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CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 COLLECTED AND REPUBLISHED 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE 
 
 JEAN PAUL FRIEDEICH RICH TER.— STATE OF 
 
 GERMAN LITERA TURE —LIFE AND 
 
 WRITINGS OF WERNER 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER, 
 
 1885. 
 
JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 
 
JEAN PAUL PRIEDRICH RICHTER. 
 
 A well-written life almost as rare as a well-spent one. Doring's Gal- 
 lery 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 character- 
 istics. His multifarious Works. (9). — Must be studied as well as read. Ec- 
 centricities : Every work embaled in some fantastic wrappage. Not affecta- 
 tion : Consistent enough from his own point of vision. (14). — 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. (17). — 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. (22). — Imper- 
 fection 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 Quinlus Fixlein : A Summer Night. 
 Richter's value as a writer. (23). 
 
JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH R1CHTER.' 
 
 [1827.] 
 
 Dr. Johnson, it is said, when he first heard of Boswell's in- 
 tention 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 BosweWs ! That great authors 
 should actually employ this preventive against bad biogra- 
 phers is a thing we would by no means recommend : but the 
 truth is, that, rich as we are in Biography, a well-written 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, be- 
 fore they can be embalmed : and what, in truth, are these 
 1 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 little men 
 rushes towards it. There they are gathered together, blink- 
 ing up to it with such vision as they have, scanning it front 
 afar, hovering round it this way and that, each cunningly en- 
 deavouring, 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 ex- 
 
 1 Edinburgh Review, No. 91. — Jean Paul Frkdrich RicM&r's Leben, 
 nebst Characteristik seiner Werke ; von Heinrich Daring. (Jean Paul 
 Friedrich Richter's Life, with a Sketch of his Works ; by Heinrich Dor- 
 ing ) Gotha ; Hennings, 1826. 12mo, pp. 208. 
 
6 JEAN PAUL FRIED RICH Rl CUTER. 
 
 tremely 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 phi- 
 losopher ; nor can we think that so good a man, had he even 
 foreseen* this Work of Doring's, would have gone the length 
 of assassinating him for it. Doring 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, be- 
 ginning 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 thence- 
 forth the purport and tendency of each volume remains indis- 
 putable. Doring is sometimes lucky in this privilege ; other- 
 wise his manner oi composition, being so peculiar, might 
 occasion difficulty now and then. Biographies, according to 
 Doring's method, are a simple business. You first ascertain, 
 from the Leipsic Conversationsleocicon, or Jordens's Poetical 
 Lexicon, or Flogel, or Koch, or other such Comjjendiam 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 for the edifice. You 
 then go through his writings, and all other writings where he 
 or his pursuits are treated of, and wherever 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 per- 
 fectly convenient, being spread in here and there, by way of 
 cement ; and so the strangest pile suddenly arises ; amor- 
 phous, pointing every way but to the zenith, here a block of 
 granite, there a mass of pipe-clay; till the whole finishes, 
 
JEAN PAUL FRIED RICH RIGHT ER. 7 
 
 when the materials are finished ; — and you leave it standing 
 to posterity, like some miniature Stonehenge, a perfect archi- 
 tectural 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 Dor-. 
 ing's transitions are often abrupt enough. The hero changea 
 his object and occupation from page to page, often from sen- 
 tence 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 ol 
 life and business, when instantly some paragrajoh opens under 
 him, like one of the trap-doors in the Vision of Mirza, and he 
 drops, without note of preparation, into the shades below. 
 Perhaps, indeed, not forever ; we have instances 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 
 During orders these things differently. 
 
 After all, however, we have no pique againt poor During : 
 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, however, 
 comforted by considerable sale, and praise from this and the 
 other Litter 'aturblatt, which has commended his diligence, his 
 fidelity, and, strange to say, his method, he advances with 
 erect countenance and firm hoof, and even recalcitrates con- 
 temptuously against such as do him offence. Gl'ack auf dem 
 Weg ! is the worst we wish him. 
 
 Of his Life of Richter, these preliminary observations may 
 be our excuse for saying but little. He brags much, in his 
 Preface, that it is all true and genuine ; for Eichter s widow, 
 it seems, had, by public advertisement, cautioned the world 
 against it ; another biography, partly by the illustrious de- 
 
8 JEAN PAUL FBIEDRICn BICHTER 
 
 ceased himself, partly by Otto, his oldest friend and the ap- 
 pointed Editor of his Works, being actually in preparation. 
 This rouses the indignant spirit of During, and he stoutly as- 
 severates, 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 journey- 
 ings and freightage of two boxes that used to pass and repass 
 between Bichter and Kunz's circulating library ; with three 
 or four notes of similar importance, and chiefly to other book- 
 sellers, there are no biographical documents here, which were 
 not open to all Euroj>e as well as to Heinrich Doring. In- 
 deed, very nearly one-half of the Life is occupied with a de- 
 scription of the funeral and its appendages, — how the ' sixty 
 torches, with a number of lanterns and pitchpans,' were ar- 
 ranged ; 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 bom- 
 bast) over the grave. Then, it seems, there were meetings 
 held in various parts of Germany, to solemnise the memory 
 of Bichter ; among the rest, one in the Museum of Frankfort- 
 on-the-Maine ; where a Dr. Borne speaks another long speech, 
 if possible in still more decided bombast. Next come threno- 
 dies 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 Bichter to 
 think of laughing over these unhappy threnodists and pane- 
 gyrists ; some of whom far exceed anything we English 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 
 
JEAN PAUL FRIED RICH RICHTER. 
 
 voice must become mute, and nothing be beard in its stead 
 but the whoop of quite earthly voices, lamenting, or pretend- 
 ing to lament. Far from us be all remembrance of During 
 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, cer- 
 tainly 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 diction- 
 ary 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 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 capac- 
 ities, and growing generally in esteem with all ranks of critics ; 
 till, at length, his gainsayers have either been silenced or con- 
 vinced ; and Jean Paul, at first reckoned half-mad, has long 
 ago vindicated his singularities to nearly universal satisfac- 
 tion, and now combines popularity with real depth of endow- 
 ment, 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 
 
10 JEAN PAUL FRIED RICH RI CUTER. 
 
 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. He was born at Wunsiedel in Bayreuth, in 
 March, 1763. His father was a subaltern teacher in the Gym- 
 nasium of the place, and was afterwards promoted to be 
 clergyman at Schwarzbach on the Saale. Richter's early edu- 
 cation was of the scantiest sort ; but his fine faculties and un- 
 wearied 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 ex- 
 cerpting which continued with him through life, and influ- 
 enced, 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 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; — Bio- 
 graphical Recreations under the Cranium of a Giantess ; — Selec- 
 tion 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 procured him friends and 
 fame ; and at length a wife and a settled provision. With 
 
JEAN PAUL FRIED RICH RIG LITER. 11 
 
 Caroline Mayer, his good spouse, and a pension (in 1802) 
 from the King of Bavaria, he settled in Ba} r reuth, 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 
 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 rever- 
 ence and overflowing tenderness. ' Unhappy is the man,' says 
 he, ' for whom his own mother has not made all other mothers 
 ' venerable ! ' And 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 During, 
 almost the only memorable thing he has written in this Vol- 
 ume : 
 
 ' 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 his mother, who then lived with him, 
 ' busily pursued her household work, occupying herself about 
 1 stove and dresser, Jean Paul was sitting' in a corner of the 
 1 same room, at a simple writing-desk, with few or no books 
 
12 JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 
 
 ' about him, but merely with one or two drawers containing 
 1 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 
 c 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 for 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 at- 
 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-Projrtiet, and 
 instructions in the Art of Falling Asleep. His chief pro- 
 ductions are Novels : the Unsichtbare Loge (Invisible Lodge) ; 
 Flegeljahre (Wild-Oats) ; Life of Fixlein ; the Jubelsenior 
 (Parson in Jubilee) ; Schmelzle's Journey to Flatz ; Katzen- 
 berger'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 him- 
 self, 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 them- 
 
 1 Page 8. 
 
JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICII RICHTER. 13 
 
 selves, 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. Amuse- 
 ment 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 sublime, 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 Es- 
 thetics l ) 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 sub- 
 tle 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 that characterises the man. Germany is 
 
 1 From ala&dpouai, 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. 
 
14 JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER 
 
 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 in- 
 sight into the actual wants, advantages, perils and prospects 
 of this age. Among the writers on this subject Eichter holds 
 a high place ; if we look chiefly at his tendency and aims, 
 perhaps the highest. The Clavis-Fichtiana is a ludicrous per- 
 formance, known to us only by report ; but Bichter is said to 
 possess the merit, while he laughs at Fichte, of understand- 
 ing 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 Gampaner Thai, a Discourse on the Immor- 
 tality of the Soul ; one of Bichter'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 enlarg- 
 ing and remodelling this Gampaner Thai ; 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 appro- 
 priate 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, Bichter 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 Limbo ap- 
 pointed 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 originality 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 
 
JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 15 
 
 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 ac- 
 ceptable and of known value : but with new ingots, with for- 
 eign bars, and medals of Corinthian brass, the case is widely 
 different. 
 
 There are few writers with whom deliberation and careful 
 distrust of first impressions are more necessary than with 
 Eichter. He is a phenomenon from the very surface ; he 
 presents himself with a professed and determined singularity ; 
 his language itself is a stone of stumbling to the critic ; to 
 critics of the grammarian species, an unpardonable, 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 parentheses, dashes, and sub- 
 sidiary clauses ; invents hundreds of new words, alters old 
 ones, or, by hyphen, chains and pairs and packs them to- 
 gether into most jarring combination ; in short, produces 
 sentences of the most heterogeneous, lumbering, interminable 
 kind. Figures 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 bound- 
 less, unparalleled imbroglio ; nothing on all sides but dark- 
 ness, dissonance, confusion worse confounded ! Then the 
 style of the whole corresponds, in perplexity and extrava- 
 gance, 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 Flachsen- 
 fingen, 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 acquaint- 
 ances, talk with him of state matters (in the purest Tory 
 
16 JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 
 
 dialect), and often incite him to get on with his writing. No 
 story proceeds without the most erratic digressions, and vo- 
 luminous tagrags rolling after it in many a snaky twine. 
 Ever and anon there occurs some ' Extra-leaf,' with its satiri- 
 cal petition, program, or other wonderful intercalation, no 
 mortal can foresee on what. It is, indeed, a mighty maze ; 
 and often the panting reader toils after him in vain ; or, baf- 
 fled and spent, indignantly stops short, and retires, perhaps 
 forever. 
 
 All this, we must admit, is true of Eichter ; 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, therefore, that they 
 be not rashly applied. 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 ac- 
 curate, extensive, nay universal knowledge ; as he is. With re- 
 gard 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 per- 
 suades himself that he has in truth become a new creature, of 
 the wonderfullest symmetry ; and so he moves about with a 
 conscious air, 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 per- 
 haps 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 cen- 
 sure 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, 
 
JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 17 
 
 there is a certain benign composure visible in his writings ; a 
 mercy, a gladness, a reverence, united in such harmony as be- 
 speaks not a false, but a genuine state of mind ; not a fever- 
 ish and morbid, but a healthy and robust state. 
 
 The secret of the matter is, that Eichter 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 uni- 
 verse, no longer a distorted incoherent series of air-land- 
 scapes, coalesces into compact expansion ; a vast, magnificent, 
 and variegated scene ; full of wondrous products ; rude, it 
 may be, and irregular ; but gorgeous, benignant, great ; gay 
 with the richest verdure and foliage, glittering in the bright- 
 est and kindest sun. 
 
 Eichter has been called an intellectual Colossus ; and in 
 truth it is somewhat in this light that we view him. His 
 faculties are all of gigantic mould ; cumbrous, awkward in 
 their movements ; large and splendid, rather than harmoni- 
 ous 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 hard- 
 est 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 sow- 
 ing the earth at large with orient pearl. But deeper than all 
 these lies Humour, the ruling quality with Eichter ; as it 
 were the central fire that pervades and vivifies his whole be- 
 ing. He is a humorist from his inmost soul ; he thinks as a 
 humorist, he feels, imagines, acts as a humorist : SjDort is the 
 element in which his nature lives and works. A tumultuous 
 element for such a nature, and wild work he makes in it ! A 
 2 
 
18 JEAN PAUL FRIED RICH RICHTER. 
 
 Titan in his sport as in his earnestness, he oversteps all 
 bound, and riots without law or measure. He heaps Pelion 
 upon Ossa, and hurls the universe together and asunder like 
 a case of playthings. The Moon ' bombards ' the Earth, being 
 a rebellious satellite ; Mars ' preaches ' to the other planets, 
 ver} r singular doctrine ; nay, we have Time and Space them- 
 selves 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 
 merryandrew. 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 some- 
 thing 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 wind-harps, floating round us in 
 fitful swells, but soft sometimes, and pure and soul-entranc- 
 ing, 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 medium through which he 
 looks. His is the spirit which gives life and beauty to what- 
 ever it embraces. Inanimate Nature itself is no longer an 
 insensible assemblage of colours and perfumes, but a mvs- 
 
JEAN PAUL FRTEDRICU RICHTER. 19 
 
 terious 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 spkyy 
 groves, and under benignant skies. Tiie 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 vicis- 
 situdes 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 dis- 
 cordant 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 dwell- 
 ing 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, sen- 
 timentality. 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 and 
 earnest, become sjwrt.' True humour is sensibility, in the 
 most catholic and deepest sense ; but it is this sport of sensi- 
 bility ; 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 
 the name of humour, but consists chiefly in a certain super- 
 ficial 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 ; anv life it has 
 
20 JEAN PAUL F1UEDRICII RICHTER. 
 
 being false, artificial and irrational. True humour springs 
 not more from the head than from the heart ; it is not con- 
 tempt, its essence is love ; it issues not in laughter, but in 
 still smiles, which lie far deeper. It is a sort of inverse sub- 
 limit}' ; exalting, as it were, into our affections what is below 
 us, while sublimity draws down into our affections what is 
 above us. The former is scarcely less precious or heart- 
 affecting than the latter ; perhaps it is still rarer, and, as a 
 test of genius, still more decisive. It is, in fact, the bloom 
 and perfume, the purest effluence of a deep, fine and loving- 
 nature ; 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. Anong 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 hu- 
 mour, 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 per- 
 haps in Ariosto, there appears little in their current poetry 
 that reaches the region of true humour. In France, since 
 the days of Montaigne, it seems to be nearly extinct. Vol- 
 taire, much as he dealt in ridicule, never rises into humour ; 
 even with Moliere, it is far more an affair of the understand- 
 ing than of the character. 
 
 That, in this point, Eichter 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 
 
JEAN PAUL FRIEDULCII'RICIITER. 21 
 
 likewise lias 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 mat- 
 ter which the French call pleasantry ; but little or nothing 
 that deserves the name of humour. In the present age, how- 
 ever, there is Goethe, with a rich true vein ; and this subli- 
 mated, as it were, to an essence, and blended in still union 
 with his whole mind. Tieck also, among his many fine sus- 
 ceptibilities, is not without a warm keen sense for the ridicu- 
 lous ; 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 hu- 
 mour, 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 as- 
 sert 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 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 sub- 
 limity 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 
 
"22 JEAN PAUL FRIEDIUCH R1CHTER. 
 
 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 man- 
 ifest itself ; or what fetters and perversions does it lay on such 
 manifestations ? For the great law of culture is : Let each 
 become all that he was created capable of being ; expand, if 
 possible, to his full growth ; resisting all impediments, cast- 
 ing off all foreign, especially all noxious adhesions ; and show 
 himself at length in his own shape and stature, be these what 
 they may. There is no uniform of excellence, either in phys- 
 ical 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 in- 
 ward 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 be of this 
 or that external make and fashion, but, in every fashion, to 
 be genuine, vigorous, alive, — alive with his whole being, con- 
 sciously, 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 be 
 may be, is consistent and coherent : he is at one with him- 
 self ; he knows his aims, and pursues them in sincerity of 
 heart, joyfully and with undivided will. A harmonious de- 
 velopment of being, the first and last object of all true culture, 
 
JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 23 
 
 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 pecul- 
 iar for working by prescribed laws : Sophocles, Shakespeare, 
 Cervantes, and in 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 lose of our esteem in proportion. Much) how- 
 ever, 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 selects 
 an orbit for itself ; and be this never so eccentric, if it is in- 
 deed a celestial orbit, we mere star-gazers must at last com- 
 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 Me- 
 teor he is not wholly ; perhaps a Comet, that, though 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. Regard- 
 ing his Novels, we may say, that, except in some few instances, 
 and those chieily of the shorter class, they are not what, in 
 strict language, we can term unities : with much ccUUdajunc- 
 tura of parts, it is rare that any of them leaves on us the im- 
 pression 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 
 
24 JEAN PAUL FRIEDRIGH RICHTER. 
 
 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 hu- 
 mour. In this latter province he is at home ; a true poet, a 
 maker ; his Siebenkds, his Schmelzle, even his Fibel and Fixlein 
 are living figures. But in heroic personages, passionate, mass- 
 ive, overpowering as he is, we have scarcely ever a complete 
 ideal ; art has not attained to the concealment of itself. With 
 his heroines 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, half-angelic creatures, meek, still, long-suffering, high- 
 minded, of tenderest affections, and hearts crushed yet un- 
 complaining. Supernatural figures he has not attempted ; and 
 wisely, for he cannot write without belief. Yet many times 
 he exhibits 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 dejDths 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 wild- 
 est of infidels ; for nothing can exceed the freedom with which 
 he bandies to and fro the dogmas of religion, nay, sometimes, 
 the highest objects of Christian reverence. There are pas- 
 
JEAN PAUL FRIEDIUCH RICHTER. 25 
 
 sages 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 Stael, 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 ? ' l 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 chast- 
 ened by a principle of mercy and humility into peace and well- 
 doing. An intense and continual faith in man's immortality 
 and native grandeur accompanies him ; from amid 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, 2 ' when, in your last hour (think 
 ' of this), all faculty in the broken spirit shall fade away and 
 ' die into inanity, — imagination, thought, effort, enjoyment, 
 ' — then at last will the night-flower of Belief alone continue 
 ■ blooming, and refresh with its perfumes in the last dark- 
 ' ness.' 
 
 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 rever- 
 ence, 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 con- 
 1 Note to Schmelde's Journey. 2 Lemna, p. 251. 
 
•' ■■? 
 
 26 JEAN PAUL FRIEDBIGH EI CUTER. 
 
 vincing 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 our- 
 selves 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 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 morn- 
 ing 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 
 iEolian 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 upcast cof- 
 fin-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 re- 
 turned to the Earth ; and in ihy steeples, behind the by -ad- 
 
JEAN PAUL FRIED RICH Rl CUTER. 27 
 
 vanced great midnight, 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/" ' 
 
 Such, seen through no uncoloured medium, but in dim re- 
 moteness, and sketched in hurried transitory outline, are some 
 features of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter and his Works. Ger- 
 many 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 jdos- 
 terity, we will not try to foretell. Time has a strange con- 
 tracting influence on many a wide-spread fame ; yet of Richter 
 we will say, that he may survive much. There is in him that 
 wdiich does not die ; that Beauty and Earnestness of soul, that , 
 spirit of Humanity, of Love and mild W T isdom, over which 
 the vicissitudes of mode have no sway. This is that excellence 
 of the inmost nature which alone confers immortality on writ- 
 ings ; that charm which still, under every defacement, binds 
 us to the pages of our own Hookers, and Taylors, and Brown es, 
 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, w T ith 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 Writ- 
 ings 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. 
 
 1 End of Quintus Fixlein. 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Franz Horn's merits as a literary Historian, (p. 31). — 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 peo- 
 ple. The Germans in particular have been liable to misrepresentation. 
 Madame de StaeTs Alleniagne did much to excite a reasonable curiosity : 
 Promise of better knowledge and friendlier intercourse. (33). — Groundle.-s 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. (40) — The 
 German authors better situated, and also show less care for wealth, than many 
 of our own. The German nobility not insensible to genius: Goethe. The 
 English might even learn of them in this respect. Tne 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 na- 
 tions. The highest Criticism an interpreter between the inspired and the 
 uninspired. Every literature of the world has been cultivated by the Ger- 
 mans. Essence and origin of Poetic Beauty. (54). — 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. (60). — 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. Ten- 
 dencies to real" mysticism ; a George Fox or Jacob Bohme. (73). — 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 Ger- 
 man eductive method. The Kantian distinction between Understanding and 
 Reason. Charge of ' Irreligion.' (77). — 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. ($7). 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE.' 
 
 [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 descrip- 
 tive 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 anx- 
 ious to apply with candour and tolerance. Another improve- 
 ment might have been, a deeper principle of arrangement, a 
 firmer grouping into periods and schools ; for, as it stands, 
 the work is more a critical sketch of German Poets, than a 
 history of German Poetry. 
 
 1 Edinburgh Review, No. 92. — 1. Die Poem und Beredmmkeit der 
 Deiitsehen, von Luthers Zeit bis zur Gegenwart. DargesteUM ton 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. Svo. 
 
 2. Umrisse zur Gesehichte und Kritik der schonen Litteratur Deutsch- 
 lunds wahrend der Jalire 1790-1818. (Outlines for the History and Criti- 
 cism of Polite Literature in Germany, during the Years 1790-1818.) By 
 Franz Horn. Berlin, 1819. 8vo. 
 
32 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Let us not quarrel, however, with our author ; his merits 
 as a literary historian are plain, and by no means inconsider- 
 able. Without rivalling the almost frightful laboriousness of 
 Bouterwek or Eichhom, he gives creditable proofs of re- 
 search 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, in- 
 deed, but a doer of the work ; having written, besides his 
 great variety of tracts and treatises, biographical, philosoph- 
 ical 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 re- 
 ligion, 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 repeat- 
 edly, 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, w r hom Horn very justly sniffs at,) to ask, 
 When Homer subscribed the Thirty-nine Articles ; or Whether 
 Sadi and Hafiz were really of the Bishop of Peterborough's 
 opinion ? Again, he talks too often of ' representing the In- 
 finite in the Finite,' of expressing the unspeakable, and such 
 high matters. In fact, Horn's style, though extremely read- 
 able, has one great fault : it is, 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 chan- 
 nel ; but it is ever and anon spurting itself up into epigrams 
 and antithetic jets. Playful he is, and kindly, and, we do 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 33 
 
 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 suffi- 
 cient 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, however, not giving the Devil 
 ' any offence ; to whom, accordingly, they set up a neat little 
 ' chapel close by, where you can offer him some touch of sac- 
 ' rifice at a time, and practise a quiet household devotion for 
 ' him without disturbance.' In this style of ' witty and con- 
 ceited 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. AVe 
 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 Bouhours propounded to 
 himself the pregnant question : Si un Allemand pent avoir de 
 Vesprit ? 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 civilisation, 
 Gunpowder, Printing, and the Protestant Religion, it might 
 have thrown light on his inquiry. Had he known the Ni- 
 belungen Lied ; and where Rewecke Fachs, and Faust, and 
 ilie Ship of Fools, and four fifths of all the popular mythol- 
 ogy, 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 
 
34 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 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 resist- 
 ing 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 
 Avit ; 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 n^timely joke that the hapless Jes- 
 uit is doomed to live ; for the blessing of full oblivion is de- 
 nied 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 warn- 
 ing 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 mat- 
 ter, 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 
 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 pro- 
 duce pure light. Happily, too, though still a difficult, it is no 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 25 
 
 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 insurmount- 
 able, yet which it is the chief glory of social culture to sur- 
 mount. 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 influ- 
 ence, 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 in- 
 structive example ; as indeed of late thej 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 litera- 
 ture 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 
 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 conclu- 
 sions from imperfect premises, and by the imports judge too 
 
3G STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 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 Ital- 
 ian literature, than of German ; of Grossi and Manzoni, of 
 C impomanes or Jovellanos, than of Tieck and Piichter? 
 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 Dlirer 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 liter- 
 ature 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 Bohme 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 
 learned, lay like a baleful incubus over the far nobler mind 
 of Germany ; and all true nationality vanished from its liter- 
 ature, 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. 1 And now that the genius of the 
 
 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 
 iewer 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 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 37 
 
 country has awakened in its old strength, our attention to it 
 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, 
 
 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 runnel' (Poetfeche Trichter), manufactured at Niirnberg 
 in 1650, and processing, within six hours, to pour-in the whole essence 
 of this difficult art into the most unfurnished head. Niirnberg also was 
 the chief seat of the famous Meistersanger and their Sdngerz&nffe, or 
 Singer-guilds, in which poetry was taught and practised like any other 
 handicraft, and this by sober and well-meaning 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 adher- 
 ent of his great contemporary Luther, who has even deigned to acknowl- 
 edge 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 ol the 
 time and country where he lived. His best piece known to us, and 
 many are well worth perusing, is the Fastnachtsspid (Shrovetide Farce) 
 of the Narremchneiden where the Doctor cures a bloated and lethargiG 
 patient by cutting-out half-a-dozen Fools from his interior ! 
 
38 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 manufactures, political connections, may be recorded in statis- 
 tical 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 procedure. 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 nor always, not perhaps after long inspection, what to 
 determine regarding it. From his, only accidental, point of 
 view, the figure stands before him like the tracings on veined 
 marble,— a mass of mere random lines, and tints, and en- 
 tangled 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 ac- 
 cordingly ; and dunce the thousandth writes of it like dunce 
 the first. 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 39 
 
 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 charac- 
 ters 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 Flemmirig, 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, spilt into so many fractions 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 pre- 
 vailed 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 
 
 1 So iate as the year 1811, we find, from Pinkertorts 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 ray less majesty, and over a slumbering people. 
 They awoke, before his death, and hurled him, perhaps too indig- 
 nantly, into his native Abyss. 
 
40 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 for apprentices in all provinces of art ; and many foreign 
 craftsmen scarcely allowed them so much. 
 
 Madame de Stael's book has done away with this : all Eu- 
 rope is now aware that the Germans are something ; some- 
 thing independent and apart from 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 ship- 
 loads of yellow sand and sulphur. Gentle D illness too, in 
 this as in all other things, still loves her joke. The Ger- 
 mans, 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, 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 desir- 
 able. 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 objec- 
 tions to German literature, that the tone in which a multi- 
 tude of other men speak of it cannot appear extraordinary. 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 41 
 
 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 
 enough, for reasons, already stated, to fancy ourselves dis- 
 charging 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 profit- 
 able 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. 
 
 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 : xtt, 
 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 ram 
 ifications. Among men of less acquaintance with the subject 
 of German taste, or of taste in general, the spirit of the ac- 
 cusation seems to be somewhat as follows : That the Ger- 
 mans, with much natural susceptibility, are still in a rather 
 
42 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 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 hor- 
 rors, 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 foun- 
 tains, 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 ; often she tears a 
 passion to rags ; and, in her humid 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 Millers Siegwart, 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 ; sensu- 
 ality and horror, the spectre nun, and the charmed moon- 
 shine, 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 dili- 
 gently 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 fre- 
 quent avatars among men. Perhaps not less than five hun- 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 43 
 
 clred 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 pas- 
 sively, 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 cur- 
 rency on the English stage as this most classic performance ? 
 We think, not. In like manner, till some author of acknowl- 
 edged merit shall so write among the Germans, and be ap- 
 proved of by critics of acknowleged 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 
 Meister, 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 considera- 
 tion 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 scarcelv be more unwise to consider Hamlet as de- 
 
44 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 pending 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 re- 
 gard even to difference, we should scarcely reckon it to be of 
 great moment. Two nations that agree in estimating Shak- 
 speare 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 
 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 man- 
 kind 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 associa- 
 tion 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 connoisseurshrp, 
 must mean a general susceptibility to truth and nobleness ; 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 45 
 
 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 been seen. This surely im- 
 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 be- 
 lieve it proceeds less from without than within, in every rank. 
 The charms of Nature, the majesty of Man, the infinite loveli- 
 ness of Truth and Virtue, are not hidden from the eye of the 
 poor ; but from the eye of the vain, the corrupted and self- 
 seeking, be he poor or rich. In old ages, the humble Minstrel, 
 a mendicant, and lord of nothing but hi i harp and his 
 own free soul, had intimations of those glories, wdiile 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 high- 
 est, 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 danger- 
 ous 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 ; but 
 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 ? 
 
46 STATE OF G EMM AN LITERATURE. 
 
 Where, 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 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 artifi- 
 cial delicacy of modern times, how stands it with the two part- 
 ies ; with the gay triumphant men of fashion, 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 rejec- 
 tion 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 in harmony and wisdom, and show forth the 
 same wisdom to others that exists alone' with them. To such 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 47 
 
 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 loft- 
 ier 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 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 appli- 
 cable 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 some- 
 what nearer its real basis ; not for the sake of the Germans, 
 who nowise need the admission of them. The German au- 
 thors 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 con- 
 siderably 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 Jordens with Johnson 
 and U Israeli, somewhat better there than here. No case 
 like our own noble Otways has met us iu their biographies ; 
 
48 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Boyces and Chattertons are much rarer in German than in 
 English history. But farther, and what is far more impor- 
 tant : 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 
 which a meritorious man of letters has before him, of obtain- 
 ing 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 stateliuess, 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 noble- 
 man : that ancient, thirsty, thickheaded, sixteen-quartered 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 49 
 
 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 
 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. Ex- 
 cluded from society ! What, we would ask, was Wieland's, 
 Schiller's, Herder's, Johannes Mailer's society ? Has not 
 Goethe, b} r 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 ivorst instructed, and 
 ' the lead 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. %^t all events, the 
 pity, which certain of our authors express for the civil con- 
 dition of their brethren in that country is, from such a quar- 
 ter, 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 
 4 
 
50 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 that effect were sent 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 per- 
 haps, 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 k 
 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 dullness, awkwardness and false suscep- 
 tibility 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, en- 
 thusiastic 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 0111 
 view from its transitory modes to its perennial models ; from 
 the mass of vulgar writers, who blaze out and are extinguished 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 51 
 
 with the popular delusion which they flatter, to 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 Wie- 
 land'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 endeavoured 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 en- 
 thusiasm, his azure purity-, and heavenly if still somewhat 
 cold and lunar light, a man of taste ? His Messiax 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 prevades 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 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 
 
52 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 this particular, with the most distinguished writers of any ex- 
 isting nation. As a poet, as a critic, philosopher, or contro- 
 versialist, his style will be found precisely such as we of Eng- 
 land are accustomed to admire most ; brief, nervous, vivid ; 
 yet quiet, without glitter or antithesis ; idiomatic, pure with- 
 out purism ; transparent, yet full of character and reflex hues 
 of meaning. 'Every sentence,' says Horn, and justly, ' is liko 
 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 similiar felicity of 
 style attends him ; his plays, his Minna von Barnhelm, his 
 Emilie Galotti, his Natlian der Weise, have a genuine and 
 graceful poetic life ; yet no works known to us in any lan- 
 guage are purer from exaggeration, or any appearance of false- 
 hood. They are pictures, we might say, painted not in col- 
 ours, 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 philo- 
 sophic or religous Scepticism w r ere of a higher mood than had 
 yet been heard in Europe, still more in Germany : his Drama- 
 tiwgiefiYst exploded the pretensions of the French theatre, 
 and, with irresistable 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 Free- 
 masons, a work of far higher import than its title indicates, 
 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 re- 
 spect, 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, 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 53 
 
 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. ' 
 
 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 
 
 1 The history of Mendelsohn is interesting in itself, and full of en- 
 couragement to all lovers of self-improvement. At thirteen he was a 
 wandering Jewish beggar, without health, without home, almost with- 
 out a language, — for the jargon of broken Hebrew and provincial Ger- 
 man which he spoke could scarcely be called one. At middle age he 
 could write this Phcedon ; 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 
 PJueclon 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 in- 
 cumbrances, and generously undertook to help him. By teaching the 
 poor Jew a little Greek, he disenchanted him from the Talmud and the 
 Rabbins. The two were afterwards co-laborers in Nicolafs Deutsche 
 Bibliotliek, 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. 
 
54 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 are the least chargeable with it : a certain clear, light, un- 
 affected 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 Eng- 
 lish 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 ; per- 
 haps in regard to true poetic genius, at their head, for none 
 of them lias 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 draw- 
 backs, of the somewhat later and more energetic race, de- 
 nominated the Gottingen School; in contradistinction from 
 the Saxon, to which Babener, Cramer and Gellert directly be- 
 longed, and most of those others indirectly. Holty, Burger, 
 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 of another 
 stature and form of movement, whom Bossu's scale and com- 
 passes 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 an 
 excellence, but to be understood as indispensable, as there by 
 necessit} r , 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 Alpha- 
 bet 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 fear- 
 lessly refer to all competent judges, that they are distinctly 
 and even considerably in advance. We state what is already 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 55 
 
 known to a great part of Europe to be true. Criticism has 
 assumed a new form in Germany ; it proceeds on other prin- 
 ciples, and proposes to itself a higher aim. The grand ques- 
 tion 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 poe- 
 try, 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 Karnes, 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 they attained that shape and individuality ? 
 Whence comes that emp}-reaii 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 ex- 
 pressive 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 w T hat and how 
 was the poem, and why was it a poem and not rhymed elo- 
 quence, creation and not figured passion ? These are the 
 
56 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 questions for the critic. Criticism stands like an interpreter 
 between the inspired and 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 im- 
 port ; to clear our sense that it may discern the pure bright- 
 ness 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 decla- 
 mation clothed in gorgeous mystic phraseology ? By vehe- 
 ment tumultuous anthems to the poet and his poetry ; by 
 epithets and laudatory similitudes drawn from Tartarus and 
 Elysium, and all intermediate terrors and glories ; whereby, 
 in^truth, it is rendered clear both that the poet is an ex- 
 tremely great poet, and also that the critic's allotment of un- 
 derstanding, overflowed by these Pythian raptures, has un- 
 happily melted into deliquium ? Nowise in this manner do 
 the Germans proceed : but by rigorous scientific inquiry 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 stand- 
 ing, 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 af- 
 firm : the cedhetic theories of Kant, Herder, Schiller, Goethe, 
 Kichter, vary in external aspect, according to the varied habits 
 of the individual ; and can at best only be regarded as ap- 
 proximations 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 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 57 
 
 Tieck and the two Schlegels, who, especially the latter, have 
 laboured so meritoriously in reconciling these various opin- 
 ions ; 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 ex- 
 istence, 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 ourselves have all, for the last thirty years, more 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 Shak- 
 speare, 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 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 Classi- 
 cist* and Romanticists, in which the Schlegels are assumed, 
 much too loosely, on all hands, as the patrons and generalis- 
 simos of the latter, shows us sufficiently what spirit is at work 
 in that long-stagnant literature. Doubtless this turbid fer- 
 mentation 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 doc- 
 trine were at one time contemptuously named the New ScJioot ; 
 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 
 
58 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 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 universal 
 tolerance. Every literature of the world has been cultivated 
 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 Eacine, 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 often er 
 imitated. It is their honest endeavour to understand each, 
 with its own peculiarities, in its own special manner of exist- 
 ing ; not that they may praise it, or censure it, or attempt to 
 alter it, but simply that they may see this manner of existiDg 
 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 
 
 1 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 an- 
 cient 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 bear- 
 ings 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 
 
 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 al- 
 lowed 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 immediately connects itself with the subtlest problems of 
 all philosoph} r . One characteristic of it we may state, the ob- 
 vious parent of many others. Poetic beauty, in its pure es- 
 sence, 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 dissimilarit}', of excitement 
 by contrast, or of seeing difficulties overcome. On the con- 
 trary, it is assumed as underived ; not borrowing its existence 
 from such sources, but as lending to most of these their sig- 
 nificance 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 appre- 
 hend 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 
 
60 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 forever hidden from them in deepest concealment. On all 
 hands, there is no truce given to the hypothesis, that the ulti- 
 mate 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 au- 
 thenticity of which 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 maligant pur- 
 poses, 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 mortal ! ' says the mild but lofty-minded Schiller, 
 ' Unhappy mortal ! that, with Science and Art, the noblest 
 ' of all instruments, effectest and attemptest nothing more 
 * than the day-drudge with the meanest ; that, in the domain 
 ' of perfect Freedom, bearest about in thee the spirit of 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. C»l 
 
 ' 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 benefi- 
 cent 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 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 sether of his spiritual es- 
 sence, 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 cen- 
 tury had long bent the knee before his Cresars, when the 
 statues of Rome were still standing erect ; the temples con- 
 tinued holy to the eye, when their gods had long been a laugh- 
 ing-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 corrup- 
 tions of his time, which on every side assail him ? By despis- 
 ing its decisions. Let him look upwards to his dignity and 
 the law, not downw r ards 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 en- 
 thusiasm 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 ; w r hile he strives, by 
 uniting the possible with the necessaiw, 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 ; 
 
62 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 imprint it in all sensible and spiritual forms, and cast it si- 
 lently into everlasting time.' ' 
 
 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 mani- 
 festation, having in itself no meaning, or even true existence 
 independent of it. To the mass of men this 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, stand- 
 ing 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 particular form as their own par- 
 ticular times require it in. For each age, by the law of its nat- 
 ure, 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 an- 
 other. But in every century, every man who labours, be it in 
 what province he may, to teach others, must first have pos- 
 sessed 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 
 
 1 Ueber die Aesthetisclie Erziehung cles Merischen,—Q\\ the Esthetic 
 Education of Man. 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 63 
 
 ' 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 compre- 
 hended 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 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 pene- 
 trate the whole, — entirely clear to himself ; detached sparkles 
 of light already spring forth on him from all sides, and dis- 
 close 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 ; he cannot yet bring them 
 under obedience to his freedom : in that case he is a progress- 
 ing and self-unfolding literary man, a Student. That it be 
 actually the Idea, which is possessed or striven after, is com- 
 mon 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 (Stilmper). The 
 latter is more tolerable than the former ; for there is still room 
 to hope that, in continuing his travel, he may at some future 
 point be seized by the Idea ; but of the first all hope is 
 
 From this bold and lofty principle the duties of the Liter- 
 ary Man 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 misap- 
 
 1 Ueber das Wese?i des Gelehrten (On the Nature of the Literary Man) : 
 a Course of Lectures delivered at Erlangen, in 1805. 
 
64 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 prekended ; but the sublime stoicism of his sentiments will 
 find some response in many a heart. We must add the con- 
 clusion 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 supposi- 
 tion 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 liter- 
 ary culture, had not arrived at knowledge of the Divine Idea, 
 or did not strive towards it, was in strict speech Nothing ; 
 and farther down, we said that he was a Bungler. This is in 
 the style of those unmerciful expressions by which philoso- 
 phers give such offence. — Now, looking away from the present 
 case, that we may front the maxim in its general shape, I re- 
 mind 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, noth- 
 ing else, but to leave them standing as if they had never ad- 
 dressed her. 
 
 ' Then farther, discourses of this sort are wont to be cen- 
 sured as unintelligible. Thus I figure to myself, — nowise 
 you, Gentlemen, bat 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 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 65 
 
 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 incon- 
 sistency did Criticism show itself unscientific or lax in estimat- 
 ing the product of his Art. For light on this point, we might 
 refer to the writings of almost any individual among the Ger- 
 man 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's criticism of Hamlet in his Wilhelm 
 Meister. This truly is what may be called the poetry of criti- 
 cism : for it is in some sort also a creative art ; aiming, at 
 least, to reproduce under a different shape the existing prod- 
 uct 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 strict- 
 ness : the mimic, the pictorial, the musical arts, all modes of 
 representing or addressing the highest nature of man, are 
 acknowledged as 3 r ounger 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 Landscape-painter, 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 
 
 5 
 
66 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 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 fore- 
 ground, 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 Al- 
 pine regions ; in seizing 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 en- 
 liven 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. 
 
 t '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, in- 
 deed, of less attraction than the former : yet their truth excites 
 us ; w r e 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 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 67 
 
 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.' ' 
 
 We have extracted this passage from W'dhelm Meisters Won- 
 derjahre, 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 lips of 
 the poet, or under the finger of the musician, he was that 
 man. A nation which appreciates such studies, nay requires 
 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, Ger- 
 many 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 owti 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 
 
 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 Williebm Tell. 
 
GS STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 glory, which looks on us in its full brightness from the Trans- 
 figuration of RafFaelle, from the Tempest of Shakspeare ; and 
 in broken, but purest and still heart-piercing beams, strug- 
 gling 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 em- 
 bodiment 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 im- 
 perishable. 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 
 times unavailing ; and, in the present circumstances of the 
 case, more than usually so. Neither will any extract or spe- 
 cimen 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, there- 
 fore, 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 w r e 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 shin- 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 69 
 
 ing 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 ? — These 
 questions we must leave candid and studious inquirers to an- 
 swer 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, some- 
 times in the very highest sense of that word ; yet it is no 
 reminiscence, but something actually present and before us ; 
 no looking back into an antique Fairyland, divided by im- 
 passable 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 b} r gone days pass only for what 
 they are : we have no witchcraft or magic in the common ac- 
 ceptation ; 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 Eeality, 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 
 
70 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 most callous worldling, sees not the actual aspects of life 
 more sharply than they are here delineated : the Nineteeth 
 Century stands before us, in all its contradiction and perplex- 
 ity ; barren, mean and baleful, as we have all known it ; yet 
 hero 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 un- 
 wearied endeavour, Art has at last yielded her secret ; and 
 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 en- 
 deavour 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.' 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 71 
 
 Such indeed is the end of Poetry at all times ; yet in np re- 
 cent literature known to us, except the German, has it been 
 so far attained ; nay, perhaps, so much as consciously and 
 stedfastly attempted. 
 
 The reader feels that if this our ojrinion be in any measure 
 true, it is a truth of no ordinary moment. It concerns not 
 Ibis writer or that ; but it opens to us new views on the fort- 
 une 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 
 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 clear- 
 ness of thought, and grave wisdom by shrewdness and persi- 
 flage. 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 corresjDonded with w T hat might be called the 
 Scotch : Cramer was not unlike our Blair : Von Cronegk 
 might be compared with Michael Bruce ; and Kabener 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 Preju- 
 dice 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 
 
72 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 product of a rude age ; and religious enthusiasm 7X" QUA 
 derangement in the biliary organs. Then did the Pn^as and 
 Oondccets of Germany indulge in day-dreams of perfectibil* 
 : fr j „ xiew social order was to bring back the Saturniai ^ra 
 to the world ; and philosophers sat on their sunny Pisg * b 
 looking back over dark savage deserts, and forward into 
 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 
 scarcely ever find the affair alluded to, except in term of con- 
 tempt, by the title Aufkldrerei (Illuminationism) ; and its 
 partisans, in subsequent satirical controversies, 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, G'Otz von Berlichingen, and the Robbers, 
 may stand as patriarchs and representatives of three separate 
 classes, which, commingled in various proportions, or sepa- 
 rately 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 Sentimen- 
 talists, the Chivalry-play writers, and other gorgeous and out- 
 rageous persons ; as a whole, now pleasantly denominated the 
 Kraftmnnner, 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-at-arms ; for 
 in reflection, as in action, they studied to be strong, vehement, 
 rapidly effective ; of battle-tumult, love-madness, heroism and 
 despair, there was no end. This literary period is called the 
 Sturm- und Drang-Zeit, the Storm- and 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 Boling- 
 broke's plan, and instead of ' patronising Providence,' did di - 
 rectly the opposite ; raging with extreme animation against 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 73 
 
 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 al- 
 ready followed them. The application of all this to our own 
 literature is too obvious to require much exposition. Have 
 not we also had our Power-men ? And will not, as in Ger- 
 many, 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 
 Iphujenie and Torquato Tasso / and he who began with the 
 Robbers ended with Wilhelm Tell. With longer life, all things 
 were to have been hoped for from Byron : for he loved truth in 
 his inmost heart, and would have discovered at last that his 
 Corsairs and Harolds were not true. It was otherwise ap- 
 pointed. 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 dis- 
 tinctly 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 Schle- 
 gels and Tiecks, is surely worth serious examination. For 
 the rest, need we add that it is study for self-instruction, no- 
 wise for purposes of imitation, that w T e recommend ? Among 
 the deadliest of poetical sins is imitation ; for if every man 
 must have his own way of thought, and his own way of ex- 
 pressing 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 hundred, 
 
74 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 perhaps not one lias ever asked himself what this opprobrious 
 epithet properly signified in his mind ; or where the bound- 
 ary 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 understood. 
 Yet surely there may be haste and oversight here ; for it is 
 well known, that, to the understanding of anything, two con- 
 ditions are equally required ; intelligibility in the thing* itself ' 
 being no whit more indispensable than intelligence in the ex- 
 aminer 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 investi- 
 gation there are objects of two sorts : First, the visible, in- 
 cluding 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 shai^e either without the mind or within it. If any man 
 shall here turn upon us, and assert that there are no such in- 
 visible objects ; that whatever cannot be so pictured or imag- 
 ined (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 w r ords, 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 exter- 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 75 
 
 naliy 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 geometri- 
 * cal diagram, but still with the same sort of precision ; and, 
 provided his diagram be complete, and the same both to him- 
 self 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 ichole 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 
 from 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 mys- 
 tic, but, what is much worse, a dunce. Another matter it is, 
 however, when the object to be treated of belongs to the in- 
 visible and immaterial class ; cannot be pictured out even 
 by the writer himself, much less, in ordinary symbols, set be- 
 fore 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 ex- 
 planation, 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 
 
70 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 by his teacher, the consequences are plain enough : disunion, 
 darkness and contradiction between the two ; the writer has 
 written for another man, and this reader, after long provoca- 
 tion, quarrels with him finally, and quits him as a mystic. 
 
 Nevertheless, after all these limitations, we shall not hesi- 
 tate 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 na- 
 ture, seized by some touch of divine Truth, and of this per- 
 haps 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 na- 
 ture, a George Fox, or a Jacob Bohme, 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 un- 
 consciously soever it may 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 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 77 
 
 and obtaio the name of mystics. To scoffers they are a 
 ready and cheap prey ; bnt 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 ajjologise for Bohme, or Novalis, or the 
 school of Theosophus and Flood, that we have here under- 
 taken. Neither is it on such persons that the charge of mys- 
 ticism brought against the Germans mainly rests. Buhme is 
 little known among us ; Novalis, much as he deserves know- 
 ing, not at all ; nor is it understood, that, in their own coun- 
 try, these men rank higher than they do, or might do, with 
 ourselves. The chief mystics in Germany, it would appear, 
 are the Transcendental Philosophers, Kant 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 
 Konigsberg passes for a sort of Necromancer and Black-artist 
 in Metaphysics ; 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 metaplrysical 
 writers of the eighteenth century, including Hume and 
 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 ; 
 
7S STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 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. 1 
 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 liave 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 care- 
 less or unprepared reader will find Kant's writing a riddle ; 
 but will a reader of this sort made much of Newton's Prin- 
 cipia, or D'Alembert's Calculus of Variations? lie 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 must be plain subjects compared with it. 
 But these latter are happy, not only in the fixedness and sim- 
 plicity of their methods, but also in the universal acknowl- 
 edgment of their claim to that prior and continual intensity 
 of application, without which all progress in any science is im- 
 possible ; though more than one may be attempted without 
 it ; and blamed, because without it they will yield no result. 
 
 1 We have heard that the Latin Translation of his Works is unintel- 
 ligible, 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 arc known to us. 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. TO 
 
 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 co-operates : 
 the blessing of half-sleep in such cases is denied him ; ho 
 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 disap- 
 pointed naturally enough bring back with them. Let the 
 reader believe us, the Critical Philosophers, whatever they 
 may be, are no mystics, and have no fellowship with mystics. 
 What a mystic is, we have said above. But Kant, Fichte, and 
 Schelling, are men of cool judgment, and determinate ener- 
 getic 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 Bohme : 
 as justly might we take Sir Isaac Newton for a spiritual 
 brother of Baron Swedenborg, and Laplace's Mechanism of 
 
80 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the Heavens for a peristyle to the Vision of the New Jerusalem. 
 That this is no extravagant comparison, we appeal to any 
 man acquaiDted 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 
 sjm'it, standing erect and clear, like a Cato Major among de- 
 generate 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 fig- 
 ure his motionless look, had he heard this charge of mys- 
 ticism ! For the man rises before us, amid contradiction and 
 debate, like a granite mountain amid clouds and wind. Bidi- 
 cule, 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 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 com- 
 mon 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 achieve- 
 ment of the century in which it came to light. August Wil- 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 81 
 
 helm Schlegel has stated in plain terms his belief, that, in re- 
 spect of its probable influence on the moral culture of Europe, 
 it stands on a line with the Reformation. We mention Schle- 
 gel as a man whose opinion has a known value among our- 
 selves. 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 remark- 
 able 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 an} 7 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 sys- 
 tem ; 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 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 under- 
 stood 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 men are instructive ; and be- 
 cause, 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 
 G 
 
82 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 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 charac- 
 terising 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 Philoso- 
 phy in existence at the present day. 1 The 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 pro- 
 ceed 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 
 
 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, in- 
 vites 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 sub- 
 stance, 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 Phi- 
 losophy has received among us in our age. It is only to a superficial ob- 
 server that the import of these discussions can seem trivial ; rightly 
 understood, they give sufficient and final answer to Hartley's and Dar- 
 win'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 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 Under- 
 standing 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 V We regard the assiduous study of his Works as the best 
 preparation for studying those of Kant. 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. S3 
 
 some indubitable principle ; to fix ourselves on some un- 
 changeable basis ; to discover what the Germans call the Ur- 
 wahr, the Primitive Truth, the necessarily, absolutely and 
 eternally True. This necessarily True, this absolute basis of 
 Truth, Locke silently, and Eeid 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 abso- 
 lute 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 be- 
 liefs, or whatever they are called, of men, to do in this mat- 
 ter? Is it not the object of Philosophy to enlighten, and rec- 
 tify, 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, 
 be one dissentient against the fact of the Sun's going round 
 the Earth ? Can any evidence be clearer ; is there any per- 
 suasion more universal, any belief more instinctive ? And 
 yet the San 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. 
 
84: STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 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 ar- 
 gument, 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 may 
 be 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 our- 
 selves has long appeared the grand characteristic of Kant's 
 Philosophy, when we mention his distinction, seldom perhaps 
 expressed so broadly, but uniformly implied, between Under- 
 standing 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 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 85 
 
 believe that both Understanding and Reason are organs, or 
 rather, Ave 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 ; i" 
 works by more subtle methods, on higher objects, and re- 
 quires 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 dis- 
 cerns Truth itself, the absolutely and primitively True ; while 
 Understanding discerns only relations, and cannot decide with- 
 out if. The proper province of Understanding is all, strictly 
 speaking, real, practical and material knowledge, Mathematics, 
 Physics, Political 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 indispen- 
 sable servant, without which, indeed, existence itself would 
 be impossible. Let it not step beyond this province, how- 
 ever ; not usurp the province of Reason, which it is arrpointed 
 to obey, and cannot rule over without ruin to the whole spir- 
 itual man. Should Understanding attempt to prove the ex- 
 istence 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 dis- 
 covers 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 be- 
 comes. 
 
 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 trape- 
 
86 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ziura : Skakspeare is a Poet, 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 yes- 
 terday, 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 argu- 
 ment 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 termination of all true 
 knowledge. 
 
 Will the Kantists forgive us for the loose and popular man- 
 ner 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 ; ' 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 bouudless, 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 ajDpear- 
 ance, under another name, of our own old ' Wholesome Prej- 
 udice,' so well known to most of us! Prejudice, wholesome 
 or unwholesome, is a personage for whom the German Phi- 
 losophers disclaim all shadow of respect ; nor do the vehement 
 among them hide their deep disdain for all and sundry who 
 light under her flag. Truth is to be loved purely and solely 
 because it is true. With moral, political, religious considera- 
 tions, high and dear as they may otherwise be, the Philoso- 
 pher, as such, has no concern. To look at them would but 
 
 1 Schelling has said as much or more {Methode des Academischen Stu- 
 dium, pp. 105-111), in terms which vrr could wish we had space to 
 
 transcribe. 
 
STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 87 
 
 perpier aim, and distract his vision from the task in his 
 h^nds. Calmly he constructs his theorem, as the Georr ' 1 '^ 
 does his, without hope or fear, save that he may or maj 101 
 iind the solution ; and stands in the middle, by the or - ».t 
 nay be, accused as an Infidel, by the other as an Enthusiast 
 ao^ Mystic, till the tumult ceases, and what was true, 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 re- 
 garded in such manner as we see. The profoundness, sub- 
 tlety, extent of investigation, which the answer of these ques- 
 tions presupposes, need not be farther pointed oat. 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 in- 
 congruous 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, religious ; 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 Keligion 
 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 
 
88 STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 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 sec- 
 tarian 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 seveial ; inferior not 
 to our own only, but to that of Italy, nay perhaps to that of 
 Spain. Their Philosophy too must still be regarded as uncer- 
 tain ; 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 
 Philosopher, 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 con- 
 troversies, 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, 
 lot 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 of 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 
 
STATE] OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 89 
 
 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 dis- 
 cernment of its nature, struggling towards this happiness, is 
 the hope and the glory of our time. To us, as to others, suc- 
 cess, at a distant or a nearer day, cannot be uncertain. Mean- 
 while, the first condition of success is, that, in striving honestly 
 ourselves, we honestly acknowledge the striving of our neigh- 
 bour ; that with a Will unwearied in seeking Truth, we have 
 a Sense open for it, wheresoever and howsoever it may arise. 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 The charm of ' fame. ' Werner's tumultuous career indicative of much in 
 ohe history of his time. (p. 93). — 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 hy- 
 pochondria. Coincidences of Werner's and Hoffman's early circumstances. 
 Werner's dissolute college-life, and desultory strivings. At thirty he had 
 already divorced two wives, and was looking out for a third : Unsteady irra 
 tional hopes, and wild enthusiasm of character. (95). — His early writings sin- 
 gularly contrasted with his later : His French scepticism overlaid with won- 
 drous theosophic garniture. High colloquies in rather questionable fashion. 
 His drama of the Suhne des Thais : Chiefly interesting as containing a pict- 
 ure of himself. Extracts, in which, with much tumid grandiloquence, ho 
 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. (98). — 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. (113). — He marries his third wife. His faithful 
 care and affection for his poor mother : Her death. His life at Warsaw : In- 
 timacy with Hoffmann. His Kreuz an cler 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. (126). — 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 modem 
 Protestantism. He visits Italy. Spiritual Exercitations : Returns to the 
 Catholic Faith of his fathers. Ordained a Priest : Preaches with all his might 
 at Vienna and elsewhere, amid much tumult and obloquy. Literary dregs. 
 Drawing nigh to his end : Sleep of Death. Pray, wanderer, for a wanderer's 
 soul. (135). — Questionable character of his Life and Works. Gigantic en- 
 deavour, leading to most dwarfish performance. His change of faith evi- 
 dently sincere : A melancholy posthumous fragment : No thought of return- 
 ing to Protestantism. His mysticism and dissoluteness : His belief probably 
 persuasion rather than conviction. Religious opinion in Germany. W© can- 
 not justify Werner, yet let him be condemned with pity. (143). 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER.' 
 
 [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 fort- 
 une 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 Stael, we recollect, allows 
 him an entire chapter in her Allemagne. It was a much 
 coarser curiosity, and in a much wider circle, which the dis- 
 sipated man, by successive indecorums, occasioned ; till at 
 last the convert to Popery, the preaching zealot, came to fig- 
 ure in all newspapers ; and some picture of him was required 
 for all heads that would not sit blank and mute in the topic 
 
 1 Foreign Review, No. 1. — Lebens-Abriss Friedricli Ludwig Zacha- 
 rias Werners Von clem Herausgeber ton Hoffmanns 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 Sohne des Thais. (The Sons of the Valley. ) A Dramatic Poem. 
 Part I. Die Templer auf Cypem. (The Templars in Cyprus.) Part II. 
 Die Kreuzeshruder. (The Brethren of the Cross.) Berlin, 1801, 1802. 
 
 3 Das Kreuz an der Osteee. (The Cross on the Baltic.) A Tragedy. 
 Berlin, 1806. 
 
 4 Martin Luther, oder die Weihe der Kraft. (Martin Luther, or the 
 Consecration of Strength.) A Tragedy. Berlin, 1807. 
 
 5 Die Mutter der Makkabiier. (The mother of the Maccabes.) A 
 Tragedy. Vienna, 1820. 
 
94 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 of every coffeehouse and (Esthetic 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 be- 
 half ; 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 feel- 
 ing, 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 dis- 
 tant 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 mem every one of us is con- 
 cerned. 
 
 Our materials for this survey are deficient, not so much in 
 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 dis- 
 cursive for our wants ; the features of the man are nowhere 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 95 
 
 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 da} r ; nor 
 shall we deny that, in performing a friend's duty to their 
 memory, he has done truth also a service. His Life of Hoff- 
 mann,' pretending to no artfulness of arrangement, is redun- 
 dant, 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 pro- 
 fessional : for the Author, it would seem, is a legal functionary 
 of long standing, and now of respectable rank ; and he ex- 
 amines 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 say so much: here we should 
 certainly have wished for more facts, though it had been with 
 fewer consequences drawTQ from them ; were these somewhat 
 chaotic expositions of Werner's character exchanged for sim- 
 ple particulars of his walk and conversation, the result would 
 be much surer, and, especially to foreigners, much more com- 
 plete and luminous. As it is, from repeated perusals of this 
 biography, we have failed to gather any very clear notion 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. 
 1 See Appendix I. § Hoffmann. 
 
96 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER 
 
 Werner was born at Konigsberg, in East Prussia, on the 
 18th of November 1768. His father was Professor of His- 
 tory and Eloquence in the University there ; and farther, in 
 virtue of this office, Dramatic Censor ; which latter circum- 
 stance 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-mechan- 
 ism 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 guardian- 
 ship could scarcely be the best for him. Werner himself 
 speaks of her in earnest commendation, as of a pure, high- 
 minded 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, Wer- 
 ner being eight years older, they had little or no ac- 
 quaintance. What a nervous and melancholic parent was, 
 Hoffmann, by another unhappy coincidence, had also full oc- 
 casion to know ; his own mother, parted from her husband, 
 lay helpless and broken-hearted for the last seventeen years 
 of her life and the first seventeen of his ; a source of pain- 
 ful 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 noth- 
 ing. We learn only that, about the usual age, he matricu- 
 lated in the Konigsberg University, intending to qualify 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 97 
 
 himself for the business of a lawyer ; and with his profes- 
 sional 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 meta- 
 physics, as in all branches of learning, might thus be ex- 
 pected 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 con- 
 trived, in his twenty-first year, to publish a little volumne of 
 'Poems,' apparently in very tolerable magazine metre; and 
 after some ' roamings ' over Germany, having loitered for a 
 while at Berlin, and longer at Dresden, he betook himself to 
 more serious business ; applied for admittance and promo- 
 tion as a Prussian man of law ; the employment which young 
 ■jurists look for in that countrv being chieflv in the hands 
 of Government ; consisting, indeed, of appointments in the 
 various judicial or administrative Boards by which the Prov- 
 inces 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 circum- 
 stance 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 w T hom 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 he was broken in 
 character, in spirit, perhaps in bodily constitution ; and, con- 
 tenting 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 deserv- 
 ing to be so. Of unsteady and irrational hopes, however, he 
 7 
 
08 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 had still abundance. The fine enthusiasm of his nature, un- 
 destroyed by so many external perplexities, nay to which per- 
 haps these very perplexities had given fresh and undue ex- 
 citement, glowed forth in strange many-coloured brightness 
 from 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. 
 
 Werner's early publication had sunk, after a brief provin- 
 cial life, into merited 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, Eeligion, 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 with wonderous theosophic gar- 
 niture ; his mind was full of visions and cloudy glories, and 
 no occupation pleased him better than to controvert, in gen- 
 erous 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 unhajW 
 experience ; the grand questions of Immortality, of Fate, 
 Freewill, Foreknowledge 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 enlight- 
 ening fiie. 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 99 
 
 'Some leagues from Warsaw,' says the Biographer, ' en- 
 chantingly 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 wa3 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 ad- 
 vance 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.' 
 
 Week after week, these discussions were carefully resumed 
 from the point where they had been left : indeed, to W T erner, 
 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 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 Sohne des Thais, 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 
 
100 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 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 de- 
 struction 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 mummery, Cabalistic tradition and Rosicrueian 
 philosophy, as no power could work into dramatic union. 
 The incidents are few, and of little interest ; interrupted con- 
 tinually by flaring shows and long-winded 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 pris- 
 matic hues, but representing nothing, or at least not the sub- 
 ject, but the author. 
 
 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 the- 
 osophy ; his audacity, yet intrinsic weakness of character ; 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 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 101 
 
 this performance one condition, at least, of genuine inspira- 
 tion 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 Werners 
 creed, as it was now fashioned, and is here exhibited, would 
 be a task perhaps too hard for us, and, at all events, unprofit- 
 able 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, w r ith 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 light- 
 ning, as by any other plan our limits would admit. 
 
 Let the reader fancy himself in the island of Cyprus, 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 en- 
 titled The Templars in Cyprus ; but why it should also be 
 called TJie 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 : 
 
102 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 ACT FIFTH. SCENE FIRST. 
 
 Midnight. Interior of tlw Temple Church. Backwards, a deep perspec- 
 tive of Altars and Gothic Pillars. On the right-hand side of the fore- 
 ground, a little Chapel ; and in this an Altar with the figure of St. Sebas- 
 tian. The scene is lighted very dimly by a single Lamp which hangs before 
 the Altar. 
 
 ****** 
 
 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, 
 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 I — But time is precious ! — Come, 
 My son, my one sole Adalbert, come with me ! 
 
 ADALBERT. 
 
 What would you, father, in this solemn hour ? 
 
 PHILIP. 
 
 This hour, or never ! [Leading Adalbert to the Altar, 
 
 Hither ! — Know'st thou him ? 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 103 
 
 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, 
 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 liastily. 
 
104 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 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. He is mailed from head to foot in black harness ; 
 
 his visor is closed. 
 
 ARMED MAN. 
 
 Pray ! [Adalbert kneels. 
 Bare thyself ! — [lie strips him to the girdle and raises him. 
 
 Look on the ground, and follow ! 
 [He leads him into the background to a trap-door, on the right. 
 He descends first himself ; and when Adalbert has followed 
 him, it closes. 
 
 SECOND SCENE. » 
 
 Cemetery of the Templars, under the Church. The scene is lighted only 
 by a Lamp which Jiangs down from the vault. Around are Tombstones of 
 deceased Knights, marked with Crosses and sculptured Bones. In the back' 
 ground, two colossal Skeletons holding between them a large white Book, 
 marked with a red Cross ; from the under end of the Book hangs a Jong 
 black curtain. The Book, of which only the cover is visible, has an inscrip- 
 tion in black cipliers. Ths 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 Coffin 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 tfie background, are seen the lowest steps of the stairs which lead up 
 into the Temple Church aboce the vault. 
 
 armed man {not yet visible ; above on the right-hand stairs). 
 Dreaded ! Is the grave laid open ? 
 
 CONCEALED VOICES. 
 
 Yea! 
 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 carefully 
 down the steps on the right Jiand. 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 105 
 
 ARMED MAN (to ADALBERT.) 
 
 Look down ! Tis on thy life ! [Leads him to tlie 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 ichere the Body is lying. 
 Look down ! 'Tis on thy life ! — What seest thou V 
 
 [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 toward 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. [Be 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. 
 
 [ With ilie 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 DeviVs head appears between thetico Skeletons; its form 
 is horrible ; it is gilt ; has a huge golden Crown, a Heart of Hie same 
 on its Broio ; rolling flaming Eyes ; Serpents instead of Hair ; golden 
 
106 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 Chains round its neck, which is visible to tlie breast; and a golden, 
 Cross, yet not a Crucifix, which rises over its right shoulder, as if 
 crushing it down. Tlie wlwle 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 
 DeviV s-head, concealing it again ; and above, as before, appears the Book, 
 but now opened, with ivhite 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. 
 \He reads tlie 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 betrayed 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 ? 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 107 
 
 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 
 
 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-flames, 
 
 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, 
 
 &nd placed it on the brow of Baffometus ; 
 
 \nd 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. 
 
108 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 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 Baff ometus 
 
 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. 
 
 [With his sword he touches the Curtain, which note 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 lie did the chains, 
 on the ground). 
 
 ARMED MAN. 
 
 Now take the golden heart from off his brow ! 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 109 
 
 ADALBERT. 
 
 It seems to burn ! 
 
 ARMED MAN. 
 
 Thou errest : ice is warmer. 
 
 Adalbert {taking tlie Heart from the Brow). 
 Hah ! shivering frost ! 
 
 ARMED MAN. 
 
 Take from his hack the Cross, 
 And throw it from thee ! — 
 
 ADALBERT. 
 
 How ! The Saviour's token ? 
 
 HEAD. 
 
 Deliver, O 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 ons that died ; 
 TIwu shalt henceforth believe in one that liveth \ 
 And never dies! — Obey, and question not, — 
 Step over it ! 
 
 ADALBERT. 
 
 Take pity on 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 from a load. 
 
 How the figure rises 
 And looks in gladness ! 
 
 ARMED MAN. 
 
 Him whom thou hast served 
 Till now, deny ! 
 
110 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 Adalbert (horror-struck). 
 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 icith 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 pre- 
 cisely either they or Werner intended, by this marvellous 
 1 Story of the Fallen Master,' to shadow forth. At first view 
 one might take it for an allegory, couched in Masonic lan- 
 guage, — and truly no flattering allegory, — of the Catholic 
 Church ; and this tranfpling 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 Institu- 
 tion, 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 ad- 
 umbrations, 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 bod} r . 
 But on these secret principles of theirs, as on Werner's man- 
 ner of conceiving them, we are only enabled to guess ; for 
 Werner, too, has an esoteric doctrine, which he does not pro- 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER, 111 
 
 mulgate, 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. 
 
 ACT FOURTH. SCENE FIRST. 
 
 Prison ; at the wall a Table. Robert, without sicord, cap, or mantle, 
 sits downcast on one side of it; Gottfried, who keeps watch by him, sit- 
 ting at the oilier. 
 
 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 — conies 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 
 
 We thought was woven for Eternity. 
 
 GOTTFRIED. 
 
 Yet each man shapes his Destiny himself. . . . 
 
112 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 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 f 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, 
 
 *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 bebind, 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, — 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 113 
 
 Take this, and all the freaks which, bubble-like, 
 Spring forth o' th' blood, and which by such fair names 
 You call, — along with you into your Heaven ? — 
 Well, be it to ! much good may't — 
 
 [As his eye, by chance, lights on Gottfried, who meanwhile has 
 fallen 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, am- 
 biguous, little, sylph-like maiden, gives him obscure encour- 
 agement, before his departure, to possess his soul in patience ; 
 seeing, if he can learn the grand secret of Renunciation, 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 di- 
 vided 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 dis- 
 closed. 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 com- 
 modious suite of rooms, under the Carmelite Monastery of that 
 city. Here sit in solemn conclave the heads of the Establish- 
 ment ; 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 
 8 
 
114 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER 
 
 other ministers, fancying within themselves the utmost free- 
 dom 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 agen- 
 cies, 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 prin- 
 ciples. 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 admix- 
 ture 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 ignor- 
 ance. 
 
 In the Fifth Act of the Second Part, we are at length, 
 after many a hint and significant note of preparation, intro- 
 duced to the privacies of this philosophical Santa Hermandad. 
 A strange Delphic cave this of theirs, under the very pave- 
 ments of Paris ! There are brazen folding-doors, and con- 
 cealed 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 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 115 
 
 1 eremite garb, with a long beard reaching to his girdle,' is 
 for a moment discovered 'reading in a deep monotonous 
 ' voice.' The ' Strong Ones,' meanwhile, are out in quest of 
 Robert d'Heredon ; who, by cunning practices, has been en- 
 ticed 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 ceremonial, 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 again ; finding, in- 
 deed, 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 circum- 
 stances, 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, w r ith the highest stretch of 
 Rosicrucian art ; and which must have gone far to disgust 
 Robert d'Heredon with his natural usquebaugh, however ex- 
 i silent, had that fierce drink been in use then. He rages in 
 t fine frenzy ; dies aw r ay in raptures ; and then at last, ' con- 
 siders what he wanted and what he wants.' Now is the time 
 for Adam of Valincourt to strike-in with an interminable ex- 
 position 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. 
 
116 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is an allegory — of its sort ; and we can pro- 
 fess to have translated with entire fidelity : 
 
 ADAM. 
 
 Thy riddle by a second will be solved. [He leads him to the Sphinx. 
 
 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 : 
 
 This is the riddle of Existence : — read it, — 
 
 Propose that other to her, and she serves thee ! 
 
 \Tlie door on the right hand opens, and, in 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 bell are heard. 
 
 old man of carmel {reading with a loud but still monotonous voice). 
 1 And when the Lord saw Phosphoros ' — 
 
 Robert (interrupting him). 
 
 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). 
 1 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, 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 117 
 
 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, lie drew back 
 As in a mighty rushing ; and the Element 
 Hose up around Phosphoros, and tower'd itself 
 Aloft to Heav'n ; and he lay stunn'd beneath it. 
 
 1 But when his lirst-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: l 
 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 V 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 
 
 1 Mylitta, in the old Persian mysteries, was the name of the Moon. 
 Mythras that of the Sun. 
 
118 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WEUNER. 
 
 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 hreathe. 
 
 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 
 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 1 hosphor 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. 
 
 1 So Phosphoros was griev'd in heart : 
 But yet the Word spake comfort, giving him 
 The Pillow Patience, there to lay his head. 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 119 
 
 And having rested, lie 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. 
 TJien passing forth iuto 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 ; 
 Mylitta likewise with he f r 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 Garment 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. 
 
 1 This is the last of the Evangels.' 
 
 [TJie door closes, and again conceals the old man op 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. Some- 
 times, in the deeper consideration which translators are bound 
 
120 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 to bestow on such extravagances, we have fancied we could 
 discern in this apologue some glimmerings of meaning, scat- 
 tered 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 ex- 
 ample, indicate generally the spiritual essence of man, and 
 this story be an emblem of his history ? He longs to be 
 1 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 viituous 
 Self ; but, amid the glories of the majestic All, is still haunted 
 and blinded by some shadow of his own little Me. For this 
 reason he is punished ; imprisoned in the ' Element ' (of a 
 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 con- 
 ditions 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 mytho- 
 logic 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 ' (intellectual cul- 
 ture ?) 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 in- 
 tended, with ' the Drops of Sadness and the Drops of Long- 
 ing,' to shadow forth that woestruck, desolate, yet softer and 
 devouter state in which mankind displayed itself at the com- 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 121 
 
 ing 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 need 
 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 unhap- 
 pily 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 mountain-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 aits den Wassern else- 
 where ; 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 sig- 
 nificance. 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 
 
122 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 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 genu- 
 ine poetic sense ; we do not see any of his dramatis per sonce, 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. 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 impure, barbaric 
 splendour ; not the soft, peaceful brightness of sunlight, but 
 the red, resinous glare of playhouse torches. Werner, how- 
 ever, 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 j^arables of Baffometus and Phosjmoros, our readers may be 
 disposed to hold his revelations on this subject rather cheap. 
 Nevertheless, taking up the character of Vates 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 ; 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 123 
 
 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 Re- 
 ' ligionists established ; and that, for this purpose, not writing, 
 but actual preaching, can avail. He detests common Protest- 
 antism, under which he seems to mean a sort of Socinianism, 
 or diluted French Infidelity : he talks of Jacob Bohme, and 
 Luther, and Schleiermacher, and a new Trinity of ' Art, Re- 
 ligion 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 Heiland aus den Wassern this correspondence throws 
 no farther light : what the new Creed specially was, Avhich 
 W T erner felt so eager to plant and propagate, we nowhere 
 learn with an} 7 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 do^ - - 
 mas, and apparently waiting but for some proper vehicle in 
 which to convey them to the minds of men. His funda- 
 mental 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-forge tfulness, 
 that ' merging of the Me in the Idea ; ' a principle which reigns 
 both in Stoical and Christian ethics, and is at this day com- 
 mon, in theory, among all German philosophers, especially of 
 the Transcendental class. Werner has adopted this princi- 
 
124 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 pie with his whole heart and his whole soul, as the indis- 
 pensable 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 real or chief end 
 of man : this is but love of enjoyment, disguise it as we like ; 
 a more complex and sometimes more resj)ectable 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 pro- 
 pose 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 con- 
 vinced of its importance ; and has even enforced it specifically 
 in a passage of his Sohne des Thais, which he is at the pains 
 to cite and expound in his correspondence with Hitzig. Here 
 is another fraction of that wondrous dialogue betw r een Robert 
 d'Heredon and Adam of Valincourt, in the cavern of the Volley : 
 
 ****** 
 
 ROBERT. 
 
 And Death, — so dawns it on me, — Death perhaps, 
 
 The doom that leaves naught of this Me 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 Me, so thin 
 
 And pitiful, into Infinitude, 
 
 TJmt 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 ! 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 125 
 
 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 ! 
 
 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 BaiTometus 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 
 proposed, like another Luther, to cast forth, as good seed, 
 among the ruins of decayed and down-trodden Protestantism ! 
 Whether Hitzig was still young enough to attempt executing 
 bis 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, shat- 
 tered and degraded in his own private character, could medi- 
 tate such apostolic enterprises, — was a man likely, if he lived 
 long, to play fantastic tricks in abundance ; and, at least in 
 his religious history, to set the world a-wondering. Conver- 
 sion, 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 as- 
 saults what it reckons Errors, still more should this be so, 
 
126 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 when it proclaims what it reckons Truth, 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 tem- 
 poral 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, noth- 
 ing 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 dumb-show, 
 with such ardour, that he quite gained the fair mute ; wedded 
 her in 1801 ; and soon after, in her company, quitted War- 
 saw for Konigsberg, where the helpless state of his mother 
 required immediate attention. It is from Konigsberg that 
 most of his missionary epistles to Hitzig are written ; the lat- 
 ter, as Ave 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 tlfe 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 : 
 
 ' I know 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 inexpressi- 
 bly pitiful my Sohne des Thais appeared to me in that hour, 
 when, after eighteen years of neglect, I again went to partake 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 127 
 
 in the Communion ! This death of my mother, — the pure 
 royal poet-and-martyr spirit, who for eight years had lain 
 continually on a sick-bed, and suffered unspeakable tilings, — 
 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 voyag- 
 ings ; and, in after years, from amid far scenes and crushing 
 perplexities, he often looks back to her grave with a feeling, 
 to which all bosoms must respond. ' The date of her decease 
 
 1 See, for example, the Preface to his Mutter der Mackabaer, written 
 at Vienna, in 1819. The tone of still, but deep and heartfelt sadness, 
 which runs through the whole of this piece, cannot he communicated 
 in extracts. We quote only a half stanza, which, except in prose, we 
 shall not venture to translate : 
 
 ' Ich, dem der Liebe Kosen 
 Und alle Freudenrosen, 
 Beym ersten Schmifeltosen 
 Am MuttergraV entflohnS— 
 
 1 1, for whom the caresses of love and all roses of joy withered away, 
 as the first shovel with its mould sounded on the coflin of my mother.' 
 
128 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER 
 
 became a memorable era in his mind ; as may appear from 
 the title which he gave, long afterwards, to one of his most 
 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 row 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 cap- 
 ital, formed eack other's chief society ; and, of course, clave 
 to one another more closely than they might have done else- 
 where. 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 af- 
 fectation, 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 whole- 
 some 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. 1 
 
 1 Hitzig has thn» described the first aspect it presented to Hoffmann : 
 ' Streets of statelj breadth, formed of palaces in the finest Italian style, 
 'and wooden huts which threatened every moment to rush down over 
 ' the heads of their inmates; in these edifices, Asiatic pomp combined 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 120 
 
 It was here that, in 1805, Werner's Kreuz an der Ostsee 
 (Cross on the Baltic) was written : a sort of half-operatic per- 
 formance, 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 ridicu- 
 lous scene, at the first reading of the piece, the same shrewd 
 wag has recorded in his Serapions-Brilder : 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 Odsee, 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 snuff-box, 
 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 unpar- 
 alleled, ever-memorable, altogether indescribable faces you 
 
 'in 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 
 ' deeply-shrouded nuns of strictest discipline, walking self-secluded 
 ' and apart ; there flights of young Polesses, in silk mantles of the bright- 
 ' est colours, talking and promenading over broad squares. The vener- 
 ' able ancient Polish noble, with- moustaches, caftan, girdle, sabre, and 
 ' red or yellow boots ; the new generation equipt to the utmost pitch as 
 'Parisian Incroyables ; with Turks, Greeks, Russians, Italians, French- 
 ' men, in ever-changing 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 tbe 
 ' national language ; a good French company ; an Italian opera ; Ger- 
 ' man 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 NacJdass, b. 
 i. s. 287. 
 
 9 
 
130 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 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 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 dear- 
 est, 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 ! " ' l 
 
 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 Komova, we are not surprised that spectral shapes peer 
 forth on us from the gloom. 
 
 In constructing and depicting of characters, Werner, in- 
 deed, is still little better than a mannerist : his persons, 
 differing in external figure, differ too slightly in inward nat- 
 ure ; 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 
 attained a really superior excellence. The savage Prussians, 
 1 Hoffmann's Serajrions-Brihder, b. iv. s. 240. 
 
V 
 
 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER 131 
 
 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. Adal- 
 bert ; 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 im- 
 mortal hope, — belong undoubtedly to Werner's most suc- 
 cessful 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 dim religious light, in which its many pettinesses and 
 exaggerations are softened into something which at least re- 
 sembles 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 Inland, 
 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. Inland, the best 
 actor in Germany, was himself a dramatist, and man of 
 talent, but in all points differing from Werner, as a stage- 
 machinist may differ from a man with the second-sight. Hoff- 
 mann 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 re- 
 mained but to write back a refusal, full of admiration and 
 expostulation : and Inland wrote one which, says Hoffmann, 
 ' passes for a masterpiece of theatrical diplomacy.' 
 
 In this one respect, at least, Werner's next play was happier, 
 
132 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER 
 
 for it actually crossed the ' Stygian marsh ' of green-room hesi- 
 tations, and reached, though in a maimed state, the Elysium 
 of the boards ; and this to the great joy, as it proved, both of 
 Inland 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 per- 
 formance ; which came out at Berlin in 1807, and soon spread 
 over all Germany, Catholic as well as Protestant ; being actsd, 
 it would seem, even in Vienna, to overflowing and delighted 
 audiences. 
 
 If instant acceptance, therefore, were a measure of dramatic 
 merit, this j)lay 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 ex- 
 cellence. It cannot be named among the best dramas : it is 
 not even the best of Werner'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, per- 
 haps of no trivial sort, awakened in the First Act ; but, un- 
 happily, 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 or- 
 namented 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 per- 
 sons of 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 limita- 
 tions. 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 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 133 
 
 prescriptively 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 com- 
 mon standards, we are far from saying that he has failed. 
 Doubtless it is, in some respects, a significant and even sub- 
 lime 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 him- 
 self ? 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. 
 
 As for the other characters, they need not detain us long. 
 Of Charles the Fifth, by far the most ambitious, — meant, in- 
 deed, as the counterpoise of Luther, — we may say, without hes- 
 itation, that he is a failure. An empty Gascon this ; bragging 
 of his power, and honour and the like, in a style which Charles, 
 even in his nineteenth } r ear, 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 
 
134 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER 
 
 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 peas- 
 ants, like the honest Hugo in the 'Sons of the Valley,' are 
 very garrulous. 
 
 The drama of Martin Luther is named likewise the Conse- 
 cration 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 de- 
 funct 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 epithalami- 
 ums over unsound sleepers : we cannot see how aught of this 
 is to 'consecrate strength ;' or, indeed, what such jack-o'-lan- 
 tern personages have in the least to do with so grave a busi- 
 ness. 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 content- 
 ment an}' where : Abstract Ideas, 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 wot performing tile task proposed, but only tell- 
 ing 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 encumber- 
 ing and choking-up what it meets with ; in itself, joerhaps, a 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 135 
 
 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, there- 
 fore, corresponds ill with that of the ' overflowing and de- 
 lighted 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, spark- 
 ling mass ; yet not of pure metal, but of many-coloured 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 in- 
 fluence 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 Schruter, one of the state-minis- 
 ters, a man harmonising with Werner in his ' zeal both for re- 
 ligion and freemasonry,' had been persuaded by some friends 
 to appoint him his secretary. Werner naturally rejoiced in 
 such promotion ; yet, combined 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 in- 
 fluential world with his own eyes : but to draw future instruc- 
 tion from it, or even to guide himself in its present complex- 
 ities, 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, Jo- 
 hannes Midler, 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 compan- 
 ions. 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 
 
136 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. " 
 
 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. Tho \ knowest me ! Still, immersed in my 
 ' fantasies, in my occupation : so that here, what with play- 
 ' houses, what with social parties, she had no manner of en- 
 ' joyment 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 ' sacra- 
 ment ' 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. Per- 
 haps it is saying much for German morality, that so absurd 
 a system has not, by the disorders resulting from it, already 
 brought about its own abrogation. 
 
 Of Werner's farther proceedings in Berlin, except by im- 
 plication, 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, ' authorized 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 
 1 at Jena, in December 1807, for the first time, the most uni- 
 ' versal and the clearest man of his age (the man whose like 
 ' no one that has seen him will ever see again), the great, nay 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 137 
 
 ' 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 Ber- 
 1 lin the triumphant entry of the pattern of European tyrants ' 
 (Napoleon). On the summit of the Rigi, at sunrise, he be- 
 came acquainted with the Crown Prince, now King, of Ba- 
 varia ; was by him introduced to the Swiss festival at Inter- 
 laken, and to the most 'intellectual lady of our time, the 
 ' Baroness de Stael ; and must beg to be credited 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, 1 again to Switzerland ; in 
 short, trudged and hurried hither and thither, inconstant as 
 an ignis fatuus, and restless as the Wandering Jew. 
 
 On his mood of mind during all this period, Werner gives 
 us no direct information ; but so unquiet an outward life be- 
 tokens 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 proj- 
 ect of a New Religion 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 preaching, had nowise vanished from 
 his meditations. On the contrary, we can perceive that it still 
 formed 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 ; except, indeed, negatively, — for if he has not 
 yet found the new, he still cordially enough detests the old. 
 
 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 Berna- 
 dotte, and he still recollects, with gratification, ' the lordly spectacle of 
 Goethe and that sovereign standing front to front, engaged in the live- 
 liest conversation.' 
 
138 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 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 Baltic 
 we may quote, by way of illustration. After speaking of St. 
 Adalbert's miracles, and how his bod} T , when purchased from 
 the heathen for its weight in gold, became light as gossamer, 
 he proceeds : 
 
 ' Though these things maybe justly doubted ; yet one mira- 
 cle 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 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, he adds : ' There is another Protestantism, 
 however, which constitutes in Conduct what Art is in Specu- 
 lation, 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 char- 
 acter. 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 house- 
 hold felicity and nobleness of mind. The genuine Kasperl is 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 139 
 
 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 re- 
 gard the author, all his struggling to the contrary unheeded, 
 as a secret Illuminatus, or at worst an amiable Enthusiast. 
 In a word, Vienna is determined, without loss of time, to over- 
 take Berlin in the career of improvement ; and when I recol- 
 lect that Berlin, on her side, carries Porst's Hymn-book with 
 her, in her reticule, to the shows in the Thiergarten ; 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, in- 
 deed, 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.' ' 
 
 To Italy accordingly he went, though with rather different 
 objects, and not quite so soon as on the morrow. In the 
 course of his wanderings, a munificent ecclesiastical Prince, 
 the F first 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 Stael 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 mi- 
 nute details, no information is given in this Narrative ; and 
 Hitzig seems to know, by a letter, merely, that ' he knelt with 
 4 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 
 Uebungeri) ; a new invention set on foot at Rome for quicken- 
 ing the devotion of the faithful ; consisting, so far as we can 
 
 1 Lebens-Abriss, s. TO. 
 
140 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 gather, in a sort of fasting- an d-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 inter- 
 course with the world. The effect of these Exercitations, 
 Werner elsewhere declares, was edifying to an extreme de- 
 gree ; at parting on the threshold of their holy tabernacle, all 
 the brethren ' embraced each other, as if intoxicated with di- 
 ' vine 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 from these Tabor-feasts, if, indeed, it had not pre- 
 ceded 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 
 entire consistency. He forthwith set about the professional 
 study of Theology ; then, being perfected in this, he left 
 Italy in 1813, taking care,Jiowever, by the road, 'to suppli- 
 cate, 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 Vi- 
 enna ; 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 Ger- 
 many 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 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 141 
 
 detractors : for already, before arriving at Vienna, he had 
 published, as a pendant to his Martin Luther, or the Conse- 
 < ra lion 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, relig- 
 ion and love ; love having now turned out to be a dangerous 
 ingredient in such mixtures. The writing of this Weilie der 
 Unkraft was reckoned by many a bold but injudicious meas- 
 ure, — 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 
 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 establish- 
 ment 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 father-confessor, 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 Macca- 
 bees (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 from a sepulchre chills the heart in pe- 
 rusing it : there is no passion or interest, but a certain woe- 
 struck martyr zeal, or rather frenzy, and this not so much 
 
142 LIFE AND WETTINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 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. 1 
 
 Werner was, in fact, drawing to his latter end : his health 
 had long been ruined ; especially of later years, he had suf- 
 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 him- 
 self 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, lie 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 
 
 1 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 
 Twenty-fourth of February, by much the best of these, have already 
 been forcibly, and on the whole fairly, characterised by Madame de 
 Stael. Of the last-named little work we might say, with double em- 
 phasis, Nee pueros coram populo Medea trucidet : it has a deep and 
 genuine tragic interest, were it not so painfully protracted into the re- 
 gions of pure horror. Werner's Sermons, his Hymns, his Preface to 
 Thomas a Kempis, &c. are entirely unknown to us. 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 143 
 
 to ' pray charitably for his pOor soul ; ' and expresses a trem- 
 bling 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 Zacha- 
 rias 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 harmonise 
 with his own way of thought. As a writer, Werner's charac- 
 ter 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 wdth 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 un- 
 cultivated, 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 deep- 
 est region of the Wonderful ; but he had not learned to live 
 there : he was } T et no denizen of that mysterious land ; and, 
 in his visions, its splendour is strangely mingled and over- 
 clouded 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-Hop- 
 kins 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, } r et obscure and vague ; contorted into endless 
 involutions ; a misshapen, lumbering, complected coil, well 
 nigh inexplicable in its entanglements, and seldom worth the 
 
144 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 trouble of unravelling. He does not move through his sub- 
 ject, 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 friends b} r 
 the most barefaced importunities ; a man of no dignity ; ava- 
 ricious, greedy, sensual, at times obscene ; in discourse, with 
 all his humour and heartiness, apt to be intolerably long- 
 winded ; 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 rub- 
 bish, 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, j r et 
 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 not 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 leniently dealt with. There is a feel- 
 ing in the popular mind, which, in well-meant hatred of in- 
 consistency, perhaps m general too sweepingly condemns 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 145 
 
 such changes. Werner, it should be recollected, had at all 
 periods of his life a religion ; nay, he hungered and thirsted 
 after truth in this matter, as after the highest good of man ; 
 a fact which of itself must, in this respect, set him far above 
 the most consistent of mere unbelievers, — in whose bar- 
 ren and callous soul consistency perhaps is no such brilliant 
 virtue. 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 alread}' indepen- 
 dent though poor, and on a footing of good esteem with all 
 that was most estimable in 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 an}' 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 
 Matter der Malckabtier) does he allude to the legions of false- 
 hoods that were in circulation against him ; and it is in a 
 spirit which, without entirely concealing the querulousness 
 10 
 
146 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 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 
 exhibits him in a still clearer light. The reader may con- 
 temn, or, what will be better, pity and sympathise with him ; 
 but the structure of this strange piece surely bespeaks ai:n r - 
 thing but insincerity. We translate it with all its breaks and 
 fantastic crotchets, as it stands before us : 
 
 ' Testamentary Inscription, from Friedrich Ludwig Zach- 
 arias 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 charita- 
 bly 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 pub- 
 lic examination. 
 
 1 Fecisti nos> Domine y ad Te ; et irrequietum est cor nostrum, 
 donee requiescat in Te. — S. Augustinus. 
 
 'Per multa dispergitur, et hie illucque qucerit (cor) ubi requies- 
 cere possit, et nihil invenit quod ei sufficiat, donee ad ipsum (sc. 
 Deum) redeat. — S. Bernardus. 
 
 'In the name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
 Amen ! 
 
 1 The thunder came hither, and is still rolling', though now 
 at a distance. — The name of the Lord be praised ! Hallelu- 
 jah ! — I begin : 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 147 
 
 ' 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 esti- 
 mating 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 w T as, when 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 tremendce majestatis, 
 Qui salvandos salens gratis, 
 Salua 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 looker-on ; 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 ? ! ! ! — by God's grace 
 am snatched, and from which may God mercifully preserve 
 every reader of these lines. ' ' 
 
 1 Werner's Letzte Lebenstagen (quoted by Hitzig, p. 80). 
 
14S LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 
 
 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) : 
 
 1 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, I will not say, give up the same, but 
 hesitate to sacrifice for it blood and life, nay many things per- 
 haps 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 : bat to that shallowest, driest, most contradictory, 
 inanest Inanity of Protestantism, never, never, never ! ' 
 
 Here, perhaps, there is a touch of priestly, of almost femi- 
 nine 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 consola- 
 tion, 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 ! ' 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 149 
 
 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 lias so fiercely exposed in his Martin In I Iter; and 
 this, moreover, without cancelling, or even softening his vi- 
 tuperations, long after his conversion, in the 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, or at least, attempt towards a solution of it, we 
 shall not withhold. The first lies in Werner's individual char- 
 acter and mode of life. Not only was he born a mystic, not 
 only had he lived from of old amid freemasonry, and all man- 
 ner 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, en- 
 ervated and loosened asunder. Everywhere in Werner's life 
 and actions we discern a mind relaxed from its proper ten- 
 sion ; no longer capable of effort and toilsome resolute vigil- 
 ance ; 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 eon- 
 motion, 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 Ger- 
 
150 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER 
 
 many, especially among such minds as Werner was most apt 
 to take for his exemplars. To this complex and highly in- 
 teresting subject we can, for the present, do nothing more 
 than allude. So much, however, we may say : It is a com- 
 mon theory among the Germans, that every Creed, every 
 Form of worship, is a form merely ; the mortal and ever- 
 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 
 Miiller, in his Universal History, professes to consider the 
 Mosaic Law, the creed of Mahomet, nay Luther's Reforma- 
 tion ; 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 Protes- 
 tant 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 char- 
 acter 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 giv- 
 ing 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 Wer- 
 ner, 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 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 151 
 
 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 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, mysteri- 
 ously enough, under the emblem of a Phoenix, he seems to 
 be shadowing forth the history of his own Faith ; and repre- 
 sents 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, 
 air enigma to himself, and may well be obscure to us. Above 
 all, there are mysteries and unsounded abysses in every hu- 
 man heart ; and that is but a questionable philosophy which 
 undertakes so readily to explain them. Religious belief es- 
 pecially, 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 (Gahr- 
 ' bottich) 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.' ' We cannot justify W T erner : 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 PaxPs leben, bv Doring. 
 
/sss~ 
 
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