gives life and beauty to whatever it embraces. Inanimate Nature itself is no longer an insensible assemblage of colours and perfumes, but a mysterious Presence, with which he communes in unutterable sympathies. We might call him, as he once called Herder,'a Priest of Nature, a mild Bramin,' wandering amid spicy groves, and under benignant skies. The infinite Night with her solemn aspects, Day, and the sweet approach of Even and Morn, are full of meaning for him. He loves the green Earth with her streams and forests, her flowery leas and eternal skies; loves her with a sort of passion, in all her vicissitudes of light and shade; his spirit revels in her grandeur and charms; expands like the breeze over wood and lawn, over glade and dingle, stealing and giving odours. It has sometimes been made a wonder that things so discordant should go together; that men of humour are often likewise men of sensibility. But the wonder should rather be to see them divided; to find true genial humour dwelling in a mind that was coarse or callous. The essence of humour is sensibility; warm, tender fellow-feeling with all forms of existence. Nay, we may say that unless seasoned and purified by humour, sensibility is apt to run wild; will readily corrupt into disease, falsehood, or, in one word, sentimentality. Witness Rousseau, Zimmerman, in some points also St.. Pierre: to say nothing of living instances; or of the Kotzebues, and other pale host of woe-begone mourners, whose wailings, like the howl of an Irish wake, have from time to time cleft the general ear.'The last perfection of our faculties,' says Schiller with a truth far deeper than it seems,' is that their activity, without ceasing to be sure aid earnest, become sport.''True humour is sensibility, in the most catholic and deepest sense; but it is this sport of: sensibility; wholesome and perfect therefore; as it were, the playful teazing fondness of a mother to her child. That faculty of irony, of caricature, which often passes by JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 21 the name of humour, but consists chiefly in a certain superficial distortion or reversal of objects, and ends at best in laughter, bears no resemblance to the humour of Richter. A shallow endowment this; and often more a habit than an endowment. It is but a poor fraction of humour; or rather, it is the body to which the soul is wanting; any life it has being false, artificial and irrational. iTrue humour springs not more from the head than from the hearti it is not contempt, its essence is love; it issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper. (It is a sort of inverse sublimity, exalting, as it'Were, into our affections what is below us, while sublimity draws down into our affectiQns what is above us. The former is scarcely less precious or heartaffecting than the latter; perhaps it is still rarer, and, as a test of genius,. still more decisive. It is, in fact, the bloodri and perfnle, the purest effluence of a deep, fine and loving natur,a nature in harmony with itself, reconciled to the world and its stintedness and contradiction, nay finding in this very contradiction new elements of beauty -as well as: goodness. Among our own writers, Shakspeare, in this as in all other provinces, must have his place: yet not the first; his humour is heartfelt, -exuberant, warm, but seldom the tenderest or most subtle. Swift inclines more to simple irony; yet he'had genuine humour' too, and of no unloving sort, though cased, like- Ben Jonson's, in a most bitter and caustic rind. Sterne follows next; our last specimen of humour, and, with all his faults, our best; our finest, if not our strongest; for Yorick and corporal Trim and Uncle Toby have yet no brother but in? Don Quixote, far as he lies above, them. Cervantes is indeed the purest of all humorists; so" gentle and genial; so full, yet so ethereal is his humour, and in such accordance with itself and his whole noble nature. The Italian. mind is said to abound in humour; yet their" classics seem to give us no right emblem of it: except perhaps in Ariosto, there appears.little in their current poetry' -that reaches the region of true humour. In France, since 22 MISCELLANIES. the days of Montaigne, it seems to be nearly extinct. Voltaire, much as he dealt in ridicule, never rises into humour; even with Moliere, it is far more an affair of the understanding than of the character. That, in this point, Richter excels all German authors, is saying much for him, and may be said truly. Lessing has humour,. - of a sharp, rigid, substantial, and, on the whole, genial sort; yet the ruling bias of his mind is to logic. So likewise has Wieland, though much diluted by the general loquacity of his nature, and impoverished still farther by the influences of a cold, meagre, French scepticism. Among the Ramlers, Gellerts, Hagedorns, of Frederick the Second's time, we find abundance, and delicate in kind too, of that light matter which the French call pleasantry; but little or nothing that deserves the name of humour. In the present age, however, there is Goethe, with a rich true vein; and this sublimated, as it were, to an essence, and blended in still union with his whole mind. Tieck also, among his many fine susceptibilities, is not without a warm keen sense for the ridiculous; and a humour rising, though by short fits, and from a much lower atmosphere, to be poetic. But of all these men, there is none that, in depth, copiousness and intensity of humour, can be compared with Jean Paul. He alone exists in humour; lives, moves and has his being in it. With him it is not so much united to his other qualities, of intellect, fancy, imagination, moral feeling, as these are united to it; or rather unite themselves to it, and grow under its warmth, as in their proper temperature and climate. Not as if we meant to assert that his humour is in all cases perfectly natural and pure; nay, that it is not often extravagant, untrue, or even absurd: but still, on the whole, the core and life of it are genuine, subtle, spiritual. Not without reason have his panegyrists named him' Jean Paul der Einzige, Jean Paul the Unique:' in one sense or the other, either as praise or censure, his critics also must adopt this. epithet; for surely, in the whole circle of Literature, we look JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 23 in vain for his parallel. Unite the sportfulness of Rabelais, and the best sensibility of Sterne, with the earnestness, and, even in slight portions, the sublimity of Milton;' and let the mosaic brain of old Burton give forth the workings of this strange union, with the pen of Jeremy Bentham! To say how, with so peculiar a natural endowment, Richter should have shaped his mind by culture, is much harder than to say that he has shaped it wrong. Of affectation we will neither altogether clear him, nor very loudly pronounce him guilty. That his manner of writing is singular, nay in fact, a wild complicated Arabesque, no one can deny. But the true question is, How nearly does this manner of writing represent his real manner of thinking and existing? With what degree of freedom does it allow this particular form of being to manifest itself; or what fetters and perversions does it lay on such manifestation? For the great law of culture is: et each become all that he was created capable of being;g expand, if possible, to' his full growth; resisting all impedi'ments, casting off all foreign, especially all noxious adhesions; and show himself at length inl his own shape and stature, be these what they may. There is no uniform of excellence, either in physical or spiritual Nature: all genuine things are what they. ought to be. The reindeer is good and beautiful, so likewise is the elephant. In Literature it is the same:' every man,' says Lessing,'has his own style, like his own nose.' True, there are noses of wonderful dimensions; but no nose can justly be amputated by the public, - not even the nose of Slawkenbergius himself; so it be a real nose, and no wooden one, put on for deception's sake and mere show! To speak in grave language, Lessing means, and we agree with him, that the outward style is to be judged of by' the inward qualities of the spirit which it is employed to body forth; that, without prejudice to critical propriety well understood, the former may vary into many shapes as the'latter varies; that, in short, the grand point for a writer is not to 24 MISCELLANIES. be of this or that external make and fashion, but, in every fashion, to be genuine, vigorous, alive, —alive with his whole being, consciously, and for beneficent results. Tried by this test, we imagine Richter's wild manner will be found less imperfect than many a very tame one. To the man it may not be- unsuitable. In that singular form, there is a fire, a splendour, a benign energy, which persuades us into tolerance, nay into love, of much that might otherwise offend. Above all, this- man, alloyed with imperfections as he may be, is consistent and coherent: he is at one with himself; he knows his aims, and pursues them in sincerity of heart, joyfully and with undivided will. A harmonious -development of being, the first and last object of all true culture, has been obtained; if not completely, at least more, completely than in one of a thousand ordinary men. Nor let us forget; that, in such a nature, it was not of easy attainment; that where much was to be developed, some imperfection should be forgiven. It is true, the beaten paths of Literature lead the safeliest to the goal; and the talent pleases us most, which submits. to shine with new gracefulness through old forms. Nor is the noblest and most, peculiar mind too noble or peculiar for working by prescribed laws: Sophocles, Shakspeare, Cervantes, and ia Richter's own age, Goethe, how little did they innovate on the given forms of composition, how much in the spirit they. breathed into them! All this is true; and Richter must loseQ of our esteem in proportion. Much, however, will remain;: and why should we quarrel with the high, because it is not. the highest? Richter's worst faults are nearly allied to his; best merits; being chiefly exuberance of good, irregular squandering of wealth, a dazzling with excess of true light. These things may be pardoned the more readily, as they are little;likely to be imitated. On the whole, Genius has privileges of its own; it selectsan orbit for itself; and be this never so eccentric, if it is indeed a celestial orbit, we mere star-gazers must at last com-: JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 25 pose ourselves; must cease to cavil at it, and begin to observe it, and calculate its laws. That Richter is a new Planet in the intellectual heavens, we dare not affirm; an atmospheric Meteor he is not wholly; perhaps a Comet, that, ihough with long aberrations, and shrouded in a nebulous veil, has yet its place in the empyrean. Of Richter's individual Works, of his opinions, his general philosophy of life, we have no room left us to speak. Regarding his Novels, we may say, that, except in some few instances, and those chiefly of the shorter class, they are not what, in strict language, we can term unities: with much callidajunctura of parts, it is rare that any of them leaves on us the impression of a perfect, homogeneous, indivisible whole. A true work of art requires to be fused in the mind of its creator, and, as it were, poured forth (from his imagination, though not from his pen) at one simultaneous gush. Richter's works do not always bear sufficient marks of having been infusion; yet neither are they merely riveted together; to say the least, they have been welded. A similar remark applies to many of his characters; indeed, more or less to all of them, except such as are entirely humorous, or have a large dash of humour. In this latter province he is at home; a true poet, a maker; his Siebenkis, his Schmelzle, even his Fibel and Fixlein are living figures. But in heroic personages, passionate, massive, overpowering as he is, we have scarcely ever a complete ideal; art has not attained to the concealment of itself. With his herQone:. again he is more successful;, they are often true heroines, though perhaps with too little variety of character; bustling, buxom mothers and housewives, with all the caprices, perversities, and warm, generous helpfulness of women; or white, halfangelic creatures, meek, still, long-suffering, high-minded, of tenderest affections, and hearts crushed yet uncomplaining. Supernatural figures he has not attempted; and wisely, for he cannot write without belief. Yet many times he exhibits 26 MISCELLANIES. an imagination of a singularity, nay on the whole, of a truth and grandeur, unexampled elsewhere. In his Dreams there is a mystic complexity, a gloom, and amid the dim gigantic half-ghastly shadows, gleamings of a wizard splendour, which almost recall to us the visions of Ezekiel. By readers who have studied the Dream in the New-year's Eve we shall not be mistaken. Richter's Philosophy, a matter of no ordinary interest, both as it agrees with the common philosophy of Germany and disagrees with it, must not be touched on for the present. One only observation we shall make: it is not mechanical, or sceptical; it springs not from the forum or the laboratory, but from the depths of the human spirit; and yields as its fairest product a noble system of Morality, and the firmest conviction of Religion. In this latter point we reckon him peculiarly worthy of study. To a careless reader he might seem the wildest of infidels; for nothing can exceed the freedom with which he bandies to and fro the dogmas of religion, nay, sometimes, the high obljects of Christian reverence. There are passages of this sort, which will occur to every reader of Richter; but which, not to fall into the error we have already blamed in Madame de Sta1l, we shall refrain from quoting. More light is in the following:'Or,' inquires he, in his usual abrupt way,'Or are all'your Mosques, Episcopal Churches, Pagodas, Chapels of'Ease, Tabernacles, and Pantheons, anything else but the'Ethnic Forecourt of the Invisible Temple and its Holy of'Holies?' Yet, independently of all dogmas, nay perhaps in spite of many, Richter is, in the highest sense of the word, religious. A reverence, not a self-interested fear, but a noble reverence for the spirit of all goodness, forms the crown and glory of his' culture. The fiery elements of his nature have been purified under holy influences, and chastened by a principle of mercy and humility'into peace and well-doing. An intense and continual faith in man's immor1 Note to Schmelzle's Journey. JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 27 tality and native grandeur accompanies him; from arhid the vortices of life, he looks up to a heavenly loadstar; the solution of what is visible and transient, he finds in what is invisible and eternal. He has doubted, he denies, yet he believes.'When, in your last hour,' says he,1'when, in'your last hour (think of this), all faculty in the broken'spirit shall fade away and die into inanity, - imaginatirr'' thought, effort, enjoyment, - then at last will the. night-' flower of Belief alone continue blooming, and refresh with: its perfumes in the last darkness.' To reconcile these seeming contradictions, to explain the grounds, the manner, the congruity of Richter's belief, cannot be attempted here. We recommend him to the study, the tolerance, and even the praise, of all men who have inquired into this highest of questions with a right spirit; inquired with the martyr fearlessness, but also with the martyr reverence, of men that love Truth, and will not accept a lie. A frank, fearless, honest, yet truly spiritual faith is of all things the rarest in our time. Of writings which, though with many reservations, we have praised so much, our hesitating readers may demand some specimen. To unbelievers, unhappily, we have none of a convincing sort to give. Ask us not to represent the Peruvian forests by three twigs plucked from them; or the cataracts of the Nile by a handful of its water! To those, meanwhile, who will look on twigs as mere dissevered twigs, and a handful of water as only so many drops, we present the following. It is a summer Sunday night; Jean Paul is taking leave of the Hukelum Parson and his wife; like him we have long laughed at them or wept for them; like him, also, we are sad to part from them:' We were all of us too deeply moved. We at last tore ourselves asunder from repeated embraces; my friend retired with the soul whom he loves. I remained alone behind with the Night.'And I walked without aim through woods, through valleys, and.' 1 Levana, p. 251. 28, MISCELLANIES. over brooks, and through sleeping villages, to enjoy the great Night, like a Day. I walked, and still looked, like the magnet, to the region of midnight, to strengthen my heart at the gleaming twilight, at this upstretching aurora of a morning beneath our feet. White night-butterflies flitted, white blossoms fluttered, white stars fell, and the white snow-powder hung silvery in the high Shadow of the, Earth, which reaches beyond the Moon, and which is our Night. Then began the 2olian Harp of the Creation to tremble and to sound, blown on from above; and my immortal Soul was a string in that Harp.-The heart of a brother, everlasting Man, swelled under the everlasting heaven, as the seas swell under the sun and under the moon.-The distant village clocks struck midnight, mingling, as it were, with the ever-pealing tone of ancient Eternity. - The limbs of my buried ones touched cold on my soul, and drove away its blots, as dead hands heal eruptions of the skin. - I walked silently through little hamlets, and close by their outer churchyards, where crumbled upcest coffin-boards were glimmering, while the once-bright eyes that had lain in them were mouldered into gray ashes. Cold thought! clutch not like a cold spectre at my heart: I look up to the starry sky, and an everlasting chain stretches thither, and over, and below; and all is Life, and Warmth, and Light, and all is Godlike or God....'Towards morning, I descried thy late lights, little city of my dwelling, which I belong to on this side the grave; I returned to the Earth; and in thy steeples, behind the by-advanced great midntght, it struck half-past two: about this hour, in 1794, Mars went down in the west, and the Moon rose in the east; and my soul desired, in grief for the noble warlike blood which is still streaming on the blossoms of Spring: "Ah, retire, bloody War, like red Mars; and thou, still Peace, come forth like the mild divided Moon."' 1 Such, seen through no uncoloured medium, but in dim remoteness, and sketched in hurried transitory outline, are some features of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter and his Works. Germany has long loved- him; to England also he must one day become known; for a man of this.magnitude belongs not to one people, but to the world. What our countrymen may decide of him, still more what may be his fortune with posterity, we will not try to foretell. Time has a strange contracting influence on many a wide-spread fame; yet of' Richter we will say, that he may survive much. 1 End of Quintus Fixlein. JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 2o There is in him that which does not die; that Beauty and Earnestness of soul, that spirit of Humanity, of Love and mild Wisdom, over which the vicissitudes of mode have no sway. This is that excellence of the inmost nature which alone confers immortality on writings; that charm which still, under every defacement, binds us to the pages of our own Hookers, and Taylors, and Brownes, when their way of thought has long ceased to be ours, and the most valued of their merely intellectual opinions have passed away, as ours too must do, with the circumstances and events in which they took their shape or rise. To men of a right mind, there may long be in Richter much that has attraction and value. In the moral desert of vulgar Literature, with its sandy wastes, and parched, bitter and too often poisonous shrubs, the Writings of this man will rise in their irregular luxuriance, like a cluster of date-trees, with its greensward and well of water, to refresh the pilgrim, in the sultry solitude, with nourishment and shade. &8S MISCELLANIES. STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE.1 [1827.] THESE two Books, notwithstanding their diversity of title, are properly parts of one and the same; the Outlines, though of prior date in regard to publication, having now assumed the character of sequel.and conclusion to the larger Work, - of fourth volume to. the other three. It is designed, of course, for the home market; yet the foreign student also will find in it a safe and valuable help, and, in spite of its imperfections, should receive it with thankfulness and goodwill. Doubtless we might have wished for a keener discriminative and descriptive talent, and perhaps for a somewhat more catholic spirit, in the writer of such a history; but in their absence we have still much to praise. Horn's literary creed would, on the whole, we believe, be acknowledged by his countrymen as the true one; and- this, though it is chiefly from one immovable station that he can survey his subject, he seems heartily anxious to apply with candour and tolerance. Another improvement might have been, a deeper principle of arrangement, a firmer grouping into periods and schools; for, as it stands, the work is more a 1 EDINBURGH REVIEW, No. 92.- 1. Die Poesie und Besredsamkeit der Deutschen, von Luthers Zeit bis zur Gegenwvart. Dar.qestellt von Franz Horn. (The Poetry and Oratory of the Germans, from Luther's Time to the Present. Exhibited by Franz Horn.) Berlin, 1822,'23,'24. 3 vols. 8vo 2. Umrisse zur Geschichte und Kritik der sch6nen Litteratur Deutschlands wShrend der Jahre 1790-1818. (Outlines for the History and Criticism of Polite Literature in Germany, during the Years 1790-1818.) By Franz Horn. Berlin, 1819. 8vo. STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 31 critical sketch of German Poets, than a history of German Poetry. Let us not quarrel,'however, with our author; his merits as a literary historian are plain, and by no means inconsiderable. Without rivalling the almost frightful laboriousness of Bouterwek or Eichhorn, he gives creditable proofs of research and general information, and possesses a lightness in composition, to which neither of these erudite persons can well pretend. Undoubtedly he has a flowing pen, and is at home in this province; not only a speaker of the word, indeed, but a doer of the work; having written, besides his great variety of tracts and treatises, biographical, philosophical and critical, several very deserving works of a poetic sort. He is. not, it must be owned, a very strong man, but, he is nimble and orderly, and goes through his work with a certain gaiety of heart; nay, at times, with a frolicsome alacrity, which might even require to be pardoned. His -character seems full of susceptibility; perhaps too much so for its natural vigour. His novels, accordingly, to judge.from the few we have read of them, verge towards the sentimental. In the present Work, in -like manner, he has adopted nearly all the best ideas of'his contemporaries, but with something of an undue vehemence; and he advocates the cause of religion, integrity and true poetic taste with great heartiness and vivacity, were it not that too often his zeal outruns his prudence and insight. Thus, for instance, he declares repeatedly, in so many words, that no mortal can be a poet unless he is a Christian. The meaning here is very good; but why this phraseology? Is it not inviting the simple-minded (not to speak of scoffers, whom Horn very justly sniffs at,) to ask, When Homer subscribed the Thirtynine Articles; or Whether Sadi and Hafiz were really of the Bishop of Peterborough's opinion? Again, he talks too often of' representing the Infinite in the Finite,' of expressing the unspeakable, and such high matters. In fact, Horn's style, though extremely readable, has one great fault: it is, 32 MISCELLANIES. to speak it in a single word, an affected style. His stream of meaning, uniformly clear and wholesome in itself, will not flow quietly along its channel; but is ever and anon spurting itself up into epigrams and antithetic jets. Playful he is, and kindly, and, we do believe, honest-hearted; but there is a certain snappishness in him, a frisking abruptness; and then his sport is more a perpetual giggle, than any dignified smile, or even any sufficient laugh with gravity succeeding it. This sentence is among the best we recollect of him, and will partly illustrate what we mean. We submit it, for the sake of its import likewise, to all superfine speculators on the Reformation, in their future contrasts of Luther and Erasmus.'Erasmus,' says Horn,'belongs to that species of'writers who have all the desire in the world to build God'Almighty a magnificent church, -at the same time, how-'ever, not giving the Devil any offence; to whom, accord-'ingly, they set up a neat little chapel close by, where you'can offer him some touch of sacrifice at a time, and practise'a quiet household devotion for him without disturbance.' In this style of'witty and conceited mirth,' considerable part of the book is written. But our chief business at present is not with Franz Horn, or his book; of whom, accordingly, recommending his labours to all inquisitive students of German, and himself to good estimation with all good men, we must here take leave. We have a word or two to say on that strange literature itself; concerning which our readers probably feel more curious to learn what it is, than with what skill it has been judged of. Above a century ago, the Pere Boubours propounded to himself the pregnant question: Si un Allemand peut avoir de l'esprit? Had the Pere Bouhours bethought him of what country Kepler and Leibnitz were, or who it was that gave to mankind the three great elements of modern civilization; Gunpowder, Printing, and the Protestant R4eligion, it might have thrown light on his inquiry. Had he known the Ni STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 3'3 belungen Lied; and where Reinecke Fuchs, and Faust, and the Ship of Fools, and four-fifths of all the popular mythology, humour and romance to be found in Europe in the six-.teenth and seventeeth centuries, took its rise; had he read a page or two of Ulrich Hutten, Opitz, Paul Flemming, Logau, or even Lohenstein and.Hoffmannswaldau, all of whom had already lived and written in his day; had the Pere Bouhours taken this trouble, — who knows but he might have found, with whatever amazement, that a German could actually have a little esprit, or perhaps even something better? No such trouble was requisite for the Pere Bouhours. Motion in vacuo is well known to be speedier and surer than through a resisting medium, especially to imponderous bodies; and so the light Jesuit, unimpeded by facts or principles of any kind, failed not to -reach his conclusion; and, in a comfortable frame of mind, to decide, negatively, that a German could not have any literary talent. Thus did the Pere Bouhours evince that he had a pleasant wit; but in the end he has paid dear for it. The French, themselves, have long since begun to know something of the Germans, and something also of' their own critical Daniel; and now it is by this one untimely joke that the: hapless Jesuit is doomed to live; for the blessing of full oblivion is denied him, and so he hangs, suspended in his own noose, over the dusky pool, which he struggles toward, but for a great while will not reach. Might his fate but serve as a warning to kindred men of wit, in regard to this and so many other subjects! For surely the pleasure of despising, at all times and in itself a dangerous luxury, is much safer after the toil of examining than before it. We altogether differ from the Pere Bouhours in this matter, and must endeavour to discuss it differently. There is, in fact, much, in the present aspect of German Literature, not only deserving notice but deep consideration from all thinking men, and far too complex for being handled in the way of epigram. It is always advantageous to think justly VOL. I. 3 34 MISCELLANIES. of our neighbours; nay, in mere common honesty, it is a duty; and, like every other duty, brings its own reward. Perhaps at the present era this duty is more essential than ever; an era of Such promise and such threatening, when so many elements of good and evil are everywhere in conflict,,and human society is, as it were, struggling to body itself forth anew, and so many coloured rays are springing up in this quarter and in that, which only by their union can produce pure light. Happily, too, though still a difficult, it is no longer an impossible duty; for the commerce in material things has paved roads for commerce in things spiritual, and a true thought, or a noble creation, passes lightly to us from the remotest countries, provided only our minds be open to receive it. This, indeed, is a rigorous proviso, and a great obstacle lies in it; one which to many must be insurmountable, yet which it is the chief glory of social culture to surmount. For, if a man who mistakes his own contracted individuality for the type of human nature, and deals with whatever contradicts him as if it contradicted this, is but a pedant, and without true wisdom, be he furnished with partial equipments as he may, -what better shall we think of a nation that, in like manner, isolates itself from foreign influence, regards its own modes as so many laws of nature, and rejects all that is different as unworthy even of examination? Of this narrow and perverted condition, the French, down almost to our own times, have afforded a remarkable and instructive example; as indeed of late they have been often enough upbraidingly reminded, and are now themselves, in a manlier spirit, beginning to admit. That our countrymen have at any time erred much in this point, cannot, we think, truly be alleged against them. Neither shall we say, with some passionate admirers of Germany, that to the Germans in particular they have been unjust. It is true, the literature and character of that country, which, within the last half century, have been more worthy perhaps than any other of our study and regard, are still very generally unknown to STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 35 us, or, what is worse, misknown; but for this there are not wanting less offensive reasons. That the false and tawdry ware, which was in all hands, should reach us before the chaste and truly excellent, which it required some excellence to recognise; that Kotzebue's insanity should have spread faster, by some fifty years, than Lessing's wisdom; that Kant's Philosophy should stand in the background as a dreary and abortive dream, and Gall's Craniology be held out to us from every booth as a reality; - all this lay in the nature of the case. That many readers should draw conclusions from imperfect premises, and by the imports judge too hastily of the stock imported from, was likewise natural. No unfair bias, no unwise indisposition, that we are aware of, has ever been at work in the matter; perhaps, at worst, a degree of indolence, a blamable incuriosity to all products of foreign genius: for what more do we know of recent Spanish or Italian literature, than of German; of Grossi and Manzoni, of Campomanes or Jovellanos, than of Tieck and Richter? Wherever German art, in those forms of it which need no interpreter, has addressed us immediately, our recognition of it has been prompt and hearty; from Durer to Mengs, from Handel to Weber and Beethoven, we have welcomed the painters and musicians of Germany, not only to our praise, but to our affections and, beneficence. Nor, if in their literature we have been more backward, is the literature itself without blame. Two centuries ago, translations from the German were comparatively frequent in England: Luther's Table-Talk is still a venerable classic in our language; nay, Jacob Bbhme has found a place among us, and this not as a dead letter, but as a living apostle to a still living sect of our religionists. In the next century, indeed, translation ceased; but then it was, in a great measure, because there was little worth translating. The horrors of the Thirty-Years War, followed by the conquests and conflagrations of Louis the/ Fourteenth, had desolated the country; French influence, extending from the courts of princes to the closets of the 36 MISCELLANIES. learned, lay like a baleful incubus over the far nobler mind of Germany; and all true nationality vanished from its literature, or was heard only in faint tones, which lived in the hearts of'the people, but could not reach with any effect to the ears of foreigners.l And now that the genius of the country has awakened in its old strength, our attention to it 1 Not that the Germans were idle; or altogether engaged, as we too loosely suppose, in the work of commentary and lexicography. On the contrary, they rhymed and romanced with due vigour as to quantity; only the quality was bad. Two facts on this head may deserve mention: In the year 1749, there were found in the library of one virtuoso no fewer than 300 volumes of devotional poetry, containing, says Horn,'a treasure of 33,712 German hymns;' and, much about the same period, one of Gottsched's scholars had amassed as many as 1500 German novels, all of the seventeenth century. The hymns we understand to be much better than the novels, or rather, perhaps, the novels to be much worse than the hymns. Neither was critical study neglected, nor indeed honest endeavour on all hands to attain improvement: witness the strange books from time to time put forth, and the still stranger institutions established for this purpose. Among the former we have the'Poetical Funnel' (Poetische Trichter), manufactured at Niirnberg in 1650, and professing, withip six hours, to pour-in the whole essence of this difficult art into the mrost unfurnished head. Niirnberg also was the chief seat of the famous Meistersinger and their S lngerzii nJe; or Singer-guilds, in which poetry was taught and practised like any other handicraft, and this by sober and wellmeaning men, chiefly artisans, who could not understand why labour, which manufactured so many things, should not also manufacture another. Of these tuneful guild-brethren, Hans Sachs, by trade a shoemaker, is greatly the most noted and most notable. His father was a tailor; he himself learned the mystery of. song under one Nunnebeck, a weaver. He was an adherent of his great contemporary Luther, who has even deigned to acknowledge his services in the cause of the Reformation. How diligent a labourer Sachs must have been, will appear from the fact, that, in his 74th year (1568), on examining his stock for publication, he found that he had written 6048 poetical pieces, among which were 208 tragedies and comedies; and this besides having all along kept house, like an honest Niirnberg burgher, by assiduous and sufficient shoe-making! Hans is not without genius, and a shrewd irony; and, above all, the most gay, childlike, yet devout and solid character. A man neither to be despised nor patronised; but left standing on his own basis, as a singular product, and a still legible symbol and clear mirror of the time and country where he lived. His best piece known to us, and many are well worth perusing, is the Fastnachtsspiel (Shrovetide Farce) of the Narrenschneiden, where the Doctor cures a bloated and lethargic patient. by cutting-out half-a-dozen Fools from his interior! STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 37 has certainly awakened also; and if we yet know little or nothing of the Germans, it is not because we wilfully do them wrong, but, in good part, because they are somewhat'difficult to know. In fact, prepossessions of all sorts naturally enough find their place here. A country which has no national literature, or a literature too insignificant to force its way abroad, -must always be, to its neighbours, at least in every important spiritual respect, an unknown and misestimated country. Its towns may figure on our maps; its revenues, population, manufactures, political connexions,'may be recorded in statistical books: but the character of the people has no symbol. and no voice; we cannot know them by speech and discourse, but only by mere sight and outward observation of their manners and proceddre. Now, if both sight and speech, if both travellers and native literature, are found but ineffectual in this respect, how incalculably more so the former alone! To seize a character, even that of one man, in its life and secret mechanism, requires a philosopher; to delineate it with truth and impressiveness, is work for a poet. How shall one or two sleek clerical tutors, with here and there a tedium-stricken'squire, or speculative'half-pay captain, give us views on such a subject? How shall a man, to whom all characters of individual men are like sealed books, of which he sees only the title and the covers, decipher, from his four-wheeled vehicle, and depict to us, the character of a nation? He courageously depicts his own optical delusions; notes this to be incomprehensible, that other to be insignificant; much to be good, much to be bad, and most of all indifferent; and so, with a few flowing strokes, completes a picture which, though it may not even resemble any possible object, his countrymen are to take for a national portrait. Nor is the fraud so readily detected: for the character of a people has such complexity of aspect, that even the honest observer knows not always, not perhaps after long inspection, what to determine regarding it. From his, only accidental, 38 MISCELLANIES. point of view, the figure stands before him like the tracings on veined marble, - a mass of mere random lines, and tints, and entangled strokes, out of which a lively fancy may shape almost any image. But the image he brings along with him is always the readiest; this is tried, it answers as well as another; and a second voucher now testifies its correctness. Thus each, in confident tones, though it may be with a secret misgiving, repeats his precursor; the hundred times repeated comes in the end to be believed; the foreign nation is now once for all understood, decided on, and registered accordingly; and dunce the thousandth writes of it like dunce the first. With the aid of literary and intellectual intercourse, much of this falsehood may, no doubt, be corrected: yet even here, sound judgment is far from easy; and most national characters are still, as Hume long ago complained, the product rather of popular prejudice than of philosophic insight. That the Germans, in particular, have by no means escaped such misrepresentation, nay perhaps have had more than the common share of it, cannot, in their circumstances, surprise us. From the time of Opitz and Flemming, to those of Klopstock and Lessing, - that is, from the early part of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth century,- they had scarcely any literature known abroad, or deserving to be known: their political condition, during this same period, was ~oppressive and everyway unfortunate externally; and at home, the nation, split into so many factions and petty states,:had lost all feeling of itself as of a nation; and its energies in arts as in arms were manifested only in detail, too often in collision, and always under foreign influence. The French, at once their plunderers and their scoffers, described them to the rest of Europe as a semi-barbarous people; which comfortable fact the rest of Europe was willing enough to take on their word. During the greater part of the last century, the Germans, in our intellectual survey of. the world, were quietly omitted; a vague contemptuous ignorance prevailed STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 39 respecting them; it was a Cimmerian land, where, if a few sparks did glimmer, it was but so as to testify their own existence, too feebly to enlighten us.1 The Germans passed for apprentices in all provinces of art; and many foreign craftsmen scarcely allowed them so much. Madame de Stail's book has done away with this: all Europe is now aware that the Germans are something; something independent and apart fiom others; nay, something deep, imposing and, if not admirable, wonderful. What that something is, indeed, is still undecided; for this gifted lady's Allemagne, in doing much to excite curiosity, has still done, little to satisfy or even direct it. We can no longer make ignorance a boast, but we are yet far from having acquired right knowledge; and cavillers, excluded from contemptuous negation, have found a resource in almost as contemptuous assertion. Translators are the same faithless and stolid race that they haVe ever been: the particle of gold they bring us over is hidden from all but the most patient eye, among shiploads of yellow sand and sulphur. Gentle Dulness too, in this as in all other things, still loves her joke. The Germnans, though much more attended to, are perhaps not less mistaken than before. Doubtless, however, there is in this increased attention a progress towards the truth; which it is only investigation and discussion that can help us to find.. The study of German literature has already taken such firm root among us, 1 So late as the year 1811, we find, from Pinkerton's Geography, the sole representative of German literature to be Gottshed (with his name Wrong spelt),' who first introduced. a more refined style.' - Gottsched has been dead the greater part of a century; and for the last fifty years, ranks among the Germans somewhat as Prynne or Alexander Ross does among ourselves. A man of a cold, rigid, perseverant character, who mistook'himself for a poet and the perfection of critics, and had skill to pass current during the greater part of his literary life for such. On the strength of his Boileau and Batteux, he long reigned supreme; but it was like Night, in rayless majesty, and over a slumbering people. They awoke, before his death, and hurled him, perhaps too indignantly, into his native Abyss. 40 MISCELLANIES. and is spreading so visibly, that by and by, as we believe, the true character of it must and will become known. A result, which is to bring us into closer and friendlier union with forty millions of civilised men, cannot surely be other than desirable. If they have precious truth to impart, we shall receive it as the highest of all gifts; if error, we shall not only reject it, but explain it and trace out its origin, and so help our brethren also to reject it. In either point of view, and for all profitable purposes of national intercourse, correct knowledge is the first and indispensable preliminary. Meanwhile, errors of all sorts prevail on this subject: even among men of sense and liberality we have found so much hallucination, so many groundless or half-grounded objections to German literature, that the tone in which a multitude of other men speak of it cannot appear extraordinary. To much- of this, even a slight knowledge of the Germans -would furnish a sufficient answer. We have thought it might be useful were the chief of these objections marshalled in distinct order, and examined with what degree of light and fairness is'at our disposal. In attempting this, we are vain enrough, for reasons already stated, to fancy ourselves discharging what is in some sort a national duty. It is unworthy of one great people to think falsely of another; it is unjust, and therefore unworthy. Of the injury it does to ourselves we do not speak, for that is an inferior consideration: yet surely if the grand principle of free intercourse is so profitable in material commerce, much more must it be in the commerce of the mind, the products of which are thereby not so much transported out of one country into another, as multiplied over all, for the benefit of all, and without loss to any. If that man is a benefactor to the world who causes two ears of corn to grow where only one grew before, much more is he a benefactor who causes two truths to grow up together in harmony and mutual confirmation, where before only one stood solitary, and, on that side at least, intolerant and hostile. STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 41 In dealing with the host of objections which front us on this subject, we think it may be convenient to range them under two principal heads. The first, as respects chiefly unsoundness or imperfection of sentiment; an error which may in general be denominated Bad Taste. The second, as respects chiefly a wrong condition of intellect; an error which may be designated by the general title of Mysticism. Both.of these, no doubt, are partly connected; and each, in some degree, springs from and returns into the other: yet, for present purposes, the divisions may be precise enough. First, then, of the first: It is objected that the Germans have a radically bad taste. This is a deep-rooted objection, which assumes many forms, and extends through many ramifications. Among men of less acquaintance with the subject of German taste, or of taste in general, the spirit of the accusation seems to be somewhat as follows: That the Germans, with much natural susceptibility, are still in a rather coarse and uncultivated state of mind; displaying, with the energy and other virtues of a rude people, many of their vices also; in particular, a certain wild and headlong temper, which seizes on all things too hastily and impetuously; weeps, storms, loves, hates, too fiercely and vociferously; delighting in coarse excitements, such as flaring contrasts, vulgar horrors, and all sorts of showy exaggeration. Their literature, in particular, is thought to dwell with peculiar complacency among wizards and ruined towers, with mailed knights, secret tribunals, monks, spectres, and banditti: on the other hand, there is an undue love of moonlight, and mossy fountains, and the moral sublime: then we have descriptions of things which should not be described; a general want of tact; nay, often a hollowness. and want of sense. In short the German Muse comports herself, it is said, like a passionate and rather fascinating, but tumultuous, uninstructed and but half-civilised Muse. A belle sauvage at best, we can only love her with a sort of supercilious tolerance; o tn she tears a passion to rags; and, in her humid 42 MISCELLANIES. vehemence, struts without meaning, and to the offence of all literary decorum. Now, in all this there is not wanting a certain degree of truth. If any man will insist on taking Heinse's Ardinghello, and Miller's Sieywart, and the works of Veit Weber the Younger, and, above all, the everlasting Kotzebue, as his specimens of German literature, he may establish many things. Black Forests, and the glories of Lubberland; sensuality and horror, the spectre nun, and the charmed moonshine, shall not be wanting. Boisterous outlaws also, with huge whiskers and the most cat-o'-mountain aspect; tear-stained sentimentalists, the grimmest manhaters, ghosts and the like suspicious characters, will be found in abundance. We are little read in this bowl-and-dagger department; but we do understand it to have been at one time rather diligently cultivated; though at present it seems to be mostly relinquished as unproductive. Other forms of Unreason have taken its place; which in their turn must yield to still other forms; for it is the nature of this goddess to descend in frequent avatars among men. Perhaps not less than five hundred volumes of such stuff could still be collected from the bookstalls of Germany. By which truly we may learn that there is in that country a class of unwise men and unwise women; that many readers there labour under a degree of ignorance and mental vacancy, and read not actively but passively, not to learn but to be amused. Is this fact so very new to us? Or what should we think of a German critic that selected his specimens of British literature from the Castle Spectre, Mr. Lewis's Monk, or the Mysteries of Udolpho, and Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus? Or would he judge rightly of our dramatic taste, if he took his extracts from Mr. Egan's Tom and Jerry; and told his readers, as he might truly do, that no. play had ever enjoyed such currency on the English stage as this most classic performance? We think, not. In like manner, till some author of acknowledged merit shall so write among the Germans, STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 43 and be approved of by critics of acknowledged merit among them, or at least secure for himself some permanency of favour among the million, we can prove nothing. by such instances. That there is so perverse an author, or so blind a critic, in the whole compass of German literature, we have no hesitation in denying. But farther: among men of deeper views, and with regard to works of really standard character, we find, though not -the same, a similar objection repeated. Goethe's Wilhelm ]lMeister, it is said, and Faust, are full of bad taste also. With respect to the taste in which they are written. we shall have occasion to say somewhat hereafter: meanwhile, we may be permitted to remark that the objection would have more force, did it seem to originate from a more mature consideration of the subject. We have heard few English criticisms of such works, in which the first condition of an approach to accuracy was complied with; — a transposition of the critic into the author's point of vision, a survey of the author's means and objects as they lay before himself, and a just trial of these by rules of universal application. Faust, for instance, passes with many of us for a mere tale of sorcery and art-magic. It would scarcely be more unwise to consider Hamlet as depending for its main interest on the ghost that walks in it, than to regard Faust as a production of that sort. For the present, therefore, this objection may be set aside; or at least may be considered not as an assertion, but an inquiry, the answer to which may turn out rather that the German taste is different from ours, than that it is worse. Nay, with regard even to difference, we should scarcely reckon it to be of great moment. Two nations that agree in estimating Shakspeare as the highest of all poets, can differ in no essential principle, if they understood one another, that relates to poetry. Nevertheless, this opinion of our opponents has attained a certain degree of consistency with itself; one thing is thought to throw light on another; nay, a quiet little theory has been 44 MISCELLANIES. propounded to explain the whole phenomenon. The cause of this bad taste, we are assured, lies in the condition of the German authors. These, it seems, are generally very poor; the ceremonial law of the country excludes them from all society with the great; they cannot acquire the polish of drawing-rooms, but must live in mean houses, and therefore write and think in a mean style. Apart from the truth of these assumptions, and in respect of the theory itself, we confess there is something in the face of it that afflicts us. Is it then so certain that taste and riches are indissolubly connected? That truth of feeling must ever be preceded by weight of purse, and the eyes be dim for universal and eternal Beauty, till they have long rested on gilt walls and costly furniture? To the great body of mankind this were heavy news; for, of the thousand, scarcely one is rich, or connected with the rich; nine hundred and ninety-nine have always been poor, and must always be so. We take the liberty of questioning the whole postulate. We think that, for acquiring true poetic taste, riches, or association with the rich, are distinctly among the minor requisites; that, in fact, they have little or no concern with the matter. This we shall now endeavour to make probable. Taste, if it mean anything but a paltry connoisseurship, must mean a general susceptibility to truth and nobleness; a sense to discern, and a heart to love and reverence, all beauty, order, goodness, wheresoever or in whatsoever forms and accompaniments they are to be seen. This surely imr plies, as its chief condition, not any given external rank or situation, but a finely gifted mind, purified into harmony with itself, into keenness and justness of vision; above all, kindled into love and generous admiration. Is culture of this sort found exclusively among the higher ranks? We believe it proceeds less from without than within, in every rank. The charms of Nature, the majesty of.Man, the infinite loveliness of Truth and Virtue, are not hidden from the eye of the poor; but from the eye of the vain, the cor STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 45 rupted and self-seeking, be he poor or rich. In old ages, the humble Minstrel, a mendicant, and lord of nothing but his harp and his own free soul, had intimations of those glories, while to the proud Baron in his barbaric halls they were unknown. Nor is there still any aristocratic monopoly of judgment more than of genius: for as to that Science of Negation, which is taught peculiarly by men of professed elegance, we confess we hold it rather cheap. It is a necessary, but decidedly a subordinate accomplishment; nay, if it be rated as the highest, it becomes a ruinous vice. This is an old truth; yet ever needing new application and enforcement. Let us know what to love, and we shall know also what to reject; what to affirm, and we shall know also what to deny: but it is dangerous to begin with denial, and fatal to end with it. To deny is easy; nothing is sooner learnt or more generally practised: as matters go, we need no man of polish to teach it; buft rather, if possible, a hundred men of wisdom to show us its limits, and teach us its reverse. Such is our hypothesis of the case: how stands it with the facts? Are the fineness and truth of sense manifested by the artist found, in most instances, to be proportionate to his wealth and elevation of acquaintance? Are they found to have any perceptible relation either with the one or the other? We imagine, not. Whose taste in painting, for instance, is truer and finer than Claude Lorraine's? And was not he a poor colour-grinder; outwardly, the meanest of menials? WVhere, again, we might ask, lay Shakspeare's rent-roll; and what generous peer took him by the hand and unfolded to him the'open secret' of the Universe; teaching him that this was beautiful, and that not so? Was he not a peasant by birth, and by fortune something lower; and was it not thought much, even in the height of his reputation, that Southampton allowed him equal patronage with the zanies, jugglers and bearwards of the time? Yet compare his taste, even as it respects the negative side of things; for, in regard to the positive and far higher side, it admits no 46 MISCELLANIES. comparison with any other mortal's, compare it, for instance, with the taste of Beaumont and Fletcher, his contemporaries, men of rank and education, and of fine genius like himself. Tried even by the nice, fastidious and in great part false and artificial delicacy of modern times, how stands it with the two parties; with the gay triumphant men of fashior, and the poor vagrant linkboy? Does the latter sin against, we shall not say taste, but etiquette, as the former do? For one line, for one word, which some Chesterfield might wish blotted from the first, are there not in the others whole pages and scenes which, with palpitating heart, he would hurry into deepest night? This too, observe, respects not their genius, but their culture; not their appropriation of beauties, but their rejection of deformities, by supposition the grand and peculiar result of high breeding! Surely, in such instances, even that humble supposition is ill-borne out. The truth of the matter seems to be, that with the culture of a genuine poet, thinker or other artist, the influence of rank has no exclusive or even special concern. For men of action, for senators, public speakers, political writers, the case may be different; but of such we speak not at present. Neither do we speak of imitators, and the crowd of mediocre men, to whom fashionable life sometimes gives an external inoffensiveness, often compensated by a frigid malignity of character. We speak of men who, from amid the perplexed and conflicting elements of their everyday existence, are to form themselves into harmony and wisdom, and show forth the same wisdom to others that exist along with them. To such a man, high life, as it is called, will be a province of human life, but nothing more. He will study to deal with it as he deals with all forms of mortal being; to do it justice, and to draw instruction from it; but his light will come from a loftier region, or he wanders forever in darkness; dwindles into a man of vers de societe, or attains at best to be a Walpole or a Caylus. Still less can we think that he is to be viewed as a hireling; that his excellence will STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 47 be regulated by his pay.'Sufficiently provided for from within, he has need of little from without:' food and raiment, and an unviolated home, will be given him in the rudest land; and with these, while the kind earth is round him, and the everlasting heaven is over him, the world has little more that it can give. Is he poor? So also were Homer and Socrates; so was Samuel Johnson; so was John Milton. Shall we reproach him with his poverty, and infer that, because he is poor, he must likewise be worthless? God forbid that the time should ever come when he too shall esteem riches the synonym of good! The spirit of Mammon has a wide empire; but it cannot, and must not, be worshipped in the Holy of Holies. Nay, does not the heart of every genuine disciple of literature, however mean his sphere, instinctively deny this principle, as applicable either to himself or another? Is it not rather true, as D'Alembert has said, that for every man of letters, who deserves that name, the motto and the watchword will be FREEDOM, TRUTH, and even this same POVERTY; that if he fear the last, the two first can never be made sure to him? We have stated these things, to bring the question somewhat nearer its real basis; not for the sake of the Germans, who nowise need the admission of them. The German authors are not poor; neither are they excluded from associa*tion with the wealthy and well-born. On the contrary, we scruple not to say, that, in both these respects, they are considerably better situated than our own. Their booksellers, it is true, cannot pay as ours do; yet, there as here, a man lives by his writings; and, to compare Jkrdens with Johnson and D'Israeli, somewhat better there than here. No case like our own noble Otway's has met us in their biographies; Boyces and Chattertons are much rarer in German than in English history. But farther, and what is far more important: From the number of universities, libraries, collections of art, museums, and other literary or scientific institutions of a public or private nature, we question whether the chance 48 MISCELLANIES. which a meritorious man of letters has before him, of obtaining some permanent appointment, some independent civic existence, is not a hundred to one in favour of the German, compared with the Englishman. This is a weighty item, and indeed the weightiest of all; for it will be granted, that, for the votary of literature, the relation of entire dependence on the merchants of literature is, at best, and however liberal the terms, a highly questionable one. It tempts him daily and hourly to sink from an artist into a manufacturer; nay, so precarious, fluctuating and everyway unsatisfactory must his civic and economic concerns become, that too many of his class cannot even attain the praise of common honesty as manufacturers. There is, no doubt, a spirit of martyrdom, as we have asserted, which can sustain this too: but few indeed have the spirit of martyrs; and that state of matters is the safest which requires it least. The German authors, moreover, to their credit be it spoken, seem to set less store by wealth than many -of ours. There have been prudent, quiet men among them, who actually appeared not to want more wealth;. whom wealth could not tempt, either to this hand or that, from their preappointed aims. Neither must we think so hardly of the German nobility as to believe them insensible to genius, or of opinion that a patent from the Lion King is so superior to' a patent direct from Almighty God.' A fair proportion of the German authors are themselves men of rank: we mention only, as of our own time, and notable in other respects, the two Stolbergs and Novalis. Let us not be unjust to this class of persons. It is a poor error to figure them as wrapt up in ceremonial stateliness, avoiding the most gifted man of a lower station; and, for their own supercilious triviality, themselves avoided by all truly gifted men. On the whole, we should change our notion of the German nobleman: that ancient, thirsty, thickheaded, sixteen-quartered Baron, who still hovers in our minds, never did exist in such perfection, and is now as extinct as our own Squire Western. His descendant is -a man of other culture, other aims and STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 49 other habits. We question whether there is an aristocracy in Europe, which, taken as a whole, both in a public and private capacity, more honours art and literature, and does more both in public and private to encourage them. Excluded from society! What, we would ask, was Wieland's, Schiller's, Herder's, Johannes Miller's society? Has not Goethe, by birth a Frankfort burgher, been, since his twenty-sixth year, the companion, not of nobles but of princes, and for half his life a minister of state? And is not this man, unrivalled in so many far deeper qualities, known also and felt to be unrivalled in nobleness of breeding and bearing; fit not to learn of princes in this respect, but by the example of his daily life to teach them? We hear much of the munificent spirit displayed among the better classes in England; their high estimation of the arts, and generous patronage of the artist. We rejoice to hear it; we hope it is true, and will become truer and truer. We hope that a great change has taken place among these classes, since the time when Bishop Burnet could write of them,'They are for the most part the worst instructed,'and the least knowing, of any of their rank I ever went'among!' Nevertheless, let us arrogate to ourselves no exclusive praise in this particular. Other nations can appreciate the arts, and cherish their cultivators, as well as we. Nay, while learning from us in many other matters, we suspect the Germans might even teach us somewhat in regard to this. At all events, the pity, which certain of our authors express for the civil condition of their brethren in that country is, from such a quarter, a superfluous feeling. Nowhere, let us rest assured, is genius more devoutly honoured than there, by all ranks of men, from peasants and burghers up to legislators and kings. It was but last year that the Diet of the Empire passed an Act in favour of one individual poet: the Final Edition of Goethe's Works was guaranteed to be protected against commercial injury in every State of Germany; and special assurances to that effect were sent VOL. 1. 4 50 MISCELLANIES. him, in the kindest terms, from all the Authorities there assembled, some of them the highest in his country or in Europe. Nay, even while we write, are not the newspapers recording a visit from the Sovereign of Bavaria in person to the -same venerable man? - a mere ceremony perhaps, but one which almost recalls to us the era of the antique Sages and the Grecian Kings. This hypothesis, therefore, it would seem, is not supported by facts, and so returns to its original elements. The causes it alleges are impossible: but, what is still more fatal, the effect it proposes to account for has, in reality, no existence. We venture to deny that the Germans are defective in taste; even as a nation, as a public, taking one thing with another, we imagine they may stand comparison with any of their neighbours; as writers, as critics, they may decidedly court it. True, there is a mass of dulness, awkwardness and false susceptibility in the lower regions of their literature: but is not bad taste endemical in such regions of every literature under the sun? Pure Stupidity, indeed, is of a quiet nature, and content to be merely stupid. But seldom do we find it pure; seldom unadulterated with some tincture of ambition, which drives it into new and strange metamorphoses. Here it has assumed a contemptuous trenchant air, intended to represent superior tact, and a sort of all-wisdom; there a truculent atrabilious scowl, which is to stand for passionate strength: now we have an outpouring of tumid fervour; now a fruitless, asthmatic hunting after wit and humour. Grave or gay, enthusiastic or derisive, admiring or despising, the dull man would be something which he is not and cannot be. Shall we confess, that, of these two common extremes, we reckon the German error considerably the more harmless, and, in our day, by far the more curable? Of unwise admiration much may be hoped, for much good is really in it: but unwise contempt is itself a negation; nothing comes of it, for it is nothing. To judge of a national taste, however,' we must raise our STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. view from its transitory modes to its perennial models; from the mass of vulgar writers, who blaze out and are extinguished with the popular delusion which they flatter, th those few who are admitted to shine with a pure and lasting lustre; to whom, by common consent, the eyes of the people are turned, as to its loadstars and celestial luminaries. Among German writers of this stamp, we would ask any candid reader of them, let him be of what country or creed he might, whether bad taste struck him as a prevailing characteristic. Was Wieland's taste uncultivated? Taste, we should say, and taste of the very species which a disciple of the Negative School would call the highest, formed the great object of his life; the perfection he unweariedly endeavpured, after, and, more than any other perfection, has attained. The most fastidious Frenchman might read him, with admiration of his merely French qualities. And is not Klopstock, with his clear enthusiasm, his azure purity, and heavenly if still, somewhat cold and lunar light, a man of taste? His Messias reminds us oftener of no other poets than of Virgil and Racine. But it is to Lessing that an Englishman would turn with readiest affection. We cannot but wonder that more of this man is not known among us; or that the knowledge of him has not done more to remove such misconceptions. Among all the writers of the eighteenth century, we will not except even Diderot and David Hume, there is not one of a more compact and rigid intellectual structure; who more distinctly knows what he is aiming at, or with more gracefulness, vigour and precision sets it forth to his readers. He thinks with the clearness and piercing sharpness of the most expert logician; but a genial fire pervades him, a wit, a heartiness, a general richness and fineness of nature, to which most logicians are strangers. He is a sceptic in many things, but the noblest of sceptics; a mild, manly, half-careless enthusiasm struggles through his indignant unbelief: he stands before us like a toilworn but unwearied and heroic champion, earning not the conquest but the battle; as indeed 52 MISCELLANIES. himself admits to us, that'it is not the finding of truth, but the honest search for it, that profits.'. We confess, we should be entirely at a loss for the literary creed of that man who reckoned Lessing other than a thoroughly cultivated writer; nay, entitled to rank, in this particular, with the most distinguished writers of any existing nation. As a poet, as a critic, philosopher, or controversialist, his style will be found precisely such as we of England are accustomed to admire most; brief, nervous, vivid; yet quiet, without glitter or antithesis; idiomatic, pure without purism; transparent, yet full of character and reflex hues of meaning.'Every sentence,' says Horn, and justly,'is like a phalanx;' not a word wrong-placed, not a word that could be spared; and it forms itself so calmly and lightly, and stands in its completeness, so gay, yet so impregnable! As a poet he contemptuously. denied himself all merit; but his readers have not taken him at his word: here too a similar felicity of style attends him; his plays, his Minna von Barnhelm, his Emnilie Galotti, his Nathan der Weise, have a genuine and graceful poetic life; yet no works known to us in any language are purer from exaggeration, or any appearance of falsehood. They are pictures, we might say, painted not in colours, but in crayons; yet a strange attraction lies in them; for the figures are grouped into the finest attitudes, and true and spirit-speaking in every line. It is with his style chiefly that we have to do here; yet we must add, that the matter of his works is not less meritorious. His Criticism and philosophic or religious Scepticism were of a higher mood than had yet been heard in Europe, still more in Germany: his Dramaturgie first exploded the pretensions of the French theatre, and, with irresistible conviction, made Shakspeare known to his countrymen; preparing the way for a brighter era in their literature, the chief men of which still thankfully look back to Lessing as their patriarch. His Laocoon, with its deep glances into the philosophy, of Art, his Dialogues of Freemasons, a work of far higher import than its title indicates, STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 53 may yet teach many things to most of us, which we know not, and ought to know. With Lessing and Klopstock might be joined, in this respect, nearly every one, we do not say of their distinguished, but even of their tolerated contemporaries. The two Jacobis, known more or less in all countries, are little known here, if they are accused of wanting literary taste. These are men, whether as thinkers or poets, to be regarded and admired for their mild and lofty wisdom, the devoutness, the benignity and calm grandeur of their philosophical views. In such, it were strange if among so many high merits, this lower one of a just and elegant style, which is indeed their natural and even necessary product, had been wanting. We recommend the elder Jacobi no less for his clearness than for his depth; of the younger, it may be enough in this point of view to say, that the chief praisers of his earlier poetry were the French. Neither are Hamann and Mendelsohn, who could meditate deep thoughts, defective in the power of uttering them with propriety. The Phcedon of the latter, in its chaste precision and simplicity of style, may almost remind us of Xenophon: Socrates, to our mind, has spoken in no modern language so like Socrates, as here, by the lips of this wise and cultivated Jew.l 1 The history of Mendelsohn is interesting in itself, and full of encouragement to all lovers of self-improvement. At thirteen he was a wand'ering Jewish beggar, without health, without home, almost without a language, - for the jargon of broken Hebrew and provincial German which he spoke could scarcely be called one. At middle age he could write this Phkedom; was a man of wealth and breeding, and ranked among the teachers of his age. Like Pope, he abode by his original creed, though often solicited to change it: indeed, the grand problem of his life was to better the inward and outward condition of his own ill-fated people; for whom he actually accomplished much benefit. He was a mild, shrewd and worthy man; and might well love Pheadon and Socrates, for his own character was Socratic. He was a friend of Lessing's: indeed, a pupil; for Lessing, having accidentally met him at chess, recognised the spirit that lay struggling under such incumbrances, and generously.undertook to help him. By teaching the poor Jew a little Greek, he disenchanted him from 54 MISCELLANIES. Among the poets and more popular writers of the time, the case is the same: Utz, Gellert, Cramer, Ramler, Kleist, Hagedorn, Rabener, Gleim, and a multitude of lesser men, whatever excellences they might want, certainly are not chargeable with bad taste. Nay, perhaps of all writers they are the least chargeable with it: a certain clear, light, unaffected elegance, of a higher nature than French elegance, it might be, yet to the exclusion of all very deep or genial qualities, was the excellence they strove after, and, for the most part, in a fair measure attained. They resemble English writers of the same, or perhaps an earlier period, more than any other foreigners: apart from Pope, whose influence is visible enough, Beattie, Logan, Wilkie, Glover, unknown perhaps to any of them, might otherwise have almost seemed their models. Goldsmith also would rank among them; perhaps in regard to true poetic genius, at their head, for none of them has left us a Vicar of Wakefield; though, in regard to judgment, knowledge, general talent, his place would scarcely be so high. The same thing holds in general, and with fewer drawbacks, of the somewhat later and more energetic race, denominated the G6ttingen School; in contradistinction from the Saxon, to which Rabener, Cramer and Gellert directly'belonged, and most of those others indirectly. Hdlty, Btirger, the two Stolbergs, are men whom Bossu might measure with his scales and compasses as strictly as he pleased. Of Herder, Schiller, Goethe, we speak not here: they are men 6f another stature and form of movement, whom Bossu's scale and compasses could not measure without difficulty, or rather not.at all. To say that such men wrote with taste of this sort, were saying little; for this forms not the apex, but the basis, in their conception of style; a quality not to be paraded as the Talmud and the Rabbins. The two were afterwards co-laborers in Nicolai's Deutsche Bibliothek, the first German Review of any character; which, however, in the hands of Nicolai himself, it subsequently lost. Mendelsohn's Works have mostly been translated into French. STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 55 an excellence, but to be understood as indispensable, as there by necessity, and like a thing of course. In truth, for it must be spoken out, our opponents are widely astray in this matter; so widely that their views of it are not only dim and perplexed, but altogether imaginary and delusive. It is proposed to school the Germans in the Alphabet of taste; and the Germans are already busied with their Accidence! Far from being behind other nations in the practice or science of Criticism, it is a fact, for which we fearlessly refer to all competent judges, that they are distinctly and even considerably in advance. We state what is already known to a great part of Europe to be true. Criticism has assumed a new form in Germany; it proceeds on other principles, and proposes to itself a higher aim. The grand question is not now a question concerning,the qualities of diction, the coherence of metaphors, the fitness of sentiments, the general logical truth, in a work of art, as it was some half century ago among most critics; neither is it a question mainly of a psychological sort, to be answered by discovering and delineating the peculiar nature of the poet from his poetry, as is usual with the best of our own critics at present: but it is, not indeed exclusively, but inclusively of those two other questions, properly and ultimately a question on the essence and peculiar life of the poetry itself. The first of these questions, as we see it answered, for instance, in the criticisms of Johnson and Kames, relates, strictly speaking, to the garment of poetry; the second, indeed, to its body and material existence, a much higher point; but only the last to its soul and spiritual existence, by which alone can the body, in its movements and phases, be informed with significance and rational life. The problem is not now to determine by what mechanism Addison composed sentences, and struck out similitudes; but by what far finer and more mysterious mechanism Shakspeare organised his dramas, and gave life and individuality to his Ariel and his Hamlet. Wherein lies that life; how have 56 MISCELLANIES. they attained that shape and individuality? Whence comes that empyrean fire, which irradiates their whole being, and pierces, at least in starry gleams, like.a diviner thing, into all hearts? Are these dramas of his not verisimilar only, but true; nay, truer than reality itself, since the essence of unmixed reality is bodied forth in them under more expressive symbols? What is this unity of theirs; and can our deeper inspection discern it to be indivisible, and existing by necessity, because each work springs, as it were, from the general elements of all Thought, and grows up therefrom, into form and expansion by its own growth? Not only who was the poet, and how did he compose; but what and how was the poem, and why was it a poem and not rhymed eloquence, creation and not figured passion? These are the questions for the critic. Criticism stands like an interpreter between the inspired and the uninspired; between the prophet and those who hear the melody of his words, and catch some glimpse of their material meaning, but understand not their deeper import. She pretends to open for us this deeper import; to clear our sense that it may discern the pure brightness of this eternal Beauty,'and recognise it,as heavenly, under all forms where it looks forth, and reject, as of the earth earthy, all forms, be their material splendour what it may, where no gleaming of that other shines through. This is the task of Criticism, as the Germans understand it. And how do they accomplish this task? By a vague declamation clothed in gorgeous mystic phraseology? By vehement tumultuous anthems to the poet and his poetry; by epithets and laudatory similitudes drawn fiom Tartarus and Elysium, and all intermediate terrors and glories; whereby, in truth, it is rendered clear both that the poet is an extremely great poet, and also that the critic's allotment of understanding, overflowed by these Pythian raptures, has unhappily melted into deliquium? Nowise in this manner do the Germans proceed: but by rigorous scientific inquiry; STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 57 by appeal to principles which, whether correct or not, have been deduced patiently, and by long investigation, from the highest and calmest regions of Philosophy. For this finer portion of their Criticism is now also embodied in systems; and standing, so far as these reach, coherent, distinct and methodical, no less than, on their much shallower foundation, the systems of Boileau and Blair. That this new Criticism is a complete, much more a' certain science, we are far from meaning to affirm: the esthetic theories of Kant, Herder, Schiller, Goethe, Richter, "vary in external aspect, according to the varied habits of the individual; and can at best only be regarded as approximations to the truth, or modifications of it; each critic representing it, as it harmonises more or less perfectly with the other intellectual persuasions of his own mind, and of different classes of minds that resemble his. Nor can we here undertake to inquire what degree of such approximation to the truth there is in each or all of these writers; or in Tieck and the two Schlegels, who, especially the latter, have laboured so meritoriously in reconciling these. various opinions; and so successfully in' impressing and diffusing the best spirit of them, first in their own country, and now also in several others. Thus much, however, we will say: That we reckon the mere circumstance of such a science being in existence, a ground of the highest consideration, and worthy the best attention of all inquiring men. For we should err widely if we thought that this new tendency of critical science pertains to Germany alone. It is a European tendency, and springs from the general condition of intellect in Europe. We ourselveshave all, for the last thirty years, Mnore or less distinctly felt the necessity of Such a science: witness the neglect into which our Blairs and Bossus have silently fallen; our increased and increasing admiration, not only of Shakspeare, but of all his contemporaries, and of all who breathe any portion of his spirit; our controversy whether Pope was a poet: and so much vague effort on the part 58- MISCELLANIES. of our best critics, everywhere to express some still unexpressed idea concerning the nature of true poetry; as if they felt in their hearts that a pure glory, nay a divineness, belonged to it, for which they had as yet no name, and no intellectual form. But in Italy too, in France itself, the same thing is visible. Their grand controversy, so hotly urged, between the Classicists and Romanticists, in which the Schlegels are assumed, much too loosely, on all hands, as the patrons and generalissimos of the latter, shows us sufficiently what spirit is at work in that long-stagnant literature. Doubtless this turbid fermentation of the elements will at length settle into clearness, both there and *here, as in Germany it has already in a great measure done; and perhaps a more serene and genial poetic day is *everywhere to be expected with some confidence. How much the example of the Germans may have to teach us in this particular, needs no further exposition. The authors and first promulgators of this new critical doctrine were at one time contemptuously named the New School; nor was it till after a war of all the few good heads in the nation, with all the many bad ones, had ended as such wars must ever do,1 that these critical principles were generally adopted; and their assertors found to be no School, or new heretical Sect, but the ancient primitive Catholic Communion, of which all sects that had any living light in them *were but members and subordinate modes. It is, indeed, the most sacred article of this creed to preach and practise uni1 It began in Schiller's Musenalmanach for 1797. The Xenien (a series of philosophic epigrams jointly by Schiller and Goethe) descended there unexpectedly, like a flood of ethereal fire, on the German literary world; quickening all that was noble into new life, but visiting the ancient empire of Dulness with astonishment and unknown pangs. The agitation was extreme; scarcely since the age of Luther has there been such stir and strife in the intellect of Germany; indeed, scarcely since that age has there been a controversy, if we consider its ultimate bearings on the best and noblest interests of mankind, so important as this which, for the time, seemed only to turn on metaphysical subtleties, and matters of mere elegance. Its farther applications became apparent by degrees. STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 59 versal tolerance. Every literature of the world has been cultiyated by the Germans; and to every literature they have studied to give due honour. Shakspeare and Homer, no doubt, occupy alone the loftiest station in the poetical Olympus; but there is space in it for all true Singers out of every age and clime. Ferdusi and the primeval Mythologists of Hindostan live in brotherly union with the Troubadours and ancient Storytellers of the West. The wayward mystic gloom of Calderon, the lurid fire of Dante, the auroral light of Tasso, the clear icy glitter of Racine, all are acknowledged and reverenced; nay, in. the celestial forecourt an abode has been appointed for the Gressets and Delilles, that no spark of inspiration, no tone of mental music, might remain unrecognised. The Germans study foreign nations in a spirit which deserves to be oftener imitated. It is their honest endeavour to understand each, with its own peculiarities, in its own special manner of existing; not that they may praise it, or censure it, or attempt to alter it, but simply that they may see this manner of existing as the nation itself sees it, and so participate in whatever worth or beauty it has brought into being. Of all literatures, accordingly, the German has the best as well as the most translations; men like Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Schlegel, Tieck, have not disdained this task. Of Shakspeare there are three entire versions admitted to be good; and we know not how many partial, or considered as bad. In their criticisms of him we ourselves have long ago admitted, that no such clear judgment or hearty appreciation of his merits had ever been exhibited by any critic of our own. To attempt stating in separate aphorisms the doctrines of this new poetical system, would, in such space as is now allowed us, be to insure them of misapprehension. The science of Criticism, as the Germans practise it, is no study of an hour; for it springs from the depths of thought, and remotely or imniediately connects itself with the subtlest problems of all philosophy. One characteristic of it we may 60 MISCELLANIES. state, the obvious parent of many others. Poetic beauty, in its pure essence, is not, by this theory, as by all our theories, from Hume's to Alison's, derived from anything external, or, of merely intellectual origin; not from association, or any reflex or reminiscence of mere sensations; nor from natural love, either of imitation, of similarity in dissimilarity, of excitement by contrast, or of seeing difficulties overcome. On the contrary, it is assumed as underived; not borrowing its existence from such sources, but as lending to most of these their significance and principal charm for the mind. It dwells and is born in the inmost Spirit of Man, united to all love of Virtue, to all true belief in God; or, rather, it is one with this love and this belief, another phase of the same highest principle in the mysterious infinitude of the human Soul.'To apprehend this beauty of poetry, in its full and purest brightness, is not easy, but difficult; thousands on thousands eagerly read poems, and attain not the smallest taste of it; yet to all uncorrupted hearts, some effulgences of this heavenly glory are here and there revealed; and to apprehend it clearly and wholly, to acquire and maintain a sense and heart that sees and worships it, is the last perfection of all humane culture. With mere readers for amusement, therefore, this Criticism has, and can have, nothing to do; these find their amusement, in less or greater measure, and the nature of Poetry remains forever hidden from them in deepest concealment. On all'hands, there is no' truce given to the hypothesis, that the ultimate object of the poet is to please. Sensation, even of the finest and most rapturous sort, is not the end, but the means. Art is to be loved, not because of its effects, but because of itself; not because it is useful for spiritual pleasure, or even for moral culture, but because it is Art, and the highest in man, and the soul of all Beauty. To inquire after its utility, would be like inquiring after the utility of a God, or, what to the Germans would sound stranger than it does to us, the utility of Virtue and Religion. -On these particulars, the authenticity of STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 6which we might verify, not so much by citation of individual passages, as by reference to the scope and spirit of whole treatises, we must for the present leave our readers to their own reflections. Might we advise them, it would be to inquire farther, and, if possible, to see the matter with their own eyes. Meanwhile, that all this must tend, among the Germans, to raise the general standard of Art, and of what an Artist ought to be in his own esteem and that of others, will be readily inferred. The character of a Poet does, accordingly, stand higher with. the Germans than with most nations. That he is a man of integrity as a man; of zeal and honest diligence in his art, and of true manly feeling towards all men, is of course presupposed. Of persons that are not so, but employ their gift, in rhyme or otherwise, for brutish or malignant purposes, it is understood that such lie without the limits of Criticism, being subjects not for the judge of Art, but for the judge of Police. But even with regard to the fair tradesman, who offers his talent in open market, to do work of a harmless and acceptable sort for hire, -with regard to this person also, their opinion is very low. The'Bread-artist,' as they call him, can gain no reverence for himself from these men.'Unhappy moe'tal!' says the mild but lofty-minded Schiller,'Unhappy mortal! that, with Sci-'ence and Art, the noblest of all instruments, effectest and'attemptest nothing more' than the day-drudge with the C meanest; that, in the domain of perfect Freedom, bearest'about in thee the spirit of a Slave!' Nay, to the genuine Poet they deny even the privilege of regarding what so many cherish, under the title of their'fame,' as the best and highest of all. Hear Schiller again:'The Artist, it is true, is the son of his age; but pity for him if he is its pupil, or even its favourite! Let some beneficent divinity snatch him, when a suckling, from the breast of his mother, and nurse him with the milk of a better time, that he may ripen to his full stature beneath a distant Grecian sky. And having grown to 62 MISCELLANIES. manhood, let him return, a foreign shape, into his century; not, however, to delight it by his presence, but dreadful, like the son of Agamemnon, to purify it. The matter of his works he will take from the present, but their form he will derive from a nobler time; nay, from beyond all time, from the absolute unchanging unity of his own nature. Here, from the pure tether of his spiritual essence, flows down the Fountain of Beauty, uncontaminated by the pollutions of ages and generations, which roll to and fro in their turbid vortex far beneath it. His matter Caprice can dishonour, as she has ennobled it; but the chaste form is withdrawn from her mutations. The Roman of the first century had long bent the knee before his Caesars, when the statues of Rome were still standing erect; the temples continued holy to the eye, when their gods had long been a laughing-stock; and the abominations of a Nero and a Commodus were silently rebuked by the style of the edifice, which lent them its concealment. Man has lost his dignity, but art has saved it, and preserved it for him in expressive marbles. Truth still lives in fiction, and from the copy the original will be restored.'But how is- the Artist to guard himself from the corruptions of his time, which on every side assail him i By despising its decisions. Let him look upwards to his dignity and the law, not downwards to his happiness and his wants. Free alike from the vain activity that -longs to impress its traces on the fleeting instant, and from the querulous spirit of enthusiasm that measures by the scale of perfection the meagre product of reality, let him leave to mere Understanding, which is here at home, the province of the actual; while he strives, by uniting the possible with the necessary, to produce the ideal. This let him imprint and express in fiction and truth; imprint it in the sport of his imagination and the earnest of his actions; imprint it in all sensible and spiritual forms, -and cast it silently into everlasting time.' 1 Still higher are Fichte's notions on this subject.; or rather expressed in higher terms, for the central principle is the same both in the philosopher and the poet. According to Fichte, there is a'Divine Idea' pervading the visible Universe; which visible Universe is indeed but its symbol and sensible manifestation, having in itself no meaning, or even true existence independent of it. To the mass of men this 1 Ueber die Aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen, —On the Esthetio Education of Man. STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 63 Divine Idea of the world lies hidden: yet to discern it, to seize it, and live wholly in it, is the condition of all genuine virtue, knowledge, freedom; and the end, therefore, of all spiritual effort in every age. Literary Men are the appointed interpreters of this Divine Idea; a perpetual priesthood, we might say, standing forth, generation after generation, as the dispensers and living types of God's everlasting wisdom, to show it in their writings and actions, in such par.ticular form as their own particular times require it in. For each age, by the law of its nature, is different from every other age, and demands a different representation of the Divine Idea, the essence of which is the same in all; so that the literary man of one century is only by mediation and re-interpretation applicable to the wants of another. But in every century, every man who labours, be it in what province he may, to teach others, must first have possessed himself of the Divine Idea, or, at least, be with his whole heart and his whole soul striving after it. If, without possessing it or striving after it, he abide diligently by some material practical department of knowledge, he may indeed still be (says Fichte, in his rugged way) a' useful hodman;' but should he attempt to deal with the Whole, and to become an architect, he is, in strictness of language,'Nothing;' —' he' is an ambiguous mongrel between the possessor of the Idea,'and the man who feels himself solidly supported and car-'ried on by the common Reality of things: in his fruitless'endeavour after the Idea, he has neglected to acquire the'craft of taking part in this Reality; and so hovers between'two worlds, without pertaining to either.' Elsewhere he adds:'There is still, from another point of view, another division in our notion of the Literary Man, and one to us of immediate application. Namely, either the Literary Man has already laid hold of the whole Divine Idea, in so far as it can be comprehended by man, or perhaps of a special portion of this its comprehensible part, - which truly is not possible without at least a clear oversight of the whole; — he has 64 MISCELLANIES. already laid hold of it, penetrated, and made it entirely clear to himself, so that it has become a possession recallable at all times in the same shape to his view, and a component part of his personality: in that case he is a completed and equipt Literary Man; a man who has studied. Or else, he is still struggling and striving to make the Idea in general, or that particular portion and point of it, from which onwards he for his part means to penetrate the whole, - entirely clear to himself; detached sparkles of light already spring forth on him from all sides, and disclose a higher world before him; but they do not yet unite themselves into an indivisible whole; they vanish from his view as capriciously as they came; lihe cannot yet bring theln under obedience to his freedom: in that case he is a progressing and self-unfolding literary man, a Student. That it be actually the Idea, which is possessed or striven after, is comnmon to both. Should the striving aim merely at the outward form, and the letter of learned culture, there is then produced, when the circle is gone round, the completed, when it is not yet gone round, the progressing, Bungler (StUmper). The latter is more tolerable than the former; for there is still room to hope that, in continuing his travel, lie may at some future point be seized by the Idea; but of the first all hope is over.' 1 From this bold and lofty principle the duties of the Literary Mlan are deduced with scientific precision; and stated, in all their sacredness and grandeur, with an austere brevity more impressive than any rhetoric. Fichte's metaphysical theory may be called in question, and readily enough misapprehended; but the sublime stoicism of his sentiments will find some response in many a heart. We must add the conclusion of his first Discourse, as a farther illustration of his manner:'In disquisitions of the sort like ours of to-day, which all the rest too must resemble, the generality are wont to censure: First, their severity; very'often on the goodnatured supposition that the speaker is not aware how much his rigour must displease us; that we have but frankly to let him know this, and then doubtless he will reconsider himself, and soften his statements. Thus, we said above, that a man who, after literary culture, had not arrived at knowledge of the Divine Idea, or did not strive towards it, was in strict speech 1 Ueber das Wesen des Gelehrtenz (On the Nature of the Literary Man); a Course of Lectures delivered at: Erlangen, in 1805. STATE OF" GERMAN LITERATURE.'65 Nothing; and farther down, we said that lie was a Bungler. This is in the style of those unmerciful expressions by whichl philosophers give such offence. - Now, looking away from the present case, that we may front the maxim in its general shape, I remind you that this species of character, without decisive force to renounce all respect for Truth, seeks merely to bargain and cheapen something out of her, whereby he himself on easier terms may attain to some consideration. But Truth, which once for all is as she is, and cannot alter aught of her nature, goes on her way; and there remains for her, in regard to. those who desire her not simply because she is true, nothing else, but to leave them standing as if they had never addressed her.'.Then farther, discourses of this sort are wont to be censured as unintelligible. Thus I figure to myself, - nowise you, Gentlemen, but some completed Literary Man of the second species, whose eye the disquisition here entered upon chanced to meet, as coming forward, doubting this way and that, and at last reflectively exclaiming: "The Idea, the Divine Idea, that which lies at the bottom of Appearance: what, pray, may this mean? " Of such a questioner I would inquire in turn: " What, pray, may this question mean " - Investigate it strictly, it means in most cases nothing more than so: "Under what other names, and in what other formulas, do I already know this same thing, which thou expressest by so strange and to me so unknown a symbol? " And to this again in most cases the only suitable reply were so: "Thou knowest this thing not at all, neither under this, nor under any other name; and wouldst thou arrive at the knowledge of it, thou must even now begin at the beginning to make study thereof;- and then, most fitly, under that name by which it is here first presented to thee! "' With such a notion of the Artist, it were a strange inconsistency did Criticism show itself unscientific or lax in estimating the product of his Art. For light on this point, we might refer to the writings of almost any individual among the German critics: take, for instance, the Charakteristiken of the two Schlegels, a work too of their younger years; and say whether in depth, clearness, minute and patient fidelity, these Characters have often been surpassed, or the import and poetic worth of so many poets and poems more vividly and accurately brought to view. As an instance of a much higher kind, we might refer to Goethe'; criticism of Hamlet in his W'ilhelm Meister. This truly is what may be called YOL. I. 5 66 MISCELLANIES. the poetry of criticism: for it is in some sort also a creative art; aiming, at least, to reproduce under a different shape the existing product of the poet; painting to the intellect what already lay painted to the heart and the imagination. Nor is it over poetry alone that criticism watches with such loving strictness: the mimic, the pictorial, the musical arts, all modes of representing or addressing the highest nature of man, are acknowledged as younger sisters of Poetry, and fostered with like care. Winkelmann's History of Plastic Art is known by repute to all readers: and of those who know it by inspection, many may have wondered why such a work has not been added to our own literature, to instruct our own statuaries and painters. On this subject of the plastic arts, we cannot withhold the following little sketch of Goethe's, as a specimen of pictorial criticism in what we consider a superior style. It is of an imaginary Landscapepainter, and his views of Swiss scenery; it will bear to be studied minutely, for there is no word without its meaning:'He succeeds in representing the cheerful repose of lake prospects, where houses in friendly approximation, imaging themselves in the clear wave, seem as if bathing in its depths; shores encircled with green hills, behind which rise forest mountains, and icy peaks of glaciers. The tone of colouring in such scenes is gay, mirthfully clear; the distances as if overflowed with softening vapour, which from watered hollows and river-valleys mounts up grayer and mistier, and indicates their windings. No less is the master's art to be praised in views from valleys lying nearer the high Alpine ranges, where declivities slope down, luxuriantly overgrown, and fresh streams roll hastily along by the foot of rocks.'With exquisite skill, in the deep shady trees of the foreground, he gives the distinctive character of the several species; satisfying us in the form of the whole, as in the structure of the branches, and the details of the leaves; no less so, in the fresh green with its manifold shadings, where soft airs appear as if fanning us with benignant breath, and the lights as if thereby put in motion.'In the middle-ground, his lively green tone grows fainter by degrees; and at last, on the more distant mountain-tops, passing into weak violet, weds itself with the blue of the sky. But our artist is above all happy in his paintings of high Alpine regions; in seizing STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 67' the simple greatness and stillness of their character; the wide pastures on the slopes, where dark solitary firs stand forth from the grassy carpet; and from high cliffs foaming brooks rush down. Whether he relieve his pasturages with grazing cattle, or the narrow winding rocky path with mules and laden pack-horses, he paints all with equal truth and richness; still introduced in the proper place, and not in too great copiousness, they decorate and enliven these scenes, without interrupting, without lessening their peaceful solitude. The execution testifies a master's hand; easy, with a few sure strokes, and yet complete. In his later pieces, he employed glittering English permanent-colours on paper: these pictures, accordingly, are of pre-eminently blooming tone; cheerful, yet, at the same time, strong and sated.'His views of deep mountain-chasms, where, round and round, nothing fronts us but dead rock, where, in the abyss, overspanned by its bold arch, the wild stream rages, are, indeed, of less attraction than the former: yet their truth excites us; we admire the great effect of the whole, produced at so little cost, by a few expressive strokes, and masses of local colours.' With no less accuracy of character can he represent the regions of the topmost Alpine ranges, where neither tree nor shrub any more appears; but only amid the rocky teeth and snow-summits, a few sunny spots clothe themselves with a soft sward. Beautiful,' and balmy and inviting as he colours these spots, he has here wisely forborne to introduce grazing herds; for these regions give food only to the chamois, and a perilous employment to the wild-hay-men.' 1 We have extracted this passage from Wilhelm ieisters Wanderjahre, Goethe's last Novel. The perusal of his whole Works would show, among many other more important facts, that Criticism also is a science of which he is master; that if ever any man had studied Art in all its branches and bearings, from its origin in the depths of the creative spirit, to its minutest finish on the canvas of the painter, on the Jips of the poet, or under the finger of the musician, he was that man. A nation which appreciates such studies, nay requires 1 The poor wild-hay-man of the Rigiberg, Whose trade is, on the brow of the abyss, To mow the common grass from nooks and shelves, To which the cattle dare not climb. Schiller's Wilhelm Tell. 68 MISCELLANIES. and rewards them, cannot, wherever its defects may lie, be defective in judgment of the arts. But a weightier question still remains. What has been the fruit of this its high and just judgment on these matters? What has criticism profited it, to the bringing forth of good works? How do its poems and its. poets correspond with so lofty a standard? We answer, that on this point also, Germany may rather court investigation than fear it. There are poets in that country who belong to a nobler class than most nations have to show in these days; a class entirely unknown to some nations; and, for the last two centuries, rare in all. We have no hesitation in stating, that we see in certain of the best German poets, and those too of our own time, something which associates them, remotely or nearly we say not, but which does associate them with the Masters of Art, the Saints of Poetry, long since departed, and, as we thought, without successors, from the earth, but canonised in the hearts of all generations, and yet living to all by the memory of what they did and were. Glances we do seem to find of that ethereal glory, which looks on us. in its full brightness from the Transfiguration of Raffaelle,.from the Tempest of Shakspeare; and in broken, but purest and still heart-piercing beams, struggling through the gloom of long: ages, from the tragedies of Sophocles, and the weather-worn sculptures of the Parthenon. This is that heavenly spirit, which, best seen in the aerial embodiment of poetry, but spreading likewise over all the thoughts and actions of an age, has given us Surreys, Sydneys, Raleighs in court and camp, Cecils in policy, Hookers in divinity, Bacons in philosophy, and Shakspeares and Spensers in song. All hearts that know this, know it to be the highest; and that, in poetry or elsewhere, it alone is true and imperishable. In affirming that any vestige, however feeble, of this divine spirit, is discernible in German poetry, we are aware that we place it above the existing poetry of any other nation. To prove this bold assertion, logical arguments were at all STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 69 times unavailing; and, in the present circumstances of the case, more than usually so. Neither will any extract or specimen help us;' for it is not in parts, but in whole poems, that the spirit of a true poet is to be seen. We can, therefore, only name such men as Tieck, Richter, Herder, Schiller, and, above all, Goethe; and ask any reader who has learned to admire wisely our own literature of Queen Elizabeth's age, to peruse these writers also; to study them till he feels that he has understood them, and justly estimated both their light and darkness; and then to pronounce whether it is not, in some degree, as we have said. Are there not tones here of that old melody? Are there not glimpses of that serene soul, that calm harmonious strength, that smiling earnestness,that Love and Faith and Humanity of nature? Do these foreign contemporaries of ours still exhibit, in their characters as men, something of that sterling nobleness, that union of majesty with meekness, which we must ever venerate in those our spiritual fathers? And do their works, in the new form of this century, show forth that old nobleness, not consistent only, with the science, the precision, the scepticism of these days, but wedded to them, incorporated with them, and shining through them like their life and soul? Might-it in truth almost seem to us, in reading the prose of Goethe, as if we were reading that of Milton; and of Milton writing with the culture of this time; combining French clearness with old English depth? And of his poetry may it indeed be said that it is poetry, and yet the poetry of our own generation; an ideal world, and yet the world we even now live in? —lThese questions we must leave candid and studious inquirers to answer for themselves; premising only, that the secret is not to be found on the surface; that the first reply is likely to be in the negative, but with inquirers of this sort, by no means likely to be the final one. To ourselves, we confess, it has long so appeared. The poetry of Goethe, for instance, we reckon to be Poetry, sometimes in the very highest sense of that word; yet it is no 70 MISCELLANIES. reminiscence, but something actually present and before us; no looking back into an antique Fairyland, divided by impassable abysses from the real world as it lies about us and within us; but a looking round upon that real world itself, now rendered holier to our eyes, and once more become a solemn temple, where the spirit of Beauty still dwells, and is still, under new emblems, to be worshipped as of old. With Goethe, the mythologies of bygone days pass only for what they are: we have no witchcraft or magic in the common acceptation; and spirits no longer bring with them airs from heaven or blasts from hell; for Pandemonium and the sted~fast Empyrean have faded away, since the opinions which they symbolised no longer are. Neither does he bring his heroes from remote Oriental climates, or periods of Chivalry, or any section either of Atlantis or the Age of Gold; feeling that the reflex of these things is cold and faint, and only hangs like a cloud-picture in the distance, beautiful but delusive, and which even the simplest know to be a delusion. The end of Poetry is higher: she must dwell in Reality, and become manifest to men in the forms among which they live and move. And this is what we prize in Goethe, and more or less in Schiller and the rest; all of whom, each in his own way, are writers of a similar aim. The coldest sceptic,:the most callous worldling, sees not the actual aspects of life more sharply than they are here delineated: the Nineteenth Century stands before us, in all its contradiction and perplexity; barren, mean and balefil as we have all known it; yet here no longer mean or barren, but enamelled into beauty in the poet's spirit; for its secret significance is laid open, and thus, as it were, the life-giving fire that slumbers in it is called forth, and flowers and foliage, as of old, are springing on its bleakest wildernesses, and overmantling its sternest cliffs. For these men have not only the clear eye, but the loving heart. They have penetrated into the mystery of.Nature; after long trial they have been initiated; and to unwearied endeavour, Art has at last yielded her secret; and STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 71 thus can the Spirit of our Age, embodied in fair imaginations, look forth on us, earnest and full of meaning, from their works. As the first and indispensable condition of good poets, they are wise and good men: much they have seen and suffered, and they have conquered all this, and made it all their own; they have known life in its heights and depths, and mastered in it both, and can teach others what it is, and how to lead it rightly. Their minds are as a mirror to us, where the perplexed image of our own being is reflected back in soft and clear interpretation. Here mirth and gravity are blended together; wit rests on deep devout wisdom, as the greensward with its flowers must rest on the rock, whose foundations reach downward to the centre. In a word, they are believers; but their faith is no sallow plant of darkness; it is green and flowery, for it grows in the sunlight. And this faith is the doctrine they have to teach us, the sense which, under every noble and graceful form, it is their endeavour to set forth: As all Nature's thousand changes But one changeless God proclaim, So in Art's wide kingdoms ranges One sole meaning, still the same: This is Truth, eternal Reason, Which from Beauty takes its dress, And, serene through time and season, Stands for aye in loveliness.' Such indeed is the end of Poetry at all times; yet in no recent literature known to us, except the German, has it been so far attained; nay, perhaps, so much as consciously and stedlfastly attempted. The reader feels that if this our opinion be in any measure true, it is a truth of no ordinary moment. It concerns not this writer or that; but it opens to us new views on the fortune of spiritual culture with ourselves and all nations. Have we not heard gifted men complaining that Poetry had passed away without return; that creative imagination consorted not with vigour of intellect, and that in the cold light of science 72 MISCELLANIES. there was no longer room for faith in things unseen? The old simplicity of heart was gone; earnest emotions must no longer be expressed in earnest symbols; beauty must recede into elegance, devoutness of character be replaced by clearness of thought, and grave wisdom by shrewdness and persiflage. Such things we have heard, but hesitated to believe them. If the poetry of the Germans, and this not by theory but by example, have proved, or even begun to prove, the contrary, it will deserve far higher encomiums than any we have passed upon it. In fact, the past and present aspect of German literature illustrates the literature of England in more than one way. Its history keeps pace with that of ours; for so closely are all European communities connected, that the phases of mind in any one country, so far as these represent its general circum-.stances and intellectual position, are but modified repetitions of its,phases in every other. We hinted above, that the Saxon School corresponded with what might be called the Scotch: Cramer was not unlike our Blair: Von Cronegk might be compared with Michael Bruce; and Rabener and Gellert with Beattie and Logan. To this mild and cultivated period, there succeeded, as with us, a partial abandonment of poetry, in favor of political and philosophical Illumination. Then was the time when hot war was declared against Prejudice of all sorts; Utility was set up for the universal measure of mental as well as material value; poetry, except of an economical and preceptorial character, was found to -be the product of a rude age; and religious enthusiasm was but derangement in the biliary organs. Then did the Prices and Condorcets of Germany indulge in day-dreams of perfectibility; a new social order was to bring back the Saturnian era to the world; and philosophers sat on their sunny Pisgah, looking back over dark savage deserts, and forward into a land flowing with milk and honey. This period also passed away, with its good and its evil; of which chiefly the latter seems to be remembered; for we STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 73 scarcely ever find the affair alluded to, except in terms of contempt, by the title Aufkldrerei (Illuminationism); and its partisans, in subsequent satirical confroversies, received the nickname of Philistern (Philistines) which the few scattered remnants of them still bear, both in writing and speech. Poetry arose again, and in a new and singular shape. The Sorrows of Werter, Gitz von Berlichingen, and the Robbers, may stand as patriarchs and representatives of three separate classes, which, commingled in various proportions, or separately coexisting, now with the preponderance of this, now of that, occupied the whole popular literature of Germany till near the end of the last century. These were the Sentimentalists, the Chivalry-play writers, and other gorgeous and outrageous persons; as a whole, now pleasantly denominated the Krafnmdnner, literally, Power-men. They dealt in sceptical lamentation, mysterious enthusiasm, frenzy and suicide: they recurred with fondness to the Feudal Ages, delineating many a battlemented keep, and swart buff-belted man-atarms; for in reflection, as in action, they studied to be strong, vehement, rapidly effective; of battle-tumult, lovemadness, heroism and despair, there was no end. This literary period is called the Sturm- und Drang-Zeit, the Stormand Stress-Period; for great indeed was the woe and fury of these Power-men. Beauty, to their mind, seemed synonymous with Strength. All passion was poetical, so it were but fierce enough. Their head moral virtue was pride; their beau ideal of manhood was some transcript of Milton's Devil. Often they inverted Bolingbroke's plan, and instead of' patronising Providence,' did directly the opposite; raging with extreme animation against Fate in general, because it enthralled free virtue; and with clenched hands, or sounding shields, hurling defiance towards the vault of heaven. These Power-men are gone too; and, with few exceptions, save the three originals above named, their works have already followed them. The application of all this to our own literature is too obvious to require much exposition. 74 MISCELLANIES. Have not we also had our Power-men? And will not, as in Germany, to us likewise a milder, a clearer, and a truer time come round? Our Byron was in his youth but what Schiller and Goethe had been in theirs: yet the author of Werter wrote iphigenie and lTorquato Tasso; and he who began with the Robbers ended with Wilhelm Tell. With longer life, iall things were to have been hoped for from Byron: for he loved truth in his inmost heart, and would have discov-'ered at last that his Corsairs and Harolds were not true. It was otherwise appointed. But with one man all hope does not die. If this way is the right one, we too shall find.it. The poetry of Germany, meanwhile, We cannot but regard as well deserving to be studied, in this as in other points of view: it is distinctly an advance beyond any other *known to us; whether on the right path or not, may be still:uncertain; but a path selected by Schillers and Goethes, and vindicated by Schlegels and Tiecks, is surely worth serious examination. For the rest, need we add that it is study for self-instruction, nowise for purposes of imitation, that we recommend? -Among the deadliest of poetical sins is imi-tation; for if every man must have his own way of thought, and his own way of expressing it, much more every nation. But of danger on that side, in the country of Shakspeare and Milton, there seems little to be feared. We come now to the second grand objection against Ger-man literature, its Mysticism. In treating of a subject itself so vague and dim, it were well if we tried, in the first place, to settle, with more accuracy, what each of the two contending parties really means to say or to contradict regarding it. Mysticism is a word in the mouths of all: yet, of the hun-,dred, perhaps not one has ever asked himself what this opprobrious epithet properly signified in his mind; or where the boundary between true science and this Land of Chimeras was to be laid down. Examined strictly, mystical, in.most cases, will turn out to be merely synonymous with not STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 75 understood. Yet surely there may be haste and oversight here; for it is well known, that, to the understanding of anything, two conditions are equally required; intelligibility in the thing itself being no whit more indispensable than intelligence in the examiner of it. "I am bound to find you in reasons, Sir," said Johnson,~ "but not in brains;" a speech of the most shocking unpoliteness, yet truly enough expressing the state of the case. It may throw some light on this question, if we remind our readers of the following fact. In the field of human investigation there are objects of two sorts: First, the visible, including' not only such as are material, and may be seen by the bodily eye; but all such, likewise, as may be represented in a shape, before the mind's eye, or in any way pictured there: And, secondly, the invisible, or such as are not only unseen by human eyes, but as cannot be seen by any eye; not objects of sense at all; not capable, in short, of being pictured or imaged in the mind, or in any way represented by a shape either without the mind or within it. If any man shall here turn upon us, and assert that there are no such invisible objects; that whatever cannot be so pictured or imagined (meaning imaged) is nothing, and the science that relates to it nothing; we shall regret the circumstance. We shall request him, however, to consider seriously and deeply within himself, what he means simply by these two words, GOD and his own SOUL; and whether he finds that visible shape and true existence are here also one and the same? If he. still persist in denial, we have nothing for it, but to wish him good speed on his own separate path of inquiry; and he and we will agree to differ on this subject of mysticism, as on so many more important ones. Now, whoever has a material and visible object to treat, be it of natural Science, Political Philosophy, or any such externally and sensibly existing department, may represent it to his own mind, and convey it to the minds of others, as it were, by a direct diagram, more complex indeed than a 76 MISCELLANIES. geometrical diagram, but still with the same sort of precision; and, provided his diagram be complete, and the same both to himself and his reader, he may reason of it, and discuss it, with the clearness, and, in some sort, the certainty of geometry itself. If he do not so reason of it, this must be for want of comprehension to image out the whole of it, or of distinctness to convey the same whole to his reader: the diagrams of the two are different; the conclusions of the one diverge from those of the other, and the obscurity here, provided the reader be a man of sound judgment and due attentiveness, results firom incapacity on the part of the.writer. In such'a case, the latter is justly regarded as a man of imperfect intellect; he grasps more than he can carry; he confuses what, with ordinary faculty, might be rendered clear; he is not a mystic, but, what is much worse, a dunce. Another matter it is, however, when the object to be treated of belongs to the invisible and immaterial class; cannot be pictured out even by the writer himself, much less,in ordinary symbols, set before the reader. In this case, it is evident, the difficulties of comprehension are increased an hundred-fold. - Here it will require long, patient and skilful effort, both from the writer and the reader, before the' two can so much as speak together; before the former can make known to the latter, not how the matter stands, but even what the matter is, which they have to investigate in concert. He must devise new means of explanation, describe conditions of mind in which this invisible idea arises, the false persuasions that eclipse it, the false shows, that may be mistaken for it, the glimpses of it that appear elsewhere; in short, strive, by a thousand well-devised methods, to guide his reader up to the perception of it; in all which, moreover, the reader must faithfully and toilsomely cooperate with him, if any fruit is to come of their mutual endeavour. Should the latter take up his ground too early, and affirm to himself that now he has seized what he still has not seized; that this and nothing else is the thing aimed at by his teacher, STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 77 the consequences are plain enough: disunion, darkness and contradiction between the two; the writer has written for another man, and this reader, after long provocation, quarrels with him finally, and quits him as a mystic. Nevertheless, after all these limitations, we shall not hesitate to admit, that there is in the German mind a tendency to mysticism, properly so called; as perhaps there is, unless carefully guarded against, in all minds tempered like theirs. It is a fault; but one hardly separable from the excellences we admire most in them. A simple, tender and devout nature, seized by some touch of divine Truth, and of this perhaps under some rude enough symbol, is rapt with it into a whirlwind of unutterable thoughts; wild gleams of splendour dart to and fro in the eye of the seer,. but the vision will not abide with him, and yet he feels that its light is light from heaven, and precious to him beyond all price. A simple nature, a George Fox, or a Jacob Bdhme, ignorant of all the ways of men, of the dialect in which they speak, or the forms by which they think, is labouring with a poetic, a religious idea, which, like all such ideas, must express itself by word and act, or consume the heart it -dwells in. Yet how shall he speak; how shall he pour forth into other souls that of which his own soul is full even to bursting? He cannot speak to us; he knows not our state, and cannot make known to us his own. His words are an inexplicable rhapsody, a speech in an unknown tongue. Whether there is meaning in it to the speaker himself, and how much or how true, we shall never ascertain; for it is not in the language of men, but of'one man who had not learned the language of men; and, with himself, the key to its full interpretation was lost from amongst us. These are mystics; men who either know not clearly their own meaning, or at least cannot put it forth in formulas of thought, whereby others, with whatever difficulty, may apprehend it. Was their meaning clear to themselves, gleams of it will yet shine through, how ignorantly and unconsciously soever it may 78 MISCELLANIES. have been delivered; was it still wavering and obscure, no science could have delivered it wisely. In either case, much more in the last, they merit and obtain the name of mystics. To scoffers they are a ready and cheap prey; but sober persons understand that pure evil is as unknown in this lower Universe as pure good; and that even in mystics, of an honest and deep-feeling heart, there may be much to reverence, and of the rest more to pity than to mock. But it is not to apologise for B6hme, or Novalis, or the school of Theosophus and Flood, that we have here undertaken. Neither is it on such persons that the charge of mysticism brought against the Germans mainly rests. Bohme is little known among us; Novalis, much as he deserves knowing, not at all; nor is it understood, that, in their own country, these men rank higher than they do, or might do, with ourselves. The chief mystics in Germany, it would appear, are the Transcendental Philosophers, Want, Fichte, and Schelling! With these is the chosen seat of mysticism, these are its' tenebrific constellation,' from which it'doth ray out darkness' over the earth. Among a certain class of thinkers, does a frantic exaggeration in sentiment, a crude fever-dream in opinion, anywhere break forth, it is directly labelled as Kantism; and the moon-struck speculator is, for the time, silenced and put to shame by this epithet. For often, in such circles, Kant's Philosophy is not only an absurdity, but a wickedness and a horror; the pious and peaceful sage of K6nigsberg passes for a sort of Necromancer and Black-artist in AMetaphysics; his doctrine is a region of boundless baleful gloom, too cunningly broken here and there by splendours of unholy fire; spectres and tempting demons people it, and, hovering over fathomless abysses, hang gay and gorgeous air-castles, into which the hapless traveller is seduced to enter, and so sinks to rise no more. If anything in the history of Philosophy could surprise us, it might well be this. Perhaps among all the metaphysical writers of the eighteenth century, including Hume and STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 79 Hartley themselves, there is not one that so ill meets the conditions of a mystic as this same Immanuel Kant. A quiet, vigilant, clear-sighted man, who had become distinguished to the world in mathematics before he attempted philosophy; who, in his writings generally, on- this and other subjects, is perhaps characterised by no quality so much as precisely by the distinctness of his conceptions, and the sequence and iron strictness with which he reasons. To our own minds, in the little that we know of' him, he has more than once recalled Father Boscovich in Natural Philosophy; so piercing, yet so sure; so concise, so still, so simple; with such clearness and composure does he mould the complicacy of his subject; and so firm, sharp and definite are the results he evolves from it.l Right or wrong as his hypothesis may be, no one that knows him will suspect that he himself had not seen it, and seen over it; had not meditated it with calmness and deep thought, and studied throughout to expound it with scientific rigour. Neither, as we often hear, is there any superhuman faculty required to follow him. We venture to assure such of our readers as are in any measure used to metaphysical study, that the Kritik der reinen Vernunft is by no means the hardest task they have tried. It is true, there is an unknown and forbidding terminology to be mastered; but is not this the case also with Chemistry, and Astronomy, and all other sciences that deserve the name of science? It is true,'a careless or unprepared reader will find Kant's writing a riddle; but will a reader of this sort make much of Newton's Principia, or D'Alembert's Calculus of Variations? He will make nothing of them; perhaps less than nothing; for if he trust to his own judgment, he will pronounce them madness. Yet if the Philosophy of Mind is any philosophy at all, Physics and Mathematics 1 We have heard that the Latin Translation of his Works is unintelligible, the Translator himself not having understood it; also that Villers is no safe guide in the study of him. Neither Villers nor those Latin Works are known to us. 80 MISCELLANIES. must be plain subjects compared with it. But these latter are happy, not only in the fixedness and simplicity of their methods, but also in the universal acknowledgment of their claim to that prior and continual intensity of application, without which all progress in any science is impossible; though more than one may be attempted without it; and blamed, because without it they will yield no result. The truth is, German Philosophy differs not more widely from ours in the substance of its doctrines, than in its manner of communicating them. The class of disquisitions, named Kamin-Philosophie (Parlour-fire Philosophy) in Germany,.is held in little estimation there. No right treatise on anything, it is believed, least of all on the nature of the human mind, can be profitably read, unless the reader himself cooperates: the blessing of half-sleep in such cases is denied him; he must be alert, and strain every faculty, or it profits nothing. Philosophy, with these men, pretends to be a Science, nay the living principle and soul of all Sciences, and must be treated and studied scientifically, or not studied and treated at all. Its doctrines should be present with every cultivated writer; its spirit should pervade every piece of composition, how slight or popular soever: but to treat itself popularly would be a degradation and an impossibility. Philosophy dwells aloft in the Temple of Science, the divinity of its inmost shrine; her dictates descend among men, but she herself descends not; whoso would behold her, must climb with long and laborious effort; nay still linger in the forecourt, till manifold trial have proved him worthy of admission into the interior solemnities. It is the false notion prevalent respecting the objects aimed at, and the purposed manner of attaining them, in German Philosophy, that causes, in great part, this disappointment of our attempts to study it, and the evil report which the disappointed naturally enough bring, back with them. Let {he reader believe us, the Critical Philosophers, whatever they may be, are no mystics, and have no fellowship with mystics. STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 81 What a mystic is, we have said above. But Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, are men of cool judgment, and determinate energetic character; men of science and profound and universal investigation; nowhere does the world, in all its bearings, spiritual or material, theoretic or practical, lie pictured in clearer or truer colours than in such heads as these. We have heard Kant estimated as a spiritual brother of Bbhme: as justly might we take Sir Isaac Newton for a spiritual brother. of Baron Swedenborg, and Laplace's lfechanism of the Heavens for a peristyle to the Vision of the New Jerusalem. That this is no extravagant comparison, we appeal to any man acquainted with any single volume of Kant's writings. Neither, though Schelling's system differs still more widely from ours, can we reckon Schelling a mystic. He is a man evidently of deep insight into individual things; speaks wisely, and reasons with the nicest accuracy, on all matters where we understand his data. Fairer might it be in us to say that we had not yet appreciated his truth, and therefore could not appreciate his error. But above all, the mysticism of Fichte might astonish us. The cold, colossal, adamantine -spirit, standing erect and clear, like a Cato Major among.degenerate men; fit to have been the teacher of the Stoa, and to have discoursed of Beauty and Virtue in the groves of Academe! Our reader has seen some words of Fichte's: are these like words of a mystic? We state Fichte's character, as it is known and admitted by men of all parties among the Germans, when we say that so robust an intellect, a soul so calm, so lofty, massive and immovable, has not mingled in philosophical discussion since the time of Luther. We, figure his motionless look, had he heard this charge of mysticism! For the man rises before us, amid contradiction and debate, like a granite mountain amid clouds and wind. Ridicule, of the best that could be commanded, has. been already tried against him; but it could not avail. What was the wit of a thousand wits to him? The cry of a thousand choughs assaulting that old cliff of granite: seen VOL. I. 6 82 MISCELLANIES. from the summit, these, as they winged the midway air, showed scarce so gross as beetles, and their cry was seldom even audible. Fichte's opinions may be true or false; but his character, as a thinker, can be slightly valued only by such as know it ill; and as a man, approved by action and suffering, in his life and in his death, he ranks with a class of men who were common only in better ages than'ours. The Critical Philosophy has been regarded by persons of approved judgment, and nowise directly implicated in the furthering of it, as distinctly the greatest intellectual achievement of the century in which it came to light. August Wilhelm Schlegel has stated in plain terms his belief, that, in respect of its probable influence on the moral culture of Europe, it stands on a line with the Reformation. We mention Schlegel as a man whose opinion has a known value among ourselves. But the' worth of Kant's philosophy is not to be gathered from votes alone. The noble system of morality, the purer theology, the lofty views of man's nature derived from it; nay perhaps the very discussion of such matters, to which it gave so strong an impetus, have told with remarkable and beneficial influence on the whole spiritual character of Germany. No writer of any importance in that country, be he acquainted or not with the Critical Philosophy, but breathes a spirit of devoutness and elevation more or less directly drawn from it. Such men as Goethe and Schiller cannot exist without effect in any literature or in any century: but if one circumstance more than another has contributed to forward their endeavours, and introduce that higher tone into the literature of Germany, it has been this philosophical system; to which, in wisely believing its results, or even in wisely denying them, all that was lofty and pure in the genius of poetry, or the reason of man, so readily allied itself. That such a system must, in the end, become known among ourselves, as it is already becoming known in France and Italy, and over all Europe, no one acquainted in any STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 83 measure with the character of this matter, and the character of England, will hesitate to predict. Doubtless it will be studied here, and by heads adequate to do it justice; it will be investigated duly and thoroughly; and settled in our minds on the footing which belongs to it, and where thenceforth it must continue. Respecting the degrees of truth and error which will then be found to exist in Kant's system, or in the modifications it has since received, and is still receiving, we desire to be understood as making no estimate, and little qualified to make any. We would have it studied and known, on general grounds; because even the errors of such Hnren are instructive; and because, without a large admixture of truth, no error can exist under such combinations, and become diffused so widely. To judge of it we pretend not: we are still inquirers in the mere outskirts of the matter; and it is but inquiry that we wish to see promoted. Meanwhile, as an advance or first step towards this, we may state something of what has most struck ourselves as characterising Kant's system; as distinguishing it from every other known to us; and chiefly from the Metaphysical Philosophy which is taught in Britain, or rather which was taught; for, on looking round, we see not that there is any such Philosophy in existence at the present day.1 The 1 The name of Dugald Stewart is a name venerable to all Europe, and to none more dear and venerable than to ourselves. Nevertheless his writings are.not a Philosophy, but a making ready for one. He does not enter on the field to till it; he only encompasses it with fences, invites cultivators, and drives away intruders: often (fallen on evil days) he is reduced to long arguments with the passers-by, to prove that it is a field, that this so highly prized domain of his is, in truth, soil and substance, not clouds and shadow. We regard his discussions on the nature of Philosophic Language, and his unwearied efforts to set forth and guard against its fallacies, as worthy of all'acknowledgment; as indeed forming the greatest, perhaps the only true improvement, which Philosophy has received among us in our age. It is only to a superficial observer that the import of these discussions can seem trivial; rightly understood, they give sufficient and final answer to Hartley's and Darwin's, and all other possible forms of Materialism, the grand Idolatry, as we may rightly call It, by which, in all times, the true Worship, that of the Invisible, has been 84 MISCELLANIES. Kantist, in direct contradiction to Locke and all his followers, both of the French, and English or Scotch school, commences from within, and proceeds outwards; instead of commencing from without, and, with various precautions and hesitations, endeavouring to proceed inwards. The ultimate aim of all Philosophy must be to interpret appearances,from the given symbol to ascertain the thing. Now the first step towards this, the aim of what may be called Primary or Critical Philosophy, must be to find some indubitable principle; to fix ourselves on some unchangeable basis; to discover what the Germans call the Urwahr, the Primitive Truth, the necessarily, absolutely and eternally True. This necessarily True, this absolute basis of Truth, Locke silently, and Reid and his followers with more tumult, find in a certain modified Experience, and evidence of Sense, in the universal and natural persuasion of all men. Not so the Germans: they deny that there is here any absolute Truth, or that any Philosophy whatever can be built on such a basis; nay, they go to the length of asserting, that such an appeal even to the universal persuasions of mankind, gather them with what precautions you may, amounts to a total abdication of Philosophy, strictly so called, and renders not only its farther progress, but its very existence, impossible. What, they would say, have the persuasions, or instinctive beliefs, or whatever they are called, of men, to do in this matter? Is it not the object of Philosophy to enlighten, and rectify, and many times directly contradict these very beliefs? Take, for instance, the voice of all generations of men on the subject of Astronomy. Will there, out of any age or climate, polluted and withstood. Mr. Stewart has written warmly against Kant; but it would surprise him to find how much of a Kantist he himself essentially is. Has not the whole scope of his labours been to reconcile what a Kantist would call his Understanding with his Reason; a noble, but still too fruitless effort to overarch the chasm which, for all minds but his own, separates his Science from his Religion? We regard the assiduous study of his Works as the best preparation for studying those of Kant. STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 85 be one dissentient against the fact of the Sun's going round the Earth? Can any evidence be clearer; is there any persuasion more universal, any belief more instinctive? And yet the Sun moves no hairsbreadth; but stands in the centre of his Planets, let us vote as we please. So is it likewise with our evidence for an external independent existence of Matter, and, in general, with our whole argument against Hume; whose reasonings, from the premises admitted both by him and us, the Germans affirm to be rigorously consistent and legitimate, and, on these premises, altogether uncontroverted and incontrovertible. British Philosophy, since the time of Hume, appears to them nothing more than a' laborious and unsuccessful striving to build dike after dike'in front of our Churches and Judgment-halls, and so turn'back from them the deluge of Scepticism, with which'that extraordinary writer overflowed us, and still threatens'to destroy whatever we value most.' This is August Wilhelm Schlegel's verdict; given in words equivalent to these. The Germans take up the matter differently, and would assail Hume, not in his outworks, but in the centre of his citadel. They deny his first principle, that Sense is the only inlet of Knowledge, that Experience is the primary ground of Belief. Their Primitive Truth, however, they seek, not historically and by experiment, in the universal persuasions of men, but by intuition, in the deepest and purest nature of Man. Instead of attempting, which they consider vain, to prove the existence of God, Virtue, an immaterial Soul, by inferences drawn, as the conclusion of all Philosophy, from the world of Sense, they find these things written as the beginning of all Philosophy, in obscured but ineffaceable characters, within our inmost being; and themselves first affording any certainty and clear meaning to that very world of Sense, by which we endeavour to demonstrate them. God is, nay alone is, for with like emphasis we cannot say that anything else is. This is the Absolute, the Primitively True, which the philosopher seeks. Endeavouring, by logical 86 MISCELLANIES. argument, to prove the existence of God, a Kantist might say, would be like taking out a candle to look for the sun; nay, gaze steadily into your candle-light, and the sun himself maybe invisible. To open the inward eye to the sight of this Primitively True; or rather we might call it, to clear off the Obscurations of Sense, which eclipse this truth within us, so that we may see it, and believe it not only to be true, but the foundation and essence of all other truth, - may, in such language as we are here using, be said to be the problem of Critical Philosophy. In this point of view, Kant's system may be thought to have a remote affinity to those of Malebranche and Descartes. But if they in some measure agree as to their aim, there is the widest difference as to the means. We state what to ourselves has long appeared the grand characteristic of Kant's Philosophy, when we mention his distinction, seldom perhaps expressed so broadly, but uniformly implied, between Understanding and Reason (Verstand and Vernunft). To most of our readers this may seem a distinction without a difference: nevertheless, to the Kantists it is by no means such. They believe that both Understanding and Reason are organs, or rather, we should say, modes of operation, by which the mind discovers truth; but they think that their manner of proceeding is essentially different; that their provinces are separable and distinguishable, -nay that it is of the last importance to separate and distinguish them. Reason, the Kantists say, is of a higher nature than Understanding; it works- by more subtle methods, on higher objects, and requires a far finer culture for its development, indeed in many men it is never developed at all; but its results are no less certain, nay rather,:they are much more so; for Reason discerns Truth itself, the absolutely and primitively True; while Understanding discerns only relations, and cannot decide without if. The proper province of Understanding is all, strictly speaking, real, practical and material knowledge, Mathematics, Physics, Political STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 87 Economy, the adaptation of means to ends in the whole business of life. In this province it is the strength and universal implement of the mind: an indispensable servant, without which, indeed, existence itself would be impossible. Let it not step beyond this province, however; not usurp the province of Reason, which it' is appointed to obey, and cannot rule over without ruin to the whole spiritual man. Should Understanding attempt to prove the existence of God, it ends, if thorough-going and consistent with itself, in Atheism, or a faint possible Theism, which scarcely differs from this: should it speculate of Virtue, it. ends in Utility, making Prudence and a sufficiently cunning love of Self the highest good. Consult Understanding about the Beauty of Poetry, and it asks, Where is this Beauty? or discovers it at length in rhythms and fitnesses, and male and female rhymes. Witness also its everlasting paradoxes on Necessity and the Freedom of the Will; its ominous silence on the end and meaning of man; and the enigma which, under such inspection, the whole purport of existence becomes. Nevertheless, say the Kantists, there is a truth in these things. Virtue is Virtue, and not Prudence; not less surely than the angle in a semicircle is a right angle, and no trapezium: Shakspeare is a Poetj and Boileau is none, think of it as you may: neither is it more certain that I myself exist, than that God exists, infinite, eternal, invisible, the same yesterday, to-day and forever. To discern these truths is the province of Reason, which therefore is to be; cultivated as the highest faculty in man. Not by logic. and:argument does it work; yet surely and clearly may it be taught to work.: and its domain lies in that, higher region whither logic and argument cannot reach; in that holier region, where Poetry, and Virtue and Divinity abide, in whose presence Understanding wavers and recoils, dazzled into utter darkness by that' sea of light,' at once the fountain and the ter-J raination of all true knowledge. Will the Kantists forgive us for the loose and popular 88 MISCELLANIES. manner in which we must here speak of these things, to bring them in any measure before the eyes of our readers? - It may illustrate the distinction still farther, if we say, that, in the opinion of a Kantist, the French -are of all European nations the most gifted with Understanding, and the most destitute of Reason 1 that David Hume had no forecast of this latter, and that Shakspeare and Luther dwelt perennially in its purest sphere. Of the vast, nay in these days boundless, importance of this distinction, could it be scientifically established, we need remind no thinking man. For the rest, far be it from the reader to suppose that this same Reason is but a new appearance, under another name, of our own old'Wholesome Prejudice,' so well known to most of us:! Prejudice, wholeaome or unwholesome, is a personage for whom the German Philosophers disclaim all shadow of respect; nor do the vehement among them hide their deep disdain for all and sundry who fight under her flag. Truth is to be loved purely and solely because it is true. With moral, political, religious considerations, high and dear as they may otherwise be, the Philosopher,:as such, has no concern. To look at them.would but perplex him, and distract his vision from the task in his hands. Calmly he constructs -his theorem, as the Geometer does his, without hope or fear, save that he may or may not find the solution; and stands in the middle, by the,one, it may be, accused as an Infidel, by the other as an Ent-husiast and a Mystic, till the tumult ceases, and what was:rue, is and continues true to the end of all time. Such are some of the high and momentous questions'treated of, by calm, earnest and deeply meditative men, in this system of Philosophy, which to the wiser minds among us is still unknown, and by the unwiser is spoken of and -regarded in such manner as we see. The profoundness, 1 Schelling has said as much or more (Methode des Academischen Studium, pp. 105-111), in terms which we could wish we had space to transcribe. STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 89 subtlety, extent of investigation, which the answer of these questions presupposes, need not be farther pointed out. With the truth or falsehood of the system, we have here, as already stated, no concern: our aim has been, so far as might be done, to show it as it appeared to us; and to ask such of our readers as pursue these studies, whether this also is not worthy of some study.;The reply we must now leave to themselves. As an appendage to the charge of Mysticism brought against the Germans, there is often added the seemingly incongruous one of Irreligion. On this point also we had much to say; but must for the present decline it. Meanwhile, let the reader be assured, that to the charge of Irreligion, as to so many others, the Germans will plead not guilty. On the contrary, they will not scruple to assert that their literature is, in a positive sense, reliiious; nay, perhaps to maintain, that if ever neighbouring nations are to recover that pure and high spirit of devotion, the loss of which, however we may disguise it or pretend to overlook it, can be hidden from no observant mind, it must be by travelling, if not on the same path, at least in the same direction, in which the Germans have already begun to travel. We shall add, that the Religion of Germany is a subject not for slight but for deep study, and, if we mistake not, may in some degree reward the deepest. Here, however, we must close our examination or defence. We have spoken freely, because we felt distinctly, and thought the matter worthy of being stated, and more fully inquired into. Farther than this, we have no quarrel for the Germans: we would have justice done to them, as to all men and all things; but for their literature or character we profess no sectarian or exclusive preference. We think their recent Poetry, indeed, superior to the recent Poetry of any other nation; but taken as a whole, inferior to that of several; inferior-not to our own only, but to that of Italy, nay 90 MISCELLANIES. perhaps to that of Spain. Their Philosophy too must still be regarded as uncertain; at best only the beginning of better things. But surely even this is not to be neglected. A. little light is precious in great darkness: nor, amid the myriads of Poetasters and Philosophes, are Poets and Philosophers so numerous that we should reject such, when they speak to us in the hard, but manly, deep and expressive tones of that old Saxon speech, which is also our mother-tongue. We confess, the present aspect of spiritual Europe might fill a melancholic observer with doubt and foreboding. It is mournful to see so many noble, tender and high-aspiring minds deserted of that religious light which once guided all such: standing sorrowful on the scene of past convulsions and controversies, as on a scene blackened and burnt-up with fire; mourning in the darkness, because there is desolation, and no home for the soul; or what is worse, pitching tents among the ashes, and kindling weak earthly lamps which we are to take for stars. This darkness is but transitory obscuration: these ashes are the soil of future herbage and richer'harvests. Religion, Poetry, is not dead; it will never die. Its dwelling and birthplace is in the soul of man, and it is eternal as the being of man. In any point of Space, in any section of Time, let there be a living Man; and there is an Infinitude above him and beneath him, and an Eternity encompasses him on this hand and on that; and tones 6f Sphere-music, and tidings from loftier worlds, will flit round him, if he can but listen, and visit him with holy influences, even in the thickest press of trivialities, or the din of busiest life. Happy the man, happy the nation that can hear these tidings; that has them written in fit characters, legible to every eye, and the solemn import of them present.at all moments to every heart! That there is, in these days, no nation so happy, is too clear; but that all nations, and ourselves in the van, are, with more or less discernment of its nature, struggling towards this happiness, is the hope and STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE 91 the glory of our time. To us, as to others, success, at a distant or a nearer day, cannot be uncertain. (Meanwhile, the first condition of success is, that, in striving honestly ourselves, we honestly acknowledge the striving of our neighbour; that with a Will unwearied in seeking Truth, we have a Sense open for it, wheresoever and howsoever it may arise. 92 MISCELLANTES; LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER.1 [1828.] IF the charm of fame consisted, as Horace has mistakenly declared,'in being pointed at with the finger, and having it said, This is he!' few writers of the present age could boast of more fame than Werner. It has been the unhappy fortune of this man to stand for a long period incessantly before the world, in a far stronger light than naturally belonged to him, or could exhibit him to advantage. Twenty years ago he was a man of considerable note, which has ever since been degenerating into notoriety. The mystic dramatist, the sceptical enthusiast, was known and partly esteemed by all students of poetry; Madame de Stail, we recollect, allows him an entire chapter in her Allemagne. It was a much coarser curiosity, and in a much wider circle, which the dissipated man, by successive indecorums, occasioned; till at last the convert to Popery, the preaching zealot, came to fig1 FOREIGN REVIEW, NO. 1. - Lebens-Abriss Friedrich Ludwig Zacharias Werners. Von dem lerausgeber von loffmanns Leben und Nachlass. (Sketch of the Life of Frederick Ludwig Zacharias Werner. By the Editor of' Hoffmann's Life and Remains.') Berlin, 1823. 2. Die Sihne des Thals. (The Sons of the Valley.) A Dramatic Poem. Part I. Die Templer ausf Cypern. (The Templars in Cyprus.) Part II. Die Kreuzesbriider'. (The Brethren of the Cross.) Berlin, 1801, 1802. 3. Das Kreuz an der Ostsee. (The Cross on the Baltic.) A Tragedy. Berlin, 1806. 4. MVartin Luther, oder die Weihe der Kraft. (Martin Luther, or the Consecration of Strength.) A Tragedy. Berlin, 1807. 5. Die Mutter der Makkabdier. (The Mother of the Maccabees.) A Tragedy. Vienna, 1820. LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 93' ure in all newspapers; and some picture of him was required for all heads that would not sit blank and mute in the topic of every coffeehouse and aesthetic tea. In dim heads, that is, in the great majority, the picture was, of course, perverted into a strange bugbear, and the original decisively enough condemned; but even the few, who might see him in his true shape, felt too well that nothing loud could be said in his behalf; that, with so many mournful blemishes, if extenuation could not avail, no complete defence was to be attempted. At the same time, it is not the history of a mere literary: profligate that we have here to do with. Of men whom fine talents cannot teach the humblest prudence, whose high feeling, unexpressed in noble action, must lie smouldering with baser admixtures in their own bosom, till their existence, assaulted from without and from within, becomes a burnt and blackened ruin, to be sighed over by the few, and stared at, or trampled on, by the many, there is unhappily no want in any country; nor can the unnatural union of genius with depravity and degradation have such charms for our readers, that we should go abroad in quest of it, or in any case dwell on it, otherwise than with reluctance. Werner is something more than this: a gifted spirit struggling earnestly amid the new, complex, tumultuous influences of his time and.'country, but without force to body himself forth from amongst them; a keen adventurous swimmer, aiming towards high and distant landmarks, but too weakly in so rough a sea; for the currents drive him far astray, and he sinks at last in the waves, attaining little for himself, and leaving little, save the memory of his failure, to others. A glance over his history may not be unprofitable; if the man himself can less interest us, the ocean of German, of European Opinion, still rolls in wild eddies to and fro; and with its movements and refluxes, indicated in the history of such men, every one of us is concerned. Our materials for this survey are deficient, not so much in 94 MISCELLANIES. quantity as quality. The' Life,' now known to be by Hitzig of Berlin, seems a very honest, unpresuming performance; but, on the other hand, it is much too fragmentary and discursive for our wants; the features of the man are nowhere united into a portrait, but left for the reader to unite as he may; a task which, to most readers, will be hard enough: for the Work, short in compass, is more than proportionally short in details of facts; and Werner's history, much as an intimate friend must have known of it, still lies before us, in great part, dark and unintelligible. For what' he has done we should doubtless thank our Author; yet it seems a pity, that in this instance he had not done more and better. A singular chance made him, at the same time, companion of both Hoffmann and Werner, perhaps the two most showy, heterogeneous and misinterpretable writers of his day; nor shall we deny that, in performing a friend's duty to their memory, he has done truth also a service. His Life of Hoffmann,l pretending to no artfulness of arrangement, is redundant, rather than defective, in minuteness; but there, at least, the means of a correct judgment are brought within our reach, and the work, as usual with Hitzig, bears marks of the utmost fairness; and of an accuracy which we might almost call professional: for the Author, it would seem, is a legal functionary of long standing, and now of respectable rank; and he examines and records, with a certain notarial strictness too rare in compilations of this sort. So far as Hoffmann is concerned, therefore, we have reason to be satisfied. In regard to Werner, however, we cannot isay so much: here we should certainly have wished for more facts though it had been with fewer consequences drawn from them; were these somewhat chaotic expositions of Werner's character exchanged for simple particulars of his walk and conversation, the result would be much surer, and, especially to foreigners, much more complete and luminous. As it is, from repeated perusals of this biography, we have failed to 1 See Appendix I. ~ Hojfmann. LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 95' gather any very clear no.tion of the man: nor with perhaps more study of his writings than, on other grounds, they could have merited, does his manner of existence still stand out to us with that distinct cohesion which puts an end to doubt. Our view of him the reader will accept as an approximation, and be content to wonder with us, and charitably pause where we cannot altogether interpret. Werner was. born at KISnigsberg, in East Prussia, on the 18th of November 1768. His father was Professor of History and Eloquence in the University there; and farther, in virtue of this office, Dramatic Censor; which latter circumstance procured young Werner almost daily opportunity of visiting the' theatre, and so gave him, as he says, a greater acquaintance with the mechanism of the stage than even most players are possessed of. A strong taste for the drama it probably enough gave him; but this skill in stage-mechanism may be questioned, for often in his own plays, no such skill, but rather the want of it, is evinced. ~The Professor and Censor, of whom we hear nothing in blame or praise, died in the fourteenth year of his son, and the boy now fell to the sole charge of his mother; a woman whom he seems to have loved warmly, but whose guardianship could scarcely be the best for him. Werner himself speaks of her in earnest commendation, as of a pure, highminded and heavily-afflicted being. Hoffmann, however, adds, that she was hypochondriacal, and generally quite delirious, imagining herself to be the Virgin Mary, and her son to be the promised Shiloh! Hoffmann had opportunity enough of knowing; for it is a curious fact that these two singular persons were brought up under the same roof, though, at this time, by reason of their difference of age, Werner being eight years older, they had little or no acquaintance. What a nervous and melancholic parent was, Hoffmann, by another unhappy coincidence, had also full occasion to know: his own mother, parted from her husband, lay helpless and broken-hearted for the last seventeen years 96 MISCELLANIES. of her life and the first seventeen of his; a source of painful influences, which he used to trace through the whole of his own character; as to the like cause he imputed the primary perversion of Werner's. How far his views on this point were accurate or exaggerated, we have no means of judging. Of Werner's early years the biographer says little or nothing. We learn only that, about the usual age, he matriculated in the K6nigsberg University, intending to qualify himself for the business of a lawyer; and with his professional studies united, or attempted to unite, the study of philosophy under Kant. His college-life is characterised by a single, but too expressive word:'It is said,' observes Hitzig,'to have been very dissolute.' His progress in metaphysics, as in all branches of learning, might thus be expected to be small; indeed, at no period of his life can he, even in the language of panegyric, be called a man of culture or solid information on any subject. Nevertheless, he contrived, in his twenty-first year, to publish a little volume of' Poems,' apparently in very tolerable magazine metre; and after some'roamlings' over Germany, having loitered for'a while at Berlin, and longer at Dresden, he betook himself to more serious business; applied for admittance and promotion as a Prussian man of law; the employment which young jurists look for in that country being chiefly in the hands of Government; consisting, indeed, of appointments in the various judicial or administrative Boards by which the Provinces are managed. In 1793, Werner accordingly was made Kammersecretdr (Exchequer Secretary); a subaltern office, which he held successively in several stations, and last and longest in Warsaw, where Hitzig, a young man following the same profession, first became acquainted with him in 1799. What the purport or result of Werner's' roamings' may have been, or how he had demeaned himself in office or out of it, we are nowhere informed; but it is an ominous cir LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 97 cumstance that, even at this period, in his thirtieth year, he had, divorced two wives, the last at least by mutual consent, and was looking out for a third! Hitzig, with whom he seems to have formed a prompt and close intimacy, gives us no full picture of him under any of his aspects: yet we can see that his life, as naturally it might, already wore somewhat of- a shattered appearance in his own eyes; that hd.was broken in character, in spirit, perhaps in, bodily constitution; and, contenting himself with the transient gratifications of so gay a city and so tolerable an appointment, had renounced all steady and rational hope either of being happy, or of deserving to be so. Of unsteady and irrational hopes, however, he had still abundance. The fine enthusiasm of his nature, undestroyed by so many external perplexities,.nay to which perhaps these very perplexities had given fresh and undue excitement, glowed forth in strange many-coloured brightness firom amid the wreck of his fortunes; and led him into wild worlds of speculation, the more vehemently, that the real world of action and duty had become so unmanageable in his hands. Verner's early publication had sunk, after a brief provincial life, into merned oblivion: in fact, he had then only been a rhymer, and was now, for the first time, beginning to be a poet. We have one of those youthful pieces transcribed in this Volume, and certainly it exhibits a curious contrast with his subsequent writings, both in form and spirit. In form, because, unlike the first-fruits of a genius, it is cold and correct; while his later works, without exception, are fervid, extravagant and full of gross blemishes. In spirit no less, because, treating of his favourite theme, Religion, it treats of it harshly and sceptically; being, indeed, little more than a metrical version of common Utilitarian Freethinking, as it may be found (without metre) in most taverns and debating-societies. Werner's intermediate secret-history might form a strange chapter in psychology: for now, it is clear, his French scepticism had got overlaid VOL. I. 7 98 MISCELLANIES. with wondrous theosophic garniture; his mind was full of visions and cloudy glories, and no occupation pleased him better than to controvert, in generous inquiring minds, that very unbelief which he appears to have once entertained in his own. From Hitzig's account of the matter, this seems to have formed the strongest link of his intercourse with Werner. The latter was his senior by ten years of time, and by more than ten years of unhappy experience; the grand questions of Immortality, of Fate, Freewill, Fore-. knowledge absolute, were in continual agitation between them; and Hitzig still remembers with gratitude these earnest warnings against irregularity of life, and so many ardent and not ineffectual endeavours to awaken in the passionate temperament of youth a glow of purer and enlightening fire.'Some leagues from Warsaw,' says the Biographer,'enchantingly embosomed in a thick wood, close by the high banks of the Vistula, lies the Cameldulensian Abbey of Bielany, inhabited by a class of monks, who in strictness of discipline yield only to those of La Trappe. To this cloistral solitude Werner was wont to repair with his friend, every fine Saturday of the summer of 1800, so soon as their occupations in the city were over. In defect of any formal inn, the two used to bivouac in the forest, or at best to sleep under a temporary tent. The Sunday was then spent in the open air; in roving about the woods; sailing on the river, and the like; till late night recalled them to the city. On such occasions, the younger of the party had ample room to unfold his whole heart before his more mature and settled companion; to advance his doubts and objections against many theories, which Werner was already cherishing; and so, by exciting him with contradiction, to cause him to make them clearer to himself.' VWeek after week, these discussions were carefully resumed from the point where they had been left: indeed, to Werner, it would seem, this controversy had unusual attractions; for he was now busy composing a Poem, intended principally to convince the world of those very truths which he was striving to impress'on his friend; and to which the world, as might be expected, was likely to give a similar LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 99 reception. The character, or at least the way of thought, attributed to Robert d'Heredon, the Scottish Templar, in the Sons of the Valley, was borrowed it appears, as if by regular instalments, from these conferences with Hitzig; the result of the one Sunday being duly entered in dramatic form during the week; then audited on the Sunday following; and so forming the text for farther disquisition.'Blissful'days,' adds Hitzig,'pure and innocent, which doubtless' Werner also ever held in pleased remembrance!' The Siihne des Thals, composed in this rather questionable fashion, was in due time forthcoming; the First Part in 1801, the Second about a year afterwards. It is a drama, or rather two dramas, unrivalled at least in one particular, in length; each Part being a play of six acts, and the whole amounting to somewhat more than 800 small octavo pages! To attempt any analysis of such a work would but fatigue our readers to little purpose: it is, as might be anticipated, of a most loose and formless structure; expanding on all sides into vague boundlessness, and, on the whole, resembling not so much a poem as the rude materials of one. The subject is the destruction of the Templar Order; an event which has been dramatised more than once, but on which, notwithstanding, Werner, we suppose, may boast of being entirely original. The fate of Jacques Molay and his brethren acts here but like a little leaven: and lucky were we, could it leaven the lump; but it lies buried under such a mass of Mystical theology, Masonic mummnery, Cabalistic tradition and Rosicrucian philosophy, as no power could work into dramatic union. The incidents are few, and of little interest; interrupted continually by flaring shows and longwinded speculations; for Werner's besetting sin, that of loquacity, is here in'decided action; and so we wander, in aimless windings, through scene after scene of gorgeousness or gloom; till at last the whole rises before us like a wild phantasmagoria;' cloud heaped on cloud, painted indeed here and there with prismatic hues, but representing nothing, or at least not the subject, but the author. 100 MISCELLANIES. In this last point of view, however, as a picture of himself, independently of other considerations, this play of Werner's may still have a'certain value for us. The strange chaotic nature of the man is displayed in it: his scepticism and theosophy; his audacity, yet intrinsic weakness of char-.acter; his baffled longings, but still ardent endeavours after Truth and Good; his search for them in far journeyings, not on the beaten highways, but through a pathless infinitude of Thought. To call it a work of art would be a misapplication of' names: it is little more than a rhapsodic effusion; the outpouring of a passionate and mystic soul, only half' knowing what it utters, and not ruling its own movements, but ruled by them. It is fair to add, that such also, in a great measure, was Werner's own view of the matter: most likely. the utterance of these things gave him such relief, that, crude as they were, he could not suppress them. For it ought to be remembered, that in this performance one condition, at least, of genuine inspiration is not wanting: Werner evidently thinks that in these his ultramundane excursions he has found truth; he has something positive to set forth, and he feels himself as if bound on a high and holy mission in preaching it to his fellow men. To explain with any minuteness the articles of Werner's creed, as it was now fashioned, and is here exhibited, would be a task perhaps too hard for us, and, at all events, unprofitable in proportion to its difficulty. We have found some separable passages, in which, under dark symbolical figures, he has himself shadowed forth a vague likeness of it: these we shall now submit to the reader, with such expositions as we gather from the-context, or as German readers, from the usual tone of speculation in that country, are naturally enabled to supply. This may, at the same time, convey as fair a notion of the work itself, with its tawdry splendours, and tumid grandiloquence, and mere playhouse thunder and lightning, as by any other plan our limits would admit. Let the reader fancy himself in the island of Cyprus LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 101 where the Order of the Templars still subsists, though the heads of it are already summoned before the French King and Pope Clement; which summons they are now, not without dreary enough forebodings, preparing to obey. The purport of this First Part, so far as it has any dramatic purport, is, to paint the situation, outward and inward, of that once pious and heroic, and still magnificent and powerful body. It is entitled The Templars in Cyprus; but why it should also be called'The Sons of the Valley does not so well appear; for the Brotherhood of the Valley has yet scarcely come into activity, and only hovers before us in glimpses, of so enigmatic a sort, that we know not fully so much as whether these its Sons are of flesh and blood like ourselves, or of some spiritual nature, or of something intermediate, and altogether nondescript. For the rest, it is a series of spectacles and dissertations; the action cannot so much be said to advance as to revolve. On this occasion the Templars are admitting two new members; the acolytes have already passed their preliminary trials; this is the chief and final one: ACT FIFTH. SCENE FIRST. Midnight. Interior of the Temple. Church. Backwards, a deep perspective of Altars and Gothic Pillars. On the right-hand side of the foreground, a little Chapel; and in this an Altar with the figure of St. Sebastian. The scene is lighted very dimly by a single Lamp which hangs before the Altar. * * * i* * * ADALBERT (dressed in white, without mantle or doublet; groping his way in the dark). Was it not at the Altar of Sebastian That I was bidden wait for the Unknown?' Here should it be; but darkness with her veil Inwraps the figures. [Advancing to the Altar Here is the fifth pillar! Yes, this is he, the Sainted. - How the glimmer Of that faint lamp falls on his fading eye! - Ah, it is not the spears o' th' Saracens, It is the pangs of hopeless love that burning Transfix thy heart, poor Comrade! - O my Agnes, May not thy spirit, in this earnest hour, 102 MISCELLANIES. Be looking on? Art hovering in that moonbeam Which struggles through the painted window, and dies. Amid the cloister's gloom? Or linger'st thou Behind these pillars, which, ominous and black, Look down on me, like horrors of the Past Upon the Present; and hidest thy gentle form, Lest with thy paleness thou too much affright me? Hide not thyself, pale shadow of my Agnes, Thou affrightest not thy lover. - Hush! - Hark! Was there not a rustling?-Father! You? PHILIP (rushing in with wild looks). Yes, Adalbert! -But time is precious! - Come, My son, my one sole Adalbert, come with me! ADAL BERT. What would you, father, in this solemn hour? PHILIP. This hour, or never! [Leading ADALBERT to the Altar. Hither! - Know'st thou him? ADALBERT.'Tis Saint Sebastian. PHILIP. Because he would not Renounce his faith, a tyrant had him murdered. [Points to his head. These furrows, too, the rage of tyrants ploughed In thy old father's face. My son, my first-born child, In this great hour I do conjure thee! Wilt thou, Wilt thou obey me? ADALBERT. Be it just, I will! PHILIP. Then swear, in this great hour, in this dread presence, Here by thy father's head made early gray, By the remembrance of thy mother's agony, And by the ravished blossom of thy Agnes, Against the Tyranny which sacrificed us, Inexpiable, bloody, everlasting hate! ADALBERT. Ha! This the All-avenger spoke through thee! - Yes! Bloody shall my Agnes' death-torch burn In Philip's heart; I swear it! PHILIP (with increasing vehemence). And if thou break This oath, and if thou reconcile thee to him, Or let his golden chains, his gifts, his prayers, LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 103 His dying-moan itself avert thy dagger When th' hour of vengeance comes, - shall this gray head, Thy mother's wail, the last sigh of thy Agnes, Accuse thee at the bar of the Eternal? ADALBERT. So be it, if I break my oath! PHILIP. Then man thee! - [Looking up, then shrinking together, as with dazzled eyes. Ha! was not that his lightning? —Fare thee well! I hear the footstep of the Dreaded! - Firm - Remember me, remember this stern midnight! [Retires hastily. ADALBERT (alone). Yes, Grayhead, whom the beckoning of the Lord Sent hither to awake me out of craven sleep, I will remember thee and this stern midnight, And my Agnes' spirit shall have vengeance! - Enter an ARMED MAN. Be is mailedfrom head tofoot in black harness; his visor is closed. ARMED MAN. Pray! [ADALBERT kneels. Bare thyself! - [He strips him to the girdle and raises hinm. Look on the ground, and follow! [He leads him into the backgiround to a trap-door, on the right. He descends first himself; and when ADALBEIRT has followed him, it closes. SECOND SCENE. Cemetery of the Templars, under the Church. The scene is lighted only by a Lamp which hangs down from the vault. Around are Tombstones of deceased Knights, marked with Crosses and sculptured Bones. In the background, two colossal Skeletons holding between them a large white Book, marked with a red Ci oss; frons the under end of the Book hangs a long black curtain. The Book, of which only the cover is visible, has an inscription in black ciphers. The Skeleton on the right holds in its right hand a naked drawn Sword; that on the left holds in its left hand a Palm turned downwards. On the right side of the foreground stands a black Cofin open; on the left, a similar one with the body of a Templar in the full dress of his Order; on both Coffins are inscriptions in white ciphers. On each side, nearer the background, are seen the lowest steps of the stairs which lead up into the Temple Church above the vault. ARMED MAN (not yet visible; above on the right-hand stairs). Dreaded! Is the grave laid open? CONCEALED VOICES. Yea! 104 MISCELLANIES. ARMED MAN (who after a pause shows himself on the stairs). Shall he behold the Tombs o' th' fathers'? CONCEALED VOICES. Yea! [ARMED MAN with drawn sword leads ADALBERT carefull, down the steps on the right hand. ARMED MAN (to ADALBERT). Look down!'Tis on thy life! [Leads him to the open Coffin. What seest thou? ADALBERT: An open empty Coffin. ARMED MAN.'Tis the house Where thou one day shalt dwell. - Canst read th' inscription? ADALBERT. No. ARMED MAN. Hear it, then:' Thy wages, Sin, is Death.' [Leads him to the opposite Coffin where the Body is lying. Look down!'Tis on thy life! -What seest thou? [Shows the Coffin. ADALBERT. A Coffin with a Corpse. ARMED MAN. He is thy Brother; One day thou art as he. - Canst read th' inscription? ADALBERT. No. ARMED MAN. Hear:' Corruption is the name of Life.' Now look around; go forward, - move, and act! - [He pushes him towards the background of the stage. ADALBERT (observing the Book). Ha! Here the Book of Ordination! - Seems [ApProaching. As if th' inscription on it might be read., [He reads it.'Knock four times on the ground, Thou shalt behold thy loved one.' O Heavens! And may I see thee, sainted Agnes? My bosom yearns for thee! - [Hastening close to the Book. r With the following words, he stamps four times on the ground. One, - Two, - Three, - Four! - [The Curtain hanging from the Book rolls rapidly up, and covers it. A colossal Devil's-head appears between the two Skeletons; its.form is horrible; it is gilt; has a huge golden Crown, a Heart qof the same on its Brow; rolling flaming Eyes; Serpents instead of Hair; golden LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 10 Chlains round its neck, which is visible to the breast; and a golden Cross, yet not a Crucifix, which rises over its right shoulder, as if crushing it down. The whole Bust rests on four gilt Dragon's-feet. At sight of it, ADALBERT starts back in horror, and exclaims: Defend us! ARMED MAN. Dreaded! may he hear it? CONCEALED VOICES. Yea! ARMED MAN (touches the Curtain with his sword; it rolls down over the Devil's-head, concealing it again; and above, as before, acppears the Book, but now opened, with white colossal leaves and red characters. The ARMED MAN, pointing constantly to the Book with his Sword, and therewith turning the leaves, addresses ADALBERT, who stands on the other side of the Book, and nearer the foreground). List to the Story of the Fallen Master. [Hie reads the.following from the Book; yet not standing before it, but on one side, at some paces distance, and whilst he reads, turning the leaves with his sword.'So now when the foundation-stone was laid, The Lord called forth the Master, Baffometus, And said to him: Go and complete my Temple! But in his heart the Master thought: What boots it Building thee a temple? and took the stones, And built himself a dwelling, and what stones Were left he gave for filthy gold and silver. Now after forty moons the Lord returned, And spake: Where is my Temple, Baffometus? The Master said: I had to build myself A dwelling; grant me other forty weeks. And after forty weeks, the Lord returns, And asks: Where is my Temple, Baffometus? He said: There were no stones.(but he had sold them For filthy gold); so wait yet forty days. In forty days thereafter came the Lord, And cried: Where is my Temple, Baffometus? Then like a millstone fell it on his soul How he for lucre had betraved his Lord; But yet to other sin the Fiend did tempt him, And he answered, saying: Give me forty hours! And when the forty hours were gone, the Lord Came down in wrath: My Temple, Baffometus? Then fell he quaking on his face, and cried For mercy; but the Lord was wroth, and said: Since thou hast cozened me with empty lies, And those the stones I lent thee for my Temple 106 MISCELLANIES. Hast sold them for a purse of filthy gold, Lo, I will cast thee forth, and with the Mammon Will chastise thee, until a Saviour rise Of thy own seed, who shall redeem thy trespass. Then did the Lord lift up the purse of Gold; And shook the gold into a melting-pot, And set the melting-pot upon the Sun, So that the metal fused into a fluid mass. And then he. dipt a finger in the same, And, straightway touching Baffometus, Anoints him on the chin and brow and cheeks. Then was the face of Baffometus changed: His eyeballs rolled like fire-flamnes, His nose became a-crooked vulture's bill, The tongue hung bloody from his throat; the flesh Went from his hollow cheeks; and of his hair Grew snakes, and of the snakes grew Devil's-horns. Again the Lord put forth his finger with the gold, And pressed it upon Baffometus' heart; Whereby the heart did bleed and wither up, And all his members bled and withered up, And fell away, the one and then the other. At last his back itself sunk into ashes: The head alone continued gilt and living; And instead of back, grew dragon's-talons, Which destroyed all life from off the Earth. Then from the ground the Lord took up the heart, Which, as he touched it, also grew of gold, And placed it on the brow of Baffometus; And of the other metal in the pot He made for him a burning crown of gold, And crushed it on his serpent-hair, so that Even to the bone and brain the circlet scorched him. And round the neck he twisted golden chains, Which strangled him and pressed his breath together. What in the pot remained he poured upon the ground, Athwart, along, and there it formed a cross; The which he lifted and laid upon his neck, And bent him that he could not raise his head. Two Deaths moreover he appointed warders To guard him: Death of Life, and Death of Hope. The Sword of the first he sees not, but it smites him; The other's Palm he sees, but it escapes him. So languishes the outcast Baffometus Four thousand years and four-and-forty moons, Till once a Saviour rise from his own seed, Redeem his trespass and deliver him.' [To ADALBERT. This is the Story of the Fallen Master. LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 107 [With his sword he touches the Curtain, which now as before rolls up over the Book; so that the HEAD under it again becomes visible, in its former shape. ADALBERT (looking at the HEAD). Hah, what a hideous shape! HEAD (with a hollow voice). Deliver me! - ARMED MAN. Dreaded! shall the work begin? CONCEALED VOICES. Yea! ARMED MAN (to ADALBERT). Take the Neckband Away! [Pointing to the HEAD, ADALBERT. I dare not! HEAD (with a still more piteous tone). O, deliver me! ADALBERT (taking off the chains). Poor fallen one! ARMED MAN. Now lift the Crown from's head! ADALBERT. It seems so heavy! ARMED MAN. Touch it, it grows light. ADALBERT (taking off the Crown, and casting it, as he did the chains, on the ground). ARMED MAN. Now take the golden heart from off his brow! ADALBERT. It seems to burn! ARMED MAN. Thou errest: ice is warmer. ADALBERT (taking the Heart from thle Brow). Hah! shivering frost! ARMED MAN. Take from his back the Cross, And throw it from thee!ADALBERT. How! The Saviour's token? 108 MISCELLANIES. HEAD. Deliver, 0, deliver me! ARMED MAN. This Cross Is not thy Master's, not that bloody one: Its counterfeit is this: throw't from thee! ADALBERT (taking it from the Bust, and laying it softly on the ground). The cross of the Good Lord that died for me?' ARMED MAN. Thou shalt no more believe in one that died; Thou shalt henceforth believe in one that liveth And never dies! - Obey, and question not, - Step over it! ADALBERT. Take pity oil me! ARMED MAN (threatening him with his Sword). Step! ADALBERT. I do't with shuddering - [Steps over, and then looks up to the HEAD, which raises itself as freed firom a load. How the figure rises And looks in gladness! ARMED MAN. Him whom thou hast served Till now, deny! ADALBERT (horrorstruck). Deny the Lord my God? ARMED MAN. Thy God'tis not: the Idol of this World! - Deny him, or - [Pressing on him with the Sword in a threatening posture. -thou diest! ADALBERT. I deny! ARMED MAN (pointing to the Head with his Sword). Go to the Fallen! - Kiss his lips! - - And so on through many other sulphurous pages! How much of this mummery is copied from the actual practice of the Templars we know not with certainty; nor what precisel thher they or Werner intended, by this marvellous history of the Fallen Master,' to shadow forth. At first view, LIFE AND''WRITINGS OF WERNER. 109 one might take it for an allegory, couched in Masonic language, - and truly no flattering allegory, - of the Catholic Church; and this trampling on the Cross, which is said to have been actually enjoined on every Templar at his initiation, to be a type of his secret behest to undermine that Institution, and redeem the spirit of Religion from the state of thraldom and distortion under which it was' there held. It is known at least, and was well known to Werner, that the heads of the Templars entertained views, both on religion and politics, which they did not think meet for communicating to their age, and only imparted by degrees, and under mysterious adumbrations, to the wiser of their own Order. They had even publicly resisted, and succeeded in thwarting, some iniquitous measures of Philippe Auguste, the French King, in regard to his coinage; and this, while it secured them the love of the people, was one great cause, perhaps second only to their wealth, of the hatred which that sovereign bore them, and of the savage doom which he at last executed on the whole body. But on these secret principles of theirs, as on Werner's manner of conceiving them, we are only enabled to guess; for Werner, too, has an esoteric doctrine, which he does not promulgate, except in dark Sibylline enigmas, to the uninitiated. As we are here seeking chiefly for his religious creed, which forms, in truth, with its changes, the main thread whereby his wayward, desultory existence attains any unity or even coherence in our thoughts, we may quote another passage from the same First Part of this rhapsody; which, at the same time, will afford us a glimpse of his favourite hero, Robert d'Heredon, lately the darling of the Templars, but now, for some momentary infraction of their rules, cast into prison, and expecting death, or, at best, exclusion from the Order. Gottfried is another Templar, in all points the reverse of Robert. 110- MISCELLANIES. ACT FOURTH. SCENE FIRST. Prison; at the wall a Table. ROBERT, without sword, cap, or mantle, sits downcast on one side of it: GOTTFRIED, who keeps watch by him, sitting at the other. GOTTFRIED. But how couldst thou so far forget thyself? Thou wert our pride, the Master's friend and favourite! ROBERT. I did it, thou perceiv'st! GOTTFRIED. How could a word Of the old surly Hugo so provoke thee? ROBERT. Ask not- Man's being is a spider-web: The passionate flash o' th' soul - comes not of him; It is the breath of that dark Genius, Which whirls invisible along the threads: A servant of eternal Destiny, It purifies them from the vulgar dust, Which earthward strives to press the net: But Fate gives sign; the breath becomes a whirlwind, And in a moment rends to shreds the thing 1Wae thought was woven for Eternity. GOTTFRIED. Yet each man shapes his Destiny himself. ROBERT. Small soul! Dost thou too know it? Has the story Of Force and free Volition, that, defying The corporal Atoms and Annihilation, Methodic guides the car of Destiny, Come down to thee? Dream'st thou, poor Nothingness, That thou, and like of thee, and ten times better Than thou or I, can lead the wheel of Fate One hair's-breadth from its everlasting track? I too have had such dreams: but fearfully Have I been shook from sleep; and they are fled! - Look at our Order: has it spared' its thousands Of noblest lives, the victims of its Purpose; And has it gained this Purpose; can it gain it? Look at our noble Molay's silvered hair: The fruit of watchful nights and stormful days, And of the broken yet still burning heart! That mighty heart! -Through sixty battling years, LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 11l'T has beat in pain for nothing: his creation Remains the vision of his own great soul; It dies with him; and one day shall the pilgrim Ask where his dust is lying, and not learn! GOTTFRIED (yawning). But then the Christian has the joy of Heaven For recompense: in his flesh he shall see God. ROBERT. In his flesh? - Now fair befall the journey! Wilt stow it in behind, by way of luggage, When the Angel comes to coach thee into Glory? Mind also that the memory of those fair hours When dinner smoked before thee, or thou usedst To dress thy nag, or scour thy rusty harness, And such like noble business be not left behind! - Ha! self-deceiving bipeds, is it not enough The carcass should at every step oppress, Imprison you; that toothache, headache, Gout, - who knows what all, - at every moment, Degrades the god of Earth into a beast: But you would take this villanous mingle, The coarser dross of all the elements, Which, by the Light-beam from on high that visits And dwells in it, but baser shows its baseness, - Take this, and all the freaks which, bubble-like, Spring forth o' th' blood, and which by such fair names You call,- along with y6u into your Heaven? - Well, be it so! much good may't[As his eye, by chance, lights on Gott~fied, who meanwhile has fJalen asleep. - Sound already? There is a race for whom all serves as - pillow, Even rattling chains are but a lullaby. This Robert d'Heredon, whose preaching has here such a narcotic virtue, is destined ultimately for a higher office than to rattle his chains by way of lullaby. He is ejected from the Order; not, however, with disgrace and in anger, but in sad feeling of necessity, and with tears and blessings from his brethren; and the messenger of the Valley, a strange, ambiguous, little, sylph-like maiden, gives him obscure encoura.gement, before his departure, to possess his soul in patience; seeing, if he can learn the grand secret of Re 112 MISCELLANIES. nunciation, his course is not ended, but only opening on a fairer scene. Robert knows not well what to make of this; but sails for his native Hebrides, in darkness and contrition, as one who can do no other. In the end of the Second Part, which is represented as divided from the First by an interval of seven years, Robert is again summoned forth; and the whole surprising secret of his mission, and of the Valley which appoints it for him, is disclosed. This Friedenthal (Valley of Peace), it now appears, is an immense secret association, which has its chief seat somewhere about the roots of Mount Carmel, if we mistake not; but, comprehending in its ramifications the best heads and hearts of every country, extends over the whole civilised world; and has, in particular, a strong body of adherents in Paris, and indeed a subterraneous, but seemingly very commodious suite of rooms, under the Carmelite Monastery of that city. Here sit in solemn conclave the heads of the Establishment; directing from their lodge, in deepest concealment,, the principal movements of the kingdom: for William of Paris, archbishop of Sens, being of their number, the king and his other ministers, fancying within themselves the utmost freedom of action, are nothing more than puppets in the hands of this all-powerful Brotherhood, which watches, like a sort of Fate, over the interests of mankind, and by mysterious agencies, forwards, we suppose,'the cause of civil and religious liberty all over the world.' It is they that have doomed the Templars; and, without malice or pity, are sending their leaders to the dungeon and the stake. That knightly Order, once a favourite minister of good, has now degenerated from its purity, and come to mistake its purpose, having taken up politics and a sort of radical reform; and so must now be broken and reshaped, like a worn implement, which can no longer do its appointed work. Such a magnificent' Society for the Suppression of Vice' may well be supposed to walk by the most philosophical LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 113 principles. These Friedenthalers, in fact, profess to be a sort of Invisible Church; preserving in vestal purity the sacred fire of religion, which burns with more or less fuliginous admixture in the worship of every people, but only with its clear sidereal lustre in the recesses of the Valley. They are Bramins on the Ganges, Bonzes on the Hoangho, Monks on the Seine. They addict themselves to contemplation, and the subtlest study; have penetrated far into the mysteries of spiritual and physical nature; they command the deep-hidden virtues of plant and mineral; and their sages can discriminate the eye of the mind from its sensual instruments, and behold, without type or material embodiment, the essence of Being. Their activity is all-comprehending and unerringly calculated: they rule over the world by the authority of wisdom over ignorance. In the Fifth Act of the Second Part, we are at length, after many a hint and significant note of preparation, introduced to the privacies of this philosophical Santa Hermandad. A strange Delphic cave this of theirs, under the very pavements of Paris! There are brazen folding-doors, and concealed voices, and sphinxes, and naphtha-lamps, and all manner of wondrous furniture. It seems, moreover, to.be a sort of' gala evening with them; for the'Old Man of'Carmel, in eremite garb, with a long beard reaching to his' girdle,' is for a moment discovered'reading in a deep mo-'notonous voice.' The' Strong Ones,' meanwhile, are out in quest of Robert d'Heredon; who, by cunning practices, has been enticed.from his Hebridean solitude, in the hope of saving Molay, and is even now to be initiated, and equipped for his task. After a due allowance of pompous ceremnonial, Robert is at last ushered in, or rather dragged in; for it appears that he has made a stout debate, not submitting to the customary form of being ducked, - an essential preliminary, it would seem, —till compelled by the direst necessity. He is in a truly Highland anger, as is natural: but by various manipulations and solacements, he is reduced to reason voL. I. 8 114 MISCELLANIES. again; finding, indeed, the fruitlessness of anything else; for when lance and sword and free space are given him, and he makes a thrust at Adam of Valincourt, the master of the ceremonies, it is to no purpose: the old man has a torpedo quality in him, which benumbs the stoutest arm; and no death issues from the baffled sword-point, but only a small spark of electric fire. With his Scottish prudence, Robert, under these circumstances, cannot but perceive that quietness is best. The people hand him in succession, the' Cup of Strength,' the'Cup of Beauty,' and the'Cup of Wisdom;' liquors brewed, if we may judge from their effects, with the highest stretch of Rosicrucian art; and which must have gone far to disgust Robert d'Heredon with his natural usquebaugh, however excellent, had that fierce drlink been in use then. He rages in a fine frenzy; dies away in raptures; and then, at last,'considers what he wanted and what he wants.' Now is the time for Adam of Valincourt to strike-in with an interminable exposition of the'objects of the society.' To not unwilling but still cautious ears he unbosoms himself, in mystic wise, with extreme copiousness; turning aside objections like a veteran disputant, and leading his apt and courageous pupil, by signs and wonders, as well as by logic, deeper and deeper into the secrets of theosophic and thaumaturgic science. A little glimpse of this our readers may share with us; though we fear the allegory will seem to most of them but a hollow nut. Nevertheless, it is an allegory - of its sort; and we can profess to have translated with entire fidelity: ADAM. Thy riddle by a second will be solved. [He leads him to the iSphixl. Behold this Sphinx! Half-beast, half-angel, both Combined in one, it is an emblem to thee Of th' ancient Mother, Nature, herself a riddle, And only by a deeper to be master'd. Eternal Clearness in th' eternal Ferment: LIFE AND.WRITINGS OF WERNER. 115 This is the riddle of Existence: - read it, - Propose that other to her, and.she serves thee! [The door on the right hand opens, and, ir the space behind it, appears, as before, the OLD MAN OF CARMEL, sitting at a Table, and reading in a large Volume. Three deep strokes of a Beell are heard. OLD MAN OF CARMEL (reading with a loud but still msonotonous voice).'And when the Lord saw Phosphoros' - ROBERT (interrupting himn). Ha! Again A story as of Baffometus? ADAM. Not so. That tale of theirs was but some poor distortion Of th' outmost image of our Sanctuary. - Keep silence here; and see thou interrupt not, By too bold cavilling, this mystery. OLD MAN (reading).'And when the Lord saw Phosphoros his pride, Being wroth thereat, he cast him forth, And shut him in a prison called LIFE; And gave him for a Garment earth and water, And bound him straitly in four Azure Chains, And pour'd for him the bitter Cup of Fire. The Lord moreover spake: Because thou hast forgotten My will, I yield thee to the Element, And thou shalt be his slave, and have no longer Remembrance of thy Birthplace or my Name. And sithence thou hast sinn'd against me by Thy prideful Thought of being One and Somewhat, I leave with thee that Thought to be thy whip, And this thy weakness for a Bit and Bridle; Till once a Saviour from the Waters rise, Who shall again baptise thee in my bosom, That so thou mayst be Naught and All.' And when the Lord had spoken, he drew back As in a mighty rushing; and the Element Rose up around Phosphoros, and tower'd itself Aloft to Heav'n; and he lay stunn'd beneath it. But when his first-born Sister saw his pain, Her heart was full of sorrow, and she turn'd her To the Lord; and with veil'd face, thus spake Mylitta: 1 1 Afylitta, in the old Persian mysteries, was the name of the Moon Mfythras that of the Sun. 116 MISCELLANIES. Pity my Brother, and let me console him!'Then did the Lord in pity rend asunder A little chink in Phosphoros his dungeon, That so he might behold his Sister's face; And when she silent peep'd into his Prison, She left with him a Mirror for his solace; And when he look'd therein, his earthly Garment Pressed him less; and, like the gleam of morning, Some faint remembrance of his Birthplace dawn'd.'But yet the Azure Chains she could not break, The,bitter Cup of Fire not take from him. Therefore she pray'd to Mythras, to her Father, To save his youngest-born; and Mythras went Up to the footstool of the Lord, and said: Take pity on my Son! - Then said the Lord: Have I not sent Mylitta that he may Behold his Birthplace? - Wherefore Mythras answer'd: What profits it? The Chains she cannot break, The bitter Cup of Fire not take from him. So will I, said the Lord, the Salt be given him, That so the bitter Cup of Fire be softened; But yet the Azure Chains must lie on him Till once a Saviour rise from out the Waters.And when the Salt was laid on Phosphor's tongue, The Fire's piercing ceased; but th' Element Congeal'd the Salt to Ice, and Phosphoros Lay there benumb'd, and had not power to move. But Isis saw him, and thus spake the Mother:'Thou who art Father, Strength and Word and Light! Shall he my last-born grandchild lie forever In pain, the down-pressed thrall of his rude Brother? Then had the Lord compassion, and he sent him The Herald of the Saviour from the Waters; The Cup of Fluidness, and in the cup The drops of Sadness and the drops of Longing: And then the Ice was thawed, the Fire grew cool, And Phosphoros again had room to breathe. But yet the earthy Garment cumber'd him, The Azure Chains still gall'd, and the Remembrance Of the Name, the Lord's, which he had lost, was wanting.'Then the Mother's heart was mov'd with pity, She beckoned the Son to her, and said: Thou who art more than I, and yet my nursling, Put on this Robe of Earth, and show thyself To fallen Phosphoros bound in the dungeon, And open him that dungeon's narrow cover. Then said the Word: It shall be so! and sent LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 117 His messenger DISEASE; she broke the roof Of Phosphor's Prison, so that once again The Fount of Light he saw: the Element Was dazzled blind; but Phosphor knew his Father. And when the Word, in Earth, came to the Prison, The Element address'd him as his like; But Phosphoros look'd up to him, and said: Thou art sent hither to redeem from Sin, Yet thou art not the Saviour from the Waters. - Then spake the, Word: The Saviour from the Waters I surely am not; yet when thou hast drunk The Cup of Fluidness, I will redeem thee. Then Phosphor drank the Cup of Fluidness, Of Longing, and of Sadness; and his Garment Did drop sweet drops; wherewith the Messenger Of the Word wash'd all his Garment, till its folds And stiffness vanished, and it'gan grow light. And when the Prison LIFE she touch'd, straightway It waxed thin and lucid like to crystal. But yet the Azure Chains she could not break. - Then did the Word vouchsafe him the Cup of Faith; And having drunk it, Phosphoros look'd up, And saw the Saviour standing in the Waters. Both hands the Captive stretch'd to grasp that Saviour; But he fled.' So Phosphoros was griev'd in heart: But yet the Word spake comfort, giving him The Pillow Patience, there to lay his head. And having rested, he rais'd his head, and said: Wilt thou redeem me from the Prison too? Then said the Word: Wait yet in peace seven moons, It may be nine, until thy hour shall come. And Phosphor answer'd: Lord, thy will be done!'Which when the mother Isis saw, it griev'd her; She called the Rainbow up, and said to him: Go thou and tell the Word that he forgive The Captive these seven moons! And Rainbow flew Where he was sent; and as he shook his wings There dropt from them the Oil of Purity: And this the Word did gather in a Cup, And cleans'd with it the Sinner's head and bosom. Then passing forth into his Father's Garden, He breath'd upon the ground, and there arose A flow'ret out of it, like milk and rose-bloom; Which having wetted with the dew of Rapture, He crown'd therewith the Captive's brow; then grasped him With his right hand, the Rainbow with the left; 118 MISCELLANIES. Mylitta likewise with her Mirror came, And Phosphoros looked into it, and saw Wrote on the Azure of Infinity The long-forgotten NAME, and the REMEMBRANCE Of HIS BIRTHPLACE, gleaming as in light of gold.' Then fell there as if scales from Phosphor's eyes; He left the Thought of being One and Somewhat, His nature melted in the mighty All; Like sighings from above came balmy healing, So that his heart for very bliss was bursting. For Chains and Garment cumber'd him no more: The Garm-ent he had changed to royal purple, And of his Chains were fashion'd glancing jewels.'True, still the Saviour from the Waters tarried; Yet came the Spirit over him; the Lord Turn'd towards him a gracious countenance, And Isis held him in her mother-arms.' This is the last of the Evangels.' [The door closes, and again conceals the OLD MAN OF CARMEL. The purport of this enigma'Robert confesses that he does not' wholly understand;' an admission in which, we suspect, most of our readers, and the Old Man of Carmel himself, were he candid, might be inclined to agree with him. Sometimes, in the deeper consideration which translators are bound to bestow on such extravagances, we have fancied we could discern in this apologue some glimmerings of meaning, scattered here and there like weak lamps in the darkness; not enough to interpret the riddle, but to show that by possibility it might have an interpretation, - was a typical vision, with a certain degree of significance in the wild mind of the poet, not an inane fever-dream. Might not Phosphoros, for example, indicate generally the spiritual essence of man, and this story be an emblem of his history? He longs to be'One and Somewhat;' that is, he labours under the very common complaint of egoism; cannot, in the grandeur of, Beauty and Virtue, forget his own so beautiful and virtuous Self; but, amid the glories of the majestic All, is still haunted and blinded by some shadow of his own little Je. For this reason he is punished; imprisoned in the'Element' (of a LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 119 material body), and has the'four Azure Chains' (the four principles of matter) bound round him; so that he can neither think nor act, except in a foreign medium, and under conditions that encumber and confuse him. The' Cup of Fire' is given him; perhaps, the rude, barbarous passion and cruelty natural to all uncultivated tribes? But, at length, he beholds the'Moon;' begins to have some sight and love of material Nature; and, looking into her'Mirror,' forms to himself, under gross emblems, a theogony and sort of mythologic poetry; in which, if he still cannot behold the' Name,' and has forgotten his own'Birthplace,' both of which are blotted out and hidden by the'Element,' he finds some spiritual solace, and breathes more freely. Still, however, the'Cup of Fire' tortures him; till the' Salt' (intellecual culture?) is vouchsafed; which, indeed, calms the raging of that furious bloodthirstiness and warlike strife, but leaves him, as mere culture of the understanding may be supposed to do, frozen into irreligion and moral inactivity, and farther from the'Name' and his' own Original' than ever. Then, is the'Cup of Fluidness' a more merciful disposition? and intended, with'the Drops of Sadness and the Drops of Longing,' to shadow forth that Woestruck, desolate, yet softer and devouter state in which mankind displayed itself at the coming of the' Word,' at the first promulgation of the Christian religion? Is the' Rainbow' the modern poetry of Europe, the Chivalry, the new form of Stoicism, the whole romantic feeling of these later days? But who or what the' Heiland aus den Wassern (Saviour from the Waters)' may be, we ieed not hide our native ignorance; this being apparently a secret of the Valley, which Robert d'Heredon, and Werner, and men of like gifts, are in due time to show the world, but unhappily have not yet succeeded in bringing to light. Perhaps, indeed, our whole interpretation may be thought little better than lost labour; a reading of what was only scrawled and -flourished, not written; a shaping of gay castles and metallic palaces from the sunset clouds, which, though moun 120 MISCELLANIES. tain-like, and purple and golden of hue, and towered together as if by Cyclopean arms, are but dyed vapour. Adam of Valincourt continues his exposition in the most liberal way; but, through many pages of metrical lecturing, he does little to satisfy us. What was more to his purpose,, he partly succeeds in satisfying Robert d'Heredon; who, after due preparation, - Molay being burnt like a martyr, under the most promising omens, and the Pope and the King of France struck dead, or nearly so, - sets out to found the order of St. Andrew in his own country, that of Calatrava in Spain, and other knightly missions of the Heiland aues den Wassern elsewhere; and thus, to the great satisfaction of all parties, the Sons of the Valley terminates,' positively for the last time.' Our reader may have already convinced himself that in this strange phantasmagoria there are not wanting indications of a very high poetic talent. We see a mind of great depth, if not of sufficient strength; struggling with objects which, though it cannot master them, are essentially of richest significance. Had the writer only kept his piece till the ninth year; meditating it with true diligence and unwearied will! But the weak Werner was not a man for such things: he must reap the harvest on the morrow after seed-day, and so stands before us at last, as a man capable of much, only not of bringing aught to perfection. Of his natural dramatic genius, this work, ill-concocted as it is, affords no unfavourable specimen; and may, indeed, have justified expectations which were never realised. It is true, he cannot yet give form and animation to a character, in the genuine poetic sense; we do not see any of his dramatis personce, but only hear of them: yet, in some cases, his endeavour, though imperfect, is by no means abortive; and here, for instance, Jacques Molay, Philip Adalbert, Hugo, and the like, though not living men, have still as much life as many a buff-and-scarlet Sebastian or Barbarossa, whom we find swaggering, for years, with acceptance, on the boards. LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 121 Of his spiritual beings, whom in most of his Plays he introduces too profusely, we cannot speak in commendation: they are of a mongrel nature, neither rightly dead nor alive; in fact, they sometimes glide about like real, though rather singular mortals, through the whole piece; and only vanish as ghosts in the fifth act. But, on the other hand, in contriving theatrical incidents and sentiments; in scenic shows, and all manner of gorgeous, frightful or astonishing machinery, Werner exhibits a copious invention, and strong though untutored feeling. Doubtless, it is all crude enough; all illuminated by an impurej barbaric splendour; not the soft, peaceful brightness of sunlight, but the red, resinous glare of playhouse torches. Werner, however, was still young; and had he been of a right spirit, all that was impure and crude might in time have become ripe and clear; and a poet of no ordinary excellence would have been moulded out of him. But, as matters stood, this was by no means the thing Werner had most at heart. It is not the degree of poetic talent manifested in the Sons of the Valley that he prizes, but the religious truth shadowed forth in it. To judge from the parables of Baffometus and Phosphoros, our readers may be disposed to hold his revelations on this subject rather cheap. Nevertheless, taking up the character of Fates in its widest sense, Werner earnestly desires not only to be a poet but a prophet; and, indeed, looks upon his merits in the former province as altogether subservient to his higher purposes in the latter. We have a series of the most confused and long-winded letters to Hitzig, who had now removed to Berlin; setting forth, with a singular simplicity, the mighty projects Werner was cherishing on this head. He thinks that there ought to be a new Creed promulgated, a new Body of Religionists established; and that, for this purpose, not writing, but actual preaching, can avail. He detests common Protestantism, under which he seems to mean a sort of Socinianism, or diluted French Infidelity: he talks of Jacob BShme, and Luther, and'Schleiermacher, and a new Trinity 122 MISCELLANIES. of'Art, Religion and Love.' All this should be sounded in the ears of men, and in a loud voice, that so their torpid slumber, the harbinger of spiritual death, may be driven away. With the utmost gravity, he commissions his correspondent to wait upon Schlegel, Tieck and others of a like spirit, and see whether they will not join him. For his own share in the matter, he is totally indifferent; will serve in the meanest capacity, and rejoice with his whole heart, if, in zeal and ability as poets and preachers, not some only, but every one should infinitely outstrip him. We suppose, he had dropped the thought of being'One, and Somewhat;' and now wished, rapt away by this divine purpose, to be' Naught and All.' On the Reiland aus den Wassern this correspondence throws no farther light: what the new Creed specially was, which Werner felt so eager to plant and propagate, we nowhere learn with; any distinctness. Probably, he might himself have been rather at a loss to explain it in brief compass. His theogony, we suspect, was still very much in posse; and perhaps only the moral part of this system could stand before him with some degree of clearness. On this latter point, indeed, he is determined enough; well assured of his dogmas, and apparently waiting but for some proper vehicle in which to convey them to the minds of men. His fundamental principle of morals we have seen in part already: it does not exclusively or primarily belong to himself; being little more than that high tenet of entire Self-forgetfulness, that' merging of the Me in the Idea;' a principle which reigns both in Stoical and Christian ethics, and is at this day common, in theory, among all German philosophers, especially of the Transcendental class. Werner has adopted this principle with his whole heart and his whole soul, as the indispensable condition of all Virtue. He believes it, we should say, intensely, and without compromise, exaggerating rather than softening or concealing its peculiarities. He will not have Happiness, under any form, to be the LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 123 real or chief end of man: this is but love of enjoyment; disguise it as we like; a more complex and sometimes more respectable species of hunger, he would say; to be admitted as an indestructible element in human nature, but nowise to be recognised as the highest; on the contrary, to be resisted and incessantly warred with, till it become obedient to love of God, which is only, in the truest sense, love of Goodness, and the germ of which lies deep in the inmost nature of man; of authority superior to all sensitive impulses; forming, in fact, the grand law of his being, as subjection to it forms the first and last condition of spiritual health. He thinks that to propose a reward for virtue is to render virtue impossible. He warmly seconds Schleiermacher in declaring that even the hope of Immortality is a consideration unfit to be introduced into religion, and tending only to pervert it, and impair its sacredness. Strange as this may seem, Werner is firmly convinced of its importance; and has even enforced it specifically in a passage of his Sdhne des Thals, which he is at the pains to cite and expound in his correspondence with Hitzig. Here is another fraction of that wondrous dialogue between Robert d'Heredon and Adam of Valincourt, in the cavern of the Valley: ROBERT. And Death,- so dawns it on me,- Death perhaps, The doom that leaves naught of this JMe remaining, May be perhaps the Symbol of that Self-denial, - Perhaps still more, - perhaps, - I have it, friend! - That cripplish Immortality, - think'st not? - Which but spins forth our paltry 3Me, so thin And pitiful, into Infinitude, That too must die?- This shallow Self of ours, We are not nail'd to it eternally? We can, we must be free of it, and then Uncumbered wanton in the Force of All! ADAM (calling joyfully -into the interior of the Cavern). Brethren, he has renounced! Himself has found it! O, praised be Light! He sees! The North is sav'd! 124 MISCELLANIES. CONCEALED VOICES of the OLD MEN OF THE VALLEY. Hail and joy to thee, thou Strong One; Force to thee from above, and Light! Complete,- complete the work! ADAM (embracing ROBERT). Come to my heart! - &c. &c. Such was the spirit of that new Faith, which, symbolised under mythuses of Baffometus and Phosphoros, and'Saviours from the Waters,' and' Trinities of Art, Religion and Love,' and to be preached abroad by the aid of Schleiermacher, and what was then called the New Poetical School, Werner seriously purposed, like another Luther, to cast fbrth, as good seed, among the ruins of decayed and down-trodden Protestantism! Whether Hitzig was still young enough to attempt executing his commission, and applying to Schlegel and Tieck for help; and if so, in what gestures of speechless astonishment, or what peals of inextinguishable laughter they answered him, we are not informed. One thing, however, is clear: that a man with so unbridled an imagination, joined to so weak an understanding, and so broken a volition; who had plunged so deep in Theosophy, and still hovered so near the surface in all practical knowledge of men and their affairs; who, shattered and degraded in his own private character, could meditate such apostolic enterprises, - was a man likely, if he lived long, to play fantastic tricks in abundance; a'id, at least in his religious history, to set the world a-wondering. Conversion, not to Popery, but, if it so chanced,. to Braminism, was a thing nowise to be thought impossible. Nevertheless, let his missionary zeal have justice from us. It does seem to have been grounded on no wicked or even illaudable motive: to all appearance, he not only believed what he professed, but thought it of the highest moment that others should believe it. And if the proselytising spirit, which dwells in all -men, be allowed exercise even when it only assaults what it reckons Errors, still more should this be so, when it proclaims what it reckons Truth, LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 125 and fancies itself not taking from us what in our eyes may be good, but adding thereto what is better. Meanwhile, Werner was not so absorbed in spiritual schemes, that he altogether overlooked, his own merely temporal comfort. In contempt of former failures, he was now courting for himself a third wife,'a young Poless of the highest personal attractions;' and this under difficulties which would have appalled an ordinary wooer: for the two had no language in common; he not understanding three words of Polish, she not one of German. Nevertheless, nothing daunted by this circumstance, nay perhaps discerning in it an assurance against many a sorrowful curtain-lecture, he prosecuted his suit, we suppose by signs and dumbshow, with such ardour, that he quite gained the fair mute; wedded her in 1801; and soon after, in her company, quitted Warsaw for Kinigsberg, where the helpless state of his mother required immediate attention. It is from Kdnigsberg tha't most of his missionary epistles to Hitzig are written; the latter, as we have hinted before, being now stationed, by his official appointment, in Berlin. The sad duty of watching over his crazed, forsaken and dying mother, Werner appears to have discharged with true filial assiduity: for three years she lingered in the most painful state, under his nursing; and her death, in 1804, seems notwithstanding to have filled him with the deepest sorrow. This is an extract of his letter to Hitzig on that mournful occasion:' Iknow not whether thou hast heard that on the 24th of February (the same day when our excellent Mnioch died in Warsaw), my mother departed here, in my arms. My Friend! God knocks with an iron hammer at our hearts; and we are duller than stone, if we do not feel it; and madder than mad, if we think it shame to cast ourselves into the dust before the All-powerful, and let our whole so highly miserable Self be annihilated in the sentiment of His infinite greatness and long-suffering. I wish I had words to paint how inexpres-' sibly pitiful my'Sohne des T/hals appeared to me in that hour, when, after eighteen years of neglect, I again went -to partake in the Communion! This death'of my mother, - the pure royal poet-and-martyr 126 MISCELLANIES. spirit, who for eight years had lain continually on a sick-bed, and suffered unspeakable things,- affected me (much as, for her sake and my own, I could not but wish it) with altogether agonising feelings. Ah, Friend, how heavy do my youthful faults lie on me! How much would I give to have my mother- (though both I and my wife have of late times lived wholly for her, and had much to endure on her account) - how much would I give to have her back to me but for one week, that I might disburden my heavy-laden heart with tears of repentance! My beloved Friend, give thou no grief to thy parents: ah, no earthly voice can awaken the dead! God and Parents, that is the first concern; all else is secondary.' This affection for his mother forms, as it were, a little island of light and verdure in Werner's history, where, amid so much that is dark and desolate, one feels it pleasant to linger. Here was at least one duty, perhaps indeed the only one, which, in a wayward wasted life, he discharged with fidelity: from his conduct towards this one hapless being, we may perhaps still learn that his heart, however perverted by circumstances, was not incapable of true, disinterested love. A rich heart by Nature; but unwisely squandering its riches, and attaining to a pure union only with this one heart; for it seems doubtful whether he ever loved another! His poor mother, while alive, was the haven of all his earthly voyagings; and, in after years, firom amid far scenes and crushing perplexities, he often looks back to her grave with a feeling, to which all bosoms must respond.1 The date of her decease became a memorable era in his mind; as may appear from the title which he gave, long afterwards, to one of his most I See, for example, the Preface to his SMutter der Makkabder, written at Vienna, in 1819. The tone of still, but deep and heartfelt sadness, which runs through the whole of this piece, cannot be communicated in extracts. We quote only a half stanza, which, except in prose, we shall not venture to translate: kch, dem der Liebe Kosen Und alle Freudenrosen, Beym ersten Schauj eltosen Amn Muttergrab' entfiohn.'-'I, for whom the caresses of love and all roses of joy withered away, as the first shovel with its mould sounded on the coffin of my mother.' LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 127 popular and tragical productions, Die Vier-und-zwanzigste Februar (The Twenty-fourth of February). After this event, which left him in possession of a small but competent fortune, Werner returned with his wife to his post at Warsaw. By this time, Hitzig too had been sent back, and to a higher post: he was now married likewise; and the two wives, he says, soon became as intimate as their husbands. In a little while Hoffmann joined them; a colleague in Hitzig's office, and by him ere long introduced to Werner, and the other circle of Prussian men of law; who, in this foreign capital, formed each other's chief society; and, of course, clave to one another more closely than they might have done elsewhere. Hoffmann does not seem to have loved Werner; as, indeed, he was at all times rather shy in his attachments; and to his quick eye, and more rigid fastidious feeling, the lofty theory and low selfish practice, the general diffuseness, nay incoherence of character, the pedantry and solemn affectation, too visible in the man, could nowise be hidden. Nevertheless, he feels and acknowledges the frequent charm of his conversation: for Werner many times could be frank and simple; and the true humour and abandonment with which he often launched forth into bland satire on his friends, and still oftener on himself, atoned for many of his whims and weaknesses. Probably the two could not have lived together by themselves: but in a circle of common men, where these touchy elements were attempered by a fair addition of wholesome insensibilities and formalities, they even relished one another; and, indeed, the whole social union seems to have stood on no undesirable footing. For the rest, Warsaw itself was, at this time, a gay, picturesque and stirring city; full of resources for spending life in pleasant occupation, either wisely or unwisely.l 1 Hitzig has thus described the first aspect it presented to Hoffinann:'Streets of stately breadth, formed of palaces in the finest Italian style,'and wooden hutsr which threatened every moment to rush down over the'heads of their inmates; in these edifices, Asiatic pomp combined in 128 MISCELLANIES. It was here that, in 1805, Werner's Kreuz an der Ostsee (Cross on the Baltic) was written: a sort of half-operatic performance, for which Hoffmann, who to his gifts as a writer added perhaps still higher attainments both as a musician and a painter, composed the accompaniment. He complains that, in this matter, Werner was very ill to please. A ridiculous scene, at the first reading of the piece, the same shrewd wag has recorded in his Serapions-Briider: Hitzig assures us that it is literally true, and that Hoffmann himself was the main actor in the business.'Our Poet had invited a few friends, to, read to them, in manuscript, his Kreuz an der Ostsee, of which they already knew some fragments that had raised their expectations to the highest stretch. Planted, as usual, in the middle of the circle, at a little miniature table, on which two clear lights, stuck in high candlesticks, were burning, sat the Poet: he had drawn the manuscript from his breast; the huge snuffbox, the blue-checked handkerchief, aptly reminding you of Baltic muslin, as in use for petticoats and other indispensable things, lay arranged in order before him. - Deep silence on all sides!- Not a breath heard! - The Poet cuts one of those unparalleled, ever-memorable, altogether indescribable faces you have seen in him, and begins.- Now you recollect, at the rising of the curtain, the Prussians are assembled on the coast of the Baltic, fishing amber, and'strange union with Greenland squalor. An ever-moving population,'forming the sharpest contrasts, as in a perpetual masquerade: long-'bearded Jews; monks in the garb of every order; here veiled and'deep-'ly-shrouded nuns of strictest discipline, walking self-secluded and apart;'there flights of young Polesses, in silk mantles of the brightest colours,'talking and promenading over broad squares. The venerable ancient'Polish noble, with moustaches, caftan, girdle, sabre, and red or yellow'boots; the new generation equipt to the utmost pitch as Parisian Incroy-'ables; with Turks, Greeks, Russians, Italians, Frenchmen, in ever-chang-'ing throng. Add to this a police of inconceivable tolerance, disturbing'no popular sport; so that little puppet-theatres, apes, camels, dancing-'bears, practised incessantly in open spaces and streets; while the most'elegant equipages, and the poorest pedestrian bearers of burden, stood'gazing at them.. Farther, a theatre in the national language; a good'French company; an Italian opera; German players of at least a.very'passable sort; masked-balls on a quite original but highly entertaining' plan; places for pleasure-excursions all round the city,' &c. &c. - Hoffmann's Leben und Nachlass, b. i. s. 287. LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 129 commence by calling on the god who presides over this vocation. -So begins: Bangputtis! Bangputtis! Bangputtis! - Brief pause! - Incipient stare in the audience! - and from a fellow in the corner comes a small clear voice: "My dearest, most valued friend! my best of poets! If thy whole dear opera is written in that cursed language, no soul of us knows a syllable of it; and I beg, in the Devil's name, thou wouldst have the goodness to translate it first! "'1 Of this Kreuz an der Ostsee our limits will permit us to say but little. It is still a fragment; the Second Part, which was often promised, and, we believe, partly written, having never yet been published. In some respects, it appears to us the best of Werner's dramas: there is a decisive coherence in the plot, such as we seldom find with him; and a firmness, a rugged nervous brevity in the dialogue, which is equally rare. Here, too, the mystic dreamy agencies, which, as in most of his pieces, he has interwoven with the action, harmonise more than usually with the spirit of the whole. It is a wild subject, and this helps to give it a corresponding wildness of locality. The first planting of Christianity among the Prussians, by the Teutonic Knights, leads us back of itself into dim ages of antiquity, of superstitious barbarism, and stern apostolic zeal: it is a scene hanging, as it were, in half ghastly chiaroscuro, on a ground of primeval Night: where the Cross and St. Adalbert come in contact with the Sacred Oak and the Idols of Romova, we are not surprised that spectral shapes peer forth on us from the gloom. In constructing and depicting of characters, Werner, indeed, is still little better than a mannerist: his persons, differing in external figure, differ too slightly in inward nature; and no one of them comes forward on us with a rightly visible or living air. Yet, in scenes and incidents, in what may be called the general costume of his subject, he has here 1 Hoffmann's Serapions-Briider, b. iv. s. 240. VOL. I. 9 130 MISCELLANIES. attained a really superior excellence. The savage Prussians, with their amber-fishing, their bear-hunting, their bloody idolatry and stormful untutored energy, are brought vividly into view; no less so the Polish Court of Plozk, and the German Crusaders, in their bridal-feasts and battles, as they live and move, here placed on the verge of Heathendom, as it were, the vanguard of Light in conflict with the kingdom of Darkness. The nocturnal assault on Plozk by the Prussians, where the handful of Teutonic Knights is overpowered, but the city saved from ruin by the miraculous interposition of the' Harper,' who now proves to be the Spirit of St. Adalbert; this, with the scene which follows it, on the Island of the Vistula, where the dawn slowly breaks over doings of woe and horrid cruelty, but of woe and cruelty atoned for by immortal hope, - belong undoubtedly to Werner's most successful efforts. With much that is questionable, much that is merely common, there are intermingled touches from the true Land of Wonders; indeed, the whole is overspread with a certain dimn religious light, in which its many pettinesses and exaggerations are softened into something which at least resembles poetic harmony. We give this drama a high praise, when we say that more than once it has reminded us of Calderon. The' Cross on the Baltic' had been bespoken by Iffland, for the Berlin theatre; but the complex machinery of the piece, the'little flames' springing, at intervals, from the heads of certain characters, and the other supernatural ware with which it is replenished, were found to transcend the capabilities of any. merely terrestrial stage. Iffland, the best actor in Germany, was himself a dramatist, and man of talent, but in all points differing from Werner, as a stagemachinist may differ from a man with the second-sight. Hoffmann chuckles in secret over the perplexities in which the shrewd prosaic manager and playwright must have found himself, when he came to the'little flame.' Nothing remained but to write back a refusal, full of admiration and LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 13'i expostulation: and Iffland wrote one which, says Hoffmann,'passes-for a masterpiece of theatrical diplomacy.' In this one respect, at least, Werner's next play was happier, for it actually crossed the' Stygian marsh' of greenroom hesitations, and reached, though in a maimed state, the Elysium of the boards; and this to the great joy, as it proved, both of Iffland and all other parties interested. We'allude to the Martin Luther, oder die Weihe der Kraft (Martin Luther, or the Consecration of Strength), Werner's most popular'performance; which came out at Berlin in 1807, and soon spread over all Germany, Catholic as well as Protestant; being acted, it would seem, even in Vienna, to overflowing and delighted audiences. If instant acceptance, therefore, were a measure of dramatic merit, this play should rank high among that class of works. Nevertheless, to judge from our own impressions, the sober reader of Martin Luther will be far from finding in it such excellence. It cannot be named among the best dramas: it is not even the best- of Wei-ner's. There is, indeed, much scenic exhibition, many a' fervid sentiment,' as the newspapers have it; nay, with all its mixture of coarseness, here and there a glimpse of genuine dramatic inspiration: but, as a whole, the work sorely disappoints us; it is of so loose and mixed a structure, and falls asunder in our thoughts, like the iron and the clay in the Chaldean's Dream. There is an interest, perhaps of no trivial sort, awakened in the First Act; but, unhappily, it goes on declining, till, in the Fifth, an ill-natured critic might almost say, it expires. The story is too wide for Werner's dramatic lens to gather into a focus; besides, the reader brings with him an image of it, too fixed for being so boldly metamorphosed, and too high and august for being ornamented with tinsel and gilt pasteboard. Accordingly, the Diet of Worms, plentifully furnished as it is with sceptres and armorial shields,. continues a much grander scene in History than it is here in Fiction. Neither, with regard to the persons of 132 MISCELLANIES. the play, excepting those of Luther and Catharine, the Nun whom he weds, can we find much scope for praise. Nay, our praise even of these two must have many limitations.. Catharine, though carefully enough depicted, is, in fact, little more than a common tragedy-queen, with the storminess, the love, and other stage-heroism, which belong prescripttively to that class of dignitaries. With regard to Luther himself, it is evident that Werner has put forth his whole; strength in this delineation; and, trying him by common standards, we are far from saying that he has failed. Doubtless it is, in some respects, a significant and even sublime delineation; yet must we ask whether it is Luther, the Luther of History, or even the Luther proper for this drama; and not rather some ideal portraiture of Zacharias Werner himself? Is not this Luther, with his too assiduous flute-playing, his trances of three days, his visions of, the Devil (at whom, to the sorrow of the housemaid, he resolutely throws his huge inkbottle), by much too spasmodic and brainsick a personage? We cannot but question the dramatic beauty, whatever it may be in history, of that three days' trance; the hero must before this have been in want of mere victuals; and there, as he sits deaf and dumb, with his eyes sightless, yet fixed and staring, are we not tempted less to admire, than to send in all haste for some officer of the Humane Society? - Seriously, we cannot but regret that these and other such blemishes had not been avoided, and the character, worked into chasteness and purity, been presented to us in the simple grandeur which essentially belongs to it. For, censure as we may, it were blindness to deny that this figure of Luther has in it features of an austere loveliness, a mild yet awful beauty: undoubtedly a figure rising from the depths of the poet's soul; and, marred as it is with such adhesions, piercing at times'into the depths of ours! Among so many poetical sins, it forms the chief redeeming virtue, and truly were almost in itself a sort of atonement. LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 133 As for the other characters, they need not detain us long. Of Charles the Fifth, by far the most ambitious, - meant, indeed, as the counterpoise of Luther, - we may say, without hesitation, that he is a failure. An empty Gascon this; brargging of his power, and honour and the like, in a style which Charles, even in his nineteenth year, could never have used.'One God, one Charles,' is no speech for an emperor; and, besides, is borrowed from some panegyrist of a Spanish Opera-singer. Neither can we fall-in with Charles, when he tells us that'he fears nothing, - not even God.' We humbly think he must be mistaken. With the old Miners, again, with Hans Luther and his Wife, the Reformer's parents, there is more reason to be satisfied: yet in Werner's hands simplicity is always apt, in such cases, to become too simple; and these honest peasants, like the honest Hugo in the' Sons of the Valley,' are very garrulous. The drama of Martin Luther is named likewise the Consecration of Strength; that is, we suppose, the purifying of this great theologian from all remnants of earthly passion, into a clear heavenly zeal; an operation which is brought about, strangely enough, by two half-ghosts and one whole ghost, —a little fairy girl, Catharine's servant, who impersonates Faith; a little fairy youth, Luther's servant, who represents Art; and the'Spirit of Cotta's wife,' an honest housekeeper, but defunct many years before, who stands for Purity. These three supernaturals hover about in very whimsical wise, cultivating flowers, playing on flutes, and singing dirge-like epithalamiums over unsound sleepers: we cannot see how'aught of this is to'consecrate strength';' or, indeed, what such jack-o'-lantern personages have in the least to do with so grave a business. If the author intended by such machinery to elevate his subject from the Common, and unite it with the higher region of the Infinite and the Invisible, we cannot think that his contrivance has succeeded,:or was worthy to succeed. These half-allegorical, half-corporeal beings yield no contentment anywhere: Abstract Ideas, 134 MISCELLANIES. however they may put on fleshly garments, are a class of characters whom we cannot sympathise with or delight in. Besides, how can this mere embodiment of an allegory be supposed to act on the rugged materials of life, and elevate into ideal grandeur the doings of real men, that live and move amid the actual pressure of worldly things? At best, it can stand but like a hand in the margin: it is not performing the task proposed, but only telling us that it was meant to be performed. To our feelings, this entire episode runs like straggling bindweed through the whole growth of the piece, not so much uniting as encumbering and choking-up what it meets with; in itself, perhaps, a green and rather pretty weed; yet here superfluous, and, like any other weed, deserving only to be altogether cut away. Our general opinion of Martin Luther, it would seem, therefore, corresponds ill with that of the'overflowing and delighted audiences' over all Germany. We believe, however, that now, in its twentieth year, the work may be somewhat more calmly judged of even there. As a classical drama it could never pass with any critic; nor, on the other hand, shall we ourselves deny that, in the lower sphere of a popular spectacle, its attractions are manifold. We find it, what, more or less, we find all Werner's pieces to be, a splendid, sparkling mass; yet not of pure metal, but of manycoloured scoria, not unmingled with metal; and must regret, as ever, that it had not been refined in a stronger furnace, and kept in the crucible till the true silver-gleam, glancing from it, had shown that the process was complete. Werner's dramatic,popularity could not remain without influence on him, more especially as he was now in the very centre of its brilliancy, having changed his residence from Warsaw to Berlin, some time before his Weihe der Kraft was acted, or indeed written. Von Schrdter, one of the stateministers, a man harmonising with Werner in his' zeal both for religion and freemasonry,' had been persuaded by some friends to appoint him his secretary. Werner. naturally re LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 135 joiced in such promotion; yet, combin'ed with his theatrical success, it perhaps, in the long-run, did him more harm than good. He might now, for the first time, be said to see the busy and influential world with his own eyes: but to draw future instruction from it, or even to guide himself in its present complexities, he was little qualified. He took a shorter method:'he plunged into the vortex of society,' says Hitzig, with brief expressiveness; became acquainted, indeed, with Fichte, Johannes Miller, and other excellent men, but united himself also, and with closer partiality, to players, play-lovers, and a long list of jovial, admiring, but highly unprofitable companions. His religious schemes, perhaps rebutted by collision with actual life, lay dormant for the time, or mingled in strange union with wine-vapours, and the'feast of reason, and the flow of soul.' The result of all this might, in some measure, be foreseen. In eight weeks, for example, Werner had parted with his wife. It was not to be expected, he writes, that she should be happy with him.'I am no bad man,' continues he, with considerable candour;'yet a weakling in many respects (for God strengthens me'also in several), fretful, capricious, greedy, impure. Thou'knowest me I Still, immersed in my fantasies, in my occu-'pation: so that here, what with playhouses, what with so-'cial parties, she had no manner of enjoyment with me. She'is innocent: I too perhaps.; for can I pledge myself that I'am so?' These repeated divorces of Werner's at length convinced him that he had no talent for managing wives; indeed, we subsequently find him, more than once, arguing in dissuasion of marriage altogether. To our readers one other consideration may occur: astonishment at the state of marriage-law, and the strange footing this'sacrament' must stand on throughout Protestant Germany. For a Christian man, at least not a Mahometan, to leave three widows behind him, certainly wears a peculiar aspect. Perhaps it is saying much for German morality, that so absurd a system has not, by the disorders resulting firom it, already brought about its own abrogation. 136 MISCELLANIES. Of Werner's farther proceedings in Berlin, except by implication, we have little notice. After the arrival of the French armies, his secretaryship ceased; and now wifeless. and placeless, in the summer of 1807,' he felt himself,' he says,' authorised by Fate to indulge his taste for pilgriming.'. Indulge it accordingly he did; for he wandered to. and fro many years, nay we may almost say, to the end of his life, like a perfect Bedouin. The various stages and occurrences of his travels, he has himself recorded in a paper,furnished by him for his own Name, in some Biographical Dictionary. Hitzig quotes great part of it, but it is too long and too meagre for being quoted here. Werner was at Prague, Vienna, Munich,- everywhere received with, open arms;'saw at Jena, in December 1807, for the first time,'the most universal and the clearest man of his age (the man'whose like no one that has seen him will ever see again),'the great, nay only GOETHE; and, under his introduction,'the pattern of German princes' (the Duke of Weimar); and then,'after three ever-memorable months in this society,'beheld at Berlin the triumphant entry of the pattern of'European tyrants' (Napoleon). On the summit of the Rigi, at sunrise, he became acquainted with the Crown Prince, now King, of Bavaria; was by him introduced to the Swiss festival at Interlaken, and to the most'intellectual lady of':our time, the Baroness de Stal1; and must beg to be cred-'ited when, after sufficient individual experience, he can'declare, that the heart of this high and noble woman was at'least as great as her genius.' Coppet, for a while, was his head-quarters; but he went to Paris, to Weimar,' again to Switzerland; in short, trudged and hurried hither and thither, inconstant as an ignis fatuus, and restless as the Wandering Jew. 1 It was here that Hitzig saw him, for the last time, in 1809; found admittance, through his means, to a court-festival in honour of Bernadotte; jud. he still recollects, with gratification,' the lordly spectacle -of Goethe and that sovereign standing front to front, engaged in the liveliest conversation.' LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 137 On his mood of mind during all this period, Werner gives us no direct information; but so unquiet an outward life betokens of itself no inward repose; and when we, from other lights, gain a transient glimpse into the wayfarer's thoughts, they seem still more fluctuating than his footsteps. His project of a New Relifion was by this time abandoned: Hitzig thinks his closer survey of life at Berlin had taught him the impracticability of such, chimeras. Nevertheless, the subject of Religion, in one shape or another, nay of propagating it in new purity by teaching and plreaching, had nowise vanished from, his meditations. On the contrary, we can perceive that it still formied the master-principle of his soul,'the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night,' which guided him, so far as he had any.guidance, in the pathless desert of his now solitary, barren and cheerless existence. What his special opinions or prospects on the matter had, at this period, become, we nowhere learn;, escept, indeed, negatively, -fbr if he has not yet found the new, he still cordially enough detests the old. All his admiration of Luther cannot reconcile him to modern Lutheranism. This he regards but as another and more hideous impersonation of the Utilitarian spirit of the age, nay as the last triumph of Infidelity, which has now dressed itself in priestly garb, and even mounted the pulpit, to preach, in heavenly symbols, a doctrine which is altogether of the earth. A curious passage from his Preface to the cross on the Bcaltic we may quote, by way of illustration. After speaking of St. Adalbert's miracles, and how his body, when purchased from the heathen for its weight in gold, became light as gossamer, he proceeds:'Though these things may be justly doubted; yet one miracle cannot. be denied him, the miracle, namely, that after his death he has extorted from this Spirit of Protestantism against Strength in general, - which now replaces the old heathen and catholic Spirit of Persecution, and weighs almost as much as Adalbert's body, - the admission, that he knew what he wanted; was what he wished to 138 MISCELLANIES. be; was so wholly; and therefore must have been a man, at all points diametrically opposite both to that Protestantism, and to the culture of our day.' In a Note, lie adds:'There is another Protestantism, however, which constitutes in Conduct what Art is in Speculation, and which I reverence so highly, that I even place it above Art, as Conduct is above Speculation at all times. But in this, St. Adalbert and St. Luther are —colleagues: and if God, which I daily pray for, should awaken Luther to us before the Last Day, the first task he would find, in respect of that degenerate and spurious Protestantism, would be, in his somewhat rugged manner, to —protest against it.' A similar, or perhaps still more reckless temper, is to be traced elsewhere, in passages of a gay, as well as grave character. This is the conclusion of a letter from Vienna, in 1807:'We have Tragedies here which contain so many edifying maxims, that you might use them instead of Jesus Sirach, and have them read from beginning to end in the Berlin Sunday-Schools. Comedies, likewise, absolutely bursting with household felicity and nobleness of mind. The genuine Kasperl is dead, and Schikander has gone his ways; but here too Bigotry and Superstition are attacked in enlightened Journals with such profit, that the people care less for Popery than even you in Berlin do; and prize, for instance, the Weihe der Kraft, which has also been declaimed in Regensburg and Munich to thronging audiences, - chiefly for the multitude of liberal Protestant opinions therein brought to light; and regard the author, all his struggling to the contrary unheeded, as a secret lluninatus, or at worst an amiable Enthusiast. In a word, Vienna is determined, without loss of time, to overtake Berlin in the career of improvement; and when I recollect that Berlin, on her side, carries Porst's Ilymn-book with her, in her reticule, to the shows in the Thierqarten; and that the ray of Christiano-catholico-platonic Faith pierces deeper and deeper into your (already by nature very deep) Privy-councillor Ma'm'selle, - I almost fancy that Germany is one great madhouse; and could find in my heart to pack up my goods, and set off for Italy, to-morrow morning; —not, indeed, that I might work there, where follies enough are to be had too; but that, amid ruins and flowers; I might forget all things, and myself in the first place.' 1 To Italy accordingly he went, though with rather different 1 Lebens-Abriss, s. 70. LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 139 objects, and not quite so soon as on the morrow. In the course of his wanderings, a munificent ecclesiastical Prince, the Fiirst Primas von Dalberg, had settled a yearly pension on him; so that now he felt still more at liberty to go whither he listed. In the course of a second visit to Coppet, and which lasted four months, Madame de Sta5l encouraged and assisted him to execute his favourite project; he set out, through Turin and Florence, and' on the 9th of December'1809, saw, for the first time, the Capital of the World!' Of his proceedings here, much as we should desire to have minute details, no information is given in this Narrative; and Hitzig seems to know, by a letter, merely, that'he knelt'with streaming eyes over the graves of St. Peter and St.' Paul.' This little phrase says much. Werner appears likewise to have assisted at certain' Spiritual Exercitations' (Geistliche Uebungen); a new invention set on fbot at Rome for quickening the devotion of the faithful; consisting, so far as we can gather, in a sort of fasting-and-prayer meetings, conducted on the most rigorous principles; the considerable band of devotees being' bound over to strict silence, and secluded for several days, with conventual care, from every sort of intercourse with the world. The effect of these Exercitations, Werner elsewhere declares, was edifying to an extreme degree; at parting on the threshold of' their holy tabernacle, all the brethren' embraced each other, as if in-'toxicated with divine joy; and each confessed to the other,' that throughout these precious days he had been, as it were,'in heaven; and now, strengthened as by a soul-purifying'bath, was but loath to venture back into the cold weekday'world.' The next step fiom these Tabor-feasts, if, indeed, it had not preceded them, was a decisive one:' On the 19th of April 1811, Werner had grace given him to return to the Faith of his fathers, the Catholic!' Here, then, the' crowning mercy' had at length arrived! This passing of the Rubicon determined the whole remainder of Werner's life; which had henceforth the merit at least of 140 MISCELLANIES. entire consistency. He forthwith set about the professional study of Theology; then, being perfected in this, he left Italy in 1813, taking care, however, by the road,' to supplicate, and certainly not in vain, the help of the Gracious Mother at Loretto;' and after due preparation, under the superintendence of his patron, the Prince Archbishop von Dalberg, had himself ordained a Priest at Aschaffenburg, in June 1814. Next from Aschaffenburg he hastened to Vienna; and there, with all his might, began preaching; his first auditory being the Congress of the Holy Alliance, which had then just begun its venerable sessions.'The novelty and strangeness,' he says,' nay originality of his appearance, secured him an extraordinary concourse of hearers.' He was, indeed, a man worth hearing and seeing; for his name, noised abroad in many-sounding peals, was filling all Germany from the hut to the palace. This, he thinks, might have affected his head; but he'had a trust in God, which bore him through.' Neither did he seem anywise anxious to still this clamour of his judges, least of all to propitiate his detractors: for already, before arriving at Vienna, he had published, as a pendant to his Martin Luther, or the Consecration of Strength, a Pamphlet, in doggrel metre, entitled, the Consecration of Weakness, wherein he proclaims himself to the whole world as an honest seeker and finder of truth, and takes occasion to revoke his old' Trinity,' of art, religion and love; love having now turned out to be a dangerous ingredient in such mixtures. The writing of this Weihe der Unkraft was reckoned -by many a bold but injudicious measure,- a throwing down of the gauntlet when the lists were full of tumultuous foes, and the knight was but weak, and his cause, at best, of the most questionable sort. To reports, and calumnies, and criticisms, and vituperations, there was no limit. What remains of this strange eventful history may be summed up in few words. Werner accepted no special charge in the Church; but continued a private and secular LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 141 Priest; preaching diligently, but only where he himself saw good; oftenest at Vienna, but in summer over all parts of Austria, in Styria, Carinthia, and even Venice. Everywhere, he says, the opinions of his hearers were'violently divided.' At one time, he thought of becoming Monk, and had actually entered on a sort of noviciate; but he quitted the establishment rather suddenly, and, as he is reported to have said,' for reasons known only to God and himself.' By degrees, his health grew very weak: yet he still laboured' hard both in public and private; writing or revising poems, devotional or dramatic; preaching, and officiating as fatherconfessor, in which last capacity he is said to have been in great request. Of his poetical productions during this period, there is none of any moment known to us, except the Mother of the lMaccabees (1819); a tragedy of careful structure, and apparently in high favour with the author, but which, notwithstanding, need not detain us long. In our view, it is the worst of all his pieces; a pale, bloodless, indeed quite ghost-like affair; for a cold breath as fiom a sepulchre chills the heart in perusing it: there is no passion or interest, but a certain woestruck martyr zeal, or rather frenzy, and this not so much storming as shrieking; not loud and resolute, but shrill, hysterical and bleared with ineffectual tears. To read it may well sadden us: it is a convulsive fit, whose uncontrollable writhings indicate, not strength, but the last decay of that.l Werner was, in fact, drawing to his latter end: his health had long been ruined; especially of later years, he had suf1 Of his Attila (1808), his Vier-und-zwanzigste Februar (1809), his Cunegunde (1814), and various other pieces written in his wanderings, we have not room to speak. It is the less necessary, as the Attila and Twentyfourth of February, by much the best of these, have already been forcibly, and on the whole fairly, characterised by Madame de Stal1. Of the last-named little work we might say, with double emphasis, Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet: it has a deep and genuine tragic interest, were it not so painfully protracted into the regions of pure horror. Werner's Sermons, his Hymns, his Preface to Thomas a Kempis, &c. are entirely unknown to us. 142 MISCELLANIES. fered much from disorders of the lungs. In 1817, he was thought to be dangerously ill; and afterwards, in 1822, when a journey to the Baths partly restored him; though he himself still felt that his term was near, and spoke and acted like a man that was shortly to depart. In January 1823, he was evidently dying: his affairs he had already settled; much of his time he spent in prayer; was constantly cheerful, at intervals even gay.' His death,' says Hitzig,' was especially' mild. On the eleventh day of his disorder, he felt himself,'particularly towards evening, as if altogether light and well;'so that he would hardly consent to have any one to watch with him. The servant whose turn it was did watch, how-'ever; he had sat down by the bedside between two and'three next morning (the 17th), and continued there a con-'siderable while, in the belief that his patient was asleep.'Surprised, however, that no breathing was to be heard, he'hastily aroused the household, and it was found that Werner'had already passed away.' In imitation, it is thought, of Lipsius, he bequeathed his Pen to the treasury of the Virgin at Mariazell,'as a chief instrument of his aberrations, his sins and his repentance.' He was honourably interred at Enzersdorf on the Hill; where a simple inscription, composed by himself, begs the wanderer to'pray charitably for his poor soul;' and expresses a trembling hope that, as to Mary Magdalen,'because she loved much,' so to him also'much may be forgiven.' We have thus, in hurried movement, travelled over Zacharias Werner's Life and Works; noting down from the former such particulars as seemed most characteristic; and gleaning from the latter some more curious passages, less indeed with a view to their intrinsic excellence, than to their fitness for illustrating the man. These scattered indications we must now leave our readers to interpret each for himself: each will adjust them into that combination which shall best har LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 143 monise with his own way of thought. As a writer, Werner's character will occasion little difficulty. A richly gifted nature; but never wisely guided, or resolutely applied; a loving heart; an intellect subtle and inquisitive, if not always clear and strong; a gorgeous, deep and bold imagination; a true, nay keen and burning sympathy with all high, all tender and holy things: here lay the main elements of no common poet; save only that one was still wanting, - the force to cultivate them, and mould them into pure union. But they have remained uncultivated, disunited, too often struggling in wild disorder: his poetry, like his life, is still not so much an edifice as a quarry. Werner had cast a look into perhaps the very deepest region of the Wonderful; but he had not learned to live there: he was yet no denizen of that mysterious land; and, in his visions, its splendour is strangely mingled and overclouded with the flame or smoke of mere earthly fire. Of his dramas we have already spoken; and with much to praise, found always more to censure. In his rhymed pieces, his shorter, more didactic poems, we are better satisfied: here, in the rude, jolting vehicle of a certain Sternhold-and-Hopkins metre, we often find a strain of true pathos, and a deep though quaint significance. His prose, again, is among the worst known to us: degraded with silliness; diffuse, nay tautological, yet obscure and vague; contorted into endless involutions; a misshapen, lumbering, complected coil, well nigh inexplicable in its entanglements, and seldom worth the trouble of unravelling. He does not move through his subject, and arrange it, and rule over it: for the most part, he but welters in it, and laboriously tumbles it, and at last sinks under it. ~As a man, the ill-fated Werner can still less content us. His feverish, inconstant and wasted life we have already looked at. Hitzig, his determined wellwisher, admits that in practice he was selfish, wearying out his best fi-iends by the most barefaced importunities; a man of no dignity; avaricious, greedy, sensual, at times obscene; in discourse, 1 44 MISCELLANIES. with all his humour and heartiness, apt to be intolerably longwinded; and of a maladroitness, a blank ineptitude, which exposed him to. incessant ridicule and manifold mystifications from people of the world. Nevertheless, under all this rubbish, contends the friendly Biographer, there dwelt, for those who could look more narrowly, a spirit, marred indeed in its beauty, and languishing in painful conscious oppression, yet never wholly forgetful of its original nobleness. Werner's soul was made for affection; and often as, under his too rude collisions with external things, it was struck into harshness and dissonance, there was a tone which spoke of melody, even in its jarrings. A kind, a sad and heartfelt remembrance of his friends seems never to have quitted him: to the last he ceased n6t from warm love to men at large; nay, to awaken in them, with such knowledge as he had, a sense for what was best and highest, may be said to have formed the earnest, though weak and unstable aim of his whole existence. The truth is, his defects as a writer were also his defects as a man: he was feeble, and without volition; in life, as in poetry, his endowments fell into confusion; his character relaxed itself on all sides into incoherent expansion; his activity became gigantic endeavour, followed by most dwarfish performance. The grand incident of his life, his adoption of the Roman Catholic religion, is one on which we need not heap farther censure; for already, as appears to us, it is rather liable to be too harshly than too lenientl dealt with. There is a feeling in the popular mind, ih, 1 i::Iell-meant hatred of inconsistency, perhaps in;: pingly condemns such changes. Werner, it rq Djcted, had at all periods of his life a religio, uu and thirsted after truth in this matter, as t good of man; a act which of itself must, s t him far above the most consistent of mere ie~ in whose barren and callous soul consistency perhaps A such brilliant vir LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 145 tue. We pardon genial weather for its changes; but the steadiest of all climates is that of Greenland. Farther, we must say that, strange as it may seem, in Werner's whole conduct, both before and after his conversion, there is not visible (the slightest trace of insincerity. On the whole, there are fewer genuine renegades than men are apt to imagine. Surely, indeed, that must be a nature of extreme baseness, who feels that, in worldly good, he can gain by such a step, Is the contempt, the execration of all that have known and loved us, and of millions that have never known us, to be weighed'against a mess of pottage, or a piece of money? We hope there are not many, even in the rank of sharpers, that would think so. But for Werner there was no gain in any way; nay, rather certainty of loss. He enjoyed or sought no patronage; with his own resources he was already independent though poor, and on a footing of good esteem with all that was most estimable ih his country. His little pension, conferred on him, at a prior date, by a Catholic Prince, was not continued after his'conversion, except by the Duke of Weimar, a Protestant. He became a mark for calumny; the defenceless butt at which every callow witling made his proof-shot; his character was more deformed and mangled than that of any other man. What had he to gain? Insult and persecution; and with these, as candour bids us believe, the approving voice of his own conscience. To judge from his writings, he was far from repenting of the change he had made; his Catholic faith evidently stands in his own mind as the first blessing of his life; and he clings to it as the anchor of his soul. Scarcely more than once (in the Preface to his Mutter der Makkabder) does he allude to the legions of falsehoods that were in circulation against him; and it is in a spirit which, without entirely concealing the querulousness of nature, nowise fails in -the meekness and endurance which became him as a Christian. Here is a fragment of another Paper, published since his death, as it was meant to be; which exVOL. I. 10 146 MISCELLANIES. hibits him in a still clearer light. The reader may contemn, or, what will be better, pity and sympathise with him; but the structure of this strange piece surely bespeaks anything but insincerity. We translate it with all its breaks and fantastic crotchets, as it stands before us:' TESTAMENTARY INSCRIPTION, from Friedrich Ludwig Zacharias Werner, a son,' &c. - (here follows a statement of his parentage and birth, with vacant spaces for the date of his death), -' of the following lines, submitted to all such as have more or less felt any friendly interest in his unworthy person, with the request to take warning by his example, and charitably to remember the poor soul of the writer before God, in prayer and good deeds.'Begun at Florence, on the 24th of September, about eight in the evening, amid the still distant sound of approaching thunder. Concluded, when and where God will! Motto, Device and Watchword in Death: Remittuntur ei peccata multa, quoniam dilexit multum!! - Lucas, caput vii. v. 47.'N. B. Most humbly and earnestly, and in the name of God, does the Author of this Writing beg, of such honest persons. as may find it, to submit the same in any suitable way to public examination.'Fecisti nos, Domine, ad Te; et irrequietunm est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in Te. - S. Augustinus.'Per multa dispergitur, et hic illucque qucerit (cor) ubi requiescere possit, et nihil invenit quod ei suffciat, donec ad ipsum (sc. Deum) redeat.S. Bernardus.'In the name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen!'The thunder came hither, and is still rolling, though now at a distance. — The name of the Lord be praised! Hallelujah!- I BEGIN:'This Paper must needs be brief; because the appointed term for my life itself may already be near at hand. There are not wanting examples of important and unimportant men, who have left behind them in writing the defence, or even sometimes the accusation, of their earthly life. Without estimating such procedure, I am not minded to imitate it. With trembling I reflect that I myself shall first learn in its whole terrific compass what properly I was. when LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 147 these lines shall be read by men; that is to say, in a point of Time which for me will be no Time; in a condition wherein all experience will for me be too late! Rex tremendca majestatis, Qui salvandos salvas gratis, Salva me, fons pietatis!!! But if I do, till that day when All shall be laid open, draw a veil over my past life, it is not merely out of false shame that I so order it; for though not free from this vice also, I would willingly make known my guilt to all and every one whom my voice might reach, could I hope, by such confession, to atone for what I have done; or thereby to save a single soul from perdition. There are two motives, however, which forbid me to make such an open personal revelation after death: the one, because the unclosing of a pestilential grave may be dangerous to the health of the uninfected lookeron; the other, because in my Writings (which may God forgive me!), amid a. wilderness of poisonous weeds and garbage, there may also be here and there a medicinal herb lying scattered, from which poor patients, to whom it might be useful, would start back with shuddering, did they know the pestiferous soil on which it grew.'So much, however, in regard to those good creatures as they call themselves, namely to those feeble weaklings who brag of what they designate their good hearts, - so much must I say before God, that such a heart alone, when it is not checked and regulated by forethought and stedfastness, is not only incapable of saving its possessor from destruction, but is rather certain to hurry him, full speed, into'that abyss, where I have been, whence I —perhaps?! i! — by God's grace am snatched, and from which may God mercifully preserve every reader of these lines.' 1 All this is melancholy enough; but it is not like the writing of a hypocrite or repentant apostate. To Protestantism, above all things, Werner shows no thought of returning. In allusion to a rumour, which had spread, of his having given up Catholicism, he says (in the Preface already quoted):'A stupid falsehood I must reckon it; since, according to my deepest conviction, it is as impossible that a soul in Bliss should return back into the Grave, as that a man, who, like me, after a life of error and search has found the priceless jewel of Truth, should, 1 Werner's Letzte Lebenstagen (quoted by Hitzig, p. 80). 148 MISCELLANIES. I will not say, give up the same, but hesitate to sacrifice for it blood and life, nay many things perhaps far dearer, with joyful heart, when the one good cause is concerned.' And elsewhere in a private letter:'I not only assure thee, but I beg of thee to assure all men, if God should ever so withdraw the light of his grace from me, that I ceased to be a Catholic, I would a thousand times sooner join myself to Judaism, or to the Bramins on the Ganges: but to that shallowest, driest, most contradictory, inanest Inanity of Protestantism, never, never, never!' IHere, perhaps, there is a touch of priestly, of almost feminine vehemence; for it is to a Protestant and an old friend that he writes: but the conclusion of his Preface shows him in a better light. Speaking of Second Parts, and regretting that so many of his works were unfinished, he adds:' But what specially comforts me is the prospect of- our general Second Part, where, even in the first Scene, this consolation, that there all our works will be known, may not indeed prove solacing for us all; but where, through the strength of Him that alone completes all works, it will be granted to those whom He has saved, not only to know each other, but even to know Him, as by Him they are known! -With my trust in Christ, whom I have not yet won, I regard, with the Teacher of the Gentiles, all things but dross that I may win Him; and to Him, cordially and lovingly do I, in life or at death, commit you all, my beloved Friends and my beloved Enemies!' On the whole, we cannot think it doubtful that Werner's belief was real and heartfelt. But how then, our wondering readers may inquire, if his belief was real and not pretended, how then did he believe? He, who scoffs in infidel style at the truths of Protestantism, by what alchemy did he succeed in tempering into credibility the harder and bulkier dogmas of Popery? Of Popery, too, the frauds and gross corruptions of which he has so fiercely exposed in his Martin Luther; and this, moreover, without cancelling, or even softening his vituperations, long after his conversion, in the LIFE AND WRITINGS. OF WERNER. 149 very last edition of that drama? To this question, we are far from pretending to have any answer that altogether satisfies ourselves; much less that shall altogether satisfy others. Meanwhile, there are two considerations which throw light on the difficulty for us: these, as some step, oi at least, attempt towards a solution of it, we shall not withhold. The first lies in Werner's individual character and mode of life. Not only was he born a mystic, not only had he lived from of old amid freemasonry, and all manner of cabalistic And other traditionary chimeras; he was also, and had long been, what is emphatically called dissolute; a word which has now lost somewhat of its original force; but which, as applied here, is still more just and significant in its etymological than in its common acceptation. He was a man dissolute; that is, by a long course of vicious indulgences, enervated and loosened asunder. Everywhere in Werner's lifeand actions we discern a mind relaxed from its proper tension; no longer capable of effort and toilsome resolute vigilance; but floating almost passively with the current of its impulses, in languid, imaginative, Asiatic reverie. That such a man should discriminate, with sharp fearless logic, between beloved errors and unwelcome truths, was not to be expected. His belief is likely to have been persuasion rather than conviction, both as it related to Religion, and to other subjects. What, or how much a man in this way may bring himself to believe, with such force and distinctness as he honestly and usually calls belief, there is no predicting. But another consideration, which we think should nowise be omitted, is the general state of religious opinion in Germany, especially among such minds as Werner was most apt to take for his exemplars. To this complex and highly interesting subject we can, for the present, do nothing more than allude. So much, however, we may say: It is a common theory among the Germans, that every Creed, every Form of worship, is a form merely; the mortal and ever 150 MISCELLANIES. changing body, in which the immortal and unchanging spirit of Religion is, with more or less completeness, expressed to the material eye, and made manifest and influential among the doings of men. It is thus, for instance, that Johannes MUller, in his Universal History, professes to consider the Mosaic Law, the creed of AMahomet, nay Luther's Reformation; and, in short, all other systems of Faith; which he scruples not to designate, without special praise or censure, simply as Vorstellungsarten,' Modes of Representation.' We could report equally singular things of Schelling and others, belonging to the philosophic class; nay of Herder, a Protestant clergyman, and even bearing high authority in the Church. Now, it is clear, in a country where such opinions are openly and generally professed, a change of religious creed must be comparatively a slight matter. Conversions to Catholicism are accordingly by no means unknown among the Germans: Friedrich Schlegel, and the younger Count von Stolberg, men, as we should think, of vigorous intellect, and of character above suspicion, were colleagues, or rather precursors, of Werner in this adventure; and, indeed, formed part of his acquaintance at Vienna. It is but, they would perhaps say, as if a melodist, inspired with harmony of inward music, should choose this instrument in preference to that, for giving voice to it: the inward inspiration is the grand concern; and to express it, the,' deep, majestic, solemn organ' of the Unchangeable Church may be better fitted than the' scrannel pipe' of a withered, trivial, Arian Protestantism. That Werner, still more that Schlegel and Stolberg could, on the strength of such hypotheses, put-off or put-on their religious creed, like a new suit of apparel, we are far from asserting; they are men of earnest hearts, and seem to have a deep feeling of devotion; but it should be remembered, that what forms the groundwork of their religion is professedly not Demonstration but Faith; and so pliant a theory could not but help to soften the transition from the former to the latter. That some such principle, in LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 151 one shape or another, lurked in Werner's mind, we think we can perceive from several indications; among others, from the Prologue to his last tragedy, where, mysteriously enough, under the emblem of a Phoenix, he seems to be shadowing forth the history of his own Faith; and represents himself even then as merely' climbing the tree, where the pinions of his Phoenix last vanished;' but not hoping to regain that blissful vision, till his eyes shall have been opened by death. On the whole, we must not pretend to understand Werner, or expound him with scientific rigour: acting many times with only half consciousness, he was always, in some degree, an enigma to himself, and may well be obscure to ls. Above all, there are mysteries and unsounded abysses in every human heart; and that is but a questionable philosdphy which undertakes so readily to explain them. Religious belief especially, at least when it seems heartfelt and well-intentioned, is no subject for harsh or even irreverent investigation. He is- a wise man that, having such a belief, knows and sees clearly the grounds of it in himself: and those, we imagine, who have explored with strictest scrutiny the secret of their own bosoms, will be least apt to rush with intolerant violence into that of other men's.'The good Werner,' says Jean Paul,' fell, like our more'vigorous Hoffmann, into the poetical fermenting-vat (CGhrbottich) of our time, where all Literatures, Freedoms, Tastes'and Untastes are foaming through each other; and where all' is to be found, excepting truth, diligence and the polish of the'file. Both would have come forth clearer had they studied'in Lessing's day.'l We cannot justify Werner: yet let him be condemned with pity! And well were it could each of us apply to himself those words, which Hitzig, in his friendly indignation, would'thunder in the ears' of many a German gainsayer: Take thou the beam out of thine own eye; then shalt thou see clearly to take the mote out of thy brother's.' 1 Letter to Hitzig, in Jean Pauls Leben, by Daring. 152 MISCELLANIES. GOETHIE'S HELENA.1 [1828.] NOVALIS has rather tauntingly asserted of Goethe, that the grand law of his being is to conclude whatsoever he undertakes; that, let him engage in any task, no matter what its difficulties or how small its worth, he cannot quit it till he has mastered its whole secret, finished it, and made the result of it his own. This, surely, whatever Novalis might think, is a quality of which it is far safer to have too much than too little: and if, in a friendlier spirit, we admit that it does strikingly belong to Goethe, these his present occupations will not seem out of harmony with the rest of his life; but rather it may be regarded as a singular constancy of fortune, which now allows him, after completing so many single enterprises, to adjust deliberately the details and combination of the whole; and thus, in perfecting his individual works, to put the last hand to the highest of all his works, his own literary character, and leave the impress of it to posterity in that form and accompaniment which he himself reckons fittest..For the last two years, as many of our readers may know, the venerable Poet has been employed in a patient and thorough revisal of all his Writings; an edition of which, designated as the' complete and, final' one, was commenced in 1827, under external encouragements of the most flatter1 FOREIGN REVIEW, No. 2. - Goethes Sdmmtliche Werke. Vollstdnclige Ausgabe letzter Hand. (Goethe's Collective Works. Complete Edition, with his final Corrections.)- First Portion, vol. i.-v. 16mo and 8vo. Cotta; Stuttgard and Tiibingen, 1827. GOETHE'S HELENA. 153 ing sort, and with arrangements for private cooperation, which, as we learn, have secured the constant progress of the work'against every accident.' The first Lieferung, of five volumes, is now in our hands; a second of like extent, we understand to be already on its way hither; and thus by regular' Deliveries,' from half-year to half-year, the whole Forty Volumes are to be completed in 1831. To the lover of German literature, or of literature in general, this undertaking will not be indifferent: considering,' as he must do, the works of Goethe to be among the most important which Germany for some centuries has sent forth, he will value their correctness and completeness for its own sake; and not the less, as forming the conclusion of a long process to which the last step was still wanting; whereby he may not only enjoy the result, but instruct himself by following so great a master through the'changes which led to it. We can now add, that, to the mere book-collector also, the business promises to be satisfactory. This Edition, avoiding any attempt at splendour or unnecessary decoration, ranks,.nevertheless, in regard to accuracy, convenience, and true simple elegance, among the best specimens of German typography. The cost too seems moderate; so that, on every account, we doubt not but these tasteful volumes will spread far and wide in their own country, and by and by, we may hope, be met with here in many a British library. Hitherto, in this First Portion, we have found little or no.alteration of what was already known; but, in return, some changes of arrangement; and, what is more important, some additions of heretofore unpublished poems; in particular, a piece entitled' Helena, a classico-romantic Phantasmagoria,' which occupies some eighty pages of Volume Fourth. It is to this piece that we now propose directing the attention of our readers. Such of these as have studied Helena for themselves, must have felt how little calculated it is, either intrinsically or by its extrinsic relations and allusions, to be rendered very interesting or even very intelligible to the 154 MISCELLANIES. English public, and may incline to augur ill of our enterprise. Indeed, to our own eyes it already looks dubious enough. But the dainty little'Phantasmagoria,' it would appear, has become a subject of diligent and truly wonderful speculation to our German neighbours: of which also some vague rumours seem now to have reached this country; and these likely enough to awaken on all hands a curiosity,' which, whether intelligent or idle, it were a kind of good deed to allay. In a Journal of this sort, what little light on such a matter is at our disposal may naturally be looked for. Helena, like many of Goethe's works, by no means carries its significance written on its forehead, so that he who runs may read; but, on the contrary, it is enveloped in a certain mystery, under coy disguises, which, to hasty readers, may be not only offensively obscure, but altogether provoking and impenetrable. Neither is this any new thing with Goethe. Often has he produced compositions, both in prose and verse, which bring critic and commentator into straits, or even to a total nonplus. Some we have wholly parabolic; some halfliteral, half-parabolic; these latter are occasionally studied, by dull heads, in the literal sense alone; and not only studied, but condemned: for, in truth, the outward meaning seems unsatisfactory enough, were it not that ever and anon we are reminded of a cunning, manifold meaning which lies hidden under it; and incited by capricious beckonings to evolve this, more and more completely, from its quaint concealment. Did we believe that Goethe adopted this mode of writing as a vulgar lure, to confer on his poems the interest which might belong to so many charades, we should hold it a very poor proceeding. Of this most readers of Goethe will know that he is incapable. Such juggleries, and uncertain anglings for distinction, are a class of accomplishments to which he 1 See, for instance, the' Athenseum,' No. vii., where an article stands headed with these words: FAUST, HELEN OF TROY, AND LORD BYRON. GOETHE. 255'But Goethe's culture as a writer is perhaps less remarkable than his culture as a man. He has learned not in head only, but also in heart; not from Art and Literature, but also by action and passion, in the rugged school of Experience. If asked what was the grand characteristic of his writings, we should not say knowledge, but wisdom. A mind that has seen, and suffered, and done, speaks to us of what it has tried and conquered. A gay delineation will give us notice of dark and toilsome experiences, of business done in the great deep of the spirit; a maxim, trivial to the careless eye, will rise with light and solution over long perplexed periods of our own history. It is thus that heart speaks to heart, that the life of one man becomes a possession to all. Here is a mind of the most subtle and tumultuous elements; but it is governed in peaceful diligence, and its impetuous and ethereal faculties work softly together for good and noble ends. Goethe may be called a Philosopher; for he loves and has practised as a man the wisdom which, as a poet, he inculcates. Composure and cheerful seriousness seem to breathe over all his character. There is no whining over human woes: it is understood that we must simply all strive to alleviate or remove them. There is no noisy battling for opinions; but a persevering effort to make Truth lovely, and recommend her, by a thousand avenues, to the hearts of all men. Of his personal manners we can easily believe the universal report, as often given in the way of censure as of praise, that he is a man of consummate breeding and the stateliest presence: for an air of polished tolerance, of courtly, we might almost say, majestic repose and serene humanity, is visible throughout his works. In no line of them does he speak with asperity of any man; scarcely ever even of a thing. He knows the good, and loves it; he knows the bad and hateful, and rejects it; but in neither case with violence: his love is calm and active; his rejection is implied, rather than pronounced; meek and gentle, though we see that it is thorough, and never to be revoked. The noblest and the basest he not only seems to comprehend, but to personate and body forth in their most secret lineaments: hence actions and opinions appear to him as they are, with all the circumstances which extenuate or endear them to the hearts where they originated and are entertained. This also is the spirit of our Shakspeare, and perhaps of every great dramatic poet. Shakspeare is no sectarian; to all he deals with equity and mercy; because he knows all, and his heart is wide enough for all. In his mind the world is a whole; he figures it as Providence governs it; and to him it is not strange that the sun should be caused to shine on the evil and the good, and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.' 15 6 MISCELLANIES. and bright with heavenly radiance, or fading, on this side and that, into vague expressive mystery; but true in both cases, and beautiful with nameless enchantments, as the poet's own eye may have beheld it. We love it the more for the labour it has given us: we almost feel as if we ourselves had assisted in its creation. And herein lies the highest merit of a piece, and the proper art of reading it. We have not read an author till we have seen his object, whatever it may be, as he saw it. Is it a matter of reasoning, and has he reasoned stupidly and falsely? We should understand the circumstances which, to his mind, made it seem true, or persuaded him to write it, knowing that it was not so. In any other way we do him injustice if we judge him. Is it of poetry? His words are so many symbols, to which we ourselves must furnish the interpretation; or they remain, as in all prosaic minds the words of poetry ever do, a dead letter: indications they are, barren in themselves, but, by following which, we also may reach, or approach, that Hill of Vision where the poet stood, beholding the glorious scene which it is the purport of his poem to show others./ A reposing state, in which the Hill were brought under us, not we obliged to mount it, might indeed for the present be more convenient; but, in the end, it could not be equally satisfying. Continuance of passive pleasure, it should never be forgotten, is here, as under all conditions of mortal existence, an impossibility. Everywhere in life, the true question is, not what we gain, but what we do: so also in intellectual matters, in conversation, in reading, which is more precise and careful conversation, it is not what we receive, but what we are made to give, that chiefly contents and profits us. True, the mass of readers will object; because, like the mass of men, they are too indolent. But if any one affect, not the active and watchful, but the passive and somnolent line of study, are there not writers expressly fashioned for him, enough and to spare? It is but the smaller number of books that become more instructive by a second perusal: the great majority are as per GOETHE'S HELENA. 157 fectly plain as perfect triteness can make them. Yet, if time is precious, no book that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be read at all. And were there an artist of a right spirit; a man of wisdom, conscious of his high vocation, of whom we could know beforehand that he had not written without purpose and earnest meditation, that he knew what he had written, and had embodied in it, more or less, the creations of a deep and noble soul,- should we not draw near to him reverently, as disciples to a master; and what task could there be more profitable than to read him as we have described, to study him even to his minutest meanings? For, were not this to think as he had thought, to see with his gifted eyes, to make the very mood and feeling of his great and rich mind the mood also of our poor and little one? It is under the consciousness of some such mutual relation that Goethe writes, and that his countrymen now reckon themselves bound to read him: a relation singular, we might say solitary, in the present time; but which it is ever necessary to bear in mind in estimating his literary procedure. To justify it in this particular, much more might be said, were it our chief business at present. But what mainly concerns us here, is to know that such, justified or not, is the poet's manner of writing; which also must prescribe for us a correspondent manner of studying him, if we study him at all. For the rest, on this latter point he nowhere expresses. any undue anxiety. His works have invariably been sent forth without preface, without note or comment of any kind; but left, sometimes plain and direct, sometimes dim and typical,- in what degree of clearness or obscurity he himself may have judged best, to be scanned; and glossed, and censured, and distorted, as might please the innumerable multitude of critics; to whose verdicts he has been, for a great part of his life, accused of listening with unwarrantable composure. Helena is no exception to that practice, but rather among the strong instances of it. This Interlude to Faust. presents itself abruptly, under a character not a little enigmatic; so 158 MISCELLANIES. that, at first view, we know not well what to make of it; and only after repeated perusals, will the scattered glimmerings of significance begin to coalesce into continuous light, and the whole, in any measure, rise before us with that greater or less degree of coherence which it may have had in the mind of the poet. Nay, after all, no perfect clearness may be attained, but only various approximations to it; hints and half glances of a meaning, which is still shrouded in vagueness; nay, to the just picturing of which this very vagueness was essential. For the whole piece has a dreamlike character; and in these cases, no prudent soothsayer will be altogether confident. To our readers we must now endeavour, so far as possible, to show both the dream and its interpretation: the former as it stands written before us; the latter from our own private conjecture alone; for of those strange German comments we yet know nothing except by the faintest hearsay. Helena forms part of a continuation to Faust; but, happily for our present undertaking, its connexion with the latter work is much looser than might have been expected. We say happily; because Faust, though considerably talked of in England, appears still to be nowise known. We have made it our duty to inspect the English Translation of lFaust, as well as the Extracts which accompany Retzsch's Outlines; and various disquisitions and animadversions, vituperative or laudatdry, grounded on these two works; but, unfortunately have found there no cause to alter the above persuasion. Faust is emphatically a work of Art; a work matured in th9 mysterious depths of a vast and wonderful mind; and bodied forth with that truth and curious felicity of composition, in which this man is generally admitted to have no living rival. To reconstruct such a work in another language; to show it in its hard yet graceful strength; with those slight witching traits of pathos or of sarcasm, those glimpses of solemnity or terror, and so many reflexes and evanescent echoes of meaning, which connect it in strange union with the whole Infinite GOETHE'S HELENA. 159 of thought, - were business for a man of different powers than has yet attempted German translation among us. In fact, Faust is.to be read not once but many times, if we would understand it: every line, every word has its purport; and only in such minute inspection will the essential significance of the poem display itself. Perhaps it is even chieflyby following these fainter traces and tokens that the true point of vision for the whole is discovered to us; that we get to stand at last in the proper scene of.Faust; a wild and wondrous region, where, in pale light, the primeval Shapes of Chaos, - as it were, the Foundations of Being itself; — seem to loom forth, dim and huge, in the vague Immensity around us; and the life and nature of man, with its brief interests, its misery and sin, its mad passion and poor frivolity, struts and frets its hour, encompassed and overlooked by that stupendous All, of which it forms an indissoluble though so mean a fraction. He who would study all this must for a long time, we are afraid, be content to study it in the original. But our English criticisms of Faust have been of a still more unedifying sort. Let any man fancy the (Edipus Tyrannus discovered for the first time; translated from an unknown Greek manuscript, by some ready-writing manufacturer; and'brought out' at Drury Lane, with new music, made as'apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring out of one vessel into another!' Then read the theatrical report in the Morning Papers, and the Magazines of next month. Was not the whole affair rather' heavy?' How indifferent did the audience sit; how little use was made of the handkerchief; except by such as took snuff! Did not (Edipus somewhat remind us of a blubbering schoolboy, and Jocasta of a decayed milliner? Confess that the plot was monstrous; nay, considering the marriage-law of England, highly immoral. On the whole, what a singular deficiency of taste must this Sophocles have laboured under! But probably he was excluded from the'society of the influential classes;' for, after all, the man is not without indications of genius: 160 MISCELLANIES. had we had the training of him -And so on, through all the variations of the critical cornpipe. So might it have fared with the ancient Grecian; for so has it fared with the only modern that writes in a Grecian spirit. This treatment of Faust may deserve to be mentioned, for various reasons; not to be lamented over, because, as in much more important instances, it is inevitable, and lies in the nature of the case. Besides, a better state of things is evidently enough coming round. By and by, the labours, poetical and intellectual, of the Germans, as of other nations, will appear before us in their true shape; and Faust, among the rest, will have justice.done it. For ourselves, it were unwise presumption, at any time, to pretend opening the full poetical significance of Faust; nor is this the place for making such an attempt. Present purposes will be answered if we can point out some general features and bearings of the piece; such as to. exhibit its relations with Helena; by what contrivances this latter has been intercalated into it, and how far the strange picture and the strange framing it is enclosed in correspond. The story of Faust forms one of the most remarkable productions of the Middle Ages; or rather, it is the most striking embodiment of a highly remarkable belief, which originated or prevailed in those ages. Considered strictly, it may take the rank of a Christian mythus, in the same sense as the story of Prometheus, of Titan, and the like, are Pagan ones; and to our keener inspection, it will disclose a no less impressive or characteristic aspect of the same human nature, - here bright, joyful, self-confident, smiling even in its sternness; there deep, meditative, awestruck, austere, -in which both they and it took their rise. To us, in these days, it is not easy to estimate how this story of Faust, invested with its magic and infernal horrors, must have harrowed up the souls of a rude and earnest people, in an age when its dialect was not yet obsolete, and such contracts with the principle of Evil were thought not only credible in general, GOETHE'S HELENA. 161 but possible to every individual auditor who here shuddered at the mention of them. The day of Magic is gone by; Witchcraft has been put a stop to by act of parliament. But the mysterious relations which it emblemed still continue; the Soul of Man still fights with the dark influences of Ignorance, Misery and Sin; still lacerates itself, like a captive bird, against the iron limits which Necessity has drawn round it; still follows False Shows, seeking peace and good on paths where no peace or good is to be found. In this sense, Faust may still be considered as true; nay, as a truth of the most impressive sort, and one which will always remain true. To body forth, in modern symbols, a feeling so old and deep-rooted in our whole European way of thought, were a task not unworthy of the highest poetical genius. In Germany, accordingly, it has several times been attempted, and with very various success. Klinger has produced a Romance of Faust, full of rugged sense, and here and there not without considerable strength of delineation; yet, on the whole, of an essentially unpoetical character; dead, or living with only a mechanical life; coarse, almost gross, and to our minds far too redolent of pitch and bitumen. Maler MUller's Faust, which is a Drama, must be regarded as a much more genial performance, so far as it goes: the secondary characters, the Jews and rakish Students, often remind us of our own Fords and Marlowes. His main persons, however, Faust and the-Devil, are but inadequately conceived; Faust is little more than self-willed, supercilious, and alas insolvent; the Devils, above all, are savage, long-winded, and insufferably noisy. Besides, the piece has been left in a fragmentary state; it can nowise pass as the best wor;k of Miiller's.1 Klingemann's Faust, which also is (or lately was) a Drama, 1 Friedrich Miller (more commonly called Maler, or Painter Miiller) is here, so far as we know, named for the first time to English readers. Nevertheless, in any solid study of German literature, this author must take precedence of many hundreds whose reputation has travelled faster. But Miiller has been unfortunate in his own country, as well as here. At an early age, meeting with no success as a poet, he quitted that art for VOL. I. 11 162 MISCELLANIES. we have never seen; and have only heard of it as of a tawdry and hollow article, suited for immediate use, and immediate oblivion. Goethe, we believe, was the first who tried this subject; and is, on all hands, considered as by far the most successful. His manner of treating it appears to us, so far as we can understand it, peculiarly just and happy. He retains the supernatural vesture of the story, but retains it with the consciousness, on his and our part, that it is a chimera. His art-magic comes forth in doubtful twilight; vague in its outline; interwoven everywhere with light sarcasm; nowise as a real Object, but as a real Shadow of an Object, which is also real, yet lies beyond our horizon, and except in its shadows, cannot itself be seen. Nothing were simpler than to look in this new poem for a new' Satan's Invisible World displayed,' or any effort to excite the sceptical minds of these days by goblins, wizards and other infernal ware.; Such enterprises belong to artists of a different species: Goethe's Devil is a cultivated personage, and acquainted with the modern sciences; sneers at witchcraft and the black-art, even while employing them, as heartily as any member of painting; and retired, perhaps in disgust, into Italy; where also but little preferment seems to have awaited him. His writings, after almost half a century of neglect, were at length brought into sight and general estimation by Ludwig Tieck; at a time when the author might indeed say, that he was' old and could not enjoy it, solitary and could not impart it,' but not, unhappily, that he was'known and did not want it,' for his fine genius had yet made for itself no free way amid so many obstructions, and still continued unrewarded and unrecognised. His paintings, chiefly of still-life and animals, are said to possess a true though no very extraordinary merit: but of his poetry we will venture to assert that it bespeaks a genuine feeling and talent, nay rises at times even into the higher regions of Art.'His Adam's Awakening, his Satyr Mopsus, his Nusskernen (Nutshelling), informed as they are with simple kindly strength, with clear vision, and love of nature, are incomparably the best German, or, indeed, modern Idyls; his Genoveva will stand reading even with that of Tieck: These things are now acknowledged among the Germans; but to Miiller the acknowledgment is of no' avail. He died some two years ago at Rome, where he seems to have subsisted latterly as a sort of a picturecicerone. GOETHE'S HELENA. 163 the French Institute; for he is a philosophe, and doubts most things, nay half disbelieves even his own existence. It is not without a cunning effort that all this is managed; but managed, in a considerable degree, it is; for a world of magic is opened to us which, we might almost say, we feel at once to be true and not true. In fact, Mephistopheles comes before us, not arrayed in the terrors of Cocytus and Phlegethon, but in the natural indelible deformity of Wickedness; he is the Devil, not of Superstition, but of Knowledge. Here is no cloven foot, or horns and tail: he himself informs us that, during the late march of intellect, the very Devil has participated in the spirit of the age, and laid these appendages aside. Doubt-.less, Mephistopheles'has the manners of a gentleman;' he'knows the world;' nothing can exceed the easy tact with which he manages himself; his wit and sarcasm are unlimited; the cool heartfelt contempt with which he despises all things, human and divine, might make the fortune of half a dozen'ifellows about town.' Yet, withal he is a devil in very deed; a genuine Son of Night. He calls himself the Denier, and this truly is his name; for, as Voltaire did with historical doubts, so does he with all moral appearances: settles them with a N'en croyez rien. The shrewd, allinformed intellect he has, is an attorney intellect: it can contradict, but it cannot.affirm. With lynx vision, he descries at a glance the ridiculous, the unsuitable, the bad; but for the solemn, the noble, the worthy, he is blind as his ancient Mother. Thus does he go along, qualifying, confuting, despising; on all hands detecting the false, but without force.to bring forth, or even to discern, any glimpse of the true. Poor Devil! what truth should there be for him? To see Falsehood is his only Truth: falsehood and evil are the rule, truth and good the exception which confirms it. He can believe in nothing, but in his own self-conceit, and in the indestructible baseness, folly and hypocrisy of men. For him, virtue is some bubble of the blood:'it stands written 1 64 MISCELLANIES. on his face that he never loved a living soul.' Nay, he cannot even hate: at Faust himself he has no grudge; he merely tempts him by way of experiment, and to pass the time scientifically. Such a combination of perfect Understanding with perfect Selfishness, of logical Life with moral Deathl; so universal a denier, both in heart and head, -is undoubtedly a child of Darkness, an emissary of the primeval Nothing: and coming forward, as he does, like a person of breeding, and without any flavour of brimstone, may stand here, in his merely spiritual deformity, at once potent, dangerous and contemptible, as the best and only genuine Devil of these latter times. In strong contrast with this impersonation of modern worldly-mindedness stands Faust himself, by nature the antagonist/of it, but destined also to be its victim. If Mephistopheles represent the spirit of Denial, Faust may represent that of Inquiry and Endeavoufr: the two are, by necessity, in conflict; the light and the darkness of man's life and mind. Intrinsically, Faust is a noble being, though no wise one. His desires are towards the high and.true; nay, with a whirlwind impetuosity he rushes forth over the Universe to grasp all excellence; his heart yearns towards the infinite and the invisible: only that he knows not the conditions under which alone this is to be attained. Confiding in his feeling of himself, he has started with the tacit persuasion, so natural to all men, that he at least, however it may fare with:others, shall and must be happy; a deep-seated, though only half-conscious conviction lurks in him, that wherever he is not successful, fortune has dealt with him unjustly. His purposes are fair, nay generous: why should he not prosper in them? For in all his lofty aspirings, his strivings after truth and more than human greatness of mind, it has never struck him to inquire how he, the striver, was warranted for such enterprises: with what faculty Nature had equipped him; within what limits she had hemmed him in; by what right he pretended to be happy, or could, some short space ago, GOETHE'S HELENA. 165 have pretended to be at all. Experience, indeed, will teach him, for' Experience is the best of schoolmasters; only the school-fees are heavy.' As yet too, disappointment, which fronts him on every hand, rather maddens than instructs. Faust has spent his youth and manhood, not as others do, in the sunny crowded paths of profit, or among the rosy bowers of pleasure, but darkly and alone in the search of Truth; is it fit that Truth should now hide herself, and his sleepless pilgrimage towards Knowledge and Vision end in the pale shadow of Doubt? To his dream of a glorious higher happiness, all earthly happiness has been sacrificed; friendship, love, the social rewards of ambition were cheerfully cast aside, for his eye and his heart were bent on a region of clear and supreme good; and now, in its stead, he finds isolation, silence and despair. What solace remains? Virtue once promised to be her own reward; but because she does not pay him in the current coin of worldly enjoyment, he reckons her too a delusion; and, like Brutus, reproaches as a shadow, what he once worshipped as a substance. Whither shall he now tend? For his loadstars have gone out one by one; and as the darkness fell, the strong steady wind has changed into a fierce and aimless tornado. Faust calls himself a morister,'without object, yet without rest.' The vehement, keen and stormful nature of the man is stung into fury, as he thinks of all he has endured and lost; he broods in gloomy meditation, and, like Bellerophon, wanders apart,.'eating his own heart;' or, bursting into fiery paroxysms, curses man's whole existence as a mockery; curses hope and faith, and joy and care, and what is worst,'curses patience more than all the rest.' Had his weak arm the power, he could smite the Universe asunder, as at the crack of Doom, and hurl his own vexed being along with it into the silence of Annihilation. Thus Faust is a man who has quitted the ways of vulgar men, without light to guide him on a better way. No longer restricted by the sympathies, the common interests and 166 MISCELLANIES. common persuasions by which the mass of mortals, each individually ignorant, nay, it may be, stolid and altogether blind as to the proper aim of life, are yet held together, and, like stones in the channel of a torrent, by their very multitude and mutual collision, are made to move with some regularity, - he is still but a slave; the slave of impulses, which are stronger, not truer or better, and the more unsafe that they are solitary. He sees the vulgar of mankind happy; but'happy only in their baseness. Himself he feels to be peculiar; the victim of a strange, an unexampled destiny; not as other men, he is' with them, not of them.' There is misery here, nay, as Goethe has elsewhere wisely remarked, the beginning of madness itself. It is only in the sentiment of companionship that men feel safe and assured: to all doubts and mysterious'questionings of destiny,' their sole satisfying answer is, Others do and suffer the like. Were it not for this, the dullest day-drudge of Mammon might think himself into unspeakable abysses of despair; for he too is'fearfully and wonderfully made;' Infinitude and Incomprehensibility surround him on this hand and that; and the vague spectre Death, silent and sure as Time, is advancing at all moments to sweep him away forever. But he answers, Others do and szffer the like; and plods along without misgivings. VWere there but One Man in the world, he would be a terror to' himself; and the highest man not less so than the lowest. Now it is as this One Man that Faust regards himself: he is divided from his fellows; cannot answer with them, Others do the like; and yet, why or how he specially is to do or siffer, will nowhere reveal itself. For he is still' in the gall of bitterness;' Pride, and an entire uncompromising though secret love of Self, are still the mainsprings of his conduct. Knowledge with him is precious only because it is power; even virtue he would love chiefly as a finer sort of sensuality, and because it was his virtue. A ravenous hunger for enjoyment haunts him everywhere; the stinted allotments of earthly life are- as a mock GOETHE'S HELENA. 167 ery to him: to the iron law of Force he will not yield, for his heart, though torn, is yet unweakened, and till Humility shall open his eyes, the soft law of Wisdom will be hidden from him. To invest a man of this character with supernatural powers is but enabling'him to repeat his error on a larger scale, to play the same false game with a deeper and more ruinous stake. Go where he may, he will'find himself again in a conditional world;' widen his sphere as he pleases, he will find it again encircled by the empire of' Necessity; the gay island of Existence is again but a fraction of the ancient realm of Night. Were he all-wise and all-powerful, perhaps he might be contented and virtuous; scarcely otherwise. The poorest human soul is infinite in wishes, and the infinite Universe was not made for one, but for all. Vain were it for Faust, by heaping height on height, to struggle towards infinitude; while to that law of Self-denial, by which alone man's narrow destiny may become an infinitude within itself, he is still a stranger. Such, however, is his attempt: not indeed incited by hope, but goaded on by despair, he unites'himself with the Fiend, as with a stronger though a wicked agency; reckless of all issues, if so were that, by these means, the craving of his heart might be stayed, and the dark secret of Destiny unravelled or forgotten. It is this conflicting union of the higher nature of the soul with the lower'elements of human life;: of Faust, the son of Light and Free will, with the influences of Doubt, Denial and Obstruction, or Mephistopheles, who is the symbol and spokesman of these, that the poet has here proposed to delineate. A high problem; and of which the solution is yet far from completed; nay perhaps, in a poetical sense, is not, strictly speaking, capable of completion. For it is to be remarked that, in this contract with the Prince of Darkness, little or no mention or allusion is made to a Future Life; whereby it might seem-as if the action was not intended, in the manner of the old Legend, to terminate in Faust's per 168 MISCELLANIES. dition; but rather as if an altogether different end must be provided for him. Faust, indeed, wild and wilful as he is, cannot be regarded as a wicked, much less as an utterly reprobate man: we do not reckon him ill-intentioned, but misguided and miserable; he falls into crime, not by purpose, but by accident and blindness. To send him to the Pit of Woe, to render such a character the eternal slave of Mephistopheles, would look like making darkness triumphant over light, blind force over erring reason; or at best, were cutting the Gordian knot, not loosing it. If we mistake not, Goethe's Faust will have a finer moral than the old nurserytale, or the other plays and tales that have been founded on it. Our seared and blighted, yet still noble Faust, will not end in the madness of horror, but in Peace grounded on better Knowledge. Whence that Knowledge is to come, what higher and freer world of Art or Religion may be hovering in the mind of the Poet, we will not try to surmise; perhaps in bright aerial emblematic glimpses, he may yet show it us, transient and afar off, yet clear with orient beauty, as a. Land of Wonders, and new Poetic Heaven. With regard to that part of the Work already finished, we must here say little more. Faust, as it yet stands, is, indeed, only a stating of the difficulty; but a stating of it wisely, truly and with deepest poetic emphasis. For how many living hearts, even now imprisoned in the perplexities of Doubt, do these wild piercing tones of Faust, his withering agonies and fiery desperation,' speak the word. they have long been waiting to hear!' A nameless pain had long brooded over the soul: here, by some light touch, it starts into form and voice; we see it and know it, and see that another also knew it. This Faust is as a mystic Oracle for the mind; a Dodona grove, where the oaks and fountains prophesy to us of our destiny, and murmur unearthly secrets. How all this is managed, and the Poem so curiously fashioned; how the clearest insight is combined with the keenest feeling, and the boldest and wildest imagination; by what GOETHE'S HELENA. 169 soft and skilful finishing these so heterogeneous elements are blended in fine harmony, and the dark world of spirits, with its merely metaphysical entities, plays like a chequering of strange mysterious shadows among the palpable objects of material life; and the whole, firm in its details, and sharp and solid as reality, yet hangs before us melting on all sides into air, and free and light as the baseless fabric of a vision; all this the reader can learn fully nowhere but, by long study, in the Work itself. The general scope and spirit of it we have now endeavoured to sketch: the few incidents on which, with the aid of much dialogue and exposition, these have been brought out, are perhaps already known to most readers, and, at all events, need not be minutely recapitulated here. Mephistopheles has promised to himself that he will lead Faust'through the bustling inanity of life,' but that its pleasures shall tempt and not satisfy him;'food shall hover before his eager lips, but he shall beg for nourishment in vain.' Hitherto they have travelled but a short way together; yet so far, the Denier has kept his engagement well. Faust, endowed with all earthly and many more than earthly advantages, is still no nearer contentment; nay, after a brief season of marred and uncertain joy, he finds himself sunk into deeper wretchedness than ever. Margaret, an innocent girl whom he loves, but has betrayed, is doomed to die, and already crazed in brain, less for her own errors than for his: in a scene of true pathos, he would fain persuade her to escape with him, by the aid of Mephistopheles, from prison; but in the instinct of her heart she finds an invincible aversion to the Fiend: she chooses death and ignominy, rather than life and love, if of his giving. At her final refusal, Mephistopheles proclaims that "she is judged," a'voice from Above' that "she is saved;" the action terminates; Faust and Mephistopheles vanish from our sight, as into boundless Space. And now, after so long a preface, we arrive at Helena, the 170 MISCELLANIES.'Classico-romantic Phantasmagoria,' where these Adventurers, strangely altered by travel, and in altogether different costume, have again risen into sight. Our long preface was not needless; for Faust and Helena, though separated by some wide and marvellous interval, are nowise disconnected. The characters may have changed by absence; Faust is no longer the same bitter and tempestuous man, but appears in chivalrous composure, with a silent energy, a grave and, as it were, commanding ardour. Mephistopheles alone may retain somewhat of his old spiteful shrewdness: but still the past state of these personages must illustrate the present; and only by what we remember of them, can we try to interpret what we see. In fact, the style of Helena is altogether new; quiet, simple, joyful; passing by a short gradation from Classic dignity into Romantic pomp; it has everywhere a full and sunny tone of colouring; resembles not a tragedy, but a gay gorgeous mask. Neither is Faust's former history alluded to, or any explanation given us of occurrences that may have intervened. It is a light scene, divided by chasms and unknown distance from that other country of gloom. Nevertheless, the latter still frowns in the background; nay, rises aloft, shutting out farther view, and our gay vision attains a new significance, as it is painted on that canvas of storm. We question whether it ever occurred to any English reader of Faust, that the work needed a continuation, or even admitted one. To the Germans, however, in their deeper study of a favourite poem, which also they have full means of studying, this has long been no secret; and such as have seen with what zeal most German readers cherish Faust, and how the younger of them will recite whole scenes of it, with a vehemence resembling that of Gil Blas and his Figures Hibernoises, in the streets of Oviedo, may estimate the interest excited in that country by the following Notice from the Author, published last year in his Kunst und Alterthum. GOETHE'S HELENA. 171' Helena. Interlude in Faust.'Faust's character, in the elevation to which latter refinement, working on the old rude Tradition, has raised it, represents a man who, feeling impatient and imprisoned within the limits of mere earthly existence, regards the possession of the highest knowledge, the enjoyment of the fairest blessings, as insufficient even in the slightest degree to satisfy his longing: a spirit, accordingly, which struggling out on all sides, ever returns the more unhappy.' This form of mind is so accordant with our modern disposition, that various persons of ability have been induced to undertake the treatment of such a subject. My manner of attempting it obtained approval: distinguished men considered the matter, and commented on my performance; all which I thankfully observed. At the same time I could not but wonder that none of those who undertook a continuation and completion of my Fragment, had lighted on the thought, which seemed so obvious, that the composition of a Second Part must necessarily elevate itself altogether away from the hampered sphere of the First, and conduct a man of such a nature into higher regions, under worthier circumstances.'How I, for my part, had determined to essay this, lay silently before my own mind, from time to time exciting me to some progress; while, from all and each, I carefully guarded my secret, still in hope of bringing the work to the wished-for issue. Now, however, I must no longer keep back; or, in -publishing my collective Endeavours,:conceal any farther secret from the world; to which, on the contrary, I feel myself bound to submit my whole labours, even though in a fragmentary state.'Accordingly I have resolved that the above-named Piece, a smaller drama, complete within itself, but pertaining to the Second Part of Faust, shall be forthwith presented in the First Portion of my Works.'The wide chasm between that well-known dolorous conclusion of the First Part, and the entrance of an antique Grecian Heroine, is not yet overarched; meanwhile, as a preamble, my readers will accept:what follows:'The old Legend tells us, and the Puppet-play fails not to introduce the scene, that Faust, in his imperious pride of heart, required from Mephistopheles the love of the fair Helena of Greece; in which demaand the other, after some reluctance, gratified him. Not to overlook, so important a concern in our work, was a duty for us: and how we have endeavoured to discharge it, will be seen in this Interlude. But what may have furnished the proximate occasion of such an occurrence, and how, after manifold hindrances, our old magical Craftsman can have found means to bring back the individual Hel 172 MISCELLANIES. ena, in person, out of Orcus into Life, must, in this stage of the business, remain undiscovered. For the present, it is enough if our reader will admit that the real Helena may step forth, on antique tragedy-cothurnus, before her primitive abode in Sparta. We then request him to observe in what way and manner Faust will presume to court favour from this royal all-famous Beauty of the world.' To manage so unexampled a courtship will be admitted to be no easy task; for the mad hero's prayer must here be fulfilled to its largest extent, before the business can proceed a step; and the gods, it is certain, are not in the habit of annihilating time and space, even to make'two lovers happy.' Our Marlowe was not ignorant of this mysterious laison of Faust's: however, he slurs it over briefly, and without fronting the difficulty: Helena merely flits across the scene, as an airy pageant, without speech or personality, and makes the lovesick philosopher'immortal by a kiss.' Probably there are not many that would grudge Faust such immortality; we at least nowise envy him: for who does not see that this, in all human probability, is no real Helena, but only some hollow phantasm attired in her shape; while the true Daughter of Leda still dwells afar off in the inane kingdoms of Dis, and heeds not and hears not the most potent invocations of black-art? Another matter it is to call forth the frail fair one in very deed; not in form only, but in soul and life, the same Helena whom the Son of Atreus wedded, and for whose sake Ilion ceased to be. For Faust must behold this Wonder, not as she seemed, but as she was; and at his unearthly desire, the Past shall become Present; and the antique Time must be new-created, and give back its persons and circumstances, though so long since reingulfed in the silence of the blank bygone Eternity! However, Mephistopheles is a cunning genius; and will not start at common obstacles. Perhaps, indeed, he is Metaphysician enough to know that Time and Space are but quiddities, not entities; forms of the human soul, Laws of Thought, which to us appear independent existences, but, out of our brain, have no existence whatever: GOETHE'S HELENA. 173 in which case the whole nodus may be more of a logical cobweb, than any actual material perplexity. Let us see how he unravels it, or cuts it. The scene is Greece; not our poor oppressed Ottoman Morea, but the old heroic Hellas; for the sun again shines on Sparta, and' Tyndarus' high House' stands here bright, massive and entire, among its mountains, as when Menelaus revisited it, wearied with his ten years of warfare, and eight of sea-roving. Helena appears in front of the Palace, with a Chorus of captive Trojan maidens. These are but Shades, we know, summoned from the deep realms of Hades, and embodied for the nonce: but the Conjurer has so managed it, that they themselves have no consciousness of this their true and highly precarious state of existence: the intermediate three thousand years have been obliterated, or compressed into a point; and these fair figures, on revisiting the upper air, entertain not the slightest suspicion that they had ever left it, or, indeed, that anything special had happened; save only that they had just disembarked from the Spartan ships, and been sent forward by Menelaus to provide for his reception, which is shortly to follow. All these indispensable preliminaries, it would appear, Mephistopheles has arranged with considerable success. Of the poor Shades, and their entire ignorance, he is so sure that he would not scruple to cross-question them on this very point, so ticklish for his whole enterprise; nay, cannot forbear, now and then, throwing out malicious hints to mystify Helena herself, and raise the strangest doubts as to her personal identity. Thus on one occasion, as we shall see, he reminds her of a scandal which had gone abroad of her being a double personage, of her living with King Proteus in Egypt at the very time when she lived with Beau Paris in Troy; and, what is more extraordinary still, of her having been dead, and married to Achilles afterwards in the Island of Leuce! Helena admits that it is the most inexplicable thing on earth; can only conjecture that' she a Vision was joined to him a Vision;' and 174 MISCELLANIES. then sinks into a reverie or swoon, in the arms of the Chorus. In this way. can the nether-world Scapin sport -with the perplexed Beauty; and by sly practice make her show us the secret, which is unknown to herself! For the present, however, there is no thought of such scruples. Helena and her maidens, far from doubting that they are real authentic denizens of this world, feel themselves in a deep embarrassment about its concerns. From the dialogue, in long Alexandrines, or choral Recitative, we soon gather that matters wear a threatening aspect. Helena salutes her paternal and nuptial mansion in such style as may beseem an erring wife, returned from so eventful an elopement; alludes with charitable lenience to her frailty; which, indeed, it would seem, was nothing but the merest accident, for she had simply gone to pay her vows,'according to sacred wont,' in the. temple of Cytherea, when the'Phrygian robber' seized her; and further informs us that the Immortals still foreshow to her a dubious future: For seldom, in our swift ship, did my husband deign To look on me; and word of comfort spake he none. As if a-brooding mischief, there he silent sat; Until, when steered into Eurotas' bending bay, The first ships with their prows but kissed the land,'He rose, and said, as by the voice of gods inspired: Here will I that my warriors, troop by troop, disbark; I muster them, in battle-order, on the ocean-strand. But thou, go forward, up Eurotas' sacred bank, Guiding the steeds along the flower-besprinkled space, Till thou arrive on the fair plain where Lacedsemon, Erewhile a broad fruit-bearing field, has piled its roofs Amid the mountains, and sends up the smoke of hearths. Then enter thou the high-towered Palace; call the Maids I left at parting, and the wise old Stewardess: With her inspect the Treasures which thy father left, And I, in war or peace still adding, have heaped up. Thou findest all in order standing; for it is The prince's privilege to see, at his return, Each household item as it was, and where it was; For of himself the slave hath power to alter naught. It appears, moreover, that AMenelaus has given her direc GOETHE'S HELENA. 175 tions to prepare for a solemn Sacrifice: the ewers, the pateras, the altar, the axe, dry wood, are all to be in readiness; only of the victim there was no mention; a circumstance from which Helena fails not to draw some rather alarming surmises. However, reflecting that all issues rest with the higher Powers, and that, in any case, irresolution and procrastination will avail her nothing, she at length determines on this grand enterprise of entering the palace, to make a general review; and enters accordingly. But long before any such business could have been finished, she hastily returns, with a frustrated, nay terrified aspect; much to the astonishment of her Chorus, who pressingly inquire the cause. HELENA (who has left the door-leaves open, agitated). Beseems not that Jove's daughter shrink with common fright, Nor by the brief cold touch of Fear be chilled and stunned. Yet the Horror, which ascending, in the womb of Night, From deeps of Chaos, rolls itself together many-shaped, Like glowing Clouds, from out the mountain's fire-throat, In threatening ghastliness, may shake even heroes' hearts. So have the Stygian here to-day appointed me A welcome to my native Mansion, such that fain From the oft-trod, long-wished-for threshold, like a guest That has took leave, I would withdraw my steps, for aye. But no! Retreated have I to the light, nor shall Ye farther force me, angry Powers, be who ye may. New expiations will I use; then purified, The blaze of the Hearth may greet the Mistress as the Lord. PANTHALIS THE CHORAGE.1 Discover, noble queen, to us thy handmaidens, That wait by thee in love, what misery has befallen. HELENA. What I have seen, ye too with your own eyes shall see, If Night have not already ducked her Phantoms back To the abysses of her wonder-bearing breast. Yet, would ye know this thing, I tell it you in words. When bent on present duty, yet with anxious thought, I solemnly set foot in these high royal Halls, The silent, vacant passages astounded me; For tread of hasty footsteps nowhere met the ear, 1 Leader of the Chorus. 176 MISCELLANIES. Nor bustle as of busy menial-work the eye. No maid comes forth to me, no Stewardess, such as Still wont with friendly welcome to salute all guests. But as, alone advancing, I approach the Hearth, There, by the ashy remnant of dim outburnt coals, Sits, crouching on the ground, up-muffled, some huge Crone; Not as in sleep she sat, but as in drowsy muse. With ordering voice I bid her rise; naught doubting'twas The Stewardess the King, at parting hence, had left. But, heedless, shrunk together, sits she motionless; And as I chid, at last outstretched her lean right arm, As if she beckoned me from hall and hearth away. I turn indignant from her, and hasten out forthwith Towards the steps whereon aloft the Thalamos Adorned rises; and near by it the Treasure-room; When lo! the Wonder starts abruptly from the floor; Imperious, barring my advance, displays herself In haggard stature, hollow bloodshot eyes; a shape Of hideous strangeness, to perplex all sight and thought. But I discourse to the air: for words in vain attempt To body forth to sight the form that dwells in us. There see herself! She ventures forward to the light! Here we are masters till our Lord and King shall come. The ghastly births of Night, Apollo, beauty's friend, Disperses back to their abysses, or subdues. PHORCYAS enters on the threshold, between the door-posts. CHORUS. Much I have seen, and strange, though the ringlets Youthful and thick still wave round my temples: Terrors a many, war and its horrors Witnessed I once in Ilion's night, When it fell. Thorough the clanging, cloud-covered din of Onrushing warriors, heard I th' Immortals Shouting in anger, heard I Bellona's Iron-toned voice resound from without City-wards. Ah the City yet stood, with its Bulwvarks; Ilion safely yet Towered: but spreading from house over House, the flame did begirdle us; Sea-like, red, loud and billowy; Hither, thither, as tempest-floods, Over the death-circled City. GOETHE'S HELENA. 177 Flying, saw I, through heat and through Gloom and glare of that fire-ocean, Shapes of Gods in their wrathfulness, Stalking grim, fierce, and terrible, Giant-high, through the luridly Flame-dyed dusk of that vapour. Did I see it, or was it but Terror of heart that fashioned Forms so affrighting? Know can I Never: but here that I view this Horrible Thing with my own eyes, This of a surety believe I: Yea, I could clutch't in my fingers, Did not, from Shape so dangerous, Fear at a distance keep me. Which of old Phorcys' Daughters then art thou? For I compare thee to That generation. Art thou belike of the Graite, Gray-born, one eye and one tooth Using alternate, Child or descendant? Darest thou, Haggard, Close by such beauty,'Fore the divine glance ot Phoebus, display thee? But display it as it pleases thee; For the ugly he heedeth not, As his bright eye yet never did Look on a shadow. But us mortals, alas for it! Law of Destiny burdens us With the unspeakable eye-sorrow Which such a sight, unblessed, detestable, Doth in lovers of beauty-awaken. Nay then, hear, since thou shamelessly Gom'st forth fronting us, hear only Curses, hear all manner of threatenings, Out of the scornful lips of the happier That were made by the Deities. VOL. 1. 12 178 MISCELLANIES. PHORCYAS. Old is the saw, but high and true remains its sense, That Shame add Beauty ne'er, together hand in hand, Were seen pursue their journey over the earth's green path. Deep-rooted dwells an ancient hatred in these two; So that wherever, on their way, one haps to meet The other, each on its adversary turns its back; Then hastens forth the faster on its separate road; Shame all in sorrow, Beauty pert and light of mood; Till the hollow night of Orcus catches it at length, If age and wrinkles have not tamed it long before. So you, ye wantons, wafted hither from strange lands, I find in tumult, like the cranes' hoarse jingling flight, That over our heads, in lono-drawn cloud, sends down Its creaking gabble, and tempts the silent wanderer that he look Aloft at them a moment: but they go their way, And he goes his; so also will it be with us. Who then are ye, that here, in Bacchanalian wise, Like drunk ones, ye dare uproar at this Palace-gate? Who then are ye, that at the Stewardess of the King's House Ye howl, as at the moon the crabbed brood of dogs? Think ye'tis hid from me what manner of thing ye are? Ye war-begotten, fight-bred, feather-headed crew! Lascivious crew, seducing as seduced, that waste, In rioting, alike the soldier's and the burgher's strength! Here seeing you gathered, seems as a cicada-swarm Had lighted, covering the herbage of the fields. Consumers ye of other's thrift, ye greedy-mouthed Quick squanderer of fruits men gain by tedious toil; Cracked market-ware, stol'n, bought, and bartered troop of slaves! We have thought it right to give so much of these singular expositions and altercations, in the words, as far as might be, of the parties themselves; happy, could we, in any measure, have transfused the broad, yet rich and chaste simplicity of these long iambics; or imitated the tone, as we have done the metre, of that choral song; its rude earnestness, and tortuous, awkward-looking, artless strength, as we have done its dactyls and anapwests. The task was no easy one; and we remain, as might have been expected, little contented with our efforts; having, indeed, nothing to boast of, except a sincere fidelity to the original. If the readelr. GOETHE'S HELENA. 179 through such distortion, can obtain any glimpse of Helena itself, he will not only pardon us, but thank us. To our own minds, at least, there is everywhere a strange, piquant, quite peculiar charm in these imitations of the old Grecian style: a dash of the ridiculous, if we might say so, is blended with the sublime, yet blended with it softly, and only to temper its austerity; for often, so graphic is the delineation, we could almost feel as if a vista were open through the long gloomy distance of ages, and we, with our modern eyes and modern levity, beheld afar off, in clear light, the very figures of that old grave time; saw them again living in their old antiquarian costume and environment, and heard them audibly discourse in a dialect which had long been dead. Of all this no man is more master than Goethe: as a modernantique, his Iphigenie must be considered unrivalled in poetry. A similar, thoroughly classical spirit will be found in this First Part of Helena; yet the manner of the two pieces is essentially different. Here, we should say, we are more reminded of Sophocles, perhaps of XEschylus, than of Euripides: it is more rugged, copious, energetic, inartificial; a still more ancient style. How very primitive, for instance, are Helena and Phorcyas in their whole deportment here! How frank and downright in speech; above all, how minute and specific; no glimpse of' philosophical culture;' no such thing as a'general idea;' thus, every different object seems a new unknown one, and requires to be separately stated. In like manner, what can be more honest and edifying than the chaunt of the Chorus? With what inimitable naivete they recur to the sack of Troy, and endeavour to convince themselves that they do actually see this' horrible Thing;' then lament the law of Destiny which dooms them to such'unspeakable eye-sorrow;' and, finally, break forth into sheer cursing; to, all which Phorcyas answers in the like free and plain-spoken fashion. But to our story. This hard-tempered and so dreadfully.ugly old lady, the reader cannot help suspecting, at first 180 MISCELLANIES. sight, to be some cousin-german of Mephistopheles, or, indeed, that great Actor of all Work himself; which latter suspicion the devilish nature of the beldame, by degrees, coffirms into a moral certainty. There is a sarcastic malice in the' wise old Stewardess' which cannot be mistaken. Meanwhile the Chorus and the beldame indulge still farther in mutual abuse; she upbraiding them with their giddiness and wanton disposition; they chaunting unabatedly her extreme deficiency in personal charms. Helena, however, interposes; and the old Gorgon, pretending that she has not till now recognised the stranger to be her Mistress, smooths herself into gentleness, affects the greatest humility, and,even appeals to her for protection against the insolence of these young ones. But wicked Phorcyas is only waiting her opportunity; still neither unwilling to wound, nor afraid to strike. Helena, to expel some unpleasant vapourg of doubt, is reviewing her past history, in concert with Phorcyas; and observes, that the latter had been appointed Stewardess by Menelaus, on his return from his Cretan expedition to Sparta. No sooner is Sparta mentioned, than the crone, with an officious air of helping-out the story, adds: Which thou forsookest, Ilion's tower-encircled town Preferring, and the unexhausted joys of Love. HELENA. Remind me not of joys; an all-too heavy woe's Infinitude soon followed, crushing breast and heart. PHORCYAS. But I have heard thou livest on earth a double life; In Ilion seen, and seen the while in Egypt too. HELENA. Confound not so the weakness of my weary sense Here even, who or what I am, I know it not. PHO RCYAS. Then I have heard how, from the hollow Realm of Shades, Achilles too did fervently unite himself to thee; Thy earlier love reclaiming, spite of all Fate's laws., GOETHE'S HELENA. 181 HELENA. To him the Vision, I a Vision joined myself: It was a dream, the very words may teach us this. But I am faint; and to myself a Vision grow. [Sinks into the arms of one division of the Chorus. CHORUS. Silence! silence! Evil-eyed, evil-tongued, thou! Through so shrivelled-up, one-tooth'd a Mouth, what good can come from that Throat of horrors detestable - In'which style they continue musically rating her, till'Helena has recovered, and again stands in the middle of the chorus;' when Phorcyas, with the most wheedling air, hastens to greet her, in a new sort of verse, as if nothing whatever had happened:. PHORCYAS. Issues forth from passing cloud the sun of this bright day: If when veil'd she so could charm us, now her beams in splendour blind. As the world doth look before thee, in such gentle wise thou look'st. Let them call me so unlovely, what is lovely know I well. HELENA. Come so wavering from the Void which in that faintness circled me, Glad I were to rest again, a space; so weary are my limbs. Yet it well becometh queens, all mortals it becometh well, To possess their hearts in patience, and await what can betide. PHORCYAS. Whilst thou standest in thy greatness, in thy beauty here, Says thy look that thou commandest: what command'st thou? Speak it out. HELENA. To conclude your quarrel's idle loitering be prepared: Haste, arrange the Sacrifice the King commanded me. PHORCYAS. All is ready in the Palace, bowl and tripod, sharp-ground axe; For besprinkling, for befuming: now the Victim let us see. HELENA. rhis the King appointed not. PHORCYAS. Spoke not of this? 0 word of woe! 182 MISCELLANIES. HELENA, What strange sorrow overpowers thee? PHORCYAS. Queen,'tis thou he meant. HELENA. PHORCYAS. And these. CHORUS. 0 woe! 0 woe! PHORCYAS. Thou fallest by the axe's stroke. HELENA. Horrible, yet look'd for: hapless I! PHORCYAS. Inevitable seems it me. CHORUS. Ah, and us? What will become of us? PHORCYAS. She dies a noble death: Ye, on the high Beam within that bears the rafters and the roof, As in birding-time so many woodlarks, in a row, shall sprawl. [HELENA and CHORUS stand astounded and terrorstruclk; in exlpressive, well-concerted grouping. Poor spectres! - All like frozen statues there ye stand, In fright to leave the Day which not belongs to you. No man or spectre, more than you, is fond to quit The Upper Light; yet rescue, respite finds not one: All know it, all believe it, few delight in it. Enough,'tis over with you! And so let's to work. How the cursed old beldame enjoys the agony of these poor Shades; nay, we suspect, she is laughing in her sleeve at the very Classicism of this Drama, which she herself has contrived, and is even now helping to enact! Observe, she has quitted her octameter trochaics again, and taken to plain blank verse; a sign, perhaps, that she is getting weary of the whole Classical concern! But however this may be, she now claps her hands; whereupon certain distorted GOETHE'S HELENA. 183 dwarf figures appear at the door, and, with great speed and agility, at her order, bring forth the sacrificial apparatus; on which she fails not to descant demonstratively, explaining the purpose of the several articles as they are successively fitted up before her. Here is the'gold-horned altar,' the'axe glittering over its silver edge;' then there must be'water-urns to wash the black blood's defilement,' and a'precious mat' to kneel on, for the victim is to be beheaded queenlike. On all hands, mortal horror! But Phorcyas hints darkly that there is still a way of escape left; this, of course, every one is in deepest eagerness to learn. Here, one would think, she might for once come to the point without digression: but Phorcyas has her own way of stating a fact. She thus commences: PHORCYAS. Whoso, collecting store of wealth, at home abides To parget in due season his high dwelling's walls, And prudent guard his roof from inroad of the rain, With him, through long still years of life, it shall be well. But he who lightly, in his folly, bent to rove, O'ersteps with wand'ring foot his threshold's sacred line, Will find, at his return, the ancient place, indeed, Still there, but else all alter'd, if not overthrown. HIELENA. Why these trite saws? Thou wert to teach us, not reprove. PHORCYAS. Historical it is, is nowise a reproof. Sea-roving, steer'd King Menelaus brisk from bay to bay; Descended on all ports and isles, a plundering foe, And still came back with booty, which yet moulders here. Then by the walls of Ilion spent he ten long years; How many in his homeward voyage were hard to know. But all this while how stands it here with Tyndarus' High house? How stands it with his own domains around? HELENA. Is love of railing, then, so interwoven with thee, That thus, except to chide, thou canst not move thy lips? PHORCYAS. So many years forsaken stood the mountain glen, Which, north from Sparta, towards the higher land ascends 184 MISCELLANIES. Behind Taygetus; where, as yet a merry brook, Eurotas gurgles on, and then, along our Vale, In sep'rate streams abroad outflowing feeds your Swans. There, backwards in the rocky hills, a daring race Have fix'd themselves, forth issuing from Cimmerian Night; An inexpugnable stronghold have piled aloft, From which they harry land and people as they please. HELENA. How could they? All impossible it seems to me. PHORCYAS. Enough of time they had:'tis haply twenty years. HELENA. Is One the Master? Are there Robbers many; leagued? PHORCYAS. Not Robbers these: yet many, and the Master One. Of him I say no ill, though hither too he came. What might not he have took? yet did content himself With some small Present, so he called it, Tribute, not. HELENA. How looks he'? PHORCYAS. Nowise ill! To-me he pleasant look'd. A jocund, gallant, hardy, handsome man it is, And rational in speech, as of the Greeks are few. We call the folk Barbarian; yet I question much If one there be so cruel, as at Ilion Full many of our best heroes man-devouring were. I do respect his greatness, and confide in him. And for his Tower! this with your own eyes ye should see: Another thing it is than clumsy boulder-work, Such as our Fathers, nothing scrupling, huddled up, Cyclopean, and like Cyclops-builders, one rude crag On other rude crags tumbling: in that Tow'r of theirs'Tis plumb and level all, and done by square and rule. Look on it from without! Heav'nward it soars on high, So strait, so tight of joint, and mirror-smooth as steel: To clamber there - Nay, even your very Thought slides down And then, within, such courts, broad spaces, all around, With masonry encompass'd of every sort and use: There have ye arches, archlets, pillars, pillarlets, Balconies, galleries, for looking out and in, And coats of arms. CHORUS. Of arms? What mean'st thou? GOETHE'S HELENA. 185 PHORCYAS. Ajax bore A twisted Snake on his Shield, as ye yourselves have seen. The Seven also before Thebes bore carved work Each on his Shield; devices rich and full of sense: There saw ye moon and stars of the nightly heaven's vault, And goddesses, and heroes, ladders, torches, swords, And dangerous tools, such as in storm o'erfall good towns. Escutcheons of like sort our heroes also bear: There see ye lions, eagles, claws besides, and bills, Then buffalo-horns, and wings, and roses, peacock-tails; And bandelets, gold and black and silver, blue and red. Such like are there hung up in Halls, row after row; In halls, so large, so lofty, boundless as the World;'There might ye dance! CHORUS. Ha! Tell us, are there dancers there? PIIORCYAS. The best on earth! A golden-hair'd, fresh, younker band, They breathe of youth; Paris alone so breath'd when to Our Queen he came too near. HELENA. Thou quite dost lose The tenor of thy story: say me thy last word. PHORCYAS. Thyself wilt say it: say it earnestly, audibly, Yes! Next moment, I surround thee with that Tow'r. The step is questionable: for is not this Phorcyas a person of. the most suspicious character; or rather, is it not certain that she is a Turk in grain, and will, almost of a surety, go how it may, turn good into bad? Andi yet, what is to be done? A trumpet, said to be that of Menelaus, sounds in the distance; at which the Chorus shrink together in increased terror. Phorcyas coldly reminds them of Deiphobus, with his slit nose, as a small token of Menelaus' turn of thinking on these matters; supposes, however, that there is now nothing- for it but to wait the issue, and die with propriety. Helena has no wish to die, either with propriety or impropriety; she pronounces, though with a faltering resolve, the definitive Yes. A burst of joy breaks 186 MISCELLANIES. from the Chorus; thick fog rises all round; in the midst of which, as we learn from their wild tremulous chaunt, they feel themselves hurried through the air: Eurotas is swept from sight, and the cry of its Swans fades ominously away in the distance; for now, as we suppose,'Tyndarus' high House,' with all its appendages, is rushing back into the depths of the Past; old Lacedemon has again become new Misetra; only Taygetus, with another name, remains unchanged: and the King of Rivers feeds among his sedges quite a different race of Swans than those of Leda! The mist is passing away, but yet, to the horror of the Chorus, no clear daylight returns. Dim masses rise round them: Phorcyas has vanished. Is it a castle? Is it a cavern? They find themselves in the' Interior Court of the Tower,'surrounded with rich fantastic buildings of the middle'ages!' If, hitherto, we have moved along, with considerable convenience, over ground singular enough indeed, yet, the nature of it once understood, affording firm footing and no unpleasant scenery, we come now to a strange mixed element, in which it seems: as if neither walking, swimming,'nor even flying, could rightly avail us. We have cheerfully admitted, and honestly believed, that Helena and her Chorus were Shades; but now they appear to be changing into mere Ideas, mere Metaphors, or poetic Thoughts! Faust too, for he, as every one sees, must be lord of this Fortress, is a much-altered man since we last met him. Nay, sometimes we could fancy he were only acting a part on this occasion; were a mere mummer, representing not so much his own natural personality, as some shadow and impersonation of his history; not so much his own Faustship, as the Tradition of Faust's adventures, and the Genius of the People among whom this took its rise. For, indeed, he has strange gifts of flying through the air, and living, in apparent friendship and contentment, with mere Eidolons; and, being' excessively GOETHE'S HELENA. 187 reserved withal, he becomes. not a little enigmatic. In fact, our whole' Interlude' changes its character at this point: the Greek style' passes abruptly into the Spanish; at one bound we have left the Seven before Thebes, and got into the Vida es Sueiio. The action, too, becomes more and more typical; or rather, we should say, half-typical; for it will neither hold rightly together as allegory nor as matter of fact. Thus do we see ourselves hesitating on the verge of a wondrous region,'neither sea nor good dry land;' full of shapes and musical tones, but all dim, fluctuating, unsubstan — tial, chaotic. Danger there is that the critic may require'both oar and sail;' nay, it will be well if, like that other great Traveller, he meet not some vast vacuity, where, all unawares, Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drop Ten thousand fathom deep. and so keep falling till The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud, Instinct with fire and nitre, hurry him As many miles aloft. - Meaning, probably, that he is to be'blown up' by nonplussed and justly exasperated Review-reviewers!- Nevertheless, unappalled by these possibilities, we venture forward into this impalpable Limbo; and must endeavour to render such account of the' sensible species' and' ghosts of defunct bodies' we may meet there, as shall be moderately satisfac- tory to the reader. In the little notice from the Author, quoted above, we were bid specially observe in what way and manner Faust would presume to court this World-beauty. We must say, his style of gallantry seems to us of the most chivalrous and high-flown description, if indeed it is not a little euphuistic. In their own eyes, Helena and her Chorus, encircled in this Gothic court, appear, for some minutes, no better than captives; but, suddenly issuing from galleries and portals, and., 188 MISCELLANIES. descending the stairs in stately procession, are seen a numerous suite of Pages, whose gay habiliments and red downy cheeks are greatly admired by the Chorus: these bear with them a throne and canopy, with footstools and cushions, and every other necessary apparatus of royalty; the portable machine, as we gather from the Chorus, is soon put together; and Helena, being reverently beckoned into the same, is thus forthwith constituted Sovereign of the whole Establishment. To herself such royalty still seems a little dubious; but no sooner have the Pages, in long train, fairly descended, than'Faust appears above, on the stairs, in knightly court-dress'of the middle ages, and with deliberate dignity comes down,' astonishing the poor' feather-headed' Chorus with the gracefulness of his deportment and his more than human beauty. He leads with him a culprit in fetters; and, by way of introduction, explains to Helena that this man, Lynceus, has deserved death by his misconduct; but that to her, as Queen of the Castle, must appertain the right of dooming or of pardoning him. The crime of Lynceus is, indeed, of an extraordinary nature: he was Warder of the tower; but now, though gifted, as his name imports, with the keenest vision, he has failed in warning Faust that so august a visitor was approaching, and thus occasioned the most dreadful breach of politeness. Lynceus pleads guilty: quicksighted as a lynx, in usual cases, he has been blinded with excess of light, in this instance. While looking towards the orient at the'course of morning,' he noticed a'sun rise wonderfully in the south,' and, all his senses taken captive by such surprising beauty, he no longer knew his right hand from his left, or could move a limb, or utter a word, to announce her arrival. Under these peculiar circumstances, Helena sees room for extending the royal prerogative; and after expressing unfeigned regret at this so fatal influence of her charms over the whole male sex, dismisses the Warder with a reprieve. We must beg our readers to keep an eye on this Innamorato; for there may be meaning in him. Here is GOETHE'S HELENA. 189 the pleading, which produced so fine an effect, given in his own words: Let me kneel and let me view her, Let me live, or let me die, Slave to this high woman, truer Than a bondsman born, am I. Watching o'er the course of morning, Eastward, as I mark it run, Rose there, -all the sky adorning, Strangely in the south a sun. Draws my look towards those places, Not the valley, not the height, Not the earth's or heaven's spaces; She alone the queen of light. Eyesight truly hath been lent me, Like the lynx on highest tree; Boots not; for amaze hath shent me: Do I dream, or do I see? Knew I aught; or could I ever Think of tow'r or bolted gate? Vapours waver, vapours sever, Such a goddess comes in state! Eye and heart I must surrender Drown'd as in a radiant sea; That high creature with her splendour Blinding all hath blinded- me. I forgot the warder's duty; Trumpet, challenge, word of call: Chain me, threaten: sure this Beauty Stills thy anger, saves her thrall. Save him accordingly she did: but no sooner is he dismissed, and Faust has made a remark on the multitude of' arrows' which she is darting forth on all sides, than Lynceus returns in a still madder humour.' Re-enter Lynceus with a Chest, and Men carrying other Chests behind him.' LYNCEUS. Thou see'st me, Queen, again advance. The wealthy begs of thee one glance; 190 MISCELLANIES. He look'd at thee, and feels e'er since As beggar poor, and rich as prince. What was I erst? What am I grown? What have I meant, or done, or known? What boots the sharpest force of eyes? Back from thy throne it baffled flies. From Eastward marching came we on, And soon the West was lost and won: A long broad army forth we pass'd, The foremost knew not of the last. The first did fall, the second stood, The third hew'd-in with-falchion good; And still the next had prowess more, Forgot the thousands slain before. We stormed along, we rushed apace, The masters we from place to place. And where I lordly ruled to-day, To-morrow another did rob and slay. We look'd; our choice was quickly made; This snatch'd with him the fairest Maid; That seized the Steer for burden bent, The horses all and sundry went. But I did love apart to spy The rarest things could meet the eye: Whate'er in others' hands I saw, That was for me but chaff and straw. For treasures did I keep a look, My keen eyes pierc'd to every nook; Into all pockets I could see, Transparent each strong-box to me. And heaps of Gold I gained this way, And precious stones of clearest ray: Now where's the Diamond meet to shine?'Tis meet alone for breast like thine. So let the Pearl from depths of sea, In curious stringlets wave on thee: The Ruby for some covert seeks,'Tis paled by redness of thy cheeks. And so the richest treasure's brought Before thy throne, as best it ought; GOETHE'S HELENA. 191 Beneath thy feet here let me lay The fruit of many a bloody fray. So many chests we now do bear; More chests I have, and finer ware: Think me but to be near thee worth, Whole treasure-Vaults I empty forth. For scarcely art thou hither sent, All hearts and wills to thee are bent; Our riches, reason, strength we must Before the loveliest lay as dust. All this I reckon'd great, and mine, Now small I reckon it, and thine. I thought it worthy, high and good;'Tis naught, poor and misunderstood. So dwindles what my glory was, A heap of mown and withered grass: What worth it had, and now does lack, O, *ith one kind look, give it back! FAUST. Away! away! take back the bold-earn'd load, Not blam'd indeed, but also not rewarded. Hers is already whatsoe'er our Tower Of costliness conceals. Go heap me treasures On treasures, yet with order: let the blaze Of pomp unspeakable appear; the ceilings Gem-fretted, shine like skies; a Paradise Of lifeless life create. Before her feet Unfolding quick, let flow'ry carpet roll Itself from flow'ry carpet, that her step May light on softness, and her eye meet naught But splendour blinding only not the Gods. LYNCEUS. Small is what our Lord doth say; Servants do it;'tis but play: For o'er all we do or dream Will this Beauty reign supreme. Is not all our host grown tame? Every sword is blunt and lame. To a formn of such a mould Sun himself is dull and cold; To the richness of that face, What is beauty, what is grace, Loveliness we saw or thought? All is empty, all is naught. 192 MISCELLANIES. And herewith exit Lynceus, and we see no more of him! We have said that we thought there might be method in this madness. In fact, the allegorical, or at least fantastic and figurative, character of the whole action is growing more and more decided every moment. Helena, we must conjecture, is, in the course of this her real historical intrigue with Faust, to present, at the same time, some dim adumbration of Grecian Art, and its flight to the Northern Nations, when driven by stress of War from its own country. Faust's Tower will, in this case, afford not only a convenient station for lifting blackmail over the neighbouring district, but a cunning, though vague and fluctuating, emblem of the Product of Teutonic Mind; the Science, Art, Institutions of the Northmen, of whose Spirit and Genius he himself may in some degree become the representative. In this way, the extravagant homage and admiration paid to Helena are not without their meaning. The manner of her arrival, enveloped as she was in thick clouds, and frightened onwards by hostile trumpets, may also have more or less propriety. And who is Lynceus, the mad Watchman? We cannot but suspect him of being a Schoolman Philosopher, or School Philosophy itself, in disguise; and that this wonderful' march' of his has a covert allusion to the great'march of intellect,' which did march in those old ages, though only' at ordinary time.' We observe, the military, one after the other, all fell; for discoverers, like other men, must die; but'still the next had prowess more,' and forgot the thousands that had sunk in clearing the way for him. However, Lynceus, in his love of plunder, did not take'the fairest maid,' nor'the steer' fit for burden, but rather jewels and other rare articles of value; in which quest his high power of eyesight proved of great service to him. Better had it been, perhaps, to have done as others did, and seized' the fairest maid,' or even the' steer' fit for burden, or one of the' horses' which were in such request: for, when he quitted practical Science and the philosophy of Life, and addicted himself to curious subt GOETHE'S HELENA. 193 leties and Metaphysical crotchets, what did it avail him? At the first glance of the Grecian beauty, he found that it was' naught, poor and misunderstood.' His extraordinary obscuration of vision on Helena's approach; his narrow escape from death, on that account, at the hands of Faust; his pardon by the fair'Greek; his subsequent magnanimous offer'to her, and discourse with his master on the subject, - might give rise to various considerations. But we must not loiter, questioning the strange Shadows of that strange country, who, besides, are apt to mystify one. Our nearest business is to get across it: we again proceed. Whoever or whatever Faust and Helena may be, they are evidently fast rising into high favour with each other; as indeed, from so generous a gallant, and so fair a dame, was to be anticipated. She invites' him to sit with her on the throne, so instantaneously acquired by force of her charms; to which graceful proposal he, after kissing her' hand in knightly wise, fails not to accede. The courtship now advances apace. Helena admires the dialect of Lynceus, and how'one word seemed to kiss the other,' for the Warder, as we saw, speaks in doggrel; and she cannot but wish that she also had some such talent. Faust assures her that nothing is more easy than this same practice of rhyme: it is but speaking right'from the heart, and the rest follows of course. Withal, he proposes that they should make a trial of it themselves.' The'experiment succeeds to mutual satisfaction: for not only can they two build the lofty rhyme, in concert, with all convenience, but, in the course of a page or two of such crambo, many love-tokens come to light; nay, we find by the Chorus, that the wooing has well-nigh reached a happy end: at least, the two are'sitting near and nearer each' other, - shoulder on shoulder,- knee by kllee, hand in hand,'they are swaying over the throne's up-cushioned lordliness';' which, surely, are promising symptoms.'Such ill-timed dalliance is abruptly disturbed by the entrance of Phorcyas, now, as ever, a messenger of evil, with VOL. I. 18 194 MISCELLANIES. malignant tidings that Menelaus is at hand, with his whole force, to storm the Castle, and ferociously avenge his new injuries. An immense' explosion of signals from the towers,'of trumpets, clarions, military music, and the march of nu-' merous armies,' confirms the news. Faust, however, treats the matter coolly; chides the unceremonious trepidation of Phorcyas, and summons his men of war; who accordingly enter, steel-clad, in military pomp, and quitting their battalions, gather round him to take his orders. In a wild Pindaric ode, delivered with due emphasis, he directs them not so much how they are to conquer Menelaus, whom doubtless he knows to be a sort of dream, as how they are respectively to manage and partition the Country they shall hereby acquire. Germanus is to have' the bays of Corinth;' whiles' Achaia, with its hundred dells,' is recommended to the care of Goth; the host of the Franks must go towards Elis; Messene is to be the Saxon's share; and Normann is to clear the seas, and make Argolis great. Sparta, however, is to continue the territory of Helena, and be queen and patroness of these inferior Dukedoms. In all this, are we to, trace some faint changeful shadow of the National Character, and respective Intellectual Performance of the several European tribes? Or, perhaps, of the real History of the Middle. Ages; the. irruption of the northern swarms, issuing, like Faust and his air-warriors,'from Cimmerian Night,' and spreading over so many, fair regions? Perhaps of both, and of more; perhaps properly of neither: for the whole has a chameleon character, changing hue as we'look on it.. However, be this as it may, the. Chorus cannot sufficiently admire Faust's strategic faculty; and the troops march off, without speech indeed, but evidently in the highest spirits. He himself concludes with another rapid dithyrambic, de. scribing the Peninsula of Greece, or rather, perhaps, typically the Region of true Poesy,' kissed by the sea-waters,' and'knit: to the: last mountain-branch' of the firm land. There is a wild glowing fire in these two odes; a musical GOETHE'S HELENA. 195 indistinctness, yet enveloping a rugged, keen sense, which, were the gift of rhyme so common as Faust thinks it, we should have pleasure in presenting to our readers. Again and again, we think of Calderon and his Life a Dream. Faust, as he resumes his seat by Helena, observes that'she is sprung from the highest gods, and belongs to the first,world alone.' It is not meet that bolted towers should encircle her; and near by Sparta, over the hills,'Arcadia blooms in eternal strength of youth, a blissful abode for them two.''Let thrones pass into groves; Arcadian-free be such felicity!' No sooner said than done. Our Fortress, we suppose, rushes asunder like a Palace of Air, for' the scene'altogether changes. A series of Grottoes are now shut in by'close Bowers. Shady Grove, to the foot of the Rocks which'encircle the place. Faust and Helena are not seen. The'Chorus, scattered around, lie sleeping.' In Arcadia, the business grows wilder than ever. Phorcyas, who has now become wonderfully civil, and, notwithstanding her ugliness, stands on the best footing with the poor light-headed cicada-swarm of a Chorus, awakes them to hear and see the wonders that have happened so shortly. It appears too, that there are certain' Bearded Ones' (we suspect, Devils) waiting with anxiety,'sitting watchful there below,' to see the issue of this extraordinary transaction; but of these Phorcyas gives her silly women no hint whatever. She tells them, in glib phrase,, what great things are in:the wind. Faust and Helena have been happier than mortals in these grottoes. Phorcyas, who was in waiting, gradually glided away, seeking'roots, moss and rinds,' on household duty bent, and so'they two remained alone.' CHORUS. Talk'st as if within those grottoes lay whole tracts of country, Wood and meadow, rivers, lakes: what tales thou pahnm'st on us! PHORCYAS. Sure enough, ye foolish creatures! These are unexplored recesses;, Hall runs out on hall, spaces there on spaces: these I musing traced. 196 MISCELLANIES. But at once re-echoes from within a peal of laughter: Peeping in, what is it? Leaps a boy from Mother's breast to Father's, From the Father to the Mother: such a fondling, such a dandling, Foolish Love's caressing, teasing; cry of jest, and shriek of pleasure, In their turn do stun me quite. Naked, without wings a Genius, Faun in humour without coarseness,' Springs he sportful on the ground; but the ground reverberating, Darts him up to airy heights; and at the third the second gambol, Touches he the vaulted Roof. Frightened cries the Mother: Bound away, away, and as thou pleasest, But, my Son, beware of Flying; wings nor power of flight are thine. And the Father thus advises: In the Earth resides the virtue Which so fast doth send thee upwards; touch but with thy toe the surface, Like the Earthborn, old Antaeus, straightway thou art strong again. And so skips he, hither, thither, on these jagged rocks; from summit Still to summit, all about, like stricken ball rebounding, springs. But at once in cleft of some rude cavern sinking has he vanished, And so seems it we have lost him. Mother mourning, Father cheers her; Shrug my shoulders I, and look about me. But again, behold, what vision! Are there treasures lying here concealed? There he is again, and garments Glittering, flower-bestriped has on. Tassels waver from his arms, about his bosom flutter breast-knots, In his hand the;golden Lyre; wholly like a little Phwebus, Steps he light of heart upon the beetling cliffs: astonished stand we, And the Parents, in their rapture, fly into each other's arms. For what glittering's that about his head? Were hard to say what glitters, Whether Jewels and gold. or Flame of all-subduing strength of soul. And with such a bearing moves he, in himself this boy announces Future Master of all Beauty, whom the Melodies Eternal Do inform through every fibre; and forthwith so shall ye hear him, And forthwith so shall ye see him, to your uttermost- amazement. The Chorus suggest, in their simplicity, that this elastic little urchin may have some relationship to the'Son of Maia,' who, in old times, whisked himself so nimbly out of his swaddling-clothes, and stole the'.Sea-ruler's trident' and'Hephaestos' tongs,' and various other articles, before he was well span-long. But Phorcyas declares all this: to be superannuated fable, unfit for modern uses. And now'a beautiful purely melodious music of stringed instruments GOETHE'S HELENA. - 197' resounds from the Cave. All listen, and soon appear deeply' moved. It continues playing in full tone;' while Euphorion, in person, makes his appearance,,'in the costume above described;' larger of stature, but no less frolicsome and tuneful. Our readers are aware that this Euphorion, the offspring of Northern Character wedded to Grecian Culture, frisks it here not without reference to Modern Poesy, which had a birth so precisely similar. Sorry are we that we cannot follow him through these fine warblings and trippings on the light fantastic toe: to our ears there is a.quick, pure, smalltoned music in them, as perhaps of elfin bells when the Queen of Fadry rides by moonlight. It is, in truth, a graceful emblematic dance, this little life of Euphorion; full of meanings and half-meanings. The history of Poetry, traits of individual Poets; the Troubadours, the Three Italians; glimpses of all things, full vision of nothing! - Euphorion grows rapidly, and passes from one pursuit to another. Quitting his boyish gambols, he takes to dancing and romping with the Chorus; and this in a style of tumult which rather dissatisfies Faust. The wildest and coyest of these damsels he seizes with avowed intent of snatching a kiss; but, alas, she resists, and, still more singular,'flashes up in flame into the air;' inviting him, perhaps in mockery, to follow her, and'catch his vanished purpose.' Euphorion shakes off the remnants of the flame, and now, in a wilder humour, mounts on the crags, begins to talk of courage and battle; higher and higher he rises, till the Chorus, see him on the topmost cliff, shining' in harness as for victory:' and yet, though at such a distance, they still hear his tones, neither is his figure:diminished in their eyes; which, indeed, as they observe, always is, and should be, the case with'sacred Poesy, though it mounts heavenward, farther and farther, till it'glitter like the fairest star.' But Euphorion's life-dance is near ending. From his high peak, he catches the sound of war, and fires at it, and longs to mix in it, let Chorus and Mother and Father say what they will. 198 MISCELLANIES. EUPHORION. And hear ye thunders on the ocean, And thunders roll from tower and wall; And host with host, in fierce commotion, See mixing at the trumpet's call. And to die in strife Is the law of life, That is certain once for all. HELENA, FAUST, and CHORUS. What a horror! spoken madly! Wilt thou die? Then what must I? EUPHORION. Shall I view it, safe and gladly? No! to share it will I hie. HELENA, FAUST, and CHORUS. Fatal are such haughty things; War is for the stout. EUPHORION. Ha! - and a pair of wings Folds itself out! Thither! I must! I must!'Tis my hest to flv! [He casts himself into the air; his Garments support him for a moment; his head radiates, a Train of Light follows him. CHORUS. Icarus! earth and dust! 0, woe! thou mount'st too high. [A beautiful Youth rushes down at the feet of the Parents; you fancy you recognise in the dead a well-known Form;I but the bodily part instantly disappears; the gold Crownlet mounts like a comet to the sky; Coat, Mantle and Lyre are left lying. 1 It is perhaps in reference to this phrase, that certain sagacious critics among the Germans have hit upon the wonderful discovery of Euphorion being —Lord Byron! A fact, if it is one, which curiously verifies the author's prediction in this passage. But unhappily, while we fancy we recognise in. the dead a well-known form,'the bodily part instantly disappears;' and the keenest critic finds that he can see no deeper into a millstone than another man. Some allusion to our English Poet there is, or may be here and in the page that precedes, and the page that follows; but Euphorion is no image of any person; least of all, one would think, of. George Lord Byron. GOETHE'S HELENA. 199 HELENA and FAUST. Joy soon changes to woe, And mirth to heaviest moan. EUPHORION'S voice (friom beneath). Let me not to realms below Descend, 0 mother, alone! The prayer is soon granted. The Chorus chaunt a dirge over the remains, and then: HELENA (to FAUST). A sad old saying proves itself again in me, Good hap with beauty hath no long abode. So with Love's band is Life's asunder rent: Lamenting both, I clasp thee in my arms Once more, and bid thee painfully. farewell. Persephoneia take my boy, and with him me. [She embraces FAUST; her Body melts away; Garment and Veil remain in his arms. PHORCYAS (to FAUST). Hold fast what now alone remains to thee. That Garment quit not. They are tugging there, These Demons at the skirt of it; would fain To the Nether Kingdoms take it down. Hold fast The goddess it is not, whom thou hast lost, Yet godlike is it. See thou use aright The priceless high bequest, and soar aloft;'T will lift thee away above the.common world, Far up to Ether, so thou canst endure. We meet again, far, very far from hence. [H1ELENA'S Garments unfold into Clouds, encircle FAUST,,raise him aloft, and float away with him. PHORCYAS picks up EUPHORION'S Coat, Mantle and Lyre from the ground, comes forward into the Proscenium, holds these Remains aloft, and says: Well, fairly found be happily won!'Tis true, the Flame is lost and gone: But well for us we have still this stuff! A gala-dress to dub our poets of merit, And make guild-brethren snarl and cuff; And can't they borrow the Body and Spirit At least, I'll lend them Clothes enough. [Sits douw in the Proscenium at the foot of a pillar. The rest of the personages are now speedily disposed of 200 MISCELLANIES. Panthalis, the Leader of the Chorus, and the only one of them who has shown any glimmerings of Reason, or of aught beyond mere sensitive life, mere love of Pleasure and fear of Pain, proposes that, being now delivered from the soulconfusing spell of the'Thessalian Hag,' they should forthwith return to Hades, to bear Helena company. But none will volunteer with her; so she goes herself. The Chorus have lost their taste for Asphodel Meadows, and playing so subordinate a part in Orcus: they prefer abiding in the Light of Day, though, indeed, under rather peculiar circumstances; being no longer'Persons,' they say, but a kind of Occult: Qualities, as we conjecture, and Poetic Inspirations, residing in. various natural objects. Thus, one division become a sort of invisible Hamadryads, and have their being in Trees, and their joy in the various movements, beauties and products of Trees. A second change into Echoes; a third, into the Spirits of Brooks; and a fourth take up their abode in Vineyards, and delight in the manufacture of Wine. No sooner have these several parties made up their minds, than the: Curtain falls; and Phorcyas'in the Proscenium rises in'gigantic size; but steps down from her cothurni, lays her:'Mask and Veil aside, and shows herself as MEPHISTOPHE-'LES, in order, so far as may be necessary, to comment on the'piece, by way of Epilogue.' Such is Helena, the interlude in Faust. We have all the desire in the world to hear Mephisto's Epilogue; but far be it from us to take the word out of so gifted a mouth! In the way of commentary on Helena, we ourselves have little more to add. The reader sees, in general, that Faust is to save himself from the straits and fetters of Worldly Life inthe loftier regions of Art, or in that temper of mind by which alone those regions can be reached, and permanently dwelt in. Farther also, that this doctrine is to be stated emblematically and parabolically; so that it might seem as if, in Goethe's hands, the history of Faust, commencing among the GOETHE'S HELENA. 201 realities of every-day existence, superadding to these certain spiritual agencies, and passing into a more aerial character as it proceeds, may fade away, at its termination, into a phantasmagoric region, where symbol and thing signified are no longer clearly distinguished; and thus the final result-be curiously and significantly indicated, rather than directly exhibited. With regard to the special purport of Euphorion, Lynceus and the rest, we have nothing more to say at present; nay, perhaps we may have already said too much. For it must not be forgotten by the commentator, and will not, of a surety, be forgotten by Mephistopheles, whenever he may please to deliver his Epilogue, that Helena is not an Allegory, but a Phantasmagory; not a type of one thing, but a vague fluctuating fitful.adumbration of many. This is no Picture painted on canvas, with mere material colours, and.stedfastly abiding our scrutiny; but rather it is like the Smoke of a Wizard's Cauldron, in which, as we gaze on its flickering tints and wild splendours, thousands of strangest shapes unfold themselves, yet no one will abide with us; and thus, as Goethe says elsewhere,'we are reminded of Nothing and of All.' Properly speaking, Helena is what the Germans call a MJihrchen (Fabulous Tale), a species of fiction they have particularly excelled in, and of which Goethe has already produced more than one distinguished specimen. Some day we propose to translate, for our readers, that little piece of his, deserving to be named, as it is,'THE Miihrchen,' and which we must agree with a great critic in reckoning the'Tale of all Tales.' 1. As to the composition of this Helena, we cannot but perceive it to be deeply studied, appropriate.and successful. It is wonderful with what fidelity the Classical style is maintained throughout the earlier part of the Poem; how skilfully it is at once united to the Romantic style of the latter part, and made to reappear, at intervals, to the end. And then the small half-secret touches of sar1 See Appendix III. to Vol. 3 of Miscellanies. 202 MISCELLANIES. casm, the curious little traits by which we get a peep behind the curtain! Figure, for instance, that so transient allusion to these'Bearded Ones sitting watchful there below,' and then their tugging at Helena's Mantle to pull it down withthem. By such light hints does Mephistopheles point out our Whereabout; and ever and anon remind us, that not on the firm earth, but on the wide and airy Deep has he spread his strange pavilion, where, in magic light, so many wonders are displayed to us. Had we chanced to find that Goethe, in other instances, had ever written one line without meaning, or many lines without a deep and true meaning, we should not have thought this little cloud-picture worthy of such minute development, or such careful study. In that case, too, we should never have seen the true Helena of Goethe, but some false one of our own too indolent imagination; for this Drama, as it grows clearer, grows also more beautiful and complete; and the third, the fourth perusal of it pleases far better than the first. Few living artists would deserve such faith from us; but few also would so well reward it. On the general relation of Helena to Faust, and the degree of fitness of the one for the other, it were premature to speak more expressly at present. We have learned, on authority which we may justly reckon the best, that Goethe is even now engaged in preparing the Second Part of Faust, into which this Helena passes as a component part. With the third Lieferung of his Works, we understand, the beginning of that Second Part is to be published: we shall then, if need be, feel more qualified to speak. For the present, therefore, we take leave of Helena and Faust, and of their Author: but with regard to the latter, our task is nowise ended; indeed, as yet, hardly begun; for it is not in the province of the M/dhrchen that Goethe will ever become most interesting to English readers. But, like his own Euphorion, though he rises aloft into lEther, he derives, Antaeus-like, his strength from the Earth. The GOETHE'S HELENA. 203 dullest plodder has not a more practical understanding, or a sounder or more quiet character, than this most airial and imaginative of poets. (We hold Goethe to be the Foreigner, at this era, who, of all others, the best, and the best by many degrees, deserves our study and appreciation./ What help we individually can give in such a matter, we shall consider it a duty and a pleasure to have in readiness. We purpose to return, in our next Number, to the consideration of his Works and Character in general. 204 MISCELLANIES. GOETHE.1 [1828.] IT is not on this'Second Portion' of Goethe's Works, which at any rate contains nothing new to us, that we mean at present to dwell. In our last Number, we engaged to make some survey of his writings and character in general; and must now endeavour, with such insight as we have, to fulfil that promise. We have already said that we reckoned this no unimportant subject; and few of Goethe's readers can need to be reminded that it is no easy one. We hope also that: our pretensions in regard'to it are not exorbitant; the sum of our aims being nowise to solve so deep and pregnant an inquiry, but only to show that an inquiry of such a sort liesready for solution; courts the attention of thinking men among us, nay merits a thorough investigation, and must sooner or later obtain it. Goethe's literary history appears to us a matter, beyond most others, of rich, subtle and manifold significance; which will require and reward the besti study of the best heads, and to the right exposition of which not one but many judgments will be necessary. However, we need not linger, preluding on our own inability, and magnifying the difficulties we have so courageously volunteered to front. Considering the highly com1 FOREIGN REVIEW, No. 3.- Goethes Simmtliche Werke. Vollsteandige Ausgabe letzter Hand. (Goethe's Collective Works. Complete Edition, -with his final Corrections.)- Second Portion, vol. vi.-x. Cotta; Stuttgard and Tiibingen, 1827. GOETHE. 205 plex aspect which such a mind of itself presents to us; and, -still more, taking into account the state of English opinion in respect of it, there'certainly seem few literary questions of our time so perplexed, dubious, perhaps hazardous, as this of the character of Goethe; but few also on which a wellfounded, or even a sincere word would be more likely to _profit. For our countrymen, at no time indisposed to foreign excellence, but at all times cautious of foreign singu. larity, have heard much of Goethe; but heard, for the most part, what excited and perplexed rather than instructed them. Vague rumours of the man have, for more than half a century, been humming through our ears: from time to time, we have even seen some distorted, mutilated transcript of his own thoughts, which, all, obscure and hieroglyphical as it might often seem, failed not to emit here and there a ray of keenest and purest sense; travellers also are still running to and fro, importing the opinions or, at worst, the gossip of foreign countries: so that, by one means or an-; other, many of us have come to understand, that considerably the most distinguished poet and thinker of his age is called Goethe, and lives at Weimar, and must, to all appearance, be an extremely surprising character: but here, unhappily, our knowledge almost terminates; and still must Curiosity, must ingenuous love of Information and mere passive Wonder alike inquire: What manner of man is this? How shall we interpret, how shall we even see him? Whatis his spiritual structure, what at least are the outward formand features of his mind? Has he any real poetic worth: how much to his own people, how much to us?:-:'Reviewers, of great and of small character, have manfully eideavoured to satisfy the British world on these. points: but which of us could believe their report? Did it not rather become apparent, as we reflected on the matter, that this' Goethe of theirs was not the real man, nay could not be any real man whatever? For'what, after all, were their: portraits of him but copies, with some retouchings and orna 206 MISCELLANIES. mental appendages, of our grand English original Picture of the German generally? — In itself such a piece of art, as national portraits, under like circumstances, are wont to be; and resembling Goethe, as some unusually expressive Sign of the Saracen's Head may resemble the present Sultan of Constantinople! Did we'imagine that much information, or any very deep sagacity were required for avoiding such mistakes, it would ill become us to step forward on this occasion. But surely it is given to every man, if he will but take heed, to know so much as whether or not he knows. And: nothing can be plainer to us than that if, in the present business, we: can report aught from our own personal vision and clear hearty belief, it will be a useful novelty in the discussion of it. Let the reader be patient with us then; and according as he finds that we speak honestly and earnestly, or loosely and dishonestly, consider our statement, or dismiss it as unworthy of consideration. Viewed in his merely external relations, Goethe exhibits an appearance such as seldom. occurs in the history of letters, and indeed, from the nature of the case, can seldom occur. A man who, in early life, rising almost at a single bound into the highest reputation over all Europe; by gradual advances, fixing himself more and more firmly in the reverence of his countrymen, ascends silently through many vicissitudes to the supreme intellectual place among them";. and now, after half a century, distinguished by convulsions, political, moral and poetical, still reigns, full of years and honours, with a soft undisputed sway; still labouring in his vocation, still forwarding, as with kingly benignity, whatever can profit the culture of'his nation: such a man might justly attract our notice, were it only by the singularity of his fortune. Supremacies of this sort are rare in modern times; so universal, and of- such continuance, they are almost unexampled. For the age of the Prophets and Theologic GOETHE. 207 -Doctors has long since passed away; and now it is by m uch slighter, by transient and mere earthly ties, that bodies of men connect themselves with a man. The wisest, most melodious voice cannot in these days pass for a divine one; the word Inspiration still lingers, but only in the shape of a poetic figure, from which the once earnest, awful and soul-subduing sense has vanished without return. The polity of Literature is called a Republic; oftener it is an Anarchy, where, by strength or fortune, favourite after favourite rises into splendour and authority, but, like Masaniello, while judging the people, is on the third day deposed and shot. Nay, few such adventurers can attain even this painful preeminence: for at most, it is clear, any given age can have -but one first man; many ages have only a. crowd of secondary men, each of whom is first in his own eyes: and seldom, at best, can the'Single Person' long keep his station at -the head of this wild commonwealth; most sovereigns are never universally acknowledged, least of all in their lifetime; few of the acknowledged can reign peaceably to the end.. Of such a perpetual dictatorship Voltaire among the French gives the last European instance; but even with him it was perhaps a much less striking affair. Voltaire -reigned over a sect, less as their.lawgiver than' as their general; for he was at bitter enmity with the great numerical majority of his nation,. by whom his services, far' from being acknowledged as benefits, were execrated as abominations. But Goethe's object has, at all times, been rather to unite than to divide; and though' he has not scrupled, as occasion served, to speak forth his convictions distinctly enough on. many delicate topics, and seems, in general, to.have paid little court to the prejudices. or private feelings of any man or body of men, we see not at present that his merits are anywhere disputed, his. intellectual endeavours controverted, or his person regarded otherwise than with affection and respect. In later years, too, the advanced age of the poet has invested him with another sort of 208 MISCELLANIES. dignity; and the admiration to which his great qualities give him claim is tempered into a milder, grateful feeling, almost as of sons and grandsons to their common father. Dissentients, no doubt, there are and must be; but, apparently, their cause is not pleaded in words: no man of the smallest note speaks on that side; or at most, such men may question, not the worth of Goethe, but the. cant and idle affectation with which, in many quarters, this must be promulgated and bepraised. Certainly there is not, probably there never was, in any European country, a writer who, with. so cunning a style, and so deep, so abstruse a sense, ever found so many readers. For, from the peasant to the king, from the callow dilettante and innamorato, to the grave transcendental philosopher, men of' all degrees and dispositions are familiar with the writings of Goethe: each studies them with affection, with a faith which,'where it cannot unriddle, learns to trust;' each takes with him what he is adequate to carry, and departs thankful for his own allotment. Two of Goethe's intensest admirers are Schelling of Munich, and a worthy friend of ours in Berlin; one of these among the deepest men in Europe, the other among the shallowest.. All this'is, no doubt, singular enough; and a proper understanding of it would throw light on many things. What-: ever we may think of Goethe's ascendency, the existence of it remains a highly curious fact; and to trace its history, t*c discover by what steps such influence has been attained, and how so long preserved, were no trivial or unprofitable inquiry. It would be worth while to see so strange a man for his own sake; and here we should see, not only the: man himself, and his own progress and spiritual development, but the progress also of his nation: and this at no, sluggish or even quiet era, but in times marked by strange revolutions of opinions, by angry controversies, high enthusiasm, novelty of enterprise, and doubtless, in many respects,: by rapid advancement: for that the Germans have been, and .GOETHE. 209 still are, restlessly struggling forward, with honest unwearied effort, sometimes with enviable success, no one, who knows,-them, will deny; and as little, that in every province of -Literature, of Art and humane accomplishment, the influence, often the direct guidance of Goethe may be recognised. The history of his mind is, in fact, at the same time, the history of German culture in his day: for whatever excellence this individual might realise has sooner or later been acknowledged and appropriated by his country; and the title of 21iusagetes, which his admirers give him, is perhaps, in sober strictness, not unmerited. Be it for good or for evil, there is certainly no German, since -the days of Luther, whose life can occupy so large a space in the intellectual history of that people. In this point of view, were it in no other, Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit, so soon as it is completed, may deserve to be reckoned one of his most interesting works. We speak not of its literary merits, though in that respect, too, we must say that -few Autobiographies have come in our way, where so difficult a matter was so successfully handled; where perfect knowledge could be found united so kindly with perfect tolerance; and a personal narrative, moving along in soft clearness, showed us a man, and the objects that environed him, under an aspect so verisimilar, yet so lovely, with an air dignified and earnest, yet graceful, cheerful, even gay: a- story as of a Patriarch to his children; such, indeed, as few men can be called upon to relate, and few, if called upon, could relate so well. What would we give for such an Autobiography of Shakspeare, of Milton, even of Pope or -Swift!:The Dichtung und VWahrheit has been censured considerabl.y in England; but not, we are inclined to believe, with any insight into its proper meaning. The misfortune of the work among us was, that we did not know the narrator before his narrative; and could not judge what sort of narrative he was bound to give, in these circumstances, VOL. I. 14 210 MISCELLANIES. or whether he was bound to give any at all. We saw nothing of his situation; heard only the sound of his voice; and hearing it, never doubted but he must be perorating in official garments from the rostrum, instead of speaking trustfully by the fireside. For the chief ground of offence seemed to be, that the story was not noble enough; that it entered on details of too poor and private a nature; verged here and there towards garrulity; was not, in one word, written in the style of what we call a gentleman. Wlhether it might be written in the style of a man, and how far these two styles might be compatible, and what might be their relative worth and preferableness, was a deeper question; to which apparently no heed had been given. Yet herein lay the very cream of the matter; for Goethe was not writing to'persons of quality' in England, but to persons of heart and head in Europe: a somewhat different problem perhaps, and requiring a somewhat different solution. As to this ignobleness and freedom of detail, especially, we may say, that, to a German, few accusations could appear more surprising than this, which, with us, constitutes the head and front of his offending. Goethe, in his own country, far from being accused.of undue familiarity towards his readers, had, up to that date, been labouring under precisely the opposite charge. It was his stateliness, his reserve, his indifference, his contempt for the public, that were censured. Strange, almost inexplicable, as many of his works might appear; loud, sorrowful and altogether stolid as might be the criticisms they underwent, no word of explanation could be wrung from him; he had never even deigned to write a preface. And in later and juster days, when the study of Poetry came to be prosecuted in another spirit, and it was found that Goethe was standing, not like a culprit to plead for himself before the literary plebeians, but like -a high teacher and preacher, speaking for truth, to whom both plebeians and patricians were bound to give all ear, the outward difficulty of interpreting his works began indeed GOETHE. 211 to vanish; but enough still remained, nay increased curiosity had given rise to new difficulties, and deeper inquiries. Not only what were these works, but how did they originate, became questions for the critic. Yet several of Goethe's chief productions, and of his smaller poems nearly the whole, seemed so intimately interwoven with his private history, that, without some knowledge of this, no answer to such questions could be given.'Nay commentaries have been written on single pieces of his, endeavouring, by way of guess, to supply this deficiency.' We can thus judge. whether, to the Germans, such minuteness of exposition in this Dichtung unzd Wahrheit may have seemed a sin. Few: readers of Goethe, we believe, but' would wish rather to see it extended than curtailed.. It is our duty'also to remark, if'any one be still unaware of it, that the Memoirs of Goethe, published some years ago in London, can have no real concern with this Autobiography. The rage of hunger is an excuse for much; otherwise that German Translator, whom indignant Reviewers have proved to know no German, were a highly reprehensible man. His work, it appears, is done fiom the French,. and shows subtractions, and what is worse, additions. But the unhappy Dragoman has already been chastised, perhaps too sharply. If, warring with the reefs and breakers and cross eddies of Life, he still hover on'this side the shadow of Night, and any word of ours might reach him, we would rather say: Courage, Brother! grow honest, and times will mend'! It would appear, then, that for inquirers'into Foreign: Literature, for all men anxious to see and understand the European world as it lies around them, a great problem is: presented' in -this Goethe; a singular, highly significant phenomenon, and now also means more or less complete: 1 See, in particular, Dr. Kannegiesser Ueber Goethes Harzsreise im Winter 1820. 212. MISCELLANIES. for ascertaining its significance. A man of wonderful, nay. unexampled reputation — and intellectual influence among forty millions of reflective, serious and cultivated men, invites us to study him; and to determine for ourselves, whether and how far such influence has been salutary,: such reputation merited. That this call will one day be answered, that Goethe will be seen and judged of in his real'character among us, appears certain enough. His name, long familiar everywhere, has now awakened the attention of critics in all European countries to his works:: he is studied wherever true study exists: eagerly studied even in France; nay, some considerable knowledge of his' nature and spiritual importance seems already to prevail there.l For ourselves, meanwhile, in giving all due weight to so curious an exhibition of opinion, it is doubtless our part, at the same time, to beware that we do not give it too much. This universal sentiment of admiration is wonder-, ful, is interesting enough; but it must not lead us astray. We English stand as yet without the sphere of it; neither will we plunge blindly in, but enter considerately, or, if we see good, keep aloof from it altogether. (Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such: it is an accident, not a "property, of a man; like: light, it can give; little or nothing,, but at most may show. what is given; often it is but'a false glare, dazzling the eyes of the vulgar, lending by casual extrinsic splendour the brightness and manifold glance of the diamond to peb-, bles of no value. ) A man is in all cases simply the man, of the same intrinsic worth and'weakness, whether his worth; and weakness lie hidden in the depths of his own conscious-: ness, or be! betrumpeted and beshouted from end to end of the habitable globe. )These are plain truths, which no ode. should lose sight of; though, whether in love or in anger,. 1 Witness Le Tasse, Drame par Duval, and the Criticisms on it. See alsotthe Essays in the Globe, Nos. 55, 64 (1826). GOETHE. 213 for praise or for condemnation, most of us are too apt to forget them. But least of all can it become the critic to'follow a multitude to do evil,' even when that evil is excess of admiration: on the contrary, it will behove him to lift up his voice, how feeble soever, how unheeded soever, against the common delusion; fromn which, if he can save, or help to save, any mortal, his endeavours will have been repaid. With these things in some measure before us, we must remind our readers of another influence at work in this affair, and one acting, as we think, in the contrary direction. That pitiful enough desire for' originality,' which lurks and acts in all minds, will rather, we imagine, lead the critic of Foreign Literature to adopt the negative than the affirmative with regard to Goethe. If a writer indeed feel that he is writing for England alone, invisibly and inaudibly to the rest of the Earth, the temptations may be pretty equally balanced; if he write for some small conclave, which he mistakenly thinks the representative of England, they may sway this way or that, as it chances. But writing in such isolated spirit is no longer possible. Traffic, with its swift ships, is uniting all nations into one; Europe at large is becoming more and more one public; and in this public, the voices for Goethe, compared with those against him, are in the proportion, as: we reckon them, both as to the number and value, of perhaps a hundred to one. We take in, not Germany alone, but France and Italy; not the Schlegels and Schellings, but the Manzonis and De Stalls. The bias of originality, therefore, may lie to the side of censure; and whoever among us shall step forward, with such knowledge as our common critics have of Goethe, to enlighten the European public, by contradiction in this matter, displays a heroism, which, in estimating his other merits, ought nowise to be' forgotten. Our: own view of the case coincides, we confess, in some degree with that of the majority. We reckon that Goethe's 214 MISCELLANIES. fame has, to a considerable extent, been deserved; that his influenfce has been of high benefit to his own country; nay more, that it promises to be of benefit to us, and to all other nations. The essential grounds of this opinion, which to explain minutely were a long, indeed boundless task, we may state without many words. We find, then, in Goethe, an Artist, in the high and ancient meaning of that term; in the meaning which it may have borne long ago among the masters of Italian painting, and the fathers of Poetry in England; we say that we trace in the creations of this man, belonging in every sense to our own time, some touches of that old, divine spirit, which had long passed away from among us, nay which, as has often been laboriously demonstrated, was not to return to this world any more. Or perhaps we come nearer our meaning, if we say that in Goethe we discover by far the most striking instance, in bur time, of a writer who is, in strict speech, what Philosophy can call a Man. He is neither noble nor plebeian, neither liberal nor servile, nor infidel nor devotee; but the best excellence of all these, joined in pure union;'a clear and universal - Man.' }Goethe's poetry is no separate faculty, no mental handic aft; but the voice of the whole harmonious manhood: nay it is the very harmony, the living and life-giving harmony of that rich manhood which forms his poetry. All good men may be called poets in act, or'in word; all good poets are so in both. But Goethe besides appears to us as a person of that deep endowment, and gifted vision, of that experience also and sympathy in the ways of all men, which qualify him to stand forth, not only as the literary ornament, but in many respects too as the Teacher and exemplar of his age.' For, to say nothing of his natural gifts, he has cultivated himself and his art, he has studied how to live and to write, with a fidelity, an unwearied earnestness, of which there is no other.living instance;':of which, among British poets especially, Wordsworth alone offers any resemblance. And this -in our view is the result: GOETHE. 215 To our minds, in these soft, melodious imaginations of his, there is embodied the Wisdom which is proper to this time; the beautiful, the religious Wisdom, which may still, with something of its old impressiveness, speak to the whole soul; still, in these hard, unbelieving utilitarian days, reveal to us glimpses of the Unseen but not unreal World, that so the Actual and the Ideal may again meet together, and clear Knowledge be again wedded to Religion, in the life and business of men. Such is our conviction or persuasion with regard to the poetry of Goethe. Could we demonstrate this opinion to be true, could we even exhibit it with that degree of clearness and consistency which it has attained in our own thoughts, Goethe were, on our part, sufficiently recommended to the best attention of all thinking men. But, unhappily, it is not a subject susceptible of demonstration: the merits and characteristics of a Poet are not to be set forth by logic; but to be gathered by personal, and as in this case it must be, by deep and careful inspection of his works. Nay Goethe's world is everyway so different from ours; it costs us such effort, we have so much to remember, and so much to forget, before we can transfer ourselves in any measure into his peculiar point of vision, that a right study of him, for an Englishman, even of ingenuous, open, inquisitive mind, becomes unusually difficult; for a fixed, decided, contemptuous Englishman, next to impossible. To a reader of the first class, helps may be given, explanations will remove many a difficulty; beauties that lay hidden may be made apparent; and directions, adapted to his actual position, will at length guide him into the proper track for such an inquiry. All this, however, must be a work of progression and detail. To do our part in it, from time to'time, must rank among the best duties of an English Foreign Review. Meanwhile, our present endeavour limits itself within far narrower bounds. We cannot aim to make Goethe known, but only to prove that he is worthy of being known; at most, to point out, as it were afar off, the path by which 216 MISCELLANIES. some knowledge of him may be obtained. A slight glance at his general literary character and procedure, and one or two of his chief productions which throw light on these, must for the present suffice. A French diplomatic personage, contemplating Goethe's physiognomy, is said to have observed: Voild un homme qui a eu beauzcoup de chagrins. A truer version of the matter,. Goethe himself seems to think, would have been: Here is a man who has struggled toughly; who has es sich recht sauer werden lassen. Goethe's life, whether as a writer and thinkell, or as a living active man, has indeed been a life of effort, of earnest toilsome endeavour after all excellence. Accordingly, his intellectual progress, his spiritual and moral history, as it may be gathered from his successive Works, furnishes, with us, no small portion of the pleasure and profit we derive from perusing them. Participating deeply in all the influences of his age, he has from the first, at every new epoch, stood forth to elucidate the new circumstances of the time; to offer the instruction, the solace, which that time required. His literary life divides itself into two portions widely different in character: the products of the first, once so new and original, have long, either directly or through the thousand thousand imitations of them, been familiar to us; with the products of the second, equally original, and in our day far more precious, we are yet little acquainted. These two classes of works stand curiously related with each other; at first view, in strong contradiction, yet, in truth, connected together by the strictest sequence. For Goethe has not only suffered and mourned in bitter agony under the spiritual perplexities of his time; but he has also mastered these, he is above them, and has shown others how to rise above them. At one time, we found him in darkness, and now he is in light; he was once an Unbeliever, and now he is a Believer; and he believes, moreover, not by denying his unbelief, but by following it out; not by stopping short, still less turning GOETHE. 217 back, in his inquiries, but by resolutely prosecuting them. This, it appears to us, is a case of singular interest, and rarely exemplified, if at all elsewhere, in these our days. How has this man, to whom the world once offered nothing but blackness, denial and despair, attained to that better vision which now shows it to him, not tolerable only, but full of solemnity and loveliness? How has the belief of' a Saint been united in this high and true mind with the clearness of a Sceptic; the devout spirit of a Fenelon made to blend in soft harmony with the gaiety, the sarcasm, the shrewdness of a Voltaire? Goethe's two earliest works are Gitz von Berlichingen and the Sorrows of Werter. The boundless influence and popularity they gained, both at home and abroad, is well known. It was they that established almost at once his literary fame in his- own country; and even determined his subsequent private history, for they brought him into contact with the Duke of Weimar; in connexion with whom, the Poet, engaged in manifold duties, political as well as literary, has lived for fifty-four years, and still, in honourable retirement, continues to live.' Their effects over Europe at large were not less striking than in Germany.'It would be difficult,' observes a writer on this subject,'to name two books which have exercised a deeper influence on the sub'sequent literature of Europe, than these two performances of a young author; his first-fruits, the produce of his twenty-fourth year. Werter appeared to seize the hearts of men in all quarters of the world, and to utter for them the word which they had long been waiting to hear. As usually happens, too, this same word, once uttered, was soon abundantly repeated; spoken in all dialects, and chaunted through all- notes of the gamut, till the sound of it had grown a weariness rather than a pleasure. Sceptical sentimentality, view-hunting, love, friendship, suicide, and desperation, became the staple of literary ware; and though the epidemic, after a long course of years, sub1 Since the above was written, that worthy Prince, - worthy, we have understood, in all respects, exemplary in whatever concerned Literature and the Arts, - has been called suddenly away. He died on his road from Berlin, near Torgau, on the 24th of June. 218 BMISCELLANIES. sided in Germany, it reappeared with various modifications in other countries, and everywhere abundant traces of its good and bad effects are still to be discerned. Thle fortune of Berlichinyen,with the Iron Hand, though less sudden, was by no means less exalted. In his own country, Gatz, though lie now stands solitary and childless, became the parent of an innumerable progeny of chivalry plays, feudal delineations, and poetico-antiquarian performances; which, though long ago deceased, made noise enough in their day and generation: and with ourselves, his influence has been perhaps still more remarkable.,Sir Walter Scott's first literary enterprise was a translation of Gotz von Berlichingen; and, if genius could be communicated like instruction, we might call this work of Goethe's the prime cause of Marnmion and the Lady of the Lake, with all that has followed from the same creative hand. Truly, a grain of seed that has lighted on the right soil! For if not firmer and fairer, it has grown to be taller and broader than any other tree; and all the nations of the earth are still yearly gathering of its fruit.'But overlooking these spiritual genealogies, which bring little certainty and little profit, it may be sufficient to observe of Berlichingen and Werter, that they stand prominent among the causes, or, at the very least, among the signals of a great change in modern literature. The former directed men's attention with a new force to the -picturesque effects of the Past; and the latter, for the first time, attempted the more accurate delineation of a class of feelings deeply important to modern minds, but for which our elder poetry offered no-exponent, and perhaps could offer none, because they are feelings that arise from Passion incapable of being converted into Action, and belong chiefly to an age as indolent, cultivated and unbelieving as our own. This, notwithstanding the dash of falsehood which may exist in Werter itself, and the boundless delirium of extravagance which it called forth in others, is a high praise which cannot justly be denied it. The English reader ought also to understand that our current version of Werter is mutilated and inaccurate: it comes-to us through the all-subduing medium of the French, shorn of its caustic strength, with its melancholy rendered maudlin, its hero reduced from the stately gloom of a broken-hearted poet to the tearful wrangling of a dyspeptic tailor.' 1 To the same dark wayward mood, which, in Werter, pours itself forth in bitter wailings over human life; and, in:Berlichingen, appears as a fbnd and sad looking back.into: the Past, belong various other productions of Goethe's; for ex1 German Romance, vol iv. pp. 5-7. (Appendix I. ~ Goethe, infi'a.) GOETHE.:219 ample, the Mitschuldigen, and the first idea of Faust, which, however, was not realised in actual composition till a calmer *period of his history. Of this early harsh and crude, yet fervid and genial period, Werter may stand here as the representative; and, viewed in its external and internal relation, will help to illustrate both the writer and the public he was writing for. At the present day, it would be difficult for us, satisfied, nay sated to nausea, as we have been with the doctrines of Sentimentality, to estimate the boundless interest which Werter must have excited when first given to the world. It was then new in all senses; it was wonderful, yet wished for, both in its own country and in every other. The Literature of Germany had as yet but partially awakened from its long torpor: deep learning, deep reflection, have at no time been wanting there; but the creative spirit had for above a century been almost extinct. Of late, however, the Ramlers, Rabeners, Gellerts, had attained to no inconsiderable polish of style; Klopstock's Messias had called forth the admiration, and perhaps still more the pride, of the country, as.a piece of art; a high enthusiasm was abroad; Lessing had roused the minds of men to a deeper and truer interest in Literature, had even decidedly begun to introduce a heartier, warmer and more expressive style. The Germans were on the alert; in expectation, or at least in full readiness for some far bolder impulse; waiting for the Poet that might speak to them from the heart to the heart. It was in Goethe that such a Poet was to be given them. Nay the Literature of other countries, placid, self-satisfied as they might seem, was in an equally expectant condition. Everywhere, as in Germany, there was polish and languor, external glitter and internal vacuity; it was not fire, but a picture of fire, at which no soul could be warmed. Literature had sunk from its former vocation: it no longer held the mirror up to Nature; no longer reflected, in many-coloured expressive symbols, the actual passions, the hopes, sorrows, 220 MISCELLANIES. -joys of living men; but dwelt in a remote conventional world, in Castles of Otranto, in Fpigoniads and Leonidases, among clear, metallic heroes, and white, high, stainless beauties, in whom the drapery and elocution were nowise the least important qualities. Men thought it right that the heart: should swell into magnanimity with Caractacus and Cato, and melt into sorrow with many an Eliza and Adelaide; but the heart was in no haste either to swell or to melt. Some pulses of heroical sentiment, a few unnatural tears might, with conscientious readers, be actually squeezed forth on such occasions: but they came only from the surface of the mind; nay, had the conscientious man considered of the matter, he would have found that they ought not to have come at all. Our only English poet of the period was Goldsmith; a pure, clear, genuine spirit, had he been of depth or strength sufficient: his Vicar of Wakefield remains the best of all modern Idyls; but it is and was nothing more. And consider our leading writers; consider the poetry of Gray, and the prose of Johnson. The first a laborious mosaic, through/ the hard stiff lineaments of which little life or true grace could be expected to look: real feeling, and- all freedom of expressing it, are sacrificed to pomp, to cold splendour; for vigour we have a certain mouthing vehemence, too elegant indeed to be tumid; yet essentially foreign to the heart, and seen to extend no deeper than the mere voice and gestures. Were it not for his Letters, which are full of warm exuberant power, we'might almost doubt whether Gray was a man of genius; nay, was a living man at all, and not rather some thousand-times more cunningly devised poetical turning-loom, than that of Swift's Philosophers in Laputa. Johnson's prose is true, indeed, and sound, and full of practical sense: few men have seen more clearly into the motives, the interests, the whole walk and conversation of the living busy world as it lay before him; but farther than this busy, and; to most of us, rather prosaic world; he seldom looked: his instruction is for men of business, and in regard to matters GOETHE. 221 of business alone. Prudence is the highest Virtue he can inculcate; and for that finer portion of our nature, that portion of it which belongs essentially to Literature strictly so called, where our highest feelings, our best joys and keenest sorrows, our Doubt, our Love, our Religion reside, he has no word to utter; no remedy, no counsel to give us in our straits; or at most, if, like poor Boswell, the patient is importunate, will answer: "My dear Sir, endeavour to clear your mind of Cant." The turn which Philosophical speculation had taken in the preceding age corresponded with this tendency, and enhanced its narcotic influences; or was, indeed, properly speaking, the root they had sprung from. Locke, himself. a clear, humbleminded, patient, reverent, nay religious man, had paved the way for banishing religion from the world. Mind, by being modelled in men's imaginations into a Shape, a Visibility; and reasoned of as if it had been some composite, divisible and reunitable substance, some finer chemical salt, or curious piece of logical joinery,- began to lose its immaterial, mysterious, divine though invisible character: it was tacitly figured as something that might, were our organs fine enough, be seen. Yet who had ever seen it? Who could ever see it? Thus by degrees it passed into a Doubt, a Relation, some faint Possibility; and at last into a highly-probable. Nonentity. Following Locke's footsteps, the French had discovered that'as the stomach secretes Chyle, so does the brain secrete Thought.' And what then was Religion, what was Poetry, what was all high and heroic feeling? Chiefly a delusion; often a false and pernicious one. Poetry, indeed, was still to be preserved; because Poetry was a usefill thing: men needed amusement, and loved to amuse themselves with Poetry: the playhouse was a pretty lounge of: an evening; then there were so many precepts, satirical, didactic, so much more impressive for the rhyme; to say nothing of your occasional verses, birthday odes, epithalamiums, epicediums, by which'the dream of existence may be so 222 MISCELLANIES. highly sweetened and embellished.'!fay, does not Poetry, acting on the imaginations of men, excite them to daring purposes; sometimes, as in the case of Tyrtaeus, to fight better; in which wise may it not- rank as a useful stimulant to man, along with Opium and Scotch Whisky, the manufacture of which is allowed by law? In Heaven's name, then, let Poetry be preserved. ) With Religion, however, it fared somewhat worse. In the eyes of Voltaire and his disciples, Religion was a superfluity,.indeed a nuisance. Here, it is true, his followers have since found that he went too far; that Religion, being a great. sanction to civil morality, is of use for keeping society in order, at least the lower classes, who have not the feeling of Honour in due force; and therefore, as a considerable help to the Constable and Hangman, ought decidedly to be kept up. But such toleration is the fruit only of later days. In those times, there was no question but h]ow to get rid of it, root and branch, the sooner the better. A gleam of zeal, nay we will call it, however basely alloyed, a glow of real enthusiasm and love of truth, may have animated the minds of these men, as they looked abroad on the pestilent jungle of Superstition, and hoped to clear the earth of it forever. This little glow, so alloyed, so contaminated with pride and other poor or bad admixtures, was the last which thinking, men were to experience in Europe for a time.. So is it always in regard to Religious Belief, how degraded and de-faced soever: the delight of the Destroyer and Denier is no pure delight, and must soon pass away. tFwith bold, with skilful hand, Voltaire set his torch to the jungle: it blazed aloft to heaven; and the flame exhilarated and comforted: the incendiaries; but, unhappily, such comfort could not continue. Ere long this flame, with its cheerful light and heat, was gone: the jungle, it is true, had been consumed; but,; with its entanglements, its shelter and its spots of verdure also; and the black, chill, ashy swamp, left in its stead, seemed for a time a greater evil than the other. GOETHE. 223 In such a state of painful obstruction, extending itself everywhere over Europe, and already master of Gelrmany,'lay the general mind, when Goethe first appeared in Literature. Whatever belonged to the finer nature of man had withered under the Harmattan breath of Doubt, or passed away in the conflagration of open Infidelity; and now, where the Tree of Life once bloomed and brought fruit of goodliest savour, there was only barrenness and desolation. To such as could find sufficient interest in the day-labour and daywages of earthly existence; in the resources of the five bodily Senses, and of Vanity, the only mental sense which yet flourished, which flourished indeed with gigantic vigour, mat — ters were still not so bad. Such men helped themselves for-: ward, as they will generally do; and found the world, if not an altogether proper sphere (for every man, disguise it as he may, has a soul in him), at least a tolerable enough place; where, by one item and another, some comfort, or show of comfort, might from time to time be got up, and these few years, especially since they were so few, be spent without much murmuring. But to men afflicted with the'malady of Thought,' some devoutness of temper was an inevitable heritage: to such the noisy forumh of the world could appear but an empty, altogether insufficient concern; and the whole scene of life had become hopeless enough.''Unhappily, such feelings are yet by no means so inrrequent with ourselves, that we need stop here to depict them. That state of Unbelief from which the Germans do seem to be in some measure delivered, still presses with incubus force on the greater part of Europe; and nation after nation, each in its own way, feels that the first of all moral problems is how to cast it off, or how to rise above it. Governments naturally attempt the first expedient; Philosophers, in general, the second. The poet, says Schiller, is a citizen not only of his country, but of his time. - Whatever occupies and interests men in general, will interest him still more. That nameless Un 224 - MISCELLANIES. rest, the blind struggle of a soul in bondage, that high, sad, longing Discontent, which was agitating every bosom, had driven Goethe almost to despair. All felt it; he alone fould give it voice. And here lies the secret of his popularity;:in his deep, susceptive heart, he felt a thousand times more keenly what every one was feeling; with the creative gift which belonged to him as a poet, he bodied it forth into visible shape, gave it a local habitation and a name; and so made himself the spokesman of his generation., Werter is but the cry of that dim, rooted pain, under which all thoughtful men of a certain age were languishing: it paints the misery, it passionately utters the complaint; and heart and voice, all over Europe, loudly and at once respond to it. True, it prescribes no remedy; for that was a far different, far harder enterprise, to which other years and a higher culture were required; but even this utterance of the pain, even this little, for the present, is ardently grasped at, and with eager sympathy appropriated in every bosom. If Byron's lifeweariness, his moody melancholy, and mad stormful indignation, borne on the tones of a wild and quite artless melody, could pierce so deep into many a British heart, now that the whole matter is no longer new, - is indeed old.and trite,. we may judge with what vehement acceptance this Werter must have been welcomed, corning as it did like a voice from unknown regions; the first thrilling peal of that impassioned dirge, which, in country after country, men's ears have listened to, till they were deaf to all else. For Werter infusing itself into the core and whole spirit of Literature, gave birth to a race of Sentimentalists, who have raged and wailed int every part of the world; till better light dawned on thetma or at worst, exhausted Nature laid herself to sleep, an4t.it was discovered that lamenting was an unproductive labouriThese funereal choristers, in Germany a loud, haggard,- tu multuous, as well as tearful class, were named the Kraftmdlnner, or Power-men; but have all long since, like Sick. children, cried. themselves to rest. Byron was our English; GOETHE. 225 Sentimentalist and Power-man; the strongest of his kind in Europe; the wildest, the gloomiest, and it may be hoped the last. For what good is it to' whine, put finger i' the eye, and sob,' in such a case? Still more, to snarl and snap in malignant wise,' like dog distract, or monkey sick?' Why should we quarrel with our existence, here as it lies before -us, our field and inheritance, to make or to mar, for better or for worse; in which, too, so many noblest men have, ever from the beginning, warring with the very evils we war with, both made and been what will be venerated to all time? What shapest thou here at the World?'Tis shapen long ago; The Maker shaped it, he thought it best even so. Thy lot is appointed, go follow its hest; Thy journey's begun, thou must move and not rest; For sorrow and care cannot alter thy case, And running, not raging, will win thee the race.. Meanwhile, of the philosophy which reigns in Werter, and which it has been our lot to hear so often repeated elsewhere, we may here produce a short specimen. The following passage will serve our turn; and be, if we mistake not, new to the mere English reader:'That the life of man is but a dream, has come. into many a head; and with me, too, some feeling of that sort is ever at work. When I look upon the limits within which man's powers of action and inquiry are hemmed in; when I see how all effort issues simply in procuring supply for wants, which again have no object but continuing this poor existence of ours; and then, that all satisfaction on certain points of inquiry is but a dreaming resignation, while you paint, with many-coloured figures and gay prospects, the walls you sit imprisoned by, -all this, Wilhelm, makes me dumb. I return to my own heart, and find there: such a world! Yet a world, too, more in forecast and dim desire, than: in vision and living power. And then all.swims before my mind's eye; and so I smile, and again go dreaming on as others do.'That children know not what they want, all conscientious tutors and education-philosophers have long been agreed: but that fullgrown men, as well as children, stagger to and fro along this earth; VOL. I. 15 22.G MISCELLANIES. like these, not knowing whence they come or whither they go; aiming, just as little, after true objects; governed just as well by biscuit, cakes and birchrods: this is what no one likes to believe; and yet it seems to me, the fact is lying under our very nose.' I will confess to thee, for I know what thou wouldst say to me on this point, that those are the happiest, who, like children, live fromn one day to the other, carrying their dolls about with them, to dress and undress; gliding also, with the highest respect, before the drawer where mamma has locked the gingerbread; and, when they do get the wished-for morsel, devouring it with puffed-out cheeks, and crying, More!- These are the fortunate of the earth. Well is it likewise with those who can label their rag-gathering employments, or perhaps their passions, with pompous titles, and represent them to mankind as gigantic undertakings for its welfare and salvation. Happy the man who can live in such wise! But he who, in his humility, observes where all this issues, who sees how featly any small thriving citizen can trim his patch of garden into a Paradise, and with what unbroken heart eventhe unhappy crawls along under his burden, and all are alike ardent to see the light of this sun but one minute longer; - yes, he is silent, and he too forms his world out of himself, and he too is happy because he is a man. And then, hemmed-in as he is, he ever keeps in his heart the sweet feeling of freedom, and that this dungeon -can be left when he likes:' 1 PWhat Goethe's own temper and habit of thought must have been, while the materials of such a work were forming themselves within his heart, might be in some degree conjectured, and he has himself informed us. We quote the following passage from his Dichtung und Wahrheit. The writing of Werter, it would seem, indicating so gloomy, almost desperate a state of mind in the author, was at the same time a symptom, indeed a cause, of his now having got delivered from such melancholy. Far from recommending suicide to others, as Werter has often been accused of doing, it was the first proof that Goethe himself had abandoned these'hypochondriacal crotchets:' the imaginary'Sorrows' had helped to free him from many real ones.'Such weariness of life,' he says,'has its physical and its spiritual causes; those we shall leave to the Doctor, these to the Moralist, for 1 Leiden des jun.qen Werther. Am 22 May. GOETHE. 227 investigation; and in this so trite matter, touch only on the main point, where that phenomenon expresses itself most distinctly.. All pleasure in life is founded on the regular, return of external things. The alternations of day and night, of the seasons, of the blossoms and fruits, and whatever else meets us from epoch to epoch with the offer and command of enjoyment, - these are the essential springs of earthly existence. The. more open we are to such enjoyments, the happier we feel ourselves; but, should the vicissitude of these appearances come and go without our taking interest in it; should such benignant invitations address themselves to us in vain, then follows the greatest misery, the heaviest malady; one grows to view life as a sickening burden.. We have heard of the Englishman who hanged himself, to be no more troubled with daily putting off and on his clothes. I knew an honest gardener, the overseer of some extensive pleasure-grounds, who once splenetically exclaimed: Shall I see these clouds forever passing, then, from east to west? It is told of one of our most distinguished men,1 that he viewed with dissatisfaction the spring again growing green, and wished that, by way of change, it would for once be red. These -are specially the symptoms of life-weariness, which not seldom issues in suicide, and, at this time, among men of meditative, secluded character, was more frequent than might be supposed.'Nothing, however, will sooner induce this feeling of satiety than the return of love. The first love, it is said justly, is the only one; for in the second, and by the second, the highest significance of love is in fact lost. That idea of infinitude, of everlasting -endurance, which supports and bears it aloft, is destroyed: it seems transient, like all that returns. * * * * * * * * *.'Farther, a young man soon comes to find, if not in himself, at least in others, that moral epochs have their course, as well as the seasons. The favour of the great, the protection of the powerful, the help of the active, the good-will of the many, the love of the few, all fluctuates up and down; so that'we' cannot hold it fast, any more than we can hold sun, moon and stars. And yet these things are not mere natural events: such blessings flee away from us, by our own blame or that of others, by accident or destiny; but they do flee away, they fluctuate, and we are never sure of them.' But what most pains the young man of sensibility is, the incessant return of our faults: for how long is it before we learn, that, in cultivating our virtues, we nourish our faults along with them! The former rest on the latter, as on their roots; and these ramify-them1 Lessing, we believe: but perhaps it was less the greenness of spring that vexed him, than Jacobi's too lyrical admiration of it. - ED. 228 MISCELLANIES. selves in secret as strongly and as wide, as those others in the open light. Now, as we for most part practise our virtues with forethought and will, but by our faults are overtaken unexpectedly, the former seldom give us much joy, the latter are continually giving us sorrow and distress. Indeed, here lies the subtlest difficulty in Selfknowledge, the difficulty which almost renders it impossible. But figure, in addition to all this, the heat of youthful blood, an imagination easily fascinated and paralysed by individual objects; farther, the wavering commotions of the day; and you will find that an impatient striving to free oneself from such a pressure was no unnatural state.'However, these gloomy contemplations, which, if a man yield to them, will lead him to boundless lengths, could not have so decidedly developed themselves in our young German minds, had not some outward cause excited and forwarded us in this sorrowful employment. Such a cause existed for us in the Literature, especially the Poetical Literature, of England, the great qualities of which are accompanied by a certain earnest melancholy, which it imparts to every one that occupies himself with it.' In such an element, with such an environment of circumstances, with studies and tastes of this sort; harassed by unsatisfied desires, externally nowhere called forth to important action; with the sole prospect of dragging on a languid, spiritless, mere civic life, —we had recurred, in our disconsolate pride, to the thought that life, when it. no longer suited one, might be cast aside at pleasure; and had helped ourselves hereby, stintedly enough, over the crosses and tediums of the time. These sentiments were so universal, that Werter, on this very account, could produce the greatest effect; strikingin everywhere with the dominant humour, and representing the interior of a sickly youthful heart, in a visible and palpable shape. How accurately the English have known this sorrow, might be seen from these few significant lines, written before the appearance of Werter: To griefs congenial prone, More wounds than nature gave he knew, While misery's form his fancy drew In dark ideal hues, and horrors not its own.1'Self murder is an occurrence in men's affairs which, how -much soever it may. have already been discussed and commented upon, excites an interest in every mortal; and, at every new era, must be dis-: 1 So in the original. GOETHE. 229 cussed again. Montesquieu confers on his heroes and great men the right of putting themselves to death when they see good; observing, that it:must stand at the will of every one to conclude the Fifth Act of his Tragedy whenever he thinks best. Here, however, our business lies not with persons who, in activity, have led an important life, who have spent their days for some mighty empire, or for the cause of freedom; and whom one may forbear to censure, when, seeing the high ideal purpose which had inspired them vanish from the earth, they meditate pursuing it to that other undiscovered country. Our business here is with persons to whom, properly from wyant of activity, and in the peacefullest condition imaginable, life has nevertheless, by their exorbitant requisitions on themselves, become a burden. As I myself was in this predicament, and know best what pain I suffered in it, what efforts it cost me to escape from it, I shall not hide the speculations I, from time to time, considerately prosecuted, as to the various modes of death one had to choose from.'.It is something so unnatural for a man to break loose from himself, not only to hurt, but to annihilate himself, that he for the most part catches at means of a mechanical sort for putting his purpose in execution. When Ajax falls on his sword, it is the weight of his body that performs this service for him. When the warrior adjures his armour-bearer to slay him, rather than that he come into the hands of the enemy, this is likewise an external force which he secures for himself; only a moral instead of a physical one. Women seek in the water a cooling for their desperation; and the highly mechanical means of pistol-shooting insures a quick act with the smallest effort. Hanging is a death one mentions unwillingly, because it is an ignoble one. In England it may happen more readily than elsewhere, because from youth upwards you there see that punishment frequent without being specially ignominious. By poison, by opening of veins, men aim but at parting slowly from life; and the most refined, the speediest, the most painless death, by means of an asp, was worthy of a Queen, who had spent her life in pomp and luxurious pleasure. All these, however, are external helps; are enemies, with which a man, that he may fight against himself, makes league.'When I considered these various methods, and farther, looked abroad over history, I could find among all suicides no one that had gone about this deed with such greatness and freedom of spirit as the Emperor Otho. This man, beaten indeed as a general, yet nowise reduced to extremities, determines, for the good of the Empire, which already in some measure belonged to him, and for the saving of so many thousands, to leave the world. With his friends he passes a gay festive night, and next morning it is found that with his own 230 MISCELLANIES. hand he has plunged a sharp dagger into his heart. This sole act seemed to me worthy of imitation; and I convinced myself that whoever could not proceed herein as Otho had done, was not entitled to resolve on renouncing life. By this conviction, I saved myself from the purpose, or indeed more properly speaking, from the whim, of suicide, which in those fair peaceful times had insinuated itself into the mind of indolent youth. Among a considerable collection of arms, I possessed a costly, well-ground dagger. This I laid down nightly beside my bed; and before extinguishing the light, I tried whether I could succeed in sending the sharp point an inch or two deep into my breast. But as I truly never could succeed, I at last took to laughing at myself; threw away all these hypochondriacal crotchets, and determined to live. To do this with cheerfulness, however, I required to have some poetical task given me, wherein all that I had felt, thought or dreamed on this weighty business Inight be spoken forth. With such View, I endeavoured to collect the elements which for a year or two had been floating about in me; I represented to myself the circumstances which had most oppressed and afflicted me: but nothing of all this would take form; there was wanting an incident, a fable, in which I might embody it.'All at once I hear tidings of Jerusalem's death; and directly following the general rumour, came the most precise and circumstantial description of the business; and in this instant the plan of Werter was invented: the whole shot together from all sides, and became a solid mass; as the water in the vessel, which already stood on the point of freezing, is by the slightest motion changed at once into firm ice.' A. wide and everyway most important interval divides Werter, with its sceptical philosophy and'hypochondriacal crotchets,' from Goethe's next Novel, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, published some twenty years afterwards. This work belongs, in all senses, to the second and sounder period of Goethe's life, and may indeed serve as the fullest, if perhaps not the purest, impress of it; being written ywith due forethought, at various times, during a period of no less than ten years. Considered as a piece of Art, there were much to be said on Meister; all which, however, lies beyond our present purpose. We are here looking at the work chiefly as a document for the writer's history; and in this point of 1 Dichtung und Wcahrheit, b. iii. s. 200-213. GOETHE. 231 view, it certainly seems, as contrasted with its more popular precursor, to deserve our best attention: for the problem which had been stated in Werter, with despair of its solution, is here solved. The lofty enthusiasm, which, wandering wildly over the universe, found no resting-place, has here reached its appointed home; and lives in harmony with what long appeared to threaten it with annihilation. Anarchy has now become Peace; the once gloomy and perturbed spirit is now serene, cheerfully vigorous, and rich in good fruits. Neither, which is most important of all, has this Peace been attained by a surrender to Necessity, or any compact with Delusion; a seeming blessing, such as years and dispiritment will of themselves bring to most men, and which is indeed no blessing, since even continued battle is better than destruction or captivity; and peace of this sort is like that of Galgacus's Romans, who'called it peace when they had made a desert.' Here the ardent high-aspiring youth has grown into the calmest man, yet with increase and not loss of ardour, and with aspirations higher as well as clearer. For he has conquered his unbelief; the Ideal has been built on the Actual; no longer floats vaguely in darkness and regions of dreams, but rests in light, on the firm ground of human interest and business, as in its true scene, on its true basis. It is wonderful to see with what softness the scepticism of Jarno, the commercial spirit of Werner, the reposing polished manhood of Lothario and the Uncle, the unearthly enthusiasm of the Harper, the gay animal vivacity of Philina, the mystic, ethereal, almost spiritual nature of Mignon, are blended together in this work; how justice is done to each, how each lives freely in his proper element, in his proper form; and how, as Wilhelm himself, the mild-hearted, allhopin'g,_ all-believing Wilhelm, struggles, forward towards his world of Art through these curiously complected influences, all this unites itself into a multifarious, yet so harmonious Whole; as into a clear poetic mirror, where man's life and business in this age, his passions and purposes, the highest 232 MISCELLANIES. equally with the lowest, are imaged back to us in beautiful significance. Poetry and Prose are no longer at variance; for the poet's eyes are opened: he sees the changes of many-, coloured existence, and sees the loveliness and deep purport which lies hidden under the very meanest of them; hidden to the vulgar sight, but clear to the poet's; because the' open secret' is no longer a secret to him, and he knows that the Universe is full of goodness; that whatever has being has beauty. Apart from its literary merits or demerits, such- is the temper of mind we trace in Goethe's Meister, and, more or less expressly exhibited, in all his later works. We reckon it a rare phenomenon, this temper; and worthy, in our times, if it do exist, of best study from all inquiring men. How has such a temper been attained in this so lofty and impetuous mind, once too, dark, desolate and full of doubt, more than any other? How may we, each of us in his several sphere, attain it, or strengthen it, for ourselves? These are questions, this last is a question, in which no one is unconcerned. To answer these questions, to begin the answer of them, would lead us very far beyond our present limits. It is not, as we believe, without long, sedulous study, without learning much and unlearning much, that, for any man, the answer of such questions is even to be hoped. Meanwhile, as regards Goethe, there is one feature of the business which, to us, throws considerable light oh his moral persuasions, and will not, in investigating the secret of them, be overlooked. We allude to the spirit in which he cultivates his Art; the noble, disinterested, almost religious love with which he looks on Art in general, and strives towards it as towards the sure, highest, nay only good. We extract one passage from Wilhelm Meister: it may pass for a piece of fine declamation, but'not in that light do we offer it here. Strange, unaccountable as the thing may seem, we have actually evidence before our mind that Goethe believes in such doctrines, nay has in some sort lived and endeavoured to direct his conduct by them. GOETHE. 233 "'Look at men," continues Wilhelm, "how they struggle after happiness and satisfaction! Their wishes, their toil, their gold, are ever hunting restlessly; and after what? After that which the Poet has received from nature; the right enjoyment of the world; the feeling of himself in others; the harmonious conjunction of many things that will seldom go together. "' What is it that keeps men in continual discontent and agitation? It is that they cannot make realities correspond with their conceptions, that enjoyment steals away from among their hands, that the wished-for comes too late, and nothing reached and acquired produces on the heart the effect which their longing for it at a distance led them to anticipate. Now fate has exalted the Poet above all this, as if he were a god. He views the conflicting tumult of the passions; sees families and kingdoms raging in aimless commotion; sees those perplexed enigmas of misunderstanding, which often a single syllable would explain, occasioning convulsions unutterably baleful. He has a fellow-feeling of the mournful and the joyful in the fate of all mortals. When the man of the world is devoting his days to wasting melancholy for some deep disappointment; or, in the ebullience of joy, is going out to meet his happy destiny, the lightlymoved and all-conceiving spirit of the Poet steps forth, like the sun from night to day, and with soft transition tunes his harp to joy or woe. From his heart, its native soil, springs the fair flower of Wisdom; and if others while waking dream, and are pained with fantastic -delusions from their every sense, he passes the dream of life like one awake, and the strangest event is to him nothing, save a part of the past and of the future. And thus the Poet is a teacher, a prophet, a friend of gods and men. How! Thou wouldst have him descend from his height to some paltry occupation? He who is fashioned, like a bird, to hover round the world, to nestle on the lofty summits, to feed on flowers and fruits, exchanging gaily one bough for another, he ought also to work at the plough like an ox; like a dog to train himself to the harness and draught; or perhaps, tied up inm achain, to guard a farm-yard by his barking? "' Werner, it may well be supposed, had listened with the greatest surprise. "All true," he rejoined, "if men were but made like birdS; and, though they neither span nor weaved, could spend peaceful days in perpetual enjoyment: if, at the approach of winter, they coi4d as easily betake themselves to distant regions; could retire before scarcity, aid fortify themselves against frost."'" Poets have lived so," exclaimed Wilhelm, "in times when true nobleness was better reverenced; and so should they ever live. Sufficiently provided for within, they had need of little from without; the gift of imparting lofty emotions, and glorious iniages to 234 MISCELLANIES. men, in melodies and words that charmed the ear, and fixed themselves inseparably on whatever they might touch, of old enraptured the world, and served the gifted as a rich inheritance. At the courts of kings, at the tables of the great, under the windows of the fair, the sound of them was heard, while the ear and the soul were shut for all beside; and men felt, as we do when delight comes over us, and we pause with rapture if, among the dingles we are crossing, the voice. of the nightingale starts out, touching and strong. They found a home in every habitation of the world, and the lowliness-of their condition but exalted them the more. The hero listened to their songs, and the Conqueror of the Earth did reverence to a Poet; for he felt that, without poets, his own wild and vast existence would pass away like a whirlwind, and be forgotten forever. The lover wished that he could feel his longings and joys so variedly and so harmoniously as the Poet's inspired lips had skill to show them forth; and even the rich man could not of himself discern such costliness in his idol grandeurs, as when they were presented to him shining in the splendour of the Poet's spirit, sensible to all worth, and ennobling all. Nay, if thou wilt have it, who but the Poet was it that first formed Gods for us; that exalted us to them, and brought them down to us "' 1 For a man of Goethe's talent to write many such pieces of rhetoric, setting forth the dignity of poets, and their innate independence on external circumstances, could be no very hard task; accordingly, we find such sentiments again and again expressed, sometimes with still more gracefulness, still clearer emphasis, in his various writings. But to adopt these sentiments into his sober practical persuasion; in any measure to feel and believe that such was still, and must always be, the high vocation of the poet; on this ground of universal humanity, of ancient and now almost forgotten nobleness, to take his stand, even in these trivial, jeering, withered, unbelieving days; and through all their complex, dispiriting, mean, yet tumultuous influences, to'make his light shine before men,' that it might beautify even our'rag-gather-in age' with some beams of that mild, divine splendour, which had long left us, the very possibility of which was denied: heartily and in earnest to meditate all this, was no common 1 Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, book ii. chap. 2. GOETHE. 235 proceeding; to bring it into practice, especially in such a life as his has been, was among the highest and hardest enterprises which any man whatever could engage in. We reckon this a greater novelty, than all the novelties which as a mere writer he ever put forth, whether for praise or censure. We have taken it upon us to say that if such is, in any sense, the state of the case with regard to Goethe, he deserves not mere approval as a pleasing poet and sweet singer; but deep, grateful study, observance, imitation, as a Moralist and Philosopher. If there be any probability that such is the state of the case, we cannot but reckon it a matter well worthy of being inquired into. And it is for this only that we are here pleading and arguing. On the literary merit and meaning of Wilhelm Meister we have already said that we must not enter at present. The book has been translated into English: it underwent the usual judgment from our Reviews and Magazines; was to some a stone of stumbling, to others foolishness, to most an object of wonder. On the whole, it passed smoothly through the critical Assaying-house; for the Assayers have Christian dispositions, and very little time; so Meister was ranked, without umbrage, among the legal coin of the Minerva Press; and allowed to circulate as copper currency among the rest. That in so quick a process, a German Friedrich d'or might not slip through unnoticed among new and equally brilliant British brass Farthings, there is no warranting. For our critics can now criticise impromptu, which, though far the readiest, is nowise the surest plan. Meister is the mature-product of the first genius of our times; and must, one would think, be different, in various respects, from the immature products of geniuses who are far from the first, and whose works spring from the brain in as many weeks as Goethe's cost him years. Nevertheless, we quarrel with no man's verdict; for Time, which tries all things, will try this also, and bring to light the truth, both as regards criticism and thing criticised; or sink 236 MISCELLANIES. both into final darkness, which likewise will be the truth as regards them. But there is one censure which we must advert to for a moment, so singular does it seem to. us. JMeister, it appears, is a'vulgar' work; no'gentleman,' we hear in certain circles, could have written it; few real gen-: tlemen, it is insinuated, can like to read it; no real lady,unless possessed of considerable courage, should profess having read it at all. Of Goethe's' gentility' we shall leave all men to speak that have any, even the faintest knowledge of him; and with regard to the gentility of his readers, state. only the following fact. Most of us have heard of the late Queen of Prussia, and know whether or not she was genteel enough, and of real ladyhood:' nay, if we must prove every-: thing, her character can be read in the Life of Napoleon, by Sir Walter Scott, who passes for a judge of those matters. And yet this is what we find written in the Kunst und Alterthum for 1824:1'Books too have their past happiness, which no chance can take away: Wer nie sein Brod mit Thrianen ass, Wer nicht die kummervollen Ndchte Auf seinemn Bette weinend sass, Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mdchte.2'These heart-broken lines a highly noble-minded, venerated Queen repeated in the cruellest exile, when cast forth to boundless misery. She made herself familiar with the Book in which these words, with' many other painful experiences, are communicated, and drew from. it a melancholy consolation. This influence, stretching of itself into boundless time, what is there that can obliterate V' Here are strange diversities of taste;'national discrepancies' enough, had we time to investigate them! Nevertheless, wishing each party to retain his own special persuasions. so far as they are honest, and adapted to his intellectual 1 Band v. s. 8. 2 Who never ate his bread in sorrow, Who never spent the darksome hours Weeping and watching for the morrow, He knows you not, ye unseen Powers. Wilhelm Meister, book ii. chap. 13. GOETHE. 237 position, national or individual, we cannot but believe that there is an inward and essential Truth in Art; a Truth far deeper than the dictates of mere Mode, and which, could we pierce through these dictates, would be true for all nations and all men. To arrive at this Truth, distant from every one at first, approachable by most, attainable by some small number, is the end and aim of all real study of Poetry. For such a purpose, among others, the comparison of English with foreign judgment, on works that will bear judging, forms- no unprofitable help. Some day, we may translate Friedrich, Schlegel's Essay on Meister, by way of contrast to our English animadversions on that subject. Schlegel's praise, whatever ours might do, rises sufficiently high: neither does he seem, during twenty years, to have repented of what he said; for we observe in the edition of his works, at present publishing, he repeats the whole COaracter, and even appends to it, in a separate sketch, some new assurances and elucidations.:-It may deserve to be mentioned here that Meister, at its first appearance in Germany, was received very much as it has been in England. Goethe's known character, indeed, precluded indifference there; but otherwise it was much the same. The whole guild of criticism was thrown into perplexity, into sorrow; everywhere was dissatisfaction open or concealed. Official duty impelling them to speak, some said one thing, some another; all felt in secret that they knew not what to say. Till the appearance of Schlegel's Character, no word, that we have seen: of the smallest chance to be decisive, or indeed to last beyond the day, had been uttered regarding it. Some regretted that the fire of Werter was: so wonderfully abated; whisperings there might be about' lwness,''heaviness;' some spake forth boldly in behalf of suffering' virtue.' Novalis was not among the speakers, but he censured the work in secret, and this for a reason which to us will seem the strangest; for its being, as we should say, a Benthamite work! Many are the bitter aphorisms we 238 MISCELLANIES. find, among his Fragments, directed against Meister for its prosaic, mechanical, economical, coldhearted, altogether Utilitarian character. We English again call Goethe a mystic:. so difficult is it to please all parties! But the good, deep, noble Novalis made the fairest amends; for notwithstanding all this, Tieck tells us, if we remember rightly, he continually returned to Meister, and could not but peruse and reperuse it. On a somewhat different ground proceeded quite another sort of assault from one Pustkucher of Quedlinburg. Herr: Pustkucher felt afflicted, it would seem, at the want of Patriotism and Religion too manifest in Meister; and determined to take what vengeance he could. By way of sequel to the Apprenticeship, Goethe had announced his Wilhelm Mieisters Wanderjahre,' as in a state of preparation; but the book still lingered: whereupon, in the interim, forth comes this Pustkucher with a Pseudo- Wanderjahre of his own; satirising, according to ability, the spirit and principles of the Apprenticeship. We have seen an epigram on Pustkucher and his Wanderjahre, attributed, with what justice we know not, to Goethe himself: whether it is his or not, it is written in his name; and seems to express accurately enough for such a purpose the relation between the parties, -in language which we had rather not translate: Will denn vor Quedlinburg aus Ein neuer Wanderer traben? Hat doch die Wallftsch seine Laus, Muss auch die meine haben. 1'Wanderiahre denotes the period which a German artisan is, by law'or usage, obliged to pass in travelling, to perfect himself in his craft,'after the conclusion of his Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship), and before his'Mastership can begin. In many guilds this custom is as old as their ex-'istence, and continues still to be indispensable: it is said to have originated in the frequent journeys of the German Emperors to Italy, and: the' consequent improvement observed in such workmen among their menials'as had attended them thither. Most of the guilds are what is called' geschenkten, that is, presenting, having presents to give to needy wander-' ing brothers.' GOETHE. 239 So much for Pustkucher, and the rest. The true Wanderjahre has at length appeared: the first volume has been before the world since 1821. This Fragment, for it still continues such, is in our view one of the most perfect pieces of composition that Goethe has ever produced. We have heard something of his being at present engaged in extending or completing it: what the whole may in his hands become, we are anxious to see; but the Wanderjahre, even in its actual state, can hardly be called unfinished, as a piece of writing; it coheres so beautifully within itself; and yet we see not whence the wondrous landscape came, or whither it is stretching; but it hangs before us as a fairy region, hiding its borders on this side in light sunny clouds, fading away on that into the infinite azure: already, we might almost say, it gives us the notion of a completed fragment, or the state in which a fragment, not meant for completion, might be left.:But apart from its environment, and considered merely in itself, this Wanderjahre seems to us a most estimable work. There is, in truth, a singular gracefulness in it; a high, melodious Wisdom; so light is it, yet so earnest; so calm, so gay, yet so strong and deep: for the purest spirit of all Art rests over it and breathes through it;' mild Wisdom is wedded in living union to Harmony divine;' the Thought of the Sage is melted, we might say, and incorporated in the liquid music of the Poet.' It is called a Romance,' observes the English Translator;' but it treats not of romance char-'acters or subjects; it has less relation to Fielding's Tom'Jones, than to Spenser's Faery Queen.' We have not forgotten what is due to Spenser; yet, perhaps, beside his immortal allegory this Wanderjahre may, in fact, not unfairly be named; and with this advantage, that it is an allegory not of the Seventeenth century, but of the Nineteenth; a picture full of expressiveness, of what men are striving for, and ought to strive for, in these actual days.'The scene,' we are further told,'is not laid on this firm earth; but in a 240 MISCELLANIES.'fair Utopia of Art and Science and free Activity; the'figures, light and airiform, come unlooked for, and melt'away abruptly, like the pageants of Prospero, in his En-'chanted Island.' We venture to add, that, like Prospero's Island, this too is drawn from the inward depths, the purest sphere of poetic inspiration: ever,-as we read it, the images of old Italian Art flit before us; the gay tints of Titian; the quaint grace of Domenichino; sometimes the clear yet unfathomable depth of Rafaelle; and whatever else we have known or dreamed of in that rich old genial World. As it is Goethe's moral sentiments, and culture as a man, that we have made our chief object in this survey, we would fain give some adequate specimen of the Wanderjahre, where, as appears to us, these are to be traced in their last degree of clearness and completeness. But to do this, to find a specimen that should be adequate, were difficult, or rather impossible. How shall we divide what is in itself one and indivisible? How shall the fraction of a complex picture give us any idea of the so beautiful whole? Nevertheless, we shall refer our readers to the Tenth and Eleventh Chapters of the Wanderjahre; where, in poetic and symbolic style, they will find a sketch of the nature, objects and present ground of Religious Belief, which, if they have ever reflected duly on that matter, will hardly fail to interest them. They will find these chapters, if we mistake not, worthy of deep consideration; for this is the merit of Goethe: his maxims will bear study; nay they- require it, and improve by it more and more. They come from the depths of his mind, and are not in their place till they have reached the depths of ours. The wisest man, we believe, may see in them a reflex of his own wisdom: but to him who is still learning, they become as seeds of knowledge; they take root in the mind, and ramify, as we meditate them, into a whole garden of thought. The sketch we mentioned is far too long for being extracted here: however, we give some scattered portions of it, which the reader will accept with fair allowance. GOETHE. 241 As'the'wild suicidal Night-thoughts of Werter formed our first extract, this by way of counterpart may be the last. We must fancy Wilhelm in the'Pedagogic province,' proceeding towards the'CHIEF, or the THREE,' with intent to place his son under their charge, in that wonderful region,'where he was to see so many singularities.''Wilhelm had already noticed that in the cut and colour of the young people's clothes a variety prevailed, which gave the whole -tiny population'a peculiar'aspect: he was about to question his attendant on this point, when a still stranger observation forced itself -upon him: ail the children, how employed soever, laid down their work, and turned, with singular yet diverse gestures, towards the party riding past them; or rather, as it was easy to infer, towards the Overseer, who was in it. The youngest laid their arms crosswise over their breasts, and looked cheerfully up to the sky; those of, middle size held their hands on their backs, and looked smiling on the ground; the eldest stood with a frank and spirited air, - their arms stretched down, they turned their. heads to the right, and'formed themselves into a line; whereas the others kept separate, each where he chanced to be.' The riiders having stopped and dismounted here, as several children, in their various modes, were standing forth to be inspected by the Overseer, Wilhelm asked the meaning of these gestures; but Felix struck-in and cried gaily: "What posture am I to take then?"'"Without doubt," said' the Overseer, "the first posture: the arms'oover the breast, the face earnest and cheerful towards the sky," Felix obeyed,: but soon cried: "This is not much to my taste; I see nothing up there: does it last long?'But yes! " exclaimed he joyfully, " yonder are a pair of falcons flying from the west to the east: that is a good sign too? " -" As thou takest it, as thou behavest,".said the other: "Now mingle among them as'they mingle." He *-gave a signal, and the children left their postures, and again betook:ftiem to work or sport as before.' WVilhelm a second time'asks the meaning of these ges-';tuires;' but the Overseer is not at liberty to throw much 1i'ght on the matter; mentions only that they are symbolical, -- iowise mere grimaces, but have a moral purport, which perh4lhaps the CHIEF, or the THREE may farther explain to him.' The children themselves, it would seem, only know it in part;' secrecy having many advantages; for when you tell VOL. 1. 16 242 MISCELLANIES.'a man at once and straightforward the purpose of any ob'ject, he fancies there is nothing in it.' By and by, however: having left Felix by the way, and parted with the Overseer, Wilhelm arrives at the abode of the Three'who preside over sacred things,' and from whom farther satisfaction is to be looked for.'Wilhelm had now reached the gate of a wooded vale, surrounded with high walls: on a certain sign, the little door opened, and a man of earnest, imposing look received our Traveller. The latter found himself in a large beautifully umbrageous space, decked with the richest foliage, shaded with trees and bushes of all sorts; while stately walls and magnificent buildings were discerned only in glimpses through this thick natural boscage. A friendly reception from the Three, who by and by appeared, at last turned into a general conversation, the substance of which we now present in an abbreviated shape. "' Since you entrust your son to us," said they, "it is fair that we admit you to a closer view of our procedure. Of what is external you have seen much that does not bear its meaning on its front. What part of this do you wish to have explained "'"Dignified yet singular gestures of salutation I have noticed; the import of which I would gladly learn: with you, doubtless, the exterior has a reference to the interior, and inversely; let me know what this reference is." "'Well-formed healthy children," replied the Three, "bring much into the world along with them; Nature has given to each whatever he requires for time and duration; to unfold this is our duty; often it unfolds itself better of its own accord. One thing there is, however, which no child brings into the world with him; and yet it is on this one thing that all depends for making man in every point a man. If you can discover it yourself, speak it out." Wilhelm thought a little while, then shook his head.'The Three, after a suitable pause, exclaimed, "Reverence!" Wilhelm seemed to hesitate. "Reverence!" cried they, a second time. " All want it, perhaps yourself."'"Three kinds of gestures you have seen; and we inculcate a threefold reverence, which when commingled and formed into one whole, attains its fiull force and effect. The first is Reverence for what is Above us. That posture, the arms crossed over the breast, the look turned joyfully towards heaven; that is what we have enjoined on young children; requiring from them thereby a testimony that there is a God above, who images and reveals himself in parents, GOETHE. 243 teachers, superiors. Then comes the second; Reverence for what is Under us. Those hands folded over the back, and as it were tied together; that down-turned smiling look, announce that we are to regard the earth with attention and cheerfulness: from the bounty of the earth we are nourished; the earth affords unutterable joys; but disproportionate sorrows she also brings us. Should one of our children do himself external hurt, blamably or blamelessly; should others hurt him accidentally or purposely; should dead involuntary matter do him hurt; then let him well consider it; for such dangers will attend him all his days. But from this posture we delay not to free our pupil, the instant we become convinced that the instruction connected with it has produced sufficient influence on him. Then, on the contrary, we bid him gather courage, and, turning to his comrades, range himself along with them. Now, at last, he stands forth, frank and bold; not selfishly isolated; only in combination with his equals does he front the world. Farther we have nothing to add." "'I see a glimpse of it! " said Wilhelm. "Are not the mass of men so marred and stinted, because they take pleasure only in the element of evil-wishing and evil-speaking? Whoever gives himself to this, soon comes to be indifferent towards God, contemptuous towards the world, spiteful towards his equals; and the true, genuine, indispensable sentiment of self-estimation corrupts into self-conceit and presumption. Allow me, however," continued he, "to state one difficulty. You say that reverence is not natural to man: now has not the reverence or fear of rude people for violent convulsions of nature, or other inexplicable mysteriously foreboding occurrences, been heretofore regarded as the germ out of which a higher feeling, a purer sentiment, was by degrees to be developed?" "' Nature is indeed adequate to fear," replied they, "but to reverence not adequate. Men fear a known or unknown powerful being; the strong seeks to conquer it, the weak to avoid it; both endeavour to get quit of it, and feel themselves happy when for a short season they have put it aside, and their nature has in some degree restored itself to freedom and independence. The natural man repeats this operation millions of times in the course of his life; from fear he struggles to freedom; from freedom he is driven back to fear, and so makes no advancement. To fear is easy, but grievous; to reverence is difficult, but satisfactory. Man does not willingly submit himself to reverence; or rather he never so submits himself: it is a higher sense which must be communicated to his nature; which only in some favoured individuals unfolds itself spontaneously, who on this account too have of old been looked upon as Saints and Gods. Here lies the worth, here lies the business of all true Religions, whereof 244 MISCELLANIES. there are likewise only three, according to the objects towards which they direct our devotion."'The men paused; Wilhelm reflected for a time in silence; but feeling in himself no pretension to unfold these strange words, he requested the Sages to proceed with their exposition. They immediately complied. "No Religion that grounds itself on fear," said they, "is regarded among us. With the reverence to which a man should give dominion in his mind, he can, in paying honour, keep: his own honour; he is not disunited with himself as in the former case. The Religion which depends on Reverence for what is Above us, we denominate the Ethnic; it is the Religion of the Nations, and the first happy deliverance from a degrading fear: all Heathen religions, as we ball them, are of this sort, whatsoever names they may bear. The Second Religion, which founds itself on Reverence for what is Around us, we denominate the Philosophical; for the Philosopher stations himself in the middle, and must draw down to him all that is higher, and up to him all that is lower, and only in this medium condition does he merit the title of Wise. Here as he surveys with clear sight his relation to his equals, and therefore to the whole human race, his relation likewise to all other earthly circumstances and arrangements necessary or accidental, he alone, in a cosmic sense, lives in Truth. But now we have to speak of the Third Religion, grounded on Reverence for what is Under us: thiswe name the Christian; as in the Christian Religion such a temper is the most distinctly manifested: it is a last step to which mankind were fitted and destined to attain. But what a task was it, not' only to be patient with the Earth, and let it lie beneath us, we appealing to a higher birthplace; but also to recognise humility and poverty, mockery and despite, disgrace and wretchedness, suffering and death, to recognise these things as divine; nay, even on sin and crime to look not as hindrances, but to honour and love them as. furtherances, of what is holy. Of this, indeed, we find some traces in all ages: but the trace is not the goal; and this being now attained, the human species cannot retrograde; and we may say that the Christian Religion, having once appeared, cannot again vanish; having once assumed its divine shape, can be subject to no dissolu-, tion.'" To which of these Religions do you specially adhere?" inquired Wilhelm.'" To all the three," replied they, "for in their union they produce what may properly be called the true Religion. Out of those three Reverences springs the highest Reverence, Reverence for Oneself, and these again unfold themselves from this; so that man attains the highest elevation of which he is capable, that of being GOETHE. 2 45 justified in reckoning himself the Best that God and Nature have produced; nay, of being able to continue on this lofty eminence, without being again by self-conceit and presumption'drawn down from it into the vulgar level."' The Three undertake to admit him into the interior of their Sanctuary; whither, accordingly, he,'at the hand of the Eldest,' proceeds on the morrow. Sorry are we that we cannot follow them into the'octagonal hall,' so full of paintings, and the' gallery open on one side, and stretching round'a spacious, gay, flowery garden.' It is a beautiful figurative representation, by pictures and symbols of Art, of the First and the Second Religions, the'Ethnic and the Philosophical; for the former of which the pictures have been composed from the Old Testament; for the latter from the New. We can only make room for some small portions. "'I observe," said Wilhelm, "you have done the Israelites the honour to select their history as the groundwork of this delineation, or rather you have made it the leading object there."' "As you see," replied the Eldest; " for you will remark, that on the socles and friezes we have introduced another series of transactions and occurrences, not so much of a synchronistic as of a symphronistic kind; since, among all nations, we discover records of a similar import, and grounded on the same facts. Thus you perceive here, while, in the main field of the picture, Abraham receives a visit from his gods, in the form of fair youths, Apollo among the herdsmen of Admetus is painted above on the frieze. From which we may learn, that the gods, when they appear to men, are commonly unrecognised of them."'The friends walked on. Wilhelm, for the most part, met with well-known objects; but they were here exhibited in a livelier, more expressive manner, than he had been used to see them. On some few matters he requested explanation, and at last could not help returning to his former question: " Why the Israelitish history had been chosen in preference to all others "' The Eldest answered: " Among all Heathen religions, for such also is the Israelitish, this has the most distinguished advantages; of which I shall mention only a few. At the Ethnic judgment-seat; at the judgment-seat of the God of Nations, it is not asked whether this is the best, the most excellent nation; but whether it lasts, whether it has continued. The Israelitish people never was good for 246 MISCELLANIES. much, as its own leaders, judges, rulers, prophets, have a thousand times reproachfully declared; it-possesses few virtues, and most of the faults of other nations: but in cohesion, stedfastness, valour, and when all this would not serve, in obstinate toughness, it has no match. It is the most perseverant nation in the world; it is, it was and it will be, to glorify the name of Jehovah through all ages. We have set it up, therefore, as the pattern figure; as the main figure, to which the others only serve as a frame."' It becomes not me to dispute with you," said Wilhelm, "since you have instruction to impart. Open to me, therefore, the other advantages of this people, or rather of its history, of its religion."'?'" One chief advantage," said the other, "is its excellent collection of Sacred Books. These stand so happily combined together, that even out of the most diverse elements, the feeling of a whole,still rises before us. They are complete enough to satisfy; fragmentary enough to excite; barbarous enough to rouse; tender enough to appease; and for how many other contradicting merits might not these Books, might not this one Book, be praised?"'Thus wandering on, they had now reached the gloomy and perplexed periods of the History, the destruction of the City and the Temple, the murder, exile, slavery of whole masses of this stiffnecked people. Its subsequent fortunes were delineated in a cunningallegorical way; a real historical delineation of them would have lain without the limits of true Art.'At this point, the gallery abruptly terminated in a closed door, and Wilhelm was surprised to see himself already at the end. "In your historical series," said he, "'I find a chasm. You have destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem, and dispersed the people; yet you have not introduced the divine Man who taught there shortly before; to whom, shortly before, they would give no ear."'" To have done this, as you require it, would have been an error. The life of that divine Man, whom you allude to, stands in no connexion with the general history of the world in his time. It was a private life; his teaching was a teaching for individuals. What has publicly befallen vast masses of people, and the minor parts which compose them, belongs to the general History of the World, to the general Religion of the World, the Religion we have named the First. What inwardly befalls individuals belongs to the Second Religion, the Philosophical: such a Religion was it that Christ taught and practised, so long as he went about on Earth. For this reason, the external here closes, and I now open to you the internal." GOETHE. 247'A door went back, and they entered a similar gallery; where Wilhelm soon recognised a corresponding series of Pictures from the New Testament. They seemed as if by another hand than the first: all was softer;' forms, movements, accompaniments, light and colouring.' Into this second gallery, with its strange doctrine about'Miracles and Parables,' the characteristic of the Philosophical Religion, we cannot enter for the present, yet must give one hurried glance. Wilhelm expresses some surprise that these delineations terminate "with the Supper, with the scene where the Master and his Disciples part." He inquires for the remaining portion of the history.'" In all sorts of instruction," said the Eldest, "in all sorts of communication, we are fond of separating whatever it is possible to separate; for by this means alone can the notion of importance and peculiar significance arise in the young mind. Actual experience of itself mingles and mixes all things together: here, accordingly, we:have entirely disjoined that sublime Man's life from its termination. In life, he appears as a true Philosopher, —let not the expression stagger you, - as a Wise Man in the -highest sense. He stands firm to his point; he goes on his way inflexibly, and while he exalts the lower to himself, while he makes the ignorant, the poor, the sick, partakers of his wisdom, of his riches, of his strength, he, on the other hand, in nowise conceals his divine origin; he dares to equal ihimself with God, nay to declare that he himself is God. In this manner he is wont, from youth upwards, to astound his familiar friends; of these he gains a part to his own cause; irritates the rest against him; and shows to all men, who are aiming at a certain elevation in doctrine and life, what they have to look for from the world. And thus, for the noble portion of mankind, his walk and conversation are even more instructive and profitable than his death: for to those trials every one is called, to this trial but a few. Now, omitting all that results from this consideration, do but look at the touching scene of the Last Supper. Here the Wise Man, as it ever is, leaves those that are his own, utterly orphaned behind him; and while he is careful for the Good, he feeds along with them a traitor, by whom he and the Better are to be destroyed."' This seems to'us to have'a deep, still meaning;' and the longer and. closer we examine it, the more it pleases us. 248 MISCELLANIES. Wilhelm is not admitted into the shrine of the Third Religion, the Christian, or that of which Christ's sufferings and death were the symbol, as his walk and conversation had been the symbol of the Second, or Philosophical Religion. " That last Religion," it is said,"' That last Religion, which arises from the Reverence of what is Beneath us; that veneration of the contradictory, the hated, the avoided, we give to each of our pupils, in small portions, by way of outfit, along with him into the world, merely that he may know where more is to be had, should such a want spring up within him. I invite you to return hither at the end of a year, to attend our general Festival, and see how far your son is advanced: then shall you be admitted into the Sanctuary of Sorrow."' " Permit me one question," said Wilhelm: " as you have set up the life of this divine Man for a pattern and example, have you likewise selected his sufferings, his death, as a model of exalted patience "'" Undoubtedly we have," replied the Eldest. " Of this we make no secret; but we draw a veil over those sufferings, even because we reverence them so highly. We hold it a damnable audacity to bring forth that torturing Cross, and the Holy One who suffers on it, or to expose them to the light of the Sun, which hid its face when a reckless world forced such a sight on it; to take these mysterious secrets, in which the divine depth of Sorrow lies hid, and play with them, fondle them, trick them out, and rest not till the most reverend of all solemnities appears vulgar and paltry. Let so much for the present suffice- -* * The rest we must still owe you for a twelvemonth. The instruction, which in the interim we give the children, no stranger is allowed to witness: then, however, come to us, and you will hear what our best Speakers think it serviceable to make public on those matters."' Could we hope that, in its present disjointed state, this emblematic sketch would rise before the minds of our readers, in any measure as it stood before the mind of the writer; that, in considering it, they might seize only an outline of those many meanings which, at less or greater depth, lie hidden under it, we should anticipate their thanks for having, a first or a second time, brought it before them. As it is, believing that, to open-minded truth-seeking men, the GOETHE. 249 deliberate words of an open-minded truth-seeking man can in no case be wholly unintelligible, nor the words of such a man as Goethe indifferent, we have transcribed it for their perusal. If we induce them to turn to the original, and study this in its completeness, with so much else that environs it, and bears on it, they will thank us still more. To our own judgment at least, there is a fine and pure significance in this whole delineation: such phrases even as'the Sanctuary of Sorrow,''the divine depth of Sorrow,' have of themselves a pathetic wisdom for us; as indeed a tone of devoutness, of calm, mild, priest-like dignity pervades the whole. In a time like ours, it is rare to see, in the writings of cultivated men, any opinion whatever bearing any mark of sincerity on such a subject as this: yet it is and continues the highest subject, and they that are highest'are most fit for studying it, and helping others to study it. Goethe's JWanderjahre was published in his seventy-second year; Werter in his twenty-fifth: thus in passing between these two works, and over Meisters Lehrjahre, which stands nearly midway, we have glanced over a space of almost fifty years, including within them, of course, whatever was most important in his public or private history. By means of these quotations, so diverse in their tone, we meant to make it visible that a great change had taken place in the moral disposition of the man; a change from inward imprisonment, doubt and discontent, into freedom, belief and clear activity: such a change as, in our opinion, must take place, more or less consciously, in every character that, especially in these times, attains to spiritual manhood; and in characters possessing any thoughtfulness and sensibility, will seldom take place without a too painful consciousness, without bitter conflicts, in which the character itself is too often maimed and impoverished, and which end too often not in victory, but in defeat, or- fatal compromise with the enemy. Too often, we may well say; for thoutgh many gird on the har 250 MISCELLANIES. ness, few bear it warrior-like; still fewer put it off with triumph. Among our own poets, Byron was almost the only man we saw faithfully and manfully struggling, to the end, in this cause; and he died while the victory was still doubt*ful, or at best, only beginning to be gained. We have already stated our opinion, that Goethe's success in this matter has been more complete than that of any other man in his age; nay that, in the strictest sense, he may almost be called the only one that has so succeeded. On this ground, were it on no other, we have ventured to say, that his spiritual history and procedure must deserve attention; that his opinions, his creations, his mode of thought, his whole picture of the world as it dwells within him, must to his contemporaries be an inquiry of no common interest; of an interest altogether peculiar, and not in this degree exampled in existing literature. These things can be but imperfectly stated here, and must be left, not in a state of demonstration, but at the utmost, of loose fluctuating probability; nevertheless, if inquired into, they will be found to have a precise enough meaning, and, as we believe, a highly important one. For the rest, what sort of mind it is that has passed through this change, that has gained this victory; how rich and high a mind; how learned by study in all that is wisest, by experience in all that is most complex, the brightest as -well as the blackest, in man's existence; gifted with what insight, with what grace and power of utterance, we shall not for the present attempt discussing. All these the reader will learn, who studies his writings with such attention ias they merit: and by no other means. Of Goethe's dramatic, lyrical, didactic poems, in their thousandfold expressiveness, for they are full of expressiveness, we can here say nothing. But in every department of Literature, of Art ancient:and modern, in many provinces of Science, we shall often meet him; and hope to have other occasions of estimating what, in these respects, we and all men owe him. GOETHE. 2 51 Two circumstances, meanwhile, we have remarked, which to us throw light on the nature of his original faculty for -Poetry, and go far to convince us of the Mastery he has attained in that art: these we may here state briefly, for the.judgment of such as already know his writings, or the help -of such as are beginning to know them. The first is, his singularly emblematic intellect; his perpetual never-failing tendency to transform into shape, into life, the opinion, the:feeling that may dwell in him; which, in its widest sense,' we reckon to be essentially the grand problem of the Poet. We do not mean mere metaphor and rhetorical trope: these are'but the exterior concern, often but the scaffolding of the'edifice, which is to be built up (within our thoughts) by means of them. In allusions, in similitudes, though no one -known to us is happier, many are more copious than Goethe. But we find this faculty of his in the very essence of his.intellect; and trace it alike in the quiet cunning epigram, the allegory, the quaint device, reminding us of some Quarles or Bunyan; and in the Fausts, the Tassos, the Mignons, which in their pure and genuine personality, may almost remind us of the Ariels and Hamlets of Shakspeare. -Everything has form, everything has visual existence; the poet's imagination bodies forth the forms of things unseen, his pen turns them to shape. This, as a natural endowment,'exists in Goethe, we conceive, to a very high degree. The other characteristic of his mind, which proves to us -his acquired mastery in art, as this shows us the extent of his original capacity for it, is his wonderful variety, nay universality; his' entire freedom from Mannerism. We read Goethe for years, before we come to see wherein the distinguishing peculiarity of his understanding, of his disposition, even of his way of writing, consists. It seems quite a simple' style that of his; remarkable chiefly for its calmness, its perspicuity, in short its commonness; and yet it is the most uncommon of all styles: we feel as if every one might imitate it, and yet it is inimitable. As hard is it to discover 252 MISCELLANIES. in his writings, — though there also, as in every man's writings, the character of the writer must lie recorded, -what sort of spiritual construction he has, what are his temper, his affections, his individual specialities. For all lives freely within him: Philina and Clarchen, Mephistopheles and Mignon, are alike indifferent, or alike dear to him; he is of no sect or caste: he seems not this man or that man, but a man. We reckon this to be the characteristic of a Master in Art of any sort; and true especially of all great Poets. How true is it of Shakspeare and Homer! Who knows, or can figure what the Man Shakspeare was, by the first, by the twentieth perusal of his works? He is a Voice coming to us from the Land of Melody: his old brick dwelling-place, in the mere earthly burgh of Stratford-on-Avon, offers us the most inexplicable enigma. And what is Homer,in the ilias? He is THE WITNESS; he has seen, and he reveals it; we hear and believe, but do not behold him. Now compare, with these two Poets, any other two; not of equal genius, for there are none such, but of equal sincerity, who wrote as earnestly,, and from the heart, like them. Take, for instance, Jean Paul and Lord Byron. The'good Richter begins to shows himself, in his broad, massive, kindly, quaint significance, before we have read many pages of even his slightest work; and to the last he paints himself much better than his subject. Byron may also be said to have painted nothing else than himself, be his subject what it might. Yet as a test for the culture of a Poet, in his poetical capacity, for his pretensions to mastery and completeness in his art, we cannot but reckon this among the surest. Tried by this, there is no living writer that approaches within many degrees of Goethe. ( Thus, it would seem, we consider Goethe to be a richly educated Poet, no less than a richly educated Man; a master both of Humanity and of Poetry; one to whom, Experience has given true wisdom, and the' Melodies Eternal' a perfect utterance for his wisdom. Of the particular GOETHE. 253 form which this humanity, this wisdom has assumed; of his opinions, character, personality,-for these, with whatever difficulty, are and must be decipherable in his writings, we had much to say: but this also we must decline. In the present state of matters, to speak adequately would be a task too hard for us, and one in which our readers could afford little help, nay in which many of them might take little interest. Meanwhile, we have found a brief cursory sketch on this subject, already written in our language: some parts of it, by way of preparation, we shall here transcribe. It is written by a professed admirer of Goethe; nay, as might almost seem, by a grateful learner, whom he had taught, whom he had helped to lead out of spiritual obstruction, into peace and light. Making due allowance for all this, there is little in the paper that we object to.'In Goethe's mind,' observes he,'the first aspect that strikes us is its calmness, then its beauty; a deeper inspection reveals to us its vastness and unmeasured strength. This man rules, and is not ruled. The stern and fiery energies of a most passionate soul lie silent in the centre of his being; a trembling sensibility has been inured to stand, without flinching or murmur, the sharpest trials. Nothing outward, nothing inward, shall agitate or control him. The brightest and most capricious fancy, the most piercing and inquisitive intellect, the wildest and deepest imagination; the highest thrills of joy, the bitterest pangs of sorrow: all these are his, he is not theirs. While he moves every heart from its stedfastness, his own is firm and still: the words that search into the inmost recesses of our nature, he pronounces with a tone of coldness and equanimity; in the deepest pathos he weeps not, or his tears are like water trickling from a rock of adamant. He is king of himself and of his world; nor does he rule it like a vulgar great man, like a Napoleon or Charles the Twelfth, by the mere brute exertion of his will, grounded on no principle, or on a false one: his faculties and feelings are not fettered or prostrated under the iron sway of Passion, but led and guided in kindly union under the mild sway of Reason; as the fierce primeval elements of Chaos were stilled at the coming of Light, and bound together, under its soft vesture, into a glorious and beneficent Creation..' This is the true Rest of man; the dim aim of. every human soul, the full attainment of only a chosen few. It comes not unsought to 254 MISCELLANIES. any; but the wise are wise because they think no price too high for it. Goethe's inward home has been reared by slow and laborious efforts; but it stands on no hollow or deceitful basis: for his peace is not from blindness, but from clear vision; not f'rom uncertain hope of alteration, but from sure insight into what cannot alter. His world seems once to have been desolate and baleful as that of the darkest sceptic: but he has covered it anew with beauty and solemnity, derived from deeper sources, over which Doubt can have no sway. He has inquired fearlessly, and fearlessly searched out and denied the False; but he has not forgotten, what is equally essential and infinitely harder, to search out and admit the True. His heart is still full of warmth, though his head is clear and cold; the world for him is still full of grandeur, though he clothes it with no false colours; his fellow-creatures are still objects of reverence and love, though their basenesses are plainer to no eye than to his. To reconcile these contradictions is the task of all good men, each for himself, in his own way and manner; a task which, in our age, is encompassed with difficulties peculiar to the time; and which Goethe seems to have accomplished with a success that few can rival. A mind so in unity with itself, even though it were a poor and small one, would arrest our attention, and win some kind regard from us-; but when this mind ranks among the strongest and most complicated of the species, it becomes a sight full of interest, a study full of deep instruction.'Such a mind as Goethe's is the fruit not only of a royal endowment by nature, but also of a culture proportionate to her bounty. In Goethe's original form of spirit we discern the highest gifts of manhood, without any deficiency of the lower: he has an eye and a. heart equally for the sublime, the common, and the ridiculous; the elements at once of a poet, a thinker, and a wit. Of his culture we have often spoken already; and it deserves again to be held up to praise and imitation. This, as he himself unostentatiously confesses, has been the soul of all his conduct, the great enterprise of his life; and few that understand him will be apt to deny that he has prospered. As a writer, his resources have'been accumulatedfrom nearly all the provinces of human intellect and activity; and. he has trained himself to use these complicated instruments with a: light expertness which we might have admired in the professor of: a solitary department. Freedom, and grace, and smiling earnestness are the characteristics of his works: the matter of them flows along. in chaste abundance, in the softest combination; and their style is referred to by native critics as the highest specimen of the German tongue. GOETHE. 255' But Goethe's culture as a writer is perhaps less remarkable than his culture as a man. He has learned not in head only, but also in heart; not from Art and Literature, but also by action and passion, in the rugged school of Experience. If asked what was the grand characteristic of his writings, we should not say knowledge, but wisdom. A mind that has seen, and suffered, and done, speaks to us of what it has tried and conquered. A gay delineation will give us notice of dark and toilsome experiences, of business done in the great deep of the spirit; a maxim, trivial to the careless eye, will rise with light and solution over long perplexed periods of our own history. It is thus that heart speaks to heart, that the life of one man becomes a possession to all. Here is a mind of the most subtle and tumultuous elements; but it is governed in peaceful diligence, and its impetuous and ethereal faculties' work softly together for good and noble ends. Goethe may be called a Philosopher; for he loves and has practised as a man the wisdom which, as a poet, he inculcates. Composure and cheerful seriousness seem to breathe over all his character. There is no whining over human woes: it is understood that we must simply all strive to alleviate or remove them. There is no noisy battling for opinions; but a persevering effort to make Truth lovely, and recommend her, by a thousand avenues, to the hearts of all men. Of his personal manners we can easily believe the universal report, as often given in the way of censure as of praise, that he is a man of consummate breeding and the stateliest presence: for an air of polished tolerance, of courtly, we might almost say, majestic repose and serene humanity, is visible throughout his works. In no line of them does he speak with asperity of any man; scarcely ever even of a thing. He knows the good, and loves it; he knows the bad and hateful, and rejects it; but in neither case with violence: his love is calm and active; his rejection is implied, rather than pronounced; meek and gentle, though we see that it is thorough, and never to be revoked. The noblest and the basest he not only seems to comprehend, but to personate and body forth in their most secret lineaments: hence actions and opinions appear to him as they are, with all the circumstances which extenuate or endear them to the hearts where they originated and are entertained. This also is the spirit of our Shakspeare, and perhaps of every great dramatic poet. Shakspeare is no sectarian; to all he deals with equity and mercy; because he knows all, and his heart is wide enough for all. In his mind the world is a whole; he figures it as Providence governs it; and to him it is not strange that the sun should be caused to shine on the evil and the good, and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.' 256 MISCELLANIES. Considered as a transient far-off view of Goethe in his personal character, all this, fiom the writer's peculiar point of vision, may have its true grounds, and wears at least the aspect of sincerity. We may also quote something of what follows on Goethe's character as a poet and thinker, and the contrast he exhibits in this respect with another celebrated, and now altogether European author.'Goethe,' observes this Critic,'has been called the " German Voltaire; " but it is a name which does him wrong and describes him ill. Except in the corresponding -variety of their pursuits and knowledge, in which, perhaps, it does Voltaire wrong, the two cannot be compared. Goethe is all, or the best of all, that Voltaire was, and he is much that Voltaire did not dream of. To say nothing of his dignified and truthful character as a man, he belongs, as a thinker and a writer, to a far higher class than this enfant gqt' du monde qu'il galta. He is not a questioner and a despiser, but a teacher and a reverencer; not a destroyer, but a builder-up; not a wit only, but a wise man. Of him Montesquieu could not have said, with even epigrammatic truth: 11 a plus que personne l'esprit que tout le monde a. Voltaire is the cleverest of all past and present men; but a great man is something more, and this he surely was not.' Whether this epigram, which we have seen in some Biographical Dictionary, really belongs to Montesquieu, we know not; but it does seem to us not wholly inapplicable to Voltaire, and at all events, highly expressive of an important distinction among men of talent generally. In fact, the popular man, and the man of true, at least of great originality, are seldom one and the same; we suspect that, till after a long struggle on the part of the latter, they are never so. Reasons are obvious enough. The popular man stands on our own level, or a hairsbreadth higher; he shows us a truth which we can see without shifting our present intellectual position. This is a highly convenient arrangement. The original man, again, stands above us; he wishes to wrench us from our old fixtures, and elevate us to a higher and clearer level: but to quit our old fixtures, especially if we have sat in them with moderate comfort for some score or two of years, GOETHE. 257 is no such easy business; accordingly we demur, we resist, we even give battle; we still suspect that he is above us, but try to persuade ourselves (Laziness and Vanity earnestly assenting) that he is below. For is it not the very essence of such a man that he be new? - And who will warrant us. that, at the same time, he shall only be an intensation and continuation of the old, which, in general, is what we long and look for? No one can warrant us. And, granting him to be a man of real genius, real depth, and that speaks not till after earnest meditation, what sort of a philosophy were his, could we estimate the length, breadth and thickness of it at a single glance? And when did Criticism give two glances? Criticism, therefore, opens on such a man its greater and its lesser batteries, on every side: he has no security but to go on disregarding it; and'in the end,' says Goethe,' Criticism itself comes to relish that method.' But now let a speaker of the other class come forward; one of those men that'have more than any one, the opinion which all men have!' No sooner does he speak, than all and sundry of us feel as if we had been wishing to speak that very thing, as if we ourselves might have spoken it; and forthwith resounds from the united universe a celebration of that surprising feat.. What clearness, brilliancy, justness, penetration! Who can doubt that this man is right, when so many thousand votes are ready to back him? Doubtless, he is right; doubtless, he is a clever man; and his praise will long be in all the Magazines. Clever men are good, but they are not the best.'The in-struction they can give us is like baked bread, savoury and'satisfying for a single day;' but, unhappily,'flour cannot' be sown, and seed-corn ought not to be ground.' We proceed with our Critic in his contrast of Goethe with Voltaire.'As poets,' continues he,'the two live not in the same hemisphere, not in the same world. Of Voltaire's poetry, it were blindness. to deny the polished, intellectual vigour, the logical symmetry, the flashes that from time to time give it the colour, if not the warmth, of fire: but it is in a far other sense than this that Goethe is VOL. I. 17 258 MISCELLANIES. a poet; in a sense of which the French literature has never afforded any example. We may venture to say of him, that his province is high and peculiar; higher than any poet but himself, for several generations, has so far succeeded in, perhaps even has stedfastly attempted. In reading Goethe's poetry, it perpetually strikes us that we are reading the poetry of our own day and generation. No demands are' made on our credulity; the light, the science, the scepticism of our age, is not hid from us. He does not deal in antiquated mythologies, pr ring changes on traditionary poetic forms; there are no supernal, no infernal influences, - for Faust is an apparent, rather than a real exception; but there is the barren prose of the nineteenth century, the vulgar life which we are all leading, and it starts into strange beauty in his hands, and we pause in delighted wonder to behold the flowerage of poesy blooming in that parched and rugged soil. This is the end of his Mignons and Harpers, of his Bermanns and Mlieisters. Poetry, as he views it, exists not in time or place, but in the spirit of man; and Art with Nature is now to perform for the poet what Nature alone performed of old. The divinities and demons, the witches, spectres and fairies, are vanished from the world, never again to be recalled: but the Imagination, which created these, still lives, and will forever live, in man's soul; and can again pour its wizard light over the Universe, and summon forth enchantments as lovely or impressive, and which its sister faculties will not contradict. To say that Goethe has accomplished all this, would be to say that his genius is greater than was ever given to any man: for if it was a high and glorious mind, or rather series of minds, that peopled the first ages with their peculiar forms of poetry, it must be a series of minds much higher and more glorious that shall so people the present. The angels and demons- that can lay prostrate our hearts in tie nineteenth century, must be ctr another and more cunning fashion than those who subdued us in the ninth. To have attempted, to have begun this enterprise, may be accounted the greatest praise. That Goethe ever meditated it, in the form here set forth, we have no direct evidence *: but, indeed, such is the end and aim of high poetry at all times and seasons; for the fiction of the poet is not falsehood, but the purest.truth; and, if he would lead captive our whole. being, not rest satisfied with a part of it, he must address us on interests that are, not that were ours; and in a dialect which finds a response, and not a contradiction, within our bosoms.' 1 Here, however, we must terminate our pilferings, or open robberies, and bring these straggling lucubrations to a close.: 1 German Romance, vol. iv. pp. 17-25. (Appendix 1. ~ Goethe infra.) GOETHE. 259 In the extracts we have given, in the remarks made on them and on the subject of them, we are aware that we have held the attitude of admirers and pleaders: neither is it unknown to us that the critic is, in virtue of his office, a judge, and not an advocate; sits there, not to do favour, but to dispense justice, which in most cases will involve blame as well as praise. But we are firm.believers in the maxim that, for all right judgment of any man or thing, it is useful, nay essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad. This maxim is so clear to ourselves, that, in respect to poetry at least, we almost think we could make it' clear to other men. In the first place, at all events, it is a much shallower and more ignoble occupation to detect faults than to discover beauties. The'critic fly,' if it do but alight on any plinth or single cornice of a brave stately building, shall be able to declare, with its half-inch vision, that here is a speck, and there an inequality; that, in fact, this and the other individual stone are nowise as they should be; for all this the'critic fly' will be sufficient: but to take in the fair relations of the Whole, to see the building as one object, to estimate its purpose, the adjustment of its parts, and their harmonious cooperation towards that purpose, will require the eye and the mind'of a Vitruvius, or a Palladio. But farther, the faults of a poem, or other piece of art, as we view them at first, -',ill by no means continue unaltered when we view them after due and final investigation. Let us consider what we mean by a fault. By the word fault, we designate something that displeases us, that contradicts us. But here the question might arise: Who are we? This fault displeases, contradicts us; so far is clear; and had we, had, and my pleasure and confirmation, been the chief end of the poet, then doubtless he has failed in that end, and his fault remains a fault irremediably, and without defence. But who shall say whether such really was his object, whether such ought to have been his object?. And if it was not, and ought not to have been, what becomes of 260 MISCELLANIES. the fault? It must hang altogether undecided; we as yet. know nothing of it; perhaps it may not be the poet's, but our own fault; perhaps it may be no fault whatever. To see rightly into this matter, to determine with any infallibilityrwhether what we call a fault is in very deed a fault,: we. must previously have settled two points, neither of which: may be so readily settled. First, we must have made plain! to ourselves what the poet's aim really and truly was, how the task he had to do stood before his own eye, and how far, with such means as it afforded him, he has fulfilled it. Secondly, we must have decided whether and how far this aim, this task of his, accorded, - not with us, and our individ-: ual crotchets, and the crotchets of our little senate where: we give or take the law, — but with human nature, and the nature of things at large; with the universal principles of: poetic beauty, not as they stand written in our text-books," but in the hearts and imaginations of all men. Does theanswer in either case come out unfavourable; was there an inconsistency between the means and the end, a discord-. ance between the end and truth, there is a fault: was there. not, there is no fault. Thus it would appear that the detection of faults, providedthey be faults of any depth and consequence, leads us of' itself into that region where also the higher beauties of the, piece, if it have any true beauties, essentially reside. Ini fact, according to our view. no man can pronounce dogmatically, with even a chance of being right, on the faults of a: poem, till he has seen its very last and highest beauty; the last in becoming visible to any one, which few ever look after, which indeed in most pieces it were very vain to look after; the beauty of. the poem as a Whole, in the strict sense; the. clear view of it as an indivisible Unity; and whether it hasgrown up naturally from the general soil of Thought,: and. stands there like a thousand-years Oak, no leaf, no boughi superfluous; or is nothing but a pasteboard Tree, cobbled together out of size and waste-paper and water-colours; alto-. GOETHE. 261 gether unconnected with the soil of Thought, except by mere juxtaposition, or at best united with it by some decayed stump and dead boughs, which the more cunning Decorationist (as in your Historic Novel) may have selected for the basis and support of his agglutinations. It is true, most readers judge of a poem by pieces, they praise and blame by pieces; it is a common practice, and for most poems and most readers may be perfectly sufficient: yet we would advise no man to follow this practice, who traces in himself even the slightest capability of following a better one; and, if possible, we would advise him to practise only on worthy subjects; to read few poems that will not bear being studied as well as read. That Goethe has his faults cannot be doubtful; for we believe it was ascertained long ago that there is no man free from them. Neither are we ourselves without some glimmering of certain actual limitations and inconsistencies by which he too, as he really lives and writes and is, may be hemmed-in; which beset him too, as they do meaner men; which show us that he too is a son of Eve. But to exhibit these before our readers, in the present state of matters, we should reckon no easy labour, were it to be adequately, to be justly done; and done anyhow, no profitable one.(Better is it we should first study him; better to' see the great manll before tempting to oversee him.') We are not ignorant that certain objections against Goethe already float vaguely in the English mind, and here and there, according to occasion, have even come to utterance: these, as the study of hini proceeds, we shall hold ourselves ready, in due season, to discuss; but for the present we must beg the reader to believe, on our *Word, that we do not reckon them-unanswerable, nay that we reckon them in general the most answerable things in the World; and things which even a little increase of knowledge w'ill: not fail to answer without other help. - For furthering such increase of knowledge on this matter, may we beg the reader to accept two small pieces of advice, 26 2 MISCELLANIES. which we ourselves have found to be of use in studying Goethe. They seem applicable to the study of Foreign Literature generally; indeed to the study of all Literature that deserves the name. The first is, nowise to suppose that Poetry is a superficial, cursory business, which may be seen through to the very bottom, so soon as one inclines to cast his eye on it. We reckon it the falsest of all maxims that a true Poem can be adequately tasted; can be judged of' as men judge of a dinner,' by some internal tongue, that shall decide on the matter at once and irrevocably. Of the poetry which supplies spouting-clubs, and circulates in circulating libraries, we speak not here. That is quite another species; which has circulated, and will circulate, and ought to circulate, in all times; but for the study of which no man is required to give rules, the rules being already given by the thing itself. We speak of that Poetry which Masters write, which aims not at'furnishing a languid mind with fantastic shows and indolent emotions,' but at incorporating the everlasting Reason of man in forms visible to his Sense, and suitable to it: and of this we say, that to know it is no slight task; but rather that, being the essence of' all science, it requires the purest of all study for knowing it. "What! " cries the reader, " are we to study Poetry? To pore over it as we do over Fluxions?" Reader, it depends upon your object: if you want only amusement, choose your book, and you get along, without study, excellently well. "But is not Shakspeare plain, visible to the'very bottom, without study?" cries he. Alas, no, gentle Reader; we cannot think so; we do not find that he is visible to the very bottom even to those that profess the study of him. It has been our lot to read some criticisms on Shakspeare, and to hear a great many; but for most part they amounted to no such'visibility.' Volumes we have seen that were simply one huge Interjection printed over three hundred pages. Nine-tenths of our critics have told us little more of Shakspeare, than what honest Franz Horn GOETHE. 263 says our neighbours used to tell of him,' that he was a great spirit, and stept majestically along.' Johnson's Preface, a sound and solid piece for its purpose, is a complete exception to this rule; and, so far as we remember, the only complete one. Students of poetry admire Shakspeare in their tenth year; but go on admiring him more and more, understanding him more and more, till their threescore-and-tenth. Grotius said, he read Terence otherwise than boys do.'Happy contractedness of youth,' adds Goethe,'nay, of'men in general; that at all moments of their existence they ccan look upon themselves as complete; and inquire neither'after the True nor the False, nor the High nor the Deep;'but simply after what is proportioned to themselves.' FOur second advice we shall state in few words. It is, to remember that a Foreigner is no Englishman; that in judging a foreign work, it is not enough to ask whether it is suitable to our modes, but whether it is suitable to foreign wants; above all, whether it is suitable to itself_ The fairness, the necessity of this can need no demonstration; yet how often do we find it, in practice, altogether neglected! (We could fancy we saw some Bond-street Tailor criticising the costume of an ancient Greek; censuring the highly improper cut of collar and lapel; lamenting, indeed, that collar and lapel were nowhere to be seen. He pronounces the costume, easily and decisively, to be a barbarous one: to know whether it is a barbarous one, and how barbarous, the judgment of a Winkelmann might be required, and he would find it hard to give a judgment. For the questions set before the two were radically different. The Fraction asked himself: How will this look in Almacks, and before Lord Mahogany? The Winkelmann asked himself: How will this look in the Universe, and before the Creator of Man? Whether these remarks of ours may do anything to forward a right appreciation of Goethe in this country, we know not; neither do we reckon this last result to be of any vital;mportance. Yet must we believe that, in recommending 264 ~ MISCELLANIES. Goethe, we are doing our part to recommend a truer study of Poetry itself; and happy were we to fancy that any efforts of ours could promote such an object. Promoted, attained it will be, as we believe, by one means and another. A deeper feeling for Art is abroad over Europe; a purer, more earnest purpose in the study, in the practice of it. In this influence we too must participate: the time will come when our own ancient noble Literature will be studied and felt, as well as talked of; when Dilettanteism will give place to Criticism in respect of it; and vague wonder end in clear knowledge, in sincere reverence, and, what were best of all, in hearty emulation. BURNS. 2 65 BURNS.' [1828.] IN the modern arrangements of society, it is no uncommon thing that a man of genius must, like Butler,'ask for bread and receive a stone;' for, in spite of our grand maxim of supply and demand, it is by no means the highest excellence that men are inost forward to recognise. The inventor of a spinning-jenny is pretty sure of his reward in his own day; but the writer of a true poem, like the apostle of a true -religion, is nearly as sure of the contrary. We do not know whether it is not an aggravation of the injustice, that there is generally a posthumous retribution. Robert Burns, in the course of, Nature; might yet have been living; but his short life was spint in toil and penury; and he died, in the prime of his manhood, miserable and neglected: and yet already a *brave mausoleum shines over his dust, and more than one splendid monument has been reared in other places to his fame; the street where he languished in poverty is called by his name; the highest personages in our literature have been proud to appear as his commentators and admirers; and here is the sixth narrative of his Life that has been given to the world! Mr. Lockhart thinks it necessary to apologise for this new attempt on such a subject: but his readers, we believe, will readily acquit him; or, at worst, will censure only the performance of his task, not the choice of it. The character of 1 EDINBURGH REVIEW, NO. 96. -The Life of Robert Burns. By J. G. Lockhart, LL.B. Edinburgh, 1828. 266 MISCELLANIES. Burns, indeed, is a theme that cannot easily become either trite or exhausted; and will probably gain rather than lose in its dimensions by the distance to which it is removed by Time. No man, it has been said, is a hero to his valet; and this is probably true; but the fault is at least as likely to be the valet's as the hero's. For it is certain, that to the vulgar eye few things are wonderful that are not distant. It is difficult for men to believe that the man, the mere man whom they see, nay perhaps painfully feel, toiling at'their side through the poor jostlings of existence, can be made of finer clay than themselves. Suppose that some dining acquaintance of Sir Thomas Lucy's, and neighbour of John a Combe's, had snatched an hour or two from the preservation.of his game, and written us a Life of Shakspeare! What dissertations should we not have had, - not on Hamlet and The Tempest, but on the wool-trade, and deer-stealing, and the libel and vagrant laws; and how the Poacher became a Player; and how Sir Thomas and Mr. John had Christian -bowels, and did not push him to extremities! In like manner, we believe, with respect to Burns, that till the companions of his pilgrimage, the Honourable Excise Commissioners, and the Gentlemen of the Caledonian Hunt, and the Dumfries Aristocracy, and all the Squires and Earls, equally with the Ayr Writers, and the New and Old Light Clergy, whom he had to do with, shall have become invisible in the darkness of the Past, or visible only by light borrowed from.his juxtaposition, it will be difficult to. measure him by any true standard, or to estimate what he really was and did, in the eighteenth century, for his country and the world. It will be difficult, we say; but still a fair problem for literary historians; and repeated attempts will give us repeated'approximations. His former Biographers have done something, no doubt, but by no means a great deal, to assist us. Dr. Currie and Mr. Walker, the principal of these writers, haye both, we think, mistaken one essentially important thing: Their own BURNS. 267 and the world's true relation to their author, and the style in which it became such men to think and to speak of such a -iman. Dr. Currie loved the poet truly; more perhaps than he avowed to his readers, or even to himself; yet he everywhere introduces him with a certain patronising, apologetic air; as if the polite public might think it strange and half unwarrantable that he, a man of science, a scholar and gentleman, should do such honour to a rustic. In all this, however, we readily admit that his fault was not want of love, but weakness of faith; and regret that the first and kindest of all our poet's biographers should not have seen farther, or believed more boldly what he saw. Mr. Walker offends more deeply in the same kind: and both err alike in presenting us with a detached catalogue of his several supposed attributes, virtues and vices, instead of a delineation of the resulting character as a living unity. This, however, is not painting a portrait; but gauging the length and breadth of the several features, and jotting down their dimensions in arithmetical ciphers.. Nay, it is not so much as this: for we are yet to learn by what arts or instruments the mind could be so measured and gauged. Mr. Lockhart, we are happy to say, has. avoided both these errors. He uniformly treats Burns as the high and remarkable man the public voice has now pronounced him to be: and in delineating him, he has avoided the method of separate generalities, and rather sought for characteristic in. cidents, habits, actions, sayings; in a word, for aspects which exhibit the whole man, as he looked and lived among his fellows. The book accordingly, with all its deficiencies, gives' more insight, we think, into the true character of Burns, than any prior biography: though, being written on the very pop. ular and condensed scheme of an article for Constable's Mis. cellany, it has less depth than we could have wished and expected from a writer of such power; and contains rather more, and more multifarious, quotations, than belong of right to an original production. Indeed, Mr. Lockhart's own writ 268 MISCELLANIES. ing is generally so good, so clear, direct and nervous, that we seldom wish to see it making place for another man's. However, the spirit of the work is throughout candid,.tolerant and anxiously conciliating; compliments and praises are liberally distributed, on all hands, to great and small; and, as Mr. Morris Birkbeck observes of the society in the backwoods of America,.' the courtesies of polite life are never lost sight of for a moment.' But there are better things thanthese in the volume; and we can safely testify, not only that it is easily and pleasantly read a first time, but may even be without difficulty read again. -Nevertheless, we are far from thinking that the problem' of Burns's Biography has yet been adequately solved. We do not allude so much to deficiency of facts or documents, - though of these we are still every day receiving some fresh accession, - as to the limited and imperfect application of them.. to the great end of Biography. Our notions upon' this subject may perhaps appear'extravagant; but if an individual is really of consequence enough to have his life, and character recorded for public remembrance, we have always been of opinion, that the public ought to' be made acquainted with all the inward springs and relations of his character. How did the world and man's life, from his particular position, represent themselves to his mind? Howdid coexisting circumstances modify him from without; how did he modify these from within,'? With what endeavours' and what efficacy rule over them; with what resistance and: what suffering sink under them? In one word, what and how produced was the effect of society on him; what and' how produced was his effect on society? He who should answer these questions, in regard to any individual, would, as we believe, furnish a model of perfection in Biography. — Few individuals, indeed, can deserve such,' a study; and5 many lives will be written, and, for the gratification of in-' nocent curiosity, ought to be written, and read and forgotten, which are not in this sense biographies. But Burns, if we BURNS. 269 mistake not, is one of these few individuals; and such a study, at least with such a result, he has not yet obtained. Our own contributions to it, we are aware, can be but scanty and feeble; but we offer them with good-will, and trust they may meet with acceptance from those they are intended for. -Burns first came upon the world as a prodigy; and was, in that character, entertained by it, in the usual fashion, with loud, vague, tumultuous wonder, speedily subsiding into censure and neglect; till his early and most mournful death again awakened an enthusiasm for him, which, especially as there was now nothing to be done, and much to be spoken, has prolonged itself even to our own time. It is true, the'nine days' have long since elapsed; and the very continuance of this clamour proves that Burn;; was no vulgar wonder. Accordingly, even in soberjudgments, where, as years passed by, he has come to rest more and more exclusively on his own intrinsic merits, and may now be wellnigh shorn of that casual radiance, he appears not only as a true British poet, but as one of the most considerable British men of the eighteenth century. Let it not be objected that he did little. He did much, if we consider where and how. If the work performed was small, we must remember that he had his very materials to discover; for the metal he worked in lay hid under the desert moor, where no eye but his had guessed its existence; and we tnay almost say, that with his own hand he had to construct the tools for fashioning it. For he found himself in deepest obscurity, without help, without instruction,*.,with,. model; or with models only of the meanest sort. An educated man Stands, as it- were, in the midst of a boundless arsenal and magazine, filled with all the weapons and engines which map's skill has been able to devise from the earliest time; and he works, accordingly, with a strength borrowed from all past ages. How different is his state who stands on the outside of that storehouse, and feels that 270 MISCELLANIES. its gates must be stormed, or remain forever shut against him! His means are the commonest and rudest; the mere work done is no measure of his strength. A dwarf behind his steam-engine may remove mountains; but no dwarf will hew them down with the pickaxe; and he must be a Titan that hurls them abroad with his arms. It is in this last shape that Burns presents himself. Born: in an age the most prosaic Britain had yet -seen, and in a condition the most disadvantageous, where his -mind, if it,accomplished aught, must accomplish it under the pressure of continual bodily toil, nay of penury and desponding appre-, hension of the worst evils, and with no furtherance but such. knowledge as dwells in a poor man's hut, and the rhymes of a Ferguson or Ramsay for his standard of beauty, he sinks not under all these impediments: through the fogs and darkness of that obscure region, his lynx eye discerns the true relations of the world and human life; he grows into intellectual strength, and trains himself into intellectual expertness. Impelled by the expansive movement of: his own irrepressible soul, he struggles forward into the general view; and with haughty modesty lays down before us, as the fruit of his labour, a gift, which Time has now pronounced imperishable. Add to all this, that his dark. some, drudging childhood and youth was by far the kindliest era of his whole life; and that he died in his thirtyseventh year: and then ask, If it be strange that his poems are imperfect, and of small extent, or that his genius attained no mastery in its art? (Alas, his -Sun shone as through a tropical tornado; and t~'e pale Shadow of Death eclipsed it at noon! Shrouded in such baleful vapours, the. genius of Burns wad never seen in clear azure splendour, enlightening the world: but some beams from it did, by fits, pierce through; and it tinted those clouds with rainbow and orient colours, into a glory and stern grandeur, which men silently gazed on with wonder and tears! ) We'are anxious not to exaggerate; for it is Kexposition' BURNS. 271 rather than admiration that our readers require of us here; and yet to avoid some tendency to that side is no easy matter. We love Burns, and we pity him; and love and pity are prone to magnify. Criticism, it is sometimes thought, should be a cold business'; we are not so sure of this; but, at all events, our concern with Burns is not exclusively that of critics. True and genial as his poetry must appear, it is not chiefly as a poet, but as a man, that he interests and affects us.' He was often advised to write a tragedy: time and means were not lent him for this; but through life he enacted a tragedy, and one of the deepest. We question whether the world has since witnessed so utterly sad a scene; whether Napoleon himself, left to brawl with Sir Hudson Lowe, and perish on his rock,'amid the melancholy main,' presented to the reflecting mind such a'spectacle of pity and fear,' as did this intrinsically nobler, gentler and perhaps greater soul, wasting itself away in a hopeless struggle with base entanglements, which coiled closer and closer round him, till only death opened him an outlet. Conquerors are a class of men with whom, for most part, the world could well dispense; nor can the hard intellect, the unsympathising loftiness and high but selfish enthusiasm of such persons inspire us in general with any affection; at best it' may excite amazement; and their fall, like that of a pyramid, will be beheld with a certain. sadnegs and awe. But a true Poet, a man in whose heart resides some effluence of Wisdom, some tone of the'Eternal Melodies,' is the most precious gift that can be bestowed on a generation: we see& in him a freer, purer development of Whatever'is noblest in ourselves; his life is a rich lesson to us-;,-and:we' mournr:'his -death as that of a benefactor who loved.and taught us.,;,Such a gift had Nature, in her bounty, bestowed on us'iin Robert:Burns; but" with. queenlike' indifference she cast it from h'er hand, like a thing of no moment; and it was, defaced.and torn asunder, as an idle bauble, before we rec 272 MISCELLANIES. ognised it. To the ill-starred Burns was given the power of making man's life more venerable, but that of wisely guiding his own life was not give: Destiny, -for soin our ignorance we must speak, —his faults, the faults of others, proved too hard for him; and that spirit, which might have soared could it but have walked, soon sank to the dust, its glorious faculties trodden under foot in the blossom; and died, we may almost say, without ever having lived. And so kind and warm a soul; so full of inborn riches, of love to all living and lifeless things! How his heart flows out in sympathy over universal Nature; and in her bleakest provinces discerns a beauty and a meaning! The' Daisy' falls not unheeded under his ploughshare; nor the ruined nest of that'wee, cowering, timorous beastie,' cast forth, after all its provident pains, to'thole the sleety dribble and cranreuch cauld.' The'hoar visage' of Winter delights him; he dwells with a sad and oft-returning fondness in these scenes of solemn desolation; but the voice of the tempest becomes an anthem to his ears; he loves to walk in the sounding woods, for' it raises his thoughts to Him that walketh on the wings of the wind.' A true Poet-soul, for it needs but to be struck, and the sound it yields will be music! But observe him chiefly as he mingles with his brother men. What warm, all comprehending fellow-feeling; what. trustful, boundless love; what generous exaggeration of the object loved!' His rustic friend, his nut-brown maiden, are no longer mean and homely, but a hero and -a queen, whom he prizes as the paragons of Earth. The rough scenes of Scottish life, not seen by him in any Arcadian illusion, but in the rude contradiction, in the sm.ke and soil of a too harsh reality, are still -lovely to him:overty, is indeed his companion, but Love also, and Courage; the simple feelings, the worth, the nobleness, that dwell under the straw roof, are dear and venerable to his heart:and thus over the lowest provinces of man's existence'he pours the glory of his own soul; and they rise, in shadow and BURNS. 273 sunshine, softened and brightened into a beauty which other,eyes discern not in the highest. He has a just self-con-,sciousness, which too often degenerates into pride; yet it is a noble pride,, for defence, not for offence; no cold suspi-cious feeling, but a frank and social one. The Peasant Poet bears himself, we might say, like a King in exile: he is;ctast among the low, and feels himself equal to the highest;:yet' he claims no riank, that none may be disputed to him. The forward he can repel, the supercilious he can subdue; pretensions of wealth or ancestry are of no avail with him; there is a fire in that dark eye, under which the'insolence:of condescension' cannot thrive. In his abasement, in his extreme need, he forgets not for a moment the majesty of:Poetry and Manhood. And yet, far as he feels himself above common men, he wanders not apart from them, but mixes warmly in their interests; nay, throws himself into their arms, and, as it were, entreats them to love him. It is moving to see how, in his darkest despondency, this proud being still seeks relief from friendship; unbosomrys himself, often to the unworthy; and, amid tears, strains to his glow-:ing heart a heart that knows only the name of friendship. And yet he was'quick to learn;' a man of keen vision, before whom common disguises afforded no concealment. -His understanding saw through the hollowness even of accomplished deceivers; but there was a generous credulity in his heart. And so did our Peasant show himself among us;'a s6ul like an ZEolian harp, in whose strings the vul-,'gar wind, as it passed through them, changed itself into' articulate melody.' And this was he for whom the world foutnd no fitter business than quarrelling with smugglers and vintners, computing excise-dues upon tallow, and gauging ale-barrels! In such toils was that mighty Spirit sorrowfully wasted: and a hundred years may pass on, before another such is given us to waste. All that remains of Burns, the Writings he has left, seem vOL. I.. 18 274 MISCELLANIES. to us, as we hinted above, no more than a poor mutilated fraction of what was in him; brief, broken glimpses of a genius that could never show itself complete; that wanted. all things for completeness: culture, leisure, true effort, nay even length of life. Uis poems are, with scarcely any exception, mere occasional effusions; poured forth with little: premeditation; expressing, by such means as offered, the passion; opinion, or humour of the hour: Never in one instance was it permitted him to grapple with any subject with the full collection of his strength, to fuse and mould in the concentrated fire of his genius. To try by the strict rules of Art such imperfect fragments, would be at once unprofitable and unfair. Nevertheless, there is something in these poems, marred and defective as they are, which forbids the most fastidious student of poetry to pass them by. Some. sort of enduring quality they must have: for, after fifty years of the wildest vicissitudes in poetic taste, they still continue to be read; nay, are read more and more eagerly, more and more extensively; and this not only by literary virtuosos, and that class upon whom transitory causes operate most strongly, but by all classes, down to the most: hard, unlettered and truly natural class, who read little, and especially no poetry, except because they find pleasure in it. The grounds of so singular and wide a popularity, which extends, in a literal sense, from the palace to the hut, and over all regions where the English tongue -is spoken, are well worth inquiring into. After every just deduction, it seems to imply some rare excellence in these works. What is that excellence? To answer this question will not lead us far. The excellence of Burns is, indeed, among the rarest, whether.in poetry or prose; but, at The same time, it is plain and easily recog, nised.: his Sincerity, his indisputable air of Truth. Here are no fabulous woes or joys; no hollow fantastic sentimentalities; no wiredrawn refinings, either in thought or feeling: the passion that is traced before us has glowed in a BURNS. 275 living heart; the opinion he utters has risen in hig own understanding, and been a light to his own steps. Ale does not write from hearsay, but from sight and experience; it is the- scenes that he has lived and laboured amidst, that he descliibes.those scenes, rude and humble as they are, have! kindledb6eautiful emotions in his soul, noble thoughts, and definite resolves; and he speaks forth what is in him, not from any outward call of vanity or interest, but because his heart is too full to be silent. ji-e speaks it with such melody: and modulation as he can;'in homely rustic jingle;' but it is his own, and genuine. This is the grand secret for finding readers and retaining them Aet him who would move and convince others, be first moved and convinced himself.) Horace's rule, Si vis me flere, is applicable in a wider sense than the literal one. To every poet, to every writer, we might say: Be true, if you would be believed. Let a man but speak forth with genuine earnestness the thought, the emotion, the actual condition of his own heart; and other men, so strangely are we all knit together by the tie of sympathy, must and will give heed to him. In culture, in extent of view, we may stand above the speaker, or below him; but in either case, his words, if they are earnest and sincere, will find some response within us; for in spite of all casual varieties in outward rank, or inward, as face answers to face, so does the heart of man to man. - This may appear a very simple principle, and one which Burns had little merit in discovering. True, the discovery is easy enough: but the practical appliance is not easy:; is indeed the fundamental difficulty which all poets have to strive with, and which scarcely one in the hundred ever fairly surmounts. A head too dull to discriminate the true from the false; a heart too dull to love the one at all risks, and to liate the, other in spite. of all temptations, are alike fatal to a writer. With either, or, as more commonly happens, with both, of these deficiencies, combine a love of distinction, a wish to be original, which is seldom wanting, and we have 276 MISCELLANIES. Affectation, the bane of literature, as Cant, its elder brother, is of morals. How often does the one and the other front us, in poetry, as in life! Great poets themselves are not always free of, this vice; nay, it is precisely on a certain sort and: degree of greatness that it is most commonly ingrafted. A. strong effort after excellence will sometimes solace itselfwith a mere shadow of success; he who has much to un-. fold, will sometimes unfold it imperfectly. Byron, for in-: stance, was no common man: yet if we examine his poetry with this view, we shall find it far enough from faultless., Generally speaking, we should say that it is not true. He refreshes us, not with the divine fountain, but too often with. vulgar strong waters, stimulating indeed to the taste, but. soon ending in dislike, or even nausea.. Are his Harolds and Giaours, we would ask, real men; we mean, poetically consistent and conceivable men? Do not these characters, does not the character of their author, which more or less. shines through them all, rather appear a thing put on for the occasion; no natural or possible mode of being, but something intended to look much grander than nature? Surely, all these stormful agonies, this volcanic heroism, superhuman contempt and moody desperation, with so much scowling, and teeth-gnashing, and other sulphurous humour, -is more like the brawling of a player in some paltry tragedy, which is to last three hours, than the bearing of a man in the business of life, which is to last threescore and ten years. To our minds, there is a taint of this sort, something which we should call theatrical, false, affected, in every one. of these otherwise so powerful pieces. Perhaps Don Juan, especially the latter parts of it, is the only thing approaching to a sincere work, he ever wrote; the. only work where.he showed himself, in-any measure, as he. was; and- seemed so intent on his subject as, for moments, to forget himself.. Yet. Byron hated this vice; we believe, heartily detested it: nayf. he had declared formal war against it in words. So difficult is it even for the strongest to make this primary, attainment, BURNS. 277 which might seem the simplest of all: to read its own consciousness without mistakes, without errors involuntary or wilful! iWe recollect no poet of Burns's susceptibility who comes before us from the first, and abides with us to the last, with -such a total want of affectatiod He is an honest man, and an honest writer. In his successes and his failures, in his greatness and his littleness, he is ever clear, simple, true, and glitters with no lustre but his own. We reckon this to be a great virtue; to be, in fact, the root of most other virtues, literary as well as moral. Here, however, let us say, it is to the Poetry of Burns that we now allude; to those writings which he had time to meditate, and where no special reason existed to warp his critical feeling, or obstruct his endeavour to fulfil it. Certain of his Letters, and other fractions of prose composition, by no means deserve this praise. Here, doubtless, there is not the same natural truth of style; but on the contrary, something not only stiff, but strained and twisted; a certain highflown inflated tone; the stilting emphasis of which contrasts ill with the firmness and rugged simplicity of even his poorest verses. Thus no man, it would appear, is altogether unaffected. Does not Shakspeare himself sometimes pre, meditate the sheerest bombast! But even with regard to these Letters of Burns, it is but fair to state that he had two excuses. The first was his comparative deficiency in language. Burns, though for most part he writes with singue lar:force, and even gracefulness, is not master of Eng.: lish prose, as he is of Scottish verse; not master of it, we mean, in proportion to the depth and vehemence of hr' matter. These Letters strike us as the effort of a man tc express something which he has no. organ- fit for expressing. But a second and weightier excuse is to be foqnd in the peculiarity of Burns's social.rank. His correspondents are often men -whose' relation to him he has never accurately ascertained; whom therefore he is either forearming himself against, or else unconsciously flattering, by adopting the style .78 MISCELLANIES. he thinks will please them. At all events, we should iemember that these faults, even in his Letters, are not the rule, but the exception. Whenever he writes, as one would, ever wish to do, to trusted friends and on real interests, his style becomes simple, vigorous, expressive, sometimes even beautiful. His letters to Mrs. Dunlop are uniformly excellent. But we return to his Poetry. In addition to its Sincerity, it has another peculiar merit, which indeed is but a mode, or perhaps a means, of the foregoing:Vthis displays itself in his choice of subject? or rather in his indifference as to,sub-' jects and the power he has of making all subjects interesting., The ordinary poet, like the ordinary man, is forever seeking in external circumstances the help which can be found only in himself. YIn what is familiar and near at hand, he discerns no form or comeliness: home is not poetical but prosaic; it is in some past, distant, conventional heroic world, that poetry resides; were he there and not here, were he thus and not so, it would be well with: him. ( Hence our innumerable host of rose-coloured Novels and iron-mailed Epics, with their locality not on the Earth, but somewhere nearer to the Moon. Hence our Virgins of the Sun, and our Knights of the Cross, malicious Saracens in turbans, and copper-coloured Chiefs in wampum, and so many other truculent figures from the heroic times or the heroic climates, who *on all hands swarm in our poetry. Peace be with them But yet, as a great moralist proposed preaching to the:men of this century, so would we fain preach to the poets,' a sermon on the duty of staying at home.' Let them be sure that heroic ages and heroic climates can do little for them. -That form of life has attraction for us, less because it'-is better or nobler than our own, than simply because it:is different; and even this attraction must be of the most transient sort. For will not our own age, one day, be an ancient one; and have as quaint a costume as the rest; not contrasted with the rest, therefore, but ranked along with them, BURNS. 279.in respect of quaintness? Does Homer interest us nopr, because he wrote of what passed beyond —his native Greece, and two centuries before he was born; or because he wrote what passed in God's world, and in the heart of man, which is the same after thirty centuries? Let our poets look to this: is their feeling really finer, truer, and their vision deeper than that of other-.men, - they have nothing to fear, even from the humblest subject; is it not so,' — they have nothing to hope, but an ephemeral favour, even from the highest. The poet, we imagine, can never have far to seek for a suject: the elements of his art are in him, and around him on every hand; for him the. Ideal world is not remote from 1he Actual, but under it and within it: nay, he is a poet, preCily. because he can discern it there. Wherever there is a sky above him, and a world around him, the poet is in his place; for here too is man's existence, with- its infinite longings and small acquirings; its ever-thwarted, ever-renewed endeavours; its unspeakable aspirations, its fears and hopes that wander through Eternity; and all the mystery 6f brightness and of gloom that it was ever made of, in any age'or climate, since man first began to live./Is there not the fifth act of a Tragedy in every death-bed, though it were a peasant's, and a bed of heath? And are wooings and weddings -obsolete, that there can be Comedy no longer? Or are men suddenly grown wise, that Laughter must no longer shake his sides, but be cheated of his farce?-7SMan's life and nature is, as it was, and as it will ever be:" But the poet must have an eye to read these things, and a heart to understand them; or they come and pass away before him in vain. He is a vates, a seer; a gift of vision has been given him. Has life no meanings for him, which another cannot equally decipher; then he is no poet, and Delphi itself will not-make him one. In this respect, Burns, though not perhaps absolutely a great poet, better manifests his capability, better proves the truth of his genius, than if he had, by his own strength, kept 280 MISCELLANIES. the whole Minerva Press going, to the end of his literary course. fHe shows himself at least a poet of Nature's owr making; and Nature, after all; is still- thi6-d^graid-agent in making poets. We often hear of this and the other external condition being requisite for the existence of a poet. Sometimes it is a certain sort of training; he must have studied certain things, studied for instance'the elder dramatists,' and so learned a poetic language; as if poetry lay in the tongue, not in the heart. At other times we are told, he must be bred in a certain rank, and must be on a confidential footing with the higher classes; because, above all thigs, he must see the world. As to seeing the world, we apprehend this will cause him little difficulty, if he have but sight to see it with. Without eyesight, indeed, the sk might be hard. The blind or the purblind man'travels from Dan to Beersheba, and finds it all barren.' But happily every poet is;born in the world; and sees it, with or against his will, every day and every hour he lives. The mysterious workmanship of man's heart, the true light and the inscrutable darkness of man's destiny, reveal themselves not only in capital cities and crowded saloons, but in every hut and hamlet where men have their abode. Nay, do not the elements of all human virtues and all human vices; the passions at once of a Borgia and of a Luther, lie written, in stronger or fainter lines, in the consciousness of every individual bosom, that has practised honest self-examination? Truly, this same world may be seen in Mossgiel and Tarbolton, if we look well, as clearly as it ever' came to light in Crockford's, or the Tuileries itself. But sometimes still harder requisitions are laid on the poor aspirant to poetry; for it is hinted that he should have beenr born two centuries ago; inasmuch as poetry, about that date, vanished firom the earth, and became no longer attainable by men'! Such cobweb speculations have, now and then, overhung the field of literature; but they obstruct not the growth of any plant there: the Shakspeare or the Burns, uncon BURNS. 281 sciously and merely as he walks onward, silently brushes them away. Is not every genius an impossibility till he appear? Why do we call him new and original, if we saw where his marble was lying, and what fabric he could rear from it? It is not the material but the workman that is wanting. It is not the dark place that hinders, but the dim eye. -1A Scottish peasant's life was the meanest and rudest of all. lives, till Burns became a poet in it, and a poet of it; found it a man's life, and therefore significant to men. A thousand battle-fields remain unsung; but the Wounded Hare has not perished without its memorial; a balm of mercy yet breathes on us from its dumb agonies, because a poet was there.. Our Halloween had passed and repassed, in rude awe and laughter, since the era of the Druids; but no Theocritus, till Burns, discerned in it the materials of a Scottish Idyl: neither was the Holy Fair any Council of Trent, or Roman Jubilee; but nevertheless, Superstition and HEypocrisy and.Fun having been propitious to him, in this man's hand it became a poem, instinct with satire and genuine comic life. Let but the true poet be given us, we -repeat it, place him where and how you will, and true poetry will not be wanting. Independently of the essential gift of poetic feeling, as we. have now attempted to describe it, a certain rugged sterding worth pervades whatever Burns has written: a virtue, as of green fields and mountain breezes, dwells in his poetry; it is redolent of natural life and hardy natural men. There is a decisive strength in him, and yet a sweet native gracefulness: he is tender, he is vehement, yet without constraint or. too visible effort;.he melts the heart, or inflames it, with a power which seems habitual and familiar to him. We see that. in this man there was the gentleness, the trembling pity of a woman, with the deep earnestness, the force and passionate ardour of -a hero. Tears lie in him, and consumingfire; as lightni&ng lurks in the dropaoft he summiier _cioud. He has -a resonance in his bosom for every note of human feel 282 MISCELLANIES. ing; the high and the low, the sad, the ludicrous, the joyful, are welcome in their turns to his'lightly-moved and all-conceiving spirit.' And -observe with what a fierce prompt force he grasps his subject, be it what it may! How he fixes, as it were, the full image of the matter in his eye;full and clear in every lineament; and catches the real type and essence of it, amid a thousand accidents and superficial circumstances, no one of which misleads him! Is it of reason; some truth to be discovered? No sophistry, no vain surface-logic detains him; quick, resolute, unerring, he pierces through into the marrow of the question; and speaks his verdict with an emphasis that cannot- be forgotten. Is it of description; some visual object to be represented? No poet of any age or nation is more graphic than Burns: the characteristic features disclose themselves to him at a glance; three lines from his hand, and we have a likeness. And, in that rough dialect, in that rude, often awkward metre, so clear and definite a likeness! It seems a draughtsman working with a burnt stick; and yet the burin of a Retzsch is not ~inore expressive or exact. Of this last excellence, the plainest and most comprehensive of all, being indeed the root and foundation of every sort of talent, poetical or intellectual, we could produce innumerable instances from the writings of Burns. Take these glimpses of a snow-storm from his Winter Night (the italics are ours): When biting Bodreas, fell and doure, Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bow'r, And Phcebus gies a short-liv'd glowr Far south the lift, Dim dark'ning thro' the flaky show'r Or whirling driJ:'Ae night the storm the steeples rock'd, Poor labour sweet in sleep was lock'd, While burns wi' snawy wreeths supchock'd, Wild-eddying whirl, Or thro' the mining outlet bock'd, Down headlong hurl. BURNS. 283 Are there not'descriptive touches' here? The describer saw this thing; the essential feature and true likeness of every circumstance in it; saw, and not with the eye only. cPoor labour locked in sweet sleep;' the dead stillness of man, unconscious, vanquished, yet not unprotected, while such strife of the material elements rages, and seems to reign supreme in loneliness: this is of the heart as well as of the:eye! - Look also at his image of a thaw, and prophesied fall of the Auld.Brig: When heavy, dark, continued, a'-day rains Wi' deepening deluges o'erflow the plains; When from the hills where springs the brawling Coil, Or stately Lugar's mossy fountains boil, Or where the Greenock winds his moorland course, Or haunted Garpall draws his feeble source, Arous'd by blust'ring winds and spotting thowes In mony a torrent down his snaw-broo rowes; While crashing ice, borne on the roagring speat, Sweeps dams and mills and brigs a' to the gate; And from Glenbuck down to the Rottonkey, Auld Ayr is just one lengthen'd tumbling sea; Then down ye'll hurl, Deil nor ye never rise! And dash the gumlie jaups up to the pouring skies. The last line is in itself a Poussin-picture of that Deluge! The welkin has, as it were, bent down with its weight; the'gumlie jaups' and the' pouring skies' are mingled together; it is a world of rain and ruin. - In respect of mere clearness and minute fidelity, the Farmer's commendation of his Auld Mare, in plough or in cart, may vie with Homer's Smithy of the Cyclops, or yoking of Priam's Chariot. Nor have we forgotten stout Burn-the-wind and his brawny customers, inspired by Scotch Drink: but it is needless to multiply examples. One other trait of a much finer sort we select from multitudes of such among his Songs. It gives, in a single line, to the saddest feeling the saddest environment and local habitation: 1 Fabulosus Hydaspes! 284 MISCELLANIES. The pale Moon is setting beyond the white -wave, And Time is setting wi' me, 0; Farewell, false friends! false lover, farewell! I'll nae mair trouble them nor thee, 0. This clearness of sight we have called the foundation of all talent; for in fact, unless we see our object, how shall we know how to place or prize it, in our understanding, our imagination, our affections? Yet it is not in itself, perhaps, a very high excellence; but capable of being united indif-2 ferently with the strongest, or with ordinary powers. Homer surpasses all men in this quality: but strangely enough, at no great distance below him are Richardson and Defoe. It belongs, in truth, to what is called a lively mind; and gives no sure indication of the higher endowments that may exist along with it. In all the three cases we have mentioned, it is, combined with great garrulity; their descriptions are detailed, ample and lovingly exact; Homer's fire bursts" through, from time to time, as if by accident; but Defoe and Richardson have no fire. Burns, again, is not more distinguished by the clearness than by the impetuous force of his conceptions. Of the strength, the piercing emphasis with which he thought, his emphasis of expression may give a humble but the readiest proof. Who ever uttered sharper sayings than his; words more memorable, now by their burning vehemence, now by their cool vigour and laconic pith? A single phrase depicts a whole subject, a whole scene. We hear of'a gentleman that derived his patent of nobility direct from Almighty God.' Our Scottish forefathers in the battle-field struggled forward'red-wat-shod:' in this one word, a full vision of horror and carnage, perhaps too frightfully accurate for Art! In fact, one of the leading features in the mind of Burns is this vigour of his strictly intellectual perceptions. A resolute force is ever visible in his judgments, and in his feelings and volitions. Pr6fessor Stewart says of him, with some surprise:' All the faculties of Burns's mind were, as far as BURNS. 285'I could judge, equally vigorous; and his predilection for'poetry was rather the result of his own enthusiastic and'impassioned temper, than of a genius exclusively adapted' to that species of composition. From his conversation I'should have pronounced him to be fitted to excel in what-',ever walk of ambition he had chosen to exert his abilities.' But this, if we mistake not, is at all times the very essence of a truly poetical endowment. Poetry, except in such cases as that of Keats, where the whole consists in a weak-eyed maudlin sensibility, and a certain vague random tunefulness of nature, is no separate faculty, no organ which can be superadded to the rest, or disjoined from them; but rather the result of their general harmony and completion. The feelings, the gifts that exist in the Poet, are those that exist, with more or less development, in every human soul: the imagination, which shudders at the Hell of Dante, is the same faculty, weaker in degree, which called that picture into being. How does the Poet speak to men, with power, but by being still more a man than they? Shakspeare, it has been well observed, in the planning and completing of his tragedies, has shown an Understanding, were it nothing more, which might have governed states, or indited a Novum Organum. What Burns's force of understanding may have been, we have less means of judging: it had to dwell among the humblest objects; never saw Philosophy; never rose, except by natural effort and for short intervals, into the region of great -ideas. Nevertheless, sufficient indication, if no proof sufficient, remains for us in his works: we discern the brawny movements of a gigantic though untutored strength; and can understand how, in conversation, his quick sure insight into men and things may, as much as aught else about him, have amazed the best thinkers of his time and country. _But, unless we mistake, the intellectual gift of Burns is fine as well as strong.) The more delicate relations of things could not well have escaped his eye, for they were intimately 286 MISCELLANIES. present to his heart. The logic of the senate and the forum is indispensable, but not all-sufficient; nay, perhaps the. highest Truth is that which will the most certainly elude it. For this logic works by words, and'the highest,' it has been said,' cannot be expressed in words.' We are not without tokens of an openness for this higher truth also, of a keen though uncultivated sense for it,. having existed in Burns. Mr. Stewart, it will be remembered,'wonders,' in the passage above quoted, that Burns had formed some distinct conception of the'doctrine of association.' We rather think that far subtler things than the doctrine of association had from of old been familiar to him. Here for instance:' We know nothing,' thus writes he,'or next to nothing, of the structure of our souls, so we cannot account for those seeming caprices in them, that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impression. I have some favourite flowers in spring, among which'are the mountain-daisy, the harebell, the foxglove, the wild-brier rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with particular delight. I never hear the loud solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of gray plover in an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be owing? Are we a piece of machinery, which, like the ZEolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident; or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod? I own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and important realities: a God that made all things, man's immaterial and immortal nature, and a world of weal or woe beyond death and the grave.' Force and fineness of understanding. are often spoken of as something different frodm general force and fineness of nature, as something partly independent of them. The necessities of language so require it; but in truth these qualities are not distinct and independent' except in special cases, and from special causes, they:ever go together. A man of strong understanding is generally a man -of strong character; neither'is delicacy in the one kind often divided from delicacy BURNS. 287 in-:the other. No one, at all events, is ignorant that in the Poetry of Burns, keenness of insight keeps pace with keenness of feeling; that his light is not more pervading than his warmth. He is a man of the most impassioned temper; with passions not strong only, but noble, and of the sort in which great virtues and great poems take their rise. It is reverence, it is love towards all Nature that inspires him, that opens his eyes to its beauty, and makes heart and voice eloquent in its praise. There is a true old saying, that' Love furthers knowledge:' but above all, it is the living essence of that knowledge which makes poets; the first principle of its existence, increase, activity. Of Burns's fervid affection, his generous all-embracing Love, we have spoken already, as of the grand distinction of his nature, seen equally in word and deed, in his Life and in his Writings. It were easy to multiply examples. Not man only, but all that environs man in the material and moral universe, is lovely in his sight:' the hoary hawthorn,' the'troop of gray plover,' the'solitary curlew,' all are dear to him; all live in this Earth along with him, and to all he is knit as in mysterious brotherhood. How touching is it, for instance, that, amidst the gloom of personal misery, brooding over the wintry desolation without him and within him, he thinks of the' ourie cattle' and'silly sheep,' and their sufferings in the pitiless storm! I thought me on the ourie cattle, Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle O' wintry war; Or thro' the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle, Beneath a scaur. Ilk happing bird, wee helpless thing, That in the merry months o' spring Delighted me to hear thee sing, What comes o' thee? Where wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing, And close thy ee? The tenant of the mean hut, with its'ragged roof and chinky wall,' has a heart to pity even these! This is worth several homilies on Mercy; for it is the voice of Mercy herself. 288 MISCELLANIES. Burns, indeed, lives in sympathy; his soul rushes forth into all realms of being; nothing that has existence can be indifferent to him. The very Devil he cannot hate with right orthodoxy: But fare you weel, auld Nickie-ben; 0 wad ye tak a thought and men'! Ye aiblins might, -I dinna ken, - Still hae a stake; I'm wae to think upo' yon den, Even for your sake! "He is the father of curses and lies," said Dr. Slop; "and is cursed and damned already."-" I am sorry for it," quoth my uncle Toby! —A Poet without Love were a physical and metaphysical impossibility. But has it not been said in contradiction to this principle, that'Indignation makes verses'? It has been so said, and is true enough: but the contradiction is apparent, not real. The Indignation which makes verses is, properly speaking, an inverted Love; the love of some right, some worth, some goodness, belonging to ourselves or others, which has been injured, and which this tempestuous feeling issues forth to defend and avenge. No selfish fury of heart, existing there as a primary feeling, and without its opposite, ever produced much Poetry: otherwise, we suppose, the Tiger were the most musical of all our choristers. Johnson said, he loved a good hater; by which he must have meant, not so much one that hated violently, as one that hated wisely; hated baseness from love of nobleness. However, in spite of Johnson's paradox, tolerable enough for once in speech, but which need not have been so often adopted in print since then, we rather believe that good men deal sparingly in hatred, either wise or unwise: nay that a' good' hater is still a desideratum in this world. The Devil, at least, who passes for the chief and best of that class, is said to be nowise an amiable character. Of the verses which Indignation makes, Burns has also given us specimens: and among the best that were ever BURNS. 289 given. Who will forget his' Dweller in yon Dungeon dark;' a piece that might have been chaunted by the Furies of IEschylus? The secrets of the infernal Pit are laid bare; a boundless baleful' darkness visible;' and streaks of hellfire quivering madly in its black haggard bosom! Dweller in yon Dungeon dark, Hangman of Creation, mark! Who in widow's weeds appears, Laden with unhonoured years, Noosing with care a bursting purse, Baited with many a deadly curse? Why should we speak of Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled; since all know of it, from the king to the meanest of his subjects? This dithyrambic was composed on horseback; in riding in the middle of tempests, over the wildest Galloway moor, in company with a Mr. Syme, who, observing the poet's. looks, forebore to speak,- judiciously enough, for a man composing Bruce's Address might' be unsafe to trifle with. Doubtless this stern hymn was singing itself, as he formed it,,through the soul of Burns: but to the external ear, it should be sung with the throat of the whirlwind. So long as there is warm blood in the heart of Scotchman or man, it will move in fierce thrills under this war-ode; the best, we believe, that'was ever written by any pen. Another'vild stormful Song, that dwells in our ear and mind with a strange tenacity, is Macpherson's Farewell. Perhaps there is something in the tradition itself that cooperates. For was not this grim Celt, this shaggy Northland Cacus, that'lived a life of sturt and strife, and died by treacherie,' was not he too one of the Nimrods and Napoleons'of the earth, in the arena of his own remote misty glens, for want of a clearer and wider one? Nay, was there not a touch of grace given him? A fibre of love and softness, of poetry itself, must have lived in his savage heart: for he composed that air the night before his execution; on the wings of that- poor melody, his better soul would soar away VOL. I. 19 290 MISCELLANIES. above oblivion, pain and all the ignominy and despair, which, like an avalanche, was hurling him to the abyss! Here also, as at Thebes, and in Pelops' line, was material Fate. matched against man's Free-will; matched in bitterest though obscure duel; and the ethereal soul sank not, even in its blindness, without a cry which has survived it. But who, except Burns, could have given words to such a soul; words that we never listen to without a strange half-barbarous, halfpoetic fellow-feeling? Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, Sae dauntingly gaed he; He play'd a spring, and danced it round, Below the gallows-tree. Under a lighter disguise, the same principle of Love, which we have recognised as the great characteristic of Burns, and of all true poets, occasionally manifests itself in the shape of Humour. Everywhere, indeed, in his sunny moods, a full buoyant flood of mirth rolls through the mind of Burns; he rises to the high, and stoops to the low, and is brother and playmate to all Nature. We speak not of his bold and often irresistible faculty of caricature; for this is Drollery rather than Humour: but a much tenderer sportfulness dwells in him; and comes forth here and there, in evanescent and beautiful touches; as in his Address to the louse, or the Farmer's -Mare, or in his Elegy on poor Mailie, which last may be reckoned his happiest effort of this kind. In these pieces there.are traits of a Humour as fine as that of Sterne; yet altogether different, original, peculiar, - the Humour of Burns. Of the tenderness, the playful pathos, and many other,kindred qualities of Burns's Poetry, much more might be s aid but now, with these poor outlines of a sketch, we must' prepare to quit this part of our subject. To speak of his individual Writings, adequately and with any detail, would lead us far beyond our limits. As already hinted, we can look on but few of these pieces as, in strict critical language, BURNS. 29-1 deserving the name of Poems: they are rhymed eloquence, rhymed' pathos, rhymed sense; yet seldom essentially melodious, aerial, poetical. Tam o' Shanter itself, which enjoys so high a favour, does not appear to us, at all decisively, to come under this last category. It is net so much a poem, as a piece of, sparkling. rhetoric; the heart and body of the story still lies hard and dead. He has not gone back, much less carried us back, into that dark, earnest, wondering age, when the tradition was believed, and when it took its rise; he does not attempt, by any new-modelling of his supernatural ware, to strike anew that deep mysterious chord of human nature, which once responded to such things; and which lives in us too, and will forever live, though silent now, or vibrating with far other notes, and to far different issues. Our German readers will understand us, when we say, that he is not the Tieck but the Musdius of this tale.' Externally it is all green and living; yet look closer, it is no firm growth, but only ivy on a rock. The piece does not properly cohere: the strange chasmni which yawns in our incredulous imaginations between, the Ayr public-house and the gate of Tophet, is nowhere bridged over, nay the idea of such a bridge is laughed at; and thus the Tragedy of the adventure becomes a mere drunken phantasmagoria, or many-coloured spectrum painted on ale-vapours, and the Farce alone has any reality. We do not say that Burns should have made much more of this tradition; we rather think that, for strictly poetical purposes, not much was to be made of it. Neither are we blind to the deep, varied, genial power displayed in what he has actually accomplished; but we find far more'Shakspearean' qualities, as these of Tam o' Shanter have been fondly named, in many of his other pieces; nay, we incline to believe, that this latter might have been written, all but quite as well, by a man who, in place of genius, had only possessed talent. Perhaps we may venture to say, that the most strictly poetical of all his'poems' is one which does not appear '292 MISCELLANIES. in Currie's Edition; but has been often printed before and since, under the humble title of The Jolly Beggars. The subject truly is among the lowest in Nature; but it only the more shows our Poet's gift in raising it into the domain of Art. To our minds, this piece seems thoroughly compacted; melted together, refined; and poured forth in one flood of true liquid harmony. It is light, airy, soft of movement; yet sharp and precise in its details; every face is a portrait: that raucle carlin, that wee Apollo, that Son of Mars, are Scottish, yet ideal; the scene is at once a dream, and the very Ragcastle of'Poosie-Nansie.' Farther, it seems in a considerable degree complete, a real self-supporting Whole, which is the highest merit in a poem. The blanket of the Night is drawn asunder for a moment; in full, ruddy, flaming light, these roughatieml are seen in their boisterous revel; for the strong pulse o Life vindicates its right to gladness even here; and when the curtain closes, we prolong the action, without effort; the next day as the last, our Caird and our Ballad-monger are singing and soldering; their'brats and callets' are hawking, begging, cheating; and some other night, in new combinations, they will wring from Fate another hour of wassail and good cheer. Apart from the universal sympathy with man which this again bespeaks in Burns, a genuine inspiration and no inconsiderable technical talent are manifested here. There is the fidelity, humour, warm life and accurate painting and grouping of some Teniers, for whom hostlers and carousing peasants are not without significance. It would be strange, doubtless, to call this the best of Burns's writings: we mean to say only, that it seems to us the most perfect of its kind, as a piece of poetical composition, strictly so called. In the Beggars' Opera, in. the Beggars' Bush, as other critics have already remarked, there is nothing which, in real poetic vigour, equals this Cantata; nothing, as we think, which comes within many degrees of it. But by far the most finished, complete and truly inspired BURNS. 293 pieces of Burns are, without dispute, to be found among his Songs. It is here that, although through a small aperture, his light shines with least obstruction; in its highest beauty, and pure sunny clearness. The reason may be, that Song is a brief simple species of composition; and requires nothing so much for its perfection, as genuine poetic feeling, genuine music of heart. Yet the Song has its rules equally with the Tragedy; rules which in most cases are poorly fulfilled, in many cases are not so much as felt. We might write a long essay on the Songs of Burns; which we reckon by far the best that Britain has yet produced: for, indeed, since the era of Queen Elizabeth, we know not that, by any other hand, aught truly worth attention has been accomplished in this department. True, we have songs enough'by persons of quality;' we have tawdry, hollow, wine-bred madrigals; many a rhymed speech'in the flowing and watery vein of Ossorius the Portugal Bishop,' rich in sonorous words, and, for moral, dashed perhaps with some tint of a sentimental sensuality; all which many persons cease not from endeavouring to sing; though for most part, we'fear, the music is but from the throat outwards, or at best from some region far enough short of the Soul; not in which, but in a certain inane Limbo of the Fancy, or even in some vaporous debatable-land on the outskirts of the Nervous System, most of such madrigals and rhymed speeches seem to have originated. With the Songs of Burns we must not name these things. Independently of the clear, manly, heartfelt sentiment that ever pervades his poetry, his Songs are honest in another point of view: in form, as well as in spirit. They do not affect to be set to music, but they actually and in themselves are music; they have received their life, and fashioned themselves together, in the medium of Harmony, as Venus rose from the bosom of the sea. The story, the feeling, is not detailed, but suggested; not said, or spouted, in rhetorical completeness and coherence; but sung, in fitful gushes, in glowing hints, in fantastic breaks, in warblings not 294 MISCELLANIES. of the voice only, but of the whole mind. We consider this to be the essence of a song; and that no songs since the little careless catches, and, as it were, drops of song, which Shakspeare has here and there sprinkled over his Plays, fulfil this condition in nearly the same degree as most of Burns's do.: Such grace and truth of external movement, too, presupposes in general a corresponding force and truth of sentiment and inward meaning. The Songs of Burns are not more perfect in the former quality than in the latter. With what tenderness he sings, yet with what vehemence and entireness! There is a piercing wail in his sorrow, the purest rapture in his joy; he burns with the sternest ire, or lughs with the loudest or sliest mirth; and yet he is sweet and soft,' sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet, and soft as their parting tear!' If we farther take into account the immense variety of his subjects; how, from the loud flowing revel in Willie brew'd a Peck o' Maut, to the still, rapt enthusiasm of sadness for Mary in Heaven; from the glad kind greeting of Auld Langsyne, or the comic archness of Duncan Gray, to the fire-eyed fury of Scots wha hae wi'. Wallace bled, he has found a tone and words for every mood of man's heart, - it will seem a small praise if we rank him as the first of all our, Song-writers; for we know not where to find one worthy of being second to him. It is on his Songs, as we believe, that Burns's chief influence as an author will ultimately be found to depend: nor, if our Fletcher's aphorism is true, shall we account this a small influence.' Let me make the songs of a people,' said he,'and you shall make its laws.' Surely, if ever any Poet might have equalled himself with Legislators on this ground, it was Burns. His Songs are already part of the mothertongue, not of Scotland only but of Britain, and of the millions that in all ends of the earth speak a British language. In hut and hall, as the heart unfolds itself in many-coloured joy and woe of existence, the name, the voice of that joy and that woe, is the name and voice which Burns has given them. BURNS. 295 Strictly speaking, perhaps no British man has so deeply affected the thoughts and feelings of so many men, as this solitary and altogether private individual, with means apparently the humblest. In another point of view, moreover, we incline to think that Burns's influence may have been considerable: we mean, as exerted specially on the Literature of his country, at least on the Literature of Scotland. Among the great changes which British, particularly Scottish literature, has undergone since that periodi one of the -greatest will be found to consist in its remarkable increase of nationality. Even the English writers, most popular in Burns's time, were little distinguished for their literary patriotism, in this its best sense. A certain attenuated cosmopolitanism had, in good measure, taken place of the old insular home-feeling; literature was, as it were, without any local environment; was not nourished by the affections which spring from a native soil. Our Grays and Glovers seemed to write almost as if in vacuo; the thing written bears no mark of place; it is not written so much for Englishmen, as for men; or rather, which is the inevitable result of this, for certain Generalisations which philosophy termed men. Goldsmith is an exception: not so Johnson; the scene of his Rambler is little more English than that of his Rasselas. But if such was, in some degree, the case with England, it was, in the highest.degree, the case with Scotland. In fact, our Scottish literature had, at that period, a very singular aspect; unexampled, so far as we know, except perhaps at Geneva, where the same state of matters appears still to continue. For a long period after Scotland became British, we had no literature: at the date when Addison and Steele were writing their Spectators, our good John Boston was writing, with the noblest intent, but alike in defiance of grammar and philosophy, his Fourfold State of Man. Then came the schisms in our National Church, and the fiercer schisms in our Body Politic: Theologic ink, and Jacobite blood, with gall enough 296 MISCELLANIES in both cases, seemed to have blotted out the intellect of the country; however, it was only obscured, not obliterated. Lord Kames made nearly the first attempt at writing English; and ere long, Hume, Robertson, Smith, and a whole host of followers, attracted hither the eyes of all Europe. And yet in this brilliant resuscitation of our' fervid genius,' there was nothing truly Scottish, nothing indigenous; except, perhaps, the natural impetuosity of intellect, which we sometimes claim, and are sometimes upbraided with, as a characteristic of, our nation. It is curious to remark that Scotland, so full of writers, had no Scottish culture, nor indeed any English; our culture was almost exclusively French. It was by studying Racine and Voltaire, Batteux and Boileau, that Kames had trained himself to be a critic and philosopher; it was the light of Montesquieu and Mably that guided Robertson in his political speculations; Quesnay's lamp that kindled the lamp of Adam Smith. Hume was too rich a man to borrow; and perhaps he reacted on the French more than he was acted on by them: but neither had he aught to do with Scotland; Edinburgh, equally with La Fleche, was but the lodging and laboratory, in which he not so much morally lived, as metaphysically investigated. Never, perhaps, was there a class of writers so clear and well-ordered, yet so totally destitute, to all appearance, of any patriotic affection, nay of any human affection whatever. The French wits of the period were as unpatriotic: but their general deficiency in moral principle, not to say their avowed sensuality and unbelief in all virtue, strictly so called, render this accountable enough. We hope, there is a patriotism founded on something better than prejudice; that our country may be dear to us, without injury to our philosophy; that in loving and justly prizing all other lands, we may prize justly, and yet love before all others, our own stern Motherland, gnd the venerable Structure of social and moral Life, which Mind has through long ages been building up for as there. Surely there is nourishment for the better part BURNS. 297 of man's heart in all this: surely the roots, that have fixed themselves in the very core of man's being, may be so cultivated as to grow up not into briers, but.into roses, in the field of his life! Our Scottish sages have no such propensities: the field of their life shows neither briers nor roses; but only a flat, continuous thrashing-floor for Logic, whereon all questions, from the t Doctrine of Rent' to the' Natural History of Religion,' are thrashed and sifted with the same mechanical impartiality! With Sir Walter Scott at the head of our literature, it cannot be denied that much of this evil is past, or rapidly passing away: our chief literary men, whatever other faults they may have, no longer live among us like a French Colony, or some knot of Propaganda Missionaries; but like natural-born subjects of the soil, partaking and sympathising in all our attachments, humours and habits. Our literature no longer grows in water but in mould, and with the true racy virtues of the soil and climate. How much of this change may be due to Burns, or to any other individual, it might be difficult to estimate. Direct literary imitation of Burns was not to be looked for. But his example, in the fearless adoption of domestic subjects, could not but operate from afar; and certainly in no heart did the love of country ever burn with a warmer glow than in that of Burns:'a'tide of Scottish prejudice,' as he modestly calls this deep and generous feeling,'.had been poured along his veins; and'he felt that it would boil there till the flood-gates shut in'eternal rest.' It seemed to him, as if he could do so little for his country, and yet would so gladly have done all. One small province stood open for him, - that of Scottish Song; and how eagerly he entered on it, how devotedly he laboured there:! In his toilsome journeyings, this object never quits him; it is the little happy-valley of his careworn heart. In the gloom of his own affliction, he eagerly searches after some lonely brother of the muse, and rejoices to snatch one other name from the oblivion that was covering it! 298 MISCELLANIES. These were early feelings, and they abode with him to the end: A wish (I mind-its power), A wish, that to my latest hour Will strongly heave my breast, - That I, for poor auld Scotland's sake, Some useful plan or book could make, Or. sing a sang at least. The rough bur Thistle spreading wide Amang the bearded bear, I turn'd my weeding-clips aside, And'spared the symbol dear. But to leave the mere literary character of Burns, which has already detained us too long. Far more interesting than any of his written works, as it appears to us, are his acted ones: the Life he willed, and was fated, to lead among his fellow men. These'Poems are but like little rhymed fragments scattered here and'there in the grand unrhymed Romance of his earthly existence; and it is only when intercalated in this at their proper places,. that they attain their full measure of significance. And this too, alas, was but a fragment! The plan of a mighty edifice had been sketched; some columns, porticos, firml masses of building, stand completed; the rest more or less clearly indicated; with many a far-stretching tendency, which only studious and friendly eyes can now trace towards the purposed termination. For the work is broken off in the middle, almost in the beginning; and rises among us, beautiful and sad, at once unfinished and a ruin! If charitable judgment was necessary in estimating his Poems, and justice required that -the aim and the manifest power to fulfil it must often be accepted for the fulfilment; much more is this the case in regard to his Life, the sum and result of all his endeavours, where his difficulties came upon him not in detail only, but in mass; and so much has been left unaccomplished, nay was mistaken, and altogether marred. Properly speaking, there is but one era in the life of BURNS. 299 Burns, and that the earliest. We have not youth and manhood, but only youth - for, to the end, we discern no decisive change in the complexion of his character; in his thirtyseventh year, he is still, as it were, in youth. With all that resoluteness of judgment, that penetrating insight, and singular maturity of intellectual power, exhibited in his writings, he never attains to any clearness regarding himself; to the last, he never ascertains his peculiar aim, even with such distinctness as is common among ordinary men; and therefore never can pursue it with that singleness of will, which insures success and some contentment to such men. To the last, he wavers between two purposes: glorying in his talent, like a true poet, he yet cannot consent to make this his chief and sole glory, and to follow it as the one thing needful, through poverty or riches, through good or evil report. Another far meaner ambition still cleaves to him; he must dream and struggle about a certain' Rock of Inde.pendence;' which, natural and even admirable as it might be, was still but a warring with the world, on the comparatively insignificant ground of his being more completely or less completely supplied with money, than others; of his standing at a higher or at a lower altitude in general estimation than others. For the world still appears to him, as to the young, in borrowed colours: he expects from it,what it cannot give to any man; seeks for contentment, not within himself, in action and wise effort, but from without, in the kindness of circumstances, in love, friendship, honour, pecuniary ease.. He would be happy, not actively and in himself, but passively and from some ideal cornucopia of Enjoyments, not earned by his own labour, but showered on him by the beneficence of Destiny. Thus, like a young man, he cannot gird himself up fbr any worthy well-calculated goal, but swerves to and fro, between passionate hope and remorseful disappointment: rushing onwards with a deep tempestuous force, he surmounts or breaks asunder many a barrier;. travels, nay advances far, but advancing only under 300 MISCELLANIES. uncertain guidance, is ever and anon turned from his path; and to the last, cannot reach the only true happiness of a man, that of clear decided Activity in the sphere for which, by nature and circumstances, he has been fitted and appointed. We do not say these things in dispraise of Burns; nay, perhaps, they but interest us the more in his favour. This blessing is not given soonest to the best; but rather, it is often the greatest minds that are latest in obtaining it; for where most is to be developed, most time may be required to develop it. A complex condition had been assigned him from without; as complex a condition from within: no' preestablished harmony' existed between the clay soil of Mossgiel and the empyrean soul of Robert Burns; it was not, wonderful that the adjustment between them should have been long postponed, and his arm long cumbered, and his sight confused, in so vast and discordant an economy as he had been appointed steward over. Byron was, at. his death, but a year younger than Burns; and through life, as it might have -appeared, far more simply situated: yet in him too, we can trace no such adjustment, no such moral manhood; but at best, and only a little before his end, the beginning of what seemed such. By much the most striking incident in Burns's Life is his journey to Edinburgh; but perhaps a still more important one is his residence at Irvine, so early as in his twenty-third year. Hitherto his life had been poor and toilworn; but otherwise not ungenial, and, with all its distresses, by no, means unhappy. In his parentage, deducting outward circumstances, he had every reason to reckon himself fortunate. His father was a man of thoughtful, intense, earnest character, as the best of our' peasants are; valuing knowledge, possessing some, and, what is far better and rarer, openminded for more: a man with a keen insight and devout heart; reverent towards God, friendly therefore at once, and fearless towards all that God has made: in one word, though BURNS. 301 but a hard-handed peasant, a complete and fully unfolded Man. Such a father is.seldom found in any rank in society:; and was worth descending far in society to seek. Unfortupately, he was very poor; had he been even a little richet, almost never so little, the whole might have issued far other' wise. Mighty events turn on a straw; the crossing of 4t brook decides the conquest of the world. Had this NWilliani Burns's small seven acres of nursery-ground anywise prospered, the boy Robert had been sent to school; had struggled forward, as so many weaker men do, to some university; come forth not as a rustic wonder, but as a regular welltrained intellectual workman, and changed the whole course of British Literature, - for it lay in him to have done this-l But the nursery did not prosper; poverty sank his whole family below the help of even our cheap school-system: Burns remained a hard-worked ploughboy, and British literature took its own course. Nevertheless, even in this rugged scene there is much to nourish him. If he drudges, it is with his brother, and for his father and mother, whom he loves, and would fain shield from want. Wisdom is not banished from their poor hearth, nor the balm of natural feeling: the solemn words, Let us worship God, are heard there from a'priest-like father;' if threatenings of unjust men throw mother and children into tears, these are tears not of grief only, but of holiest affection; every heart in that humble group feels itself the closer knit to every other; in their hard warfare they are there together, a'little band of brethren.' Neither are such tears, and the deep beauty that dwells in them, their only portion. Light visits the hearts as it does the eyes of all living: there is a force, too, in this youth, that enables him to trample on misfortune; nay, to bind it under his feet to make him sport. For a bold, warm, buoyant humour of character has been given him; and- so the thick-coming shapes of evil are welcomed with a gay, friendly irony, and in their closest pressure he bates no jot of heart or hope. Vague yearnings of ambition 302 MIISCELLANIES. fail not, as he'grows up; dreamy fancies hang like cloudcities around him; the curtain of Existence is slowly rising, in many-coloured splendour and gloom: and the auroral light of first love is gilding his horizon, and the music of song is on his path; and so he walks in glory and in joy, Behind his plough, upon the mountain side! We ourselves know, from the best evidence, that up to this date Burns was happy; nay, that he was the gayest, brightest, most fantastic, fascinating being to be found in the world; more so even than he ever afterwards appeared. But now, at this early age, he quits the paternal roof; goes forth into looser, louder, more exciting society; and becomes initiated in those dissipations, those vices, which a certain class of philosophers have asserted to be a natural preparative for entering on active life; a kind of mud-bath, in which the youth is, as it were, necessitated to steep, and, we suppose, cleanse himself, before the real toga of Manhood can be laid on him. ) We shall not dispute much with this class of philosophers, we hope they are mistaken: for Sin and Remorse so easily beset us at all stages of life, and are always such indifferent company, that it seems hard we should, at any stage, be forced and fated not only to meet, but to yield to them, and even serve for a term in their leprous armada. We hope it is not so. Clear we are, at all events, it cannot be the training one receives in this Devil'sservice, but only our determining to desert from it, that fits us for true manly Action. We become men, not after we have been dissipated, and disappointed in the chase of false pleasure; but after we have ascertained, in any way, what' impassable barriers hem us in through this life; how mad it is to hope for contentment to our infinite soul from the gifts of this extremely finite world; that a man must be sufficient for himself; and that for suffering and enduring there is no remedy but striving and doing. Manhood begins BURNS. 303. when we have in any way made truce with Necessity; begins even when we have surrendered to Necessity, as the most part only do; but begins joyfully and hopefully only when we have reconciled ourselves to Necessity; and thus, in reality, triumphed over it, and felt that in Necessity We are free. Surely, such lessons as this last, which, in one shape or other, is the grand lesson for every mortal man, are better learned from the lips of a devout mother, in the looks and actions of a devout father, while the heart is yet soft and pliant, than in collision with the sharp adamant of Fate, attracting us to shipwreck us, when the heart is grown hard, and may be broken before it will become contrite! Had Burns continued to learn this, as he was already learning it, in his father's cottage, he would have learned it fully, which he never did; and been saved many a lasting aberration, many a bitter hour and year of remorseful sorrow. It seems to us another circumstance of fatal import in Burns's history, that at this time too he became involved in the religious quarrels of his district; that he was enlisted and feasted, as the fighting man of the New-Light Priesthood, in their highly unprofitable warfare. At the tables of these free-minded clergy, he learned much more than was needful for him. Such liberal ridicule of fanaticism awakened in his mind scruples about Religion itself; and a whole world of Doubts, which it required quite another set of conjurers than these men to exorcise. We do.not say that such an intellect as his could have escaped similar doubts, at some period of his history; or even that he could, at a later period, have come through them altogether victorious and unharmed: but it seems peculiarly unfortunate that this time, above all others, should have been fixed for the encounter. For now, with principles assailed by evil example'from without, by'passions raging like demons' from within, he had little need of sceptical misgivings to whisper treason in the heat of the battle, or to cut off his retreat if he were already defeated. He loses his feeling of innocence; his mind is at variance 804 MISCELLANIES. with itself; the old divinity no, longer presides there; but wild Desires and wild Repentance alternately oppress him. Ere long, too, he has committed himself before the world; his character for sobriety, dear to a Scottish peasant as few. corrupted worldlings can even conceive, is destroyed in the eyes of men; and his only refuge consists in trying to disbelieve his guiltiness, and is but a refuge of lies. The blackest desperation now gathers over him, broken only by red lightnings of remorse. The whole fabric of his life is blasted asunder; for now not only his character, but his personal liberty, is to be lost; men and Fortune are leagued for his hurt;'hungry Ruin has him in the wind.' He sees no escape but the saddest of all: exile from his loved country, to a country in every sense inhospitable and abhorrent to him. While the' gloomy night is gathering fast,' in mental storm and solitude, as well as in physical, he sings his wild farewell to Scotland: Farewell my friends, farewell my foes! My peace with these, my love with those: The bursting tears my heart declare; Adieu, my native banks of Ayr! Light breaks suddenly in on'him in floods; but still a false transitory light, and no real sunshine. He is invited to Edinburgh; hastens thither with anticipating heart; is welcomed as in a triumph, and with universal blandishment and acclamation; whatever is wisest, whatever is greatest or loveliest there, gathers round him, to gaze on his face, to show him honour, sympathy, affection. Burns's appearance among the sages and nobles of Edinburgh must be regarded as one of the most singular phenomena in modern Literature; almost like the appearance of some Napoleon. among the crowned sovereigns of modern Politics. For it is nowise as'a mockery king,' set there by~ favour, transiently and for a purpose, that he will let himself be treated; still less is he a mad Rienzi, whose sudden elevation turns his too weak head: but he stands there on his own basis; cool, un BURNS. 305 astonished, holding his equal rank from Nature herself; putting forth no claim which there is not strength in him, as well as about him, to vindicate. Mr. Lockhart has some forcible observations on this point:'It needs no effort of imagination,' says he,' to conceive what the sensations of an isolated set of scholars (almost all either clergymen or professors) must have been, in the presence of this big-boned, black-browed, brawny stranger, with his great flashing eyes, who, having forced his way among them from the plough-tail at a single stride, manifested in the whole strain of his bearing and conversation a most thorough conviction, that in the society of the most eminent men of his nation, he was exactly where he was entitled to be; hardly deigned to flatter them by exhibiting even an occasional symptom of being flattered by their notice; by turns calmly meashured himself against the most cultivated understandings of his time in discussion; overpowered the bon-mots of the most celebrated convivialists by broad floods of merriment, impregnated with all the burning' life of genius; astounded bosoms habitually enveloped in the thrice-piled folds of social reserve, by compelling them to tremble, - nay, to tremble visibly, - beneath the fearless touch of natural pathos; and' all this without indicating the smallest willingness to be ranked among those professional ministers of excitement, who are content to be paid in money and smiles for doing what the spectators and auditors would be ashamed of doing in their own persons, even if they had the power ofidoing it; and last, and probably worst.of all, who was known to be in the habit of enlivening societies which they would have scorned to approach, still more frequently than their own, with eloquence no less magnificent; with wit, in all likelihood still more daring; often enough, as the superiors whom he fionted without alarm might have guessed from the beginning, and had ere long no occasion to guess, with wit pointed at themselves.' The farther we remove firom this scene, the more singular will it seem to us: details of the exterior aspect of it are already full of interest. Most readers recollect Mr. Walker's personal interviews with Burns as among the best passages of his Narrative: a time will come when this reminiscence of Sir Walter Scott's, slight though it is, will also be precious: As for Burns,' writes Sir Walter,' I may truly say, Virgilium rvidc tantimn. I was a lad of fifteen in 1786-7, when he came first to EdinVOL. I. 20 306 MISCELLANIES. burgh, but had sense and feeling enough to be much interested in his poetry, and would have given the world to know him: but I had very little acquaintance with any literary people, and still less with the gentry of the west country, the two sets that he most frequented, Mr. Thomas Grierson was at that time a clerk of my father's. He knew Burns, and promised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner; but had no opportunity to keep his word; otherwise I might have seen more of this distinguished man. As it was, I saw him one day' at the late venerable Professor Ferguson's, where there were several gentlemen of literary reputation, among whom I remember the celebrated Mr. Dugald Stewart. Of course, we youngsters sat silent, looked and listened. The only thing I remember which was remarkable in Burns's manner, was the effect produced upon him: by a print of Bunbury's, representing a soldier lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery on one side, —on the other, his. widow, with a child in her arms. These lines were written beneath: " Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain, Perhaps that mother wept her soldier slain; Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew, The big drops mingling with the milk he drew, Gave the sad presage of his future years, The child of misery baptised in tears."'Burns seemed much affected by the print, or rather, by the ideas which it suggested to his mind. He actually shed tears. He asked whose the lines were; and it chanced that nobody but myself remembered that they occur in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's called by the unpromising title of "The Justice of Peace." I whispered my information to a friend present; he mentioned it to Burns, who' rewarded me with a look and a word, which, though of mere civility, I then received and still recollect with very great pleasure.'His person was strong and robust; his manners rustic, not clownish; a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, which received part of its effect perhaps from one's knowledge of his extraordinary tal*ents. His features are represented in Mr. Nasmyth's picture: but to me it conveys the idea that they are diminished, as if seen in' perspective. I think his countenance was more massive than it' looks in any of the portraits. I should have taken the poet, hadI: not known what he was, for a very sagacious country farmer of the old Scotch school, i. e. none of your modern agriculturists who keep; labourers for'their drudgery, but the douce gudeman who held hisown plough. There was a strong expression of sense and shrewd-. ness in all his lineaments; the eye alone, I think, indicated the BURNS. 307'poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, which glowed (I say literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time. His conversation expressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest presumption. Among the men who were the most learned of their time and country, he expressed himself with perfect firmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness; and when he differed in opinion, he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet at the same time with modesty. I do not remember any part of his conversation distinctly enough to be quoted; nor did I ever see him again, except in the street, where he did not recognise me, as I could not expect he should. He was much caressed in Edinburgh: but (considering what literary emoluments have been since his day) the efforts made for his relief were extremely trifling.' I remember, on this occasion I mention, I thought Burns's acquaintance with English poetry was rather limited; and also that, having twenty times the abilities of Allan Ramsay and of Fergusson, he talked of them with too much humility as his models: there was doubtless national predilection in his estimate.' This is all I can tell you about Burns. I have only to add, that his dress corresponded with his manner. He was like a farmer dressed in his best to dine with the laird. I do not speak in malam partem, when I say, I never saw a man in company with his superiors in station or information more perfectly free from either the reality or the affectation of embarrassment. I was told, but did not observe it, that his address to females was extremely deferential, and always with a turn either to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged their attention particularly. I have heard the late Duchess of Gordon remark this. - I do not know anything I can add to these recollections of forty years since.' The conduct of Burns under this dazzling blaze of favour; the calm, unaffected, manly manner in which he not only bore it, but estimated its value, has justly been regarded as the -best proof that could be given of his real vigour and integrity of mind. A' little natural vanity, some touches.of hypocritical modesty, some glimmerings of affectation, at least some fear of being thought affected, we could have pardoned in almost any man; but no such indication is to be traced here. In his unexampled situation- the young peasant is not a moment perplexed; so many strange lights do not 308 MISCELLANIES. confuse him, do not lead him astray. Nevertheless, we can. not but perceive that this winter did him great and: lasting injury. A somewhat clearer knowledge of men's affairs, scarcely of their characters, it did afford him; but a sharper feeling of Fortune's unequal arrangements in their socialdestiny it also left with him. He had seen the gay and gorgeous arena, in which the powerful are born to play their parts; nay had himself stood in the midst of it; and he felt more bitterly than ever, that here he was but a looker-on, and had no part or lot in that splendid game. From this time a jealous indignant fear of social degradation takes possession of him; and perverts, so far as aught could pervert, his private contentment, and his feelings towards his richer fellows. It was clear to Burns that he had talent enough to make a fortune, or a hundred fortunes, could he but have rightly willed this; it was clear also that he willed something far different, and therefore could not make one. Unhappy it was that he had not power to choose the one, and reject the other; but must halt forever between two opinions, two objects; making hampered advancement towards either. But so is it with many men: we'long for the merchandise, yet would fain keep the price;' and so stand chaffering with Fate, in vexatious altercation, till the night come, and our fair is over! The Edinburgh Learned of that period were in general more noted for clearness of head than for warmth of heart:: with the exception of the good old Blacklock, whose help was too ineffectual, scarcely one among them seems to have looked at Burns,.with any true sympathy, or indeed much otherwise than as at a highly curious thing. By the great also he is treated in the customary fashion; entertained at their tables and dismissed: certain modica of pudding and praise are, from time to time, gladly exchanged, for the fascination of his presence; which exchange once effected, the bargain is finished, and each party goes his several way. At the end of this strange season, Burns gloomily sums up BURNS. 309 his gains and losses, and meditates on the chaotic future. In money he is somewhat richer; in fame and the show of happiness, infinitely richer; but in the substance of it, as poor as ever. Nay poorer; for his heart is now maddened still more with the fever of worldly Ambition; and through long years the disease will rack him with unprofitable sufferings, and weaken his strength for all true and nobler aims. What Burns was next to do or to avoid; how a man so circumstanced was now to guide himself towards his true advantage, might at this point of time have been a question for the wisest. It was a question too, which apparently he was left altogether to answer for himself: of his learned or rich patrons it had not struck any individual to turn a thought on this so trivial matter. Without claiming for Burns the praise of perfect sagacity, we must say, that his Excise and Farm scheme does not seem to us a very unreasonable one; that we should be at a loss, even now, to suggest one decidedly better. Certain of his admirers have felt scandalised at his ever resolving to gauge; and would have had him lie at the pool, till the spirit of Patronage stirred the waters, that so, with one friendly plunge, all his sorrows might be healed. Unwise counsellors! They know:not the manner of this spirit; and how, in the lap of most golden dreams, a man might have happiness, were it not that in the interim he must die of hunger! It reflects credit on the manliness and sound sense of Burns, that he felt so early on what ground he was standing; and preferred self-help, on the humblest scale, to dependence and inaction, though with hope of far more splendid possibilities. But even these possibilities were not rejected in his scheme: he might expect, if it chanced that he had any friend, to rise, in no long period, into something even like opulence and leisure; while again, if it chanced that he had no friend, he could still live in security; and for the rest, he' did not intend to borrow honour from any profession.' We reckon that his plan was honest and well-calculated: all turned on the exe 310 MISCELLANIES. cution of it. Doubtless it failed; yet not, we believe, from any vice inherent in itself. Nay, after all, it was no,failure of external means, but of internal, that overtook Burns. His was no bankruptcy of the purse, but of the soul; to his last day, he owed no man anything. Meanwhile he begins well: with two good and wise actions. His donation to his mother, munificent from a man whose income had lately been seven pounds a-year, was worthy of him, and not more than worthy. Generous also, and worthy of him, was the treatment of the woman whose life's welfare now depended on his pleasure. A friendly observer might have hoped serene days for him: his mind is on the true road to peace with itself: what clearness he still wants will be given as he proceeds; for the best teacher of duties, that still lie dim to us, is the Practice of those we see, and have at hand. Had the'patrons of genius,' who could give him nothing, but taken nothing from him,- at least nothing more! The wounds of his heart would have healed, vulgar ambition would have died away. Toil and Frugality would have been welcome, since Virtue dwelt with them; and Poetry would have shone through them as of old: and in her clear ethereal light, which was his own by birthright, he might have looked down on his earthly destiny, and all its obstructions, not with patience only, but with love. But the patrons of genius would not have it so. Picturesque tourists,1 all manner of fashionable danglers after 1 There is one little sketch by certain' English gentlemen' of this class, which, though adopted in Currie's Narrative, and since'then repeated in most others, we have all along felt an invincible disposition to regard as imaginary:' On a rock that projected into the stream, they saw a man'employed in angling, of a singular appearance. He had a cap made of'fox-skin on his head, a loose greatcoat fixed round him by a belt, from'which depended an enormous Highland broad-sword. It was Burns.' Now, we rather think, it was not' Burns.'For, to say nothing of the foxskin cap, the loose and quite Hibernian watchcoat with the belt, what are we to make of this'enormous Highland broad-sword' depending from him? More especially, as there-is no word of parish constables on the lookout to see whether, as Dennis phrases it, he had an eye to his- own BURNS. 311 literature, and, far worse, all manner of convivial Mecaenases, hovered round him in his retreat; and his good as well as his weak qualities secured them influence over him. He,was flattered by their notice; and his warm social nature made it impossible for him to shake them off, and hold on:his way apart from them. These men, as we believe, were proximately the means of his ruin. Not that they meant him any ill; they only meant themselves a little good; if he suffered harm, let him look to it! But they wasted his precious time and his precious talent; they disturbed his composure, broke down his returning habits of temperance and assiduous contented exertion. Their pampering was baneful to him; their cruelty, which soon followed, was equally baneful. The old grudge against Fortune's inequality awoke with new bitterness in their neighbourhood; and Burns had no retreat but'to the' Rock of Independence,' which is but an air-castle, after all, that looks well at a distance, but will screen no one from real wind and wet. Flushed with irregular excitement, exasperated alternately by contempt of others, and contempt of himself, Burns was no longer regaining his peace of mind, but fast losing it forever. There was a hollowness at the heart of his life, for his conscience did not now approve what he was doing. Amid the vapours of unwise enjoyment, of bootless remorse, and angry discontent with Fate, his true loadstar, a life of Poetry, with Poverty, nay with Famine if it must be so, was too often altogether hidden from his eyes. And yet he sailed a sea, where without some such loadstar there was no right steering. Meteors of French Politics rise before him, but these were not his stars. An accident this, which hastened, but did not originate, his worst distresses. In the mad contentions of that time, he comes in collision with certain official Superiors; is wounded by them; cruelly lacer-'midriff or that of the public! Burns, of all men, had the least need, and the. least tendency, to seek for distinction, either in his own eyes, or those of others, by such poor mummeries. 312 MISCELLANIES. ated, we should say, could a dead mechanical implement, in any case, be called cruel: and shrinks, in indignant pain, into deeper self-seclusion, into gloomier moodiness than ever. His life has now lost its unity: it is a life of fragments; led with little aim, beyond the melancholy one of securing its own continuance, - in fits of wild false joy when such offered, and of black despondency when they passed away. His character before the world begins to suffer: calumny is busy with him; for a miserable man makes more enemies than friends. Some faults he has fallen into, and a thousand misfortunes; but deep criminality is what he stands accused of, and they that are not without sin cast the first stone at him! For is he not a well-wisher of the French Revolution, a Jdacobin, and therefore in that one act guilty of all? These accusations, political and moral, it has since appeared, were false enough: but the world hesitated little to credit them. Nay, his convivial Mecemnases themselves were not the last to do it. There is reason to believe that, in his later years, the Dumfries Aristocracy had partly withdrawn themselves from Burns, as from a tainted person, no longer worthy of their acquaintance. That painful class, stationed in all provincial cities, behind the outmost breastwork of Gentility, there to stand siege and do battle against the intrusions of Grocerdom and Grazierdom, had actually seen dishonour in the society of Burns, and branded him with their veto; had, as we vulgarly say, cut him! We find one passage in this Work of Mr. Lockhart's, which will not out of our thoughts:'A gentleman of that county, whose name I have already more than once had occasion to refer to, has often told me that he was seldom more grieved, than when riding into Dumfries one fine summer evening about this time to attend a county ball, he saw Burns walking alone, on the shady side of the principal street of the town, while the opposite side was gay with successive groups of gentlemen and ladies, all drawn together for the festivities of the night, not one of whom appeared willing to recognise him. The horseman dismounted, and joined Burns, who on his proposing to cross the street said: "Nay, nay, my young friend, that's all over now;" and BURNS. 313 quoted, after a pause, some verses of Lady Grizzel Baillie's pathetic ballad.: "His bonnet stood ance fu' fair on his brow, His auld ane look'd better than mony ane'.s new,;; But now he lets't wear ony way it will hing, And casts himsell dowie upon the corn-bing. 0 were we young, as we ance hae been, We sud hae been galloping down on yon green, And linking it ower the lily-white lea! And werena my heart light, 1 wad die." It was little in Burns's character to let his feelings on certain subjects escape in this fashion. He, immediately after reciting these verses, assumed the sprightliness of his most pleasing manner; and taking his young friend home with him, entertained him very agreeably till the hour of the ball arrived.' Alas! when we think that Burns now sleeps'where bitter indignation can no longer lacerate his heart,' 1 and that most of those fair dames and frizzled gentlemen already lie at his side, where the breastwork of gentility is quite thrown down, - who would not sigh over the thin delusions and foolish toys that divide heart from heart, and make man unmerciful to his brother! It was not now to be'hoped that the genius of Burns would ever reach maturity, or accomplish aught worthy of itself. His spirit was jarred in'its melody; not the soft breath of natural feeling, but the rude hand of Fate, was now sweeping over the strings. And yet what harmony was in him, what music even in his discords! How the wild tones had a charm for the simplest and the wisest; and all men felt and knew that here also was one of the Gifted!'If,he entered an inn at midnight, after all the inmates were' in bed, the news of his arrival circulated from the cellar to'the garret; and ere ten minutes had elapsed, the landlord'-and all his guests were assembled!' Some brief pure moments of poetic life were yet appointed him, in the composi1 Ubi swuva indignatio cor ulterius lacerare nequit. Swift's Epitaph. 314 MISCELLANIES. tion of his Songs. We can understand how he grasped at this employment; and how too, he spurned all other reward for it but what the labour itself brought him. For the soul of Burns, though scathed and marred, was yet living in its full moral strength, though sharply conscious of its errors and abasement: and here, in his destitution and degradation, was one act of seeming nobleness and self-devotedness left even for him to perform. He felt too, that with all the'thoughtless follies' that had'laid him low,' the world was unjust and cruel to him; and he silently appealed to another and calmer time. Not as a hired soldier, but as a patriot, would he strive for the glory of his country: so he cast from him the poor sixpence a-day, and served zealously as a volunteer. Let us not grudge him this last luxury of his existence; let him not have appealed to us in vain! The money was not necessary to him; he struggled through without it: long since, these guineas would have been gone, and-now the high-mindedness of refusing them will plead for him in all hearts forever. WVe are here arrived at the crisis of Burns's life; for mattershad now taken such a shape with him as coulid not long continue. If improvement was not to be looked for, Nature could only for a limited time maintain this dark and maddening warfare against the world and itself. We are not medically informed whether any continuance of years was, at this period, probable for Burns; whether his death is to be. looked on as in some sense an accidental event, or only as the natural consequence of the long series of events that had preceded. The latter seems to be the likelier opinion; and yet it is by no means a certain one. At all events, as we have said, some change could not be very distant. Three gates of deliverance, it seems to us, were open for Burns: clear poetical activity; madness; or death. The first, with longer life, was still possible, though not probable; for physical causes were beginning to be concerned in it: and yet Burns had an iron resolution; could he but have seen and BURNS. 315 felt, that not only his highest glory, but his first duty, and -the true medicine for all his woes lay here. The second was:still less probable; for his mind was ever among the clearest and firmest. So the milder third gate was opened for him;:and he passed, not softly, yet speedily, into that stil country, where the hail-storms and fire-showers do not reach, and the heaviest-laden wayfarer at length lays down his load! Contemplating this sad end of Burns, and how he sank unaided by any real help, uncheered by any wise sympathy, generous minds have sometimes figured to themselves, with a reproachful sorrow, that much might have been done for him; that by counsel, true affection and friendly ministrations, he might have been saved to himself and the world. We question whether there is not more tenderness of heart than soundness of judgment in these suggestions. It seems:dubious to us whether the richest, wisest, most benevolent individual could have lent Burns any effectual help. Counsel, which seldom profits any one, he did not need; in his understanding, he knew the right from the wrong, as well perhaps as any man ever did; but the persuasion, which would have availed him, lies not so much in the head as in the heart, where no argument or expostulation could have assisted much to implant it. As to money again, we do not believe that this was his essential want; or well see how any private man could, even presupposing Burns's consent, have bestowed on him an independent fortune, with much,.prospect of decisive advantage. It is a mortifying truth, that two men in any rank of society, could hardly be found virtuous enough to'give money, and to take it as a necessary gift, without injury to the moral entireness of one or both. But so stands the fact: Friendship, in the old heroic sense of that term, no longer exists; except in the cases of kindred or other legal affinity, it-is in reality no longer expected, or recognised as a virtue among men. A close observer of manners. has pronounced'Patronage,' that is, -pecuniary or 316 MISCELLANIES. other economic furtherance, to be'twice cursed;' cursing him that gives, and him that takes! And thus, in regard to outward matters also, it has become the rule, as in regard to inward it always was and must be the rule, that no one shall look for effectual help to another; but that each shall rest contented with what help he can afford himself. Such, we say, is the principle of modern Honour; naturally enough growing out of that sentiment of Pride, which we inculcate and encourage as the basis of our whole social morality. Many a poet has been poorer than Burns; but no one was ever prouder: we may question whether, without great precautions, even a pension from Royalty would not have galled and encumbered, more than actually assisted him. Still less, therefore, are we disposed to join with another class of Burns's admirers, who accuse the higher ranks among us of having ruined Burns by their selfish neglect of him. We have already stated our doubts whether direct pecuniary help, had it been offered, would have been accepted, or could have proved very effectual, We shall readily admit, how.' ever, that much was to be done for Burns; that many a poisoned arrow might have been warded from his bosom; many an entanglement in his path cut asunder by the hand of the powerful; and light and heat, shed on him from high places,' would have made his humble atmosphere more genial; and the softest heart then breathing might have lived and died with some fewer pangs. Nay, we shall grant farther, and for Siurns it is granting much, that, with all his pride, he would have thanked, even with exaggerated gratitude, any one who had cordially befriended him: patronage, unless once cursed, needed not to have been twice so. At all events, the. poor promotion he desired in his calling might have beengranted: it was his own scheme, therefore likelier than any other to be of service. All this it might have been a luxury, nay it was a duty, for our nobility to have done. No part of all this, however, did any of them do; or apparently attempt, or wish to do: so much is granted against them. But what BURNS. 317 then is the amount of their blame? Simply that they were men of the world, and walked by the principles of such men; that they treated Burns, as other nobles and other commoners had done other poets; as the English did Shakspeare; as King Charles and his Cavaliers did Butler, as King Philip and his Grandees did Cervantes. Do men gather grapes of thorns; or shall we cut down our thorns for yielding only a fence and haws? How, indeed, could the'nobility and gentry of his native land' hold out any help to this' Scottish. Bard, proud of his name and country?' Were the nobility and gentry so much as able rightly to help themselves? Had they not their game to preserve; their borough interests to strengthen; dinners, therefore, of various kinds to eat and give? Were their means more than adequate to all this business, or less than adequate? Less than adequate in general; few of them in reality were richer than Burns; many of them were poorer; for sometimes they had to wring their supplies, as with thumbscrews, from the hard hand; and, in: their need of guineas, to forget their duty of mercy; which. Burns was never reduced to do. Let us pity and forgive them. The game they preserved and shot, the dinners they ate and gave, the borough interests they strengthened, the little Babylons they severally builded by the glory of their might,. are all melted or melting back into the primeval Chaos, as man's merely selfish endeavours are fated to do: and here was an action, extending, in virtue of its worldly influence, we may say, through all time; in virtue of its moral. nature, beyond all time, being immortal as the spirit of Goodness itself; this action was offered them to do, and light was not given them to do it. Let us pity and forgive, them. But better than pity, let us go and do otherwise. Human suffering'did not end with the life.of Burns; neither was the solemn mandate,' Love one another, bear one another's burdens,' given to the rich only, but to all men. True, we shall find no Burns to relieve, to assuage by our aid or our pity; but celestial natures, groaning under the fardels of 318 MISCELLANIES. a weary life, we shall still find; and that wretchedness which' Fate has rendered voiceless and tuneless is not the least: wretched, but the most. Still, we do not think that tbhy blame of Burns's failure lies chiefly with the world.' The world, it seems to us, treated him with more, rather than with less kindness than it usually shows to such men. It has ever, we fear, shown but small, fav'our to its Teachers: hunger and nakedness, perils and reviling, the prison, the cross, the poison-chalice have, in: most times and countries, been the market-price it has offered for Wisdom, the welcome with which it has greeted those: who have come to enlighten and purify it. Homer and Socrates, and the Christian Apostles, belong to old days; but the world's Martyrology was not completed with these. Roger Bacon and Galileo languish'in priestly dungeons; Tasso pines in the cell of a madhouse; Camoens dies begging on the streets of Lisbon. So neglected, so,' persecuted' they the Prophets,' not in Judea only, but in all places where men have been. We reckon that every poet of Burns's order is, or should be, a prophet and teacher to his' age; that he has no right to expect great kindness from it,: but rather is bound to do it great kindness; that Burns, in particular, experienced fully the usual proportion of the world's goodness; and that the blame of his failure, as we have said, lies not chiefly with the world. Where then does it lie? We are forced to answer: With himself; it is his inward, not his outward misfortunes that bring him to the dust. Seldom, indeed, is ft otherwise; seldom is a life morally wrecked but the grand cause lies in some internal mal-arrangement, some want less of good fortune -than of good guidance. Nature fashions no creature' without implanting in it the strength needful for its action and duration; least of all does she so neglect her masterpiece and darling, the poetic soul. Neither can we believe that it is in the power of any external circumstances utterly to ruin the mind of a man; nay, if proper wisdom -be given him, BURNS. 319 even so much as to affect its essential health and beauty. The sternest sum-total of all worldly misfortunes is Death; nothing more can lie in the cup of human woe: yet many men, in all ages, have triumphed over Death, and led it captive; converting its physical victory into a moral victory for themselves, into a seal and immortal consecration for all that their past life had achieved. What has been done, may be done again: nay, it is but the degree and not the kind of such heroism that differs in different seasons; for without some portion of this spirit, not of boisterous daring, but of silent fearlessness, of Self-denial in all its fopti, no good man, in any scene or time, has ever attained f' be good. We have already stated the error of Burns; and mourned over it, rather than blamed it. It was the want of unity in his purposes, of consistency in his aims; the hapless attempt to mingle in friendly union the common spirit of the world with the spirit of poetry, which is of a far different and altogether irreconcilable nature. Burns was nothing wholly; and Burns could be nothing, no man formed as he was can be anything, by halves. The heart, not of a mere hot-blooded, popular Verse-monger, or poetical Restaurateur, but of a true Poet and Singer, worthy of the old religious heroic times, had been given him: and he fell in an age, not of heroism and religion, but of scepticism, selfishness and triviality, when true Nobleness was little understood, and its place supplied by a hollow, dissocial, altogether barren and unfruitful principle- of Pride. The influences of that age, his open, kind, susceptible nature, to say nothing of his highly untoward situation? made it more than usually difficult for him to cast abide, or rightly subordinate; the better, spirit that was within him ever sternly demanded its rights, its supremacy: he spent his life in endeavouring to reconcile these two; and lost it, as he must lose it, without reconciling them. Burns was born poor; and born also to continue poor, for he would not endeavour to be otherwise: this it had been well could he have once for all admitted, and considered as 320 MISCELLANIES. finally settled. He was poor, truly; but hundreds even of his own class and order of minds have been poorer, yet have suffered nothing deadly from it: nay, his own Father had a far sorer battle with ungrateful destiny than his was; and he did not yield to it, but died courageously warring, and to all moral intents prevailing, against it. True, Burns had little means, had even little time for poetry, his only real pursuit and vocation; but so much the more precious was what little he had. In all these external respects his case was hard; but very far from the hardest. Poverty, incessant drudgery and much Worse evils, it has often been the lot of Poets and wise men to strive with, and their glory to conquer. Locke was banished as a tiaitor; and wrote his Essay on the Human Understanding sheltering himself in a Dutch garret. Was Milton rich or at his ease when he composed Paradise Lost? Not only low, but fallen from a height; not only poor, but impoverished; in darkness and with- dangers compassed round, he sang his immortal song, and found fit audience, though few. Did not Cervantes finish his work, a maimed soldier and in prison? Nay, was not the Araucana, which Spain acknowledges as its Epic, written without even the aid of paper; on scraps of leather, as the stout fighter. and voyager snatched any'moment from that wild warfare?" (And what then had these men, which Burns wanted? Two things; both which, it seems to us, are indispensable for such men. They had a true, religious principle of morals; and a single not a double aim in their activity. They were not self-seekers and self-worshippers; but seekers and worshippers of something far better than Self.) Not personal. enjoyment was their object; but a high, heroic ide'a of Religion, of Patriotism, of heavenly Wisdom in one or the other form, ever hovered before them; in which'cause, they neitheri shrank from suffering, nor called on the earth to witness it: ask something wonderful; but patiently endured, counting it blessedness enough so to spend and be spent. Thus the'goldencalf of Self-love,' however curiously carved, was not their BURNS. 321 Deity; but the Invisible Goodness, which alone is man's reasonable service. This feeling was as a celestial fountain, whose streams refreshed into gladness and beauty all the provinces of their otherwise too desolate existence. In a word, they willed one thing, to which; all other things were subordinated and made subservient; and therefore they accomplished it. The wedge will rend rocks;.bt its edge must be sharp and single: if it be double, the wedge is bruised in pieces and will rend nothing. Part of this superiority these men owed to tlbir age; in which heroism and devotedness were still practised, or at least not yet disbelieved in.: but much of it likewise'they owed to themselves. (With Burns again it was different. His morality, in most of its practical points, is that of a mere worldly man; enjoyvmenti i-a finer or coarser shape, is the only thing he longs and'trives for. A noble instinct sometimes raises him above this; but an instinct only, and acting only for moments.) He has no Religion; in the shallow age, where his days were cast, Religion was not discriminated from the New and Old Light forms of Religion; and was, with these, becoming obsolete in the minds of men. His heart, indeed, is alive with a trembling adoration, but there is no temple in his understanding. He lives in darkness and in the shadow of doubt. His religion, at best, is an anxious wish; like that of Rabelais,'a great Perhaps.' He loved Poetry warmly, and in his- heart; could he but have loved it purely, and with his whole undivided heart, it had been well. For Poetry, as Burns could have followed it,,is but another form of Wisdom, of Religion; is itself Wisdom and Religion. But this also was denied him. His poetry is a stray vagrant gleam, which will not be extinguished within him, yet rises not to be the true light of his path, but is often a wildfire that misleads him. It was not necessary for Burns to be rich, to be, or to seem,' independent;' but it was necessary for him to be at one with his own, heart; to place what was highest in his nature highest VOL. I. 21 322 MISCELLANIES. also in his life;'to seek within himself for that consistency and sequence, which external events would forever refuse him.' He was born a poet; poetry was the celestial element of his being, and should have been the soul of his whole endeavours. Lifted into that serene ether, whither he had wings given him to mount, he would have needed no other elevation: poverty, neglect and all evil, save the desecration of himself and his Art, were a small matter to him; the pride and the passions of the world lay far beneath his feet; and he looked down alike on noble and slave, on prince and beggar, and all that wore the stamp of man, with clear recog,nition, with brotherly affection, with sympathy, with pity. N:ay, we question whether for his culture as a Poet, poverty and much suffering for a season were not absolutely advantageous. Great men, in looking back over their lives, have testified to that effect.' I would not for much,' says Jean Paul,'that I had been born richer.' And yet Paul's birth was poor enough; for, in another place, he adds:' The prisoner's allowance is bread and water; and I had often only the latter.' But the gold that is refined in the hottest furnace comes out the purest; or, as he has himself expressed it, the canary-bird sings sweeter the longer it has been trained in a darkened cage.' A man like Burns might have divided his hours between poetry and virtuous industry; industry which all true feeling sanctions, nay prescribes, and which has a beauty, for that cause, beyond the pomp of thrones: but to divide his hours between poetry and rich men's banquets was an ill-starred and inauspicious attempt. How could he be at ease at such banquets? What had he to do there, mingling his music with the coarse roar of altogether earthly voices; brightening the thick smoke of intoxication with fire lent him from heaven? Was it his aim to enjoy life? To-morrow he must go drudge as an Exciseman! We wonder not that Burns became moody, indignant, afid at times an offender against; certain rules of society; but rather that he did not grow ut BURNS. 323 terly frantic, and run amuzck against them all, How could a man, so falsely placed, by his own or others' fault, ever know contentment or peaceable diligence for an hour? What he did,. under such perverse guidance, and what he forbore to do, alike fill us with astonishment at the natural strength and worth of his character. Doubtless there was a remedy for this perverseness; but not in others; only in himself; least of all in simple increase of wealth and worldly'respectability.' We hope we have now heard enough about the efficacy of wealth for poetry, and to make poets happy. Nay, have we not seen another instance of it in these very days? Byron, a man of an endowment considerably less ethereal than that of Burns, is born in the rank not of a Scottish ploughman, but of an English peer: the highest worldly honours,, the fairest worldly career, are his by inheritance; the richest harvest of fame he soon reaps, in another province,, by- his own hand. And what does all this avail him? Is he happy, is he good, is he true? Alas, he has a poet's soul, and strives towards: the Infinite and the Eternal; and soon feels that all this is but mounting to the house-top to reach the stars! Like Burns, he is only a proud man; might, like him, have'purchased a pocket-copy of Milton to'study the character ofSatan;' for Satan also is Byron's: grand exemplar, the hero of his poetry, and the model apparently of his conduct. As in Burns's case too, the celestial element will not mingle: with the clay of earth; both poet and man of the world h'e must not be; vulgar Ambition will not live kindly with poetic Adoration; he cannot serve God and Mammon. Byron, like Burns, is not happy; nay, he is the most wretched of all men. His life is falsely arranged the fire that is in him is not a strong, still, central fire, warming into beauty the products of a world; but it is the mad fire of a volcano; and now, - we look sadly into the ashes of a crater, which erelong will fill itself with snow! Byron and Burns were sent forth as missionaries to their 324 MISCELLANIES. generation, to teach it a higher Doctrine, a purer Truth; they had a message to deliver, which left them no rest till it was accomplished; in dim throes of pain, this divine behest lay smouldering within them; for they knew not what it meant, and felt it only in mysterious anticipation, and they had to die without articulately uttering it. They, are in the camp of the Unconverted; yet not as high messengers of rigorous though benignant truth, but as soft flattering singers, and in pleasant fellowship, will they live there: they are first adulated, then persecuted; they accomplish little for others; they find no peace for themselves, but only death and the peace of the grave. We confess, it is not without a certain mournful awe that we view the fate of these noble souls, so richly gifted, yet ruined to so little purpose with all their gifts. It seems to us there is a stern moral taught in this piece of history, — twice told us in our own time! Surely to men of like genius, if there be any such, it carries with it a lesson of deep impressive significance. Surely it would become such a man, furnished for the highest of all enterprises, that of being the Poet of his Age, to consider well what it is that he attempts, and in what spirit he attempts it. For the words of Milton are true in all times, and were never truer than in this:'He, who would write heroic poems, must make his whole life a heroic poem.' If he cannot first so make his life, then let him hasten from this arena; for neither its lofty glories, nor its fearful perils, are fit for him. Let him dwindle into a modish ballad-monger; let him worship and besing the idols of the time, and the time will not fail to reward him. If, indeed, he can endure to live in that capacity! Byron and Burns could not live as idol-priests, but the'fire of their own hearts consumed them; and better it was for them that they could not. For it is not in the favour of the grea;t or of the small, but in a life of truth, and,in the inexpugnable citadel of his own soul, that:a Byron's or a Burns's strength must lie. Let the great stand aloof from him, or know how to reverence him. Beautiful BURNS. 325 is the union of wealth with favour and furtherance for literature; like the costliest flower-jar enclosing the loveliest amaranth. Yet let not the relation be mistaken. A true poet is not one whom they can hire by money or flattery to be a minister of their pleasures, their writer of occasional verses, their purveyor of table-wit; he cannot be their menial, he cannot even be their partisan. At the peril of both parties, let no such union be attempted! Will a Courser of the Sun work softly in the harness of a Drayhorse? His hoofs are of fire, and his path is through the heavens, bringing light to all lands; will he lumber on mud highways, dragging ale for earthly appetites from door to door? But we must stop short in these considerations, which would lead us to boundless lengths. We had something to say on the public moral character of Burns; but this also we must forbear. We are far from regarding him as guilty before the world, as guiltier than the average; nay from doubting that he is less guilty than one of ten thousand. Tried at a tribunal far more rigid than that where the Plebiscita of common civic reputations are pronounced, he has seemed to us even there less worthy of blame than of pity and wonder. But the world is habitually unjust in its judgments of such men; unjust on many grounds, of which this one may be stated as the substance: It decides, like a court of law, by dead statutes; and not positively but negatively, less on what is done right, than on what is or is not done wrong. Not the few inches of deflection from the mathematical orbit, which are so easily measured, but the ratio of these to the whole diameter, constitutes the real aberration. This orbit may be a planet's, its diameter the breadth of the solar system; or it may be a city hippodrome; nay the circle of a ginhorse, its diameter h score of feet or paces. But the inches of deflection only are measured: and it is assumed that the diameter of the ginhorse, and that of the planet, will yield the same ratio when compared with them! 326 MISCELLANIES. Here lies the root of many a blind, cruel condemnation of Burnses, Swifts, Rousseaus, which one never listens to with approval. Granted, the ship comes into harbour with shrouds and tackle damaged; the pilot is blameworthy; he has not been all-wise and all-powerful: but to know how blameworthy, tell us first whether his voyage has been round the Globe, or only to Ramsgate and the Isle of Dogs. With our readers in general, with men of right feeling anywhere, we are not required to plead for Burns. In pitying admiration he lies enshrined in all our hearts, in a far nobler mausoleum than that one of marble; neither will his Works, even as they are, pass away from the memory of men. While the Shakspeares and Miltons roll on like mighty rivers through the country of Thought, bearing fleets of traffickers and assiduous pearl-fishers on their waves; this little Valclusa Fountain will also arrest our eye: for this also is of Nature's own and most cunning workmanship, bursts from the depths of the earth, with a full gushing current, into the. light of day; and often will the traveller turn aside to drinkl of its clear waters, and muse among its rocks and pines! LIFE OF HEYNE. 327 THE LIFE OF HEYNE.1 [1828.] THE labours and merits of Heyne being better known, and more justly appreciated in England, than those of almost any other German, whether scholar, poet or philosopher, we cannot but believe that some notice of his life may be acceptable to most readers. Accordingly, we here mean to give a short abstract of this Volume, a miniature copy of the'biographical portrait;' but must first say a few words on the portrait itself, and the limner by whom it was drawn. Professor Heeren is a man of learning, and known far out of his own Hanoverian circle,- indeed, more or less to all students of history, - by his researches on Ancient Commerce, a voluminous account of which from his hand enjoys considerable reputation. He is evidently a man of sense and natural talent, as well as learning; and his gifts seem to lie round him in quiet arrangement, and very much at his own command. Nevertheless, we cannot admire him as a writer; we do not even reckon that such endowments as he has are adequately represented in his books. His style both of diction and thought is thin, cold, formal, without force or character, and painfully reminds us of college lectures. He cann work rapidly, but with no freedom, and, as it were, only in one attitude, and at one sort of labour. Not that we particu1 FOREIGN REVIEW, No. 4. - Christian Gottlob Heyne biographisch dalrgestellt von Arnold Hermann Ludwiq Heeren. (Christian Gottlob Heyne biographically portrayed by, Arnold Hermann Ludwig. leeren.) Gittingen. 328 MISCELLANIES. larly blame Professor Heeren for this, but that we think he might have been something better: these'fellows in buckram,' very numerous in certain walks of literature, are an unfortunate rather than a guilty class of men; they have fallen, perhaps unwillingly, into the plan of writing by pattern, and can now do no other; for, in their minds, the beautiful comes at last to be simply synonymous with the neat. Every sentence bears a family-likeness to its precursor; most probably it has a set number of clauses (three is a favourite number, as in Gibbon, for'the Muses delight in odds'); has also a given rhythm, a known and foreseen music, simple but limited enough, like that of ill-bred fingers drumming on a table. And then it is strange how soon the outward rhythm carries the inward along with it; and the thought moves with the same stinted, hamstrung rub-a-dub as the words. In a state of perfection, this species of writing comes to resemble power-loom weaving; it is not the mind that is at work, but some scholastic machinery which the mind has of old constructed, and is from afar observing. Shot follows shot from the unwearied shuttle; and so the web is woven, ultimately and properly, indeed, by the wit of man, yet immediately and in the meanwhile by the mere aid of time and steam. But our Professor's mode of speculation is little less intensely academic than his mode of writing. We fear he is something of what the Germans call a Kleinstddter; mentally as well as bodily, a'dweller in a little town.' He speaks at great length, and with undue fondness, of the'Georgia Augusta;' which, after all, is but the University of Gottingen, an earthly and no celestial institution: it is nearly in vain that he tries to contemplate Heyne as a European personage, or even as a German one; beyond the precincts of the Georgia Augusta, his view seems to grow feeble, and soon dies away into vague inanity; so we have not Heyne, the man and scholar, but Heyne the Gdttingen Professor. But neither is this habit of mind any strange or crying sin, or at LIFE OF HEYNE. 329 all peculiar to Gbttingen; as, indeed, most parishes in England can produce more than one example to show. And yet it is pitiful, when an establishment for universal science, which ought to be a watchtower where a man might see all the kingdoms of the world, converts itself into a workshop, whence he sees nothing but his toolbox and bench, and the world, in broken glimpses, through one patched and highly discoloured pane! Sometimes, indeed, our worthy friend rises into a region of the moral sublime, in which it is difficult for a foreigner to follow him. Thus he says, on one occasion, speaking of Heyne:'Immortal are his merits in regard to the catalogues' — of the Gittingen library. And, to cite no other instance except the last and best one, we are informed, that when Heyne died,'the guardian angels of the Georgia Augusta waited, in'that higher world, to meet him with blessings.' By Day and Night! there is no such guardian angel, that we know of, for the University of Gdttingen; neither does it need one, being a good solid seminary of itself, with handsome stipends from Government. We had imagined too, that if anybody welcomed people into heaven, it would be St. Peter, or at /least some angel of old standing, and not a mere mushroom, as this of G6ttingen must be, created since the year 1739. But we are growing very ungrateful to the good Heeren, -who meant no harm by these flourishes of rhetoric, and inzdeed does not often indulge in them. The grand questions with us here are, Did he know the truth in this matter; and,was he disposed to tell it honestly? To both of which questions we can answer without reserve, that all appearances are in his favour. He was Heyne's pupil, colleague, son-in-'law, and so knew him intimately for thirty years: he has.every feature also of a just, quiet, truth-loving man; so that we see little reason to doubt the authenticity, the innocence, of any statement in his Volume. What more have we to do with him then, but to take thankfully what he has been 330 MISCIELLANIES. pleased and able to give us, and, with all despatch, communicate it to our readers? Heyne's Life is not without an intrinsic, as well as an external interest; for he had much to struggle with, and he struggled with it manfully; thus his history has a value independent of his fame. Some account of his early years we are happily enabled to give in his own words: we translate a considerable part of this passage; autobiography being a favourite sort of reading with us. He was born at Chemnitz, in Upper Saxony, in September 1729; the eldest of a poor weaver's family, poor almost to the verge of destitution.'My good father, George Heyne,' says he,'was a native of the principality of Glogau, in Silesia, from the little village of Gravenschiitz. His youth had fallen in those times when the Evangelist party of that province were still exposed to the oppressions and persecutions of the Romish Church. His kindred, enjoying the blessing of contentment in an humble but independent station, felt, like others, the influence of this proselytising bigotry, and lost their domestic peace by means of it. Some went over to the Romish faith. My father left his native village, and endeavoured, by the labour of his hands, to procure a livelihood in Saxony. " What will it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul!" was the thought which the scenes of his youth had stamped the most deeply on his mind. But no lucky chance favoured his enterprises or endeavours to better his condition, never so little. On the contrary, a series of perverse incidents kept him continually below the limits even of a moderate sufficiency. His old age was thus left a prey to poverty, and to her companions, timidity and depression of mind., Manufactures, at that time, were visibly declining in Saxony; and. ~the misery among the working-classes, in districts concerned in the. linen trade, was unusually severe. Scarcely could the labour of the hands suffice to support the labourer. himself, still less his family. The saddest aspect which the decay of civic society can exhibit.has always appeared. to me to be this, when honourable, honour-loving, conscientious diligence cannot, by the utmost efforts of toil, obtain the necessaries of life; or when the working man cannot even find work, but must stand with folded arms, lamenting his forced idleness, through which himself and his family are verging to starvationl, or it may be, actually suffering the pains of hunger. LIFE OF HEYNE. 331'It was in the extremest penury that I was born and brought up. The earliest companion of my childhood was Want; and my first impressions came from the tears of my mother, who had not bread for her children. How often have I seen her on Saturday-nights wringing her hands and weeping, when she had come back with What the hard toil, nay often the sleepless nights, of her husband had produced, and could find none to buy it! Sometimes a fresh attempt was made through me or my sister: I had to return to the purchasers with the same piece of ware, to see whether we could not possibly get rid of it. In that quarter there is a class of so-called merchants, who, however, are in fact nothing more than forestallers, that buy up the linen made by the poorer people at the lowest price, and endeavour to sell it in other districts at the highest. Often have I seen one or other of these petty tyrants, with all the pride of a satrap, throw back the piece of goods offered him, or imperiously cut off some trifle from the price and wages required for it. Necessity constrained the poorer to sell the sweat of his brow at a groschen or two less, and again to make good the deficit by starving. It was the view of such things that awakened the first sparks of indignation in my young heart. The show of pomp and plenty among these purseproud people, who fed themselves on the extorted crumbs of so many hundreds, far from dazzling me into respect or fear, filled me with rage against them. Tile first time I heard of tyrannicide at school, there rose vividly before me the project to become a Brutus on all those oppressors of the poor, who had so often cast my father and mother into straits: and here, for the first time, was an instance of a truth which I have since had frequent occasion to observe, that if the unhappy man, armed with feeling of his wrongs and a certain strength of soul, does not risk the utmost and become an open criminal, it is merely the beneficent result of those circumstances in which Providence has placed him, thereby fettering his activity, and guarding him from such destructive attempts. That the oppressing part of mankind should be secured against the oppressed was, in the plan of inscrutable Wisdom, a most important element of the present system of things.' My good parents did what they could, and sent me to a child'sschool in the suburbs. I obtained the praise of learning very fast,. and being very fond of it. My schoolmaster had two sons, lately returned from Leipzig; a couple of depraved fellows, who took all pains to lead me astray; and, as I'resisted, kept me for a long time, by threats and mistreatment of all sorts, extremely miserable. So early as my tenth year, to raise the money for my school wages, I had given lessons to a neighbour's child, a little girl, in reading and" writing. As the common school-course could take me no farther,' 332 MISCELLANIES. the point now was to get a private hour and proceed into Latin. But for that purpose a guter groschen weekly was required; this my parents had not to give. Many a day I carried this grief about with me: however, I had a godfather, who was in easy circumstances, a baker, and my mother's half-brother. One Saturday I was sent to this man to fetch a loaf. With wet eyes I entered his house, and chanced to find my godfather himself there. Being questioned why I was crying, I tried to answer, but a whole stream of tears broke loose, and scarcely could I make the cause of my sorrow intelligible. My magnanimous godfather offered to pay the weekly groschen out of his own pocket; and only this condition was imposed on me, that I should come to him every Sunday, and repeat what part of the Gospel I had learned by heart. This latter arrangement had one good effect for me, - it exercised my memory, and I learned to recite without bashfulniess.'Drunk with joy, I started off with my loaf; tossing it up time after time into the air, and barefoot as I was, I capered aloft after it. But hereupon my loaf fell into a puddle. This misfortune again brought me a'little to reason. My mother heartily rejoiced at the good news; my father was less content. Thus passed a couple of years; and my schoolmaster intimated, what I myself had long known, that I could now learn no more from him.'This then was the time when I must leave school, and betake me to the handicraft of my father.,.) Were not the artisan under oppressions of so many kinds, robbed of the fruits of his hard toil, and of so many advantages to which the useful citizen has a natural claim; I should still say: Had I but continued in the station of my parents, what thousandfold vexation would at this hour have been unknown to me! My father could not but be anxious to have a grown-up son for an assistant in his labour, and looked upon my repugnance to it with great dislike. I again longed to get into the grammar-school of the town; but for this all means were wanting. Where was a gulden of quarterly fees, where were books and a blue cloak to be come at? How wistfully my look often hung on the walls of the. school when I passed it!' A clergyman of the suburbs was my second godfather; his name was Sebastian Seydel; my schoolmaster, who likewise belonged to his congregation, had told him of me. I was sent for, and after a short examination, he promised me that I should go to the townschool; he himself would bear the charges. Who can express my happiness, as I then felt it! I was despatched to the first teacher; examined, and placed with approbation in the second class. Weakly from the first, pressed down with sorrow and want, without any cheerful enjoyment of childhood or youth, I was still of very small LIFE OF HEYNE. 333 stature; my class-fellows judged by externals, and had a very slight opinion of me. Scarcely, by various proofs of diligence and by the praises I received, could I get so far that they tolerated my being put beside them.'And certainly my diligence was not a little hampered! Of his promise, the clergyman, indeed, kept so much, that he paid my quarterly fees, provided me with a coarse cloak, and gave me some useless volumes that were lying on his shelves; but to furnish me with school-books he could not resolve. I thus found myself under the necessity of borrowing a class-fellow's books, and daily copying a part of them before the lesson. On the other hand, the honest man would have some hand himself in my instruction, and gave me from time to time some hours in Latin. In his youth he had learned to make Latin verses: scarcely was Erasmus de Civilitate Mlorum got over, when I too must take to verse-making; all this before I had read any authors, or could possibly possess any store of words. The man was withal passionate and rigorous; in every point repulsive; with a moderate income he was accused of avarice; he had the stiffness and self-will of an old bachelor, and at the same time the vanity of aiming to. be a good Latinist, and, what was more, a Latin versemaker, and consequently a literary clergyman. These qualities of his all contributed to overload my youth, and nip away in the bud every enjoyment of its pleasures.' In this plain but somewhat leaden style does Heyne pro-;ceed, detailing the crosses and losses of his school-years. We cannot pretend that the narrative delights us much; nay, that it is not rather bald and barren for such a narrative; but its fidelity may be relied on; and it paints the clear, broad, strong and somewhat heavy nature of the -writer, perhaps better than description could do. It is curioius, for instance, to see with how little of a purely humane interest he looks back to his childhood; how Heyne the man has almost grown into a sort of teaching-machine, and sees in Heyne the boy little else than the incipient Gerundgrinder, and tells us little else but how this wheel after the other was developed in him, and he came at last to grind in complete perfection. We could have wished to get some view into the interior of that poor Chemnitz hovel, with its unresting loom and cheerless hearth, its squalor and devotion, its affection 334 MISCELLANIES. and repining; and the fire of natural genius struggling into flame amid such incumbrances, in an atmosphere so damp and close! But of all this we catch few farther glimpses; and hear only of Fabricius and Owen and Pasor, and schoolexaminations, and rectors that had been taught by Ernesti.. Neither, in another respect, not of omission but of commission, can this piece of writing altogether content us. We" must object a little to the spirit of it, as too narrow, too intolerant. Sebastian Seydel must have been a very meagre man; but is it right that Heyne, of all others, should speak of him with asperity? Without question the unfortunate Seydel meant nobly, had not thrift stood in his way. Did he not pay down his gulden every quarter regularly, and give the boy a blue cloak, though a coarse one? Nay, he. bestowed old books on him, and instruction, according to his gift, in the mystery of verse-making. And was not all this something? And if thrift and charity had a continual battle to fight, was not that better than a fiat surrender on the part of the latter? The other pastors of Chemnitz are all quietly forgotten: why should Sebastian be remembered to his disadvantage for being only a little better than they? Heyne continued to be much infested with tasks from Sebastian, and sorely held down by want, and discouragement of every sort. The school-course moreover, he says, was bad; nothing but the old. routine; vocables, translations, exercises; all without spirit or purpose. Nevertheless, he. continued to, make what we must call wonderful proficiency in these branches; especially as he had still to write every task before he could learn it. For he prepared' Greek versions,' he says,'also Greek verses; and by and by could write'down in Greek prose,, and at last, in Greek as well as Latin'verses, the discourses he heard in church!' Some ray of. hope was beginning to spring up. within his mind. A certain small degree of self-confidence had first been awakened in him, as he informs us, by a' pedantic adventure:' LIFE OF HEYNE. 335'There chanced to be a school-examination held, at which the Superintendent, as chief school-inspector, was present. This man, Dr. Theodor KrUger, a theologian of some learning for his time,-all at once interrupted the rector, who was teaching ex cathedra, and put the question: Who among the scholars could tell him what might be made per anagramma from the word Austria? This whim had arisen from the circumstance that the first Silesian war was just begun; and some such anagram, reckoned very.happy, had appeared in a newspaper.l No one of us knew so much as what an anagram was; even the rector looked quite perplexed. As none answered, the latter began to give us a description of anagrams in general. I set myself to work, and sprang forth with my discovery: Vastari! This was something different from the newspaper one: so much the greater was our Superintendent's admiration; and the more, as the success — ful aspirant was a little boy, on the lowest bench of the secunda. He growled out his applause to me; but at the same time set the whole school about my ears, as he stoutly upbraided them with being beaten *by an infimus.'Enough: this pedantic adventure gave the first impulse to the development of my powers. I began to take some credit to myself, and in spite of all the oppression and contempt in which I languished, to resolve on struggling forward. This first struggle was in truth ineffectual enough; was soon regarded as a piece of pride and conceitedness; it brought on me a thousand humiliations and disquietudes; at times it might degenerate on my part into defiance. Nevertheless, it kept me at the stretch of my diligence, ill-guided as it was, and withdrew me from the company of my class-fellows, among whom, as among children of low birth and bad nurture could not fail to he the case, the utmost coarseness and boorishness of every sort prevailed. The plan of these schools does not include any general inspection, but limits itself to mere intellectual instruction.'Yet on all hands,' continues he,'I found myself too sadly hampered. The perverse way in which the old parson treated me; at home the discontent and grudging of my parents, especially of my father, who could not get on with his work, and still thought that, had I kept by his way of life, he might now have had some help; the pressure of want, the feeling of being behind every other; all this would allow no cheerful thought,. no sentiment of worth to spring up within me. A timorous, bashful, awkward carriage shut me out still farther from all exterior attractions. Where could I 1'As yet Saxony was against Austria, not, as in the end, allied with her.' 336 MISCELLANIES. learn good manners, elegance, a right way of thought? Where, could I attain any culture for heart and spirit?'Upwards, however, I still strove. A feeling of honour, a wish. for something better, an effort to work myself out of this abasement,. incessantly attended me; but without direction as it was, it led me rather to sullenness, misanthropy and clownishness.'At length a place opened for me, where some training in these points lay within my reach. One of our senators took his motherin-law home to live with him; she had still two children with her, a son and a daughter, both about my own age. For the son private lessons were wanted; and happily I was chosen for the purpose.'As these private lessons brought me in a gulden monthly, I now began to defend myself a little against the grumbling of my parents. Hitherto I had been in the habit of doing work occasionally, that I might not be told how I was eating their bread for nothing; clothes, and oil for my lamp, I had earned by teaching in the house: these things I could now relinquish; and thus my condition was in some degree improved. On the other hand, I had now opportunity of seeing persons of better education. I gained the goodwill of the family; so that besides the lesson-hours, I generally lived there. Such society afforded me some culture, extended my conceptions and opinions, and also polished a little the rudeness of my exterior.' In this senatorial house he must have been somewhat more at ease; for he now very privately fell in love with his pupil's sister, and made and burnt many Greek and Latin verses in her praise; and had sweet dreams of sometime rising'so high as to be worthy of her.' Even as matters stood, he acquired her friendship and that of her mother. But the grand concern, for the present, was how to get to college at Leipzig. Old Sebastian had promised to stand good on this occasion; and unquestionably would have done so with the greatest pleasure, had it cost him nothing: but he promised and promised, without doing aught; above all, without putting his hand in his pocket; and elsewhere there was no help or resource. At length, wearied perhaps with the boy's importunity, he determined to bestir himself; and so directed his assistant, who was just making a journey to Leipzig, to show Heyne the road: the two arrived in perfect safety; LIFE OF HEYNE. 337 Heyne still longing after cash, for of his own. he had only two gulden, about five'shillings; but the. assistant left him in a lodging-house, and went his way, saying he had no farther orders! The miseries of a poor scholar's life were now to, be Heyne's portion in full measure. Ill-clothed, totally destitute of books, with five shillings in his. purse, he found him*self set down in the Leipzig University, to study all learning. l)espondency at first overmastered the poor boy's heart, and he sank into sickness, from which indeed he recovered; but only, he says,' to fall into conditions of life where he became the prey of desperation.' How he contrived to exist, much: more to -study, is scarcely apparent from -this narrative. The unhappy old Sebastian did at length send him some pittance, and at rare intervals repeated the dole; yet ever with his own peculiar grace; not till after unspeakable solicitations; in quantities that were consumed by inextinguish-. able debt, and coupled with sour admonitions; nay, on'one occasion, addressed externally,'A Mr. Heyne, ETUDIANT NiGLIGEANT.' For half a year he would leave him without all help; then promise to come and see what he was doing'; come accordingly, and return without leaving him a penny: neither could the destitute youth ever obtain any public furtherance; no freitisch (free-table) or stipendium was to be procured. Many times he had no regular meal;'often note three halfpence for a loaf at midday.'. He longed to be dead, for his spirit was often sunk in the gloom of darkness.'One good heart alone,' says he,'I found, and that in the'servant-girl of the house where I lodged. She laid out'money for my most pressing necessities, and risked almost' all she had, seeing me in such frightful want. Could I but'.find thee in the world even now, thou good pious soul, that'I might repay thee what thou then didst for me!' Heyne declares it to be still a mystery to him how he stood all this.' What carried me forward,' continues he,'was not ambition; any youthful dream of one day taking VOL. I. 22 338 MISCELLANIES.'a place, or aiming to take one, among the learned. It i:s:',true, the bitter feeling of debasement, of deficiency in edu-'cation and external polish, the consciousness of awkwarcd'hess in social life, incessantly accompanied me. But my:'chief strength lay in a certain defiance of Fate. This'gave me courage not to yield; everywhere to try to thel'uttermost whether I was doomed without remedy never-'to rise from this degradation.' Of order in his studies there could be little expectation. He did not even know what profession he was aiming after: old Sebastian was for theology; and Heyne, though himself averse to it, affected and only affected to comply: besides: he had no money to pay class fees; it was only to open lectures, or at most to ill-guarded class-rooms, that he could gain admission. Of this ill-guarded sort was Winkler's; into which poor Heyne insinuated himself to hear philosophy.' Alas, the first problem of all philosophy, the keeping of soul and body together, was wellnigh too hard' for him! Winkler's students were of a riotous description; accustomed, among other improprieties, to scharren, scraping' with the feet. One day they chose to receive Heyne in this fashion; and he could *not venture. back.'Nevertheless,' adds he, simply enough,' the beadle came to me some time'afterwards, demanding the fee: I had my own shifts to'take before I could raise it.' Ernesti was the only teacher from whom he derived any benefit; the man, indeed, whose influence seems to have shaped the whole subsequent course of his studies. By dint of excessive endeavours he gained admittance to Ernesti's lectures; and here first learned, says Heeren,'what interpretation of the classics meant.' One Crist also, a strange, fantastic Sir Plume of a Professor, who built much on taste, elegance of manners and the like, took some notice of him, and procured. him a little employment as a private teacher. This might be more useful than his advice to imitate Scaliger, and read the ancients so as to begin with the LIFE OF HEYNE. 339 most ancient, and proceed regularly to the latest. Small service it can do a bedrid man to convince him that waltzing is preferable to quadrilles!' Crist's Lectures,''says' he,'.were a tissue of endless digressions, which, however, now'and then contained excellent remarks.' But Heyne's best teacher was himself. No pressure of- distresses, no want of books, advisers or encouragemient, not hun-' ger itself could -abate his resoiu'teese verasne.v ce. Wha:t books he could come' at ie:boirowed;' -;!':and' such was -his excess of zeal in reading, that for a whlole half-year he allowed himself only- two nights of sleep in the week, till at last a fever obliged him to be more moderate-.'His diligence was.undirected, or ill-directed, but'it never:'rested, never paused, and. mut'~a'6!l-ragth-'preval-;,F'Fortuine had cast him into a ca'r:i,'and.4ie-e'was groping darkly. rond, but the prisoner -was a giant, and would at length'burst forth as a giant into the light of day. Heyne, without any clear aim,: almost without any hope, had set;his heart on attaining knowledge; a force, ass. of instinct, drove him on,'and.no promise' and no -threat could' turn:him back. It -was at the-.very depth of his destitution, when he had not " three groschen for a loaf to dine on,' that he refused a tutorship, with handsome enough appointments, but which was to have removed him from the University. Crist had sent for him one Sunday, and made him the proposal:' There arose a violent strugo:gle within me,'. says he,' which drove me to and fro for'several days; to this hour it is incomprehensible to me'-whereI found resolution to determine on renouncing the'offer, and pursuing my object in Leipzig.' A man with a half volition goes backwards and forwards, and makes no way on the smoothest road; a man with a whole volition advances. on the roughest, and will reach his purpose if there be even a little wisdom in it. - With his first two years' residence in Leipzig, Heyne's personal narrative terminates; not because the' nodus of the history had been solved then, and his perplexities 340 - MISCELLANIES. cleared up, but simply because he had not found time to relate farther. A long series of straitened hopeless days were yet appointed him. By Ernesti's or Crist's recommendation, he occasionally got employment in giving private lessons; at one time, he worked as secretary and classical hodman to' Crusius, the philosopher,' who felt a little rusted in his Greek and- Latin; everywhere he found the scantiest accommodation, and shifting from side to side in dreary vicissitude of want, had to spin. out an existence,. warmed by no ray of comfort, except the fire that burnt or smouldered unquenchably within his own bosom. However, he had. now chosen a profession, that of law, at which, as at many other branches of learning, he was labouring with his old diligence. Of preferment in this province there was,. for the present, little or no hope; but this was no new thing with Heyne. By degrees, too, his fine talents and endeavours, and his perverse situation, began to attract notice and sympathy; and here and there some well-wisher had his eye on him, and stood ready to do him a service. Two-and-twenty years of penury and joyless struggling had now passed over the man.; how many more such might be added was still uncertain; yet surely the longest winter is followed by a spring. Another trifling incident, little better than that old'pedan-. tic adventure,' again brought about important changes in Heyne's situation. Among his favourers in Leipzig had been the preacher of a French chapel, one Lacoste, who, at this time, was cut off by death. Heyne, it is said in the real sorrow of his heart, composed a long Latin Epicedium on that occasion: the poem had nowise been intended for the press; but certain hearers of the deceased were so pleased with it, that they had it printed, and this in the finest style of typography and decoration. It was this latter circumstance, hot the merit of the verses, which is said to have been considerable, that attracted the attention of Count Briihl, the well-known prime minister and favourite of the LIFE OF HEYNE. 341 Elector. Briihl's sons were studying in Leipzig; he was pleased to express himself contented with the poem, and to say, that he should like to have the author in his service. A prime minister's words are not as water spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered; but rather as heavenly manna, which is treasured up and eaten, not without a religious sentiment. Heyne was forthwith written to from all quarters, that his fortune was made: he had but to -show himself in Dresden, said his friends with one voice, and golden showers from the ministerial cornucopia would refresh him almost to saturation. For, was not the Count taken with him; and who in all Saxony, not excepting Serene Highness itself, could gainsay the Count? Overpersuaded, and against his will, Heyne at length determined on the journey; for which, as an indispensable preliminary,'fifty-one thalers' had to be borrowed; and so, following this hopeful quest, he actually arrived at Dresden in April, 1752. Count Briihl received him with the most captivating smiles; and even assured him in words, that he, Count Briihl, would take care of him. But a prime minister has so much to take care of! Heyne danced attendance all spring and summer; happier than our Johnson, inasmuch as he had not to' blow his fingers in a cold lobby,' the weather being warm; and obtained not only promises, but useful experience of theiir value at courts. He was to be made a secretary, with five hundred, with four hundred, or even with three hundred thalers, of income: only, in the meanwhile, his old stock of fifty-one had quite run out, and he had nothing to live upon. By great good luck, he procured some employment in his old craft, pri-;ate teaching, which helped him through the winter; but as this ceased, he remained without resources. He tried working for the booksellers, and translated a French romance, and a Greek one, Chariton's Loves of Chareas and Callirhoe: however, his emoluments would scarcely furnish him with salt, not to speak of victuals. He sold his 342 MISCELLANIES. few books. A licentiate in divinity, one Sonntag, took pity: on his houselessness, and shared a garret with him; where, as there was no unoccupied bed, Heyne slept on the floor, with a few folios for his pillow. So fared he as to lodging: in regard to board, he gathered empty pease-cods, and had them boiled; this was not unfrequently his only meal.O ye poor naked wretches! what would Bishop Watson say to this? At length, by dint of incredible solicitations, Heyne, in the autumn of.1753, obtained, not his secretaryship, but the post of under-clerk (copist) in the Briihl Library, with one hundred thalers of salary; a sum barely sufficient to keep-in life, which, indeed, was now a great point with him. In such sort was this young scholar'taken, care. of.' Nevertheless, it was under these external circumstances that he first entered on his proper career, and forcibly made a place for himself among the learned men of his day. In 1754, he prepared his edition of Tibullus, which was printed next year at Leipzigl a work said to exhibit remarkable talent, inasmuch as' the rudiments of all those excellences, by which'Heyne afterwards became distinguished as a commentator'on the classics, are more or less apparent in it.' The most illustrious Henry Count von BrUhl, in spite of the dedication, paid no regard to this Tibullus; as indeed Germany at large paid little: but, in another country, it fell into the hands of Rhunken, where it was rightly estimated, and lay waiting, as in due season appeared, to be the pledge of better fortune for its author. Meanwhile the day of difficulty for Heyne was yet far from past.. The profits of his Tibullus served to cancel some debts; on the strength of the hundred thalers, the Spindle of Clotho might still keep turning, though languidly; but, ere long, new troubles arose. His superior in the LiM brary was one Rost,. a poetaster, atheist, and gold-maker, 1 Albii Tibulli quce extant Carmina, novis curis castigata. lllustrissimo Domino Henrico Comiti de Biihl inscripta. Lipsice, 1755. LIFE OF HEYNE. 343 who corrupted his religious principles, and plagued him with caprices: over the former evil Heyne at length triumphed, and became a rational Christian; but the latter was an abiding grievance: not, indeed, forever, for it was removed by a greater. In 1756, the Seven-Years War broke out; Frederick advanced towards Dresden, animated with especial fury against Briihl; whose palaces accordingly in a few months were reduced to ashes, as his 70,000 splendid volumes were annihilated by fire and by water,1 and all his domestics and dependants turned to the street without appeal. Heyne had lately been engaged in studying Epictetus, and publishing, ad fidem Codd. Mnspt., an edition of his Enchiridion; 2 from which, quoth Heeren, his great soul had acquired much stoical nourishment. Such nourishment never comes wrong in life; and, surely, at this time Heyne had need of it all. However, he struggled as he had been wont: translated pamphlets, sometimes wrote newspaper articles; eat when he had wherewithal, and resolutely endured when he had not. By and by, Rabener,. to whom he was a little known, offered him a tutorship in the family of a Herr von Schbnberg; which Heyne, not without reluctance, accepted. Tutorships were at all times his aversion: his rugged plebeian proud spirit made business of that sort grievous: but Want stood over him, like an armed man, and was not to be reasoned with.. In this Schdnberg family, a novel and unexpected series of fortunes awaited him; but whether for weal or for woe might still be hard, to determine. The name of Theresa Weiss has become a sort of classical word in biography; her 1 One rich cargo, on its way to Hamburg, sank in the Elbe; another still more valuable portion had been, for safety; deposited in a vault; through which passed certain pipes of artificial water-works; these the cannon broke, and when the vault came to be opened, all was. reduced to pulp and mould. The bomb-shells burnt the remainder. 2 Lipsise, 1756. The Codices, or rather the Codex, was in Briihl's Library. 344 MISCELLANIES. union with Heyne forms, as it were, a green cypress-andmyrtle oasis in his otherwise hard and stony history. It was here that he first met with hler; that they learned to love each other. She was the orphan of a'professor on the lute;' had long, amid poverty and afflictions, been trained, like the stoics, to bear and forbear; was now in her twentyseventh year, and the humble companion, as she had once been the school-mate, of the Frau von Schdnberg, whose young brother Heyne had come to teach. Their first interview may be described in his own words, which Heeren is here again happily enabled to introduce:'It was on the 10th of October (her future death.day!) that I first entered the Schlnberg house. Towards what mountains of mischances was I now proceeding! To what endless tissues of good and evil hap was the thread here taken up! Could I fancy that, at this moment, Providence was deciding the fortune of my life! i was ushered into a room, where sat several ladies engaged, with gay youthful sportiveness, in friendly confidential talk. Frau von Sch6nberg, but lately married, yet at this time distant from her husband, was preparing for a journey to him at Prague, where his business detained him. On her'brow still beamed the pure innocence of youth; in her eyes you saw a glad soft vernal sky; a smiling loving complaisance accompanied her discourse. This too seemed one of those souls, clear and uncontaminated as they come from the hands of their Maker. By reason of her brother, in her tender love of him, I must have been to her no unimportant guest.'Beside her stood a young lady, dignified in aspect, of fair, slender shape, not regular in feature, yet soul in every glance. Her words, her looks, her every movement, impressed you with respect; another sort of respect than what is paid to rank and birth. Good sense, good feeling disclosed itself in all she did. You forgot that more beauty, more softness, might have been demanded; you felt yourself under the influence of something noble, something stately and earnest, something decisive that lay in her look, in her gestures; not less attracted to her, than compelled to reverence her.'More than esteem the first sight of Theresa did not inspire me with. What I noticed most were the efforts she made to relieve my embarrassment, the fruit-of my downbent pride, and to keep me, a stranger, entering among familiar acquaintances, in easy conversation. Her good heart reminded her how much the unfortunate re LIFE OF HEYNE. 345 quires encouragement;. especially when placed, as I was, among those to whose protection he must look up. Thus was my first kindness for her awakened by that good heartedness, which made her among thousands a beneficent angel. She was one at this moment to myself; for I twice received letters from an unknown hand, containing money, which greatly alleviated my difficulties.'In a few days, on the 14th of October, I commenced my task of instruction.. Her I did not see again till the following spring, when she returned with her friend from Prague; and then only once or twice, as she soon accompanied Frau von Sch6nberg to the country, to Ensdorf in Oberlausitz (Upper Lusatia). They left us, after it had been settled that I was to follow them in a few days with my pupil. My young heart joyed in the.prospect of rural pleasures, of which I had, from of old, cherished a thousand delightful dreams. I still remember the 6th of May, when we set out for 2Ensdorf.'The society of two cultivated females, who belonged to the noblest of their sex, and the endeavour to acquire their esteem, contributed to form my own character. Nature and religion were the objects of my daily contemplation; I began to act and live on principles, of which, till now, I had never thought: these too formed the subject of our constant discourse. Lovely Nature and solitude exalted our feelings to a pitch of pious enthusiasm.'Sooner than I, Theresa discovered that her friendship for me was growing into a passion. Her natural melancholy now seized her heart more keenly than ever: often our glad hours were changed into very gloomy and sad ones. Whenever our conversation chanced to turn on religion (she was of the Roman Catholic faith), I observed that her grief became more apparent. I noticed her redouble her devotions; and sometimes found her in solitude, weeping and praying with such a fulness of heart as I had never seen.' Theresa and her lover, or at least beloved, were soon separated, and for a long while kept much asunder; partly by domestic arrangements, still more by the tumults of war. Heyne attended his pupil to the Wittenberg University, and lived there a year; studying for his own behoof. chiefly in philosophy and German history, and with more profit, as he says, than of old. Theresa and he kept up a correspondence, which often passed into melancholy and enthusiasm. The Prussian cannon drove him out of Wittenberg: his pupil and he witnessed the bombardment of the place from the neighbourhood/';ind, having waited till their University 346 MISCELLANIES. became'a heap of rubbish,' had to retire elsewhither for accommodation., The young man subsequently went to Erlangen, then to G6ttingen. Heyne remained again without employment, alone in Dresden. Theresa was living in his neighbourhood, lovely and sad as ever; but a new bombardment drove her also to a distance. She left her little property with Heyne; who removed it to his lodging, and determined to abide the Prussian siege, having indeed no other resource. The sack of cities looks so well on paper, that we must find a little space here for Heyne's account of his experience in this business; though it is none of the brightest accounts; and indeed contrasts but poorly with Rabener's brisk sarcastic narrative of the same adventure; for he too was cannonaded out of Dresden at this time, and lost house and home, and books and manuscripts, and all but good humour.'The Prussians advanced meanwhile, and on the 18th of July (1760) the bombardment of Dresden began. Several nights I passed, in company with others, in a tavern, and the days in my room; so that I could hear the balls from the battery, as they flew through the streets, whizzing past my windows. An indifference to danger and to life took such possession of me, that on the last morning of the siege, I went early to bed, and, amid the frightfullest crashing of bombs and grenades, fell fast asleep of fatigue, and lay sound till midday. On awakening, I huddled-on my clothes, and ran down stairs, but found the whole house deserted. I had returned to my room, considering what I was to do, whither, at all events, I was to, take my chest, when, with a tremendous crash, a bomb came.down in the court of the house; did not, indeed, set fire -to it, but on all sides shattered everything to pieces. The thought, that where one bomb fell, more would soon follow, gave me wings; I darted down stairs, found the house-door locked, ran to and fro; at last got entrance into on6 of the under-rooms, and sprang though the window into the street.' Empty as the street where I lived had been, I found the principal thoroughfares crowded with fugitives. Amidst the whistling of balls, I ran along the Schlossgasse towards the Elbe-Bridge, and so forward to the Neustadt, out of which the Prussians had now been forced to retreat. Glad that I had leave to rest anywhere, I passed LIFE OF HEYNE. 347 one part of the night on the floor of an empty house; the other, witnessing the frightful light of flying bombs, and a burning city.'At break of day, a little postern was opened by the Austrian,guard,'to let the fugitives get out of the walls. The captain, in his insolence, called the people Lutheran dogs, and with this nickname gave each of us a stroke as we passed through the gate.' I was now at large; and the thoughlt, Whither bound? began for -the first time to employ me. As I,had run, indeed leapt from:my house, in the night of terror, I had carried with me no particle -of' my property, and not a groschen of money. Only in hurrying al6n'. the street, I had chanced to see a tavern open; it was an Italian' s,-' where I used to pass the nights. Here espying a fur cloak, I had' picked it up, and thrown it about me. With this I walked along, in one of the sultriest days, from the Neustadt, over the sand and the. moor, and took the road for 2Ensdorf, where' Theresa with her friend,, was staying; the mother-in-law of the latter being also on a visit t'o them. In the fiercest heat of the sun, through tracts of country silent and deserted, I walked four leagues to Bischopfwerda, where I had to sleep in an inn among carriers. Towards midnight arrived a postilion with return-horses; I asked him to let me ride one; and,with him I proceeded, till my road turned,off from the highway. All day, I heard the shots at poor Dresden re-echoing in the hills.'Curiosity -at first made my reception at }Ensdorf very warm. But as I came to appear in the character of an altogether destitute man, the family could see in me only a future burden: no invitation to continue with them followed. In a few days came a chance of conveyance, by a waggon for Neustadt, to a certain Frau von Fletscher a few'miles on this side of it; I was favoured with some old linen for the road. The good Theresa suffered unspeakably under these proceedings: the noble lady, her friend, had not been allowed to act according to the dictates of her own' heart.'.Not till now did I feel wholly how miserable I was. Spurning -at destiny, and hardening my heart, I entered on this journeys.With the Frau von Fletscher too my abode was brief; and by the first -opportunity I returned to Dresden. There was still a possibility that my lodging might have been saved. With heavy heart I entered the city; hastened to the place where I had lived, and found -a heap of ashes.' Heyne took up his quarters in the vacant rooms of the BrUhl Library. Some friends endeavoured to alleviate his distress; but war and rumours of war continued to harass him, and drive him to and fro; and his Theresa, afterwards 348 MISCELLANIES. also a fugitive, was now as poor as himself. She heeded little the loss of her property; but inward sorrow and so many outward agitations preyed hard upon her; in the winter she fell violently sick at Dresden, was given up by her physicians; received extreme unction according to the rites of her church; and was for some hours believed to be dead. Nature, however, again prevailed: a crisis had occurred in the mind as well as in the body; for with her first returning strength, Theresa declared her determination to renounce the Catholic, and publicly embrace the Protestant faith. Argument, representation of worldly disgrace and loss were unavailing: she could now, that all her friends were to be estranged, have little hope of being wedded to Heyne on earth; but she trusted that in another scene a like creed might unite them in a like destiny. He himself fell ill; and only escaped death by her nursing. Persisting the more in her purpose, she took priestly instruction, and on the 30th ofMay, in the Evangelical Schlosskirche, solemnly professed her new creed.'Reverent admiration filled me,' says he,'as I beheld the peace and stedfastness with which she executed her determination; and still. more the courage with which she bore the consequences of it. She saw herself altogether cast out from her family; forsaken by her acquaintance, by every one; and by the fire deprived of all she: had. Her courage exalted me to a higher duty, and admonished me to do mine. Imprudently I had, in former conversations, first awa, kened her religious scruples; the passion for me, which had so much increased her enthusiasm, increased her melancholy; even the secret thought of belonging more closely to me by sameness of belief had unconsciously influenced her. In a word, I formed the determination which could not but expose me to universal censure: helpless as I was, I united my destiny with hers. We were wedded at lEnsdorf, on the 4th of June 1761.' This was'a bold step, but a right one: Theresa had now no stay but him; it behoved them to struggle, and if bettermight not be, to sink together. Theresa, in this narrative, appears to us a noble, interesting being; noble not in sentil LIFE OF HEYNE. 349 ment only, but in action and suffering; a fair flower trodden down by misfortune, but yielding, like flowers, only the sweeter perfume for being crushed, and which it would ha"vve been a blessedness to raise up and cherish into free growth. Yet, in plain prose, we must question whether the two were happier than others in their union: both were quick of temper; she was all a heavenly light, he in good part a,haird terrestrial mass, which perhaps she could never whollyIluminate; the balance of the love seems to have lain much on her side. Nevertheless Heyne was a stedfast, true and, kindly, if no ethereal man; he seems to have loved his:w fe' honestly; and so, amid light and shadow, they made-th'eir pilgrimage together, if not better than other mortals, not worse, which was to have been feared. Neither, for the present, did the pressure of distress weigh heavier on either than it had done before. He Worked diligently, as he found scope, for his old Mectenases, the Booksellers; the war-clouds grew lighter, or at)least the young pair better used to them; friends also were kind, often assisting and hospitably entertaining them. On occasion of one such visit to the family of a Herr von Ldben, there occurred a little trait, which for the sake of Theresa must not beomitted. Heyne and she had spent some happy weeks with their infant, in this country-house, when the alarm of war drove the Von Lbbens from their residence, which with the management of its concerns they left to Heyne. He says, lie gained some notion of' land-economy' hereby; and Heeren states that he had'a candle-manufactory' to oversee. But to our incident:.'Soon after the departure of the family, there came upon us an irruption of Cossacks, - disguised Prussians, as we subsequentlylearned. After drinking to intoxication in the cellars, they set about plundering. Pursued by them, I ran up stairs, and no door being open but that of the room where my wife was with her infant, I rushed into it. She arose courageously, and placed herself, with the child on her arm, in the door againstlthe robbers. This courage saved me, and. the treasure-which lay hidden in the chamber.' 350 MISCELLANIES. " 0 thou lioness!" said Attila Schmelzle, on occasion of a similar rescue, "why hast thou never been in any deadly: peril, that I might show thee the. lion in thy husband?":But better days were dawning.'On our return to Dres'den,' says Heyne,'I learned that inquiries had been made-; after me from Hanover; I knew not for what reason.' The; reason by and by came to light. Gessner, Professor of:! Eloquence in Gdttingen, was dead; and a successor was' wanted. These things, it would appear, cause difficultiesin Hanover, which in many other places are little felt. But' the Prime Minister Miinchhausen had as good as founded. the Georgia Augusta himself; and he was wont to watch*over it with singular anxiety. The noted and notorious' Klotz was already there,- as assistant to Gessner;'but his'beautiful latinity,'!says Heeren,'did not dazzle Miinch-'hausen; Klotz, with his pugnacity, was not thought of.' The Minister applied to Ernesti for advice: Ernesti knew' of no fit man in Germany; but recommnended Rhunken of Leyden, ofr Saxe of Utrecht. Rhunken refused to leave his *country, and added these words:' But why do you seek out''of Germany, what Germany itself offers you? Why not,?' for Gessner's successor, take Christian Gottlob Heyne, that:'true pupil of Ernesti, and man of fine talent (excellenti:' virum ingenio), who has shown how much he knows of: Latin literature by his Tibullus; of Greek, by his Epicte*:'tus? In my opinion, and tlat of the greatest Hemsterhuis'(Hemsterhusii ro ravv), Heyne is the only one that can"'replace your Gessner. Nor let any one tell me that,.Heyne's fame is not sufficiently illustrious' and extended.'iblieve me, there is' in this man such a richness of genius'and learning, that ere long all Europe will ring with him'' praises.' This courageous and generous verdict of Rhunken's, in' favour of a person as yet little known to the world, and' to him known only by his writings, decided the matter.'Miinchhausen,' says our Heeren,'believed in the boldly. LIFE OF HEYNE. 351 prophesying man.' Not without difficulty Heyne was unearthed; and after various excuses on account of competence on his part, - for he had lost all his books and papers in the siege of Dresden-, and sadly forgotten his Latin and Greek in so many tumults,- and various prudential negotiations about dismission from the Saxon service, and salary and privilege in the Hanoverian, he at length formally re-, ceived his appointment; and some three months after, in:: June 1763, settled in Gt.tingen, with an official income of eight hundred thalers; which, it appears, was by several additions, in the course of time, increased to twelve hundred. Here then had Heyne at last got to land. His long life was henceforth as quiet, and fruitful in activity and comfort, as the past period of it had been desolate and full of sorrows. He never left Gdttingen, though frequently invited to do so, and sometimes with highly tempting offers; 1 but continued in his place, busy in his vocation; growing in influence, in extent of connexion at home and abroad; till Rhunken's prediction might almost be reckoned fulfilled to the letter; for Heyne in his own department was without any equal in Europe. However, his history from this point, even because it was so happy for himself, must lose most of its interest for the general reader. Heyne has now become a Professor, and a regularly progressive man of learning; has a fixed household, has rents and comings in; it is easy to fancy how that man might flourish in calm sunshine of prosperity, whom in adversity we saw growing in spite of every storm. Of his proceedings in Gdttingen, his reform of the Royal Society of Sciences, his editing of the Gelehrte Anzeigen (Gazette of 1 He was invited successively to be Professor at Cassel, and at Klosterbergen; to be Librarian at Dresden; and, most flattering of all, to be Prokanzler in the University of Copenhagen, and virtual Director of Education over all Denmark. He had a struggle on this last occasion, but the Georgia Augusta again prevailed. Some increase of salary usually follows such refusals; it did not in this instance. 352 MISCELLANIES. Learning), his exposition of the classics from Virgil to Pindar, his remodelling of the Library, his passive quarrels with Voss, his armed neutrality with Michaelis; of all this we must say little. The best fruit of his endeavours lies before the world, in a long series of Works, which among us, as well as elsewhere, are known and justly appreciated. On looking over them, the first thing that strikes us is astonishment at Heyne's diligence; which, considering the quantity and quality of his writings, might have appeared singular even in one who had been without other duties. Y-et Heyne's office involved him in the most laborious researches: he wrote letters by the hundred to all parts of the world, and on all conceivable subjects; he had three classes to- teach daily; he appointed professors, for his recommendation was. all-powerful; superintended schools; for a long time lthe inspection of the Freitische was laid on him, and he had cooks' bills to settle, and hungry students to satisfy with his purveyance. Besides all which, he accomplished, in the way of publication, as follows:..-:In addition to his Tibullus and Epictetus, the first of which wknt through three, the second through two editions, each time with large extensions and improvements: His Virgil (P. VIRGILIUS MAR-O Varietate Lectionis et perpetua Annotatione illustratus), in various forms, from 1767 to 1803; no fewer than six editions. His Pliny (Ex C. PLINII SECUNDI Histori4 Natural'i excqrpta, quve ad Artes spectant); two editions, 1790, 1811. His Apollodorus (APOLLODORI Atheniensis Bibliothecce Libri tres, &c.); two editions, 1787, 1803. His Pindar (PINDARI' Carmina, cum Lectionis Varietate, curavit Ch. G. H.); three editions, 1774, 1797, 1798; the last with the'Scholia, the Fragments, a Translation, and Hermann's Inq. De Metris. -His Conon and Parthenius (CONONIs Narrationes, et PARTHENII Narrationes amatorice), 1798. And lastly his Homer (HOMERI ILIAS, cum brevi Anno LIFE OF HEYNE. 35.3 tatione); 8 volumes, 1802; and a second, contracted edition, in 2 volumes, 1804. Next, almost a cartload of Translations; of which weshall mention only his version, said to be with very impor-k tant improvements, of our Unziversal History by Guthrie' and Gray. Then some'ten or twelve thick volumes of Prolusion'; Eulogies, Essays; treating of all subjects, fromn the French. Directorate to the Chest of Cypselus. Of these, Six Volumes are known in a separate shape, under the title. of Opuscula; and contain some of Heyne's most valuable writings. And lastly, to crown the whole with one most surprising item, seven thousand five hundred (Heeren says from seven to eight thousand) Reviews of Books, in the Gbttingen Gelehrte Anzeigen. Shame on us degenerate Editors! Here of itself was work for a lifetime! To expect that elegance of composition should. prevail in these multifarious performances were unreasonable enough. Heyne wrote very indifferent German; and his Latin, by much the more common vehicle in his learned works, flowed from him with a copiousness which could not be Ciceronian. At the same time, these volumes are not the folios.of a Montfaucon, not mere classical ore and slag, but regularly smelted -metal; for most part exhibiting the essence,'and only the essence, of very great research; and enlightened by a philos-;ophy which, if it does not always wisely order its results, has' looked far and deeply in collecting them. To have performed so much, evinces on the part of Heyne..no little mastership in the great art of husbanding time. Heeren gives us sufficient details on this subject; explains — Heyne's adjustment of his'hours and various occupations: how he rose at five o'clock, and worked all the day, and all the year, with the regularity of a steeple clock; nevertheless, how patiently he submitted to interruptions from strangers, or extraneous business; how briefly, yet smoothly, he con-. VOL. I. 23 354 MISCELLANIES.. trived to despatch such interruptions; how his letters were indorsed when they came to hand; and lay in a special drawer till they were answered: nay we have a description of his whole'locality,' his bureau and book-shelves and portfolios, his very bed and strongbox are not forgotten. To the busy man, especially the busy man of letters, these details: are far from uninteresting; if we judged by the result, many of Heyne's arrangements might seem worthy not of notice only, but of imitation. His domestic circumstances continued, on the whole, highly: favourable for such activity; though not now more thkan formerly were they exempted from the common lot;' but still had several hard changes to encounter. In 1775,-b:he lost his Theresa, after long ill-health; an event which, stoirc as he was, struck heavily and dolefully on his heart. Heforebore not to shed some natural tears, though from eye:slittle used to the melting mood.) Nine days after her death,. he thus-writes to -a friend, with a solemn mournful tenderness, which none of us will deny to be genuine:'I have looked upon the grave that covers the remains of my Theresa: what a thousandfold pang, beyond the pitch of human feeling, pierced through my soul! How did my limbs tremble as I approached this holy spot! Here, then, reposes what is left of the dearest that Heaven gave me; among the dust of her four children she sleeps. A sacred horror covered the place. I should have sunk altogether in my sorrow, had it not been for my two daughters. that were standing on the outside of the churchyard; I saw their faces over the wall, directed to me with anxious fear. This called me.to myself; I hastened in sadness from the spot where I could have continued forever: where it cheered'me to think that one day I should rest by her side; rest from all the carking care, from all the griefs which so often have embittered to me the,enjoyment of life. Alas i! among these griefs must I reckon even her love, the strongest, truest, that ever inspired the heart: of woman, which made me the happiest of mortals; and yet was a fountain to me of a thousand distresses, inquietudes and cares. To entire cheerfulness perhaps she never attained; but for what unspeakable -sweetness, for what exalted enrapturing joys, is not Love indebted to Sorrow 2 Amidst gnawing anxieties, with the torture of anguish in my heart, I have been made LIFE OF HEYNE. 355 even by the love which caused me this anguish, these arixieties, inexpressibly happy! When tears flowed over our cheeks, did not a nameless, seldom-felt delight stream through my breast, oppressed, equally by joy and by sorrow!' But Heyne was not a man to brood over past griefs, or linger long where nothing was to be done but mourn. In a short time, according to a good old plan of his, having reckoned up his grounds of sorrow, he fairly wrote down on paper, over against them, his' grounds of consolation;' concluding with these pious words,' So for all these sorrows too,'"these trials, do I thank thee, my God! I And now, glorified'-friend, will I again turn me with undivided heart to my'duty; thou thyself smilest approval on me!' Nay, it was not many months before a new marriage came on the anvil; in which matter, truly, Heyne conducted himself with the most philosophic indifference; leaving his friends, by whom the project had been started, to bring it to what issue they pleased. It was a scheme concerted by Zimmermann (the author of Solitude, a man little known to Heyne), and one Reich, a Leipsic Bookseller, who had met at the Pyrmont Baths. Brandes, the Hanoverian Minister, successor of Miinchhausen in the management of the University concerns, was there also with a daughter; upon her the projectors cast their eye. Heyne, being consulted, seems to have comported himself like clay in the hands of the potter; father and fair one, in like manner, were of a compliant humour, and thus was the business achieved; and on the 9th of April 1777, Heyne could take home a bride, won with less difficulty than most men have in choosing a pair of boots. Nevertheless, she proved an excellent wife to him; kept his house in the cheerfullest order; managed her step-children and her own like a true mother; and loved, and faithfully assisted her husband in whatever he undertook. Considered in his private relations, such a man might well' reckon himself fortunate. In addition to Heyne's claims as a scholar and teacher, 356 MISCELLANIES. Heeren would have us regard him as an unusually experti man of business'and negotiator; for which line of life he: himself seems, indeed, to have thought that his talent was; more peculiarly fitted. In proof of this, we have long details of his procedure in managing the Library, the Royal Society, the University generally, and his incessant and often rather complex correspondence with Mtinchhausen, Brandes, or other ministers who presided over this depart — ment. Without detracting from Heyne's skill in such matters,' what struck us more in this narrative of Heeren's was the' singular contrast which the' Georgia Augusta,' in its interior arrangement, as well as its external relations to the Government, exhibits with our own Universities. The prime min — ister of the country writes thrice weekly to the director of an institution for learning! He oversees all; knows the" character, not only of.every professor, but of every pupil that gives any promise. He is continually purchasing books,; drawings, models; treating for this or the other help or advantage to the establishment. He- has his eye over all Germany; and nowhere does a man of any decided talent show himself, but he strains every nerve to acquire him. And seldom even can he succeed; for the Hanoverian assiduity seems nothing singular; every state in Germany has its minister for education, as well as Hanover. They correspond, they inquire, they negotiate; everywhere there seems a canvassing, less for places, than for the best men to fill them.'Heyne himself has his Seminarium, a private class of the nine most distinguished students in the University; these he trains with all diligence, and is in due time most probably enabled, by his connexions, to place in stations fit for them. A hundred and thirty-five professors are said to have been sent from this Seminarium during his presi-i dency. These things we state without commentary: we believe that the experience of all English and Scotch and Irish University-men will, of itself, furnish one. The state of education in Germany, and the structure of the estab LIFE OF HEYNE. 357 lishments for conducting it, seems to us one of the most promising inquiries that could at this moment be entered on. But to return to Heyne. We have said, that in his private circumstances he might reckon himself fortunate. His public relations, on a more splendid scale, continued, to the last, to be of the same happy sort. By degrees, he had risen to be, both in name and office, the chief man of his establishment; his character stood high with the learned of all countries; and the best fruit of external reputation, increased respect in his own circle, was not denied to him. The burghers of G6ttingen, so fond of their University, could not but be proud of Heyne; nay, as the time passed on, they found themselves laid under more than one specific obligation to him. He remodelled and reanimated their Gymnasium (Town-School), as he had before done that of Ilfeld; and what was still more important, in the rude times of the French War, by his skilful application, he succeeded in procuring from Napoleon, not only a protection for the University, but immunity from hostile invasion for the whole district it stands in. Nay, so happily were matters managed, or so happily did they turn of their own accord, that G6ttingen rather gained than suffered by the War: under Jerome of Westphalia, not only were all benefices punctually paid, but improvements even were effected; among other things, a new and very handsome extension, which had long been desired, was built for the Library, at the charge of Government. To all these claims for public regard, add Heyne's now venerable age, and we can fancy how, among his townsmen and fellow-collegians, he must have been cherished, nay almost worshipped. Already had the magistracy, by a special act, freed him froi all public assessments;- but,. in 1809, on his eightieth birthday, came a still more emphatic testimony; for Ritter Franz, and all the public Boards, and the Faculties in corpore, came to him in procession with good wishes;'and students reverenced him; and young 358 MISCELLANIES. ladies sent him garlands, stitched together by their own fair? -fingers; in short, Gdttingen was a place of jubilee; and' good old Heyne, who nowise affected, yet could not dislike these things, was among the happiest of men. In another respect we must also reckon him fortunate:that he lived till he had completed all his undertakings; and then departed peacefully, and without sickness, from whicIN indeed, his whole life had been remarkably free. Three months before his death, in April 1812, he saw the last Volume of his Works in print; and rejoiced, it is said, with an affecting thankfulness, that so much had been granted him. Length of life was not now to be hoped for; neither did Heyne look forward to the end with apprehension. His little German verses, and Latin translations, composed in sleepless nights, at this extreme period, are, to us, by far the most.touching part of his poetry; so melancholy is the spirit of them, yet so mild; solemn, not without a shade of sadness, yet full of pious resignation. At length came the end; soft and.gentle as his mother could have wished it for him..; The 11th of July was a public day in the Royal Society; Heyne did his part in it; spoke at large, and with even more clearness and vivacity than usual.'Next day,' says Heeren,'was Sunday: I saw him in the evening for the last time. He was resting in his chair,- exhausted by the fatigue of yesterday. On Monday morning, he once more entered his class-room, and held his Seminarium. In the afternoon he prepared his letters, domestic as well as foreign; among the latter, one on business; sealed them all but one, written in Latin, to Professor Thorlacius in Copenhagen, which I found open, but finished, on his desk. At supper (none but his elder daughter was with him) he talked cheerfully; and, at his usual time, retired to rest. In the night, the servant girl, that slept under his apartment, heard him walking up and down; a common practice with him when he could not sleep. However, he had again gone to bed. Soon after five, he arose, as usual; he joked with the girl when she asked him how he had been overnight. She left him, to make ready his coffee, as was her wont; and, returning with it in a short quarter of an hour, she found him sunk down before his washing-stand, close by his work LIFE OF HEYNE. 359 table. His hands were wet; at the moment when he had been washing them, had death taken him into his arms. One breath more, and he ceased to live: when the hastening doctor opened avein, no blood would flow.' Heyne was interred with all public solemnities: and, in": epicedial language, it may be said, without much exaggeration, ithat hiscountry mourned for him. At Chemnitz, his birthplace, there assembled, under constituted authority, a grand meeting of the magnates, to celebrate his memory; the old school-album, in which the little ragged boy had inscribed his name, was produced; grandiloquent speeches were delivered; and'in the afternoon, many hundreds went to see the poor cottage' where his father had weaved, and he starved and learned. How generous! To estimate Heyne's intellectual character, to fix accurately his rank and merits as a critic and philologer, we cannot but consider as beyond our province, and at any rate superfluous here. By the general consent of the learned in all countries, he seems t(obe acknowledged as the first among recent scholars; his immense reading, his lynx-eyed skill in exposition and emendation' are no longer anywhere controverted; among ourselves his taste in these matters has been praised by Gibbon, and by Parr pronounced to be'exquisite.' In his own country, Heyne is even regarded as the founder of a new epoch in classical study; as the first who with any decisiveness attempted to translate fairly beyond the letter of the classics; to read in the writings of the Ancients, not their language alone, or even their detached opinions and records, but their spirit and character, their way of life and thought; how the World and Nature painted themselves to the mind in those old ages; how, in one word, the Greeks and the Romans were men, even as we are. Such of our readers as have studied any one of Heyne's works, or even looked carefully into the Lectures of the Schlegels, the most ingenious and popular commentators of that school, will be at no loss to- understand what we mean. 360 MISCELLANIES, By his inquiries into antiquity, especially by his laboured investigation of its politics and its mythology, Heyne is believed to have carried the torch of philosophy towards, if not into, the mysteries of old time. What Winkelmann, his great. contemporary, did, or began to do, for ancient Plastic Art, the other, with equal success, began for ancient Literature.1 A high praise, surely; yet, as we must think, one not unfounded, and which, indeed, in all parts of Europe, is becoming more and more confirmed. So much, in the province to which he devoted his activity, is Heyne allowed to have accomplished. Nevertheless, we must not assert that, in point of understanding and spiritual endowment, he can be called a great, or even, in strict speech, a complete man. Wonderful perspicuity, unwearied dili — gence, are not denied him; but to philosophic order, to classical adjustment, clearness, polish, whether in word or thought, he seldom attains; nay many times, it must be; avowed, he involves himself in tortuous longwinded verbosities, and stands before us little better than one of that old school which his admirers boast that he displaced. He ap- pears, we might also say, as if he had wings but could not well use them. Or, indeed, it might be that, writing constantly in a dead language, he came to write heavily; working forever on subjects where learned armour-at-all-points cannot be dis1' It is a curious fact, that these two men, so singularly correspondent in their early sufferings, subsequent distinction, line of study, and rugged enthusiasm of character, were at one time, while both as yet were under the horizon, brought into partial contact.' An acquaintance of another sort, says Heeren,' the young Heyne was to make in the Brihl Library; with*' a person whose importance he could not then anticipate. One frequent'visitor of this establishment, was a certain almost wholly unknown man,'whose visits could not be-specially desirable for the librarians, such en.d-'less labour did he cost them. He seemed insatiable in reading; and called;'for so many books that his reception there grew rather of the coolest.,'It was Johann Winkelmann. Meditating his journey for Italy, he was' then laying-in preparation for it. Thus did these two men become, if not' confidential, yet acquainted; who at that.time, both still in darkness and'poverty, could little suppose, that in a few years'they were'to be the'teachers of cultivated Europe, and the ornaments of their nation.' LIFE OF HEYNE. 361 pensed with, he at last grew so habituated to his harness that he would.not walk abroad without it; nay perhaps it had rusted together, and could not be unclasped! A sad fate for a thinker! Yet one which threatens many commentators, and overtakes many. As.a man encrusted and encased, he exhibits himself, moreover, to a certain degree, in his moral character. Here too, as in his intellect, there is an awkwardness, a cumbrous inertness; nay, there is a show of dulness, of hardness, which. nowise intrinsically belongs to him.. He passed, we are told,;' for less religious, less affectionate, less enthusiastic than he was. His heart, one would think, had no free course, or had found itself a secret one; outwardly he stands before us cold and still, a very wall of rock; yet within lay a well, from which, as we have witnessed, the stroke of some Moses'-wand (the death of a Theresa) could draw streams of pure feeling. Callous as the man seems to us, he has a sense for all natural beauty; a merciful sympathy focr his fellow-men: his own early distresses never left his memory;'for similar distresses his pity and help were, at all times, in store. This form of character may also be the fruit partly of his employments, partly'of his sufferings,. and perhaps is not very singular among- commentators. For the rest, Heeren assures us, that in practice Heyne was truly a good man; altogether just; diligent in his own honest business, and ever ready to forward that of others; compassionate; though quick-tempered, placable; friendly, and satisfied with simple pleasures. He delighted in roses, and always kept a bouquet of them in water on his desk. His house was embowered among roses; and in his old days he used to wander through the bushes with a pair of scissors.'Farther'; says Heeren,'in spite of his short sight, he was'fond of the fields and skies, and could lie for hours reading'on the grass.' A kindly old man! With strangers, hundreds of whom visited him, he was uniformly courteous; though latterly, being a little hard of hearing, less fit to con 362 MISCELLANIES. verse. In society he strove much to be polite; but had a habit (which ought to be general) of yawning, when people spoke to him and said nothing. On the whole, the Germans have some reason to be proud of Heyne: who shall deny that they have here once more produced a scholar of the right old stock; a man to be ranked, for honesty of study and of life, with the Scaligers, the Bentleys, and old illustrious men, who, though covered with academic dust and harsh with polyglot vocables, were true men of endeavour. and fought like giants, with such weapons as they had-,'for the good Tcause? To ourselves, we confess, Heyne, highly. interesting for'what he did, is not less but. more so- for what he was. This is another of the proofs, Which minds like his:are from:-time to time sent hither to give, that the man is not tihe prdduct of his circumstances, butt.thati, in. a: iffiar. higher- degree, the circumstances are the -.ro.duiciit& of th e:mn.:'W. hile b.enefi-ced clerks: and other sleek':philos:phers, 1reclining'on their cushions of velvet, are de-'monstrating: that''to nmakea a scholar. and man of taste, there. must be cooperation of the upper classes,. society. of gentlemen-commoners, and.an'ificome of -four hundred a-year;-.irises the son of a Chemnitz weaver, aqrd with _e very wind o- his stroke sweeps them from the scene.'Let-no man doubt the omnipotence of Nature, doubt the maJesty of manri' soul; let no lonely' unfriended son -of genius despair! Let. him not despair; if he have the will, the right will, then the power also has not been denied him. It is but the artichoke Sthat will not grow except in gardens.. The acorn is cast carelessly abroad into the wilderness, yet it rises to be an oakon the wild soil it nourishes- itself, it- defies the tempest, and lives for a thousand years. GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 363 GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS.1 [1829.] IN this stage of society, the playwright is as essential and acknowledged a character as the'millwright, or cartwright, or any other wright whatever; neither can we see why, in general estimation, he should rank lower than these his brother artisans, except perhaps for this one reason: that the former working in timber and iron, for the wants of the body, produce a completely suitable machine; while the latter, working in thought and feeling, for the wants of the soul, produces a machine which is incompletely suitable. In other respects, we confess we cannot. perceive that the balance lies against him: for no candid man, as it seems to us, will doubt.but the talent which constructed a Viryinius or a Bertram, might have sufficed, had it been -properly directed, to make notonly wheelbarrows and waggons, but even mills of considera-.1 FOREIGN REVIEW, NO. 6. —1. Die Ahnfrau (The Ancestress). A Tragedy, in five Acts. By F. Grillparzer. Fourth- Edition. Vienna, 1823. KiniPg Ottokars Gliick und Ende (King Ottocar's Fortune and End). A Tragedy, lh five Acts. By F. Grillparzer. Vienna, 1825. Sappho. A Tragedy, in five Acts. By F. Grillparzer. Third Edition. Vienna, 1822. 2. Faust.. A Tragedy, in five Acts. By August Klingemann. Leipsig and Altenburg, 1815.'Ahasuer. A Tragedy, in five Acts. By August Klingemann. Brunswick, 1827. 3. Miilners Dramatische Werke. Erste rechtm6ssige, vollstandige and,ornm Verfasser verbesserte Gesammt-Ausqabe. (Miillner's Dramatic Works. First legal collective Edition, complete and revised by the Author). 7 vols. Brunswick, 1828. 364 MISCELLANIES. ble complicacy. However, if the public is niggardly to the playwright in one point, it must be proportionably liberal in another; according to Adam Smith's observation, that trades which are reckoned less reputable have higher money wages. Thus, one thing compensating the other, the playwright may still realise an existence; as, in fact, we find that he does: for playwrights were, are and probably will always be; unless, indeed, in process of years, the whole dramatic concern be finally abandoned by mankind; or, as in the case of our Punch and Mathews, every player becoming his own playwright, this trade may merge in the other and older one. The British nation has its own playwrights, several of them cunning men in their craft: yet here, it would seem, this sort of carpentry does not flourish; at least, not with that preeminent vigour which distinguishes most other branches of our national industry. In hardware and cotton goods, in all sorts of chemical, mechanical, or other material processes, England outstrips the world; nay, in many departments of liter.ary manufacture also, as, for instance, in the fabrication of Novels, she may safely boast herself peerless: but in the matter of the Drama, to whatever cause it be owing, she can claim no such superiority. In theatrical produce she yields considerably to France; and is, out of sight, inferior to Germany. Nay, do not we English hear daily, for the last twenty years, that the Drama is dead, or in a state of suspended animation; and are not medical men sitting on the case, and propounding their remedial appliances, weekly, monthly, quarterly, to no manner of purpose? Whilst in Germany the Drama is not only, to all appearance, alive, but in the very flush and heyday of superabundant strength; indeed, as it were, still only sowing its first wild oats! For if the British Playwrights seem verging to ruin, and our Knowleses, Maturins, Shiels and Shees stand few and comparatively forlorn, like firs on an Irish bog, the Playwrights of Germany are a strong,. triumphant body; so numerous that it has been calculated, in case of war, a regiment of GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 365 foot might be raised, in which, from the colonel down to the drummer, every officer and private sentinel might show his drama or dramas. To investigate the origin of so marked a superiority would lead us beyond our purpose. Doubtless the proximate cause must lie in a superior demand for the article of dramas; which superior demand again may arise either from the climate of Germany, as Montesquieu might believe; or perhaps more naturally and immediately fro.m the political condition of that country; for man is not only a working but a talking animal, and where no Catholic Questions, and Parliamentary Reforms, and Select Vestries are given him to discuss in his leisure hours, he is glad to fall upon plays or players, or whatever comes to hand, whereby to fence himself a little against the inroads of Ennui. Of the fact, at least, that such a superior demand for dramas exists in Germany, we have only to open a newspaper to find proof. Is not every Litteraturblatt and Kunstblatt stuffed to bursting with theatricals? Nay, has not the'able Editor' established corre-.spondents in every capital city of the civilised world, who report to him on this one matter and on no other? For, be.our curiosity what it may, let us have professionof'intelligence from Munich,''intelligence from Vienna,''intelligence from Berlin,' is it intelligence of anything but of green-room -controversies and negotiations, of tragedies and operas and farces acted and to be acted? Not of men, and their doings., by hearth and hall, in the firm earth; but of mere effigies and shells of men, and their doings in the world of paste-:board, do these unhappy correspondents write. Unhappy iwe call them; for, with all our tolerance of playwrights, we cannot but think that there are limits, and very strait ones, within which their activity should be restricted. Here in England, our'theatrical reports' are nuisance enough; and many persons who love their life, and therefore'take care of their time, which is the stuff life is made of,' regularly lose several columns of their weekly newspaper in that way: 366 MISCELLANIES. but our case is pure luxury, compared with that of the Germans, who instead of a measurable and sufferable spicing of theatric matter, are obliged, metaphorically speaking, to breakfast and dine on it; have in fact nothing else to live on but that highly unnutritive victual. We ourselves are occasional readers of German newspapers; and have often, in the spirit of Christian humanity, meditated presenting to the whole body of German editors a project, - which, however, must certainly have ere now occurred to themselves, and for some reason been found inapplicable: it was, to address these correspondents of theirs, all and sundry, in plain language, and put the question, Whether, on studiously surveying the Universe from their several stations, there was nothing in the heavens above, or the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth, nothing visible but this one business, or rather shadow of business, that had an interest for the minds of men? If the correspondents still answered that nothing was visible, then of course they must be left to continue in this strange state; prayers, at the same time, being put up for them in all churches. However, leaving every able Editor to fight his own battle, we address ourselves to the task in hand: meaning here to inquire a very little into the actual state of the dramatic trade in Germany, and exhibit some detached features of it to the consideration of our readers. For, seriously speaking, low as the province may be, it is a real, active and everenduring province of the literary republic; nor can the pursuit of many men, even though it be a profitless and foolish pursuit, ever be without claim to some attention from us, either in the way of furtherance or of censure and correction. Our avowed object is to promote the sound study of Foreign Literature; which study, like all other earthly undertakings, has its negative as well as its positive side. We have already, as occasion served, borne testimony to the merits of various German poets; and must now say a word on certain German poetasters; hoping that it may be chiefly a regard GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 367 to the former which has made us take even this slight notice of the latter: for the bad is in itself of no value, and only worth describing Jest it be mistaken for the good. At the same time, let no reader tremble, as if we meant to overwhelm him, on this occasion, with a whole mountain of dramatic lumber, poured forth in torrents, like shot rubbish, fromt the playhouse garrets, where it is mouldering and evaporating into nothing, silently and without harm to any one. Far be this from us! Nay, our own knowledge of this subject is in the highest degree limited; and, indeed, to exhaust it, or attempt discussing it with scientific precision, would be an. impossible enterprise. What man is there that could assort the whole furniture of Milton's Limbo of Vanity; or where is the Hallam that would undertake to write us the Constitutional History of a Rookery? Let the courteous reader take heart, then; for he is in hands that will: not, nay what is more, that cannot, do him much harm. One brief shy glance into this huge bivouac of Playwrights, all sawing and planing with such tumult; and we leave it, probably for many years. The German Parnassus, as one of its own denizens remarks, has al rather broad summit; yet only two Dramatists are reckoned, within the last century, to have mounted thither: Schiller and Goethe; if we are not, on the strength of his JIinna von Barnhelm and Emilie Galotti, to account Lessing also of the number. On the slope of the Mountain may be found a few stragglers of the same brotherhood; among these, Tieck and Maler Miller, firmly enough sta-.tioned at considerable elevations; while far below appear various honest persons climbing vehemently, but against precipices of loose sand, to whom we wish all speed. But the reader will understand that the bivouac we speak of, and are,about to enter, lies not on the declivity of the Hill at all; but on the level ground close to the foot of it; the essence of a Playwright being that he works not in Poetry, but in Prose which more or less cunningly resembles it. And 3868 MISCELLANIES.'here, pausing for a moment, the reader observes that he is in a civilised country; for see, on the very boundary-line of Parnassus, rises a gallows with the figure of a man' hung in chains! It is the figure of August von Kotzebue; and has swung there for many years, as a warning to all too-audacious Playwrights; who nevertheless, as we see, pay little heed to it. Ill-fated Kotzebue, once the darling of theatrical Europe! This was the prince of all Playwrights, and could manufacture Plays with.a speed and felicity surpassing even Edinburgh Novels. / For his muse, like other doves, hatched'twins in the month;..an'd the, world gazed on them with an Iddmiration too.-deep for mere words. What is all past or present popularity to this? Were not these Plays translated frito almost every language of articulate-speaking men; acted, at least,, we may literally say, in every theatre from:Kamtschatka to Cadiz? Nay, did they not melt the most,obdurate hearts in all countries; and, like the music of Orjiheus, draw tears down iron cheeks? We ourselves have known the flintiest men, who professed to have wept over them, for the first time in their' lives. So was it twenty years: ago; how stands it to-day? Kotzebue, lifted up on the hollow balloon (of popular applause, thought wings had been given him that he might ascend to the Immortals: gay he' irose, soaring, sailing, as witlh" supreme dominion; but in the rarer'azure- deep his windbag burst asunder, or the. arrows of keen archers pierced it; and so at last we find' him a compound-pendulum, vibrating in the character of scarecrow, to guard from forbidden fruit! O ye Playwrights, and literary quacks of every feather,' weep over Kotzebue, and over yourselves! Know that the loudest roar of the million is not fame; that the windbag, are ye mad enough to mount it, will burst, or be shot through with arrows, and your bones too shall act as scarecrows.'But, quitting this idle allegorical vein, let us at length proceed in plain English, and as beseems mere prose Reviewers, to the work laid out for us. Among the hundreds of Ger GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 369 man Dramatists, as they are called, three individuals, already known tosome British readers, and prominent from all the rest in Germany, may fitly enough stand here as representatives of the whole Playwright class; whose various craft and produce the procedure of these three may in some small degree serve to illustrate. Of Grillparzer, therefore, and ]Elingemann, and Miillner, in their order. Franz Grillparzer seems to be an Austrian; which country is reckoned nowise fertile in poets; a circumstance that may perhaps have contributed a little to his own rather rapid celebrity. Our more special acquaintance with Grillparzer is of very recent date; though his name and samples of his i ware have for some time been hung out, in many British and foreign Magazines, often with testimonials which might have beguiled less timeworn customers. Neither, after all, have we found.these testimonials falser than other such are, but rather not so false'; for, indeed, Grillparzer is a most inoffensive man, nay positively rather meritorious; nor is it without reluctance' that we name him under this head of Playwrights,:and not under that of Dramatists, which he aspires to. Had the lawwith regard to mediocre poets relaxed itself since Horace's time, all had been well with Grillparzer; for undoubtedly there is a small vein.of tenderness and grace run.ning through him; a seeming modesty also, and real love of his art, which gives promise of better thifgs. But gods and men and columns are still equally rigid in that unhappy particular of mediocrity, even pleasing mediocrity; and no scene or line is yet known to us of Grillparzer's which exhibits anything more. Non concessere, therefore, is his sentence for the present; and the louder his well-meaning admirers extol him, the more emphatically should it be pronounced and repeated. Nevertheless Grillparzer's claim to the title of Playwright is perhaps more his misfortune than his crime. Living in a country where the Drama engrosses so much attention, he has been led into attempting it, without any deVOL. I. 24 370 MISCELLANIES. cisive qualification for such an enterprise; and so his allotment of talent, which might have done good service in some prose department, or even in the sonnet, elegy, song or other outlying province of Poetry, is driven, as it were, in spite of fate, to write Plays; which, though regularly divided into scenes and separate speeches, are essentially monological; and though swarming with characters, too often expressonly one character, and that no very extraordinary one,the character of Franz Grillparzer himself. What is an increase of misfortune too, he has met with applause in this career; which therefore he is likely to follow farther and farther, let nature and his stars say to it what they will. The characteristic of a Playwright is, that he writes in Prose; which Prose he palms, probably first on himself, and then on the simpler part of the public, for Poetry: and the manner in which he effects this legerdemain constitutes his specific distinction, fixes the species to which he belongs in the genus Playwright. But it is a universal feature of him that he attempts, by prosaic, and as it were mechanical means, to accomplish an end which, except by poetical genius, is absolutely not to be accomplished. For the most- part, -he has some knack, or trick of the trade, which by close inspection can be detected, and so the heart of his mystery be seen into. He may have one trick, or many; and the more cunningly he can disguise these, the more perfect is he as a craftsman; for were the public once to penetrate into this his sleight-of-hand, it were all over with him, - Othello's occupation were gone? /No conjurer, when we once understand his method of fire-eating, can any longer pass for a true thaumaturgist, or even entertain us in his proper character of quack; though he should eat Mount Vesuvius itself. But happily for Playwrights and others, the public is a dim-eyed animal; gullible to almost all lengths, — nay, which often seems to prefer being gulled. Of Grillparzer's peculiar knack and recipe for play-making, there is not very much to be said. He seems to have GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 371 tried various kinds of recipes, in his time; and, to his credit be it spoken, seems little contented with any of them. By much the worst Play of his, that we have seen, is the Ahnfrau (Ancestress); a deep tragedy of the Castle-Spectre sort; the'whole mechanism of which was discernible and condemnable at a single glance. It is nothing but the old story,of Fate; an invisible Nemesis visiting the sins of the fathers.upon the" children to the third and fourth generation; a:method almost as common and sovereign in German Art, at,this day, as the method of steam is in British mechanics; Sand of which we shall anon have more occasion to speak. In his Preface, Grillparzer endeavours to palliate or deny the fact of his being a Schicksal-Dichter (Fate-Tragedian); but to no purpose; for it is a fact grounded on the testimony of the seven senses: however, we are glad to observe that, -with this one trial, he seems to have abandoned the Fate-line,.and taken into better, at least into different. ones. With re-:gard -to the iAhnfrau itself, we may remark that few things -struck us so much as this little observation of Count Borotin's, occurring in the middle of the dismallest night-thoughts, so unexpectedly, as follows: BERTHA. Und der Hinmmel, sternelos, Starrt aus leeren Augenhihlen In das ungeheure Grab Schwarz herab! GRAF. Wie sich doch die Stunden -dehnen! Was ist wohl die Glocke, Bertha? BERTHA (is just condoling with him, in these words):And the welkin, starless, Glares from empty eye-holes, Black, down on that boundless grave! COUNT. How the hours do linger! What o'clock is't, prithee, Bertha? 372 MISCELLANIES. A more delicate turn, we venture to say, is rarely to be met with in tragic dialogue. As to the story of the Ahnfrau, it is, naturally enough, of the most heart-rending description. This Ancestress is a lady, or rather the ghost of a lady, for she has been defunct some centuries, who in life had committed what we call an'indiscretion;' which indiscretion the unpolite husband punished, one would have thought sufficiently, by running her through the body. However, the Schicksal of Grillparzer does not think it sufficient; but farther dooms the fair penitent to walk as goblin, till the last branch of her family be extinct. Accordingly she is heard, from time to time, slamming doors and the like, and now and then seen with dreadful goggle-eyes and other ghost-appurtenances, to the terror not only of servant people, but of old Count Borotin, her now sole male descendant, whose after-' noon nap she, on one occasion, cruelly disturbs. This Count Borotin is really a worthy prosing old gentleman; only he had a son long ago drowned in a fishpond (body not found); and has still a highly accomplished daughter, whom there is' none offering to wed, except one Jaromir, a person of unknown extraction, and to all appearance of the lightest purse; -nay, as it turns out afterwards, actually the head of a Banditti establishment, which had long infested the neighbouring forests. However, a Captain of foot arrives at this juncture, utterly to root out these Robbers; and now the strangest things come to light. For who should this Jaromir prove to,be but poor old Borotin's drowned son; not drowned, but stolen and bred up by these Outlaws; the brother, therefore, of his intended; a most truculent fellow, who fighting for his life unwittingly kills his own father, and drives his bride to poison herself; in which wise, as was also Giles Scroggins' case, he'cannot get married.' The reader sees, all this is not to be accomplished without some jarring and tumult. In fact, there is a frightful uproar everywhere throughout that night; robbers dying, musketry discharging, women shrieking, men swearing, and the Ahnfrau herself emerging at in GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 373 tervals, as the genius-of the whole discord. But time and hours bring relief, as they always do. Jaromir in the longrun likewise succeeds in dying; whereupon the whole Borotin lineage'having gone to the Devil, the Ancestress also retires thither, -at least makes the upper world rid of her presence; and the piece ends in deep stillness. Of this poor -Ancestress we shall only say farther: Wherever she be, requiescat! requiescat! As we mentioned above, the Fate-method of manufacturing tragic emotion seems to have yielded Grillparzer himself little contentment; for after this Ahnfrau, we hear no more of it. His Kdnig Ottokars Gliick und Ende (King Ottokar's Fortune and End) is a much more innocent piece, and proceeds in quite a different strain; aiming to subdue us not by old-women's fables of Destiny, but by the accumulated splendour of thrones and principalities, the cruel or magnanimous pride of Austrian Emperors and Bohemian conquerors, the wit of chivalrous courtiers, and beautiful but shrewish queens; the whole set-off by a proper intermixture of coro-. nation-ceremonies, Hungarian dresses, whiskered halberdiers, alarms of battle, and the pomp and circumstance of glorious war. There is even some attempt at delineating character in this Play: certain of the dramatis personac, are evidently meant to differ from certain others, not in dress and name only, but in nature and mode of being; so much indeed they repeatedly assert, or hint, and do their best to make good, - unfortunately, however, with very indifferent success. In fact, these dramatis personce are irubrics and titles rather than persons; for most part, mere theatrical automata, with only a mechanical existence. The truth of the matter is, Grillparzer cannot communicate a poetic life to any character,or object; and in this, were it in no other way, he evinces:the intrinsically prosaic nature of his talent. These personages of his have, in some instances, a certain degree of metaphysical truth; that is to say, one portion of their structure, psychologically viewed, corresponds with the other; —so far 874 MISCELLANIES. all is well enough: but to unite these merely scientific and inanimate qualities into a living man is work not for a Playwright, but for a Dramatist. Nevertheless, Kdnig Ottokar is comparatively a harmless tragedy. It is full of action, striking enough, though without any discernible coherence; and with so much both of flirting and fighting, with so many weddings, funerals, processions, encampments, it must be, we should think, if the tailor and decorationist do their duty, a very comfortable piece to see acted; especially on the Vienna boards, where it has a national interest, Rodolph of Hapsburg being a main personage in it. The model of this Ottokar we imagine to have been Schiller's Piccolomini; a poem of similar materials and object; but differing from it as a living rose from a mass of dead rose-leaves, or even of broken Italian gumflowers. It seems as though Grillparzer had hoped to subdue us by a sufficient multitude of wonderful scenes and circumstances, without inquiring, with any painful solicitude, whether the soul and meaning of them were presented to us or not. Herein truly, we believe, lies the peculiar knack or playwright-mystery of Ottokar: that its effect is calculated to depend chiefly on its quantity; on the mere number of astonishments, and joyful or deplorable adventures there brought to light; abundance in superficial contents compensating the absence of callida junctura. Which second method of tragic manufacture we hold to be better than the first, but still far from good. At the same time, it is a very common method, both in Tragedy and elsewhere; nay, we hear persons whose trade it is to write metre, or be otherwise'imaginative,' professing it openly as the best they know. Do not these men go about.collecting'features;' ferreting out strange incidents, murders, duels, ghost-apparitions, over the habitable globe? Of which features and incidents when they have gathered a sufficient stock, what more is needed than that they be ample enough, high-coloured enough, though huddled into any case (Novel, Tragedy or Metrical Romance) that will hold them GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS.. 375 all? Nevertheless this is agglomeration, not creation; and avails little in Literature. Quantity, it is a certain fact, will not make up for defect of quality; nor are the gayest hues of any service, unless there be a likeness painted from them. Better were it for Keinig Ottokar had the story been twice as short and twice as expressive. For it is still true, as in Cervantes' time, nunca lo bueno fue' mucho. What avails the dram of brandy, while it swims chemically united with its barrel of wort? Let the distiller pass it and repass it through his limbecs; for it is the drops of pure alcohol that we want, not the gallons of water, which may be had in every ditch. On the whole, however, we remember Kinig Ottokar without animosity; and to prove that Grillparzer, if he could not make it poetical, might have made it less prosaic, and has in fact something better in him than is here manifested, we shall quote one passage, which strikes us as really rather sweet and natural. King Ottokar is in the last of his fields, no prospect before him but death or captivity; and soliloquising on his past misdeeds: I have not borne me wisely in thy World, Thou great, all-judging God! Like storm and tempest,. I traversed thy fair garden, wasting it:'Tis thine to waste, for thou alone canst heal. Was evil not my aim, yet how did I, Poor worm, presume to ape the Lord of Worlds, And through the Bad seek out a way to the Good! My fellow man, sent thither for his joy, An End, a Self, within thy World a World, - For thou hast fashioned him a marvellous work, With lofty brow, erect in look, strange sense, And clothed him in the garment of thy Beauty, And wondrously encircled him with wonders; He hears, and sees, and feels, has pain and pleasure: He takes him food, and cunning powers come forth, And work and work, within their secret chambers, And build him up his House: no royal Palace Is comparable to the frame of Man! And I have cast.them forth from me by thousands, 376 MISCELLANIES. For whims, as men throw rubbish from their door. And none of all these slain but had a Mother Who, as she bore him in sore travail, Had clasped him fondly to her fostering breast; A Father who had blessed him as his pride, And nurturing, watched over him long years: If he but hurt the skin upon his finger, There would they run, with anxious look, to bind it, And tend it, cheering him, until it healed, And it was but a finger the skin o' the finger! And I have trod men down in heaps and squadrons, For the stern iron opened out a way To their warm living hearts. - 0 God! Wilt thou go into judgment with me, spare My suffering people.l Passages of this sort, scattered here and there over Grillparzer's Plays, and evincing at least an amiable tenderness of natural disposition, make us regret the more to condemn him. In fact, we have hopes that he is not born to be forever a Playwright. A true though feeble vein of poetic talent he really seems to possess; and such purity of heart as may yet, with assiduous study, lead him into his proper field. For we do reckon him a conscientious man, and honest lover of Art; nay this incessant fluctuation in his dramatic schemes is itself a good omen. Besides this Ahnfrau and Ottokar, he has written two Dramas, Sappho and Der Goldene Vliess (The Golden Fleece), on quite another principle; aiming apparently at some Classic model, or at least at some French reflex of such a model. Sappho, which we are sorry to learn is not his last piece, but his second, appears to us very considerably the most faultless production of his we are yet acquainted with. There is a degree of grace and simplicity in it, a softness, polish and general good taste, little to be expected from the author of the Ahnfrau: if he cannot bring out the full tragic meaning of Sappho's situation, he contrives, with laudable dexterity, to avoid the ridicule that lies within a single step of it; his Drama is weak and thin, but innocent, lovable; nay the last scene strikes us as 1 Kilniq Ottokayr, 180-1. GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 377 even poetically meritorious. His Goldene Wliess we suspect to be of similar character, but have not yet found time and patience to study it. We repeat our hope of one day meeting Grillparzer in a more honourable calling than this of Playwright, or even fourth-rate Dramatist; which titles, as was said above, we have not given him without regret; and shall be truly glad to cancel for whatever better one he may yet chance to merit. But if we felt a certain reluctance in classing Grillparzer among the Playwrights, no such feeling can have place with regard to the second name on our list, that of Doctor August Klingemann. Dr. Klingemann is one of the most indisputable Playwrights now extant; nay so superlative is his vigour in this department, we might even designate him the Playwright. His manner of proceeding is quite different from Grillparzer's; not a wavering ever-changed method, or combination of methods, as the other's was; but a fixed principle of action, which he follows with unflinching courage; his own mind being to all appearance highly satisfied with it. If Grillparzer attempted to overpower us, now by the method of Fate, now by that of pompous action, and grandiloquent or lachrymose sentiment, heaped on us in too rich abundance, Klingemann, without neglecting any of these resources, seems to place his chief dependence on a surer and readier stay,- on his magazines of rosin, oil-paper, vizards, scarlet-drapery and gunpowder. What thunder and lightning, magic-lantern transparencies, death's-heads, fireshowers and plush-cloaks can do,is here done. Abundance of churchyard and chapel scenes, in the most tempestuous weather; to say nothing of battle-fields, gleams of scoured arms here and there in the wood, and even occasional shots heard in the distance. Then there are such scowls and malignant side-glances, ashy palenesses, stampings and hysterics, as might, one would think, wring the toughest bosom into drops of pity. For not only are the looks and gestures of '3.78 MISCELLANIES. these people of the most heart-rending description, but their words and feelings also (for Klingemann is no half-artist) are of a piece with them: gorgeous inflations, the purest innocence, highest magnanimity; godlike sentiment of all.sorts; everywhere the finest tragic humour, The moral too is genuine; there is the most anxious regard to virtue; indeed a distinct patronage both of Providence and the Devil. In this manner does Dr. Klingemann compound his dramatic electuaries, no less cunningly than Dr. Kitchiner did his'peptic persuaders;' and truly of the former we must say, that their operation is nowise unpleasant; nay to our shame be it spoken, we have even read these Plays with a certain degree of satisfaction; and shall declare that if any man wish to amuse himself irrationally, here is the ware for his money. Klingemann's latest dramatic undertaking is Ahasuer; a purely original invention, on which he seems to pique himself somewhat; confessing his opinion that, now when the'birthpains' are over, the character of Ahasuer may possibly do good service in many a future drama. We are not prophets, or sons of prophets; so shall leave this prediction resting on its own basis. Ahasuer, the reader will be interested to learn, is no other than the Wandering Jew or Shoemaker of Jerusalem: concerning whom there are two things to be remarked. The first is, the strange name of the Shoemaker-: why do Klingemann and all the Germans call the man Ahasuer, when his authentic Christian name is John; Joannes a Temporibus Christi, or, for brevity's sake, simply Joannes a Temporibus? This should be looked into. Our second remark is of the circumstance that no Historian or Narrator, neither Schiller, Strada, Thuanus, Monro, nor Dugald Dalgetty, makes any mention of Ahasuer's having been present at the Battle of Liitzen. Possibly they thought the fact too notorious to need mention. Here at all events, he was; nay, as we infer, he must have been at Waterloo also; and probably at Trafalgar, though in which Fleet is not so clear; for GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 379 he takes a hand in all great battles and national emergencies, at least is witness of them, being bound to it by his destiny. Such is the peculiar occupation of the Wandering Jew, as brought to light in this Tragedy: his other specialities, — that he cannot lodge above three nights in one place; that he is of a melancholic temperament; above all, that he cannot die, not by hemp or steel, or Prussic-acid itself, but must travel on till the general consummation, - are familiar to all historical readers. Ahasuer's task at this Battle of Liitzen seems to have been a very easy one: simply to see the Lion of the North brought down; not by a cannot-shot, as is generally believed, but by the traitorous pistol-bullet of one Heinyn von Warth, a bigoted Catholic, who had pretended to desert from the Imperialists, that he'might find some such opportunity. Unfortunately, Heinyn, directly after this feat, falls into a sleepless,'half-rabid state; comes home to Castle Warth, frightens his poor Wife and worthy old noodle of a Father; then skulks about, for some time, now praying, oftener cursing and swearing; till at length the Swedes lay hold of him and kill him. Ahasuer, as usual, is in at the:eath: in the interim, however, he has saved Lady Heinyn from drowning, though as good as poisoned her with the look of his strange stony eyes; and now his business to all appearance being over, he signifies in strong language that he must begone; thereupon he' steps solemnly into the wood;' Wasaburg looks after him surprised: the rest kneel round'the corpse; the Requiem faintly continues;' and what is still more surprising,'the curtain falls.' Such is the simple action and stern catastrophe of this Tragedy; concerning which it were superfluous for us to speak farther in the way of criticism. We shall only add, that there is a dreadful lithographic print in it, representing'Ludwig Devrient as Ahasuer;' in that very act of'stepping solemnly into the wood;' and uttering these final words: "Ich aber wandle weiter weiter - weiter!" We have heard of Herr Devrient as of the best actor in Germany; and can now bear 380 MISCELLANIES. testimony, if there be truth in this plate, that he is one of the ablest-bodied men. A most truculent, rawboned figure,'with bare legs and red leather shoes;' huge black beard; eyes turned inside out; and uttering these extraordinary words: " But I go on- on - on!" Now, however, we must give a glance at Klingemann's other chief performance in this line, the Tragedy of Faust. Dr. Klingemann admits that the subject has been often treated; that Goethe's Faust in particular has'dramatic points (dramatische momente):' but the business is to give it an entire dramatic superficies, to make it an dcht dramatische, a'genuinely dramatic' tragedy. Setting out with this laudable intention, Dr. Klingemann has produced a Faust, which differs from that of Goethe in more than one particular. The hero of this piece is not the old Faust, doctor in philosophy; driven desperate by the uncertainty of human knowledge: but plain John Faust, the printer, and even the inventor of gunpowder; driven desperate by his ambitious temper, and a total deficiency of cash. He has an excellent wife, an excellent blind father, both of whom would fain have him be peaceable, and work at his trade; but being an adept in the black-art, he determines -rather to relieve himself in that way. Accordingly, he proceeds to make a contract with the Devil, on what we should consider pretty advan:tageous terms; the Devil being bound to serve him in the most effectual manner, and Faust at liberty to commit four; mortal sins before any hair of his head can be harmed. However, as will be seen, the Devil proves Yorkshire; and Faust, naturally enough, finds himself quite jockeyed in the long-run. Another characteristic distinction of Klingemann is his manner of embodying this same Evil Principle, when at last he resolves on introducing him to sight; for all these contracts and preliminary matters are very properly managed behind the scenes; only the main points of the transaction being indicated to the spectator by some thunderclap, GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 381 or the like. Here is no cold mocking Mephistopheles; but a swaggering, jovial, West India-looking' Stranger,' with a rubicund, indeed quite brick-coloured face, which Faust at first mistakes for the effect of hard-drinking. However, it is a remarkable feature of this Stranger, that always on the introduction of any religious topic, or the mention of any sacred name, he strikes his glass down on the table, and generally breaks it. For some time, after his grand bargain, Faust's affairs go on triumphantly, on the great scale, and he seems to feel pretty comfortable. But the Stranger shows him' his wife,' Helena, the most enchanting creature in the world; and the most cruel-hearted, —for, notwithstanding the easy temper of her husband, she will not grant Faust the smallest encouragement, till he have killed K/ithe, his own living helpmate, against whom he entertains no manner of grudge. Nevertheless, reflecting that he has a stock of four mortal sins to draw upon, and may well venture one for such a prize, he determines on killing Kathe. But here matters take a bad turn: for having poisoned poor Kithe, he discovers, most unexpectedly, that she is in the family-way; and therefore that he has committed not one sin but two! Nay, before the interment can take place, he is farther reduced, in a sort of accidental self-defence, to kill his father; thus accomplishing his third mortal sin; with which third, as we shall presently discover, his whole allotment is exhausted; a fourth; that he knew not of, being already on the score against him! From this point, it cannot surprise us that bad grows worse: catchpoles are out in pursuit of him,' black masks' dance round him in a most suspicious manner, the brickfaced Stranger seems to laugh at him, and Helena will nowhere make her appearance. That the sympathising reader may see with his own eyes how poor Faust is beset at this juncture, we shall quote a scene or two. The first may, properly enough, be that of those' black masks.' 382 MISCELLANIES. SCENE SEVENTH. A lighted Hall. (In the distance is heard quick dancing-music..Masks pass firom time to time over the Stage, but all dressed in black, and with vizards perfectly close.:.After a pause, FAUST plunges wildly in, with a full goblet in his hand.) FAUST (rushing stormfully into the foreground). Ha! Poison,'stead of wine, that I intoxicate me! Your wine makes sober, - burning fire bring us! Off with your drink! - and blood is in it too! [Shuddering, he dashes the goblet.from his hand. My father's blood, - I've drunk my fill of that! [ With increasing tumult. Yet curses on him! curses, that he begot me! Curse on my mother's bosom, that it bore me! Curse on the gossip-crone that stood by her, And did not strangle me at my first scream! How could I help this being that was given me? Accursed art thou, Nature, that hast mock'd me! Accursed I, that let myself be mock'd! - And thou, strong Being, that, to make the sport, Enclosedst the fire-soul in this dungeon, That so despairing it might strive for freedom - Accur... [He shrinks terrorstruck. No, not thefourth.... the blackest sin! No! No! [In the excess of his outbreaking anguish, he hides his face in his hands. O, I am altogether wretched! (Three black Masks come towards him.) FIRST MASK. Hey! merry friend! SECOND MASK. Hey! merry brother! THIRD MASK (reiterating with a cutting tone). Merry! FAUST (breaking out in wild humour, and looking round armong them). Hey! Merry, then! amng them). FIRST MASK. Will any one catch flies? SECOND MASK. A long life yet; to midnight all the way! GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. -383 THIRD MASK. And after that, such pleasure without end! [ The music suddenly ceases, and a clock strikes thrice. FAUST (astonished). What is it? FIRST MASK. Wants a quarter, Sir, of twelve! SECOND MASK. Then we have time! THIRD MASK. Ay, time enough for jigging! FIRST MASK. And not till midnight comes the shot to pay! FAUST (shuddering). What want ye? FIRST MASK (clasps his hand abruptly). Hey! To dance a step with thee! FAUST (plucks his hands back). Off! -Fire!! FIRST MASK. Tush! A spark or so of brimstone! SECOND MASK. Art-dreaming, brother? THIRD MASK. Holla! Music, there! [The music begins again in the distance. FIRST MASK (secretly laughing). The spleen is biting him! SECOND MASK. Hark! at the gallows, What jovial footing of it! THIRD MASK. Thither must I! [Exit. FIRST MASK. Below, too! down in Purgatory! Hear ye? SECOND MASK. A stirring there?'Tis time, then! Hui, your servant! FIRST MASK (to FAUST). Till midnight! [Exeunt both Masks hastily. 384 MISCELLANIES. FAUST (clasping his brow). Ha! What begirds me here? [Stepping ivehemently forward. Down with your masks! [ Violent knocking without. What horrid uproar next! Is madness coming on me? - voICE (violently, from without). Open, in the king's name! [ Te music ceases. Thunderclap. FAUST (staggers back). I have a heavy dream! - Sure'tis not doomsday? VOICE (as before). Here is the murderer! Open! Open, then! FAUST (wipes his brow). Has agony unmanned me? - SCENE EIGHTH. BAILIFFS. Where-is he? where? - From these merely terrestrial constables, the jovial Stranger easily delivers Faust: but now comes the long-looked-for tete-a-tete with Helena. SCENE TWELFTH. (FAUST leads HELENA on the stage. She also is close-masked. The other Masks withdraw.) FAUST (warm and glowing). No longer strive, proud beauty! HELENA. Ha, wild stormer! FAUST. My bosom burns-! HELENA. The time is not yet come. - And so forth, through four pages of flame and ice, till at last, FAUST (insisting). Off with the mask, then! GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 385 HELENA (still wilder). Hey! the marriage-hour! - FAUST. Off with the mask!! HELENA.'Tis striking!! FAUST. One kiss! HELENA. Take it!! [ The mask and head-dress fallfrom her; and she grins at him from a death's-head: loud thunder; and the music ends, as with a shriek, in dissonances. FAUST (staggers back). O horror! - Woe! HELENA. The couch is ready, there! Come, Bridegroom, to thy fire-nuptials! [She sinks, with a crashing thunderpeal, into the ground, out of which issueflames. All this is bad enough; but mere child's-play to the' Thirteenth Scene,' the last of this strange eventful history: with some parts of which we propose to send our readers weeping to their beds. SCENE THIRTEENTH. ( The STRANGER hurls FAUST, whose face is deadly pale, back to the stage, by the hair.) FAUST. Ha, let me fly! - Come! Come! STRANGER (with wild thundering tone).'Tis over now! FAUST. That horrid visage! - [Throwing himself; in a tremor, on the STRANGER'S breast. Thou art my Friend! Protect me!! STRANGER (lasughing aloud). Ha! ha:! ha! VOL. I. 25 386 MISCELLANIES. FAUST. 0 save me!! STRANGER (clutches him with irresistible force; whirls him round, so that FAUST'S face is towards the spectators, whilst his own is turned away; and thus he looks at him, and bawls with thundering voice:)'Tis I!![A CLAP OF THUNDER. FAUST, with gestures of deepest horror, rushes to the ground, uttering an inarticulate cry. The other, after a pause, continues, with cutting coolness: Is that the mighty Hell-subduer, That threatened me -Ha, ME!! [ With highest contempt. Worm of the dust! I had reserved thy torment for - myself!! - Descend to other hands, be sport for slaves - Thou art too small for me!! FAUST (rises erect, and seems to recover his strength). Am I not Faust? STRANGER. Thou, no! FAUST (rising in his whole vehemence). Accursed! Ha, I am! I am! Down at my feet! - I am thy master! STRANGER. No more!! FAUST (wildly). More? Ha! My Bargain!! STRANGER. Is concluded!! FAUST. Three mortal sins.STRANGER. The Fourth too is committed! FAUST. My Wife, my Child, and my old Father's blood-! STRANGER (holds up a Parchment to him). And here thy own! — FAUST. That is my covenant! STRANGER. This signature- was thy most damning sin! GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 387 FAUST (raging). Ha, spirit of lies!! &c. &c. STRANGER (in highest fury). Down, thou accursed! [He drags him by the hair towards the background; at this moment, amid violent thunder and lightning, the scene changes into a horrid wilderness; in the background of which, a yawning Chasm: into this the Devil hurls Faust; on all sides Fire rains down, so that the whole interior of the Cavern seems burning: a black veil descends over both, so soon as Faust is got under. I'AUST (huzzaing in wild defiance). Ha, down! Down! [Thunder, lightning and fire. Both sink. The curtain falls. On considering all which supernatural transactions, the bewildered reader has no theory for it, except that Faust must, in Dr. Cabanis's phrase, have laboured under' obstructions in the epigastric region,' and all this of the Devil, and Helena, and so much murder and carousing, have been nothing but a waking dream, or other atrabilious phantasm;'and regrets that the poor Printer had not rather applied to some Abernethy on the subject, or even, by one sufficient dose of Epsom-salt, on his own prescription, put an end to the whole matter, and restored himself to the bosom of his afflicted family. Such, then, for Dr. Klingemann's part, is his method of constructing Tragedies; to which method it may perhaps be objected that there is a want of originality in it; for do not our own British Playwrights follow precisely the same plan? We might answer that, if not his plan, at least his infinitely superior execution of it must distinguish Klingemann: but we rather think his claim to originality rests on a different ground; on the ground, namely, of his entire contentment with himself and with this his dramaturgy; and the cool heroism with which, on all occasions, he avows that contentment. Here is no poor cowering underfoot Playwright, begging the public for God's sake not to give him the whip 388 MISCELLANIES. ping which he deserves; but a bold perpendicular Playwright, avowing himself as such; nay mounted on the top of his joinery, and therefrom exercising a sharp critical superintendence over the German Drama generally. Klingemann, we understand, has lately executed a theatrical Tour, as Don Quixote did various Sallies; and thrown stones into most German Playhouses, and at various German Playwriters; of which we have seen only his assault on Tieck; a feat comparable perhaps to that'never-imagined adventure of the Windmills.' Fortune, it is said, favours the brave;, and the prayer of Burns's Kilmarnock weaver is not always unheard of Heaven. In conclusion, we congratulate Dr. Klingemann on his Manager-dignity in the Brunswick Theatre; a post he seems made for, almost as Bardolph was for the Eastcheap waitership, But now, like his own Ahasuer, Dr. Klingemann must'go on — on — on:' for another and greater Doctor has been kept too long waiting, whose Seven beautiful Volumes of Dramatische Werke might well secure him a better fate. Dr. MUllner, of all these Playwrights, is the best known in England; some of his works have even, we believe, been translated into our language. In his own country, his fame, or at least notoriety, is also supreme over all: no Playwright of this age makes such a noise as MUillner; nay, many there are who affirm that he is something far better than a Playwright. Critics of the sixth and lower magnitudes, in every corner of Germany, have put the question a thousand times: Whether MUillner is not a Poet and Dramatist? To which question, as the higher authorities maintain an obstinate silence, or, if much pressed, reply only in groans, these sixthmagnitude men have been obliged to make answer themselves; and they have done it with an emphasis and vociferation calculated to dispel all remaining doubts in the minds of men. In Miillner's mind, at least, they have left little; a conviction the more excusable, as the playgoing vulgar seem GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 389 to be almost unanimous in sharing it; and thunders of applause, nightly through so many theatres, return him loud acclaim. Such renown is pleasant food for the hungry appetite of a man, and naturally he rolls it as a sweet morsel under his tongue: but, after all, it can profit him but little nay, many times, what is sugar to the taste may be sugar-oflead when it is swallowed. Better were it for Millner, we think, had fainter thunders of applause, and from fewer theatres, greeted him. For what good is in it, even were there no evil? Though a thousand caps leap into the air at his name, his own stature is no hairsbreadth higher; neither. even can the final estimate of its height be thereby in the smallest degree enlarged. From gainsayers these greetings provoke only a stricter scrutiny; the matter comes to be accurately known at last; and he who has been treated with foolish liberality at one period, must make up for it by the want of bare necessaries at another. No one will deny that Miillner is a person of some considerable talent: we understand he is, or was once, a Lawyer; and can believe that he may have acted, and talked, and written, very prettily in: that capacity: but to set up for a Poet was quite a different enterprise, in which we reckon that he has altogether mistaken his road, and that these mob-cheers have led him farther and farther astray. Several years ago, on the faith of very earnest recommendation, it was our lot to read one of Dr. Miillner's Tragedies, the Albandserinn; with which, such was its effect on us, we could willingly enough have terminated our acquaintance with Dr. Miillner. A palpable imitation of Schiller's Braut Von Messina; without any philosophy or feeling that was not either perfectly commonplace or perfectly false, often both the one and the other; inflated, indeed, into a certain hollow bulk, but altogether without greatness; being built through. out on mere rant and clangor, and other elements of the most indubitable Prose: such a work could not but be satisfactory to us respecting Dr. Millner's genius as a Poet; and 390 MISCELLANIES. time being precious, and the world wide enough, we had privately determined that we and Dr. Millner were each henceforth to pursue his own course. Nevertheless, so considerable has been the progress of our worthy friend since then, both at home and abroad, that his labours are again forced on our notice: for we reckon the existence of a true Poet in any country to be so important a fact, that even theslight probability of such is worthy of investigation. Accordingly we have again - perused the Albandserinn, and along with it, faithfully examined the whole Dramatic Works of Millner, published in Seven Volumes, on beautiful paper, in small shape and everyway very fit for handling. The whole tragic works, we should rather say: for three or four of his comic performances sufficiently contented us; and some two volumes of farces, we confess, are still unread. We have also carefully gone through, and with much less difficulty, the Prefaces, Appendices, and other prose sheets, wherein the Author exhibits the'fata libelli;' defends himself from unjust criticisms, reports just ones, or himself makes such. The toils of this task we shall not magnify, well knowing that man's life is a fight throughout: only having now gathered what light is to be had on this matter,; we proceed to speak forth our verdict thereon; fondly hoping that we shall then have done with it, for an indefinite period of time. Dr. Millner, then, we must take liberty to believe, in spite of all that has been said or sung upon the subject, is no Dramatist; has never written a Tragedy, and in all human probability will never write one. Grounds for this harsh, negative opinion, did the burden of proof lie chiefly on our side, we might state in extreme abundance. There is one ground, however, which, if our observation be correct, would virtually include all the rest. Dr. Millner's whole soul and character, to the deepest root we can trace of it, seems prosaic, not poetical; his Dramas, therefore, like whatever else he produces, must be manufactured, not created; GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 391 nay, we think that his principle of manufacture is itself rather a poor and secondhand one. Vain were it for any reader to search in these Seven Volumes for an opinion any deeper or clearer, a sentiment any finer or higher, than may conveniently belong'to the commonest practising advocate: except stilting heroics, which the man himself half knows to be false, and every other man easily waives aside, there is nothing here to disturb the quiescence either of heart or head. This man is a Doctor utriusque Juris, most probably of good juristic talent; and nothing more whatever. His language too, all accurately measured into feet, and good current German, so far as a foreigner may judge, bears sim. ilar testimony. Except the rhyme and metre, it exhibits no poetical symptom: without being verbose, it is essentially meagre and watery; no idiomatic expressiveness, no melody, no virtue of any kind; the commonest vehicle for the commonest meaning. Not that our Doctor is destitute of metaphors and other rhetorical furtherances; but that these also are of the most trivial character: old threadbare material, scoured up into a state of shabby-gentility; mostly turning on' light' and' darkness;'' flashes through clouds,''fire of heart,''tempest of soul,' and the like, which can profit no man or woman. In short, we must repeat it, Dr. Miillner has yet to show that there is any particle of poetic metal in him; that his genius is other than a sober clay-pit, from which good bricks may be made; but where to look for gold or diamonds were sheer waste of labour. When we think of our own Maturin and Sheridan Knowles, and the gala-day of popularity which they also once enjoyed with us, we can be at no loss for the genus under which Dr. Miillner is to be included in critical physiology. Nevertheless, in marking him as a distinct Playwright, we are bound to mention that in general intellectual talent he shows himself very considerably superior to his two German brethren. He has a much better taste than Klingemann; rejecting the aid of plush and gunpowder, we may say altogether; is even 392 MISCELLANIES. at the pains to rhyme great part of his Tragedies; and on the whole, writes with a certain care and decorous composure, to which the Brunswick Manager seems totally indifferent. Moreover, he appears to surpass Grillparzer, as well as Klingemann, in a certain force both of judgment and passion; which indeed is no very mighty affair; Grillparzer being naturally but a treble-pipe in these matters; and Klingemann, blowing through such an enormous coach-horn, that the natural note goes for nothing, becomes a mere vibration: in that all-subduing volume of sound. At the same time, it is singular enough that neither Grillparzer nor Klingemann should be nearly so tough reading as Millner; which, how-: ever, we declare to be the fact. As to Klingemann, he is even an amusing artist; there is such a briskness and heart: in him; so rich is he, nay so exuberant in riches, so full of explosions, fire-flashes, execrations and all manner of catas-' trophes; and then, good soul, he asks no attention from us,knows his trade better than to dream of asking any. Grillparzer, again, is a sadder and perhaps a wiser companion; longwinded a little, but peaceable and soft-hearted: his melancholy, even when he pules, is in the highest degree inoffen-, sive, and we can often weep a tear or two for him, if not with him. But of all Tragedians, may the indulgent Heavens deliver us from any farther traffic with Dr. Miillner! This is the lukewarm, which we could wish to be either cold orhot. Millner will not keep us awake, while we read him;: yet neither will he, like Klingemann, let usfairly get asleep.'. Ever and anon, it is as if we came into some smooth quies — cent country; and the soul flatters herself that here at last — she may be allowed to fall back on her cushions, the eyes meanwhile, like two safe postilions, comfortably conducting: her through that flat region, in which are nothing but flax-' crops and mile-stones; and ever and anon some jolt or unex-' pected noise fatally disturbs her; and looking out, it is no waterfall or mountain chasm, but only the villanous highway, and squalls of October wind. To speak without figure, Dr. GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 393 Miillner does seem to us a singularly oppressive writer; and perhaps for this reason: that he hovers too near the verge of good writing; ever tempting us with some hope that here is a touch of Poetry; and ever disappointing us with a touch of pure Prose. A stately sentiment comes tramping forth with a clank that sounds poetic and heroic; we start in. breathless expectation, waiting to reverence the heavenly guest; and, alas, he proves to be but an old stager dressed in new buckram,. a stager well known to us, nay often a stager that has already been drummed out of most well-regulated communities. So is it ever with Dr. Miillner: no feeling can be traced much deeper in him than the tongue; or perhaps when we search more strictly, instead of an ideal of beauty, we shall find some vague aim after strength, or in defect of this, after mere size. And yet how cunningly he manages the counterfeit! A most plausible, fair-spoken, close-shaven man: a man whom you must not, for decency's-sake, throw out of the window; and yet you feel that being palpably a Turk in grain, his intents are wicked and not charitable!.:But the grand question with regard to Miillner, as with regard tothose other Playwrights, is: Where lies his peculiar sleight-of-hand in this craft? Let us endeavour, then, to find out his secret, - his recipe for play-making; and communicate the same for behoof of the British nation. Millner's recipe is no mysterious one; floats, indeed, on the very surface; might even be taught, one would suppose, on a few trials, to the humblest capacity. Our readers may perhaps recollect Zacharias Werner, and some short allusion, in our First Number, to a highly terrific piece of his, entitled The Twenty-fourth of February. A more detailed account of the matter'may be found in Madame de Stal1's Allemagne; in the Chapter which treats of that infatuated Zacharias generally. It is a story of a Swiss peasant and'bankrupt, called Kurt Kuruh, if we mistake not; and of his wife, and a rich travelling stranger lodged with them; which latter is, in the night of the Twenty-fourth of February, wilfully and feloni 394 MISCELLANIES. ously, murdered by the two former; and proves himself, in the act of dying, to be their own only son, who had returned home to make them all comfortable, could they only have had a little more patience. But the foul deed is already accomplished, with a rusty knife or scythe; and nothing of course remains but for the whole batch to go to perdition. For it was written, as the Arabs say,'on the iron leaf:' these Kuruhs are doomed men; old Kuruh, the grandfather, had committed some sin or other; for which, like the sons of Atreus, his descendants are'prosecuted with the -utmost rigour:' nay, so punctilious is Destiny, that this very Twenty-fourth of February, the day when that old sin was enacted, is still a fatal day with the family; and this very knife or scythe, the criminal tool on that former occasion, is ever the instrument of new crime and punishment; the Kuruhs, during all that half century, never having carried it to the smithy to make hobnails; but kept it hanging on a peg, most injudiciously we think, almost as a sort of bait and bonus to Satan, a ready-made fulcrum for whatever machinery he might bring to bear against them. This is the tragic lesson taught in Werner's Twenty-fourth of February; and, as the whole dramatis personce are either stuck through with old iron, or hanged in hemp, it is surely taught with some considerable emphasis. Werner's Play was brought out at Weimar, in 1809; under the direction or permission, as he brags, of the great Goethe himself; and seems to have produced no faint impression on a discerning public. It is, in fact, a piece nowise destitute of substance and a certain coarse vigour; and ifany one has so obstinate a heart that he must absolutely stand in a slaughter-house, or within wind of the gallows before tears will come, it may have a very comfortable effect on him. One symptom of merit it must be admitted to exhibit, -an adaptation to the general taste; for the small fibre of originality, which exists here, has already shot forth into a whole wood of imitations. We understand that the Fate-line GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 395 is now quite an established branch of dramatic business in Germany; they have their Fate-dramatists, just as we have our gingham-weavers and inkle-weavers. Of this Fate-manufacture we have already seen one sample in Grillparzer's Ahnfrau: but by far the most extensive Fate-manufacturer, the head and prince of all Fate-dramatists, is the Doctor Uiillner at present under consideration. MUillner deals in Fate, and Fate only; it is the basis and staple of his whole tragedy-goods; cut off this one principle, you annihilate his raw material, and hd can manufacture no more. Miillner acknowledges his obligations to Werner; but, we think, not half warmly enough. Werner was in fact the making of him; great as he has now become, our Doctor is nothing but a mere mistletoe growing from that poor oak, itself already half dead; had there been no Twenty-fourth of February, there were then no Twenty-ninth of February, no Schuld, no Albandserinn, most probably no Kdnig Yngurd. For the reader is to understand that Dr. Miillner, already a middle-aged, and as yet a perfectly undramatic man, began business with a direct copy of this Twenty-fourth; a thing proceeding by Destiny, and ending in murder, by a knife or scythe, as in the Kuruh case; with one improvement, indeed, that there was a grinding-stone introduced into the scene, and the spectator had the satisfaction of seeing the knife previously whetted. The Author too was honest enough publicly to admit his imitation; for he named this Play the Twentyninth of February; and, in his Preface, gave thanks, though somewhat reluctantly, to Werner, as to his master and originator. For some inscrutable reason, this Twenty-ninth was not sent to the greengrocer, but became popular: there was even the weakest of parodies written on it, entitled Eumenides Dilster (Eumenides Gloomy), which Miillner has reprinted; there was likewise' a wish expressed' that the termination might be'made joyous, not grievous; with which wish also' the indefatigable wright has complied; and so, for the benefit of weak nerves, we have the Wahn (Delusion), 396 MISCELLANIES. which still ends in tears, but glad ones. In short, our Doctor has a peculiar merit with this Twenty-ninth of his; for who but he could have cut a second and a third face on the same cherrystone, said cherrystone having first to be borrowed, or indeed half-stolen? At this point, however, Dr. Miillner apparently began to: set up for himself; and ever henceforth he endeavours to persuade his own mind and ours that his debt to Werner ter-. minates here. Nevertheless clear it is that fresh debt was. every day contracting. For had not this one Wernerean idea taken complete hold of the Doctor's mind; so that he was quite possessed with it, had, we might say, no other tragic idea whatever? That a man, on a certain day of the month, shall fall into crime; for which an invisible Fate shall silently pursue him; punishing the transgression, most probably on the same day of the month, annually (unless, as in the Twenty-ninth, it be leap-year, and Fate in this may be, to a certain extent, bilked); and never resting till the poor wight himself, and perhaps his last descendant, shall be swept away with the besom of destruction: such, more or less disguised,-, frequently without any disguise, is the tragic essence, the vital. principle, natural or galvanic we are not deciding, of all Dr.-, Miillner's Dramas. Thus, in that everlasting Twenty-ninth; of February, we have the principle in its naked state: some old Woodcutter or Forester has fallen into deadly sin with his wife's sister, long ago, on that intercalary day; and so his whole progeny must, wittingly or unwittingly, proceed inincest and murder; the day of the catastrophe regularly occurring, every four years, on the same Twenty-ninth; till happily the whole are murdered, and there is an end. So likewise in the Schuld (Guilt), a much more ambitious performance, we have exactly the same doctrine of an anniversary; and the interest once more turns on that delicate business of murder and incest. In the Albandserinn (Fair Albanese), again, which may have the credit, such- as it is, of being Miillner's best Play, we find the Fate-theory; a little GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 397 coloured; as if the drug had begun to disgust, and the Doctor would hide it in a spoonful of syrup: it is a dying man's curse that operates on the criminal; which curse, being strengthened by a sin of very old standing in the family of the cursee, takes singular effect; the parties only weathering parricide, fratricide, and the old story of incest, by two selfbanishments, and two very decisive self-murders. Nay, it seems as if our Doctor positively could not act at all without this Fate-panacea: in Kdnig Yngurd, we might almost think that he had made such an attempt, and found that it would not do. This Konig Yngurd, an imaginary Peasant-King of Norway, is meant, as we are kindly informed, to present us with some adumbration of Napoleon Bonaparte; and truly, for the two or three first Acts, he goes along with no small gallantry, in what drill-sergeants call a dashing or swashing style; a very virtuous kind of man, and as bold as Ruy Diaz or the Warwick Mastiff: when suddenly in the middle'of a battle, far on in the Play, he is seized with some caprice, or whimsical qualm; retires to a solitary place, among rocks, and there in a most gratuitous manner, delivers himself over, viva voce, to the Devil; who indeed does not appear personally to take seisin of him, but yet, as afterwards comes to light, has with great readiness accepted the gift. For now Yngurd grows dreadfully sulky and wicked, does little henceforth but bully men and kill them; till at length, the measure of his iniquities being full, he himself is bullied and killed;: and the Author, carried through by this his sovereign tragic elixir, contrary to expectation, terminates his piece with reasonable comfort.' This, then, is Dr. MUillner's dramatic mystery; this is the one patent hook by which he would hang his clay tragedies on the upper spiritual world; and so establish for himself a free communication, almost as if by block-and-tackle, between the visible Prose Earth and the invisible Poetic Heaven. The greater or less merit of this his invention, or rather improvement, for Werner is the real patentee, has given rise, 398 MISCELLANIES. we understand, to extensive argument. The small deer of criticism seem to be much divided in opinion on this point; and the higher orders, as we have stated, declining to throw any light whatever on it, the subject is still mooting with great animation. For our own share, we confess that we incline to rank it, as a recipe for dramatic tears, a shade higher than the Page's split onion in the Taming of the Shrew. Craftily hid in the handkerchief, this onion was sufficient for the deception of Christopher Sly; in that way attaining its object; which also the Fate-invention seems to have done with the Christopher Slys of Germany, and these not one but many, and therefore somewhat harder to deceive. To this onion-superiority we think Dr. Ali. is fairly entitled; and with this it were, perhaps,'good for him that he remained content. Dr. MUillner's Fate-scheme has been attacked by certain of his traducers on the'score of its hostility to the Christian religion. Languishing indeed should we reckon the condition of the Christian religion to be, could Dr. Miillner's play-joinery produce any perceptible effect on it. Nevertheless, we may remark, since the matter is in hand, that this business of Fate does seem to us nowise a Christian doctrine; not even a Mahometan or Heathen one. The Fateof the Greeks, though a false, was a lofty hypothesis, and harmonised sufficiently with the whole sensual and material structure of their theology: a ground of deepest black, on which that gorgeous phantasmagoria was fitly enough painted. Besides, with them the avenging Power dwelt, at least in its visible manifestations, among the high places of the earth; visiting only kingly houses, and world criminals, from whom it might be supposed the world, but for such miraculous interferences, could have exacted no vengeance, or found no protection and'purification. Never, that we recollect of, did the Erinnyes become mere sheriff's-officers, and Fate a justice of the peace, haling poor drudges to the tread-mill for robbery of henroosts, or scattering the earth with steel-traps GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 399 to keep down poaching. And what has all this to do with.the revealed Providence of these days; that Power whose:path is emphatically through the great deep; his doings and plans manifested, in completeness, not by the year or by the century, on individuals or on nations, but stretching through Eternity, and over the infinitude which he rules and sustains? But there needs no recourse to theological arguments for judging this Fate-tenet of Dr. Millner's. Its value, as a dramatic principle, may be estimated, it seems to us, by this one consideration: that in these days no person of either sex in the slightest degree believes it; that Dr. Millner himself does not believe it. We are not contending that fiction should become fact, or that no dramatic incident is genuine, unless it could be sworn to before a jury; but simply that fiction should not be falsehood and delirium. How shall any one, in the drama, or in poetry of any sort, present a consist-.ent philosophy of life, which is the soul and ultimate essence of all poetry, if he and every mortal know that the whole moral basis of his ideal world is a lie? And is it other than a lie that man's life is, was or could be, grounded on this pet-.tifogging principle of a Fate that pursues woodcutters and cowherds with miraculous visitations, on stated days of the month? Can we, with any profit, hold the mirror up to *Nature in this wise? When our mirror is no mirror, but only as it were a nursery saucepan, and that long since grown rusty? We might add, were it of any moment in this case, that,we reckon Dr. Miillner's tragic knack altogether insufficient for a still more comprehensive reason; simply for the reason that it is a knack, a recipe, or secret of the craft, which, could it be never so excellent, must by repeated use degen-.;erate into a mannerism, and therefore into a nuisance. But herein lies the difference between creation and manufacture: the latter has its manipulations, its secret processes, which.can be learned by apprenticeship; the former has not. For 400. MISCELLANIES. in poetry we have heard of no secret possessing the smallest effectual virtue, except this one general secret: that the poet be a man of a purer, higher, richer nature than other men; which higher nature shall itself, after earnest inquiry, have taught him the proper form for embodying its inspirations, as indeed the imperishable beauty of these will shine, with more or less distinctness, through any form whatever. Had Dr. Millner any visible pretension to this last great secret, it might be a duty to dwell longer and more gravely on his minor ones, however false and poor. As he has no: such pretension, it appears to us that for the present we may take our leave. To give any farther analysis of his individual dramas would be an easy task, but a stupid and thankless one. A Harrison's watch, though this too is but an earthly machine, may be taken asunder with some prospect of scientific advantage; but who would spend time in screwing and unscrewing the mechanism of ten pepper-mills? Neither shall we offer any extract, as a specimen of the diction and sentiment that reigns in these dramas. We have said already that it is fair, well-ordered stage-sentiment this of his; that the diction too is good, well-scanned, grammatical diction; no fault to be found with either, except that they pretend tobe poetry, and are throughout the most unadulterated prose. To exhibit this fact in extracts would be a vain undertaking. Not the few sprigs of heath, but the thousand acres of it, characterise the wilderness. Let any one who covets a trim heath-nosegay, clutch at random into Miillner'sl Seven Volumes: for ourselves, we would not deal farther in that article. Besides his dramatic labours, Dr. Miillner is known to the public as a journalist. For some considerable time, he has edited a Literary Newspaper of his own originating, the Mitternacht-Blatt (Midnight Paper); stray leaves of which we occasionally look into. In this last capacity, we are happy to observe, he shows to much more advantage: indeed, the journalistic office seems quite natural to him; and would he take any advice from us, which he will not, here were the GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 401 arena in which, and not in the Fate-drama, he would exclusively continue to fence; for his bread or glory. He is not without a vein of small wit; a certain degree of drollery there is, of grinning half-risible, half-impudent; he has a fair hand at the feebler sort of lampoon; the German Joe Millers also seem familiar to him, and his skill in the riddle is. respectable: so that altogether, as we said, he makes a superior figure in this line, which indeed is but despicably managed in Germany; and his Mitternacht-Blatt is, by several degrees, the most readable paper of its kind we meet with in that country. Not that we, in the abstract, much admire Dr. MiUllner's newspaper procedure; his style is merely the common tavern-style, familiar enough in our own periodical literature; riotous, blustering, with.some tincture of blackguardism; a half-dishonest style, and smells considerably of tobacco and spirituous liquor. Neither do we find that there is the smallest fraction of valuable knowledge or opinion communicated in the Midnight Paper; indeed, except it be the knowledge and opinion that Dr. Millner is a great dramatist, and that all who presume to think otherwise are insufficient members of society, we cannot charge our memory with having gathered any knowledge from it whatever.'It may be too, that Dr. Millner is not perfectly original in his journalistic manner: we have sometimes felt as if his light were, to a certain extent, a borrowed one; a rushlight kindled at the great pitch, link of our own Blackwood's Magazine. But on this point we cannot take upon us to decide. One of Miillner's regular journalistic articles is the Kriegszeitung, or: War-intelligence, of all the paper-battles, feuds, defiances and private assassinations, chiefly dramatic, which occur in the more distracted portion of the German Literary Republic. This Kriegszeitung Dr. Miillner evidently writes with great gusto, in a lively braggadocio manner, especially when touching on his own exploits; yet to us it is far the most melancholy part of the Mitternacht-Blatt. Alas, this is VOL. I. 26 402 MISCELLANIES. not what we search for in a German newspaper; how'Herr Sapphir,' or Herr Carbuncle, or so many other Herren Dousterswivel, are all busily molesting one another! We ourselves are pacific men; make a point'to shun discrepant circles rather than seek them:' and how sad is it to hear of so many illustrious-obscure persons living in foreign parts, and hear only, what was well known without hearing, that they also are instinct with the spirit of Satan! For what is the bone that these Journalists, in Berlin and elsewhere, are worrying over; what is the ultimate purpose of all this barking and snarling? Sheer love of fight, you would say; simply to make one another's life a little bitterer; as if Fate had not been cross enough to the happiest of them. Were there any perceptible subject of dispute, any doctrine to advocate, even a false one, it would be something; but so far as we can discover, whether from Sapphire and Company,'or the' Nabob of Weissenfels' (our own worthy Doctor), there is none. And is this their appointed function?. Are Editors scattered over the country, and supplied with victuals and fuel, purely to bite one another? Certainly not. But these Journalists, we think, are like the Academician's colony of spiders. This French virtuoso had found that cobwebs were worth something, that they could even be woven into silk stockings: whereupon he exhibits a very handsome pair of cobweb hose to the Academy, is encouraged to proceed with the manufacture; and so collects some half-bushel of spiders, and puts them down in a spacious loft, with every convenience for making silk. But will the vicious creatures spin a thread? In place of it, they take to fighting with their whole vigour, in contempt of the poor Academician's utmost exertions to part them; and end not, till there is simply one spider left living, and not a shred of cobweb woven, or thenceforth to be expected! Could the weavers of paragraphs, like these of the cobweb, fairly exterminate and silence one another, it would perhaps be a little more supportable. But an Editor is made of sterner GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 403 stuff. In general cases, indeed, when the brains are out, the man will die: but it is a well-known fact in Journalistics, that a man may not only live, but support wife and children by his labours, in this line, years after the brain (if there ever was any) has been completely abstracted, or reduced by time and hard usage into a state of dry powder. What then is to be done? Is there no end to this brawling; and will the unprofitable noise endure forever? By way of palliative, we have sometimes imagined that a Congress of all German Editors might be appointed, by proclamation, in some central spot, say the Nftirnberg Market-place, if it would hold them all: here we would humbly suggest that the whole Journalistik might assemble on a given day, and under the eye of proper marshals, sufficiently and satisfactorily horsewhip one another, simultaneously, each his neighbour, till the very toughest had enough both of whipping and of being whipped. In this way, it seems probable, little or no injustice would be done; and each Journalist, cleared of gall for several months, might return home in a more composed frame of mind, and betake himself with new alacrity to the real duties of his office. But, enough! enough! The humour of these men may be infectious: it is not good for us to be here. Wandering over the Elysian Fields of German Literature, not watching the gloomy discords of its Tartarus, is what we wish to be employed in. Let the iron gate again close, and shut-in the pallid kingdoms from view: we gladly revisit the upper air. Not in despite towards the German nation, which we love honestly, have we spoken thus of these its Playwrights and Journalists. Alas, when we look around us at home, we feel too well that the Germans might say to us: Neighbour, sweep thy own floor! Neither is it with any hope of bettering ihe existence of these three individual Poetasters, still less with the smallest shadow of wish to make it more miselable, that we have spoken. After all, there must be Playwrights, as we have said; and these are among the best of 404 MISCELLANIES. the class. So long as it pleases them to manufacture in this line, and any body of German Thebans to pay them in groschen or plaudits for their ware, let both parties persist in so doing, and fair befall them! But the duty of Foreign Reviewers is of a twofold sort. For not only are we stationed on the coast of the country, as watchers and spials, to report whatsoever remarkable thing becomes visible in the distance; but we stand there also as a sort of Tide-waiters and Preventive-service-men, to contend with our utmost vigour, that no improper article be landed. These offices, it would seem, as in the material world, so also in the literary and spiritual, usually fall to the lot of aged, invalided, impoverished, or otherwise decayed persons; but that is little to the matter. As true British subjects, with ready will, though it may be with our last strength, we are here to discharge that double duty. Movements, we observe, are making along the beach, and signals out seawards, as if these Klingemanns and MUllners were to be landed on our soil: but through the strength of heaven this shall not be done, till the'most thinking people' know what it is that is landing. For the rest, if any one wishes to import that sort of produce, and finds it nourishing for his inward man, let him do so and welcome. Only let him understand that it is not German Literature he is swallowing, but the froth and scum of German Literature; which scum, if he will only wait, we can farther promise him that he may, ere long, enjoy in the new, and perhaps cheaper, form of sediment. And so let every one be active for himself: Noch ist es Tag, da rahre sich der Mann; Die Nacht tritt ein, wo niemand wirken kdinn. APPENDIX. PREFACE, AND INTRODUCTIONS, TO THE BOOK CALLED "GERMAN ROMANCE." THIS was a Book of Translations, not of my suggesting or desiring, but of my executing as honest journeywork in defect of better; produced at Edinburgh in 1827. The nature of which, and the Titles of the Pieces selected, will sufficiently appear as we go on. The Pieces selected were the suitablest discoverable on such terms: not quite of less than no worth (I considered), any Piece of them; nor, alas, of a very high worth any, except one only. Four of these lots, or quotas to the adventure, MusAus's, Tieck's, Richter's, Goethe's, will be given in the final stage of this Series: the rest we willingly leave, afloat or stranded, as waste driftwood, to those whom they may farther concern. (Note of 1857.) PREFACE TO GERMAN ROMANCE.1 [1827.] IT were unhappy for me if the reader should expect in this Work any full view of so complex a subject as German Novelwriting, or of so motley a body as the German Novelwriters. The dead wall, which divides us from this as from all other provinces of German Literature, I must not dream that I have anywhere overturned: at the most, I may have perforated it with a few loopholes, of narrow aperture truly, and scanty range; through which, however, a studious eye may perhaps discern some limited, but, as I hope, genuine and distinctive features of the singular country, which, on the other side, 1 German Romance: Specimens of its chsef Authors; with Biographical and Critical Notices. In Four Volumes. (Edinburgh, 1827.) 406 APPENDIX. has long flourished in such abundant variety of intellectual scenery and product, and been unknown to us, though at our very hand. For this wall, what is the worst property in such walls, is to most of us an invisible one; and our eye rests contentedly on Vacancy, or distorted Fatamorganas, where a great and true-minded people have been living and labouring, in the light of Science and Art, for many ages. In such an undertaking as the present, fragmentary in its very nature, it is not absolute, but only relative completeness, that can be looked for. German Novelwriters are easily come at; but the German Novelwriters are a class of persons whom no prudent editor will hope to exhibit, and no reader will engage to examine, even in the briefest mode of specimen. To say nothing of what has been accumulated in past generations, the number of Novelists at present alive and active is to be reckoned not in units, but in thousands. No Leipzig Fair is unattended by its mob of gentlemen that write with ease; each duly offering his new novel, among the other fancy-goods and fustians of that great emporium. Lafontaine, for example, has already passed his hundredth volume. The inspirations of the Artist are rare and transient, but the hunger of the Manufacturer is universal and incessant. The novel, too, is among the simplest forms of composition; a free arena for all sorts and degrees of talent, and may be worked in equally by a Henry Fielding and a Doctor Polydore. In Germany, accordingly, as in other countries, the Novelists are a mixed, innumerable, and most productive race. Interspersed with a few Poets, we behold whole legions and hosts of Poetasters, in all stages of worthlessness; here languishing in the transports of Sentimentality, there dancing the St. Vitus' dance of hard-studied Wit and Humour; some soaring on bold pinion into the thundery regions of Atala, ou les Amours de deux Sauvages; some diving, on-as bold fin, into the gory profundities of Frankenstein and The Vaimpyre; and very many travelling, contented in spirit, the ancient beaten highway of Commonplace. To discover the grain of truth among this mass of falsehood, espe-cially where Time had not yet exercised its separating influence, was no plain problem; nor can I flatter myself either that I have exhausted the search, or in no case been deceived in my selection. The strength of German Literature does not lie in its Novelwriters; few of its greatest minds have put forth their full power in this department; many of them, of course, have not attempted it at all. In the seventeenth century, and prior, there was nothing whatever to be gleaned; though Anton Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick Wolfenbuttel, had laid aside his sceptre, to write a novel,1 in six thousand 1 Die Durchlauchtigste Syrerin Aramena (Her Most Serene Majesty Aramena of Syria), 1669. On the whole, it is simple enough of our Magazines to inform us, GERMAN ROMANCE. 407 eight hundred and twenty-two pages. Klopstock, Herder, Lessing, in the eighteenth century, wrote no novels: the same might almost be said of'Schiller; for his fragment of the Geisterseher (Ghost-seer), and his Magazine-story of the Verbrecher aus Verlorener Ehre (Criminal from Loss of Honour), youthful attempts, and both I believe already in English, scarcely form an exception. The elder Jacobi's Woldemar and Allwill I was forced, not without consciousness of their merits, to pass over as too abstruse and didactic; for a like reason of didacticness, though in a far different sense, Wieland could afford me nothing which seemed worthy of himself and our present idea of him; and Klinger's 1Faust, the product evidently of a rugged, vehement, substantial mind, seemed'much too harsh, infernal, and unpoetical for English readers. Of Novalis and his wondrous fragments, I could not hope that their depth and wizard beauty would be seen across their mysticism. Other meritorious names I may have omitted, from ignorance. Maler Miller's I was obliged to omit, because none of his fictions were, properly speaking, novels; and unwillingly obliged, for his plays and idyls bespeak a true artist; and the English reader would do well, by the* earliest opportunity,'to substitute the warm and vigorous Adam's Awakening of Miller, for Gessner's rather faint and washy Death of Abel, in forming a judgment of the German Idyl. A graver objection than that of omissions, is that, in my selections, I have not always fixed upon the best performance of my author; and -to this I have unhappily no contradiction to give, nor any answer to make, except that it lay not in the nature of my task to avoid it; and that often not the excellence of a work, but the humble considerations of its size, its subject, and its being untranslated, had to determine my choice. In justice to our strangers, the reader will be pleased to bear this fact in mind: with regard to two of them, to Fouque and Richter, it is especially necessary. By a secondary arrangement, in surveying what seemed the chief names among the German NovelwriterW we have also obtained a view of the chief modes of German Novelwriting. The Mahrchen (Popular Tale), a favourite, almost tritical topic among the Germans, is here twice handled; in what may be called the prosaic manner (by Musiius), and in the poetical (by Tieck). Of the Ritterroman (Chivalry Romance) there is also a specimen (by Fouque'); a short one, yet that the literature, nay sometimes it is also the language, of Germany, began to be cultivated in the time of Frederick II. If the names of Hutten, Opitz, Lohenstein, &c. &c. are naturally unknown to us, we ought really to have heard of Luther. Nay, was not Jacob Biohme rendered into huge folios, with incomparable diagrams, in the time of James I.? And is not Hans Sachs known (by name at least) to all barbers? 408 APPENDIX. I fear, in many judgments, too long. Hoffmann's Golden Pot belongs to a strange sort (the Fantasy-piece), of which he himself was the originator, and which its sedulous cultivation, by minds more willing than able, bids fair, in no great length of time, to explode. Richter's two works correspond to our common English notion of the Novel; and Goethe's is a Kunstroman (Art-novel), a species highly prized by the Germans, and of which Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, the first in date, is also in their mind greatly the first in excellence. If the reader will impress himself with a clear view of these six kinds; and then conceive some hundreds of persons incessantly -occupied in imitating, compounding, separating, distorting, exaggerating, diluting them, he may have formed as correct an idea of the actual state of German Novelwriting, as it seemed easy with such means to afford him. On the general merits and characteristics of * these works, it is for the reader and not me to pass judgment. One thing it will behove him not to lose sight of: They are German Novelists, not English ones; and their Germanhood I have all along regarded as a quality, not as a fault. To expect, therefore, that the style of them shall accord in all points with our English taste, were to expect that it should be a false and hollow style. Every nation has its own form of character and life; and the mind which gathers no nourishment from the everyday circumstances of its existence, will in general be but scantily nourished. Of writers that hover on the confines of faultless vacuity, that write not by vision but by hearsay, and so belong to all nations, or, more properly speaking, to none, there is no want in Germany more than in any other country. It would. be easy to fill, not four, but four hundred volumes with Ger-. man Novelists of this unblameable description; thereby to refresh the reader with long processions of spotless romances, bright and stately, like so many frontispieces in La Belle Assemblee, with cheeks of the fairest carnation, lips of the gentlest curvature, and most perfect Grecian noses, and no shade of character or meaning to mar their pure idealness. But jo long as our Minerva Press and its many branch-establishments do their duty, to import ware of that sort into these Islands seems unnecessary. On the whole, as the light of a very small taper may be useful in total darkness, I have sometimes hoped that this little enterprise might assist, in its degree, to forward an acquaintance with the Germans and their literature; a literature and a people both well worthy of our study. Translations, in this point of view, can be of little avail, except in so far as they excite us to a much more general study of the language. The difficulties of German are little more than a bugbear: they can only. be compared to those of Greek by persons claiming'praise or pudding for having mastered them..Three MUSAUS. 409 months of moderate diligence will carry any man, almost without assistance of a master, over its prime obstacles; and the rest is play rather than labour. To judge from the signs of the times, this general diffusion of German among us seems a consummation not far distant. As an individual, I cannot but anticipate from it some little evil and much good; and look forward with pleasure to the time when a people who have listened with the most friendly placidity to criticisms 1 of the slenderest nature from us, may be more fitly judged of; and thirty millions of men, speaking in the same old Saxon tongue, and thinking in the same old Saxon spirit with ourselves, may be admitted to the rights of brotherhood which they have long deserved, and which it is we chiefly that suffer by withholding. MUSA3EUS. JOHANN AUGUST MUSAUS was born in the year 1735, at Jena, where his father then held the office of Judge. The quick talents, and kind lively temper of the boy, recommended him to the affection of his uncle, Herr Weissenborn, Superintendant at Allstadt,' who took him to his house, and treated him in all respects like a son. Johann was then in his ninth year: a few months afterwards, his uncle was promoted to the post of General Superintendant at Eisenach; a change which did not alter the domestic condition of the nephew, though it replaced him in the neighbourhood of his parents; for his father had also been transferred to Eisenach, in the capacity of Councillor and Police Magistrate. With this hospitable relative *he continued till his nineteenth year. Old Weissenborn had no children of his own, and he determined that his foster-child should have a liberal education. In due time he placed him at the University of Jena, as a student of theology. It is not likely that the inclinations of the youth himself had been particularly consulted in this arrangement; nevertheless he appears to have studied with sufficient diligence; for in the usual period of three years and a half, he obtained. his degree of Master, and what was then a proof of more than ordinary merit, was elected a member. of the German Society. With these titles, and the groundwork of a 1 Voltaire's patronising letter to Ramler. in which he condescends'to grant the Germans some privileges of literary citizenship, on the strength of "Monsieur Gottched " (Gottsched. long ago acknowledged as the true German Antichrist of Wit), is still held in remembrance; so likewise is the PNre Bouhours' extremely satirical inquiry, Si les Allemands pesuvent avoir de l'esprit? 410 APPENDIX. solid culture, he returned to Eisenach, to wait for an appointment in the Church, ofwhich he was now licentiate. For several years, though he preached with ability, and not with-.out approval, no appointment presented itself; and when at last a country-living in the neighbourhood of Eisenach was offered him, the people stoutly resisted the admission of their new pastor, on the ground, says his Biographer, that " he had once been seen dancing." It may be, however, that the sentence of the peasants was not altogether so infirm as this its alleged very narrow basis would betoken: judging from external circumstances, it by no means appears that devotion was at any time the chief distinction of the new candidate; and to a simple rustic flock, his shining talents, unsupported by zeal, would be empty and unprofitable, as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. At all events, this hindrance closed his theological career: it came in good season to withdraw him from a calling, in which, whether willingly or unwillingly adopted, his history must have been dishonest and contemptible, and his gifts could never have availed him. Musiius had now lost his profession; but his resources were not limited to one department of activity, and he was still young enough to choose another. His temper was gay and kindly; his faculties of mind were brilliant, and had now been improved by years of steady industry. His residence at Eisenach had not been spent in scrutinising the phases of church preferment, or dancing attendance on patrons and dignitaries: he had stored his mind with useful and ornamental knowledge; and from his remote watchtower, his keen eye had discerned the movements of the world, and firm judgments of its wisdom and its folly were gathering form in his thoughts. In his twenty-fifth year he became an author; a satirist, and what is rarer, a just one. Germany, by the report of its enemies and lukewarm friends, is seldom long without some Idol; some author of superhuman endowments, some system that promises to renovate the earth, some science destined to conduct, by a north-west passage, to universal knowledge. At this period, the' Brazen Image of the day was our English Richardson; his novels had been translated into German with unbounded acceptance; 1 and Grandison was figuring in many weak heads as the sole model of a true Christian gentleman. Musiius published his German Grandison in 1760; a work of good omen as a first attempt, and received with greater favour than the popularity of its victim seemed to promise. It cooperated with Time in removing this spiritual epidemic; and appears to have survived its object, for it was reprinted in 1781. 1 See the Letters of Meta, Klopstock's lady, in Richardson's Life and Correspond ence. MUSXUS. 411 The success of his anonymous parody, however gratifying to the youthful author, did not tempt him to disclose his name, and still. less to think of literature as a profession. With his cool, sceptical temper, he was little liable to over-estimate his talents, or the prizes set up for them; and he longed much less for a literary existence than for a civic one. In 1763, his wish, to a certain extent, was granted: he became Tutor of the Pages in the court of Weimar; which office, after seven punctual and laborious years, he exchanged for a professorship in the Gymnasium, or public school of the same town. He had now married; and amid the cares and pleasures of providing for a family, and keeping house like an honest burgher, the dreams of fame had faded still farther from his mind. The emoluments of his post were small; but his heart was light, and his mind humble: to increase his income, he gave private lessons in history and the like, "to young ladies and gentlemen of quality;" and for several years took charge of a few boarders. The names of Wieland and Goethe had now risen on the world, while his own was still under the horizon: but this obscurity, enjoying as he did the kind esteem of all his many personal acquaintances, he felt to be a very light evil; and participated without envy in whatever entertainment or instruction his famed contemporaries could afford him. With literature he still occupied his leisure; he had read and reflected much; but for any public display of his acquirements, he was making no preparation, and feeling no anxiety. Afteran interval of nineteen years, the appearance of a nerw idol again called forth his iconoclastic faculty. Lavater had left his parsonage among the Alps, and set out on a cruise over Europe, in search of proselytes and striking physiognomies. His theories, supported by his personal influence, and the honest rude ardour of his character, became the rage in Germany; and men, women and children were immersed in promoting philanthropy, and studying the human mind. Whereupon Musius grasped his satirical hammer; and with lusty strokes defaced and unshrined the false divinity. His Physiognomical Travels, which appeared in 1779, is still ranked by the German critics among the happiest productions of its kind in their literature; and still read for its wit and acuteness, and genial, overflowing humour, though the object it attacked has long ago become a reminiscence. At the time of its publication, when everything conspired to give its qualities their full effect, the applause it gained was instant and general. The author had, as in the former case, concealed his name: but the public curiosity soon penetrated the secret, which he had now no interest in keeping; and Musaus was forthwith enrolled among the lights of his day and generation; and courteous readers crowded to him from far and near, to see his 412 - APPENDIX. face, and pay him the tribute of their admiration. This unlookedfor celebrity he valued at its just price; continuing to live as if it were not; gratified chiefly in his character of father, at having found an honest mean of improving his domestic circumstances, and enlarging the comforts of his family. The ground was now broken, and he was not long in digging deeper. The popular traditions of Germany, so numerous and often so impressive, had attracted his attention; and their rugged Gothic vigour, saddened into sternness or venerable grace by the flight of ages, became dearer to his taste, as he looked' abroad upon the mawkish deluge of Sentimentality, with which The Sorrows of Werter had been the innocent signal for a legion of imitators to drown the land. The spirit of German imagination seemed but ill represented by these tearful persons, who, if their' hearts were full, minded little though their heads were empty: their spasmodic tenderness made no imposing figure beside the gloomy strength, which might still in fragments be discerned in their distant predecessors.'Of what has been preserved from age to age by living memory alone, the chance is that it possesses some intrinsic merit: its very existence declares it to be adapted to some form of our common nature, and therefore' calculated more or less to interest all its forms. It struck Musius that these rude traditionary fragments might be worked anew into shape and polish, and transferred from the hearths of the common people to the parlours of the intellectual and refined. He determined on forming a series' of Volksmahrchen,'or Popular Traditionary Tales; a task of more originality and smaller promise in those days than it would be now. In the collection of materials, he spared no pains; and despised no source of intelligence, however mean. He would call children from the street; become a child along with them, listen to their nursery tales, and reward his tiny narrators with a dreyer apiece. Sometimes he assembled a- knot of old women, with their spinning-wheels, about him; and amid the hum of their industrious implements, gathered stories of the ancient time from the lips of the garrulous sisterhood. Once his wife had been out paying visits: on opening the parlour-door, at her return, she was met by a villanous Cloud of tobacco-smoke; and, venturing forward through the haze, she found her husband seated by the stove, in company with an old soldier, who was smoking vehemently on his black stump of a pipe, and charming his landlord, between whiffs, with legendary lore. The Volksmahrchen, in five little volumes, appeared in 1782. They soon rose into favour with a large class of readers; and while many generations of novels have since that time been ushered into being, and conducted out of it, they'still survive, increasing in popularity rather than declining. This pre-eminence is owing less to the an ' MUSIEUS. 413 cient materials, than to tile author's way of treating them. The primitive tradition often serves him only as a vehicle for interesting description, shrewd sarcastic speculation, and gay fanciful pleasantry, extending its allusions over all things past and present, now rising into comic humour, now sinking into drollery, often tasteless, strained, or tawdry, but never dull. The traces of poetry and earnest imagination, here and there discernible in the original fiction, he treats with levity and kind sceptical derision: nothing is required of the reader but what all readers are prepared to give. Since the publication of this work, the subject of popular tradition has been handled to triteness; Volksmahrchen have been written and collected without stint or limit; and critics, in admitting that Musaius was the first to open this mine of entertainment, have lamented the incongruity between his subject tnd his style. But the faculty of laughing has been given to all men, and the feeling of imaginative beauty has been given only to a few: the lovers of primeval poetry, in its unadulterated state, may censure Musaus; but they join with the public at large in reading him. This book of Volksmahrchen established the character of its author for wit and general talent, and forms the chief support of his reputation with posterity. A few years after, he again appeared before the public with a humorous performance, entitled Friend Hein's Apparitions, in the style of Holberg, printed in 1785. Friend Hein is a name under which Musiius, for what reason his commentator Wieland seems unable to inform us, usually personifies Death: the essay itself, which I have never seen, may be less irreverent and offensive to pious feeling than its title indicates, and it is said to abound with "wit, humour and knowledge of life," as much as any of his former works. He had also begun a second series of Tales, under the title of Stralessfedern (Ostrich-feathers): but only the first volume had appeared, when death put a period to his labours. He had long been in weakly health; often afflicted with violent headaches: his disorder was a polypus of the heart, which cut him off on the 28th of October, 1787, in the fifty-second year of his age. The Straussfedern was completed by another hand; and a small volume of Remains, edited by Kotzebue. in 1791, concludes the list of his writings. A simple but tasteful memorial, we are told, was erected over his grave by some unknown friend. Musius was a practical believer in the Horatian maxim, Nil admirari: of a jovial heart, and a penetrating; well-cultivated understanding, he saw things as they were, and had little disposition or, apti-' tude to invest them with any colours but their own. Without much effort, therefore, he stood aloof from every species of cant; and was the man he thought himself, and wished others to think him. hIad 414 APPENDIX. his temper been unsocial and melancholic, such a creed might have' rendered him spiteful, narrow and selfish: but nature had been kinder to him than education; he did not quarrel with the world, though he saw its barrenness, and knew not how to make it solemn any more than lovely; fbr his heart was gay and kind; and an imperturbable good-humour, more potent than a panoply of brass, defended him from the stings and arrows of outrageous Fortune to the end of his pilgrimage. Few laughers have walked so circumspectly, and acquired or merited so much affection. By profession a Momus, he looked upon the world as little else than a boundless Chase, where the wise were to recreate themselves with the-hunting of Follies; and perhaps he is the only satirist on record of whom it can be said, that his jesting never cost him a friend. His humour is, indeed, untinctured with bitterness; sportful, ebullient and guileless as the frolics of a child. Hie could not reverence men; but with all their faults he loved them; for they were his brethren, and their faults were not clearer to him than his own. He inculcated or entertained no lofty principles of generosity; yet though never rich in purse, he was always ready to divide his pittance with a needier fellowman. Of vanity, he showed little or none: in obscurity he was contented; and when his honours came, he wore them meekly, and was the last to see that they were merited. In society he was courteous and yielding; a universal favourite; in his chosen circle, the most fascinating of companions. From the slenderest trifle, he could spin a boundless web of drollery; and his brilliant mirth enlivened without wounding. With the foibles of others, he abstained from meddling; but among his friends, we are informed, he could for hours keep the table in a roar; when, with his dry inimitable vein; he started, some banter on himself or his wife; and, in trustful abandonment, laid the reins on the neck of his fancy to pursue it. Without enthusiasm of character, or any pretension to high dr even earnest qualities, he was a well-conditioned, laughter-loving, kindly man; led a gay, jestful life; conquering by contentment and mirth of heart the long series of difficulties and distresses with which it assailed him; and died regretted by his nation, as a forwarder of harmless pleasure; and, by those that knew him better, as a truthful, -unassuming, affectionate, and, on the whole, very estimable person. His intellectual character corresponds with his moral and social one; not high or, glorious, but genuine so far as it goes. He does not approach the first rank of writers; he attempts not to deal with the deeper feelings of the heart; and for instructing the judgment, he ranks rather as a sound, well-informed, common-sense thinker, than as a mall of high wisdom or originality. He advanced few MUS9EIUS.- 415 new truths, but he dressed many old ones in sprightly apparel; and it ought to be remembered, that he kept himself unspotted from the errors of his time; a merit which posterity is apt to underrate; for nothing seems more stolid than a past delusion; and we forget that delusions, destined also to be past, are now present with ourselves, about us and within us, which, were the task so easy, it is pity that we do not forthwith convict and cast away. Musiius had a quick, vigorous intellect, a keen eye for the common forms of the beautiful, a fancy ever prompt with allusions, and an overflowing store'of sprightly and benignant humour. These natural gifts he had not neglected to cultivate by study both of books and things; his reading distinguishes him even in Germany; nor does he bear it about him like an ostentatious burden? but in the shape of spiritual strength and plenty derived from it. As an author, his beauties and defects are numerous and easily discerned. His style sparkles with metaphors, sometimes just and beautiful, often new and surprising; but it is laborious, unnatural, and diffuse. Of his humour, his distinguishing gift, it may be remarked, that it seems copious rather than fine, and originates rather in the understanding than in the character: his heart is not delicate, or his affections tender; but he loves the ludicrous with true passion; and seeing keenly, if he feels obtusely, he can choose with sufficient skill the point of view from which his object shall appear distorted, as he requires it. This is the' humour of a Swift or a Voltaire, but not of a Cervantes, or even of a Sterne in his best passages; it may produce a Zadig or a Battle of the Books; but not a Don Quixote or a Corporal Trim. Musius is, in fact, no poet; he can see, and describe with rich graces what he sees; but he is nothing, or very little, of a Maker. His imagination is not powerless: it is like a bird of feeble wing, which can fly from tree to tree; but never soars for a moment into the sether of Poetry, to bathe in its serene splendour, with the region of the Actual lying far below, and brightened into beauty by radiance not its own. He is a man of fine and varied talent, but scarcely of any genius. These characteristics are apparent enough in his Popular Tales; they may be traced even in the few specimens of that Work, by which he is now introduced to the English reader. As has been already stated, his Volksmahrchen exhibit himself much better than his subject. He is not admitted by his critics to have seized the finest spirit of this species of fiction, or turned it to the account of which it is capable in other hands. Whatever was austere or earnest, still more, whatever bordered upon awe or horror, his riant fancy rejected with aversion: the rigorous moral sometimes hid in these traditions, the grim lines of primeval feeling and imagination to be traced in them, had no charms for him. These ruins of the remote time he has not 416' APPENDIX. attempted to complete into a perfect edifice, according to the first simple plan; he has rather pargetted them anew, and decorated them with the most modern ornaments and furniture; and he introduces his guests, with a roguish smile at the strange, antic contrast they are to perceive between the movables and the apartment.. Sometimes he rises into a flight of simple eloquence, and for a sentence or two, seems really beautiful and'affiecting; but the knave is always laughing in his sleeve at our credulity, and returns with double relish to riot at will in his favourite domain. Of the three Tales here offered to the reader,1 nothing need be said in explanation: for their Whole significance, with all their beau — ties and blemishes, lies very near the surface. I have selected them, as specimens at once of his manner and his materials; in the hope, that, conveying some impression of a gifted and favourite writer, they may furnish a little entertainment both to the lovers of intellectual novelty, and of innocent amusement. To neither can I promise very much: Muslus is a man of sterling powers, but no literary monster; and his Tales, though smooth and glittering, are cold; they have beauty, yet it is the beauty not of living forms, but of wellproportioned statues. Meanwhile, I have given him as I found him,, endeavouring to copy faithfully; changing nothing, whether I might think it good or bad, that my skill enabled me to keep unchanged. With all drawbacks, I anticipate some favour for him: but his case admits no pleading; being clear by its own light, it must stand or fall by a first judgment, and without the help of advocates. FRIEDRICH DE LA MOTTE FOUQUP. THE Baron Friedrich de la Motte Fouque' is of French extraction, but distinguished for the true Germanism of his character, both as a writer and a man; and ranks, for the last twenty years, among the most popular and productive authors of his country. His family, expelled from France by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantz, appears to have settled at the Hague; from which this branch of it was transferred to Prussia by the fortunes of our Author's grandfather, whose name and title the.present Baron has inherited. This first Friedrich, born in the early part of last century, had been sent in boyhood to the Court of Anhalt Dessau, in the character of Page: he soon quitted this station; entered the Prussian. 1 1. Dumb Love; 2. Libussa; 8. Melechsala. FRIEDRICH DE LA MOTTE FOUQUL. 417 army as a private volunteer; by merit, or recommendation, was gradually advanced; and became acquainted with the Prince Royal, then a' forlorn, oppressed and discontented youth, but destined afterwards to astonish and convulse the world, under the name of Frederick the Great. Young La Motte stood in high favour with Frederick; and seems likewise to have shown some prudence in humouring the jealous temper of the old King; for during the Prince's arrest, which had followed his projected elopement from paternal tuition, the royal Shylock, instead of beheading La Motte, as lie had treated poor De Catt, permitted him to visit the disconsolate prisoner, and without molestation to do him kind offices. On his accession to the throne, Frederick the King did not fail, in this instance, to remember the debts of Frederick the Prisoner: the friend of his youth continued to be the friend of his manhood and age; La Motte rose rapidly from post to post in the army, till, having gained the rank of General, he had opportunity, by various gallant services in the. Seven-Years' War, to secure the prosperity of his household, and earn for himself a place in the military history of his new country With his Sovereign he continued in a kindly and honest relation throughout his whole life. His Letters, preserved in Frederick's Works, are a proof that he was not only favoured but esteemed: the imperious King is said to have respected his upright and truthful nature; and, though himself a sceptic and a scoffer, never to have interfered in word or deed with the piety and strict religious persuasions of his servant. The'General became the founder of that Prussian family, which has since acquired a new and fairer distinction in the person of his grandson. The present Friedrich, our Author, was born on the 11th of February, 1777. Of his early history or habits we have no account, except that he was educated by Hiilse; and soon sent to the army as an officer in the Royal Guards. In this capacity he served, during his nineteenth year, in the disastrous campaign of the Rhine. One of his brother-officers and intimates here was Heinrich von Kleist, a noble-minded and ill-fated man of genius, whom the' mismanagement of a too impetuous and feeling heart has since driven to suicide, before the world had sufficiently reaped the bright promise of his early years. The misfortunes of his country drove Fouqud back into retirement; while Prussia languished in hopeless degradation under the iron swav of France, he kept himself apart from military life; settled in the country, and hanging up his ineffectual' sword, devoted himself to domestic cares and joys, and in the Kingdoms of Imagination sought refuge from the aspect of actual oppression and distress. Of a temper susceptible, lively and devout, his faculties had been quickVOL. I. 27 418'APPENDIX. ened by communion with kindred minds; and still more by collision with the vast eyents which had filled the world with astonishment, and his portion 6f it with darkness and obstruction. At this juncture, while contemplating a literary life, it was doubtless a circumstance of no small influence on his future efforts that he became acquainted with August Wilhelm Schlegel. By Schlegel he was introduced to the study of Spanish Poetry; a fact from which a skilful theoriser might plausibly enough deduce the whole psychological history of Fouque; for it seems as if the beautiful and wondrous spirit of this literature, so fervent yet so joyful, so solemn yet so full of blandishment, with its warlike piety, and gay chivalrous pomp, had taken entire possession of his mind, and moulded his unsettled powers into the form which they have ever since retained. One thing, at all events, is clear without help of theory: An ideal of. Christian Knighthood, whencesoever borrowed or derived, has all along, with more or less distinctness, hovered round his fancy; and this it has been the constant task not only of his pen to represent in poetical delineations, but also of his life to realise in external conduct. As to its origin, whether in the poetry of Spain, or in the perplexities of a suffering and religious life, or in the French Revolution and its reaction on a temper abhorrent of its material principles, or in any or all of these causes, it were unprofitable to inquire; for the problem is of no vital importance, and we have not data for even an approximate solution. Fouque published his first works under the pseudonym of Pellegrin: he translated the Numancia of Cervantes; he wrote Sigurd, Alwin, The History of Ritter Galmy: a small volume of Dramatic Tales was published for him by his friend Schlegel. These performances are all of a,chivalry cast; attempts to body forth the sentiment with which our Author's mind was already almost exclusively pervaded. Their success was incomplete; sufficient to indicate their object, but not to attain it. The models which he had in view seem still to have awed and overshadowed his poetic faculty; his productions have a southern exotic aspect; and in the opinion of his critics, it is only in glimpses that a genuine inspiration can be discerned in them. Der Held des Nordens (The Hero of the North), a dramatic work in three parts, grounded on the story of the Niebelungen Lied, was the first performance sent forth in his own name; and also the first which showed his genius in its own form, or produced any deep impression on the public. This work was acknowledged to be of true northern growth: it found applauding readers, and had the honour to be criticised in the Heidelberger Jahrbicher, by no meaner a person than Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, who bestowed on the poet the surname of Der Tapfere, or The Valiant, in allusion to the quality which seemed FRIEDRICH DE LA MOTTE FOUQUfI.' 419 to be the soul of his own character, and of the characters which he portrayed. The ground thus gained, La Motte Fouqud has not been negligent to make good and extend. Since the date of his first appearance, year after year has duly added its tribute of volumes to the list of his works; he has written in verse and prose, in narrative and representation; his productions varying in form through all the extremes of variety, but animated by the same old spirit, that of I:nighthood and Religion. On the whole, he seems to have continued growing in esteem, both with the lower and the upper classes of the literary world. His Zauberrinq (Magic Ring) has lately been translated into English: we have also versions of his Sintram and his Undine. The last little work, published in 1811, has become a literary pet in its own country; being dandled and patted not only by the soft hands of poetical maidens, but even by the horny paws of Recensents, a class of beings to the full as dire and doughty as our own Reviewers. Undine and Sintram are parts of a series or circuit of "Romantic fictions," entitled the Jahreszeiten (Seasons), which were published successively at four different periods: it. is from the same work, the Autumn Number of it, that Aslauga's Knight,- the Tale which follows this Introduction, has been extracted. The poet had now wedded: and we figure him as happy in his own Arcadian seclusion; for his lady is a woman of kindred genius, and has added new celebrity to his name by various writings, partly of her own, partly in concert with her husband. In 1813, his poetic leisure was interrupted by the clang of battle-trumpets. Napoleon's star had begun to decline; and Prussia rose, as one man, to break asunder the fetters with which he had so long chained Europe to the dust. The knightly Baron was the first to rouse himself at the voice of his country; he again girded on his harness, and took the field at the head of a small troop of volunteers. His little band would seem to have been joined with the Jager (or, as we call it, Chasseur) Regiment of Brandenburg Cuirassiers; in which squadron he served, first as Lieutenant, then as Rittmeister, with the devout and fervid gallantry, which he had so often previously delineated in his writings. Like the lamented K6rner, he stood by the cause both with " the Lyre and the Sword." His arm was ever in the hottest of the battle; and his songs uplifted the triumph of victory, or breathed fresh ardour into the heartsof his comrades in defeat. These lyrical effusions have since been collected and published: for the future historian they will form an interesting memorial. At Culm, the poetical soldier was wounded; but the incompleteness of his cure did not prevent him from appearing in his place on the great day of Leipzig; and thenceforward following the scattered enemy to the banks of the Rhine. 420 APPENDIX. Here ill health, arising from excessive exertion, forced him to return: he had toiled faithfully till the struggle was decided; and could now, with a quiet mind, leave others to complete the task. By the King he was raised to the rank of Major, and decorated with the cross of the Order of St. John. He retired to his former residence at Rennhausen, near Rathenau; betook himself again to writing, with unabated diligence; and has since produced, among various other; chivalry performances of greater or smaller extent, an " epic poem," entitled Corona, celebrating the events in which he himself was' present, and formed part. Here, so far as I have understood, he still chiefly resides; enjoying an enviable lot; the domestic society of a virtuous and gifted wife; the exercise of a poetic genius, which his brethren repay with praise; and still dearer honours as a man and a citizen, which his own conscience may declare that he has merited. Fouqu.e's genius is not of a kind to provoke or solicit much crit-:icism; for its faults are negative rather than pQsitive, and its beauties are not difficult to discern. The structure of his mind is simple; his intellect is in harmony with his feelings; and his taste seems to inelude few modes of excellence, which he has not in some considerable degree the power to realise. He is thus in unison with himself; his works are free from internal inconsistency, and appear to be produced with lightness and freedom. A pure sensitive heart, deeply reverent of Truth, and Beauty, and Heroic Virtue; a quick perception of certain forms embodying these high qualities; and a delicate and dainty hand in picturing them forth, are gifts which few readers of his works will contest him. At the same time, it must be granted, he has no preeminence in strength, either of head or heart; and his circle of activity, though full of animation, is far from comprehensive. He is, as it were, possessed by one idea. A few notes, some of them, in truth, of rich melody, yet still a very few, include the whole music of his being. The Chapel and the Tilt-yard stand in the background or the foreground, in all the scenes of his universe. He gives us knights, soft-hearted and strong-armed; full of Christian self-denial, patience, meekness and gay easy daring; they stand before us in their mild frankness, with suitable equipment, and accompaniment of squire and dame; and frequently the whole has a true, though seldom a vigorous, poetic life. If this can content us, it is well: if not, there is no help; for change of scene and person brings little change of subject; even when no chivalry is mentioned, we feel too clearly the influence of its unseen presence. Nor can it be said, that in this solitary department his success is of the very highest sort. To body forth the spirit of Christian Knighthood in existing poetic forms; to wed that old sentiment to modern thoughts, was a task which he could not attempt. He has turned rather to the fictions FRIEDRICH DE LA MOTTE FOUQUE". 421 and machinery of former days; and transplanted his heroes into distant ages, and scenes divided by their nature from our common world. Their manner of existence comes imaged back to us faint and ineffectual, like the crescent of the setting moon. These things, however, are not faults, but the want of merits. Where something is effected, it were ungracious to reckon up too narrowly how much is left untried. In all his writings, Fouqud shows himself as a man deeply imbued with feelings of religion, honour and brotherly love; he sings of Faith and Affection with a full heart; and a spirit of tenderness, and vestal purity, and meek heroism, sheds salutary influences from his presence. He is no primate or bishop in the Church Poetical; but a simple chaplain, who merits the hlonours of a small but well-discharged function, and claims no other. In mental structure, Fouque seems the converse of Musiius, whom he follows in the present volume. If Musius was a man of talent, with little genius, Fouqud is a man of genius, with little more than an ordinary share of talent. His intellect is not richer or more powerful than that of common minds, nor his insight into the world and man's heart more keen; but his feelings are finer, and the touch of an airial fancy gives life and loveliness to the products of his other powers. Among English authors, we might liken him to Southey; though their provinces of writing are widely diverse; and, in regard to general culture and acquirement, the latter must be reckoned greatly his superior. Like Soutliey, he finds more readily than he invents; and his invention, when he does trust to it, is apt to be daring rather than successful. Yet his extravagant fictions are pervaded by a true sentiment; a soft vivifying soul looks through them; a religious submission, a cheerful and unwearied patience in affliction; mild, earnest hope and love, and peaceful, subdued enthusiasm. To these internal endowments, he adds the merit of a style by no. means ill adapted for displaying them. Lightness and simplicity are its chief characteristics: his periods move along in lively rhythm; studiously excluding all pomp of phraseology; expressing his strongest thoughts in the humblest words, and veiling dark sufferings or resolute purposes in a placid smile. A faint superficial gaiety seems to rest over all his images: it is not merriment or humour; but the self-possession of a man too earnestly serious to be heedful of solemn looks; and it plays like sunshine on the surface of a. dark pool, deepening by contrast the impressiveness of the gloom which it does not penetrate. If this little Tale of Aslauqga's Knight 1 afford any tolerable emblem of those qualities, the reader will not grudge perusing it. I pretend, 1 Our only Translation from Fouqu6. 422 APPENDIX. not to offer it as the best of Fouque's writings, but only as the best I know of for my presentpurpose. Sintram and Undine are already in our language: this tale is weaker in result, but also shorter in compass. That its chivalry is of a still wilder sort than that which we supposed Cervantes had abolished two centuries ago; that its form is thin and unsubstantial, and its effect unsatisfactory, I need not attempt to deny. An extravagant fiction for the basis; delicate, airy and beautiful delineations in the detail; and the everlasting principles of Faith, and Integrity, and Love, pervading the whole: such is frequently the character of Fouque's writings; and such, on a smaller scale, appears to be that of Aslazlga's Knight, which is now, with all its imperfections on its head, to be submitted to the courtesy of English judges. LUDWIG TIECK. LUDWIG TIECK, born at Berlin on the 31st of May 1773; is known to the world only as a Man of Letters, having never held any public station, or followed any profession, except that of authorship. Of his private history the critics and news-hunters of his own country complain that they have little information; a deficiency which may arise in part from the circumstance, that till of late years, though from the first admired by the Patricians of his native literature, he has stood in no high favour, and of course awakened no great curiosity, among the reading Plebs; and may indicate, at the same time, that in his walk and conversation, there is little wonderful to be discovered. His literary life he began at Berlin, in his twenty-second year, by the publication of three Novels, following each other in quick succession: Abdallah, William Lovell and Peter Leberrecht. These works found small patronage at their first appearance, and are still regarded as immature products of his genius; the opening of a cloudy as well as fervid dawn; betokening a day of strong heat, and perhaps at last of serene brightness. A gloomy tragic spirit is said to reign throughout all of them; the image of a high passionate mind, scorning the base and the false, rather than accomplishing the good and the true; in rapt earnestness' interrogating Fate,' and receiving no answer, but the echo of its own questions reverberated from the dead walls of its vast and lone imprisonment. In this stage of spiritual progress, where so many not otherwise ungifted minds at length painfully content themselves to take up their permanent abode, where our own noble and haples's Byron perished from among' us at the instant when his deliverance seemed at hand, it was not Tieck's ill fortune to continue too long. His Popu LUDWIG TIECK. 423 lar Tales, published in 1797 as an appendage to his last Novel, under the title of Peter Leberrechts Volksmanhrchen, already indicate that he had worked his way through these baleful shades into a calmer and sunnier elevation; from which, and happily without looking at the world through a painted glass of any sort, he had begun to see that there were things to be believed, as well as things to be denied; things to be loved and forwarded, as well as things to be hated and trodden under foot. The active and positive of Goodness was displacing the barren and tormenting negative; and worthy feelings were now to be translated into their only proper language, worthy actions. In Tieck's mind, all Goodness, all that was noble or excellent in Nature, seems to have combined itself under the image of Poetic Beauty; to the service and defence of which he has ever since unweariedly devoted his gifts and his days. These Volksmlahrchen are of the most varied nature: sombre, pathetic, fantastic, satirical; but all pervadedby a warm, genial soul. which accommodates itself with equal aptitude to the gravest or the gayest form. A soft abundance, a simple and kindly but often solemn majesty is in them: wondrous shapes, full of meaning, move over the scene, true modern denizens of the old Fairyland; low tones of plaintiveness or awe flit round us; or a starry splendour twinkles down from the immeasurable depths of Night. It is by this work, as revised and perfected long afterwards, that we now purpose introducing Tieck to the notice of the English reader: it was by this also that he was introduced to the notice of his countrymen. Peter Leberrechts Volksmahrchen. was reviewed by August Wilhelm Schlegel, in the Jena Litteraturzeitungq; and its author, for the first time, brought under the eye of the world as a man of rich endowments, and in the fair way for turning them to proper account. To the body of the world, however, this piece of news was surprising rather than delightful; for Tieck's merits were not of a kind to split the ears of the groundlings, and his manner of producing them was ill calculated to conciliate a kind hearing. Schiller and Goethe were at this time silent, or occupied with History and Philosophy: Tieck belonged not to the existing poetic guild; and, far from soliciting admission, he had not scrupled, in the most pleasant fashion, to inform the craftsmen that their great Diana was a dumb idol, and their silver shrines an unprofitable thing. Among these Volksmahrchen, one of the most prominent is Der gestiefelte Kater, a dramatised version of Puss in Boots; under the grotesque mask of which, he had laughed with his whole heart,,in a true Aristophanic vein,. at the qtctual aspect of literature; and without mingling his satire with personalities, or any other false ingredient, had rained it like a quiet shower of volcanic ashes on the cant of Illumination, the cant of 424 APPENDIX. Sensibility, the cant of Criticism, and the many other cants of that shallow time, till the gumflower products of the poetic garden hung draggled and black under their unkindly coating. In another country, at another day, the drama of Puss in Boots may justly be supposed to appear with enfeebled influences; yet even to a stranger there is not wanting a feast of broad joyous humour in this strange phantasmagoria, where pit and stage, and man and animal, and earth and air, are jumbled in confusion worse confounded, and the copious, kind, ruddy light of true mirth overshines and warms the whole. This What-d'ye-call-it of Puss in Boots was, as it were, the key-note which for several years determined the tone of Tieck's literary enterprises. The same spirit lives in his Verkehrte Welt (World turned Topsy-turvy), a drama of similar structure, which accompanied the former; in his tale of Zerbino, or the Tour in search of Taste, which soon followed it; and in numerous parodies and lighter pieces which he gave to the world in his Poetic Journal; the second and last volume of which periodical contains his Letters on Shakspeare, inculcating the same doctrines, in a graver shape. About this time, after a short residence in Hamburg, where he had married, he removed his abode to Jena; a change which confirmed him in his literary tendencies, and facilitated the attainment of their objects. It was here that he became acquainted with the two Schlegels; and, at the same time, with their friend Novalis, a young man of a pure, warm and benignant genius, whose fine spirit died in its first blossoming, and whose posthumous works it was, ere long, the melancholy task of Tieck and the younger Schlegel to publish under their superintendence. With Wackenroder of Berlin, a person of kindred mind with Novalis, and kindred fortune also, having died very early, Tieck was already acquainted and united; for he had cooperated in the Herzensergiessungen eines einsnzmen Klosterbruders, an elegant and impressive work on pictorial art, and Wackenroder's chief performance. These young men sympathised completely in their critical ideas with Tieck; and each was labouring in his own sphere to disseminate them, and reduce them to practice. Their endeavours, it would seem, have prospered; for in colloquial literary history, this gifted cinquefoil, often it is only the trefoil of Tieck and the two Schlegels, have the credit, which was long the blame, of founding a New School' of Poetry, by which the Old School, first fired upon in the Gestiefelte Kater, and ever afterwards assailed, without intermission, by eloquence and ridicule, argument and entreaty, was at length displaced and hunted out of being; or, like Partridge the Astrologer, reduced to a life which could be proved to be no life. Of this New School, which has been the subject of much unwise talk, and of much not very wise writing, we cannot here attempt to LUD WIG TIECK. 425 offer any suitable description, far less any just estimate. One thing may be remarked, that the epithet School seems to describe the case With little propriety. That since the beginning of the present century, a great change has taken place in German literature, is plain enough, without commentators; but that it was effected by three young men, living in the little town of Jena, is not by any means so plain. The critical principles of Tieck and the Schlegels had already been set forth, in the form both of precept and prohibition, and with all the aids of philosophic depth and epigrammatic emphasis, by the united minds of Goethe. and Schiller, in the Horen and Xenien. The development and practical application of the doctrine is all that pertains to these reputed founders of the sect. But neither can the change be said to have originated with Schiller and Goethe; for it is a change originating not in individuals, but in universal circumstances, and belongs not to Germany, but to Europe. Among ourselves, for instance, within the last thirty years, who has not lifted up his voice with double vigour in praise of Shakspeare and Nature, and vituperation'of French taste and French philosophy? Who has not heard of the glories of old English literature; the wealth of Queen Elizabeth's age; the penury of Queen Anne's; and the inquiry whether Pope was a poet? A similar temper is breaking out in France itself, hermetically sealed as that country seemed to be against all foreign influences; and doubts are beginning to be entertained, and even expressed, about Corneille and the Three Unities. It-seems to be substantially the same thing which has occurred in Germany, and been attributed to Tieck and his associates: only that the revolution, which is here proceeding, and in France commencing, appears in Germany to be completed. Its results have there been embodied in elaborate laws, and profound systems have been promulgated and accepted: whereas with us, in past years, there has been as it were a Literary Anarchy; for the Pandects of Blair and Bossu are obsolete or abrogated, but no new code supplies their place; and, author and critic, each sings or says that which is right in his own eyes. For the principles of German Poetics, we can only refer the reader to the treatises of Kant, Schiller, Richter, the Schlegels, and their many copyists and expositors; with the promise that his labour will be hard, but not unrewarded by a plenteous harvest of results, which, whether they be doubted, denied or believed, he will find no trivial or unprofitable subject for his contemplation. These doctrines of taste, which Tieck embraced every opportunity of enforcing as a critic, he did not fail diligently to exemplify in practice; as a long and rapid series of poetical performances lies before the world to attest. Of these, his Genloveva, a Play grounded on the legend of that Saint, appears to be regarded as his masterpiece 12 6 APPENDIX. by the best judges; though Fraanz Sternebalds Wanderungen, the fictitious History of a Student of Painting, was more relished by others; and, as a critic tells us,' here and there a low voice might be'even heard voting that this novel equalled Wilhelm Meister; the'peaceful clearness of which it however nowise attained, but only,'with visible effort, strove to imitate.' In this last work he was assisted by Wackenroder. At an earlier period, he had come forth, as'a translator, with a new version of Don Quixote: he now appeared also as a commentator, with a work entitled Minnelieder aus dem Schwabischen Zeitalter (Minstrelsy of the Swabian Era), published at Berlin in 1803; with an able Preface, explaining the relation of these poets to Petrarca and the Troubadours. In 1804, he sent out his Kaiser Octavianus, a Story which, like the other works mentioned in this paragraph, I have never seen, but which I find praised by his countrymen in no very intelligible terms, as' a fair revival of the old' Mahrchen (Traditionary Tale); in which, however, the' poet moves'freely, and has completed the cycle of the romance.' Die Gemalde (The Pictures), another of his fictions, has lately been translated into English. Tieck's frequent change of place bespeaks less settledness in his domestic, than happily existed in his intellectual circumstances. iFrom Jena he seenis to have again removed to Berlin; then to a country residence near Frankfort on the Oder;' which, in its turn, he quitted for a journey into Italy. In this classic country he found new facilities for two of his favourite pursuits: he employed himself, it is said, to good purpose, in the study of ancient and modern Art; to which, while in Rome, he added the examining of many old German manuscripts preserved in the Vatican Library. From his labours in this latter department, and elsewhere, his countrymen have not long ago obtained, in addition to the Minstrelsy, an Altdeutsches Theater (Old-German Theatre), in two volumes, with the hope of more. A collection of Old-German Poetry is still expected. In 1806, he returned to Germany; first to Munich, then to his former retreat near Frankfort; but, for the next seven years, he was little heard of as an active member of the literary world; and the regret of his admirers was increased by intelligence that ill health was the cause of his inactivity. That this inactivity was more apparent than real, he has proved by his reappearance in new vigour, at a time when he finds a readier welcome and more willing audience. He has since published abundantly in various forms; as a translator, an editor, and a writer both.of poetry and prose. In 1812, appeared his early Volksmnahrchen, retouched and improved, and combined into a whole, by conversations, critical, disquisitionary and descriptive, in LUDWIG TIECK. 427 two volumes, entitled Phantasus; from which our present specimens of him are taken. His Altdeutsches Theater was followed by an Altenglisches, including the disputed plays of Shakspeare; a work gladly received by his countrymen, no less devoted admirers of Shakspeare than ourselves. Since that time, he has paid us a personal visit. In 1818, he was in London, and is said to have been well satisfied with his reception; which we cannot but hope was as respectful and kind as a guest so accomplished, and so friendly to England, deserved at our hands. The fruit of his residence among us, it seems, has already appeared in his writings. He has very lately given to the world a Novel on Shakspeare and his Times; in which he has not trembled to introduce, as acting characters, the great dramatist himself, with Marlowe, and various other poets of that age. Such is the report; which adds, that his work is admired in Germany; but that any copy of it has crossed the Channel, I have not heard. Of Tieck's present residence, or special pursuits, or economical circumstances, I am sorry to confess my entire ignorance. One little fact may perhaps be worth adding; that Sophie Bernhardi, an esteemed authoress, is his sister. A very slight power of observation will suffice to convince us that Tieck is no ordinary man; but a true Poet, a Poet born as well as made. Of a nature at once susceptible and strong, he has looked over the circle of human interests with a far-sighted and piercing eye, and partaken deeply of its joy and woe; and these impressions on his heart or his mind have been like seed sown on fertile ground, ripening under the skyey influences into rich and varied luxuriance. IHe is no more observer and compiler; rendering back to us, with additions or subtractions, the Beauty which existing things have of themselves presented to him; but a true Maker, to whom the actual and external is but the excitement for ideal creations, representing and ennobling its effects. His feeling or knowledge, his love or scorn, his gay humour or solemn earnestness, all the riches of his inward world, are pervaded and mastered by the living energy of the soul which possesses them; and their finer essence is wafted to us in his poetry, like Arabian odours on the wings of the wind. But this may be said of all true poets; and each is distinguished from all by his individual characteristics. Among Tieck's, one of the most remarkable is his combination of so many gifts in such full and simple harmony. His ridicule does not obstruct his adoration; his gay Southern fancy lives in union with a Northern heart. With the moods of a longing and impassioned spirit he seems deeply conversant; and a still imagination, in the highest sense of that word, reigns over all his poetic world. Perhaps, on the whole, this is his distinguishing faculty; an imagination, not of the intellect, but of the 428 APPENDIX. character, not so much vague and gigantic as altogether void and boundless. A feeling as of desert vastness steals over us in what appeared to be a common scene; or in high passages, a fire as of a furnace glows in one small spot, under the infinitude of darkness: Immensity and Eternity seem to rest over the bounded and quicklyfading. His mind we should call well cultivated; for no part of it seems stunted in its growth, and it acts in soft unimpeded union. His heart seems chastened in the school of experience; fervid, yet meek and humble, heedful of good in mean forms, and looking for its satisfaction not in passive, but in active enjoyments. His poetical taste seems no less polished and pure: with all his mental riches and excursiveness, he merits in the highest degree the praise of chaste simplicity, both in conception and style. No man ever rejected more carefully the aid of exag'geration in -word and thought, or produced more result by humbler means. Who could have supposed that a tragedy,'no mock-heroic, but a real tragedy, calculated to affect and excite us, could have been erected on the groundwork of a nursery tale i Yet let any one read Blaubart in the Phantasus, and say whether this is not accomplished. Nor is Tieck's history of our old friend Bluebeard any Fairyland George Barnwell; but a genuine play, with comic as well as tragic life in it;'a group of earnest figures, painted on a laughing ground,' and surprising us with poetical delight, where we looked for anything sooner. In his literary life, Tieck has essayed many provinces, both of the imaginative and the intellectual world; but his own peculiar province seems to be that of the 3itdhrchen; a word which, for want of a proper synonym, we are forced to translate by the imperfect' periphrase of Popular Traditionary Tale. Here, by the consent of all his critics, including even the collectors of real Mahrchen, he reigns without any rival. The true tone of that ancient time, when man was in his childhood, when the universe within was divided by no wall of adamant from the universe without, and. the forms of the Spirit mingled. and dwelt in trustful sisterhood with the forms of the Sense, was not easy to seize and adapt with any fitness of application to the feelings of modern minds. It was to penetrate into the inmost shrines of Imagination, where human passion and action are reflected in dim and fitful, but deeply significant resemblances, and to copy these with the guileless humble graces which alone can become them, Such tales ought to be poetical, because they spring from the very fountains of natural feeling; they ought to be moral, not as exemplifying some current apopllthegm, but as imaging forth in shadowy emblems the universal tendencies and destinies of man. That Tieck has succeeded thus far in his Tales is not asserted- by his LUDWIG TIECK. 429 warmest admirers; but only that he now and then approaches such success, and throughout approaches it more closely than any of his rivals. How far this judgment of Tieck's admirers is correct, our readers are now to try for themselves.1 Respecting the reception of these Tales, I cannot boast of having any very certain, still less any very flattering presentiment. Their merits, such as they have, are not of a kind to force themselves on the reader; and to search for merits few readers are inclined. The ordinary lovers of witch and fairy matter will remark a deficiency of spectres and enchantments here, and complain that the whole is rather dull. Cultivated freethinkers again,, well knowing that no ghosts or elves exist in this country, will smile at the crackbrained dreamer, with his spelling-book prose and doggrel verse, and dismiss him good-naturedly as a German Lakepoet. Alas! alas! Ludwig Tieck could also fantasy,'like a drunk Irishman,' with great conveniency, if it seemed good to him; he can laugh too, and disbelieve, and set springes to catch woodcocks in manifold wise: but his present business was not this: nor, I fear, is the lover of witch matter, or the cultivated freethinker, likely soon to discover what it was. Other readers there are, however, who will come to him in a truer and meeker spirit, and, if I mistake not, be rewarded with some touches of genuine poetry. For the credit of the stranger, I ought to remind them that he appears under many disadvantages. In the process of translation he has necessarily lost, and perhaps in more than the usual proportion; the childlike character of his style was apt to diverge into the childish; the nakedness of his rhymes, perhaps at first only wavering between simplicity and silliness, must in my hands too frequently have shifted nearer the latter. Above all, such works as his come on us unprepared; unprovided with any model2 by which to estimate them, or any category under which to arrange them. Nevertheless, the present specimens of Tieck do exhibit some features of his mind; a few, but those, is it seems to me, its rarest and highest features: to such readers, and with such allowances, the Runenberg, the Trusty Eckart and their associates may be commended with some confidence. 1 The Tales translated from Tieck are: 1. The Fairhaired Eckbert; 2. The Trusty Eckart; 3. The Runenberg;. 4. The Elves; 5. The Goblet. 2 I have not forgotten Allan Cunningham's Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry; a work full of kind fancy and soft glowing exuberance, and with traces of a genius which might rise into a far loftier and purer element than it has ever yet moved and lived in. 430 APPENDIX. E. T. W. HOFFMANN. HOFFMANN'S Life and Remains have been published, shortly after his decease, and with an amplitude of detail corresponding rather to the popularity, than to the intrinsic merit, of the subject; for Hoffmann belongs to that too numerous class of vivid and gifted, literary men, whose genius, never cultured or elaborated into purity, finds loud and sudden, rather than judicious or permanent admiration; and whose history, full of error and perplexed vicissitude, excites sympathising regret in a few, and unwise wonder in many. From this Work, which is honestly and modestly enough written, aud has, to -all appearance, been extensively read and approved of, I borrow most of the following particulars. Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann was born at Kbnigsberg, in Prussia, on the 24th of January 1776. His father occupied a post of some dignity in the administration of Justice; the mother's rela-. tives were also engaged in' the profession. of Law; most of them respectably, some of them with considerable influence and reputation. The elder Hoffmann is said to have been a man of talent; but his temper and habitudes were irregular; his wife was sickly, sensitive and perhaps querulous and uncompliant: in our Ernst their second child's third year, -the parents discovered that they could not live together; and, apparently by mutual consent, dissolved their illassorted union. The father withdrew from K6nigsberg, to prosecute, his legal and judicial engagements elsewhere; and seems to have troubled himself no farther about his offspring or old connexions: he died, several years after, at Insterburg, where he had been stationed. as a Judge in the Criminal Court of the Oberland. The other parent retired with young Ernst to her mother's house, also in K6nigsberg; and there, in painful inaction, wore out seventeen sick and pitiable years, before death put a period to her sufferings. Prior to the separation, the elder child, also a boy, had gone astray into wicked courses, and at last set forth as an infant prodigal into the wide" world. The two brothers never met, though the elder is said to be still in life. Cut off from his natural guardians and directors, young Hoffmann seems to have received no adequate compensation for the want of them, and his early culture was but ill conducted. The grandmother, like her daughter, was perpetually sick, neither of the two almost ever stirring from their. rooms. An uncle, retired with the. barren title of Justizrath from an abortive practice of Law, took charge of the boy's education: but little Otto had no insight into the endowments or perversities of his nephew, and spent much fruitless E. T. W. IIOFFMANN. 431 effort in endeavouring to train the frolicsome urchin to a clock-work life like his own; for Otto lived by square and rule; his history was a rigid, strenuous, methodical procedure; of which, indeed, except the process of digestion, faithfully enough performed, the result, in Otto's case, was nothing. An unmarried aunt, the only other member of the family, the only member of it gifted with any share of sense, appears to have had a truer view of young Hoffinann; but she loved the little rogue too well; and her tenderness, though repaid by equal and continued tenderness on his part, perhaps hurt him more than the leaden constraint of his uncle. For the rest, the boy did not let the yoke lie too heavy on his shoulders: Otto, it is true, was his teacher, his chamber-mate and bed-mate; but every Thursday the little Justizrath went out to pay visits, and the pupil could then celebrate a day of bedlam jubilee: in a little while too, by superiority of natural cunning, he had sounded the Justizrath; and from his twelfth year, we are told, he scarcely ever spoke a word with him, except for purposes of mystification. In this. prim circle, he grew up in almost complete isolation; for, by reason of its fantastic strictness, the household was visited by *few; and except one boy, a nephew of the Author Hippel's, with whom he accidentally became acquainted, Hoffmann had no companion but his foolish uncle and his too fond aunt. With young Hippel his intimacy more and more increased; and it is pleasant to record of both, that this early connexion continued unbroken, often warm and helpful, through many changes of fortune; Hoffmann's school-friend stood by his death-bed, and took his farewell of him with true heartfelt tears. For classical instruction, he was early sent to the public school of 1Knigsberg; but till his thirteenth or fourteenth year, he acquired no taste for these pursuits; and remained unnoticed by his teacher, and by all his schoolfellows, except Hippel, rather disrespected and disliked. Music and painting, in which also he had masters, were more to his taste: in a short while, he could fantasy to admiration on the harpsichord; and there was no comic visage in K6nigsberg which he had not sketched in caricature. His tiny stature (for in youth, as in manhood, he was little, and'incredibly brisk') giving him an almost infantile appearance, added new wonder to these attainments; and so young Ernst became a musical and pictorial prodigy; tothe no small comfort of Justizrath Otto, who delighted to observe that the little imp who had played him so many sorry tricks, and so often overset the steady machinery of his household economy, was turning out not a blackguard, but a genius. With more prudence and regularity than could have been expected, Hoffmann betook himself, in due time, to preparing for the legal profession; to which, as if by hereditary destiny, he was ap 432 APPENDIX. pointed. In the Kinigsberg University, indeed, he confessed that Kant's prelections were a dead letter to him, though it was at that time the'fashion both for the wise and simple to be metaphysically transcendental: but he abstained from the riotous practices of his fellow-barschen, and pursued with strict fidelity the tasks by which he hoped ere long to gain an independent livelihood, and be delivered from the thraldom of his grandmother and Justizrath Otto. In this hope he laboured; allowing himself no recreation, except once a-week an evening of literary talk with his fellow-student Hippel, and an occasional glance into Winkelmnann, or other works on Art, to which, as formerly, the better part of his nature was passionately devoted. In 1795, lie passed his first professional trial, and was admitted Auscultator of the Court of Konigsberg: an establishment administrative as well as judicial; in which, however, owing to the pressure of applicants, it was impossible to give him full employmeht. This leisure, which, with so hot and impatient a spirit; hung heavy enough on his hands, he endeavoured to fill up with subsidiary pursuits: he gave private lessons in music; he painted wild landscapes, or grotesque figures, to which'a bold alternation of colour and shade' gave a specific character; he talked of men and things, with the most sportful fancy, or the most biting sarcasm: in fine, he wrote two Novels. One of these, at least, he had hoped to see in print; for a bookseller had received it with some expressions of encouragement: but after half a year, his fair manuscript was returned to him all soiled and creased, with an answer, that' the anonymity of the work was likely to hurt its sale.' In the mean time, his situation had become still more perplexed by a private incident in the style of the Nouvelle fHeloise. One of his fair music-pupils was too lovely and too soft-hearted: no marriage could be thought of between the parties, for she was far above him in rank; and the contradictions and entanglements of this affair so pained and oppressed him, that he longed with double vehemence to be out of Konigsberg. At last, after much wavering and consulting, he snatched himself away, with a resolute, indeed almost heroic effort, from the unpropitious scene; and proceeded, in the summer of 1796, to Great Glogau in Silesia, where another uncle, a brother of Otto's, occupied a post in the Adminis tration, and had promised to procure him employment. In Great Glogau he did not find the composure which he was in search of; his uncle and his cousins treated him with great affection, and his labour was not irksome or unprofitable; but, in his letters, hle complains incessantly of tedium, and other spiritual maladies; and, in 1798, he joyfully took leave of Silesia, following his uncle, who was now promoted to a higher legal post in Berlin. Here too the young jurist continued only for a short time. Having passed his E. T. W. HOFFMANN. 433 third and last trial, the examen rigorosum, and this with no common applause, he was soon afterwards appointed Assessor of the Court at Posen, in South Prussia (Poland); whither he proceeded in March 1800. With Hoffmann's removal to Poland, begins a new era of his life: he was now director of his own actions, and unhappily he did not direct them well. At Berlin, and even at Great Glogau, he had been accustomed to enliven the. routine of legal duty by the study of Art; for which the public collections of pictures, and the numerous professors of music, had in both cities afforded considerable opportunity. In Posen, these resources were abridged; there was little music, little painting; his official associates were dry weekday men, who worked hard at their desks, and lived hard when enfranchised from them; without taste for literature, or art of any kind, except it were the art of cookery and brewing. The Poles also were a lively, jolly people, and much addicted to'strong Hungary wine.' Hoffmann yielded too far to the custom of the land; and here, it would seem, contracted habits of irregularity, from. which he could never after get delivered. Another refuge against tedium, derived from his own peculiar resources, was even less to be excused. In private hours, he had condescended to become the scandalous chronicle of Posen, and to sketch a series of caricatures, exhibiting, under the most ludicrous yet recognisable aspects, a great number of individuals and transactions; sparing no rank or relation, where he fancied himself to have been provoked, or thought his satire might be expected to tell. On occasion of a masquerade, a gay companion, his future brother-in-law, equipped himself like an Italian hawker; and proceeding to the ball with his pestilent ware in his basket, distributed the pictures, each picture to some ill-wisher of the person whom it represented; and then, vanished from -the room. For the first half hour, there was a general triumph; which, on comparing notes, passed into a general wail. The author was speedily detected: his talent, the only thing admirable in the transaction, betrayed him, and the punishment followed close on the offence. Intelligence was sent to Berlin: and the. patent, lying ready for signature, which should have made him Rath (Councillor) at Posen, was changed for a similar appointment at Plozk; a change which, in all points, he regarded as an exile, but which his best friends could not help admitting' that he had richly merited. From Plozk he failed not to. emit his Tr2istia; soliciting, with. pressing earnestness, deliverance from his Polish Tomos. What was more to the purpose, he seems to have amended his conduct: he had married while- in Posen; his wife, a fair Poless, was possessed of many graces, and of contentment and submissiveness without limit; VOL. I. 28 -434 APPENDIX. and the husband was' beginning to substitute the duties and enjoyments of domestic and studious life, for the revelry and riot in which of late he had much too deeply mingled. In his official capacity, his assiduity and perseverance so far gained on his superiors, that at length, by the influence of Hippel and other friends, he was transferred from Plozk to Warsaw; after having spent two regretful, but diligent and not unprofitable years, in this provincial seclusion. In the summer of 1804, he hastened to his new destination, which his fancy had decked for him in all the colours of hope. To Hoffmann, the Polish capital was like a vast perpetual masquerade; and for a time he'enjoyed its exotic, many-coloured aspect, the more from its contrast with his late way' of life. His public duty was not difficult, and he performed it punctually; his salary sufficed him: there were theatres and music on every hand; and the streets were peopled- with a motley tumult of the strangest forms:'gay''silken Polesses, talking and promenading over broad stately squares;'the ancient venerable Polish noble, with moustaches, caftan, sash,'and red or yellow boots; the new race equipped as Parisian Incroy-'ables; with foreigners of every nation;' not excluding long-bearded Jews, puppetshow-men, monks, and dancing-bears. In a little while, Hoffmann had formed some acquaintances among the human part of the throng; with one Hitzig, his colleague in office, he established a lasting intimacy. It began oddly enough: one day the two were walking home together from the Court, and engaged in laborious, -stinted and formal conversation, when Hoffmann, asking the character of some individual, the other answered, in the words of Falstaff, that he was'a fellow in buckram;' a phrase which enlightened the caustic visage of Hoffmann, at all times shy to strangers, and at once raised him into one of his brilliant communicative moods. This Hitzig, himself a man of talent and energy, was of great service in assisting Hoffmann's intellectual culture while at Warsaw, and stood by him afterwards in many difficult emergencies. An enthusiast dilettante prepared a new source of interest to Hoffmann, by a scheme which he proposed of erecting a Musical Institution. By dint of great effort, the dilettante succeeded in procuring subscribers; first one deserted palace, then a larger one, was purchased for a hall of meeting: and Hoffmann, seeing that the scheme was really to take effect, now entered into it with heart and hand. He planned the arrangement of the rooms in the New Ressource: for their decorations, he sketched cartoons, part of which were painted by other artists, part he himself painted; not forgetting to introduce caricature portraits of many honest subscribers, whom, by wings and tails, lie disguised as sphinxes,. gryphons and other mythological cattle. His time was henceforth divided between his Court and this E. T. W. HOFFMANN. 435 Musical Ressource: here, perched on his scaffold, among his paintpots, with the brush in his hand, and a bottle of Hungary by his side, he might, in free hours, be seen diligently working, and talking in the mean while to his friends assembled below. If called to any juridical function by any extraordinary mandate from the President, he would doff his painter's-jacket, clamber down from his scaffold, wash his hands, and, to the surprise of parties, transact their business as rapidly and correctly, as if he had klnown no other employment. The Musical Ressource prospered beyond expectation: brilliant concerts were given; all that was fairest and gracefullest in Warsaw attending, or even assisting: Hoffmann officiated as leader in their performance; and, especially in Mozart's pieces, was allowed to have done his part with consummate skill. Ere long, however, these melodious festivities were abruptly closed. Ne.vs came of the battle of Jena; Russian foreposts entered the city; Tartars, Cossacks, Bashkirs increased the chaos of its population. In due time, arrived French envoys to treat of a surrender; the Prussians mounted guard with their knapsacks on; and one morning tidings spread over the city, that the Praga bridge of boats was on fire, that the Russians and Prussians were retiring on the one side, and Murat's advancedguard entering by the other. The rest is easy to conceive: the Prussian government was at an end in Warsaw; Hoffmnann's Collegium honestly divided the contents of their strongbox, then closed the partnership, and dispersed, each whither he listed, to seek safety and new employment. To most of them this was a grievous stroke: not to Hoffmann. For him, Warsaw was still a fine variegated spectacle; he had money enough for present wants; of the future he tools little heed,:or thought loosely that he could live by Art, and that Art was far better than Law. Leaving his large house, where his purse seemed hardly safe from military violence, he took refuge in the garret of the Musical Ressource: here was his pianoforte and a library, here -his wife and only child; without, were Napoleon and his generals, reviews,, restaurateurs, theatres, churches with musical monks; and abundance of fellow-loungers to attend him in these amusements. It was not till after a severe attack of fever, and the most visible contraction of his purse, that he seriously bethought him what he was to do. A sad enough outlook! lFor Art, which had seemed so benignant at a distance, was shy and inaccessible when actually applied to for bread. Hitzig had hastened off to Berlin, and there opened a bookshop, in hope of better times: but his accounts of musical profits in that city were discouraging; and for the journey to Vienna, which he advised and gave letters to forward, Hoffmann had now no funds. 436 APPENDIX. His uncle in Berlin was dead; from little Otto nothing could be drawn: the perplexity was thickening, and the means of unravelling it were daily diminishing. For the present, he resolved to leave his wife and daughter at Posen, with their relations, and to visit Berlin himself in quest of some employment. In Berlin he could find no employment whatever, either as a portrait-painter, a teacher or a composer of music; meanwhile the last remnant of hi' cash, his poor six Friedrichs-d'or, were one night filched from his trunk; and news came from Posen, that his little Cecilia was dead, and his wife dangerously ill. In this extremity, his heart for a while had nigh failed him; but he again gathered courage, and made a fresh attempt. He published in the newspapers an advertisement, offering himself as Music-director, on the most moderate terms, in any theatre; and was happy enough, soon afterwards, to make an engagement of the kind he wished, with the managers of the Bamberg stage, at that time under the patronage of the Count von Soden. To an ordinary temper, this very humble preferment would have offered but a mortifying contrast with former affluence and official respectability: Hoffmann, however, saw in it the means of realising his long-cherished wish, a life devoted to Art; and hastened to his Bamberg musical appointment with gayer hopes than he had ever fixed on any other prospect. Had money or economical comfort been his chief object, he must have felt himself cruelly disappointed: mischance on mischance befell the Bamberg theatre; contradiction on the back of contradiction awaited the new Music-director, whose life, for the next seven years, differs in no outward respect from that of the most unprosperous strolling player. Nevertheless, he made no complaih; perhaps he really felt little sorrow.' This must do,' writes he in his Diary,' and it will do; for now I shall never more'have a Relatio ex Actis to write while I live, and so the Fountain of'all Evil is dried up.' In a wealthier station, he might have composed more operas, and painted more caricatures; but it is possible enough the world might never have heard of him as a writer. The fate of his first two Novels had perhaps disgusted him with authorship: his studies at least had long pointed to other objects; nor was it choice, but necessity, which now led him back to literature. After many stagnations, the Bamberg theatrical cash-box had at length become entirely insolvent; portrait-painting, and music-teaching, were inadequate to the support of even a frugal household: Hoffmann, who, in all his straits, appears to have disdained pecuniary assistance, now wrote to Rochlitz of Leipzig, Editor of the Musicalische Zeitung (Musical Chronicle), soliciting employment in this Work; and, by way of testimonial, transmitting-some of his recent perform E. T. W. HOFFMANN. 437 ances. The letter itself, written with the most fantastic drollery, was testimonial enough: Hoffmann was instantly and gladly accepted; and in ten days, two essays were prepared and despatched; the first of a long series, afterwards collected, enlarged, and given to the world under the title of Fantasiestacke, in Callot's Manier (Fantasypieces, in the style of Callot 1), with a preface by Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, to whom Hoffmann had paid a visit while at Bamberg. The incipient author was delighted with his new task; and Rochlitz and his readers no less so with its execution. These Fantasiestmicke turning chiefly on Music, exclusively on Art, were afterwards to make him known to the world as a brilliant and peculiar writer; and they served for the present to augment his scanty funds, to bring him into favour and employment as a musical composer, andat last to deliver him from Bamberg. In 1813, by the management of Rochlitz, he formed an engagement at Dresden, again as Music-director, in the theatre of one Seconda. This appointment he hailed as a most propitious change; but his theatrical career was not destined anywhere to be smooth. Misfortunes, almost destruction, overtook him even on his journey: Seconda he soon found to be a driveller; the opera shifted from Dresden to Leipzig, and from Leipzig to Dresden; the country was full of Cossacks and Gendarmes, and Hoffmann's operatic melodies were drowned in the loud clang of Napoleon's battles. Till the end of 1814, he led a life more chequered by hard vicissitudes than ever: now quarrelling with Seconda, now sketching caricatures of the French; now writing Fantasies, now looking at Battles; sometimes sick, often in danger, generally light of heart, and always short of money. The Golden Pot, one of the Fantasiestucke, which follows this Introduction, was begun in Dresden, shortly before the Battle of Leipzig, while the cannon of the Allies was bombarding the city; with grenadoes bursting at the writer's very hand, nay at last driving him from his garret into some safer shelter. The revolution of Europe, which restored so many sovereigns to their thrones, restored Hoffmann to his chair of office. He arrived at Berlin in September 1814; was provided with employment; reinstated in his former rights of seniority; and two years afterwards, promoted, in consequence, to be Rath in the Kammergericht, or Exchequer Court of the capital. Hoffmann's situation, after all his buffetings, might now be considered enviable: the income of his post' was amply sufficient, and its labour not excessive; his best friends were in his neighbourhood, Hitzig was working with him at the same table; his public conduct 1 Some of my readers may require to be informed that Jacques Callot was a Lorraine painter of the seventeenth century; a wild genius, whose Temptation of St. Antony is said to exceed, in chaotic incoherence, that of Teniers himself. 438 APPENDIX. was irreprehensible, and his literary fame was rapidly spreading. The Fantasiestlckle were already universally popular; the Elixiere des Teufels (Devil's Elixir, a Novel in two volumes, since translated into English) had just been given to the circulating libraries; and his Opera of Undine, which Fouque had versified for Hoffmann's music, was brought out on the Berlin stage with loud plaudits, and reviewed with praises by Weber himself. Hoffmann was happy; and had he been wise, might still have continued happy: but he was not wise, and in this cup of joy there lurked for him a deadly poison. Berlin, like most other cities, prides itself in being somewhat of a modern Athens; and Hoffmann, the wonder of the day, was invited with the warmest blandishments to participate in its musical and literary tea. Butin these polished circles Hoffmann prospered ill: he was sharp-tempered; vain, indeed, but transcendently vain; he required the wittiest talk or the most entire audience; and had a hearthatred to inanity, however gentle and refined. When his company grew tiresome, he'made the most terrific faces;' would answer the languishing raptures of some perfumed critic by an observation on the weather; would transfix half a dozen harmless dilettanti through the vitals, each on his several bolt; nay, in the end, give vent to his spleen by talking like a sheer maniac; in short, never cease till, one way or other, the hapless circle was reduced to utter desolation. To this intellectual beverage he was seldom twice invited; and, ere long, the musical and literary Tea-urn was for him a closed fountain. Yet Hoffmann could not do without society, without excitement, and now not well without exclusive admiration. His old friends he had not forsaken, for he seldom, and with difficulty, got intimate with a stranger; but their quiet life could not content him: it was clear that the enjoyment he sought was only to be found among gay laughter-loving topers, as a guest at their table, or still better, as their sovereign in the wine-house.' The order of his life, from 1816, downwards,' says his Biographer,'was this: On Mondays and'Thursdays he passed his forenoons at his post in the Kammer-'gericht; on other days at home, in working; the afternoons he'regularly spent in sleep, to which, in summer, perhaps he added'walking: the evenings and nights were devoted to the tavern.'Even when out in company, while the other guests went home, he'retired to the tavern to await the morning, before which time it was'next to impossible to bring him home.' Strangers who came to Berlin went to see him in the tavern; the tavern was his study, and his pulpit, and his throne: here his wit flashed and flamed like an Aurora Borealis, and the table was forever in a roar; and thus, amid tobacco-smoke, and over coarse earthly liquor, was Hoffmann wasting faculties which might have seasoned the nectar of the gods. E. T. W. HOFFMANN. 439 Poor Hoffmann was on the highway to ruin; and the only wonder is, that with such fatal speed, he did not reach the goal even more balefully and sooner. His official duties were, to the last, punctually and irreproachably performed. He wrote more abundantly than ever; no Magazine Editor was contented without his contributions; the Nachtstacke (Night-pieces) were published in 1817; two years afterwards Klein Zaches, regarded (it would seem falsely) as a local satire; and at last, between 1819 and 1821, appeared in four successive volumes, the Serapionsbrfder, containing most of his smaller Tales, collected from various fugitive publications, and combined together by dialogues of the Serapion-brethren, a little club of friends, which for some time met weekly in Hoffmann's house. The Prinzessin Brambilla (1821) is properly another Fantasy-piece. The Lebensaussichten des Kater Murr (Tom-cat Murr's Philosophy of Life), published in 1820 and 1821, was meant by the author as his masterwork; but the third volume is wanting; and the wild anarchy, musical and moral, said to reign in the first two, may forever remain unreconciled. Meanwhile, Hoffmann's tavern-orgies continued unabated, and his health at last sunk under them. In 1819, he had suffered, a renewed attack of gout; from which, however, he had recovered by a journey to the Silesian baths. On his forty-fifth birthday, the 24th of January 1822, he saw his best and oldest friends, including Hitzig and Hippel, assembled round his table; but he himself was sick; no longer hurrying to and fro in hospitable assiduity, as was his custom, but confined to his chair, and drinking bath-water, while his guests were enjoying wine. It was his death that lay upon him, and a mournful lingering death. The disease was a tabes dorsalis; limb by limb, from his feet upwards, for five months, his body stiffened and died. Hoffmann bore his sufferings with inconceivable gaiety; so long as his hands had power, he kept writing; afterwards he dictated to an amanuensis; and four of his Tales, the last, Der Feind (The Enemy), discontinued only some few days before his death, were composed in this melancholy season. He would not believe that he was dying, and he longed for life with inexpressible desire. On the evening of the 24th of June, his whole body to the neck had become stiff and powerless; no longer feeling pain, he said to his Doctor: "I shall soon be through it now."-" Yes," said the Doctor, " you'will soon be through it." Next morning he was evidently dying: yet about eleven o'clock he awoke from his stupor; cried that he was well, and would go on with dictating the Feind that night; at the same time calling on his wife to read him the passage where he had stopt. She spoke to him in kind dissuasion: he was silent; he motioned to be turned towards the wall; and scarcely had this been 440 APPENDIX. done, when the fatal sound was heard in his throat, and in a few minutes Hoffmann was no more. Hoffmann's was a mind for which proper culture might have done great things: there lay in it the elements of much moral worth, and talents of almost the highest order. Nor was it weakness of Will that so far frustrated these fine endowments; for in many trying emergencies, he proved that decision and perseverance of resolve were by no means denied him. Unhappily, however, he had found no sure principle of action; no Truth adequate to the guidance of such a mind. What in common minds is called Prudence, was not wanting, could this have sufficed; for it is to be observed, that so long as he was poor, so long as'the fetters of everyday duty lay round him, Hoffmann was diligent, unblamable and even praiseworthy: but these wants once supplied, these fetters once cast off, his wayward spirit was without fit direction or restraint, and its fine faculties rioted in wild disorder. In the practical concerns of life he felt no interest: in religion he seems not to have believed, or even disbelieved; he never talked of it, or would hear it talked of: to politics he was equally hostile, and equally a stranger. Yet the wages of daily labour, the solace of his five senses, and the intercourse of social or gregarious life, were far from completing his ideal of enjoyment; his better soul languished in these barren scenes, and longQd for some worthier home. This home, unhappily, he was not destined to find. He sought for it in the Poetry of Art; and the aim of his writings, so far as they have any aim, as they are not mere interjections, expressing the casual moods of his mind, was constantly the celebration and unfolding of this the best and truest doctrine which he had to preach. But here too his common failing seems to have beset him: he loved Art with a deep but scarcely with a pure love; not as the fountain of Beauty, but as the fountain of refined Enjoyment; he demanded from it not heavenly peace, but earthly excitement; as indeed through his whole life, he had never learned the truth that for human souls a continuance of passive pleasure is inconceivable, has not only been denied us by Nature, but cannot, and could not be granted. From all this there grew up in Hoffinann's character something player-like, something false, brawling and tawdry, which we trace both in his writings and his conduct. His philosophy degenerates into levity, his magnanimity into bombast: the light of his fine mind is not sunshine, but the glitter of an artificial firework. As in Art, so in Life he had failed to discover that'agreeable sensations' are not the highest good.. His pursuit of these led' him into many devious courses, and the close of his mistaken pilgrimage was - the tavern. E. t. W. HOFFMANN. 441 Yet if, in judging Hoffmann, we are forced to condemn him, let it be with mildness, with justice. Let us not forget, that for a mind like his, the path of propriety was difficult to find, still more difficult to keep. Moody, sensitive and fantastic, he wandered through the world like a foreign presence, subject to influences of which common natures have happily no glimpse. A whole scale of the most way' ward and unearthly humours stands recorded in his Diary: his head was forever swarming with beautiful or horrible chimeras; a common incident could throw his whole being into tumult, a distorted face or figure would abide with him for days, and rule over him like a spell. It was not things, but' the shows of things,' that he saw; and the world and its business, in which he hadrto live and move, often hovered before him like a perplexed and spectral vision. Withal it should be remembered, that, though never delivered from Self, he was not cruel or unjust, nor incapable of generous actions and the deepest attachment. His harshness was often misinterpreted; for heat of temper deformed the movements of kindness; mockery also was the dialect in which he spoke and even thought, and often, under a calm or bitter smile, he could veil the wounds of a bleeding heart. A good or a wise man we must not call him: but to others his presence was beneficent, his injuries were to himself; and among the ordinary population of this world, to note him with the mark of reprobation were ungrateful and unjust. His genius formed the most important element of his character, and of course participated in its faults. There are the materials of a' glorious poet, but no poet has been fashioned out of them. His mind was not cultivated or brought under his own dominion; we admire the rich ingredients of it, and regret that they were never purified, and fused into a whole. His life was disjointed' he had to labour for his bread, and he followed three different arts; what wonder that in none of them he should attain perfection? Accordingly, except perhaps as a musician, the critics of his country deny him the name of an Artist: as a poet, he aimed but at popularity, and has attained little more. His intellect is seldom strong, and that only in glimpses; his abundant humour is too often false and local; his rich and gorgeous fancy is continually distorted into crotchets and caprices. In fact, he elaborated nothing; above all, not himself. His knowledge, except in the sphere of Art, is not extensive; for an author, he had read but little; criticisms, even of his own works, he never looked into; and except Richter, whom he saw only once, he seems never to have met with any individual whose conversation could instruct or direct him. Human nature he had studied only as a caricature-painter: men, it is said, in fact interested him chiefly as mimetic objects; their common doings and destiny were without 442 APPENDIX. beauty for him, and he observed and copied them only in their extravagances and ludicrous distortions. His works were written with incredible speed, and they bear many marks of haste: it is seldom that any piece is perfected, that its brilliant and often genuine elements are blended in harmonious union. On the largest of his completed Novels, the Elixiere des Teufels, he himself set no value; and the Kater Murr, which he meant for a higher object, he did not live to finish, nor is it thought he could have finished it. His smaller pieces were mostly written for transitory publications, and too often with only a transitory excellence. We do not read them without interest, without high amusement; but the second reading pleases worse than the first: for there is too little meaning in that bright extravagance; it is but the hurried copy of the phantasms which forever masqueraded through the author's mind; it less resembles the creation of a poet, than the dream of an opium-eater. With these faults a rigorous criticism. may charge Hoffmann; and this the more strictly, the greater his talent, the more undoubted his.capability and obligation to avoid them. At the same time, to reject his claim, as has been done, to what the poets call their immortality, seems hard measure. If Callot and Teniers, his models, still figure in picture-galleries; if Rabelais continues, after centuries, to be read, and even the Caliph Vathek,. after decades, still finds admirers, the products of a mind so brilliant, wild and singular as that of Hoffmann may long hover in the remembrance of the world; as objects of curiosity, of censure, and, on the whole, compared with absolute Nonentity, of entertainment and partial approval. For the present, at least, as a child of his time and his country, he is not to be overlooked in any survey of German Literature, and least of all by the foreign student of it. Among Hoffmann's shorter performances, I find Meister Martin noted by his critics as the most perfect: it is a story of ancient Niirnberg, and worked up in a style which even reminds us of the Author of Waverley. Nevertheless, I have selected this Goldne Topf,' as likelier to interest the English reader: it has more of the faults, but also more of the excellences peculiar to its author, and exhibits a much truer picture of his individuality. To recommend it, criticisms would be unavailing: there is no deep art involved in its composition; to minds alive to the graces of Fancy, and disposed to pardon even its aberrations when splendid and kindly, this Mahrchen will speak its whole meaning for itself; and to others it has little or nothing to say. The most tolerant will see in it much to pardon; but even under its present disadvantages they may perhaps recog1 Golden Pot, our only Translation from Hoffmann. JEAN PAUL FRIEbRICH RICHTER. 443 nise in it the erratic footsteps of a poet, and lament with me that his course has ended so far short of the goal. JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER, one of the chosen men of Germany and of the World, whom I hoped, in my vanity, perhaps to gratify by this introduction of him to a people whom he knew and valued,'has been called from his earthly sojourn since the commencement of my little task, and no voice, either of love or censure, shall any more reach his ear. The circle of his existence is thus complete: his works and himself have assumed their final shape and combination, and lie ready for a judgment, which, when it is'just, must now be unalterable. To satisfy a natural and rational curiosity respecting such a character, materials are not wanting; but to us in the mean time they are. inaccessible. I have inquired in his own country, but without effect; having learned only that two Biographies of Richter are in the press, but that nothing on the subject has hitherto been published. For the present, therefore, I must content myself with such meagre and transitory hints as were in circulation in his lifetime, and compress into a few sentences a' history which might be written in volumes. Richter was born at Wunsiedel in Bayreuth, on the 21st of March 1763. His father was clergyman of the place, and afterwards of Schwarzbach on the Saale. The young man also was destined for the clerical profession; with a view to which, having finished' his school-studies in the Hof Gymnasium, he in 1780 proceeded to the University of Leipzig, with the highest testimonials from his former masters. Theology as a profession, however, he could not relish; poetry, philosophy and general literature, were his chief pursuits while at Leipzig; from which, apparently after no long stay, he returned to Schwarzbach to his parents, uncertain what he should betake him to. In a little while, he attempted authorship; publishing various short miscellaneous pieces, distinguished by intellectual vigour, copious, fancy, the wildest yet truest humour, the whole concocted in a style entirely his own, which, if it betrayed the writer's inexperience, could not hide the, existence in him of a highly-gifted, strong and extraordinary mind. The reception of his first performances, or the inward felicity of writing, encouraged him to proceed: in the midst of an unsettled and changeful life, his pen was never idle, its productions never-otherwise than new, fantastic 444 APPENDIX. and powerful: he lived successively in Hof, in Weimar, Berlin, Meiningen, Coburg,.' raying forth, wherever he might be stationed, the wild light of his genius over all Germany.' At last he settled in Bayreuth, having here, in testimony of his literary merit, been honoured with the title of Legations-Rath, and presented with a pension from his native Prince. In Bayreuth his chief works were written; he had married, and been blessed with two children; his intellectual labours had gained him esteem and ldve from all ranks of his countrymen, and. chiefly from those whose suffrage was of most value; a frank and original, yet modest, good and kind deportment, seems to have transferred these sentiments to his private circle: with a heart at once of the most earnest and most sportful cast; affectionate, and encompassed with the objects of his affection; diligent in the highest of all earthly tasks, the acquisition and the diffusion of Truth;. and witnessing from his sequestered home the working of his own mind on thousands of fellow-minds, Richter seemed happy and at peace; and his distant reader loved to fancy him as in his calm privacy enjoying the fruit of past toils, or amid the highest and mildest meditations, looking forward to long honourable years of future toil. For his thoughts were manifold; thoughts of a moralist and a sage, no less than of a poet and a wit. The last work of his I saw' advertised, was a little volume entitled, On the Ever-green of our Feelings; and in November (1825), news came that Richter was dead; and a heart, which we had figured as one of the truest, deepest and gentlest that ever lived in this world, was to beat no more. Of Richter's private character I have learned little; but that little was all favourable, and accordant with the indications in his works. Of his public and intellectual character much might be said and thought; for the secret of it is by no means floating on the surface, and it will reward some study. The most cursory inspection, even an external one, will satisfy us that he neither was, nor wished to be considered as, a man who wrote or thought in the track of other men, to whom common practice is a law, and whose excellencies. and defects the common formulas of criticism will easily represent. The very titles of his works are startling. One of his earliest performances is named Selectionfrom the Papers of the Devil; another is, Biographical Recreations under the Cranium of a Giantess. His novels are almost uniformly introduced by some fantastic narrative accounting for his publication and obtainment of the story. Hesperus, his chief novel, bears the secondary title of a Dogpost-days, and the chapters are named Dog-posts, as having been conveyed to him in a letter-bag, round the neck of a little nimble Shock, from some unknown Island in the South sea. JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 445 The first aspect of these peculiarities cannot prepossess us in his favour; we are too forcibly reminded of theatrical clap-traps and literary quackery; nor on opening one of the works themselves is the case much mended. Piercing gleams of thought do not escape us; singular truths conveyed in a form as singular; grotesque and often truly ludicrous delineations; pathetic, magnificent, far-sounding passages; effusions full of wit, knowledge and imagination, but difficult to bring under any rubric whatever; all the elements, in short, of a glorious intellect, but dashed together in such wild arrangement, that their order seems the very ideal of confusion. The style and structure of the book appear alike incomprehensible. The narrative is every now and then suspended to make way for some "Extra-leaf," some wild digression upon any subject but the one in hand; the language groans with indescribable metaphors and allusions to all things human and divine; flowing onward, not like a river, but like an inundation; circling in complex eddies, chafing and gurgling now this way, now that, till the proper current sinks out of view amid the boundless uproar. We close the work with a mingled feeling of astonishment, oppression and perplexity; and Richter stands before us in brilliant cloudy vagueness, a giant mass of intellect, but without form, beauty or intelligible purpose. To readers who believe that intrinsic is inseparable from superficial excellence, and that nothing can be good or beautiful which is not to be seen through in a moment, Richter can occasion little difficulty. They admit him to be a man of vast natural endowments, but he is utterly uncultivated, and without command of them; full of monstrou s affectation, the very High Priest of bad taste: knows not the art of writing, scarcely that there is such an art; an insane visionary floating forever among baseless dreams, which hide the firm Earth from his view; an intellectual Polyphemus; in short, a monstrurn horrendum, informe, ingens (carefully adding) cui lumen ademptum; and they close their verdict reflectively, with his own praiseworthy maxim: "Providence has given to the English the empire of the sea, to the French that of the land, to the Germans that of —the air." In this way the matter is adjusted; briefly, comfortably and wrong. The casket was difficult to open; did we know by its very shape that there was nothing in it, that so we should cast it into the sea? Affectation is often singularity, but singularity is not always affectation. If the iature and condition of a. man be really and truly, not conceitedly and untruly, singular, so also will his manner be, so also ought it to be. Affectation is the product of Falsehood, a heavy sin, and the parent of numerous heavy sins; let it be severely punished, 446 APPENDIX. but not too lightly imputed. Scarcely any mortal is absolutely free from it, neither most probably is Richter; but it is in minds of another substance than his that it grows to be the ruling product. Moreover, he is actually not a visionary; but, with all his visions, will be found to see the firm Earth in its whole figures and relations much more clearly than thousands of such critics, who too probably can see nothing else. Far from being untrained or uncultivated, it will surprise these persons to discover that few men have studied the art of writing, and many other arts besides, more carefully than lie; that his Vorschule der AfEsthetik (Introduction to Esthetics) abounds with deep and sound maxims of criticism; in the course of which, many complex works, his own among others,' are rigidly and justly tried, and even the graces and minutest qualities of style are by no means overlooked or unwisely handled. Withal, there is something in Richter that incites us to a second, to a third perusal. His works are hard to understand, but they always have a meaning, and often a true and deep one. In our closer, more comprehensive glance, their truth steps forth with new distinctness, their error dissipates and recedes, passes into venality, often even into beauty; and at last the thick haze which encircled the form' of the writer melts away, and he stands revealed to us in his own stedfast features, a colossal spirit, a lofty and original thinker, a genuine poet, a high-minded, true and most amiable man. I have called him a colossal spirit, for this impression continues with us: to the' last we figure him as something gigantic; for all the elements of his structure are vast, and combined together in living and life-giving, rather than in beautiful or symmetrical order. His Intellect is keen, impetuous, far-grasping, fit to rend in pieces the stubbornest materials, and extort from them their most hidden and refractory truth. In his HIumour he sports with the highest and the lowest, he can play' at bowls with the sun and moon. His Imagination opens for us the Land of Dreams; we sail with him through the boundless abyss, and the secrets of Space, and Time, and Life, and Annihilation, hover round us in dim cloudy forms, and darkness, and immensity, and dread, encompass and overshadow us. Nay, in handling the smallest matter, he works it with the tools of a giant.'A common truth is wrenched from its old combinations, and presented us in new, impassable, abysmal contrast with its opposite error. A trifle, some slender character, some weakling humorist, some jest, or quip, or spiritual toy, is shaped into most quaint, yet often truly living form; but shaped somehow as with the hammer of Vulcan, with three strokes that might have helped -to forge an ZEgis. The treasures of his mind are of a similar description with the mind itself; his knowledge is JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 447 gathered from. all the kingdoms of Art, and Science, and Nature, and lies round him in huge unwieldy heaps. His very language is Titanian; deep, strong, tumultuous, shining with a thousand hues, fused from a thousand elements, and winding in labyrinthic mazes. Among Richter's gifts, perhaps the first that strikes us as truly great is his Imagination; for he loves to dwell in the loftiest and most solemn provinces of thought; his works abound with mysterious allegories, visions and typical adumbrations; his Dreams, iii particular, have a gloomy vastness, broken here and there by wild far-darting splendour, and shadowy forms of meaning rise dimly from the bosom of the void Infinite. Yet, if I mistake not, Humour is his ruling quality, the quality which lives most deeply in his inward nature, and most strongly influences his manner of being. In this rare gift, for none is rarer than true humour, he stands unrivalled in his own country; and among late writers, in every other. To describe humour is difficult at all times, and would perhaps be still more difficult in Richter's case. Like all his other qualities, it is vast, rude, irregular; often perhaps overstrained and extravagant: yet fundamentally it is genuine humour, the humour of Cervantes and Sterne, the product not of Contempt but of Love, not of superficial distortion of natural forms, but of deep though playful sympathy with all forms of Nature. It springs not less from the heart than from the head; its result is not laughter, but something far kindlier and better; as it were, the balm which a generous spirit pours over the wounds of life, and which none but a generous spirit can give forth. Such humour is compatible with tenderest and sublimest feelings, or rather, it is incompatible with the want of them. In. Richter, accordingly, we find a true sensibility; a softness, sometimes a simple humble pathos, which works its way into every heart. Some slight incident is carelessly thrown before us: we smile at it perhaps, but with a smile more sad than tears; and the unpretending passage in its meagre brevity sinks deeper into the soul than sentimental volumes. It is on the strength of this and its accompanying endowments, that his main success as an artist depends. His favourite characters have always a dash of the ridiculous in their circumstances or their composition, perhaps in both: they are often men of no account; vain, poor, ignorant,. feeble; and we scarcely know how it is that we love them; for the author all along has been laughing no less heartily than we at their ineptitudes; yet so it is, his Fibel, his Fixlein, his Siebenkiis, even his Schmelzle, insinuate themselves into our affections; and their ultimate place is closer to our hearts than that of many more splendid heroes. This is the test of true hu 448 APPENDIX. mour; no wit, no sarcasm, no knowledge will suffice; not talent but genius will accomplish the result. It is in studying these characters that we first convince ourselves of Richter's claim to the title of a poet. of a true creator. For with all his wild vagueness, this highest intellectual honour cannot be refused him. The figures and scenes which he lays before us, distorted, entangled, indescribable as they seem, have a true poetic existence; for we not only hear them, but we see them, afar off, by the wondrous light, which none but the Poet, in the strictest meaning of that word, can shed over them. So long as —humour will avail him, his management even of higher and stronger characters may still be pronounced successful; but, whenever humour ceases to be applicable, his success is more or less imperfect. In the treatment of heroes proper he is seldom completely happy. They shoot into rugged exaggeration in his hands, their sensibility becomes too Copious and tearful, their magnanimity too fierce, abrupt and thorough-going. In some few instances, they verge towards absolute failure: compared with their less ambitious brethren, they are almost of a vulgar cast; with, all their brilliancy and vigour, too like that positive, determinate, choleric, volcanic class of personages whom we meet with so frequently in'novels; they call themselves Men, and do their utmost to prove the assertion, but they cannot make us believe it; for after all their vapouring and storming we see well enough that they are but Engines, with no more life than the Freethinkers' model in Martinus Scriblerus, the Nuremberg Man, who operated by a combination of pipes and levers, and though he could breathe and digest perfectly, and even reason as well as most country parsons, was made of wood and leather. In the general conduct of such histories and delineations, Richter seldom appears to advantage: the incidents are often startling and extravagant; the whole structure of the story has a rugged, broken, huge, artificial aspect, and will not assume the air of truth. Yet its chasms are strangely filled up with the costliest materials; a world, a universe of wit and knowledge and fancy and imagination has sent its fairest products to adorn the edifice; the rude and rent cyclopean walls are resplendent with jewels and beaten gold; rich stately foliage screens it, the balmiest odours encircle it; we stand astonished if not captivated,' delighted if not charmed by the artist and his art. By a critic of his own country, Richter has been named a Western Oriental, an epithet which Goethe himself is at the pains to reproduce and illustrate in his West-ostlichter Divan. The mildness, the warm all-comprehending love attributed to Orientalspoets, may irn fact be discovered in Richter; not less their fantastic exaggeration, JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 449 their brilliant extravagance; above all, their overflowing abundance, their lyrical diffuseness, as if writing for readers who were altogether passive, to whom no sentiment could be intelligible unless it were expounded and dissected, and presented under all its thousand aspects. In this last point, Richter is too much an Oriental: his passionate outpourings would often be more effective were they far briefer. Withal, however, he is a Western Oriental: he lives in the midst of cultivated Europe in the nineteenth century; he has looked with a patient and piercing eye on its motley aspect; and it is this Europe, it is the changes of its.many-coloured life, that are held up to us in his works. His subject is Life; his chosen study has been Man. Few have known the world better, or taken at once a clearer and a kindlier view of its concerns. For Richter's mind is at peace with itself: a mild, humane, beneficent spirit breathes through his works. His very contempt, of which he is by no means incapable or sparing, is placid and tolerant; his affection is warm, tender, comprehensive, not dwelling among the high places of the world, not blind to its objects when found among the poor and lowly. Nature in all her scenes and manifestations he loves with a deep, almost passionate love; from the solemn phases of the starry heaven to the simple floweret of the meadow, his eye and his heart are open for her charms and her mystic meanings. From early years, lie tells us, he may be said to have almost lived under the open sky:'here he could recreate himself, here he studied, here he often wrote. It is not with the feeling of a mere painter and view-hunter that he looks on Nature: but he dwells amid her beauties and solemnities as in the mansion of a Mother; he finds peace in her majestic peace; he worships, in this boundless Temple, the great original of Peace, to whom the Earth and the fulness thereof belongs. For Richter does not hide from us that he looks to the Maker of the Universe as to his Father; that in his belief of man's Immortality lies the sanctuary of his spirit, the solace of all suffering, the solution of all that is mysterious in human destiny. The wild freedom with which he treats the dogmas of religion must not mislead us to suppose that he himself is irreligious or unbelieving. It is Religion, it is Belief, in whatever dogmas expressed, or whether expressed in any, that has reconciled for him the contradictions of existence, that has overspread his path with light, and chastened the fiery elements of his spirit by mingling with them Mercy and Humility. To many of my readers it may be surprising, that in this respect Richter is almost solitary among the great minds of his country. These men too, with few exceptions, seem to have arrived at spiritual peace, at full harmonious development of being; but their path to it has been different. In Richter alone, among the great (and even sometimes VOL. I. 29 450 APPENDIX. truly moral) writers of his day,l do we find the Immortality of the Soul expressly insisted on, nay so much as incidentally alluded to. This is a fact well meriting investigation and reflection, but here is not the place for treating it. Of Richter's Works I have left myself no room for speaking individually; nor, except with large details, could the criticism of them be attempted with any profit. His Novels, published in what order I have not accurately learned, are the Unsichtbare Loge -(Invisible Lodge); Flegeljahre (Wild Oats); Leben Fibels, Verfassers der Beinrodischen Fibel (Life of Fibel; or to translate the spirit of it: Life of Primer, Author of the Christ-church Primer); Leben des Quintus Fixlein, and Schmelzle's Reise, here presented to the English reader; Katzenberger's Badereise, and the Jubelsenior; with two of much larger and more ambitious structure, Hesperus and Titan, each of which I have in its turn seen rated as his masterpiece: the former only is known to me. His' ork on Criticism has been mentioned already: he has also written on Education, a volume named Levana; the Campanerthal (Campanian Vale) I understand to turn upon the Immortality of the Soul. His miscellaneous and fugitive writings were long to enumerate. Essays, fantasies, apologues, dreams, have appeared in various periodicals: the best of these performances, collected and revised by himself, were published some years ago, under the title of Herbst-Blumine (Autumnal Flora). There is also a Clhrestoimathie (what we should call Beauties) of Richter, in four volumes. To characterise these works would be difficult after the fullest inspection: to describe them to English readers would be next to impossible. Whether poetical, philosophical, didactic, or fantastic, they seem all to be emblems, more or less complete, of the singular mind where they originated. As a whole, the first perusal of them, more particularly to a foreigner, is almost infallibly offensive; and neither their meaning, nor their no-meaning, is to be discerned without long and sedulous study. They are a tropical wilderness, full of endless tortuosities; but with the fairest flowers, and the coolest fountains; now overarching us with high umbrageous gloom, now opening in long gorgeous vistas. We wander through them enjoying their wild grandeur; and by degrees, our half-contemptuous wonder at the Au-. thor passes into reverence and love. His face was long hid from us: but we see him at length, in the firm shape of spiritual manhood, a 1 The two venerable Jacobis belong, in character, if scarcely in date, to an older school; so also does Herder, from whom Richter learned much, both morally and intellectually, and whom he seems to have loved and reverenced beyond any other. Wieland is intelligible enough; a sceptic in the style of Bolingbroke and Shaftesbury, what we call a French or Scotch sceptic, a rather shallow species. Lessing also is a sceptic, but of a much nobler sort; a doubter who deserved to believe. JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 451 vast and most singular nature, but vindicating his singular nature by the force, the beauty and benignity which pervade it. In fine, we joyfully accept him for what he is, and was meant to be. The graces, the polish, the sprightly elegancies which belong to men of lighter make, we cannot look for or demand from him. His movement is essentially slow and cumbrous, for he advances not with one faculty, but with a whole mind; with intellect, and pathos, and wit, and humour, and imagination, moving onward like a mighty host, motley, ponderous, irregular and irresistible. He is not airy, sparkling and precise; but deep, billowy and vast. The melody of his nature is not expressed in common note-marks, or written down by the critical gamut; for it is wild and manifold; its voice is like the voice of cataracts and the sounding of primeval forests. To feeble ears it is discord, but to ears that understand it deep majestic music. In his own country, we are told,' " Richter has been in fashion, then out of fashion, then in it again; till at last he has been raised far above all fashion," which indeed is his proper place. What his fate will be in England is now to be decided. Could much-respected counsels from admirers of Richter have availed with me, he had not at present been put upon his trial. Predictions are unanimous that here he will be condemned or even neglected. Of my countrymen, in this small instance, I have ventured to think otherwise. To those, it is true, " the space of whose Heaven does not extend more than three ells," and who understand and perceive that with these three ells the Canopy of the Universe terminates, Richter will justly enough appear a monster, from without the verge of warm three-ell Creation; and their duty, with regard to him, will limit itself to chasing him forth of the habitable World, back again into his native Chaos. If we judge of works of art, as the French do of language, with a Cela ne se dit pas, Richter will not escape his doom; for it is too true that he respects not the majesty of Use and Wont, and has said and thought much which is by no means usually said and thought. In England, however, such principles of literary jurisprudence are rarer. To many, I may hope, even this dim glimpse of a spirit like Richter's will be gratifying; and if it can hardly be expected that their first judgment of him will be favourable, curiosity 1 Franz Horn's Poesie und Beredsamkeit der Deutschen (Poetry and Eloquence of the Germans, from Luther's time to the present); a work which I am bound to recommend to all students of German literature, as a valuable guide and indicator. Bating a certain not altogether erroneous sectarianism in regard to religion; and a certain janty priggishness of style, nay, it must be owned, a corresponding priggishness of character, they will find in Horn a lively, fair, well-read, and on the whole interesting and instructive critic. The work is in three volumes; to which a prior publication, entitled Uqmrisse (Outlines), forms a fourth; bringing down the History, or rather Sketch, to the borders of the year 1819. 452 APPENDIX. may be awakened, and a second and a truer judgment, on ampler grounds and maturer reflection, may follow. His larger works must ultimately become known to us; they deserve it better than thousands which have had that honour. Of the two Works here offered to the reader, little special explanation is required. Schmelzle's,Tourney I have not found noticed by ally of his German critics; and must give it on my own responsibility, as one of the most finished, as it is at least one of the simplest, among his smaller humorous performances. The Life of Fixlein, no stepchild in its own country, seems nevertheless a much more immature, as it is a much earlier composition. I select it not without reluctance; rather from necessity than preference. Its faults, I am too sure, will strike us much sooner than its beauties; and even by the friendliest and most patient critic, it must be admitted that among the latter, many of our Author's highest qualities are by no means exhibited in full concentration, nay, that some of them are wanting. altogether, or at best, indicated rather than evinced. Let the reader. accept it with such allowances; not as Richter's best novel, which it is far from being, but simply as his shortest complete one; not as a full impress of him, but as a faint outline, intended rather to excite curiosity than to satisfy it. On the whole, Richter's is a mind pe-: culiarly difficult to represent by specimen; for its elements are complex and various, and it is not more by quality than by quantity. that it impresses us. Both Works I have endeavoured to present in their full dimensions, with all their appurtenances, strange as some of these may appear. If the language seem rugged, heterogeneous, perplexed, the blame is not wholly mine. Richter's style may be pronounced the most untranslatable, not in German only, but in any other modern literatures Let the English reader fancy a Burton writing, not an Anatomy of Melancholy, but a foreign romance, through the scriptory organs of a Jeremy Bentham! Richter exhausts all the powers of his own most ductile language: what in him was overstrained and rude, would naturally become not less but more so in the hands of his translator. 1 The following long title of a little German Book I may quote by way of premunition:: K. REINHOLD's Lexicon for JEAN PAUL'S Works, or Explanation of all the foreign Words and unusual Modes of Speech which occur in his Writings; with short. Notices of the historical Persons and Facts therein alluded to; and plain German Versions of the most difficult Passages in the Context. A necessary Assistant for all who would read those Works with Profit. First Volume containing LEvANA. Leipzig, 1808." Unhappily, with this First Volume, K. Reinhold seems to have stopped short. More than once, in the following pages, have I longed for his help; and been forced at last to rest satisfied with a meaning, and too imperfect a conviction that it was the right one. GOETHE. 453 For this, and many other offences of my Author, apologies might be attempted; but much as I wish for a favourable sentence, it is not meet that Richter, in the Literary Judgment-hall, should appear as a culprit; or solicit suffrages, which, if he cannot claim them, are unavailing. With the hundred real, and the ten thousand seeming weaknesses of his cause, a fair trial is a thing he will court rather than dread.' GOETHE. THE distinguished and peculiar man, who occupies the last volume in our Collection, has lightened the task of his biographers and critics, by a work of great interest, which he has himself given to the world, and of which some more or less accurate resemblance is also before the English reader. In his Dichtunq und Wahrheit, Goethe has accomplished the difficult problem of autobiography with what seems a singular success: here, in the kindest and coolest spirit, he conducts us through the scenes of his past existence; unfolds with graphic clearness, and light gay dignity, whatever influenced the formation of his character and mode of thought; depicting all with the knowledge of a chief actor, and the calm impartial penetration of a spectator; speaking of himself as many would wish, but few are able, to speak of themselves: In the temper of a third party, and not sooner or not farther than others are desirous and entitled to hear that subject treated. If the old remark is true, that a faithful secret-history of the humblest human being would be attractive and instructive to the highest, this picture of the spiritual and moral growth of a Goethe may well be considered as deserving no common attention. I am sorry to understand that the English version of the work is not from the German, but from the French: judging by the size of.the book, the business of curtailment in this Life of Goethe must have been proceeded in with a liberal and fearless hand; it seems also that there A are additions, which probably are still more offensive. To this copy of the portrait, defaced and distorted as it cannot fail to be, I must not refer the reader: yet all that can be attempted here is a few slight sketches, more in the way of commentary than of narrative. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born at Frankfort on the Mayn, on the 28th of August 1749. The station and circumstances of his family were of a favourable sort: his father bore the title of Imperial Councillor, and though personally unconnected with active affairs, stood in close relation with the influential and cultivated classes of the community. Both parents appear likewise to have been of a determinate and genuine form of mind, possessing many virtues, and no 454 APPENDIX. inconsiderable share of intellectual gifts and attainments. In the height of his fame, it was observed of Goethe, that his true-hearted, idiomatic and expressive style of speech recalled his mother to memory; who, while nursing her fair boy on her knee, had little dreamed that in him her own good and kindly character was to be transfigured to such beauty and enlargement, and transmitted in glorious emblems to distant countries and succeeding ages. The father, of course, was fashioned in a more rugged mould, and seems also to have been originally of sterner stuff; a rigorous, abrupt, positive and thoroughgoing man; somewhat of a humorist, for he actually built his house from the top downwards; testy and indomitable, but not ill-natured or ungenerous; clear in his perceptions, as he was resolute in his actions; and Withal of an honest and manly heart. Both these modes of character appear to have united in the son; the liveliest susceptibility of all sorts was superadded to them; and the scene he lived in acted on him with strong and complicated influences. These earliest images of his memory he has set before us with the most graceful simplicity in the work above referred to: the aspects of life in Gothic Frankfort, with its old German minds and old German manners, are brought home to our eyes; we walk among rich old-fashioned wondrous objects, and converse with originals as wondrous and old-fashioned as their abode. Goethe was destined, as his father had been, for the profession of law; and in due time, he went successively to Leipzig and Strasburg, to prepare for, and to undertake, the study of it. But his quick, impassioned and discursive mind, impressed by the most varied impulses, was continually diverging into many provinces remote enough from this his appointed occupation; for which, as was naturally to be expected, he had never shown any preference; though, from time to time, he had not failed to prosecute, with fits of resolute diligence, the tasks prescribed by it. In 1771, he obtained his degree: but if the form of his outward life might now seem clear and determined, his inward world was still in a state of uproar and disorder, The ambition of wealth and official celebrity would not seize him with due force: a thousand vague purposes, and vehement wishes, and brightest and blackest forecastings, were conflicting within him; for a strong spirit was here struggling to body itself forth from the most discordant elements; and what was at last to rise as a fair universe of thought still rolled as a dim and wasteful chaos. By degrees, however, after not a little suffering in many hard contests with himself and his circumstances, he began to emerge from these troubles: light dawned on his course; and his true destination, a life of literature, became more and more plain to him. His first efforts were crowned with a success well calculated to confirm him GOETHE. 455 in such purposes. GOtz von Berlichingen, an historical drama of the Feudal Ages, appeared in 1773; by the originality both of its subjects and its execution, attracting the public eye to the young author: and next year his Sorrows of FWerter rose like a literary meteor on the world; and carried his name on its blazing wings, not only over Germany, but into the remotest corners of Europe. The chief incident of this work had been suggested by a tragical catastrophe, which had occurred in his neighbourhood, during a residence at Wetzlar: the emotions and delineations which give life to it; the vague impassioned longing, the moody melancholy, the wayward love and indignation, the soft feeling and the stern philosophy, which characterise the hero, he had drawn from his own past or actual experience. The works just mentioned, though noble specimens of youthful talent, are still not so much distinguished by their intrinsic merits, as by their splendid fortune. It would be difficult to name two books, which have exercised a deeper influence on the subsequent literature of Europe, than these two performances of a young author; his first-fruits, the produce of his twenty-fourth year. Werter appeared to seize the hearts of men in all quarters of the world, and to utter for them the word which they had long been waiting to hear. As usually happens, too, this same word once uttered was soon abundantly repeated; spoken in all dialects, and chanted through all the notes of the gamut, till at length the sound of it had grown a weariness rather than a pleasure. Sceptical sentimentality, view-hunting, love, friendship, suicide and desperation, became the staple of literary ware; and though the epidemic, after a long course of years, subsided in Germany, it reappeared with various modifications in other countries; and everywhere abundant traces of its good and bad effects are still to be discerned. The fortune of Berlichingen with the Iron Hand, though less sudden, was by no means less exalted. In his own country, Gotz, though he now stands solitary and childless, became the parent of an innumerable progeny of chivalry plays, feudal delineations, and poetico-antiquarian perforAances; which, though long ago deceased, made noise enough in their day and generation: and with ourselves his influence has been perhaps still more remarkable. Sir Walter Scott's first literary enterprise was a translation of Glitz von Berlichinqen: and if genius could be communicated like instruction, we might call this work of Goethe's the prime cause of Marnzion and the Lady of the Lake, with all that has followed from the same creative hand. Truly, a grain of seed that has lighted in the right soil! For. if not firmer and fairer, it has grown to be taller and broader than any other tree; and all the nations of the Earth are still yearly gathering of its fruit. But overlooking these spiritual genealogies, which bring little cer .456 APPENDIX. tainty and little profit, it may be sufficient to observe of Berlichingen and Werter, that they stand prominent among the causes, or, at the very least, among the signals, of a great change in modern Literature. The former directed men's attention with a new force to the picturesque effects of the Past; and the latter, for the first time, attempted the more accurate delineation of a class of feelings, deeply important to modern minds; but for which our elder poetry offered no exponent, and perhaps could offer none, because they are feelings that arise from passion incapable of being converted into action, and belong chiefly to an age as indolent, cultivated and unbelieving as our own. This, notwithstanding the dash of falsehood which may exist in Werter itself, and the boundless delirium of extravagance which it called forth in others, is a high praise which cannot justly be denied it. The English reader ought also to understand that our current version of Werter is mutilated and inaccurate: it comes to us through the all-subduing medium of the French; shorn of its caustic strength; wTh1itts mnelancholy rendered maudlin; its hero reduced from the stately gloom of a broken-hearted poet to the tearful wrangling of a dyspeptic tailor. One of the very first to perceive the faults of these works, and the ridiculous extravagance of their imitators, was Goethe himself. In this unlooked-for and unexampled popularity, he was far from feeling that he had attained his object: this first outpouring of his soul had calmed its agitations, not exhausted or even indicated its strength; and he now began to see afar off a much higher region, as well as glimpses of the track by which it might be reached. To cultivate his own spirit, not only as an author, but as a'man; to obtain dominion over it, and wield its resources as instruments in the service of what seemed Good and Beautiful, had been his object more or less distinctly from the first, as it is that of all true men in their several spheres.: According to his own deep maxim, that' Doubt of any sort can, only be removed by Action,' this object had now become more clear- to him; and he may be said to have pursued it to the. present hour, with a comprehensiveness and unwearied perseverance, rarely if ever exemplified in the history of such a mind. His external relations had already ceased to obstruct him in this pursuit, and they now became more favourable than ever. In 1776, the Heir Apparent of Weimar was passing through Frankfort; on which occasion, by the intervention of some friends, he waited upon Goethe. The visit must have been mutually agreeable; for a short time afterwards, the young author was invited to Court; apparently, to contribute his assistance in various literary institutions and arrangements, then proceeding or contemplated; and in pursuance of this honourable call, he accordingly settled at Weimar, with the title GOETHE. 457 of Leqationsrath, and the actual dignity of a place in the C'olleghim, or Council. The connexion, begun under such favourable auspices, and ever since continued unimpaired, has been productive of important consequences, not only to Weimar, but to all Germany. The noble purpose undertaken by the Duchess Amelia, was zealously forwarded by-the young Duke on his accession; under whose influence, supported and directed by his new Councillor, this inconsiderable state has gained for itself a fairer distinction than any of its larger, richer, or more warlike rivals. By degrees, whatever was brightest in the genius of Germany had been gathered to this little Court: a classical theatre was under the superintendence of Goethe and Schiller; here Wieland taught and sung; in the pulpit was Herder: and possessing such a four, the small town of Weimar, some twenty years ago, might challenge the proudest capital of the world to match it in intellectual wealth. Occupied so profitably to his country, and honourably to himself, Goethe continued rising in estimation with his Prince: by degrees, a political was added to his literary influence; in 1779 he became Privy Councillor; President in 1782; and, at length, after his return from Italy, where he had spent two years in various studies and observation, he was appointed Minister; a post which he only a few years ago resigned, on his final retirement from public affairs. In this, his second country, he still resides. The German biographies are careful to inform us that by the Duke of Weimar he was ennobled; and decorated by Alexander and Napoleon, and various other kings and kaisers, with their several insignia of honour. A much purer and more imperishable series of honours he has earned for himself, by the peaceful efforts of his own genius. His active duties were, at all times, more or less intimately connected with literature; they seem not to have obstructed the silent labours of his closet; and perhaps they rather forwarded the great business of his life, a thorough universal culture of all his being. Goethe's history is a picture of the most diverse studies and acquisitions: Literature he has tried successfully in nearly every one of its departments; with Art, ancient and modern, he has familiarised himself beyond a rival; Science, also, he seems to have surveyed with no careless or feeble eye, and his contributions to several of its branches, particulaily of Botany and Optics, have been thankfully received by their professors. Some of our readers may be surprised to learn, that the painted Diagram of Mountain-altitudes which ornaments their libraries, exhibiting in one view the successive elevations of the Globe, was devised by the Author of Faust and The Sorrows of tvWerter. Goethe's purely literary works amount to between twenty and thirty considerable volumes. A bare enumeration of their names, 458 APPENDIX. without note or comment, would be perplexing rather than instructive; and for note or comment of the humblest sort our present limits are too narrow. In the province of the Drama, omitting Egmont, Iphigenie, and multitudes of lighter pieces, we must mention, as entitled to peculiar distinction, the tragedy of Torquato Tasso, ahd the play of Faust. The first paints, in simple gracefulness, the poetic temperament at conflict with the ordinances of vulgar life; a pure and touching picture, full of wisdom, calm depth and unostentatious pathos. The second, of a still deeper character, images forth, in the superstitious tradition of Faust, the contest of the good principle in human nature with the bad; the struggle of Man's Soul against Ignorance, Sin and Suffering; the indirect subject of many, perhaps of all true poems; but here treated directly, with a wild mysterious impressiveness, which distinguishes this play from every other. Faust and also Iph.qenie have been translated into English. Another singular performance of Goethe's is Reinecke Fuchs, a poetic version of the old tale, said to be originally a Netherlands political pasquinade, and which exists in English, under the corresponding title of Reynard the Fox. Goethe's work is written in hexameters, in twelve books, like another Eneid: a wondrous affair; imbued with the truest humour, full of marvellous imitations, grotesque descriptions, and manifold moralities. If beasts could speak, we should surely expect them to express their'general views' as they are made to do in this epos: the ass here is a philosophical masticator of thistles and gorse; Bruin thinks, and talks, and acts, like a very bear; and' Malapertus the Fortress' is still redolent of murdered poultry. Nor is this strange mimicry the sole charm of the work; for there is method in its madness; across these marvellous delineations we discern a deeper significance. It is a parody of human life, as it were, a magic picture, with forms of the wildest mirth, which, while we gaze on them, sadden into serious and instructive, though still smiling, monitors. Herman und Dorothea is also written in hexameters, and with a cheerful earnestness, which has recommended it to great favour with the Germans. You see it printed in gay miniature, with gilding and decorations; and friend testifies his kindness to friend by the present of this Civic Epos. In the Romance department, Goethe has written several works, and on peculiar principles. Besides Werter, we have Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, and Die Wahlverwandtschafiten (The Elective Affinities); and five years ago he published the first volume of Wilhelm Meister's Travels, a fragment which the reader is now to have an opportunity of perusing. These performances, though bearing the common name of novel, are of very varied quality: and some of them but ill represented by so trivial a title. Wilhelm Meister's Ap 'GOETHE. 459 prenticeship, for instance, whatever may be thought of it in other respects, has a deeper object than many a poem which has called itself epic: nor was it hastily or carelessly huddled together without study; for this novel, it would appear, lay ten years in the Author's mind and hand, one year longer than even the Horatian period. Like many of his other works, Meister has called forth a numerous series of imitations; but the strength of such productions lies less in the form than in the substance, which it is not so easy to copy; and accordingly, when most of these'Art-novels' are forgotten, Meister alone continues rising in esteem. Except the Wahlverwandtschaften, all Goethe's novels are now in English. Of his numerous short Poems it is difficult to say a well-weighed word: for they are of all sorts, gay and grave, descriptive, lyrical, didactic, idyllic, epigrammatic; and of all these species, the common name, without long expositions, would, when applied to him, excite a false idea. Goethe is nowhere more entirely original,- more fascinating, more indescribable, than in his smaller poems. One quality which very generally marks them, particularly those of a later date, is their peculiar expressiveness, their fulness of meaning. A single thing is said, and a thousand things are indicated. They are spells which cleave to our memory, and by which we summon beautiful spirits from the vasty deep of thought. Often at the first aspect they appear commonplace, or altogether destitute of significance: we look at the lines on the canvas; and they seem careless dashes, mere random strokes, representing nothing save the caprices of their author; we change our place, we shift and shift, till we find the right point of view; and all at once a fair figure starts into being, encircled with graces and light charms, and by its witcheries attracting heart and mind. In his songs he recalls to us those of Shakspeare: they are not speeches, but musical tones; the sentiment is not stated in logical sequence, but poured forth in fitful and fantastic suggestions: they are the wild wood-notes of the nightingale; they are to be sung, not said. A large portion of Goethe's writings still remains to be classed under the head of Miscellanies. We have sketches of Travels; dissertations, direct or allegorical, on Art; autobiography, continuous or in fragments; fantasies, dialogues, or other light essays, on Taste, Manners, and Morals; there is even a short treatise on the geography of the Children of Israel's journey into Canaan! Nor has he disdained the humble offices of a translator and editor. The Life/of Benvenuto Cellini, which lately appeared in English, he long ago translated, with notes. Voltaire's Mahomet had a similar honour from him; also Diderot's Nevez de Rameau, the original of which was published only very lately, many years after the German version. 460 APPENDIX. His editorial functions, I believe, he has not yet laid aside; for two periodicals, the 2Morpholoqie and the Kunst und Alterthum (Art and Antiquities), are still occasionally continued under his direction and cooperation. Such are some specimens of the labours, in which Goethe has spent many diligent and most honourable years. That they are too varied to be all excellent, that he would have better cared for his fame, had he limited his efforts to a narrower circle, is an obvious cavil; to which also he can reply, as he has already done for D'Alembert, that there are higher things on Earth than fame; th'at a universal development of our spiritual- nature may actually be more precious to us than the solace of our vanity; that the true business is to be, not to seem; and that intellectual artisanship, however wondered at, is less desirable than intellectual manhood. Goethe has a right to speak on this subject: for he has tried public favour, and tried the want of it; and found that he could hold on his way through either fortune. Thirty years ago, he might be said to be without an audience even in his own country; his best works were received with chilling apathy, or objected to with the most melancholy stolidity; and many a good-natured friend might be heard lamenting that the genius of Goethe should have faded with the fire of his youth, that the author of Werter and Berlichingen should have sunk to LMeister and Torquato Tasso. Goethe had outgrown his generation; his culture was too high for its apprehension. He went on unweariedly to cultivate himself still farther. These things have their day: the reign of Stupidity is boisterous and boastful; but it shall not endure forever. A better race of critics arose; the Nicolais' and Mansos 1 Nicolai was a Bookseller in Berlin; a man of a shrewd, inquiring, substantial mind; what is called a sound practical man. He had made considerable attainments in knowledge, by his own unaided efforts; and was indeed a very meritorious person, had he not committed one fundamental error: To the very last he never could persuade himself that there was anything in Heaven or Earth which had not been dreamed of in his philosophy. He was animated with a fierce zeal against Jesuits; in this most people thought him partly right: but when he wrote against Kant's philosophy, without comprehending it; and judged of poetry as he judged of Brunswick mum, by its utility, many people thought him wrong. A man of such spiritual habitudes is now by the Germans called a Philister, Philistine: Nicolai earned for himself the painful preeminence of being Erz-Philister, Arch-Philistine.. Stray specimens of the Philistine nation are said to exist in our own Islands; but we have no name for them like the Germans; who indeed, by this cheek-burning, may perhaps be thought to have cleaned their country too well of these Uncircumcised. By way of explanation, I should add, that Philister, in the dialect of German Universities, corresponds to the Brute of Cambridge; designating every non-student. As applied to Nicolai and his kindred, it came into use in the period of the Xenien (see ~ Tieck); and in this sense it is now to be found, with all its derivatives, even in grave writings. At present, the literary Philistine seldom shows, never parades, himself in Germany; and when he does appear, he is in the last stage of emaciation.' GOETHE. 461 gave place to the Schlegels, the Tiecks, the Richters. Goethe has lived to see a truer time; his calm perseverance has met with its outward as well as its inward rewards; and what was once the solitary consciousness of his own mind, is now reflected back to him from millions of approving minds. In the evening of his glorious life, a destiny has been provided for him such as falls to the lot of few mortals. Secluded in the bosom of his family; surrounded, and still occupied, with whatever is curious in literature, science, or art. the venerable Master, in looking at the bright past, may find it yet in harmony with the present and the future: for his heart and hand are still busy in his vocation; faces that love him gladden his abode; and voices of reverence arid gratitude reach him from all ends of the world. His mental faculties seem visited by no decay: the work written last year is as full of life as the work written threescore years ago: his mind. is growing older, but more interesting, as well as older; it is stiller, wiser, lovelier; and the long shadows of evening are blended with the mellowest sunshine. His West-ostlicher Divan, a series of Western-oriental sketches and poems, is still as graceful and expressive as if half a century had been subtracted from its date. Wilhelm iMeister's Travels was published in 1821; and some of our readers may peruse it with a new interest, as the, singular specimen of a light and living poem by a man of seventy-two. Of a nature so rare and complex it is difficult to form a true comprehension; difficult even to express what comprehension we have formed. In Goethe's mind, the first aspect that strikes us is its calmness, then its beauty; a deeper inspection reveals to us its vastness and unmeasured strength. This man rules, and is not ruled. The stern and fiery energies of a most passionate soul lie silent in thle centre of his being; a trembling sensibility has been inured to stand, without flinching or murmur, the sharpest trials. Nothing outward, nothing inward, shall agitate or control him. The brightest and most capricious fancy, the most piercing and inquisitive intellect, the wildest and deepest imagination; the highest thrills of joy, the bitterest pangs of sorrow: all these are his, he is not theirs. While he moves every heart from its stedfastness, his own is firm and still: the words that search into the inmost recesses of our nature, he pronounces with a tone of coldness and equanimity; in the deepest pathos he weeps not, or his tears are like water trickling from a rock of adamant. He is king of himself and of his world; nor does he rule it like a vulgar great man, like a Napoleon or Charles Twelfths by the mere bru —texeeri'6ii of.hisgv'witP;.-groudfiied on no principle, or on a false one: his faculties and feelings are not fettered or prostrated under the iron sway of Passion, but led and guided in kindly union 462 APPENDIX. under the mild sway of Reason; as the fierce primeval elements of Nature were stilled at the coming of Light, and bound together, under its soft vesture, into a glorious and beneficent Creation. This is the true Rest of man; no stunted unbelieving callousness, no reckless surrender to blind Force, no opiate delusion; but the harmonious adjustment of Necessity and Accident, of what is changeable and what is unchangeable in our destiny; the calm supremacy of the spirit over its circumstances; the dim aim of every human soul, the full attainment of only a ch6sen few. It comes not unsought to any; but the wise are wise because they think no price too high for it. Goethe's inward home has been reared by slow and laborious efforts; but it stands on no hollow or deceitful basis: for his peace is not from blindness, but from clear vision; not from uneertain hope of alteration, but from sure insight into what cannot alter.' His world seems once to have been desolate and baleful as that of the darkest sceptic: but he has covered it anew with beauty and solemnity, derived from deeper sources, over which Doubt can have no sway. He has inquired fearlessly, and fearlessly searched out and denied the False; but he has not forgotten, what is equally essential and infinitely harder, to search out and admit the True. His heart is still full of warmth, though his head is clear and cold; the world for him is still full of grandeur, though he clothes it with no false colours; his fellow-creatures are still objects of reverence and love, though their basenesses are plainer to no eye than to his. To reconcile these contradictions is the task of all good men, each for himself, in his own way and manner; a task which, in our age, is encompassed with difficulties peculiar to the time; and which Goethe seems to have accomplished with a success that few can rival. A mind so in unity with itself, even though it were a poor and small one, would arrest our attention, and win some kind regard from us; but when this mind ranks among the strongest and most complicated of the species, it becomes a sight full of interest, a study full of deep instruction. Such a mind as Goethe's is the fruit not only of a royal endowment by nature, but also of a culture proportionate to her bounty. In Goethe's original form of spirit we discern the highest gifts of manhood, without any deficiency of the lower:~ he has an eye and a heart equally for the sublime, the common, and the ridiculous; the: elements at once of a poet, a thinker1 and a wit. Of his culture we have often spoken already; and it deserves again to be held up to! praise and imitation. This, as he himself unostentatiously confesses, has been the soul of all his conduct, the great enterprise of his life; and few that understand him will be apt to deny that he has prospered. As a writer, his resources have been accumulated fromi GOETHE. 463 nearly all the provinces of human intellect and activity; and he has trained himself to use these complicated instruments with a light expertness which we might have admired in the professor of a solitary department. Freedom, and grace, and smiling earnestness are the characteristics of his works.: the matter of them flows along in chaste abundance, in the softest combination; and their style is referred to by native critics as the highest specimen of the German tongue. On this latter point the vote of a stranger may well be deemed unavailing; but the charms of Goethe's style lie deeper than the mere words; for language, in the hands of a master, is the exptess image of thought, or rather it is the body of which thought is the soul; the former rises into being together with the latter, and the graces of the one are shadowed forth in the movements of the other. Goethe's language, even to a foreigner, is full of character and secondary meanings; polished, yet vernacular and cordial, it sounds like the dialect of wise, ancient, and true-hearted men: in poetry, brief, sharp, simple and expressive; in prose, perhaps still more pleasing; for it is at once concise and full, rich, clear, unpretending and melodious; and the sense, not presented in alternating flashes, piece after piece revealed and withdrawn, rises before us as in continuous dawning, and stands at last simultaneously complete, and bathed in the mellowest and ruddiest sunshine. It brings to mind what the prose of Hooker, Bacon, Milton, Browne, would have been, had they written under the good, without the bad influences, of that French precision, which. has polished and attenuated, trimmed and impoverished, all modern languages; made our meaning clear, and too often shallow as well as clear. But Goethe's culture as a writer is perhaps less remarkable than his culture as a man. He has learned not in head only, but also in heart; not from Art and Literature, but also by action and passion, in the rugged school of Experience. If asked what was the grand characteristic of his writings, we should not say knowledge, but wisdom. A mind that has seen, and suffered, and done, speaks to us of what it has tried and conquered. A gay delineation will give us notice of dark and toilsome experiences, of business done in the great deep of the spirit; a maxim, trivial to the careless eye, will rise with light and solution over long perplexed periods of our own history. It is thus that heart speaks to heart, that the life of one man becomes a possession to all. Here is a mind of the most subtle and tumultuous elements; but it is governed in peaceful diligence, and its impettuous and ethereal faculties work softly together for good and noble ends. Goethe. may be called a Philosopher; for he loves and has practised as a man the wisdom which, as a poet, he inculcates. Composure and cheerful seriousness seem to breathe over all his charac 464 APPENDIX. ter. There is no whining over human woes: it is understood that we must all simply strive to alleviate or remove them. There is no noisy battling for opinions; but a persevering effort to make Truth lovely, and recommend her, by a thousand avenues, to the hearts of all men. Of his personal manners we can easily believe the universal report, as often given in the way of censure as of praise, that he is a man of consummate breeding and the stateliest presence: for an air of polished tolerance, of courtly, Wie might almost say majestic repose, and serene humanity, is visible throughout his works. In no line of them does he speak with asperity of any man; scarcely ever even of a thing. He knows the good, and loves it; he knows the bad and hateful, and rejects it; but in neither case with violence: his love is calm and active; his rejection is implied rather than pronounced; meek and gentle, though we see that it is thorough, and never to be revoked. The noblest and the basest he not only seems to comprehend, but to personate and body forth in their most secret lineaments: hence actions and opinions appear to him as they are, with all the circumstances which extenuate or endear them to the hearts where they originated and are entertained. This also is the spirit of our Shakspeare, and perhaps of every great dramatic poet. Shakspeare is no sectarian; to all he deals with equity and mercy; because he knows all, and his heart is wide enough for all. In his mind the world is a whole; he figures it as Providence governs it; and to him it is not strange that the sun should be caused to shine on the evil and the good, and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. Goethe has been called the German Voltaire;;but it is a name which does him wrong, and describes him ill. Except in the corresponding variety of their pursuits and knowledge, in which, perhaps, it does Voltaire wrong, the two cannot be compared. Goethe is all, or the best of all, that Voltaire was, and he is much that Voltaire did not dream of. To say nothing of his dignified and truthful character as a man, he belongs, as a thinker and a writer, to a far higher class than this enfant gate du monde qu'il gata. He is not a questioner and a despiser, but a teacher and a reverencer; not a destroyer, but a builder-up; not a wit only, but a wise man. Of him Montesquieu could not have said, with even epigrammatic truth: II a plus que personne l'esprit que tout le monde a. Voltaire was the cleverest of all past and present men; but a great man is something more, and this he surely was not. As poets, the two lived not in the same hemisphere, not in the same world. Of Voltaire's poetry, it were blindness to deny the polished intellectual vigour, the logical symmetry, the flashes that from time to time give it the colour, if not the warmth, of -re: but it is in a far other sense than this that Goethe is a poet; in a sense of which GOETHE. 465 the French literature has never afforded any example. We may venture to say of, him, that his province is high and peculiar; higher than any poet but himself, for several generations, has so faf succeeded in, perhaps even has stedfastly attempted. In reading Goethe's poetry, it perpetually strikes us that we are reading the poetry of our own day and generation. No demands are made on our credulity; the light, the science, the scepticism of the age, are not hid from us. He does not deal in antiquated mythologies, or ring changes on traditionary poetic forms; there are no supernal, no infernal influences, for Faust is an apparent rather than a real exception: but there is the barren prose of the nineteenth century, the vulgar life which we are all leading; and it starts into strange beauty in his hands; and we: pause in delighted wonder to behold the flower of Poesy blooming in that parched and rugged soil. This is the end of his Mlqnons and Harpers, of his Tassos and Mleisters. Poetry, as he views it, exists not in time or place, but in the spirit of man; and Art, with Nature, is now to perform for the poet, what Nature alone performed of old. The divinities and demons, the witches, spectres, and fairies, are vanished from the world, never again to be recalled: but the Imagination which created these still lives, and will forever live in man's soul; and can again pour its wizard light over the Universe, and summon forth enclhantments as lovely or impressive, and which its sister faculties will not contradict. To say that Goethe has accomplished all this, would be to say that his genius is greater than was ever given to any man: for if it was a high and glorious mind, or rather series of minds, that peopled the first ages with their peculiar forms of poetry, it must be a series of minds much higher and more glorious that shall so people the present. * The angels and demons that can lay prostrate our hearts in the nineteenth century, must be of another and more cunning fashion than those that subdued us in the ninth. To have attempted, to have begun this enterprise, may be accounted the greatest praise. That Goethe ever meditated it, in the form here set forth, we have no direct evidence: but indeed such is the end and aim of high poetry at all times and seasons; for the fiction of the poet is not falsehood, but the purest truth; and if he would lead eaptive our whole being, not rest satisfied with a part of it, he must address us on interests that are, not that were, ours; and in a dialect which finds a response, and not a contradiction, within our bosoms. How Goethe has fulfilled these conditions in addressing us, an in-. spection of his works, but no description, can inform us. Let me advise the reader to study them, and see. If he come to the task with an opinion that poetry is an amusement, a passive recreation; that its highest object is to supply a languid mind with fantastic shows and indolent emotions, his measure of enjoyment is likely to be VOL. I. 30 466 APPENDIX. scanty, and his criticisms will be loud, angry and manifold. But if he know and believe that poetry is the essence of all science, and requires the purest of all studies; if he recollect that the new may not always be the false; that the excellence which can be seen in a moment is not usually a very deep one; above all, if his own heart be full of feelings and experiences, for which he finds no name and no solution, but which lie in pain imprisoned and unuttered in his breast, till the Word be spoken, the spell that is to unbind them, and bring them forth to liberty and light; then, if I mistake not, he will find.. that in this Goethe there is a new world set before his eyes; a world of Earnestness and Sport, of solemn cliff and gay plain; some such temple- far inferior, as it may well be, in magnificence and beauty, but a temple of the- same architecture - some such temple for the Spirit of our age, as the Shakspeares and Spensers have raised for. the Spirit of theirs. This seems a bold assertion: but it is not made without deliberation, and such conviction as it has stood within my means, to obtain. If it invite discussion, and forward the discovery of the truth in this matter, its best purpose will be answered. Goethe's genius is a study for other minds than have yet seriously engaged with it among us. By and by, apparently ere long, he will be tried and judged righteously; he himself, and no cloud instead of him; for he comes to us in such a questionable shape, that silence and neglect will not always serve our purpose. England, the chosen home of justice in all its senses, where the humblest merit has been acknowledged, and the highest fault not unduly punished, will do no injustice to this extraordinary man. And if, when her impartial sentence has been pronounced and sanctioned, it shall appear that Goethe's earliest admirers have wandered too far into the language of panegyric, I hope it may be reckoned no unpardonable sin. It is spirit-stirring rather than spirit-sharpening, to consider that there is one of the Prophets here with us in our own day; that a man who is to. be numbered with the Sages and Sacri Vates, the Shakspeares, the Tassos, the Cervanteses of the world, is looking on the things which we look on, has-dealt with the very thoughts which we have to deal with, is reigning in serene dominion over the perplexities and contradictions in which we are still painfully entangled. That Goethe's mind is full of inconsistencies and shortcomings, can be a secret to no one who has heard of the Fall of Adam. Nor would it be difficult, in this place, to muster a long catalogue of darknesses defacing our perception of this brightness: but it might be still less, profitable than it is difficult; for in Goethe's writings, as in those of all true masters, an apparent blemish is apt, after maturer study, to pass into a beauty. His works cannot be judged in fractions, GOETHE. 467 for each of them is conceived and written as a whole; the humble and common may be no less essential there than the high and splendid: it is only Chinese pictures that have no shade. There is a maxim, far better known than practised, that to detect faults is a much lower occupation than to recognise merits. We may add also, that though far easier in the execution, it is not a whit more certain in the result. What is the detecting of a fault, but the feeling of an incongruity, of a contradiction, which may exist in ourselves as well as in the object. Who shall say in which z None but he who sees this object as it is, and himself as he is. We have all heard of the critic fly; but none of us doubts the compass of his own vision. It is -thus that a high work of art, still more that a high and original mind, may at all times calculate on much sorriest criticism. In looking at an extraordinary man, it were good for an ordinary man to be sure of seeing him, before attempting to oversee him. Having ascertained that Goethe is an object deserving study, it will be time to censure his faults when we have clearly estimated his merits; and if we are wise judges, not till then. Whether this work of Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre 1 will exalt or depress our actual judgment of him, I pretend not to predict. Like all Goethe's works, its immediate reception is doubtful, or rather, perhaps, it is not doubtful. That these Travels will surprise and disappoint the reader, is too likely; and perhaps the reader of the Apprenticeship will be more surprised than any other. The book is called a romance; but it treats not of romance characters or subjects; it has less relation to Fielding's Tom Jones than to Spenser's Faery Queen. The scene is notlaid on this firm Earth, but in a fair Utopia of Art and Science and free Activity: the figures, light and aOriform, come unlooked for, and melt away abruptly, like the pageants of Prospero in his enchanted Island. Whether this the baseless fabric of their vision is beautiful and significant like his, or vague and false, our readers are now to determine. To a reader of the 1 Wanderjahre denotes the period which a German artisan is, by law or usage, obliged to pass in travelling, to perfect himself in his craft, after the conclusion of his Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship), and before his Mastership can begin. In many gilds this custom is as old as their existence, and continues still to be indispensable; it is said to have originated in the frequent journeys of the German Emperors to Italy, and the consequent improvement observed in such workmen among their menials as had attended them thither. Most of the gilds are what is called geschenkzten, that is, presenting, having presents to give to needy wandering brothers. This word Wanderjahre I have been obliged to translate by Travels, after in vain casting about for an expression that should more accurately represent it. Our mechanics have a word much nearer the mark: but this was never printed; and must not be printed, for the first time, here. 468 APPENDIX. original this question may appear already pretty well decided: in both languages, it is true, the work is still a fragment, hanging suspended in middle air; but the matchless graces of its workmanship, the calm fulness, the noble simplicity of its style, are; in many points, for the one language only. Nevertheless, I present this work to the English people without reluctance or misgivings, persuaded that though it may be caviare to the general, there are not wanting tastes among us to discern its worth and worthlessness, even under its present disadvantages, and to pronounce truly on both. Of his previous reception in this country, neither Goethe nor his admirers have reason to complain. By all men who have any pretension to depth or sensibility of mind, the existence of a high and peculiar genius has been cheerfully recognised in him;' a fact which, considering the unwonted and in many points forbidding aspect of his chief works, does honour both to the author and his critics; while their often numerous and grave objections have proved only that they had studied him with the cursory eye, which may suffice for cursory writers, but for him is not sufficient, nor likely to be final. In no quarter has there appeared any tendency to wilful unfairness, any jealousy as -towards a stranger, any disposition to treat him otherwise than according to his true deserts. Indeed, wherefore should there? We of England have of all nations, past and present, the least cause to be jealous with this mean jealousy. Our own literature is peopled with kingly names; our language is beautiful with their English intellects and English characters; their works live forever in our hearts. If we cannot love and hold fast our own, and yet be just to others, who is there that can? In soliciting and anticipating a true estimate of Goethe, I have only to wish that the same sentiments may continue with us. For the rest, if it seem that I advocate this cause too warmly; that Goethe's genius, whether it be good or bad, is in truth a very small concern to us, I may be allowed to remind my readers, that the existence or non-existence of a new Poet for the World in our own time, of a new Instructor and Preacher of Truth to all men, is really a question of more importance to us than many that are agitated with far greater noise. FRACTIONS: TRAGEDY OF THE NIGHT-MOTH. 469 IL FRACTIONS. [1823-1833.1 TRAGEDY OF THE NIGH-T-MOTH. Mlagna ausus.'TIs placid midnight, stars are keeping Their meek and silent course in heaven; Save pale recluse, for knowledge seeking, All mortal things to sleep are given. But see! a wandering Night-moth enters, Allured by taper gleaming bright; A while keeps hovering round, then ventures On Goethe's mystic page to light. With awe she views the candle blazing; A universe of fire it seems To moth-savante with rapture gazing, Or Fount whence Life and Motion streams. What passions in her small heart whirling, Hopes boundless, adoration, dread; At length her tiny pinions twirling, She darts and —puff! —the moth is dead! The sullen flame, for her scarce sparkling, Gives but one hiss, one fitful glare; Now bright and busy, now all darkling, She snaps and fades to empty air. Her bright gray form that spread so slimly, Some fan she seemed of pigmy Queen; Her silky cloak that lay so trimly, Her wee, wee eyes that looked so keen. 470 APPENDIX. Last moment here, now gone forever, To naught are passed with fiery pain; And ages circling round shall never Give to this creature shape again! Poor moth! near weeping I lament thee, Thy glossy form, thy instant woe;'Twas zeal for'things too high' that sent thee From cheery earth to shades below. Short speck of boundless Space was needed For home, for kingdom, world to thee! Where passed unheeding as unheeded, Thy little life from sorrow free. But syren hopes from out thy dwelling Enticed thee, bade thee earth explore,Thy frame so late with rapture swelling, Is swept from earth forevermore! Poor moth! thy fate my own resembles: Me too a restless asking mind Hath sent on far and weary rambles, To seek the good I ne'er shall find. Like thee, with common lot contented, With humble joys and vulgar fate, I might have lived and ne'er lamented, Moth of a larger size, a longer date! But Nature's majesty unveiling What seem'd her wildest, grandest charms, Eternal Truth and Beauty hailing, Like thee, I rushed into her arms. What gained we, little moth? Thy ashes, Thy one brief parting pang may show: And thoughts like these, for soul that dashes From deep to deep, are- death more slow! FRACTIONS: CUI BONO-FOUR FABLES. 471 II. CUI BONO. What is Hope? A smiling rainbow Children follow through the wet;'Tis not here, still yonder, yonder: Never urchin found it yet. What is Life. A thawing iceboard On a sea with sunny shore;Gay we sail; it melts beneath us; We are sunk, and seen no more. What is Man? A foolish baby, Vainly strives, and fights, and frets; Demanding all, deserving nothing; - One small grave is what he gets. III. FOUR FABLES. Once upon a time, a man, somewhat in drink belike, raised a dreadful outcry at the corner of the market-place, "That the world was all turned topsy-turvy; that the men and cattle were all walking with their feet uppermost; that the houses and earth at large (if they did not mind it) would fall into the sky; in short, that unless prompt means were taken, things in general were on the high road to the Devil." As the people only laughed at him, he cried the louder and more vehemently; nay, at last, began objuring, foaming, imprecating; when a good-natured auditor, going up, took the orator by the haunches, and softly inverting his position, set him down - on his feet. The which upon perceiving, his mind was staggered not a little. "Ha! deuce take it!" cried he, rubbing his eyes, "so it was not the world that was hanging by its feet then, but I that was standing on my head!" Censor, Castigator morum, Radical Reformer, by whatever name thou art called! have a care; especially if thou art getting loud! PILPAY JUNIOR. 47-2 APPENDIX. 2. "Gentlemen," said a conjuror, one fine starry evening, "these heavens are a deceptio visiis; what you call stars are nothing but fiery motes in the air. Wait a little, I will clear them off, and show you how the matter is." Whereupon the artist produced a long syringe of great force; and, stooping over the neighbouring puddle, filled it with mud and dirty water, which he then *squirted with might and main against the zenith. The wiser of the company unfurled their umbrellas; but most part, looking up in triumph, cried, "Down with delusion! It is an age of science! Have we not tallow lights then?" Here the mud and dirty water fell, and bespattered and beplastered these simple persons, and even put out the eyes of several, so that they never saw the stars any more. Enlightened Utilitarian! art thou aware that this patent logic-mill of thine, which grindeth with such a clatter, is but a mill? P. J. "It is I that support this household," said a hen one day to herself. "the master cannot breakfast without an egg, for he is dyspeptical and would die, and it is I that lay it. And here is this'ugly poodle, doing nothing earthly, and gets thrice the victual I do, and is caressed all day! By the Cock of Minerva, they shall give me a double portion of oats, or they have eaten their last egg! " But much as she cackled and creaked, the scullion would not give her an extra grain; whereupon, in dudgeon, she hid her next egg in the dunghill, and did nothing but cackle and creak all day. The scullion suffered her for a week, then (by order) drew her neck, and purchased other eggs at sixpence the dozen. Man! why frettest thou and whinest thou? This blockhead is happier than thou, and still a blockhead? - Ah, sure enough, thy wages are too low! Wilt thou strike work'with Providence then, and force him to'an alternative' Believe it, he will do without thee: ii n'y a point d'homnme necessaire. P. J. 4. " What is the use of thee, thou gnarled sapling?" said a young larch-tree to a young oak. "I grow three feet in a year, thou scarcely as many inches; I am straight and taper as a reed, thou straggling and twisted as a loosened withe."-" And thy duration," answered the oak, "is some third part of man's life, and I am appointed to flourish for a thousand years. Thou art felled and sawed into paling, where thou rottest and art burned after a single summer; FRACTIONS: THE SOWER'S SONG. 473 of me are fashioned battle-ships, and I carry mariners and heroes into unknown seas." The richer a nature, the harder and slower its development. Two boys were once of a class in the Edinburgh grammar-school: John ever trim, precise and dux; Walter ever slovenly, confused and dolt. In due time, John became Baillie John of Hunter-square, and Walter became Sir Walter Scott of the Universe. The quickest and completest of all vegetables is the cabbage. P. J. IV. THE SOWER'S SONG. Now hands to seedsheet, boys, We step and we cast; old Time's on wing; And would ye partake of Harvest's joys, The corn must be sown in Spring. Fall gently and still, good corn, Lie warm in thy earthy bed; And stand so yellow some morn, For beast and man must be fed. Old Earth is a pleasure to see In sunshiny cloak of red and green; The furrow lies fresh; this Year will be As Years that are past have been. Fall gently, tic. Old Mother, receive this corn, The son of Six Thousand golden sires: All these on thy kindly breast were born; One more thy poor child requires. Fall gently, 6-c. Now steady and sure again, And measure of stroke and step we keep; Thus up and thus down we cast our grain: Sow well and you gladly reap. Fall gently and still, good corn, Lie warm in thy earthy bed; And stand so yellow some morn, For beast and man must be fed. 474 APPENDIX. v. ADIEU. Let time and chance combine, combine, Let time and chance combine; The fairest love from heaven above, That love of yours was mine, My dear, That love of yours was mine. The past is fled and gone, and gne, The past is fled and gone; If naught but'pain to me remain, I'll fare in memory on, My dear, I'll fare in memory on. The saddest tears must fall, must fall, The saddest tears must fall; In weal or woe, in this world below, I love you ever and all, My dear, I love you ever and all. A long road full of pain, of pain, A long road full of pain; One soul, one heart, sworn ne'er to part, - We ne'er can meet again, My dear, We ne'er can meet again. Hard fate will not allow, allow, Hard fate will not allow; We blessed were as the angels are, - Adieu forever now, My dear, Adieu forever now. FRACTIONS: THE BEETLE. 475 VI. THE BEETLE. Poor hobbling Beetle, needst not haste; Should Traveller Traveller thus alarm? Pursuer thy journey through the waste, Not foot of mine shall work thee harm. Who knows what errand grave thou hast, Small family' -that have not dined Lodged under pebble, there they fast, Till head of house have raised the wind! Man's bread lies'mong the feet of men; For cark and moil sufficient cause! Who cannot sow would reap;- and then In Beetledom are no Poor-Laws. And if thy Wife and thou agree But ill, as like when short of victual, I swear, the Public Sympathy Thy fortune meriteth, poor Beetle. Alas, and I should do thee skaith, To realms of Night with heeltap send! Who judg'd thee worthy pains of Death - On Earth, save me, without a Friend! Pass on, poor Beetle, venerable Art thou, were wonders ne'er so rife; Thou hast what Bel to Tower of Babel Not gave: the chief' of wonders - LIFE. Also of' ancient family,' Though small in size, of feature dark. What Debrett's Peer surpasseth thee? Thy Ancestor was in Noah's Ark. 476 APPENDIX. VII. TO-DAY. So- here hath been dawning Another blue Day: Think wilt thou let it Slip useless away. Out of Eternity This new Day is born; Into Eternity, At night, will return. Behold it aforetime No eye ever did: So soon it forever From all eyes is hid. Here hath been dawning Another blue Day: Think wilt thou let it Slip useless away. VIII. FORTUNA. The wind blows east, the wind blows west, And the frost falls and the rain: A weary heart went thankful to rest, And must rise to toil again,'gain, And must rise to toil again. The wind blows east, the wind blows west, And there comes good luck and bad; The thriftiest man is the cheerfullest''Tis a thriftless thing to be sad, sad,'Tis a thriftless thing to be sad. FRACTIONS: FORTUNA. 477 The wind blows east, the wind blows west; Ye shall know a tree by its fruit: This world, they say, is worst to the best; — But a dastard has evil to boot, boot, But a dastard has evil to boot. The wind blows east, the wind blows west; What skills it to mourn or to talk? A journey I have, and far ere I rest; I must bundle my wallets.and walk, walk, I must bundle my wallets and walk. The wind does blow as it lists alway; Canst thou change this world to thy mind? The world will wander its own wise way; I also will wander mine, mine, I also will wander mine. SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. A WELL-WRITTEN life almost as rare as a well-spent one. Dbring's Gallery of Weimar Authors: His helpless biographical method: No pique against him, poor man. His No-Life of Richter. (p. 5). - Jean Paul little known out of Germany. The leading events of his life: Personal characteristics. His multifarious Works. (9). - Must be studied as well as read. Eccentricities: Every work embaled in some fantastic wrappage. Not affectation: Consistent enough from his own point of vision. (15).Intellect, imagination, and humour: Sport the element in which his nature lived and worked. He loved all living with the heart of a brother. True Humour a kind of inverse sublimity, exalting into our affections what is lowly: In this quality Richter excels all German authors. (18).- All genuine things are what they ought to be: A harmonious development of being, the object of all true culture. Richter's worst faults nearly allied to his best merits. (23). - Imperfection of his Novels: A true work of art requires to be fused in the mind of its creator. Chiefly successful in his humorous characters, and with his heroines: His Dreams. His Philosophy not mechanical. Richter, in the highest sense of the word, religious: The martyr Fearlessness combined with the martyr Reverence. Extract from Quintus Fixlein: A Summer Night. Richter's value as a writer. (25). STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. Franz Horn's merits as a literary Historian. (p. 30). - French scepticism about German literature. Duty of judging justly: Human Society, at the present era, struggling to body itself forth anew: Necessity for an open mind. The French mind conspicuously shut: English ignorance of Germany accounted for. Difficulty of judging rightly the character of a foreign people. The Germans in particular have been liable to misrepresentation. Madame de Stail's Allemagne'did much to excite a reasonable curiosity: Promise of better knowledge and friendlier intercourse. (32). - 480 SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. Groundless or half-grounded objections to German literature. The Germans supposed to have a radically bad taste: Of what section of their literature this is true. The first condition of any real criticism, a transposition of the critic into the author's point of vision. The notion that outward poverty necessarily tends to inward meanness and unsightliness. True taste and culture, and loving insight into truth and nobleness, not the peculiar possession of any rank: Claude Lorraine, Shakspeare, and many others. The spirit of Mammon has a wide empire, but must not be worshipped in the Holy of Holies. (39).- The German authors better situated, and also show less care for wealth., than many of our own. The German nobility not insensible to ge nus: Goethe. The English might even learn of them in this respect. Tlie Germans not defective in taste: English and German dulness contrasted. National taste can only be judged from its perennial models: Wieland, Klopstock, Lessing, the two Jacobis, Mendelssohn and others. (47).- Germany far in advance of other nations. The highest Criticism an interpreter between the inspired and the uninspired. Every literature of the world has been cultivated by the Germans. Essence and origin of Poetic Beauty. (55). -Bread-artists, and lovers of'fame.' Schiller's noble idea of a true Artist: Fichte's. The plastic arts: Specimen of Goethe's pictorial criticism. (61). — High aspiration and earnest insight of German Poetry: Goethe. Growth of German literature parallel with that of our own: Utilitarianism: Passional extravagance. Byron, in his youth, what Schiller and Goethe had been in theirs: If Germany has gained the true path, we too shall find it. (67).German literature vaguely objected to for its Mysticism: Mystical generally meaning not understood. Things visible and invisible: Methods of teaching suitable to each. Tendencies to real mysticism; a George Fox or Jacob BShme. (74). - Absurdity of styling Kant a mystic: Distinctness and rigid sequence of his conceptions. Parlour-fire Philosophy of mind little valued in Germany. True claims of Kant, Schelling and Fichte. High worth of the Critical Philosophy. British inductive Philosophy since the time of Hume: Dugald Stewart: The German eductive method. The Kantian distinction between Understanding and Reason. Charge of' Irreligion.' (79). - Superiority of the Recent Poetry of Germany: A little light precious in great darkness. Present ominous aspect of spiritual Europe. Religion and Poetry can never die, however little their voice may be heeded: Happy the man or nation that can hear the tidings they are forever bringing, and can profit by them. (89). LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. The charm of' fame.' Werner's tumultuous career indicative of much in the history of his time. (p. 92). - Hitzig's Lives of Werner and Hoffmann. Werner's birth and parentage: Early connexion with the theatre. Left at fourteen, by his father's death, to the sole charge of his mother: Her hypochondria. Coincidences of Werner's and Hoffmann's early cir SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. 481 cumstances. Werner's dissolute college-life, and desultory strivings. At thirty he had already divorced two wives, and was looking out for a third: Unsteady irrational hopes, and wild enthusiasm of character. (94). - His early writings singularly contrasted with his later: His French scepticism overlaid with wondrous theosophic garniture. High colloquies in rather questionable fashion. His drama of the Sihne des Thals: Chiefly interesting as containing a picture of himself. Extracts, in which, with much tumid grandiloquence, he shadows forth his own creed: Scene, Story of the Fallen Master, Opinions and practices of the Templars. Scene, Robert d'Heredon on Destiny and the Resurrection of the body. (97). - Some account of the Second Part of the Sons of the Valley: Scene, Story of Phosphoros. Werner's dramatic talent. His prophetic aspirations. Self-forgetfulness the summary of his moral code: His strange missionary zeal. (112). - He marries his third wife. His faithful care and affection for his poor mother: Her death. His life at Warsaw: Intimacy with Hoffmann. His Kreuz an der Ostsee: Not suitable for the Stage. His drama of Martin Luther, oder die Weihe der Kraft. His portraiture of Luther:.Allegorical superfluities, and general insufficiency. (125). - Dramatic popularity: Vortex of society: Divorced from his third Wife. Strange state of marriage-law. Bedouin wanderings: Sees Goethe, Napoleon, and Madame de Stael. His project of a New Religion, abandoned.: Detestation of modern Protestantism. He visits Itaily. Spiritual Exercitations: Returns to the Catholic Faith: of his fathers. Ordained a Priest: Preaches with all his might at Viennan and elsewhere, amid much tumult and obloquy. Literary dregs. Drawing nigh to his end: Sleep of Death. Pray, wanderer, for a wanderer's soul-. (134). - Questionable character of his Life and Works. Gigantic endewvour, leading to most dwarfish performance. His change of faith evidently sincere: A melancholy posthumous fragment: No thought of returning to Protestantism.'His. mysticism and dissoluteness: His belief probably persuasion rather than conviction. -Religious opinion in Germany. We cannot justify Werner, yet let him be condemned with pity. (142). GOETHE'S HELENA. Goethe's tendency to complete whatsoever he began. His complete and final edition of his Works. Helena, a classico-romantic Phantasmagoria. Parabolic or half-parabolic character of much that Goethe has written. This style has in many cases its own appropriateness: The grand point to have a meaning, the, best form will then gather round of its own accord. Beauty and interest of the parabolic style in Goethe's hands. To read an author we must be able to see his object, whatever it may be, as he saw it. Everywhere in life, the true question is, not what we gain, but what we do. No book. that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be read at all. Goethe's works especially require to be so read. (p. 152). - Helena no exception to the rule: Forms part of a continuation of Faust. Faust very VOL. I. 31 &482 SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. little known in England, though considerably talked of. Emphatically a work of Art: A wondrous emblem- of the little Life of man, encompassed and overlooked by the stupendous All. Unedifying style of English. criticism: A better state of things coming. The Story of Faust a Christian mythus, in the same sense as that of Prometheus, Titan and the like, are Pagan ones. Various modern embodiments of the story: Friedrich Muller. (158). - Goethe the first who tried the subject, and the most successful. His Devil a symbol of wicked, irreverent knowledge; of specious logical Life, combined with moral Death: Faust represents the human heart, seeking and striving selfishly after'all good.' Consequent greedy disappointment: Bitterness and danger of Isolation: Vain strugglings towards the Impossible. Conflict of moral Life with moral Death. Faust a deep; poetic stating of the dark questionings which had long brooded over many hearts: Wonderful skill with which this is shadowed forth. The difficulty left unsolved. (162). -The Faust and Mephistopheles of Helena: Change of style and of tone: Notice concerning Faust and Helena by the Author. Different methods of treating this singular love-episode: How Goethe calls back the Past, and shows it still living in the conscious Present. (169). - Helena returns to Greece after the destruction of Troy. Her misgivings as to her own fate:- Her alarm aggravated by Phorcyas. Their primitive deportment, and frank, downright manner of speech. Phorcyas a feminine Mephistopheles. Her malicious sarcasm: Dialogue between Helena and Phorcyas: Helena terrified by Phorcyas into a consent to flee from impending retribution; and the Past of early Greece melts into the Present of the European middle ages. (173). — A wondrous region, neither sea nor good dry land. Helena's reception by Faust: Lynceus, the Warder of the tower. Emblematic adumbrations: Grecian Art, Teutonic Genius, School Philosophy. (186). - Faust and Helena in high favour with each other. Manners and achievements of the Middle Ages: Grecian influences. Birth of Modern Poetry; Euphorion: Inspired Poesy becomes rapt, inspired Life. Further work for Mephistopheles. (193). - Final identity of symbol and thing signified; Our Whereabout, not on the firm earth, but on the wide and airy Deep. Claims of Goethe to. the reverence and faith of all who would read him wisely. (200). GOETHE. Difficulty of justly estimating the worth of Goethe's works. British ignorance on the subject. Goethe's literary Kingship: His universal and undisputed ascendency. Singular value and interest of his Autobiography: Not written especially for' persons of quality' in England, but for persons of heart and head in Europe. (p. 204). — Goethe's unexampled reputation: A man's'fame' no test of his real worth. In Goethe's writings is embodied the new Wisdom peculiar to the new Time. (206). - Goethe, a man who had struggled toughly: Spiritual growth of his mind as exhibited in his successive Works: He became a Believer, not by denying his unbelief SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. 483 but by following it out. Unbounded popularity and influence of his two earliest works. Lifeless condition of the literary world previous to the publication of the Sorrows of Werter. Germany: England: Influence of Locke: The French had discovered that' as the stomach secretes Chyle, so does the brain secrete Thought.' Poetry degraded to a useful stimulant; and Religion to a superfluity by all means to be got rid of: Unbelief pressing with incubus force on the greater part of Europe. (216). - The poet a citizen not only of his country, but of his time: Werter the cry of that dim, rooted pain, under which thoughtful men everywhere were languishing: Byron's lifeweariness. Specimen of Werter's philospphy. Goethe's own account of the state of mind in which his Sorrows of Werter originated. (223).- His mental growth and attainment of victorious peace, evinced by Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. Extract, showing the character and high vocation of the Poet: Goethe's faithfulness to that ideal. English and German criticisms of Meister. (230). - The Wandejeahre; its high and melodious wisdom. Extracts, showing Goethe's view of the nature, objects and present ground of Religious Belief; Symbolic picture of the moral culture of Childhood; Reverence; Significance of the Israelitish history; The Divine Life of Christ, as distinguished from his Divine Death; The Sanctuary of Sorrow. (239). - Few men of his age have arisen so triumphantly as Goethe, above all manner of doubt and discontent, into the freedom of actual belief and clear activity. Among our own poets, Byron alone struggled manfully to the end; and he died while the victory was, at best, only beginning to be gained. Goethe's literary claims: His peculiar emblematic intellect: Entire freedom from mannerism. His spiritual characteristics. Distinction between the original man and the merely popular man. Contrast of Goethe and Voltaire, (249).- To judge a man rightly, we must see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad. What we mean by' a fault.' The highest and noblest beauty of a poem. Goethe's faults. A true Poem not to be judged of by mere taste. Happy contractedness of men in general: Fractional and universal standards. A deeper feeling for Art abroad over Europe. Our own ancient noble Literature will one day be studied and felt, as-well as talked of. (258). BURNS. Our grand maxim of supply and demand. Living misery and posthumous glory. The character of Burns a theme that cannot easily become exhausted. His Biographers. Perfection in Biography. (p. 265). -Burns, one of the most considerable British men of the eighteenth century: An age the most prosaic Britain had yet seen. His hard and most disadvantageous conditions. Not merely as a poet, but as a man, that he chiefly interests and affects us. His life a deeper tragedy than any brawling Napoleon's. His heart, erring and at length broken, full of inborn riches, of love to all living and lifeless things. The Peasant Poet bears 484 SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. himself among the low, with whom his lot is cast, like a King in exile. (269). — His Writings but a poor mutilated fraction of what was in him, vet of' a quality enduring as the English tongue. He wrote, not from hearsay, but from sight and actual experience. This, easy as it looks, the fundamental difficulty which all poets have to strive with. Byron, heartily as he detested insincerity, far enough from faultless. No poet of Burns's susceptibility from first to last so totally free from affectation. Some of his. Letters, however, by no means deserve this praise. His singular power of making all subjects, even the most homely, interesting. Wherever there is a sky above him and a world around him, the poet is in his place. Every genius an impossibility till he appears. (273). — Burns's rugged earnest truth, yet tenderness and sweet native grace.'His clear graphic' descriptive touches' and piercing emphasis of thought. Professor Stewart's testimony to Burns's intellectual vigour. A deeper insight than any' doctrine of association.' In the Poetry of Burns, keenness of insight keeps pace with keenness of feeling. Loving Indignation and good Hatred: Scots wha hae: Macpherson's Farewell: Sunny buoyant floods of Humour. (281). - Imperfections. of Burns's poetry: Tam o' Shanter, not a true poem so much as a piece of sparkling rhetoric: The Jolly Beggars, the most complete and perfect as a poetical composition. His Songs the most truly inspired and most deeply felt of all his poems. His influence on the hearts and literature of his country: Literary patriotism. (290). - Burns's acted Works even more interesting than -his written ones; and these. too, alas, but a fragment: His passionate youth never passed into clear and stedfast manhood. The only true happiness of a man: Often it is the greatest minds that are latest in obtaining it: Burns and Byron. Burns's hard-worked, yet happy boyhood: His estimable parents. Early dissipations. In Necessity and Obedience a man should find his highest Freedom. (298). —Religious quarrels and scepticisms. Faithlessness: Exile and blackest desperation. Invited to Edinburgh: A Napioleon among the crowned sovereigns of Literature. Sir Walter Scott's reminiscence of an interview with Burns. Burns's. calm manly bearing amongst the Edinburgh aristocracy. His bitter feeling of his own indigence. By the great he is treated in the customary fashion; and each party goes his several way. (303). - What Burns was next to do, or to avoid: His Excise and Farm scheme not an unreasonable one: No failure of external means, but of internal, that overtook Burns. Good beginnings. Patrons of genius and picturesque tourists: Their moral rottenness, by which he became infected, gradually eat out the heart of his life. Meteors of French Politics rise before him, but they are not his stars. Calumny is busy with him. The little great-folk of Dumfries: Burns's desolation. In his destitution and degradation one act of self-devotedness still open to him: Not as a hired soldier, but as a patriot, would he strive for the glory of his country.'The crisis of his life: Death. (309). - Little effectualhelp could perhaps have been rendered to Burns: Patronage twice cursed: Manya poet has been poorer, none prouder. And yet much might have been done to have made his humble atmosphere more genial. SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. 485 Little Babylons and Babylonians:. Let us go and do otherwise. The marketprice of Wisdom. Not in the power of any mere external circumstances to ruin the mind of a man. The errors of Burns to be mourned over, rather than blamed. The great want of his life was the great want of his age, a true faith in Religion and a singleness and unselfishness of aim. (315). - Poetry, as Burns could and ought to have followed it, is but another form of Wisdom, of Religion. For his culture as a Poet, poverty and much suffering for a season were absolutely advantageous. To divide his hours between poetry and rich men's banquets an ill-starred attempt. Byron, rich in worldly means and honours, no whit happier than Burns in his poverty and worldly degradation: They had a message from on High to deliver, which could leave them no rest while it remained unaccomplished. Death and the rest of the grave: A stern moral, twice told us in our own time. The world habitually unjust in its judgments of such men. With men of right feeling anywhere, there will be no need to plead for Burns: In. pitying admiration he lies enshrined in all our hearts. (321). THE LIFE OF HEYNE. Professor Heeren's biographical and general literary abilities. Stinted rub-a-dub style of thinking and writing: Rhetorical flourishes: Truthfulness and trustworthiness. (p. 327). - Some account of Heyne's early years, given in his own words. Honesty, industry and almost destitution of his parents. Petty tyranny and rapacity: A juvenile would-be Brutus. Early schooling: hardships and helps: A quick scholar. His account of his boyhood rather barren and intolerant. Extraordinary school proficiency. A small degree of self-confidence awakened in him: General discontent: Becomes a private tutor. (330).- At Leipzig University: ill-clothed, destitute of books, with five shillings in his purse: He picked up what scraps of learning he could lay hold of: Ernesti the only teacher from whom he derived any benefit. Heyne's best teacher, himself: Without any clear aim, he set his heart on. attaining knowledge, and no promise or threat could turn him back. Occasionally gets employment in giving private lessons: Chooses the profession of law. Some Latin verses attract the notice of Count Briihl. Ministerial smiles and empty promises. Again helps himself by private teaching:. A hard bed: Boiled pease-cods not unfrequently his only meal: A poor appointment. (337). - His edition of Tibullus. His day of difficulty far from past. Some consequences of the SevenYears' War: Literary struggles. Accepts a tutorship in the family of Herr von Schbnberg. Theresa Weiss: Her earnest intelligence, and goodheartedness: Friendship ripening into passion: Mutual confidence. Bombardment of Dresden:* Flight, and helpless destitution. Theresa's extreme illness: She renounces the Catholic, and publicly embraces the Protestant Faith: Marriage: a bold step, but a right one. Domestic difficulties and hardships: Theresa's prompt courage. (342). - Dawning of better days:: 486 SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. Appointed Professor of Eloquence at Gittingen. His long life henceforth quietly and actively fruitful. His literary and other labours. Death of:his noble-hearted Wife: Grounds of consolation. His friends provide him with a new Bride: She proved an excellent wife to him.' State of education in Germany. Heyne's successful labours for the GUttingen University. He lived till he had completed all his undertakings; and died softly and gently in his eighty-third year. (350)..- His intellectual character. Founded a new epoch in classical study. A show of dulness and hardness in him, not intrinsically belonging to him: A kindly old man, whom the.Germans have some reason to be proud of. Another proof that man is not the product of his circumstances, but that, in a far higher degree, the circumstances are the product of the man. (359). GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. Comparative estimation of the playwright, millwright and cartwright. England not so successful in the first species of carpentry as in the other two. The Playwrights of Germany a strong triumphant body: Interest in the Drama taking the place of interest in Politics. The world of pasteboard, and the world of fact. The study of German Literature, like all.ither earthly undertakings, has its negative as well as its positive side. The German Parnassus. Ill-fated Kotzebue, lifted up by the hollow balloon of popular applause. Melancholy end of all windbags. (p. 363). - Grillparzer, Klingemann and Millner, may stand as representatives of the Playwrights of Germany. Grillparzer, not without reluctance, named under the head of Playwrights: Might have done good service in some prose'or small-poem department. Tricks of the trade: The public a dim-eyed'animal, gullible to almost all lengths. Of Grillparzer's peculiar knacks, not very much to be -said: -His worst Play, the Ahnfrau; a deep tragedy'of the Castle-Spectre sort. Knig Ottokars Glick sund Ende, a much more innocent piece, full of action, though without any discernible coherence. Agglomeration is not creation, and avails little in Literature. King Otto-'kar's soliloquy in the last of his fields. A charitable hope for better things. (369).- Dr. Klingemann'one of the most indisputable Playwrights now extant. His materials chiefly rosin, oil-paper, vizards, scarlet drapery and gunpowder. The compound nowise unpleasant: If any man wish to amuse himself irrationally, here is ware for his money. Ahasuer, the Wandering Jew.'Faust, and his melodramatic contract with the Devil: A few scenes, showing how Faust was carried off in thunder, lightning and -blue fire. Dr. Klingemann, a bold perpendicular Playwright, entirely contented with himselftand his handicraft. (377). - Dr. Millner supreme over all Playwrights: Might have made a very pretty Lawyer. but to:set up for a Poet a different enterprise. Ever tempting us with some hope that here is a touch of'Poetry; and ever disappointing us with an expanse of pure Prose. (888). - Miillner's one recipe for play-making borrowed from Zacha -SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. 487 rias Werner:.A pettifogging sheriff's-officer principle of Fate, the raw material of his whole tragedy-goods. The Greek idea of Fate, a lofty and consistent hypothesis. Dr. Millner's Fate-tenet totally incredible even to himself: A mere craftsman's trick. His abilities and performances as a journalist: German editorial squabbles. The duty of Foreign Reviewers twofold: What to be welcomed; and what to be rejected: Let every one be active for himself (393). APPENDIX. I. PREFACE AND INTRODUCTIONS TO GERMAN ROMANCE. Uncounted number and variety of German Novelwriters: Difficulty of making an adequate selection: Chief modes of German Novelwriting. National peculiarities and cosmopolitan vacuity. The light of a small taper may be useful in total darkness. Difficulties of German little more than a bugbear: Its general diffusion among us not far distant. (p. 405). MvsXus. Born at Jena. A boy of quick talents and kind lively temper: Adopted and liberally educated by his uncle. Removes to Eisenach. Intended for the Church: Not acceptable as a pastor. His residence at Eisenach not unprofitable: In his twenty-fifth year he became an author; provoked thereto by the unbounded acceptance of our English Richardson: Success of his German Grandison, published anonymously. He longed much less for a literary existence, than for a civic one: Became Tutor in the'Court of Weimar; married; increased his income by giving private lessons; and grew and waxed strong in contented obscurity.- After an interval of nineteen years his iconoclastic faculty was again called forth: His Physiognomical Travels: The applause it gained instant and general: The ground was now broken, and he was not long in digging deeper. The rude traditionary fragments of Germany he worked anew into shape and polish: He spared no pains in collecting his materials; and despised no source of intelligence, however mean. His Volksmdhrchen; its comic humour, levity and kind sceptical derision: Lovers of unadulterated primneval poetry may censure Musius; but they join with the public at large in reading him. His subsequent works; and death.'(p. 409). —Without much effort he stood aloof from every species of cant: He looked upon the world as little else than a boundless Chase, where the wise were to recreate themselves with the hunting of Follies: He could not reverence men; but with all their faults he loved them. He kept himself unspotted'from the errors of his time; a merit which posterity is too apt to under 48-8 SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. rate. Peculiarities of his style: A man of fine and varied talent, but scarcely of any genius. (413). FRIEDRICH DE LA MOTTE FouQUI. tlouqud's family of French extraction: His Grandfather in high favour with Frederick the Great. Little known of Fouqud's early history. The misfortunes of his country drove him into retirement: Introduced by Schlegel to the study of Spanish poetry: An ideal of Christian knighthood continually hovered round his fancy. His literary performances all of a chivalry cast. (p. 416). —His wife a virtuous and gifted woman of kindred genius. In the contest of Prussia with Napoleon he evinced in actual battle the devout and fervid, gallantry which he had so often previously delineated in his writings. A pure sensitive heart deeply reverent of Truth and Beauty-and Heroic Virtue; and a delicate hand in picturing forth some few forms of these high qualities: To wed that old sentiment to modern thoughts, was a task he could not attempt. In mental structure, Fouqud seems the converse of Musaus. Lightness and simplicity the chief characteristics of his style: The little Tale of Aslauga's Knight some tolerable emblem of his peculiar qualities. (419). LUDWIG TIECK. Born at Berlin: His private life little known. His literary life he began in his twenty-second year: Immature products of a strong and fervid genius: Active and positive Goodness soon displaced mere barren and tormenting negatives. His Volksmdhrchen of the most varied character, teeming with wondrous shapes full of meaning; true modern denizens of the old Fairyland. By this work he was first introduced to the notice.of his countrymen:. His Der gestiefelte Kater, a grotesque and hearty satire on the existing aspect of literature. Numerous parodies and lighter pieces: Letters on Shakspeare. Marriage. Becomes acquainted with. the two Schlegels, Novalis and Wackenroder: Literary cooperation: NewSchool of Poetry. (p. 422). - Tieck's frequent change of residence: Journey into Italy: Visit to London. His poetic worth:. A gay Southern fancy lives in union with a Northern heart: Chaste simplicity, both in conception and style: His Blaubart, a group of earnest figures, painted on a laughing ground. In the province of the. Mdhrchen, or popular Traditionary Tale, he reigns without a rival. (426). E. T. W. HOFFMANN. A life full of error and perplexed vicissitude. Born at Ksnigsberg: His parents' ill-assorted union, and separation:. Remains with his mother. An uncle takes strenuous charge of his education; but cannot take stock of his character. Unwise indulgence more hurtful than leaden constraint. Days of bedlam jubilee: Successful cunning: Early friendship. Schooling: Music and painting more to his taste than classical studies. Steady preparation for the legal profession. His leisure occupied with music, painting and unsuccessful literary efforts. Entanglements of a love-affair: SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. 489 Quits Konigsberg, and proceeds to Great Glogau in Silesia. Tedium and other spiritual maladies: Leaves Silesia for Berlin: Appointed Assessor of the Court of Posen: Removes to Poland. He was now director of his own actions; and. unhappily did not direct them well: Habits of irregularity: A practical joke, and consequent banishment to Plozk. Marriage: Domestic peace and official assiduity: Promoted from Plozk to Warsaw. The Polish capital a vast perpetual masquerade to him. Intimacy with Hitzig. Project of erecting a Musical Institution: Hoffmann among the paint-pots. (p. 430). - The project prospered beyond expectation, till abruptly terminated by the French armies. A sad enough outlook: Visits Berlin in quest of employment. Death of his little daughter; his wife dangerously ill: At last obtains an engagement with the managers of the Bamberg stage. Contradiction and disappointment. Commences-writing for the Miusicalische Zeitung. Engagement at Dresden: His life chequered by harder vicissitudes than ever. The revolution of Europe restored to him his former rights of office at Berlin. His situation, after all his buffetings, was nowv a happy one; and, had he been wise, might have continued so. His sharp temper, transcendent vanity and reckless satire, disqualified him for society; yet he could not do without it: he enjoyment he sought was only to be found at the tavern, among Way laughter-loving topers. His official duties were to the last punctuaay and irreproachably performed: and he wrote more abundantly than en r. Meanwhile his health at length gave way; and he died a mournf~ and lingering death; writing, or dictating to an amanuensis to the last. (435). -Hoffmann's was a mind for'which proper culture might have done great things. He loved Art with a deep, but scarcely with a pure love; not as the fountain of Beauty, but as the fountain of refined Enjoyment. His head was forever swarming with beautiful or horrible chimeras. A good or a wise man we must not call him; but, among the ordinary population of this world, to note him with the mark of reprobation were ungrateful and unjust. His genius formed the most important element of his character, and participated in its faults. As a child of his time and his country, he is not to be overlooked in any survey of German Literature. (440). JEAN PAUL. FRIEDRICH RICHTER. Richter called from his earthly sojourn since the commencementof his Translator's little task. The materials for his Biography as yet inaccessible. Birth and parentage: Destined for the clerical profession; but preferred literature. Finally settled in Bayreuth: Domestic peace and happiness. His intellectual labours gained him the esteem and love of all ranks of his countrymen. He wrote and thought in a track entirely his own. Not to be understood by a mere cursory perusal. Singularity not always affectation. His works hard to understand; but always have a meaning, and often a' true and deep one. (p. 443).-An impetuous, colossal spirit: Among his gifts, Imagination and Humour the most striking. His Humour as the balm which a generous spirit pours over the wounds of 490 SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. life. His favourite characters have always a dash of the ridiculous in their~ circumstances or their compositions. In the treatment of heroes proper he is seldom completely happy. Richter a Western Oriental Few have known the world better, or taken at once a clearer and a kindlier view of its concerns. Nature in all her scenes and manifestations he loved with a deep, almost passionate love. His belief of man's Immortality the sanctuary and solace of his spirit. (446). - His multifarious and seemingly incongruous Works. To many English readers, a spirit like Richter's cannot but be warmly welcome. (450). GOETHE. Goethe's Autobiography. Born at Frankfort on the Mayn, 28th August 1749. Favourable circumstances of his family: Healthy, genuine characters of his parents. Destined for the profession of law, could but the ambition of wealth and official celebrity have adequately inspired him. Brightest and blackest forecastings struggling within. His true destination a life of literature: Gitz von Berlichingen, and Sorrows of Werter.' Goethe's unlooked-for popularity far from affording him the satisfaction he craved: Anxiety, doubt of any sort, can only be removed by Action. (p. 453). - His connexion with the Court of Weimar. Diversity of his studies and acquisitions: Literary labours. A universal development of our spiritual nature, more precious than the solace of our vanity. German Philistines. Goethe's mental faculties ripened and beautified by the advance of age. (456).- A King of himself and of his world. He has inquired fearlessly; and, while fearlessly denying the false, has not forgotten to search out and admit the true: His assiduous culture proportionate to the bountifulness of his gifts: Composure and cheerful seriousness seem to breathe over all his character, This also is the spirit of our Shakspeare. (461). - Goethe not a German Voltaire: His province high and peculiar. The angels and demons that can lay prostrate our hearts in the nineteenth century, must be of another fashion than those which subdued us in the ninth. In Goethe a new world, of Earnestness and Sport, begins to open before us. Inconsistencies and shortcomings. (464). — Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre has less relation to Fielding's Tom Jones than to Spenser's Fai'ry Queen. Goethe's reception by English readers. Our own literature peopled with kingly intellects and hearts. A new Poet, and Preacher of Truth to all men. (467). II. FRACTIONS. TRAGEDY OF THE NIGHT-MOTH. WAKING sympathies between Moths and Bookworms. The fount of Life, and abyss of Danger: A tiny tragedy. Mystic resemblances. What gained we, little moth'? (p. 469). SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. 491 CuI BONO. What is Hope? What is Life? What is Man? (p. 471). FOUR FABLES. 1. A Radical Reform successfully accomplished. 2. March of Intellect, and general scientific achievements of the utilitarian Squirt. 3. Before we try to force Providence to' an alternative,' it were wise to consider what the alternative might be. 4. The richer a nature, the harder and slower its development. (p. 471). THE SOWER'S SONG. Earth's bounteous cooperation with the labours of her children. (p. 473). ADIEU. The past may be forever present; and the saddest tears must fall away. (p. 474). THE BEETLE. A new claimant for Public Sympathy, and the benefits of the PoorLaws. The'chief of wonders' common to the lowliest Beetle^ and the loftiest Peer. (p. 475). TO-DAY. Each New Day a new glimpse into Eternity; and a new offer of eternal possibilities. (p. 476). FORTUNA. The weariest heart may find something to be thankful for; and only a dastard can really come to evil. The journey of life. (p. 476). END OF VOL. I.